“So I guess, uh, that means it’s all over, huh?” Shinichi-san said. He and the others were all thrilled that I’d gotten my own body back.
Thrilled... That would be the normal way to feel.
Even Elvia was in on it: “Good for you!” she said, smiling as brightly as ever. Her attitude toward me... hadn’t changed, really. I guess she’d meant what she’d said in the bath, about me being her friend regardless of whether I was a man or woman. Maybe the fact that I couldn’t quite feel happy about all this only showed how twisted I was.
In any event, we went back to our normal lives. Nothing changed. It was all the same familiar routine, as if the whole me-turning-into-a-girl thing had never happened. And that was great, as far as it went. Life was easier for me in my accustomed body, in any number of ways.
“Okay...” Back home from school, I shut the door to my room, passing the time until dinner with some miscellaneous work. That, too, was just as usual. But then...
“Hikaru-sama!”
With no warning, the door to my room burst open. I looked over, startled, to find Elvia standing there with a big grin on her face.
“Elvia...”
“Borrowed the key from Myusel!”
“Not what I was really worried about. You remember our conversation the other day about knocking?”
“Hee hee. Sorry ’bout that.” She stuck out her tongue playfully; she clearly didn’t mean any harm. I thought about scolding her a little more, but I suddenly felt tired, and instead I sighed.
“All right. What do you want?”
“Ahem!” Elvia smiled even wider as if to say I’m glad you asked. “Here, I drew this.” She walked over to where I was sitting in my chair and produced something from behind her back. It was a sheet of paper about the size of a B4 page—a picture. “You can have it, Hikaru-sama. I mean, if y’ like.”
“This is...”
Me. The picture was me. It was a portrait from the neck up—by the specific design of the Gothic-Lolita dress and the fact that I wasn’t wearing the choker, I could tell this was a drawing of the girl I’d been shortly before.
I took the page, feeling a little dazed. I looked at Elvia, asking Why? with my eyes, and she scratched her nose with her pointer finger, a bit embarrassed. “Aw, I just thought y’ looked so pretty Hikaru-sama, I couldn’t help wantin’ to draw you.”
“So the way I was...” I was right; it was a picture of my female body. But what could I say? After a moment, I asked, “...Was I really that pretty?”
“The prettiest!” Elvia said, clenching her fist emphatically. “’Course, you’re always pretty, Hikaru-sama! But it’s just, like, uhh...”
I could see what she wanted to say: she wanted to praise my girl body, without implying that my usual male body wasn’t good enough, and she just didn’t know the words. Something like that.
Watching Elvia squirm as she tried to figure out what to say, I couldn’t suppress a smile. “I get it, I do. Thank you, Elvia.” I looked at her picture and half-closed my eyes. Just because I was back to my normal body, it didn’t mean the events of a few days before hadn’t happened. Yes, Elvia still treated me like she always did. It didn’t matter whether I was a woman or man, or whether I was a man who’d become a woman and then went back to being a man. She was just like she always was—not the sharpest sometimes, but certainly the most open and sure of herself. Enough that I could almost be jealous.
So...
“It makes me really happy,” I said. And, being careful not to wrinkle or fold the page, I hugged the picture to my chest.
（づづく）
To be continued...
Afterword
Hullo, light novelist Sakaki here, bringing you Volume 14 of Outbreak Company: The Power of Moe.
I finally made good on my promise and actually did another short story collection, just like I said I would in Volume 13. I meant to get around to this a little sooner, but each time I tried to write one of my short stories, it turned out to be a long story (Volume 12, for example), so it’s been a long and winding road, but hey, here we are, know what I mean?
If you’re curious, the earliest idea I had for any of the stories in this book was the one about Brooke and Cerise’s children. I actually considered doing this all the way back in Volume 7, but I just couldn’t shake the side-character vibe the lizardman couple had, so I put it off.
People who hate reptiles tend to really hate them, and I’m not saying they’re my favorite thing in the world, but when you get a good look at those gemlike black eyes, they’re really pretty cute. I gather reptiles actually make up a pretty substantial proportion of the pet industry.
My wife is especially fond of frogs, but I guess she has a thing for reptiles, too, and once she even had a Sudan plated lizard as a pet. As a matter of fact, I first got the idea for a story about Brooke’s kid when my wife said, “I’ll bet lizardman kids would be really cute.”
Incidentally, in my mind, Man’ya resembled a certain blue-skinned character from one particular anime about a rat kingdom, but I’m curious what Yuugen-shi will come up with. (I had
