Yuri Worlds

[32] Flowers

The absolute psychological anarchy of the last few minutes stilled to a kind of calm that acknowledged something weird was going on, but she couldn’t quite put her finger on it.

Nothing was missing from her awareness and memory. Probably. It didn’t feel like there was a gap. But why was she putting away her books and putting on her wristband? Why did it feel like there was something else that happened that she just couldn’t recall? Eventually, she had to shrug it off and set about working through the morning.

More tidying up and organizing her stuff before having a quick shower and changing into an outfit with comfort but durability in case the weather decided to fight with them again. Downstairs, Chika returned first in workout clothes subtly tinted by collar sweat. She already had enough video recording to take a sizable chunk out of her battery. Everything that Misaki could remember being relayed by Yuka was independently confirmed by her friend.

Haruka entered immediately after, wearing what looked like a throwback Jazzercise getup. Misaki politely but enthusiastically welcomed her back. The white-haired girl gave the most reserved smile as she gently rubbed at the edges of her eyes, warding off persistent tiredness. With a faint tinkle of sound and a shift of shadow, Misaki noticed one of Haruka‘s bracelets. It had to be the same or a similar one from yesterday. She had been wearing something when she initially introduced herself. A wristband. No no no—a bracelet. Something girly.

Instead of attempting to piece together that odd thought, Misaki‘s brain opted to resurrect and obsess over a stray musical track that she vaguely recalled from a Gal Hotner TikTok posting from years ago. It blotted out all adjacent thoughts. Yasha was next to slip in through the entrance and politely set her shoes to the side, facing the correct direction. She tilted her head up in briefly curious scrutiny of Misaki, as though sighting a peculiar statue. Misaki attempted to be cordial with their inadvertent travel companion, but Yasha swiftly gave her the cold shoulder.

Namiko arrived next, with a finely knit nest of comments and observations spiraling out in an economy of words and curiosities. She assessed not only the early calisthenics group but a multitude of neighborhood markers as though she had been living here for years. She rattled off her most astute observations about which ladies clearly had unrequited crushes, who was feeling down in the dumps, and who to watch for exciting news they just couldn’t keep quiet about. Fuyuki solemnly confirmed which ladies were the blabbermouths without approaching anything like that uncouth term.

Naoko attempted to multitask small bites of food while handing a small open book, awkwardly navigating the entrance, and shaking off the feral grips of tiredness dragging her head and eyelids down at every inopportune moment. Inevitably, she bumped into a small piece of furniture that she thought hadn’t been there a moment before. Kei carefully steered the young girl out of danger and even more stubbed toes, dropping her off at the couch along a precipitously soft section. It took mere moments for her to sink in, as though planted back in her own bed.

Maharu burst in, just short of the sound barrier, and gleefully welcomed Misaki back to the land of the living without the effort to push her off the mortal precipice through extreme chiropracty. She did hug with more than enough enthusiasm to crack a book’s spine, but Misaki‘s waking desensitization kept her from feeling too much of it.

The first obligation of the morning was breakfast, with an especially hearty traditional set-up for the Sasaki family guests. Misaki smiled at the assortment of pickled vegetables, a ruffled sweet vegetarian side dish, and a generous portion of seaweed. The piping hot miso bowl and practically perfect white rice were familiar but eagerly anticipated. The neatly positioned rectangular portions of omelette also warmly invited her chopsticks. And then the slim but golden crisp section of fried salmon with decorative little flakes and garnish begged her to indulge.

And then there was the fucking natto. That was exactly the way her brain reacted—with a convulsive sentiment. This wasn’t her first encounter with the wretched bean. Guy acquired a far too substantial quantity of the dish, which sat in the fridge for ages, inspiring derision and rebellion amongst all the other foods. It was, as could likely be guessed, intended for a streamed reaction. None of them got sick, which was a better result than what Namiko liked to term “the unspeakably rotten shark ass” for a different stream. Experience held the three of them back, but the little entrée looked surprisingly decent despite an overriding aroma approaching bathroom cleanser.

Recognizing the tension, Kei jumped in and assured the group that she could swap out that particular item for regular tofu. Yasha practically inhaled the contents in one bite, as though it were the best thing in the world. Cracking her neck a few times, Misaki took a breath, stirred the whole heap over white rice, and scooped far more into her mouth than she ever intended to consume. It wasn’t awful. The freshness and the loving care Yuka’s mothers wielded with every dish shined through. It just wasn’t quite enough to overcome the inherent grossness.

Yuka made an appearance a little ways into breakfast and swiftly smashed together the best elements of the meal into a fast and furious feast. She made sure that Misaki received a delightful hug before she had to get ready for class. It took both her and Maharu to extract Naoko from the comfort of the couch. The Nishikawa sisters lingered outside and flung greetings through the doorway since they were also in a hurry. The frantic energy almost felt infectious as Misaki found herself eating quickly. At least it got rid of the natto before anything else. Through sheer force of will, she was able to save and savor the delightful slice of fish for her final thing aside from the white rice.

They all eagerly and adamantly thanked the mothers for the meal; even Yasha patterned her enthusiasm after the trio. The only problem was a spell of discomfort that clung to Misaki in the minutes afterward. It felt like a cruel reminder crawling back up her throat. This happened with certain ethnic dishes that didn’t agree with Franklin’s bland constitution. Could be a certain ingredient; he didn’t know. But it was massively frustrating since she absolutely adored the meal. Something deep and gurgling was bothering her, but she still couldn’t put any fingers on it or give a name to this anxious mass.

Meanwhile, Chika was already planning out their day based on the broad notes of the itinerary. Tonosho to the north featured illustrious radiant gardens with all sorts of rare and dense greenery. A lovely castle featured at the edge of town, but they could take that in tomorrow. The most fascinating point for Chika was that it was home to a massive gaming complex, which others had alluded to, and she had emphasized to the company as a place she wanted to see. Talking to her friend and roughly swallowing brought waves of ease without the uncertainty and danger of a cough. It wasn’t a great poker face, but it did the job of not worrying those around her.

They didn’t need to take a whole lot with them for what was essentially a day trip. Compared to the massive group around yesterday, just the three of them going out alone felt so oddly quiet. Yasha wanted to start work on renovating the shacks, so she stuck to the area.

The Sasaki moms accompanied them most of the way to the northern station to make sure there were no issues. Several times, Misaki felt like she was at the cusp of some crucial reminder she needed to pass along to the group and to Kei in particular to convey to Mari, but it just kept slipping her mind with the most random distractions. An interesting musical track played in the train car. A captivating girl in a fluttering dress chased after another in an impromptu game of tag. And a random message from the store clerk yesterday, checking in with a lot of emojis and seeing how everyone was doing. She didn’t answer right away.

She wanted to talk to her companions about the curiosities involving the wristband. It struck her, not for the first time, that girls were noticing their arm decorations but also quite ignoring them. No trouble because of them at least. No trouble that she could discern. The inkling to bring it up to the others or suggest visiting Ayame flared briefly within before suddenly fizzling out.

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Namiko was easily having the most fun. She had fashioned something of a sweet summer outfit with plenty of leeway up top to underplay her “chest cascades”, as she termed them today. It was a pale peach tone with plenty of little ornamentations and lace. To contrast this soft, effeminate impression, Namiko laid on the closest approximation of a trucker chick she could offer with the abilities at her disposal.

“Mmhmm, yeah, boy howdy ya can getter done through this. Breaker breaker I’m hauling all dem titties up the front, gonna have to turn this puppy’s wide load. That’s right.”

It took a lot of tossing gravel into her voice, but she got somewhere close. The bulk of the silly sayings only came out when it was just the three of them on the train, since Namiko did little to censor any potentially inappropriate terms. She smashed together the trucker persona with a dainty, prissy gal impression. Chika just adored and cheered on the performance, as though wishing she had her streaming equipment right here to provide the wildest session between worlds.

Where they arrived was quite busier than the rural stretch they were getting used to but far more sedate than the city. It reminded Franklin of the little burbs that hung out around the larger city where they lived. Little dust-flecked mottles of life and possibility tilted towards weathered crops and strange, forgotten, fading markets. Not to wear tinted glasses too firmly, but each of them immediately thought that the small town was perfect.

A scattering of cozy multilevel buildings clustered around the train station, surrounded by bright and cheerful-toned vending machines. Shops, both simple and complex, lined the closest thing to a thoroughfare with two ambling lanes. They stopped for a while to browse through trinkets before heading up a slight hill to the garden.

It was fantastic. Comfortable, flowing pathways and markers with audio programs played that detailed so much about the sprawling plants. They received a solid hint about the reproduction situation from the audio in passing about self and cross-pollination, touching on analogies to humans. Nothing conclusive was conveyed with a scientific explanation, but it at least steered them in the direction of something biological.

The beginning of their trek around the garden was fairly lonely; they rarely ran into other girls. But all that changed about halfway through. They had just experienced a massive display of rhododendrons and started in with creeping vines when Chika noticed a girl perched on a bench off to the side who appeared keenly aware of the presented plants in front of her, yet also deliriously out of it with her eyes shut and body wobbling like it was going to face plant into the pavement from where she was sitting.

Misaki moved over to provide a cushion before she tumbled. And just in time, as she smacked hard into Misaki‘s chest. Things provided a degree of cushioning, but it wasn’t quite enough to keep from knocking the wind out of her. The drowsy girl immediately spun out of the way and crashed into a bush before correcting her glasses and fumbling with an anxious apology.

She flapped in the air like the most half-hearted attempt to fly while explaining that she was visiting from a university and they were supposed to do sketches of different plants and research them, and she did all the research stuff ahead of time but now had to do the art and didn’t even know where to start. Even while she vigorously gesticulated and animated the details of her situation, little drowsy spells started to wrap their arms around her. A lot of that was around, apparently.

Along with her family name, she said her name was Rei. Chika was the one who raised her eyebrows, and the girl didn’t take long to get the connection. She assured everyone she wasn’t some spirit soul vessel container for powering biorobots. It was a sore point for her, although she attempted to gloss over this fact. She still lamented that everyone just conflated her with a fictional character that shared her name. They expected similar behavior from her. Quiet reservation. Because of the social pressures, she slipped into the role and spent most of her high school years just as quiet. Franklin and Misaki could sympathize.

The girl didn’t much physically resemble that character. She had dark feathered hair just a shade heavier than Yuka’s grayish black locks, but they extended far past her shoulders and her back, flowing long enough to easily become a soft seat. She wore distressed jean cutoff pants with frayed sections showing off so much of her thighs. The girl put in the best competition for Namiko’s figure. Her chest swooped forward in a pronounced Y shape, with her black T-shirt looking like it was going to become distressed next. Despite the strain up top, it bunched with a field of generous bumps and wrinkles around her lower, swooping hips. She was evocative of one of those fertility figures with the thickness of her thighs and other parts. Just like Namiko, she wore a sizable pair of glasses, but it seemed from her vague squinting that she dearly needed them.

After frantically laying out her situation, it seemed like she was about to amble off and resume her quiet, tired, nearly sleeping antics. Chika wouldn’t have that. She could just go crashing into all sorts of girls, causing embarrassment. She did a lot of nervous quivering and trembling in her natural state. They learned that she was heading towards the deepest part of the garden to get a couple more research items, just where they were intending to go next.

They let Rei joining them be her apology for the incident. She still had to shake her head and a lot of other parts to dispel a sniffling, tightening sense of drowsiness. Running in place and skipping laps also helped. Fortuitously, her plans for noontime and after included a trek to the same video game Mecca they had in mind as a self-imposed reward for taking care of all of this research.

Through the next few arboreal presentations, the poor girl did her best to pry her large blue eyes open to observe and note all the biological details in the flowers. None of them did the work for her, but they recited and reiterated key points for her to formulate labels for her renderings and come up with flashcards for drills. Returning to the stress, uncertainty, and loneliness of college didn’t tempt Misaki for a moment, whether she was able to do it over like this or any other way. But the thought of providing tutoring on an individual or small group basis in a less soul-sapping fashion than her typical tech support grind did kindle interesting thoughts.

As they moved through the exhibition pavilions, she looked back and scanned the verdant settings. Glancing once, she caught a sign of something she hadn’t quite noticed before. It was striking, vertical, and punctuated by a pinnacle of stark white, reflecting against the edge of her eyes like glints of snow. That sometimes happened in her bedroom at night. She would be glancing at her phone for too long and too late and notice the drapes had a weird sparkle, like something shining from the front yard. Whenever she looked at it directly, it would vanish. Inspiring crazed paranoia that Franklin’s eyes were going bad faster than expected. This was surely the same phenomenon, even though the bright mark was much bigger.

She let whatever it was do its thing for several moments of careful assessment. She didn’t focus directly on it and soon noticed that it took on less of a sprawling plant shape and more of a humanoid one. With that prominence of white, it truly resembled Haruka. Did Haruka happen to find them and want to give them a surprise? It sounded ridiculous based on the girl’s character. But Misaki waited until she was in the right position with the odd image still there and jerked her head to look at it directly.

Plant. It turned out to be just a weird plant she hadn’t noticed before. That top section looked exactly like a white crop of hair. Strange coincidence, but scrutinizing it didn’t introduce any new strangeness. Oh well. She turned around and rejoined the others. But not before she heard a whisper on the wind that almost sounded like the word “help”.

Checking behind her revealed nothing.