Chapter Text
Ichika didn’t expect to be someone else when she woke up.
Well, you’re not supposed to expect to be a different person in the morning. Like usual, Ichika had followed her time-old routine. Stay up a tad too late listening to her 60-hour long spotify playlist, drag herself out of bed to get ready, then finally go to sleep. The morning was relatively the same, waking up and practically forcing herself into the bathroom to get ready for school.
…Except for the fact that she’d woken up in a familiar yellow-walled room, and instead of the usual silver eyes that stared back at her in the mirror, a pair of gleaming, pink eyes greeted her instead.
Normally, Ichika loved looking into these eyes. The pair of eyes that would look back at her, full of stars as the owner spitballed whatever joke or thing that happened to her over the days with complete and utter joy. A part of her did still feel a little warm in the face as she looked in the mirror, but the sense of panic she felt completely overrode whatever gay thought that was running through her head.
She ran a hand through her (though it wasn’t actually hers) long, blonde hair as she tried to process what was going on. She was in Saki’s room. In Saki’s body. The realization hit her like a truck.
What if Saki is in my body?! Wait, what if she isn’t and I’m the only one this is happening to?! What if I never go back to my own body?!
Ichika wants to pull at her hair — but this isn’t her body, so she refrains. Instead, she grips the edge of the sink she stands at, looking into the mirror intensely, as if pleading for it to magically wake her up from this dream. She loves Saki. She loves being with her, but not being her. Ichika feels herself spiraling more and more as she makes eye contact with the girl in the mirror.
Before she can even hope to come to grips with the situation, a loud voice pierces through her fog of thoughts.
Oh.
Oh god.
“SAKI!!!” Ichika knows that voice. She can also tell who is outside the bathroom by the excitable, reverberating footsteps that come to an abrupt halt outside her door, “Dear sister, please hurry up, lest you’re late for school!”
Ichika never detested Tsukasa’s booming presence like Shiho did. Actually, she thought she quite tolerated it, mainly because Saki was around to pull her attention away most of the time. Saki wasn’t here this time. Actually, she was Saki.
There’s a knock on the door, followed by another call of her — Saki’s — name when Ichika makes the quickest decision of her life. She’ll get through today as Saki, and do such a good job at it that nobody will notice, and the universe will take enough pity on her to send her back to her own body the next day.
“I’ll be out in a second!” Is what she calls back, haphazardly finishing brushing her hair.
Ichika just hopes she doesn’t ruin Saki’s life.
As she steps out into the hallway, she’s met with Tsukasa’s burning gaze. He immediately brightens up when he sees her, letting his hands fall to rest at his sides. She notices his eyebrow cock upwards in slight curiosity as they make eye contact.
“You’re going to school with your hair down today?”
“U-uh, yeah!” Ichika hopes she’s convincing. The thought of tying her hair up in regular Saki fashion completely slipped her mind. Truth be told, Ichika didn’t know if she trusted her hair styling skills enough to do that anyway, “I wanted to try something new today!”
Tsukasa stares at her with piercing eyes for all of two seconds, before grinning and giving her a thumbs up, “You look absolutely wonderful! I’m sure your friends will love it.”
This makes Ichika smile. Not because of the compliment, no, she already knew Saki was wonderful. She smiles because Tsukasa is so sure that everyone else would like it. Of course, she did. Ichika loved whatever Saki did with her hair. But it was the thought of the other two, and the rest of their classmates thinking Saki looked nice that made her happy. Because she knew it’d probably make Saki happy.
“Thanks!” She shoots back, with her best, brightest smile.
“Well, I’m going to head out now! I’ll see you later, Saki!”
“Mhm! Have a good day, Tsukasa-sa— Onii-chan!”
Tsukasa turns back in confusion at the slip up, and Ichika feels her heart drop to her stomach. Could he tell from that singular blunder?! After a long second or two, he just waves at her flamboyantly before heading for the door.
Ichika sighs in relief. Just doing that for five minutes knocked the wind out of her. Suddenly, she finds herself fearing the rest of the day.
♡
The blonde drags herself into her classroom — the trip here being relatively uneventful. Ichika is thankful for that, but she knows getting here wasn’t the challenge. Just being here, in a classroom that isn’t hers has her practically sweating.
Ichika knows this is Saki’s seat. She’s visited this classroom enough times to know it. She also knows how Saki likes to arrange her things on her desk, familiarizing herself with her habits after a year of being in the same class as her.
She’s received compliments with a bright smile, waving off her friends and classmates as they observe her different hairstyle. It wasn’t uncommon for Saki to do different things with her hair, but even then, she still brought in compliments like a magnet. Ichika figures this is normal for Saki, who practically has the charisma of a model, but Ichika herself doesn’t think she’s used to being complimented so much. It makes her feel nice. For Saki, not her.
Nobody has suspected a thing , she thinks triumphantly. Ichika must have a PhD in Saki-isms if she’s managed to do this well thus far. Even if her act is crumbly at the edges, she’s too far in now to go back.
Her growing hopes were snipped in the bud when the one person she was worrying about walked into the room.
Hinomori Shiho. Adorned with short, silver hair, and a pair of piercing green eyes that Ichika felt could look into her very essence and pick out whatever filth that had littered her soul.
She was like that, as was the rest of Leo/need. Being close enough to always know when even the slightest thing was off was a good and bad thing. Today it was a bad thing, because she knew Shiho would absolutely call her out on her act if she didn’t sell it hard enough.
As if summoned by the mere thought of herself, Shiho looked in her direction. Ichika swears she sees her eyes light up with something she swears is familiar, but it’s gone as quick as it comes.
Her eyes follow the bassist as she walks over to her desk — the one next to hers — and sets her bag down. Ichika wonders what to say to her, but Shiho speaks up first.
“Good morning, Saki.”
“Good morning!” She greets back brightly, mind running through the several pages of things she knows about her pink-eyed girlfriend to determine what she’d say next.
Shiho tilts her head at the lack of extra words, but Ichika notices her smiling a little bigger than usual, “You didn’t do your hair today.”
“Uh- I did ,” She protests with a huff. She didn’t , “You just don’t know enough about hairstyling to tell.”
“Re-ally? What did you do, then?” Shiho asks teasingly, drawing out the vowel. Is this how she was with Saki when they were alone?
“I-” Ichika panics, opening her mouth as she tries to come up with a spitball of an excuse. As her mind blanks, she’s cut off by the teacher walking in and starting the lesson. She sighs in relief.
♡
The day felt like a year with how slow it was progressing. Ichika was already having a hard enough time, being thrown into a class where she wasn’t caught up with the material they were studying, but also just having to pretend to be someone she wasn’t was taking a toll on her already frenzied mind.
Finally, though, the lunch bell rang, and Ichika has never been more excited for a break. She rubs her eyes, dragging her fingers down her face while taking a breath. Ichika wonders if anyone has noticed something off yet.
She’s pulled out of her own world as she feels someone leaning over her desk. It’s Shiho, accompanied by Emu. Emu grins at her, while Shiho raises an eyebrow.
“Saki-chan!” Emu greets her, “Want to eat lunch together?”
Ichika is thrown right back into the game. Not even 5 minutes later, she’s still sitting at her desk, though it has been pulled to link with Shiho’s and Emu’s to form a small table.
The pink haired girl chatters about something that had gone on in class, and no matter how much Ichika tries to pay attention, she feels hyper aware of the things going on around her. Her leg anxiously bounces up and down beneath the table — one of her own habits that had probably carried over with the swap of her body.
Emu stops mid story, “Saki-chan, are you okay?”
“Huh? Yeah, I’m totally great! Just a little tired.”
“Sleep late yesterday?” Shiho asks, taking a bite of her food.
“M-mhm.”
The pink-haired girl across the table shoots her a sympathetic frown, “Make sure to get looots and lots of rest when you’re home, okay?”
She nods. Emu wasn’t someone she talked to too often, but despite the other’s hyperactivity, she really was sweet. Even in such a time, Ichika was happy someone cared.
“I will!” She says with a vivacious nod, taking a bite of her lunch — which so happens to be a yakisoba bun. Saki didn’t normally eat these at school, only opting to take bites of Ichika’s whenever she did bring them along. Alas, Ichika didn’t trust herself in Saki’s kitchen, and found herself retreating to her usual habit of just picking up her favorite snack from the convenience store before school.
Perceptive as ever, Emu seems to notice this, “Saki-chan, you brought a yakisoba bun for lunch today?”
“Huh? Yeah,” She nods, taking another bite. The bread tastes heavenly — a familiar respite even in an unfamiliar body, “Ichika was talking about them yesterday, and it really made me crave one!”
Shiho stares at her, and Ichika mentally curses to herself. She can feel the other’s emerald eyes boring right into her soul.
“So, Saki ,” Shiho starts, thankfully not saying anything about her strange behavior, “remember how you said you were having trouble with the English lesson yesterday, right?”
“Yeeees?” She doesn’t remember. Actually, she wasn’t the one who said this at all.
“Honami was offering to help us study after school.”
“You’ll go too?” She questions, remembering Shiho and Saki bickering about studying over call the other night, “I thought you had the lesson down.”
“Eh,” Shiho shrugs, “Might as well. Figured Ichika probably needs it too, you know.”
Ichika bites her tongue at the scathing remark. Was Shiho calling her stupid ? She had to hold back the urge to smack her… Even if she was right, seeing as Ichika had been complaining about the work in their class just the day before. So what if I accidentally start daydreaming midway through the lesson? That’s not my fault! I’m still a good student!
“Sounds fun! Even if we are just studying, hehe.”
“Let’s go ask the other two later, then.”
Emu grins at them, swallowing down a big bite of her food, “I hope you guys have a wonderhoy-ful study session!”
Shiho nods in her direction, “Oh, we will.”
…Ichika doesn’t know if she can take this much longer.