In popular media, it was relatively common for people to wake up with their consciousness inside someone else's body and not even notice until they saw themselves in the mirror. But for Sakurako Gotou and Rumi Yokoi, things were much more complicated.
Both of these girls were intimately familiar with the size and shape of their own bodies, which was no surprise as the same could be said for literally anybody. The two also found themselves unfamiliar with the bed they'd awoken in, and upon getting out in order to investigate, they both came to the painful realization that their center of balance was completely off. After easing the concerns of parents they didn't recognize with a voice they knew but had never used, the two reached the conclusion that they were somehow in the body of their best friend, and from there their actions finally began to differ.
Gotou found it easier to convince Rumi's family that nothing was amiss than the latter did in the same situation, but in actuality Rumi was doing a better job of it. In theory, it would be easy to pass off as someone who's trusted you with their deepest secrets, unless of course you were doomed to misinterpret every one of those secrets.
"You've talked about Seki a lot this morning," Rumi's mother said. "Did something happen with him yesterday?"
Now that was something Gotou couldn't answer so easily. "I, uh… maybe?"
"You didn't mention anything about him last night," 'her' father said. "Maybe it was a dream of some kind." He stopped there, not wanting to dwell too much on what kind of dreams a girl his daughter's age might have about a boy Seki's age.
"It might've been," Gotou said, "but right now I don't remember." Am I really talking about him more than Yokoi would? She thought. I was wrong about them living together, so I guess the details of her and Seki's relationship are a secret to even… wait, especially her family! But even if she's barely told them anything, they'd be able to notice more easily than I would, because they're her family… right? I mean, Seki's sister can see it, and she's still so young! And no matter how little Yokoi might talk about this relationship, I bet Seki would say even less.
After very un-suspiciously asking to be reminded what the best route was from this house to her school, she spent the rest of her journey overthinking Rumi and Seki's relationship, so at least there was no change there.
To Rumi, it was a miracle when she found her body waiting awkwardly at the school entrance, because it meant that the first step towards finding answers to her predicament wasn't nearly as complicated as the next few inevitably would be.
"Gotou?" She whispered. "Is that you?"
"Yes, it's me," she said. "Yokoi?"
Rumi nodded. "Well then. Now that that's cleared up, I guess we're just... stuck like this for now?"
"I guess," Gotou said. "Before we go in… did anything happen with Seki yesterday?"
Rumi took a moment to consider this, and soon recalled how Seki had managed to turn a sheet of bubblewrap into a game of Minesweeper. "Oh, the usual… but I think lately he's been trying to add more of a thrill to it…" She watched her original body's eyes widen. "...by increasing the chances of getting caught." She watched her original body's jaw drop. "Just try to ignore it and focus on what you're doing, and you'll be fine."
"I think I get it," Gotou said, imagining Seki using his skills to try and get as loud a reaction from Rumi as possible. "...but that's not the point here! It isn't right to do that kind of thing in school, and I have no experience with it! Can't I just tell him it'll have to wait until tomorrow, or something?"
Rumi laughed bitterly. "If only it were that easy."
Once she'd processed the implications of this, Gotou had nothing more to add to the conversation.
I'm going to die today, she thought. I'm going to die, and I'll take my best friend's body down with me, and then she'll be stuck with my pathetic life forever!
Gotou didn't get many chances to observe what Seki was like when Rumi (or in this case, the real Rumi) wasn't around, but whenever she did, she always found herself having to interpret what was going on in the relationship based on the incredibly oblique games Seki would play. Today, he wasn't making things any easier.
The first thing he did was get out his lunchbox, which for some reason had an entire stick of butter. If that wasn't already strange enough, there appeared to be a few strange dents across the top, like… footprints?
After studying them with a magnifying glass, Seki reached into his bag and produced a book titled "A Thorough Guide to Animal Footprints". As soon as he'd found what he was looking for in the index, he went back to the appropriate page and was treated to pictures of footprints from various species of elephant. Eventually, he found the one that seemed to best match the pattern in his butter, and this seemed to satisfy him.
Elephants?! Gotou unconsciously pulled at where her pigtails would have been on her original body. What's he trying to say? How would Yokoi interpret this? ...wait! Is he hinting at an elephant in the room? Something he feels can't be ignored for much longer?
Apparently she'd been thinking too loudly, because Seki seemed to take notice and look towards her.
He wants Yokoi's input? She thought. What would that be? How can I convince him for the time being that I understand? What would other couples do?
After dwelling on the last of her many questions, she decided to settle for a wink and a smile. That was a thing couples did, right?
Apparently, not this one.
Seki spent the next few minutes looking too afraid to try anything, leaving Gotou to fret about what she might have done wrong. At one point, Seki produced a book about island dwarfism from his bag, but he reconsidered and put it back with Gotou having seen nothing more than the cover. But the image of two elephants on the cover, with one of them being much, much smaller, was more than enough to get her imagination going again.
Is he maybe suggesting that whatever he wants to suggest maybe isn't that big a deal? But if he's taking it back, I guess he thinks a comment like that would make Yokoi angry.
The remaining minutes until class was dismissed felt excruciatingly long for both her and Seki, but once they were over, Gotou could finally ask Rumi about what she'd seen.
"Elephants?" Rumi said. "Footprints in the butter? Island Dwarfism? Even for Seki, this is weird. If it has any deeper meaning, I don't think I want to find out."
Gotou frowned at the thought of what kind of development in their relationship would make her talk about him that way. "Don't you think that's a little harsh?"
Rumi thought back to the many, many times she'd been initially dismissive towards Seki's projects only for them to turn into a masterpiece that studios everywhere would pay handsomely for the rights to adapt.
"...maybe," she said. "I guess he could go anywhere with it. See if he continues it next lesson then."
A/N: I wish I could write more for this series but it's hard when writing Seki requires you to match at least a fraction of his ingenuity. Also at first Gotou felt easy to write but then I realized it just isn't the same without her suggestive visual accompaniments and I can't really add those in this medium.
Also, the title for this is actually just the title for Part 1. I haven't decided what the full story will be called yet, but at this point it'd probably be kind of a spoilery title.