Ever since she started school, Akiko was famous for never missing a day of it

Author’s Notes: Ooh, well then. I suppose I’m infamous for “extended hiatuses” now, aren’t I? Well, I promise there’ll be plenty more where this came from in the next few days. At least I hope there will be. Short as it is, this chapter is quite important in the story as it fills in a big gap between arcs and manages to tie up a few loose ends, I suppose. But make of it what you will – and I encourage constructive criticism.

This is set in the same time as the last chapter, picking up where it left off. I have no idea when the whole story is actually set. It could be any time between the eighties and the near future.

Ever since she started school, Akiko was famous for never missing a day of it. Because of this remarkable track record, her absence the day after her first transformation was stranger than it would have been in the first place. Michiko and Izumi decided, after quite a lot of protesting on Akiko’s behalf, that she could have the day off as long as it never happened again and that she got used to the side effects of being a werewolf. “They’re like period pains, but ten times more uncomfortable,” Michiko explained. “But once you’ve gone through the process a few more times, you’ll get used to it, I promise. Some people get it worse than others. You don’t seem too bad for the first time.”

“Thanks,” Akiko muttered, still half asleep. “I have a high pain threshold, after all.”

A few hours later, Akiko heard the doorbell ring from beneath her duvet. Still groggy despite sleeping for half the day, she decided not to rush downstairs as she would on any other day. Instead, she let her mother answer the door and welcome whoever it was that needed to see the Ookamis in.

“Oh, hello there Gin!” she could hear Izumi’s shrill tones from the bedroom clearer than usual. Improved hearing. I didn’t think Michiko said anything about that when she explained lycanthropy to me, she thought. It might be an advantage, after all.

“Uh, I’ve come to drop off some of Akiko’s stuff, if you don’t mind. Is she all right?” she heard Gin explain to Izumi with a hint of concern that she’d never heard before. “If she isn’t, I’ll just hand them to you.”

“No, she’s better now. You can go upstairs to see her, if you want to,” Izumi blushed, trying to keep Akiko’s newly acquired gift as much of a secret as possible. “Go right ahead!”

Hearing Gin’s irregular footsteps, Akiko got out of bed and made herself look a little more presentable. She brushed a few strands of her dark hair out of her eyes and waited by the door.

“Akiko! I’ve been worried about you, you know,” Gin remarked. “You’ve never missed a day of school ever! Why today?”

Akiko cleared her throat and led Gin to a chair. “Well, you might not believe what I’m about to tell you, but I found out something weird about me yesterday.”

“It’s not your period, is it?” Gin smirked. “Because I could have told you about that a long time ago, if it was.”

“No, worse. I’m… Gin, promise you won’t get weirded out by this,” she smiled. Looking over to Gin, she saw that her friend was as ready as she would ever be. After all, they had always trusted each other. “Yesterday… My aunt came over from her house in Wiltshire to tell me that I’m a werewolf, and it’s some sort of long running curse in our family because of some abusive suitor one of my ancestors had back in the Edo period. And the reason why I wasn’t at school today was because I didn’t feel too well. Apparently sickness is a side effect of this. Sort of like period pains, but a little more nauseous than that.”

Akiko’s confession was greeted with a shocked silence, followed by a burst of laughter on Gin’s behalf. “You’re joking, right? Please tell me you’re joking.”

Akiko shook her head. “No, it’s true. I’ll show you the next full moon, if you want to,” she smirked. “Look, I know it sounds stupid, but if you could believe me… I’d feel much better about all this.”

“Of course I believe you!” Gin shrieked. “I’m your best friend, I have to believe you whatever you say.” She paused, twirling a lock of her thick black hair around her index finger. “Would you believe me if I told you something really weird, too?” she grinned, moving closer towards Akiko.

“Of course I would, after what happened to me last night. I might not have done until then, but I’m all ears now.”

“To be honest, I’ve never told anyone about this before. Mostly because I’d completely forgotten about it until now. Akiko, I was a genie in a past life. I would have still had the powers that came with my Gift, but my master… He wished for me to be human. Oddly enough, that stripped me of all my powers, even though they should still be here.”

Akiko smiled, rather surprised with the news. “I never really thought about it, but you always seemed different from the others at school. Even so, I didn’t imagine you had such a colourful past! That’s pretty amazing, I must say,” she looked up at Gin’s prematurely tall frame. For a moment, she seemed otherworldly, her purple eyes glinting and her grin pasted across her face as if she had just heard a very dirty joke. Unexpectedly, Gin started to shake in the manner of someone who could catch a cold in seconds.

“Gin, what’s up?” Akiko cried out. “What’s going on?”

“I… I don’t know. Something weird, something very, very weird is afoot. Akiko, I…”

“You what?” she raised an eyebrow and tied her shoulder length dark hair up with a hair elastic.

As if the events of the last few days weren’t enough, something else made Akiko think twice about the world she lived in that afternoon. After Gin stopped shaking, she fell as if she had fainted. Aghast, Akiko tried to revive her, but after a few minutes of silence Gin rose back up and sprung up like a loosened coil. She jumped up into the air and stayed there, levitating. Her eyes flashed again, and her skin began to change colour, turning from mocha to light blue in the space of a just a few seconds. Her body became less flesh-like by the minute and took on the properties of smoke. She let out a gleeful squeal and floated around the room, turning from a humanoid genie into various different creatures for split seconds, chattering away to Akiko in what seemed to be a very speeded up version of her normal voice. “So, how about that?” she laughed. “I wasn’t even sure if I could do that myself. I suppose seeing as you’re part of the spirit world now, I can do this sort of thing! Even when I had a master, I couldn’t do all that shape shifting. But now…” she paused for dramatic effect, then stretched herself out so her head reached the ceiling. “Freedom!”

“Can you change back into your ordinary Gin-shape soon?” Akiko joked, still laughing in shock. “I’m getting a bit freaked by all this activity all of a sudden!”

“It must be our hormones,” Gin joked, changing swiftly back into her thirteen-year-old self. “Either that or something weird is going on. But I’d rather not think about that. It’s fun, isn’t it?”

“Yeah,” Akiko sighed. “And now I know about all this, I don’t think I’d have it any other way.”