Chapter 66 Take Your Flu Shots Kids

“Drugs.” - Truth the Sunmaker, in her book: A Simple Guide for the Inheritors of Earth, on Retaining Your Sanity When All Hope Seems Lost

Jun blinked back tears, they were a child again, laid on the pavement. Mum and dad yelled at them again, and Jun ran away again. The gaps in the street tripped them, part of Jun wished the old saying were true, step on a crack, break your mother’s back. Jun wished more things than a back would be broken, but the saying’s magic seemed to only extend to their scraped knee.

It didn’t even rhyme nice.

A small chubby hand reached out to them, “Jun?”

Jun looked up to see baby blue eyes and a head of messy straw, and extended an equally small hand, letting him help them up, “Thanks Dale.”

“No problem,” Dale replied. “Fight again?”

Jun only nodded as they wiped tears away.

“Your parents will understand, eventually,” Dale said with a hopeful tone. He tried to change the subject, “Are you feeling more like a guy or a gal now?”

“I…” Jun hesitated, “I don’t know. Mum and dad say it’s just a phase, that I’ll grow out of it… and I’m worried they might be right. I don’t know how I should act as a girl or a boy…”

Dale thought for a moment, “Then… if you get to choose, why don’t you choose someone cool?” he took out his phone, “There’s this new heroine in the Afrikans, she say’s she Anansi’s daughter, and even though everyone says she’s crazy, she just keeps doing her thing.”

He showed Jun a picture of the heroine, she was barely a few years older than them. She looked tough, strong, yet clad in multicoloured silks that stood out in the drab landscape. Beautiful, loud, unapologetic, she never backed down. That was the person Anansewa was.

…

Jun’s hand was bigger, those of a young teenager. She held her them up as her mother threw a cooking pan at her.

“OUT!” Jun’s mother screamed, “GET OUT OF HERE! YOU ARE NOT MY CHILD!”

Jun’s mother grabbed a spatula, and swatted her out the house like one might an annoying fly. Jun fell to the pavement with a splash, the pitter patter of rain was only interrupted once by a door slam, followed by the imperceptible click of the lock.

Jun did not try to bang on the door, she knew from experience that it was a futile effort. Instead she gathered herself, hobbled into the pouring rain. She didn’t know where she was going, only that she had to be anywhere but here.

Cold, shaking, her socks were soaked and ripped, yet Jun had to walk. There was nothing else she could do. One foot forward, then another. Focus on the pouring rain, that way Jun can avoid her thoughts. Her mind was a gnawing abyss, a black hole that wanted to drag her down into the depths and drown her.

One foot forward, then another.

Yet, a thought still grabbed onto her ankle, held it like a vice grip.

‘What if I can’t go back home?’

Her foot splashed into a puddle.

‘What if that was final?’

A skip.

‘What if mum doesn’t want me anymore?’

A twirl.

Jun felt her face, and the expression under her hands was the widest smile she had ever had.

The rain had frozen in midair, each droplet a jewel only she could touch. Uncaring of what happened next, she held out her arms like an air plane, and twirled through the frozen rain. Jun jumped into a puddle, the splash leapt out, yet seemed to slow, freezing as if it were a pane of glass. In it, she saw her reflection and giggled. Her clothes were different, no longer soaked, but bold, loud, unapologetic of who she was.

The mask might not have been there when they were born, but unlike their body, Jun chose it.

…

“Dale!” Jun knocked on his family door, dozens, maybe even hundreds of times. It seemed to take an eternity for her friend to come, yet come he did. “Dale! Look! I manifested!”

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So excited was the teen, that Jun even at super speed did not notice the cold look on Dale’s face. When the boy spoke, it was slow, each word ringing thunder.

“Get out of here you bitch.”

Jun blinked, “What? What are you talking about? It’s me! Jun!”

“I know perfectly well who you are,” Dale snorted. “Fucking queer tranny.”

“Dale, why are you talking like that, we’re friends!”

“We were never friends.” The door slammed shut.

Jun was fast enough that she could’ve stopped it.

Instead she turned and ran.

The frozen rain droplets splashed onto her face as she ran through them, her silhouette left a trail of tears. “Fuck you then!” Jun screamed, “I don’t need you! I don’t need anyone!”

“I agree,” Aiden sat untouched by rain thanks to his accursed creation. “You don’t need anyone at all, and they don’t need you, least of all me.”

She stopped.

“Oh did you really think you are helping me?” Aiden continued. “You are nothing more than a burden, to your parents and now me. The only thing you’re good for is weighing people down with your problems. You think you’re being endearing with that act of yours? It’s just annoying.”

“But…” her voice cracked. “We’re friends, aren’t we?”

A dark shaped flitted onto Aiden’s shoulder. “We were never friends,” Ranpo snorted.

Jun blinked, and waited a moment.

When there was no continuation, she raised her finger to point at the crow. “You’re not Ranpo,” Jun realised, “Ranpo is a smart ass, he wouldn’t leave it at that. He would say, ‘We were never friends, more acquaintances.’ He would die if he didn’t throw snark into every comment.” She moved her finger to Aiden, “You’re not Aiden either.”

Am I getting rusty? The fake Aiden rubbed his brow. First the amnesiac then you. I swear, it’s these fucking flu shots, taking away my chance to practice.

“I’m in a dream,” Jun realised.

|

Jun sneezed into a tissue. “If that fucking cold shows up one more time in my nightmares!”

“It’s not even sentient,” Aiden said with his clogged nose. “It’s just saying stuff to get a rise out of you without understanding what it means.”

“The beating I will give it will be real enough!” Jun shook her fists. She hiccuped, then sneezed. “Alright! That’s it!”

She suddenly blurred as she sped herself up. Aiden watched her form flit rapidly through the rooms, doing various things at superspeed. As Jun passed by him, he felt the faintest touch on his face, and quickly realised through his reflection on the TV that she had drawn a dick on him.

Jun said something, far too quick to catch.

Puppet Rain suddenly disappeared.

Scales appeared on Aiden’s skin as he jolted up, but stopped as he saw Puppet Rain apparently conversing with Jun at a speed far too fast for him to understand.

Then Jun plopped down beside him at normal speed, and said with an unclogged nose, “God that was so boring!”

“You used Nightcore to speed up your regeneration?” Aiden asked.

“I waited for ages! There was nothing to do! My phone doesn’t work that fast!” She disappeared and returned with a ball. “Aiden play four square with me, Puppet Rain doesn’t know the rules!”

“You could’ve read a book,” Aiden suggested, “And unlike you, I’m still sick.”

Jun took off her Nightcore mask, revealing a devilish grin, “I could fix that.”

As an answer, Aiden animated the blanket and comforter on him. “No.”

“C’mon!” Jun spun the mask in her hand. “I’m a legit healer now, people would be paying me out the ass for this kind of treatment. It’s like medicine! Or the coffee you’re addicted to.”

“I am not addicted to coffee, I can stop at any time.”

At that moment, Puppet Rain brought a cup of coffee to Aiden.

All three of them stared at the steaming cup, after a moment of silence, Aiden said, “No thanks, I’m good now.”

Aiden watched Puppet Rain go, eyes narrowed slightly, but he could not keep up his own suspicions as he felt Jun’s eyes boring into his back. He turned back to Jun, finding her eyes wide and watery in her best attempt to be puppy eyed.

He remained stone faced.

Jun disappeared and returned holding her dog.

Aiden rolled his eyes, “Don’t you know I’m dead inside.”

Jun turned the dog around and said to her, “Ms Fluffernutter, your lessons are a lie.”

Aiden rubbed his brow, suddenly very tired. Normally he could keep up with these antics, and many more. He let out a sigh of defeat, “Fine. But I’m taking it off as soon as I’m better. I am not staying that way.”

“But Nightcore Aiden is sooo funny.” Jun tossed the mask to him.

“Don’t change the personality of your friends to suit yourself.” The mask became a button earring in hands, and with a bit of hesitance, he put it on his ear.

Five minutes later, Jun was watching Aiden rush around the room. Alternating between the laptop and rapidly writing something down.

“Multipletypesofmemory. Longandshortterm, emotional, sensory…” Aiden bit his thumb in thought.

Jun waved Ms Fluffernutter’s paws.

Aiden pumped up his fists, “I’vebeenworkinglargelywithinsemanticmemory, howeverthat’snottheonlytypeofmemory! HowcouldI’vebeensostupid?”

“Slow down!” Jun yelled, then put Ms Fluffernutter down and took a step back, “Wow, so that’s what it feels like.”

“My power activates on semantic memory but that is clearly not the only type of memory I can use! I’ve been using emotional memories to copy powers, but I’ve also expended episodic memories!”

“Again, slow down, and maybe try speaking in English.”

“Jun! Don’t you get it? The fact that I’m realising this right now, your powers, Nightcore isn’t just sped time and regeneration, I’m thinking better. More ideas are coming to me, and I’m also learning faster!”

Jun paused with thought, “That…” Ms Fluffernutter laid down beside their leg, and Jun was reminded of the time they learned how to swim by just seeing her paddle. “That makes a lot of sense actually.”

Aiden grabbed their hands, “Let me use this for a bit longer. I have all these ideas! Stack was just the first step!”

“Yeah but umm, you were very insistent on getting it off the moment you were better.”

“Hell no!” Aiden rushed back to the laptop, “We’re turning this manic episode into a manic season!”