Disclaimer: Characters’ physical appearances and world belong to Yukie Nasu. The demented minds moving Shinobu’s, Mitsuru’s and Shun’s bodies are particularly… erm… actually my own though they are supposed to be real people. *sweatdrop*

 

* * *

 

It was a bright cheerful morning in Greenwood when the loud scream pierced the air. Long used to the antics of fanfic writers, most of the other inhabitants continued their daily lives, unaware of the horror a fellow boarder was experiencing.

 

“ARRRGGGGGGHHHH!! What is this?!” Mel sat straight up and stared down at herself. While she was aware that she hardly looked her best in the mornings, she hardly thought that a night’s worth of bad sleep would result in a physical transformation!

 

Jumping out of bed, she dashed for the mirror… hold up… where’s the mirror? Glancing narrowly around, her gaze was caught by the reflection of her face in the window. Or what should have been a reflection of her face. Creeping up slowly to the window to ensure that she did not lose the reflection, plus it’s just one of those weird things people do when they’re in shock and are trying to deny fanfiction reality, she studied her face again.

 

“Here.” A voice spoke from over her shoulder and a hand mirror was passed into her hands. Without taking her eyes off the mirror, she held tightly onto the grip of the mirror before breathing in deeply, closing her eyes and quickly peeking out at the mirror again, praying that her eyes had judged the reflection in the window wrong.

 

No dice. Staring back out at her were a pair of lovely amethyst eyes, topped by a curly mop of amber hair that many a fangirl had wished to run their fingers through (Something that she could do now but wasn’t really certain was wise). It was a face that she was as familiar with as her own… just not a face she was used to confronting in the mirror.

 

“I’m MITSURU!” Screaming, she whirled around only to confront a close-eyed smiling Shinobu behind her.

 

“Erm… I mean…” Stuttering, Mel wondering how she was to explain her current predicament to the wonderboy of Greenwood… only to be stopped short by the pleasant thought of what his reaction was likely to be should he realize that the co-author of the fic where he got turned into a chibi-cupid, lobster and pea, happened to be within his grasp.

 

“Hee.” She smiled weakly and attempted to deepen her voice, her mind racing frantically to compress her knowledge of Japanese into one short coherent sentence.

 

“Konnichiwa.” Okay, one short word. She gagged. This was *So* not good.

 

“Mel, don’t worry about it. Our language will automatically be translated into Japanese when the other manga characters hear it so relax. Especially when you consider Suka’s English.” Shinobu made a face.

 

“Other manga characters? She goggled before light gradually dawned. “Yen?”

 

The Shinobu in front of her grinned back. “In the flesh.”

 

Mel winced. “Can you not do that? A beaming Shinobu is a lot more freaky than even this weird story you’ve got us in.”

 

Yen pouted. “But…”

 

“And no pouting!” Shuddering, Mel ran her fingers through her hair. “Shinobu does not pout. Happy thoughts… happy thoughts… So what’s the deal? Why are we in Greenwood?… and why do *you* get to be Shinobu?”

 

Yen smiled evilly. Mel decided not to comment on it since it looked extremely natural on the boy’s face and it wasn’t freaking her out. “Well, I thought this might be a nice birthday present. You’ve been on a Greenwood craze lately and I thought it might be fun to give a day to Greenwood to you for your birthday. Plus I’m the fanfic author so I can be whoever I want, and I want to be Shinobu so there.”

 

Shinobu’s face contorted slightly before Yen gave up. “I can’t believe he froze his face so much I can’t even stick my tongue out.”

 

Mel sighed and slapped her hand against her head. “Okay but how are we going to get around Greenwood, oh brilliant one? I don’t remember watching enough for me to know what Mitsuru’s timetable is like. And more importantly, *where* are the actual Shinobu and Mitsuru?”

 

Yen shrugged. “Don’t worry about it. I got us a guide. And the actual Shinobu and Mitsuru should be wandering around in fanfic space right now. I also gave Shinobu a pass to my actual body on the off-chance he might feel inspired enough to help me with my presentation on tax next week. I promised not to feature him on any of our next few fics as a prize but I don’t think he’ll take it.”

 

Mel sighed. “That’s probably cause he knows that even if we feature him nothing will happen. At all.”

 

Yen’s face contorted… “… AND DON’T POUT!”

 

Yen sighed. “Yatta yatta,” waving her hand in the air, she smiled. “Oh that reminds me… Suka-chan!”

 

Mel’s face brightened. “Suka is our guide? Cool.”

 

Rubbing her hands together, she had an evil grin that would have been able to compete with any Mitsuru could have produced at his worst. “This is going to be fun.”

 

Yen’s evil smirk however  was a lot more… well… evil. “Oh no Mel. That’s not the best part.”

 

The door suddenly flew open to reveal a red-faced Suka holding a struggling Shun in his arms, the latter yelling and screaming away, only to fall silent at the sight of the duo. Pushing Suka’s hands aside, he strode up to Shinobu and jabbing the taller boy in the chest, slowly and clearly enunciated, “I. Am. Going. To. Kill. You.”

 

Yen continued smirking even as Shun continued speaking. “I am going to kill you slowly. Very slowly. Or even better, I’m going to burn your anime and manga collection. I’m going to take your books and tear them apart really, really slowly. Then I’m going to…”

 

Yen shook her head. “No you won’t. You love anime and manga too much to even *think* of doing that to *anybody’s* anime and manga collection, much less that of a good friend. Right?”

 

Suddenly, the normally clear and cool gray eyes turned large and sparkly and both Mel and Shun winced under the sudden uppage of wattage. “All right, all right. I won’t kill you! Now turn it off. Turn it off!”

 

Both boys blinked and shook their heads to clear the disturbing picture they had just been subjected to before Shun sighed and shook his head. “I didn’t really *WANT* to be in a fanfic this badly you know.”

 

“I know.” Shinobu giggl…. I mean, laughed. “But I thought this would be interesting.”

 

Turning to Mel, he gestured towards Shun. “Guess who.”

 

Mel studied the pink-haired boy’s bizarre behaviour closely. Presently, he was holding up the strands of his long hair up to his eyes and scowling, mumbling the word ‘pink’ under his breath in tones of extreme disgust. Plus his other hand was twitching slightly, even as one of his eyes slid longingly towards the pair of scissors on the desk.

 

Mel gasped and turned to Yen. “You didn’t.”

 

“I did.” Yen made Shinobu’s head nod proudly.

 

“You didn’t!”

 

“Yes, I did.”

 

“You couldn’t!” Yen continued to smile while Mel started to erupt into a fit of hysterical giggles while collapsing on the bed.

 

“You are *evil*!”

 

Yen smirked. “I’m glad you agree.”

 

Finally, muffling her giggles, Mel slowly sat up and stared at Shun again, the small boy still muttering about hair dye and bandanas under his breath.

 

“Nic?” She asked hesitantly. “Is that you?”

 

“Who do you think it is?” Nic snapped back in a very un-Shun-like way. Or even Nic-like for that matter. A certain fanfic author had pushed her to her limits today and she was feeling very very grouchy.

 

Mel’s face underwent a series of contortions while her appreciation of the ridiculous and her healthy instinct of self-preservation warred within her. Finally, the face resettled into something that approximated the visage that had startled the fangirl out of her infatuation as she wheezed out, “Yen, I think I kowtow at your feet.”

 

Yen nodded coolly. “Yes I think I did a rather good job of not waking the two of you up when I transferred the bodies across.”

 

Mel shook her head. “I wasn’t talking about. I was talking about your courage. You… have considered what Nic is going to do to you when you meet her next right?”

 

Yen’s smile weakened. “Uh oh. But Nic, you wouldn’t…” Only to pause and gulp at the sinister (and strange) sight of the normally genki and smiling Shun, grinning evilly while punching his fist into his hand.

 

“Erm… Forgive and forget?” Suddenly from behind, Shinobu’s sensitive ears broadcasted into Yen’s brain the news of stealthy shuffling behind her. The stealthy shuffling of a certain redhead who she knew wanted to be anywhere but where he actually was at the moment. Leaping onto him, (literally since she wasn’t that fond of the idea of being too close to the Nic-in-Shun’s body) until the latter calmed down, she dragged him to the centre of the room, smiling all the while.

 

“Hello Suka-chan.”

 

“Erm… hello Yen-san, Mel-san, Nic-san.” He said quickly, bobbing his head to each of the crazed otakus. Why he was here he didn’t know but he was certain it had something to do with the contract Mitsuru had made him press his thumbprint on the day before. All he knew was that when the seniors came back, he was going to *kill* Mitsuru-sempai. Though perhaps not as much as the Nic person seemed to want to kill Yen from the killer aura Shun was emanating. Even *he* could feel it and no one had accused him of being hyper-psychic before. He just prayed that he’d get out of here alive.

 

“All right Suka-chan.” Shinobu’s face was quickly re-arranaged into the more familiar lines of a stony cold visage before he gestured towards the door. “If you please. It’s time for us to experience the Greenwood world.”

 

Gulping, Suka walked slowly towards the door, the hairs on the back of his neck rising.

 

* * *

 

“That was fun.” Yen commented wryly as she collapsed onto the lower bunk. “I didn’t think that Nagisa would actually try *that* in school today.”

 

“You handled it pretty well though.” Mel replied even as Mitsuru’s body sprawled on the floor and stared up at the ceiling.

 

“I’m sorry I can’t say the same thing about your handling of the fangirls though.” Yen grinned at the memory. “I don’t think Mitsuru usually screams and runs when they start shoving chocolates into his hands.”

 

“They were in my private space.” Mel scowled. “And I did not scream. And trust me, that went a *lot* better than band practice.”

 

Both winced in memory at the sounds that Mel had somehow managed to create and disperse throughout the entire school from the small music room tucked into one of the ends of the school.

 

Yen shuddered. “I thought an elephant was expiring on campus. Noisily.”

 

Mel sighed. “By the way, where’s Nic? Isn’t it time for us to get out of here?”

 

Yen groaned. “Don’t remind me. Shun’s brother came by with her weekly allowance. Man, I didn’t know that innkeepers made it *that* big. Last I saw of her was a pink whizz as she headed towards the manga shop someone pointed out to her. I don’t think we’ll be seeing her for a while.”

 

Mel sighed and started. “Anime annon…”

 

“Annonymous. Yes yes, I know.” Yen rolled her eyes before sitting up again and studying the table in front of her moodily.

 

“You know, after considering what I went through today” she said, slowly ticking it off on Shinobu’s fingers. “Surviving those strange junior high girls who patted me all over, boring lessons and all those extra credit assignments wonder boy does to stay ahead, the student council meetings, calculation of odds for the betting ring, dealing with Nagisa’s little plots, helping you solve the troubles of the Greenwood boarders, staying out of that fainting popstar’s way, helping out with the taekwondo club, putting up with Shinobu’s hanger-on, helping you hide from the above-mentioned fangirls, I’m way too tired to do anything else. Plus I now need a smoke. I wonder how he does it.”

 

Mel shielded her eyes. “You think *you’ve* got it bad? Mitsuru’s life ain’t a walk in the park either you know. I had to field the calls from Sho, Mitsuru’s mother, the modelling agencies and deal with the fainting popstar whom you obligingly left me with once you first caught whiff of her…” the violet eyes narrowed as they glared up at the innocent gray ones of her friend. “… and you didn’t have the decency to warn me either… remind me to get you for that one…”

 

“Hey,” Shinobu shrugged. “It seemed like something Shinobu would do.”

 

Mel chose not to reply and instead continued. “… deal with the other infatuated fangirls, band practice, dorm business, help you with Nagisa, class, solve the problems of Greenwood, help the dorm lady with the administration, exorcise the ghosts you kept pointing out, keep up with all the activities he’s signed up for and bully Suka.”

 

“I didn’t see you protesting the last duty.” Yen pointed out dryly only to have Mel shrug innocently. “It’s a dirty job but someone has to do it.”

 

“So where is ulcer boy now?”

 

One of Mel’s hands gestured vaguely towards the window. “Out with Igarashii on a date. I might be cruel, but I’m not *that* cruel.”

 

Silence reigned for a moment.

 

Yen rolled her eyes. “So you think it was a bad idea?”

 

Mel shrugged. “Don’t know. Guess it just gave us a better picture of their lives.”

 

“I wonder if this is why they agreed to the exchange so easily.” Yen mused. “Maybe they were banking on us realizing how hard their life is without the added complication of fanfic writers and deciding to  stop torturing them.”

 

“Maybe.” Mel agreed.

 

Silence reigned.

 

“Think we should stop bullying them?”

 

Yen propped her head on her chin and waited for Mel’s answer, her own brain turning the question over.

 

Both finally turned to look at each other, large grins crossing their faces. “Nah…”

 

Getting up, Yen stretched and started towards the door. “Come on. Hurry up. We’ve only a few hours left and we *are* in Japan with money *and* and understanding of Japanese. Let’s go look for Nic and have a bit of fun. Anime and manga await!”

 

Owari