Chapter 2: Chapter 2: Reintroductions

There had been nothing for Romeo to do but walk back to the hotel. Barefoot. Because he’d lost his flip flops. Something he noticed rather more without the adrenaline distracting him while he was being chased.

Also, with people (mostly men) staring at him and the way his still damp thin button-up stuck to his new chest. 

He tried to ignore them and focus on what he was going to do about this. He’d been promised that it was probably temporary. Once he’d been humiliated enough to amuse a jerkish Olympian deity. Really, he’d gotten off pretty easy, compared to people who got turned into monsters or flat out killed in old myths. He just had breasts now. Which he was sure he could work with.

It opened up new fashion options. Women did have a lot more variety of shirts to choose from. He’d explored fashion options more than most men, but he still had some looks he didn’t feel he could pull off before.

Of course, that all relied on him figuring out some way to keep his career alive. He was pretty sure Rachel or her father would drive him to bankruptcy for breach of contract if this ‘curse’ thing meant he couldn’t keep performing.

He figured he should phone her, to tell her what happened. Only to remember that his phone had been in his pocket when he’d fallen into that spring. Pulling it out, he saw that it had died a watery death. Would putting it in rice work? He’d never actually tried that, or really looked it up. 

Eh, he’d get a new one. He was pretty sure he had insurance of some sort. Most of the stuff on there was saved to the cloud these days anyhow, right?

He supposed he could try the rice first, though. 

After he contacted the band, though. The hotel was in front of him now, and his poor feet would soon be on carpeted floors. 

He walked past the front desk and straight to the elevators, hoping no one tried to stop him. He rode up to the third floor, before stepping out onto the gloriously soft carpeting of the halway. He stood there for a moment, letting out a sigh of joy. Then headed to his room. Thankfully the key card was rather more waterproof than his phone, and he got in without any trouble. 

He walked over to the phone in the room, picking it up and dialing for the front desk. He lied a little, claiming he’d fallen in the pool, while doing his best to make his voice sound deeper. Thankfully whoever was at the front desk didn’t know what he was supposed to sound like, and happily accepted his request to call his bandmates up to his room.

That complete, Romeo walked over and sat in the chair at the desk, staring at the wall while feeling the sweet relief of being off his feet. He was still a little damp, and realised he probably had some pond gunk on him. The spring had seemed weirdly clean, but a shower would probably still be smart.

After everyone showed up, though. He probably should have grabbed the shower before calling everyone, but… oh well. They shouldn’t take long.

He leaned back in the chair, closing his eyes for a moment. He realised he was going to have to tell his mother about this. He had no idea how she’d react. Though she was pretty chill about most thi—

Knocking on the door forced him to stand up. His feet hurt more after having gotten the chance to rest, which was annoying, but he made his way over to the door all the same. He realised he didn’t want to have the conversation with everyone in the hallway, so hid behind the door as he opened it, awkwardly coughing ‘come in’.

Thankfully, Rachel and the whole band had shown up together, so he could do this all in one go.

“Alright, Romeo, what’s…” Rachel started to ask, once he started to close the door, emerging from hiding behind it. “Uhh… huh?”

“It’s me,” he said as he shut the door. “I can prove it, if you guys want to ask me a question only I would know or… something?”

“I… I think I can believe it’s you,” Jovita Megalos said.

He smiled up at the tall and muscular drummer, glad she believed him so easily.

“Either you’re Romeo or he’s secretly had an identical twin trans girl I somehow don’t know about,” Logan Novak added, the elegant violinist raising an eyebrow. “I’m… not quite sure which is more plausible.”

“What happened?” the bassist, Frankie Grey, asked, as she gave him a once over.

“If you’ll believe it, I fell into a cursed spring,” Romeo replied.

Lohan, Frankie, and Jovita all stared at him.

“Ok, no, I think I’m leaning back to the secret twin sister messing with us,” Logan said. “You just stole that from—”

“I know that it sounds like it’s—it isn’t though. Apparently it’s from an ancient Greek god? The spring is called the Spring of Salmakis,” Romeo said.

“You’re serious?” Frankie asked.

“Yes,” Romeo replied.

“Oh, hey,” JK, the generally quiet keyboardist, said, looking at his phone. “Apparently it’s real. There’s a Digipedia article. It’s tied to a nymph of the same name… and a deity called Hermaphroditus? Who’s… apparently the kid of Hermes and Aphrodite? I did not know those two were a thing. And, yeah. It’s supposed to be right here in Bodrum.”

Rachel and the other bandmates crowded around JK’s phone, all trying to read the small screen. There were several murmurs of surprise from the group.

“How did I never realise the term ‘hermaphrodite’ had ‘Aphrodite’ right there in it,” Rachel mumbled.

The group then stared at Romeo for a moment, before turning to each other. They then looked back at him.

“Uhh… so… I’m guessing it doesn’t reverse like the ones in the anime?” Jovita asked, her eyes drifting over to the electric kettle in one corner of the hotel room.

“Nope, I asked,” Romeo replied.

Logan blinked. “You asked? Who did you ask?”

“Uh… Hermaphroditus? They showed up to… gloat, I guess? I—oh! Right! I found out who my dad is too!” Romeo said.

“Hermaphroditus, the Greek deity of marriage, is your dad?” JK asked.

“Oh. No. No. Apparently they’re my dad’s half sibling,” Romeo said, getting a few slow and tentative nods from the others. “My dad is Cupid.”

Everyone stared at him, like he’d… well, like he’d claimed his dad was one of the most famous ancient Greek gods.

“Isn’t Cupid a baby?” Rachel asked.

“I guess he grew up?” Romeo replied.

“The Greeks usually showed him as an adult. It was the Romans who were bigger on showing him as a baby,” Jovita said. “Also, his Greek name was Eros.”

It was the tall woman’s turn to get stared at.

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“Uh… I was very into Greco-Roman mythology as a kid?” she replied, looking embarrassed.

“Mythology is pretty cool,” JK said. “I was really into pre-Christian Slavic mythology in high school.”

That surprised no one. JK just had that sort of energy after all. His most recent obsession was pre-1990s Nigerian cinema, for instance. 

The conversation shifted to spin around Romeo’s news about his father for a bit. Until they realised there wasn’t much they could do with the information just now. Instead, they had to focus on the more pressing issue of Romeo’s current transformation.

“Can we even get you back to Canada on your passport?” Rachel asked, causing Romeo to freeze.

“Uhh…” he mumbled.

“That shouldn’t be too hard,” Logan said. “I don’t know where we could get a binder around here, but a couple of sports bras and a baggy t-shirt could probably get him close enough to flat looking. Then a bit of contouring and… he looks more or less the same. It should work?”

Rachel gave a nod, something gentle in her eyes as she looked back at Romeo. “We’ll try to figure out a way to fix this when we get home.”

“I’ll see if any of the local libraries have anything to say,” Logan added.

“They’ll probably be in Turkish,” Jovita pointed out.

The violinist blushed. “R-right. Right. Uh… I’ll check university libraries when we get back to Toronto.”

That led to some more discussion about other places to do research. There was a general agreement that they’d probably want to go to somewhere fancier than Canada to get the good ancient tomes on magical things. They were going to start with what they had, though. Even if Romeo wasn’t sure that undoing the magic on their own was the best plan with the deity who caused it already around and paying attention. It felt a bit… ‘hubris-y’. Which was never a good idea around Hellenic deities.

“Thanks, everyone,” Romeo said, smiling. “I would kind of like to wash the pond gunk out of my hair, though… so… not to kick everyone out, but…”

“Oh, yeah. That’s fair,” Frankie said.

The others nodded and filed out, though still debating various points. Logan was the last to leave, hovering near the door.

“If, um… if you want to talk about ways to deal with dysphoria, let me know,” the violinist said.

Romeo smiled. “You’re the first one I’d ask, obviously.”

“Ah, good. Good. I just wanted to make sure the offer was on the table,” Logan said. “Well, have a good shower?”

“I’ll try,” Romeo replied, giving a quick wave goodbye as Logan left.

He wasn’t really sure how he felt about being naked now. He’d deal with it, though. 

After taking a few breaths he headed to the bathroom, where he stared at his reflection. On one hand he really did look about the same. On the other hand, that little bit of softening was all his face needed to look like a beautiful woman. Sort of more of a classical art style strong featured beautiful woman, but… beautiful all the same.

Nervous, not out of unfamiliarity with breasts but unfamiliarity with them being a part of his reflection, Romeo pulled off his shirt. Looking at his reflection again, he supposed it still wasn’t as weird as he’d braced for. He felt oddly certain he could rock them if he wanted to. Though he wasn’t sure if he wanted to right now… but he was certain he could.

He pulled his swim trunks off next, figuring the absence of a thing would be less startling than the addition of a thing. Only… only…

“Why is that still there?” he said, staring at a bit of anatomy he had not expected to still have.

“The cure half changes your body,” Hermaphroditus’ voice said, causing Romeo to jump (and cover his groin for modesty).

“Wha-whe-huh?” he stammered, before seeing the deity in the mirror, sitting on the counter in the reflected bathroom while not existing in the real one. “Waah?”

“It’s not easy for me to manifest in the physical world, but I can do this just fine,” the deity replied.

Romeo nodded a few times, before processing two things: he should also cover his chest, and what Hermaphroditus had said.

“What do you mean half changes my body?” he asked, while adjusting a hand to handle the added modesty concern.

“The wording of the curse was ‘turns whoever falls in into half a man’… or maybe it was ‘half a woman’… it’s been a few thousand years, I don’t remember exactly. But, either way. It’s changed your body halfway… overall. Some areas were fully changed over. Some areas partially. Some not at all,” the deity replied, stretching their wings a little. “Compare your chest and height to your face and then to your whole pelvic area.”

“That… I…” Romeo mumbled, turning his back to the mirror to get a better look. “Huh, I really don’t have much in the way of hips…”

“You sound almost disappointed,” Hermaphroditus said, a playful tone in their voice.

Romeo blushed and looked over his shoulder. “I just… I’m surprised.”

Hermaphroditus gave a smug grin in reply. 

“I… so… you’re going to be paying attention to what I do, right?” Romeo asked. “Meaning that I shouldn’t try to find a cure on my own.”

The deity shrugged, vanishing from the mirror before replying. “My spring has the power of three gods behind it. There’s nothing a mortal can find to reverse it.”

“Oh,” Romeo whispered, slumping at the news.

Even if he hadn’t wanted to risk it, it was also disappointing to learn it was hopeless. 

He shook his head and decided to continue with cleaning up.

He was about to turn on the shower when he realised something. Wasn’t it Salmakis the nymph’s spring? The Digipedia article had said they were fused, though… was the deity actually both beings?

---

Hermaphroditus had told the truth. The hot water of the shower did nothing to undo the transformation.

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