Chapter Twenty-Seven

I’m probably the most outgoing swapper you’ll ever meet, but that didn’t mean our people didn’t have any desire to socialize, just that we weren’t generally very good at it. Swapping into another species with better social skills and letting their internal biology help us out was pretty normal. I daresay it’s not a boast that I’m the best of my species in our natural state, at making friends and talking to others.

Maybe that’s why Celia was able to relax even while she was ‘stuck’. Or it could have been her human biology at work. I can’t really say for sure. What I can say is…

Celia Norn has a very nice laugh. Watching the witch character become a motherly figure to the slime spirits, big sister to a cute little demon lord, it was utterly charming.

Celia’s chest spasmed as she laughed so hard she started choking on her soda, forcing me to smack her several times on the back while she hacked and coughed. “Be careful, the human body evolved so that they have to eat, drink, and breathe through the same hole, you don’t want to obstruct it.”

She pounded on her chest with her fist while her hacking, coughing noise went on for several seconds more.

When her sputtering and coughing ended, she looked up and over at me, “What’s with the back slapping? Did I do something wrong?” She had a worried expression in her eyes, I had to remind myself…

‘She hasn’t had that long to figure things out, she really is like an anxious kid.’ Kayobi thought and chose to explain herself as such.

“No, that’s just how you help somebody who is choking.” I explained it slowly and in an even tone so she wouldn’t mistake my words for anger.

She cocked her head, “So, what you’re saying is, if I see somebody choking, a punch to the face will help them out? This is a weird species, and I’m suddenly not so sure I like it.” Celia said and looked down at her upturned palms as if imagining herself punching somebody choking.

“No.” I said at once, better to nip that idea in the bud. “You slap them on the back the way I just did, it helps dislodge whatever is choking them.”

“Oh. That’s not so bad then.” Celia gave a melodramatic sigh, “That was worrying for a moment there.”

“I suppose it would be.” I replied, keeping my tone dry despite my amusement, we binged all twelve episodes without stopping, and when the last credits rolled, Celia said…

“Season two?”

“There isn’t one.” I replied.

“But… but… but…” She kept pointing her hand at the screen, “Season two?!” She repeated.

“Sorry, no. It doesn’t exist.” I shook my head and picked up the remote to show her. Then I reached for my phone and pulled up the wiki to reveal that while there was a season two planned, it didn’t exist. I showed her the information, and she raised an eyebrow.

Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation.

“What’s a ‘light novel’? It looks like there are a bunch of those.” Celia asked.

“They’re novels, books, meant for younger readers, high school, middle school, but… well, they’re weirdly popular with adults.” I explained, and her eyes lit up.

Books are one of those sort of universal inventions, like pyramids and prostitution, that are kind of inevitably come up with if you wait long enough. So Celia was familiar with the concept, but ‘fiction’ was comparatively rare.

Telling stories ‘for fun’ wasn’t something a lot of species did, and it was frankly one of my favorite things about humans.

Once she had the concept that there were a lot more stories for this, but in book form, I knew exactly what she was going to ask.

“Do you have them?” She sounded like a hungry dog as she leaned toward me, but I had to disappoint her.

“No. But I can order them, if you like, and I can have them here tomorrow.” I said and looked down at the empty table filled with a wild disarray of snack wrappers and crumbs. We had eaten clean through the supply.

“Yes, please!” She said with a hungry series of nods.

“Fine, but you have to do something for me.” I said, “For us really.” I raised a pointed finger to show I had a single condition, she looked at me with bated breath.

“You have to do the snack run. I’ll give you my card, just run down to Toriyama’s and buy… whatever. As humans say, I buy, you fly… meaning ‘go’ not ‘grow wings and get flapping.’ Sound good?” I asked.

A worried expression came over her face. “Buy? I don’t really know how commerce works here.”

“How did you get your clothes?” I asked, I’d been fairly thorough in studying Earth before selecting it as my vacation spot, if Celia had just found a body template she liked and ‘shown up’? I could see why she wasn’t exactly the lead painter taking the hardest jobs.

“I borrowed them from the person I swapped into.” She said offhandedly.

I pinched the bridge of my nose. “Okay, so… that is what they call theft here. I know back home ‘if you need it, take it’ is the rule, but not here. This isn’t a post-scarcity society. Everything is a lot more limited, you can’t just ‘take’ stuff. Look,” I pulled out my plastic card and put it gently into Celia’s palm, pressing her fingers closed around it, “just grab whatever you want, put it in a basket, then tell Jin or Suki that you’ve never used the machine before, that you’ve only ever used cash, and they’ll show you.” I gave her a reassuring smile.

“You’ll be fine, trust me.” I urged and patted her curled fingers. “You may be here for a while, you’ll have to know how to do a few things.”

“I… suppose.” Celia said and looked down at where my hand was over hers, “But… just this once, do you think you could just walk me through it? I don’t mind doing it myself after that, but if you could come with me just this one time?”

I admit, I thought about saying no. I mean, it’s swiping a card, not her first paint job. But the way her eyes darted back and forth from it to me, I could see all the ways she was afraid of failing, what customs she might screw up, and so on…

And I figured, ‘Why not? I’m not ‘technically’ doing a chore for myself if I just go with her and talk her through it. Besides, two baskets of snacks are better than one.’

“Alright, you hold the card, I’ll show you how it’s done, and then you take it from there.” I gave her the most reassuring smile that I could, patted her hand again, and that moved her to action.

“Right, then let’s go. I want to watch that other one there about the soldier boy in the mech suit and his high school romance with that hot tempered girl.” She pointed to the preview screen under the romcom sci-fi section, and my smile grew a little bigger.

“It’s a classic. Alright, let’s go.” We stood up together, and headed out the door to go shopping before Toriyama’s could close for the day.