“Remind me again why you had to pick me to tutor you?” Mei said, putting her books and purse down on the table in the empty library.

“Remind again why we’re not at your place or something?” Samantha said, putting down a significantly lighter pile of books. Samantha was the almost stereotypical popular girl; white, blonde, and with enough charisma to make sure that she had an extremely active social life. She was usually considered one of the best looking girls in the class, since puberty had been extremely kind to her, with moderately sized breasts, curvy hips, and an overall beautiful face, with a small nose, lips adorned with lipstick, and flowing blonde hair down to her shoulders, as well as being slightly taller than average.  She was currently wearing a white t-shirt and tight jeans, casually dressed as if she was going out with her friends, opposing Mei’s more study-focused attire of a baggy jumper and knee-length green skirt.

 To add to the stereotype, her social life had come at the expense of her grades, hence why she had to have Mei arranged to be her tutor, picked by her out of a list of possible candidates. To be fair to her, she wasn’t mean or condescending, but she did find socialising far easier than studying, and it had been her to initially propose the tutor. She just hadn’t intended for it to be arranged to take up so much of her time.

Mei’s less than positive reaction to her was mostly due to circumstances, and she couldn’t say she wasn’t slightly pleased to see her require a tutor, even if it had to be her. While Sam was the outgoing, vocal girl, she was much more shy and mousy, small and Asian, blending into the background and really only standing out thanks to her intelligence.

It wasn’t that she was ugly, but as opposed to Sam, but her looks didn’t extend any further than cute, with a thin face and short, straight hair, and she had no curves to speak of, matched with her unwillingness to be the one to try to start a conversation most of the time making sure that she only really had a few close friends. She personally wished that she had the confidence of Sam, although she’d never admit that to her face. Right now, it was time for her to be the smart girl tutoring the dumb popular girl.

“Because there isn’t anywhere to run in this library, and there’s everything we need in here.” She said dryly. “And you didn’t answer my question.”

“What do you think? You’re the smartest one in the class, if you hadn’t noticed, and since you’re Chinese, I figured you’d have a better work schedule or something than the rest of my options.”

Mei buried her face in her palms. “Really? You picked me over the “Chinese people are smarter” stereotype? Is this really what I have to work with?”

Sam blushed slightly, and quickly retaliated. “Like I said, smartest girl in the class! I’d like to see you in my position, since you just breeze through everything like you were born knowing all of this crap!”

She went downcast for a moment, saying slightly more than she meant to. “I wish I was like you, just able to learn anything I wanted without it being so hard.”

“You’d really like to be in my position?”

Samantha was slightly put back by this response, devoid of any sarcasm, and more of slight wonder.

“I mean, if you could change with me, and you’d be the unpopular girl with no social life, and I’d be, well, in your position?”

Sam just kind of stared at her for a moment, wondering what she was talking about. Deep down, she really did want to be smarter, but all Mei was doing was talking like she was crazy or something. Well, might as well give her an honest answer, she thought to herself as she responded.

“Uh, sure, I guess?”

She stared at Mei as she began to rummage through her pockets, pulling out her wallet, and retrieving from it an odd talisman-like thing,  with some weird symbol on it that Sam didn’t recognise from anywhere. Um, what was going on?

“I’ve had this for a long time, guess it’s time to see if that lady was right and this thing actually does something.” She said, holding it up, the talisman beginning to glow gently.

“Um, what the hell are you doing? Please don’t tell me you’re trying to cast a spell on me with your magic medallion thing.” Sam said, now starting to firmly believe that what she had thought to be a smart girl to be completely delusional.

“Something like that, yeah. Do you mind standing up and holding out your hand?”

“Ok, that’s it, you’re crazy. If I do this, will you leave me alone and let me get someone who doesn’t believe in fairy magic to tutor me?”

“Sure, but if this works, I don’t think you’ll need a tutor. Now just reach out and touch it, and it should hopefully work.”

Sam, despite not believing in magic in the slightest, was starting to have doubts over whether it was  a good idea to put her lack of faith to the test, reached over the table and touched the talisman, immediately shivering as a cold wave went through her body, ending as quickly as it came. Mei dropped the medallion, the glow disappearing from it, as she looked expectantly at Sam.

“See? Nothing, now why don’t you… Just…” She trailed off as she began to feel like Mei was getting taller, and her skin was beginning to tingle strangely and slightly uncomfortably. Judging by the expression on Mai’s face, she was getting the same feeling, and she was about to voice her concerns when she noticed the skin on her arm lightening from its normal tan to… The same tone as Mei’s skin? She looked over at Mei, who was starting to gain a darker tan, although she didn’t have any time to take a closer look, as the changes going over her began to speed up, Sam shuddering slightly as they took place.

She began to shrink faster, going from her tall six feet to only five, everything seeming suddenly much larger, while her chest began to deflate, going from endowed to completely flat in seconds, gasping as her hips cracked and flattened, no longer perfectly filling out her jeans and t-shirt. Up on her face, her features began to rearrange themselves, her lips and nose changing size and shape as her eyes turned almond-shaped and her face rounded slightly, her long blonde hair darkening to a midnight black, losing its waves in favour of being completely straight.

Looking down at herself and her lack of endowments, Sam immediately panicked, and went straight for her purse, which thankfully hadn’t changed, since she still had her cosmetics mirror inside of it, which she quickly opened to see how altered Asian face, almost dropping it in shock. She couldn’t even recognise her own face, and it was completely freaking her out, almost about to scream out of having no idea how to react to her situation. The only thing she recognised was her bright blue eyes, looking very out of place on her otherwise Chinese face.

Over on Mei’s end, a similar process was taking place, Mei similarly shuddering as her changes began to speed up. Her chest immediately swelled out, her small bra almost snapping from the sudden growth to healthy C-cups, her hips also painfully cracking as she readjusted her footing for the now obvious slightly hourglassed figure she had, driving her skirt up slightly while her jumper wasn’t quite as baggy anymore. Her face began to shift as well, going was obviously Chinese to completely Caucasian, her lips plumping up slightly as her nose changed its shape, her eyes widening as her hair lightened to a chestnut brown, curling slightly.

“What the hell did you do to me!?” Sam yelled, even her voice sounding different to her.

“What does it look like? Quick, hand me that mirror.” Mei quickly snatched the mirror from Sam, marvelling over how different her face was.

“Whatever you did, change me back! Change me back right now, or I’ll…” Sam stopped as her mind suddenly experienced a rush, information flowing into her mind as her personality was tweaked and memories were replaced, while Mei experienced a similar thing, except this time information was flowing out while her memory and personalities experienced alterations.

At the same time, their clothes began to morph to fit their new bodies, Sam’s jeans and t-shirt loosening out, her jeans becoming much baggier, while her t-shirt didn’t come close to tightly wrapping her body, although it was at least her correct size this time. Mei’s skirt became shorter and tightened around her hips and legs, while her jumper also became more constricting, clearly showing off what she now had rather than hiding her lack of assets.

“W-what did you do!? What’s happening!?” Sam cried out, even more panicked than before, Mei considerably calmer, more giddy than panicked.

“Oh my god, you had so many friends, how did you even manage to do that?” Mei said, before brightening up even more. “Wait, I got them! I can do this now!”

“What are you even talking about? What did you do!?” Sam once again tried, admitting to herself that repeating the same thing over and over wasn’t going to help her, Mei thankfully finally responding to her.

‘I can’t believe that thing actually worked! You said you wanted to trade places, we did! I get to finally be the popular one, and you get to stop failing everything!”

Sam couldn’t believe what she was hearing, even after her changes, but going over what appeared to be her new memories seemed to show that she was now the one who blended into the background, while Mei was the popular girl, and the worst part was that she didn’t think she could regain her old position, since just the thought of approaching the group of girls that had previously been her social groups was suddenly extremely daunting, and she felt like they’d just mock her if she tried. Is this what Mei was like?

Hang on, she thought, trying to calm down a bit, she did this, she could change her back, right? Mei however, seemed to have noticed her hopeful look, and crushed her hopes immediately.

“Sorry, but the woman I got it from said it was only one-way, and I have no idea where she is now.”

“I don’t care! Fix it right now! I feel different, I don’t look anything like I always do, and you’ve stolen my life!”

“What, your friends? Why don’t you just try getting them back? It’s easy!”

“It’s not easy, you freak! You…”

“And now you know how I feel. Hey, at least you’re smart now, right?”

Sam was ready to break down into tears at this point, while Mei was far too happy to make her feel any better or get any kind of sympathy. She realised what she had said though, and flicked open a random page of one of her study books, realising that she already knew it! She flicked open to another page, one that she didn’t recognise, and it all seemed so simple now, so much easier than it had been to just get everything.

Mei, on the other hand, was starting to see the downside of her change, realising that she now had the position of failing her classes to look forward to.

“So, um, you’re the smart one now, huh?” She said, Sam looking back up. “Hey, we might be able to figure out how this thing works, and I need a tutor, so…”

“Do you expect me to just sit down with you every night and just help you study? I don’t even know if my parents are the same, or if I have yours!”

“Look, I’m sorry, can you maybe just try it out for a week? Maybe it won’t be so bad.”

Sam stopped, forcing herself to look at the reality of the situation, as surreal as it might have been. She really only had Mei to turn to over this issue, even if she had started it, and she still had to deal with her new life. Plus, Mei would probably now fail if they really had swapped intelligences.

She sighed, picking up her books, ready to go home and see just what had changed there.

“Fine. Same time tomorrow?”