“Wait—what the hell is going on!?”
Yuto stared blankly at his hands.
They were not the hands he knew, not the hands of an ordinary high-school boy.
They belonged to a woman he had never expected to inhabit.
“Wh-what the hell is this…? Where did my body go!?”
As Yuto struggled to comprehend what he was seeing, an unfamiliar voice rang out behind him.
“Hey! Who are you!? My body—my body turned into you!”
Yuto spun around.
Standing there was Oda-san.
Except she was wearing Yuto’s body.
“What!? Why am I an old lady!?”
“That’s what I want to know! What in the world happened to us!?”
They stared at one another.
Then both fell silent.
Neither had the slightest idea how to process the absurdity in front of them.
In the middle of their confusion, the manager called from the kitchen.
“Yuto! It’s time! Hurry up and get into uniform!”
Oda-san, trapped inside Yuto’s body, immediately panicked.
“W-wait a minute, Manager! I—no, I mean, I… I’m not feeling very well today…”
“If you’re sick, you can take the day off. Problem is, we’re already short on maids…”
The manager frowned thoughtfully.
The instant Yuto heard that, a bad feeling crept over him.
“Wait. What exactly does that—”
“Oda-san!”
The manager slapped Yuto—currently inhabiting Oda-san’s body—on the shoulder.
“Perfect timing! Could you help us out for a little while? We’ve got a maid outfit that should fit you. I bet you’d look great in it!”
“No, no, no! Absolutely not! I’m—I mean, I’m not exactly—”
“You’ll be fine! I know you can do it!”
Overwhelmed by the manager’s enthusiasm, Yuto was marched into the changing room before he could mount a proper defense.
He stood frozen in front of the mirror, holding the maid uniform in both hands.
“You’ve got to be kidding me… I’m seriously supposed to wear this?”
He looked once more at the unfamiliar vessel reflected in the glass.
Oda-san’s body.
There was no escaping that fact.
With considerable reluctance, he began to change.
A short while later, he looked into the mirror again.
Then blinked.
“…Huh.”
He tilted his head.
“Does this actually… kind of suit me?”
The reflection showed Oda-san’s body dressed in a frilled apron dress.
Strangely enough, the outfit seemed completely at home in the old-fashioned atmosphere of the café.
Yuto stared at himself for another moment.
The visual contradiction was unsettling.
Inside, he was still Yuto.
Outside, the mirror insisted on presenting someone else entirely.
And now that someone else was dressed as a maid.
—
“M-Master… please, allow me to show you to your seat…”
His first attempts at serving customers were painfully stiff.
But although the customers were surprised, their reactions were overwhelmingly positive.
“Oda-san, that looks wonderful on you!”
“You look completely natural in a maid outfit!”
The compliments began to loosen something inside him.
His embarrassment receded.
In its place came a strange confidence.
Before long, Yuto found himself imitating the exaggerated hospitality of a genuine maid café.
“Welcome home, Master!”
Even the manager, watching from the kitchen, grinned.
“I knew it! You’ve got a real talent for this, Oda-san!”
Yuto heard the praise.
And that was when he started getting carried away.
—
During his break, Yuto returned to the changing room.
He stood in front of the mirror again.
This time, he did not immediately look away.
“What if… this were actually my life?”
The question escaped before he could stop it.
At that moment, the door opened.
Oda-san entered, still occupying Yuto’s body.
She took one look at his expression.
“What’s with that face?”
She folded her arms.
“Don’t tell me you’re actually enjoying this.”
“Wh—no! Of course not!”
“Liar. It’s written all over your face.”
Oda-san glared at him.
Yuto lasted only a few seconds before surrendering.
“Okay… maybe it’s a little fun.”
He looked back at the mirror.
“But come on. I’m just a normal high-school guy. There’s no way I could keep doing something like this.”
Oda-san listened.
Then her expression unexpectedly softened.
“…You know, I was shocked at first too. But part of this feels strangely nostalgic.”
“Nostalgic?”
“Like being young again.”
She glanced down at Yuto’s body, flexing one of its hands experimentally.
“Not that I’d actually want to go back to being a high-school kid like you.”
She laughed.
Yuto could not help giving her a crooked smile in return.
For the first time since the swap, the situation felt almost manageable.
Almost.
—
After closing time, the two sat down to figure out how to reverse the body swap.
“So how do we change back?”
“How should I know?”
Oda-san frowned.
“But if I had to guess… didn’t this happen when we looked directly into each other’s eyes?”
Yuto considered it.
“Then… should we try it again?”
They stood facing one another.
For a moment, neither spoke.
Then they closed their eyes and concentrated on the same thought.
Put us back.
Give me my body back.
Several seconds passed.
The world abruptly went dark.
And then—
Yuto opened his eyes.
He looked down at his hands.
His hands.
Familiar proportions. Familiar fingers. Familiar skin.
His own vessel had closed around him again as naturally as though he had never left it.
“I’m back…!”
Oda-san hurriedly examined herself.
Then released a long breath of relief.
“I never want to go through anything like that again.”
“Same here.”
And just like that, the impossible afternoon came to an end.
The two returned to their respective lives.
Yuto went back to being an ordinary student.
Oda-san went back to being herself.
The world resumed its familiar shape.
But every now and then, Yuto remembered that afternoon.
He remembered the reflection in the changing-room mirror.
Oda-san’s body.
The frilled maid dress.
The unsettling ease with which the person in the mirror had begun to feel natural.
And whenever the memory returned, Yuto would find himself murmuring:
“Being a woman must be complicated in ways I never even thought about.”
Then he would remember how naturally that maid uniform had fit the borrowed body—
and fall silent for just a little while longer.
コメント