SUU THE SLIME slid the rest of the way into her nurse’s uniform and smiled. “Suu’s a nurse! A nursuu!” Her hair—slime—tentacles—whatever it was on top of her head flicked up and down like bunny ears as she tried to get Kimihito’s attention.
It was strange to see her in clothes. Once he was looking, it was hard to stop. He forced himself to blink. “What’s that, Suu?”
“From the hospital! What do you think, Master?” she asked.
“I think it looks nice on you, Suu,” he said.
“It looks nice! It looks nice!” Suu chanted, whirling around the room to show it off.
“Oh, she got a water-resistant version? That’s nice.” Doppel seemed to materialize from nowhere.
“Doppel,” Kimihito greeted her.
She wrapped her arm around his and grinned. She was in her usual form, a slight woman with dark skin, and she wore a matching nurse’s uniform.
“You’re wearing clothes, too?”
“Ugh.” Her mood turned. Doppel famously disliked clothes and was almost always naked. Her long, flowing hair did a good enough job covering her crotch and nipples—if someone tried to sneak a peek from an odd angle, it would even shift to cover her. It took a special occasion for her to put anything on. “I didn’t want to, but everyone was saying ‘wear it, wear it.’”
The other nurses around them giggled.
“Come on, Doppel-chan.”
“It’s important to wear a uniform when you’re representing the hospital!”
Kimihito knew all the nurses here. Today, the last day of the work experience program, they were at one of Japan’s rare liminal-specialist hospitals. He’d visited a lot with his homestay girls and had started to think of the nurses as acquaintances.
“Knock it off! I didn’t want to do this stupid program in the first place! I contribute plenty to society by catching bad guys,” Doppel said.
“But Suu-chan can’t work at a regular shop, can she?”
“And someone needs to watch her on Smith-san’s behalf.”
The nurses chided her.
“Ugh.”
Kimihito couldn’t help but laugh. Suu hadn’t come to Japan via the proper channels for liminal immigration, and her behavior continued to be a mystery. That meant the government—Smith included—couldn’t officially recognize her but also couldn’t leave her alone. Most of the time it was convenient for her to slip into Kimihito’s household where someone experienced could watch her, but whenever the girls went out into the world, she caused a fresh bureaucratic headache.
In the case of the work program, they couldn’t give her a formal assignment, but they wanted as much data as possible and refused to leave her out. Looking at their options, they decided the hospital was the safest placement. The nurses had seen Suu before and knew her legal situation. They had plenty of affection for her too, and they were excited to dress her up and take care of her. The whole ward was thrilled to have her.
Suu was happy, too! She had her waterproof nurse’s uniform, and she skipped around humming in celebration.
“Hey, Buddy, whatcha staring at?” Doppel sidled over to Kimihito, her hair drifting around her shoulders. She was too messy to fit with the clean hospital aesthetic.
“It’s just strange seeing you both in clothes,” Kimihito said.
“Yeah, well, it’s embarrassing, so don’t,” she said.
“Isn’t that backwards? Being embarrassed by clothes but okay being naked?”
“It’s a doppelgänger thing. Don’t judge liminals based on human social mores. There are lots of different cultural standards out there.” As her name implied, Doppel was a doppelgänger, and she used her hair to change into different forms. Suu could also change shape—but her texture would always be slime. There was nothing that could mimic true doppelgänger transformation.
“Maybe, but when in Rome…” Or Tokyo, as the case may be.
“Grrr.” Doppel couldn’t refute that.
“Besides, you dressed up that time we went out together, didn’t you?”
“That was one night only! Ugh, whatever. I’m keeping this on for the job today, so you’d better be grateful,” she said, posing for him and blushing all the while. She seemed like she was getting into it. Or she might’ve been getting into character as a nurse and feeling good about that. Whatever the reason, she was blushing hard.
“Suu can do it, too!” Suu said, mimicking Doppel’s pose. She brandished a syringe as a prop.
“Is that real?” Kimihito asked.
“Hee hee! ♪” she giggled without answering.
“But where’s…?” He looked around for the other homestay girl who was supposed to be at the hospital.
“Aye,” she said, stepping from the shadows, “I’m ill-suited tae a pure, white raiment such as this, being borne of the darkness of the abyss. Though me sins may seep through like so much spilled blood, I have donned it nonetheless.” Lala the dullahan was wearing a nurse’s uniform, too.
“There you are, Lala.”
Even with the uniform on, she kept her scarf wound around her neck, the black and white fabrics in sharp contrast. After all, if she removed it, her head would come tumbling off.
“How’s the shift been so far?” he asked.
“’Tis nary a hardship, for one such as meself, tae turn from ministration of the dead tae care of the living,” she said. Her obscure speech made it hard to understand, but there was a simple solution for that.
“Excuse me for a minute,” he said and took Lala’s head from her shoulders.
“Unhand me!” the head shrieked, pale blue skin turning red. The body’s reaction was particularly obvious—her legs clamped together and gave her a pigeon-toed walk as she struggled toward him. She was mortified. “Give it back!”
“Woops! Sorry.” He returned it to her. Lala could be so poetic that she became impossible to understand. When she was, separating her head from her body forced her to cut to the chase. In this case, she’d revealed just how embarrassed she was about having to wear the nurse’s uniform. “I feel bad, Lala. It’s a stressful place to do your first job.”
“Worry not. I already had a duty here,” she said.
“Huh?” What kind of errand would Lala be on at a liminal-focused hospital?
Lala looked around the area for a while as if she was searching for something. “Ah!” Whatever it was, she’d found it.
Following her gaze from the nurse’s station into a nearby room, he saw an ill-looking girl less than ten years old. The girl saw them too and rushed toward Lala. Wait, didn’t she look familiar?
“Reaper-san!” cheered the girl.
“Yuuhi. Ye are here,” Lala said.
“Yeah, and so are you, Reaper-san! Are you a nurse today?” She pointed at the uniform and smiled.