Taichi’s brain was still a jumbled mess, but he forced himself to think as quickly and coherently as possible.
Fujishima had called him [Nagase]. Ignoring the scientific impossibility of it all, if he were to simply accept it as fact that he was somehow piloting [Nagase’s body], then... did that mean the person in [his body] was Nagase?
“Y-[Yaegashi-kun]?!” Fujishima looked up in surprise at the sudden intruder.
“Fujishima-san! Sorry to interrupt, but it’s an emergency! I need to borrow Taichi—I mean, me—I mean, [Nagase Iori]! Come on, let’s go!” [Taichi] walked right up to [Nagase] (the real Taichi), grabbed [her] by the arm, and turned to leave.
But before they could, Fujishima seized [her] other arm. “Wh-What’s your issue, [Yaegashi-kun]?! We’re busy, if you don’t mind!”
“Yeah, it was definitely about to get busy in here, if you get what I’m saying... but I really need to go! Please let me go, Fujishima!” [Nagase] (Taichi) yelled.
“See? Listen to Taichi—I mean, [Nagase]!” said [Taichi] (Nagase).
“What’s gotten into the two of you?! If you need to borrow Nagase-san so badly, then I’d appreciate an explanation first!” Fujishima insisted.
“Nrgh... You leave me no choice... Take THIS!”
With that, [Taichi] (Nagase) lunged at Fujishima.
“Coochie coochie coo!”
“No! Ahaha! STOP! Not my armpits! AAAH! HAHA! G-Get your dirty paws off me, [Yaegashi-kun]! Hahahaha! S-Stop...!”
“H-Hey! Nagase! Er, you are Nagase, right?! Whatever! Right now you’re [me], so try not to get me in too much trouble, alright?!”
Class 1-C was the perfect picture of pandemonium.
“Is this some kind of joke?” Inaba stared at them coldly.
After arriving back at the clubroom, [Taichi] and [Nagase] quickly began to try and piece together what was going on.
At first there was chaos—peering into mirrors and promptly screaming at their reflections—but the two of them had since calmed down. According to Nagase, she was in the classroom when it happened. All of a sudden she blacked out, and the next thing she knew, she was sitting in the clubroom in the middle of a conversation with Inaba and the others.
And according to the others, who had witnessed the whole thing, [Taichi] had suddenly collapsed forward in his chair—almost like he’d passed out—then immediately straightened back up again. Once in Taichi’s body, Nagase had panicked for a moment. Then, as soon as she remembered Aoki’s story from yesterday, she bolted all the way back to the classroom to look for [herself]... and now here they were.
“I can’t believe Taichi and I swapped bodies... Feels more like our bodies swapped us, to be honest!” [Taichi] (Nagase) laughed cheerfully. She was unbelievably chill about the whole thing.
“Uh... Am I going blind, or is that an actual legit grin on Taichi’s face? I’ve only ever seen him make like a half-smile, half-grimace!” Kiriyama blinked.
“I know, right? The dude’s not even that bad-looking. Maybe if he always smiled like that he’d be more popular with girls,” Aoki replied.
“Is that what my normal smile looks like to everyone else? A half-smile, half-grimace? I didn’t realize it was that bad...”
“WHO CARES?! Don’t change the goddamn subject!” Inaba slammed her fist down on the table. “Gah...!”
“Bet that hurt, didn’t it?”
“Shut the fuck UUUP!” Inaba lashed out at [Nagase] (Taichi) with a throat thrust—and spun on her heel at the last second, whipping her hand away before the blow could land. She froze, her arms now raised high over her head like a ballerina, her face twitching from either embarrassment or rage.
“You look like you’re having fun,” [Taichi] (Nagase) snickered.
“I get it! Taichi dropped one of his classic snarky one-liners, and you were gonna smack him for it like usual, but then you remembered he’s technically Iori-chan right now, so you stopped yourself. Makes sense,” Aoki commented.
“And now here you are, mansplaining the situation to her. Sucks to be Inaba right now,” Kiriyama added.
The commentary was brutal.
Her expression still twitching, Inaba lowered her arms and took a deep breath, as if willing herself to calm down.
“Man, you’re kind of hilarious today,” [Nagase] (Taichi) remarked as the thought crossed his mind.
Inaba whipped her head around and fixed him with a vicious glare. “Rest assured, I won’t forget this, Tai...” She cut herself short, her eyes wide with shock.
[Taichi] (Nagase) smirked like she’d seen it coming. “Inaban, you totally just looked at [Nagase Iori] and said ‘Taichi,’ didn’t you?” Nagase Iori was clearly the only member of the club who could go toe-to-toe with Inaba and live to tell the tale.
“Nggh...!” Inaba grimaced. “It’s your fault for... putting on this stupid little act in the first place...!”
“Do you really think Taichi could pull off a Nagase Iori impression this believable?” [Taichi] (Nagase) pressed. Her body and voice were all Taichi’s, but her mannerisms and speech were undeniably Nagase’s.
“Inaba, I know this is hard to believe. Hell, even I’m having trouble accepting it. But it’s the truth. I’m the real Taichi, and the [Yaegashi Taichi] you see here is actually Nagase.” Admittedly it felt a little weird making that declaration in a high-pitched girly voice.
Inaba bit her thumbnail in frustration, then changed tack. “Yui! Aoki! What do you two think about this? Yesterday you were both saying—well, okay, Aoki was saying you swapped bodies yesterday, right?”
“Oh yeah, Taichi and Iori-chan have definitely swapped bodies. Takes one to know one, y’know? You agree with me, right, Yui?”
“Ugh... I guess I have to, don’t I...”
“But you flat-out denied it yesterday!” Inaba argued.
“Look, I’m not happy about this either, okay?!” Kiriyama slammed both hands on the desk and jumped to her feet, her long chestnut locks flying in all directions.
“Wait, so you admit we switched bodies the other night?” Aoki shot her a daft grin, and she scowled.
“Yeah, I admit it...” she muttered in a small voice. “I mean, it can’t’ve just been a dream. Especially now that it’s happening to Iori and Taichi, too.”
“Give me a break. Are you guys hearing yourselves right now? Body-swapping? There’s no way a B-movie plot like that could happen in real life!”
Taichi didn’t blame Inaba for being skeptical. The average person would never believe that it was humanly possible to switch bodies with someone else... not without some serious convincing, anyway. But no matter how insane it sounds at first, once someone experiences it for themselves, it starts to seem like the most obvious thing in the world. It seems impossible on paper, but once you cross the threshold, well, it’s just another part of your life at that point.
Inaba looked around the room at the others. Each of them nodded.
“I still think you people came around a little too quickly... Pretty sure somebody ought to be panicking over this, at least!”
“Well, I mean... Once it happens, it all just kinda clicks, y’know? Like, duh, of course!”
“Nagase, that doesn’t really explain anything,” [Nagase] (Taichi) retorted.
“Ugh, this is giving me a headache... But at this rate we’re just gonna keep going around in circles... Alright, let me ask you one more time. You swear this isn’t some asinine joke? Do you absolutely swear, on your lives, that the two of you have swapped bodies?”
“I’ll say it a hundred times. I may look like [Nagase] on the outside, but on the inside, I’m one-hundred percent Yaegashi Taichi.”
“Which means you know things only the real Taichi would know, right? And that Taichi knows things only Iori would know, I take it?”