Content Note: Impostor syndrome, memories of child grooming, and a cute foxgirl getting teased.
You and Ha-chan spend a while playing with your fox family. They're all very excited to see you, especially now that you have hands. Hands are good for petting foxes.
Ha-chan does her best to pet two at once, while being licked by the one that has his paws on her knees. "Oh my GOSH they're so adorable!" she exclaims.
"Do they have names?" you ask Miko, who is still in your arms.
"Konkon, kon kon!" They do, but you'd have to scent them out!
You sniff at the air. Foxes don't smell very good on the best of days, and that's all your human nose can get out of this. There's something about it that makes you feel wistful, though, the way that the scents of certain foods can bring you back to happier times.
You can almost remember the time you met Miko, and became an Inari-
"Help, I'm surrounded!" Ha-chan laughs, as one of the foxes jumps up on her shoulders for a second or two before thinking better of it.
Miko hops down from your arms, and makes a shrill foxy noise that doesn't sound like a human voice made it. You realize what she is saying, but it doesn't directly translate to words. The other foxes yip and whimper, and run over to her.
"Konkon!" Miko gives you a proud, happy look, and swishes her fluffy tail. I'll let you two lovebirds have fun!
With that, she and the rest of your family take off, down the road that leads back to school.
You and Ha-chan are both quiet for a second.
"I video chat with my old family sometimes," she finally says. "They got a visitor's pass for hanami this weekend."
You blink, and turn your head to look at her. "That is a thing you can do?"
She nods. "Yep! They were really supportive of me, uh, becoming a girl." Her voice trails off for that last part. "And so is my new family, although of course they don't know me any other way-"
A beeping sound comes from her bag. She gets out her school notebook and checks it. "Mom's checking in on me," she says. "She wants to know if I'm walking you home again."
You nod, unsure what to say.
"What should I, uh, tell her?" Ha-chan giggles nervously. Her smile looks forced.
"What would you like to tell her?"
"I don't know. I feel like I'm doing something wrong." She hugs her own sides.
Your ears perk. You remember the sign on the bulletin board again: 'The forbidden thing is acceptable here.'
What is Ha-chan's forbidden thing? you ask yourself.
The one who used to be part of you (and kind of still is) responds. You could try asking her, but like ... if she tried to kill herself over that video I made, it's probably something to do with internalized transphobia.
Oh, you think.
Oh dear.
Speaking of which, did I mention how sorry I am for making that? Tamamo-née sounds really nervous. Like, can we please just forget it was ever a thing? I realize I should be cancelled SO HARD for even thinking all that, and what happened to me the day before I made that video is no excuse, but I really want to become a better fox and-
"What's wrong?" you ask Ha-chan.
(For just a moment, you think you can faintly hear Minato-senpai's voice saying "eyes on me, slut." This confuses you.)
"Wrong ... " she says to herself, before her gaze hesitantly meets yours. "I dunno, it's just ... really intimidating to go into a girl's room." She shivers.
You note that she said "a girl's room" and not "another girl's room," before asking "Have you ever done it before?"
"Once." She looks down at the grass next to your apartment. "She showed me how to do makeup and things. I-in my previous life."
"And you found it really intimidating?"
She nods quickly. "I'd wanted to be a girl since I was a little boy, but my parents only had me. So I'd never been in a girl's room before."
Ha-chan looks up for a moment, at the sight of two other girls talking and swinging their school bags as they walk down the street. When she looks back down at the grass, her voice is quieter. "I didn't know anything about being a girl," she says. "There was just so much. It was like she spoke a whole different dialect ... it felt like I would never learn what she knew. I'd never be someone like her."
"When was this?" you ask.
"A few weeks ago." Ha-chan squeezes her eyes shut.
Oh dear.
You need to do something, but aren't sure what.
You step closer, and try the direct approach. "If it helps, you are the girliest girl that I know."
"Oh my gosh." She opens her eyes, and covers her mouth for a moment. "Seriously? But what about Minato-senpai? What about you? Look at me, I'm practically flat!" She indicates her chest, with both hands.
That catches you off guard, but you don't hesitate. "I very much enjoyed being pressed up against your chest," you say.
"Oh my gosh." Now she covers her whole face with her hands. You think that her cheeks have turned red.
"And I do not know what is girly about me. Um, besides my body." You can't help but glance down at it for a moment. "I've barely felt like I was a person, because nobody except Tamamo-née treated me as one. I know next to nothing about makeup, fashion, or feminine hygiene." Now you are blushing as well.
"Uggggh, don't get me started ... " Ha-chan clutches her abdomen.
You nod sympathetically. "Despite all that, and despite being a fox and not human. I have come to accept that in this world, people regard me as a schoolgirl." A Japanese anime schoolgirl, you think but don't say. "It doesn't make sense to deny it anymore. Especially when you, um ... showed me your appreciation. For how feminine I am."
For some reason, you really want to dig a burrow and hide in it now.
"Y-yeah." Ha-chan looks up at you, shyly. "You really are."
"Is that what intimidates you?"
She looks away, nodding and blushing furiously.
"If it helps, I promise my room is not nearly as girly as yours." You feel safe saying that without having seen hers.
"Well ... then we need to fix that!" Ha-chan composes herself, and raises her fist in the air shyly. "For the Lotus!"
You can't help but think of other things which resemble flowers. "Is that innuendo?" you ask.
It takes Ha-chan a second to realize what you mean, before she starts giggling and sputtering and lowers her hand to cover her mouth. "Oh my gosh," she manages to get out.
You give her a quick peck on the cheek to reassure her, then smile and offer your hand to help her up the stairs. She smiles back, nervously, and accepts.
The light just turned green on your apartment door, after you waved your school notebook at it, when you remember.
The time your original body was twelve years old, and a man over your church youth group asked the child who was Kamiko-née and Tamamo-née out on a date.
He didn't call it that, of course. You didn't realize what it was until just now, or why he abruptly lost interest when you said you would talk to your parents. But you know what it meant, now. You know why he took you into a side room, alone with him, to ask you out. And you know why someone like him wormed his way into leadership over church youth.
That's why this feels like the forbidden thing, you realize. Not because Tumblr is cancelling fanfic of it. Because it reminds you of that situation, which has played out so many times in real life. With respected, upstanding adults, who have power over kids who've been kept ignorant about sex. Who behave sympathetically towards you, and act like they have your best interests in mind, then give you feelings you don't understand. And use them, and their place in society, to control you.
Ha-chan's phone beeps again. "Oops, just a sec! I'll tell mom I'm staying over, if that's okay!"
That breaks you out of the flashback. You nod to her, and put your notebook back in your bag with your sweaty hand.
You wipe at your forehead with your sleeve, and try to collect your thoughts as Ha-chan begins typing.
First, you tell yourself, you are not a "respected, upstanding adult." Just like Ha-chan said, you're an anime schoolgirl! You definitely look like one, and everyone here treats you as one, despite your being a fox. Besides that, you only remember bits and pieces of the lives that you've had before this. Mostly the reasons why it wasn't okay, would never be okay, to want to be this person or imagine being close to someone like this.
(Like how you found out just how cancelled this is when you showed your friend one of your #goals pics, and got a lecture on how the anime Konohana Kitan caters to pedophiles, with its young foxgirls and its age gap relationship. So you were awful for liking it, and for seeing yourself in Sakura.)
Anything else, anything that doesn't come up in a PTSD flashback or dream, you are still fuzzy on. Unlike with Tamamo- and Kamiko-née. So for all intents and purposes, you might as well not have had that past life. Just the trauma from it, that you're here at Inori Academy to heal from by living an idealized schoolgirl's life.
And second? you ask yourself, as Ha-chan says "Okay, we're good!" and gives you a peck on the cheek.
Not only do Ha-chan's parents know where she is. Not only do they know what she's probably up to, and with which other first-year anime schoolgirl. Besides all that, she's actually more experienced with this "dating humans" thing than you are.
After all, she's been in a girl's room before.
Another girl's room, you correct yourself, while looking down at your shaking knees and your chest. You've been in a girl's room, but it was your own.
That you're letting Ha-chan into now.
You take a deep breath to steady yourself, and push open the door.
