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“I really did it! I passed the audition!” Nazuna shouted, clasping her hands in front of her. She was bouncing on her toes, her carefully-styled hair falling around her shoulders.
Michiru ran forward to meet her, heart racing. “No way! You’re gonna be great, Nazuna!” Where a moment earlier she’d been practically dying with worry, now she pumped her fists. They could do anything! Without thinking, she stepped forward and took Nazuna’s hands in her own. “You got this!”
For just a moment, she saw Nazuna at her brightest, already lit up on the stage and looking right back at her, her first and biggest fan. Then the moment of imagination stretched into a painful second of silence, and Nazuna’s skin felt hotter against hers. Nazuna shook with fever, struggling for breath. A sharp prickle ran up her arms. “Nazuna?”
Letting out a sharp sob, Nazuna curled forward. Tears welled in her eyes. There was a soft rustle as her hair went pale, unnatural pink, then in a single instant, a pair of fox’s ears burst through it. She gasped, grabbing Michiru’s forearm to steady herself. Her fingers dug in, clenching with pain for a moment more before relaxing. “What happened? Why--what’re you..?” she asked, feeling the top of her head. Her eyes went wide as she brushed one of the ears, and they were blood-red instead of brown.
“Nazuna, you’re…” Unlike Nazuna, Michiru saw exactly what had happened. That was why she stepped back, and why her gut felt like it had dropped to the center of the earth. “You’re a beastman?” she asked, voice trembling. “Have you always been?” There wasn’t any other option, was there? Her heart was still going fast but now it felt like it was being pursued.
Nazuna’s fingers wrapped around one of her ears, and she tugged at it. The gasp of pain she forced from herself was a prelude to soft sobbing. “No…” she mumbled, falling to her knees and hugging herself. Her tears fell on the rubber tiles of the playground, beading up instead of soaking in.
“It doesn’t matter,” Michiru told herself, though it didn’t do much. “Can you walk?” she asked. When all she got from Nazuna was a tearful stare, she set her jaw, got an arm under Nazuna’s shoulder, and hoisted her up. Leaned against her shoulder, it was impossible to ignore the heat of Nazuna’s body. Nazuna was still shaking like a leaf, but she managed to get her feet under her and walk.
They made their way to the bench a bit faster than the first time, when Michiru had still been using a crutch. As they sat down, she couldn’t hide her tears. “What’re we going to do? We-we don’t even know what’s happening to you…”
“Isn’t it obvious?” Nazuna snapped. “I’m… somehow, I’m turning into a beastman.” She covered her face, still hiccuping and shaking even though her tears had dried up. “I can feel it… my whole body’s tingling.”
Michiru shook her head, keeping close to Nazuna. “No. No, there’s got to be something we can do about this. There’s--there’s the hospital, right? They’d know what to do?” Her free hand strayed to her pocket, but she stopped. Calling the ambulance would make this real, and Nazuna’s life would be ruined. She couldn’t.
Neither of them spoke for a long moment. Michiru tried not to stare at Nazuna, keeping her gaze fixed on her hands. There was a small grunt of frustration next to her, and she turned to see Nazuna reaching up to her collar. Her hand was stuck, and she was staring at it. Pink fur crept up her arm and Michiru realized that it was stuck because she’d grown claws. Claws like she’d seen tearing into people on countless cop shows and horror films. They shouldn’t have been on Nazuna.
Not really thinking, she reached over and pulled the claw out of Nazuna’s collar, feeling the fluff of her paw. Their hands were clasped together and it wasn’t the first time but it felt like the first time. “Thanks...” Nazuna mumbled. All at once, she hugged Michiru, almost hanging off of her, and she was crying again. “Everything’s going to change, isn’t it? My audition… nobody’s going to want a beastman idol.”
Michiru wanted to say something, something about hiding or running or medicine or claws. It would’ve made things worse, though. Of course Nazuna was worried about her audition. Today was supposed to be the happiest day of her life, of their lives. “We’ll figure something out. We’ve-” She cut herself off before saying they’d been through worse. The crash was one thing, but she couldn’t throw herself in front of this. Tears welled in her eyes and couldn’t stop them from rolling down into Nazuna’s hair. The wetness left unnatural red blotches.
“Hey, hey.” She looked up at Michiru, the care in her eyes no different for their altered color. “You’re right. Even if I lose my beauty, I’m still Nazuna. S-say it any way you want, right?” Her paw squeezed tight around Michiru’s hand.
Though it wrenched her heart, she squeezed back. “Yeah…” She still thought Nazuna was beautiful, for some reason, even with the claws. There was no way she’d say it, though; Nazuna would hate her just for thinking that. “I believe in you. If anyone can get through this, you can.” As gently as she could, she set a hand on Nazuna’s head and brushed it through her hair. Despite her curiosity, she made sure not to touch her ears.
“Thank you, Michi-gh! Sorryhh…” she began, then stopped and flexed her jaw. White fur was slowly but surely creeping up her neck. Coughing gently, she rubbed her throat and made another attempt. “I’m haa-ing… ah, haa-inh…” Her voice trailed off, replaced by a pitiful squeak. She took a breath and whined again, in short warbling bursts. Sobbing, she buried her face in Michiru’s shoulder. The sound didn’t stop; every so often she’d take a breath and let out another quiet whine.
“Nazuna!?” she asked, panicked. Was she going to be stuck like this? Beastmen could talk, though! She tried to take a deep breath and sobbed, hugging Nazuna back. There was no denying it, they needed to get somewhere safe. Even if that meant awkwardness or pain or the end of all her dreams, at least she would be safe. “I’m sorry.” She reached for her phone and dialed 119.
The response was surprisingly prompt. “119, what’s the nature of your emergency?” the person on the other side asked. His voice was calm and clear.
She pressed the phone up to her ear, trying not to cry on it. Nazuna stared up at her, giving a soft whine before nodding. “I-I’m in a public park, on block fourteen. My friend is…” she hesitated. They’d find out either way, but you never knew who was listening. “She can’t talk anymore a-and… she’s having trouble moving. Please, send an ambulance!”
“I see. Just make sure to keep her awake, we’ll be right over, Ms. Kagemori.” Someone spoke indistinctly on the other side and the operator’s voice returned, a bit perturbed. “Er, bye now!” he said, then hung up. She stared at the phone for a moment, so confused that she stopped crying.
Then Nazuna patted her side with one paw and she got choked up again. “There, Nazuna. It’ll-it’ll be fine, they’ll know how to help.” All she had to do was make it ten minutes. She ran a hand through Nazuna’s hair, thinking about how unfair it was that this disease would take her voice before anything else. It had paused right afterward, halfway up her face, so she didn’t even know what kind of beastman Nazuna was going to be. At least she was stable for now.
What would it be like, after that? She knew beastmen were prone to violence, prone to outbursts even at the kinder humans. Nazuna wouldn’t change that much, though, surely. It wasn’t like she was clawing at her now or trying to get away. Right now it was exactly the opposite, as she wriggled a bit closer to Michiru and she felt both their heartbeats quicken.
A car drove past--definitely not their ambulance, there would’ve been a siren--and Nazuna looked up, her eyes wide but focused right on it. She whined and prodded Michiru again, poking her with a claw, then pointed to a copse of trees deeper into the park. “Yeah, we should get somewhere safer. You can walk, right?” Michiru asked. The only answer she got was a shrug. “Guess it’s worth a try.”
As gently as she could, she pushed Nazuna off of her and got up. Her hand was only held out for a moment before Nazuna stood without help. Feeling a bit silly, Michiru let her lead the way as they moved toward a more shaded, well-hidden bench. “Sorry, I just… You were in a lot of pain earlier, y’know?”
“N-Nah…” Nazuna began, and Michiru could see her flexing her reshaped jaw through her hair. “No proh-leh.” After her second attempt, she sighed and fell silent. That lasted for all of two steps before she tripped on her own feet. Michiru only barely caught her. “Hhh, legs hurt,” she said, and a chorus of dull creaks and pops from her lower legs seemed to confirm the theory. Her calves seemed to be getting shorter even as her ankles subtly bent further and further.
Cringing, Michiru got her up onto her shoulder again. “Ouch… Well, at least you’re getting your voice back!” She patted Nazuna on the back, making the final trip to the trees while arm in arm.
Once they were sat down, Nazuna kicked her shoes off, revealing longer, more paw-like feet. She flexed, popping her joints over and over, but other than that they were quiet. Eventually, she turned to Michiru. “You didn’t haff to stoh etting. Haffffuh. Haff,” she said, her request dissolving into quiet attempts to get her v’s and p’s to stick on newly-furred lips. Seeing that Michiru wasn’t getting it, she grabbed Michiru’s hand and set it gently in her hair. “There.”
“Really? Uh, okay…” Michiru blushed. This was probably a normal beastman thing, right? Just a change in sensitivity… or something. Either way, she got to petting. Gradually, stroking Nazuna’s hair turned into brushing her neck, her shoulder-blade. The feeling of fur under cloth was strange, but she wasn’t about to ask Nazuna to take her shirt off. A gentle vibration came up through her fingers. She paused until she realized Nazuna was purring .
Smiling, she kept petting until someone walked through the narrow park entrance opposite the road. Nazuna’s purr petered out as they saw he’d been followed--two more men in dark suits and sunglasses. The leader called out: “Ms. Hiwatashi? Ms. Kagemori?” and his voice was the same as the 119 operator’s.
She failed to find the words for a moment but eventually dismissed the weirdness. Maybe they were just the people who’d been closest by for the emergency. “Over here!” she shouted, waving.
Nazuna whined but detached from her as the trio walked over. She smoothed out her hair as best she could and hiked up her collar to hide her furry chin. The men stared at her, and their leader looked a bit disturbed as he stopped in front of the bench. “I assume you’re the one who had the… accident, yeah? We’re with the hospital.”
“You don’t look like you’re hrom the hos-ital,” she muttered, crossing her furry arms in front of herself. Michiru elbowed her gently but said nothing. She couldn’t really force Nazuna to go with them if she wasn’t in danger, after all.
The man shrugged. “We’re, er, on our way back from a formal meeting for doctors. The operator said that we should make sure you were okay.” He held out a hand to Nazuna and the other went to his chest. He didn’t have any pocket there but there was an odd bulge under his coat. “It seems like you aren’t though. Why don’t you come with us to the hospital?”
“Hmph. Okay.” Wobbling slightly in her shoes, Nazuna took his hand and he pulled her to her feet. His hand was big enough to wrap around her paw, and she squeaked quietly as a few of her joints popped.
Michiru sprung to her feet, and one of the others slid in between her and the leader. “Hey! Don’t be too rough with her, she’s sick!” She balled her fists and looked up at the burly man blocking her, even as the leader began to walk off with Nazuna.
“We know what we’re doing, miss. You’re lucky we got here in time.” With that he turned and closed ranks with his fellow, following behind Nazuna and the man who’d been on the phone. After they were a good way away, he looked back to her. “Don’t worry. Your friend is in good hands. We’ll contact you when she’s ready for visitors.”
She didn’t reply. All of this was way too weird for her, but she followed behind them anyway, just close enough to hear Nazuna whining and grunting as the leader manhandled her. Was this really the procedure? She’d seen beastmen being arrested before, but Nazuna wasn’t a criminal. The suits slipped back down the narrow path out of the park and she slowed her pace for a moment.
Then Nazuna shrieked from behind the fence and she ran after them. There was no ambulance on the road, but a black van. Two more suited people were waiting by the van, and she saw Nazuna amid them. She was shouting angrily as the leader and another man pushed her into the van.
Michiru came to a stop by the fence, hands falling slack. She had to do something but there was still nothing she could do. Fighting five full-grown men at once was almost as impossible as stopping Nazuna’s disease. So she stood there, trying to convince herself that they really were from the hospital until the van door was slammed shut and they’d sped off.
If this had been one of the shows she’d learned from, she should’ve fallen to her knees, cried her eyes out. Her best friend had just been kidnapped! But this wasn’t a crime show, and she didn’t have anyone to cry on. So she swallowed hard, turned the other way, and walked home.