CH 18

Gal-Pal

“I… am Mika. I’m not… I’m Mika.”

At night, to avoid waking Saki-chan, who had just fallen asleep, I whispered and practised calling myself in the mirror on the side of the wardrobe.

I was not a woman at heart, but I could play the role of a woman if it was for the sake of my little angel.

I had come to believe that if Mika were to return to this body, she would not be alive at the time, and that was not something to regret.

Tomorrow was Monday, so we had nursery school, but did Saki-chan, who didn’t usually go there, want to go?

I asked her if she wanted to go to the nursery and she said “Okay… (I don’t want to),” so I contacted Chinatsu on my phone and asked her about it.

The experience of getting to know other children her age was important, but my little angel was scared of rides, and after the trauma of the accident, I thought it was better not to force her if I could stay at home with her.

“It’s time for bed…”

When she is older she would be able to take the bus or train on her own, but for now it was more important that she had a good time.

“Well, what should I do about the shopping? She might be afraid of riding a bicycle… Besides, I don’t think I should force her to take a taxi…”

Staying home? No, no, that would make her a total hermit, and it would be unhealthy for her to stop going out at all at such a young age.

I was troubled by a lot of things and I fell asleep, and when I opened my eyes to get up in the morning, I heard the voice of a woman I didn’t know from outside.

“Good morning!”

(Eh? Who is it? I locked the door, didn’t I?)

I jumped up in a panic and saw a… something… black gal in front of me.

Her dress was a long dress that went down to her feet, her skirt had a slit on the left side that went up to her thigh, and the most flamboyant thing about it was that it was all leopard print.

Her hair was blonde, waist-length, permed, and kind of fluffy.

“…Black.”

“Oh, you noticed? It’s almost summer, so I went to the salon yesterday to get a tan.”

(It’s still spring! It’s only spring!)

There was a sudden intruder, but she didn’t seem to be dangerous, and on closer inspection, it was Yuki, Mika’s friend and workmate.

“I locked the door, didn’t I? How did you get in?”

I was reminiscing about how she used to depict herself as an icon on the messaging app, even though I used a tame tone as though we had never met.

Wait, she was a friend of Mika’s. I wondered if it was weird to use honorifics.

“Huh? Mika gave me a duplicate key and said I could come in anytime I wanted. Did you forget?”

“Oh… That reminds me,”

I didn’t know about that, but I had to go on as best as I could.

I felt like it was a hassle for her to be suspicious, and even if I tell her that in Mika, a man she didn’t know had entered, she wouldn’t believe me anyway.

I was confused by the sudden appearance of this person, but I was determined to get through it somehow, when the black gal sitting in front of me suddenly jumped on me.

“Mika, long time no see! I’ve missed you so much!”

As she hugged me, I thought to myself, “I don’t see many black gyaru in Tokyo,” and then Yuki let go of my body and looked at me with a shocked expression.

“You’re not wearing anything? No, you’ll change your shape. Okay! Let’s go shopping for clothes and stuff now!”

Having been told that, I was not going to say what, but I was going to stare at the place where Yuki was.

Huh, I’d say… C, at most.

No, no, no, I could play the role of Saki-chan’s mother, but what was the point of feminising myself?

As I was shaking my head with my hand on my forehead, disgusted with myself, I wondered what she had misunderstood that Yuki shouted at me.

“What are you looking at?! Just so you know, I’m normal! You’re just too big!”

Then Saki-chan, who had been asleep at the sound of the shouting, said “Umu~”, rubbed her eyes and opened her eyes, then looked at me and Yuki and opened her mouth with a sullen look on her face.

“Shut up!”

For the first time in her life, she had been angry at the age of three.

This had never happened to me in my previous life.

What an annoying gal-pal to upset our little angel.