Double Life

Chapter 3

Juvi was shaking on her way to breakfast. She now recognized that strange misfitted feeling. She was a stranger in her own body, too big and too old and too American. Even the smell of her mother's cooking seemed alien, even though her memories disagreed. She'd known this smell since she was thirteen--no. Since she was a baby.

Her mother slapped her hand that she hadn't realized had started scratching the back of her neck, where the mottled scar of her week-long coma lay. No, Jubilee's week-long coma. It had been Juvi's insomniac nightmare.

"Bad night?" she asked.

Something in Juvi's face when she turned to look at her made her mother's face pinch in worry.

"Are you alright?" She put down the bowls of rice and miso soup to better lift Juvi's face. "Your pupils are dilated, even though it's so bright. You don't look right."

Juvi scoured her mother's face. Her mother had died a long time ago, she could barely remember her face. No, Jubilee's mother had. And she'd been blond. And caucasian. This mother was Japanese, maybe with western hints but--no, Juvi's mother. Her mother. And she'd been staring at her too long.

"I remember my dreams," she said, swallowing. "They're not...they're not nice. They're not fun like you said yours are."

"Oh, dear, are you up to telling me about them now? It might help you feel better." the corner of her mother's mouth twitched, trying not to smile. "Are they full of math?"

Juvi almost smiled, because they kind of were. College calculus classes were no joke.

"I'm someone else," she said. "I'm older, I'm hurt, I'm...lonely," she paused. "Zuku's in an anime."

Her mother couldn't resist. She laughed loudly, despite it being obvious that Juvi still didn't feel all the way there.

"He would be, wouldn't he?" she said when she'd finally calmed down. "The protagonist of a hero novel, I reckon?"

Juvi's eyes ballooned. "How did you know?"

"What other story could it be? The romance of the hero-obsessed, quirkless boy?" She snorted and just kept going. "The extra-terrestrial adventures of Mr. Freckles and his Small Might plush? The mystery of the missing quirk? Actually, that last one sounds promising."

"Mooooom, be nice to my friend."

"I'm plenty nice, which is why you're getting an extra juice box to share with him on the way to school. Unless you don't feel up to it?"

Heaven knows she had good enough grades to afford it, even if none of her other subjects were quite as advanced as her mathematics.

But that would mean not seeing Zuku and verifying for her eyes that her dream's anime had become real life.

"I'm okay. Just shaky."

Even so, her mother made her promise to text her should she not get any better so she could take her straight back home on the family's moped, her mother's official ride when her father had the car at work.