Adapting: The Adventures Of Kiki-Chan

Chapter 2
A New Bishonen in town (Week 2 and 3)

Chapter Description: Michael starts adapting to his new Japanese life. His physical changes start becaming notorious from second to third week, where he passes from being a Caucasian chubby boy to a complete Japanese bishonen.

I spent Sunday sleeping and recovering from the hangover. At night, they woke me up to have dinner. Fortunately, most of the women of the house were in my same situation. I sat next to madame Hiru, unable to look at her in the eyes. Of course, I was proud for having gotten laid with her, but also confused. Hiru told me I’d have to start taking my classes at Monday, and she had fixed everything about my enrollment. I sadly noticed the absence of Nodoka from the table. Nothing interesting happened after the dinner, but when I was in the bed ready to sleep, I heard something coming from the garden; there, I could see the silhouettes of the three girls from the pond. They seem to be like crying, or whispering something, encircling like a witches dance. Japanese stuff.

Next day, the taxi driver took me to my fist University class. I was wearing the uniform madame Hiru gave me, so I looked as a Japanese student… except for my huge phyisque and my blonde short hair. As I supposed, it was not a great University; actually, I was living in a small city, so University was more like an American High-school, in terms of size and professionalism. It was quite little, but with a good teachers plant. Students are too different from the American ones, and different than the ones of the Japanese movies and anime. Boys are clumsier, not that handsome, mistrusted and shy. Girls are shorter than the ones on the animes; some of them had dyed their hair in odd colors; well, most of them look cute, because of the Asian features and that all. That’s what it matters.

The Principal introduced me to the classroom; Japanese students are polite and kind, but not that friendly, especially to a Caucasian, bad Japanese speaker, and huge guy like me. I could not catch great information from the classes, so I was quickly catalogued as the dumb American guy in the classroom. At the recess, a group of other careers students laughed at me, mocking me in some weird dialect. I didn’t make many friends; the only one I befriended was Hokuto, a nerdy chubby girl that speaks English better than I speak Japanese. She is obsessed with American music, so we talked for hours; actually she doesn’t know that I am obsessed with Japanese music.

My first week in school passed quickly, since I spent most of my time trying to understand the language and schedules, and I couldn’t think in other things. Now I’m slowly getting used to my new life. At home, the geisha maids do most of the housework, so I only have to worry about studies. Usually the dinner is lonely, unlike the first day; days passed until I can see again madame Hiru. She shows herself interested in my duties, but something tells me that she is feigning. We don’t talk too much, since she knows I am too busy for that. Sometimes, after midnight, the maids’ noises wake me up; I spy from upstairs, and then I see the geishas crowd on front of the door. Madame Hiru, splendidly dressed, gets in, holding in her arms something that looks like a baby, and then she delivers it to the maids. Naturally, I don’t dare to ask about those night rituals; I only act like nothing has happened.

School is going better; I can participate more in the classes, and even talk to some of the classroom girls. They seem to have fun talking with me, but I don’t know what the reason is, if I’m funny, or if I do speak Japanese that bad. I no longer talk to Hokuto now; she’s kinda dumb.

Saturday I woke up and went to the bathroom, looking myself into the mirror. What I saw surprised me: My hair tips were lightly dyed in black. First I thought it was a kind of prank, so I went back to my room and inspected the pillow, but it didn’t revealed anything suspicious. Later I returned to the bathroom and analyzed the shampoo bottle; it was on Japanese writing, and I had to go for a dictionary to decipher the ingredients. It took me about 2 hours, but I found nothing on it that American shampoos don’t contain. That weekend I didn’t get out of my room; I spent the weekend studying, hoping to impress my classmates next week. At the end, I was too tired from studying, that I didn’t worry about my physical appearance.

It was Monday and I woke up again. When I looked myself into the mirror, I almost didn’t recognize me: My square head had decreased and gotten lighter. I hadn’t shaved in all weekend, but beard had only barely grown up. And, most of all: My hair was now straight and smooth, and completely black. I shouted loud, in panic, and soon Nodoka entered my room, she asked: “Are you ok?”

But when she looked my new appearance, she closed her eyes and turned round, seemingly devastated. I followed her downstairs, but I lost my balance quickly: I realized my body was lighter now. At the end of the stairs there was Miss Hiru, looking at me as I lay in the floor.

“Hello, mister Barrows; it seems you are adapting”.

Her words made me go breathless: “Why do I look like this now?”

Miss Hiru helped me to get up, and as she walked me to the hall, where she told me: “aren’t you an anthropologist? Remember a scientist must adapt to its surround”.

I didn’t understand, and of course I remained terrorized, but she finished: “Well, perhaps when you come back to America maybe those changes will rebuke”, and smirking at me, “but, I think they will help you to meet more friends as you are now in Japan”.

I couldn’t have breakfast; I had a strange feeling on my stomach. I talked to nobody until I arrived to school. Girls had seemingly token more care from me; now I noticed them spying me and giggling, whispering their opinions about me. In the first three days, maybe my new appearance had favored me: Boys seemed to be interested in me, and we talked about some things –movies, models, food-, but the best was that the girls started inviting me to parties and dates. At Thursday, I looked at myself into the mirror: Now my look was different than the start of the week. My head was now getting oval, beard and mustache were almost totally exiled from my face; my eyes had turned blue, my hair was growing up quickly, and my clumsy and well-built body had been replaced with a slender and stylish body. But I still looked somewhat like me… My proportions and hands had gotten finer, but they were still mine; my features were now about one half Caucasian and half Asian, making me look like a Death Note character.

I didn’t see Madame Hiru in the whole week, maybe because I was too busy in the outside, on dates and studying sessions with my female schoolmates. At home, the geisha maids were constantly talking about “how handsome I was getting”. When they asked Hokuto about it, she answered “yes, you’re right”, with a tone of consternation and deep pain. I didn’t care much about that… Woman pain is woman pain. I was getting too much fun with the girls of my classroom, and I wouldn’t come home to face more troubles than the ones I had at school.

Next Monday I woke up for my third week at the Japanese University. My look in the mirror was now the one of a complete bishonen: I was a handsome Japanese boy, and the sexiest boy in school. All my Caucasian features had disappeared, and I had became a slender, oval-faced and fine-featured Japanese male; my hair was perfect, of course, and it had grown up enough to caress my shoulders (instead of the spiky flat top American-boy hair I sported when I arrived to my new home). I looked younger than my age, but it was maybe because Asian people age slower than American people.

Schoolboys were fighting for my friendship; my Japanese speak had improved greatly, perhaps because of the self-confidence I had developed. And girls surrounded me at every hour, comparing me to the J-Rock artists and famous and sexy Japanese boys. After two days I had an official girlfriend: Katsuri, one of the prettiest girls in school. At Friday I went to a concert with her, I took her to dinner and we finished making love in her house.

They were my best times in Japan. Until next time I saw Madame Hiru.

TO BE CONTINUED