"Aaaaaah, that feels sooooo goooood!" exclaimed the decidedly masculine voice in English, and the flower tilted up towards Xavier's face. "I don't know how many years it's been since I was able to communicate with something, but, uh, actually nevermind! Never ask a lady her age, and all that." There was something really strange about this, but Xavier was having a hard time putting his finger on it.

"So, who are you, anyway?" continued the voice. "I didn't sense you at all until you were suddenly all up in my grill breaking my arms. Boy, I tell you, I haven't had that much of a challenge in years! And then all of a sudden, ZING, and I'm experiencing coherent thought! Wow was that a kick in the pants! Not that I wear pants, you understand."

«Wait,» said Xavier, and shook his head. "I mean, wait." He stared closely at the flower in his hands, which cocked its head at him. "Are you a talking flower?" He still wasn't sure where this voice was coming from, but the flower's movements and slight gestures of its vines coincided perfectly with the voice he was hearing.

"Weeeeeeell," said the voice. "I mean, yes, this is me—" here the flower shrugged its vines and gestured lightly toward itself "—but I'm technically not making any sound, just creating the illusion of sound directly in your auditory cortex." Xavier felt a light tap against the side of his head and realized that the plant had one of its vines draped over his shoulder and resting lightly against his head. Although he didn't feel any thorns on this one, he had a difficult time not jerking away in surprise.

"How—" he began, but changed course. "Why do you speak English?"

"English? Excuse you," said the plant. "I'd offer you a leaf to blow your nose on, but I seem to have lost them all trekking halfway across the desert. Anyway, like I mentioned mere seconds ago I don't actually speak. It's more like, hmmm, high-level sympathetic synchronicity via an ad-hoc nima alignment."

"What." Xavier wasn't even sure where to begin with that.

"Look, I'd love to sit here and chat," said the plant, before Xavier had a chance to continue. "But maybe you should do something about those animals who are trying to kill us?"

Xavier looked up and realized that he was surrounded by bakuhito—albeit at a distance that couldn't be crossed by the vines of the plant thing in his hands—and they did not look friendly. They were, in point of fact, arguing with Kahina over the immediate necessity of killing Xavier where he sat.

"Wait—damn it." Suddenly dropping into English had seriously messed with his head. «Wait, what are you saying? Don't kill us!»

«You see?» Kahina demanded.

«That's a mononoke, you fool Antean!» shouted a wolf-person who was clutching one of the sledgehammers they had been using to break apart fallen adobe like he was worried Xavier was going to leap at him and chew his face off. «He's already lost, it's just a matter of time!»

"What are they talking about?" muttered Xavier, half to himself.

"Ah, well, hmm, normally they'd be correct," piped up the plant. "I do seem to recall that's the typical way things have gone for—a while. You're just a weirdo. I wouldn't recommend handing me to anyone else, if you get my drift."

"What, like you'd hurt them?"

"Not intentionally! But like I said coherent thought has been impossible for a very long time, and well—more like if one of your 'friends' there—and I'm using that term sarcastically, not sure if that comes across with this mental connection doohickey—picked me up I'd quickly cause them to self-destruct. Hey, maybe you should tell them that I'm harmless before they really work themselves into doing something they'll regret? Mostly harmless. Harmless unless handled? Whatever, I'm not the diplomat with vocal chords, that's you."

«It's harmless right now!» Xavier called to the bakuhito who paused in their argument with Kahina to turn his way. «The, uh, mononoke?» Ugh, the temptation to call it a princess was almost overwhelming. «It says it will not hurt anyone. But do not touch it!»

«The mononoke talks?» The skepticism practically dripped from the wolf's mouth.

«Yes!» Xavier called. He turned his attention to the flower. "Could you maybe do something to show you're not hostile?"

"Oh, very well," grumbled the flower. "The things a girl will do for a halfway intelligible conversation partner." The vines around the flower shuddered, twitched, and then all of the vines with really nasty thorns fell off at once, leaving only a number of petite vines extending from the stalk of the flower that wrapped lightly around Xavier's forearm, and a pair of longer vines without thorns, including the one that was currently resting against the side of his head. At the movement the bakuhito around him jerked back a step almost as one.

«See?» called Xavier. «It means no harm.»

«We can't trust it,» growled the wolf. «How can we be sure it won't attack us as soon as we get close?»

«Why not wait?» rumbled Kahina. «The response team should be here shortly. Let them sort it out and you won't have to put yourself in danger. Zabi-san is clearly not going on a rampage.»

«She makes a good point,» said one of the goat people who had been helping with the rebuilding project, and the tone of the crowd shifted from murderous to fearful and wary.

Several minutes later, a group of wolf bakuhito loped up who Xavier could only assume were the response team Kahina had mentioned. Their equipment and the way they carried themselves was exactly like Yukio's group—the only difference being that this entire team was wolves. After a few tense minutes during which the group wanted to fling spears at Xavier from afar, their leader approached.

«You, human,» snapped the wolf. «Put the mononoke on the ground and take a full step back. If you are lying and it has already taken root, I will kill you where you stand.»

«I will put it down,» said Xavier.

"Hmmm, yeah, okay I suppose this will probably work out fine," said the plant, obvious doubt coloring its voice. "But, uh, if I happen to try and go after Mr. Big and Hairy there, jump on me, would you? I'd rather not cause an incident. Also I'd appreciate if my ticket to coherence avoids being dead."

"—Right. I want to hear about this 'taking root' thing once you reassure them you're not dangerous, though."

"Oh, that? You don't have anything to worry about. I tried to permanently attach to you at least half a dozen times when we were wrastlin' just a bit ago, and it didn't work at all."

"Wrastlin'?"

"Maybe this method of communication still needs a bit of work; that didn't have quite the same flavor coming as going. Bumping uglies?"

"That's definitely not it. I'm putting you down now."

Xavier carefully set the plant down, and it immediately withdrew its vines from him and dug them into the soil around it. Keeping an eye on it, Xavier took a large step back, leaving the flower looking unexpectedly small and lonely in the middle of the pack of bakuhito.

The entire time, the wolf hadn't let his spear waver from Xavier, but as Xavier stepped back the wolf kept it trained on the mononoke. When after a few seconds the flower remained still, the bakuhito let out a huge sigh. «I'll be damned. Now I've seen everything.»

«May I pick it up?» asked Xavier nervously. While the wolf had relaxed, he'd been feeling entirely on edge, since he was fairly certain the flower hadn't been kidding about potentially needing to be jumped on and if he wasn't mistaken it was starting to lean ever-so-slightly toward the wolf. «I…drain it.» He was reasonably sure that was the right term; he'd certainly heard it enough times by now whenever he came into contact with someone, and it was as good an explanation as any for what was evidently an entirely atypical encounter with this plant or monster or whatever it was.

The wolf eyed the flower with an inscrutable expression, then gave a short nod. As Xavier placed his hands on the flower, its remaining long tendrils whipped up and slapped painfully against his arms. He recoiled slightly, but the flower didn't move any more than that for several seconds, until one of the vines slid gently up his shoulder and it helped him left it up.

"I should maybe stay in contact with you, alright?" said the flower. "That—was not a very safe idea."

"Good to know," said Xavier warily.

«Are you truly talking to the mononoke in that strange language?» interjected the response team leader.

«Yes,» replied Xavier. «I hear it—uh—in my head.»

The wolf eyed him. «Where are you staying?»

«The Isei Wayhouse.»

«We'll escort you back, then, and evacuate the wayhouse for the evening. You are not to go anywhere with that thing until the elders have a chance to decide what to do with you. Antean-san, since I hear you're advocating mercy you get to watch him and make sure he doesn't go on a rampage.»

«Very well,» said Kahina.

"Well, hey!" said the flower, in a voice only Xavier could hear. "Who doesn't like a sleepover?"

Today they were heading over to the north edge of the town, where the townsfolk were working to rebuild some of the homes that were wrecked by a wandering youkai. From what he could gather, rather than build walls, the outermost homes in the town were simply unoccupied aside from a token contingent of warrior hopefuls who lived on the edges of town and performed the task of sentries. When a youkai inevitably smashed some of the houses up, they would be rebuilt a few weeks later.

Kahina was often invited to help clear buildings, since with the help of someone who could easily reach the top of a wall it was a lot easier to shore up walls that were otherwise likely to collapse, or to move large chunks of adobe without needing to break them up first. Xavier had accompanied her on a couple similar excursions in the past; although he was even less use for shifting rubble than the bakuhito, he was able to help Kahina work longer and with less pain.

As usual, Kahina was waiting near the well that Xavier had learned was only a few houses away from the building the elders had given her to live during her stay.

«Good morning, Zabi-san,» Kahina greeted Xavier in her basso rumble.

«Good morning, Kahina-san,» said Xavier, and without prompting approached her and grabbed her right hand. As usual, he felt a sudden indescribable rush of Vigor, and Kahina sighed deeply. «Shall we go?»

No matter how many times he did it, walking hand-in-hand with Kahina was always a strange experience. She was so tall that her regular sized arm only hung down to around the level of his head, so Xavier always felt like a little kid walking with his parent; a feeling that was exacerbated by the fact that she took one stride to every two of his. He'd been desperately uncomfortable and embarrassed the first time she'd taken his hand and strode off, but despite making a doubtless comical duo, the bakuhito that they met were always universally friendly and respectful, often going so far as to make way for Kahina and bow to her as she went past.

Xavier wasn't entirely sure yet what was going on there. He'd tried to ask Yukio, but it had sent him off into a half hour rant about politics in the greater world—as far as Xavier could tell, anyway. He only caught about one word in fifty. He'd also tried asking Sumiko, but was unable to get his point across; perhaps because she had never met and simply wasn't much interested in Kahina. Or perhaps she just misunderstood what Xavier was asking, since she ended up telling him a story about Anteans. Evidently they were a famous race of giants living on the coast somewhere to the west.

Perhaps Kahina was a princess or something. Finding a princess in an unexpected place would certainly be standard manga fare.

The two arrived at the edge of town to discover a medium-sized work party already assembled. The buildings had already been cleared of rubble, so Kahina and Xavier were put to work carting adobe bricks and mud for mortar from a shallow pit about five minutes' walk further into Henka.

The howling started on one of these trips when the two were partway back to the perimeter from fetching building materials. Xavier froze in place as the first sounds rose on the air. The howling was eerie; clearly lupine, but with a timbre that was ever-so-slightly off. Clearly these were sounds coming from bakuhito throats rather than actual wolves. The howls started from ahead, but quickly spread deeper into the town.

«What is that?» Xavier turned to Kahina, but found her stock still, face serious as she stared hard enough that he could almost believe she could see over the roofs of the houses, although he knew she wasn't quite that tall.

«That alarm started near the construction site. Zabi-san, get to safety.» Without further explanation, Kahina lay the cross-bar of the wagon she'd been dragging down and sprinted toward where the rest of their team was working.

Xavier hesitated for a split second, but then took off after Kahina. He'd never heard anything like this, even on days when he had later learned that a youkai had attacked the town. Odds were good he wouldn't be any help, but trying to run the other way would just get him lost.

Plus Kahina had said something about safety, and she was the safest person to be around he knew.

The Antean swiftly outpaced him, and for almost a minute Xavier found himself running alone as the howling around him continued. Oddly, he didn't pass any bakuhito but with his adrenaline surging he didn't think anything of it.

A little over a minute later, he hurtled around the final corner and the edge of the town came into sight. He almost ran into Kahina, who was backing up toward him fast.

«Mononoke!» he heard someone scream. «Get back!»

As he dodged right to avoid running straight into Kahina's back, the scene snapped into startling clarity.

The workers and Kahina were fleeing back into the town, their gazes locked on what appeared to be some sort of plant writhing in the middle of the open space immediately in front of the house they had been working on.

As Xavier emerged out from behind Kahina, he saw the plant's tendrils flex and he somehow knew without a shadow of a doubt that it was going to hurl itself at Kahina.

There was no time for thought; Xavier threw himself forward at the same moment that the plant-thing did, and they collided a foot or two in front of Kahina in a tangle of thorny vines and flailing limbs.

For the next few moments Xavier and a plant waged furious battle. Its limbs or vines or roots or whatever they were lashed around him and he in turn tore them off his arms, legs, and torso leaving bloody scratches behind where small thorns on the thing dug into his exposed skin.

«Help me!» he yelled, but no one was forthcoming.

Although the plant's vines were whipping all over the place, there did appear to be a limited number of them, and when Xavier's left hand found the central stalk of the thing, he was able to pull the bulk of its body away from his chest, giving him leverage to break and tear the vines that were stuck to his clothes and skin. When he was able to apply pressure near the stalk of the plant and twist in opposite directions, the vines tended to snap, and soon he was almost free, the fight seeming to go out of the plant-monster.

He was about to try hurling the whole thing to the ground and see if stomping on it might free him of the last few clinging vines when he heard something that stopped him dead in his tracks.

"Wait, please wait!" called a plaintive voice, and Xavier immediately froze in shock.

That was English.

Other than Sumiko, the vast majority of the residents of the wayhouse seemed to be non-permanent residents of the town. In Xavier's admittedly short stay a group of animal people had spent most of one morning loading up wagons and carts out back behind the wayhouse before departing and leaving Sumiko and Xavier to clean their rooms.

The other longer-term resident was an ornery old goat man who ruled the kitchen with an iron hoof. Curious over how they prepared the bread that was a regular staple at meals, Xavier had hunted out the kitchen only to be shooed away. He did catch sight of what appeared to be an oven, but once again there was no chimney or anywhere he could see for smoke to escape. It was very strange; perhaps it was heated with magical rocks, the way all of the rooms appeared to be?

That was something that he was having a hard time coming to terms with. As far as he could tell, transforming a rock into heat was pure magic, but everybody seemed able to do it. One of the primary duties Sumiko had him performing was in fact refilling the baskets of rocks that were in every room. Xavier tried multiple times to discover the trick, but to no avail. Whenever he held a rock, it was just a rock. He still needed Sumiko's help at night to prepare a warm blanket when the temperature started to plummet.

After lunch, Xavier often ended up napping, as did most of the other residents of the town, far as he could tell.

Mid-afternoon, Kahina would drop by the wayhouse, and while the activities that they undertook were quite varied what was always constant was that Kahina insisted that Xavier hold her normal-sized hand, or at the very least be in contact with her arm, at virtually all times.

At this point, Xavier was fairly certain that whenever he came into contact with living beings he drained magic power off them. «Vigor» was the word the animal people used—or bakuhito, as they seemed to call themselves. His best guess was that something about Kahina's gigantism resulted in excess vigor building up in her body, and Xavier's draining effect gave her relief. Unfortunately, while he was getting a lot better at understanding what the people around him were saying, he was still having trouble forming coherent sentences, so he had so far been unable to ask for clarification.

The main unpredictable element of his routine was Yukio. The cat-boy lived at the wayhouse and was obviously smitten with Sumiko, but after the first week when he would constantly drop in on Xavier and drag him off on one unintelligible adventure or another, he began going missing for days at a time. From what Xavier could gather, he was traveling around the area fighting youkai with the same group that had rescued Xavier. On one of the stints when he was in Henka he dragged Xavier off with him to a training session with the group. They were cordial, but evidently uninterested in Xavier, particularly when it became clear after one of the wolf people invited him to try their training exercises that he was badly outclassed physically.

Someone who was interested in Xavier was the old goat man who had tested him when he was taken in front of the elders, whose name was evidently Sadao. Xavier encountered him at least once or twice a week, almost always when he was doing his activity of the day with Kahina.

Xavier wasn't sure what exactly it was that Sadao was looking for, but he often would encourage Kahina to try different exercises with Vigor while he poked and prodded Xavier in an evident attempt to figure out why exactly Xavier was unable to come into contact with bakuhito without draining some of their Vigor. Despite his comprehension growing by leaps and bounds, however, Xavier was still just as much in the dark about his weird ability as Sadao. It was frustrating, particularly since it evidently prevented him from interacting with Vigor the way apparently everyone else was able to.

Aside from Sadao, Xavier hadn't come into direct contact with any of the elders, but he was growing increasingly nervous about whether he would be able to maintain his place in the community. Kahina clearly needed him, but from what he could gather she was as much an outsider as he was and had come to Henka seeking some sort of fix to the chronic pain that she suffered in her right arm. Xavier was able to help her with that, but it seemed the citizens of Henka had been unhelpful overall.

His nervousness over his place in the community was nothing, however, compared to the feeling that grew with every passing day that this routine couldn't last. Ever since arriving and falling in with Yukio and his band of hunters Xavier hadn't noticed any obvious manga coincidences, which didn't jive with his understanding of isekai at all. Isekai tended to be fairly action-packed, with crises that scaled from immediate personal harm to national threats. Treating a giant's chronic pain was decidedly small-time for isekai challenges and Xavier was just waiting for the other shoe to drop.

Of course, it was also possible that he was just stuck in a narrative time skip; given his lack of the language when he arrived, that was a real possibility.

Six weeks later, the howls of the wolf people heralded in the first of the changes that would propel Xavier out of Henka and into the broader world.

More than anything, he was just glad to get off that damn bench. He'd noticed that a large quantity of the elders had blankets or pillows to sit on; as the discussion wended longer and longer he'd even spotted a few who had eschewed chairs entirely in favor of nests of pillows on the ground. Meanwhile he had bare wood and the dubious benefit of a bored cat boy to share it with.

After making some pronouncement to Yukio, who bowed low in response, the elders at last filed out of the building through an exit Xavier hadn't noticed before in the back while the rest of the crowd dispersed through the front doors. Yukio held Xavier back until most of the people were gone before finally leading him out into another blistering day. The transition from the below-ground-level amphitheater surrounded by adobe walls and the outdoors was astonishing.

«Well, glad that's over!» said Yukio cheerfully, as Xavier paused and shaded his eyes in the glare. «Come on, lets get back to the wayhouse and have a bite of lunch and maybe a nap before we track down the Antean. There's not much point in trying to get anything done in the middle of the day, really. Waste of water and good sunshine.»

Ah, now that was a good idea! «May I please have some water?»

Yukio coughed a bit of his weird laughter. «Course you can, Zabi-kun! Weren't we just sitting for a couple hours hearing those old farts debate that very thing?»

Back at the wayhouse there was indeed food available in the common living space, and when Yukio led Xavier to an inner courtyard that was open to the sky, Xavier was surprised to find himself following the cat boy's example and napping lightly in the shade for the better part of an hour. Absent the life and death struggle to make it through the desert on foot, he was realizing just how much the heat took it out of him.

A leisurely afternoon accomplished, the pair set out from the wayhouse in the late afternoon. Yukio brought Xavier across the town along a necessarily zig-zag path, occasionally stopping to ask questions of nearby animal people. At last, they entered one of the few passageways that remained straight for any length of time, and at the end of it Xavier spotted a much smaller cleared space than the town center with what appeared to be another well—this one more what he expected a well to look like with a bucket on a rope sitting near a covered hole. Near the well was a small tree with a woman leaning up against the trunk in the shade.

As they got closer, though, Xavier realized that the tree wasn't actually small. The woman was just that big.

She was sitting with her back up against the trunk and her left side closest to Xavier and Yukio as they emerged near the well.

Yukio bounded right up to her while Xavier hung back in the shade of the nearby buildings. «Hello, I'm Yukio! I've been wanting to meet you for a while. Hey Zabi-kun, come over here! It's the Antean! This is Zabi-kun; he's a human, can you imagine?»

«I heard you would be coming this afternoon,» rumbled the Antean, opening her eyes and looking their way.

Xavier approached slowly when Yukio gestured him over, and as he did the woman stood up. Xavier stopped dead with a gasped, "She's huge!" If anything, "huge" was an understatement.

The Antean had to be at least eight feet tall, and was broad enough that Xavier would have had no chance of wrapping his arms completely around her. She had deep, chocolate brown skin and tightly braided hair that hung down past her shoulders. Her left arm was completely bare and corded with muscle, but in a disturbingly bizarre contrast her right arm and shoulder appeared to be about the same size as a normal human woman's. It gave her a strange, lopsided appearance: bulky on one side, sloping slightly down to scrawny looking on the other. Was it a birth defect? She had her right arm cradled up against her chest somewhat, so maybe she didn't have full use of it.

The giant loomed over him. «So this is the human folks have been talking about. I don't think I've heard this many rumors fly since I came to Henka myself.»

Xavier gaped. He was getting a crick in his neck just trying to peer up at her face.

«My name is Kahina. It is very nice to meet you. Zabi-san, was it?» The giant bent over and extended her right hand as fluidly as Xavier had ever seen someone move. Evidently she had use of it after all.

Xavier reflexively grasped it in his own right hand, surprised to have someone in a Japanese-speaking culture offer a handshake. «Hello, it is nice to meet you. My name is Xavier.» The giant's hand felt completely normal, though as he spoke the unidentifiable feeling that he was coming to associate with physical contact from everyone in this world quickly built into a rush of warmth, comfort, a satisfying meal, and the satisfaction of reading a familiar book.

Kahina gasped and practically fell forward, her massive left hand clamping down on Xavier's right shoulder and causing his knees to buckle under the sudden extreme weight. With a cry, Xavier ripped his hand away and stumbled back a few steps, barely keeping himself from falling, and throwing the woman's balance so badly off that she went to one knee.

He didn't see when it happened, but Yukio leapt into the woman's personal space from the side. «Kahina-san, what do you think you're doing?! Zabi-kun, are you alright?»

«I'm alright,» Xavier managed.

«I'm so sorry.» Kahina's voice was almost breathy instead of the low growl she'd had previously. «That just took me off guard. Sadao-sama had mentioned he thought the human—excuse me, Zabi-san—might be able to help me, but I didn't expect him to do it so suddenly. Thank you, Zabi-san.» The Antean shifted from kneeling into a full kneeling bow, hands in front of her on the ground and head lowerd. «I am deeply sorry I grabbed you. Please, please help me.»

«Help?» said Xavier. He understood that the giant—Kahina—was sorry about something, and was thanking him, but he wasn't sure what it was she wanted help with. It was also surprisingly awkward feeling to have someone bowing like that to him.

The woman shifted into sitting cross-legged directly on the sand. Seated on the ground, her head came up almost to mid-chest on Xavier. She held out her normal-sized arm in the same position she had when she first approached. Did she want to shake hands again?

«Please,» she said, deep longing bleeding through her voice.

Xavier stepped forward, and tentatively took her hand again. Once more there was that rush of—whatever-it-was. Kahina sighed deeply for longer than Xavier would have thought possible, and bent her forehead in something like a bow, resting it lightly on their clasped hands.

«Thank you,» she said, and in those seemingly simple words Xavier heard a depth of emotion unlike any he could recall coming across before.

He wasn't sure what he was doing, or why it was helping her, but for the first time since waking up surrounded by sand Xavier felt something deep in his chest unclench. As the indefinable sensation of something flowing into him built again, Xavier knew one thing for sure: this woman, this Antean, needed him badly.

He hadn't realized how much he wanted to be needed.

Nothing he could do about it now, though, so Xavier struggled into the unfamiliar clothes as best he could and exited to find the old goat woman now with a much higher stack of folded towels and a much lower stack of unfolded ones. She grunted at him, and pointed toward the outside door, so Xavier bowed, said «Thank you very much,» and exited the building.

Yukio was crouched with his back up against the building across the way, playing some sort of game with rocks in the dirt. When Xavier came out, he tossed the rocks he'd been holding down, and stood.

«Ah, Zabi-kun, you're looking much better!» Yukio strode up to Xavier and before Xavier could protest began peremptorily adjusting his clothing. «You're definitely not used to our clothing, though, huh?»

«Thank you very much.» Xavier wasn't a huge fan of having a cat boy re-dress him in the middle of the street or alley or whatever you would classify these walkways between buildings, but he was intensely grateful to be clean.

«Feels good to be clean, yeah? Alright, this way. Come, Zabi-kun.»

Xavier followed along after the agile cat boy. «Where?» Ugh, he wanted to speak in something other than one word sentence fragments so badly.

Yukio appeared to understand what he was asking, at least. «The elders want to see you and figure out what to do with a human who has wandered into a bakuhito settlement. You've caused quite the uproar!»

Not that getting an answer from the fast-talking Yukio did Xavier any good. Still, he followed along with good will. Of all the animal people he had encountered so far, Yukio had made it clear through his actions and attention that he cared about Xavier's well-being. Even if Xavier had no idea why. Maybe cat people were just generally friendly by nature? He supposed some house cats he'd known were sort of like that.

Yukio led him to the large building he had noticed dominating one side of the central town square. Xavier was surprised to find the inside appeared to be entirely one big open room that was built down into the floor with descending ledges, some of which were lined with benches, others of which were empty. The very bottom level was spacious enough to accommodate a large number of chairs arranged in a semi-circle, most of which were filled with old animal people. Yukio led Xavier down to the bottom level, hopping carelessly from one ledge to the next while Xavier let himself down more carefully. At the bottom, he urged Xavier to sit on the frontmost of a series of three benches that were placed in front of the semi-circle of elders, and then plopped down next to him with an air of utter unconcern.

Xavier looked nervously around. Aside from the old animal people, there was a scattering of other animal people occupying various benches, and with the exception of one hodge-podge section directly behind him nearest the doors they were roughly segregated by type of animal, with wolves to his left, lizard-people directly across from him, and goats to his right.

«So this is the human we've been hearing so much about,» said an old wolf-person seated in the very front row. «What are we going to do with you, boy? How did you end up in Henka?»

«He doesn't speak very much of the language,» cut in Yukio.

The old wolf gave the cat-boy a withering glare before turning his attention back to Xavier. «That true, human? You don't speak our language? Well? You understand?»

Ah, he caught that last bit. «I don't understand.»

«Hmph. That certainly makes this more difficult. You've been with the human almost constantly since he was discovered, have you not, Yukio-kun? You tell the story.»

While Yukio talked, Xavier looked around the room he was in. This was obviously the political body for this town; though he had no idea how they were chosen, it was pretty clear that the decision makers were these elders and that they were discussing what to do with him. It was incredibly frustrating that he couldn't advocate for himself, although from Yukio's passionate speaking he guessed he had a decent advocate already.

Even so, he was nervous. If the elders threw him out, he literally had nowhere else to go, and he didn't relish getting stranded in the desert a second time. He knew from a practical standpoint that he'd likely survive—he hadn't noticed any flags getting triggered yet that indicated a bad isekai path—but trusting in the genre was not exactly his strong point.

Come to think, what was the most likely genre-appropriate event at this point? If he were an over-powered character, his plot armor would have protected him from this annoying language barrier and he likely would have saved the lives of multiple people already, leaving them all gratefully in his debt. As a "normal boy caught in the fantastic" he was likely expected to rely on the good friends he'd formed thanks to manga coincidences—which he supposed was actually what was happening. Huh. Strange to think the genre likely considered Yukio his bosom buddy already, even though he barely knew anything about him at all.

Yukio appeared to finally be winding down, and some of the elders in the back started talking amongst themselves. Xavier tugged lightly at Yukio's sleeve. «Yukio-san. Is good?»

«We'll just have to wait and see, Zabi-kun,» said Yukio cheerfully. «Wait.»

«Yes.»

An old wolf woman was speaking. «What are we supposed to do with a human we can't even speak to? He's a waste of water. And appearing out of the Deadlands? That's highly suspicious. Have we verified that he's not a youkai? Some sort of shape-changer, perhaps?»

«That seems unlikely,» croaked a stooped lizard man. «He's been in direct contact with several of our most powerful Vigor channelers and hasn't made a single aggressive move. The neko claims he even helped against the true youkai.»

«Cat tales,» growled one of the wolves, prompting glares from several of the other elders and nods or grunts of affirmation from others.

«Yukio-kun's behavior has been above reproach, and he is not the subject of this meeting,» said a large, white-furred goat man. «I am more interested in this 'siphoning' business. Are there any objections to me testing the human?»

There were sounds of assent and nods throughout the company. The goat man stood up and paused briefly with his eyes closed. For some reason, Xavier's focus was immediately pulled to the old goat, and he was surprised to see the muscles on the man's right arm ripple and expand.

There were murmurs throughout the audience. Apparently this was something unusual.

Once the goat man's arm stopped buffing itself up, he approached Xavier and held out his right hand.

«Take his hand, Zabi-kun. Hand,» said Yukio. As if Xavier couldn't have figured that out from context.

Feeling nervous and hoping this unexpectedly ripped old goat person didn't decide to hit him like the bird girl, Xavier reached out and gingerly touched the man's hand. At first nothing changed, but then the muscles of the man's arm rippled once again and began to gradually collapse in on themselves. It was the strangest sensation, and Xavier couldn't place it. His hand on the old man's felt warm? Except he wasn't actually feeling any heat. It was something else, some indefinable sense that he'd never experienced before. Well, he supposed he had in retrospect experienced it before, but this was the most extended time someone in this world had touched him; most of them seemed to be curious, but unwilling to come into prolonged contact. After a short period of time—but longer than it had taken to bulk up—the man's arm was back to normal.

«Fascinating,» grunted the goat man, and when Xavier went to withdraw his hand, the old man grabbed it. «Wait just a moment.» Xavier dutifully waited, but nothing else seemed to happen, and the indescribable sensation he had been feeling had ebbed away into nothing. At last the goat man let go of his hand, bowed slightly to him, and walked back to the other elders.

«Yukio-kun told the truth of it,» he said shortly, and sat down.

That seemed to stump the other elders for a moment, before the cantankerous wolf woman spoke up again. «So the cat boy wants us to take in a suspect human who siphons the Vigor of anyone he touches, and this serves the interests of Henka in what way exactly?»

«That ability would certainly be useful against youkai,» remarked one of the lizard people quietly.

«Ah, yes, the types of youkai who by the neko's own admission the human hid from like a craven. It was only by chance he helped the extermination instead of hindering it!»

That caused a mild uproar, but the elder's voices died down when the old goat man's gruff voice rang out. «What of the Antean?»

«What of her?» snapped the wolf woman. «Two outsiders aren't better than one, and so far she too has been nothing but a drain on our resources!»

«But perhaps this human might be able to help the Antean, at least in the short term. Her pain could well be alleviated by his siphoning, which would give us a chance to find a more long-term cure. And with the Society in our debt…»

That caused the whole mood in the room to shift, and the elders broke down in chatter amongst themselves.

«The Antean…» mused Yukio to himself.

Xavier tugged on his sleeve once again. «What is Antean?»

Yukio gave him a considering look, and then with a sparkle in his eyes spread his arms wide. «The Antean is BIG!»

Xavier wasn't sure what he had expected the next day to bring, but it wasn't to be awoken by an over-enthusiastic cat-boy. «Rise and shine!» called Yukio as he burst into Xavier's room and whipped off his blankets. «Come on, Zabi-kun, we've got to get you ready to see the elders. The day's wasting!»

Curse introductory Japanese! Xavier had never wished so fervently that he knew how to swear in another language.

Yukio proceeded to drag him to a common room in the wayhouse where they ate a simple breakfast and then forced him out of the wayhouse and between the buildings, talking his ear off the whole way.

Eventually, they reached a large, low building without windows. «Where?»

«The bath-house, the bath-house! You are way too filthy to make a good impression, Zabi-kun.» Yukio barged through the entry, Xavier in tow.

Inside was an old goat lady seated beside a pair of large baskets, evidently folding towels. «A neko, eh? Never thought I'd see your kind here.»

«Oh, I'm not bathing, thank you grandmother!» said Yukio with great cheer. «No, I've got an even more rarified guest for you today.» He shoved Xavier front and center, and the old lady's eyes widened.

«A human? What is a human doing in Henka?»

«I would love to tell you about it, grandmother! But first—Zabi-kun. Go there. Wash.» Yukio mimed licking his own arm. «Go on. Shoo, shoo!»

Xavier went. Though he wasn't planning on licking himself, thank you very much. Did cat people actually bathe themselves that way?

Inside was a large tile-lined bath of water that was gently steaming in the cool temperature of the morning. Xavier was alone, although he could hear the old woman and Yukio chatting it up in the adjoining room. He'd never been inside a Japanese communal bathhouse, but evidently this was to be his maiden voyage. He vaguely recalled that Japanese tended to bathe in the evenings, which perhaps explained the lack of other patrons. Though did that even apply here? Sure they spoke Japanese, but isekai worlds were often more grounded in weird interpretations of medieval Europe. Plus, weren't they in the middle of a desert? Where did they get this much water? And how was it heated?

Xavier was eager to explore the bath house to try and see if he could find any answers to his questions, but the gently steaming bath water was reminding him far too clearly of the fact that mornings here in this desert were incredibly cold, and that he was absolutely filthy.

With a single glance at the benches where he was pretty sure he was supposed to wash himself before getting in the bath proper, he sloughed off his pajamas and waded straight in. Forget bowing to cross-cultural norms; he was suddenly afflicted with the burning desire to be clean.

For a while Xavier just sat and relaxed in the water, though after a bit the sheer amount of dirt that was detaching from him and floating into the bath encouraged him to get out and do a quick scrub and rinse with the soap at one of the nearby benches. That task complete, he hurried back into the bath and sat up against the warm tile along the edge.

Xavier sighed deeply, actually feeling halfway relaxed. The tension in his overstressed muscles slowly released in the heated water, and for the first time since waking up three days ago he had a chance to take a moment and think without a pressing threat to his survival stealing his focus and energy.

Any way he looked at it, this situation was dire. He was stranded alone in a strange world in one of the most hostile environments he'd ever experienced, and he had the sinking feeling that he wasn't an over-powered protagonist. That was a huge shame; while the OP protagonist route was one that was invariably littered with violence, harems, and other pitfalls, the everyman protagonist trope was one in which his choices would be far more constrained. OP protagonists typically had some level of choice if they were going to get into dangerous situations; if he'd been granted some crazy powerful artifact or skill, then he would have some leverage to push the plot in directions that were helpful for him. Since all he had going for him were two semesters of high school Japanese, a set of pajamas that was about to fall apart, and his wits he was going to have a much harder time influencing the plot in helpful directions.

Although, come to think—maybe he did have some sort of magical ability? Xavier lifted his hand out of the water and stared at it, remembering the sensation of a bird woman's talons scraping across his palm as they retracted. Sumiko-san had been obviously perplexed last night when the heat faded from the blanket he was holding so quickly. Maybe he had a cheat ability that he just hadn't explored yet? Like some sort of innate ability to counter this world's magic? At the very least, he appeared to be able to make animal people he touched become more human-like. That could actually be pretty over-powered on its own, depending on how it worked and whether he could improve on it with practice. He would definitely need to explore that possibility, as well as figure out if he would be able to do magic. He had a strong feeling that if he was going to make it back home, he was going to need some very high-level magic along the way.

Hm, how else did isekai protagonists tend to get ahead? They often had crazy good support networks that allowed them to grow and improve their abilities despite dangerous circumstances. Xavier wasn't sure if the animal people counted there; a lot of them seemed very leery of him. He absolutely needed to establish a place in this community somehow; that was arguably even more important than learning the language properly and getting magic figured out.

Unfortunately, he was drawing a complete blank on what he could contribute. From what he'd seen so far, the animal people were far more physically fit than he was, so the low-hanging fruit of physical labor was unlikely. He didn't have any particular skills in cooking or other domestic pursuits. He had never been very interested in engineering and knew next to nothing about deserts, so he was pessimistic that he would be able to come up with any ideas that would substantively improve their lives. He could attempt the dangerous game of trying to predict future events using his knowledge of genre tropes—except he could barely communicate his most basic needs.

Well, that could wait, he supposed. The nice thing about being a manga protagonist was that if he didn't take any specific action, something would inevitably find him instead. He'd just have to hope it wasn't anything too dangerous. That monster he'd run into in the desert had been horrific. If his weird ability to cancel magic or whatever turned out to be key to defeating that sort of threat—he wasn't sure what he'd do then, actually. Cross that bridge when he came to it, he supposed, and possibly keep running until he found a saner scenario.

If only his dad and mom were here; he was sure they—

Xavier's thoughts jolted to a complete stop as he unexpectedly fell over an emotional cliff. Mom. Dad. Vickie. Hayden. Rachel. Everyone he knew and loved, and everything he truly understood was absolutely beyond his reach. For the first time in his entire life, he was completely alone.

He didn't try to fight the wave of emotion that hit him then. In the midst of this giant, empty pool of water, he could definitely spare the moisture.

Silent as the caracal that was an ancient part of his heritage, Yukio slipped down the aisle between the stools and retrieved the filthy outfit the human had been wearing day and night since he'd stumbled into their battle with the youkai, leaving a clean set of clothes behind. He briefly paused to consider trying to comfort the human, but he still wasn't sure whether it was worth the effort to establish that level of rapport. Better to leave him for now. He was already admirably serving Yukio's short-term interests, and if he led to opportunities in the future…well, Yukio certainly wouldn't want someone to see him that vulnerable. Perhaps leaving the human alone for now was the right move in either case. His birth family certainly wouldn't have been able to resist the sort of emotional vulnerability the human was displaying at the moment, which was a solid argument in favor of quietly leaving the way he had come.

Plus he hated getting wet.

With a shake to settle his fur, Yukio quietly headed back outside, leaving Xavier to his loneliness and grief.

Unfortunately, the bed was almost the only thing in the room. The place was almost pitch black, but when Xavier stumbled to the hide hanging across the doorway and pushed it aside he discovered the hallway was gently illuminated by glowing something or others in sconces. Leaving the door hanging shoved aside, he investigated the contents of the room more thoroughly. Aside from the bed, there was a basket filled with porous rocks, a second basket filled with nothing at all, and no extra bed clothes under the bed that he could make out. He wasn't quite willing to stick his arm underneath and feel around; although he hadn't even thought about it while traveling thanks to the hellish pace the animal people had set, he had a vague recollection that scorpions tended to live in deserts and late at night with the black gap between the bed and the floor leering at him he had no inclination to discover if some might be sequestered under there.

Perhaps he was supposed to make a fire by striking the rocks together? Though come to think of it, he hadn't noticed any smoke holes, chimneys, or fireplaces in his entire tour of the building. How on earth had someone baked that bread?

Feeling a bit desperate, Xavier went to the sconce in the hallway and carefully held his hand up to it; unfortunately, whatever was in there wasn't burning and gave off no heat he could perceive. Strangely, the longer he held his hand near the sconce, the dimmer the light became. When he noticed he quickly pulled his hand away. He felt no warmer, but he was shivering slightly less. Weird.

Looked like he didn't have choice: he was going to have to try and wake Sumiko.

Fortunately, her room was the first one before the foyer where the three hallways split off into various parts of the building, so it was easy to find. Xavier knocked softly on the door frame. «S-Sumiko-san?» Ugh, how was it so obscenely cold? While he had admittedly been dead tired, he didn't recall getting this cold when he was sleeping outside.

He rapped his fingers more smartly against the door frame. Since it was adobe, it didn't make very much noise. «Sumiko-san!» he called in a louder voice. «Help me, please!»

At last, he heard movement in her room, and soon Sumiko herself whisked aside the hide hanging across her doorway. «Zabi-san? What is it?»

Damn it, he couldn't remember the word. "I'm freezing. Is there a fire or something somewhere?"

She just cocked her head.

«Uh, hot. No. I am…not heat?»

«Oh, you're cold?»

"Yes! I mean—" At this rate not knowing the language really was going to kill him. «Yes! Cold! Where?» He had a feeling that wasn't right.

«Are you out of stones? Right, you don't understand me. You have stones? Stones?»

«I don't understand.» He was good at that phrase, at least. When it came to lines he'd had plenty of practice with, that was right up there with commenting on how nice the weather was.

Sumiko ducked into her room and came out with another one of the porous rocks. «This is a stone. A Stone.»

«Stone.» And now he was dutifully repeating words back to her. Hello, Kindergarten, it's been a while! "How is a rock supposed to help me?" Xavier pantomimed confusion as best he could.

Sumiko looked perplexed, but clenched the rock in one fist, touched his blanket with her other hand, and Xavier startled as his blanket warmed up. "What the hell did you just do?" Damn it. «I don't understand.»

«You don't know how to call heat?» Sumiko was evidently flabbergasted over something. If only he could figure out what. «Here, take the stone, and call its Vigor as heat.» She placed the rock she'd been holding in his hand and closed his fingers around it. «Go ahead.»

It looked like Sumiko expected him to replicate her blanket-warming trick. Maybe this wasn't actually a rock, but was some sort of tool that just happened to look like a rock? Or maybe it was magic? The rock felt warmer than it should have been just from Sumiko's body heat, and while it might have been a trick of the light Xavier could have sworn that it was a little smaller than it had been when she'd first brought it out of her room. Maybe he just needed to grip it?

Xavier compressed the rock in his hand. Or tried to, in any case. But it was just a rock. He tried to adjust his hand's position to match what he remembered of Sumiko's. He handed her the blanket, switched the rock to the same hand she'd used, and touched the blanket while gripping the rock.

If she was expecting him to suddenly awaken an unknown talent for pulling heat out of rocks, Sumiko was evidently in for disappointment.

«You really don't know how to call heat,» she said, and rubbed her hand across her forehead. «How did you even survive until now? And wait, why is this blanket so cold already?»

Sumiko eyed him with a perplexed look. «Maybe it has to do with his compulsive siphoning?» she muttered. «I wonder…»

Xavier shrugged in helpless frustration.

«Wait here. Wait. You understand?»

«Yes.»

Sumiko ducked back into her room, and emerged a moment later with her own blanket. «Hold this.» She traded Xavier his blanket back for the stone, and piled her own blanket on top, making sure he wasn't directly touching it. With stone in hand, she gripped the rock once more, this time touching her own blanket.

After a moment, Xavier could feel heat radiating through the blankets, although it was much less pronounced than when she had applied the magic or whatever it was directly to his blanket.

Holding two blankets was starting to get awkwardly heavy, though, and he shifted his weight.

Sumiko grabbed his shoulder. «Wait.»

The pair stood there for almost a minute, until Sumiko was evidently satisfied. «Thank goodness, that worked. Looks like you only actively siphon if you're touching the blanket directly. Let me just get you a spare—oh, right. Zabi-san. Go. Your room. Wait. Understand?»

«Yes?» Sumiko took her blanket back from Xavier, and waved him back down the hall.

He retreated to his bedroom, and was shivering despite being wrapped in his blanket when she followed him with an extra blanket in hand. After a brief bout of stilted pseudo-conversation and charades, Xavier found himself back in bed with one blanket pulled up to his chin and the other only coming up about to his chest.

Sumiko spent several minutes going through rock after rock as she heated the entirety of the top blanket. It was fascinating. The rocks really did physically diminish until they basically fell apart into sand as she evidently converted them into heat. This had to be some form of magic. Xavier had wondered if maybe the rocks weren't actually rocks, but nothing about them as they degraded in front of his eyes indicated they were anything more than what they looked like.

Now if only he could learn to use magic…he had a feeling that would be a solid step toward returning to his home.

In the blissfully warm weight of his newly comfortable bed, Xavier drifted off to dream of his family.

As they wended their way toward the village center, curious animal people of all different species began to emerge, and a gaggle of children tagged along and generally got underfoot, shouting excited questions at the group that Xavier couldn't interpret.

A set of three young wolf people—or dog people? He still wasn't clear on that—were the first to notice Xavier. He'd been walking wrapped in his now-thoroughly dirty bedsheets, but had let them drop away from his head in order to look around.

«Neko-kun, what's that? Did you capture a human?!» shouted the most boisterous of the three, and although he was still far from fluent that was one word that Xavier had definitely learned to pick out.

«Yes. I am human,» he responded.

The three wolf cubs shrieked and scattered, sending Yukio into a fit of laughter when they immediately circled around the goat people and began stalking Xavier from the side.

«Zabi-kun, you're the first human they've seen in their whole lives,» said Yukio. «Give them a smile and a wave, why don't you?»

At this point, Xavier had finally landed on the proper way to deal with Yukio. Smile and agree. «Yes. I am human.»

That cracked up Yukio for a second time, so evidently he hadn't picked up on what was going on as well as he'd thought.

The group arrived at a large open space in the center of the town after several minutes of walking, at this point trailing quite the entourage of diverse animal people. When they arrived, the group gradually began to spread apart as individuals socialized with the townsfolk, although Yukio kept close to Xavier. Since he was only catching about one word in a hundred, Xavier used the time to study the town he'd ended up in.

At the center of the open space in which the animal people had congregated was a large wheel whose teeth were engaged with a chain that looped over its top and down into the ground. Attached to the chain were a series of what appeared to be buckets, and Xavier assumed the contraption was some form of well. There was a trough wrapping around from one side of the well, but the other was an open area dominated by a vertical post.

Beyond the well was the largest building Xavier had seen in the town yet; it stretched across a good portion of one side of the open space, which resulted in its overall shape being like a rounded bowl laid on its side: flat on the top and round elsewhere. The rest of the buildings around the square seemed to be private dwellings, based purely on the number of individuals and families emerging from them.

The townsfolk were even more diverse than the group that had rescued Xavier. He spotted a sizable number of wolf or dog people, but there were also numerous types of birds, a scattering of lizard people with scales visible on their faces, more goat people including a sizable pack of children cavorting around without apparent supervision, a wide array of people with various mammalian features Xavier couldn't place, and even one individual with chitinous skin and a scattering of shiny globules across their forehead that Xavier was fairly certain were eyes.

«Zabi-kun, Zabi-kun!» said Yukio, pulling Xavier's focus away from the crowd. «The elder says you can stay in the wayhouse. C'mere, let me introduce you to Sumiko-san. Uh…Zabi-kun. Come with. Over there.»

Oh! Yukio wanted him to go somewhere. Man, that might have been the first time he actually understood the irrepressible cat boy. He dutifully followed Yukio through the crowd to a girl with rounded animal ears and what was clearly a raccoon mask across her eyes. Wait, what was the Japanese animal that manga were always translating as "raccoon" or "raccoon dog"? Tanuki, wasn't it?

Yukio pointed to the girl. «This is Sumiko. Xavier-kun, Sumiko.»

«Hello, it is nice to meet you. My name is Xavier.»

«Pleased to meet you,» said the girl in a quiet voice. «Ekusu…Ettsu…»

Yukio let out one of his strange coughing laughs. «Don't hurt yourself, Sumiko-san. I just call him Zabi-kun. He barely understands anything, anyway. He's a human we found just outside the Deadlands, of all places. Well, really he found us; stumbled right into the middle of our showdown with that youkai!»

«Is it alright if I call you Zabi-kun?» asked the girl, with a small smile toward Yukio.

«Uh,» said Xavier. He wasn't quite sure what she'd asked him. Something about speaking? Ah, maybe she was asking what to call him. «Yes, yes, Zabi-kun. Uh, Sumiko-san?» Ugh, why could he never remember how the damn hierarchies worked in Japanese? Hopefully "san" was polite enough; it was weird how no one had used a surname with him so far. He'd thought referring to people by their surname was the Japanese thing. «Is…uh…tanuki?»

Yukio sounded like he was coughing up a hair ball he was laughing so hard. Evidently Xavier messed that one up somehow.

Sumiko looked embarrassed. «I'm a raccoon bakuhito, Zabi-kun.»

«Geez, dude, you just met her and the first thing you do is call her a tanuki? What's next, gonna ask Rokuro if he's a dog? Oh, I would pay to see the look on his face!»

«Don't listen to Yukio-kun,» said Sumiko, whacking the cat boy upside the head in a lightning-fast move that made Xavier jump. She turned her attention to Yukio. «I take it Zabi-kun is staying at the wayhouse?»

«Yep! We've got ourselves a human. Would you get him settled? I have to go debrief with the elders, and Zabi-kun is dead on his feet. Oh! And if you touch him, he'll probably siphon Vigor. It feels a little funny, but it's totally harmless. He can't seem to get ahold of anything beyond reserves, and best we can tell it's involuntary.»

«Siphons…?» Sumiko shook herself. «I'll ask in the morning; Hisao-san is looking for you.»

«Ah, you're right! Alright, Zabi-kun, go with Sumiko-san for now, 'kay? I'll see you in the morning! No, you need to stay. Stay! Uh, with Sumiko-san!»

Xavier watched Yukio scamper off through the crowd and tried not to dissolve into panic. The cat boy was almost entirely unintelligible, but he was one of the few familiar faces Xavier had in this world. A touch on his arm brought his attention back to Sumiko, who removed her hand and flexed her fingers.

«Yukio-kun wasn't kidding. How strange. Zabi-kun, please come with me. Mm, food, sleep. Come.»

On the other hand, Sumiko seemed nice, and Xavier caught just enough of that to understand that she was offering somewhere to sleep and something to eat. With a final backwards glance after the cat boy who had already slipped out of sight through the crowd, Xavier followed Sumiko across the  open space and back into the warren of buildings.

After a walk that was just long enough to leave the sounds of the crowd behind, Sumiko led Xavier to a building that was larger than most of the other dwellings.

«Welcome to the Isei Wayhouse. After you.»

Xavier entered to discover a moderately-sized entry room with three hallways branching off from the far end. As Sumiko led him down the rightmost hallway, she pointed to parts of the house and quietly named them.

«Common room. North wing. Cactus, or plant.»

Xavier liked her better than Yukio already. He remembered the grammar for Japanese, but was severely lacking in both vocabulary and any exposure to forms of address that weren't ultra-polite. Sumiko's running quiet commentary on their surroundings was far more useful than Yukio's endless nattering.

Plus she fed him the first real meal he'd had since arriving in this world. When she got out actual bread, Xavier almost cried.

Finally, Yukio led him away from the group, and after a series of awkward charades that culminated in a practical demonstration, convinced him to try to go to the bathroom. That somewhat mortifying experience over, the group set out.

While he still felt terrible, having easy access to water and a group of people to rely on who obviously knew what they were doing finally gave Xavier some space to think about his situation.

It had been a close thing, but he'd successfully found his manga coincidence yesterday, and now he had to wonder: what next? From the animal people's behavior, it seemed obvious that humans were unusual in this desert, but thankfully he hadn't noticed any overtly aggressive behavior. After—whatever it was—happened with the bird girl they'd certainly been hostile, but she'd seemed frightened and angry, so he didn't think they were biased against humans so much as worried that he personally was a threat. That was a huge relief. It was distressingly common in isekai manga to have animal people relegated to second-class citizenship, or worse, straight-up slavery. While Xavier had appreciated reading about noble-hearted protagonists who treated animal people equally (usually adding a cat girl or two to their harem along the way), he didn't think the reality of being thrown in with a group of people who had been systematically exploited by humans for who-knew-how-long would have been at all pleasant.

His memory was hazy, but he thought he remembered some sort of magical light last night, as well. That coupled with the weird sensations he'd felt whenever he touched a living thing indicated he had some sort of special ability. He just had no idea what it might be or how he might use it. Definitely something to explore when he had a chance, though, if only to avoid getting kicked in the chest again. His ribs were still sore.

No, he didn't have the leisure available to worry about this world's magic or technology or whatever it might be. He had more pressing concerns.

«…and so I said, 'To hell with this,' and left for good. I'd heard about the folks at Henka before, and figured if everyone I knew swore it was such a terrible place it had to be a better fit for me than any of the nearby clans—not that they'd let a neko stay in the first place.»

Xavier was pretty sure Yukio was saying something about cats, but he might have misheard that bit. «Cat? Um. Is cat?»

«Right, cat, yes!» said Yukio with great enthusiasm. «See, I told you he understood me! Pay up, Shibou-san!»

«Bullshit,» said the goat man who had been walking near them. «He can't even string two words together.»

Xavier was feeling a very urgent need to learn Japanese, but Yukio's out-of-context ramblings were helping precisely not at all.

He tuned out the developing cat-fight—or maybe goat-fight?—that was developing between the goat man and Yukio, and went back to observing the group he had fallen in with. Unlike the previous day, when many of the group were extremely animalistic, most of them were very human-looking today. The bird girl still had talons for feet, but he was pretty sure that she had fewer feathers than the day before, and her face looked softer and rounder somehow. The wolf people—he was fairly certain they were wolves, just based on their utter lack of friendly dog behavior—were almost the same as before, except maybe less hairy?

The biggest difference was the bear man, who yesterday had looked basically like a bear wearing clothing but today was just a very shaggy older guy with weirdly-cute rounded bear ears peeking out of the hair near the upper sides of his head. Maybe they were all shape-shifters to some extent? Xavier really wished he could ask—

«…no, I'm telling you, the pits north of Tenshin are the only way to go! Sure you're over near Sunda, but even if they treat you like crap out of the ring I hear they'll shower you with krona if you make a good showing inside…»

—but Yukio was babbling on about who-knew-what to the increasingly-annoyed looking goat person and Xavier had no clue how to communicate what he wanted to anyway. Regardless if they were some sort of were-person or what, though, they were all clearly fighters. Or hunters? He wasn't quite sure what their function was. They'd been fighting that monster spider-thing so seriously, but once it was dead they just left it to rot. The fact that they appeared only equipped to travel or fight and had to travel for several hours to reach their camp the previous evening indicated they'd probably gone looking for the monster rather than getting ambushed or something in transit. Maybe they were adventurers or mercenaries of some sort? That would certainly fit with the isekai theme, although outside of worlds that were clearly ripping off role playing games, Xavier wasn't sure if "adventurer" as an occupation was something that was sustainable in reality.

As the day wore on, Xavier's questions only multiplied, but the endless walking once again eventually forced him into a barely-conscious fugue state and the next thing he knew the animal people were laboriously filling their water skins from a trickle of water that was running down a rock-face and soaking into the ground in a small enclosed grotto.

Although Xavier hoped they would simply camp near the water source, the group ended up walking for a good hour more after filling up their water supplies and resting a bit.

At last, when Xavier was starting to stumble with exhaustion and the goat man was eyeing him with annoyance, the group finally stopped and made camp. Once more Xavier barely managed to swallow his small portion of trail rations and fall into a blanket provided by the goat man before he was asleep.

The next day followed the exact same routine, and as the sun was setting and Xavier was beginning to wonder if he was cursed to wander the desert with this odd group of animal people forever, they arrived at a village.

«At last!» exclaimed Yukio as they drew near the outer buildings, and Xavier looked groggily up. The endless walking had finally shut even the irrepressible Yukio up the latter half of the day. «We've made it back! Welcome to Henka, Zabi-kun!»

Fortunately, he also knew how to politely introduce himself for the first time, if he could ever get a word in edgewise.

Movement in his peripheral vision made him start. The cat boy had slipped up next to Xavier and was crouched on his heels watching him. Well, no time like the present.

«Hello, it is nice to meet you. My name is Xavier.»

The short hairs on the cat boy's ears and around the fringes of his hair frizzed up as his eyes widened in surprise.

«What are you idiots talking about?» he called to the others. «This human can speak just fine.» He turned his attention back to Xavier. «Hey, I'm Yukio.»

Xavier caught approximately none of that, though he was fairly certain the cat boy's name was Yukio.

«What are you doing so close to the Deadlands? What is that crazy thing you're wearing? Where are you from? Did you actually siphon Tobi? You're not a mononoke are you?»

"Uh," said Xavier. He'd always thought cats were really aloof creatures, but maybe that didn't apply to cat people? «Could you please repeat that more slowly?»

«What are you doing so close—wait, do you understand what I'm saying? The sun is purple and made out of yak milk. I'm speaking s-l-o-w-l-y. Understand?»

Ah he caught the last word. «I do not understand.»

Yukio stared at him with an expression Xavier couldn't read, then out of the blue snatched Xavier's hand. Xavier instinctively flinched and tried to pull away, but Yukio kept a firm grip on him.

After a few seconds, the cat boy dropped his hand with a cough. «That tickles! I don't think he's siphoning on purpose; he just does it instinctively. Tobi, you probably got hit hard because you're still bulked up. Anyway, can I keep him? He's interesting, and I'm pretty sure if we leave him here he'll just die. He doesn't look very good. Come on, Hisao-san, we can take him with us, right?»

«Very well,» rumbled a voice from behind Xavier, causing him to stiffen. He was so sick of these people sneaking up on him. A hairy hand clamped down on his shoulder as the bear man leaned down to stare at him with an ursine eye. «Behave yourself, human, or you'll deal with me.» With an annoyed look, the bear man lifted his now more-human-looking hand from Xavier's shoulder and shook it as if it had fallen asleep. «And stop doing that. No wonder Tobi kicked him. Yukio, the human is your responsibility.» The bear man moved past Xavier and addressed the rest of the animal people. «Move out. I don't trust this unnatural calm to last, and we're too far into the Deadlands for my liking. We've wasted too much time on this foundling.»

Weapons were sheathed, and Xavier breathed easier as the animal people's focus shifted away from him. Now he just had to convince them to take him—

«Up you go!» came the voice of Yukio, and Xavier found himself hoisted to his feet. «What did you say your name was? Your name? Name, do you understand?»

Ah, he caught that last bit. «Hello, it is nice to meet you. My name is Xavier.»

Yukio made an odd coughing sound, and Xavier realized a moment later it was laughter. «So formal! Also, don't know I you noticed but we've already met. So Zabi-kun, then.»

Xavier shook his head. "Xavier. My name is Xavier. I mean, uh—" How to say it? «My name. Xavier.»

«Yeah, yeah, Zabi-kun it is.»

Xavier had a feeling this was one battle he wasn't going to win.

It was only after an hour or more that Xavier's body realized that he hadn't had any water since the previous evening and had spent the majority of the day walking. Without his willing it, his legs simply folded and he ended up falling in the sand.

Yukio was crouched by him in an instant. «Oy, Zabi-kun, you alright?»

«Idiot,» snorted one of the goat people, who had been walking nearby. «He has no supplies at all, and he came from the direction of the Deadlands. What did you think was going to happen when you decided to make a misplaced human your charity case?»

Yukio just stared at the goat person, who snorted and turned away. Xavier tried to push himself up, but found his arms surprisingly unwilling.

«Alright, up you get,» said Yukio, and hauled Xavier to his feet. «You stay here, 'kay?» The cat boy turned away and headed off toward the bear person. Xavier blearily tried to follow him, and ended up face-first in the sand again for his trouble.

A minute later, Yukio was back, minus his spear. He hauled Xavier to his feet, and began half-carrying him along.

They continued on that way through the twilight, Xavier barely conscious of anything more than trying to get one foot in front of the other while a surprisingly strong cat boy hauled him along.

Full dark fell like a curtain over a lamp, and the group gathered together for a short stop for the first time since the monster had been killed. After a short discussion that Xavier completely failed to follow, the group set out again but in a much tighter cluster. Xavier was hoisted over the shoulder of one of the goat people with a weak protest, and they ventured out in the shimmering light of something held in the hands of several of the group who were at the periphery. It almost seemed like magic, since Xavier could have sworn no one was carrying torches or any sort of extensive supplies, but he never caught a good glimpse of what they were holding and quickly lapsed into a painful fugue state.

The next thing he was aware of was being flopped onto the ground, bedsheets a gritty tangle around his body and limbs. A rough hand forced the fabric away from his face and thrust something against his mouth, and then all he was aware of was water, glorious warm stale-tasting water. Xavier gulped, choked, and somehow managed to swallow what felt like a gallon of water before someone took it away from him. «Enough,» rumbled a voice he couldn't understand. «Rest now.»

Xavier didn't need to overcome the language barrier to follow that final command.

It didn't help that the participants in the fight put paid to the thought that this might be anything but an isekai.

On one side was a literal monster. It looked almost like a spider, but instead of eight legs it had six. It was also oddly mammalian; where a spider would have exoskeleton, this thing was all knotted muscle and course, short hair. Where Xavier would have expected its eyes, there was nothing but a flat expanse of skin above a too-wide mouth full of rows of jagged teeth, like some shark gone horribly awry.

And it was huge. Xavier could likely have walked upright underneath its body without brushing its stomach. Despite its size, the thing moved in quick bursts, scuttling and attacking in unexpected directions. It currently wasn't facing directly toward him, but had its face angled off to his left.

Arrayed against the spider-monkey-shark monster was a small group of—well, they were animal people. If Xavier hadn't known he was in a manga already, that would have been a damn big clue. Stalking around the monster's side to Xavier's right was an honest-to-goodness cat boy who looked about Xavier's own age, complete with perky ears jutting out of his hair and a tail emerging from his lower back. He was dressed in some sort of flowing white material with a short tunic around his legs and was carrying spear. Beyond the cat boy, almost entirely behind the monster, was an older man who appeared to be part bear. Unlike the cat person, his ursine features dominated, and Xavier could swear that as he watched that the man's chest muscles rippled and expanded.

In the split second Xavier had taken to observe the cat boy and bear man, the monster threw itself in a circle, one of its front-most limbs lashing out and sending the bear man flying back into the dunes. The monster snarled, several of its limbs sending bursts of sand skyward as they pounded into the ground in preparation to giving chase, but the cat boy sprang toward it and with a flying leap rammed his spear into its abdomen.

The thing screeched and whirled again, flinging the cat boy from the haft of his spear and forcing him to dodge between its flailing legs to escape. The spear in turn slid free shortly after the cat boy landed and flew into the sand a few yards away in a spray of dark blood or ichor.

As the cat boy desperately tried to escape from underneath the thing, the other animal people attacked in force. They were a motley band, with a broad range of ages, species, and balance between human and animal features. Xavier spotted two men and a woman with pointed ears like a wolf or dog—the men with swords and woman with a small axe—who were prowling around the monster. Although they were silent, they seemed to be moving in concert: one would dart forward only to fall back if the monster swung a limb their way while the other two attacked from its flanks. There was also a woman with feathers instead of hair and what looked like talons instead of feet. She was having difficulty connecting as the monster preternaturally dodged whenever she leaped at it. Two people hung back; one a man who had curled goat horns sprouting from his forehead and was holding an absurdly large hammer, and the other a woman who had shorter straight horns and was holding some sort of oversized spear or axe.

With a roar, the bear man—looking far more bear than man compared to moments ago—came barreling out of the sand and slammed against one of the things legs, scratching and biting.

For a moment, Xavier thought the animal people were going to bring the monster down, but after it paused in apparent surprise at having its middle limb mauled by a bear, the thing exploded in a flurry of movement.

The bear man was thrust back, stumbling from a blow to the head. One of the wolf or dog men flew off opposite Xavier with a yelp from a blow he hadn't seen. The bird woman was swatted from the air and landed with an explosion of sand, while the cat boy was forced to scramble away once again as the battle trended toward where he had been frantically digging around for his spear.

The bear growled as he rolled to his feet, and the whole party—including the goat people who had been hanging back—clustered together near where the bird woman and wolf man had fallen on the opposite side of the monster from Xavier. The monster snapped at the wolf woman as she passed, but danced back out of range when she and one of the goat people took swings at it with their respective sword and hammer.

Unfortunately, moving away from the animal people meant it was moving toward Xavier.

As who-knew-how-many pounds of impossible monster loomed toward him, Xavier finally broke through his shock and gut-level disbelief and panicked. A quick glance around revealed a large rock to his right; Xavier dove for it and hunkered down, hoping that the seemingly blind monstrosity wouldn't notice him there.

Though he couldn't see with his head tucked down behind the rock, from the sounds of it the group of animal people had resumed their assault, but the dull thumps and varying exclamations of pain told him that the creature was landing more blows in this second sortie than the animal people.

As the initial burst of panicked adrenaline faded slightly, he realized that this was a classic isekai initial scenario. Admittedly, most isekai would have had him encounter a single cat girl in desperate straights, rather than this odd mish-mash of animal people, but regardless it was the perfect incentive to unlock the hidden potential within himself, save the day, and in a single stroke of bad-assery claim a place in this obviously hostile world.

Rather than feeling any hidden potential rising up within him, though, Xavier simply felt jittery, out of breath, and deathly afraid. It was one thing to read about a heroic Japanese high schooler facing off against some monstrosity in a small black and white panel. It was something entirely different when the monster itself was looming above him and hurling animal people through the air mere yards away. The thing moved and sounded and smelled completely wrong. It set his hackles on end, and unlike some of the company he'd found himself in he didn't actually have hackles.

As he crouched behind his rock, paralyzed with indecision, the pounding sound of the monster's limbs impacting the sand grew suddenly nearer. Xavier looked up in a second abrupt panic just in time to see one of the monster's back limbs crash into the ground mere feet away.

With a yelp, he scrambled backward and slammed straight into another of the monster's limbs. His head bounced off the corded muscle and his right hand landed square on the blunt foot that terminated the limb.

The thing and Xavier both froze, and Xavier felt something truly bizarre. The monster's skin was uncomfortably warm, its hair course and almost sharp. However, what locked him in place wasn't the unpleasant sensations his sense of touch were communicating to him, but rather an alien sensation that he could make no sense of. It was like—a drink of brackish water at the end of a hot day; the ebb of pain after being hooked up to an I.V. drip; walking into a room and turning on the lights, only to find that it wasn't the room he'd expected. He wasn't sure what, but something small but noticeable had changed when he'd come into contact with the monster's foot.

Evidently something changed for the monster, as well, because it screamed even louder than when the cat boy had stabbed it and Xavier found himself flying into the rock he'd been trying to hide behind, tumbling painfully over top of it, and landing on the far side.

For a moment he just gasped and choked against the sand, trying to regain his breath. When he finally forced himself painfully to his knees, the monster had moved several yards away and was being beset by the animal people from all sides.

Moments ago, the thing's inhuman coordination had fought its antagonists to an impasse, but now the monster was stumbling, one of its back limbs buckling underneath it and throwing off its balance just enough that two wolf people were able to lope underneath it and bury a sword and an axe deep into the joints of two more of its legs before rolling clear.

At least one of the blows seemed to have hamstrung the monster—or severed whatever congruent muscle it had in place of hamstrings—as the leg with the axe still buried in it promptly collapsed under the thing's weight, almost pinning the second wolf man under its body. As it went to several of its knees, the goat people, bear man, and cat boy—who evidently had finally dug his spear back up—descended on it en masse.

What followed was ugly. The goat man methodically began crushing every joint he could reach with his absurdly large hammer. The cat boy stabbed repeatedly into the monster's forelimbs as it tried to swat its attackers off. The goat woman sprang nimbly up the monster's side, and began to try to chop through the smooth skin above its mouth from atop its back, and the bear man simply shredded any part of it he could reach with his claws and teeth, spraying blood and skin every which way.

The monster struggled, but was unable to regain its feet. It managed to get one of the bear man's legs into its mouth and for a moment red blood joined the ichor in the air, but then the goat woman apparently penetrated to something vital and buried her weapon in the monster's head. With a final keening cry, it shuddered and dropped fully onto the sand, the only remaining sign of life feeble twitches that shuddered through its body and limbs at intervals.

As soon as the fight went out of the thing, the wolf people were at the bear's side, helping him extricate his leg from the monster's mouth. The bear growled something Xavier couldn't make out to one of them, whose head instantly came up. Yellow eyes locked onto Xavier's and Xavier momentarily forgot to breathe.

He was shocked out of his moment of feeling like prey when the bird woman landed next to him in a surprisingly light puff of sand. She waved an oddly articulated arm toward the wolf person and turned her gaze on Xavier, head shifting back and forth in a manner reminiscent of a bird, despite having eyes on the font of her face like a human.

«A human? Where did you come from? Are you alright?»

Wait, what language was that? It sounded vaguely familiar, but Xavier didn't understand anything the bird lady said.

She reached out one of her hands to him. «It's alright, we've put down the youkai.»

Still unsure what she was saying, Xavier grabbed her hand and she helped pull him to his feet.

As he stood, her expression shifted quickly from concern, to confusion, to anger and fear as her hand in his subtly changed. He felt her claws retract with a slight scratch, and was just opening his mouth to ask—in what was likely a futile effort—what was going on when her bare taloned foot shot up and she planted a solid kick straight to his stomach.

Xavier flew back and landed painfully in the sand, the breath completely knocked out of him a second time in so many minutes. He painfully sat up and immediately froze. The wolf people had abandoned the bear man as he struggled to regain his ability to breathe and were surrounding him with weapons out while the bird lady looked on from several feet away where she had evidently jumped after kicking him.

«Tobi! What happened?» growled the wolf man standing behind Xavier's right shoulder.

«I was helping him, and he siphoned my Vigor!»

«Who are you, human?» said the wolf woman, sheathing her axe in a small hoop at her waist and dropping into a squat in front of him. Her fellow's swords stayed pointed at his neck.

"I'm really sorry," said Xavier. "I don't understand a word you're saying."

All four animal people froze. «Rokuro,» said the wolf woman. «You recognize that language? Tobi?» The bird woman crossed her arms in an X shape, and then began massaging the forearm of the hand she had offered to Xavier. «Well,» continued the wolf woman. «You're a puzzle.»

«Leave him? Kill him?» said the wolf man to Xavier's left.

The animal people kept talking, but Xavier tuned them out as realization dawned. He'd actually caught that. The wolf man said something about killing.

All of them were speaking Japanese.

Of course they were. People in other worlds in manga almost always spoke Japanese.

Two semesters of high school introductory Japanese hadn't remotely prepared him for this.

Plus his bedroom didn't typically smell like a desert. When Xavier was younger, his family had taken a vacation to southern California, and visited Death Valley as part of their sight-seeing. His memories of the whole trip were fuzzy, but what he was smelling now rocketed him straight back to climbing a sand dune in the early morning as the sun was just clearing the mountains to the east.

Why did his bedroom smell like the desert?

Adrenaline shot through him, and Xavier bolted upright in bed. His mattress, complete with sheets and pillow but sans bedframe, was lying at the top of a giant sand dune surrounded by more giant sand dunes as far as he could see in any direction. Vegetation was practically non-existent, although there was a spotty amount of scraggly ground cover down the near side of his dune. The sun was just cresting the horizon diagonally over his left shoulder. There were no animals in sight, and the only thing he could hear was his own panicked breathing and the slight susurration of the sand in an early morning breeze.

Shit shit shit shit shit! He was in a desert. He was in bed, in a desert. He was in his pajamas, in bed, in a desert. Unless this was a particularly horrible and random dream that meant only one thing: he was in an isekai manga. In a desert. In bed. In his pajamas.

He was royally screwed.

Isekai, or "other world", was a genre in which the protagonist was transported into a fantasy world. The most common trope in recent years was to have the main character die and be reincarnated with their memories of modern day Japan intact. These ran the gamut from waking up as a fully-cognizant baby in another world, to unlocking their memories as a teenager, to simply having their old physical body transplanted into the new world.

Given that the last thing he remembered was peacefully lying down to sleep, and that his mattress and sheets came with him, Xavier doubted he was in that sort of plotline. That was good news, in one respect: it meant there was hope he might find his way back home. It was bad in another: that style of plotline almost always had an initial encounter with some form of deity who would grant some overpowered ability or at the very least provide basic information about what he was getting himself into.

As things stood, he had gone to bed and woken up in a world that might well be completely alien.

So when, following the realization that he'd been dropped into a manga plotline with a vengeance, he sat frozen in bed for several minutes of mind-blanking panic, he felt entirely justified.

Unfortunately, quietly panicking was not going to get him anywhere, and as the line of sunlight chased its way across his dune, Xavier was forced to move.

First things first: he got out of bed. The sand was gritty between his toes, but not yet unpleasantly warm. The simple act of moving seemed to jumpstart his brain, and as he quickly explored the dune he was on, his mind was in overdrive.

He ventured toward the leeward side of the dune and peered down. As he'd thought, he didn't recognize any of the sparse vegetation.

So what did he know? Although his initial assumption was that he was in an isekai there was an outside chance that he was still on Earth and had just teleported or been kidnapped or something. If he was supremely unlucky this might be a death game, though the lack of any sort of facilitator or fellow panicked participants made that less likely. Based on the things his father had told him, it certainly wasn't the Labyrinth Obscura, at the very least.

There was also an outside chance that he'd landed in a survival manga, but he doubted it. He lacked the requisite specialist knowledge, no one else who held such knowledge was around, and he'd seemingly teleported along with his mattress. That last bit in particular made the survival genre incredibly unlikely.

Regardless of the genre, though, he had one obvious choice of action: he had to move. Without water or shelter, he was in serious danger, but on the plus side the fact that he had absolutely no idea what was going on was likely to work in his favor: in order to advance the plot he necessarily needed to encounter someone. Since no one had stumbled over him yet, that meant he needed to head out in search of a manga coincidence.

Alright, so before he went running off with nothing but the pajamas on his back and hope in his heart, what were his assets? Could he use anything that came with him?

…Maybe not so much. He literally had just his sheets and mattress. Xavier was cursing himself for not sleeping with a water bottle or phone or something in his bed. He'd never expected to be transported somewhere while he slept, though.

On second thought: his sheets were basically white. And he recalled that people native to deserts often wore white robes to help offset the sun's energy…

A few minutes later, Xavier was wrapped in his upper and lower sheets and awkwardly sliding down the least steep side of the dune he could find. Behind him his mattress sat, a corner of his comforter flapping lonely in the breeze as sand began to gather in its folds. He'd thought about bringing it, but ultimately decided that less weight would lead to less energy spent and further travel before he collapsed from exhaustion. He might regret that decision come nightfall, but he had to live until nightfall first and being able to travel a little farther might be the difference between finding the coincidence that saved his life and missing it.

Initially Xavier tried walking in as straight a line as he could. However, after struggling up the second massive dune he gave it up and wended his way as best he could around and across the feet of the dunes. There were so few landmarks that he wasn't confident he could maintain a straight course even if walking up the dunes in his bare feet hadn't been incredibly painful and difficult. Rocks and the occasional course underbrush scraped at him, while the sand scoured the unwounded parts of his feet raw and somehow managed to make its way into his sheets and pajamas.

Worst of all was the omnipresent heat. It pushed at him like a physical thing, as if the air had turned oddly gelatinous. As he stumbled through the increasingly searing hot sand he almost imagined that he could see eddies and currents of heat curling around him.

Isekai manga protagonists tended to come in two flavors: overpowered and underdog. Occasionally, a protagonist would be both, usually starting as an underdog and then thanks to fighting through horrific adversity or exploiting loopholes in the way the world functioned transforming into a powerhouse.

Given his starting conditions, Xavier was reasonably certain he was an underdog. He lacked any comprehensive knowledge of gaming, physics, or practical mechanics so some of the most obvious paths to becoming overpowered were closed to him from the start. He sincerely hoped that he wasn't expected to subsist off of magical water or something in a narrative attempt to shortcut him to unfathomable power; those sorts of isekai almost always resulted in the protagonist being effectively tortured for a solid chunk of the story, losing a lot of their humanity, and ending up physically altered to the point they couldn't survive in their original world even if returning was an option.

He refused to countenance the possibility of being in that sort of story. And if he spotted any magically glowing water, he made a firm resolution to head the other direction immediately, no matter how thirsty he was feeling.

As he trudged further, thought became all but impossible. He had hoped to spend his trip brainstorming possible narrative structures and thinking of countermeasures, but with each shifting footstep his focus became more and more tenuous.

Several hours later, as the sun crossed the zenith of the sky, Xavier stumbled into the shadow of a large boulder partially submerged in the side of a dune and collapsed into an exhausted doze.

In his dream, he was back two years in time at the beginning of his sophomore year, and he was sitting at lunch surrounded by girls. Paula was teasing Samantha, who was spluttering and red in the face. Jill was enthusiastically describing her latest cross-country meet to Rachel. Ms. Cariño was sitting across from him, wearing a dress she would never have been caught dead sporting in school. The table bumped, and when he peeked underneath he spotted Vickie, dodging legs as she read a manga. His mother wandered by in the background, giving him a concerned smile as she passed.

Xavier sat quietly and let the conversation wash over him. He knew that he would escape the manga soon, but for now he took the opportunity to simply enjoy being surrounded by beautiful, interesting people. He'd told himself time and again over the last two years that he'd made the right choice—that playing along with the genre would have meant completely sacrificing control of his life—but surrounded by the susurration of happy voices he allowed himself to wonder if that were really true.

Rachel leaned over and placed her hand across his own. At first it was pleasantly warm, but it quickly heated to the point of discomfort. He tried to shift his arm out from under her, but she moved with him. "Xavier," said Rachel. "You need to wake up. It's time to move on."

Xavier came awake gasping, coughing, dizzy, and disoriented. In his sleep he had evidently flung his hand out of his sheets, and the sun had come around the boulder he'd sheltered behind and hit his skin directly. He fumbled his arm back into the sheets and scooted around the rock to keep himself fully in its shade, meager as it was.

His mouth was dry and felt if it were caked with sand. He craved a drink of water with an intensity he had never felt before. At this point, he'd take his chances even if it were glowing, no questions asked.

With difficulty, he forced himself upright, clutching the gritty sheets around himself more out of habit than any forethought. He needed to keep going. The sun was trending toward the horizon, and he was certain he had to start walking again. He was not confident he would be able to survive another day; he needed a manga coincidence as soon as possible.

The afternoon devolved into a torturous pattern of staggering, pain, and dizziness. His vision narrowed to little more than the sand in front of him as he laboriously wended his way between the dunes.

As the sun dipped lower and lower and his shadow stretched further and further, the landscape around him beginning to change in subtle ways without his noticing. The dunes began flattening out and occurring further and further apart. The number of small plants increased, and occasional signs of animal life appeared: a lizard that whipped away behind a rock as Xavier's shadow crossed it; the barely-perceptible specks of birds coasting far overhead; a shift and scurry of some small insect fleeing Xavier's footsteps.

Xavier's path, never particularly straight to being with, began to curve and wend about without any obvious reason. All he knew was that something drew him forward, or perhaps drove him from behind. If the sunlight struck like fiery arrows, somewhere ahead of him was the warmth of a cookfire. Or perhaps the rush of steam from a giant bath.

Though he'd probably drink it rather than soak in it. Maybe he'd do both.

And then he rounded the curve of one of the last big dunes he'd stumbled past in a while, and the cookfire or the sauna or whatever was right there. Except he hadn't found his way to a miraculous cooked meal or place of relaxation.

He'd instead wandered straight into the middle of a pitched battle.

I was incredibly happy, but also a bit lonely. Seamus was back to noticing I existed, but none of my other friends had the same lunch, so I was feeling isolated. Not that I regretted escaping the harem! But even so…

In any case, I was drifting in that state that's midway between waking and sleeping late one Friday night about a week later when I dreamt I heard a soft voice.

Yahello, E.O. Tenkey here!

Pffft, what a stupid name. Whoever chose that pseudonym was clearly creativity-deficient.

I know it's the standard in afterwards to thank a long list of personal acquaintances, but honestly almost no one who actually knows me in person has read Not A Manga, so the person I most want to thank is you! Thank you for spending the time to read this story! I started writing Not A Manga because it was something I wanted to read, but I only finished it thanks to readers like yourself.

Wait, afterward? Hell yeah, vindication! Suck on that, Genre!

I hope you have enjoyed getting to know Xavier and his friends and family, and if you liked the story (or even if you didn't) please consider leaving a review, a simple star rating, or recommending it to mostly-strangers online. I'd really love to be able to support myself with my writing, and word of mouth is the strongest tool available to me for working towards that goal.

I hope you drown in single stars, you hack.

In any case, to my personal surprise the story ended up heading in some unexpected directions, particularly towards the end. Both slice-of-life stories and rom-coms are admittedly outside my typical comfort zone genre-wise, so perhaps it's understandable that the characters moved in directions I didn't expect.

Or perhaps it's because we're real people, not characters.

Regardless, while the story may have ended a little short by typical standards for fiction, fear not! What genre is in store next for our beleaguered protagonist? Join me for volume 2, and you'll find out!

Until the next volume!
—E.O. Tenkey

I shot upright, my heart pounding as I tore straight from a doze into all-out panic.

Volume 2?! VOLUME 2?! YOU MOTHER-FU—

• On Monday, I turned a corner and barely stopped myself from ramming into her from behind.
• On Tuesday, I was about to leave the bathroom at the end of lunch when I heard her voice asking someone if she had in fact seen me going in there. I ended up late to P.E. as I loitered in the entryway waiting for her to give up and go to class.
• Also on Tuesday, she somehow managed to knock her glasses off her own face while I was walking past her desk to get to an empty spot in pre-calculus. I barely missed stepping on them, and pretended I didn't notice.
• On Wednesday she just happened to be coming my way down the hallway on three separate occasions, one of which was immediately after I'd taken another route when I saw her coming the first time.
• On Thursday, Samantha was going on about some nice girl in glasses doing something for her before I peaced the hell out.

It was clear that the genre was desperate to add another harem member to the mix, and was going glasses or bust. I needed to resolve things fast, because I had a sneaking suspicion that even if it stopped trying to shoe-horn Debbie into the harem, it might recall the fact that Ms. Cariño was still lurking around partially unresolved, and I absolutely had no plan of attack for that.

So come Friday evening, I marched down to Rachel's room to have a talk.

Her door was partially open, and just as I was reaching to knock on it I froze, then redirected to knock on the frame. Lucky lechery potential, avoided.

"Yes?" Rachel called.

"Hey, Rachel, are you busy? I was wondering if we could talk."

"Sure, just give me a moment!"

"Okay, I'll be in the Lab."

"Be there soon!"

I sat down in the Lab, my leg jerking up and down with nerves. The last time I'd tried this particular stunt, it ended with Emily summarily dumping me and escaping across the state. Not my favorite memory. I knew in my head that talking to Rachel definitely wasn't going to go wrong in quite that way, but I was still feeling awfully panicky when a damp-around-the-edges Rachel slipped demurely into the room. I guess she'd just taken an after-dinner shower. Thank goodness I caught myself before knocking.

"Hey, Xavier," she said, sliding into the chair across from me. "What's up?"

"Uh," I managed, coherent in the face of stress as always, and intentionally forcing myself not to think about how nice Rachel's shampoo or soap or whatever smelled, or the way a curl of wet hair had escaped the quick bun she'd thrown it into and was caressing the nape of her neck, or—dammit!

"Is everything alright?"

Shit, how was I even going to broach the topic? I opened my mouth, not sure what would even come out. "I—have—I want out of this manga!" Crap, was I tearing up? This was not the reasoned explanation I'd hoped to deliver.

Rachel sat back in the chair, but said nothing. I couldn't read her expression at all.

"So—the thing is—all of these books? They're manga. Comics from Japan, except with a lot fewer super-heroes. And you know, I always thought they were fiction. But then one day—at Tracy's, you remember?—I broke through the fourth wall and discovered that I'm in a manga. We all are, we're all characters in it, except I'm the protagonist and I hate it!"

I forced myself to a stop before I broke down any further, and snuck a peek at Rachel. She had a far-off look in her eye and was staring up toward the corner of the room. I still couldn't tell what she was thinking. What had I even said? Shit, she probably thought I was nuts. I opened my mouth, shut it, opened it again. Shut it again. How was I going to explain this now?

Before I could figure out whether I was going to dig my hole a little deeper or give up and flee, Rachel spoke up. "You know, I'd kind of suspected."

"No, listen, you see—wait, what?"

"About a month and a half ago, I caught Vickie reading under my bed, and when she fled I discovered the first few volumes in a manga series." Vickie was under her—no, wait, that actually didn't surprise me at all. "Anyway, I asked her about them when I caught up to her, and I was kind of curious when I realized this whole room was all manga. So I was reading some of her recommendations, and I started to notice some weird similarities to your life. Plus you've never seen how Paula and Jill and Samantha interact when you're not around, have you? Well, I guess that's obvious. Anyway, they're really different. Paula, especially, although she does still like to give Samantha grief. I've been to a lot of schools, and something about the way those girls were acting around you just—wasn't normal."

I really wanted to make a snappy comeback to that, but I was still stuck on the fact that Rachel believed me. "You noticed? Why didn't you say—?"

Rachel looked embarrassed. "Well, I mean I didn't really believe. It's crazy, right? There's no way we're fictional characters."

"I know exactly what you mean."

"But then I overheard a couple things when your mom and dad were talking to one another, and well…I guess I wondered. But you've actually seen proof? Did I get that right?"

"Yeah, I broke through the fourth wall. Do you know that term?" She nodded. "Plus apparently Mom was stuck in a manga when she was in college. I think it really messed her up."

Rachel gave a noncommittal hum. "So why talk to me about this?"

I took a deep breath. "Mom and Dad think I can end the story if I successfully escape the genre. I've been trying to figure out what motivates everyone in order to find ways to get them to—well—I guess leave me alone. I'm reasonably certain I'm in a—rom-com, and without female heroines there's no rom-com. But it's kind of awkward with you, because you know, we live together, so…" I shifted in place. Man, this was nerve-wracking.

Rachel's calm demeanor never changed, though. "What exactly are you asking me to do?"

"Could you just—maybe try to avoid me at school for a bit? Sit with other friends at lunch, talk to other people in the classroom, you know that kind of thing? I really think that would do the trick."

Rachel was silent for a little while, but then smiled a tight-lipped smile. "Sure, Xavier. I can do that for you. How will you know if it works?"

"Well, the weird manga coincidences should go away. And you said that Paula and the others behave differently when I'm not around, right? I'll bet that's their normal behavior. If the manga ends, they'll probably revert to that all the time."

"Right." She moved as if to stand and then paused. "Do you need anything else?"

"No, that was all."

"Well—good luck then."

I stood with her and impulsively grabbed her hand and gave it a squeeze. "Thank you so much, Rachel. I really appreciate this."

"Mm-hm." She extricated herself and left the room.

I did it. Did I actually do it? I think I did it. Was I missing anything? I mean there was Ms.—no, I wasn't even going to think about that. Monday at lunch. That would be my real test. Dammit, I was sitting somewhere else if it killed me.

Monday rolled around, and when lunch hit I was first out the door and moving down the hall fast enough I must have been a blur.

I spotted Seamus right as he was sitting down with his band-mates. "Hey, Seamus, mind if I join you guys?"

"Hey there, X-man! Of course, you're welcome. Scoot over, Matt."

As I sat down, I saw Rachel walk by without giving me a second glance and I felt a twinge of guilt over suddenly abandoning her and the other girls.

But damn it all, this was my life! And as I settled into a completely normal high school lunch, for the first time in a long, long time it felt as if that were actually true.

"Excruciating," I called back. "Why didn't you tell me that I'd be meeting her relatives?"

"What, Paula didn't tell you what kind of party it was?" said Dad, emerging from the kitchen and chuckling. Evidently the two of them had been cleaning up from dinner or canoodling or something. "That girl is a piece of work."

You don't have to sound quite so approving, Dad.

"Party aside, how are you doing, Xavier? How're things going with…life?"

"Ah, I guess life is progressing. Honestly, I need to think about it."

"Can I lend an ear?"

"No thanks Dad, I think I'm good. Oh hey, Rachel." She'd just exited the hallway on her way to the living room.

"Welcome home, Xavier," she said as she passed a critiquing eye over my costume.

"Thanks. Oh, Paula says 'hi'."

Rachel might have stiffened a bit, but it could have been my imagination, because a split second later she was back to normal. Was she jealous? It seemed unlikely, just knowing Rachel, but I guess jealousy was a classic source of conflict in manga. Guess I'd have to wait and see if she was unusually curt towards Paula, or stuck closer to me than normal, or something. I was pretty sure the overt displays of jealousy that were common in manga were unlikely to come from Rachel.

"Hi, Paula," Rachel said lightly.

"Right. I'm going to go get out of this darn costume."

Rachel waved me off, Dad headed back to the kitchen with an encouraging pat on my back, and I went and de-vampired myself.

Back in my room, I curled up in my thinking chair and pondered.

Even with a little distance, I was still perplexed by my evening with Paula. I couldn't see any obvious way forward, but perhaps I just needed to organize my thoughts.

What did I know about Paula at this point? She had a big family, but based on the things her cousins had said both Paula and her mother were not treated very well by a solid chunk of the extended family. I didn't know anything about her dad; he hadn't come up at all. Her mom was super awkward and flirty with kids less than half her age. Maybe that was one of the reasons Paula was so casually physical? Not that knowing that really helped me much.

By her own admission, Paula was feeling lonely and ostracized both by her family and schoolmates. I had a sneaking suspicion that trying to push her into making friends the way I had with Samantha wasn't going to work, as a result. She was perfectly friendly with me and the rest of the harem, so I didn't think that social awkwardness was her issue. Honestly, I was still a little baffled just what her issue really might be. Surely not all females in her life were jealous of her, and there had to be some guys who were interested in her for more than her body. Right?

Then again, what did I know? Barring any actual evidence, I was just going to need to take her description of her own life at face value.

All of which left me without much to work with, because I just could not think of how I could possibly help Paula gain confidence in herself without raising a whole bunch of problematic romantic flags. And having seen her extended family, I had even less of an inclination to try and resolve the manga by pursuing her romantically than I'd had before. Paula put me off my stride because her one-two punch of great body and physical flirtiness tended to hit me right in the hormones, but despite now having spent some one-on-one time with her I was still uninterested in dating her.

Okay, so maybe it was time to reposition. Say there wasn't much I could do to push Paula down her own road towards happiness. Was that actually a problem? She'd said herself that she wasn't interested in me romantically, so it was entirely possible that she'd fade out of my life naturally when it came time to graduate. That was an awful long way down the road, but if she was legitimately friend-zoned by her own preference, then she was unlikely to drive the manga plot forward outside of introducing randomness thanks to her propensity for screwing with people. Perhaps this little outing was sufficient to count for exploring the Paula route.

Oh man did I ever hope that was the case. I guess I'd just have to wait and see how—and if—her behavior had shifted at all around me over the upcoming week. If she was still emotionally hands-off despite being physically hands-on, then I was probably in the clear.

Leaving me with the conundrum that was Rachel. I was having a really difficult time figuring out what I was going to do to get Rachel out of the harem, or at minimum on a non-romantic track. Since we were living together, she was the harem member I saw most frequently, yet oddly the manga had pretty much left her alone ever since the other girls showed up. I was honestly a little baffled.

Typically, the main girl in a harem either firmly establishes her relationship with the protagonist early on, or else continually strengthens or affirms it in between escapades with secondary members. I'd certainly seen a lot of Rachel early on—ugh, pun not intended; thanks for that, brain—but we hadn't crossed paths much in manga-driven ways since.

While this had left me free to try and address the issues raised by other harem members, it also left me without any good idea of what to do about Rachel.

On the other hand, Rachel was living in the same house with me. Which meant that she had regular contact with Mom and Dad, both of whom were in on the whole manga thing. Could I just…tell her the truth? That was still unreasonably frightening to me for some reason, but Rachel had been living with us for several months now; she was surely aware that three-fourths of the people she lived with were big into manga, and she'd never judged me or said anything about it to anyone at school. I reeeeeally didn't want to, but perhaps if I just sucked it up and told her about my situation, with Mom and Dad backing me up…

I knew Seamus had the same lunch as I did. If I could convince Rachel to look for friends elsewhere, I'll bet Paula and Samantha would keep one another company. I'm sure Jill had other friends she could hang out with, and actually if she were dating Seamus it wouldn't matter so much if she followed me, anyway. That would completely disrupt the main contact I had with the harem on a day-to-day basis, and barring increasingly-unlikely manga coincidences that might put a few nails in the genre's coffin all on its own.

This had promise. I'd have to run it by Dad to see if he had any feedback or could spot likely points of failure, but maybe the biggest hurdle I had now was just forcing myself to talk frankly with Rachel.

While that was a high hurdle for me emotionally, if the payoff was my freedom—well, that exchange seemed well worth it to me.

"Sorry about that, Xavier. I'd been hoping things would be a bit more tolerable with you there, but—well. I appreciate you sticking it out to the end, at least."

"Paula, I don't know how to break this to you, but some of your cousins are complete assholes."

That startled a laugh out of her. "I can't really argue with that. I really like the Mathers, but most of them didn't make it this year. It was nice to see Rita, at least, even if she kind of set me up for failure. At least she doesn't mean any harm."

"If you're going to get hassled that much, why go at all?"

"Mm," she hummed and was quiet for a bit. I was taking breath to tell her it wasn't really any of my business when she finally spoke up again. "You know, I've always really loved Halloween. Other kids were always hyper-focused on the whole free candy thing, but for me the appeal has always been the costumes."

"Yeah, I wouldn't have guessed that at all," I drily remarked, and was rewarded with another laugh.

"I know, right? Especially with how I just threw these old things together."

"But couldn't you have, I dunno, just gone to a party with other seniors or something?"

"Well," said Paula. "I've been going to the cousin's party for years, and they're family even if some of them suck." She shot a sideway glance at me. She looked almost nervous. "Plus, um. I'm not all that popular."

"Yeah, okay, that just makes no sense." This had been bugging me for weeks now. "You're attractive and flirty and funny and super put-together. Why on earth are you hanging around with a bunch of sophomores and a tsundere?" Wait, I said the bit about Samantha out loud, didn't I?

"Soon de what now?" said Paula, but evidently dismissed my slip of the tongue. "So I'm attractive and flirty and funny, am I?" She gave me her patented coy look, and man was I ever glad she was driving and couldn't follow that up with any of her normal physical attacks.

"Damn it, you know what I mean!"

Paula just laughed. "Now, now, don't get your feathers all ruffled. I know I'm not the person you have your eye on, and honestly that's part of why I'm hanging out with you four."

"Huh?" Now that one was admittedly a curve ball. Paula was hanging out with me because I wasn't interested in her? What sort of harem heroine was she, anyway?

"You want to know one of the reasons I like dressing up on Halloween so much? Because you get to become someone or something completely different. Guys aren't only paying attention to you because they're hoping to get lucky. Girls aren't ostracizing you out of jealousy. If people are wary of you, it's because you're a monster, not because you're you."

She was gripping the steering wheel hard enough her fingers were white. "It's incredibly liberating." With a sigh, she let go of the wheel briefly and patted it in a brief staccato almost-rhythm. "You know, it's pretty amusing you think I'm flirty because I don't act like that around anyone other than you."

I scoffed out loud a little. Ah, classic. The tried-and-true, "I only show this side of myself to you" gambit, although I didn't think Paula was actually trying to get me to notice her romantically right at the moment. She seemed more like she just wanted to get this stuff off her chest.

"You know I only have eyes for you, Xavier," Paula teased me, voice throaty.

"Yeah, yeah." I waved that one away. "I have to warn you, though, that I bite."

She shot me a look of complete surprise that was far more gratifying than I'd expected, and then burst out laughing.

"Thanks, Xavier," she said, as her laughter wound down. "I'll keep that in mind. Now, if you don't mind my asking, why did you agree to go to this party with me in the first place? I was pretty surprised when you didn't blow me off at your birthday."

Ah. Apparently it was my turn to sit in the hot seat. Wonderful. Well, maybe brutal honesty would help me out. "I have no idea what you're thinking, and was hoping to figure out why you're hanging out with me and the—girls." Jeez, that was close. Something about talking to Paula constantly threw me off enough that things I didn't want to say kept trying to slip out.

"Is that right?" said Paula. "And how's that working out for you?"

"Oh, just wonderfully." Actually, now that I thought about it, that was actually true. From what she'd said, it sounded like Paula was persona non grata with her peers. Maybe that was why she got along with Samantha so well; both of them were looking for friends.

Shit, manga logic was starting to invade my normal thought process, wasn't it? Since when did I consider a pair of people who are constantly fighting to be emotionally close?

To my surprise, Paula didn't shoot back with any teasing or other repartee. "And what are you planning to do now that you know?"

"I don't know, Paula." I sighed about a year's worth of sighs. "You tell me."

"I think you should just be yourself, Xavier," said Paula. "Honestly, I don't need anything from you beyond that."

That deserved a skeptical stare if anything did, so I obliged.

"Now what was it you claimed originally was the reason you were going to humor me by attending this party?" Paula ruminated. "Something about how you were completely clueless about everything?"

"Excuse me?!" I didn't remember our conversation at my birthday party going quite like that…

"Oh, well, too late now; we're here!" Paula pulled into my driveway, killed the engine, and turned an expectant look on me.

I stared at her. She stared back. Oookay, well then. I unbuckled and climbed out of the car before it got awkward. It had been a seriously rough day, but I was pretty sure I'd gotten what I needed from Paula, even if I wasn't having much luck figuring out what I was going to do about her right at this second. "Do you want to come in real quick, or should I return the costume to you Monday?"

"Monday's fine," she said and sat back in her seat. "Say hello to Rachel for me, will you?"

"Uh, okay."

"Thanks again, Xavier; see you!" And with a merry wave and a wink, Paula drove off.

Scratch my last thought. I had no idea what was going on with that girl at all.

Literally threw me off my stride, that is; I tripped over my own feet and almost took her mother down with me. Fortunately, before I had to have a Manga Moment with Mom, Paula grabbed me herself and yanked me off-balance the other way—and out of her mother's clutches. "Is that salad you insisted on bringing put together yet?"

Her mother held up her hands. "I know, I know, cousins only, right? But I was just finishing things up in the kitchen when you got here, and when I heard I had to meet your date!"

"Xavier, my mother. Mom, Xavier," said Paula with exasperation in her voice. "Okay, you've met him."

"I hope we'll get to see a lot more of you, Xavier!" said Paula's mom unrepentantly, and winked at me. She freaking winked at me. I could go home now, right? Because I wanted to go home.

"Mom!"

Paula's mother hitched her shoulders in what could have been a shrug, and practically skipped back out of the room. "Ta-ta! You kids have fun!"

"Welcome to the family, Xavier! How you liking Aunt Jas?" said an unfamiliar voice.

Oh, right. In the moment I'd forgotten, but I was now surrounded by a room full of Paula's cousins. Lovely.

After an initial flurry of interest—and a long parade of names that went in one ear and straight out the other—I was able to fade into the background and try to pretend I was part of the wallpaper. Pretty much all I took from my initial crash-course in Paula's family structure was that she had an extended family that was just as ridiculously large as Seamus'. Of course, I only knew about Seamus' extended family through hearsay—mostly him bitching about family gatherings. Here I was right in the thick of things, and fully prepared to start bitching myself.

From what I could gather, the cousin's Halloween party was an annual event in Paula's family that had been going on since before she was born. Paula glided through the gathering with me in her wake. She was a very different person from the Paula I knew from school. Still pretty out there, but she was far more often the butt of her cousin's teasing than the one doing the teasing—and their teasing could get pretty brutal. It was honestly throwing me off. I'd always seen Paula as someone firmly in control of herself, but here she was far more often on the defensive.

Paula's costume—and mine for that matter—were excessively elaborate compared to everything else at the party. Most of her cousins had settled for costumes that were clearly store-bought, or that might have received care and creativity in their initial creation but were now years old. It was a puzzle: why had Paula created such an intricate pair of matching costumes for a party that she didn't appear to actually enjoy? Why did she want me here at all, when she was mainly interacting with her family members? What the hell was wrong with her mother? (Yeah, I still wasn't over that.)

And most importantly, just how was this going to help me get Paula out of the harem? In retrospect, Samantha was reasonably straight-forward, and the solution for Jill just kind of fell into my lap. I wasn't going to think about Ms. Cariño in hopes that problem went away on its own, and Rachel—well, Rachel was still pending. I thought seeing Paula in a different environment would give me some clue about what might be driving her, but I was completely at a loss.

At least the food was alright. It wasn't quite the diverse spread that my mom would have provided for such a big party, but although it was clearly potluck-style the dishes were almost entirely homemade and pretty tasty even when they didn't look like all that. At Paula's recommendation I had the shepherd's pie that she said was some aunt or other's specialty, and I deeply regretted meeting her mom instead of her aunt.

We'd been engaged in high-stress mingling for several hours when a subset of Paula's older cousins cornered me while she was in the bathroom. I wasn't sure what to expect, since this whole scenario top-to-bottom was off the rails as far as manga plotlines went.

"So, kid—it was what, Xavier?—lemme guess: you asked Paula out, am I right?" said the eldest of the four cousins who had wandered my way with intent as soon as Paula ducked out. The other three consisted of a pair of guys who looked to be close in age—maybe in their mid-20s—and a woman I hadn't interacted with who looked somewhere in between them and the older guy.

I wasn't sure how to respond to that, but fortunately for me they weren't apparently looking for a conversation so much as an audience.

"Course he did," said one of the younger guys. "I mean come on: those tits! I'm related to her, and even so it's like daaaamn."

"Ha, seriously," said the older guy. "It's not like you'd date her for her sparkling personality, right?"

The woman tittered and the other young guy huffed, but evidently neither had anything to add. I hadn't been aware that was actually a way that people laughed.

I also wasn't entirely sure why the Asshole Brigade here had decided to seek me out. Well, would hate for all that practice to go to waste: I gave them my blank-faced stare.

The woman lost steam and the younger guy shut up, while the other two just appeared to be getting angry.

"Well?" said the older guy with a confrontational step toward me. "How's she in the sack then? Was it worth it to date the daughter of the family slut?"

"You—" I started, not entirely certain where I was going but pretty damn sure it wasn't going to end well.

"There you are, Xavier!" said Paula brightly from behind me. "I've been looking for you. Sorry, Brad, we've got to head out." She turned to the room at large, raised her voice, and gave a wave. "It was good to see everyone!"

"Bye, Paula!" called Rita from out of the general low-level salutations. "Drive safe!"

Paula gave the four dickwads around me the brightest, fakest smile I'd ever seen on her face, and we were out of there.

What. The. Hell.

"So, uh, where are we going?"

"It's a surprise!"

"Still?!"

Paula shot me a serious look. Man, how did she even drive in that dress without tangling her feet up? "Xavier, do you not know the meaning of the word 'surprise'?"

I may or may not have growled under my breath.

"Don't worry!" she said blithely. "I told your parents, and they approved. And I won't keep you out too late. Probably." She spared me a much less serious glance, and dropped her tone down to sultry levels. "Unless you want me to keep you out late, that is."

I just stared at her deadpan. I'd been practicing in the mirror every chance I got all week, and was pretty proud of my ability to avoid breaking face.

Paula returned her attention to the road with a shrug. "More importantly, you're my date tonight, got it?"

Ah, I'd been wondering how the genre was going to intrude. Evidently this was the "girl needs a date, so she asks her guy friend to pretend and it gets their hearts fluttering" event. "Your date, huh? I don't recall that being part of our agreement."

"Shush, you. I didn't spend that much time on your costume just because you're cute."

"You don't even like cute things."

"What are you talking about? I love cute things! Why do you think I hang out with Samantha so often?"

"Uh, because you could probably press her buttons from outer space?"

Paula grinned. "Well, it's not my fault she's cute when she's angry."

I just rolled my eyes and changed the subject. I couldn't very well back out now, so it looked like I was stuck being a fake date, but maybe I could kickstart a more serious discussion now and get a little payment ahead for suffering through what was undoubtedly going to be a difficult evening. "So about what we were talking about when you strong-armed me into this…"

"Ah ah ah!" Paula scolded. "No serious talk before a party. Ruins the whole thing."

"But—"

"I said I'd correct your misconceptions, and I'll stand by that, but no free lunches."

Well, damn. That was too much to hope for, I supposed.

At this point we'd been on the freeway for several minutes, and I was baffled about where we might be headed. I'd assumed that a high school Halloween party would be at someone's house, but at this point I was pretty sure we were well out of our school's district. "Where are we going, anyway?"

"Didn't I say? We're headed down to Samner tonight."

"What? Who the hell lives all the way out in—oh, excuse me, I mean I'd hate to have the surprise spoiled! Boy howdy do I ever love surprises!"

"That's the spirit! Though if you say 'boy howdy' again tonight I might have to bite you. You're Dracula, remember? Class it up a little!"

If I weren't afraid of what would happen to me should I mess up the hair style or makeup she'd forced on me, I would have buried my head in my hands.

We arrived in a housing development on the outskirts of Samner about 15 minutes later. Paula didn't quite bound out of the car—I don't think she could have bounded in that dress to save her life—but she was certainly feeling perky. As soon as I'd climbed out, she hooked her arm through mine, and swept us both toward the front door. I guess there's one thing to be said for late Victorian clothing styles: I was expecting a classic manga breast-against-the-arm moment, but she was barely pressed up against me at all.

The doorbell had barely had time to die out when the door was ripped open and a lanky blonde woman dressed in a plaid shirt and cowboy hat had yanked Paula off me and into a hug. "Paula! Welcome! I haven't seen you in ages!"

Paula hugged her back for a moment, then pushed her away. "Get off!" She was smiling, though, so evidently she didn't actually mind being hugged by this woman.

Meanwhile, I was very confused. Maybe this was the mother of one of Paula's friends? She didn't look that old, though.

"Oooh, and who's this?" said the woman, catching sight of me. Without pausing for a reply she shouted back over her shoulder, "Paula's here, and she brought a boooooooy!" Before I could get a word in edgewise, the woman had grabbed my wrist, pulled me into the house, and shut the door. "Aren't you just the most dashing Dracula? Paula must have handled your costume, you lucky devil. Undead. Living dead. Whatever. Ever since she hit her teens, none of us have been able to compete with Paula's Halloween getups. Anyway, when are you going to introduce me, Paula?"

"Come on Rita, you haven't stopped talking since you opened the door. This is Xavier. Xavier, Rita."

"So nice to meet you, Xavier. I'm the youngest cousin from the older set," Rita confided in me, as if that made any sense at all. "Well, except for Paula, of course."

Wait, cousin?

But we'd arrived at the end of the hall, and without further ado Rita preceded Paula and I into the living room of the house with a shouted, "Paula's here, everyone, and she brought her boyfriend Xavier!"

"I'm not—" I began, but Paula forcefully linked arms with me again as she pulled me fully into the room.

"You are for the evening," she said under her breath.

And then I looked up.

The living room was absolutely chock-full of people in costumes, ranging in age from what looked to be maybe six or eight all the way up to the upper thirties or forties. And their attention was universally riveted on Paula and me.

I felt like a goldfish who had been happily swimming along through a pond, only to round a bend and discover it had somehow ended up in the deep ocean surrounded by sharks. I might have frozen in place for a moment under the sudden onslaught of attention.

There was a moment's calm while Paula and I were scrutinized. The room seemed to hold its breath.

Then an older woman swept in from the adjoining kitchen and strode our way. She was wearing a sexy nurse costume, of all things, but was definitely old enough to be someone's mother. "Paula, welcome! You didn't tell me you were bringing a date!"

"Well," said Paula with a sly glance my way. "I wanted it to be a surprise, Mom."

Oh you have got to be shitting me. We skipped straight to meeting the parents?!

No, my problem was of course my upcoming Halloween date with Paula. Though I tried multiple times to pin her down on what exactly she had planned on Saturday, the only info I extracted was that she expected me in costume, would pick me up at 3pm, and that we would be attending a Halloween party of some sort.

I'm fairly certain the only reason she didn't tell me more was because she liked watching me squirm.

In any case, the costume wasn't too difficult. I dug out the pirate getup I'd worn a few years ago, which aside from the pants still fit pretty well. It wasn't exactly a fancy costume—mostly just an eyepatch, a hat that vaguely resembled a tricorn if you squinted, and an off-white shirt with ruffles. I added a dark pair of pants and figured that was good enough. If Paula wanted to win at a Halloween fashion show, she should have given me significantly more warning.

What stumped me was that I'd never attended a high school party before—much less one presumably hosted by seniors—and had no idea what to expect. Not only that, but a Halloween party simply wasn't something I'd ever come across in a manga. Heck, Halloween getting a mention at all was pretty rare, since it was more of a Western holiday and hadn't really been coopted by the Japanese the way holidays like Christmas and Valentine's Day had. Perhaps this was related to what Mom had told me about the manga getting more realistic the further I stretched the genre; I'd subverted the last few manga situations, so now I was stuck dealing with something a little further from the manga baseline. Impossible to tell for sure, I suppose, but I hadn't realized how much I'd been relying on knowing what sorts of things I could expect thanks to my generalized manga knowledge. I had certain preconceptions about high school parties from various American movies, but was doubtful they had any bearing on my situation. Or reality in general.

Ugh, it was like I was right back to the summer when I had no idea what to expect. I was half tempted to just call up Paula and cancel the whole thing, but I wasn't confident I would be able to successfully dodge a manga coincidence with Debbie forever. I was reasonably certain Paula wasn't interested in getting closer to me romantically, at least, though that begged the question of what she was doing in the harem in the first place. If she hadn't basically promised to talk to me if I agreed to this scheme of hers, I'd have had no compunction refusing outright. Especially because I was beginning to wonder if alienating Paula would actually do that much damage to my social life, given that she was two grades my senior and despite appearances did not appear to be particularly interested in socializing with kids her own age. Perhaps a thought to keep in mind if this whole situation went south…

In any case, I suffered through the rest of the week dreading the coming of the weekend. Which ended up rolling around anyway, as time is wont to do. Stupid time.

A little before 3pm on Saturday I was loitering in the kitchen, half-heartedly snapping the elastic strand on my plastic eyepatch back and forth between my hands. The darn thing was even more uncomfortable than I remembered it being, and I was debating just conveniently forgetting it at home. Before I had a chance to make up my mind, however, the doorbell rang.

"I'll get it," I called, and went to meet my fate.

It was indeed Paula, but if I hadn't been expecting her, I might not have recognized her. She was wearing an ornate, old-style dress made out of what looked like embossed velvet in such a deep shade of red it was almost black. Her white shirt or blouse or whatever it was featured bountiful lacey ruffles, but pulled taught about her chest. She still looked well-endowed, but the cut of the dress or the ruffles or something made her chest seem much more normally sized. Aside from her face, she had almost no skin showing at all. The dress was high-necked, long-sleeved, and fell right to the tops of her feet. She wasn't wearing gloves, but the lace spilling out at her wrists came all the way to the back of her hands.

Her hair was done up in a much tighter bun that her usual loose pony-tail, but she'd left a patch at the front to drape across her face. Her skin was a borderline deathly pallor, and partially obscured by her loose hair was what looked like an unhealthy red circular scar or burn mark with a faint cross or X in the middle. Near the corner of her mouth was a small smear of red, like she'd slipped while applying lipstick. Or maybe been drinking tomato juice a little too enthusiastically.

"Who on Earth are you dressed as?" I asked.

The distant expression that she'd affected when I opened the door fell away and Paula grinned like the Cheshire cat. "Now now, Xavier, have you been skimping on your classics? I'm clearly Mina Harker. No, the real question is what on earth is this sorry excuse for a costume? Are you some sort of itinerant revolutionary soldier?"

I scowled, and snapped the eyepatch on. Damn, this thing was uncomfortable. "I'm a pirate. Obviously! Arrr!  And who is Mina Harker?"

Paula ignored my question and took a slow stroll around me as she examined me from head to toe. "Good thing I came prepared for something like this. Okay, time to change!" She clapped her hands and grabbed a duffel bag that I hadn't noticed lying at her feet on the porch. "Shoo shoo, in you go! There's no way I'm going to let some cut-rate pirate escort Mina Harker, who, by the way, is the heroine of Bram Stoker's Dracula."

"You've read Dracula? Who reads Dracula?"

Paula gave me a blank stare. "You haven't? Anyway, in we go! Here, take this and go get changed, then meet me—mm—here in the kitchen should work. Looks like the light is good enough." Paula shoved the duffel bag into my arms and gave me a push down the hallway toward the bathroom.

In the duffel I discovered a very Dracula-esque black suit. Rather than a cape, the jacket had two extremely long, sharp tails that fell almost to my knees like wings. All of the jacket's lines were quite sharp and abrupt, actually. What was a little disturbing was that the shirt, jacket, and pants all fit me perfectly.

"Where the hell did you even get this?" I asked Paula as I entered the kitchen after changing.

She gave me an appreciative whistle in lieu of an answer. "Damn, I'm good. I nailed the sizing on that sucker. Now come sit over here, Xavier, we're only partly finished."

I sat down and Paula whisked behind me. There was a squirting sound, a slightly fruity scent, and then she was rubbing some sort of gunk into my hair.

"Wha—!" I began, but she leaned an elbow on my shoulder and forced me back down into the chair.

"Down, boy!" she said cheerfully. "What sort of Dracula would you be with that bird's nest?"

Once she'd gelled my hair into submission, she had me scoot around until I was facing backwards on the chair, and then pulled up her own chair right in front of me and started putting makeup on my face.

I froze. This whole pre-party experience was turning out a lot more physically intimate than I'd been expecting and I wasn't sure what to do about it. Especially now that Paula's face was just a few inches away from my own as she carefully applied various unknowable substances around my eyes.

"Uh," I said uncomfortably, not even sure where I was going with it myself.

"Shh, hold still," she muttered, intent on her work.

As stereotypical as it was, Paula smelled really nice. Ever since the start of the year she'd made a habit of occasionally getting into my personal space, but usually she was attacking me from the side or behind. This was the first time she'd undertaken a frontal assault, and I was feeling incredibly off-balance. This close, I could easily make out the makeup that she herself was wearing, though I felt super awkward staring at her from so near.

She didn't appear to notice, which paradoxically was even more appealing than her normal flirtatious assaults. I don't think I'd ever seen the laid-back Paula so intent on something before, and it was kind of intoxicating that it was me she was staring at that way.

Which was completely infuriating. Here I was struck dumb just because a girl was offering casual physical contact, which was a complete manga cliché. Yet despite knowing it was a cliché and wanting nothing more than to move on, it was still getting me all flustered.

As I searched desperately for somewhere to look other than Paula's eyes in hopes that I could ignore her and make her go away, I noticed that obscured by the lace of her collar were two red marks on her neck that looked almost swollen. Geez, how much detail did she pour into this costume, anyway?!

None too soon, Paula finally sat back, gave my face a critical glance, and proclaimed me fit to accompany her.

While she was packing up her supplies, my dad wandered by, glanced our way, and stopped dead in his tracks. "Wow, Xavier. And Paula, wasn't it? You two look fantastic. What are you, Dracula and a bride of Dracula?"

"Close!" said Paula. "You got Dracula right, but I'm Mina Harker."

"She's one of the characters? I'm pretty fuzzy on the original Dracula. Anyway, that is an amazing pair of costumes. You have real talent, young lady."

Paula actually blushed and looked away. "Thank you."

What the hell? Who are you, and what have you done with Paula?

"Seriously, Xavier, you should go look in a mirror," my Dad said.

I did just that, and had to admit that Dad had a point. Paula had somehow managed to give me a widow's peak and slicked the rest of my hair back along my head. With the addition of her makeup, I really did look like an undead, blood-sucking monster. Albeit one with impeccable style.

When I made it back to the kitchen, Paula was packed and ready to go and Mom and Vickie had joined Dad in ogling her costume. I wondered where Rachel had gotten to, but put the thought aside in favor of corralling Paula away from her adoring fans.

"Come on," I said gruffly. "We have to go, right?"

"Yep, we should hit the road."

"You two have fun!" said Dad. "I hope you win Best Costume."

Paula threw him a wink. "I always do."

I dragged her out of there before she could flirt any more with my dad. Bad enough when she was flirting with me.

"Halloween?" Oh, right. That was coming up really soon. "When was that—"

"Halloween is on Saturday," Rachel chimed in softly.

"Oh right, Saturday. Well, I didn't really make any—"

Paula, who was oddly enough sitting across the table from me for once, raised an eyebrow in my direction.

"Er. I mean, I don't have any specific plans, but I'm not available that day." Shit, Paula finagled me into a Halloween date?

"Why aren't you—" started Samantha, but Paula cut her off.

"I'll bet you just love Halloween, don't you Samantha? You'd make such a cute little monster."

"You think I'm—I mean wait a minute, what's this about a monster?! Why wouldn't I be a princess or something?"

Paula pointed at Samantha's twin-tails, which she had adopted again for the day. "Right attitude, wrong hair. Sorry, you're definitely a better monster. Maybe a sweet little goblin?"

Samantha was getting red in the face, and I could practically see little cross-shaped anger marks popping into existence around her head. "Gob—?! Well what about you? You probably only ever dress like a skanky nurse or something!"

"Hm, I've never tried a nurse, actually," Paula ruminated. "They are admittedly a classic, but I'm not really into that sort of low-brow, fetishist pandering."

I cut in before Samantha's head exploded trying to parse that sentence. "So that means you like dressing up for Halloween?"

Paula looked genuinely puzzled for once. "Doesn't everybody?"

Uh, I suppose. Between the ages of six and thirteen, at least. "So what's your costume this year?"

Paula smirked at me. "Guess."

Yeah, I didn't think it would be that easy.

Rachel evidently noticed Samantha working herself up in a tizzy thanks to Paula failing to react to her provocations, and diverted the conversation. "Are there many trick-or-treaters in your neighborhood, Xavier?"

"Yeah, we get a fair number, although fewer than when I was a kid. I think a lot of people just go to the shopping district or the mall these days rather than canvasing the neighborhood. What about you, Samantha? Get anyone begging for candy at your place?"

"I live in an apartment," grumbled Samantha. "No one does that sort of thing there." She redirected her ire back to Paula. "Aren't you a little old to be going around asking for candy?" Ah well, Rachel, I tried. She shot me a slight smile when I glanced her way.

"Whoever said I go trick-or-treating?" asked Paula. "I haven't done that in years. I guess you're a little young to be attending Halloween parties, though. Talk to me when you're out of pigtails."

Hoo boy, Paula was really shooting for Samantha to go incendiary today for some reason. We'd all learned early on that references to the hair were the best way to get Samantha to explode.

"Pig—?!" Sure enough, Samantha was fast approaching critical meltdown.

"Hey, Xavier," Jill cut in. "You ready to head to P.E.? I wanted to get there a little early today to stretch, maybe avoid getting dogpiled again."

"You bet," I said, and practically jumped from my chair.

"See you later," Paula said to me with a meaningful smile.

"Uh, right." Nice rejoinder, Xavier.  Really smooth.

We left the sound of Samantha berating Paula over the exact meaning of pigtails behind.

"Thanks, Jill," I said.

She shrugged. "I don't really get why you put up with Samantha, honestly. She's super annoying."

I shrugged right back. There wasn't much I could say to that.

We walked down the hall in companionable silence for a bit.

"I thought about it a bunch last night, and I think I'm going to try a date or two with Seamus," Jill blurted out suddenly.

"Oh! Uh, good for you!"

She smiled wryly. "I know, it's not really any of your business, but since we talked about it yesterday…anyway I'll let you know if I need someone to watch me patch myself up, okay?"

"You do that, Jill. I hope things go well."

"Eh, we'll see. I don't really have time for romance at the moment, anyway, what with the cross country meets coming up. Honestly, I probably won't see much of you outside of lunch and class for a while here. Coach B is really riding us hard; thinks we have a chance to maybe make state this year."

"Really? That's awesome!"

Jill laughed. "Spoken like a guy who doesn't have to attend our practices."

"Yeah, you couldn't pay me to do that. I still don't know why you went out for cross country instead of some sane sport like soccer."

"Mm, soccer is fun. But honestly, I like cross country a little better than track, even. There's something cathartic about just…running."

"Well, no one ever claimed you were normal," I joked.

Jill grinned and slugged me in the shoulder. "You'd best hope we're not playing soccer again, or I'll have to make you eat those words."

I wasn't honestly sure how that made any sense at all, but when we were indeed playing soccer again I was lucky enough to end up on a team that wasn't facing off against Jill's.

Still failed to win, though. Good thing looking cool in front of my childhood friend wasn't high on my list of things to do.

Losing at soccer or not, I was feeling pretty great as I made my way from P.E. to pre-calculus. Samantha and Jill both appeared to be headed out of the harem, which meant I was halfway to freedom. I couldn't discount the author or genre throwing me a curveball, of course, but especially with Jill I felt like I'd actually done something right when it came to progressing our relationship away from weird romantic entanglements and back to childhood friend comradery.

Now, if only I had some idea how to deal with Pa—

"Oh, Xavier!" said someone, interrupting my reverie. A little way down the hall was a girl standing at a locker who I recognized from pre-calculus. She usually sat a few seats away to my left, and I was pretty sure her name was Debbie. I didn't really know anything about her, since she was withdrawn in class. However, there was one key detail that stood out: she wore really thick glasses, and today happened to be sporting a lab coat. If I were a science fiction spacecraft, emergency klaxons would be blaring about a proximity alert right about now.

Unaware of my internal distress, Debbie continued talking. "Would you mind—"

I turned on my heel and all but sprinted down the nearest set of stairs. Definitely not happening. I'm sure you're a wonderful person, Debbie, but extending the story by endlessly adding people to the harem is just a whole lot of nope.

I was a little late to pre-calc thanks to my unexpectedly circuitous route, but it was totally worth it.

The first half of the day was unremarkable. I was evidently back in Samantha's good graces for some reason, so Japanese was annoying. Maybe trouncing me at croquet Saturday was cathartic or something. She did eventually leave me alone in favor of a group activity with Jewel and Amaya, at least, and they evidently invited her to lunch because she never showed up at our usual table.

Lunch was normal, though Jill was in a bit of a weird mood, alternating between surprisingly moody silences (for her) and hyperactivity (which was pretty par for the course).

The trouble didn't kick off until P.E. The weather was just starting to take a dive into fall temperatures, so Mr. Peterson had us outside playing soccer while we still could. Rather than form two full teams and have a third of the class sit out, we had two games going, each with two teams of seven.

My team was up against Jill's, and we were losing badly. Partly because Jill was such a monster, but also because her team lucked into two of the kids in the class who regularly played soccer, including their goalie. We just couldn't get a shot past him.

In any case, things weren't looking so good for us, and I was admittedly spacing out a bit waiting for the ball to come back across the field to where I was playing offense. Unsurprisingly, it was spending a lot of time in the vicinity of our goal. As a result I didn't see what happened, but when Mr. Patterson started blowing his whistle and jogged onto the field it got my attention.

Down near our goal was a jumble of bodies. It looked like there'd been some massive collision. Out of curiosity, I ambled that way to see better.

As the pile-up sorted itself out, Jill extricated herself from the very middle and limped over to Mr. Patterson. He consulted with her for a couple seconds, looked around, and spotted me loitering nearby.

"Xavier!" he barked. "You're a midfielder, right? Help Jill over to the nurse's office to get her bandaged up, will you?"

I dithered, my desire to get out of the game warring with my honesty over the fact that I wasn't a midfielder paired with my trepidation over visiting the nurse's office with a harem member. Unfortunately, Jill limped over just as I was opening my mouth to point out I was offense. She had quite the bloody knee.

"Come on, Xavier," she said, and though I turned to Mr. Patterson he was already moving away, shouting at the rest of the players to get back in position. I guess I'd see how this went; I was curious what was going on with Jill, and this did give me an excuse to talk to her. When the nurse was inevitably mysteriously out, though, I was going to high-tail it out of there.

"Mr. Etsitty!" called Jill as we entered the office. A second or two of silence passed. "Huh, he's not here? Strange."

Color me shocked. I don't know what it is Japanese school nurses are doing all day, but at least according to most manga it certainly isn't spending any time in their offices taking care of students (outside of the series in which the school nurse is part of the romantic chart or serving as fan service eye candy, that is). Come to think of it, Mr. Etsitty was pretty big and a guy; no wonder he was nowhere to be seen. Even if this were the type of manga where the nurse could be expected to make an appearance, he matched absolutely none of the right demographics.

"Well, it's just a scrape. I don't think Mr. Etsitty will mind if I help myself to the bandages and antibacterial cream." Jill made her way to a stool near the back counter and sat down. "Would you mind getting out the first aid supplies, Xavier? I'm a bit bloody at the moment." She'd been keeping pressure on her knee with her hand to keep from bleeding all over the hallway, so I didn't doubt that was an accurate description. She hadn't really needed me, but she'd certainly looked awkward shuffling down the hall with one hand clapped to her knee.

"Where—"

"It's in the bin on the counter over there," said Jill, pointing with the hand she wasn't holding her bodily fluids in with.

I brought the supplies over and set them on Mr. Etsitty's chair near Jill. Any moment now, she was going to ask me to dress her knee for her if my knowledge of manga was worth anything.

I'd forgotten that this was Jill I was working with, though. She grabbed a sterile pad from the side of the first aid bin, ripped it open with her teeth, applied it to her knee with her clean hand, and started washing her other hand in the sink that was nearby without batting an eye.

"Uh, do you need me?" Maybe I could make a clean getaway before getting hit by any major tropes.

"Actually, Xavier," said Jill, shutting off the water and drying her hand on a paper towel as best she could. "Would you mind sticking around for a minute? I'd kind of like to talk to you."

Ah, there it was. Our chance to get closer in the nurse's office, albeit not through close physical contact while treating each other's injuries.

On the other hand…Jill had been acting off today. If this was about Seamus, then it was probably worth it to play along for a bit and see what she wanted.

"Well, much as I love soccer…" I said, and sat down on the nearby chair that was usually Mr. Etsitty's domain. I really hoped he didn't come back mid-conversation, because I wasn't sure how he'd feel about students co-opting his seat.

"Thanks," said Jill shortly, and was quiet for a bit while she focused on getting a bandage affixed to her knee. Finally she looked up, then with a nervous shift examined the room. "So, uh, Seamus asked me out after your party Sunday." Suddenly her focus was wholly on me.

Oh ho, perhaps this was a manga trope after all; the classic, "try and force a love confession by indicating a rival" gambit. Unfortunately for her, I'd instigated this particular situation.

"That right?" I said, keeping my expression neutral as best I could. "What did you tell him?"

"Uh." Jill quickly lost her interest in me, clutching her legs just below her knees. "Um, he said he didn't need to hear back right away, and I kind of wanted to, I don't know, talk to you first?"

"Mm," I hummed, trying to buy myself some time. I wasn't sure how best to respond, frankly. If only I could break the fourth wall on command, I'd love to see how this whole situation looked to an outsider. I had a feeling talking up Seamus wasn't going to really get me anywhere, but it was a place to start. "Well, Seamus is a great guy, and you've got a bunch of shared interests." Like sports, sports, and sports.

"I guess," she muttered. Yeah, I didn't figure that was what she was looking for.

Okay, maybe if I turned it around. "Look, Jill, why are you telling me this?"

That finally got her to look back up, surprised. "Well, I guess—" She petered out, then took a deep breath and let it out. "I mean, we've been hanging out a lot, and I just wanted to know—" She shrugged.

Crap, well now I had a dilemma. But I guess really I didn't. I could ignore that she'd basically outright stated she liked me, sure; maybe blithely tell her I wished her the best like the classic dense harem protagonist who's too self-absorbed to notice that they're harming the people around them.

Yeah, that would work fine. She'd no doubt pick up on the hint fast and immediately drop this conversation like it never happened. After all, I was sure reading between the lines was a survival skill in her family.

But although that had basically been my plan from the get-go, I just couldn't do it. You know what? Screw it. My whole attempt to hook Jill up with Seamus was just trying to get what I wanted while still playing by the rules, and she didn't deserve that from me. So forget the harem nonsense logic that dictates everyone has to try to manipulate their way to happiness. Maybe this would wreck my relationship with Jill, but the least I could do for her was to give it to her straight.

"Jill, thanks. I'm flattered you feel that way about me, but, uh, I'm not interested in dating anyone right now. And I'm sorry but I've—honestly, I just haven't ever really thought of you romantically, like that." Shit, she looked like I'd just run over her dog. Damn it, that's right! This was tomboy Jill I was talking to, so of course having her crush tell her he didn't see her as a girl was going to be horrible! Why didn't I think this through properly ahead of time? "I mean—look, that came out awful. I honestly don't think of anyone like that right now, you know? I told you Emily just broke up with me over the summer, right? I'm just—not in a good place for romance."

"Oh. Well…thanks for telling me."

Dammit, Jill, don't show me your brave face! Arg, this sucked! People suck! Manga sucks! Everything about this whole stupid situation is a huge, stinking ball of suck, and I don't care what my dad says!

"Nothing is coming out right! Look, Jill, this has nothing to do with you personally. I just don't want you to pass up an opportunity because you're waiting for me, because that ship is not going to sail. If you're interested in Seamus, maybe it's worth seeing him a bit to see if it works out. But you certainly don't have to if you don't want to! I mean it's up to you. Ugh! Whatever you do, I will be happy to, uh, watch you patch yourself up, I guess. I really was pretty useless here, huh?"

Jill looked like she wasn't quite sure how to respond, but after a moment she laughed. "Sorry, Xavier, I'm not laughing at you. Well, I mean you just look so frantic…seriously, it's not a big deal. I really appreciate you being willing to talk to me like this." She stood and replaced the first aid supplies where they belonged. "C'mon, let's head to P.E. If you're done watching me patch myself up, we should get back to the trouncing your team was deservedly receiving."

"Deservedly?!"

"Come on, Xavier, anyone with teamwork that bad completely deserves to lose."

Thank goodness, she was back to being Jill. Maybe pointing Seamus at her was a complete waste of time, but hopefully our awkward little conversation at least edged her toward exiting the harem. I was pretty sure she wasn't the type to go nursing an unrequited love just for the sake of it.

"Hey, you think Seamus could beat me at soccer?" Jill asked me out of the blue.

Or maybe the Seamus thing might work in my favor after all. "I make no promises. But he's definitely better than me."

"Hmm," said Jill, and that was it until we got back to P.E. and discovered her team had been quite handily trouncing mine even without her help.

We never did see Mr. Etsitty. I might need to check in sometime to make sure he's doing alright. I'd hate to be responsible for him getting fired or something just because he didn't fit the Japanese stereotype of a school nurse.

Fortunately, my dad stepped up before things got too awkward. "Congrats on getting your license, kid!"

"Yeah, and happy birthday!" said Jill. A chorus of "happy birthdays" and "congratulations" followed as the rest of the group chimed in, and the ice was officially broken.

As Mom slipped in and out of the kitchen, delivering a growing collection of snacks, I sat back and spent a moment watching my social circles collide.

Jesse was hovering uncomfortably in the background until Rachel said something to Hayden, who took pity on him and introduced him to Paula and Samantha. Samantha was way more reserved than I was used to seeing, which made sense given what I knew about her social anxiety hang-ups, but she gradually started acting more like herself as Paula and Vickie tag-teamed her.

Meanwhile, Seamus practically pounced on Jill and appeared to be catching up with her about the several years that had passed since they talked last. Excellent; it looked like the "hook Jill up with Seamus" gambit was still in play.

Dad meandered between people as his interest led him, getting introduced and extracting minor life details in passing. Rachel disappeared into the kitchen to help Mom for a bit, and then came and sat down near me, ending my brief moments of virtual isolation.

"How'd the test go, Xavier?"

"Hey, Rachel. It went pretty well, though I had a bad moment parallel parking."

"Mm, I've heard a lot of people fail that."

"Are you planning to get your license? You'll be 16 this year, right?"

She smiled ruefully. "I'm sixteen now."

"What? Really?"

"Yeah, my birthday is September 16^th."

Evidently Dad was hovering, because he broke in at this point. "That was just last month! You should have told us! I would have baked you a cake."

"Well there you go, Dad. She's been eating your Saturday abominations for a couple months now, so she was probably scared for her life if you concocted a dessert."

Dad made an exaggerated "I've been stabbed through the heart" gesture. "You wound me!"

Rachel laughed. "Honestly, it slipped my mind. I've been shuffling between houses so often that celebrating birthdays just doesn't occur to me."

Dad leaned over with a conspiratorial wink. "She says that, but who do you think organized this little shindig?"

Ah, so that's why this particular group of people ended up invited. Rachel is one of the few people who knew everyone here.

She shrugged and stage whispered, "Blame Samantha" to me. Wow, that was totally believable, too. I could almost hear her say…

"It's not like I wanted to celebrate your birthday!" exclaimed Samantha from behind my chair. She'd evidently worked her way around the room over toward us in an attempt to escape talking to Jesse and Hayden.

"Yeah, yeah." I waved her off. "If you'll excuse me, it looks like Mom has broken out the mini-sausages, and I'm going to go liberate a few before Seamus discovers them."

"Enjoy," said Rachel with a small smile, while Dad muttered something to himself about low quality excuses for food.

Although before I went, maybe a little revenge for her continued tsundere act was in order. "Hey Dad, have you met Samantha before? She's really into anime; maybe you should take her to the Lab and give her a tour."

Dad's eyes lit up, and he dragged Samantha off while she shot me a look of abject betrayal over her shoulder. Rachel laughed and wandered over to Hayden, Jesse, and Paula, pausing on her way to say something to Vickie who had evidently holed herself up partway behind the recliner with a bowl of mixed nuts. Vickie ditched the nuts, and went after Dad and Samantha.

Outside of the harem at lunch time, I hadn't really spent much time watching Rachel navigate social situations. I didn't realize how competent she was at reading and directing social interactions. She was so soft-spoken most of the time that she kind of faded into the background of the conversation, but she was obviously constantly monitoring not only the circle of people she was actively interacting with, but also the room as a whole. Whenever someone, including myself, spent too much time alone Rachel would find a way to steer them into conversation or direct other people their way. When it became clear that Dad was never going to let Samantha escape the Lab and Vickie wasn't helping, Rachel drifted off in that direction and a few minutes later Samantha rocketed out of the hallway and ensconced herself on the couch, the bowl of mixed nuts Vickie had abandoned clutched defensively to her chest. A few minutes later Rachel slipped through the room into the kitchen, and Mom wandered in without any new snacks to chat with Samantha on the couch.

It was honestly fascinating to watch, and I found myself distracted in a lot of the conversations I was having simply because I was curious what Rachel would get up to next.

"That's how it is, then?" asked Paula with a wry grin, and I refocused. At some point I'd ended up in the corner of the room with Paula while the rest of the party was congregated at the other end of the room or had spilled out into the back yard.

"What was that?"

"You like Rachel."

"What? No!"

Paula rolled her eyes. "Xavier, you've been watching her like a hawk this whole time. I hope you don't behave like that normally; doesn't she live with you?"

"Look, you've got the wrong idea; I was just curious today because she's practically running this party. Haven't you noticed? Whenever someone's alone or looks uncomfortable, she finds a way to intervene."

"Eh, don't really care," said Paula. She leaned forward with a devilish grin. "I'm just saying, if you want to get together with Rachel, maybe you should stop groping other girls, huh?"

"Groping…?" Dammit, of course she'd noticed. "That was—" And crap, there really was no way to explain without trying to convince her that she was a fictional character.

"Oh, I'm not angry or anything!" said Paula. "A girl likes to know she rates higher than stopping yourself from face-planting."

Argh, this was the problem with talking to Paula. She inevitably just ended up teasing me. I swear she only hung around us because she liked to mess with me.

I glanced toward the rest of the party where there appeared to be some sort of heavy debate going on. They looked like they'd be embroiled in that for a while, and for once Rachel wasn't even glancing our way. I'd been brooding over how to deal with Paula for so long, but maybe I could just ask her. She'd probably just blow it off, but it was worth a shot.

"Why are you here, Paula?" I asked abruptly.

"Eh?"

"I mean, like, why are you hanging out with a bunch of underclassmen? What are you getting out of it?"

"Oooh, so serious!" Paula gave it some thought, then shrugged. "I just really like to mess with you."

What is she, a mind-reader? "No, seriously. I'm honestly curious."

Paula gave me a long look, then got a glint in her eye I wasn't sure I liked as she folder her arms under her breasts, shoving them up like some sort of challenge. Or maybe a shield. "Why don't you tell me, Xavier? Why are any of us here hanging out with you?"

Fine, I'd play along. I started ticking off the people who were still arguing on the other side of the room off my fingers. "Seamus is an old family friend and Rachel's cousin, and Jesse's friends with both Seamus and me. Hayden's my best friend. Rachel's new in town and doesn't know a lot of people, which is why she hangs out around me a lot. Plus she lives here, since Seamus' family doesn't have an extra room and we do. Samantha is weirdly bad with people, and hangs around me because I put up with her nonsense. Jill's an old childhood friend. Vickie, Mom, and Dad are family, so they don't have a choice in the matter. And apparently you like to mess with me." Oh, and half of you are harem manga heroines.

Paula hummed noncommittally. "Okay, you get a B minus."

"What?!" I should have mentioned the harem thing.

"It's a passing grade, Xavier. Don't get greedy now."

"How was that a B minus? I was spot on!"

"Mmm, if you say so. But from my perspective, you missed some key facts."

"Like what?"

"Aw, you're a smart boy. I'm sure you'll do better on the next test."

"So that means—"

But Paula interrupted me. "Tell you what, Xavier. You show me a good time next Saturday, and maybe I'll clue you in."

"Next Saturday?"

Paula winked at me. "It's a date, then!"

Before I could respond Vickie came over and dragged me off.

"Come on, Xavier, the justice of croquet has finally prevailed and you're on my team."

Well. Not much I could do against the justice of croquet.

The thing was, I couldn't figure her motivation at all. She was two years my senior, which meant that she should have been hanging out with other seniors, or maybe juniors on the outside. Instead she was spending a significant amount of time with a mixed group of sophomores and one freshman. She enthusiastically joined the improv club, but I'd never heard her say anything about any other extracurricular activities. Hell, she barely talked about herself at all. I knew she was working part-time at the Stirbucks in the Outlet, too, so I wasn't sure if she even had free time to spend with anyone other than her fellow harem members and me.

Add to that the fact that just about whenever I tried to interact with her I ended up getting flustered when she inevitably started teasing or flirting, and I had no idea what I was going to be able to do about her.

As I worried over the issue, two weeks passed. Nothing much happened. Seamus clearly hadn't said anything to Jill—not terribly surprising, really, given she was rarely anywhere to be found outside of school hours thanks to cross-country—and Samantha had eventually started roughly alternating eating with Amaya and Jewel and spending lunch with the harem. She was still kind of pissed with me over literally shoving her at her two new friends, but that just meant she aimed the tsundere mainly at Paula, so I can't say that I minded.

I realized dithering over Paula wasn't doing me any good, but to be fair I did have a good distraction. My 16th birthday was coming up, which as far as I was concerned meant one thing: my driving test was fast approaching.

My birthday is on October 21, which this year fell mid-week. I'd passed the written test over the summer, and had the practical driving test scheduled for the Saturday after my birthday. My mom had asked if I wanted a party, but given the high likelihood it would devolve into some sort of harem scenario, I declined. As a result the Wednesday of my actual birthday we went out for dinner and had an ice cream cake at home with just family. Well, family and Rachel, of course. At this point she was pretty much a Brock, for all practical purposes. I guess maybe that was working in my favor, too, because it had been a long while since I had anything that screamed "harem scenario" involving Rachel.

Saturday morning rolled around, and Mom drove me over to the local DMV. The driving test went pretty well, although I had a bad moment while trying to parallel park. Missed the car in front of me by several inches, though, so it all worked out. After waiting around for a while afterward, the good news came down: I'd passed! I got an awful picture of myself taken, they printed out a temporary license, and I blissed out in the passenger seat while Mom drove us home. That test had been surprisingly stressful; something about having an adjudicator watching my every move really brought home the fact I was moving a couple tons of metal around at speed.

I was super happy I'd passed it, though. We'd still be sharing the same pair of family cars, but now that I didn't need to rely on a parent to ferry me around my world just got a lot bigger.

We pulled into our driveway, and Mom shepherded me toward the front door. I was still so happy at my relative freedom that I didn't really think about why we might be going in the front instead of the back.

Until I opened the door and found myself staring at Rachel, Jill, Samantha, Vickie, my Dad, Hayden, Seamus, and Jesse. "Surprise!"

"Ack!" I said, and involuntarily started to take a step back, only to trip over my own foot. Shit, I hadn't done this in weeks!

As I started to go over backward, Mom grabbed at my arm but only succeeded in hitting it. This spun me halfway around, and I desperately tried to get my feet back under me.

I failed, and I threw up my arms in an attempt to catch myself as I started to fall down the front steps.

Instead of face-planting on the walk or the lawn, though, I found myself colliding and tangling with Paula and we both went down in a heap.

I may have mentioned that manga harems, and rom-coms more generally, love their coincidences. Well, there's a particular favorite in harems: boy (or girl) falls over. Unpictured, typically physically improbable, actions briefly ensue on the way to the ground. Boy is left on top of girl in one of three main situations:

1. Straddling her, while girl's clothing is mysteriously hiked up and she stares up at him in either shock or seduction (depending on the genre). Because, you know, landing on your tailbone doesn't hurt at all so of course pain isn't a likely expression.
2. Face down in her cleavage.
3. Face down on top of her with a hand firmly groping a breast. This usually results in a lengthy breast massaging session, as the protagonist absentmindedly wonders what this strangely textured thing his hand has landed on could possibly be.

I got option number three. I have literally no idea how I managed to end up with a hand on Paula's chest when I'd been trying to catch myself. There must have been some special manga magic, because I'm fairly certain that under normal circumstances even if I accidentally groped her on the way down I would have ended up with my hand on the ground simply because that's the direction her breast curves, and no one tries to grab the ground when they're falling face forward: they try to land open palm.

But still, here we were. I scrambled off her so fast, she probably didn't even notice.

"Shit, that hurt!" exclaimed Paula as I levered myself off her. She grimaced and pushed herself into a sitting position.

"Are you alright?" I asked from where I was kneeling nearby. Thanks to Paula's last-minute intercept I was jarred and my knees felt a bit scraped up, but nothing hurt particularly badly.

A chorus of similar queries came from behind me as the whole crowd tried to force its way out the door. I swear I heard my dad say, "Classic!" in the background. Dammit, Dad.

"Yeah, yeah, I'll be fine."

I stood and offered Paula a hand, which she took and used to pull herself up. It caused me to stumble a half step forward; Paula was heavier than I'd expected.

Though I'm pretty sure she'd say the same thing about me.

"Well," said Paula, wincing a little as she straightened up and looked over the concerned group of people bumping one another down my front steps. "Let's get this party started!"

I trailed the rest of them into the house. I'd gotten complacent over the last couple weeks, but it looked like the genre was back to mess with me with a vengeance.

On Wednesday, I was a little slow to pack up my bag after Classic Lit and Mr. Kaczkowski caught me on my way out of the class. "Hey, Xavier, you're headed to lunch, right? Would you run these books over to the storage room?"

I was instantly on my guard. This smelled like a manga plot point just waiting to happen. Like I'd take the books only to discover Paula was already there on a similar errand and we'd somehow get locked in together. Or I'd be staggering down the hall and Jill would come rescue me by taking half the books, and we'd again get locked into the storage room together. Or I'd somehow get locked into the storage room, only to be rescued by Rachel. Basically, manga protagonists end up stuck in a lot of storage rooms. On the plus side, I had no idea what he was even talking about so maybe I could weasel out of this. "Storage room?"

"Yeah, it's the door in that little alcove right near the library. The librarian can let you in if it's locked."

Yeah, and then lock me in as soon as I turn my back. "Uh…"

"Aw, come on, Xavier, help me out. Consider it extra credit."

Ugh, lunch was a-wasting. "Alright, sure thing." I grabbed the stack of books, which indeed came up right to my chin, and headed for the door.

"Thanks, Xavier! I'll give you a freebie on the next quiz or something."

I'd rather he gave me a doorstop.

I navigated the crowded hallways in a bit of a funk, trying to balance my need for a speedy delivery with my desire to avoid playing 30-odd book pick-up. The library is on the first floor, kind of tucked in awkwardly near the offices in the central part of the building south of the cafeteria. As I turned into the stairwell, I happened to glance up toward the third floor, and there was Paula. Shit, I hadn't actually expected to have a random encounter with her. Thankfully, she was doing something on her phone as she walked and hadn't spotted me.

I hustled as fast as I could down to the first floor, and ducked into the bathroom that was immediately adjacent to the foot of the stairs.

"Whew, I think I made it," I said, mostly to myself.

The sounds of people peeing suddenly cut off, and I looked up to find a row of young men standing in front of urinals staring at me over their shoulders.

…I was still carrying a classroom's worth of Greek tragedies. Right.

Well, when in doubt, give a manly nod. Works every time. And with a quick sidestep, I managed not to knock the top book onto the floor!

"What the hell?" I heard, as I stepped cautiously out of the bathroom and speed-walked my heart out down the hall. Paula would hopefully have headed north toward our usual table at this point, so I should be in the clear.

"Whoa, Xavier!" I heard Jill call from somewhere behind me. "You want some help with that?"

"Nope, I'm all good! Save me a seat, will you?"

There was no way in hell I was setting foot in that storage room, because I was evidently some sort of prophet and I'd really rather not spend the next period locked in with a bunch of classic literature.

Well, why tempt fate? The storage room was right were Mr. Kaczkowski said, but I went straight to front desk in the library instead. "Mr. Kaczkowski sent these. He said they should go to the storage room?" I set the whole stack down on the counter with a solid thump.

The librarian grunted. "Leave 'em there. I'll put them away." Well that went better than I expected, although I could have sworn he grumbled something involving "Kaczkowski" and the phrase "lazy asshole" under his breath as I turned to go.

Guess I wasn't getting locked inside any storage rooms today!

I strode confidently out of the library, and practically ran straight into Samantha coming down the hall.

Ah, right. Of course that would happen.

"Xavier!" she exclaimed, stopping short. "What—I mean, not that I care, but what are you doing here anyway?"

"I'm heading to lunch." After running that short gauntlet, I was evidently in a weird mood, because I followed up by poking her in the forehead. "Doofus."

The look of apoplectic fury as Samantha spluttered prior to marching down the hall just in front of me was totally worth it.

As we passed the cafeteria, Samantha suddenly slowed. I followed her gaze and there were Amaya and Jewel eating lunch together. Amaya waved and Jewel smiled as Samantha dithered in place. What was this? Had a manga-style coincidence just triggered in my favor? Hell yes!

I gave Samantha a gentle push from behind. "Why not sit with them today?" She gave me a look like I'd just run over her pet dog and told her she should just bury him and get over it. "You can always sit with us tomorrow, if you really want."

"It's not like I—"

Right. I was talking to Samantha. Why was I trying to be supportive again? I poked her in the forehead a second time, rocking her back on her heels. "What is it a tsundere always has to hear before she can achieve happiness? Oh right. Be honest with yourself! You doofus." I gave her a final forehead poke for emphasis, and because her reactions were honestly hilarious.

As Samantha ramped up toward incandescent rage, I waved jauntily to the bemused Jewel and Amaya and headed on my way.

Samantha didn't eat with us for the rest of the week, sat with Amaya and Jewel in Japanese, and when she showed up to the improv meeting Thursday evening she spent the whole time alternately ignoring me and griping about Paula when Paula was onstage (and thus not near enough to retaliate).

Time would ultimately tell, but I was pretty sure that Samantha was on the road to rehabilitation.

One down, three to go.

To my surprise, Jill met us there.

"Hey, Xavier! Rachel," she called as she pushed toward us through the crowd of fellow bus riders.

"Hey, Jill. You don't have cross country practice today?"

Jill grimaced. "I didn't twist my ankle that much this morning, but Coach B still doesn't want me to attend practice for a couple days to make sure it heals up right."

"Rough."

"Tell me about it. I'll probably go stir crazy before the weekend is out." She looked at me hopefully.

Sorry, Jill, I'm not taking that bait. If my plan is going to succeed I need to focus on Samantha right now.

"What happened this morning?" asked Rachel. "I didn't get a chance to ask how you made it to school."

As Jill related the tale of our aborted attempt to run to school and subsequent rescue by Paula, I zoned out and watched the river of high school students flow by. I perked up a bit when I thought I saw Seamus, but he was lost in the press before I could wave or shoot him a manly nod or something.

Come to think of it, I'd barely had a chance to give my normal friends the time of day since the school year started. I really should rectify that if I wanted to still have friends once I got my life back.

The bus pulled up, and the three of us clambered on without incident. I even got to sit on my own for once, thanks to Jill only making it partway through her story before boarding.

After breakfast Saturday morning my mom informed me that she and Rachel were headed over to visit Seamus' mother, Min-ji Doyle, and that I was coming along at Seamus' request.

That was news to me; Mom tends to visit the Doyles once or twice a month, but this was the first time in a while I'd gone along. Once I was old enough to stay home alone, there wasn't much impetus for me to tag along, after all. Seamus and my friendship had cooled by the middle of elementary school or so.

Since the alternative was doing pre-calculus homework without Rachel around to bail me out when I inevitably got into trouble, though, I didn't have any objections.

As soon as we arrived at the Doyles' house, Seamus hustled me away to his room while Rachel and Mom went to chat with his mother. Once we arrived, he shut the door with finality and sat on the bed while I claimed the only chair.

Seamus' room is pretty standard for a teenage boy; random toys and knick-knacks from his childhood lurking on the dresser and shelves, and posters randomly festooning the walls. Across from where I was sitting was a faded seascape filled with whales and other marine life partially overlapped by a newer poster featuring a soccer player for Seamus' favorite team. Despite the clutter on various surfaces, the floor of the room was impeccably clean; Seamus has always had a weirdly neat streak underlying his bluff, sports-loving exterior.

"Alright, Xavier, spill it," he said. "Who was that hottie you were standing with at the bus stop yesterday?"

"Uh, that would be your cousin. Rachel? You remember her?"

Seamus rolled his eyes and threw his pillow at me. "No, idiot, the other one. The sporty girl!"

I threw the pillow back. "You mean Jill?" I guess Jill was good-looking, if you were into sports bras and short shorts.

"Wait, that was Jillian? Jillian Guthrie?"

"Yep." Come to think of it, Seamus and Jill knew one another back in elementary school. Given how much Seamus enjoyed team sports, I was surprised he'd lost touch with her. Maybe because he never tried out for the school teams?

"Damn." Seamus leaned back against the wall and looked contemplative. "I haven't seen her in ages. She dating anyone that you know of?"

"No, Jill's unattached." Oh wait. Oh man oh man. What was it Dad had suggested as a method for dealing with Samantha? That I should try and hook her up with one of my male friends? This was a golden opportunity if ever I'd seen one. "You should ask her out. I think you two would really get along." You pair of meat-heads.

"Yeah? Maybe I will."

"You should go for it. Jill's great, and she's definitely not seeing anyone right now." Plus or minus a harem membership. Hmm. Now I thought of it, she might just reject Seamus outright. I wonder… "If it looks like she's waffling, though, maybe see if she'll give you an answer a little later? I don't think she's had much practice with relationships, so she might need a little space." And knowing manga logic, if she was conflicted about a potential relationship she'd probably try to sound me out. Her being in the harem meant she was likely either dealing with budding feelings for me, or given the childhood friend angle more likely had realized that she'd always liked me or similar baloney. Given her behavior, though, I didn't think she was actually in love with me. More like a manga-inspired passing infatuation.

"So what about you, Professor X? Did I hear that Emily moved away over the summer?"

"Ah, yeah. Yeah, she did."

"Damn, that sucks, man. You long-distancing that shit or what?"

"No; no, we broke up."

Seamus grimaced. "That really sucks."

I shrugged. Yeah, didn't really have much I could say to that. Ugh, now I was missing Emily fierce.

"So what are you up to these days, then? I haven't really seen you around school much."

"Same old, I guess." Evidently Seamus wasn't aware of the harem, and I felt no need to clue him in. I had a feeling that would result in endless ribbing and not much else.

We chewed the fat for a while longer, and then at Seamus' suggestion went out to play a little basketball in his driveway while our mothers finished catching up.

I admit, Seamus isn't really someone I like hanging out with usually, but it was nice. I definitely needed to invite Hayden to hang out someday soon, because no-stress, harem-less time with friends had a lot to recommend it.