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spottoOkay, let's try this again.
-
BABY.
I LOVE YOU SO.
YOU ARE THE ONLY ONE FOR ME.
THERE IS A NEVER A DAY I DON'T MISS YOU.
I ALWAYS WANT TO SEE YOUR BEAUTIFUL FACE.
TO FEEL YOUR WARM SOFT LIPS.
TO LAUGH WITH YOU IN YOUR FUZZY PERSONALITY.
I WISH FOR YOUR EYES.
I YEARN FOR YOUR SKIN.
I DREAM OF BEING WITH YOU FOREVER.
MY DESTINY.
*record scratch*
Love songs are corny. Powerade makes one hyper. The hardest thing in the world to draw is the hair of the caged bird. Kazumi is the ONE TRUE PINEAPPLE HEAD! Aoi means BLOO. Rabbit season! Look at each other for one second and leave. PIE. Spreeeead yooour l-- I mean mayonnaise. If you must hate, tolerate! Bows or ties? You decide. COUGHCOUGHSARSCOUGH. Allo Spotto! Au revoir. The internet is for PORN, moron. Good dog. EAT ME. I was WORKING, fool! Father's Day is blah! WE WERE DUMB AND SILLY AND NAIVE BACK THEN AND STILL DUMB AND SILLY AND NAIVE. Curry does not taste good, it does not. NOW WITNESS THE NEWEST FANFIC OF MINE OF GREEN EGGS AND HAM! I do not like green eggs and ham, Sam I am.
Illegitimate children is the spawn of NO CONDOMS! Oh, and STDs, but bastards are more annoying. WEAR CONDOMS, KIDS-- I mean, um, adults.
-
BABY.
I LOVE YOU SO.
YOU ARE THE ONLY ONE FOR ME.
THERE IS A NEVER A DAY I DON'T MISS YOU.
I ALWAYS WANT TO SEE YOUR BEAUTIFUL FACE.
TO FEEL YOUR WARM SOFT LIPS.
TO LAUGH WITH YOU IN YOUR FUZZY PERSONALITY.
I WISH FOR YOUR EYES.
I YEARN FOR YOUR SKIN.
I DREAM OF BEING WITH YOU FOREVER.
MY DESTINY.
*record scratch*
Love songs are corny. Powerade makes one hyper. The hardest thing in the world to draw is the hair of the caged bird. Kazumi is the ONE TRUE PINEAPPLE HEAD! Aoi means BLOO. Rabbit season! Look at each other for one second and leave. PIE. Spreeeead yooour l-- I mean mayonnaise. If you must hate, tolerate! Bows or ties? You decide. COUGHCOUGHSARSCOUGH. Allo Spotto! Au revoir. The internet is for PORN, moron. Good dog. EAT ME. I was WORKING, fool! Father's Day is blah! WE WERE DUMB AND SILLY AND NAIVE BACK THEN AND STILL DUMB AND SILLY AND NAIVE. Curry does not taste good, it does not. NOW WITNESS THE NEWEST FANFIC OF MINE OF GREEN EGGS AND HAM! I do not like green eggs and ham, Sam I am.
Ramen Troubles
This idea for a oneshot came from when I was eating TWO (yes! NOT ONE!) bowls of…ramen!
Please enjoy this incredibly dumb story.
-
Asakura Kazumi was minding her own business eating ramen in the Mahora cafeteria when suddenly out of nowhere, a translucent pale blue spirit came from behind. A cold chill that eventually made it to a tap on the shoulder caused the pineapple head of 3-A to throw her ramen into the air, which found itself landing on the red locks of the paparazzi. Her lunch not going to its rightful place, the stomach, was on her head as Kazumi turned around, a tad annoyed, to see who did that.
“…oops.”
The little squeak from the resident ghost of the campus erupted into full machine gun bullets of apologizes from the sorrowful little spirit, still not used to making it apparent that she was around before nearly killing someone with a heart attack, namely Kazumi. Aisaka Sayo could still not be seen after all this time. The festival was over, and everything mostly went back to normal; well, whatever could still be considered normal nowadays. Summer Vacation had started a few days ago, but Kazumi always found herself returning to the school. After all, that’s where Sayo was. The redhead wasn’t about to leave suddenly, leaving the lonely spirit of Mahora to be stuck unaccompanied once again. Also, Asakura wasn’t exactly close to her family, due to her knack of revealing several secrets to people rather quickly. It can safely be assumed that the Asakura family had a number of embarrassing secrets.
“Alright Sayo, I got it. I’ll just head to the washroom and clean up, okay?” Kazumi smiled, forgiving the not-so-young ghost rather easily. The reporter left the cafeteria, leaving Sayo all alone in the lunchroom. Satsuki was cooking in the kitchen in a room quite close by, but otherwise the landlocked spirit was floating there alone, above a mess of ramen on the ground.
The curious little phantom floated towards the bits of ramen scattered on the ground. She attempted to poke it, only to see that her finger went right through the delicious strands of noodle. Sayo had always wanted to try such a delicate dish. In her time such a dish was rather expensive and in contrast to the modern times, quite rare. The popular cuisine wasn’t common until after the second World War, which Sayo, regrettably, did not live through.
She notched her head up to notice Kazumi heading back into the lunchroom. Her hair wasn’t completely cleaned up, but the redhead would need a good shower and use shampoo twice as much if she wanted to make her unique hairdo looking like a shiny new car once again. Finally, the living 3-A student noticed Sayo hovering closely to the mess on the floor.
“Trying to clean up by yourself, Sayo-chan?” Kazumi asked, her teeth showing as she grinned.
Sayo nodded, “A little…I just wanted to know why ramen is such a popular dish around here.”
”Ah, haven’t you ever tried ramen? The taste alone will answer all your questions!” Kazumi said, “words can’t really describe why it’s so popular, y’know!”
Sayo frowned, turning away, “Well I…never tried any…that’s why.”
Kazumi walked up to the spoiled food on the ground and carefully wiped the floor with a napkin, picking up the contents as well. She neatly dumped the napkin into the garbage bin and made a gesture with her fingers for Sayo to come along.
“Hm. As a ghost, I guess you can’t taste anything at all, am I right, Sayo-chan?” Kazumi asked as the duo headed down the empty halls of Mahora. They stopped right in front of class 3-A’s doorway, Kazumi waiting for the answer.
Sayo made a small murmur from her mouth. She was in deep thought, wondering what kind of taste ramen gave that would make thousands of customers consume it everyday. Kazumi quickly walked off again, with Sayo close behind. She had a good look at the empty seats of class 3-A.
They were eventually outside, with a sun shining glamorously at them. Kazumi looked at the university a few hundred feet away from them as she turned back towards the speculating spirit.
The redhead made a sly smile as she turned back once again towards the white building of the university some distance away, “I have an idea Sayo! I know a way that will allow you to taste ramen!”
A smile of overjoyed excitement came upon the face of Sayo, who for 60 years had a depressing expression on her face, “Really? How will you do that, Asakura-san!?”
”It’ll be a surprise, Sayo-chan! Soon you’ll be able to have some privileges that only the living have! I’ll be right back!”
The grinning paparazzi quickly ran off. She was quite fast for someone who wasn’t in any sport-related clubs. Sayo floated where she was, quickly anticipating at what this surprise would be. Was it really possible to allow a spirit like her to actually develop one of the human senses?
Sayo hovered in the air, doing nothing but imagining the outcome of Kazumi’s idea…
-
Kazumi knew that a science freak like Hakase Satomi would not waste her Summer spending time with her family. She knew, being 3-A’s human database, that the Hakase family would be outraged at the amount of money Hakase would drain doing various and insane experiments inside her own home. In Mahora, the school would pay for all her damage, so Hakase could do whatever she wanted here. In Kazumi’s mind however, she knew that with her manipulating expertise, she could also make Hakase do whatever she wanted.
Including finding some crazy and seemingly impossible way to make a spirit be able to taste, after all, if a time machine was possible, why not a device that would allow for nonliving things to also have this sense?
Kazumi knew that magic might even be needed for something as farfetched as this, but she wanted her best friend, Sayo, to know the joys of the taste of ramen, and maybe many other human-like things if this became widely successful. The aim seemed to be incredibly far-away, but Kazumi wasn’t about to let something as small as the little probability of success to get in her way. Being a great reporter is all about finding the little difficult things, for without these things, several scoops would’ve faded away from sight.
”Hakase!” Kazumi called as she ran up the stairs in the seventh floor of the Science Department building. The elevator was out, and she had to catch the large forehead scientist making her way higher up the building.
Hakase looked down and saw the panting paparazzi catching up to her. To the redhead’s surprise, the scientist ran even faster up the stairs, as if she were avoiding Asakura all together.
“Oi! Stop running!” Kazumi shouted, “I’m not here to leech secrets off of you and turn them into giant scoops on the school newspaper!”
“That’s not a very trusting statement,” Hakase replied as she continued her way up the stairs. Both girls soon found themselves on the roof of the department.
Finally fed up with chasing, Asakura decided to end this once and for all, “Alright, if you don’t stop running, I will publish a juicy article on why you have such a large forehead, Hakase.”
The braided girl stopped, her face turning into a faint shade of red as she turned around. The student in white walked up to Kazumi, giving her full surrender.
“You’re evil, Asakura-san.”
The redhead chuckled, feeling mildly amused and a bit honoured from what came out of the scientist’s mouth, “I thought that title was given to Paru! Well okay, I have a favour to ask you.”
”A favour? Does this have anything to do with the press?”
”No, it doesn’t. If you don’t do the favour though, it will have plenty to do with the press,” Kazumi added.
Hakase crossed her arms, “Right. That doesn’t sound like a favour anymore.”
”Look, all I’m asking for you to do is to build a…simple little invention of yours. It’s your hobby right? You obviously don’t mind, my friend!”
Hakase smiled, “I know we’re classmates, but we rarely ever talk to each other aside from you attempting to get an interview from me about my ‘terrorist machines’, you called them. So logically, we aren’t friends. You’re just trying to sweet-talk me into making something to help you spy, aren’t you?”
”It has nothing to do with spying Hakase, let me finish,” the redhead coughed, “I need you to…build some sort of machine that would enable say, those who aren’t exactly alive, to be able to taste.”
”…those who aren’t exactly alive? Is this like a partial experiment similar to what Frankenstein did? I pretty much already did that with Chachamaru. Her taste buds aren’t perfect yet, and when she does eat the food just gets cleaned in her holding acid gauge that can be used as a portable stove!”
Kazumi sighed, “I don’t mean not alive as in something manmade…”
”…things that aren’t manmade have no use to me,” Hakase said.
“No, like…remember in the school festival you gave us exorcist guns to hunt the ghost in 3-A? I’m uh…curious to see what kind of food the ghost might like, for an article I got an idea on. I know she’s still around; the chills still go down by back when I sit in the seat next to me! So what do you say?” Kazumi asked.
Hakase grinned, “The ghost is still around? I thought you said it achieved nirvana. Hmm, well if that’s the case…no.”
”What!?”
”I’m not using my precious summer break to build something that ghost might not even touch! I have many other things to do. Chachamaru’s hair is getting outdated, if I don’t upgrade it she may overheat this summer due to the intense heat!”
Kazumi got up, about to leave, “Alright then. I guess I’ll go start on the newest scoop on how Hakase has hidden test tube babies in her lab illegally. Maybe even touch on the past of the famous mad scientist of Mahora, like how her forehead came to be! I imagine a lot of publicity, and this lab closed down…”
”Alright! I get the point! No need to blackmail me, you go back to doing that on Chisame. I’ll start on it right away. If I am to build this machine, I want a blood sample from you,” Hakase demanded.
Kazumi was bewildered, “What? Why!?”
”To see if there is any ‘specialized medication’ in your body.”
The reporter frowned, “If you think I’m on drugs and insane, you should be taking blood tests of the whole class then.”
“Alright fine. I need it in a different experiment of mine involving blood samples. I asked Ako but she fainted right when I mentioned the word blood. Also none of the hospitals are willing to donate some to me because they need it for the ailing patients. Those patients never do anything to improve society such as technology anyway! They just lie around watching TV eating bad food with IV drips in their wrist! The blood samples are much more needed for research and the advancement of the human race!”
Kazumi stood there, a tad dumbfounded, “Er…you can have some if you shut up?”
”Agreed.”
-
A week went by, with Sayo still edging to taste a delicious morsel of ramen. Kazumi told her not to worry, and that she will soon feel livelier in time. The resident ghost floated around in the kitchen that night. She was humming as she entered the cafeteria and then turned around. There were footsteps to be heard in the distance, and Sayo wanted to float straight to the dorms to Kazumi whenever she started getting scared. Unfortunately, Kazumi had told her she would return to the dorms late, and Sayo didn’t want to take a scary route back to the dorms for no reason.
Fearing for her life, while she was unaware that she didn’t have one anymore, the little spirit flew through the wall and into the old 3-A classroom. The desks were all empty, and for just a second, Sayo imagined the room being filled by her current classmates. Asuna and Ayaka would’ve been arguing up front, and many other insane incidents would take place. Her daydream stopped short when she heard the footsteps again. It was soon becoming apparent that whoever was making those were coming to Sayo herself.
The door of 3-A opened, and Sayo feared for the worst, only to see a spectacled brunette enter the room. It was only Hakase, so Sayo sighed in relief and wondered what the scientist was doing in school at this hour. Following Hakase though, was Kazumi herself, and the ghost immediately floated to the redhead in joy, now feeling no fear whatsoever within the school.
“Asakura-san! What are doing here?” Sayo asked, her pale face showing a confused expression. The cute outlook given out by the not-so-young ghost made Kazumi smile, and the reporter patted Sayo on the head.
“You want to taste ramen?” Kazumi whispered. She seemed reluctant to raise her voice any higher, but Sayo didn’t care, as long as a friend was in the room. She quietly cheered at the surprise that Kazumi was not going to bring. Hakase walked out of the room and pushed in a rather large machine.
The size of the mechanism made Sayo uneasy. Although Hakase was not famous for small gadgets or the like, obviously it should’ve been expected that a gigantic device was needed for a little ghost to taste the delicious dish called ramen.
Noticing and perhaps somehow feeling the emotion Sayo had, Kazumi spoke up, but yet again with a whisper, “Not to worry, if anything bad happens, I’ll get you to safety no matter what.”
Hakase stopped fiddling with her invention and turned towards Kazumi. She had overheard what the paparazzi said, which she was quite sure wasn’t directed at her at all. The confused genius pulled a handle and then looked up in the air.
“So, who were you talking to?”
Kazumi hesitated, searching throughout her mind the proper answer without looking crazy or revealing that she had been haunted by a ghost for a few years now, “Oh, I just mumble out lines for uh…the school play I’m in! So I can remember.”
Hakase had an eyebrow notched, “Oh really? You’re in the play with Murakami-san? What role do you play?”
”The girl who goes insane, it’s a small part really.”
Hakase nodded, “I look forward to watching the play then.”
Kazumi sighed in her mind, reminding herself to blackmail Natsumi and get into the play with the fake position she had just described to Hakase. She turned and looked at the giant machine behind Hakase.
“So…how does it work?”
Hakase clicked one more button, and various sounds came from the machine, “By clicking the start button, it senses any cold air in the room, which would be the ghost. You watch what happens next.”
The massive contraption started shaking as an odd misty gas started spewing from a funnel fastened upon the front of the machine. The mist encircled a terrified Sayo in the air and then it seemed to trap her to that one spot. The frightened ghost whimpered, but as the mist continued to encircle her, she didn’t seem to find it that threatening. Hakase pushed up her glasses before she pressed one very large red button in the middle of the machine.
BOOM!
”…hm. I must’ve made a mistake in one of the equations. Was I supposed to carry the two?” Hakase spoke out loud, watching the smoke and dust from the explosion clear up. As it did, the machine was clearly in several pieces all over the ground. The scientist sighed, knowing that it was back to the drawing board, but that was one of the greatest excitements when building and inventing. In some ways the process of perfecting a creation seemed more amusing than the end result itself.
After she finished speculating at what might’ve went wrong, she finally noticed that Asakura was nowhere to be found. Unbeknownst to her, Sayo had disappeared as well, not that she really knew if Sayo was there anyway, but she did detect some sort of cold air within the 3-A classroom before the machine decided to break down. Hakase didn’t take that much into account though, and just decided to go back to the lab for a nap. It was a long day after all.
-
Sayo woke up in the fields of the Tsuwabuki. It was no longer night, and the yellow flowers that seemed to represent her were always blooming at this time of year. Sayo did not understand how she could just ‘wake up’ though, since ghosts don’t exactly fall asleep or unconscious in the first place, so it’d be highly unlikely for her to just be ‘waking up’. She sat up and found the smell of the flowers absolutely astounding. She exhaled deeply and felt like she would fall asleep at anytime.
”…wait a second. How can I be able to smell flowers, feel sleepy, or even exhale?” Sayo said to no one in particular. She then started to realize that Asakura’s plan might have been even more successful then she had hoped! Sayo seemed to be able to do anything a living being could do, and felt as if she was revived!
”I can tell you that answer. Just turn around,” the voice of Kazumi startled the spirit who didn’t even feel as if Asakura was close by. Usually as a ghost, Sayo could feel the presence of living beings like some sort of ability added to her powerful spiritual powers.
Sayo turned around and almost fell over from shock. She saw herself floating right in front of her with her arms crossed. Sayo herself never crossed her arms before, and she was completely bewildered at the sight she saw.
The other Sayo finally spoke, “You know, in a way Hakase was successful.” The ghost winked, and her voice was eerily similar to Kazumi’s…
Suddenly Sayo looked at her hand, and to her surprise it was not translucent or pale, but in fact the colour of what a living being’s skin might’ve been. She noticed that she was wearing the present day Mahora uniform, and her chest seemed a little more…distracting.
“…wait…I’m in…”
”My body,” the ghost in front of Sayo spoke again. It seemed farfetched, too farfetched for something like this to occur. First, Sayo was originally a ghost; technically you can’t switch bodies with a ghost for the sole reason that ghosts do not have bodies. Secondly, would that mean that Sayo was in some way alive, and that Kazumi was dead?
Kazumi continued, “You know, being a ghost has a few…advantages. I can see myself finding a lot of potential scoops in this form…and Sayo, you can now try out ramen!”
”But Asakura-san! You seem so relaxed about this! What if we can never return to our bodies or spirits?” Sayo said, obviously worrying over the fact that being ‘Kazumi’ may not be as easy as you would think.
Kazumi grinned slightly as she floated closer to Sayo, putting her hand on Sayo’s shoulders even though she was quite aware she wouldn’t feel anything, “You’ve been a lonely ghost for more than five times longer than my whole life has been through. This is your opportunity to make friends, even if you don’t appear as yourself, your personality is still there and you’ll finally interact with people and say things you always wanted to but couldn’t. I wouldn’t worry about getting our own ‘bodies’ back right at this moment. I think you should just enjoy the right to have a life that was sadly taken from you so early in your lifetime.”
Sayo smiled slightly. She knew this was a once in a lifetime, or perhaps after-lifetime, chance to do things she never could’ve experienced. Yet she didn’t want Asakura to be a ghost for the rest of time itself, if they never found a way to change back. Being a ghost was her problem, and Kazumi’s problems were getting through school, finding a job, and basically go through life.
”Yeah but-“
”Did you even hear what I just said? We can worry about those things later. You should be happy! Hurry up and go do something you never could do in the 20th century! Like using a computer or going skydiving or running around the neighbourhood naked!”
”…running around the neighbourhood naked?”
”Oh wait; you’re in my body…scratch that…” Sayo giggled at Kazumi’s silliness. The reporter, now in a form of a misty ghost, laughed as well, accompanied by a bold shade of blush.
Sayo inhaled the air once again, deeply taking in the wonderful scent of the tsuwabuki. She stretched her body while yawning, and doing all that after 60 years of being unable to feel nothing felt remarkably pleasant.
Such fanfiction was inspired by "Conversion" a Kai/Rei fanfic that introduced me to slashdom, even if it isn't the best fanfic around. This fanfiction took four months to reach 3500 words, its first chapter.This idea for a oneshot came from when I was eating TWO (yes! NOT ONE!) bowls of…ramen!
Please enjoy this incredibly dumb story.
-
Asakura Kazumi was minding her own business eating ramen in the Mahora cafeteria when suddenly out of nowhere, a translucent pale blue spirit came from behind. A cold chill that eventually made it to a tap on the shoulder caused the pineapple head of 3-A to throw her ramen into the air, which found itself landing on the red locks of the paparazzi. Her lunch not going to its rightful place, the stomach, was on her head as Kazumi turned around, a tad annoyed, to see who did that.
“…oops.”
The little squeak from the resident ghost of the campus erupted into full machine gun bullets of apologizes from the sorrowful little spirit, still not used to making it apparent that she was around before nearly killing someone with a heart attack, namely Kazumi. Aisaka Sayo could still not be seen after all this time. The festival was over, and everything mostly went back to normal; well, whatever could still be considered normal nowadays. Summer Vacation had started a few days ago, but Kazumi always found herself returning to the school. After all, that’s where Sayo was. The redhead wasn’t about to leave suddenly, leaving the lonely spirit of Mahora to be stuck unaccompanied once again. Also, Asakura wasn’t exactly close to her family, due to her knack of revealing several secrets to people rather quickly. It can safely be assumed that the Asakura family had a number of embarrassing secrets.
“Alright Sayo, I got it. I’ll just head to the washroom and clean up, okay?” Kazumi smiled, forgiving the not-so-young ghost rather easily. The reporter left the cafeteria, leaving Sayo all alone in the lunchroom. Satsuki was cooking in the kitchen in a room quite close by, but otherwise the landlocked spirit was floating there alone, above a mess of ramen on the ground.
The curious little phantom floated towards the bits of ramen scattered on the ground. She attempted to poke it, only to see that her finger went right through the delicious strands of noodle. Sayo had always wanted to try such a delicate dish. In her time such a dish was rather expensive and in contrast to the modern times, quite rare. The popular cuisine wasn’t common until after the second World War, which Sayo, regrettably, did not live through.
She notched her head up to notice Kazumi heading back into the lunchroom. Her hair wasn’t completely cleaned up, but the redhead would need a good shower and use shampoo twice as much if she wanted to make her unique hairdo looking like a shiny new car once again. Finally, the living 3-A student noticed Sayo hovering closely to the mess on the floor.
“Trying to clean up by yourself, Sayo-chan?” Kazumi asked, her teeth showing as she grinned.
Sayo nodded, “A little…I just wanted to know why ramen is such a popular dish around here.”
”Ah, haven’t you ever tried ramen? The taste alone will answer all your questions!” Kazumi said, “words can’t really describe why it’s so popular, y’know!”
Sayo frowned, turning away, “Well I…never tried any…that’s why.”
Kazumi walked up to the spoiled food on the ground and carefully wiped the floor with a napkin, picking up the contents as well. She neatly dumped the napkin into the garbage bin and made a gesture with her fingers for Sayo to come along.
“Hm. As a ghost, I guess you can’t taste anything at all, am I right, Sayo-chan?” Kazumi asked as the duo headed down the empty halls of Mahora. They stopped right in front of class 3-A’s doorway, Kazumi waiting for the answer.
Sayo made a small murmur from her mouth. She was in deep thought, wondering what kind of taste ramen gave that would make thousands of customers consume it everyday. Kazumi quickly walked off again, with Sayo close behind. She had a good look at the empty seats of class 3-A.
They were eventually outside, with a sun shining glamorously at them. Kazumi looked at the university a few hundred feet away from them as she turned back towards the speculating spirit.
The redhead made a sly smile as she turned back once again towards the white building of the university some distance away, “I have an idea Sayo! I know a way that will allow you to taste ramen!”
A smile of overjoyed excitement came upon the face of Sayo, who for 60 years had a depressing expression on her face, “Really? How will you do that, Asakura-san!?”
”It’ll be a surprise, Sayo-chan! Soon you’ll be able to have some privileges that only the living have! I’ll be right back!”
The grinning paparazzi quickly ran off. She was quite fast for someone who wasn’t in any sport-related clubs. Sayo floated where she was, quickly anticipating at what this surprise would be. Was it really possible to allow a spirit like her to actually develop one of the human senses?
Sayo hovered in the air, doing nothing but imagining the outcome of Kazumi’s idea…
-
Kazumi knew that a science freak like Hakase Satomi would not waste her Summer spending time with her family. She knew, being 3-A’s human database, that the Hakase family would be outraged at the amount of money Hakase would drain doing various and insane experiments inside her own home. In Mahora, the school would pay for all her damage, so Hakase could do whatever she wanted here. In Kazumi’s mind however, she knew that with her manipulating expertise, she could also make Hakase do whatever she wanted.
Including finding some crazy and seemingly impossible way to make a spirit be able to taste, after all, if a time machine was possible, why not a device that would allow for nonliving things to also have this sense?
Kazumi knew that magic might even be needed for something as farfetched as this, but she wanted her best friend, Sayo, to know the joys of the taste of ramen, and maybe many other human-like things if this became widely successful. The aim seemed to be incredibly far-away, but Kazumi wasn’t about to let something as small as the little probability of success to get in her way. Being a great reporter is all about finding the little difficult things, for without these things, several scoops would’ve faded away from sight.
”Hakase!” Kazumi called as she ran up the stairs in the seventh floor of the Science Department building. The elevator was out, and she had to catch the large forehead scientist making her way higher up the building.
Hakase looked down and saw the panting paparazzi catching up to her. To the redhead’s surprise, the scientist ran even faster up the stairs, as if she were avoiding Asakura all together.
“Oi! Stop running!” Kazumi shouted, “I’m not here to leech secrets off of you and turn them into giant scoops on the school newspaper!”
“That’s not a very trusting statement,” Hakase replied as she continued her way up the stairs. Both girls soon found themselves on the roof of the department.
Finally fed up with chasing, Asakura decided to end this once and for all, “Alright, if you don’t stop running, I will publish a juicy article on why you have such a large forehead, Hakase.”
The braided girl stopped, her face turning into a faint shade of red as she turned around. The student in white walked up to Kazumi, giving her full surrender.
“You’re evil, Asakura-san.”
The redhead chuckled, feeling mildly amused and a bit honoured from what came out of the scientist’s mouth, “I thought that title was given to Paru! Well okay, I have a favour to ask you.”
”A favour? Does this have anything to do with the press?”
”No, it doesn’t. If you don’t do the favour though, it will have plenty to do with the press,” Kazumi added.
Hakase crossed her arms, “Right. That doesn’t sound like a favour anymore.”
”Look, all I’m asking for you to do is to build a…simple little invention of yours. It’s your hobby right? You obviously don’t mind, my friend!”
Hakase smiled, “I know we’re classmates, but we rarely ever talk to each other aside from you attempting to get an interview from me about my ‘terrorist machines’, you called them. So logically, we aren’t friends. You’re just trying to sweet-talk me into making something to help you spy, aren’t you?”
”It has nothing to do with spying Hakase, let me finish,” the redhead coughed, “I need you to…build some sort of machine that would enable say, those who aren’t exactly alive, to be able to taste.”
”…those who aren’t exactly alive? Is this like a partial experiment similar to what Frankenstein did? I pretty much already did that with Chachamaru. Her taste buds aren’t perfect yet, and when she does eat the food just gets cleaned in her holding acid gauge that can be used as a portable stove!”
Kazumi sighed, “I don’t mean not alive as in something manmade…”
”…things that aren’t manmade have no use to me,” Hakase said.
“No, like…remember in the school festival you gave us exorcist guns to hunt the ghost in 3-A? I’m uh…curious to see what kind of food the ghost might like, for an article I got an idea on. I know she’s still around; the chills still go down by back when I sit in the seat next to me! So what do you say?” Kazumi asked.
Hakase grinned, “The ghost is still around? I thought you said it achieved nirvana. Hmm, well if that’s the case…no.”
”What!?”
”I’m not using my precious summer break to build something that ghost might not even touch! I have many other things to do. Chachamaru’s hair is getting outdated, if I don’t upgrade it she may overheat this summer due to the intense heat!”
Kazumi got up, about to leave, “Alright then. I guess I’ll go start on the newest scoop on how Hakase has hidden test tube babies in her lab illegally. Maybe even touch on the past of the famous mad scientist of Mahora, like how her forehead came to be! I imagine a lot of publicity, and this lab closed down…”
”Alright! I get the point! No need to blackmail me, you go back to doing that on Chisame. I’ll start on it right away. If I am to build this machine, I want a blood sample from you,” Hakase demanded.
Kazumi was bewildered, “What? Why!?”
”To see if there is any ‘specialized medication’ in your body.”
The reporter frowned, “If you think I’m on drugs and insane, you should be taking blood tests of the whole class then.”
“Alright fine. I need it in a different experiment of mine involving blood samples. I asked Ako but she fainted right when I mentioned the word blood. Also none of the hospitals are willing to donate some to me because they need it for the ailing patients. Those patients never do anything to improve society such as technology anyway! They just lie around watching TV eating bad food with IV drips in their wrist! The blood samples are much more needed for research and the advancement of the human race!”
Kazumi stood there, a tad dumbfounded, “Er…you can have some if you shut up?”
”Agreed.”
-
A week went by, with Sayo still edging to taste a delicious morsel of ramen. Kazumi told her not to worry, and that she will soon feel livelier in time. The resident ghost floated around in the kitchen that night. She was humming as she entered the cafeteria and then turned around. There were footsteps to be heard in the distance, and Sayo wanted to float straight to the dorms to Kazumi whenever she started getting scared. Unfortunately, Kazumi had told her she would return to the dorms late, and Sayo didn’t want to take a scary route back to the dorms for no reason.
Fearing for her life, while she was unaware that she didn’t have one anymore, the little spirit flew through the wall and into the old 3-A classroom. The desks were all empty, and for just a second, Sayo imagined the room being filled by her current classmates. Asuna and Ayaka would’ve been arguing up front, and many other insane incidents would take place. Her daydream stopped short when she heard the footsteps again. It was soon becoming apparent that whoever was making those were coming to Sayo herself.
The door of 3-A opened, and Sayo feared for the worst, only to see a spectacled brunette enter the room. It was only Hakase, so Sayo sighed in relief and wondered what the scientist was doing in school at this hour. Following Hakase though, was Kazumi herself, and the ghost immediately floated to the redhead in joy, now feeling no fear whatsoever within the school.
“Asakura-san! What are doing here?” Sayo asked, her pale face showing a confused expression. The cute outlook given out by the not-so-young ghost made Kazumi smile, and the reporter patted Sayo on the head.
“You want to taste ramen?” Kazumi whispered. She seemed reluctant to raise her voice any higher, but Sayo didn’t care, as long as a friend was in the room. She quietly cheered at the surprise that Kazumi was not going to bring. Hakase walked out of the room and pushed in a rather large machine.
The size of the mechanism made Sayo uneasy. Although Hakase was not famous for small gadgets or the like, obviously it should’ve been expected that a gigantic device was needed for a little ghost to taste the delicious dish called ramen.
Noticing and perhaps somehow feeling the emotion Sayo had, Kazumi spoke up, but yet again with a whisper, “Not to worry, if anything bad happens, I’ll get you to safety no matter what.”
Hakase stopped fiddling with her invention and turned towards Kazumi. She had overheard what the paparazzi said, which she was quite sure wasn’t directed at her at all. The confused genius pulled a handle and then looked up in the air.
“So, who were you talking to?”
Kazumi hesitated, searching throughout her mind the proper answer without looking crazy or revealing that she had been haunted by a ghost for a few years now, “Oh, I just mumble out lines for uh…the school play I’m in! So I can remember.”
Hakase had an eyebrow notched, “Oh really? You’re in the play with Murakami-san? What role do you play?”
”The girl who goes insane, it’s a small part really.”
Hakase nodded, “I look forward to watching the play then.”
Kazumi sighed in her mind, reminding herself to blackmail Natsumi and get into the play with the fake position she had just described to Hakase. She turned and looked at the giant machine behind Hakase.
“So…how does it work?”
Hakase clicked one more button, and various sounds came from the machine, “By clicking the start button, it senses any cold air in the room, which would be the ghost. You watch what happens next.”
The massive contraption started shaking as an odd misty gas started spewing from a funnel fastened upon the front of the machine. The mist encircled a terrified Sayo in the air and then it seemed to trap her to that one spot. The frightened ghost whimpered, but as the mist continued to encircle her, she didn’t seem to find it that threatening. Hakase pushed up her glasses before she pressed one very large red button in the middle of the machine.
BOOM!
”…hm. I must’ve made a mistake in one of the equations. Was I supposed to carry the two?” Hakase spoke out loud, watching the smoke and dust from the explosion clear up. As it did, the machine was clearly in several pieces all over the ground. The scientist sighed, knowing that it was back to the drawing board, but that was one of the greatest excitements when building and inventing. In some ways the process of perfecting a creation seemed more amusing than the end result itself.
After she finished speculating at what might’ve went wrong, she finally noticed that Asakura was nowhere to be found. Unbeknownst to her, Sayo had disappeared as well, not that she really knew if Sayo was there anyway, but she did detect some sort of cold air within the 3-A classroom before the machine decided to break down. Hakase didn’t take that much into account though, and just decided to go back to the lab for a nap. It was a long day after all.
-
Sayo woke up in the fields of the Tsuwabuki. It was no longer night, and the yellow flowers that seemed to represent her were always blooming at this time of year. Sayo did not understand how she could just ‘wake up’ though, since ghosts don’t exactly fall asleep or unconscious in the first place, so it’d be highly unlikely for her to just be ‘waking up’. She sat up and found the smell of the flowers absolutely astounding. She exhaled deeply and felt like she would fall asleep at anytime.
”…wait a second. How can I be able to smell flowers, feel sleepy, or even exhale?” Sayo said to no one in particular. She then started to realize that Asakura’s plan might have been even more successful then she had hoped! Sayo seemed to be able to do anything a living being could do, and felt as if she was revived!
”I can tell you that answer. Just turn around,” the voice of Kazumi startled the spirit who didn’t even feel as if Asakura was close by. Usually as a ghost, Sayo could feel the presence of living beings like some sort of ability added to her powerful spiritual powers.
Sayo turned around and almost fell over from shock. She saw herself floating right in front of her with her arms crossed. Sayo herself never crossed her arms before, and she was completely bewildered at the sight she saw.
The other Sayo finally spoke, “You know, in a way Hakase was successful.” The ghost winked, and her voice was eerily similar to Kazumi’s…
Suddenly Sayo looked at her hand, and to her surprise it was not translucent or pale, but in fact the colour of what a living being’s skin might’ve been. She noticed that she was wearing the present day Mahora uniform, and her chest seemed a little more…distracting.
“…wait…I’m in…”
”My body,” the ghost in front of Sayo spoke again. It seemed farfetched, too farfetched for something like this to occur. First, Sayo was originally a ghost; technically you can’t switch bodies with a ghost for the sole reason that ghosts do not have bodies. Secondly, would that mean that Sayo was in some way alive, and that Kazumi was dead?
Kazumi continued, “You know, being a ghost has a few…advantages. I can see myself finding a lot of potential scoops in this form…and Sayo, you can now try out ramen!”
”But Asakura-san! You seem so relaxed about this! What if we can never return to our bodies or spirits?” Sayo said, obviously worrying over the fact that being ‘Kazumi’ may not be as easy as you would think.
Kazumi grinned slightly as she floated closer to Sayo, putting her hand on Sayo’s shoulders even though she was quite aware she wouldn’t feel anything, “You’ve been a lonely ghost for more than five times longer than my whole life has been through. This is your opportunity to make friends, even if you don’t appear as yourself, your personality is still there and you’ll finally interact with people and say things you always wanted to but couldn’t. I wouldn’t worry about getting our own ‘bodies’ back right at this moment. I think you should just enjoy the right to have a life that was sadly taken from you so early in your lifetime.”
Sayo smiled slightly. She knew this was a once in a lifetime, or perhaps after-lifetime, chance to do things she never could’ve experienced. Yet she didn’t want Asakura to be a ghost for the rest of time itself, if they never found a way to change back. Being a ghost was her problem, and Kazumi’s problems were getting through school, finding a job, and basically go through life.
”Yeah but-“
”Did you even hear what I just said? We can worry about those things later. You should be happy! Hurry up and go do something you never could do in the 20th century! Like using a computer or going skydiving or running around the neighbourhood naked!”
”…running around the neighbourhood naked?”
”Oh wait; you’re in my body…scratch that…” Sayo giggled at Kazumi’s silliness. The reporter, now in a form of a misty ghost, laughed as well, accompanied by a bold shade of blush.
Sayo inhaled the air once again, deeply taking in the wonderful scent of the tsuwabuki. She stretched her body while yawning, and doing all that after 60 years of being unable to feel nothing felt remarkably pleasant.
Illegitimate children is the spawn of NO CONDOMS! Oh, and STDs, but bastards are more annoying. WEAR CONDOMS, KIDS-- I mean, um, adults.
