Upside Down

"What else? Taking pictures of you two. You two were simply too cute not to do it. By the way, what time did you wake up?"

"Umm… around 3:30 A.M. ... Chi, wake up you"re hurting me." I say while nudging her trying to get her to wake up, but that makes my b.r.e.a.s.t.s hurt even worse. I can"t move because Chinatsu has an arm and leg thrown across me and is using my left breast as a pillow, which is rather painful. It would be nice if they"d stop hurting soon.

"Chi, please wake up, you really are hurting me!" I tell her while nudging her a little harder, making it feel like someone hit me in my b.r.e.a.s.t.s this time, and she finally opens her eyes. "Come on Chi, please move your head it"s really painful there."

"Chinatsu, get up, you"re hurting your sister!!" Mom snaps at Chinatsu, who quickly moves off of me.

"Sornee, I"m so sorry! I didn"t mean to hurt you!"

"It"s okay. It isn"t like you did it on purpose and it didn"t bother me until I woke up, so don"t worry about it."

I need to remember to ask the doctor about this. Of course, he might not have any answer either, but it"s worth a shot.

"What time did you two go back to bed?"

"Uh, around 5 A.M. or so. Sornee woke up hungry and thirsty, then she wanted to take a bath. We talked a bit when we came back to my room though, so it was probably around 6:30a.m. when we finally went to sleep."

She reaches over and turns the clock to face us, it"s already 11:15?

"You let us sleep in? Didn"t you have things you wanted us to do today?"

"It"s okay Chinatsu, it"s not like there is a set time for it. We have plenty of time. Okay, you two get up, go wash your faces, and get dressed. Lunch will be ready in a half an hour. Sora, if you need help getting dressed, don"t be shy and ask one of us for help."

When I sit up, my b.r.e.a.s.t.s move. "Ah! Oww!" I cry out in pain, grabbing my b.r.e.a.s.t.s to stop them from moving. What the h.e.l.l? Why are they so painful today?

"Sornee?!"

"Sora, what"s wrong?!" Mom and Chinatsu both ask me. Mom kneels down beside me looking worried.

"My b.r.e.a.s.t.s really hurt Mom. It felt like someone stabbed me in them when I sat up."

"I hate to make you move when it hurts so bad, but you have to let go, so I can take your nightgown off to see what is going on."

I nod and raise my arms. Oww! Even moving my arms hurts them! Mom delicately pulls my nightgown over my head and I slowly put my arms back down. d.a.m.n it! This really hurts! What the h.e.l.l?!

"Mom?!!"

"I see Chinatsu. Sora did your b.r.e.a.s.t.s hurt like this when you woke up last night?"

"No, they were tender when Chi washed me last night, but it was nothing like. Ah!!!" I gasp out again and grab my b.r.e.a.s.t.s again as tears start streaming from my eyes as if someone had opened a floodgate.

"Sora?…Sora?!"

I can hear Mom talking to me, it"s just the pain is bad enough that I can"t answer her. h.e.l.l, I can barely breathe right at the moment. Desperately, I try to take a deep breath and it"s pure, unadulterated agony when I do so. It feels like someone has poured gasoline on me and lit it.

"Eiji!!!!!!!!! Get up here right now, something"s wrong with Sora!!! I hear Mom scream for Dad and Chinatsu crying. I want to comfort her, but I can"t move. All I can do is pant shallowly. Even so, doing that little is absolute torture.

As the "thump, thump, thump" of Dad running up the stairs comes closer, Chinatsu"s tear-ridden, panic-filled expression is the last thing I see before everything goes dark.

◇ ◆ ◇ ◆ ◇ ◆ ◇

"Nnn~ Mom? Chi? Where are you?" I ask and blearily look around me, but for some reason my eyes don"t want to focus.

"Thank G.o.d, you finally woke up."

I see a blurry image come around the edge of a... curtain? It"s Chinatsu"s voice though, I"d have to be deaf not to recognize it. I blink my eyes several times and the image starts to clear up some. I move my arm to lever myself into a sitting position and Chinatsu holds me down by my shoulders.

"Don"t do that, they have you on pain killers."

Ah, so that"s why I feel so dopey. Well, on the plus side, I"m not hurting right now.

"Chi… What happened? How long have I been here this time?"

"Sornee you scared us to death."

"Why won"t you answer my questions?"

"Mom asked me not to. She said she wanted to be the one to talk to you."

"Ah, okay. Are you alright Chi?"

"Don"t worry about me. I"m fine now that you"re awake again." She says that, but now that my vision has cleared up I can see the tear stains on her face.

"Come here Chi, I want you to cuddle with me." I tell her while holding my arms open for her. She looks at the IV in my arm on her side and walks around to the other side before crawling into bed with me, snuggling up close, and laying her head on my shoulder. "I"m sorry Chi. I know you were scared. I"m okay now. See, you can touch me and it doesn"t hurt." As I"m saying this, I take her hand, place it on my breast, and add a little pressure to show her it doesn"t hurt anymore.

I let go of her hand, roll over on my side to face her and reach around her to pull her a little tighter against me. "It"s okay now. I"m awake and not in pain anymore. I promise you, I"m not going anywhere. We still have all those things to do together we talked about before we fell asleep, remember?"

"Mhmm. I"ll hold you to that promise."

When I hear the door open and close, I turn my head toward the sound and see Mom come around the curtain.

"Hi Mom."

"Sora! You"re finally awake! How do you feel? Chinatsu, get out of the bed and stop bothering your sister!"

"I asked her to cuddle with me, she isn"t bothering me at all. Besides, I feel fine now, no pain at all. How long have I been here this time? Do they know what happened?"

Mom looks at me as if thinking. "You remember they took blood from you before we left the hospital?"

I nod. How could I forget?

"Well, they thought the nanites would disintegrate when they finished your change. That turns out not to be the case. They are still active and that"s what caused this. I don"t know if you noticed or not, but your b.r.e.a.s.t.s are quite a bit larger than they were."

I look down at my chest, not that I can tell much since I have Chinatsu tight against me. Well, it doesn"t really matter, I"ll check later, Chinatsu is far more important to me than how big my b.o.o.bs are anyway.

"Okay, that answers that question, but how long have I been here?"

"Three days."

"Oh my, only three days this time? Seems I"m getting better at this." I say ironically and laugh.

"It"s not funny young lady!"

"No, it isn"t Mom, but it"s either laugh or cry and truthfully, I"m absolutely sick of crying."

Even so, I can still feel my eyes getting hot regardless of what I want. I squeeze my eyes closed to try to hold back the tears while taking several deep breaths. Mom sits down behind me and rubs my back.

"I"m sorry Sora. I shouldn"t have snapped at you like that. It isn"t your fault and you"re the one going through the worst of this. I"ve just been so worried."

"It"s alright Mom. Umm… Are they going to release me anytime soon?"

"The doctors said they don"t want you to leave the hospital until they know more about what the nanites are doing. Your father wasn"t having any of that though. He told them they may never know what they are programmed to do and that you aren"t a lab rat. He said when you woke up and felt up to it you were going home, whether they liked it or not. If he had to he would kick all their a.s.ses and carry you out of here."

While imagining Dad doing that, I start laughing. That sounds exactly like something he would say and do. "Does that mean I can leave then?"

"Not quite yet. Let me call a nurse to have them take you off the painkillers and then lets see how you feel. I don"t want to take you home simply to have to bring you right back because you started hurting like that again. Okay?"

I nod while thinking "I want to go home. I hate this place." Although, that brings up another question. "Umm… Why do they have me on painkillers if I was out?"

"Until they put you on painkillers you were thrashing around so much they were afraid you were going to hurt yourself."

"Uh, okay... I suppose that makes sense."

"Alright, I"m going to go to the nurses" station and tell them and then I"m going to go find your father. See you soon girls."

She pats my hip gently and gets up to leave. In the interim, I"m going to enjoy cuddling with my favorite person.