Specimen Box After School
That afternoon was thick with an unbearable boredom and the heavy, languid warmth unique to spring.
Daiki Takahashi sat at his window-side seat, chin resting on his palm, listening to the rhythmic scrawl of chalk across the blackboard as if it were a lullaby. The low, monotone voice of Michiko Kawashima—his homeroom and math teacher—slid past his eardrums. Forty-two years old. Single. Strict. That was the sterile label the students had pasted onto her.
(…So sleepy. Ten minutes till the bell…)
It was immediately after that thought that Daiki’s consciousness snapped, like a severed thread.
Blackout.
A total void, as if sound, light, and even gravity had vanished.
…How much time had passed?
With a chilly but intense sense of wrongness, Daiki’s consciousness surfaced.
The first thing he noticed was the height of his vision. The fluorescent lights he was supposed to be looking up at were unnaturally close. Then, he felt an unstable sensation at his feet—a precarious “point of balance.”
“…Ah.”
Daiki froze as he tried to speak. What escaped his throat was a low, yet lustrous voice of a “mature woman”—a voice he recognized all too well.
With a reeling mind, he dropped his gaze, only to be met with an unbelievable sight. Where his own legs should have been were slender limbs extending from a jet-black pencil skirt, wrapped in sheer stockings. At the ends, they were squeezed into pumps with sharp heels.
Looking further up, soft swells pushed against his blouse, pulsing with a quiet heartbeat independent of his will.
“W-what… is this…?”
A trembling hand—slender, bony, lightly wrinkled, yet meticulously manicured—reached up to touch his face. The texture of smooth skin. The sensation of thinly applied lipstick.
And there, right in front of him, a male student lay collapsed on the floor. A typical high schooler in a disheveled gakuran uniform. It was, without a doubt, the physical body of “Daiki Takahashi.”
“…You’ve got to be kidding. Hey, Takahashi! Wake up!”
Daiki screamed through Michiko’s body.
The classroom fell into a silence so cold it felt as if ice water had been poured through it. The frightened and confused stares of his classmates turned all at once toward “him,” standing at the teacher’s podium.
At that moment, the fallen body of Daiki began to move slowly. He placed his hands on the floor and pushed himself up. But the light in those eyes was not Daiki’s youthful lethargy. It was that sharp, cold, all-seeing “gaze” belonging to Michiko Kawashima.
“…Takahashi-kun, compose yourself.”
Michiko’s strict voice echoed from Daiki’s body. At that unbalanced sight, the atmosphere in the classroom reached a breaking point.
“Sensei, what the hell is going on!? Why am I…”
“I understand the situation. …Those words just now came from my throat. And the physical dissonance you are feeling now belongs to me.”
Michiko (inside Daiki) stared at her new, large hands, clenching and unclenching them several times. In that movement, there was a cold curiosity, as if observing a lab animal, rather than agitation.
“Everyone, I want you to listen without panicking.”
Michiko (inside Daiki) stepped toward the podium and stood beside Daiki (inside Michiko). Daiki felt dizzy from a nauseating sense of perversion, being looked down upon by his own body.
“We have suddenly swapped bodies. It appears this is reality.”
The classroom erupted into a localized riot.
“Swapped? Are you serious?” “Is this a prank?” “But Michiko-sensei’s way of talking just now… that’s definitely not Takahashi.”
Amidst the shouts and screams, Daiki (inside Michiko) could only endure the weight on his chest and the uncomfortable constriction of the stockings against his thighs.
“Sensei, what are we gonna do… is there a way to go back…?”
Daiki whispered into Michiko’s ear. But the distinct fragrance of Michiko’s body hit his nose, forcing him to face his own “feminization” so viscerally that he couldn’t look her in the eye.
“No, I don’t know yet. But leaving this chaos unchecked will only make matters worse.”
Michiko (inside Daiki) stood tall before the students. The way her back straightened, even in a gakuran, was the very picture of a dignified teacher.
“Listen well. Until the cause is determined, we will continue our lives as they are. Takahashi-kun, you as ‘me,’ and I as ‘you.’ …Fortunately, we are in positions where we can keep track of each other’s schedules.”
“Live like this…? That’s impossible! Like this, in this outfit… in a woman’s body…!”
Daiki (inside Michiko) gripped his skirt. But Michiko (inside Daiki) grabbed his—her—shoulder with a powerful grip. The youthful, strong feel of Daiki’s flesh; Michiko was already handling it as if it were her own.
“Takahashi-kun. …Think of this as a sort of teaching practicum. The ultimate lesson in seeing from another’s perspective.”
Daiki did not miss the momentary, predatory glint in Michiko’s eyes. It was a signal that his peaceful daily life had ended, and something had gone decisively wrong.
After school, in the faculty room.
Daiki (inside Michiko), sitting at Michiko’s desk, fumbled with documents while cowering under the gazes of the teachers at the neighboring desks. His toes were congested inside the pumps, and the underwire of the bra pressed against his ribs. Was “being a woman” always this physically restrictive?
Meanwhile, Michiko (inside Daiki) slung Daiki’s school bag effortlessly over her shoulder, preparing to leave the classroom.
“Well then, Takahashi-kun. Don’t be late tomorrow morning. …And do take care not to soil my body.”
She laughed playfully with Daiki’s voice, using Daiki’s body. It was a bold, dominant smile that Daiki had never once worn himself.
In the twilight corridor.
Trapped in Michiko’s flesh, Daiki stared at “himself” reflected in the window glass. There stood a female teacher, who should have been strict, with a face that looked ready to burst into tears.
A cage called a uniform.
A specimen box called a body.
Daiki had no way of knowing yet just how deep the abyss was, nor into what “abnormal daily life” he was about to be dragged.
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