Well, right now, I've got to go take a leak. I throw on some sweats, and meander over to the toilets. And here I remember what I have to do... I walk into a stall and lock it behind me. Now that I'm pretending to be a girl, I can't use the urinals anymore. You never know when...

And sure enough, I hear the door opening, and someone walking in. From my crouched position, I can make out the bottom of a pair of white sweatpants; they don't look familiar, but hey, I can't be expected to recognize everybody's clothes in a matter of one month. As our mystery guest settles in, he sighs heavily.

Now I know who it is. Good thing I'm in this stall. "Suka-chan? Is that you?"

"KYAAA!!" On the other hand, maybe it's not so great to be stuck in here. I can see his feet pivot around, but I really regret not being able to see the rest of his reaction to finding me in here. Did he yank up his pants, for instance?

"Hee-hee... watch where you're pointing that thing!" I hear him hurriedly fumbling with his waistband.

"H-how'd you... what'd you see?"

I doubt if he can hear me shrug. "Nothing. I just kinda took a wild guess."

"So you can't see anything?"

"Uh-uh."

"Well then, stay in there for a moment, will ya?" He settles himself back in. "What the hell are you doing in here anyway, Shun?"

"Suka-chan... where else am I gonna go? All the facilities in here are for boys, aside from the one in the dorm lady's room, and she's the last person I want to tip off." There's a flush, and the sound of a faucet running. "Can I come out now?"

"Huh? Oh, yeah, sure..."

"Besides, I'm supposed to belong here... everyone else here thinks I'm just a funny-looking guy, you know, so it doesn't faze them." As if to prove my point, in walks Takeshi, who bellies up to a stand in full view of the two of us. "Oh, hey there, Takeshi."

He nods. "Shun... we still on for Friday?" I know what he's referring to, and I'm not going to dignify it with a straight answer.

"Actually, I'll be studying with Mitsuru-sempai and Shinobu-sempai that morning, so I really doubt it. Oh, that reminds me, Suka-chan... when's your first tutoring session with the sempais?" Suka-chan and I walk out, leaving Takeshi standing there, a bit crestfallen.

"This afternoon at four." My turn to look crestfallen, and he notices. "Something wrong?"

"Uh... no, not really..." That was when I was scheduled for a tutoring session with the sempais, too. They'd bet on Wednesday afternoon, and this would be just perfect for their plans, wouldn't it? Just the four of us, alone in their room, and the sempais decide to expose me... well, I'm not falling for it. "Okay, well, then... you have fun with them; Mitsuru-sempai's a good teacher, but you have to learn when he's kidding around. Oh, and you'll need a hard skull..."

"Why's that?"

I give him a conspiratorical wink, "You'll find out. Right now, I've got to get into my uniform... could you just...?"

He rolls his eyes. "Wait outside, right? Yeah, I gotcha."

It doesn't take long to get into my uniform, and I wave Suka-chan inside as I leave. I also bring a sheet of paper with me, and on my way out, I write a little note to my sempais to the effect that I won't be able to make today's tutoring session. Something's come up, that's it. I slip it under the doorway, and dash off. Consider this a message, sempais, in every sense of the word.

By comparison, classes are relatively uneventful., leaving me to ponder what kind of things my other dormmates might have planned in order that they might win the pot. It's starting to look as if this is going to be tougher to pull off than I thought it would be.

"Kisaragi-kun...?" Uh-oh...

"H-hai, sensei?" Here we go again. Scratch what I said about classes being uneventful. I've really got to start paying better attention in class despite Ogura-sensei's droning. I'm getting caught far too often these days.

***

Another night, another batch of torn chits. Including sempais'. Not that I ever see them tonight; I slip into the room as quietly as possible, hoping they don't catch me and try to display me to Suka-chan.

I needn't have worried. I can hear Mitsuru-sempai busily grilling Suka-chan on one point or another of his history lessons: dates, places, emperors, shoguns, warlords... gosh, I'm glad I'm not taking a course like that.

I bury myself in my own studies; I have to make up for the fact that I'm not over there. Of course, if I were there, would any of us gotten any studying done?

All at once I hear a very strange question: "Uh, sempais... why'd you leave her to me? I mean, I don't know the first thing about girls, and how to deal with them... shouldn't she have a roommate who could take proper care of her?"

There's a momentary pause before Mitsuru-sempai reproves Suka-chan. "'Take proper care of her'? That's a rather sexist attitude, wouldn't you say, Shinobu?"

Shinobu-sempai's tones are more reassuring, but no less insulting. "The boy's right, Mitsuru. She needs someone to watch over her, what with this secret of hers. And yes, we know you don't know what to do with a girl. That's exactly what we want from you. Just treat her the same way you would any other roommate you might have had."

"But I've never had a roommate before."

"Oh, you know what we mean, Hasukawa..."

Suka-chan sighs, and replies, "Yeah, I guess so. It's just so hard to not think about her as a girl."

I hear Shinobu-sempai offering a suggestion: "Just try not to think about it, Hasukawa," but it sounds more like a challenge to me...

Just try not to think about it, Suka-chan...

I could be in some serious trouble if this goes on too much longer...

A quick scatological note:

I'm gonna assume that Greenwood Hall's toilets are the traditional Japanese-style 'pit' models -- it's spelled out that it's an old building, after all. You might notice that I don't go into much detail spelling this out, though. There are two good reasons for that:

1.) From Shun's perspective, these things are perfectly normal, just inconvenient to have to use ALL the time, rather than just standing up when that's all he needs to do. So there's no reason for HIM to go on and on about it, after all.

2.) Frankly, I'm not too familiar with the things. When I visited Japan, I was confronted by them only a couple times, in some older shops, and each time I decided to take my chances until I got back to the hotel, with it's Western-style plumbing. The last couple of issues of "Futaba-kun Change" have been helpful in picturing the fixture in question, but I still can't imagine how Misaki-chan can get comfortable using that thing...

Okay, maybe three reasons: 3.) It's in bad taste to dwell on such stuff. I dunno... I'd ordinarily use more delicate phrases like 'go to the bathroom/washroom,' but I understand that refers to the ofuro (tub room), which, for hygenic reasons, tends to not be anywhere near the benjo (toilets). Correct me if I'm wrong, will ya?