Shrieks of joy coming out of Watari Yutaka’s lab caused wise Ministry employees to take swift cover. The Shokan Division, though, had no such hope of easy escape and when they heard the sound of glee approaching the office, they simply braced themselves, waiting for fate to descend upon them.
Fate, today, took the form of Watari himself flinging the office door open and standing in it, panting and disheveled, face alight. “I did it! I did it!“
“Ah. What did you do, Watari?” Tsuzuki asked, looking around cautiously for lurking inventions.
Watari burst into delighted laughter, and Tatsumi just stared. Specifically, he stared at the sole remaining button holding closed the front of Watari’s lab coat over a chest that was suddenly a distinctly different shape. As far as he could tell, not that he was looking very closely of course, the lab coat was all Watari was wearing. “Everyone be quiet,” he commanded, adding, “Watari, try not to breathe.”
“Huh?”
“What?”
“Tatsumi-san what are you talking about?”
Fate being what it was around this Division, the button chose that moment to give up its battle with a pop, spilling Watari’s breasts into full view.
Tatsumi put a hand over his face. It was only the polite thing to do, and besides he felt a headache coming on. Fast.
“Wow, they’re so big and soft! I’m jealous!”
“Now, Yuma, you know he… um, she’s going to have to deal with the Bra Problem because of that, try to have some sympathy too.”
“But Waka-chan, Yutako’s got such good proportions, I mean, look, isn’t this nice and firm just the way it should be?”
“Isn’t it? It’s so wonderful that I got everything right this time!”
“Isn’t it?”
A cascade of giggles.
“Now, um, how do you do this again?”
“Well, first you sit down. Now, um… well… just try to relax okay?”
“… oh! Oh wow!”
Tatsumi turned up the water as high as it would go while he washed his hands and resolved to get double insulation installed between the men’s and women’s restrooms that very afternoon. There were some things that weighed more heavily than money, and his sanity was one of them.
“So… he’s a woman?” Terazuma sat and stared while his partner tried to show Watari how to walk in heels and a snug skirt.
“Seems to be,” Kurosaki-kun said, signing off on another sheet and adding it to his Out box. “He’s awfully happy about it, too.”
Tsuzuki, of course, was doing nothing so productive. “Hey, how about this one?” He held up a glossy magazine, showing a full-page spread of a woman with her hair carefully drawn into a loose braid that draped over one bare shoulder.
Wakaba shook her head with the air of a connoisseur. “No, no; it might not look like it, but that would take way too long to do every morning.” She frowned. “Um. How many mornings, do you think, Yutako-san?”
Watari leaned against a desk and scratched—Tatsumi adjusted his pronouns—her nose. “Well…” Her eyes lit up. “Oh, I know a test I haven’t tried yet!” She tottered across the office and threw her arms enthusiastically around Terazuma.
Terazuma’s eyes barely had time to widen before a rush of magic filled the room and a howling, black beast stood on the wreckage of his desk.
“Watari-san!” Wakaba put her hands on her hips and glared.
“Sorry.” Watari didn’t look very sorry, beaming from the floor where he… she’d been dumped.
Tatsumi was starting to think he’d need something a good deal stronger than aspirin to get through this day.
Watari had finally calmed down enough to do a little of… her paperwork, everyone else had gone home, and Tatsumi was daring to hope the worst was past when the Chief poked his head in, cautiously. “Watari-kun. A memo came for you.” He frowned, looking worried. “You’re summoned before Enma-daiou tomorrow at noon.”
Watari was very still for a moment before she went and took the paper from the Chief’s hand. “Okay. Thank you.”
Tatsumi didn’t think he was supposed to hear the Chief ask, very softly, “Are you going to… be all right?”
Expressions flickered across Watari’s face, bleak and then thoughtful and then wry. “I hope so.”
Konoe-san patted Watari on the shoulder and left them alone again.
“Is there anything wrong I should know about?” Tatsumi murmured after a few minutes of silence, because he didn’t pry into employee’s lives, but there was a time for everything. A silent Watari hinted that this might be a time for asking.
Watari’s back, slimmer than it had been, straightened. “Yes.” She sounded resolute, and the gleam in her eyes as she turned and stalked back to stand in front of Tatsumi was familiarly disturbing. “I need you to take me to bed, Tatsumi-san.”
It took a few moments for Tatsumi to get his voice to work. “You what?”
Watari slid her arms around his shoulders and pressed close, and Tatsumi suddenly had no trouble at all recalling that Watari was currently she. “I need you to take me to bed right now, please.” Her tone was firm, but that was desperation he heard making the words quick instead of the usual rather manic enthusiasm.
Tatsumi frowned and took Watari’s shoulders, setting her a little away. “If you want me to do this, I think you need to tell me why,” he said quietly.
Watari opened her mouth and then shut it, and bit her lip. “Look,” she said finally, voice low, “some of it I can’t tell you, you don’t have the clearance, and some of it would put you in a lot more danger to know, but…” Her eyes met his, dark and determined. “I need the experience of being a woman. All of it, or as much as I can get. I need the physical, emotional, spiritual memory, and this is the most immediate way I can think of.” She pursed her lips and added, “Short of getting pregnant, and I don’t think I could manage that fast enough.”
Tatsumi adjusted his glasses. “I am not getting you pregnant, Watari. We’re much too short-staffed to be able to afford maternity leave for you.”
To his relief, she laughed, some of the ragged edge easing out of her voice.
“Why me?” he asked, more gently.
Watari blinked at him and then smiled. “Because I like you, Tatsumi.”
And there really wasn’t anything he could say to that. So instead he carefully put an arm around her waist, drawing her close again, and translocated them both to his residence.
TBC