“Cosplay contests are a trip,” Minori-san told me. “You’re in the changing room with some cute young woman, and before your eyes she turns into a lady-killer of a guy. Or you glance in the men’s room as you go by, and everyone lined up along the wall looks like a woman.”
The idea of a men’s room full of women (even if they were just guys in costume) was so surreal it made me a little dizzy. So there were people in frilly dresses lined up at the urinals or something? It seemed like it would be chaos.
“Of course, they might be in character, but it doesn’t mean they want to be someone of the opposite sex necessarily,” Minori-san added.
“And I know there are some people who obviously do it for laughs,” I said. Overseas, I’d even heard of middle-aged men who dressed up like pretty-girl characters and paraded around. They were all smiles when they appeared in photographs. So did guys like that feel, inside, that they were actually women? Probably not, for the most part. More likely, they were just amused by the total disconnect between the adorable costume and how they looked as men. The whole point was to dress in something that looked a little ridiculous.
“If you’re really dedicated to getting the character, though, there are lots of things you can do. The perfectionists go to incredible lengths. I mean details you can’t even see.”
“Could that include underwear?”
“I guess for some people, maybe?” Minori-san said matter-of-factly. “There’s plenty of places online where you can get women’s underwear for men.”
“So they do sell that kind of thing?”
“Sure they do. You can get padded bras to give yourself a decent bust, and even stuff for the lower half that, you know, hides what’s down there. Ahh, I see what this is about.” Minori-san seemed to have figured out why Myusel and I had been talking about Hikaru-san’s cross-dressing. “He seems like the type who would be a stickler for details like that, doesn’t he?”
“Okay then...”
“Only way to be sure would be to ask him, though.”
“I was afraid of that.”
“That’s an awfully nice bra for someone who’s just having fun with it, though,” Minori-san remarked.
“Isn’t it, though? I’m almost a little jealous,” Myusel said, smiling shyly. I guess Hikaru-san made a pretty girl even from the perspective of an actual girl like Myusel.
............Um. Hold on.
“I just had a thought,” I said, looking at Minori-san. “If Hikaru-san is really just doing it because he enjoys looking like someone of the opposite sex, or putting on cute clothes or something, then what do you think would happen if he wound up in one of those plots like they’re always doing in anime and manga and stuff? You know, ‘I woke up one day and I was the opposite sex!’ That sort of thing. You think he’d panic?”
“Hm?” Minori-san said, putting a thoughtful finger to her mouth.
Whoa, it’s so cute the way she does that! I think it’s against the rules to look that good doing that when you’re over twenty already! I was starting to think Minori-san’s insides didn’t match her outside—but anyway, back to business.
“I don’t know. I think Hikaru-kun is uncommonly easygoing.”
“Yeah, fair point.”
“Gotta say, though, Shinichi-kun, that’s some imagination you’ve got.”
“Nah, I was just reading something earlier with one of those stories in it.”
This trope can take a couple of different forms: a guy can wake up one day having turned into a girl, or a guy and a girl can swap bodies. To be fair, there might be a certain value in it: boys are interested in girls’ bodies, and vice versa. But either experience would probably be a secret you’d carry with you to your grave.
“Um, I’m afraid I have to start making dinner,” Myusel said, and excused herself from the conversation.
It wasn’t like I had ever thought that hard about any of this, anyway. Minori-san and I parted ways, and I trotted after Myusel in case she needed help carrying the laundry. The talk turned to dinner, and five minutes later I had forgotten I was ever curious about Hikaru-san’s cross-dressing.
It had truly been a passing thought, meaningless, going nowhere.
Certainly nothing that would have tipped me off to what was about to happen.
Nothing that would have made me imagine that the very next day, my hypothetical question would come true.
For a moment, my consciousness felt sort of... floaty.
My eyes drifted open.
“Mn...” A thin but welcoming shaft of sunlight came into my room through a crack between the curtains. I could hear a faint twittering of birds. The message was clear: morning was here.
“Mnnn...”
I squeezed my eyes shut for a second, then gave a big stretch. I hardly remembered falling asleep. I recalled staying up late going over a list of stuff to be imported to Eldant in the near future.
Finally I opened my eyes, and was greeted by the sight of my familiar Gothic-Lolita dress. That’s right—I’d been planning to catch a bath once I got to a good stopping point in my work. But first I had lain down on my bed to catch a quick wink—and everything after that was a blank. I must have fallen right to sleep. There were a few aspects of my Lolita outfits that bordered on feeling like bondage gear, like the exceptionally tight chest. It could be such a relief to take it off that sometimes I would just get very sleepy all of a sudden.
Come to think of it, I hadn’t even removed the choker Romilda had given me the day before. But anyway, bath first. I would have to ask Brooke to heat the water. A wry smile came over my face as I looked at myself slumbering on the bed, not even under the covers, still in
