As the lecture hit its end, and half the people exited the hall as fast as possible without straight up running, I slowly packed my empty notebook into my bag. It really was a wonder how someone who was once a math prodigy could end up being drained after a short introductory class in second year of college, but I supposed that’s how depression worked.
It wasn’t like it mattered anyways. I only had one thing to look forward to, and I figured I would have received a message of some kind already if it happened already.
‘Or not,’ I thought, as I came face to face with my best friend.
“Hi,” said Lynn.
“Hi,” I responded, still processing what just happened.
“So, umm, yea… I’m back. Just arrived today, actually. I should probably be unpacking right now, but I kinda didn’t want to wait before I got to see you. Wanna come to my place?” She offered.
Lynn was my best friend since almost as long as I could remember, and we spent a lot of time together pretty much up until we graduated high school. Then she took a year of a break to travel, while I went to the best college that accepted me (mistake). Despite the awkwardness from not seeing each other in a long time, she couldn’t help but start recounting her adventures on the way to her one-person dorm. Apparently, being a witch opened a lot of doors for you, who could have guessed.
Shortly after we entered her place, she asked, “But enough about me for now, how’s your year been? Do you want the tea? I got raspberry-flavored.”
One thing about me was that I had problems opening up, even to the person I trusted the most. It was something I would probably need to work through with a therapist when I finally bothered to go to one. Luckily, Lynn knew some unorthodox ways to solve problems — in this case, she’d enchant tea to help me express what’s going inside of me on the outside better, as she put it. It basically helped me open up a lot.
She handed me the cup, and after a couple of minutes, I could tell it was starting to work. It felt nice, as always.
But that didn’t solve the main problem.
“I don’t think I needed the tea this time, I didn’t really do much. I have a dormmate that I alienated. I got on anti-depressants at some point. I even managed to somehow pass the first year without serious issues. I haven’t been feeling the best, but that’s kinda obvious given the whole depression thing. That’s basically it,” I said.
“Hmm… Well, I actually had an idea to do with it. I learned a lot during this year. Met many different people. It actually gave me an idea how to help you with your problems. I’ll be honest, I’m not absolutely certain it will help, but I believe it’s worth a try. Basically, the tea how I usually make it affects your actions to be more honest, and I can make it so that it affects your body in the same way,” Lynn explained.
I thought about it. Learning magic definitely had to be hard, given how many odd phrasings seemed to be involved. I figured she probably just meant that it’d make my body a more honest representation of me, so it’d probably transform me. A mean voice inside my head said that it would just make me even more ugly, but I managed to shut it up relatively quickly this time.
“I… I don’t really know how it would help, but I trust you.” I handed her the cup.
Her hand started glowing as she enchanted the tea, and it glowed for a moment too. She then gave it back to me and told me it was ready.
That part was kinda scary, actually having to drink it. Luckily, the magic that already affected me helped just enough for me to drink half a cup in one go before the hesitation could really set in.
This time, I felt the effects immediately. I shuddered, as a tingling sensation travelled through my entire body. As far as I could tell, I hadn’t started changing yet, but I already felt exposed, as if I took off a layer of metaphorical clothes.
“So, what now?” I asked.
“Well, the changes that are going to happen will happen slowly on their own, but… they can happen much faster if you’re actively thinking about them.” She smiled.
“And what do you think those changes might be?”
“Well…” She moved to sit really close to me on the sofa. “We might as well start with the elephant in the room, right?” She paused for a moment, then, in a more suggestive tone, “Do you happen to remember what you asked me for when you first found out I was a witch?”
Oh no.
Of course I remembered what I asked. It was my deepest secret, that I only ever told anyone, and it was Lynn, when we were both seven and she was starting to learn magic. It was the sort of childish wish, one I didn’t even understand the appeal of, I just wanted it more than anything else, for some reason. As I grew up, and learned more about the world, I expected to grow out of it. I never did. It definitely hurt more in ways I couldn’t explain though.
“It… It doesn’t matter…”
“It does though. I told you back then that I didn’t understand, but now I think I do. It wouldn’t have worked out anyways, but if you happen to still want it…” She got even closer, and whispered in my ear, “Now that we’re adults, we can do whatever we want.”
My brain decided to gently toss whatever just happened in the backburner, and focus on the topic at hand.
“But… I… I don’t even understand… Why do I even want this?” I stuttered out.
Lynn sighed and backed up a little. “I met some people, people who told me they had similar experiences to what you seem to have. You see, there isn’t a logical answer to ‘why would a boy want to be a girl?’, because the question is wrong. The only way a boy would want to be a girl would be if it turned out she wasn’t ever a boy at all.”
I shuddered again. That ‘she’ wasn’t even directed at me, and it still hit me harder than it had any right to. I didn’t even know what I was feeling, but… I wanted more.
“You know, I wanted to ask how you felt about it, but given your reaction, I don’t think I need to,” Lynn laughed.
“I… But… I’m not… How…?” I eloquently articulated.
“It doesn’t matter, all that matters is what you want. All the problems can be dealt with, just think about what would make you happy.” She put a hand on my cheek, and switched to a gentler voice. “Didn’t you once say that you wished we could hug more, but we couldn’t because you felt uncomfortable with your body? Do you think you’d feel better about some cuddles if you were a cute girl instead?”
I pictured it before my brain could stop me, and it, combined with everything else I was experiencing, caused me to make a high pitched noise and turn away.
I only had a moment to process the fact that changes were very much happening, before I noticed something sticking out of my lower back. I instinctively brought it into my field of vision, and…
It was a tail.
I had a tail.
It looked kinda like the tail of a white fox. It was still pretty small, but I could already tell the fur on it was very soft, and it’d be fun to play with it.
Then, before my very eyes, it grew a significant amount.
My eyes got wide as I wondered how big it was going to get. A wild part of my mind imagined it being truly huge and extremely fluffy, big enough for me to be able to properly hug it.
To my surprise, the tail reacted rather enthusiastically to that thought, growing even faster than before.
My tail ponderings got interrupted by a fake cough from Lynn, which led me to let out a very much not fake “Eep!”.
“You know, I didn’t expect you to go into denial or anything, but this was still much faster than I expected. You really didn’t have any attachment to the pretense of masculinity, huh…” Lynn teased.
“I’m… umm…”
“I did expect you to be smaller though.” She put her arm on the armrest behind me, her arm ending up right next to my face. “I know you always tried to hide it, but it’s really clear to anybody who pays attention that you really hate taking up as much space as you did.”
She was surprisingly close again, and I felt myself shrink both physically and metaphorically. I was experiencing another strange-but-nice feeling, and my guess was that this one wasn’t coming from the potion.
“Just think about how many things I’ll be able to do to you when you become as tiny as you secretly want to be,” Lynn whispered in my ear, and it was a lot.
All the pressure building up in me got too much, some limitation I had previously put on myself broke.
I almost jumped on Lynn, wrapping my arms around her and squeezing her tightly. She let out a mixture of surprised and confused noises, clearly not having had expected it to happen.
“You promised hugs,” I explained, getting my body a bit closer to hers.
After a moment, she responded, “I, umm… You know what? Yeah, sure, we might as well do this instead.”
I didn’t get exactly what the other thing she implied was, but as she put her arm around me, using the other to scratch me behind fluffy ears I apparently had now, I really didn’t care.
After a longer amount of time, she said wistfully, “You can be pretty dense sometimes, you know that?”
I nodded. “Mhmm. But I have you back now, you can explain if I don’t get something.”
She sighed, and gave me a squeeze. I didn’t find out what she meant that day, and I wasn’t sure what challenges I would have to face when I woke up, but I learned one more thing that day — you get really nice dreams when you fall asleep on your friend.
Awwwwww