Outbreak Company: Volume 14

by Ichiro Sakaki

  “Yes, sir,” Myusel said, nodding. She set the laundry basket on the floor, came over, and took the clothes I’d collected, along with the article of ladies’ underwear. She calmly went back and returned them all to the basket. I watched her, sort of vacantly.

  “So even his underwear is girls’ clothing...” I mumbled.

  There was a very long pause as I pictured Hikaru-san in my mind. I was aware he was very beautiful, so much so that if nobody told you, it would be easy to take him for a girl. From his long, black hair to his impeccable Gothic-Loli outfit, there was no flaw in his look: all of it suited him perfectly. But it hadn’t even occurred to me that a predilection for wearing women’s clothes would extend to his underwear. I did recall him and me hiding out in the backyard once in our underwear—or really, in some swimsuits—but that had been because Minori-san had gone mad from BL withdrawal. It wasn’t anything from Hikaru-san’s personal wardrobe. In fact, they had actually been men’s competition swimsuits.

  But this... Man, this was some commitment. Women’s underwear. Typically, when you were cross-dressing or cosplaying, nobody saw your underwear. Unless you had some reason to assume somebody was going to see your delicates, why go out of your way to cross-dress that stuff, too? What if somebody put on women’s underwear not because he expected anyone to see it, but just because he himself enjoyed dressing up as a woman? That would be understandable.

  Hmm?

  “Come to think of it, I never actually asked Hikaru-san,” I mused. “Does he see himself as a man who enjoys wearing women’s clothes? Or does he actually want to be a woman?”

  “I believe he said once that he began doing it to make his parents happy, and simply continued,” Myusel said thoughtfully.

  “Oh yeah, I guess he did. But wearing women’s underwear seems like a bit much if you’re just doing it for appearances. Maybe it, like, started that way, but now it’s something different.”

  “I wonder...”

  “There’s a lot of things I can’t quite figure out about that guy,” I said.

  “What’s up?” someone asked. It was Minori-san, who had appeared in the hallway. I guess if I had seen two people standing next to a huge basket of laundry and whispering with each other, I would have been curious, too. “Anything wrong?”

  “No, not really wrong,” I said with a half-smile. “I was just... wondering why Hikaru-san dresses as a girl.”

  “What, Hikaru-kun?”

  “Uh-huh. Like, does he see himself as a guy who enjoys cross-dressing—almost like a sort of performance—or is it maybe something more? Like, you know... uhh...” I looked for the most delicate way to put it.

  Minori-san, though, after blinking behind her glasses for a second, beat me to it, asking bluntly: “Is it gender dysphoria, you mean?”

  “I guess. I mean, I’m not looking to diagnose him or something.” Hikaru-san could feel like or be whatever gender he wanted inside; it wouldn’t change anything. “I was just sort of curious about why.”

  “Mmm,” Minori-san said, crossing her arms. I guess she hadn’t given it much thought, either. It just seemed that natural, or that typical, maybe, for Hikaru-san to wear girls’ clothes. We never even questioned it. “If it were just cross-dressing, I guess gender dysphoria might be a strong possibility. But he likes to cosplay as anime characters, too, right? Remember how he did Suiren?”

  “Now that you mention it, yeah, I do.”

  Back when he had first met Petralka, he had gone out of his way to cosplay as a character from Rose Princess, a show the empress had been obsessed with at the time.

  “People cross-dress for cosplay all the time without having gender dysphoria,” Minori-san said. “I dress in guys’ clothes, myself.”

  “Oh yeah,” I said. Minori-san, I was given to understand, had gravitated toward cosplaying male characters because of a sense her father would have accepted her more readily if she’d been a boy. But that wasn’t the same as wishing she could be a guy, and that wasn’t the vibe I got from her.

  “Cosplay contests are a trip,” Minori-san told me. “You’re in the changing room with some cute young woman, and before your eyes she turns into a lady-killer of a guy. Or you glance in the men’s room as you go by, and everyone lined up along the wall looks like a woman.”

  The idea of a men’s room full of women (even if they were just guys in costume) was so surreal it made me a little dizzy. So there were people in frilly dresses lined up at the urinals or something? It seemed like it would be chaos.

  “Of course, they might be in character, but it doesn’t mean they want to be someone of the opposite sex necessarily,” Minori-san added.

  “And I know there are some people who obviously do it for laughs,” I said. Overseas, I’d even heard of middle-aged men who dressed up like pretty-girl characters and paraded around. They were all smiles when they appeared in photographs. So did guys like that feel, inside, that they were actually women? Probably not, for the most part. More likely, they were just amused by the total disconnect between the adorable costume and how they looked as men. The whole point was to dress in something that looked a little ridiculous.

  “If you’re really dedicated to getting the character, though, there are lots of things you can do. The perfectionists go to incredible lengths. I mean details you can’t even see.”

  “Could that include underwear?”

  “I guess for some people, maybe?” Minori-san said matter-of-factly. “There’s plenty of places online where you can get women’s underwear for men.”

  “So they do sell that kind of thing?”

  “Sure they do. You can get padded bras to give yourself a decent bust, and even stuff for the lower half that, you know, hides what’s down there. Ahh, I see what this is about.” Minori-san seemed to have figured out why Myusel and I had been talking about Hikaru-san’s cross-dressing. “He seems like the type who would be a stickler for details like that, doesn’t he?”

  “Okay then...”

  “Only way to be sure would be to ask him, though.”

  “I was afraid of that.”

  “That’s an awfully nice bra for someone who’s just having fun with it, though,” Minori-san remarked.

  “Isn’t it, though? I’m almost a little jealous,” Myusel said, smiling shyly. I guess Hikaru-san made a pretty girl even from the perspective of an actual girl like Myusel.

  ............Um. Hold on.

  “I just had a thought,” I said, looking at Minori-san. “If Hikaru-san is really just doing it because he enjoys looking like someone of the opposite sex, or putting on cute clothes or something, then what do you think would happen if he wound up in one of those plots like they’re always doing in anime and manga and stuff? You know, ‘I woke up one day and I was the opposite sex!’ That sort of thing. You think he’d panic?”

  “Hm?” Minori-san said, putting a thoughtful finger to her mouth.

  Whoa, it’s so cute the way she does that! I think it’s against the rules to look that good doing that when you’re over twenty already! I was starting to think Minori-san’s insides didn’t match her outside—but anyway, back to business.

  “I don’t know. I think Hikaru-kun is uncommonly easygoing.”

  “Yeah, fair point.”

  “Gotta say, though, Shinichi-kun, that’s some imagination you’ve got.”

  “Nah, I was just reading something earlier with one of those stories in it.”

  This trope can take a couple of different forms: a guy can wake up one day having turned into a girl, or a guy and a girl can swap bodies. To be fair, there might be a certain value in it: boys are interested in girls’ bodies, and vice versa. But either experience would probably be a secret you’d carry with you to your grave.

  “Um, I’m afraid I have to start making dinner,” Myusel said, and excused herself from the conversation.

  It wasn’t like I had ever thought that hard about any of this, anyway. Minori-san and I parted ways, and I trotted after Myus
el in case she needed help carrying the laundry. The talk turned to dinner, and five minutes later I had forgotten I was ever curious about Hikaru-san’s cross-dressing.

  It had truly been a passing thought, meaningless, going nowhere.

  Certainly nothing that would have tipped me off to what was about to happen.

  Nothing that would have made me imagine that the very next day, my hypothetical question would come true.

  For a moment, my consciousness felt sort of... floaty.

  My eyes drifted open.

  “Mn...” A thin but welcoming shaft of sunlight came into my room through a crack between the curtains. I could hear a faint twittering of birds. The message was clear: morning was here.

  “Mnnn...”

  I squeezed my eyes shut for a second, then gave a big stretch. I hardly remembered falling asleep. I recalled staying up late going over a list of stuff to be imported to Eldant in the near future.

  Finally I opened my eyes, and was greeted by the sight of my familiar Gothic-Lolita dress. That’s right—I’d been planning to catch a bath once I got to a good stopping point in my work. But first I had lain down on my bed to catch a quick wink—and everything after that was a blank. I must have fallen right to sleep. There were a few aspects of my Lolita outfits that bordered on feeling like bondage gear, like the exceptionally tight chest. It could be such a relief to take it off that sometimes I would just get very sleepy all of a sudden.

  Come to think of it, I hadn’t even removed the choker Romilda had given me the day before. But anyway, bath first. I would have to ask Brooke to heat the water. A wry smile came over my face as I looked at myself slumbering on the bed, not even under the covers, still in my dress.

  “Huh...?” I felt myself tense with confusion.

  There was Ayasaki Hikaru, sleeping peacefully on the bed in his Gothic-Lolita dress.

  And here I was, lying next to him, buck naked.

  ...........................................................................

  “Hrgh?!” I jolted upright. I, Ayasaki Hikaru, was definitely asleep. Thanks to my cosplaying, I spent plenty of time looking at myself in mirrors and taking selfies and stuff. A lot of people probably weren’t nearly as familiar with their own faces as I was, and maybe the reason it took me a second to register this bizarre turn of events was because I was so accustomed to seeing myself.

  What turn of events was this? Was I dreaming? Having an out-of-body experience? These days, I lived in an alternate world full of elves and dwarves and lizardmen, where magic was an everyday thing. Maybe astral travel was totally normal, too. Maybe you could do it with magic or something.

  I realized I was so confused I could hardly think straight. Almost unconsciously, I brushed my long hair out of my face, and the sensation alerted me that this was neither a dream nor a disembodied journey. Physical sensation was present and accounted for. Or was even that part of the illusion?

  I looked down to take an inventory of my body.

  “............”

  I felt my mind go blank. I was completely naked. And hey, that was fine. In a person’s own room, they can wear whatever they want—or don’t want, as the case may be. I seemed to remember some Greek myth about some guy who fell in love with himself when he saw his own face in a pool of water, but at least I didn’t have that problem.

  Not normally, anyway. But...

  “I... I can’t believe this...”

  I was particular about my appearance, always making sure to attend to my hair and complexion. So it wasn’t the pale, healthy glow of my skin that surprised me. No, I was wondering why my chest seemed so... round.

  I put a hand to my chest, discovering a slight but distinct weight. It was unmistakable. This was no illusion. Being seriously obese could produce that effect, of course, but it so happened that no other part of my body seemed so swollen. In fact, I looked exceptionally taut all over. Which all suggested one thing.

  I sat and thought about it for a moment. I had a bad feeling about this. I know I dress in women’s clothes pretty much every day, but I am a man. I don’t wear women’s clothes out of some desire to deny that. I’m not interested in any sex-change surgery, and I still get perfectly excited if I see a naked woman. (At least if she’s my type.)

  But anyway... After a long moment, I gathered my nerves and looked down. My gaze moved over the breasts... past my navel...

  “Eeeeeeeek!”

  A scream wrenched its way out of my lips. What should have been there... wasn’t!

  A wave of confusion swept over me as I sat there, confronted with this fact. I was sure it had been there as recently as yesterday. I mean, it was attached to me! And now there was no trace of it! In its place was a woman’s—

  “B-But why?!”

  I was in a girl’s body, all right. I just didn’t have the faintest idea how I’d gotten there. It wasn’t a dream. It wasn’t an illusion. As hard as it was to accept, this was real.

  “Hikaru-san, what’s wrong?!” Someone was knocking urgently on my door, trying to ascertain what was happening to me. It was Shinichi-san. And I was sure he wasn’t alone. I could hear someone else on the other side of the door, too. Myusel, probably. They must have heard my scream and wondered what was wrong.

  Crap. That was my first thought. I hardly even knew what I was thinking it about.

  “H-Hey... It’s... n-n-n—”

  I was in such a panic I could hardly talk.

  I’m fine. That’s all I had to say, but all I could manage were trembling syllables that could only make Shinichi-san and Myusel think something was really wrong. And Myusel had a spare key to every room. It seemed like only a matter of time until they came in to check on me. It should have been easy: I should have just exclaimed, “I’m fine!” or “Don’t come in!” But all I could manage was inarticulate gibbering as they pushed open the door.

  Not just pushed it open, either; the door flew inward, and in bounded Shinichi-san and Myusel, just as I’d expected. “Hikaru-san, what’s... wrong............”

  Behind them, Minori-san and Elvia were there, too.

  There was a short, heavy silence, and then Shinichi-san let out a single befuddled syllable.

  “...............What?”

  Myusel, Minori-san, and even Elvia were just standing there, saucer-eyed. Everyone was understandably shocked at my... nakedness.

  “Hikaru......san?”

  “I think so,” I said, not feeling entirely sure myself. For the time being, I did the only thing I could do—arrange my hands to try to preserve my modesty.

  The mansion was normally bright and full of life, but now it felt oddly... stifling. Anxious. Confused. Shaken. Maybe even a little panicked. Along with any other synonyms for “disturbed” you might come up with. Nobody knew exactly what was going on, but we were all very concerned about it. Including, of course, the person at the center of it all, namely me. But everyone else was so freaked out that I looked positively calm by comparison.

  Sitting on the living room sofas were me, Shinichi-san, and Minori-san. Behind Shinichi-san and Minori-san stood Myusel, Brooke, and Cerise, collectively facing me. In other words, all eyes were on me. I found myself feeling a little uncomfortable. I tried to glance away from them, down to my knees, but then I couldn’t help noticing the bulge of my chest in my peripheral vision, and that made it all the more difficult to keep my composure. Outwardly, it didn’t look so different from when I was wearing padding, but wearing a brassiere that was actually touching my skin—it was, well, different. My intense awareness of the fact made it hard to ignore the swell. I had sure never expected that the women’s underwear I had might come in handy in this particular way.

  While I had turned into a woman, on a positive note, I hadn’t gotten any taller, shorter, thinner, or fatter, so all my clothes still fit. That was a major relief. I mean, one way or another, I couldn’t go around naked all day.

  Incidentally, on my left hand was an interpreter ring, swiped from
my sleeping “self.” I felt a little bad stealing from him, but without it, I couldn’t hope to communicate with Myusel and the other Eldant people.

  “Um, so. Hikaru-san, is that... really you?” Shinichi-san said, just to be sure.

  “Yes, it’s me,” I nodded, at which Shinichi-san and Minori-san traded confused looks.

  I understood—believe me, I did. For starters, the man they knew perfectly well as Ayasaki Hikaru was currently asleep on the bed in my—his?—room. From their perspective, he might be the real Hikaru, and I might be some kind of imposter, or maybe a joke in really bad taste.

  And was I really Ayasaki Hikaru? Or was I someone else who was simply convinced they were Hikaru?

  “I was like this when I woke up,” I insisted. It was all I could say.

  “All right, well... mind if I ask you a few questions?” Shinichi-san said.

  “Shoot,” I replied. I was just as eager as he was to know exactly who or what I was at this point. If it turned out I wasn’t Hikaru, then at least that would be something to go on. Better than having no idea at all.

  “Umm...”

  “Describe Kanou Shinichi in one word.”

  “Loser.”

  While Shinichi-san dithered about what to ask first, Minori-san shot out ahead with an off-the-cuff request that I responded to completely on instinct.

  “Sounds like the real Hikaru-kun to me.”

  “What kind of question was that?!” Shinichi-san nearly exploded. But Minori-san just grinned, not a shadow of remorse on her face. “Shall I ask for more details?”

  “.......................................No. That’s okay.” Shinichi-san wilted. He walked over to a corner of the room and faced the wall, from where we could hear him muttering, “What can you do?” and “I mean, me too, I...” Well, we could leave him to it.

  After that, Minori-san peppered me with questions about various anime and manga, and I was able to answer them all fluently. When she asked me, finally, “What were you wearing the day you first met Her Majesty?” I immediately replied, “A Suiren costume.”