Brown paper packages tied up with strings, these are a few of my favorite things

The night before last…

Carly was curled up in a ball in the corner of her room. She hugged her knees to her chest and cried, her heart aching as her fight with Dani flashed through her mind.

“I’m sorry…” She mumbled to herself, her voice hollow and distant. “I didn’t mean it… I’m sorry Dani… I’m so sorry…”

She heard a knock on the door, but she didn’t stir. She had no intention of letting in the person on the other side.

More knocking. They just wouldn’t get the hint.

Just go away… she pleaded. Mimi was the last person she wanted to see right now. Please, just go away…

“Carly.”

Carly heard her own voice echo in her ear, and she trembled. Mimi sounded so much like her. It just wasn’t right.

“…I’m not going away.” Mimi was normally so quiet and reserved. Or at least, that was how Carly remembered her. But she’d matured a lot over the course of the week. Now she wasn’t the kind of person who would back off from a confrontation.

When Carly still refused to open the door, that left her with only one choice.

Slurrp… shlork.

Carly’s head shot up and she saw, to her horror, a white sticky substance slide under the gap of the door. The mixture bubbled through like a slithering puddle of semen, and once it entered the room it reformed into the shape of a naked woman.

Carly stared at a pale, slime-covered copy of herself. The other woman’s hair was longer than her usual short style, and her eyes were colorless, but the white figure in front of her was indistinguishable from her own body.

“Get out,” she snarled, her tears obstructing her vision. “I don’t want to talk to you! I don’t want to see you! Just get out of here!”

Mimi opened the door, but not to leave. She gathered up her clothes from where she’d discarded them and slipped them on, before turning back to Carly.

“I won’t,” she said simply, taking a step closer to the other girl. Carly furiously wiped her eyes, leveling a glare at the slime creature in front of her.

She opened her mouth to say the most hurtful things she could think of, but stopped herself. There was something different about the slime girl.

Mimi looked sad.

It would have been hard to tell for anyone else, but this was Carly’s own face. She knew what she looked like when she was crying. And Mimi may not have been in tears just yet, but the way her slime rolled down her cheeks made a pretty close approximation. Mimi took a step closer to her, extending out her hand.

Carly felt like she was going to throw up.

“Why?” She whispered, biting back tears. That caused Mimi to stop where she stood. The other woman looked curiously at her.

“What do you mean?” She asked.

“Why was it me? Why did you copy me?” Carly’s revulsion to Mimi wasn’t rational. If Mimi had just taken the form of a regular woman, or if she’d copied the appearance of someone else, like Dani or Mary, Carly wouldn’t have had a problem with her. In fact, she might have even been thrilled that something so amazing like a slime girl was actually real.

But when it was her appearance, her face staring back at her, that changed things.

“I don’t know.”

The answer was so confusing Carly didn’t know how to respond.

“…What?”

“I don’t know why it was you,” Mimi repeated with more clarity. She crouched down in front of Carly so she could face her eye to eye. Her pale face brimmed with sincerity. “You were the one who awakened me. To reach maturity I needed to borrow the template of a human host, and you were the closest one to me.”

“So that’s really it?” Carly couldn’t believe her ears. All her pain and suffering, all the suppressed memories she’d been **** to relive, it was all because of her shitty luck? “You didn’t have any other reason for taking my form?”

Mimi shook her head.

“Is it wrong for me to have your form?” She murmured.

“Of course it is!” Carly exploded. She stood up and towered over the slime girl. “That’s my body! Mine! You can’t just… it… it’s not RIGHT!”

Her words were gibberish but she didn’t really care at this point. This was about so much more than just appearances. But if she confronted the feelings she’d kept hidden all this time, they’d come pouring out of her. And she couldn’t do that.

Mimi seemed hurt by what she’d shouted, but Carly didn’t care anymore. What about her pain? Her feelings?

“…Change it now.”

“What?” Mimi stared up at her, not sure she’d heard the other woman properly. “Change… it?”

“You have that transformation, right?” Carly spat. “The one that allows you to make small adjustments to your body? So do it. Change yourself to stop looking like me!”

Mimi gave her a sad look.

“It doesn’t work that way,” she replied. “You’re my template. I can make small changes… hair length… chest size… my nose, my eyes… I can change everything just a little. But at my core, I’ll still be me. I’ll still look like you.”

Carly bit her lip and started to shake.

“And even if I could change it… that wouldn’t change us.” Mimi placed her hand over her chest and scanned her eyes over Carly’s figure.

“You’re my template. We have a connection. I can feel it. Even if I change what’s on the surface, that won’t change-”

“We do NOT have a connection!” Carly exclaimed, stomping her foot. “You copied me! It’s not the same thing at all!”

“I-I’m sorry,” Mimi stammered. She wasn’t used to dealing with this much anger and vitriol. “I already apologized for using you as my template, but-”

“That’s not good enough!” Carly exclaimed. She fell to her knees and started sobbing. “Please, just go… go away…”

Mimi had reached the limit of her understanding of human bonds. She knew Carly wanted her to leave. And the Mimi of a few days ago would have accepted that. But something in her was telling her to stay, not to abandon the other woman.

“…Why do you hate me?” Mimi asked sadly, reaching out to wipe Carly’s tears away. She made a poor showing of it, given that her fingers were covered in slime. Carly smacked her hand away. She glanced up at Mimi, her eyes filled with anger and pain. Her lip started to quiver.

“I… I don’t, I…” She couldn’t hold it back anymore and burst out crying. She flung herself forward and wrapped her arms around Mimi, soaking her sweater even more with her tears. “Uwweeeh…!”

Carly sobbed like a girl half her age, hugging Mimi tighter than she’d ever hugged anyone before. “I’m sorry! I’m sorry…”

Mimi was thoroughly confused. Carly’s body heat felt nice, yes, she was soft all over and her cuddles were better than anyone. But Mimi couldn’t return the other woman’s hug because she had no idea what brought it on. Just seconds ago Carly was cursing her.

She closed her eyes and focused on the connection between her and the other woman. Mimi may have been human now, but at her core she was still a Mimic Jelly. No matter how much she grew and matured, she would always have a bond with her original host, a residue from the imprinting process. She could perceive Carly in a way she couldn’t do for anyone else.

“Carly…” Mimi raised her arms to return the hug, but froze. She sensed rejection from the other woman seconds before it occurred. Carly shoved her away and crawled back, gasping for air.

“N-No… this… I don’t…” She wiped her eyes, her face going pale. “You’re not… this is wrong!” She kept sobbing, trying to find some semblance of clarity within the tempest of emotions raging through her. As much as she wanted to deny it, there was a bond between the two of them.

It made her sick.

Mimi stared sadly at Carly like a puppy kicked by her master. The hurt look in her eyes made Carly want to throw up.

I-I did this… I hurt her… Seeing Mimi’s pain made Carly’s heart ache. She clutched her chest and urged herself to calm down. It’s not fair. Why do I have to feel this way? Why does seeing her like that make me feel so horrible?

Of course, the answer to that question was obvious.

While Carly was trying to stabilize her emotions, at the same time Mimi was picking up on the turmoil in her heart thanks to her bond. Sylvia’s transformation had given her the power to learn, and the other women she’d met over the span of her short life had given her the desire to learn.

And the thing she wanted to learn about most was Carly.

A song appeared in Mimi’s head, unbidden. Music. She had never known music before. But then she’d watched those movies with the others.

“Now, when anything bothers me and I’m feeling unhappy, I just try and think of nice things.”

The nice lady. The one who cared so much for those children, even though they weren’t her own.

Of all the movies they’d watched, that one spoke to Mimi the most. Not one with the pretty lady and all the cursing, or the violent one with the tall building, or even the one where the woman’s daughter was also her sister somehow.

She thought of the happy lady and her songs.

I can feel her emotions through our bond. Maybe it works both ways? Mimi wondered. Maybe if I feel nice and happy inside, I can make her feel that way too. She closed her eyes and tried to do what the lady said, and think about her favorite things. Cuddles. Good food. ****. My sweater. Movies. Nick. All the friends I made. Mary, Gina, Dani, Kim, Dawn, Rose, even Dakota.

Sylvia’s smile appeared in her mind.

And… mom.

She tried to send all the nice warm feelings she gathered to Carly, in the hope that would make the other woman’s pain lessen.

It didn’t. Carly only seemed to hurt more.

“…I remember, you know.”

“Huh?” Carly looked up at her, not sure what she was talking about.

“You might think that I don’t remember the time when I was born, when I was playing with everyone… but I do. I remember the copies I made getting smashed and broken by everybody.” Mimi was solemn, showing a mature, pensive expression that Carly found out of place on her own visage.

“…So what?” She mumbled.

“I also remember you crying over me.”

Carly flinched.

“That… that was…”

Mimi crawled closer to the other woman, moving cautiously out of fear that she’d be rebuffed. But Carly allowed her to approach unmolested.

“You didn’t want them to hurt me. You didn’t even know me, and yet… you still cried for me. Can you tell me why?” Mimi’s voice was pleading now. She wanted to touch Carly again, her body was yearning for it, but she couldn’t.

“I-I… I can’t…” Carly stammered, glancing away from the other girl’s honest gaze. She hugged her legs, smushing her chest inwards and trying to become as small as she could. “I couldn’t… I couldn’t just watch you die. Not with that face…”

“I’m here now,” Mimi said gently. “I’m not dead.”

“But I don’t want you.” Carly turned to her, and her eyes welled up with tears. “Please… don’t make me feel like this anymore. Don’t make me feel like you mean something to me.”

Mimi didn’t know what to say to that. She slinked back, which only caused Carly’s heart to ache even more.

“But… I do…” She whimpered.

Carly didn’t say anything else. She couldn’t bring herself to even look at the slime girl anymore. She just curled up on the floor and cried herself to sleep.

When Carly woke up the next morning, she was stark naked. She sat up, and realized she was asleep in her bed.

“What…?” She looked around, confused, trying to put the pieces of last night together. She’d gone to sleep on the floor, right? So why was she in bed now?

“…Mimi.” The slime girl must have carried her to bed while she was asleep. But now she was nowhere to be found. “Mimi?” Carly called. “Are you here?”

No response. Carly’s heart sank in her chest. She’d driven the other girl away just as she’d hoped. So why did that make her feel miserable?

A knock on the door caused her to snap to attention. “Mimi?!” She leapt to her feet, clutching her blanket to her chest. She flung the door open, but it wasn’t her slime-covered replica waiting in the hall.

“Um… wow.”

Dani wasn’t sure what to say. Her crush was standing in front of her with only a blanket covering her assets. She felt her heart start to race as all thoughts of making up with Carly fled her mind, replaced by a surge of hormones.

“D-Dani… hey…” Unlike Dani, Carly remembered last night’s fight vividly. She stumbled back and let her roommate inside, tightening her grip on her blanket.

“Carly…” Dani’s hormone surge ended as quickly as it began. And when she came back to her senses, the only thing remaining was the feeling of loss and awkwardness that arose from the way they’d ended things last night.

Carly spotted her cosplay for today. A rather ironic outfit; a giant yellow raincoat and boots, the outfit worn by Suu the slime girl in Daily Life with a Monster Girl.

She blushed and pulled the skimpy outfit over her feminine curves, while Dani politely looked away to give her some privacy. The awkward silence between the two women gave them time to think about what to say to one another.

Finally, it was Carly who spoke first. She needed to. After all, the whole mess last night was her fault; if she let Dani get the first word in, she’d never be able to forgive herself. She needed to apologize directly for everything that happened.

“I’m sorry.” She tried to sound firm and direct so there could be no doubt as to her feelings, but instead the words came out with a crack in her voice. She turned back to Dani just as the other woman turned to face her. It felt like they were on the same wavelength.

“Carly…” Dani had a million things she wanted to say. From the moment she woke up in the Master’s Suite with only Holly to keep her company, she’d been trying to figure out how to fix things with Carly. And apparently her buddy had been thinking the same.

“I did something really bad,” Carly continued, hanging her head. “I tried to seduce you, I played with your feelings in order to get you to do what I wanted. That was wrong, and I’m so sorry, Dani.”

“N-No, it’s fine…” Dani stammered. She was already beating herself up for saying that. She was so focused on making Carly feel better that she’d just minimized her own feelings!

Luckily, Carly didn’t let her get away with it. “No, it’s not fine. No matter how stressed out I was last night, that didn’t give me the right to do what I did. You’re my friend, Dani, I should be treating you with respect, not… trying to use you like that.”

“We are friends,” Dani agreed. Maybe there was a chance for something else in the future, but right now they were definitely friends. “And that’s why I don’t blame you for what you did. Like you said, you were ****. You didn’t want to spend the night with Mimi, so you tried to get out of it.”

Carly nodded. “But I shouldn’t have done it like that. I shouldn’t have tried to use you. And I’m sorry.”

Dani smiled. “Friends again?” She offered Carly a hug, and was overjoyed when the other woman accepted. But at the same time, there was still a cloud over her heart.

Just because Carly had apologized and they made up, that didn’t mean the situation had resolved itself. There were still issues they needed to address. Notably, the issue with Mimi herself.

Dani didn’t want to **** it. But she didn’t feel like she had a choice. Nick had disappeared somewhere, leaving the matter with Carly and Mimi to settle on her shoulders.

“Carly…” Dani pulled back and looked her friend in the eye. “What happened last night? With Mimi? Did everything go okay?”

The flicker of sadness across Carly’s face said enough.

“It… didn’t go well...” She mumbled, pulling back and turning away from Dani. She sat down on the bed and stared out the window. Dani stood awkwardly beside her, not wanting to get too close into her personal space now that Carly was aware of her feelings.

“Do you want to talk about it?” She asked.

Carly shook her head.

…And that’s what I get for giving her the option. Dani scowled. “Yeah, well, too bad. Because I think we need to talk about it.”

She walked around and stared own at Carly, crossing her arms in front of her chest. She may have been shorter than she was, without her muscles, but she still cut an imposing figure, especially compared to her buddy whose body was more designed for sex.

Carly flinched, shrinking back a little.

“Carly, this is important,” Dani pressed. “I know that whatever’s going on between you and Mimi is your business. But you made it my business when you tried to drag me into it last night. Now look, I don’t know Mimi all that well, but from what I can see, she’s a genuine person trying to grow. If you won’t tell me what she did wrong, I don’t know how I can help!”

“It’s not what she did… it’s what she is…” Carly mumbled.

Dani didn’t accept that as an answer. “What? Because she’s a slime girl? Carly, she’s still-”

“That’s not it!” Carly shook her head frantically. She began to tear up. “You don’t understand! You have no idea how hard it is, to see her walking around with my face! Acting like a child, learning all sorts of new things for the first time… she’s so innocent, so naïve… it’s like she’s ripping my heart out!” She sobbed.

“I-I don’t understand…” Dani shook her head. What wasn’t Carly telling her? “Why is that so wrong?”

Carly wiped her tears on her raincoat. That was one good thing about this outfit.

“If I tell you… do you promise you won’t tell anyone else?” Carly looked up at her. Dani could see the hurt and desperation in her eyes. It was as if Carly was a trapped animal, without anywhere to turn. Dani was the only one who could offer her support.

“…Okay,” she nodded, sitting down beside her friend. “I’ll listen to whatever you want to tell me.”