Satou did not have high expectations for Edson Hotel. Its outward façade and where it was situated had tempered his hopes for a cheap stay at best. A tidy room, a decent bed, a shower and some privacy was all he had hoped for; but even that, had at first seemed too much to ask. In a way, then, it was to his fortune that he had gotten at least that much.
Room 205, though not attractive, was not displeasing either; and it was his, for seven nights.
A single bed, and a nightstand right next to it. A desk, a chair, and a wastebasket. That was all as far as furniture went, at least in this room. A door to his right opened into the bathroom, with all the fixtures you’d expect to find inside: a ceramic western toilet, a shower head, and a sink with two valves on either side, above which, straight ahead, was a mirror cabinet.
Satou blushed, when he saw her hazel eyes, stare back into his.
“Hahahh…”
Like narcissus, he was charmed. If being called 'miss' hadn't induced in him a sense of disembodiment, this had certainly done it. He ran his hand through his tousled jet-black hair, and failed to hide her smile; a beautiful charming smile.
“What a beauty indeed…”
He hung his satchel aside and took of his coat, and found parts of it were slick with grease. Since when?
Ah, right… He remembered. From the lift, when I had to crawl through it.
He unbuttoned his black vest, but froze when he heard the wheels of a trolley near outside his door.
He heard muffled-talking; then someone walking away. Crockeries clanked, followed by a knock.
Satou answered the door, and there stood in front of him a maid with a serving cart parked behind her.
Without a word, she handed him his meal on a long tray, and only then did Satou remember that he had ordered dinner.
“Thank you,” he said, and carried the tray over to his desk. There, he examined it.
A mug of hot coffee, and a bowl of soup (or broth) with pulpy mushes floating inside it. This was his dinner.
He tried a sip (it was hot, and a little tasteless) and for the time being left it all there.
He continued to undress, and a palpable sense of relief washed over him once he took off his black vest. Though he did not find his clothes particularly cumbersome, stiff, or even bulky; having seldom worn tight-fit clothes except on formal occasions, which were rare in his life, to find himself suddenly wearing four garments at once was a change too drastic for him to miss. I’ll have to go buy looser clothes, one of these days. He could not keep wearing the same ones, after all. I’ll have to keep these clean, for the time being. I don’t have spares clothes… They do look really good on me though…
That they did. And neither did they look cheap. His shirtsleeve was pricy-cotton, that much he could tell by touch. Likewise, so was his coat, his vest, his wallet, and everything else he had in his satchel. It was of some solace, perhaps, to know that he was decently well-off as far as his station and his capital was concerned; but all this also brought to mind just how far he had strayed: that he shouldn’t be here, but up there, four hundred meters beyond that wall, somewhere else. Again he saw himself take that fatal step; how the lift had then fallen an inch; then his fall from grace. It was disheartening to relive.
Exhausted, sore all over, he threw himself onto bed, and his head spun terribly. Soon it abated. He opened his eyes and stared at the ceiling. On the nightstand, under a black rotary telephone, he saw an issue of the Daily Gazette. He reached for it, and held it up towards the ceiling. ‘8th Jan 7-687’ it was labeled, which threw him off.
He had no way to know if the newspaper was the latest edition, but to see Jan next to such a ridiculous number did not sound right to his ears. The date brought to mind images of a far distant future, and not a modernized fantasy world set in a bygone era, during an economic boom before the great depression, which, at least Ednin had so far resembled.
The front-page was taken up by a monochrome photograph of a flooded street. The title read, ‘Dreary Day. X Street Station Severely Damaged By—’ but that was all he could manage. The rest of the words blurred in his eyes, incoherent.
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I’m too tired to grok this…
He had yet to take off most of his clothes, eat his meal, fall asleep, and he might as well take a shower while he was at it—wash away the dirt, the grime, his exhaustion—which entailed that he first undress. He took off his gloves. Then he began unbuttoning his shirtsleeve, one after the other, only to blush and look away, smiling, when he saw his ample breasts peek through the gap. What was this intoxicating feeling? Pride? Delight?
He unbuttoned his cuffs, but froze the moment he felt something sharp get dampen by cloth. He almost cut himself trying to take it out, but there it was, inbetween his fingers, a razorblade, held in place with a paperclip under one of his cuffs. Who knew why he had it. It seemed dangerous to carry such a thing on your person. What is she, a spy? The stray thought made him smile. A silly idea. But what if it’s true? That would certainly explain the gun, make things much more exciting…
He tried to take off his trousers, but failed. Ah, right. He had yet to take off his fantasy-esk boots. The long-laces ran on till his knees; but thankfully, he did not have to untie it all to get it off. With a bit of effort, both came right off.
In the bathroom, the faucet’s valves—red and blue—were both cold. To his misfortune, so was the shower. He opened the mirror cabinet, and found there the basic essentials for his personal hygiene inside it, sealed and bulk-made: a toothbrush and a toothpaste, as well as a bar of soap and a few packs of shampoo, which had a nice if a bit strong fragrance to it.
He brushed his teeth, and almost did not notice his abnormally sharp canines. He could seriously hurt someone if he bit down with those. Like me, biting my own tongue… He readied himself to take a shower, and standing underneath it, bracing himself, he turned the nob as far as it would go. The jet of frigid-cold water jolted him back to life. He bit down on his lips and tried not to yelp—but failed. A feminine voice that came with the sound of rain was louder than he had expected it to be; anyone next door could’ve very well heard him.
He ran his hands over his skin, and admired how rivers and rivulets flowed down his hips and his bare legs. He closed his eyes, and under the deluge saw himself just as well with his hands. His figure, lean, not frail but firm, excited him; but not in the same way others might’ve found themselves excited, he imagined, were they to see his body. Such a feeling was strange. Even for himself, he could not put into words; yet he was charmed nevertheless. A part of him found it vain that he should be so fixated on his body; but he felt no pangs of shame for it but a pride he had never known.
Shivering, naked, he dried himself with a towel, but failed miserably when it came to his hair. He dabbed it as much as he could with a towel, but somewhere deep in the recesses of his mind, he had a vague idea that he wasn’t to be too rough; so he stopped, in case he ruined his hair. The hassles of a woman was certainly new—something he had to come to terms with—but a welcoming hassle that nonetheless filled him with joy and delight.
He looked down at his long and slender legs, perfectly hairless and unblemished, at his fair-skin white and soft, and thought for a moment that they looked fat and stocky; but—no. When he looked at them in the mirror, he saw that they were perfect. “My anorexia,” Satou concluded. Being so used to his thin legs, his eyes had yet to adjust to his new body.
He picked up his clothes from the floor and dressed lightly—putting on his undergarments first, then his shirtsleeve—but also his trousers, because he found it too awkward to sleep with his bare legs. Still wet, his clothes stuck to his skin.
When he turned the lights off, his room did not vanish immediately. Everything in his eyes dimmed—then gradually faded away. As the moonlight settled in, a long column of light took its shape on the wall right beside him: lights from the street below. He pulled the sheets over himself as he laid his head down, and found it to be heavier, rougher, than the ones he was used to at home. Thankfully the mattress was alright. He did not mind the stiffness much.
As he waited for sleep to take him, excitement ruled out any thoughts for it. His mind wandered, and soon he found himself back at King’s Crossing, frightened, confused, but also intoxicated. How did he get there? How did it happen? He tried to remember his final moments, before he had opened his eyes, but only succeeded in summoning up disjointed fragments:
How his stomach had churned; how his head had throbbed. He remembered his vision fading in and out; the queasy drunken stupor he was in; a pain you could not quite call pain. He remembered shivering like a leaf while his fingers had struggled to hold onto the desk. All this may have just been his fancy, but the silence afterwards had been deafening. Most likely, he had died shortly thereafter. Then he had seen void, for an eternity that to him had lasted an instant. The next thing he knew, he was here, in the body of a young woman, in the middle of a train station,
“In another world…”
The fan on the ceiling was frozen, like a picture—as if time itself had come to a standstill. The ticking of the clock; the rumbling of the central heating pipes behind walls; and the humming that came down from the airshafts—all of it heightened the silence of the night, and all for the better. He wanted this precious moment to last a little longer,
“Forever…”
How many times had he dreamt of this day to happen to him? How many times had he dreamt of being right where he was, right now? His first day had been stressful, but everything had worked out in the end, thank God. He still wasn't sure how he had made it, here, all the way from King’s Crossing, or even to this world—but it didn't matter. None of that mattered. What mattered was that he was here, “In another world…”
Exultation and restlessness thumped in his chest. His emotions ran tumult.
The thought that he had escaped his past brought tears to his eyes. Every single day, he had lived only out of compulsion’s sake. He was unhappy, miserable, and unloved, and he saw himself unhappy and unloved in his late 20s, 30s, and in his 40s. Years stretched out in front of him with no end in sight. He had hated his life so much. Living had been so painful. Tears would not stop flowing now. He was crying, crying with a smile on her face, shedding tears of sadness and joy.