“Is that you... Hibiki?”
“Does that mean you’re... Rekka?”
I got a question in response to my question, but I guess that was answer enough. It seemed that Hibiki and I had switched bodies!
▽
“What do we do...?”
“Hell if I know...”
Hibiki and I were both at a loss, and we sat confounded in front of the school gates. Switching bodies just by bumping heads... Well, I guess that was a cliche in certain kinds of stories.
“Well, this probably ranks on the list of weirdest things that have ever happened to me.”
“I guess so...”
Even Hibiki, who was usually far calmer than me, could only offer halfhearted replies. Argh, but being depressed wasn’t going to get us anywhere! Hibiki was always the one pulling me along and helping me out, so maybe it was time for another reversal of sorts.
“Okay! For now, we’re gonna try and figure out how to get back to normal!” I stood up and energetically declared.
“How?”
“I dunno. Maybe let’s try bumping our heads together again.”
“Well, trying anything’s better than trying nothing.”
Hibiki seemed willing to give it a go. She got to her feet as well, and... Honestly, I was used to being taller than this. It was a little uncanny to be the one looking up for a change.
But I guess that made sense. We’d switched bodies, so I was seeing things from Hibiki’s perspective. I guess... she was actually a lot shorter than I thought she was.
“...”
I sorta got lost in thought over the curious sensation of looking up at myself for a minute there.
“Rekka?”
“Oh, sorry!”
But the sound of Hibiki’s voice returned me to my senses. Right now I had to focus on how to get back to normal.
“Um, so... Do you want to start, Hibiki?”
“Me?”
“Well, I can’t exactly reach...”
I stood on the tips of my toes, but I wasn’t anywhere near tall enough to bump heads with her. That meant she’d have to be the one to lean down and bonk heads with me.
“Right, I see... No wonder everything felt different than normal.”
It seemed she was a little weirded out by being taller than usual too.
“Okay, well...” Hibiki placed her hands on my shoulders and touched her forehead to mine, taking aim. “How hard should I do it?”
“We crashed pretty hard just now... You might have to do it as hard as you can.”
“This is so weird. It feels like I’m headbutting myself...”
“Haha, well, I’m sure it looks even weirder to everyone who’s watching.”
Actually, what the hell was everyone going to think when they saw a guy headbutt a girl with all his might?
“H-Hang on, Hibiki...”
“What’s wrong?”
“Why don’t we, uh, go somewhere less crowded? I’m not sure this is something anyone should see.”
I didn’t exactly want someone to report me (since Hibiki was in my body) for assault.
“Ah, you have a point.”
Hibiki was perfectly understanding and pulled away from me, when all of a sudden...
“Hey, what are you two doing?” someone called out to us.
Hibiki and I both turned to see Chelsea standing there, quite taken aback. She was accompanied by the five girls standing just behind her: Ellicia, Lyun, Sophie, Corona, and Sherlyn. Corona was in her maid outfit while everyone else was in casual streetwear. And they all looked quite stumped. Lyun in particular, however, was blushing.
“W-W-W-Were you two about to k-k-kiss?!” she demanded, thrusting an accusatory finger in our faces.
“What?”
“Huh?”
Confused, Hibiki and I turned to look at each other... And it was only just then that I realized how close together we were.
“Wah!”
“Eep!”
Hibiki backed away from me in surprise first, and it finally dawned on me that what we were doing didn’t look like a headbutt at all. To anyone else, it probably looked like we were leaning in for a kiss.
Since I’d only been looking at my own face (even if it was Hibiki behind it), that hadn’t even occurred to me. Mostly I was just fixated on how unruly my hair was being, as usual. But it didn’t look so innocent to the girls who’d walked up on us.
“Wait a second! This a misunderstanding!”
“How could it be?! What else could you have possibly been doing?!”
“Um, well, we were trying to butt heads...”
“Like I’d believe that!”
Yeah, I wouldn’t expect her to. Why would anyone be headbutting each other?
“Well, it’s the truth.”
“Shut up! Why would you do something like that right where we agreed to meet up right at the time we agreed to meet up?! That’s despicable! Were you trying to flaunt this in front of us?!”
Lyun’s fists were trembling with an intense rage that bubbled up from the depths of her heart. The wind fluttered about us noisily, responding to her anger as a sylpheed.
“Don’t you have something to say too, Nammy?!” Lyun said, glaring at Hibiki standing next to me.
Oh, wait, no... She thought she was staring at me.
“Wait, no... I mean, yeah, I guess,” Hibiki replied belatedly, stumbling for words in her confusion.
Perhaps she wasn’t used to making excuses, as she kept hemming and hawing while Lyun’s displeasure grew and grew.
“Fine! If you won’t say it for yourself, let me ask you outright... Do you love Hibiki, Nammy?!” she demanded snappily.
Hibiki must have been totally flustered. I watched my own cheeks turn bright red as she yelled...
“N-N-No, you’re wrong! Th-Th-There’s no way...! There’s no way R-Rekka would love someone like me! That’s not possible...”
Hibiki continued to stammer and stutter, but no one seemed to be paying attention to the confusing way she was talking. No, they were all focused on what she’d inadvertently reached out and grabbed when she was trying to defend herself. When no one responded, however...
“...?”
She finally looked over and saw where her outstretched hand had fallen, which was right on my chest. Normally that wouldn’t be an issue since it was technically her own chest she was grabbing, but considering the body swap situation, that was going to be hard to explain. To everyone else, it looked like I was groping her.
“STOP MESSING AROUND!” Lyun finally snapped.
It looked like she was about to resort to her wind magic...
“Mark!”
But before that, Sherlyn activated her own magic with me—or rather, Hibiki in my body—as her target.
“Steal!”
And with that, she whisked her away.
“HEY!”
“Ahahaha! Rekka’s mine now!”
Sherlyn was really proving herself as a phantom thief. The execution of this heist was so flawless that not even Corona could stop her.
“Hold it right there, you!”
“Don’t you dare take Rekka!”
“I won’t let you kidnap a fellow Demon King!”
“Wait up, Sis!”
The girls took off after Sherlyn, leaving only a cloud of dust in their wake.
Wow. Really, it was the same scene as always, but seeing it from a different perspective was really eye-opening. Is this really what it looks like to other people? Me getting dragged away like that?
“My, my. It’s not every day Rekka leaves my side.”
It seemed like R was programmed to stay with me, no matter the physical form I took. Not that that was a problem, but... What was going to happen to my body?
“Aren’t you going to go after them too, Chelsea?” I asked the lone girl who’d stayed behind.
“I want to, but I’m worried about you too, Hibiki.”
She meant me in Hibiki’s body, I gues
s.
“But I gotta say, you sure surprised me just now. When did you two get to that kind of relationship?”
“Wait, hold it right there. That’s not what this was.”
I stopped her there and proceeded to explain what had actually happened.
“Huh... So you were trying to headbutt each other to swap back?”
“That’s right. It was not, by any means or measure, a kiss.”
“All right, all right. I get it now,” she said with a casual wave of her hand before looking at me closely. “Hmm, so that’s really you in Hibiki’s body? I swear, it’s just one thing after another with you, isn’t it?”
“You’re telling me...”
Chelsea and I sighed in unison.
I’d already lost track of all the crap I’d been through since spring, but I really wished the world would pump the breaks and life would be a little kinder to me. Pretty please?
“And here I just wanted to enjoy the school festival like normal...”
Chelsea looked pensive as I continued griping, but then the corners of her mouth suddenly perked up into a grin.
“Okay! Then let’s go around the festival together.”
“What? But I should look for Hibiki...”
“Hibiki will be fine. It’s not like her life’s in any danger or anything. There’s no harm in us taking our time to look for her as we walk around.”
She did have a point there.
“But walking around Hibiki’s school looking like Hibiki is...”
Who knew what I might slip up and say accidentally? If I screwed up badly enough, I might even weird out her friends or ruin her reputation or something else awful.
“I can help you out there. It’ll be fine! Unless...”
“?”
“You don’t want to spend time with me?” she asked sheepishly, looking down despondently.
When she made a face like that...
“That’s not it at all. Now come on. Let’s go around together.”
I couldn’t help but agree to her suggestion. Well, walking around the school would probably the fastest way to find Hibiki and the others, anyway. If Chelsea was willing to help out along the way, then all the better.
“But I’m seriously counting on you to help if something happens, okay?”
“You can count on me like you would an older sister! Heehee, how lucky...”
“Huh? What is?”
“Oh, it’s nothing. I’m just happy I get to go on a date with you, Rekka.”
“A what—?!”
“Now, let’s go!”
Chelsea took me by the arm as I yelped, leading me through the school gates. Juumonji High had so many stalls and booths set up outside that they’d had to move all the parking to the nearby community center. The place was overflowing with all kinds of stuff. I could hear the sizzling from the yakisoba stand and the vendors from the jumbo takoyaki stand calling out orders.
“It sure is lively here...”
“Wasn’t your school like this too, Rekka?”
“I don’t think our festival would lose to this one, but we didn’t have this much going on outside.”
I mean, we had outdoor vendors and games and stuff too, but the booths weren’t packed in as soon as you walked in the gates like this. President Momone would probably be displeased.
“Oh, Rekka! I want to try that!”
“Hm? Oh, katanuki,” I murmured as I looked in the direction of the stand Chelsea was pointing at.
“So it’s called katanuki, huh?”
“Yeah, it’s something you don’t see at festivals much anymore. It’s also called diecutting. Basically, you take a little toothpick and try and carve a designated shape out of the mold. If you do it well enough, you usually win some kind of prize.”
It was often prize money, but that didn’t feel appropriate for a school festival. The prizes here were all various items and such.
“Let’s try it, Rekka.”
“Hmm... I’ve actually never done it before.”
“Then it’ll be a first for both of us!” Chelsea said with a smile as she purchased two molds.
“Hey, wait...”
“It’s fine. You don’t have your own wallet right now anyway, right?”
“I’ll pay you back later.”
In my pocket right now was—of course—Hibiki’s wallet. I wasn’t about to open it without her permission, so I agreed to let Chelsea pay for me too. But setting that aside for now, this really was my first time trying katanuki.
“Let’s compete to see who finishes first.”
“Sure.”
And so we somehow ended up turning it into a race. I’ll spare you the uninteresting details about how we worked away in focused silence. Fast forward ten minutes...
“Yay, I’m done!”
“Gah! I was almost there!”
I lost by a hair’s breadth.
“Heh, it was easier than I expected.”
“I was so close. I almost had you.”
I wasn’t used to Hibiki’s body... No, that was an excuse. Anyway, I quickly finished up the rest of my mold so we could both get our prizes and move on.
“What did you get, Rekka?”
“A coupon for the festival. It looks like I can use it at my school too.”
Neat little things like that made the festival collaboration seem worthwhile.
“What should we do next?” asked Chelsea.
“Want to get something to eat?”
“Hmm, I’m not particularly hungry...”
“Then...”
I wasn’t all that hungry yet myself, so I looked around the stands for something fun to do.
“Ah, what about target shooting?”
“Sounds good!”
And so we walked over to the shooting range. At a hundred yen an attempt, it was a fairly cheap activity. That said, the shelves were lined with relatively inexpensive prizes, so it probably balanced out in the end. There was no flashy grand prize that was fixed to the shelves or anything, either. That aspect actually made the game more enjoyable, which was pretty nice.
“Rekka, how confident are you in your marksmanship?”
“I’m pretty good at target shooting.”
“Then let’s have another battle.”
“I’ll win this time for sure.”
Fired up, I leaned forward against the counter to steady myself and take aim... but I felt a strange pressure on my chest.
“Hm?”
Wondering why it was kind of hard to breathe, I looked down and realized I had two somethings squished between me and the counter.
“Uwah!”
I straightened myself up in a fluster, which relieved the pressure and instantly made it easier to breathe. I reflexively started to put my hand on my chest and sigh in relief, but stopped myself at the last second. That was a close call. Uncomfortably close.
“What? Why would you stop there? Feeling up your new boobs is totally on the top-five list of things boys want to do when they turn into girls.”
R insulted my restraint, but my heart was pounding too loudly for me to even properly hear her.
These weren’t my boobs at all; they were Hibiki’s. I wouldn’t dare touch them without her consent. I’d just have to watch myself, though I have to say that they were apparently a lot more supple than I’d thought... And as my thoughts turned to my chest, I couldn’t help but remember how Hibiki had grabbed it earlier.
“...!”
I could feel my cheeks turn bright red. I never thought the day would come where I’d have my chest groped by a girl. Honest to God.
“Argh, enough!”
I shook my head furiously and put such thoughts out of my mind for now.
“Um... Are you all right?”
The attendant at the shooting range called out to me in a concerned voice. I could understand why he’d be concerned about a customer suddenly starting to act strange with a loaded popgun.
“Sorry, I’ll shoot now
.”
I choked back my blushing and readied my rifle once more. This time, I took a slightly more unnatural stance hovering over the counter instead.
“Heh heh....” Chelsea giggled with amusement as she watched me struggle.
▽
After we left the shooting range, we found a stand serving freshly squeezed juice and used our coupons to buy drinks there.
“Looks like I’ve won twice in a row,” Chelsea gloated with a grin as she took a sip of her juice.
“Urgh...”
I was honestly frustrated, but it was more about my... chest complications... than losing to Chelsea. I was getting more and more antsy about finding Hibiki and the others.
“Oh, Rekka, let’s do that next.”
“Hm?”
Chelsea was pointing to a tall apparatus with graduated lines marked up and down it. The lines indicated points, which increased as they got up towards the top of the pole-like structure. At the base of the pole was what looked like a flat, round disk that said “hit here.” Sitting next to that was a gigantic hammer.
“The ‘hammer challenge for two,’ huh? Do we hit that with the hammer or something?”
“It looks like the harder you hit it, the higher the little device goes up on the pole.”
“So you’re supposed to hit it as hard as you can?”
It was basically just a hammer version of the traditional hit-it-real-hard punching bag game.
“Welcome, ladies! Step right up to the hammer challenge!”
“The two of us would like a go,” Chelsea said as she paid the attendant.
“All right, then it’s another match.”
“What are you saying, silly? It says ‘for two,’ doesn’t it? We’re supposed to swing the hammer together.”
“Huh?”
“Come on! Hurry up!”
At Chelsea’s behest, I grabbed the handle of the hammer with her. It was ridiculously oversized, and there was plenty of room for four hands on the handle. That wasn’t the problem...
“Rekka, scooch this way some.”
“Oh, okay.”
I did as I was told and moved closer to Chelsea.
“Come on! Get closer! We won’t be able to put enough strength into it otherwise.”
“I guess... But, um, isn’t this a bit too close?”
“Who cares? I don’t, and you’re a girl right now anyway.”
I Saved Too Many Girls and Caused the Apocalypse: Volume 13 Page 8
