<Okay,> thought Kimura Mari as her lookalike thoroughly and
enthusiastically kissed her.  <Something is very strange here.>

	She had been changing for her morning tennis game when her partner
for this morning's game, Karigari Mari -- whose resemblance was almost
frightening when one took into account their identical names -- had come
into the change room with a confused look on her face.  Mari had asked
the younger girl if something was the matter.  Mari-chan had said that she
had had a strange dream, and that she wasn't sure if she wasn't still
dreaming.  She'd asked Mari if this was reality, and Mari had told her
that she thought so, and then ...

	Mari-chan had rested her hands on Mari's shoulders and pressed 
their lips together.

	Mari was a bit surprised to realize that Mari-chan was a very good
kisser, since as far as she was aware the girl had no boyfriend.  As it
happened this was not the first time Mari had kissed a girl, but the other
times had been when she was in junior high school.  She had mooned over
the boys in their classes with her friends, and they had practiced kissing
together so that they'd know what to do when it came time to kiss boys.
But Mari had always kept her eyes closed and an image of a boy in her mind
while she was kissing her friends.

	Okay, so she'd opened her eyes a few times, but she hadn't been 
excited by the sight of the other girls when she was kissing them.  Much.

	Just like she wasn't excited now.

	Much.

	Mari-chan suddenly stopped kissing her and took a step back.  The
younger girl was smiling somewhat expectantly at her.  Mari smiled back
with just a hint of nervous confusion on her face.  <What exactly does one
*say* at a time like this?> she wondered.

	She found her voice a moment later.  "Mari-chan," she asked 
slowly, "would you like to have a coffee before we play tennis?"

	Mari-chan blinked.  She obviously hadn't been expecting *that* as
a response.  "Sure, Mari-san," she replied.

	"All right ... just let me get dressed."  Mari reached into the
locker and pulled out her blouse.  Her fingers felt strangely clumsy as
she fumbled to get the buttons done up over her brassiere, and she was
conscious the whole time of Mari-chan's eyes on her.  The younger girl
didn't seem to be staring as much as she was just looking at her and ...
waiting for something.

	<Right,> Mari resolved to herself, <we'll go to the kissaten -- I
*really* hope that there's no one there today -- and we'll talk about this
like the normal girls that we are.>

	As it happened the coffee shop was almost empty except for the
waiter.  Mari ordered her favorite blend of iced tea, and she savored the
taste while watching Mari-chan drink her own order and wondering what
exactly she should say next.

	It wasn't hard for her to admit that Mari-chan was attractive.  In
fact it was easy -- Mari had no particular hang-ups about thinking that
she herself was good-looking, and Mari-chan was practically her double.
The only ways that she didn't look like Mari were in the contrast that
Mari-chan's pale reddish-pink hair made to Mari's own light purple locks
and in her somewhat slighter build.  The resemblance had confused and
worried Mari when Mari-chan's brother -- Karigari Hiroshi -- had
introduced the two of them a few weeks earlier, but she had grown used to
it over time.  She *liked* Mari-chan.  The younger girl was friendly,
energetic, a good tennis opponent, and she seemed to want to see Mari
together with Karigari-kun.

	<So for the sake of our friendship I'll have to find out *why* she
decided to kiss me like that,> Mari decided.  <She said something about a
dream ... maybe that's part of it.  Okay.>

	"Mari-chan," she began at last, "you were starting to tell me
about your dream earlier.  I'd really like to hear about it."

	Mari-chan blinked again.  "Would you Mari-san?  Oniisan said that
the story of someone else's dream is the most boring thing in the world."

	Mari shook her head.  "I don't agree with Karigari-kun about that.
I think dreams are really interesting, and I did tell you about my own
dreams yesterday, right?"  <That's probably how this whole thing got
started,> she thought suddenly.  <She said that she never remembered her
dreams before now ...>

	The younger girl nodded thoughtfully.  "You did.  All right."  She
stared off into space for a moment, and then began to speak quietly.  "I
was looking at myself in a mirror.  I touched my reflection.  And then I
decided to kiss my reflection, but I'm not sure why.  But when I did, my
reflection came alive and stepped out of the mirror!  And it was you,
Mari-san!  I asked you why you were pretending to be me, but you said that
it was the other way around.  I told you that you had come out of the
mirror, but you said that you'd stepped *into* the mirror.  And that I was
only your reflection, and that I had no right to go after --"  Mari-chan
suddenly stopped dead in her recitation with a shocked look on her face.

	Mari found the silence to be even more ominous than the story had
been.  "Go after ... who?" she asked.

	Mari-chan grinned suddenly.  "I forget!"

	"Uh-huh."

	"Anyway, you said that you could prove that you were real and that
I was just the reflection by the fact that your heartbeat was on the right
side of the body.  So --"

	"Just a minute, Mari-chan ... the *right* side of the body?  The
heart is on the left side of the body."

	Mari-chan looked confused for a moment, and then nodded.  "Right.
You must have meant the *right* side of the body."

	Mari began to feel a headache coming on.  "The ... person in your
dream meant the left --"

	"Right!  Sorry!  The *correct* side of your body."  Mari-chan
smiled apologetically and then continued with the story.  "You put my hand
on your breast and I could feel your heartbeat there.  And you wondered
what side *my* heartbeat was on ..."

	Mari didn't waste time wondering why Mari-chan had trailed off
like that.  "And I put my hand on *your* breast, right?" she pressed.
"Mari-chan, what were we *wearing*?"

	Mari-chan blinked, and she looked more confused than ever.  "Uh
... sundresses, I think.  But no, that's not what happened.  I woke up."

	Mari let out a little sigh of relief.

	"Or at least I thought I had woken up.  We were resting under a
tree, because I'd passed out during a tennis game.  So I told you all
about my strange dream, and you said that it wasn't strange at all.  You
said that I *didn't* have any right to go after --"  Mari-chan broke off
again, and Mari could have sworn that the girl was blushing.

	"The same person as before, but you still can't remember who this
person is, right?" Mari asked wearily.

	Mari-chan nodded quickly.  "And then it got very strange."

	"It *got* very strange?"

	"Only one part really made any sense," Mari-chan said slowly.  "We
were running to school together -- only we were younger.  I think we were
probably junior high school girls.  And we were racing each other to
school, but then we were really running in a race.  Each of us pulled in
front of the other, but we wound up breaking the ribbon at the same time.
And then we rested for a little while, and I told you about my dream --"

	Mari nodded wearily.  "And I said that it wasn't so strange, and
that --"

	"-- you were going to steal oniisan away from me!" Mari-chan
interjected, sounding excited.  She didn't see the shocked expression on
Mari's face.  "And then you did!  You took him up in your space ship, so I
went after you in *my* spaceship --"

	"Oh, Mari-chan!" Mari interrupted exasperatedly.  "Is that what
this was all about?"

	"Huh?"

	"Honestly ... only little girls worry about their siblings' 
romantic relationships `stealing away' their affections!  Come on,
Mari-chan, you're eighteen!  I can't believe that you think of me like
that."  In a way, that was worse than all the strangeness ...

	"No, Mari-san, you don't understand!" Mari-chan protested.  "I'm
not worried about you stealing oniichan's feelings, really I'm not!"  She
*seemed* sincere to Mari, but there was also a disturbing sensation that
she was trying to convince *herself*.

	Mari shook her head and slumped back into her seat.  The entire
thing was just too strange, and it didn't answer the question she'd wanted
to have answered.  "Mari-chan, this doesn't explain why all of this ...
made you do what you did back there."

	Mari-chan was definitely blushing now.  "Well you see ... I wasn't
sure if I'd really woken up or not.  So I decided to do something like I'd
done in the dream, and if it was really a dream you would've reacted by
just telling me that I was only a reflection of you."

	"And because I didn't?" Mari asked.

	Mari-chan's blush got worse, and she couldn't meet Mari's eyes.
"This is real," she murmured.  "Really real."

	"Uh-huh," Mari confirmed with a nod.  She sighed.  "Mari-chan, 
you're not the one who should be worried about being a reflection of
someone else.  *I* am."

	*That* got the younger girl's attention.  Her head snapped up, and
the blush cleared in an instant.  "What do you mean, Mari-san?" she asked.
"You're --"

	"Mari-chan, how do you think I felt when I found out that 
Karigari-kun was watching me from a distance ... because I reminded him of
his little sister?"

	Immediately, all the colour flushed out of Mari-chan's face.  "I
... you ... but ..." she stammered.  She fell silent for a long moment,
and then quietly continued, "You mean I *have* been getting in the way of
you and oniisan?"

	Mari stared at her.  "Well ... I didn't mean --"

	Mari-chan stood up stiffly, and for a second Mari thought she saw
a pair of steam clouds puff up out of her shoulders.  "Su-sumimasen,
Mari-san," Mari-chan said quietly.  "I didn't know."

	And then she turned and ran away before Mari could say anything.

	Mari stared at the glass doors of the coffee shop through which
the younger girl had fled for only a moment.  <She ... she thinks its her
fault that it's not happening between me and -->

	She got up, paid for their drinks, and dashed off after her.

                             To Be Continued?

Author's Notes

	When I started this, I was in a pleasant buzz after having seen
the three "Boku no Mari/My Dear Marie" OAVs.  My favorite is definitely
the third, both because of the pair of BladeRunner/"Do Androids Dream"
references in it, and because of its rather effective commentary on the
first two episodes.  The first two are typical shounen romance stories,
while the third ... well, I don't want to spoil anyone's potential
enjoyment of it more than I have, so I'll just say that its symbolic and
explicit commentaries on the objectification of women and the potential
for the transformation of `objects' are of great interest.

	Unfortunately, I ran into a problem.  I don't know what happens
next.  I mean, I could confirm my reputation as the guy who will do
anything to get two attractive females into bed together ... but would
that really be in character for Mari-chan or Mari-san?  Of course not, the
art of them together on the Shojoai Art page notwithstanding.  I'd like to
get the return of Ken'nou Hibiki in here too (I originally had her showing
up at the kissaten and agreeing with Hiroshi (in absentia) that listening
to the story of someone else's dream was really boring, but I don't think
she's the kissaten type.)

	So here's where I shrug the burden of figuring out where my story
goes onto you, the reader.  I welcome any suggestions, and of course all
comments.  Naturally, I'll give full credit for any ideas to their source.

	I'll give one little note:  I don't want to see Karigari Hiroshi
coming up with the solution.  The guy is something of a jerk when it comes
to Mari-chan, as can be seen by his "Ideal Brother and Sister" video ...
talk about warped.

	(One other note:  I haven't been able to find Mari-san's last name,
so I used one from a book I read.  Include here plug for Julian May's
"Intervention")

	"Boku no Mari" was created by Takeuchi Sakura and brought to North
America by ADVision.  This story, while incorporating the characters and
situations of a motion picture held under copyright by others, is
copyright 1998 of Chris Davies.

	Nobody Sue Me Okay?

Chris Davies, Advocate for Darkness, Part-Time Champion of Light.
"WHAT CAN THE HARVEST HOPE FOR, IF NOT FOR THE CARE OF THE REAPER MAN?" 
-- Death, in "Reaper Man", by Terry Pratchett.
http://www.ualberta.ca/~cdavies/hmpage.html