"I'm on my sleep cycle."
Yeah, like a fish. ... Do fish sleep?
Tsubomi's luck seemed to have packed up its things and hopped on the train that was Oros. Shortly after the tree branch, she heard the door to her room as well, though she couldn't manage to move her head to look. So she did the next best thing, the thing she was best at, trying to sleep. Deep down, she felt like she wanted to throw some of her trademark apathy towards whoever had just walked in, trying to make them ignore her completely and turn around, but she had neither the interest nor ability to do so presently. She couldn't even feel what she could only analogize to her "magic muscle" to try to use it. Much like her actual muscles, it was pushed past its comfortable limits and needed to rest.
"Tsubomi...? Are you awake?" The voice of her aunt, which meant that at least she was there in the room with her. No indication of her uncle, yet at least.
The apathetic girl lay still, not just because she had no choice but to, and tried to make sure that the older woman didn't start a conversation. After a few long moments, it seemed to work, the door closing and the room going completely silent.
---
The sun was too bright; from the moment it peeked over the horizon, its rays stabbed into the now-insomniac girl's closed eyes with the passion of her own aunt's knitting needles. The early birds were singing, their notes bashing into Tsubomi's ears like war-hammers on equally prepared for war drums, and to top it all off, there was still that annoying cicada who had been buzzing all night.
This was an entirely new experience for the girl, another to add to the growing list, and she was suffering more from this one than the others.
Normally, when Tsubomi used up her Chūnibyō-ly-named "Full Burst" "technique," she would spend the next fifty or so hours in a minor coma. In fact, though she didn't remember it, the last time she had had trouble sleeping
at all was before the start of her fall into the dark side of magical girls. This was something entirely new to her as an emotionless entity.
Worse still, she had managed to restore function to her muscles but not to her magic, meaning she'd have to survive an actual day or two as a mundane human, which did not bode well for her. Just because her body would
move didn't mean it would move
well. Not bothering to change out of the day clothes she had slept in, Tsubomi began towards the door to her room, stopping halfway there from apprehension. She had the nagging suspicion that today was going to be worse than it would have otherwise, not even factoring in her lack of magic at the moment. As she stood there her eyes drifted around her room. Her bed with stained yellow sheets, not from lack of the adults in the house's efforts, lay in a messy bundle not dissimilar from the remains of a cocoon that was broken open while the caterpillar was still pupal soup. The stains from its decaying body even matched.
The bare wall next to the bed-frame came next, dusty but otherwise inoffensive. She didn't know why she was bothering to look around, but every second she did was a second she wasn't having to interact with someone. At the desk that she would presumably do her homework at was an alarm clock with a crack on its face. It wasn't broken, per se, as it was still ticking, but it was hard to read from this distance and almost entirely unused since its injury. Underneath the desk lay a similarly untouched MP3, plugged into the outlet that the desk nearly covered. It had been placed there a few months back when its owner had moved into the home, still playing the once beloved song it had been told to all that time ago, though no sound could escape it when its volume was set to zero.
Continuing, her neck twisting uncomfortably with how tense it had been all night, she passed over the unremarkable door and to the other side of the bedroom. There sat a large cat plush, its pink fur matted and unkempt. She couldn't help but notice the beautifully stitched and normally bright brown eyes looked faded, almost dead inside. She supposed that pets did tend to mirror their owners, after all. She followed the wall to its corner, where a previously comfortable but since deflated beanbag lay. If she continued her sweep, she knew she'd only pass by the still open window and return to her bed.
She did the closest thing to steeling herself as she could, taking the last few steps to the door. As quietly as possible, she opened it and began down the stairs.
---
Tsubomi slowly eased herself down to sit at the living room table, having already placed a meal in front of her. She didn't have enough time to even take a bite before her aunt and uncle walked in and sat down across from her.
"Tsubomi, I think it's time we had a talk." Her aunt began what could only be a headache of a conversation. If only she could use her magic, Tsubomi wouldn't have to deal with this, able to get the two adults to ignore her like usual.
"Look, it's not that we want to have this conversation, but we also can't let things continue like this without at least trying." Her aunt shot a glare at her husband as he spoke.
Clearing her throat, the woman continued.
"So... What is it that you want to do in life?" A pause. It seemed that she actually expected a response from the apathetic girl! When none came, other than Tsubomi eating her food, she continued.
"You worked so hard to get into high school before you moved here; your grades were top of the class until right before you left! What changed?""Are you okay with throwing all that work away? It's hard to get second chances, you should take advantage of what you've already done and continue it."There was no response from the teen. She simply continued eating as if she were alone. The adults shared a worried look, taking a moment to consider how to proceed.
"Hibusa's school let you in because of the hard work you put in before, but if you keep not doing your schoolwork, you won't be able to continue at school. It's not a stretch to say that you're ruining your future like this."Another stretch of silence was finally broken by the older woman.
"Tsubomi, we're worried about you. Surely you have dreams you want to reach, right? Everyone does. If you tell us what they are, maybe we can help."The highschooler finished her food and began to stand, leaving the dishes on the table.
"I don't have any.""People without any goals aren't living, they're just suffering a slow death. You should be better than that."""Hey! Don't say that! That's going too far!"But their words fell on deaf ears as they began to argue; Tsubomi simply stood and walked out the front door.
At her speed, it took a while for Tsubomi to get anywhere, but she continued down the streets until she was a few blocks away from home. Eventually, in front of her path was a dog chasing what seemed to be a bee. The loud buzzing and barking parted around the girl without even being processed. She simply continued forwards, ignoring the two. She was right next to them when the dog bit at the bug, forcing it to change course. Tsubomi closed her eyes as the insect flew towards her face, just to preserve them if it decided it wanted to die today. Then suddenly, she felt her balance shift and an instant of pain as her skull collided with the pavement.
---
Slowly opening her eyes, Tsubomi found herself leaning against an ivy covered wall in the strange space of what she could only assume was her mind. She didn't know what was going on, but did what felt natural, taking a long drag of a cigarette that found its way into her hand. After holding it in for a moment, she blew the smoke back out from her lungs, though she couldn't see it in the air in front of her.
"Hey now, you don't want to get cancer. 'sides, we both know you can't get anything from those anymore."Tsubomi stood silent, took another breath of poison, and slid her back down the wall to a sitting position. If she was going to get another lecture, she could at least try to be more comfortable. A glance up showed Acid Drop leaning over the top of the wall, a set gardening shears in her left hand.
"What brings you here this time? Heartache? Or do you not get those either? You're pretty lucky."Was that so?
"So... being magic-less sucks, huh?" The rainbow haired version of the girl hopped over the wall to stand in front of her mundane counterpart.
"But then again, having magic also sucks, right? It ruined your life, ruined your family, and led to the ruin of your so-called 'friendship,' so I'd have to say it's all just a wash. Catch twenty-two, ya know?"Tsubomi closed her eyes, listening to the shears above her head opening and closing as the ivy was trimmed.
"Hey, remember Maslow? Been a while since you heard that name, right? Right. I wonder how many steps up the side you are now. I'd say you were at stage two, but let's be honest, you're, like, on the ground nearby rather than actually having climbed at all. Do you even care if you die? You don't act like it, but after last time we talked, you sure were for a bit."Again Tsubomi's hand brought the cancer stick to her mouth, and she closed her eyes as she breathed it in.
Snip When her eyes reopened, the cigarette was no longer than the depth of her fingers. Looking down revealed the other half had fallen to the ground.
"Seriously, do I have to do everything for you? I pretend to care for you to keep any sort of relationship afloat," Acid Drop's shearing of the ivy became more aggressive, each line punctuated with a loud
snip as she went about her speech.
"I help you stay housed, making sure the family of yours that still sort of wants you continues to do so. I keep you alive when you pick fights." With a final
snip, Acid Drop stopped and stood back to admire her work.
A few moments passed in silence, one-sided tension filling the air. Finally Acid Drop let her arms release their muscles, the shears dropping into Tsubomi's view. For her part, Tsubomi didn't move, nor did any thoughts enter her mind. She did as she always did and allowed the words of another to bounce off of her with no impact.
"Maybe I should help you a little more." The mundane girl's eyes drifted upwards as the shears were brought just in front of them. The reflection of the ivy in their blades seemed to be in the carefully cultivated shape of a Mascot, its head's screen showing some sort of triangle on it, as if that part of the wall were actually a television under the pattern of the plant.
Just as she finished processing what she saw, her sight went black as her other self closed the shears.
---
Tsubomi tried to open her eyes, but found that they were like lead, perhaps if it were welded to her cheeks. There was a constant
blip sounding nearby, but she couldn't recognize what it was coming from. Trying to move her left arm brought a dull pain, and seemed to be the cause of a voice.
"Oh, you're awake! You're Kana-san, right?" A pause from the person, bringing no response from Tsubomi. "You
are awake, right? You had a bad fall, apparently a dog tripped you. You're lucky someone saw it, or you wouldn't have gotten here so soon! That could've done some real damage; untreated concussions are no joke!"
A concussion? Did that mean... she was in the hospital? Thoughts raced through her, only to stop suddenly as one hit the breaks on their collective train.
Her thoughts were racing. Was she transformed and didn't realize it? Couldn't be, or the presumed doctor wouldn't be able to see her. There wasn't such a thing as magical boys, was there?
She must have been moving, because the man spoke again. "Hey, calm down, you're okay. We've just got to put you through some tests when you're ready. Right now you should just rest."
And so she decided to do just that.
---
In the end the doctor decided to have her stay overnight at the hospital, to keep an eye on her status and do a few extra tests the next day. As the day went on, Tsubomi seemed to lapse back to her normal state of slow thinking, though there was slight but somewhat noticable improvement compared to before her fall, like increasing a computer's RAM by 50 megabytes. The instant she was released from the hospital, she began the trip back home. As if written in a script for her life, the moment she walked in the front door she felt her magic return its use to her. She could sense her aunt's worry upon the door's closing. Using that to her advantage, she made sure to avoid her as she went upstairs.
Tsubomi sank into her chair, putting her forehead against her desk. She didn't understand any of what had happened in the past fifty or so hours, but it seemed that things turned out okay. As her head rolled onto its side she found herself looking towards her bed, and as her counterpart's words came unbidden to the forefront of her thoughts she acted. A barely read textbook still sat in the drawer it had been thrown in during the move. A birthday gift from her parents just after her fall into unregulated stoicism.
Ah yes, even if incorrect, Maslow was a classic.
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