Exposure, 14: Weirdness and Charm
06 Dec 2023Meowers
Yeah, I had to get back to my serious stuff eventually, just another day in a normal world and all that. And there was no time for a proper sleep. How... Student'ish, phah. So, a quick tea and a breakfast, some smokes to open my eyes and off I go to that normal world daily briefing thing to act like a proper officer and tell folks what's my plan for them for today. And I didn't have one. Obviously. Because all that last evening... And night... And early morning on top of that, I was occupied by a thing that turned out to be far more interesting than my direct responsibility stuff.
Anyway, we weren't involved in anything heavy and intensive so I quickly ran through my previous documents before heading out and composed something plausible out of them. Send those here, those there, I'll go there with my first wing, a bit of shuffling, rookies to the training sim with something common, techs do the same tech things they did yesterday, like, just another day kind of stuff. To the datapad it goes, another smoke and I'm okay. Should've been.
Or so I thought.
Of course, the first and maybe the only person who noticed my... absence in the moment was Mion. Like, normally, I do think of various non-related things when I have nothing else to do. Who doesn't? But then I'm able to switch back to the boring reality immediately if something demands my attention. Or if reality suddenly stopped being boring. So it seems like that day I was really slow and it was a sign. Or maybe because most of the time I had nothing else to do, on the ground as well, I was either grinning like an idiot or staring somewhere vacantly with a smile on my face. And you may have already guessed what was filling my thoughts at those moments. Obviously, it isn't my common behaviour like walking around with a neutral face. That could turn into a grumpy one when someone does some kind of shit they really shouldn't. For a little while, not more, I'm a nice person. Maybe. And, murmuring melodies is definitely... Odd. To say the least. Some folks thought I'm drunk, or even high, but, well, we all undergo med checks daily and mine was greener than your granny's lawn.
Luckily, our shifts were totally overlapping that day and we were able to talk. Like, she knew about my earlier experiments with that VR thingy to fix my sleeping and knew that now I've been using it properly, for entertainment purposes, no weird shit you would regret doing later. But... That, to say, 'level' of entertainment was something new indeed.. So, without muttering rubbish and swaying left to right, I told her everything because honestly it's the only way to go. I told her about our conversation with Kasumi and her being intrigued by the idea and its connections to her own... intrusive thoughts. And that I've been helping her with her idea, without mentioning what this idea actually is because it's private, by providing that non-judgmental environment, in a friendly way, without any attempts to get more physical. And about my sudden overwhelming experience of existing in the form... I really liked, not expecting that to happen. Keeping the main point of being heck tall for the surprise, phah.
And she knows me well. And she became interested immediately, because that, as I said, isn't my usual everyday behaviour and she wanted to look at what causes it with her own eyes. So the best solution was, logically, to get her the same device and meet each other in the virtual environment. Said and done, I've ordered the identical thing remotely and sent one of our fast recon ships... On a purely technical mission, to check its performance on the long-distance flight. No strange boxes delivered to me the next day were involved.
Then, well... Mion was about to enter my private server when I noticed the camera with some... Interesting photos of my friend stored on it. In plain sight. A quick and laconic "shit!" escaped my mouth, I grabbed the camera, and in my frantic attempts to hide it somewhere I couldn't think of a better place than under the bed, since it didn't include moving to other rooms with possible furniture casualties along the way as I had to act fast. And the only thing I could've done before she appeared was to turn on my back as if I've been waiting for her on that bed. With my legs bent at the knees because hells I can't fit on a normal-sized bed anymore.
She didn't go too creative and just plainly copied herself into the VR environment with some simple home things to wear, so she was there, standing next to the bed and looking at me and my legs suspiciously as the difference wasn't that noticeable when I was horizontal. Then, I got up. And made that pose, with my weight moved more onto one leg, head slightly tilted to the side and my hand running through my hair. And my head almost scraping the ceiling. However, it didn't last long because the longer I looked at her being shocked and astounded, the more I wanted to start grinning like a wack and suppressing the laughter had become too difficult eventually.
"Weeeeee!" And I spread my arms widely, grinning... Like a happy wack. While she still stood shocked, I came closer, leaned forward and touched her nose with my finger. "Boop!"
"Is this... Is this what you liked so much? Being, well... The same person but crazy tall?"
"Yep," I sat on the floor right next to the bed and nodded towards it. "Make yourself at home. This is... My place. A virtual one, I haven't done anything with it yet... Except breaking the chair with the sheer weight of my, khm-khm, butt."
Mion placed herself on the bed, crossing her legs underneath her and looked at me closely, maybe inspecting my face which looked a decade younger now. Or maybe still being surprised seeing me like that. She touched my hair slowly, my cheek, my shoulder, quietly, amazedly saying how incredibly real it felt. Like it was real me. Not a computer model. And I replied... That it is, actually, a 'real' me. To the extent where I don't want to be anybody else, where I'm enjoying simply being myself. That, appearing in this form for the first time, I couldn't stop my eyes from becoming wet, I spent about an hour laying on the floor and smiling, feeling like the happiest person in the world. She listened closely, looking into my eyes, and I, well... I turned to her and told her everything else. About the sudden realisation that happened after pushing sliders randomly, about the previously unknown but overwhelmingly positive feeling I didn't even think about having, about truly liking my own body now, not seeing it as something utilitarian. About that water park fun where I was acting like a child, about dropping myself onto the grass and laughing happily, even about... That episode in the shower. And all that time, she was listening. And looking at me.
When I ran out of words, it felt like... Everything inside me braced for an impact, seconds turned into hours and my heart was thumping deafeningly, about to breach my chest. I waited for her response with bated breath, without having any plans on this conversation, any thoughts on what to do next, without any backup options, any possible paths to go in case of her reacting negatively. I didn't want to think of the worst, but deep inside I knew it still might've been one of the outcomes. I couldn't think of the best because it was so unexpected, so strange even for me, and I didn't even know what that 'best' can look like in such a case. All-out, unrestricted, blindingly sincere confession, as pure as it even could possibly be. Because... For me, it is the only way to go.
She smiled, leaned forward and wrapped her arms around my shoulders... It felt incredible. Like a giant burden that appeared all of a sudden and almost crushed me, fell down and vanished without leaving a trace. We kissed. Longingly, eagerly, stopping only to take a short gasp of air, and she held me tightly to herself. She placed her hands on my cheeks, looked into my eyes and told me she's happy that... Now I know what could bring me the feelings I've been devoid of for my entire life. The feelings whose very existence was unknown to me for almost three and a half decades. That now... I really feel something. Even if I can't describe it sometimes, but it's pure and genuine, not pulled through the cogs of my logic. That she will be happy if we start spending some time together in that virtual space, to give me more such moments. And once she told me that seeing me like that in reality could've been a shock for everyone around, she fell on her back onto the bed and laughed like a happy child, pointing a finger at me.
Like, the weight of that confession dissipated in an instant and I started to laugh too, making funny goofy faces and gestures while we spent some time imagining possible real life scenarios of people being absolutely freaked out. Then I stood up and placed my right foot onto the bed next to Mion, bending my leg at the knee and tracing a path over it from up to down with my hand.
"I mean, just look at this. Isn't it graceful? Isn't it perfect? Isn't it..."
I couldn't finish my phrase as she grabbed my leg and wrapped her arms around it like a kid who just got a new toy and didn't want to let go of it. She pressed it to her body so tightly that I lost my balance and, trying to avoid falling exceptionally hard and with possible irreparable damage to the floor, laid down on my back and stretched my arms out above my head. Almost reaching the opposite wall of the room, phah.
Mion slid down on the floor, crawled on top of me and her hands slipped under my t-shirt.
Yeah, it was quite a memorable day.