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Kiibo should not be alive. He should not be lying in an unfamiliar bed in an unfamiliar room. He should most definitely not be feeling the scratchy bedding.
Everything he knew was fake. But he was real in a way that he could never be so.
He couldn't recall the name of the man who gave them a tour. He wasn't sure if a name was provided to begin with.
A big common room at the center of everything. It had two flat-screen televisions on opposite ends, gaming consoles, lots of cushions and chairs and blankets and sofas. It looked… cozy. Was that right? Cozy?
From there they went to the dining area (which he heard some call a cafeteria or dining hall , Kaito specifically call canteen, Kokichi call a mess hall, and Miu liken to a hospital cafeteria whereas others likened it to a school cafeteria). He couldn't say whether it was North, East, South, or West of the common room. This information always came readily but he couldn't even access that information manually.
The dining area had a long, rectangular table (actually made of two tables pushed together) with benches of matching lengths on either side. There were smaller booths along the walls. Attached was the kitchen which seemingly could not be entered from the dining area but joining the two rooms was a counter space where kitchen staff could put food down and residents could fill their plate on the other side. There was a refrigerator with an attached freezer and a cupboard for them to get some snack items.
A plump, smiling woman behind the counter on the kitchen side pointed out plates and offered food items. While most of his peers blanched at the idea, Kiibo found himself very curious. He was given… what was it called? Spaghetti in carbonara sauce? Along with that was a cup of liquid with meat and vegetables called soup. Kirumi took the tiniest portions of each type of food, describing them as "mediocre" and "passable."
"Ever try soda, Kii-boy?" Kokichi asked. He stuck an icy can in Kiibo's hand. Kiibo shuddered at the sensation. He watched Kokichi twist and remove the cap from his own bottle of soda, but Kiibo couldn't quite manage.
"Not so strong anymore, eh?" Kokichi cackled. "Why are you doing that claw-thing? Here, let me help you."
He shook the bottle and pointed it at Kiibo. There was a chorus of shouts that Kiibo didn't understand until a geyser of soda hit him square in the face. And he could feel it saturating his face, dripping onto his clothing, stinging his eyes and nasal passages.
"That's the correct way to drink soda!" Kokichi proclaimed, all smiles.
"That is false. I have never observed you consuming soda in such a manner," Kiibo argued.
Consuming it the correct way wasn't much more pleasant. Was it supposed to burn like that? And he was very sticky for the remainder of the tour. He did not like being sticky.
There were communal bathrooms with doors connecting to both the cafeteria and the common room. If you stood in the common room facing the entries to the bathrooms and cafeteria, the boy's dormitory was to the left and the girl's was to the right. But if you stood with your back to the cafeteria and bathroom, the girl's dormitory was to your left and the boy's was to your right.
Left and right changed depending on one's own position, but cardinal directions were always true. But he could not determine the cardinal directions. The map that formed in his head was imprecise and he kept placing the cafeteria at the top and the elevator at the bottom even though the cafeteria could have very well been southeast and the elevator could have been northwest.
He elected to sit out the rest of the tour when they reached the boy's dormitories. His feet had gone numb (which was a strange feeling after you had grown accustomed to everything having sensations) and at one point he stumbled and knocked into Tenko, which nearly started a whole ordeal. Kaede told him he should go rest, promising she'd show him and any others who elected to have a lie-in the parts of the tour they'd missed. That sounded like a good idea. He needed to recalibrate. Er, rest.
There was a bathroom attached to his private dorm. It was small and cramped, with a white sink, a white toilet, and a white bathtub with a small showerhead and two glass panels instead of a curtain. The floor was made up of big, black and white tiles. He briefly wondered if Korekiyo would be displeased by this design.
He found that if you turned the handle on the sink to the left, the water burned, and if you turned it to the right, it was icy cold. Heat kills bacteria. There was a poster explaining proper hand washing on the wall.
"One, two, three…" Palms, back of the hands, in between fingers, under nails, forearms. "...eighteen, nineteen, twenty."
This method of counting felt inaccurate, but it would have to do. He removed his glasses and pumped some more antibacterial soap on his hands.
"One, two, three…" Cheeks, neck, forehead, lips, the strands of hair hanging in his face. "...twelve, thirteen, f- ow!"
Note: Soap burns eyes. Or maybe just antibacterial soap.
Note#2: Ask about other soap varieties.
His hair and hospital gown were thoroughly soaked, but he was no longer sticky.
There was a dresser with six drawers in the main bedroom. Top left drawer had five pairs of socks and five undergarments (pelvic region specifically). All other drawers were empty. The clothing that may have been stored inside were instead folded on top: two T-shirts (one white, one black), one long-sleeved shirt (dark grey), one pullover hoodie (olive green), two pairs of shorts (one black and one blue jean), three pairs of long trousers (one blue jean, one tan, one maybe plaid/pajama, he thought).
He couldn't get them folded as nicely as they had been and felt bad for messing up the nice folding someone had done for him. He might have assumed Kirumi, but she had seen the dorms at the same moment he had.
He lay back on the bed, where he shouldn’t have been able to feel the scratchy bedding against his arms and nape. There was no emergency power-off button under his right arm, just a sensation he thought might be called tickling. There was no charging port inside his mouth, just… Well actually, that was more than just. It was more than the metal, charging port, and disc slot he was used to finding there. Saliva, flesh that contrasted skin, and teeth. There were 30 teeth - 16 on the top and 14 on the bottom. Teeth on either side did not create a symmetrical image, with different shapes and structural designs.
He remembered the mirror above the bathroom sink and pushed himself upright, wanting to examine these oral fixtures. His lower abdomen panged, but he was finding the human body to be full of sensations everywhere. He stood and the region created another sensation, more unpleasant than neutral.
“Hello, I am here,” it seemed to say. “You don’t know what I am but I’m here.”
He confirmed the count of 30 teeth as accurate, the top row possessing two more molars than the bottom mandible. He debated on who he might ask about this. Miu liked machines, not humans and organic matter. Probably Kaede or Shuichi. Yes, Shuichi. Kiibo knew that the female body differed from the male body, so Kaede might not be very familiar with male teeth.
The bedroom quickly lost its novelty, and he thought he had probably rested. His legs didn’t ache so much now, at least. He crept out of the room to see what the others were doing.
No one was gathered in the living room even though you never saw an empty sofa in the TV programs. A few people were in the cafeteria, and though Kiibo found himself desperate for company, he spotted Kokichi among them and hurried away before he was spotted. He very much did not want that mockery right now.
Each footfall was a pulse in his abdomen, and these pulses drew out and became more prolonged. At one point the sensation, now horrible pain, doubled him over and made him gasp. This was another thing to ask Shuichi. Fourteen teeth along the mandible and why his midsection hated him.
He didn't think Shuichi was among those in the cafeteria. There may have been a courtyard Kiibo was unaware of, or perhaps Shuichi was in his bedroom.
But Kiibo didn't want Shuichi. He didn't want to blab these problems to him, and Shuichi wouldn't want to hear them, would he?
He jolted with surprise when he found himself faced with a door that was red rather than the blue of the boys' dorms. He looked at the nameplate, nodded to himself, and knocked.
"Hey, d'ya know whose door you're bangin' on? D'ya see a fuckin' red light on? No? Then fuck off! You're interruptin' my stroke of genius!" Miu bellowed inside the room. It wasn't her harsh words that made Kiibo flinch, but rather how she said it. The few sentences were stretched out as if in slow motion, words slurred.
"Miu? Are you all right?" Kiibo asked.
A beat of silence. Footsteps. The door swung open.
It was obviously her, but she looked less like herself in a knee-length black skirt and form-fitting but non-revealing pink sweater. No goggles adorned her limp hair like a headband. And was her chest smaller?
"What're you lookin' at?" she demanded.
"You've undergone changes," he told her. Her eyebrows pinched together and he quickly added, "You look pretty."
"Damn right! Even in these shitty librarian clothes!" She barked out a laugh. She seemed to regard Kiibo for a moment, and then grabbed his arm and dragged him into the room. He let out a squeak, stumbling. Miu caught him by the shoulders.
"Whoa, easy. What, did all the blood go to your dick when you saw me? Make ya dizzy?" she asked with a snort. He watched her mouth as she spoke and it didn't make the right shapes, bottom lip curling to one side and top lip sometimes staying stiff. He didn't recall her ever talking like that before.
"No, I don't think so." He looked down just in case but didn't think anything looked amiss.
She rolled her eyes and pushed him back. His arms flung out to brace himself for an impact that never came; his bottom landed on the bed, the shove seeming measured out. Strangely, though, it sent a shockwave of pain through his lower stomach. His legs pressed together involuntarily, ankles crossing over one another.
"So, you're really Kiibo?" she demanded.
"Yes!"
She grabbed a fistfull of his hair and opened his eye wide with her thumb and forefinger. Her face filled his vision. Heat enveloped his face.
She looked in his mouth and flicked a few teeth. He considered asking the question he had been saving for Shuichi but he hardly had time to speak as she tugged on his ears, plucked out a few strands of hair, instructed him to follow her index finger to and fro with just his eyes.
"Seems real," she declared. "Not just wearing a new mask, are you, Buffalo Bill?
"I have never worn a mask, and my name is Kiibo. You know who I am!"
"It's from a - never mind. What do you want? Why are you here?"
"I'm, um, getting these sensations. I'm not used to them." His voice had suddenly fallen to a mumble, and he raised it back up. "My stomach - well, I think it's my stomach - hurts. I think it's pain, and it keeps getting worse."
Miu frowned. "Why the fuck are you coming to me for your stomach? I'm an inventor! I don't do aches and pains. Not even in the groin!'
But then she said, "Lie down. Point to where it hurts."
Kiibo lay down. He tried to point but his fingers were stiff and didn't want to form the right positions. He lay his hand over the spot instead.
"Below the bellybutton?" she checked, moving his hand aside. She pressed down.
He thought he was powering down. His vision went out. He gasped, legs jolting. Her puzzled face swan back into view.
"Hey, don't get your dick in a twist. I barely touched ya. Sheesh, most dull little shrimps like you could only dream of getting touched by a big-boobed hottie like me!" Even as she cackled, her eyebrows stayed knit together. "Bear with me, just tryna pinpoint the location. Around there could be appendicitis or a UTI, I think. I dunno, I'm an inventor, not a fuckin' doctor. Does it only hurt in that one spot? What about here, or here? Hey, what's it called when a guy's balls get twisted? Maybe that's what your pain is! I'll hafta chop it off!"
Her hands prodded and stabbed at his abdomen. On maybe the third or fourth time she pressed, the pain spiked to nearly unbearable, to where he thought he would surely die, black splotches dancing in his vision. But then the pain faded abruptly. His thighs were warm, hot. The sensation was spreading under his back, down his legs.
"Hey, what the fuck!"
Miu's voice burst through the ringing in his ears and he realized what this was: fluid. Fluid was exiting from within him, a leak of some sort. Expulsion of liquid waste.
"Don't just lie there gaping like some hungry skank! You're pissing in my bed!" Miu cried. She grabbed the loose fabric around his shoulder and yanked him off the bed. He collapsed onto the floor.
"Kiibo? Shit, I didn't hurt you, did I? Damn it, are you still pissing?"
He wished he was nothing more than dust and fragments that were once a machine now floating through space. Was this humiliation? He had never felt embarrassment to such an intensity. Or perhaps he just did not recall a previous instance? But, at least, the stream tapered off. Did that mean he was finished?
Miu helped him up off the floor. His legs wobbled and he nearly fell over, so she had to grab his shoulders and steady him. He noticed that she was chewing her lip. Did she usually do that, and he just never noticed?
"Well, there's your answer. You hurt because you had to piss," she snapped. He winced.
"I, um, I knew humans did that. I just… didn't know it felt like that."
"This sucks fat dick, but it must suck worse for you though, eh?" Her eyes darted back and forth, nervousness overtaking her features. "Aren't you gonna say anything? C'mon, you just pissed all over my bed and floor and now you're giving me the silent treatment? Just gonna fuck me and bail without even a kiss goodbye?"
Kiibo opened his mouth. The words that exited involuntarily were: "Please don't tell anyone."
She stared at him for what should have been an easily measured amount of time but instead dragged on endlessly. Then she laughed shrilly. "What, do you think I'm some loose-lipped whore?"
"Um, n-no. You're not loose-lipped. Or a whore."
"Right!"
A moment passed. Silence hung between them.
"What do I do?" Kiibo asked.
"What the fuck do you mean, what do you do? You take a shower. Wash your dick and balls and everything else that's soaked in piss."
"Wash in the shower," he repeated, nodding. "Clothes too?"
She rolled her eyes and sighed heavily. "No, dicklick, that's what a washin' machine is for."
"Do I take my clothes off while shower?" he asked, startled. "For the entire time?"
A long moment of silence. Miu tilted her head to the side and squinted one eye. She hacked out a throaty, unamused laugh. "You're screwin' with me, right? Very funny. Keep that up and you'll be gettin' screwed with a razor-studded dildo, ya fuckin' echidna cock!"
"W-what?" He lost track of what she was saying numerous times in just that one response.
She brought a hand to her forehead. "Jesus gaping Christ, Keebo. Just… just wait here a minute."
She turned and hurried to the door, the toes of her right foot dragging with each step. The door opened and closed. Kiibo was alone in the room, and for an estimated two minutes (the time could not be properly measured but it felt like two minutes), he feared Miu wouldn't come back. But then the door opened and she stepped in with a bundle of clothes in one arm, and a grim look on her face.
"Okay, head to the bathroom there," she ordered.
She turned on the water and then stood facing the wall while walking him through removing his clothes (having to turn around once when he fell over) and getting in the shower. He washed and dressed in the long-sleeved shirt, underwear, and plaid pajama pants. He followed her back into her bedroom.
"Why are your feet so little and weird?" Miu asked, looking down. "Does that hurt?"
"Um…"
She threw a towel over the puddle on the floor.
"I'm going to swap our mattresses. Your piss, your bed, right?"
"Um. Okay," Kiibo replied.
"I should make a machine for this," she said, lifting the far side of the mattress.
"A mattress swapping machine?"
"And maybe it'll pull sleepover pranks."
He'd never been to a sleepover, and didn't know much about any pranks that would occur at one, but he said, "That's a good idea."
"I know!"
"Hey, Miu. Thanks. For helping me."
He thought she looked a bit embarrassed. The mattress flopped down onto the floor. She shrugged. "Yeah, uh, no problem."