Sleepless Nights (4)
"GYAAAHHHH!!!"
Mizuki screams at the sight of horror, that is her eye.
"I LOOK LIKE A DRUG ADDICT!!! HOW DID THIS HAPPEN?!!"
During recess, a female student is harassing, strangling the life out of a bespectacled male student and shaking him violently.
"OY OY! What's the meaning of this?! And what's with the spiral glasses AH?!"
Mizuki talks like a middle aged yakuza grunt. Demanding explanation from Daisuke for her unsightly new look like a bully shaking down a nerd, dropping his glasses in the process and revealing a classic numerical 3 as his eye.
He explains with his fingers pointing upward like a nerd even without his glasses, keeping up his deformed eye.
"In theory, that phenomenon is highly unlikely to be resulted from your new transformation method. Such state is not that different from normal state of dreaming. More specifically lucid dreaming. While there are the possibility of getting tired from frequent-"
"Huh?! Yer trying to escape the blame now?! What else could it be then?!"
"While frequent and continuous instances of lucid dreaming could tire your brain. Just the first instance shouldn't exhaust your brain anymore than a typical dream. Although.."
Resting his chin on his thumb, Daisuke shoot an inquisitive look while still maintaining the comical nerd eye towards Mizuki.
"There can always be some other factors beyond that..."
He stares analytically for a solid minute or two to the point where even the angry Mizuki is uncomfortable.
"Umm.. uhh... W-what is it..?"
The intense yet non hostile gaze cancels out even her rash attacks from just now.
"Nothing... we'll continue tonight. But just in case, I'll figure something else for you to do.
The duo is roaming about outside in their SP form (Reitai). While Daisuke is glued to the ground spraying and collecting samples, Mizuki is carrying a bunch of bags and bottles, walking behind him.
"I'm glad that I don't have to be up close with that horrible spray anymore but... do you really need my help with this...?"
She questions while yawning by the end.
Without turning to her he explains
"Even if we don't know how badly the spray can affect your real body, at least you can still help with the case like this"
He holds out his hand, holding a coagulated SP (Reichitsu) sample on the other end of his tweezers, signalling Mizuki to collect them inside one of the empty containers she's carrying.
"Also consider this a part of your training. Creating solid objects using your Reichitsu is the most basic thing you need to master"
"even so.. this is the tenth jar I've created tonight, and it's tiring when half of them keeps breaking..."
Her whining starts and ends with a yawn, an evident to her exhaustion.
As she loses focus from yawning, the next jar she's creating starts breaking immediately.
"Mou! This is boring!!!"
At school the next day, Mizuki yawns some more while trying her best to keep her head up in class. Her sore eyes focusing on the teacher, struggling to keep open.
'Uuuhhh... I can't even focus during Matthew's class. I feel more tired after waking up this morning, and his boring lectures aren't helping me stay awake either'
Just earlier in class she was getting called out by that male teacher, nicknamed Matthew by the students from his original Matsumoto surname for being an English teacher. The stoic man is a bit on the stricter side when teaching even though his lesson are always so lengthy and unengaging.
Although with how many times he called her name earlier just to get her back inside the class, he's not fully to be blamed for getting irritated. Even Mizuki's promise to put more effort into listening to his lesson is not fruitful.
Before Mizuki realizes it, just as Matthew have his attention back towards her, her eyelids are already hugging each other. She can no longer hear or see the lesson.
'Maybe... just for a quick minute...'
As she's thinking that, the male teacher who's been calling out to her gets mad at her for not focusing in class and throw a chalk her way, headshotting her backward off her seat.
For the next few classes after recess, Mizuki looks even more miserable and drowsy. Sleeping soundly in class while a female teacher is staring intently at the rude student. After several calls that fell on deaf ears, the teacher gets so annoyed that she breaks the half used chalk in her grip. Even after riddling Mizuki with several chalk shot, most of which deflects off her tough skull and falling into a heap nearby, the girl still manages to sleep through all that.
Eventually Mizuki got punished to stand outside the class for her 'disrespectful' attitude during lessons.
"Ahhh... I guess those simple chalk bullets aren't enough to contain my power anymore..."
She comments by herself. Still half asleep even while standing up and balancing two half filled buckets of water on each hand. Not heavy enough to serve as workout but just enough load to supposedly keep the 'criminal' awake.
"Such is the fate of this poor soul..."
She wallows in self pity while still holding in her yawn.
Until the realization.
"Wait... Why isn't Daisuke getting punished too? How does he manage to-WHAAATT?!!"
as she wonders how that guy is doing, she turns back only to see him soundly asleep on his desk without anyone batting an eye, not the other students around her and definitely not the middle aged female teacher who punished her.
"Gaaagghhh?!! He's sleeping so casually! And so exposed too! Why isn't he getting called out?!!"
"Ahh that. Because of the illusion."
Daisuke casually explains when confronted by Mizuki tonight.
"HUUH?! What do you mean 'the illusion'? This is not fair! How are you the only one getting away with it!?"
She questions, dissatisfied with his casual tone
"This is unfair! Teach me too!"
And taking advantage of the situation.
"Firstly, I need to maintain the illusion because my body is still unstable. I can't have my arm falling off at school and being seen by others"
Daisuke justifies his actions, eyes closed and fixing his spiral glasses as he answers.
"Uughh, sounds like an excuse... but fine. Then teach me too!"
She demands. Getting distracted in the process from the jar she's creating and breaking it too together with her focus. Releasing the sample in it back onto the road.
"Oops..."
Daisuke just casually collects the sample back and just as easily creates a jar from his SP to put the sample in.
"Secondly, you're not ready to learn illusion if you haven't even mastered this. Now focus! The sooner we can find the right sample, the sooner we can shift onto a more effective training"
She whines after finishing a yawn, with tears dropping from her eyes from yawning too much tonight.
"Geehh... but this is getting boring..."
Suddenly
(Mii chan? Why aren't you asleep yet?)
Fuuka's concerned voice rings inside Mizuki's head. Alarming her.
"This is..."
Daisuke also notice something with Mizuki's body. From her nape, her body is getting stretched out or rather pulled out from that spot into the direction of her home.
"Your SP link is pulling you back, hand me the samples"
"Waaahh what's happening to me?!!"
Mizuki panics from her first experience with this situation.
"Don't worry, this is safe. It'll just feel like waking up from a dream."
He reassures while grabbing the jars from her.
"But isn't this too earl-"
Before Mizuki could react to his last sentence, she got pulled instantly into the direction of her SP link. Almost like a cloud of dust getting vacuumed into a long narrow tube. The trace of her SP link erases itself as she makes her way back to her original body. Luckily she left it on her bed, tucked under her blanket, before going out with Daisuke each night so she'll have a soft landing.
But a question remains while she's getting transported.
'why is Mom saying I'm not asleep yet?'
But the answer to that short question brings about even more problems.
As Mizuki returns to her body in her room. It feels just like Daisuke described, like waking up from a dream. She's experience this twice already so this third time isn't anything new to her. Just like the usual, she wakes up from her sleep, barely remember the details of last night investigation, feels very groggy after waking and yet still gets up from bed to go to school. At least it's supposed to be like usual. The difference this time is that her mom is waking her up instead of her alarm, and that it's still night instead of the usual morning, and where exactly she wakes up this time.
It puzzles her with more question than answer, most immediately being
'why am I standing... by the window...?'