The Fox-Eared Girl Goes to School
After another round of bickering with my little sister, I stopped by Mom one last time before leaving the house.
“Do I really have to go?”
“What’s wrong with you? Hurry up before you’re late.”
Even my final plea was met with Mom’s cold, blunt words. She’d probably send me to school even if I was going to drop dead tomorrow. The thought crossed my mind, but I couldn’t bring myself to rebel. I just slung my bag over my shoulder.
“Ugh, seriously…”
What slipped from my lips was nothing but frustrated grumbling. How the hell was I supposed to go to school looking like this?
While I was still feeling miserable, Mom spoke again.
“After school, let’s go to the hospital too.”
“The hospital? Why?”
I tilted my head at her suggestion. Hadn’t she heard what Hyun-seo said earlier? It’s not something that gets better. Still, just in case, I asked, “What kind of hospital?”
“Dermatology.”
Her short, straightforward answer echoed in my ears. Dermatology. We should be heading to a university hospital, and she says dermatology? My gender had changed, animal ears and a tail had sprouted, and she thought a skin doctor would fix it? I decided right then not to expect much from Mom’s judgment.
“Hurry up, you’re really going to be late.”
“Agh, come on…”
I still wasn’t mentally prepared, but Mom was already pushing me out the door. Even when I made a disgusted noise, she showed no mercy. In the end, I was practically chased out of the house.
The fluffy weight pressing against my back felt incredibly uncomfortable. That weight was none other than my bushy tail. It sat right above my butt—practically at my waist. The fluffy mass was wedged awkwardly between my shirt and pants, getting in the way with every step. Since I couldn’t tuck it inside my clothes, it stuck out completely. It poked out messily between my shirt and waistband, leaving the bare skin around the base of my tail exposed to the open air. On top of that, my backpack kept squishing it.
This is driving me insane.
Even before I’d taken a single step, the discomfort was overwhelming. But once I was already outside, there was no turning back. No matter where I went looking like this, it would probably be the same. The best thing to do was just get to school as quickly as possible.
“Oh my, what is that?”
“Is that cosplay?”
But even that simple plan turned out to be anything but easy. The crosswalk light seemed especially slow today. The surrounding noises sounded unusually clear. The number of students on the morning commute felt way higher than normal. The fact that I had to walk all the way to school had never felt more resentful.
Click.
The sound of a smartphone camera came from behind me. I whipped my head around, and a male student wearing our school uniform quickly lowered his phone’s lens.
Fuck…
I cursed inwardly. At least turn the shutter sound off, you bastard. But I didn’t have the courage to confront him and ask if he’d actually taken a picture. I just waited for the light to change.
Three seconds after the straight-ahead signal turned green at the intersection across the street, the crosswalk light finally changed. I practically broke into a run, moving as fast as I could without actually sprinting. I felt like I was going to die of embarrassment any second. I wanted to bolt into a PC bang or anywhere just to hide. Still, I somehow managed to swallow the overwhelming shame and finally reached the school gate.
Just as I was about to walk through naturally—
“Hold on. Which student are you? This is Cheongnam High.”
Of course, the gym teacher standing guard at the gate stopped me immediately.
That’s right. Our school’s name is Cheongnam High. Cheongnam Boys’ High School. A world with zero female students.
It looked like there was no way I could just slip past unnoticed.
“Coach.”
“Huh?”
Feeling my ears droop, I called out to the gym teacher in a thin voice. The man’s expression instantly filled with confusion—how would some random girl he’d never seen before know he taught physical education? But I didn’t have time to worry about that. I got straight to the point.
“Could you… call Ms. Lee Young-sun for me, please?”
A short while later, our homeroom teacher came out to the gate after getting a call from the gym coach. Maybe because news of Beast Disease had already spread, she didn’t turn me away. She must have been contacted in advance.
“Oh my, oh my, what’s going on here…”
Still, it seemed she hadn’t heard about the gender change. The moment she saw me, her eyes widened in shock. She quickly grabbed my hand and pulled me inside the school.
I was dragged all the way to the second-year teachers’ office and ended up sitting in an empty chair next to hers.
“What on earth happened to you?”
“I don’t know… I woke up like this.”
I answered her wide-eyed question. Even if she asked me what happened, I had no idea either.
“Teacher, who is that?”
While I was shaking my head in a daze, other teachers passing by also widened their eyes and asked the same thing. The first one to speak up was the physics teacher.
“It’s Hyunwoo from my class.”
Ms. Lee Young-sun answered the physics teacher’s question. The physics teacher tilted his head at the mention of a student from his class. Apparently it didn’t make sense to him, because he asked again.
“Huh? But we’re an all-boys school, aren’t we?”
“Have you heard of Beast Disease?”
“Ah, Beast Disease? But does that change someone’s gender too?”
While our homeroom teacher directly mentioned the disease’s name, the physics teacher—who seemed to have heard of it before—asked in bewilderment whether it could change someone’s sex. Naturally, none of us—me, the physics teacher, or Ms. Lee—had any idea. Our homeroom teacher could only shake her head.
“I don’t know either… This is the first time I’ve seen anything like it.”
“Whoa, the hair is completely orange too…”
The physics teacher marveled at my hair color, then went back to his seat as if nothing had happened. What? Was that all the reaction I was getting? Was I the only one who found this unbelievably shocking?
I was stunned by the lukewarm response for only a moment before Ms. Lee spoke again.
“Does anything hurt?”
“Huh? No… not really, for now.”
I answered her question about pain in a daze. Thankfully, nothing actually hurt. The ears on my head and the tail were pretty uncomfortable, sure. But if I had to be honest, what really hurt was my heart. The feeling of being treated like some Beast Disease cosplayer all the way to school… Still, I didn’t bother mentioning that part.
Ms. Lee took a small breath and then said,
“We’ll have morning assembly soon. I’ll go into the classroom with you and explain everything to the kids then.”
“Ah… okay.”
The moment I answered, my heart started pounding like crazy. A completely different kind of tension wrapped around me. It was just another ordinary school day. But I couldn’t stop wondering how everyone would treat me when I looked like this. I wished time would just stop right there, but it flowed on mercilessly.
Ding-dong-dang-dong.
The moment the school bell finally rang, I followed my teacher to the classroom with a face like I was walking to my execution.
The front door of the classroom I used to enter without a second thought. The instant Ms. Lee opened it and stepped inside, I carefully slipped in right behind her.
A few seats were still empty because of late students. The noisy chatter that had filled the room until I walked in suddenly cut off completely.
Around twenty pairs of eyes snapped toward me all at once. The classroom fell into an eerie, total silence. I instinctively lowered my head.
Ms. Lee didn’t even need to tell them to be quiet. She immediately smacked the attendance sheet against the lectern and got straight to the point.
“Alright, everyone, don’t freak out. You all know Hyunwoo from our class, right?”
“Yeah.”
The class’s half-hearted reply echoed. Some kids just stared at me instead of answering.
“I’m not sure if you’ve all heard of Beast Disease, but Hyunwoo has caught it and ended up like this.”
The classroom instantly grew noisy at her words.
“Huh?”
“Is that a real disease?”
Since it was such an unfamiliar illness, the kids looked confused. A few even sounded fascinated, asking if it was actually real.
Thump. Thump. Thump.
Ms. Lee smacked the lectern with the attendance sheet again.
“Quiet, quiet! Anyway, that’s what happened, so… don’t act too awkward around him. Treat him like you normally would, okay? Hyunwoo, go to your seat.”
She told the class to treat me normally, then told me to take my seat. I gave a small nod, walked between the desks, and sat down at my usual spot.
That same desk I’d always sat at. Because my body had changed, even that felt awkward now. I stretched my tail through the open gap in the back of the chair. Naturally, an uncomfortable atmosphere settled over the entire classroom.
A girl had suddenly appeared in a space that had always been for boys only. And not just any girl—she had animal ears and a tail.
Ms. Lee had said to treat me normally, but… there was no way that was going to happen as easily as she made it sound.
“Aren’t you going to ask what happened?”
“Huh? Uh, um, no.”
Even my desk mate—the one I usually talked about games with—felt distant. The guys I’d gather with during breaks to talk about otaku stuff were all acting awkward too.
“Wait, you’re really Hyunwoo…?”
“I told you it’s me! We literally talked about Beast Disease the other day!”
No matter how hard I tried to act casual, the people around me reacted like this. I couldn’t help but feel irritated. Proving that I was really me turned out to be harder than I thought.
My parents and little sister were one thing, but the real problem was my friends—the ones who’d known me for years. Some random girl shows up acting all chummy with them, so of course they were confused. But seriously, who do you think is the most confused person here right now?
If you’re such huge otakus, just accept it and move on! You guys are always talking about wanting to reincarnate into another world or regress, so why are you acting so weirded out when someone actually gets a real fantasy disease? This is seriously pissing me off.