Upside Down – Alternate Destiny

[Saturday, May 11th]

The alarm goes off at 6:30, waking up both Chinatsu and me. Normally, I’d have never gotten up this early to be somewhere at 9:00, but it’s different now. I’m a girl, so it takes time to get ready. I can’t simply wash my face, throw something on, and just take off anymore.

I’m not looking forward to this check-up, but like Mom and Dad said last night, it has to be done. A lot of things have happened to me, and no one knows what kind of side effects I might end up with. So, that leaves me little choice but to do this.

I don’t care for doctors and hospitals since I’ve spent far too much time in them over the years. Up until my change, the most notable incident was when some boys pushed me off the top of the climbing tower when I was seven. The fall broke several of my ribs and opened up a long gash in my side that had to be stitched up. There have been a lot of others over the years, but that’s the one that really sticks out the most in my mind.

Ugh! Enough mental dithering, I need to get ready. Anyway, after my check-up, Chinatsu and I will be heading to the waterpark. That alone gives me something to look forward to and will hopefully make this a little more tolerable.

I give Chinatsu her morning hug and get out of bed while wondering what I should wear for today. Absent-mindedly, I walk over to the closet, open it up, and look over my different outfits. I don’t want to wear a mini-skirt to the hospital, so that narrows down my choices. I have several really cute one-piece dresses we bought for me. Hmm… Aha! This one.

It’s a sky blue, off-the-shoulder, one-piece with white pinstripes and a gathered waist. I liked the way I looked when I tried it on the other day.

Okay, that’s that, so what should I wear with it? I walk over to my dresser and look through my bra and panty sets, eventually settling on a set that’s almost the same color as my dress. Closing that drawer, I open the one below it. Ankle socks, or stockings? Deciding on some white ankle socks, I start getting dressed.

I still need to fix my hair. I envy those with short hair, as long hair is a serious pain in the ass to take care of. Simply washing, conditioning, and drying it is an endeavor. Though I have to admit, I do look good with long hair.

I go to my desk to get my brush and a hair clip, and I notice the gold necklace with my parent’s wedding rings on it that Dad also gave me last night. I pick it up and fasten it around my neck. It might not be much, but I feel like I have a tiny piece of my parents with me.

Picking up a white, bow-adorned hair clip and my brush, I walk over to Chinatsu’s room to ask her to braid my hair. I’d do it myself, but I’m slow and still not that good at it. More often than not, I don’t get it tight enough, and it all comes loose.

“Chinatsu, would you braid my hair?”

“Sure, give me a sec,” she tells me as she finishes putting on her socks.

Standing up, she has me sit down and takes the brush from me. She brushes my hair to smooth it out, separates it into equal parts, quickly braids it, and clips the end. Hopefully, I’ll be able to master braiding my hair soon. I turn and look at myself in the mirror on the back of the door. I look very cute, even if I do say so myself. You might even say I look beautiful.

Chinatsu comes up behind me and slips her arms around me while looking at the two of us in the mirror. “Yes, you are,” she tells me, and my jaw about hits the floor. Her psychic powers are at work again.

“Come on, let’s go eat.”

　◇ ◆ ◇ ◆ ◇ ◆ ◇

I’m having a déjà vécu moment here and it’s stressing me out badly.

Mom letting us out in front of the hospital while she goes to park the car, and a group of boys hanging out in front of the hospital entrance are the trigger for it. I try telling myself that they haven’t done anything wrong, and I’m simply overreacting, but for all the good it does, I might as well have said nothing at all.

I leap straight from being stressed out to having a full-blown panic attack when one of the boys sees Chinatsu supporting me. I guess he’s trying to be helpful when he walks toward us, asking, “Is she okay? Do you need some help?” He keeps coming until Chinatsu screams at him, “You boys are the reason she’s like this! Stay away!” His chagrined look makes me feel all that much worse as he turns around to rejoin his friends. Truthfully, all I could see was that blonde boy’s face from the mall as he leered at us with his vulgar smirk and laugh. I know that boy who wants to help isn’t him, but knowing that intellectually is one thing, and emotionally it’s a completely different matter.

“Come on, let’s sit down. Mom will be here in a little bit. It’s okay, I’m here with you.”

I can barely hear her over the blood roaring in my ears. I’m certain that anyone within 10m of us could hear my heart racing. I somehow manage to nod and shakily walk the short distance to the bench with her supporting me.

When we sit down, she wraps her arms tightly around me, and I bury my face against her shoulder as if I’m trying to hide from the world. She quietly murmurs, “Deep breaths. Slow and easy. That’s right. I’ve got you. You’re safe. Nothing is going to happen,” as she attempts to settle me down.

It takes a few minutes, but my heart finally slows down, and I’ve calmed down somewhat. Amazingly enough, I didn’t cry. I’m not sure why I didn’t. Maybe I was simply too panic-stricken? I truly hate this about me. The panic attacks are horrible, and I have no idea why I get them. They began before all the bullying, so that isn’t it. Something has to change because I can’t live like this anymore. I had thought of going before, but I never followed up on it. I think it’s time though, embarrassing or not. I need to talk to a psychologist about my fears. Not only for myself, but for the people who love and worry about me. I’ve had very little control over my emotions since my change, and I don’t know why. But even I know that if I can’t get this under control, I’ll end up an emotional cripple.

By the time Mom walks up to us, I’m completely calm and sitting quietly beside Chinatsu while she holds my hand. Mom, of course, immediately notices and quirks an eyebrow at her. It would be hard not to, considering I’ve gone from exuberant and talkative to quiet and withdrawn in just the short amount of time she was away. Chinatsu barely moves her head when she nods at Mom, but I see it nevertheless.

I can feel her questions welling up, but she doesn’t give voice to them. It’s as if she knows that I don’t want to talk about it right now and decides to leave it be.

I hesitantly ask while staring at her feet, “Mom, can you make an appointment for me to see a psychologist, please?”

I’m embarrassed and ashamed, but I’m far more worried about what will happen if I don’t see someone about this. I don’t want to live like this anymore, and I don’t want my family to be constantly worrying about me.

Mom kneels in front of me, places her left hand on my thigh, and lifts my chin with her right. “Sora, if that’s what you need, then of course I will. There is nothing to be embarrassed about, okay?”

I quietly reply, “Thanks.” I have my doubts that she could even hear me. I guess she must have because she smiles and gently runs her thumb across my cheek.

“Sora, I’ve told you before that I’ll do whatever it takes for you to be happy and safe. This is just another part of that.” She reaches up with her other hand and holds my face between them, forcing me to look at her. “You’re our daughter. We love you, and we want you to be happy. It’s obvious that you feel the need for help, so whenever you’re ready, let me know, and I’ll set up the appointment for you.”

I nod, lean forward, and wrap my arms around her neck to hug her. “Thank you. I know having a daughter like me has to be hard for you and Dad.”

I feel her stiffen, and she grabs my shoulders to push me back and looks me in the eye. She angrily states, “Don’t you ever say that again, young lady!” She takes a breath, sighs, and then continues, “Sora, everyone has their own problems. I’ve heard you before. You aren’t worthless, and you are so loved! Never believe that about yourself. You have so much to offer this world. You’re generous, kind, caring, sweet, and willing to help anyone. Regardless of what you look like, you are a beautiful person.” She stops for a moment, looking at me with a pensive expression. “Let me ask you this: how would it make you feel if your sister said something like that about herself?”

My eyes open a little wider in surprise. Chinatsu saying something like that about herself? It’s a little hard to imagine, but, “I’d get mad at her. I know it isn’t true, so I’d get really mad, and it would bother me a lot,” I tell her.

Mom nods, then replies, “Look at your sister.”

I look at Chinatsu for the first time since Mom arrived. She has tears rolling down her cheeks. Seeing that only serves to make me feel worse. I’d never intentionally hurt her. I’m simply too wrapped up in my own problems. I’ve never even considered how the way I see and talk about myself affects the people who care about me.

I squeeze her hand and tell her, “I’m sorry, Chinatsu.” She smiles at me sadly when I brush away her tears.

“It hurts us when you put yourself down. Just as it would hurt you if we said something like that about ourselves. Understand?”

“I do now.”

“Okay then, that’s enough said about that for the moment. We need to go check-in. It’s almost time for your appointment.”

After I nod, Chinatsu and I stand up to walk inside the hospital.

　◇ ◆ ◇ ◆ ◇ ◆ ◇

“Sora Kobayashi to see Doctor Sato,” Mom tells the receptionist, who types my name in.

“Ah, yes. You’ll need to go to the blood lab first. That’s in B1, room 12. I see that he’s also ordered an MRI and EKG. Once you’re done in the lab, please go to the MRI in B3, room 1. The EKG will be done in exam room 2 on the second floor. Doctor Sato will meet you there.”

“Thank you,” Mom tells her.

We head down to the lab as directed. I’m nervous, of course, but Mom says nothing and simply holds me as I hide my face again while the nurse takes my blood. Five huge vials of it, so I’m a little dizzy when I stand back up. Mom and Chinatsu each take one of my hands as we slowly make our way to the elevator.

When we arrive at the next room, a receptionist tells me, “Please use the dressing room over there, and change into a gown. You can keep your intimates on, but if your bra has an underwire, you’ll need to remove it, too.”

After I change, I’m taken back into a room with a huge machine in it. It looks like a huge doughnut with a table in the middle of it. They have me lie down on the table, put a strap across my forehead, and tell me not to move. It takes about forty minutes, but they scan me from head to foot.

After I change back into my clothes, we head up to the exam room. There, they have me take off my dress and put on a gown again. Then they attach several sticky patches to me, then clip leads to the patches, and again, tell me not to move. Fifteen minutes later, they unhook me and take the patches off. The nurse tells us that the doctor will be with us shortly and leaves the room. I’ve never understood why they always say the doctor will be with us shortly when they never are. Half an hour later, he shows up.

“Good morning, everyone.” Then he focuses his attention on me. “How are you feeling today, Ms. Kobayashi? Has anything else happened?”

“I’m just fine, thank you. No, nothing else has happened.” While I answer him, he’s reading from the computer tablet he’s holding. Then he looks at me. “Your EKG results are excellent. I looked over your MRI, and there are no abnormalities.” He looks back down at the tablet for a moment, then back at me. “Have you been having mood swings, or any trouble controlling your emotions?”

My eyes fly open in surprise. How did he know? “Umm… Yes, I seem to be all over the place. I cry easily, and uh, like, outside the hospital, I had a panic attack because some boys were hanging around the entrance.”

“Mhmm. Well, I can see from your blood tests that your hormone levels are extremely high, so that could account for your emotional instability. The nanites are still active as well.”

He squats down until he’s at eye level with me. “We ran a lot of tests to find out what the nanites are doing since they didn’t break down like we expected. Ms. Kobayashi, I’m not sure how to explain it in easy-to-understand terms, but the nanites are maintaining your cellular structure. Do you remember when I took blood from you before releasing you?” I nod. “Good. It surprised me when I removed the needle and the wound healed almost instantly. It seems that’s another function of the nanites. You will heal very quickly whenever you are injured. In most cases, without any treatment whatsoever from what we can tell. You will never get sick either.”

He takes a deep breath and continues, “The nanites are also constantly rebuilding your telomeres. Ms. Kobayashi, you’ll age much more slowly than other people and live a much longer life. We don’t even have any idea of how long. Do you understand what I’m telling you?”

I nod. I learned about telomeres in school. They protect the chromosome’s information during cell division. If the nanites are constantly rebuilding them, my cells won’t age or will age very slowly.

“Good. Well, I see your uterus and ovaries are fully formed and functional. The last time you were here, we took an ovum to test it.”

All girls get tested when they reach puberty, but it’s wrong to do that while someone’s unconscious.

“Congratulations, Ms. Kobayashi. You are fertile.”

So, I’m fertile like Dad said. My parents found a solution to the population problem, but it doesn’t make any sense for them to have kept it hidden. There has to be a good reason for that, as they were the most logical people I knew.

“Have you begun to menstruate yet?”

His question brings my wandering mind to a screeching halt. My eyes widen in surprise as I begin blushing furiously. A period? Another thing that’s never even occurred to me. I’ll be having those from now on. Thankfully, Chinatsu saves me from having to answer such an embarrassing question.

“No, she hasn’t.”

“Well, I’d say that isn’t a problem, yet. We’ll have another look if you don’t have one soon. Do you have any questions?”

“Will the nanites keep making changes like they did last time?”

“If you mean, will they continue to make forced changes to you, then we have no answer yet. We’re still in the process of finding out what they’re programmed to do. In my opinion, I believe that was the last round of forced changes. I simply can’t see them continuing to do that. It’s simply too hard on your body. It would defeat the purpose of being changed if it killed you. Anything else?”

I shake my head. He pauses while seemingly considering something, then says, “Ms. Kobayashi, have you taken a good hard look at yourself?”

“I’ve seen myself. What are you implying?”

“We had our AI analyze your genes. Young lady, you have zero genetic abnormalities in your DNA. Do you understand what that means?”

I nod. “It means I’m genetically perfect.”

“Right, but do you understand that makes you unique in the world?”

I nod again. “Yes, but that and ¥1000 will buy me some hot chocolate and a bunch of people that would love to get their hands on me. I get what you’re saying, but it changes nothing.

“As you’ve pointed out many times, we have little idea of what these nanites do. Alright, I’m different, but we already knew that because of how my gender changed. Is it surprising that the nanites rebuilt all or part of my DNA? After all, my parents were peerless geniuses, so is it shocking to find that they programmed them to do that as well? Not to sound vain, but you only need to look at me to see that I’m not an average girl. They made me look this way for a reason. I’m gorgeous, well-proportioned, and fertile on top of that. I’m literally most men’s wet dream. They made me desirable and ensured that I would give birth to healthy babies. I’m the perfect girl; a gorgeous, walking, talking, perfect baby factory.

“Now, is there anything you’d like to add?”

He almost smirks as he replies, “No, I think you covered it. Even if you said not to sound it, you are quite vain, aren’t you?”

“Vain? Me?” I chuckle derisively. “Not only no, but hell no!”

Mom snaps at me, “Language, young lady!”

I glance at her and say, “Sorry, Mom,” then switch my focus back to Dr. Sato. “Acknowledging the fact that I’m gorgeous and well-built is not vanity. I hate looking like this. I hate the attention I get because of it, and yes, I get quite a lot. You have no idea how vulgar looks can be. It’s frightening and fires up my anxieties.” I pause for a breath and then scoff, “So, vanity? I think not. You have no idea how much mental damage I take just from looking like this.”

“I apologize, Ms. Kobayashi. It was uncalled for and unprofessional for me to say that. I can only imagine how hard this is for you. I’ve been looking at this only as a medical procedure. A novel one, as exciting as it is puzzling. For you, it’s not, and I can only apologize again.”

I sigh. “I get it. You’ve just been handed the biggest medical mystery on the planet. Of course, you’d focus on trying to figure it out. How about we treat this exchange as a learning experience for both of us and leave it at that?”

“Thank you. You might not believe me, but it was nice to see you again, and I’m happy that you’re doing so well. We’ll see you next Saturday. Have a nice day.”

He bows to us and leaves the room. I think, ‘Well, hasn’t this been all kinds of fun?’ I glance at my watch. It isn’t even noon, and I’m emotionally exhausted from this exchange.

“Chinatsu, I know we planned on going to the waterpark after this, but can we do it another time? I just want to go home.”

“Of course, there’s no point if you aren’t up to playing.”

“That’s settled, then. Home, lunch, and then you two can nap,” Mom tells us.

We haven’t been out long, but it’s been far too eventful and stressful for me.