I'll Just Impose on You
For the sake of getting an accurate measurement, I could just barely accept having to show myself naked to the female clerk.
No matter how mortifying it was to bare myself in front of her, I could hardly go and show this body to a male employee instead. That would have been its own special brand of awful.
Besides, I only had to endure it for the short time it took to take my measurements. That much, I figured, I could tough out.
But now she wanted to help me put the underwear on in this state—and teach me how to wear it?
Absolutely not. I was already sitting on the floor, practically begging her to leave so I could do it myself.
"Ma'am, I can tell you're terribly embarrassed, so I'd love to do as you ask."
"Th-then please just step out so I can handle it alone!"
From the clerk's point of view I had to look like nothing more than a difficult customer, and yet she only grew calmer and more resolute as she began to talk me around.
"The truth is, the way you put this design on is a little different."
Still sitting on the dressing-room floor, tail and one hand clamped over myself, I took the underwear set she handed in from outside.
Hanging on the hanger was a perfectly ordinary white set—exactly the sort of lace-trimmed thing you'd picture if someone said "women's underwear."
The problem was that I, a former pitch-black male specimen, had never once in my life worn even something this ordinary.
Still, the bra was a standard shape. If I just looked up how to put one on, I could probably throw it on somehow.
But these panties… weren't they a little too small?
The surface area was so scant it felt closer to "covering" than "wearing." I wasn't even sure they deserved to be called underwear; "scrap of fabric" would have been more honest.
"Loli-style cuts, string styles, and the ones with side ties like a swimsuit—those you can manage on your own."
Right. As long as I could stomach the sheer humiliation of putting them on, those looked doable solo.
None of the examples she'd shown me so far seemed to require a clerk's personal tutorial inside a dressing room.
The last set she held out, though, was in a completely different league from anything whose method I could even begin to guess.
"But this kind of panty is the real issue. Can you tell how you'd put this on…?"
The bra in the final set wasn't special—if anything, it was a sports-bra style and looked the most straightforward of the lot.
The panties were the problem. In my world, panties—no matter how aggressive the design—were still things you stepped into and pulled up.
What she had just handed me was a flattened scrap of cloth with a few skinny strings attached.
"No idea, right?"
"E-even so, the other ones are fine, so just leave this one out…"
"Beastfolk with tails tend to find ordinary panties uncomfortable. The tail keeps shifting them around, loosening them, rolling them down."
Even I, after only a few days as a woman, had already lived that experience.
A few steps was all it took for this plump little tail to start shoving my underwear every which way.
"Visually it's a bit of a compromise, but you secure it to the tail with straps and hooks—like trousers. And because the panty portion is shaped like this, you do need to learn how to put it on."
"…"
"Awakened tend to be very active, too, so they rely on this style even more."
I did not want to accept it. I did not want to be persuaded.
But her explanation—and my own pathetic handful of experience—made it painfully clear that every word was right.
"C-can I at least put the top on…?"
"Of course!"
Eyes stinging, I had no choice but to nod.
And so, with tears in my eyes and a gun to my pride, I let the clerk teach me how to put on underwear, demonstrated the process in front of her a few times, and only then was finally allowed to be alone in the dressing room.
Even after surviving that unimaginably horrific stretch in the lingerie store's dressing room, I still had to endure a long stint as a living dress-up doll before shopping was finally over.
"Haah… haah."
Utterly spent, I sat on a bench in a daze, head tipped back against the wall, and let out a hollow little laugh.
"P-pfft…"
Beside me, both hands full of shopping bags, Jihoo had clamped a hand over his mouth and was shaking with barely contained laughter.
"Y-you think this is funny?"
"Hoo… Well, isn't it?"
He'd asked why I looked so wrecked, so I'd told him what happened in the lingerie store—and ever since he'd been snickering right next to me, scraping raw nerves that were already frayed enough.
"Still, they must have known you were suffering. The two of them went easy on you."
"…Easy? In what universe?"
The second we left the lingerie store we'd bounced from shop to shop, and I'd spent a solid three hours doing nothing but changing clothes.
"We finished before dinner. My mom usually stays until closing."
"…You're lying."
"And they only picked the modest stuff. Nothing you tried on was a skirt, not even once."
That much was true.
The most feminine thing among the purchases was a two-way blouse whose hem fluttered a little, and what I had on now was nothing more dramatic than snug black winter pants, an oversized beige sweater, and ankle-boot-style walkers.
Even the former guy in me couldn't work up much resistance to any of it.
"It was still hard."
After the lingerie store had already ground me down to shreds, even a "considerate" schedule had felt exhausting.
At my sulky complaint, Jihoo gave a little shrug and settled onto the bench beside where I was sprawled.
"Min-ah. So what are you planning to do from now on?"
"About what."
The same guy who'd been smothering giggles and playing it light a second ago had wiped the amusement clean off his face and asked in complete seriousness.
"You awakened."
"…Yeah."
"If you want, you can go into the gates yourself as a hunter. Or you could become a theoretical mage, an alchemist, a magic engineer—plenty of options."
Until the day he awakened himself, he'd carefully looked the other way. Now he was asking what I'd been keeping inside.
Right. I finally had the qualifications to work as a hunter, or in any related field.
I'd felt a little thrill about that on day one, then the cascade of chaos that followed had shoved it clean out of my mind.
"You could just take the Association's adaptation course and live like a regular civilian, too."
I knew exactly what he meant by that.
Anything involving gates was always dangerous, and accidents involving the awakened never seemed to stop.
He was worried about me. He wanted me to stay ordinary, the way I was now.
"I don't want that."
"Figured."
But I didn't want to throw away a chance that had finally come my way without even trying—even if I ended up quitting later for some other reason.
It was a chance I'd barely managed to find.
I finally had the right to walk up to the place this guy had always stood looking down from.
"Then if we're doing this, we do it properly. First target: getting into the Academy."
"O-out of nowhere? Active hunters fail that exam all the time. How is someone who just awakened supposed to get in?"
The Academy entrance exam was always held on February 1st.
And every year on February 8th, when the results dropped, the internet rang with the wails of hunters who hadn't made the cut.
Last year there had even been a post from someone who claimed to be a B-class hunter and still failed.
"Hunters are transfer applicants—that's why they wash out. Every year there are more of them, and the number of seats doesn't grow."
The Academy was a training institution built so that inexperienced awakened could gain specialized knowledge and field experience before being thrown into real gates.
But capacity was always limited. Aside from the yearly freshman intake, transfers only got in if a seat opened through withdrawal or the like—otherwise you sat on a waitlist until you failed.
"So you're saying I should aim for freshman admission."
"Yeah. Start prepping now and you should make it fine. Freshmen almost never get rejected. As long as you don't fall short of the minimum."
"The minimum?"
"If you can't handle mana at all, you're not getting in."
The entrance requirements included completing the Association's basic course, and part of that course involved entering a low-rank gate under protection.
If you finished the basics and still couldn't control mana, you weren't just short for the Academy—you were short for every gate-related profession.
So awakening alone wasn't the end of it.
"Then what if I turn out to be unable to use mana…"
"Then you're just a girl with a tail."
"What is that supposed to mean!"
Being stuck in this body was already unfair enough. The one part of it I'd actually liked could just vanish?
I was so stunned I could feel my tail standing straight up.
"Hey. What are you fretting for? You've got a sitting professor for a friend sitting right in front of you."
"W-well, when you put it that way…"
"Awakening means your body becomes capable of handling mana in the first place. People who can't use it yet are just clumsy—give it time and everyone gets there."
"Really?"
Thankfully, what Jihoo said next let me breathe out a little of the tension.
The rigid tail eased, too, slowly sinking back down.
"That tail of yours is already moving pretty well. Nobody has to be taught how to breathe. Mana's the same kind of thing."
"Then don't scare me for no reason."
At my scolding he just laughed it off with a light snicker.
"Alright, so we're aiming for the Academy exam. Time to get ready."
"Do I just go take that basic course starting tomorrow?"
"That runs on a fixed cycle, so you can't jump in right away. Until then, we'll practice with a few workarounds."
The word "workarounds" made me tilt my head.
"What kind of workaround is there? We can't even enter a gate."
"There are ways. Don't worry about it—just come to my lab."
"Your lab? The one at the Academy?"
"Yep. We'll need to set some things up. Starting next Monday."
At Jihoo's suggestion that I come to the Academy, I fell quiet for a moment, thinking.
The Academy. From my place by public transit, one way alone took a solid hour, and it was a crowded route—just imagining it already made my head hurt.
Riding a packed bus or the rush-hour subway with this body and this tail…? But taking a taxi every time would sting the wallet…
Ah.
"Then starting next week, I guess I'll just impose on you at your place."
"What? Where did that come from all of a sudden?"
Why was he so rattled? His mouth was hanging open and everything.
"Why not? It's not like I've never stayed over before. I can come. My place is just a little too far from the Academy."
"No. That's… not the same."
"What's not the same? You said it yourself on the phone yesterday. Even looking like this, I'm still me."
"That's…"
Normally he would have told me to crash without a second thought. Why was he dragging this out?
"…What? Are we not friends anymore? Now that I've changed, you can't stand living under the same roof?"
Instead of answering, he scrubbed a dry hand over his face and sighed.
"No. Fine… Come. Come over. Staying at my place will help more anyway…"
"If you were going to say yes, you should have just said yes from the start!"
I thumped the shoulder of the finally-nodding Jihoo again and again, laughing.
He only kept sighing, as if something still worried him.
What a weird guy.
His parents were both home, so it wasn't even like the two of us would be alone.
And as a bonus, dropping by meant I could keep the promise I'd made with Jihoo's mother—even better.