I'm So Weak
"Woohoo!"
The moment I escaped the produce section, strength flooded back into my body. I threw my arms overhead and whooped, and every head nearby turned my way. Embarrassment hit me at once, and I lowered the hands I'd flung so high. What I'd just done had been pure attention-seeking.
"Maru, the meat section! Let's go to the meat section!"
"Okay, Hana."
Maru answered as she pushed the shopping cart. Riding along felt a little like sledding, and before I knew it we'd arrived among the meat. Pork, beef, ribs—cuts that made my mouth water just to look at them filled the display from end to end.
"Maru, I want ribeye!"
The floor of the building where I lived had a space set up for cooking, so I didn't have to go to a restaurant. I could grill it myself. Of course, if I tried to cook meat alone, Bora or Haru would hover beside me and help, insisting it was dangerous. Even so, it had been a long time, and what I wanted was the part of the beef that tasted best to me: ribeye.
"Of course, of course. If Hana wants it, we buy it!"
Maru agreed at once and dropped a package of ribeye from the display into the cart. Sitting trapped in there suddenly made me restless, so I held my arms out to her in a clear pick-me-up gesture.
"Hm?"
"Let me down from the cart!"
I was sick of sitting in it. From here on, I meant to move on my own two feet and load whatever I wanted to eat myself. Maru seemed to understand. She scooped me up and set me gently on the floor, and the moment I was free I bolted out of the meat section and ran for the snacks.
The convenience store in our building sold snacks too, but next to a big-box mart the selection was nothing. Plenty of things the convenience store didn't carry were right here. Eyes shining, I gathered an armful and tried to put them in the cart, only my arms wouldn't quite reach, so Maru helped.
She was buying something the seniors had asked her for. Office supplies they were running low on, probably. Or maybe she was restocking the snacks in the break room, since I'd already eaten every last one of those.
"Maru, can I go get more snacks?"
"Sure. But only as many as you'll actually eat! If you fill up on snacks and skip your meals, that's not allowed."
"Okaay~"
Maru and I split up for a little while, and I ran back to the snack aisle. Given the choice, I preferred the ones in paper boxes to the ones in bags. I scooped up a heap of snacks the convenience store didn't sell, asked her to put them in the cart she was pulling, and then quietly slipped away from her side.
Maru looked swamped. She didn't even notice I'd vanished. Grinning, I crept step by step into the liquor aisle. After I'd bought beer at the convenience store last time and landed myself on the watch list, I hadn't so much as looked at anything with alcohol in it.
The urge to drink, though, was very much still there. Getting my backside smacked wasn't enough to make me give up alcohol. I didn't want to get drunk, exactly. Just enough to wet my throat would do.
Back when I was an adult, having a drink whenever I met my friends was practically a virtue. Since I'd changed into this body, I hadn't managed a single sip. I'd never smoked, but if withdrawal felt like anything, it had to be this.
Smiling, I carefully picked up a single can of beer and walked slowly back to where Maru had been. The plan was to hide it in the cart. The cart was already packed with food; one little can ought to slip through unnoticed.
"Huh...?"
Something was wrong. This was definitely where Maru had been standing, but she was gone, and nothing greeted me but an empty stretch of floor. Cold sweat trickled down my back. Still, a modern person was more than used to this kind of disconnection.
And there was an easy fix. This wasn't the age of pagers. We lived in a digital era, not an analog one, so I pulled out my phone to call Maru. No ordeal was going to stop me.
"Ah!"
The phone was dead. I was sure I'd charged the battery before we left! It might as well have been broken; the black screen refused to change.
"Eh..."
In a single instant I'd become a lost child. No—I'd lost Maru. I wandered the area looking for her. The mart was huge, but if I kept walking, wouldn't I run into her? I circled and circled the store.
Maybe ten minutes passed. For no good reason, tears threatened to spill. Lost over a single can of beer... I hadn't seen that coming. Borrowing someone else's phone to call didn't work either, because I'd saved the number in my contacts and never memorized it.
Honestly, who memorizes phone numbers anymore? You save them, tap once, and the call goes through. People who still write a number out digit by digit and dial it by hand aren't exactly common.
In the end I had no choice but to reach into my clothes for my secret weapon: the emergency button I was supposed to press if I was ever kidnapped. It would instantly send my location to a linked computer and sound an alarm that I was in danger.
Do I really have to press it?
I was still agonizing over it when, far off, a familiar figure came toward me pushing a cart. I saw her clearly. Maru!
"Maru!!!"
I ran to her, overjoyed. She must have noticed I'd disappeared, because the moment I got close she abandoned the cart and pulled me into her arms. Then she gave me a tiny knuckle-knock on the head.
"Ow!"
"I told you not to wander off! And why is your phone turned off again?"
"I didn't turn it off on purpose, Maru... It's broken..."
"Really? When you vanished, my heart just dropped."
"Hehe!"
I was so happy, though, that I ended up showing Maru the one thing I absolutely should not have shown her.
"Hana, what is this?"
She plucked the beer can—flashy label and all—right out of my hand. I had no choice but to scream.
"No!!!"
Maru turned the can over, and it didn't take her long to realize it was beer.
"Hana, this is confiscated!"
"Hnnn..."
Operation Sneak-the-Beer-into-the-Cart had failed. Deflated, I had no choice but to stay glued to Maru's side. And maybe because she'd lost me earlier, she watched me far more closely than before.
Which meant slipping away again to fetch another can was never going to work. Her surveillance had become far too strict. At this rate I'd go home without achieving my goal! I stamped my feet and hunted for a solution, but against the overwhelming force of Maru's watchfulness, nothing helped.
In the end, the plan to buy a can of beer collapsed into nothing. It was fine, though. We'd bought plenty of food. I decided to call it a blessing in disguise.
"We're here!"
I climbed out of the car and spun in a circle. By now it felt completely natural that the building was my home. Nobody else my age could possibly have a house this enormous. Maru got out too, opened the trunk, and started unloading what was inside. There was so much we'd have to make two or three trips.
"I'll help!"
I stuck close to her side, ready to carry bags. Naturally, I reached for a heavy one. I'd been used to it ever since I was a man. Women took the lighter loads, and the strong men took the heavy ones. Hauling piles of luggage into the house after a holiday visit—that was simply common sense.
"Hk!"
The heavy bag did not, however, lift as easily as my heart expected. Even dragging it took so much strength it might as well have been impossible. I surrendered on the spot in front of it. Maru must have seen, because she handed me a different bag.
"Hana, could you carry this one for me?"
"Okay!"
I took the bag she was holding in both hands and heaved it up with everything I had. Compared with the one I'd chosen a moment ago, this was a feather. Then I looked back—and there was Maru, hoisting the very bag I'd failed to lift, easy as anything.
"Ah!"
Maru was that strong? When I'd tried, the thing hadn't budged, but she picked it up in one hand as if it barely cost her any effort. I hadn't really tested my strength since my body changed, and here I was, tasting defeat.
This body was hopelessly weak. Even now, the bag I was holding needed both hands before it would move. If I'd still had a man's strength, I could have lifted it with a single finger, couldn't I?
I had to haul the bags anyway, steeped in a strange sense of defeat. Later, I pictured myself downing protein and muscle supplements and hitting the gym. If I did that, maybe I could lift a load that heavy without breaking a sweat. Of course, Haru and Bora would oppose it to the death.