Drade and his mother continued down the park’s path, with her still giving Luuko’s sleepies suspicious glances.

When she finally relented and let the sleeping sleepie lie, she sighed. “Drade, do you have any friends at school?”

“Of course I do. Three of the Friends go to school with me.” Drade responded dumbly.

“No, I mean friends, is there anyone who you actually try to get to know?”

“...Well, sometimes I-”

“And I don’t mean other people you approach about their magical abilities.”

“...No,” Drade said, staring blankly into the distance.

His mother sighed, recognizing the expression. “Drade...do you like the way your life is now?”

“...”

She took a deep breath and sighed for a second time. She looked into the distance for a moment, then back to Drade. She could tell he was uncomfortable by the way his eyelids were just a little less open.

“...What do you want, Drade?”

“What do you mean?”

“What do you want out of life?”

“...I don’t know, I guess.”

She began counting on her fingers. “I want romance, I want good food, I want to learn new things, I want to hang out with my friends, I want to teach my students, I want to have a good looking house, I want to see my bank account get big numbers, I want to take nice walks, I want to have good night’s rests, I want to love you and your sister...” She held up ten fingers. “Do you have that many?”

Drade started counting on his fingers as well, “I want to make sis and you happy, I want to play good games, I like learning, I want to...learn how to be more...human...” he couldn’t count past three.

For the third time, his mother sighed solemnly. “Drade, we both know you struggle with...y’know...appreciating reality...I really think you should try to get better at...that.”

“...How would I do that?” It seemed an impossible task to Drade.

He was a little...different from other people. Even as a child, his emotional attitude was...lacking. Not just that, he seemed to care about nothing. He simply followed the rules. Don’t die. Don’t steal. Don’t let others hurt. Don’t skip your chores. Do as mother says. Do as the teacher says. The moral compass that children learned through trial and error over many years was followed to a T by him, which never changed. It was very rare for him to break any rules. He never chose to be selfish because he was never told to be. For some time, his mother thought that was good. It wasn’t. Up until his ninth birthday, he never learned any of what it meant to be human.

He wasn’t fully human, after all, so that should have been obvious. Yet, as they say, foresight is 20/20.

Even if he couldn’t be the same as everyone else, he could still get close before it happened. Otherwise...what else would he be...?

His mother chewed on her lip, really thinking hard about his question. She then chuckled, finding a ridiculous answer she quite adored. “Say...how about you try something entirely new...” She let the dramaticism build up with silence.

“Like...?”

“Well, I said you should find a friend, right?”

“Not directly, no.”

His mother ignored that fact and continued. “How about you...” She looked right at Drade’s face with a mischievous smile. “Find a girlfriend.”

“...I don’t have a clue how to do that.”

“Oh, how my humor is lost on you,” she muttered audibly. “Figure it out, ya’ moron!” she scruffled the taller boy’s head. “That’s the whole point to the practice!”

“...I don’t think it’s very fair to be someone’s significant other just for the sake of self-improvement, mom.”

“Just try it, ok? Plus, I’m sure anyone would want to have someone as reliable as you around.” Well, that was a lie. Even if he was reliable as a person, his luck sure wasn’t.

“...That didn’t somehow fix my qualms, but whatever...”

Satisfied with the conversation, she clapped her hands together, signaling the end of the subject. “So, you couldn’t fall asleep because of Uffy?” She began the new matter of finding a practical solution to Drade’s problem.

Drade woke up the next morning not at all refreshed, though he figured sleeping on the couch was better than the former choice, sleeping with his sister. He pulled his sheets off of himself then walked to turn off his phone alarm in the kitchen.

He checked in Uffield’s room, where she was still streaming. A tentacle waved hello to him as he did. After confirming his sister’s whereabouts, he simply nodded his head and closed the door.

He brushed his teeth, prepped his backpack, ate his breakfast, and was off.

The only class he and Luuko shared, as it happened, was their English class. It also happened to be their third class; when everyone had their lunch break. Luuko slept in class, but since she had never gotten below a 90% on any test, at least from what she and the teachers said, and always participated in assignments diligently, she had practically earned a free pass to sleep by the teachers. Her amazing performance was an enigma, but not one curious enough to catch drade’s attention. He merely assumed it was due to her ability to be conscious and asleep at the same time.

Once the bell for lunch was called, Luuko suddenly popped up from her chair and wasted no time dashing out of the room with surprising wakefulness. Drade decided to follow her lead, leaving his backpack in the room for convenience’s sake and bringing an energy bar along the way.

He jogged down the halls, eating the bar, and arrived at his destination. The library was minuscule, to say the least. In practicality, it was the same size as an ordinary classroom, with about five bookshelves to lay claim to. There was, however, a single couch, where Luuko slept each day, bathing in the warm sunlight that leaked from the windowed wall.

Drade stood beside Luuko’s half-sleeping body. “Mind If I sit?”

She raised her head, then looked at him with a mixture of annoyance and lust...for lap pillows. “Maybe if you agree to be my pillow...” She gave a questionable smile to Drade and raised her head to provide Drade room to sit.

Drade would normally question Luuko’s sense of decency but didn’t bother and sat down. He was actually quite curious about his potential to tutor magic users.

“Don’t mind if I do!” Luuko let her head drop on Drade’s lap, bouncing a few times before resting. “So, you wanted to get me better at magic?”

“I think you’re forgetting that you were the one who asked,” Drade said with a subtle sigh. He had guessed she just wanted a lap pillow, and he figured from her current actions that he was right.

Luuko’s tone lost its mischievousness, for once, sounding awake and serious. “So what should I do first?”

Drade was a little surprised by the change of tone. “So, first, you’re going to begin channeling.”

“Channeling?”

“I kind of make up my own terms for magic since not many people interact with so many types. Just do whatever you need to do to use magic.”

“So, sleep?”

“Probably, yeah.”

She chuckled. “That I can do.” She closed herself and adjusted her head a little. It didn’t take long before she fell asleep, but before she did-

“And make sure you don’t drool on my Jeans.”

“...Got it...” Drade heard a deft ‘slurp’.

Luuko truly fell asleep after a minute, letting her body slip out of her control...as she gained more control than she ever would inside it.

In her sleep, she could flit through the world of the unconscious, spreading her own consciousness far and wide, observing the outside world through the perception of the asleep. In this state of being, nothing seemed to bind her to her body.

“Luuko, can you hear me?”

Even when asleep, she could have sat up, but she appreciated the pillow too much to waste it. “Yeah, I can hear you...” She said.

“Ok, that’s good. Now, I’m going to describe what I see with my manasense.

“Got it...”

“From your brain, hundreds of strands of mana are sprouting out in every direction, which each probably connect you to someone asleep in a nearby radius. One strand is threaded throughout your body, stringing through every muscle and nerve in your system. Besides that one, strings are constantly disappearing and reappearing as people fall asleep and wake up. Additionally, your soul is residing in your brain, where it’s functioning as an anchor. Normally it resides in your chest.”

“Mm, got that...”

“Most peculiarly, your soul is amorphous.”

“Hmm...”

“By that, I mean your soul is unique; it isn’t bound to your body the same way that other people’s are.”

“I...don’t get it.”

“I mean that this isn’t your body.”

Although Drade had said that casually, Luuko feared he meant something that was quite, quite life-changing for her. “What’s that mean...?!” she asked.

“It seems like this isn’t the body you were born with, which is really interesting.”

Luuko, understandably, was shocked by this realization. In a heartbeat, Drade saw her soul bond with her body once more, and she shot up from his lap in a panic. She stared drade straight in the eyes. “You mean that? My body...” She pointed to her chest. “Isn’t mine?!”

Drade shook his head, entirely unaware of the existential crisis he just thrust upon the lady. “Nope.”

“Wh...what does that mean?!”

“Through one way or another, you possessed that body.”

“...A...and what happened to the owner of it?”

“Well, this is magic we are talking about. Realistically, anything at all.”

“...You’re being really unhelpful. What’s the most likely possibility?”

“Well, you were either born with an amorphous soul, or, more likely, as a child, you accidentally possessed someone with your magic, and you never noticed. The latter would mean the original owner and you swap bodies, making it overall harmless.”

“...”

“I wouldn’t worry about them. More than likely, they are living their best life in a different body. They probably have no idea that they aren’t properly bound to their soul.”

“...And...and is that bad...?”

“It gives their soul paper-thin defenses, but otherwise, it’s healthy. You probably just swapped bodies with someone, and both of you continued your lives as if nothing happened.”

Luuko gave a sigh of relief. She didn’t want to know she had blood(soul blood?) on her hands, so while Drade poorly handled her shock, it was good to know her ability hadn’t hurt the original owner directly.

“With that said, I think I have a good idea for your training regiment.”

“A training regiment...?” Luuko yawned, tired from the stress of the mini-crisis.

“Yeah. The thing is, you can channel a ton of magic, but you can’t efficiently use it.”

“How so?”

“As I said, you had hundreds of magical threads coming from your soul, but you can’t control them.”

Luuko fell back onto Drade’s lap, making herself comfortable again, “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Well, you use each of those to connect to the sleeping people sleeping around you, right?”

“Mmhm...”

“The amount of magic you use is redundantly potent. Right now, you use your ability to peer into other’s minds and perceptions or to control them, but using your magic that way is the equivalent of putting a small spigot underneath the ocean. At the peak of your performance as an arcpolysomnomancer, using the pinnacle of your magic, you could be a calamity.”

“Mmhm...” Luuko opened her eyes suddenly. “Wait, what?”

“What I mean to say is that you have room for improvement.”