I had one minute and twenty-five seconds left as a guy.
My girlfriend's AMV was playing on YouTube (possible seizure warning), in my PC tablet's web browser. And her songs were known for TSing people, which is Japanese for TGing them. As someone who'd gone through it twice, somehow she knew how to reach the part of a person that'd change them, and tug on it. Whether by picking out songs for them, in her previous life as a "licensed transformation specialist," or now by playing for them as a rock star.
... well, I thought she was a rock star. And so did Pastel*Palettes, when they had her write a song for their genuine idol group. They weren't one of the idol groups made up of TSed foreigners, who were promoting the government of Japan's new TS express immigration program, but still! It was a big milestone for Reiko, or her stage name Ran.
So was getting an AMV made of her debut song. I mean, it wasn't my favourite song of hers, and it was just Live2D models and animation effects. No hand-drawn frames or anything. But still! I'd listened to "Ran's" whole catalog on Bandcamp a million times, but somehow, seeing her in that video, I felt like she'd really done it. She'd made her dream of becoming an anime girl, even if just for one day ... even if just for one song.
It captivated me, seeing her like that. It made me feel like anything was possible.
That's when my hair spilled out over my shoulders.
I have watched, like, a million videos of people TSing. I know what happens to their bodies, as the song that will change them starts playing. I've seen every possible reaction. But you know what I've never seen?
Somebody fight it and win.
Sometimes they do at first, just for a handful of seconds. They try to press stop on the player (it never works), or turn off their PC (that never works either). But as the changes become more pleasurable, and start to affect their minds ... they give in. They become more and more the person it's changing them into, and after a point of no return they decide that they like it.
Remember how I'd written erotic fanfic about Reiko's past self? Well, I also did my best to document spontaneous human transformation. Not for a government agency, like the one that took her from her parents. But for the nerdiest thing possible: The SCP Foundation wiki, a horror-themed catalogue of "anomalous" creatures and objects, which the fictional Foundation was trying to contain.
A handful of the articles there were based on stuff from real life, like mine. What I wrote for it started like this:
Object Class: Keter
Special Containment Procedures: SCP-XXXX is currently uncontained. There is no intervention capable of preventing an instance of SCP-XXXX-1 from undergoing a Scherzo Event.
That's nerd for "It's as hard to contain as a live hand grenade with the pin pulled, and if it starts to happen to you I hope you like being a girl."
The article goes on for pages and pages. I and other authors documented specific cases, government responses, interviews with people who'd TSed and been TSed, and the Foundation's attempts (in the wiki's fiction) to contain it. It's actually pretty high in search engine listings now, for a lot of relevant keywords. And the SCP-JP article is even longer than our English one.
I think it was our way of coping? It's like, some of us just knew. We knew it was going to happen to us eventually, and we were scared. That's where horror comes from, right? That intersection between being morbidly fascinated with something and deeply terrified of it.
I'd lost contact with some of the other authors already. They only spoke Japanese now, or in one instance French.
All of which is to help you understand where I was coming from, when I jumped out of my chair and knocked it over and screamed. I instinctively tried to push back the hair, this foreign substance that was exuding from my body, and felt it grow thicker and oilier between my fingers while keeping its natural brown colour.
I was wasting precious seconds. I had less than a minute to come up with a containment procedure on the spot!
I tried to buy time by stopping the YouTube video, closing the web browser, and turning the volume down. But all that did was make it even louder, as Windows slowed to a crawl and kept playing the song.
I did the understandable thing. I ran, down the hallway and out the door. Right past the neighbour on our apartment building's stairs, who was already swearing at me for making a racket this late at night.
By the second staircase I was holding my chest to keep it from jiggling, and by the time I reached the bottom I stumbled and fell, as my legs shifted their centre of gravity.
I couldn't feel my hips become wider and puffier, or my bones shift around to adjust, because I was busy rubbing my head where it'd hit the doorframe. That's the thing about terror and pain ... they kind of drown out everything else.
I could still hear the tablet upstairs, its volume turned up to max.
I pulled myself up by the door handle and flung it open, running out into the Canadian winter ...
... only for my tablet to come flying out the window to my apartment and land in the snow right beside me, perched nicely on its kickstand.
I let out a girly shriek, higher-pitched than even my usual ones, and looked up to see my angry neighbour dust his hands off and slam shut the window. Then I looked down, at Reiko singing about how she rolls, and wondered for a split-second if TSing would be that bad.
Then I acted on impulse, and buried my tablet. I piled a mountain of snow on top of it with my arms and bare hands, until I couldn't hear the song anymore no matter how silent our street was. Then I flopped on my back, exhausted and burning up in my core, and made a snow angel with my freezing arms and legs because why the hell not at this point.
In the silence, even my gasping breaths sounded feminine.
I'd done it. My tablet had made the ultimate sacrifice, but a discreet brushing of my crotch showed that that part of me was still intact. Not that I cared all that much about ... well, it, but it was often the last thing to change. So if it was still there, then I'd won. I was the only person alive who'd successfully fought it off.
I waited out there in the cold for as long as I could stand it, just to make sure that my tablet was well and truly dead and nothing more was going to change. Then I walked past the snowpile and back into the apartment building, my damp, freezing socks squishing and squelching with every step.
Was it just me, or was it even colder out here than usual? I clung to my sides and shivered, gasping as my numb fingers accidentally pinched myself. Goddess, it was just a little pinch but it stung so badly!
It couldn't be helped, I thought, as I trudged up the stairs. And neither could anything else that'd just happened to me.
I had to look myself over and find out everything that had changed. I had to document it properly, including the actions I'd taken, and find someone to interview me for the logs. And then ...
... then, I needed to call up my girlfriends and cry.
Crying's much easier when your bloodstream is full of estrogen, it turns out. It's also more urgent. Past a certain point, you can't put your feelings aside and deal with them later. The tears just have to come out.
I didn't know who I was anymore. That's all I could think, as I huddled in a ball on my bed and squeezed my blankets up to my face. And felt my forearms squish into my small, but sensitive, breasts.
That wasn't even what bothered me, though. Not the redistribution of body fat, not the cushy thighs I was laying on, not even the hair that now got in my face. I'd fantasized about this, you know? A part of me wanted this.
I think that's what felt so awful. I'd held that part at arm's length for so long, dissecting it online and learning to talk about bodies and feelings without taking it personally. I could talk with Reiko about her work, and my focus was entirely on her and what it meant for her, not on what it could mean for me. I'd gotten so good at keeping that part of myself out of my conscious mind.
Now it was here, whether I wanted it to be or not. It's like my inner Japanese schoolgirl had come out of hiding, responding to Reiko's video and drinking it in like a glass of fresh water. And I ... I'd taken it from her and smashed it.
I felt like I'd killed someone. Like I'd strangled her, the part of me that wanted to be a her, with my bare hands. I'd stopped myself from transforming, but now would I ever know what it was like to finish? To go to school with Kaminari and Reiko, and have lesbian crushes and go on dates and wear cute clothes and ... and ...
I cried harder than I ever had, barely muffling it in my blankets, feeling the loss of the part of myself that could make sense of it all. Of these feelings, these longings, that were suffocating the rest of me. That said any price was worth having that life with my girlfriends, and having a shared language and culture with them. Even if it meant giving up everything I'd ever been.
I couldn't hold these feelings back anymore. But I couldn't do anything about them, either. I was trapped in between, unable to go back or forward. And it hurt.
I didn't know if I'd done the right thing.
I had never felt anything that painful in my life.
I wanted to tell the part of me I'd killed that I was sorry, that I didn't know this would happen, that she deserved to live too. But I couldn't, because she wasn't there. I couldn't feel that embarrassing, awkward, inner schoolgirl at all anymore. And it felt like I'd ripped out my heart.
It was just like in Madoka, I thought to myself, through wracking sobs. You know? How the magical girls turn into witches, when they're overcome with despair. I was stuck in between, in some agonizing half-life, like my body and mind needed to change one way or the other but couldn't.
Believe it or not, I had never watched Madoka.
I winced at the sunlight coming in from outside, covering my eyes with my slender hand and smooth arm. Why was it so ... wait, my alarm hadn't gone off. Crap! I was going to be late for school!
Crap crap crap crap. I needed to bring Reiko lunch for when she got back from practice, and Kaminari said she wanted to meet me after- wait, why had I gone to bed in my clothes?
Why had I gone to bed in guy clothes?
...
...
... oh.
At least I won't get groped on the train this time, I thought, as I staggered out of the bathroom. They probably wouldn't like what they found down there anyway.
I'd avoided turning on the light or looking in the mirror, the entire time I was in there. I didn't know what my mental image of myself was anymore, but I was sure that if I saw myself it wouldn't look anything like it. And it'd just confuse and upset me.
Certain things were hard to ignore though. I don't just mean having breasts; there was a lot of padding when I sat down in the living room, too, or at least it felt like it. And did my coffee mug feel heavier now, or was it just me?
At least I still had my phone, after ruining my tablet. I picked it up to check on OH GODDESS WHAT
I'd caught a glimpse of my face in the screen, while it was powered off.
My heart raced, and I clenched the blanket I always brought out to the couch in my fist. There was nothing, literally nothing I could do about what had happened. I could process the feelings later ...
No, I couldn't.
I set my coffee mug down and curled up in a ball, as I started crying. Then, as soon as I caught my breath, I checked the blank screen to confirm, before I started crying again.
I was beautiful.
Object Class: Keter
Special Containment Procedures: SCP-XXXX is currently uncontained. There is no intervention capable of preventing an instance of SCP-XXXX-1 from undergoing a Scherzo Event. Update: See Incident Report SCP-XXXX-6.
Interviewed: SCP-XXXX-1-208, formerly Researcher Claire Fox.
Interviewer: Agent "Alias" (a pseudonym).
Foreword: The day following Incident SCP-XXXX-6, a first-response specialist was dispatched to confirm the report. A neutral meeting place confirmed free of SCP-XXXX influence was chosen for the interview.
<Begin Log>
Alias: Please state your name, for the record.
SCP-XXXX-1-208: Why are we in the basement of a Home Depot?
Alias: That's an interesting question! Please distract yourself with this stock photo of a cat.
SCP-XXXX-1-208: O-kay. So why are you asking me my name, then? Isn't it SCP-XXXX-1-208 now? As far as the Foundation's concerned.
Alias: A spontaneous change of personal appelation is one of the known memetic effects of SCP-XXXX. With that in mind, what do you consider your name to be, post-transformation?
SCP-XXXX-1-208: I ... I don't know.
Alias: I see. Nihongo ga hanasemasu ka?
SCP-XXXX-1-208: Uh, sukoshi desu.
SCP-XXXX-1-208 makes a "just a little" gesture with her thumb and index finger.
Alias: No abnormal linguistic faculties ~ in your own words, then, what effect did the transformation have on you?
SCP-XXXX-1-208: It turned me into a youngish girl, except for between my legs? And I, uh, I guess I look ethnically Japanese now or something.
SCP-XXXX-1-208 clutches her sides and looks away.
Alias: Could you repeat that? Your voice trailed off for that last sentence. :3
SCP-XXXX-1-208: How the hell did you say a cat smile out loud?!
Alias: It's best if you don't think about that too much! So, can you describe for me what being subject to a Scherzo Event was like?
SCP-XXXX-1-208 huffs.
SCP-XXXX-1-208: It's all there in the report.
Alias: Noted! So, how did you survive with your original personality intact?
SCP-XXXX-1-208: ... I didn't.
Alias: Oah?
SCP-XXXX-1-208 takes a deep breath.
SCP-XXXX-1-208: Remember that key you retrieved? The one that's so cognitohazardous, that if someone even knows it's a thing it can affect them? That's basically what a Scherzo Event is. As soon as you see someone else get TSed, you know it could happen to you. It's only a matter of how susceptible you are, and how badly you want it.
Alias: Go on! Spreading information on SCP-370's effects totally isn't grounds for termination or anything ~
SCP-XXXX-1-208: We've got bigger problems than 370 right now! You've got bigger problems, since I'm already affected.
SCP-XXXX-1-208 stands up and takes hold of her breasts through her clothes, and jiggles them for effect.
SCP-XXXX-1-208: And it's like ... from the outside, it looks like it's replacing your personality. Okay? But on the inside, it's not. It's taking the part of you that you repressed, that maybe you literally beat into submission, and it's making that little seed flower. It's making you what you could have been under the right circumstances. What I'm saying is, SCP-XXXX can't turn you into a Japanese girl, unless you already have an inner Japanese girl.
SCP-XXXX-1-208 slumps back into her chair, disheveled and spent. Agent Alias takes notes.
SCP-XXXX-1-208: *quietly* When I was eight, my mom had us study Japanese in homeschool. Numbers, body parts, children's songs and stuff. Not too long after that I remember reciting the songs like a spell, in the dark, believing it'd change me into a Japanese girl.
Now I'm grown up, I think? I can't tell anymore. But like, that's always who I identified with. Close friends, fictional characters ... even my first romantic partner. But I saw the effect racism had on Kaminari, and all these white guys deciding they own Japanese culture because it sells waifus to them. And I don't want to be like them? I don't want to be one of the assholes that hurt my wonderful girlfriend.
It's just ... it's more than that. It's that even if racism wasn't a thing, I just don't want to be white. Or a guy.
SCP-XXXX-1-208 breaks down crying into her sleeves.
SCP-XXXX-1-208: And now I'm not.
<End Log>
Interview was concluded when subject woke up.
There it was, I thought, as I woke up sobbing on the couch and sniffled for breath. There was the secret I'd been trying to hide all this time.
From Kaminari, because her problems with cultural dysphoria were real and mine weren't.
From Reiko, because she was an actual Japanese girl and would think I was sick and/or weird.
And from myself, because there was nothing I could do about it. And even if there was, what good would it do anyone? It wasn't like the world would be better off without me!
It wasn't like being a schoolgirl in Japan was some kind of paradise, either. What with bullying, and harassment, and obligations to your family and schoolmates, and everyone watching to make sure you conform. Mom having to save money just to afford your school uniforms. Checking the dictionary app on your phone all the time, because you haven't learned some kanji yet. Feeling forced to talk in a high-pitched voice and present yourself cutely, because that's what girls do. And woe unto you if you think your crush on another girl is actual love!
Being ethnically Japanese means being born into that web of obligations and expectations, I thought. So what did that make me? And how did I know all of this?
Some Asian fetishist should have gotten TSed, I thought. At least they would've enjoyed it. They'd be groping theirself in the mirror right now, making ahegao like their submissive fantasy waifus. Then they'd go out and fucking enjoy life. Because racism isn't a thing, sexism doesn't exist, and they wouldn't have Kaminari's Japanese-Canadian parents to drive them mentally ill!
Everything would be-
I jumped, as my phone chimed with a message. Kaminari had written me a quick email, at the end of her day (it was morning here). She said she loved me and hadn't heard from me that morning (last night for me), and that Reiko wanted to know, what did I think of her music video?
I wiped my tears away, and told her I needed to do a video chat with her and Reiko right now. That I was very sorry for rudely demanding their attention, but I was having a nervous breakdown and needed help.
She said okay, but her parents wanted her to get ready for bed first. Reiko asked "What's it about?" I told her I would explain in the chat.
I leaned my phone against books on the coffee table, and waited for both of them to connect before turning on video.
Kaminari gasped, and covered her mouth. Reiko raised her eyebrows, and clasped her hands together in front of her.
I told them everything.
"Why were you in the basement of a Home Depot, anyway?" Kaminari put one hand to her chin.
"Masturbating in front of a mirror actually sounds like a good idea. The one in your front hallway is great for this." Reiko nodded sagely, in her pajamas next to Kami on their shared bed. "It will lower your stress, and help you accept your new body."
"I don't want to accept my new body!" I threw my hands up in the air. "This is wrong! All of it!"
The two Japanese girls who'd already been TSed gave me odd looks.
Then Kaminari burst into giggles. "Wait, wait. When I, a sansei Japanese-Canadian, feel the need to connect with Japanese culture, that is okay and good. Yes? But when you feel the same need, somehow it is not real. Why?"
"I-"
"Is it because my Japanese blood makes me enjoy cherry blossoms more? You could not understand my deep feelings for flowers ~ " She swooned passionately, and fell over onto the bed.
I sputtered and blushed. "Look, I was holding back how I felt all this time because I was trying to be supportive!"
"And I am trying to be supportive of you." Kaminari sat back up. "I felt awful not because I have Japanese blood, and that means that I need to eat sushi. That's racist. I felt awful because my parents' racism, and my schoolmates' racism, kept me from Japanese culture while I was growing up. So when I found out that I really enjoyed it, I realized that I had missed out on everything I could have had growing up. All of the festivals, all of the children's anime ... everything."
"You were so close to it, but you were deprived for unfair reasons." Reiko looked over to her.
"Mm-hm." Kami nodded, and turned back to me. "Eclair, you were homeschooled, yes? And your parents held you back from having a culture too ... any culture. Any culture, except for your church. So then when your bishop-"
"Can we please not go into the details of that?" I held up both hands.
"Ah! Yes, I am sorry." Kaminari bowed. "But what I am saying is, the words you are using to describe how you feel ... they are the same ones I'd use." She put one hand to her heart. "That longing, that knowing I could have had it if things had been different. Especially after you tasted it when you were little! You rediscovered Japanese culture around the same time I discovered it, Eclair. Is it so strange that you'd want it, too?"
I flushed red, and covered my face. "It's different for me, okay?"
"Because you were white?" Reiko didn't sound angry, but she responded so quickly it's like she pounced on what I said.
Crap. I'd forgotten her backstory.
"There are many white and half-white Japanese people," she lectured me. "They were born in Japan, they speak the same language, and they participate in the culture as much as they are allowed. But somehow, when it comes to certain things, they are always left out. Why? Because they don't look like everyone else.
"Meanwhile," she went on, "there are those who look the same as everyone else, but on the inside they're dying. They are gay, or trans, or trapped in an abusive power dynamic at home or at work. Or they are mentally ill, after years of abuse and bullying, and are quietly forgotten about. Until someone notices the odd smell coming from the next-door apartment, and discovers the body."
I shuddered.
"The same structural racism that keeps others out is a cage, that locks them inside. I write my songs to throw the cage door open." Oh goddess, she was staring into my eyes. "So that no one will have to be trapped, in a culture and country and body that's foreign to them. Whether they're a transgender salarywoman, an Osaka schoolboy planning to kill himself, or a lonely abuse survivor. Who's been isolated for so long, and doesn't have a family or home to go back to."
I hunched over the edge of the couch and covered my face with my arms, trying not to cry.
"Claire." Reiko leaned forward a little, on the edge of the bed. "You have found a culture that speaks to you, and a language in which you can express yourself. You have pursued them with enthusiasm and respect. I think that is sensible and lovely."
Fuck me, I was crying again. I tried to do it quietly enough that I could hear her.
"You said that you felt like you'd killed the part of you that wanted this. But I don't think that is true, Claire. Because if it were, you would not be crying right now."
She was right. I just nodded, still sobbing into my arms, because I couldn't say anything. But I could feel the part of me that wanted this, that needed this. And what it was like for her to be told for the first time that it was okay.
Instead of dogpiled by my Final Fantasy XIV Free Company, about how my feelings aren't real, when I'd come out to a group of LGBTQIA+ players about the real reason I'd chosen my avatar.
... forget I said that. I didn't handle it well, anyway.
"If you want, I can do my best to change you the rest of the way. Would you like that?"
I nodded again, still crying too hard to look up for more than a second.
"Alright. Are you still coming over on February 2nd, then?"
"Am I ... what?" I managed to get the words out, and looked up at Reiko, bewildered.
"You had an appointment scheduled with a transformation specialist in Sapporo. That was me, at the time. Sorry for divulging your confidential medical records to my Mistress."
"I didn't hear anything ~ " Kaminari put her hands together and beamed innocently.
I took deep, shuddering breaths, trying to calm down ... trying to be okay with this. Trying to let my girlfriends take care of me, and accept that they'd talked me into it. "Alright," I told Reiko. "I can come over for that."
"Okay. That's a few days from now, so please try to take care of yourself in the meantime. I can't skip band practice, Claire-nee."
"Claire nnn ... !" I turned bright red when I figured it out. She'd called me her big sister! Wait, did that mean she and I weren't-
"Oh!" Kaminari was bouncing up and down on the edge of the bed. "And if you have some time before she changes you, could we try for a baby again?"
I stared at her. "Is that what you've been thinking about this whole time?!"
"As soon as you mentioned it, yes." She put one hand behind her head, and blushed. "I do love cocks ... "
"She does." Reiko blushed even harder, and looked down before meeting my eyes again. "She really does, Claire-nee."
"Reiko, are we still dating?" I blurted out. I had to know!
"Of course we are. Onee-chan ~ "
Her voice lifted and went all cutesy when she said that, and I think my heart melted into a puddle between my legs.
After that, it was way past their bedtime, so they said their goodnights and we all said we loved each other. At least they didn't have school the next morning, I thought.
Then I glanced over at the hall mirror ... and realized my hand had already found its way to my crotch.
I shivered, and sniffled, and grabbed a tissue to blow my nose on and dry my tears with. Then, after hesitating just a moment, I started to take off my clothes.
This is a sweet chapter. I enjoyed it aplenty
Thanks, I'm glad you liked it!