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Ayane Misuno liked to make herself look like an open book to most people.
To those she met, she was completely open about the condition she was unfortunately born with. Ayane’s body was frail and never really got better even as she got older. Treatments were constant just to keep her from winding up in the hospital or worse, and going outside of her family’s mansion for extended periods of time was off the table unless she was in a wheelchair or had braces attached to her legs. Even then, she was not allowed to go far. Pretty much the only objective benefit of her condition was that she could eat as much as she wanted without getting fat, though even her ravenous appetite annoyed her at times.
Despite this, Ayane refused to let anyone believe that her condition made her worthy of pity or coddling. Even if her body wasn’t up to the task, she wanted to make absolutely sure that everyone would know her as the excitable ball of energy she always was at heart and not a frail girl meant to be handled like fine china.
From the confines of her wheelchair, she did everything in her power to project herself through her voice and even her texts if she had to resort to that. Even if that meant having to engage in antics that would embarrass the average person, she would go straight for it if it meant people could see her spirit rather than just her actual body.
Thanks for her particular knack for programming, she was able to even take things one step further eventually, developing a hard-light projecting drone that could generate the version of herself she had always dreamed of, one that was able to express the full range of motions and animation she always wished she could pull off in her real body.
This had been enough for Ayane…for a while.
Things had changed since then.
Through a series of quickly escalating events that she frankly still didn’t understand completely, Ayane was introduced to a clandestine interdimensional organization known as the Circle Consortium. Suddenly, a lot of things she had accepted as impossible suddenly felt much more likely.
And it all began with her seeing the ocean shore in the flesh in the arms of her partner, best friend, and not-so-secret crush, Ann Flores. It might have been the furthest outside of her mansion she had ever been.
Sure, Ayane was only that far out in the first place because the Consortium had abducted her for trying to hack into their systems, but the circumstances didn’t matter as much as the general sensation of the sea breeze against her face, and the warmth that could only come from sleeping in the arms of the girl she loved.
Since then, Ayane had returned to living in the solitude of her estate with the drone once again being her only window into the larger world. Even with her newfound connection to a massive government conspiracy, the status quo of her life didn’t seem to change that much.
She was still Ann’s ever-dependable hacker friend and self-proclaimed mood maker trying to push for something more between them, always stuck behind a screen or hologram, always only able to flirt with her “Darling” from a distance. The only thing the Consortium became was just another name that emailed her periodically, albeit on a heavily encrypted channel no one else could know about unless she wanted to vanish off the face of the earth.
Ayane kept her smiles on the surface, but even Ann seemed to notice that these efforts were starting to get more half-hearted.
The ocean view was no longer enough. Ayane wanted to feel the air of the whole world, and she wanted to feel it of her own volition; no need for anyone to push her around in a wheelchair or carry her around. More than anything, she wanted her own two legs to carry her.
To that end, she didn’t wait for the Consortium to come to her. She began chatting with a few scientists about some particular anomalous materials they were researching.
Through these chats, she came into contact with a senior staff member going by “J”...
After several confirmations that she was aware of the risks but still wanted to go through with the test trial, followed by a week-long wait period, Ayane was met with a particular package at her front door. The mark on it was no name, but it was exactly what J described.
Within the privacy of her room, she excitedly opened the package, her heart skipping a beat when she saw the capped syringe nestled within the heavily cushioned interior lining. Just as J had guaranteed, the serum inside was clear, an indication that it would be untraceable when she secretly injected it into her IV line during her weekly physical therapy and hurled the syringe into the trash can that was always close by.
As her arm was hooked up to her drip bags just like she had been before, Ayane’s free hand held itself tightly against the smuggled syringe. As eager as she had been to receive her potential cure, she wondered how Ann let alone her family would react if it all went awry. Either everyone was going to be surprised but pleased that she could suddenly dance around on her own without collapsing, or they’d find her dead after what should have been a routine medical exam.
It was selfish what Ayane chose to do. She was completely aware of it. But her desire to reach that outer world with her own flesh was just too strong.
She took a deep breath as the syringe’s serum mixed with the contents of the IV bag and slowly made its way into her vein. It was like a slight buzz that danced underneath her skin that slowly spread throughout her limbs after it entered her heart. Considering she was also hooked up to a heart monitor, it was probably a good thing that it didn’t shoot anything like fire through her muscles or something extreme like that. The last thing she wanted was for the doctor to rush in because her heart rate suddenly skyrocketed.
Ayane did begin to feel something warm spreading down her leg muscles though.
Actually, as a matter of fact, it might have been the most sensation she felt down in them in ages. Whatever the serum was doing, it was bringing back to life nerves that had been lying dormant since she was born.
She eagerly flexed her toes, noting just how in control she felt of them for the first time. Before, it took a rather substantial amount of effort to even curl them slightly, and actually moving around the house on her own two feet sort of felt like walking on stilts. She had to bite down on her lip to stifle a euphoric laugh.
By the time the doctor walked back into the room to unhook her, every dead nerve in her body had been reactivated. Up until this point, and even with all the knowledge about her condition, she wasn’t aware of just how much of her energetic personality she had been forcing until now. This might have been the first time she actually felt alive.
She had mused before about dancing around to showcase her newfound health to Ann and her family as a kind of dry joke, but now she was seriously beginning to consider it.
As eager as she was to show off her newfound physicality to her loved ones, Ayane figured it would be better to take it more slowly, give her parents hints of her improving health in short moments during the few times in the month when they were home. That would probably make it less shocking for them when her doctor inevitably told them their daughter suddenly had a fully-clean bill of health. She could then take a ride to Ann’s apartment, meet her at the front door, and give her that big old glomp she had always dreamed of.
For now, Ayane was willing to settle for prancing around the privacy of her own room. Hopping on the bed in particular felt particularly cathartic. It was as fun as it looked in those old shows she sometimes watched while in grad school.
Maybe it was just the high of her having energy directly injected into her system, but she wasn’t feeling particularly winded even after she cycled through the various motions that were previously reserved for her hologram.
However, Ayane did notice that the muscles in her arms and legs were beginning to feel a bit tight now. On the other hand, it didn’t feel like her lungs or heart were ragged, despite the increase in her heartbeat. In fact, she felt like she could run a marathon. It was rather unpleasantly paradoxical.
She tried to reason with herself that there were obviously going to be side effects. Maybe this was just her body adjusting to the ailments no longer affecting its various systems. After all, it wasn’t like she exercised her muscles enough to actually run a marathon yet, even though she felt like she could.
Despite this fact, the uncanny throbbing sensation spreading across her arms and legs made it feel like she had in fact run a full cross-country marathon and entered a weight-lifting competition on the side. It was like her body was suddenly catching up on years of secret training she had completely forgotten about.
Ayane groaned as she flopped onto her bed, curling herself in a tight ball and clenching her teeth tightly, with the latter quickly becoming rather painful with how raw her gums suddenly felt. It was becoming harder for her to tell herself that the serum was worth it with how hot her muscles felt at that moment.
And that was to say nothing of how the various hums of her computer fans and the buzzing of the overhead lights were becoming far crisper than they should have been. There was definitely too much blood rushing to her ears.
She grasped at an ear with one of her hands in hopes of at least alleviating the throbbing, only the process was interrupted partway as she felt the muscles in her arms literally ripple.
Not only that, she witnessed it.
Previously soft skin suddenly tightened, giving her a clear outline of the muscles etching themselves onto where there was basically only skin and bone. Her previously scrawny shoulders suddenly firmed up and pushed out slightly but noticeably, while her limp biceps firmed with every involuntary flex. She could feel the musculature practically its way across her back, giving her far more lifting power than she ever had before.
Something in her hips let out a loud snap, causing her curled-up body to unfurl in an instant as the same rippling sensation spread down her legs. With a moan, she rubbed her side, only to feel just how toned her waist had gotten. And she soon discovered the cause of the snap as her hand followed soon by the other ran over the curvature of a pair of hips that were jutting out that bit more. It was all in service of housing her more shapely rear and broader, firmer thighs. She was thankful that her tights and panties were fairly flexible.
It wasn’t like she suddenly got the build of an amazon, but her body definitely looked like it belonged to a seasoned martial artist rather than a frail girl.
Okay, so the serum was more of an enhancer than just a cure. The process wasn’t exactly pleasant, but it was something Ayane could accept more than just her body hurting for no reason. And she got some sharper hearing as a bonus.
However, it was with the latter thought that suddenly caused her optimism to give way to concern. Suddenly conscious of her ears again, she realized that something was off about the ridge of the ear she touched.
Subconsciously knowing what was wrong with it but not willing to immediately jump to that conclusion, she pushed herself off the bed so she could dash over to her bathroom mirror. The moment she took her first step, sharp pain suddenly shot through her feet, causing her to trip and fall face-first onto the floor.
Ayane found herself writhing as the pain persisted, compounded by how she couldn’t stop her feet from writhing and flexing. Her enhanced hearing could make out the popping and cracking happening beneath the surface of her skin. She was too disgusted to look at the damage being done, but she could feel her heels shifting, pulling out her feet to lengths beyond their originally dainty and frail proportions. It wasn’t like clown-shoe length, but how much longer they were was noticeable.
But that wasn’t going into what she could feel was happening with her toes. They were swelling, throbbing and itching like they had suffered the worst allergic reaction of their life. That was, with the exception of her biggest toes. It was too baffling to even describe. One moment, she felt the visceral pain of them being crushed into her feet, and the next, she didn’t feel them at all.
A strange sound exited her mouth as pain radiated from her toenails specifically. It sounded like a…yowl?
And she yowled again as the same pain short through her fingertips. This time, she allowed herself to get a look at what happened, and it immediately made her stomach squirm. What were previously harmless fingernails were thin, curved claws. In the split second her attention was away from them, they had somehow shifted closer to the tips. They looked like the claws a cat would unsheathe.
Ayane clenched her teeth as her ears twitched again, seemingly in response to the particular observation, though they were also picking up a weird grinding sound in her teeth. There was no mistaking that something was really weird with her ears, and it wasn’t just their edges anymore. She knew for a fact that they shouldn’t have been able to part her tresses on their own like they were currently doing.
Not quite sure how her feet worked anymore, she had to crawl towards her mirror, trying her hardest to keep her new claws from puncturing her floor mat. What was more troubling was the fact that the act of crawling was much less clumsy than it should have been, with her propping her lower half up with her toes. Well, that was except for the brief jolts of pain that periodically ran down her back with every sudden pop of some of her vertebrae.
Even then, her four-legged gait seemed to be improving with every pop. And by the time she reached her destination and managed to grab hold of the sink counter, her spine felt almost like liquid. If she wanted to, she probably could twist her entire body around nearly 180 degrees.
It was the flexibility that most belonged to…
Ayane got her answer the moment she pulled herself up to the mirror, still finding herself more comfortable standing on her tip-toes. Standing perfectly erect at the top of her head, plain as day, was a pair of naked triangular ears. She could only stare blankly at them as they twitched. With a stray thought, she could even flatten them against her head, which was rather uncanny with their lack of fur.
Her body seemed to react to this particular observation. She violently shuddered, gripping the counter tightly as she felt a sharp prickling sensation smothering them. She managed to open her eyes back up just in time to see them being completely enveloped by an organized coat of purple fur that made her ears blend almost completely with her hair. Thin pink fur quickly spread across the insides, followed by two shaggy white tufts burst out from the same spots.
Before the signal could reach her brain to let out a scream, a sharp tug hit the base of her spine, causing her to tip forward and awkwardly smush the side of her face against the mirror.
She found herself instinctively pushing her rear back and jerking her hips side to side, trying to figure out how to straighten out a spine that suddenly felt like it was wriggling like a worm. Her hands pressed tightly against the wall as a violent shiver passed through her.
Then she felt it. There was movement just above her butt, movement that was distinctly connected to her body. It was wriggling against her panties, stretching the waistband as it searched for a way to escape in response to her subconscious command to seek relief.
The newfound flexibility of her body was both a blessing and a curse because she could immediately twist her entire upper body to get a clear view of her newly-grown appendage.
Ayane’s eyes blankly followed the gentle swaying and curling of her long, furry tail, as though she was hypnotized by it.
“Oh my god, I’m a catgirl…” she muttered dumbly.
She looked back at her reflection as she pulled herself away from the mirror, watching the cat ears twitching at the top of her head while also making note of just how easy it was for her to stand on the balls of her feet, like her legs had become digitigrade.
She then turned around. She had no idea what part of her subconscious was influencing her tail to wave back and forth in a rather seductive manner, but she did notice the subtle darker purple stripes on the fur covering it.
Whatever the case, the sight somehow managed to calm her despite everything.
She flexed one of her arms, noticing the way the skin tightened to show off her new physique. Her hands and eyes traveled down to her hips, taking note of how her backside and thighs had also been gifted. The only thing that wasn’t quite so lovely were her teeth, or rather her fangs, which she could clearly see in her reflection just from peeling her lips back every so slightly. Her canines in particular would probably stand out if she just so much as talked. Then there was the matter of the claws that still tipped her fingers and toes and the fact that she wasn’t quite so comfortable standing on the flats of her feet anymore.
Still, her mind was adjusting to the changes, all things considered.
“Okay, maybe this isn’t too bad. I can make the ears and tail work. Just need to figure out how to keep them tucked away… Maybe a hat or some–Mrroow!”
Suddenly, her entire body felt incredibly itchy, and she could feel that itch spreading up her arms and down her legs, exacerbated by her clothing suddenly feeling more suffocating. With her dress being sleeveless, she could see in the overhead light something shimmering along the edges of her arms and down her hands.
It took several blinks for her to realize that she was seeing the scant hairs along her arms multiplying. She soon didn’t even need the light to notice, as her shoulders began to darken, but it wasn’t the skin color changing.
It was the thickening pelt of purple fur.
With hastening breaths, she traced the spreading fur, witnessing it change color as it reached her upper arms then consumed her hands, fingers and all, going from purple to white. Her breathing only grew more haggard as she pulled down her tights, tossed off her vest, and pulled up her skirt to where it completely exposed her now-toned midsection. However, she couldn’t examine the musculature for long before white fur completely enveloped everything.
“No, no! You need to stop!” she shouted frantically at the growing fur as though it were sentient. “Please! I can’t hide all this!”
The fur would not heed her cries, freely covering her lower extremities and transitioning back to purple as it cascaded down her altered legs, making them look even more like some hybrid of a cat’s hind legs and a human’s.
And the image was about to become further complete.
With her feet being completely bare despite the fur that had grown over them, she began to notice how odd it was how little she seemed to be feeling the cold floor beneath her. As she turned a foot over, she winced as she felt several sharp pricks near her cheeks. Even without a mirror, she could see distinct long wiry strands out of the corners of her eyes.
“Whiskers?” she whimpered.
Then she focused back on the underside of her stretched-out, fur-covered foot. Her heart sank when she saw clear as day the leathery pink pads that had formed underneath her blocky toes and balls of her feet.
There was no mistaking it. Her feet didn’t just look digitigrade. They were basically the hind paws of a cat now.
Ayane winced, feeling the fur bristle with irritation as she let go of her dress, letting the fabric brush against her new pelt. However, she had other concerns, namely trying to remember the remainder of the human face that was staring her in the mirror, the only part of her that still was definitively herself despite the whiskers that had grown.
Suddenly, her eyes began to bizarrely itch. She tightly shut her eyes, massaging her eyelids with her furry hands. When she opened them, suddenly the bathroom seemed to pulse as the colors of her surroundings lost their vibrancy. However, even with the hues draining and her field of vision distractingly widening, she could see the changes to her eyes clear as day.
Her bright purple irises were lightening to a more violet shade, but more distressingly, they were rapidly expanding in size, covering her sclera. Meanwhile, her round pupils were stretching into vertical slits that narrowed even further into pinpricks seemingly in response to her distress. Distinct black markings were making their way around her eyelids like eyeliner, giving her progressively almond-shaped eyes a sharper look.
Then her nose started to twitch. The disinfectant used to clean the bathroom suddenly became much more pungent as her nostrils flared. As in, they were rounding out more than they should have been able to.
And they were staying that way, clearly indicated by the unnerving click in her nose’s cartilage and brief sharp sting. Her eyes traveled down, forced to witness her previously tiny and narrow nose widen and bulge outward noticeably, becoming like an inverted triangle with round edges.
Then she felt the now dreadfully familiar prickling sensation crawling up her neck and making its way across her cheeks and down her forehead. With her widened field of vision, she could see the fur covering her neck and encroaching upon her face, purple surrounding her new feline eyes and traveling down the widened ridge of her new feline nose.
Pressure began to build up in her skull. Her tongue was feeling strangely dry. She knew what was coming up next.
“Stop!” she cried out. “Don’t take my fa–Mrrow!”
With a sickening crack, her nose and mouth lurched forward. Her gums stung as new fangs emerged to fill the additional space. Her slight chin compressed while her cheeks widened, pushing out tufts of white fur as they did. Her upper lip curled upwards. A black, leathery texture spread across her nose’s flattened tip. All the while, the fur finished consuming whatever pale skin was left.
As the last aches faded, and she regained her bearings, Ayane’s new visage in the mirror came into focus. Her pointed ears drooped at the sight.
It was like someone had just transposed an image of a cat’s face onto her own in editing software. There was maybe a slight suggestion of the Ayane she used to be in her reflection, and she still had her hair and distinct bangs. The distinct purple markings under her eyes somehow were still visible, though they looked more like patterns on the fur that now completely covered everything. Her new muzzle wasn’t even all that long.
If she had believed she had turned into a catgirl just moments before the changes went into overdrive, she definitely knew she fit the full literal definition now. She had the claws, the pawlike feet, the muzzle, the eyes, the ears, the tail, and the fur. With how wobbly her spine was feeling, she probably also had the flexibility and could easily dash on all fours. But despite that all, she was upright, and her proportions were very much still humanoid.
Ayane might have preferred it if she had just turned completely into a cat. How was she supposed to even describe what she had become without confusing herself?
“Oh geez…” she could only groan, noting to her displeasure how it trailed off into a mournful, high-pitched meow.
###
The series of steps Ayane took to get to Ann’s home was an improv act that could have fallen apart at any moment but miraculously didn’t. Her servants were hopefully still buying that Ann had arrived to pick her up after Ayane’s projection drone malfunctioned, creating the need for Ayane to accompany her best friend in-person for a few hours. In reality, the drone was still working fine, she took a taxi to Ann’s apartment while huddled up in the largest hooded raincoat she could find, and Ann’s only hint that Ayane was even coming over was Ayane going over a series of very hamfisted hypotheticals with her drone hologram while cycling through conspicuously recycled animations.
Her heart would have fluttered when Ann still immediately recognized her bestie despite the drastic changes she had undergone, but that was tempered by the irritation she was feeling over the raincoat adding just another layer of clothing to press against her fur. More importantly, there was the awkwardness of having to explain to Ann why she was suddenly covered in fur.
By the time they were on the hidden lift down to the Consortium, Ayane’s ears were drooping down, and her tail was as stiff as a pole with its fur on end. Ann’s glare tended to have that intimidating effect, and now Ayane was actually physically in the same space as her.
Ann didn’t say a word until they were in Dr. G’s office. The senior staff member who Ann answered most directly to was currently in his chair, rubbing the bridge of his nose with a drawn-out sigh.
“You’ve pulled some stunts before,” Ann finally said, “but this is just downright stupid.”
“It was supposed to be an encrypted channel…” Ayane said sheepishly.
“‘Encrypted’ as in it links only to the computers in the Consortium,” G explained. “That doesn’t automatically mean any message you get from here can be trusted. The man calling himself ‘J’ was formerly part of the senior staff, yes, but his current state is purely an anomalous being only interested in convincing staff to mutate themselves for his ‘research’.”
He sighed again. “I can’t believe he found another way to unban his account. This has to be the fiftieth time…”
“What I don’t understand is why you’d just jump at the offer immediately,” Ann said. “Why didn’t you run this by me, at least?”
Ayane’s tail felt like it was made of lead as it idly wagged. “I knew you’d say ‘no’ if I did… I-I know it was selfish a-and stupid, but…but I…”
The skin underneath Ayane’s fur felt clammy. It hadn’t occurred to her until just then just how much her throat had been hurting. This might have been the longest she stayed silent with another person in the room as her.
But this was actually the first time she was standing without any machinery strapped to her legs. And she was so far away from home at this point but didn’t feel like she was on the verge of fainting.
And Ann, the physical Ann and not some image she was seeing through a computer screen, was standing right in front of her.
It was just like…
“Do you remember when you showed me the ocean?”
“Ayane?” Ann asked in a softer tone.
“It was the first time I actually was in your arms for real,” Ayane said wistfully. “I… I actually didn’t think you’d do it even with all my whining.”
“Ayane,” Ann said quietly. “If you wanted that, you could have just asked me to come to your house.”
“I’m sick of my house!” Ayane hissed, almost quite literally with the feline qualities that had snuck into her vocal cords.
Once again there was silence.
So Ayane filled it.
Every thought that had been building for what felt like an eternity since she returned back to her family estate just came pouring out in an instant. She thought she had simply been annoyed and slightly frustrated with her circumstances. She had not expected her throat to end up so raw from the sheer vitriol that had come out of her. She didn’t even know she had it in her to be that angry.
“I want to see the world with my own two eyes on my own two feet… I want to be able to skip around like my hologram can without having metal strapped to my legs… I want to say…”
Her voice finally petered out as she looked at Ann with her feline eyes. “I want to be with you, Ann. Like, actual flesh-and-blood hugs and stuff, and not just looking at it from behind some stupid computer being done to some hologram. But I couldn’t do that, not with the way my body was...”
What happened next was unexpected.
Ann was hugging her, hand gently caressing the back of Ayane’s neck. The clothing rubbing against her fur had been annoying, but Ann’s hand doing the same was the complete opposite. It was like all of the baggage weighing her down had suddenly all faded into vapor.
“I had no idea…” Ann said, “but please don’t throw away your life like that. You just being there; that’s important to me. If that serum had done something worse, I don’t know what I would have done.”
“I’m sorry,” Ayane murmured as she buried her face into Ann’s shoulder.
She hadn’t realized how on edge her fur had been since her transformation. The stiffness in her tail was finally beginning to let up, allowing it to sway and curl much more idly. Not to mention, she was currently in the arms of her crush, like she had always dreamed of.
It was enough to cause her to let out an involuntary purr.
“Are the matters between the two of you sorted now?”
At G’s interjection, Ann immediately let go of Ayane with an awkward cough.
As much as Ayane wished the hug could last an eternity, it did successfully reignite her spirits. “Sorry about that! Just a little sorting of emotions between lovers. You know how it is.”
She smirked slightly when she heard Ann let out an audible groan in response.
“There is an immediate solution that won’t require detaining you in the compound,” G said unperturbed, “but it isn’t necessarily going to make your life easier going forward.”
“If it means I’ll be able to run about kicking ass with my Darling,” Ayane said with renewed vigor, “I’m game!”
Ann gave another cough. “What did you have in mind, G?”
“It’s not a phenomenon that’s common within Noctis City,” G said, “but it’s not completely unheard of for terminally-ill patients to undergo genetic splicing to overcome their symptoms, which more often than not has led to them developing the physical attributes of other animals.”
Ayane’s ears perked all the way up. “Oh yeah, I think I saw several articles a while back about something like that! They were called ‘hybrids’ I think? Or was that ‘Cat Boomers’?”
“Someone with your appearance would more fit in the ‘hybrid’ category,” G said. “Considering your current state seemingly resolved your medical condition, you are ultimately not so different from them and could easily be passed off as one.”
Ayane nearly slapped herself upside the head with just how obvious the solution seemed to be in hindsight.
“However,” G said more gravely, “it will be on you to sell to your parents and doctors the lie that you underwent hybridization without their consent, since, well, that’s exactly what you did in essence. And that is to say nothing of the discrimination you will likely face for your altered appearance if you decide to walk around in public. The Consortium won’t take responsibility for any fallout that could result from this.”
Ayane’s feline face fell, and she could feel her ears and tail going limp in tandem. However, the period of distress was far shorter.
She knew for a fact her parents were probably going to kill her when they got home and saw a catgirl greeting them, and she already knew from just the ride over to Ann’s apartment that people were going to be looking at her like she was an alien. None of that mattered as long as her Darling was by her side.
“I’ll deal with it when I deal with it!” Ayane proudly proclaimed, ears and tail springing back to life.
“Is that really all you can come up with?” Ann sighed with a shake of her head.
“I hope you can resolve this with no further incident,” G said warily.
Ayane was confident that she could.
And besides that, as she and Ann left the office, there was something much more important on her mind now that the angst had subsided.
“This means I can be your kickass partner behind the screen in and in the field!” Ayane proclaimed. “We’ll be, Ann and Ayane, the ultimate crime-fighting couple!”
“Let’s workshop the title,” Ann deadpanned.
“Want to give me a kiss on the lips to seal the deal?” Ayane asked. It was kind of awkward puckering her lips with her short proto-muzzle.
“Don’t push your luck,” Ann said bluntly as she pushed Ayane’s face away with a tap on her triangular nose. “I’m still angry at you.”
Ayane’s face deflated into a pout as she turned away with a dejected “meow”, her tail loosely coiling around her hips as her ears drooped.
“Damn it…” she heard Ann mutter.
Ann didn’t know yet, but Ayane’s field of vision was wide enough that she could catch a glimpse of the blush that had spread across her crush’s face.