Yuri Worlds
[39] Soften
Their parting that evening was ridiculously anti-climactic, as Misaki did a few uncertain spins, which just exacerbated her lingering dizziness, and left through the door. The hallway didn’t feel quite as abandoned and forgotten as earlier. Clusters of exuberant, playful, and curious sounds filtered up. All she could think of was just heading to sleep. Chika was camped out on her bed with a camera turned in her direction. Her head was tilted to the side on a pillow in a regular position she assumed for reflection and pondering. She immediately perked up and popped into a sitting position when Misaki arrived.
Chika filled her in on everything she missed. Bianka brought up coded recipes and secrets of cooking when Chika carefully mentioned plans to make something nice for their hosts. She presented the unsourced notion that magical goddess creatures from other realms could toy with living energy and wield it like a recipe, sucking out the vital essence of one universe and depositing it in another. The exact process and reasoning eluded her though. Despite some interesting thoughts, she wasn’t much help. Naoko covertly recommended fancy cookies, really, really wanted cookies, and was mournfully disappointed that all the cookies in the house were gone. Kei promised she would make more as soon as possible, but they were out of several vital ingredients.
Fuyuki took on the evening tea tasks with some frantic fumbles but also special flourishes. Some trace of the buried engineer remained when trying to level out a wobbly tray. Maharu seemed strikingly subdued compared to her normal mood. She was barely recognizable. A visiting Ayame even looked her over to make sure she wasn’t getting sick before her big performance. Haruka was surprisingly chatty, asking them about how their day went and where Misaki was. Neither Chika nor Namiko knew for sure, but they both assumed the truth with Yuka upstairs. Haruka glanced towards the ceiling but didn’t do anything with that tip.
Kosame spun delicate, intricate webs of notions about the shy, secret lovers sharing one another in private. The topic of the two of them came up regularly, especially when Yuka made an appearance alone. Misaki easily confirmed that she had fallen asleep, and they really hadn’t done much aside from talk and shower. The implication of more remained. Misaki‘s tired brain went ahead and flooded Chika with everything she had. She wasn’t certain where the saga left off, so she started with the creepy moment in the shrine when a frantic feeling gripped her, followed by more unsettling developments with Maharu’s grandmother, as if she were wielding some spooky magic against her. Then she unspooled the relief that she and Yuka discovered the mark was gone and did…some things. Hints of their host’s dour fears circulated with that explanation, along with a celebration of the fireflies, which Chika glimpsed the other day and acknowledged they had discussed.
Rifling through the remaining events, she focused on the sudden appearance and disappearance of a discoloration around her wristband without elaborating on the events surrounding it. Reflexively, Chika checked her own. The most that Misaki would admit to was perhaps loosening it to inspect the edges. In her heart, she sensed that Chika knew she was concealing something, but neither wanted to probe it.
From that point, she touched upon the scrap of paper warning that Rei passed to her. Chika didn’t raise too much suspicion about their earlier companion, but she grounded the matter in healthy skepticism. The blip of how the world looked when they were carried along by the wind should’ve also been an easy debunking, but Chika paused and reflected on it before mentioning that she experienced a subtle shift like that right before the storm over by the shrine. She initially wrote it off as a strange quirk of the natural aesthetic, but she hadn’t run into anything similar since. More than that, she could only shrug.
Misaki was vague about how much she and Yuka talked about the sex they'd never seen around here. But she plumbed specific details about the haunting spooks around the tub. Chika didn’t bother to denounce any of them. She pressed an aura of sympathy for Misaki mixed with an effort at playfulness as she noted, "You’re out having all sorts of adventures away from us. You can rely on me, even though I am rather silly and totally confused about most things. And you know well that Namiko… Dwight… Always has your back. I just don’t want you stressing in private, with all sorts of anxiety and pain building up like some spiky balloon that’s going to burst at any moment. We’re here for you, big sis… And I know you’re not literally my big sis, but it’s a sentiment I like and want to share." They exchanged a warm hug.
Misaki took in what cheerful snippets she could of the other adventures downstairs before drowsiness seized her once again. Sleep had no hindrance or assistance from dreams. She woke up a couple of times to vaguely interact with a fragment of consciousness before slipping away again. The span of restfulness almost felt too long compared to what she typically managed.
Misaki felt a radiant renewal flowing within and around her body like unseen waves. With them came a strange weight that she just couldn’t shake. Waking in the morning should’ve dispelled this incongruent element, but instead gave it a more pressing form.
She struggled to clear her throat and vision as she shifted around in bed with the sheets awkwardly sprawled across her body. The blanket puffed up around her chest, giving the impression of a Namiko-inspired expansion. She gave a little snicker snort to herself at that notion and reached up to smooth down the blanket to a more reasonable level. She met with surprising resistance and warm flesh, breaching the normal confines. Nervously, Misaki yanked away the blanket and scooted up.
Her body had changed. Specifically, her boobs. They were bigger and fuller in a way that was practically impossible to write off as a dream. Her perspective was dominated by this resurgent mountain range. Her pair jutted aloft in bold defiance of gravity and good sense. The poor pink pajama top was doing its best. Misaki gingerly shifted into a sitting position, with this impossible anchor as a pressing reminder at every moment. Somehow, she still wasn’t a match for Namiko. But she provided unwanted fighting competition. As a consequence of this soft, warm, and overwhelming bulkhead, she felt like the rest of her body was saturated with feminine accents and heightened curves. She looked as far from being… From being… Before. Before the trip. She was… Different before. Flatter and not as pronounced in how she looked. Misaki was… in the other world she… it was so tough to mentally articulate what she wanted to express. The ideas wriggled out of her neurons like slimy toads.
She had always been a girl. She was a girl. But in this place, she was an anime girl, and the company was pushing her through some weird, exaggerated mold like a cartoon where your body could be easily reshaped like Play-Doh. Melting? Could this be an effect of Melting? More like inflation rather than melting… But she could imagine that if the wristbands were actually doing some blocking, then picking up anime girl essence like adorable plaque might result in something like this. Her mind couldn’t even imagine what she was before. Her hair didn’t appear to have gotten any longer or brighter, as far as she could tell. Another Namiko trait she had no interest in following.
Settling into a sitting position, she gently assessed herself. Her body wasn’t an absurd contortion. Not yet, at least. But she had to be several cup sizes fuller and in the neighborhood of Yuka’s older mom, if not Ayame. It wasn’t that bad. At the same time, she could still feel herself freaking out that she had been turned into a boob mountain with monster tatas as swollen, inescapable pillows. Maybe for the rest of her life. Not going away when she returned to being a normal girl back home. That still didn’t read right in her head.
Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
She struggled to make sense of it logically, but a wave of emotions crashed into her, and a gushing flood of tears flowed down her face. She didn’t want to be so squishy, soft, and cute! Her voice, softly whimpering and stammering, sounded more meager than a child’s. Cute high-pitched girly girl. It didn’t feel any different, but she still struggled to wrestle it into anything that sounded like a calm and comfortable tone. Before she broke down into howling sobs, the door cracked open, and Namiko and Chika poked their heads in. They definitely didn’t expect to find the absolute mess that she was with her knees together and blasting the most demur girly mode of femininity anyone ever imagined like a bubble gum pop station. She expected them to brand her as a duplicitous changeling anime girl pretending to be their friend. Fortunately, they were at her side before she could freak out any further.
Chika and Namiko didn’t need to be told about the peculiar condition that Misaki woke up with. They did their best not to point out the poor girl’s enhanced promontory position. It was still rather early, with everyone just starting to get up and the promise of a second day of calisthenics to indulge in. Misaki wanted to be a part of that even while her unsettling, deepened jiggles created a feedback loop of emotional confusion. She was sure she sounded like a pitiful little girl.
Fortunately, her friends were adept at cheering up. Namiko immediately laid on her most confident goofiness, emphasizing how they were even more "breast friends" now. And Chika pulled out the full entertainer within. It didn’t fix any of the inherent issues or explain why the heck this happened, but just getting the clear reminder that the two of them were there for her meant so much. She gave them emotionally exuberant hugs, clearly learned from Maharu but without violent accents. She did a lot of squeezing, of herself and others. And the inescapable wish for a snuggly, sweet-smelling plushy to hold tight replicated throughout her thoughts, replacing all other needs. It didn’t last long before she realized that there were all sorts of cute clothes in her bag that she could wear out to calisthenics. None of these notions struck her as unusual.
She had to be careful not to fling things in all directions as she scurried to change into clothes for exercise. A glittering peach number with a hinting neckline and ruffles of lace along the shoulders made her fawn and giggle over how she looked. Chika and Namiko checked to make sure her bout of illness last evening hadn’t progressed to delirium. Misaki reassured them that she felt great—better than she had felt the entire trip so far.
The radiant girl sat with her hands carefully tucked between her legs, her posture proper, her skirt adjusted, and her demeanor bright and sunny. Truly, as she was now, neither of her friends would’ve distinguished her as the shy, uncertain boy they knew so well as opposed to a cute, girly anime girl who had lived her entire life that way. Dropping that three-letter word at the tail end of a sentence triggered immediate puzzlement in Misaki.
“What’s a boy?” She genuinely had no clue, although she had a vague hunch that this was probably related to the idea she couldn’t quite extract. In any other moment, Chika would’ve laughed, but a chill of alarm sunk through her senses. When her little sister and her oldest friend nervously tried to convince Misaki that she was in actuality a “boy”, there was no revulsion or anger. She just found it playfully amusing that they would try to convince her of something impossible. This had to be some strange game. She didn’t mind it, but she knew with every fiber of her being who and what she actually was.
Her name was Carrie Francesca Fowler. Although the idea from this world of coming up with your own name when you were mature enough tantalized her. Her little sister was Silvia Fowler. Although, being an entertainer, she had a wide array of nom de somethings and different roles she preferred to play. Fiona Chapman was her friend, and nothing could dissuade her from the truth of those names. Now, she wanted to know if they would let her go out to exercise in her very cute outfit. The others had no objections, but they both expressed wary uncertainty about what on earth was going on.
Heading downstairs, Misaki positioned herself to meet and greet so many girls, all of them confused about her changed figure. Kosame was immediately enchanted by this version of their guest and rolled out all the charm as Misaki naturally slipped into the role of herself. Bianka wasn’t fooled though, and was already Googling every link she knew for bodysnatcher reports. It didn’t get her anywhere. Naoko didn’t take long to develop a working theory, even though she had to divide her attention between this imponderable development and a page of questions she needed to memorize. The working theory mostly involved drugs.
Haruka just watched and didn’t provide any commentary as Kei and Misaki fed off each other’s energy for exercise. Fuyuki had a set of theories of her own, but they mostly involved vague questions about the extended periods her daughter and her guest were spending together. Maharu was away. She claimed to already be practicing the dances for the fundraising event. Yasha took the Haruka approach while nibbling on a fresh, frosted cookie from newly acquired ingredients and tempting Naoko with it.
It didn’t take long for Yuka to confront the girl her friend had become.
“What are you doing? What happened to you last night?” Yuka held her voice to a cautious whisper.
Misaki had no idea what she was talking about. Nothing happened. She was fine! Why did everyone think something was wrong with her? She was happy. Sure, she was a little bit emotional and something happened to her body, but it was fine.
Everything was fine everything was fine everything was fine everything was fine everything was… that cycled around in her head, but just because she wanted to emphasize that nothing was wrong. Out loud, she told everyone that she was feeling great—much better, no dizziness or anything.
Privately, Yuka pressed and touched upon that same three-letter word again. Boy boy boy boy boy… Everyone was going boy crazy! She wasn’t a boy; she’d never been a boy; she had no idea what a boy was; and, at this point, she never wanted to be one!
Yuka refused to let her go. She glared with an intensity that Misaki hadn’t seen before. They stood far enough away so Yuka could tell her everything she wanted to say, but that still didn’t feel like enough. She needed to be alone with her. The little indoor outdoor bamboo space would have to suffice. She dragged Misaki over there and unleashed everything.
“I won’t let them take you from me. I won’t let them punish you for what we did. I’ll make you remember who you really are. You have to remember. No matter what it means, no matter what words I barely understand myself, I know they represent the truth of you, not some hollow shell they want you to be. You’re my friend. I love you. And I know you’re in there. Please, please, oh goddess please, come back to me…”