Forthright Purple

The refreshing breeze soothed my body through the city noise, which was also strangely comforting. My eyes opened for a second, yet they were willing to close again and continue sleeping. Then, my brain processed what my eyes had just seen; Sachiko and Kyōko sitting on a bench in front of me on the other side of the sidewalk.

I opened my eyes by choice this time. Sachiko and Kyōko were indeed sitting in front of me. However, they were sitting sideways. Only then did I realize I was lying down, but the metal should've been freezing my skin.

I looked up and saw my sleeping face above me. I was sleeping on my own body's lap. My first instinct was to sit up and yell at Jun, but then I noticed just how warm and comfortable I was. I didn't know what to think anymore, yet I wasn't against the idea of resting some more.

"It feels nice, hey?"

Jun woke up amid my confusion. I sat up in a jump and, before I could say anything, the alarm we had set on our phones vibrated in my pocket. While we both turned them off, I accused Jun.

"You did it on purpose, didn't you?"

He smiled. "I did. Aren't you feeling better?"

I sighed. "I am."

Then, I pinched his ear and pulled it remembering he used to hate it so much.

"But that doesn't mean you can do it without my permission."

"Hey! Don't do that…"

However, his eyes opened wide instead of his brows furrowing.

"Weird," he said.

"What?"

"It doesn't feel that bad in your body."

Without asking, he reached for my ear. I would've stopped him, but I was curious as well.

As soon as he touched it, my neck contracted on its own to move away as my entire body jolted. Although it was more painful than it should've been, the weirdest part was how uneasy it made me feel. It was something I wouldn't want anyone to experience.

"I told you it feels awful," said Jun.

"Yeah. I'm sorry, I won't do it again."

"Thank you."

We stared at each other in silence for a couple of seconds until Sachiko spoke from the other side of the sidewalk.

"Seems like you're having fun."

Both Jun and I snapped our heads toward her.

"Sachiko! Why did you do that? They were having a moment," said a disappointed Kyōko.

Were we?

"No, she did good," said Jun. "The conversation was about to become awkward if it weren't for her."

Although I agreed, Kyōko's frown expressed otherwise.

"You swapped bodies, didn't you?" she asked.

"We did," I answered.

Sachiko interrupted. "I'd prefer if you didn't talk about it publicly."

"Ah, I'm sorry!" Kyōko said and bowed multiple times.

I stood up and approached the bench next to Kyōko to avoid touching Sachiko accidentally. Jun followed me soon after.

"Why are you having lunch already?" I asked them. "It's still a couple hours away."

"There's no lunchtime established," answered Sachiko.

"But everyone always has lunch at noon."

"It's a silent agreement that was made over the first weeks of the company. Anyone can have lunch whenever they want. As long as they don't take too much free time, of course."

"Did anyone else go out for lunch while we were here?"

"Everyone except Mr. Yutaka and Mr. Yoshihiko."

"That's practically everyone!" I yelled. "That means they saw me sleeping on Jun's lap…"

Kyōko replied, "Well, they technically saw Jun sleeping on your lap."

"That doesn't make it much better."

I expected Jun to make a joke to futilely try to alleviate the situation, but he did something else instead.

"I'm sorry, I didn't think that through."

Although it surprisingly appeased the anger I felt, it still made me sigh in disappointment.

"What's done is done."

Sachiko continued, "Talking about lunch."

She handed Kyōko two things wrapped in paper, then she handed them to Jun and me.

"I made lunch for the three of you," said Sachiko.

Bewildered, I carefully unwrapped the paper to reveal the same thing both Sachiko and Kyōko were eating: half of a thick sandwich stuffed with all kinds of veggies. I wasn't a fan of vegetables, yet it still looked so well made and appetizing.

"I know Kyōko and Rie don't usually bring their lunch and buy something instead, but I wasn't sure about Jun. I hope I wasn't too meddlesome."

"No, you weren't," replied Jun. "Thank you very much for doing it. Now you made me feel guilty about not preparing my own lunch."

"Please don't feel like that, that's not what I intended."

"I'm just joking. Kinda."

Something clicked in my brain. Guilt. Was that the best word to describe what I was feeling? There was a short time when I used to prepare my own lunch before going to class, but even then, I hated to fall under the same routine for weeks. On top of that, my cooking was bad. Then, all of the food lost its flavor, so I stopped wasting my time and used it to play games until late into the night instead. Without realizing it, I had fallen into another routine. A fun but unhealthy one. Just like Jun implied, maybe I needed to make an effort to try to do something better for myself, but again, what was the point if I wasn't even going to enjoy it?

I shook my head to bring myself back to reality and took a bite of the sandwich. As I expected since I was in Jun's body, I was able to taste it. Although it wasn't the best food I had eaten, it still was very good. It only made me want to get back to cooking, despite knowing how disappointed I was going to be.

"It's delicious," I said to Sachiko.

"Thank you."

"I'm not against it or anything, but can I ask why you wanted to make lunch for us?"

"Well, practically any fast food is unhealthy, and I don't like seeing you eat it almost every day."

Although she generalized, it was pretty obvious she was mostly talking about me.

"I see. I'll try to improve on that," I replied.

"Good."

"What about you? You barely talk about yourself."

"Me? There isn't much to say."

Out of nowhere, Kyōko raised her hand.

"I have a question. How did you end up joining BoodieGames?"

"I was curious about that as well," added Jun.

"Oh. Well, I joined after getting my second degree," Sachiko said. "I planned to get a third one, but I couldn't convince myself it wasn't going to be a waste of time."

Two degrees and planning to get a third one? Damn. I imagined she was smart, but not this much.

Sachiko continued, "I was addicted to Boodie Buddy at the time, so I sent an email to the developers to thank them for making the game, as I usually do. This time, I added a little about myself in case they were hiring. Lucky me, they were looking for a business manager, which is exactly what I am."

"Wait, you are a business manager?" I asked.

Sachiko nodded. "That's the last degree I got."

"And what was the first?" wondered Kyōko.

"Video game development."

"Really?"

Jun asked, "Isn't that too general?"

"It is," answered Sachiko. "It was the very first year of the program. They taught you everything related to games, then you had to choose the electives you wanted to specialize in. There was design and programming. I didn't like either, so I stuck to design."

"Design and programming are far from being all the roles a game developer can take," Jun said.

"You're correct, but that's what we had at that time. They kept saying that all other roles could be easily adapted from other industries."

"I don't know if I agree with that."

"I don't mean to be rude, but why did you study game development?" I asked. "Are you that into games like Jun and I?"

"I love games, but not so much when it comes to developing them. My relationship with games is… conflicting, to put it into words. I studied development because of my parents. They didn't force me to, but I didn't want to disappoint them."

"What do you mean?"

She looked down at the ground.

"I… I'd prefer not to talk about it at this moment. Sorry."

"Don't apologize, we won't force you," said Kyōko.

"Thank you."

That was weird, but Kyōko is right, we shouldn't force her and make her uncomfortable.

Jun continued, "I have a question not related to this topic at all."

"Go ahead," replied Sachiko.

"Do you know who wrote the script for the game we're making? I know it's easy to assume it was the directors, but it's so different from their previous game that I find it hard to believe."

Sachiko's cheeks promptly flushed.

Huh?

"Yes, I do know. It was… me."

"What?!" the three of us shouted.

"Is it that shocking?"

Kyōko answered, "We're sorry, we just didn't expect it."

"I thought you said you didn't like developing games," added Jun.

"That's still true," Sachiko replied. "One of the subjects in the program was scriptwriting for games. I immediately fell in love with writing a story from scratch, along with its world, characters, and quests. I'm not good at imagining the gameplay, though."

"That's someone else's job," I said. "What you wrote is amazing. It's the only thing that made me stay here."

"Same."

"Me too."

Both Jun and Kyōko added.

Sachiko's entire face was now red. She snapped her head away from us, yet she smiled.

"Thank you. I've been writing ever since, but I hadn't shown the scripts to anyone until now. My fiancé convinced me to show it to Mr. Yutaka and Mr. Yoshihiko. They went as far as trashing the concept of the game they were working on to work on my idea. It made me feel guilty, but they kept telling me they weren't convinced by the previous concept anyway."

Could that be why some of the original team members left?

"They were so hyped about it that they started looking for an office as soon as they registered the company. I helped with all of that."

So, all this happened even before they became a proper company. Interesting.

"That means you have more scripts under your sleeve," said Kyōko.

The pink returned to Sachiko's cheeks.

"Yes, I do…"

"You have to show them to us one day."

Sachiko smiled. "Sure, I will. Thank you."

I didn't understand what she was thanking us for again, but it didn't feel right to ask now. Instead, we finished eating and returned to work. Jun and I touched each other to swap back to our bodies, then we took a ninja nap while Kyōko ensured we weren't caught.

…

Aside from Mr. Yutaka and Mr. Yoshihiko calling me to their office to ask if I was alright, nothing interesting happened for the rest of the week. Both Kyōko and I made sure Jun integrated into the workflow nicely in preparation for him to organize our tasks. At the same time, I polished the systems I had coded with the help of Jun's suggestions, and Kyōko did the same. It was always helpful to have another pair of eyes to review your code, as painful as it could be.

Sunday finally arrived. Our supposed rest day, but it didn't feel like it this time since we had to visit Hosei University for our appointment.

The three of us lived relatively far from each other, so it was easier just to take the train to the station near the university and meet there.

Despite being the one that lived the closest, I arrived last. Opposite Jun and Sachiko, I just tried to arrive on time and not early. I also hated to wake up before nine on Sundays.

I hadn't even reached them at the entrance of the campus and I could already feel Jun's eyes ogling my body. It wasn't the first time, yet I couldn't let it go.

"Morning," I greeted them as I approached them.

"Good morning," smiled Sachiko.

"Hello," Jun replied.

I frowned at him. "Enjoying the view?"

He opened his mouth to answer but no words came out. I could feel how much he wanted to make a joke, yet he surprisingly held back.

"C'mon, you can't only blame me. Sachiko was doing the same."

Was she?

"I'm sorry," she apologized. "That outfit looks very good on you."

"Oh, thank… thank you. I didn't know…. Who am I kidding? I just looked up nice outfits and chose what I had at hand."

I wore a white knit sweater that cut short at the bottom to reveal a portion of the shirt I was wearing beneath. The shorts were also white and, since the day wasn't that cold, a pair of tights was enough to keep my legs warm. Except for the tights, everything else was gifts I had received from my parents that I never wore.

"The effort is what matters," said Sachiko.

The funny thing was that I still couldn't understand why I went through the effort. I just woke up and felt like it.

Jun nodded. "See? We were both delighted by it."

"Looking at the outfit is different than ogling at my tits and legs," I said, "but I'll let you off the hook this time."

He sighed.

There wasn't much more time to spare, so we approached the security guards to ask them for directions. We walked through the garden and arrived outside the laboratory with just one minute to spare. About to knock on the door, a woman called out behind us.

"Are you the swapping trio?"

We turned around to see two women standing in front of us. The woman that had called us was the tallest of the two.

Hey, they are the scientists I saw on TV.