Note Progress

The club meeting for Saturday ended, but the day was far from over.

Ever since I found out Koji's birthday was one day before mine, I couldn't stop thinking about what gift to get him. Although I could buy something nice, I wanted to give him something special that I made. The only thing I could think of was making a song, but my music knowledge was far from enough to make one. Luckily, I knew the perfect person that could help me.

As everyone left the room, I called Tomoki-san.

"Tomoki-san! Can I talk to you for a bit?"

Confused, he replied, "Sure. What is it?"

"Let's wait until everyone leaves. It's a bit embarrassing."

"Sure."

One minute later, the room was empty. Even Natsuhiko-sensei had left.

"Okay." I took a deep breath. "Tomoki-san, can you teach me how to write a song?"

He suddenly laughed. I stared at him, confused.

"Sorry. For a moment I thought you were about to ask me out."

"No, no. I actually want to write a song for my boyfriend as a gift, but I know nothing about songwriting."

"Is it Araki-san?"

"…Why does everyone know about it?"

"It's pretty obvious. Anyway, I'll gladly help you."

"Thank you! Can we start now?"

"Sure. Do you have something in mind? Lyrics? Rhythm?"

"Well, I only know that I don't want it to have any lyrics. And the rhythm must be slow and epic."

"That's oddly specific."

"Yeah," I giggled, scratching my head. "He loves video games and their soundtracks, so I was looking for something like that."

"I see. Those are good leads to start with. Let's not waste any more time and begin."

And so he taught me a lot of things about songwriting. Most of it was focused on the kind of song I wanted to make so as not to waste too much time. Everything went smoothly, except for him asking about Narumi and Hisaki, which was a bit unexpected. We continued for an hour before he had to leave. We agreed to see each other every Saturday and talk on the phone if we had the time.

I stepped out of the room after Tomoki-san had left. Wondering if Koji was still with Oshiro, I texted him. He quickly replied to tell me he was in the Art Club room, which was right beside the Music Club room. It only took me a few steps to arrive.

I entered and saw Koji and the teacher sitting next to a weird painting. They talked about emotions and connections, which was even weirder. They seemed to be really into the topic, so I felt bad for interrupting after approaching.

"Suzuka," Koji said.

"Hi."

"Before you say anything, what do you think about this painting?"

Confused, I observed the painting closely. "I don't know what to say. It's just random lines and colors. Why do you ask?"

"I just painted it."

"Eh?"

"Don't worry, even I think it's a mess. But I felt a connection as I painted it. As if I painted my emotions. I look at it and it reminds me of how I felt."

"That means you like painting?"

"I do. It's too early to tell if it is my passion or not, but it feels like a step forward."

"I'm glad!" I grinned. "Do you want to stay longer?"

"No, we were just about to finish talking," he answered. He stood up and bowed in front of the teacher. "Thank you for giving me this opportunity."

"You're welcome," he replied. "You should thank Oshiro-san as well. She was the one that brought you here and convinced me to let you use our stuff. Now I'm glad she did."

"I will."

Koji and I stepped out of the room.

"What should we do now?" I asked.

"I don't know. We could practice for the sprinting competition."

"Good idea," I replied. "Wait. We don't even know if you can participate."

"You're right."

"We should ask Shimamura-sensei. Maybe she's still in the Science Club room."

Unfortunately, she wasn't. Luckily, there were a few people still doing things in the room and they told us that she had just left. Hoping she headed to the staff room, we walked all the way down to the first floor. Fortunately, she was. We stepped inside.

"Shimamura-sensei," I called.

"Hey, Suzuka and Araki-kun. What brings you both here?"

Ever since she told me she had missed me, we chatted often. She was even one of the first people I told about Koji and me. And she told me a lot about her love problems with Yasue-sensei. We always had a lot of fun.

"Koji wants to participate in the sprinting competition on Sports Day."

Her expression quickly switched into surprise. "Really? I didn't know you liked sports. Let alone sprinting."

"I don't like them that much, but I want to try," Koji replied.

She didn't seem convinced at all. She then inspected Koji's body from top to bottom.

"Your body does have a very nice shape for sprinting. But I'm not sure. Quite a few students want the opportunity as well. Why would I give it to you and not them? Have you ever sprinted before?"

"I—"

I elbowed his side. "He has. I've seen him and he's really fast. It's just that he doesn't compete."

She stared at me for a second before looking back at Koji.

"Coming from Suzuka, it means that you must be insanely fast. Suzuka, are you sure about his skills? Is it worth it to leave someone with more experience out?"

Troubled, I remained silent. Not only was I lying, but I was about to take someone else's chance for my own pleasure. However, I was tired of always thinking about other people before thinking about myself. I wanted to be selfish for once.

"Yes, I'm sure," I answered.

She stayed silent for a while. "Okay, you can compete."

"Thank you," Koji said.

"You should thank Suzuka. See you on Monday."

Holding her belongings, she stepped out of the room and I let out a long sigh.

"Are you okay?" Koji asked.

"I'm a horrible person. I just made someone lose a big opportunity for my selfishness."

"Yes, but I'm guessing you're tired of always thinking about everyone else before yourself."

Bewildered, I stared at him. Did he read my mind?

"It's nice to be selfish from time to time. I even think it's attractive."

Not knowing how to react, I laughed. "Really? Is that some kind of fetish?"

"I… don't think so?"

"Whatever. Let's go practice."

We stepped out of the room and the school and walked to the nearby town. There weren't many people outside and the surroundings were very pretty, accompanied by a refreshing breeze. We sat on a bench next to the river that ran through the middle of the town and held each other's hand to wait for us to swap.

Once we woke up, I started jogging around. Obviously, Koji couldn't keep up because of my ankle. However, I didn't even jog for thirty minutes; I hadn't thought about how uncomfortable and weird it was to run with the school uniform. Since we hadn't planned to do it today, we didn't have spare clothes. Still, it was enough to get an idea of how strange it was to do something I was so used to doing before in another body.

We took a train and returned home. The rest of the day was boring and Sunday quickly arrived.

Normally, the bakery would open on Sunday, but it wasn't a normal day. It was time for my parents to come to an agreement with Koji's parents. Sadly, I couldn't do more than stay at home and take care of Yu-tan. Still, I always had fun staying with her since I got to teach her a lot of stuff and play.

My parents returned by noon. They entered the house and Yu-tan ran to welcome them.

"Mom! Dad! Do you bring food?"

"Yes, we did," Dad smiled.

I approached and couldn't hide my anxiety.

"How was it?! Did you get it?!"

Mom walked towards me and placed her hand on my shoulder before sighing.

"I didn't."

"You… didn't?"

"Yes, because your father did."

"Wait, what?"

"We wouldn't both abandon the bakery, so we decided that I'm going to stay and your father is going to work at the main Araki restaurant in the city."

Dad grinned at me. "I'm going to become the Head Baker."

Unable to contain my excitement, I jumped and squeezed him. Yu-tan copied me.

"I'm so happy! But that means that you'll be insanely busy."

"Yes," Mom replied. "But you have to think about the money. I think you can get an idea if I tell you that the salary of one month is more than we have earned in the last six months."

My jaw dropped.

"Our jaws dropped too when we were told the salary," Dad laughed.

"Does that mean that you won't have to worry about going bankrupt anymore?"

"Exactly."

About to cry out of happiness, I took a deep breath so I could hold my tears back. We then headed into the kitchen to prepare lunch. Later in the day, my parents called Makoto to invite her to eat dinner with us so they could tell her the big news.

I was extremely happy with life. The following week went smoothly and Kawahara asked us to go to Hosei University again for the experiment's results. Although this time neither Tarō nor her were going to be there since there weren't going to be more experiments. Hopefully.

The weekend arrived and Koji and I headed to the university just like last time. We got out of the taxi and saw Mrs. Kawahara right away. She was looking at her phone while standing next to the entrance.

"Hi, Mrs. Kawahara," I greeted.

"Good evening," Koji added.

"Good evening to both of you," she replied. "Let's head to the laboratory."

Without wasting any time, we followed her through the campus and stepped into the same laboratory as before.

"I apologize for the results taking this long, but your case is something extraordinary and I didn't want to miss any details."

"I think it was very fast," I replied.

Koji nodded.

Mrs. Kawahara continued, "I must say I was quite reluctant to believe you when you came two weeks ago. I believed Enko's and Tarō-kun's reports were poorly made and examined. But, after seeing my results, I must admit they are very similar to Enko's."

"Really? And what do you think? Do you know what's happening to us?" I asked.

"Unfortunately, I don't. And I most likely won't for the foreseeable future."

Her words hit like a punch in the chest.

"However, after compiling all the available data and meticulously studying it, I came up with a few hypotheses."

"Really?! What are they?"

"I quickly discarded all of them."

My chest kept being beaten. I didn't want to say anything anymore.

"Except for one," she added. "One that I, sadly, must admit, agreed with Enko."

Does she hate the fact that Enko helped her that much?

She continued, "Thanks to the blood tests, I was able to discover unbelievable things. Supernatural, I would say."

Really? She too?

"I found cells never seen before in both of your samples. They were similar enough to be able to tell they were the same kind of cell but, at the same time, they were unique to your blood. After you swapped bodies, your blood samples still had your cells but, magically, the cells were now mixed up."

"So, my cells transferred to Suzuka's blood and her cells transferred to mine?"

"Precisely."

"How is that possible?" I asked.

"The only explanation I can think of is that it happens when your skin has direct contact. Somehow, these cells manage to move from one body to another."

"Amazing," I said.

"And what do these cells have?" Koji asked.

"Studying them will take a lot more time. My hypothesis is that they contain the data needed for the swap. Then they travel through the bloodstream until reaching and taking over the brain, spreading all the data. There must be a reason for them to wait until you fall asleep."

Unable to process it, I said, "This is crazy."

"It is," Mrs. Kawahara replied. "And there are dozens of questions to be answered. Sadly, it will take a long time. Months, at the very least."

"That means we won't be able to stop swapping for a while," Koji said.

"I'm afraid not."

As gutted as I was, I felt relieved for at least having an idea of what was happening to our bodies. In theory.

"Thank you for doing this despite our case sounding like fantasy, Mrs. Kawahara," I said.

"I should be the one thanking you. Having the lead on this research greatly increases my chances of finding the cure before anyone else."

"There's no one else researching it?" Koji asked.

"There are no public records, so I'd say no. Obviously, there might be someone that is hiding it just like me, but I doubt it."

"I see. Thank you, anyway."

I nodded. "Please let us know if we can help more."

"Until I finish studying the current data and samples, there won't be a need for more experiments. However, I do have a question for you."

"What is it?"

"Has Enko told you anything about her relationship with Tarō-kun? For some reason, she refuses to tell me more than the fact that they are dating."

I answered, "Well, she only told us that she asked him out because she kept feeling weird being around him. She had never thought of dating someone, but she was curious and wanted to know more about it, so she decided to experience it first hand."

I hope she doesn't get mad at me for telling her mom all of this. She wasn't telling her for a reason, after all.

"I see," Mrs. Kawahara replied. "It's similar to what happened to me, then. Thank you for telling me."

"You're welcome."

After talking a bit more, Mrs. Kawahara gave us a ride back home.