Story: Love Normal

 

Hi, hi, it's Suu again! So happy to meet you, so pleased we could catch up again! Now, I was going to experiment on these perception warping earrings the last time we met, yes? That's right, yes? Of course it is, of course it is! Okay! So! You're probably wondering what exactly happened there.

Well, I may or may not have broken reality. Oops!

"Ohhh nooooo!" Shinobu was wailing, hands on the side of her head, as the real nature of reality crashed into her brain like tides on the beach. "And we thought that was all normal too, but it was actually kind of weird wasn't it?"

"There there!" I patted her on the shoulder while giving her my biggest smile. "It's alright! Normal is all about perspective, and -"

"And since when was it normal for any of that?!" Shinobu asked. "Eek, it's so wrong! So much - So much premarital kissing and handholding and also I suppose the sex and harem things are also something to be concerned with. Eek!"

Of course, of course, of course that's what she was worried about. I didn't really see the issue though. To me, that wasn't too much of a problem at all. What was the big deal? I like Mister Landlord quite a bit, and it was easy to see that the other girls liked him as well, it made sense given their personalities that he would be their type.

Alas, that's not how Shinobu sees it, or so it seems. Oh well. Never mind that for now. There were more important things for us to be doing right now. Like, for example, the screaming nexus of normality I seem to have created. Oh dear. Oh dear, oh dear. While I am scientifically curious, of course, even I can recognise the need to not cause the end of the world during my studies!

No, really, I am not that insane. I hear you out there rolling your eyes, you know!

I circled around it while talking out loud. "You know, Shinobu, people find comfort in normality," I began. "No matter how strange things become, no matter the situation, people can internalise that it is normal. It's normal, it's mundane, it's nothing to be worried about. All of that can certainly be true! Quite fascinating, yes?"

"Um...?" Shinobu blinked in confusion. "Really?"

"Of course, there are limits to this," Suu said. "To us, today, the existence of the telephone and television are quite normal things, but back then? When they were invented? They were not normal. Not by a long shot! People adjusted, people adapted, and in time... the bizarre and the strange became normal, everyday without anyone really questioning it. People find comfort in normality, even when the situation could be better. Because being normal means that things are predictable. You can say that one thing or another will happen."

I paused for dramatic effect, and for no other reason.

"When something strange happens?" I continued. "It means that things are unpredictable. It means that anything could happen. A tiger might jump from the grass. A gorilla might fall from that tree. So, humans by and large do not much care for things that are abnormal you see? It is an evolved response to facilitate our survival instinct."

While speaking, I was tying a rope around my waist. Shinobu had not noticed this yet, which played to my benefit because it led into my core point. She thought it was normal that I would be speaking, and that I would be doing something like this. I tied the rope to something strong enough to hold my weight, and then told Shinobu -

"Hold onto this for me would you?" I said, offering her that end of the rope. Not the very end - a part of the rope close to that end. "I'm going to try an experiment."

And then, brooking no further questions, I jumped out of the window. Would this count as a self-defenestration? Oooh, I should find an English linguist and find out! In any event! My plan was simple enough in its execution. I wanted to test if this was as I theorised - a wall of norm-

Oh. Oh my word. Whatever was I thinking, believing that to be normal? Such a boring world where landlords don't have harems, where my good friends Naru, Mitsune and Motoko do not flaunt their hot sexy bodies for the amusement of a single man, while worshipping his penis as though it was a God?! What was remotely strange about -

I tried to get the rope off myself, remembering that the strange me, the weird me, had intended for me to be pulled back in to verify a hypothesis. No, no! I did not want to go back to that - 

"Yipe!" I squealed... and then, I was normal again. Or as normal as I can get. "Good gracious! What a surprising turn of events!"

"Suu! What in the world were you thinking?!" Shinobu yelled, while I dusted myself off, and smiled up at her again.

"It all felt perfectly like common sense," I replied. "My, my, how startling. It all seemed like I was engaging in nothing but purest common sense!"

I remembered it distinctly. The reasoning took over, but I still felt like myself. It was simply my sense of what was normal and what was not that had shifted considerably. Fascinating. So much to learn from this!"

"Suu..." Shinobu warned, her eyes narrowing considerably.

"Yes, yes, I know, I know, end of the world, cats, dogs, living together. Ghostbusters quotes from all angles," I said. "THe real problem now is - how do we resolve this without leaving the room?"

That was the truly thorny issue. Leaving the room would be bad. Very bad, stupendously monumentally bad, bad, bad! I grabbed a vine and a stick, then very cleverly used them to open the door to my room from a distance, and what did I see out there?

I beheld our landlord with his lips locked against Naru's, while the two of them were naked. She was rubbing her breasts up against his chest, while Motoko and Mitsune were each licking his fully erect penis with religious reverence. Shinobu seemed like she might faint dead away on the spot. The four of them noticed the door open a touch too late, grew flushed with embarrassment - but then I closed the door on them once again. They had already opened it from the outside once already, but now? Now I was locking the door to keep them out.

"That is not good," I said. "Not good at all. It is hard to tell where they stand."

Shinobu was wobbling on her feet, the poor dear. Clearly the sight of those friends of ours being intimate has been too much for her. The poor thing was so sheltered, did she not want to have that kind of fun herself? I certainly did - with that wonderful step-brother of mine!

Or... DidI want to feel that way? Or maybe stay young forever? It was hard to say, really. Even I didn't know which would be more fun! It sure looked like those four were enjoying themselves!

"Anyway, it's hard to say whether or not they were able to return to normal by bathing in the light of..." I gestured to the screaming void of normalcy hovering in the middle of my room. "Or if proximity is required. Either way, perhaps I should have let them enter instead of locking them out?"

"Eek! No, no, no!" Shinobu blushed. "Not like that! Not dressed like that! Oh, that was such a shock! My heart felt like it was about to burst!"

There,there, innocent little Shinobu! You adorable little thing. Ah, bless her for being so purehearted. Alas this does nothing to solve our current dilemma, does it?

However should I resolve this mess? Will perceptions of what is normal continue to shift and mutate beyond our control? Or... Perhaps I can do something about it? Decisions, decisions, tee hee~