Chapter 18: Sudden Realization

When Tess got home, she was met by a rather enthusiastic Ellie. “Hey, how was it?!” She asked excitedly. “Anything cool?”

Tess shrugged. “Eh, not really? More stuff that’s just…passively nice, I guess. I did see a couple of things I’m pretty sure I’m going to be seeing in my nightmares, and I got some new armor, though, so that’s cool.”

“Uh, you want to talk about that or…?” Ellie said hesitantly

“Just nasty-looking monsters. Apparently mini-dungeons can get uh….creative. You’ll see what I mean eventually, I’m pretty sure they’ll take you there too, so have fun with that.” Tess sat down on the couch in the living room, laying down so she took up as much of the couch as possible.

“Well, that’s just wonderful. Can I see the new armor? Is it more leather or something different?” Ellie asked, sitting on the couch across from her.

Tess reached into her bag and took out the armor. “Some sort of…I think it’s called a gi?”

“Yeah, a Gi.” Ellie confirmed. “Could you put it on for me? Please? I wanna see it!”

“Yeah, sure, why not.” Tess replied, lifting herself off the couch. “Stay here, it’ll be a sec.” Tess made her way to her room, where she began to change. She struggled a bit to get the armor on, but eventually was able to. Her first thought was that, while the armor was far more comfortable than the leather she had been using, it was still much less comfortable than the clothes made by Rachel.

That was to be expected, though. Rachel was supposedly one of the best seamstresses out there, and Tess had always thought school uniforms or other clothes were horribly uncomfortable. That made sense now that she was thinking about their quality compared to her day-to-day wear.

But it wasn’t the worst thing she’d ever worn, not by far. If forced to rank how comfortable her clothes were, she’d probably put it relatively high if she was to ignore the clothes Rachel made. She put that thought aside and went back to the living room, where Ellie was waiting patiently.

Ellie stared unabashedly at Tess, and Tess could swear Ellie was almost drooling. Tess fidgeted under the gaze for a moment before speaking up. “Does it…look weird?”

Ellie nodded. “No, it looks good. Really good. Like…dang, I wish I could look half that nice.”

Tess blushed furiously. “It’s not me, it’s the Skill.” She said, looking down. “If that was like…suppressed for a bit or something then you wouldn’t be saying that.

Well, yes but actually no. It’d stop automatically correcting your hair or making adjustments to the way your clothes look on you or that kind of stuff but the base of it is here to stay. You’d still look real nice unless you really let yourself go.

Don’t see that happening any time soon, though. Phantasmal stuff is preeeetty hard to mess with. Usually only other Phantasmal stuff or blessings from the gods and stuff can do that

“Well, I don’t know about that.” Ellie said, oblivious to Fortune’s message. “I don’t think you’d immediately become ugly or anything, that seems like it would be a little…weird.”

Tess relayed the contents of Fortune’s message to Ellie.

“Well, there you have it.” Ellies replied happily. “I know it’s gotta feel a little weird to you, what with… you know, but you are rocking that. Seriously.”

Tess scratched the back of her neck, thoroughly embarrassed. “Thanks? Uh, all that aside, how was your day?”

“Boring.” Ellie replied, sprawling out in her seat, “I picked up your homework for the week, Grandpa wants you to work on it over the weekend.” She motioned to her backpack, which was slumped against the coffee table. “It’s in the black binder, just take it out when you’re ready. I think the teachers put where to read in the books, too? I only glanced at the papers so I’m not sure.

“Oh, and Grandpa said he’s gonna talk with The Rumors and Eyfura and make sure we get weekends off, though I think he also said we can go there if we want? You’ll have to talk to him when he gets back, I’m going to go, I think. The faster we finish our training, the better. I want to get to just going out and having adventures with you.”

“I’ll have to think about whether or not I want to go on the weekends.” Tess said, getting back onto the couch, “I’m thinking I’ll end up going only one of Saturday or Sunday, since I need time to study and do homework and that’ll probably take a whole day.”

“Yeah, that makes sense. Maybe, if I’m lucky, on the days you’re gone I won’t have to deal with Ilmir, since Eyfura will be free. I’m really not looking forward to spending more time with her, so that’d be nice.” Ellie said, grimacing.

“I guess so. I still think we should try and be friends, though. It’s not worth spending our whole training with someone who we don’t like and who doesn’t like us.”

Ellie sighed. “You’re probably right. I just…really don’t like how she was acting. It doesn’t bode well for the future. Whatever, though, let’s just play some games.” She booted up the TV and held up a game controller. “You down?”

“Yeah, why not.”

The next day, Tess was studying in her room when she heard a knock at the door. Not…her door, the front door. Thanks to Enhanced Hearing (Perfect), it still sounded almost as clear as a knock on her door would have been. It was disconcerting, in a way. She felt like she shouldn’t be able to hear nearly this well, not with just her regular ears.

Perhaps she should consider keeping one of the Kemonomimi Attributes on while she was out and about, most likely wolf. It would serve both as a way to feel less…dissonance about having such good hearing, as well a disguise to make it seem less odd if someone saw her claws. She’d have to run it by Eyfura and Alice next time they met up.

She heard two sets of footsteps move to the door, it open, and then Gramps begin to speak. The conversation was somewhat muffled, but she could still clearly make out the words with a little effort. “Ah, Jacob, how are you doing?”

Tess frowned. Jacob was one of her best friends, but…she hadn’t been planning on seeing any of her friends so soon. That being said, she had to wonder why he was here, at least without messaging her first. A quick check of her phone confirmed that he hadn’t sent her any texts, so the behavior was a little baffling to her.

“Good, Mr. Los.” Jacob said, “Um, I was hoping I could check in on Tess and see how she’s doing. I brought over some cookies, too.”

Why…oh, right, her cover was that she had some long-term illness that was preventing her from being at school. That would probably explain not contacting her beforehand, at least to a certain extent.

“Let me go check with her.” Gramps replied, “Ellie, go grab him a glass of water, Jacob, go ahead and sit down in the living room, I’ll be back down in a bit.”

She waited as Gramps made his way up the stairs and then knocked on her door. After instructing him to come in, he opened the door, stepped in, and then closed it behind him.

“So…Jacob’s here?” She asked.

Gramps nodded. “Are you alright with seeing him? You don’t have to if you don’t want to.”

“No, it’s fine.” Tess sighed, “I…might as well just get it all over with.”

“That’s fine. Just remember that you’re supposed to be ill, so don’t move around too much or be too energetic, OK?”

“Got it.”

Gramps smiled. “Good. I’m proud of you for being brave and facing this so soon.” He left the room, leaving Tess to think while he fetched Jacob.

Had it really been less than a week? It felt like it had been longer, perhaps because of the… density of her experiences over in the Outlands. The constant activity had helped her forget her worries about her body, but they were rapidly returning as she anxiously waited for Jacob to come up.

The minute or so it took felt like much longer, but eventually there was another knock at her door.

“Um…come in.” Tess said.

The door opened and Jacob gingerly stepped in. He stopped once he caught sight of Tess, staring for a moment.

“Is…everything alright?” Tess asked hoarsely.

Jacob shook his head as if to clear it, then smiled weakly. “Sorry, was just trying to see if you were looking any different, but you still look fine, I think. How are you feeling?”

“It comes and goes. Sometimes I feel fine, but other times it’s just… bad.” It wasn’t a complete lie, nights had been rather rough for her. She had needed to figure out a new way to sleep to account for her new anatomy, as sleeping on her stomach the way she had been wasn’t quite as comfortable as it used to be.

And then during that time she would worry about what her social life was going to be like now that she had changed so drastically. What if someone remembered that she used to be a guy? What if someone had messed up and her documentation wasn’t completely changed?

“Well, um…I hope that you’ll get better soon.” Jacob said, blushing and looking aside. “I brought some cookies for you, hopefully it’ll give you some comfort when you’re feeling bad. I gave them to Ellie, she’ll come up and give them to you later.”

He kicked the ground shyly, “Um, well, I know I’m not supposed to visit for too long while you’re sick like this, so…just wanted to let you know that you’re in our prayers and that if you need any help with homework just text me and I’ll be more than happy to help out.”

“Uh, thanks.” Tess replied awkwardly. “I’ll…see you around, I guess.”

“Yeah, um, see you around. It was nice talking with you.” Jacob said, gingerly leaving the room. She was able to hear him breathe a sigh of relief after he shut the door behind him, as well as a muttered “I swear she wasn’t that hot before.”

Tess also let out a sigh of relief; that…wasn’t as bad as she had been worrying it might have been. It wasn’t as good as it might have been, but it seemed like things wouldn’t be too awkward going forward, not once he get used to her new appearance.

Not that he completely knew what he was getting used to. But, at the very least he didn’t seem to suspect anything. That being said, she didn’t like how it had felt when he had called her hot. It was one thing when people like Ellie or Fortune probably weren’t attracted to her told her she was attractive, but it was another thing entirely when it was someone who did.

Well, when she didn’t reciprocate the feeling, anyway. It was flattering, but…she wasn’t into guys. If it had been, say…a lesbian or something, maybe it would be a different case, she didn’t know.

Still, she didn’t hold it against him at all. That was something that, by all rights, a normal human wouldn’t have been able to hear.

“I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t have been able to hear that a week ago, yeah.” Tess whispered.

“Yes, it feels better in that situation, I’m sure.”

Tess frowned. “Are you talking about you and Ellie not being attracted to me?”

Tess puzzled that one over. The clear implication was that one of Ellie or Fortune was at least bi and was also attracted to her, but she wasn’t sure who exactly it was. It…wasn’t Ellie, right? Yes, she had been really touchy-feely lately, and yes, Tess had lately been catching Ellie staring at her quite often…

Oh. That…wasn’t exactly subtle, now that she was thinking about it in this context.

“Tess!” Ellie burst into the room, then scooped Tess into a hug. “How are you doing? Was it uncomfortable? Do you want to talk about it?”

“Um, uh…” Tess sputtered, “It was fine? He was cool about it. I think he got distracted for a second by my appearance, I caught him mumbling about not remembering me being this hot when he thought I couldn’t hear. Well, I shouldn’t have been able to hear, but, you know, Attributes.”

“Well, he was right. You’re a perfect ten, I’m telling you.” Ellie let go of the hug, grabbing Tess’s hand and pulling her out of the room. “Let’s get you a cookie and then go play some games, take your mind off of things, kay?”

“Um, yeah, sure.” She was blushing, but fortunately Ellie wasn’t looking. If…if Ellie was a lesbian, that explained a lot. And, maybe…maybe Tess’s own feelings weren’t completely hopeless.

She had been suppressing them for a long time, after she had decided it was a lost cause, but now that she had a glimmer of hope again, they were starting to force their way back into her awareness.

She was in the kitchen now, and Ellie was opening a box. It was full of homemade chocolate chip cookies, which were Tess’s favorite. “How many do you want?” Ellie asked.

“Just give me one.” Tess replied distractedly.

Ellie took a cookie out of the box and shut it, then led Tess to the living room, where she began to boot up her favorite console.

Tess, however, was still thinking about what she had just come to realize. If she was to pursue things with Ellie again, she would need to be stronger, no questions about it. She wasn’t going to hold Ellie back, that wouldn’t be fair to her.

That settled it. She was unsure about the bet Eyfura and Ilmir had made before, but she had decided now. She was going to play along, and she was going to win.

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