My Parallel-World Self, and Everything She Is

The lights came on without a hitch. I wandered through the now-brightened house. A familiar floor plan, an unfamiliar sight. Dust stood out on top of the shoe cabinet, in the corners of the hallway, on several of the doors. There were fewer things set out than in the house I knew.

My room on the second floor was kept neat and tidy. A desk, a bookshelf, and a bed lined up in a row. But each of them was a little bit different.

Next door, the room Tsukino had been using had gone back to being a storeroom. The dust lay even thicker than in the hallway, enough to leave footprints.

After checking all that, I went back to the living room. The floor, the table, and the sofa were all properly cleaned, and here the place smelled of daily life. On the table stood a single photo frame.

It was a photo of Dad and Mom. But their sexes were the reverse of the ones I knew. Not in the sense that they were crossdressing, one as a woman and the other as a man; exactly like me and Tsukino, their features were left intact with only the sex swapped: a photo of a father of indeterminate age and a mean-eyed mother.

And there in the photo with the two of them was a black-haired girl with a randoseru on her back. Sandwiched between them, her bashful face looked more grown-up than her age. Those almond-shaped eyes held unmistakable traces of Tsukino.

I couldn't help reading what it meant. But I didn't want to understand it. And I wasn't about to press Tsukino to confirm it, either.

I stood there, rooted, in the living room of a Masumi house I didn't know.

"I called them. Got chewed out hard enough to shock me, but I was out of contact for three days, so that's only natural."

Tsukino came in, smartphone in hand.

"I bulldozed my way through covering it up…" She was pulling a thoroughly sour face when she noticed what I'd been looking at and stopped in her tracks. She stepped over to the table and stroked the glass of the photo frame with a white finger. I realized anew that it had been carefully tended, without a speck of grime or dust.

"So you've found me out. If it were me, I'd have figured it out from this much alone."

Tsukino spun to face me. Her black hair swayed, and the rose adorning it flickered feebly in the living room light. Her mischievous expression, almond eyes narrowed, seemed like teasing, and yet there was something dry in it.

"This is my world, and my house."

Still wearing that thin smile, she stated a fact that could no longer be denied.

"My dad and mom died in an accident. A perfectly ordinary traffic accident, without any drama to it at all."

She let her gaze drift over the photo in the frame.

"These days I'm in my uncle's care. I didn't want to leave this house, and there's the money my parents left me, so I live here on my own."

So the person Tsukino had just been on the phone with was that uncle in Higashimachi.

"I stayed quiet because I didn't know how to bring it up. The day I met you, Asahi, I went to my uncle's house because I needed to sign some documents. And also… to visit the grave."

"I see. Our family grave is near my uncle's place."

It was close to the park where the two of us had been clacking away at keyboards, too.

"I'm sorry. I just couldn't bring myself to tell you I'd been visiting a grave. If the grave was there, then that's proof that place was still my world, so please forgive me."

That… couldn't be helped.

Suddenly, something in my chest turned uneasy. An anxiety edged with sharp pain welled up, as if an icy hand had gripped my heart.

Fiction handles parallel worlds in all sorts of ways. In some of them, the same existence in a parallel world inevitably traces out a similar life.

"I get it. It's me, after all. You're worried about your own dad and mom, aren't you, Asahi."

"…That's me for you. You really do get it."

"It's written all over your face. And besides… I'd worry too, if I were in the same situation. But let me set your mind at ease, just a little."

Tsukino walked slowly toward the TV. I found my eyes following her without meaning to.

"My dad and mom had their accident when I was a first-year in high school."

"If we trace similar lives, that means it would have already happened by now?"

It was spring of my second year now.

"That's still just a 'maybe,' though. And there's one more thing I hadn't told you. It took me a while to notice it myself, so I hope you'll forgive me for this one too."

Half-leaning against the TV in the corner of the room, Tsukino pointed at the digital clock resting on the TV stand.

"Masumi Tsukino is a high school third-year now. A year older than you, Asahi. This world's timeline is one year ahead."

My eyes had probably gone wide. The calendar on the clock Tsukino was pointing at read one year ahead. Even though the date was the same and the time barely off at all.

"No, hold on. Really? The ribbon color was supposed to mean the same year."

"The ribbon color gets decided when you enroll, right? So it's the same in second year and third."

She touched the collar of her blouse. Right now she was in that outfit we'd bought when we went out together, but in uniform, a red ribbon would sit at that spot. In my world red meant second-year, but in Tsukino's world she was already a third-year.

"Then what about the movie? Why were you watching 'Infinity Heaven'? Was it a movie that never got a theatrical run in this world?"

"That's where the big misunderstanding was. In my world, 'Infinity Heaven' ran last year, and I had a lot going on at the time, so I never saw it. Then, when I happened to pass by the theater in your world, there it was on the showtimes list. Without thinking too hard about it, I convinced myself it was a revival screening."

"So it was that kind of coincidence."

"I'd like to chalk it up to a fate born from a bad end. So, think you can believe me for now?"

"You've got no reason to lie, and there's no way I wouldn't believe you, Tsukino."

"Thank you. But maybe it's all a trick, and I reset the clock while you were up on the second floor. Why would I do that, though?"

"Don't ask me."

If the state of this whole house were a trick too, that'd be overdoing it.

"I've gotten off track. Anyway, what I wanted to say is this. The time I've spent since my dad and mom were gone, and your time from that same point on, are completely separate. There's no guarantee the same thing won't happen from here on out… Ahh, I wish I could put it better."

I could tell, painfully well, that Tsukino was looking out for me. But—.

"You're the one having it rough, Tsukino. …Sorry. For not even noticing."

Tsukino narrowed her eyes. The look seemed lonely and happy both, and I couldn't tell which.

"To be honest,"

she said quietly, and lowered her gaze.

"I did think it, just a little. If we're the same existence, then why are your dad and mom still alive, Asahi? I got scared that maybe they'd die somewhere down the line. And maybe… maybe I even thought it wasn't fair."

In the living room of my world, the four of us had sat around the table with my parents. Back then, as she gnawed at her bread looking truly happy, what had that happiness of Tsukino's been for?

"But I figured something out while looking into your side's history and trends. The big events happening in the world, the minor incidents in this country, the trivial fads, the streamers hitting it big, almost none of it is different. A lot of the small incidents happening close to home were different, though, so maybe that part varies from parallel world to parallel world. So if the two of them can just stay well like this, I'd be happy too."

Tsukino let a "fufu" slip out.

"There's the Canon Event thing in Spider-Verse, right?"

"In every parallel world, all the Spider-Men experience tragedy. If someone from another world stops it, the world itself starts to fall apart… that one, right."

"Because it's an event that matters to the world. But my life and yours, Asahi, even as the same existence, are different, and tragedy isn't guaranteed to happen. And yet the two worlds are almost identical. No matter what happens to us or those around us, no matter who disappears, there's no great impact on history. Me, you, Dad, Mom, none of us holds any meaning for the world, or any value."

Tsukino cut herself off abruptly and drew a deep breath.

When she raised her face, her brows were lowered in embarrassment.

"Um. What I mean is. Going by the feel of it, in Canon Event terms it seems like the same incident won't happen to us… And I've gotten off track again, and this is hard to react to, huh."

"'Hard to react to' is itself hard to react to."

We looked at each other and laughed.

I'd only gone along with Tsukino; my heart wasn't laughing in the slightest. What Tsukino was thinking, what made her put on that smile, I felt like I understood and yet didn't.

Tsukino and I, who I'd convinced myself were the same, had walked completely different paths, worlds apart.

 

*

 

Lit by the ceiling fixture's night-light, the living room floated up in outline from the thin darkness. The displays on the appliances and clocks stood out oddly bright, and even the ceaseless drone of the refrigerator sounded strangely loud.

It should have been a living room I was used to seeing, but the one I'd come to for barley tea on a sleepless night and the one where I now lay sprawled on the sofa under a comforter were startlingly different.

After that, Tsukino and I did some shopping at a nearby convenience store and got a simple dinner out of the way. I'd been pretty hungry, but given the situation, I couldn't really taste much of it.

Then we also tested whether my smartphone would connect. But strangely, the result came out clearly different from Tsukino's case. My phone read as having no contract, unusable even for exchanging messages with Tsukino. All it could do was connect to the internet over Wi-Fi.

When Tsukino came to my world, only the link to her original world was cut; she could use every function as-is. It was just as if she'd had a phone contract in my world.

It felt like there was less of the world's adjustment than there'd been in Tsukino's case. But there was no way, for now, to look into how I was being treated. Even if I wanted to ask this world's Jun or Nanaha-senpai, it was too late at night.

The possibility that a point of contact between the two worlds lay somewhere in Higashimachi had only grown stronger, but it was already past eleven, so investigating would have to wait until tomorrow.

So here I was, having finished my shower. I was borrowing pajamas from Tsukino's father. Since the parents' sexes were flipped, these were effectively the pajamas of my mother turned male, which left me feeling vaguely conflicted, but at least they fit reasonably well.

Tsukino had already gone back to her own room. The footsteps I'd been hearing from the second floor had stopped now, too.

To slip all alone into a world separate from your own. Carrying a secret she couldn't share even with her own same existence, walking all over the place clutching the barest sliver of hope of getting back to her original world, she had to be worn out in both body and mind.

And me… how was I? There was the anxiety over whether I could get back to my original world, but the reality of having come to a different one still hadn't sunk in much. It was just that I couldn't sleep.

—Or so I'd thought.

Sleep came surprisingly fast. In air that smelled familiar and yet a little different, the things that had happened today, everything since I'd met Tsukino, went spinning round and round through my memory, gradually growing hazy.

The sound of the living room door slowly opening yanked my awareness abruptly back.

At some point the clock had passed two in the morning, so it seemed I really had slept a little.

I turned my eyes toward the hesitant slippered steps crossing the living room floor.

"I woke you, didn't I. Sorry."

There in the faint darkness stood Tsukino in her pajamas. Maybe because she'd been in bed, her hair was a little more mussed than usual, plain to see even by night-light.

"No… honestly, even I can't tell whether I was asleep or awake."

"I couldn't sleep at all."

Tsukino gave a light shrug. Her pajamas had a slightly different air from the ones she'd worn in my world: black at the base, similar to the outfit we'd bought together, with frills and ribbons that caught the eye. The red ribbon trim showed clearly even in the dark.

Our eyes suddenly met.

"You were looking, weren't you? Do they suit me?"

More like I'd been caught staring.

"They suit you, and they've got quite the bad-end vibe."

"That's me for you. A bad-end concept wrapped up in cute."

I hadn't gone so far as to say cute, but I had been thinking it.

Tsukino crouched down in front of the sofa, where I'd raised just my upper body. Our eyes came to exactly the same height. She leaned in, and just like that the distance closed too.

"You like these better than the pajamas I wore in your world, don't you."

"…That's me for you. Exactly right. It's a kink."

I knew that even if I lied she'd see through it, so I said it all. It was so embarrassing that not just my ears but even my forehead started to burn.

Tsukino, for her part, looked away. Maybe not as vivid a red as the ribbon on her pajamas, but I got the feeling her cheeks had flushed deeply too.

Part of me was a little relieved that some things still got through between us as the same existence.

Without meeting my eyes, Tsukino looked down. Her lips moved a few times, but no words came.

"Um, hey."

The voice she squeezed out, in fits and starts, was so thin her own breathing and heartbeat might have drowned it out.

Tsukino's profile, still turned away, was suddenly lit. Light from a nearly full moon slanted in through a gap in the curtains.

"…I want us to sleep together."

Her profile as she murmured it, in a voice that barely made it into sound, was more fragile than anything I'd seen from her before. Her lowered eyes were moist, and if anything her red cheeks made the paleness of her skin stand out all the more. Her lips were trembling faintly.

"'Together,' you mean…?"

Tsukino shook her head. The way it mussed her hair was almost childlike.

"I can't sleep. I just can't sleep anymore."

She said it quietly.

"Ever since my dad and mom were gone, all this time, I've been able to sleep alone in this house. Even at your house, Asahi, even though it was supposed to be a different world, I slept perfectly normally, shockingly enough. But… today's no good."

Moonlight danced on the tears welling in her eyes.

"Because I saw a world where my dad and mom are still there, where nothing's changed from back then, where everything I lost still exists. So all of a sudden I got lonely, and I can't bear it."

In this world where Dad and Mom were gone, at breakfast, at dinner, at bedtime, what had Tsukino been thinking?

"This is just a what-if. And only if you don't mind, Asahi."

Tsukino's fingertips touched my hand. From those hesitant fingers, ready to pull away at any moment, a body temperature lower than mine seeped through.

"Just for tonight is fine. I want you to sleep together with me, in my room."

I took Tsukino's hand.

Her wavering eyes blinked wide, and a droplet of the moon spilled over.

"…That room is my room too, in a sense, so there's nothing odd about it. When it comes down to it, it's just me sleeping with myself."

Even I couldn't have said who that line was meant for.

Tsukino's lips curved into the smallest hint of a smile.

When I got up from the sofa, Tsukino gently pinched the sleeve of my pajamas with the fingertips that had been touching me.

Following Tsukino, who turned her back without a word, I stepped out into the hallway. Tugged along by the sleeve through the gloom, I climbed the stairs and arrived at a room I was supposed to know.

The room's light was still just the night-lamp, and with the curtains fully closed on top of that, it was darker than the living room.

Tsukino's fingertips didn't let go. Just like that, we headed for the bed.

Under the faint light, the bed came into view, its comforter thrown off and rumpled. I couldn't help being conscious of the signs that Tsukino had been sleeping there until moments ago.

"It's a cramped little place, but please, come in."

"It's a size I know, though."

Letting slip the tiniest laugh, Tsukino sat down on the bed. My sleeve still pinched in her fingers, I ended up following suit.

Close enough that arm brushed arm. As I'd figured, Tsukino's body warmth lingered, damp, in the bed.

Tsukino wouldn't look my way. I couldn't look, either.

"Is it okay if I take the wall side?"

"Yeah. If that's what you want, Tsukino."

She nodded, crawled across the narrow single bed, and lay down as close to the wall as she could. Following her lead, I stretched out on the opposite edge. Tsukino still hadn't taken her fingers off my sleeve.

"What do we do about the blanket? Aren't you hot?"

"Catching a cold would be a pain, so let's keep it about half over us."

Here we were, in a situation like this, and we'd fallen into a perfectly ordinary exchange.

Tsukino pulled the comforter up to about our stomachs. It felt like her warmth lingered here, too.

A late-May night should still hold a lingering chill, but right now it was awfully hot. Whether that was because I was under the covers together with Tsukino, or because of heat from inside myself, I couldn't tell. I just hoped I wouldn't sweat too much.

Tsukino and I had our backs to each other. Narrow as the bed was, there was still space between us. Even so, Tsukino's fingertips stayed on my sleeve, refusing to let go.

"Tomorrow. I want to go looking for a way to get you home right away, Asahi. But I've ended up having to go to my uncle's place first."

"You were gone three whole days. Of course he'd tell you to come in person."

A conversation with our backs turned.

"He almost came over here, actually."

"I get how your uncle feels, but that would've been dicey… I just hope I've settled neatly into some convenient setup the way you did, Tsukino."

With the storeroom and the phone and all, I had a feeling it was different from when Tsukino came over.

"So wait for me till I get back, okay? In return, I'll at least casually sound out how you're being handled."

"Sorry. Please do."

"…This is entirely my fault."

The conversation broke off. Behind me, I heard Tsukino moving on the bed. Even without turning around, I could tell she'd come a little closer from her place by the wall.

"Way over on the edge like that, you'll fall off the bed."

"I don't recall my sleeping posture being that bad."

But I'd never slept two to a bed on something this small before, so I ended up heeding Tsukino's advice. I'd pressed myself so far over I was about to hang off the edge; little by little, I inched toward the center of the bed, toward Tsukino.

With that motion, Tsukino's hand slipped free of my sleeve. Under the comforter, finger overlapped finger. Her slightly sweaty fingers stroked the pads of mine and softly took my hand. Reflexively, I gripped back.

Without a word, backs still to each other, only our hands overlapped. Our fingertips moved as if confirming each other's feel.

My body and my head were both hot. My mouth went dry even though I wasn't thirsty. At my back, Tsukino let out a faint breath.

Tsukino moved again. The space that had been between us was steadily vanishing.

Tsukino's back bumped into mine.

"Ah…"

Along with that faint sound, our backs parted once. Then, slowly, back and back touched again. This time they stayed.

Through the thin fabric came warmth, breath, faint sweat, a heartbeat.

After that Tsukino didn't move. I couldn't move, either. I didn't want to.

Only time passed. In a house with no one but the two of us, all I could hear was the sound of the town, far away. The faint creaks the house made, and closer still, the sounds of Tsukino and me right there.

"…Can I look at you?"

Tsukino whispered. The voice was hazier than you'd ever expect from her usual clear, carrying one.

"That's… fine by me."

Tsukino's hand pulled away, and there was the sound of her slowly rolling over. I turned toward Tsukino as well.

I nearly cried out, and swallowed it along with my breath.

Tsukino's face was right there. The space there'd been when we got into bed was long gone. Her breath reached the tip of my nose. There was the faint smell of a familiar mouthwash.

Her usual sharp gaze was gone; half-asleep, drowsy eyes looked at me. Tsukino's lips loosened, and a "fufu" spilled out.

The same existence who was supposed to be a year older than me was smiling like an innocent child.

Tsukino took my hand again. The same hands we'd let go of moments ago to turn over, except now her grip was much firmer.

"I'm happy."

She said it in a melting voice, blinking sleepily over and over.

The fingertips of Tsukino's other hand reached toward me through the pale-blue thin darkness.

A breath escaped me despite myself. Tsukino's fingertips were softly stroking my throat.

"Your Adam's apple. This is your bad end, Asahi. …A kink."

Her eyes looked half-asleep, but there was heat deep in them. The feel of her nail against my throat was hard and cold and ticklish. My whole body shivered faintly.

"You can pay me back, you know."

Still touching my Adam's apple, Tsukino tilted her head. Beneath her disheveled collar, the side of her neck floated pale-blue in the darkness, veins standing out.

As if urging me on, her fingertips traced a circle on my throat.

"Then, here's my payback."

Unable to resist, I too touched the side of Tsukino's neck with my free hand.

The pleasantness of a body temperature lower than mine, a soft, smooth touch, the faint catch of sweat on my fingertips: it all came back to me. When I moved them hesitantly, Tsukino breathed out as if it felt good. Separate from her stirring, the faint throb of life came through.

"Your bad end, Tsukino. It's my kink."

With Tsukino touching my throat and my hand on the side of her neck, we gazed at each other.

"Keep looking at me. Keep touching. Until I fall asleep."

Tsukino, wheedling as she rubbed the hand she held, was probably already mostly asleep. With each blink, her eyelids stayed closed longer, and the strength drained from the fingers touching my throat.

"I'm right here. I'm not going anywhere. So rest easy."

"Mm. Thank you. That's m…"

Without finishing, she let out a deep breath.

 

 

Her eyelids were still moving, but Tsukino settled into the peaceful breathing of sleep. Our joined hands, and the fingers still touching my throat, remained just as they were.

I, by contrast… was as wide awake as could be.

"There's no way I'm sleeping…"

My body was tired, but there wasn't a trace of drowsiness left. Everything was still hot, and my heart kept beating faster than usual.

With no other choice, I gazed at Tsukino's sleeping face. I couldn't let go of either the joined hand or the hand touching the side of her neck. There was something illicit about it, but it couldn't be helped.

On her calm sleeping face, the loneliness from when she'd come into the living room was gone. Still, in the Tsukino before me now, who seemed almost childlike, I couldn't wipe away a fragility, a sense that she might vanish at any moment.

Tsukino and I are the same. I'd convinced myself of that, but now I chewed over just how much of Tsukino I didn't know.

Sleep still wasn't coming.