"Sure, I'm an Insomniac, but it doesn't count. All I remember is being born."
The girl on the couch, Yamano Akari, was sixteen years old, brunette, and showing a truly distracting amount of leg. She also really did seem to remember traversing the birth canal. Not something a girl of her age would normally be able to recall in such vivid detail, and the typical newborn wouldn't have the vocabulary to describe it.
Sitting properly in the chair next to the couch, Kurobe Asuha tried not to think of her patient as a classmate, even though both of them were wearing the white & teal sailor-style school uniform of the Chiyoda Ward Research Hospital and School for Girls. (Asuha's was currently hidden underneath her white lab coat.) She forced herself to take proper notes as the brunette gave a painstakingly detailed account of her Insomniac memories, complete with gesticulation and sound effects.
On a separate sheet of paper that was not part of the interview, Asuha tried to work out a method for asking the other girl out without violating professional ethics. And without abusing her position as vice president of the student council. Since the school and hospital budgets were both decided by the student council, it was actually a really important job.
And... and... that was a flash of panties. Pink panties. The brunette was lying prone on a couch with her feet facing directly away from the chair Asuha was sitting in. How in the name of anything had she just seen panties?
Asuha was wearing panties. Barring extraordinary circumstances, she did so every day. But her own body just didn't excite her the way other girls did. It wasn't that she wasn't cute. She was. It wasn't that she didn't put effort into her appearance. She did. And she was more than a little girl-crazy, but her own reflection just didn't do anything for her and never had.
Perhaps if she imagined that the girl on the couch was a physical copy of herself? Asuha attempted the overlay in her mind. Hair snow-white instead of brown. Pink eyes in the place of amber. Lightly tanned skin bleaching out to Asuha's paler tone. She imagined the girl getting shorter, less muscular. The starched collar of the girl's sailor uniform blouse wouldn't fit Asuha's smaller cup size. From her position here, she'd be able to see...
Asuha had stopped writing. As her pen drifted closer to her crotch, she looked over at Akari to get a better reference for her fantasy-
Tits. Tits in her face. Clothed, but large, round, and very close. When had that girl gotten up? When had she moved at all? Asuha couldn't recall. There was no way she could imagine her way out of this position, not that it had been working. Asuha let out a completely undignified squeal.
"Oh, you like these? Here, take a closer look!"
Akari pulled Asuha into a hug, sandwiching her face quite comfortably between the larger girl's chest pillows. Asuha tried to think of what she had done to end up in this situation. It was actually really nice. Was she wearing perfume- No! She mustn't accept this!
Completely unprofessional!
If she were being honest with herself, Asuha's attempts to free herself were halfhearted at best. The larger girl seemed to sense this, and gently stroked Asuha's hair.
"Easy there, Doctor. I'm not mad. You've just been going about this all wrong. What were you hoping to learn from a girl who remembers being born literally this morning? What good are memories of the way things aren't? There are so much better questions in this world."
Like what? Asuha did not ask. Anything she might have said would have been muffled by the other girl's breasts, and she was obviously making a pitch. In fact, this was probably the real reason Akari had agreed to be interviewed. The brunette bent her face down to just above Asuha's ear, then whispered...
"Where do babies come from?"
Asuha's eyes widened. How could she ask such a basic question? Medicine had understood for at least a century now that it involved a sperm and an egg-
"How many pregnant girls have come to this hospital high school in the last few months? Plenty, right?"
Asuha nodded. She was no gynecologist, but as a member of the student council, she would've heard if the numbers were abnormal for the population they served.
"Why is that? Men, women, children and even newborns all became high school girls this morning, but everyone who was pregnant then still is."
And why not? Asuha didn't see anything wrong with that. Assuming the Insomniacs were right, then for the same reason that she and others at the hospital were fully qualified professionals while still being in high school, women who were pregnant, regardless of their age, would still be pregnant as teens.
"Why is that? Our bodies, our minds, even our possessions and records, everyone in this country is the same. Just because somebody is pregnant, that alone didn't change? Doesn't that sound suspicious?"
The girl loosened her grip, and Asuha said the first thing that she thought of.
"It's not like boys don't exist..."
The girl frowned at her.
"If you put aside the Insomniac view, there have been so few boys in Japan these last sixteen years that all of them are today either dead or overseas. When you think that there are a normal number of pregnancies, do you think that such a ridiculously small number of males could have caused them all? How many children were born in the last year, ending yesterday?"
This, Asuha knew. "Almost none, of course. Nearly our entire population is female, and we've all been too young. That's why the birthrate has been low and infant mortality has been 100%- wait, no. That kind of mortality is unthinkable with modern medicine."
"Right. On the one hand, it makes sense because up until yesterday, we had normal demographics. On the other hand, it makes sense because for sixteen years, there've been almost no boys at all. If our hospital school had technology to get around that, you who are on the Student Council certainly would have heard of it. We're not hermaphrodites. If our bodies produced semen, we'd surely be aware of something like that. And yet, somehow suddenly we have pregnancies without boys, because the world changed in a way that barely anyone can remember or prove, and our only explanation relies on that selfsame mass delusion. Is that the kind of magical thinking you want to subscribe to, as a member of the student council of a hospital school?"
It was pretty clear where the pitch was going now. Asuha shook her head as was expected.
"Either our very few absent and recently deceased boys are all Mega-Playboys, or there's another way to make babies that we don't know about. Doctor, that other way is what we need to discover."
"-and the office of the Prime Minister of the National Student Diet has indicated that the air travel ban and quarantine of all Japanese ports is likely to continue into a second day. In a prepared statement, a spokesgirl reiterated that these are emergency measures. The government intends to lift them in full once the concerns of the international community have been assuaged."
The other newscaster rolled her eyes. "'Like, other nations speaking. We just noticed you all girls, so tits or GTFO.'"
The lavender-haired girl nodded. "I know, and believe me we all feel that way, but it's important to consider their perspective: That the way we've always been represents a sudden and unexplained change. It's going to take time and sustained effort by the Prime Minister and the foreign ministry before the other nations are going to stop being babies about this."
"And they are totally being babies," the blonde chirped. "That's why they want the tits."
The news carried on, as delivered by the two bimbos, playing on the restaurant's sound system and showing on a couple of television screens mounted near the ceiling, while most of the patrons ignored it.
In the before time, the restaurant had probably been a bar. Technically it still was, with a long bar counter and small booths lined up along the walls and by the windows. Behind and under the bar, however, there was not a drop of alcohol, instead being stocked with teas, sodas, creams, syrups, ice creams, sorbets, and all manner of additives. At some point, Minori had heard that their parfaits were almost magical.
Sitting in a booth opposite Minori, Honoka forced herself to smile and tried not to fidget too obviously.
"It's funny... Even though this is kind of like a date, I don't feel nervous at all."
Minori looked back at her with earnest blue eyes. "It's my first date, too. I hope you don't mind that it's a little weird."
"Is this weird? I mean, I know you're also an Insomniac, but you're basically the only person I've talked to all day without having to keep two sets of memories separate inside my head."
"I guess I can relate to that, even though my case is kind of the opposite. It's not as if I don't like the friends that I have in this version of the world, but the idea that I didn't know any of them before today has kind of put me on edge. Like... my relationships with those people, I almost feel like I didn't do anything to deserve them."
"Okay, that is weird. It's a weird thing to think. Everybody deserves to have friends, Minori, especially a cute girl like you."
Minori blushed at the compliment. "Senpai... I'm glad you think that way. If I'm still Minori tomorrow, I hope that we can become really good friends, and maybe more than friends."
Honoka's eyes widened. "If you're still Minori? Why would you be anyone other than yourself?"
"You didn't know me before today, but that's because I was somebody who had no chance of meeting you. I was somebody who shouldn't have met you, who you wouldn't have wanted to meet. Not a bad person, just... somebody with no value." Minori's eyes teared up. "Yesterday, I wasn't Minori! What if tomorrow is the same?"
"Oh..." Honoka paused. "You're right. I hadn't even thought of that."
Minori's gaze started to dart, and she looked like she was starting to hyperventilate. "M- maybe the world is a place that changes- radically and unpredictably- like this all the time, and it's only- only a coincidence that we happened to notice j- just this once. What if nothing is real, Senpai? What if nothing will ever be real?"
"Minori, calm down!" Honoka slammed her palms on the table, drawing gazes from every table in the restaurant. Blushing, she muttered an apology, then got up from her seat, slid next to Minori, and pulled the younger girl into a hug.
"It's okay to be scared, Minori. Even though the world changed, you and I are both still here. We remember both worlds, and even if everything else about that is scary and confusing, those memories brought us together. Our being here like this, and the connection we're making as fellow Insomniacs, that's how we know that our memories are real."
Minori snuggled deeper into Honoka's arms. "Senpai, I... It would be weird to kiss on the first date. Is it okay if we stay like this for a while?"