"Who's my sexy little kitten ~ "

"Konkon!"

I stared down at Reiko, who was pinned to the bed beneath me and wearing nothing but a collar. "I thought cats are supposed to say 'nya?'"

"I am bilingual, Claire-née. I speak fox and cat, nya ~ "

I snerked, and covered my mouth partway with my hand so she couldn't see "big sister Claire" crack up. "So you are," I said, and laid down beside her, spreading my bare legs. "But what else is your tongue good for?"

Reiko crawled down to my legs, in a very catlike way, and nuzzled the insides of my thighs affectionately. I shivered, and the parts of me I'd kept from my time as a guy twitched with anticipation.

"It's good for a lot of things, Claire-née. Let me try this ... "

"Oh!" I gasped.

"And this."

I shivered and arched my back, lifting those parts of me into the air.

"Hmm, this is unexpected ... "

"Huh?" I looked down to see Reiko inspecting my crotch, just as she leaned in to touch it with her hands.

"Can you feel this, Claire-née?"

I gasped, and froze.

The tip of her finger had gone inside me, through a tiny slit just below my guy parts. A slit that I was pretty damn sure hadn't been there just a few days ago.

My brain broke.

---

A few days before that, I was staring down at a blank page on my tablet's screen, where it was set up on the folding tray table. I'd sprung for the keyboard case that propped it up, but I was really missing my old tablet's built-in kickstand.

The overhead lights were turned off. The seats on either side of me were empty, but I could hear snoring and miniature fans in the background. Phones, tablets, and laptops cast their light on the roof of the airliner's cabin, while miniature spotlights shone down on John Grisham thrillers and other airport bookstore fare.

I sighed, and drummed my fingers on my tablet's rubbery keyboard. Where should I even begin?

Dear

Gah. Did any of them even care? My brother would just say he'd "pray for me," without listening to a word I said. Miranda was probably camming it up on 4chan, or selling weed over Craigslist or something. That left only ...

Dear Mom and Dad,

Fffffff.

My hand went to my smooth, feminine chin and stayed there, making me look thoughtful when really I was trying not to have an anxiety attack.

I remembered that one song from Saturday's Warrior, the quintessential Mormon musical, where Jimmy Flinders' parents are pleading with him not to run off with his friends. And have sex and do drugs, or something. "If they take you away from your family and home, they'll leave you alone in the eeeeeeend!"

It'd taken years for me to accept that they were the ones who'd left me alone, when I'd started dating Kaminari. Back when she was my "gay boyfriend." I hadn't done it to hurt them; I just hadn't hid it or lied about it, the way all the other kids and "young single adults" at church hid their sex lives. I was proud of her. She deserved to be loved, and welcomed, and protected. And I really thought ...

I really thought I could get my parents to see that. To look past the fact that we were the same gender, and see her as part of the family.

Even after I was proven wrong, I kept thinking it was still my fault somehow. If only I'd said this, or done that, I could've gotten through to them. If only ...

If only they hadn't kicked me out of the house just for loving someone.

If only love was a thing they'd ever known, in their lives.

At least their rejection had made it easier to sue their fucking bishop for child rape.

I closed my eyes and took deep breaths, focusing on the sounds of the airplane. Not just the jet engines, but the fans whirring, the pages turning. You're safe, I told myself. You're not there anymore.

I looked down at the letter I'd started to write, and knew that I was not going to finish it. I actually looked forward to forgetting how to English, I realized. It meant I'd never be tempted to waste my time and relive my worst memories like this.

I erased the salutation, and started again.

Dear Stardancer,

I know you told me to write my family, and I still see those puppy-dog eyes you gave me in the airport. But if my family had wanted to hear from me ever again, they would've let me know a long time ago.

I drummed my fingers on the tray table for a second, then stopped and erased that last sentence.

But what you don't understand is, I'm not leaving my family behind. I'm joining them. They'll be waiting for me at the airport, and I'll hopefully live with them afterwards.

Them, and one or more of our husbands, I guessed ...

I know you miss your own family, Stardancer. I really do. I've been there, so many times and in so many ways. But family aren't the people who are related to us by blood

Wait. Did I still have blood ties to my family, after getting TSed into a Japanese girl?

But family aren't the people who are related to us. They're the people we find who want to be around us, and vice-versa. They're the people who help us, who take care of us when we need it, and who don't make us feel bad about ourself just for existing. Just for being gay, or a furry.

(Considering the furries I'd known, that last sentence might've been redundant.)

I hope you can find a family of your own. Just, please don't look in the wrong places for them. And please don't ask me to, either.

I hit "Send."

Whew ... I leaned back in my seat. I was glad I was leaving all of that behind.

Now to place bets on whether my first time being groped in Japan would be before or after I finished TSing, I thought.

---

Turns out, it took less than a day. It also wasn't quite as much fun as TSF manga makes it out to be.

Going through customs at the airport wasn't much fun either, thanks to the woman staffing the checkpoint. I watched her process some people ahead of me, mostly white guys, who had the TS visas granted by the immigration program. Her smile seemed to get more and more fake, and her voice more snappish and brusque, as the line progressed.

Finally she got to me, and gave a sigh of relief before bowing. 「Welcome home!」she said, with a sincere smile. 「I truly apologize for」something something something, 「but」something something「please!」She smiled at me expectantly.

I winced. This would've been a good time for my inner schoolgirl to remember how to speak Japanese.

I bowed in return, and held out my TSF visa in both hands like it was a business card.「I'm sorry,」I said,「I didn't understand. Please use English.」

「Eh?」 Her smile twitched a little, then disappeared altogether when she took the paper. 「W-what? This is ... but you are ...」

I stood up, and clenched my hands at my sides.

The woman took a deep breath, and spoke with flat affect.「Passport or other」something,「please.」

I handed her my old passport, my new student ID card, and the letter I'd gotten explaining that I'd undergone a change of identity.

「This doesn't look like you,」she said, after barely looking at them.「Please」something「to the room on the right. Next!」

I waited for her to return my passport or ID, but she didn't. I hesitated a little longer, before going where I thought she wanted me to go.

Fortunately, that wasn't where I got groped. I just had to wait a couple hours, then answer a ton of questions and explain the purpose of everything in my bag. I almost fell asleep sitting there, while I was waiting, but I managed to email Kaminari and Reiko and let them know what was up.

"Okay, sis," Reiko emailed back. "We'll be out here waiting for you. 頑張って。" Best of luck.

---

Passport and ID in hand, I finally staggered out into the international arrivals lounge, where the seats cast long shadows in front of the evening sun. There weren't too many people out there; Kaminari was sprawled out on the floor writing in what looked like a textbook, while Reiko was kicking her feet from a chair and doing something with her tablet.

Neither of them noticed me until I came up beside them, dragging my suitcase behind me. "Uh, hey."

Kaminari gasped, and jumped to her feet. "Eclair!"

Reiko looked up from the sound mixer app on her tablet, and grinned.

Then Kaminari glomped me, discreetly rubbing her crotch against mine in the process, while Reiko held up a sign with "Claire-née" on it in Japanese. I winced at the pounce-hug, and blushed at the sign.

"It is so," rub, "good," rub, "to see you again, Eclair!" Kaminari grinned madly as she pulled back away, and I quickly held my bag in front of me to hide the tent in my skirt. "The wait was completely worth it."

"It wasn't a long wait, sis." Reiko came up beside her, and put a hand on her shoulder. "Don't worry about it."

"Heh, okay ... " I put my free hand in front of my mouth, trying to look thoughtful so they couldn't see how hard I was blushing. "Um, how's life been treating you?"

"Life is going to give me babies," Kaminari practically squealed, making me blush (and do other things) even harder.

"Life is good, sis. Can I have a hug too?"

"Um ... " I glanced down at the tent I was trying to make disappear, then decided it was okay if it was her. "Um, sure!"

Reiko didn't hug me quite as enthusiastically as Kaminari did. But she did press herself to me, and I felt something in her skirt that took my mind off my own crotch completely.

I stared down at her. "Ehhh?!" my inner schoolgirl squeaked.

Reiko smiled nervously, and blushed really hard. "I told you that Mistress likes cock, sis."

---

It took us a half-hour or so to get out the door, in between them grabbing all their winter gear and putting it back on and me getting some kind of dinner. I was so sleepy and wired and anxious, and all I remember of that time is making a fool of myself at some fast-food place before Reiko swooped in to save me.

We had an ... interesting conversation, while we waited for the bus to my hotel.

"I wrote a song to try to help trans men realize their gender, Claire-née. But I found that if I overlayed it on the song which changed me, it produced not entirely unwelcome effects." She squirmed, and played with her skirt.

"I always wanted a futa girlfriend," Kaminari said, blushing almost as hard as Reiko was. 「And now I have two!」Futari no futanari, she said, in Japanese.

... heh.

"Don't get ahead of yourself, dear." I put an arm around her, as though I could restrain her passions that way. "I only have the one set of equipment down there."

"Are you sure?" She couldn't stop grinning. "Have you checked?"

" ... no."

"Well, then I'll just have to examine you thoroughly." She leaned in and gave me a peck on the cheek.

Not to be outdone, Reiko pulled my other arm around her and kissed me on the other cheek. "Same ~ "

I desperately tried to focus on the cold, the walls of the bus shelter, and the snow outside. Or maybe a change of subject. "So uh, the girl working at customs seemed to be really pissed with everyone who had a TS visa? Including me."

"Ah yes, about that." Kaminari put her free hand behind her head, and blushed in embarrassment. "There are girls who feel we are here to steal all the men."

"I mean, we kind of are?" I squirmed. "It's like the government decided they weren't doing a good enough job making Japanese babies, so they want us to do it for them. And if the binary genders, at least, were evenly balanced before we showed up, then we're skewing Japan's demographics in favour of women."

"I'm in favour of women ~ " Kaminari clung to my arm and rubbed up against my shoulder.

"Okay, yeah, same, but now there aren't enough men for all the straight women."

"Isn't polyamory great?" said Reiko, rubbing up on the other side of me.

... I couldn't argue with that.

Fortunately, I didn't have to, because at that moment a couple of college-aged white girls walked into the shelter, talking and laughing in some Germanic language I didn't recognize (except that I knew it wasn't German).

Reiko and Kaminari let go of me, and acted like respectable Japanese schoolgirls who were just here with one of their girlfriends. But I knew the truth. And I had to hold my bag on my lap the whole time I waited in the shelter, because my cock wasn't letting me forget.

---

So, what did it feel like to be in Japan for the first time?

I want to say "exciting," but it was really more like "mortifying." It felt like being called out. Like Amaterasu herself was watching me from the Celestial Plain, and was like "oh, you think you're Japanese, do you? Here, let me show you how wrong you are."

I mean, having the lady at customs talk to me in Japanese and ignore me when I asked her to use English ... that was weirdly validating? I guessed it felt like how being gendered correctly did, for trans women like Kaminari ... and, well, me.

But the whole experience of being there, as soon as I stepped off the plane, felt like meeting a celebrity and praying to goddess that I didn't make a fool of myself. Then immediately proceeding to do so, again and again. Being tired and having a goal in mind helped me get through that rough patch at customs, but by the time my girlfriends had paid for my bus fare I wanted this to be over. I wanted to forget my old life and feel comfortable here. To just be my inner schoolgirl completely, so that all of this would be normal.

At least Sapporo kinda looked like Calgary? If you squinted, and it was at night. I mean, it smelled like the ocean, and the buildings were packed really closely together, and there were some Toronto-style massive neon signs and LCDs downtown. But it was also snowy, just like Alberta this time of year. Somehow, the sight of the buildings and parks covered in snow made it feel more like home.

Then the bus turned to drive past this huge park ... and there were these giant snow sculptures, lit up in blue and white. Like, famous buildings and anime characters and things. I think I saw signs up with pictures of Hatsune Miku?

"You have very good timing, Claire-née." Reiko put her hand on my shoulder, careful about expressing affection when there were other people around. "The Snow Festival started today."

"I see ... " I had my eyes glued to the window, right up until the bus drove past. That had definitely taken the edge off my self-consciousness. Why the hell didn't we have anything like that back home? Was Canadian snow just not good enough?

Then I remembered this was going to be my home, soon. And I felt self-conscious again, but in a good way.

---

I don't remember much about the hotel check-in. But apparently Reiko had learned what reservations were since her trip to Canada, because she handled things at the front desk while Kaminari sat with me in the lobby and squeezed my hand.

After that we went up to my room, on the same floor they'd reserved for her last year. It was a different room, but it looked much the same as it had in our video chat? I had it to myself, since there had been an odd number of applicants.

I'd barely set my suitcase down on the bed, before Reiko bowed to Kaminari and said "I will see you in the lobby, Mistress." She went out and closed the door, and I looked over to my girlfriend ... who was already taking her clothes off.

"Ah!" she said, when she noticed the odd look I was giving her. "I am sorry for being ... too fast." She blushed. "It just seemed like you could use some relief?"

My skirt was tenting again. I nodded, blushing as well, and started taking off my own clothes.

I just want to say that nothing, but nothing, beats sex with a hot partner when you're horny and scared and stressed out as hell. Especially when you keep realizing there are two sexy girls in your bed, and one of them's you, and your own breasts are sensitive too.

I needed that so bad. I was almost glad it was just her ... I didn't think I was awake enough for a three-way. Not without elbowing someone in the face by accident.

Kaminari had to leave very soon after that, since she had school tomorrow and her parents were expecting her and Reiko at home. I fell asleep while she was cleaning up in the bathroom, but I woke up to a peck on the cheek, then saw her wave goodbye through the open door. "Oyasumi nasai, atashi no ai ~ " Good night, my love.

"Good night," I whispered, and smiled. Then I fell back asleep, as the door closed shut with a click.

---

I got woken up like twelve hours later, by the phone on the bedside stand. I flailed in the covers, knocking my discarded clothes off the bed, then finally sat up and crawled over and answered the phone. "Moshi mo-"

A flat female voice cut me off. "Claire Fox. Group one. Correct?"

"H- Uh, yes?"

"Licensed Transformation Specialist Matou. This is my second time calling you. You are late. Proceed to room 208 for interview." She hung up.

Oh, kuso.

---

A young woman with long, purple (dyed?) hair, dressed in what looked like a lab coat, tapped her clipboard in the makeshift examination room as she looked me over. Her eyes were expressionless, and she sort of reminded me of Reiko's old self, but with a scarier, nastier edge. Was she also an anime ch-

"Your application is invalid," she told me. "You have already been transformed." She bowed. "I am sorry. Good day."

"Wait, wait ... " I held up my hands. "I haven't been fully transformed yet!"

"Oh?"

I really didn't want to go into embarrassing details. "I'm speaking English, aren't I?"

"Many TS daughters retain their language proficiency. It corresponds to whether or not they studied Japanese before being TSed."

TS daughters? Oh right, ＴＳ娘。Person who's been turned into a girl. "Did you study Japanese before being-"

"Your application is invalid. Good day." She bowed again, her long hair touching the floor.

"Wait!" I clenched my hands into fists, and tried not to shake with fear. "I haven't been changed all the way yet."

"Where have you not been changed?"

I took a deep breath, then pointed.

"I see. Let me examine it."

Fortunately, that still wasn't the part where I got groped. She had me sit on some kind of exam table, then I lifted up my skirt and cringed as she leaned in to examine my panty bulge.

Finally, Matou stood up. "Are you sure your transformation is not complete?"

"Ehhh?" I let go of my skirt, and stared at her. "How?"

"Do you know what the word 'intersex' means?" I did, but she didn't stop to let me say that. "It means someone who was born with a mix of gender characteristics. In your case, you have been transformed into a girl who has breasts and a penis and testicles. It is rare, but not unheard of."

"But I stopped the change," I protested.

"There is no way to stop the change."

"I buried the thing that was playing the song under a metre of snow!"

"There is no way to stop the change. You have been fully transformed."

"I don't understand Japanese!" I was shaking, now.

"You answered the phone in Japanese, did you not?"

"I-"

Her expressionless eyes glinted as they bore into me. Not glaring, but powerful nonetheless. "I woke you up, and you reflexively answered in Japanese. Even after I spoke to you in English, you tried to respond in Japanese, and had to catch yourself. Finally, we have been having this conversation in Japanese since the time you asked 'I'm speaking English, aren't I?' You said that in Japanese."

I stared at her.

Everything she said after that was a blur, but it didn't matter.