Alternate Dimension special: Riding the Train With Kids (Part 1)

This happened between the birth of Kotomi’s second and third child, so this pre-dates the day when everyone was turned into a young woman. Kotomi had asked me to take care of them for her as if they were mine, but she also told me to make sure that the children would still see her as their mother instead of me. Officially, this was to free up Kotomi’s time for work, but I have a feeling that she does not want to take care of them. Why does she want children if she does not want to take care of them? I think she did say something of having someone to succeed her, but because she is a female, the children has to come from her body, a painful process she does not want to go through again.

At infant stages, children are the most annoying things to take care of, but Kotomi’s children are oddly well behaved and not annoy their parents. They had always been that way since they were born. So much so that doctors thought they were stillborn during their birth. I wonder if Kotomi’s body being modified way back at her own birth had an effect on how her children behaves at behaves. Until she realized this, there was some kind of limiter that prevented her from knowing what her children’s genders are, which also means she can’t see them as nothing more than a fuzzy presence, and any external references to them that are gender-specific seems censored to her, but she seems to know which child in question is being referred to.

Since she can’t tell what her children’s genders are because of this, she assumed the opposite of what they actually are, and all attempts to correct her have failed. Kotomi wanted her son to be manly, but since she is persuading this to her daughter instead (she is aware of her mom’s condition through me), the daughter ignores her mother, and gives away any men-only things she receives, though that alone has made her less feminine than other girls. Borderline tomboyish, but with the strong female influence in the family (including her brother’s behaviour and her father frequently turning into a woman for work), did not go too far in that direction as the male influence is weak.

On the other hand, the son accepts everything he gets from her, including the feminine clothes she gave him. Even Kotomi herself treated him like a girl and teach him things that are commonly associated as “girl’s things”. You should look at her reaction when she realized that she has been treating the very son she wanted to be manly had became too much like a girl that it became a part of his behaviour from teaching him all the girl things from when she couldn’t see his gender: her face had a “what monster have I created?” kind of expression. By this time, it is common to see him in female clothing, even prior to enrolling into Mizuho Academy: it was too late to fix this. It didn’t help that this also happened at a time where a lot of men had already been turned into girls and had become socially acceptable for males to do and wear female things as preparation for the inevitable forced transformation by an unseen force. As me saying this five years after the final transformations, I had to admit that the impact is minimal.

So, to those who are reading this before that happened, you are probably wondering what is my world like? Well, you can say it looks like a yuri (female homosexuality) paradise where there is nothing but beautiful young women that can feel lust when they see each other. They can only love another person more, or simply no change to it: there is simply no concept of hate for post-evolution people. They can now also fall in love with another woman the same way as they would for men.

It may sound like some men’s dreams come true, but the reality is that, with all men extinct, and nobody being able to get older, it is a nightmare for anyone who has lived before the evolution. The concept of family is gone with everyone looking like girls of the same age, and how we reproduce changed completely to adapt to our new single-gender human race. However, as our female instincts has not changed fundamentally with the evolution, we do react when we see males, but the instincts are trying to activate a function in our body that was removed or modified with the evolution, resulting in a “playback loop” as the instinct tries to maintain what we feel while it tries to activate a missing function over and over for infinity. However, when trying a new attempt, it forgets previous attempts and assumes existing feeling as normal feelings that isn’t influenced by the new feeling that is to be introduced. This means what we feel when we see men can’t be stopped, and if we see men again, it would be added on top of what we already feel prior to seeing the image, amplifying the feeling to seemingly no end.

We have evolved to become nothing but beautiful women that can feel lust when we see each other, which itself can drive pre-evolution females that were “straight” to go insane. On top of that, the only moods our body can express are only happy, neutral, and sad: we can’t express anger at all, on top of not being able to express hate mentioned earlier. What has our world become? It’s like someone has poisoned everyone, but there’s no one but nature (and that weird doll I encountered before) that did this to us. I hate to say this, but it seems that our world has turned out this way, permanently, without a way to revert this.

So, let me begin my story here before I get distracted…

*****

It was one of those days where Kotomi and Itsuki were both somehow not at home for days, and the kids are bored at home with nothing interesting to do. We normally go to places by car, but those cars are not available. Then I realized that they had probably not taken the train before. How could I not realize this when I used to take trains a lot myself?

I don’t think the kids have been to the country’s capital before. It can be reached from here via a commuter train, but far enough to not really want to commute there on a daily basis. Well, they eventually have to do it on their own when they go to school.

The nearest station is within walking distance. Fortunately, it is not one of those small or unstaffed stations as those are more complicated to explain, which can confuse a newbie. By that, I mean stations that have an automatic ticket barrier, platforms that aren’t on the ground level, and sufficient shelter from the strong winds during thunderstorms.

[Author’s note: I have written a dedicated page on this blog on how to ride the trains and buses in Japan.]

I have a contactless ticket with me with sufficient value, but since I am showing the kids how to buy them, I shouldn’t this time. Since I am also going to show them what to do if they are at a station further than what the cost of the card would allow, I would buy one of the cheapest tickets.

To determine which ticket to purchase, consult the system map above the ticket machine, with the current station highlighted. The numbers next to the station names are the adult fares per person, with children’s fare being half of that rounded up to the nearest 10 yen. Stations not listed are usually operated by a different operator, or require you to head to the manned counter. The machine accepts cash of all denominations, except the 5 and 1 yen coins and, for older ones, 5000 and 10000 yen notes too. We are located at the edges of that map, with the stations within the capital being in the middle. Although transfers to other lines along the way is required, we don’t have to go through a ticket barrier to get there from another platform.

The order of selecting the fare needing to be purchase doesn’t matter, but on older ticket machines, the money has to be inserted first before the fares that you can afford appears. I gave each them a 10000 yen bill to let them buy for themselves, teaching them how to use it. I advised them to use as much coins from the change as they can for the next purchase if they don’t want having too much coins weighing them down. I let them keep the change.

After the purchase of the tickets, we head up to the platforms. This station has only one line that isn’t a terminal station, so it’s not that hard to figure out. However, if the tracks are in the middle, or transfer to a terminus of a line at a busy station, you have to pay attention to the signs, particularly the latter as they can change. Even at the platform itself, you have to take note what kind of train is arriving: it can be a train that stops at all stations, or an express train that doesn’t. Sometimes a non-service train (like an off-service or freight) or an express train that doesn’t stop at the station could pass by, which can create a turbulence, loud noise, and is dangerous if you stand too close to one of those trains, which would be announced beforehand. Depending on the station itself, a train of a different line or direction could arrive at your platform. There could also be trains of varying number of carriages that are shorter than the platform itself.

The train that arrived stopped has stopped near us, around where the access to the platform is, occupy most of the platform, with most of the gap between the ends of the train and the edge of the platform being at the rear end of the train: furthest away from the entrance. Judging from the crowd that was alighting and waiting to board, it seems that the passenger load is unevenly distributed, with the front being the most crowded, the rear being relatively empty. I think people go to the rear because of the crowd at the front, or were at stations where that part of the train is the most convenient entrance for them. The children got excited when they entered the train, though I could see other passengers being annoyed by the presence of the children.

Then the kids noticed that the train driver and station staff were doing some hand movements while looking around, sometimes appearing to talk to themselves, all of which looked almost like military drills. The daughter noticed that one of the staff press a button at the end of the platform that plays a melody before the door closes. I told her that is the signal to the driver to begin departing, and the music to warn the passengers that the door will close when the music stops.

Then we reach a station where we have to transfer to a different line, which is more crowded. As we alighted, the children thought we had reached the capital because of how long it had taken, but I explained to them that the train line we were on from homey does not go there, but does stop at stations that interchanges with another line that would eventually lead us to the capital. I added that as long as that line we are transferring to is operated by the same operator or by special arrangement, we would not need to buy another ticket. Sometimes, this could mean having to leave a paid area and entering another due to a lack of a paid link between the two, but you should check beforehand to avoid finding out having to buy another ticket. We didn’t have to go through that at any station we transfer at.

As we waited for the next train, Kotomi’s son noticed the “women only” sign along parts of the platform that included where we are. I told him that there are carriages dedicated to women only due to frequent cases of women being inappropriately touched by men, particularly when the train would be crowded. We are currently outside the timings when this would be in effect, so males could go in too. The signs and the interior of the carriage, however, does have that female atmosphere to it. Having fewer men than usual than the other carriages could possibly mean that men could simply be unaware of the timings and just avoided them completely.

(In retrospect, I wonder if entering this women only carriage despite being outside stipulated times was a contributing factor to why Kotomi’s son had developed fememine behaviour.)

The closer we got to the capital, the more dense the buildings get, though the towns in between and places where there are older buildings from a time where the place was less developed still stands in an otherwise developed area confused me. While houses in remote areas of Japan looks a lot better than a wooden house of a developing country, it is easy to tell from the density: single houses that are far apart from each other, to several low-rise buildings together, and then you would notice more buildings that are also getting taller and taller, and grander.

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