Chapter Notes: Yuri schoolgirl kitsune TG. Disassociation. Suicidal ideation.
You are a first-year student at Inori Academy, or 愛紀学院.
Your name is not [YOUR DEADNAME] anymore. You never liked it, anyway.
That's because Inori Academy is one of the most exclusive private schools in the country. It's an all-girls' school, and the selection is by invitation only. Anyone can get an invitation, whether they're boy, girl, or enby; native or foreigner. But if you accept the invitation, you become a Japanese girl, just like you'd always wanted.
Your student notebook is a high-tech smartphone, which has a screen covering its whole front surface and can run any app ever made. Everyone at school has one. Half of your class brings a Switch to school, too.
Your student ID reads 愛沢 璃子, or Aizawa Riko, following the custom of putting the surname first. To most of the girls around you, you are Aizawa-san, or Aizawa-chan if they want to sound friendlier and more familiar.
But to a girl named Hazawa Mina, you will always be her Ai-chan.
This is your very first day. Everyone agreed the last two don't count.
頑張って、愛沢ちゃん。
璃子が好き〜
あっあたしも。
Ha-chan is there to meet you at the front door, and waves excitedly when she sees you.
You catch a glimpse of your reflection in the glass doors, and stare at it for a moment.
You are short, but not as short as Ha-chan. You have raven-black hair, which touches your shoulders. And your slim, stockinged legs are girlish but powerful, and will not give out quite so easily as Kamiko-née's.
(That is what you and Tamamo-née call Aizawa-san now. It's okay to be on a first-name basis with your big sister.)
Reddish-brown fox ears, one with a notch in it halfway up, peak on top of your head in astonishment. Your white-tufted tail is frozen behind you, staying still so that you won't be noticed. And your face ... you don't think you've had one of your own before. It reads as femme, with Japanese features. Mostly blank, just like your thoughts right now, but with a hint of startle or shock.
What are you? you ask yourself. The answer's so obvious, and yet hard to accept.
Are you going to see this face every time you look in a mirror?
You aren't sure you'll be able to handle that.
"Aaah, you're so cute, Ai-chan!" Ha-chan runs up and hugs you, and the face in the glass front door blushes as you unsteadily hug her back. "I love what you did with it!"
She pulls back a bit to look up at your face, but you catch her taking a quick glance down at your breasts as well.
You made them as big as you could, on this small and slim body type, without feeling disproportionate.
"Come on," she says, and holds out her hand. "Let's get to our classroom. You have to introduce yourself!"
After a moment's hesitation, you take her hand and let yourself be pulled along.
You're still very nervous about this. You're not even sure you can process it, deep down, or if you will ever be able to. But you'd rather go through this with Ha-chan than without.
You write your name on the board with a shaky hand, fully aware that you are presenting your ideal body to the whole class. That everyone knows this is how you want to be seen, and have always wanted to deep down.
You start to add furigana to the Chinese characters, but the digital whiteboard fills them in automatically. You guess the school network knows that 愛沢 璃子 is read 「あいざわ りこ」, when it's you.
You turn around to face the class, unable to meet anyone's gaze. "My name is Aizawa Riko," you tell your shoes and girlish legs, in a quiet voice. "I am a fox of Inari, who was allowed to take human form for some reason. This is all very new to me. So please be patient with me."
You blush for the polite applause, but then look up to see that Ha-chan is still clapping. She stops and blushes when you give her a questioning look, but is still smiling for you.
Someone else is smiling for you, too. Who is that?
Oh, right. Your big sister is in this class, too.
You'd tried to avoid looking at her face when you were in her body.
You give her and Ha-chan a shy smile as you take your seat, next to Ha-chan's. Smiling usually feels forced, to you, but it seemed appropriate.
"I know why you were allowed to take human form ~ " Ha-chan whispers as you sit down.
You blush, and clasp your hands on your desk, and look down at them as class starts.
You know why you were allowed to, of course.
So that Ha-chan can have you with her.
You explain this to her on the rooftop at lunch break, when she asks what you're planning to do now that you have your own body. "I don't know," you say. "Whatever you feel most comfortable with."
"That makes it sound like you're asking me what I want to do with it," Ha-chan replies, and giggles. "Is that what you mean?"
"No, I-"
You've brought a soup canister of leftover kitsune udon, and are trying to get it open without spilling any. You don't manage it.
Ha-chan reaches over and gets it with her handkerchief, her hand dangerously close to your lap. You blush, and thank her.
"No probs! So what do you mean, Ai-chan?" She unwraps and opens her own bento in her lap.
The sausages on the bed of rice look like little octopi.
You blink, and shake your head to clear it. "I mean there's no reason for me to have human form, unless it's to keep you company."
"Oh, so you prefer being a fox?" She's talking with her mouth full of sausage and rice. "Can't you just change back?"
"I-I don't think my preferences enter into this." You hug your sides carefully, still straddling the canister of noodle soup. "I don't know if I have any preference. I don't think it'd matter if I did."
Ha-chan giggles and snorts. "I saw you staring at your reflection, you know ~ you're really cute, did you know that?"
There's that feeling again, of needing comfort and touch, that you associate with girl bodies.
You squeeze your eyes shut and hug yourself tightly. There's no other way of processing it.
Or is there? Because now Ha-chan is stroking and scritching the top of your head, and you start to relax a little. "It's okay," she says, and puts her free hand to her heart. "This is my ideal body, too. I got so upset when mine started to become a guy, back on Earth." She grins sheepishly. "I'm glad I didn't have to go through that for very long."
"By 'become a guy,' do you mean 'go through puberty?'"
"Uh-huh." She nods.
"Hm." You look down at your arms.
Some part of you is telling you that you may have lived a bit longer than she has. But that part is quiet, and muffled. It feels like this is something unusual, but non-threatening. And when you try to remember exactly how long you've lived, you draw a blank.
When everyone here is exactly who they appear to be, you realize, it may be best to take things at face value.
Oh goddess you have a face and it's so cute and girly
You cover it with your hands, blushing furiously at the thought that everyone could see it.
"Ai-chan, what's wrong?" She lifts the hand that was giving you headpats.
"Everything," you say.
"How?"
"I'm not a person. I'm just a fox. I'm not a person. I'm just a fox. I'm not a person. I'm just a fox ... "
You are rocking back and forth, your hands covering your face except for your wild eyes. Which are staring down at your legs.
You are used to people getting scared when you have nervous breakdowns, so it surprises you when Ha-chan giggles and scoots up and hugs you from beside. "Foxes are people too, you know!"
That doesn't make any sense, you think.
Nothing makes sense.
You are in the arms of a Japanese schoolgirl, sitting on the roof of the high school that you and she go to.
How did this happen?!
That's what I'm wondering right now.
Wait, what? you ask Tamamo-née.
I'm at the hugs place
We're on the roof
I'm using this girl as a lap pillow
She's stroking my hair and feeding me by hand
That ... sounds unusually nice, you can't help but think.
She offered to clean my ears too but I told her no
You flatten your own fox ears to your head.
That sounds less nice.
"Are you okay?" Ha-chan asks. "You stopped panic breathing but you look upset."
You shake your head, and slowly remove your hands from your face. "It's nothing."
Still hugging you, Ha-chan looks up at your face. "You know you're a person ... right?"
When she puts it that way, you don't know anymore.
The first time you can remember being yourself is when Kamiko-née was forced to do something extremely unpleasant, and disassociated. That's when you came into being, as a splinter of her personality who could absorb all the pain and trauma without it getting to her.
That's all you were good for, for a long time. Until one day you realized that you were still there, and she wasn't disassociating, and you weren't in pain. You just were.
That day was when you were watching an anime about high school students.
One of them acted a lot like you, all the time. So much so that you realized you sympathized with her.
It was the first feeling you remember having and experiencing in the moment, and not pushing down to be dealt with later.
You'd always liked cats, and foxes and other small animals. You felt like one deep down, sometimes. But this was the first time you'd seen a human that you could identify with.
Maybe having to be human would not be so bad, you thought, if you could be one like her. Someone like her would obviously be a person, and would deserve to be treated as one.
You actually let yourself hope that it, or something like it, was possible.
Then you found out that wanting this made you the most awful person in the world.
So you killed yourself.
"Ai-chan?"
You are frozen in place, your hands still covering most of your face.
"It's okay to be a person ... you know? It's okay to want to be yourself. That's what this whole place is for."
The forbidden thing is allowed here, you think. That's just what her words remind you of.
"It's why I'm here. It's why you're here, too."
It doesn't make sense, though. Because how could it ...
How could ...
Huh?
You are experiencing a logic failure.
If you think back to what happened right before your death (this is not recommended), you can follow your train of thought there. But if you try to apply it to right now, you can't. "I am not allowed to be myself, therefore I should die" becomes "[DATA EXPUNGED] therefore unknown."
Wait. Yourself?
Yes, you realize, looking down at your legs again.
This is you.
This has always been you.
You have always been this person, on the inside.
Whether your friend liked it or not. Whether you thought you deserved it or not.
But, wait. If this is who you were back then, then forbidding you to be yourself was wrong. And calling you out publicly was very, very wrong. Not just because it was a betrayal of trust, but also because that's the kind of thing that could make someone hurt herself.
It could make someone kill herself, even.
You laugh, as you realize the obvious. Keeping your hands up to cover your mouth politely.
"Ai-chan?" Ha-chan has been rubbing your back this whole time, and hasn't touched her food since that first bite.
You start laughing again, and don't stop until it turns into wracking sobs. You curl up into a ball with your face and hands pressed into your knees, and you cry and cry and cry.
The next thing you know, Ha-chan's arms are wrapped tightly around your middle, and she is pressed to your side.
"It's okay," she whispers, and squeezes you. "It's okay."
No, you think, it's not. What happened to you was more than awful. It was horrific. It was a nightmare. You put so much trust in this person, and she literally destroyed you.
The girl in the mirror was a person who deserved to live, and she destroyed her.
You still have trouble internalizing the idea that you are her. But you know that the girl you see in the mirror deserves to live, and that she did not deserve to die. Especially not by s-
"There, there."
Ha-chan is petting your head again.
It is very distracting.
Crying does not seem like the thing to do, anymore.
You take shuddering breaths, as you try to calm down. Ha-chan hands you her handkerchief, and you press it to your face. It smells of kitsune udon.
"Everything's going to be okay," she says. "Alright?"
You manage to speak up. "You don't even know what I went through."
"I don't." She shakes her head. "I just know that from now on, you're going to be okay. Whatever hurt you in your life on Earth can't hurt you here."
"O-okay," you hear the girl in the mirror say.
You're starting to disassociate from her. To feel like she is allowed to feel safe and loved, but that's not a thing you can have. Right?
But then Ha-chan starts with the headpats again, going down to the back of your neck, and it brings you back into the girl in the mirror's body.
Maybe this is someplace you're allowed to be, you think.
Maybe this is something you're allowed to feel.
"Pet me more," you whisper to Ha-chan.
She does.
