Chapter Text
Nene had always wondered about the effects of the Mermaid Scales’ ever since that fateful day when she had stupidly and impulsively shoved the thing into her mouth. Not that there was much to say about the curse part of it; she already knew that it turned her into a fish as well as bind her to the mermaid’s whims; but she was fortunate enough to avoid her most of the time when Hanako was around.
No, she was far more interested in the bond now linking her to the leader of the seven wonders; that network of feelings and supposedly their own souls.
Even after months of being spiritually linked, she had no idea how this connection between them worked. And Hanako didn’t seem to understand it either. Every time she asked him about it, he shrugged and went off on how the near and far shores can be unified in some way and that it stretches and strengthens in some areas. His short speeches did little to help her understand and she would quickly change the topic of conversation with her head spinning.
Whenever she thought about it (which was pretty often nowadays), she was consumed with “how” questions. How long does this curse last? How does it bind them? How does it affect them?
And once or twice, Nene had let herself wander into the more precarious line of questioning: the “can’s”. Can it be broken? Can it be shortened? Can it be changed, in some way, some parts removed?
She’d never asked Hanako any of the ‘can’ questions, but she certainly planned to once she stopped overthinking about how he’d react to that.
It was simply too risky to talk with him about such an unknown and decidedly complicated issue; at least for now. Hence her deciding to share her questions with Kou on the subject while she tended to the school garden on one warm Wednesday, when the desire to spill her thoughts out loud was too much for her to bear.
“Kou-kun, do you think that maybe there’s a way to change a curse?”
Kou looked up at her from the patch of earth he was sitting on and hummed to himself as if contemplating an answer.
“Like as in stronger curses or weaker ones? It really depends on the strength of the effects and how much the curse connects to your fate.”
She tilted her watering can onto a kale plant, watching the water spill from the spout and collect in sparkling dewdrops into the curls of the leaves. “Connects to your fate?”
“Yeah, fate, y’know? Your destiny and all that. Putting a curse on someone can essentially twist that person’s fate into something else. It’s like a fork in the road, except the choice is forced upon you and now you can’t go the way you originally planned to.”
“Huh. So you’re saying that any curse can ultimately change your future? By a lot?”
His eyes trailed a slug inching its way past the lettuce leaves in the row of planters in front of them. “Not exactly. My brother said that if it’s a really weak curse, it won’t do much to change the outcomes in your life later on. Like I said, it depends on the strength of the effects.”
“Remember when I got turned into a doll in that fight in Fox-chan’s boundary? Well, that was a form of mild curse. It didn’t last too long when we went back to the school, right? That’s because it wasn’t strong enough to mess up my fate.”
“What about my curse?”
“Your curse…? Oh, right, the mermaid scale. I guess the more complicated a curse is, the more it can redirect your future. Becoming a doll for a few hours didn’t change my life at all afterwards, but being bonded with someone over the near and far shores, across life and death? That’s got to have some severe long-term effects.”
“Don’t remind me,” she sighed, shoulders slumping as she moved on to water another kale plant. “Still, is it possible to change it?”
“It could be possible? But I think it’s also trickier to change a curse if your fate is connected with someone else’s. Something tells me that it could bring about a lot of.. problems.”
“What kind of problems?”
Kou sheepishly ran a hand through his hair. “Uhhh, I don’t know. I don’t really know what happens if you try to tamper with curses involving two people.”
Nene stopped at his words. Tamper...
Was he implying that curses could be something you can meddle with?
“Kou-kun, what do you mean by ‘tamper’ with curses?”
“Eh, it’s like when you remove certain parts of a curse yourself. Teru-nii has done it a few times by pulling out the different aspects of weak curses and reconfiguring them. The process looks pretty weird to me..” His sharp blue eyes grew distant, staring through the countless rows of vegetables surrounding them.
“I can only describe it as plucking out different-colored strings from around a person’s soul; that’s what curses are, basically. They’re just a bundle of fate-changing yarn threads. Anyway, it's super strange.”
“Do you mean to tell me that if I really wanted to, I could reach into my own soul, move around a couple of these ‘curse strings’, and lessen some of the effects of the curse that’s placed on me? Right now?”
Kou looked at her with an expression of horror like he had accidentally handed her a stick of dynamite. “What?! No! I wouldn’t advise you to do that at all!”
“Well, why not? You said it’s possible. And maybe I could take out the mermaid’s servitude part of the curse.”
“Because-!! A lot of things could go wrong! And it wouldn’t be just your fate that would change, it would be Hanako’s too!”
“Okay, okay, you’re right. I suppose I should take this up with Hanako-kun.”
“You suppose? This is his and your FUTURE you’re dealing with here! You can’t just play around with that!”
“Alright, I get it! I was just wondering.”
He narrowed his eyes at her. “That’s a lot of questioning for ‘just wondering’. You aren’t seriously thinking about doing it, are you?”
“Maybe.”
“Nene-san?!”
“I’m kidding, I’m kidding! Lighten up a little, won’t you? I learned my lesson from last time, I promise you I won’t jump into anything.”
Kou looked doubtful at that, crossing his arms tighter against his chest. “You better not do anything you’ll regre- OW!”
A small object had rocketed into the back of his head before coming to land at his feet.
He bent over to inspect the offending shrapnel, rubbing the back of his head angrily.
Nene leaned in to see that it was a thin dark gray circle, and when flipped to the other side read “Nikomi” in black matte letters. “A camera lens cover..?”
“Hey Daikon Legs! Tell Lame-Ass Traffic-Safety pervert to get over here!”
She sighed heavily, knowing exactly who she would see when she turned around.
Kou whipped his head around to yell at the pink-haired boy holding a camera (which was conveniently missing a lens cover) standing outside the garden fence line. “Dammit Mitsuba, we’re in the middle of a rather important discussion here!
“Like hell if I care. What’s so important about talking with vegetables?”
The taller orange-haired boy stood up, grumbling, but marched to the edge of the garden to join him. He turned once to Yashiro, doing the ‘I’ve got my eyes on you’ motion with his right hand before hurrying to catch up with the apparition.
Nene watched them leave, faintly hearing Kou scold Mitsuba for calling her a daikon, and then they rounded a bend and were out of sight, leaving her alone with thoughts now spiraling in her head.
Nevertheless, she resumed her tasks in the garden, winding twine around the stems of kale and tending the rows of lettuce.
But if she had cared to look behind her, she would’ve seen a white orb emblazoned with a teal circle emerge from underneath a lettuce plant and snake its way to the girl’s bathroom on the third floor.
~~~~~~
Later on that day, Nene arrived in Hanako’s bathroom with a head so full of ideas and questions that she barely even acknowledged Hanako’s existence, giving him a slight nod at his cheerful hello. Had she watched him closer, it would have been clear from the way his smile dropped slightly that something was on his mind as well.
She really, really wanted to tell him everything Kou had said, but her fear of his reaction kept her quiet as she mopped the floors.
Soapy suds coated the wood planks as thickly as the silence that coated the room.
Fortunately, Hanako spared her the trouble of talking fifteen minutes into the cleaning session.
“So what’s all that business about you poking into the mermaid’s curse?”
Nene startled, almost falling face first into the bucket of water in front of her.
She fumbled with her words, feeling her face grow hot with embarrassment. “Ah, um, you see, I was going to tell you, honest-”
“Mm-hmm, and when was that going to happen?”
Her attempts at making excuses faltered when she looked up to see something akin to dismay in those golden eyes of his.
“I must admit, I’m feeling a little disappointed that you didn’t consult with me first on the matter. For once that kid has some sense in warning you not to do it.”
Her head hung a little at that, accompanied by the uncomfortable feeling of shame settling in her gut.
“Although,” He continued, tapping a finger on his chin, “I don’t appreciate the fact that he’s putting these kinds of dangerous ideas in your head. Who knows what could happen if we tried it?”
“So, why don’t we try it?” It came out of her mouth in a whisper before she could stop it.
“I beg your pardon?”
Her voice raised on its own accord, strengthened by resolve. “So, why don’t we try it?”
Hanako shifted on his seat on the window ledge with a stunned expression on his face before bursting out in laughter.
“Why don’t we try it?! Why? Because the very idea of messing with a curse without getting in more trouble is ridiculous!”
He wiped a tear from his eye. “Curses are punishments, Yashiro! That’s all they are. A direct consequence of wanting something you can’t have; you can’t just take away the punishment someone has given you without any further consequences, that’s literally cheating the system!”
“But what if there is a way?”
“A way to what?”
“I’m not saying we take away the full curse; but maybe we can change part of it.”
He scoffed. “You mean the ‘severing the different fate-changing aspects’ thing the kid was going on about? That sounds like a whole lot of baloney to me.”
However, his quipping remarks were doing nothing to sway her determination, and she had no intention of stopping now. “We have a chance here, a real chance, Hanako-kun! Think about it, if we took out one little portion of the curse, we wouldn’t have to deal with the mermaid again. She wouldn’t bind us to her service anymore!”
“We? Or you? ‘Cause those arguments sound awfully self-centered. What do I get out of this?”
Well, that stung. Still, she pressed on. “If you help me do this, I.. I promise to make you two whole boxes of donuts!”
He perked up at the mention of his favorite food, then seemed to remember the situation he was in and quickly schooled his expression into a scowl. “Nice try, but I won’t be falling for your bribery.”
“They’ll be homemade.”
“I don’t see how that will make me-”
“Fresh out of the oven.”
“No, I won’t-”
“Crunchy on the outside and soft on the inside, just like you like them~”
Nene saw his internal struggle as clear as day, smiling as Hanako reluctantly climbed off of the window ledge to float over and extend his hand out to hers.
She clasped her hand in his, not minding the cold it brought. “Then it’s a deal!”
At that Hanako indiscreetly complained that he was ‘selling his soul for donuts in a deal with the daikon devil’ which earned him a hard whack in the chest from Nene’s elbow.
A chorus of soft ‘ow’s’ rang from the short ghost. “So, how do we do this, exactly? Is there some sort of ritual we should be following or..?”
“Um.. To tell you the truth, I didn’t plan this far ahead.”
“O-o-o-of course you didn’t,” he groaned, sliding his hands down his face.
He paused briefly, amber eyes trained at the ceiling in deep thought.
“I guess we could begin by trying to manifest the curse in some way that’s visible.”
“Woah, you can do that?!”
He shrugged. “Well, I’ve never tried to, but judging from what the kid said there must be a way to do it. ”
“Wait a minute.. Which one of us has to do it, though?”
“Hmmm, I think I’ll start us off first, since it appears that only exorcists and people with supernatural powers have the ability.”
Hanako patted the wooden floor in front of him, motioning her to sit. “This might take a while, so be patient while I figure this out.”
She sat cross-legged on the floor an arm’s length from him and watched as he fell silent, closing his eyes.
And she waited.
One minute went by, and then another.
When it felt like thirty minutes had passed, she got impatient in trying to detect the smallest change, in his posture, the air around them, just something, anything to latch on to that would tell her it was going to work.
“You’re breathing too loud,” he reminded her, eyes still closed.
“What do you want me to do? Stop breathing? Is it a crime to breathe??”
“Just calm down, I’m trying to focus.”
The silence reappointed itself to rule as Nene struggled to rein in her excitement.
…
“Also, could you quit staring at me? It’s not helping me concentrate.”
Her emotions exploded, shattering her sense of reason. “Okay, that’s IT, I’m trying it now, you’re taking too long!” She started to stand up, Hanako opening his eyes; both were pulled out of whatever reverie had accumulated there.
She turned to sit by herself, fully intending to get to the bottom of this without distraction, but a hand gently grabbed her wrist.
Nene whirled around to see Hanako trying to keep her from leaving. Irritated, she tried to pry his hand off with her other hand, but he caught that one too. “Look, I know you’re frustrated, but it’s not like we were going to get this on our first try, alright?”
She stopped resisting, frustration evaporating. “I know. Maybe.. I was stupid for thinking it could work. I’m sorry, Hanako-kun.”
He gave her a warm smile. “It’s okay.”
“On another note,” His eyes alighted with mischief. “Why don’t we go bother No. 1 together? I’ve got a few jokes I wanna try out on him.”
She laughed, lacing both of her hands’ fingertips with his. “Only if I get to say the punchlines this time!”
His smile grew wider. “You drive a hard bargain~”
They drew closer, touching foreheads together for a second with big smiles on their faces.
They were about to break away when suddenly there was a sharp ‘twang’ perforating the air around them, like the harsh pluck of a guitar.
Startled, Nene drew back, eyes darting around the room in search of the culprit. But what she saw wasn’t a person or a living thing; instead it was a translucent thread, rapidly becoming visible. It trailed from her left arm and snaked around her feet before curling around Hanako’s right arm. Transfixed, she observed as more threads materialized in front of her, all of them tying her to Hanako. The more they took shape, the more colorful they became; each one was an iridescent assortment of blues, greens, reds, whites, and yellows. It was.. It was…..
“Beautiful..” She breathed, reaching down to touch one.
“No! Don’t!” Hanako slapped her hand away before her fingers could come into contact with the brightly shimmering thread.
He trembled a bit with relief once her fingers were safely out of the danger radius. “Dammit Yashiro, we gotta be more careful about touching these things! What part of “curse” do you not understand?”
Oh. She’d been so mesmerized by how pretty they were that she had forgotten the reason why they were doing this in the first place. With extreme caution now, she put her hands in a position as far away from the threads as possible(not including the strings winding around her fingers).
Out of the corner of her eye, she could see Hanako’s hakujoudai cautiously circling around the strings, as if nervous to get any closer. The red-circled one floated alongside a yellow thread, inching its way toward it. The air around the thread seemed to sizzle and pop as the tsueshiro drew nearer. A particularly loud crackle sent it zooming away to hide behind its master.
“There seems to be a lot of this energy surrounding them, I’ve never seen anything like it. I don’t know if it’s a good idea to be switching them around, so I think our best bet is to observe before we act.”
For once Nene agreed, and her only reply was a nod as she stood perfectly still and observed the wavelengths of light emitted from the threads.
She stepped forward, being careful not to stumble over the thin ropes. For a second she thought she saw the red-circled hakujoudai float to the yellow thread again, but she was too preoccupied with traversing across this unknown light, keeping her eyes on the strings below.
Another low crackling noise appeared before erupting into a loud hiss; Nene looked up from her feet to see that the Tsueshiro had wandered too close to the threads. The thread was rapidly entangling its struggling form in front of No. 7. At first glance, it would seem as though he was keeping calm; but Nene saw through just the slightest narrowing of his irises that he was definitely freaking out.
“No, come here, please come here,” he coaxed, outstretching his hand toward his hakujoudai. But the orb only became more ensnared, the strings overlapping it’s sphere-like body with a vengeance. It started to thrash violently, catching him off-guard.
Time seemed to slow down for Yashiro as the strings flicked outwards toward his hand.
Two inches.
One inch.
Centimeters away.
She couldn’t stop it, it was too fast, already the air was sizzling at his fingertips, the low crackle like thunder sounding in her ears, the light glimmering hotly-
And then, contact.
At the very moment his fingers touched the thread, there was a blinding flash of light.
“Hanako-kun!!!”
The light was subsiding, but her fear was not. Hanako’s hand- it was quickly being overtaken by threads, winding up his arm and rooting him to the floor. Instinctively she bent down, trying to pull him from the strings.
“No, what are you doing?! Get away from me, you’ll get yourself stuck too!”
“And leave you here to become a yarn cocoon? No thanks!!” She kept prying, ignoring the frantic warnings Hanako gave her. “I’m serious, Yashiro! I can’t move, and you won’t be able to either if you stay he-”
His words were cut short by her hands also becoming covered in the threads, the red ones swiftly circling her torso and blue pulling her down. Shouts of alarm and apology were lost in the blinding brilliance of strings that now solidified into ropes of midnight.
All at once it felt like they were free-falling, and quickly they grasped one another, holding on by some wild means of self-preservation as the world around them seemed to grind to a halt.
They were falling.
Falling.
And something...Something was pulling them apart and together, a feeling like some important piece being ripped and replaced in the darkness, in the whistling black wind.
~~~~~~~~
The first thing Nene felt when she came to was cold, like she was sitting in a bathtub of ice water. She shivered on the floor, curling up her small form to gain some heat back. But her body didn’t seem to get the memo, and after a solid minute of shivering her limbs didn’t feel any warmer.
She blearily opened her eyes, the ceiling swimming in and out of focus above her. Somehow the bathroom had become much darker since the last time she’d been awake, to the point that she could barely see. But it didn’t occur to her why she was out here all alone, lying on her back staring up at the ceiling in the darkness. Had she fallen asleep during cleaning duty..? Wait. Cleaning duty. Hanako. Hanako-
The realization hit her like a slap to the face. The strings constricting around them, the feeling of rapid descent, that strange ripping sensation..
She scrambled to her feet, then paused, shivering, as a wave of freezing air seemed to wash over her again. Trying to ignore the uncomfortable chilliness, she occupied herself with searching for Hanako, keeping an eye out for that coy smile and black gakuran.
But strangely, she didn’t see him anywhere, and neither did she see his Hakujoudai.
“Hanako-kun, where are-” The words died on her lips.
Something was wrong here. Her voice, it sounded like..
Her voice sounded like..
No, it must be a figment of her imagination. She tried again. “Hanako..?” A voice that wasn’t hers came out of her mouth, echoing back at her.
Nene took in a shaky breath, fear gripping her tightly in the cold silence.
It was so cold. Everything felt so cold, and she didn’t know why.
Cold breath in.
Cold breath out.
Cold breath in.
Cold breath- Warm.
A spark of warmth, a fleeting feeling of heat bounced off of her. She savored it, relaxing slightly. It left as quickly as it had come, leaving her wanting more.
She followed it to the first stall of the bathroom, mindless, instinctual. All she could think about was that sweet heat which took away the bitter cold, that comfort which quelled her fears. Nene almost didn’t notice her feet tripping over the source of warmth on the ground until she fell right on top of it, eliciting a sharp exclamation from said object.
“OW, WHAT THE HELL-!”
She almost collapsed with relief at hearing her friend’s voice.
“Hanako-kun!! It’s me, Nene!” (again she tried to ignore the way her voice sounded so eerily close to-)
Warm arms came to encircle her. “Yashiro? Oh thank goodness, I-” He tensed at her contact.
“..Why are you so cold?”
Nene didn’t answer. She was sunken in bliss, snuggling closer to his chest to relish the warmth further. ‘This feels like heaven..’
Hanako was saying her name, but she could barely hear it.
“-ashiro? Yashiro?? Yashiro!” The worry in his voice finally caught her attention.
A dreamy sigh that definitely didn’t sound like her own floated out of her mouth before she could stop it. “Yeah?”
“Are you..feeling okay?”
‘I am now,’ is what she wanted to say, but instead she settled for, “Why do you ask?”
“Well..um..You’ve been hugging me for 2 minutes straight. Is something wrong?”
..Oh.
Quickly she pulled away from him, silently mortified at her actions while simultaneously resisting the urge to dive back in his arms where she felt calm and safe. Normally, her face would be burning up right now. But then why did it feel like she’d dunked her face into the Arctic sea? The temperature seemed to drop again, leaving her trembling once more.
“I-It’s nothing, It’s just a little cold in here, is all,” she said, hearing that other voice chatter past her lips.
Nene’s eyes could make out the faint outline of a face in front of her, moving in closer. The warm hands gently cupped her face, immediately melting all of her resistance. Her eyes fluttered shut as she leaned into the touch, humming softly.
“Yashiro, you’re freezing.”
“Mm-hmm..”
“Maybe we should get you to No. 5. Come on, up you go,” he said, taking his hands off of her face to help her up.
Reluctantly, she shuffled rather blindly with him towards the door, bumping into the walls a few times until they found the door latch.
“Hold on a sec, just gotta find the light switch,” Hanako said, his fingers fumbling for it in the darkness for a few seconds, and then a slight ‘click’ as the blinding light illuminated the room, causing Nene to squint her eyes against the sudden brightness.
“Jeez, it was so dark in he-” his words morphed into a strangled gasp. He froze beside her.
She turned around, ready to drag Hanako out of there for lagging behind but froze also.
The words she was about to say stuck in her throat.
Because the person standing next to her was..That long cream-and-teal hair, the poofy light grey and brown school uniform dress, the skull brooch and those unsavory legs she hated so much..
She was staring at herself. Her own body.
“Hanako,” the voice uttering from her mouth darkened. “WHY are you possessing my body again?”
Hanako flinched, giving a slightly terrified look to her features. HER features. Not his. HERS, and the fact that he was even doing this right now really annoyed her.
“I-I. uh, um,” he stammered weakly, still looking Nene up and down with a very weirded out expression on his face.
“Give me back my body. Right now!”
“Uh, sure I guess, right away,” He did a sweeping circle symbol with Nene’s arms and flicked it upwards, then stood there, waiting. Nothing happened.
He cocked the girl’s head to the side, puzzled. “Hm. That’s..odd. That was supposed to separate me from your body but it doesn’t seem to wanna budge.” He briefly glanced at Nene, ducking his head down quickly when he caught her staring daggers at him.
“Let me try it again, maybe I messed it up that time,” he completed the symbol a second time, this instance being very slow and deliberate. Again, nothing happened.
“Hoookay, third time’s the charm.”
…
“Um, fourth is best?”
…
“Five? Seriously?”
…
“Come onnnn, six…”
At the eighth try, panic set in.
“Shit, I think I’m stuck.”
“Oh really?! Glad you FINALLY came to that conclusion.” She let herself stew for a little bit longer until Hanako’s incessant fidgeting brought her back to glare at him.
His eyes seemed to be looking at everything except her, darting from the stalls to the ceiling to the floor. “Are we really not going to talk about,” he stopped, making a small sound of frustration.
“About what?”
“About.. Y’know..,” He gestured vaguely at her.
Nene sighed. “You’re going to have to be more specific than,” she copied his gesture.
Hanako cursed as he ran a hand through the girl’s long cream hair. “How do I say this..”
“You have to promise you won’t freak out.”
But alas, she’d had enough. “Freak out about WHAT, Hanako? That you stole my body and are presumably STUCK in it now? How could things get worse than this?!”
“I told you the last time it happened that I wasn’t comfortable with it, and yet you still decided that oh, this is a good idea, yeah let’s POSSESS YASHIRO’S BODY, it’s fun so why not?! And it isn’t like things are weird enough that I’m hearing things, and I feel cold, and for some reason I REALLY want a donut right now and-” she faltered, her eyes focusing on her hands for the first time since she woke up.
Her palms weren’t this wide, and nor were her fingers so stubby, the fingernails square on the ends.
Her eyes moved up to stare at her arms. They were covered by black sleeves, two golden buttons glinting on the cuffs. She looked down and-what the hell was she wearing? It was like someone had thrown up black all over her, with a couple exceptions of the red fringe, scarlet socks and the vertical line of four big golden buttons on her top. And while Nene admitted she wasn’t the bustiest of girls, this was just ridiculous; her chest was completely flat.
She blinked once, twice, expecting this to be some sort of hallucination. However, no matter how hard she stared, there was no fading back to her thick radish legs and dress, no inkling or suggestion of a mirage. Instead, her body seemed to flicker, as if she herself was an illusion.
Slowly, ever so slowly, she turns around to look at the mirror. She could already see it out of the corner of her eye, no, no she’s too scared to do this, she can’t, but she must, she has to know for sure. So Nene swallows her fear and turns.
The sight of Hanako’s face is what greets her in the mirror’s reflection, floating on either side of him, a hakujoudai.