Chapter Text
A foreign noise roused him from sleep, but it took him a few moments to register anything. He groaned and turned in bed, looking for his phone on the bedside table. His hand wandered around, searching in vain for his phone, catching nothing but air.
With a deep sigh, Aventurine opened one eye. It took a few seconds for his eyesight to adjust. It was only when he registered the foreign environment that he woke up completely, as if he'd been given a cold shower.
He sat up abruptly, looking around for something familiar, but it wasn't there. Books littered the tidy room, a desk by the window where documents were laid out, a wardrobe on the other side, and several paintings decorated the walls.
In the back of his mind, he told himself it was a refined decoration, but he paid it no mind, panic starting to set in.
Where was he? Had something happened last night? Why couldn't he remember anything in particular?
With the alarm still ringing at full volume, Aventurine scrambled to his feet, his feet entangled with the covers. He stumbled and leaned against the wall, trying to stop himself from falling. He opened the bedroom door, registering nothing else for the moment, only the fact that even the space before him was foreign to him.
He stared dumbfounded, unable to understand what was going on, into the living room. Like the bedroom, it was in perfect condition. The inhabitant of this apartment must have appreciated art, if the sculptures and paintings there said anything at all.
“What trouble have I got myself into this time?” he asked whoever was there to listen, and oh, wasn't his voice different from usual? Why was it deeper than he remembered?
Nervous, he returned to the bedroom, trying to find his phone. Surely, someone would remember what had happened last night and could help him remember. Nothing in his mind told him he'd been fooling around last night. He hadn't even gone for a drink!
If he remembered correctly, Aventurine had been rather tired, and had chosen to sleep earlier than usual, and that was that.
His eyes surveyed the room, and when he laid eyes on a somewhat familiar but clearly not his own phone, he frowned. What was Ratio's phone doing here...?
He picked it up cautiously, as if it were suddenly going to bite him. He was able to stop the alarm. The silence was unpleasant. The phone told him it was six in the morning. Several notifications appeared on the screen, but he didn't bother to read them. It wasn't his phone after all. With the phone showing him no response, and unable to unlock it, he set it back down on the bedside table.
“Ratio?” he asked, because surely he had to be there.
He cleared his throat, wondering why his vocal cords were so damaged he couldn't even recognize his voice.
When no answer came to his ears, he began to search the whole apartment.
The fact that he couldn't remember anything concrete from last night bothered him dangerously. It was the first time he was so confused in such a situation. Yet Aventurine remembered perfectly well that he hadn't seen Ratio for months, so surely if he'd met him last night, he'd have recalled it, right?
The living room didn't provide him with any information, although he noted in the back of his mind that most of the papers on the table were students' copies.
The kitchen was full of food: fruit, vegetables, pasta, rice... There were even a few cans. Heh, at least the person likes to cook, he thought as his belly made such a gurgling noise that he was embarrassed.
When he opened the bathroom door, the first thing he saw were little plastic ducks lined up perfectly in a row by the tub as if they were an army. He let out a laugh, at the absurdity of such a thing, while his confusion soared.
Apart from these toys, there was nothing unusual. There were numerous beauty products, skin care products, hair care products and so on.
Well, all in all, it was a totally normal apartment belonging to someone who liked to take care of themselves, and who appreciated art... and plastic ducks, no doubt.
Aventurine sighed, frustrated at not having found any answers, but decided to leave the apartment. He would surely put what had happened behind him, along with all the other inexplicable things that had happened in his life.
He was about to leave when, out of the corner of his eye, he saw something he really, really didn't like. He tensed in spite of himself, and as if to prepare himself mentally, he turned slowly.... towards the mirror.
Ratio's face looked back at him in the reflection, just as shocked as he was.
“ What ....?”
And the reflection opened its mouth exactly as he had!
He approached the mirror slowly, not understanding the situation at all. But those eyes betrayed him in no way, as he placed his hands on his face while observing the reflection. He touched his nose, his cheeks, his forehead, his hair. He examined his locks, which were a little too long. They were a deep purple, not the familiar blond.
“How can this be?” murmured Ratio's voice, but it was he who spoke the words.
It took a few moments for his brain to understand what was going on -- after all, such a situation rarely occurred! But when he finally realized it, he started laughing hysterically.
It really was the best joke anyone could pull off. It really was! Living in the body of the great Veritas Ratio, if that wasn't a privilege, he didn't know what was!
As tears gathered from the corners of his eyes, and he still watched his reflection as if in awe of the sight (he was), he noticed that he'd never seen Ratio laugh like that, and such a sight almost made him uncomfortable.
He finally calmed down after a while. His mind, unable to come up with a coherent justification, tried to find something that would tell him what was really going on. What if it was all a dream? That nothing was real? What if he was caught in some kind of illusion that perfectly recreated reality? If that was the case, how could he get out of this false world?
An idea suddenly sprang to mind, like a light suddenly going on. Aventurine rushed back into the room, opened the wardrobe and grabbed the first clothes he could find. He slipped them on, not even looking at them in any detail.
He ran a hand through Ratio's hair, trying to make it a little flatter.
As he was about to leave the apartment, he hesitated for a brief moment. Ratio's body was hungry. It was almost impressive. With a sigh, he went back into the kitchen, took some cookies out of the cupboard and shoved them in his mouth.
He almost choked and spat it all out, but at the last second he managed to swallow. Good, now he could go and test his theory.
Aventurine left the apartment, looked to his left and right, and seeing that there was not a soul to be seen in the corridor, headed for the door directly in front of him. He knocked and waited a few seconds before the door opened softly and an old woman appeared.
Her face lit up, immediately recognizing the person who had knocked. His heart sank. So it wasn't just an illusion.
“Dr. Ratio! It's been... a long time...?... Is there anything you need...?”
Huh? Why was she staring at him like that? Could she tell something was wrong? Could she see that it wasn't really Ratio standing in front of her?
A spark of hope lit his heart, and he was almost about to ask her if she knew anything about the situation, when he saw that she was staring alarmingly at his shirt.
Confused, he in turn looked down at his shirt.
A drawing of a huge, bright yellow duck grinning with all its ... teeth? was on the shirt. (A duck had teeth?)
“...”
Aventurine felt his cheeks burn with embarrassment. Why did Ratio have this in his closet?!!!
He finally looked up after a long silence, the old lady looking at him with an almost amused expression. He put on his best smile, and laughed, “Haha, I think I was mistaken. I'm sorry, I didn't mean to disturb you.”
“Are you sure, my boy? You're acting strange today. Are you sick? Let me make you a little something to perk you up.”
As she was about to leave to go surely to her kitchen, leaving the door wide open for him to enter, Aventurine grabbed the woman by her clothes. Surprised, she looked at his hand before looking back at him, more intrigued than anything else.
He let go of her immediately, as if he'd just been burned. “I'm sorry,” he repeated again, “I've got to go. Have a nice day!”
And with that, he fled, literally fled, back into Ratio's apartment.
Aventurine leaned against the door and clutched his hair with all his might. He was obviously trapped in Ratio's body, and wasn't that a funny thought! He didn't even have the strength to laugh at such absurdity.
“What the fuck is going on? What am I supposed to do now?”
In another apartment, Ratio wondered exactly the same thing, even if his thoughts were more subtle.