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When was it that I noticed something was wrong with me ?
I open my eyes from what felt like an unending nightmare, I don’t remember what happened, but I know that feeling of discomfort I feel in my own body has been only getting more and more intense these past thousands of years. Humanity grew and I’ve seen them do things making me question myself, I wish I could stop thinking about it.
I can feel something hard between my legs, morning wood, thanks Fauna I hate this. Why does this disgusting thing react for no reason even though I feel like shit ?
The sound of Mumei knocking on the door makes me panic, she calls out my name to enter right away, I move the blanket so that my shameful early hardness can’t be seen by her. I can feel it, I’m blushing.
“Hurry up Krono, Sana already cooked breakfast !”
“I get it, go out so I can change now”
She pouts as an answer to my rude tone and gets out. I’m sorry Mumei, I don’t want to be mean, it’s just tough enduring your tendency of invading my privacy while being the only man in this goddamn house.
The thing between my legs still isn’t down, I feel like screaming, please let me live one morning without troubling me. Time passes and it goes down, another knock on my door while I’m changing makes me jump.
“Give me time to change dammit !” I groan out
I can hear Fauna sighing on the other side of the door before coming down, I’ll have to present my excuses to her and Mumei once I’m down. For some reason I feel more and more the need to have baggy clothes, so I put on my oversized jeans and my hoodie before coming down. Thankfully, no one judges my lack of fashion between these walls.
I go down the stairs, hearing Bae and IRyS going at each other’s throat in the morning actually eases my mood, some things never change, and I wouldn’t want them to change for anything in the world.
“Hey Krono.” Sana greets me, “The pancakes are in the middle of the table, help yourself. Just don’t steal from someone else’s plate like Bae.”
“She started it !” Bae groans before biting some pancake off of IRyS’s fork.
I ignore both of them and sit down next to Fauna. I don’t want to cross her gaze right now, but I do need to talk. Taking a pancake, I put sugar on it and start to eat. Fauna doesn’t say anything, I can feel she’s not angry, but she doesn’t want to force me either, she knows what’s up.
“I’m sorry.” I say distinctly.
“It’s okay Krono, nightmares again ?”
Her soft voice filled with care helps to chase away the lingering uneasiness on my body. She really tried to take care of me more than anyone else given how I stand out, being the only man here.
“Yeah, I mean, I had them each time for what, two thousand years now ? It’s kind of usual at this point.”
“Don’t say that, we’ll find a solution one day”
She tries to reassure me, but I know fully well that the solution won’t come by itself. Mumei, on my right, let herself fall slowly on my arm and leans into me. I wish I was comfortable enough in my body to accept that body contact, but it makes me feel bad. I know she can feel my body tensing up, because after a few seconds, without me saying anything, she backs off.
“Are you okay Krono ?”
Her voice is filled with genuine worry, it’s good she doesn’t remember when this all started, because if she did, she would’ve spilled the tea about it and I would see no end to it.
“I’m just gonna need a moment in another timeline I think, I need to see someone.”
I get up from my seat, avoiding any form of physical contact with the others. Bae and IRyS aren’t fighting anymore, Sana’s face looks sad, Mumei and Fauna definitely aren’t happy either, but I can’t do anything about it. I didn’t even finish my pancake, I’ll have to present excuses to Sana as well later, what a morning.
Disappearing into the complex labyrinth of fate’s thread, I search from a suitable timeline to warp too. I could go in one where it’s the ministry instead of the council to be surrounded by men, but I don’t think that’s what I need right now. Right now I need to see a mixed council, I need to see another Krono that also has women next to him to gauge if I’m the one going crazy.
I find one suitable and appears in their house, they’re in the middle of breakfast. Their Bae is fighting with IRyS, Faun and San are starting to clean everything up, while their Krono and Mumei are enjoying the pancakes. Guess the dynamics will be similar no matter who is from council and who is from ministry huh.
“Hey” I simply say, and all their eyes turn instantly on me.
“Why is there a badly dressed Krono here ?” asks Mumei innocently, provoking a kettle laugh from Bae.
Okay, I get it, their Krono is dressed neat and tidy, black suit with a small hint of blue, necktie on, perfectly styled hair. He’s elegant, I’m not, I get it, but can I please have a decent amount of respect so my self esteem doesn’t drop any further ? Not that I have the figurative balls to say it out loud.
“I’ll accompany him and talk a bit, see you later you all.”
He hugs Mumei before getting up, they seem to be quite close, and I’ll admit that I don’t enjoy it at all, given how awkward I am with my Mumei. We go into his room, which is fairly different from mine. Everything is so organized that I can feel the depth of his OCD, I simply don’t have the energy to do that because of the nightmares…
“So, why are you here dude ? It’s a thing for a Krono to travel to his past and future in his own timeline, time is linear after all, paradoxes will fix themselves up. But to invade another timeline, there must be a pretty huge reason.”
I gaze away shyly, this Krono is radiating confidence while I’m just some lamentable excuse of a warden of time, is he going to laugh at me for being stupid ? I sure hope not, I hope he can empathize with a fellow Krono.
“I just wanted to ask, aren’t you bothered to be close to Mumei despite being a man ?”
Krono’s eyes widen as he looks at me. Did I say something that stupid ?
“Dude, you sure you’re a Krono ? In literally every timeline, wardens of time are going out with the guardian of civilization sooner or later. Most Kronos are gay for Muman, but every Krono that has a Mumei instead of a Muman is pretty damn straight. You’re literally the first one that doesn’t seem to be interested.”
I blush a lot as he blurts out everything. Should I be interested in Mumei ? I mean I am, she’s sweet, she’s funny, we had awesome times together for as long as I can remember. But I don’t know…
“Something’s off…”
Krono looks at me full of incomprehension, and I get him, since I don’t get myself either.
“How do I say this…? Now that you say it, I am interested in Mumei, I mean my Mumei, not yours, obviously. But…”
“But…?”
“But it feels wrong for me to get close to her as I am now, there is definitely something wrong with me now, I just confirmed it…”
I can feel the tears welling up as I realize how worthless I am. I refrained from seeing other iterations of myself for so long, trying to not realize how I feel about myself, trying to take in the others’ kindness to feel better bit by bit. Krono pats my head, he doesn’t get what’s wrong, but he’s doing whatever he can.
“Listen man, I don’t know who you want to be. I can tell that you hate yourself, which isn’t uncommon for us, we all have phases like that. We hold ourselves to such a high standard that it is easy for us to fall into a spiral of doom thinking when something goes wrong. Mumei helped me get out of it, wouldn’t your Mumei be able to ?”
“I struggle to even talk to her nowadays… Since the nightmares started, it’s been getting harder and harder to talk to anyone in the Council…”
“Wait, nightmares ? Recurring nightmares ? You’re the first Krono I hear talking about it, and I visited a fair amount of them to hang out with the ministry. Do you know when they started ?”
There it is, the memory I’ve been trying my best to suppress for two thousand years, that outing with Mumei which ended up being the start of my downfall.
“It all started with Mumei wanting to visit Roma because she heard about a festival that seemed fun to her, the Megalesia. A festival for the priestesses of Cybele. They were all really pretty, dressed in sumptuous dresses with embroidery and ornaments. What marked me though, is what I heard from the people surrounding us.
Some people were talking about some of them being men who castrated themselves, and I couldn’t believe it. How could a man be this pretty ? It wasn’t only a matter of clothing, I could feel the femininity in them, I couldn’t differentiate priestess that were born girls from those who weren’t.
It unsettled me a lot, and we went back quite fast after that. Since then, I’ve been having nightmares that I can't remember. I felt the disgust of my own body and my own self grow bit by bit. By now, I can barely pass in front of a mirror without feeling like I want to disappear…”
Krono falls in silence as he searches for the good words to answer that long speech of mine. Some tears fell down while I was talking, I can feel their moisture on my face. The minutes that follow feel like ages to me, am I really that big of an anomaly among wardens of time ?
“No, I don’t get it. I don’t get why men being able to look like women would affect you, but I know someone who might know. I suppose you don’t want to talk about this with your Amelia Watson ?”
I nope with my head quite strongly, I’d rather die than give that gremlin powers over me.
“I’m sorry but she’s your best bet, I can send you to mine. We get along quite well so she shouldn’t tell your Watson if you ask nicely. I did register you on my phone in case I wouldn’t be of any help, and it looks like I was right to do so, let me just put it on USB real quick”
I really don’t feel like talking more than I just did right now, so I simply mutter a thank you as I can and wait for him to do it. It felt so nerve wracking, even if it was technically to myself, to talk about what I thought about that day. I’ve been bottling it up for so long, was it really that shameful ? I can’t think of a good reaction to it. Like yeah, my head is messed up, so what ? What could get out of my line of reasoning ?
He gives me the key and goes to ask San for a teleportation, and I get sent on my way to Myth’s house. I don’t know what to expect, do they have something like the ministry ? The door suddenly opens and Kiara jumps out, dodging the scythe of a pink haired man which I guess is their equivalent to Calli, feels weird to not see her gotta admit. I guess I have my answer.
I stop time for a little bit, I’m too lazy to deal with people from this timeline I don’t have to deal with, especially if it’s to get my get up dunked on again. Walking into the house, I am lucky enough that Amelia’s door is open. She’s standing there, watch in hand, waving at me. She knew that I would stop time, huh ?
“Welcome, other Krono ! Please close the door, I told everyone to not come in until I come out so we won’t have problems here”
I close the door, sit down and resume time. She seems totally unfazed by seeing a Krono that isn’t her Krono, but again, Amelia Watson is a human that travels from a timeline to another a lot more than us Wardens of time.
“So, gimme the recorder. Krono sent me a message about your situation but I’d rather hear it from your mouth, and by your mouth I the recorder.”
She’s exactly like mine, meaning she will be as teasing but as helpful and caring, maybe less teasing given that I’m not her Krono, I hope.
One hearing of what I said and I want to cry because those memories feel actually traumatic later, she looks at me with a serious gaze.
“I actually have the answer, but first, you’re not gonna like it. Second, come look at some pics on my computer.”
I sit down in front of the computer while she gets in the “pics from other timelines” folder, there is an insane amount of folders in that, referencing which timeline by a number. Did they manage to build a network accessible through every timeline by this computer ? That’s actually pretty impressive.
She shows me a pic of holomyth and holocouncil together with IRyS, names are written, nothing unusual there. What strikes me though, is the warden of time standing there. She is beautiful, she is stunning, she is… perfect. Kronii, that sounds… nice.
I suddenly feel the inside of my head getting messed up, a sharp pain in my chest makes me fold in two. I feel my body getting more distant with me, my vision is getting hazy, why is it that I feel like disappearing ? Why is it that my body feels like it’s ripping apart ? I want to get out of it, I want to stop being Krono, why wasn’t I born like that warden of time ? Why am I not like her !? WHY AM I NOT LIKE HER !?
Something cold gets thrown on my face, it’s water. My eyes open, when did they get closed ? What just happened ? I’m on the ground, my head hurts, Watson is looking at me with worry.
“Are you okay ? You just passed out.”
I nod, but I don’t have any strength in my body, I can’t get up. She helps me to sit back to the wall, my head feels so heavy, is it what humans feel when they get drunk enough to black out ?
“You surprised me there, but if you’ve been having nightmares for two thousand years, I get it that the accumulated stress in your brain just exploded. You need to rest at your place.”
I can’t articulate a word, I can hear the words she’s saying but I don’t understand them. I don’t remember what happened, and something within me doesn’t want to know. My consciousness is slowly fading again, I can feel it. I can hear the door open, and everything is blurring out again.
When I wake up, I’m in my bed. I use all my strength to look on my left and right, it’s my room, it’s dark outside, and Mumei is currently sitting on the floor, her face on the bed, completely asleep.
I try to piece together what happens, but a sharp pain in my head prevents me from doing so. I know I went to another timeline, I know I met another Krono and another Watson, but that’s it. I groan, my body doesn’t answer, I nearly don’t feel it. It feels nice in a way, if I don’t feel it, I can’t be disgusted by it, but at the same time, I don’t want to worry Mumei.
Hearing my groan, she wakes up and sighs of relief seeing my eyes open. She talks a bit, it’s hard to get what she’s saying as she doesn’t articulate and talk fast, but I just smile because I’m happy to hear her. She helps me drink and eat a little bit, then I fall back asleep.
The next time I wake up, it’s because I apparently moan in pain in my sleep. This repeats a few times a day, I still don’t manage to move. I can see her face, day by day, getting more and more tired. The eyebags are terrible, but even when Sana and Fauna offer to help, she insists she wants to stay by my side. What have I done to deserve such a sweetheart ?
Each time I fall asleep, it’s the same dream again and again and again. I used to be unable to remember it, but now, each time, I can get further in.
I’m in this roman festival, I can see the women dance, there is a mirror at the end of the parade and I have to reach it. I don’t want to see myself usually, it makes me want to throw up, but this time I feel like I need to see myself. I walk slowly, each night takes me closer to it, until I finally reach it.
I can finally see an image form into it, but it isn’t the image I expect. Instead of seeing my hoodie and my short haircut, I actually see a woman. My hair got wavy bangs, my chest isn’t bulky but looks way softer, even though the chest isn’t that big, it’s there. The skirt legging combo I wear looks amazing on my long and thin legs. I enjoy seeing that woman in the mirror.
A name slowly puts in my head, Kronii. It would be nice if I was like this, it would be nice if I was… Kronii.
Mumei wakes me up, I can feel the tears coming out of my eyes. I finally get it now, the discomfort I felt, my differences with the Krono, and why that festival made nightmares appear.
I realized humans can be women if they want to, but I can’t do what humans do because I’m not one. I can’t become Kronii even if I try to, I can’t feel right in my body no matter what I try, I won’t ever be happy, I won’t ever be a woman, it’s too late…
Mumei takes me in her arms as my cries only get louder, she stays silent for a bit but the comfort she brings me isn’t enough. I want her to put me out of my misery, I want to stop existing altogether, I want this disgusting body of mine to go away.
“Kronii, look at me.”
She takes my head into her hands, her calling me by that name captures my attention. The tears are still running and I’m trembling, the sobs are not under my control yet, but at least they’re less violent.
“You’re already Kronii in my eyes. The other Ame told me everything. So please, don’t despair, we’ll find a solution. Our Ame went to ask future you, she told us what she did to feel better.
We’re gonna take it one step at a time, okay ?”
Hearing such words coming from Mumei, from my Mumei, makes me cry even harder, but I am actually smiling a bit. She’s starting to cry too, but I can tell those are tears of relief. We stay like this for a few minutes and I progressively calm down.
It’s been two thousand years since I have felt comfortable in Mumei’s arms, ever since I realized I wasn’t myself, it felt suffocating to meet the others’ standards of me. But now, I can feel it, she’s accepting me as I am, even though I’m not him.
“I was so scared I was losing you, Kronii. Don’t worry, I got you, you’re gonna be my woman and I’m going to help you, we’re all going to help you.”
My brain actually starts overheating from that sentence. Did she call me “her woman”? I feel my cheeks starting to burn up.
“Wh-wh-what are you saying ?”
My voice isn’t coming out normally and it makes Mumei laugh. She breaks out from the hug and takes my chin into her right hand, before getting her face really close and oh my god she’s so pretty what is she doing what. Our lips are touching each other, is she k-k-k-kissing me ? She pulls back and smiles at me, I’m frozen in place, my brain is going haywire as the heat within my body is spreading like a wildfire.
“I love you, Kronii. And I’m gonna make you the prettiest since you now belong to me.”
It is the first time I've ever seen her like that. She always pulled me around, but back then it was always with a playful smile on her face, like an impatient child. This time, she is doing her absolute best to make me feel safe and alleviate the pressure, to lead me because she knows what I need more than anyone else in the world.
She kisses me again, this time I manage to kiss her back. My brain slowly turns into mush as I lose myself into her.
I know it’s going to be hard to become the woman I’m meant to be, but I am not feeling despair right now. I know she got me, and I know I will always be Kronii in her eyes. Human methods won’t work on a goddess like me, but we will find a way. We have time on our side after all, future me surely has an ace up her sleeve.
***************
I wake up from a pleasant night and yawn, I can feel Mumei’s warmth next to me, clinging to my arm. I kiss her on the forehead before silently getting out of bed. I pass in front of the mirror, the mirror Mumei has put in front of the bed to make me feel good about myself when I wake up, and eventually defile myself in so many ways…. I’m blushing just thinking about it.
My hair is just like the Kronii I saw back then, wavy bangs Mumei often plays around with. I’m still as tall as ever, but that just makes my legs even longer and more gorgeous than any other Kronii. I can’t compete with them boobs wise, but even if I’m a bit smaller than Mumei in that area, it’s more than enough to make me feel good about myself.
Everything about me right now, my curves, my lovely deep blue nightgown and even the hickeys she left in so many places… I love it, I love it so much.
I love you Kronii, and even if you’re not perfect in the other Kroniis’ way, you’re perfect in your own way. You fought for it, and you got it, congratulations.
Mumei silently gets up and grabs me from the back. Thanks to the mirror, I can see her mischievous, voracious smile on her face. She starts to kiss me in the neck, and I can feel her hands moving on my body.
It seems I’m in for another rough morning, good.