Waking up wasn’t the blissful rejuvenation I was hoping for. My head did hurt less, but the pain from everything else took up those cycles as soon as they were free. Isn’t rest supposed to be a cure-all in narratives?

Damn it, curse The Veil! And Ginger Bitch, too!

That’s an idea.

The soft yellow light of the latter day sun poured into Ms. Nurse’s office. Luckily it didn't cause overwhelming nausea when I sat up, just enough for me to know I wouldn't be moving fast, or even briskly.

My bag was standing on an end table right next to my bed. Yay, it should have my phone in it. I’ll send Akane a text and ask for my address.

“Yay!” a jubilant voice sounded from the far side of the room. “You’re up! Did you sleep well? I’m glad to see you’re all better!” I wish I was all better, Ms. Nurse, I wish I was. “Are you going home now? Your parents will be happy to see you, I'm sure.”

“Thanks, Ms. Nurse. Yeah, I will be, it is the end of the school day, right?” I mean, it was obviously afternoon, so I'd expect classes to be let out.

“Yep! It’s after 5 right now, so you have plenty of time to get home!” conveniently Akane sent me our address just then, along with another message.

‘We will talk.’ Well, thanks for the omen.

I started towards the door, “Thank you for hosting me Ms. Nurse. Sorry to take up bed space, but I wasn’t in my best of mind.” Heh.

She jumped, and an exclamation point appeared in a flash beside her head before disappearing as she rushed over to her desk and rifled through the horribly organized space. It took her about fifteen seconds before she turned and looked at a side desk and found what she wanted.

I can sympathize, I’ve misplaced things like that too, but at least she remembered quickly.

“This is your excuse of absence form I filled out! Give it to your homeroom teacher tomorrow and nothing bad will happen! I even made sure you’re excused from P.E.!” She enthused, a halo of flowery energy rose around her head. Well-deserved, I’d say.

“Ms. Nurse, you're an angel, if you happen to need help with anything that gets me out of class, anything at all, you can ask for me.”

Unfortunately even exuberance is needed in moderation.

In response to my offer, as selfish as it blatantly was, she squealed “Thank you so much!” and Grabbed! My Head! And pulled me into her chest. My instinctive shout of pain was muffled by monstrous mammaries. News, she’s big enough to completely cover my face. Also news, I’m in great pain and can’t breathe.

Fuck you anime!

Thinking quickly, before I was smothered, I pushed as hard as I could away from this hell. I successfully extricated myself, which caused fire in my elbows, but of course, it wasn’t that simple.

I knew before the spots cleared in my vision that both my hands were on her tits, because of course they were. I lack dumbassery, so I pulled back my hands immediately instead of wondering what these ‘soft marshmallow’ in my hands were. Because I’m not a dumbass. I never understood how anime protagonists never have any situational awareness. I guess it'd get in the way of fan service, but Ms. Nurse deserves none of that.

I do feel bad though, “Sorry Ms. Nurse, but in case you don’t remember, my head is very sensitive to pain and touch right now. I’m also very sorry for groping you, it absolutely wasn’t intentional. My apologies. Accept my conceptual hugs instead.” She was teary eyed, water pooling in huge droplets in the corners of her eyes, but not falling. Damn it anime!

“It’s fine! I didn’t mean to hurt you and I'm very sorry I did. It’s to be expected that someone in pain would do anything to get out of it. Please, accept my apologies.” This is why you’re the best Ms. Nurse, even if I haven’t known you for long. It’s been a significant time for me and you’ve been a highlight. “And hugs!” A font of faith in humanity. A cheery lantern in the dismal mine that is all that's been happening to me.

A second small and quick exchanging of condolences and I started home using the GPS to figure out where to go. Apparently the Japanese don’t name their streets, they number the blocks and the buildings in said blocks. Fortunately, only my predecessor was technologically incompetent.

The walk was a pain, not just because of the fact I had to walk (I miss school buses), but also because everything ached. My brain was on full alert mode because I was in complete and utter unknown territory. It was worsening my headache.

Which was just a prelude to whatever awaited me at the hands of… shudder... Pinky. I’m totally going to call her that to annoy her.

Fuck… getting into the sibling mindset already, aren’t I?

She wouldn’t dress in all pink if she didn’t expect it to be commented on, I'm safe. Probably.

I’d comment on my surroundings, but honestly? I’m not nearly experienced enough with cities. I lived in the suburbs of Atlanta and have only walked around said city once. Everything looks shady and like an area I wouldn’t go to in the dark.

Then again I am in Japan, their crime rates are very low.

Then again, that’s not an excuse to be an idiot. No shortcuts for me, straight and narrow pathing it is.

In fact, whoever the hell is in the shadows should be scared of me! Yeah! I'm the protagonist! I took, like, two years of Tae Kwon Do when I was eight. Fear my wrath, hypothetical dickwads!

All of the scenarios where I beat them in my head require that they don’t fight back. Hehehe. I'm an idiot

At least I'm less nervous now. Looking at my phone, I'm almost there. The twilight gloom is really setting the mood here for Akane, universe, thanks.

I stand at the door to my house. My new house. The one that I live in, in Japan. Because I’ve replaced a dude’s entire consciousness through no fault of my own.

She has nothing on me. I can do this.

She’s a yandere. If I piss her off I'm dead.

Well, let’s not piss her off then. I’m still going to call her Pinky. For the adrenaline rush. I say to myself. Not at all feeling petty about being lifted off the ground by a fifteen year old girl.

Maybe I can ask Ms. Nurse to take care of me when I'm turned into an amputee.

Goddamn it, I need to stop waffling. I open the door. I step inside. “I’m home!” I call out.

Taking it step by step. Alright.

Ungraceful stomping barrels down the stairs, and a Pink blur rushes through my vision to the bottom.

Oh my God. She looks even more eye-searing past The Veil. She’s still wearing all pink, but it wasn’t the Pink of her hair. Her hair was Pink. The International Standards Agency has a lock of her hair in a vault somewhere as a demonstration of Pink. The literal definition of Pink, that I’m certain could never be reproduced by any artist to any sort of justice.

My hand was grabbed and I was unceremoniously dragged upstairs. Not literally thankfully, though if I hadn’t had the proper presence of mind it would have been. Ow. The poor mother didn’t even get a chance to say hello. How could you be so cruel, Pinky? Don’t you care?

Fuck she’s strong. She’s less than five foot, how is she so buff? She doesn’t even have any muscles! Whoever designed you took ‘strong female characters’ too literally!

I’d normally not care, but I’m the one without agency here! It feels different on the receiving end! I've got nothing to fight back with, not even pepper spray!

Fuck you anime!

She burst her door open, dragged me inside, then almost slammed the door. She swung her arm as hard as possible then pulled short just before it made contact with the frame. There was an audible whuff and I heard the other doors in the hallway rattle slightly before she closed it.

My brain gave me the helpful image of my head being right in between there. I’m pretty sure I could at least break the door while I died. Better than could be said for my chances against Pinky herself.

Actually, I might be able to break a knuckle, if I angle my face-beating correctly. Maybe cut her skin on my teeth.

Her room was pink everything, no surprise there. She whirled around to face me, a huge pink cross-vein thing floating to the right side of her head.

She’s just got pink everything, doesn’t she.

“What the Hell?” Was that a phrase in Japanese? “I stayed outside the gates for an hour and a half waiting for you, and you didn’t come? What were you doing, huh? You think I’m stupid? Aho-nii-chan, Baka-nii-chan!” Why didn’t those translate?

Ok. I will not, under any circumstances from now into the future, use the phrase ‘I can explain.’ Instead, I'm going to do something like this. I'm above stumbling and confused appeasement.

“I was knocked unconscious by Ginger Bitch and had to stay in Ms Nurse’s office because I had a mild traumatic brain injury.” knock them off balance with a summary, then “I had to walk home slowly, because any faster would make me throw up. I’m shocked I didn’t do so on the way up here, my head is spinning.” a valid reason for their problem with you to knock the wind out of their sails. Finally, I took out the excuse of absence from Ms. Nurse and handed it to her. Hard evidence to set anchor.

And I only rehearsed that 20 times on the way here. Absolute mastermind.

The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

She had calmed down, (sidenote: never say ‘calm down,’ ask what’s going on and provide sympathy or run them through breathing techniques. If that doesn’t work, saying calm down wasn’t going to help either.) as I went through my speech and gingerly took my paper. “You had a concussion? By someone? Did you talk too much and they tried to smash your head in?”

Har har, I’m not a chatterbox. the only person who I've met able to smash my head in is you. Nerd.

“Nope, it was a classic crash-hello, but she was full speed and I fell against my elbows. Then my head.” I took off my jacket to show my bruises. Ghastly, unsightly, repugnant… ghoulish! Bruises painted my elbows and the back upper half of my forearm. I guess it hit at a near right angle. That would explain the shoulder wrenching. How the hell I didn’t break anything I don’t know. They were still reddish, though some purple was starting to color the insides of the area.

“Ow! The fuck!?” She poked me! “Have some sympathy on my poor nerves! They’ve dealt with a lot today, and have to deal with you, now.” Fucker.

She scowled “We need to talk about this ‘anime’ thing.” she held up four fingers “Why are you in my brother’s body? What ‘tropes’ can get him back? How do I not become obsessed with some boy? And… and…” she seemed to be struggling to come up with a fourth thing.

“Why haven’t you noticed it before?” I offered

“No!” she barked “Umm…” she continued to struggle, sweat jumping off her forehead, but glowered at me when I tried to speak up again. “How do people become tropey?” She demanded.

Not the questions I really want answered, but similar enough, I guess?

“Well to start with the simple ones, I don’t know, and not anything really.” She didn’t like that.

“That’s a lie! You’re kidding! You said so that he’s in another world, so get him back!”

Fuck, grief. I can’t make kitschy quips to defuse the situation, or try to comfort her! I’m the reason her brother isn’t here! The purple that’s started bubbling up around her isn’t helping me think clearly either. How has it gone from one crisis to another today? I only have so many things in my toolbox to defuse them with.

Well, at least I can say I died trying. “Listen, I’m sorry I can’t make promises, but i’m in a similar boat.” “Shut up!” she’s bawling, “Your brother is off somewhere completely different from here. He may be dead.” “Shut up!” She’s clutching herself, but the purple is receding. How the hell is this working? “I won’t see my family maybe ever again, either. But I’m going to keep moving forward and hope whatever got me here reverses, but I’m going to leave here in a better state than I found it in, alright?”

Ow, I really didn’t want to pick on that open wound on my psyche. Let’s just skip over it so I can cry myself to sleep later.

“How are we supposed to fight against it? The thing that got you here.” Oof. Why'd she calm down so quick? A yandere thing? She’s also had time to stew in this, maybe she was hoping against hope I would have a magic answer, but didn’t really expect me to?

I wouldn’t know, I'm barely passable at reading people.

“Well, I suppose the way humanity has always fought against the mysteries of the world.” I wish I could stand up to do a dramatic pose, but raised arms will have to do “Science!” a beat, while I recover from the pain. “or, the scientific method. Do you have a whiteboard? Sorry, pinkboard?” A bit of levity, I'll get into the pink thing later.

She gave a small, pitiful snigger. “How will that answer my other questions?”

“We set up a hypothesis for how the world works, right? Test it, see what goes wrong and correct our misconceptions. I’ve got a bit of a theory, already. If you get that whiteboard it’ll make explaining it easier. Or a piece of paper will do.”

She didn’t have a whiteboard, unfortunately. Paper aplenty, though.

I got a pencil from my bag, set down to write, but paused, and got an eraser from my bag as well. My pencil didn’t have one built in despite being a mechanical.

Fucking anime?

Atop the paper I wrote down ‘The Narrative Theory,’ then three columns under it titled The Translation, The Veil, and The Physics.

“Alright, so these are the three cogs of The Narrative I think I’ve seen evidence of so far.” I presented the hypothesis.

Akane took the paper from me and pointed out “Your handwriting is so weird, how did you connect the kanji like that?”

“Well, it’s written in English for me. In cursive.” Yeah, I write in cursive. I did it to fuck with a teacher in high school and it infected everything else. Now it fucks with everybody.

“What’s cursive?”

“Not important. Here, write in ‘cursive in English makes weird kanji.’” I grabbed another pencil.

Looking back at the paper she also wrote down ‘English makes weird sounding Japanese,’ too. In print. Hmm.

Now, while we could start immediately unraveling the mechanics of The Translation, that seems like too much of a mind fuck, and it’s probably the least important of these three. That, and this a preliminary, get-everything-you-know-together session.

“So I think I get the physics, you mentioned Kaa-san denies it this morning, right?” come on, you gotta put in the capitals, it’s The Physics. It’s a fundamental force here, not a common noun.

“Have you ever noticed how they jiggle more than jello from the slightest movement before?” She gained a pensive stance, with her hand on her chin. She answered with a curt snort and a nod.

Ok then. “Yeah, that’s completely stupid and only happens because the audience likes watching tits jiggle, sex sells. Now, I've got a couple things to write down.”

Jiggle physics, question hair, aesthetic blossom breeze(?), hand slam too loud, and hair. Sitting back, it looks like this is missing something. I turn to Akane.

Right, I write down Pink.

“Pink? Why’d you write down the color pink?”

“Not pink, Pink. With a capital. It’s for your hair, which is just eye-bleeding.”

Pinky took offense and cradled a lock of her Pink. “What’s wrong with my hair? What does the narrative have to do with it? What do you mean a capital?”

“Nothing’s wrong, it’s just the Pinkest thing to ever exist. It is the definitive version of Pink, hence the capital, and maybe nothing, but it’s weird, so it goes on the list.” Her eyebrow twitched.

“Fine, so what’s the veil.”

“God damn it, there are capitals, say the things with capitals!” She looked with a gleam in her eye at me and her mouth morphed into a sideways 3.

Fu fu, “No.” Damn you! These things are important! “Nevermind that, what’s the veil?”

“It’s what makes everything look realistic instead of like an anime,” I said, put out. I refuse to pout, I was sulking, like a person with dignity.

They deserved gravitas! They’re grandiose, overarching, reality affecting principles, it’s not the words themselves, it’s the concept they represent! They deserve respect.

“Ok, what does that mean?”

“That it looks like a slightly drawn reality, and not realistic drawings.” I explained fully. To the furthest extent of my knowledge, everything I know for absolute fact.

We stared at each other for a few moments.

“Baaaka. I don’t care about how to pronounce it, just tell me what it has to do with anime.” she insisted.

Ugh, “Fine, after the concussion I’ve been seeing a bunch of mood signifier things. Like a sweat drop the size of my fist right here” I pointed “That popped when I poked it. During the assembly I saw question hair right? Well, while talking to Ms. Nurse a giant question mark popped up out of her head. Also, everybody actually looks like an anime character, now, instead of a touched up photo. So,” I write down emotion graphics, animated people, purple, and dread aura. “Those are the things I've seen.”

"I have a few, probably out there ideas, and an experiment. First, The Physics and The Veil somehow interact, with The Physics covering up The Veil’s tracks. Second, The Narrative either affects everything, or just the people around protagonists, that’s what the experiment is going to be about. Third, there are most likely going to be other protagonists, and we’re going to identify them.”

The experiment is going to be about if The Narrative affects you while I’m not around. We’re each going to curse someone, and see what happens.”

“Eh? But what about-”

“I know it’s out of left field, but it tackles multiple things at once. Can you influence happenings with The Narrative? Can you manipulate The Narrative? Which one of us can? Again, does it affect you while I’m not around? And finally, can I use The Narrative for petty revenge?”

“Revenge? Who are you getting revenge on, and why curse them?”

“Well, you see it’s all about Narrative Weight. I have a feeling that The Narrative likes a good story, so I want to hand it one on a silver platter. A classic cautionary fairy tale.”

“But there are so many things we could do first. Like figuring out how the translation works? Or talk about the animation things you see?” Argh! Use the capitals!

“We could! But I want to do this first. For petty revenge! Or it could not work, and we learn something while we tease out other truths, this is a bit of a long-term plan.” I concede this may be sub-optimal…

It is sub-optimal, but I'm human and I want to do it, so there.

“I’m not going to curse somebody. How would that even work?” she deadpanned. I guess curses would be useless to somebody who could chokehold a bear, huh. But if this works out it’s a silver bullet in my arsenal. It’s the type of thing I can pull out in a confrontation to ‘Finish This.’

There, I have reasons.

“Right! So, traditional curses are very dramatic. You state a condition, a punishment, and an enforcing power you believe in. Well, I don't know about the ‘believe in’ part, but I'm not going to call on, say, Amaterasu, when I don't pay fealty to her. That’d just be rude. Narratives love the Rule of Three, and curses play really well into that with three moving parts. They also like retribution, so the background is important.”

I give a quick run down of my brief encounter with Ginger Bitch.

“But she took you to the nurse didn’t she? I'd say that stops any need for ‘retribution.’ What’s the point of getting petty revenge.” A good point, but…

“Ah, well you see!” I challenged “She never apologized. She did recognize the harm I was in, but I don’t know if it was she who took me to the nurse. But!” I held up my hand before she could interrupt me. “That’s why I’m only going to demand two things from her, since I’ll assume she did give me aid. And they aren’t even going to be bad, just an apology and a promise. It's a perfect plot device, she refuses, I curse her, we see what happens.”

“Fine, whatever.” She groused “What’s your genius scheme to make sure she doesn’t just apologize and negate your entire plan.”

I paused mid breath. I lowered my hand. “I don’t expect her too?” I replied. Well, I'm glad she’s counteracting my tunnel vision.

“Baaaaaka.” She said while leaning back against the bed, obviously unimpressed. Seriously, I know that means idiot, just translate it.

I thought on it. “Promises… can be just as narratively binding. Maybe if she goes for it I can do it that way? Do it so that the condition and punishment for the curse and the promise are the same. Wait, yeah that makes total sense! Ok. so, the punishment will be the same injuries she inflicted on me, and the condition will be not running in the halls. Both scenarios amount to the same experiment, to see if The Narrative will enforce these types of things...” I trailed off muttering.

“I don’t care, plan that tomorrow, I'm not cursing somebody. I don’t even have a problem like that with anyone at school. I don’t want to become obsessed with a boy, how do I stop that?” she knocked me off my train of thought, and switched me to another one.

“Hmm, that’s a bit trickier. You aren’t obsessed with anyone right now right? No nice childhood friend that you haven’t seen since elementary school, but has been gone for years?” A shake for both. ”Well, then there’s not much I can say other than don’t get obsessed. All the things I can think of are common sense; most of my help would be with mitigating the symptoms of obsession. You know, like therapy, there’s nothing to really therapize right now.” Ah, she had one more question, right? It was rather important, what was it?

Right, “And about people becoming tropey.” I tap The Narrative Theory sheet. “That’s what expanding this theory will eventually lead to the answer to.”

She sneered, “You’ve literally been no help at all. Get out of my room. I’m going to bed.” I think that’s a bit unfair, there’s just no actionable information yet. We can work on the yandere thing later, we just need to discover how things work. I do want to help with that.

“Alright, I’m going to go work out the whole curse and promise wording thing. Could you just, be on the lookout for things that, if animated, would be tropey? What situations they come up in and whatnot.” I requested, she looked at me for a moment and snorted out a ‘fine.’

Well, better than nothing. I picked up the theory sheet and walked to open the door. “Wait, one more thing,” I stopped the door just before it closed. A slight amount of purple started boiling up. “Do you know who Jesus Christ is?”

“No, go away.” I gently slotted the door back into the frame and ignored the shiver that went down my spine.

Three for three. Huh.

I slipped into my room and sat at my desk.

Miscellaneous: Catholic school with no Jesus.

I sat there and stared at the paper wondering what the hell was up with that, how the hell did it fit into everything else, but gave up quickly in favor of sleep. It’s been a long day.

I went about my nightly routine from my last life, brush my teeth, forget there isn’t a brush in the house for my hair, change into my preferred sleepwear, and lay down in bed and let all the thoughts from the day churn in my head. I quietly cried to myself, but eventually, I came to the precipice of unconsciousness.

Fuck, I forgot my bag. God damn it, that jolted me awake.

‘Tis a shame.

I spent the next thirty minutes trying really hard not to think about anything before falling asleep.

Tomorrow’s a new day.