Chương 363: 157.Changes 2

Jacket. Shirt. Trousers. Three pieces of fabric, and human civilization had more or less reassembled me. Next up: shoes. I'd assumed my disaster quota for the day was nearly spent. Turns out I'd overestimated the world's mercy, as usual. Like thinking the tail of a typhoon has passed, then turning around to find a whole second pressure system dragging along behind it, wearing a nice friendly name. Coordination.

"Shoes too," Maki said. Like it was as natural as breathing. I looked at her.

"Are you planning to rebuild me from head to toe in one sitting?"

"What else would I be doing?"

"Is there any chance I keep a few scraps of my original personality?" Jess cut in faster than the clerk could set down a single box.

"Sure. Once we're done, I'll bag the scraps up and carry them out for you."

"Thanks. You'd make an excellent mortician."

"See — still insulting people. That means she's mentally stable." I genuinely wanted to seal her into a display case with a label: HIGH-NOISE DEFECTIVE UNIT. DO NOT TAP GLASS. The clerk had already brought several pairs over, moving with the kind of efficiency that suggested he'd personally taken on my socialization as a rescue mission.

"If we're matching that outfit, any of these should work." He set them down one by one, voice steady.

"One for daily wear, one sharper, one more neutral — comfortable for longer stretches on your feet." Neutral. Good. Safe word. I like safe words. Infinitely better than cute, sweet, or feminine — any of which would have finished me off on the spot. I looked at the shoes. Black, grey, dark brown. Clean lines, no extra hardware, soles that didn't make you wonder if you'd accidentally enrolled in a fashion experiment.

Maki's earlier nothing loud, nothing too soft had clearly been translated into terms the clerk could act on. That gave me deeply complicated feelings. Complicated enough that I almost said something nice about it. Fortunately, I held the line on basic self-respect and kept that particular dangerous sentence behind my teeth. I sat down to change shoes. And immediately ran into the next problem. Normally, putting on shoes is nothing.

But once you're wearing an entirely revised version of yourself, even bending down to swap them becomes a new kind of self-inspection. How the cuff folds. How much ankle shows. What the proportions look like once you stand back up. A whole panel of judges nobody invited, scoring your ordinary day. I shoved my foot into the first pair, cursing the entire social apparatus under my breath. Soft sole. Surprisingly stable underfoot.... Damn it. The first pair already looked decent. I stood, took a couple of steps.

Jess ran a full scan on me, eyes gleaming like she'd paid for front-row seats.

"Oh. That's bad." I went on immediate alert.

"Whenever you say that, it's never good news."

"No, I mean — you've got this whole—" She stopped. On purpose. I knew exactly what she was doing.

"This whole what. Choose your next words carefully." Jess tapped her chin, playing at serious consideration.

"This whole people-are-going-to-assume-you're-difficult-and-then-find-out-they're-completely-right energy."

"That's a compliment?"

"For you, that's premium." Maki stood off to the side, gaze sweeping up from my feet once — unhurried, precise. Not appraisal. Confirmation. She'd been doing this all day: look first, calculate, then decide. She did it so naturally that it was easy to forget she was quietly filing my entire existence into her own private order the whole time. The thought surfaced, and something under my ribs went tight.... Stop. Don't go there. Today's complicated enough already.

"These work," Maki said.

"Two seconds, and that's your whole verdict?"

"Because the way you walk hasn't changed." I paused.

"... You track that too?" Jess made a small, delighted noise, wearing the face of someone who'd just been handed front-row tickets to something unexpected.

"Kushima. This stopped being shopping a while ago. This is building a full gait database."

"Her weight sits forward when she walks. Soles too thin, and she tires fast. Toe box too narrow, and she won't put them on a second time." Maki delivered it flat, like reading off the day's forecast. I stood there, not immediately sure which part to argue with first. The worst part was, she was right again. She's always like this. Says nothing for stretches at a time, and then, when she finally speaks, it lands like she'd already had the report written and filed.

I looked down at the shoes on my feet and felt something close in, just slightly. Not unhappiness. More the specific discomfort of being read too clearly. I keep my guard up on the outside. Not performance. Habit — an instinct to raise every edge before anyone gets close. To most people, I probably register as don't touch, something will break. But standing next to Maki, I keep running into the same irritating realization: she's seen the loosened version too. The one with the edges down.

There's nothing romantic in that. It's closer to taking a weapon apart and discovering the other person already knows exactly which screw is about to fall out. I don't like that kind of exposure.... At least, not on the surface I don't.

"Next pair." I pulled the shoe off and kept my voice deliberately flat. The clerk brought over a second pair. Sleeker cut, cleaner toe box. Once they were on, the whole line in the mirror sharpened another notch. Jess's eyes lit up the moment she saw them. That particular kind of light is dangerous. It usually means she's already drafted a new disaster somewhere in her head. Love what you're reading? Discover and support the author on the platform they originally published on.

"These. These are perfect." She circled me halfway, like she was inspecting a freshly assembled piece of high-maintenance merchandise.

"Put these on, keep your mouth shut, and you'll look like someone expensive, cold, and genuinely terrible to deal with."

"I'm terrible to deal with barefoot too."

"Exactly why they suit you."

"Are you here to help, or to find out whether I'll actually commit murder in a retail space?"

"Bit of both." Maki chose exactly that moment to land the finishing blow.

"Your stance looks better in these." I snapped my head toward her.

"Are you doing this on purpose today."

"Doing what?"

"All of it." She glanced at me. The corner of her mouth moved. Barely. Not the deliberate, mocking smirk from the other shop. Not the frozen, zero-tolerance look from the Yukikaze, either. Something looser. Brief. Somehow far more lethal.

"Maybe."... I'm done for. Not only was she smiling today — she was admitting to it. Human society genuinely does not get more dangerous than this. Jess lost it completely, laughing hard enough to lean on the rack for support.

"Hoshino, you lost. She's been having the time of her life with you all day."

"I know. I don't need the commentary."

"You know, and you're still just standing there?"

"I'm wearing the trousers and shoes you two picked out. The cost of running is too high right now."

"... Fair point." The clerk stood a short distance away, holding onto his professional smile with visible effort. I could tell he was nearing the outer edge of his training. I felt a little sorry for him. He'd clocked in for a normal shift and ended up drafted into a personality-reconstruction project. In the end, Maki made the call on the shoes. She had me walk in the first pair, then the second, watched for a few seconds, and picked the second. Her reasoning was simple.

"More like you." I wanted to say who put you in charge of deciding what counts as me — the words got as far as my teeth and stopped there. Because I knew exactly how that would land. Not like a rebuttal. Like stubbornness. And I'd already been stubborn enough times today to start tiring of my own performance.

"Fine. These." Maki nodded, like she'd just secured the last key position of a long campaign. Jess clapped, wearing an expression of wildly exaggerated relief.

"Congratulations. Starting from the shoes up, you've finally learned how to shop like a functioning member of society."

"Do you have some kind of standing prejudice against me?"

"Yes."

"... You admit that with remarkable confidence."

"Because it's true." Beside us, Maki took the folded clothes from the clerk and, without missing a beat, added two more base layers and a pair of soft lounge trousers to the pile. She picked them up like it was the most obvious thing in the world. Watching her hold them made my ears go warm for no reason I was willing to examine.

"Those too?" I stared at the lounge trousers.

"You'll need something to change into when you get home," Maki said, level.

"I know how changing works. I haven't been dead this whole time."

"But you wouldn't have picked these out yourself."

"..." The fact that she could say that out loud, completely unbothered, meant this woman was living with zero fear of consequences. Before I could fire back, Jess got there first with a long, deliberate "Ohhh—""I see. Even the at-home version's covered. Kushima, your service today has been extremely comprehensive."

"Jess."

"Fine. Shutting up. Genuinely shutting up. For at least three seconds." She did shut up. For exactly three and a half. The lights at the register were brighter than the fitting room. I stood there and watched everything that had been hanging on a rack ten minutes ago get folded, bagged, and scanned. It felt strange — like watching myself get formally logged as a new species. Shirt. Trousers. Jacket. Shoes. Base layers. Lounge trousers. Every scan, the machine beeped.

Every beep, my brain filed the same line: good, you're really not going back today. The clerk worked efficiently, boxed the shoes separately, and finally looked up with a polished, appropriate smile.

"The whole set really suits you." A normal person would probably say thank you here. Unfortunately, I'm not a normal person. I stalled for half a second, and what came out, dry as dust, was:"... Oh." Jess nearly laughed herself into the counter.

"Sorry — that's actually her premium-tier response."

"Jess. One more word and I'm ringing you up with the rest of it." The clerk had clearly accepted that today was not a standard customer day. He still managed to smile.

"It's fine. I understand." No. You don't. If you actually understood, you'd know that standing here right now is more or less a public execution. Just a nicer one — carried out with cut, sizing, daylight, and other people's eyes instead of a firing squad. No blood, that's the only difference. When Maki slid her card across the counter, I blinked.

"Wait — I can—""You can what?"

"Pay for myself."

"Shimo. You know exactly how much cash you actually have on you right now." Hit again. Was she planning to dismantle every single I'm fine I'd tried to put up today, one by one? I pressed my mouth shut and said nothing. Jess, for once, didn't pile on. She just leaned against the counter and watched, quietly, paying real attention. That's the thing about her — most of the time she's a smoke grenade, throwing noise in every direction.

But the second something real starts moving underneath a moment, she goes still, like she knows one more joke would actually flip the table over. Maki finished the transaction, took the receipt, and handed me the bags. Not all of them. She kept one for herself.

"Can you carry that much?" I gave her a look and took the bags.

"Who exactly do you think you're talking to."

"No one in particular," Maki said.

"Just asking." That was annoying too. Because she meant it. She wasn't testing me. She was just asking. That kind of plain, undefended care is the hardest thing to block. I settled my grip on the handles and kept my expression flat, like none of this was worth making a scene over. But the weight of the bags in my hand felt strange. Not heavy. Solid. The specific solidity of you actually bought things today, you actually updated the version, you're actually carrying this back to No.

22, Platinum Bridge Street — it settled in slowly. But it settled for certain. Stepping outside, the light had gone fully into noon. Not the soft brightness of early morning — the kind of white daylight that lights everything clearly and leaves nowhere to fake being fine. The street had filled up, people moving past the storefronts, the wind carrying warmth now, the city's noise a layer thicker than before. I looked down at the bags in my hand, then at the toes of my new shoes. Fine.

At least right now, I actually look like someone who goes out for lunch. Even if half my soul is still standing back in that fitting room, locked in a staring contest with the mirror. Lunch was Jess's call. She claimed she'd already made enough contributions to society for one morning and was owed a proper resupply. The logic was as crooked as she is, but on the subject of food, I had nothing left to argue with, so I let her lead. We ended up at a small place just off the main street.

Not much floor space, AC running strong, the ice water in the glasses looking more reliable than most people I know. Busy for lunch — voices, dishes, the occasional order called out from the counter, all folding together into a very normal, very human kind of noise. The second I sat down, I nearly sighed out loud. Not from exhaustion.... Fine. At least half from exhaustion. The other half was pure relief at not standing in front of a mirror anymore, being cross-examined by fabric and other people's eyes.

Jess dropped into the seat across from me like a field commander back from a successful op, grabbed the menu, and started issuing directives.

"Listen. I put in the work today. I'm ordering something sweet first."

"What work." I took a sip of water.

"Your biggest contribution today was dragging me into that cursed shop."

"That's called setting up contrast. Without the extreme opening act, how would the real store feel like salvation?"

"You have the nerve to use the word salvation for that." Maki sat beside me, reading the menu. Without the uniform, the pressure she usually gives off does ease back a notch — but the second she goes quiet, that presence is still hard to look past. Like a blade back in its sheath. Still a blade. You just know it. And today, she was looser than usual. Smiling. Teasing. Still hadn't fully packed away that private, wicked streak she'd been running on all morning. Which made her hard to look at for too long.

Embarrassingly hard. From the outside, the three of us probably looked like perfectly ordinary people out for lunch. Even forming that sentence in my head felt strange. Ordinary people out for lunch. Not rotating off shift. Not someone here to take anyone into custody. Not someone handling an incident, or about to read out something heavy enough to freeze the air solid. Just noon. Shopping done. Bags on the floor. Sitting down to eat.

That kind of ordinary was exactly what brought the splinter back up — the one from this morning that had never actually gone anywhere, just sunk a little deeper while the day kept moving. The student ID. The bus. My enrollment status. What happens next. None of it had disappeared. I'd just been holding it under. Now that we were sitting, now that things had gone quiet, it started drifting back up. I held my glass and looked at the edge of the table. Should I ask? If I asked now, would Maki answer? Yes.

She'd probably answer straight. Straight enough to make me wish I'd swallowed the question. But the second it left my mouth, the whole taste of this lunch would change. I glanced sideways at her. She was sliding the menu a little closer to me, asking, easy about it:"What do you want?" That's exactly the problem. The more ordinary she acts, the less I can say it. I haven't suddenly turned considerate. I know myself better than that.

I just — really didn't want to be the one who put the first crack in this small, quiet thing. The feeling was unfamiliar. Unfamiliar enough to feel almost pathetic.

"Hoshino?" Jess knocked on the table.

"Did the wardrobe change break your ordering function too?" I looked up and glared at her.

"I'm still reading."

"Oh good. Still alive, then."

"You really want me to strangle you in public one of these days, don't you."

"No, I want you to eat first. Hungry people say meaner things."

"You're surprisingly sharp about survival today."

"I always am. You just used to look more like a feral animal that didn't need anyone to feed it."

"And now?" Jess scanned me top to bottom, eyes landing on the new shoes, and gave me a grin that was extremely punchable but not quite table-flipping material.

"Now you're a feral animal with opinions about food." Beside me, Maki laughed. Quietly. I immediately looked down and drank my water, pretending I hadn't heard a thing. My ears were warm. Annoying. Genuinely, deeply annoying. When the server came, I managed to name something safe and unremarkable. Maki ordered before I did. Jess added a fried side on top and defended it with total conviction — she'd performed serious emotional labor today, she said, and needed the oil to recover.

I declined to comment on the logic of counting harassment as emotional labor. Once the order was in, the table went quiet for a few seconds. Noon light on the glass. Steady AC. At the next table, someone talking about nothing in particular — the specific kind of ordinary conversation that assumes nothing at lunch will ever reach out and drag the whole world back into focus. I was thinking exactly that when the terminal in my pocket buzzed. Not the short pulse of a message. A call. My hand stopped.

Jess noticed first, leaning in immediately.

"Who is it?"

"Do you want to monitor my breathing rate too while you're at it?"

"If you're offering the data, I'd genuinely study it."

"Fuck off." I pulled the terminal out. The moment the screen lit up, the splinter that had only just floated up under my ribs went rigid, all at once. The string on the caller ID display kept me from pressing anything for a moment. Maki's eyes moved to the screen too. She didn't ask who it was. She just looked at me once. Quietly. Not pressing. More like waiting — waiting for me to decide whether to answer or not. The AC in the restaurant was perfectly steady. My fingers weren't.

Jess caught the shift in the air too. For once she didn't throw out a joke. She just raised an eyebrow and went quiet, which for her, was rare. The buzzing kept going. Once. Then again. Like reality standing at the door, knocking. And it had all the patience in the world.