The bathroom again, door locked. The stone, once again, on the sink top. Clothes? Floor. List of wishes? ...
Clothes? On. Stone? Pocket. Door unlocked. Bedroom, Backpack, History notes, then back to the bathroom.
Okay, not an elegant start to making some reality changing wishes, but that's why we write things down instead of doing them right from the top of the head, right? Right.
Jon checked all his precautions again, and they were just as in order as they had been a moment before. Which wasn't as reassuring as Jon felt it should be, but this time, he felt there wasn't anything actually being forgotten. He had drafted a lot of wishes but had settled on two.
"I wish that while I was taking a shower, I wouldn't be interrupted and no one would need to use the bathroom or otherwise disturb me, no matter how long I was taking"
There, a nice clean wish that covered all of the angles. Sharing a bathroom was frustrating and oh, boy, would this help. The second wish was more of a quality-of-life wish. This was not the first time he showered after Zoe. He knew exactly how much hot water would be left. None. Nada. Zilch. Cold showers might make Silicon Valley CEOs pumped for the day, but there was a difference between choosing to dump cold water all over yourself and having to face Star Parent II: The Wrath of Mom when trying to explain how he had failed to wash his hair a second time. This would be a quick way to make life better.
"I wish that when I turn on a shower, I would be instantly comfortable, the water would instantly be the perfect temperature and would never run out of hot water."
Perfect. Nailed it. And as Homer Simpson once said, time for a test toast. Jon flipped on the water, and instead of needing a few seconds for the system to find the dregs of heat that Zoe had missed, the spray burst forth immediately sounding like the perfect temperature, in the indescribable way water has of sounding different.
Now to visualize the particular April that he...
Hadn't picked out or planned. It was strangely comforting, to realize that this is what he forgot. Knowing you've forgotten one thing in particular is a better feeling than hoping you hadn't forgotten anything. He needed to pick an April and his mind was blank. Uh. Uh. Uh. April's room. That was the goal here. Skyrim? Video games. Sure. Girls, girls. Princess Peach? Sure. Yeah, that would work.
He got to work visualizing. Long, overly saturated hair, big blue eyes. Longer legs than you'd expect. The physical was easy. But how do you visualize what a person's room looks like? What sort of outfits they don't have with them? Jon tried, picturing a closet full of pink dresses, big and regal, or the sort of thing used to play tennis. He hadn't practiced it, really, but he did his best and stepped into the shower.
The physical transformation had worked perfectly, as expected. She shampooed her hair before she got too distracted. Long hair was certainly annoying to wash. She wouldn't have it long, though. The task done, she stepped out of the shower She was a bit shorter, but not too short. Her blonde hair was very yellow, almost too much so, while staying on just on the side of believably natural. Her eyes looked soulful and innocent and she felt lanky. Did Peach have elbows? She couldn't remember, but April had them, at least. Anatomy changed as expected.
The clothes on the ground were pink. A light pink blouse with long sleeves, and a pleated skirt with a bit more... vibrancy? saturation? color? something. It was pinker than the blouse, but they were both still pink. It's the sort of distinction that Jon would have been hopeless at, and April knew that if this was her normal outfit, she should know the difference of the colors. Blaming Jon and not worrying about it seemed like the safest option.
Leaving the shower on, she dressed quickly and headed for her room. What was it going to be like? Pink everywhere? Just the clothes?
There was a lot of pink. The comforter on the bed, the curtains in the window, and quite a lot of the closet were bursting with pink. There were tennis outfits, the imagined dresses, there was even a set of pink motorcycle leathers and a helmet at the bottom of the closet. Had Jon thought about Mario Kart enough for that? Apparently.
There were a few outfits that seemed like outliers. A shirt that was a size smaller than Jon's when he went to see the Bughunter and Narcist Cookbook when they were touring nearby. It didn't come in pink, but April had still gone, apparently. It was strange. Looking through the clues of the room, this April seemed to be mostly the same as Jon, except for the different outfits, and all the pink. And, speaking of pink...
"Hey, Pinkie." April looked up to where Zoe was at the door, looking in. She had her book again, and was dressed in her pajamas, which were surprisingly not-black. Trying to find comfortable black pajamas had been a massive ordeal, and Zoe had settled on a green that she said was black in spirit. "You left the shower on. You know how Mom gets about stuff like that. You're welcome."
April furrowed her brow as she tried to untangle all of what Zoe said. There was something there, something important, but....
She couldn't hear water running. The shower had been turned off.
Her heart started beating quicker and quicker as she threw the clothes aside, stumbling a moment as she got her footing and ran for the bathroom.
