True Form
Light seeped through even with my eyes closed.
"Nnh..."
Beyond the window, the sun had risen. Morning had come.
I sat up slowly. My body rose, but my eyelids remained heavy, and my mind was fogged over like a room full of mist. A night of tossing and turning, of never quite falling asleep. An unpleasant exhaustion had settled into every inch of me.
I turned my head toward the other side of the bed. Kyle had already gotten up and gone; only a cold, vacant space remained. I stared at that emptiness for a long moment.
The warmth that had, somewhere along the way, become something I took for granted — gone, last night. That chill seemed to seep all the way into the center of my chest.
I got out of bed and left the room. Passing through the living room into the kitchen, I found Kyle's back as he sat still at the table with a cup of coffee. Looking at him, I felt the chill inside me begin to warm, just a little.
I approached and offered a careful greeting.
"Good morning."
I said it while looking at his face. An ordinary morning, no different from usual.
"Yeah. Morning."
He seemed to greet me the way he always did — but he didn't. Kyle spoke in a stiff, clipped tone, his eyes never leaving his tablet. I couldn't find the playful lilt, or the warmth that used to live inside it.
That uncomfortable tightness closed around my chest again.
"Did you eat breakfast?"
I threw out another question, hoping he'd look at me. He lifted his eyes from the tablet and, at last, looked at my face.
The moment I'd been waiting for — and the instant I saw him, it felt like the air had been cut off.
Kyle wore a cold expression, without a trace of a smile.
Ah...
It was different from the look he'd worn when he was angry before. This was the look of someone regarding an object of no interest whatsoever.
"Yeah."
He spat out the curt, indifferent answer and turned his gaze back to the tablet. The picture of a man who handled only what was necessary and then returned to his own business.
He already ate...?
We always had breakfast together. The fact that he'd already taken care of it hit me like a blow. Leaving me standing there in a daze, Kyle rose from the table and walked toward the front door.
"Make sure you eat. I've got a busy day."
With that, he left the kitchen and vanished through the front door.
"Ky—"
The voice that tried to call him stayed locked in my throat, and just like that, he was gone. Once again, I felt the hollow his absence left behind. The same emptiness I'd felt from the vanished warmth on the bed now settled over the dining table as well.
I sat down blankly in the seat he'd occupied, and a certain object in the drawer came to mind. Something that could turn his coldness around.
The choker. But even the thought of putting it on made a corner of my heart recoil.
If I wore the choker, it would visually prove that I was a woman. Of course, I had decided to briefly accept the female identity this body cast over me — but saying it and seeing it with my own eyes felt vastly, viscerally different. The moment I fastened it, it felt as though some physical force would take hold, one that would never let me escape being a woman.
Right. I couldn't wear that. Even if I accepted myself as a woman.
I pushed the chair back, stood up, and took out bread and butter for breakfast. The bread I'd always found delicious tasted dry and crumbly today.
When afternoon came, I found myself pacing the living room for no reason. Even when I opened a book, the letters wouldn't enter my eyes. Even when I turned on the TV, I couldn't tell what the people on screen were saying.
"Ah..."
At some point, my hand was stroking my neck. The moment I noticed, I snatched it away.
A behavior I couldn't understand — no. Actually, I think I did understand. A way to fill this emptiness had risen from somewhere beneath thought.
In the bedroom, beside the bed, an object in the drawer.
...If I wore that...
"Hah—!"
This wouldn't do. Being here, I kept thinking of nothing else. I needed to empty my head, even if it meant working my body to pieces.
I changed into workout clothes and headed out the front door toward the hunter training gym.
After finishing my workout and training, I showered and threw myself onto the living room sofa. My whole body should have felt refreshed. Instead I felt even more hollow. My body was clearly exhausted, yet my mind hadn't calmed at all.
"Haa..."
The darkened living room looked strangely vast. Kyle's absence seemed to have emptied the entire space. Dinner ingredients sat untouched on the table, but I had no appetite.
I picked up the remote for no reason and turned on the TV. A flashing screen and a noisy variety show spilled out; I switched it off again almost immediately. The noise couldn't fill the empty place in my chest.
My neck itched again. My hand rose on its own to stroke the line of my throat — a motion that had become all too familiar.
"...No."
I shook my head hard, stopping myself. But contrary to the voice of resistance, the image of that object in the drawer only grew clearer in my mind.
Black leather. A silver ring gleaming coldly. Not a simple accessory — a mark that declared I was a woman.
When my thoughts reached that point, my breath grew short, and a strange excitement rose through me. Just as I was about to be swept up in a feeling I myself didn't understand—
The front door clicked open, and Kyle came in.
"You're back?"
I got up from the sofa and went to the entrance to greet him.
"Yeah. You doing okay?"
He asked as he took off his shoes. The warm tone like before. The gaze that met mine without looking away. In that instant, something in my chest lit up.
The reaction I'd wanted. Just confirming it seemed to slowly fill the emptiness in my heart.
"Yes. How about you, Kyle?"
"Same."
A short but kind answer. Feeling the warmth in his voice, I smiled. Kyle, back to the way he used to be. Right. I didn't need to wear something like a choker.
Relieved, I followed him into the bedroom. Once inside, he was casually unfastening his clothes. He told me he was going to shower and disappeared into the bathroom.
I sat on the bed and quietly waited. The expectation that, now that he was back to normal, he would hold me. Feeling that, I stared at the bathroom door he would come out of.
Before long, Kyle emerged in a towel robe. My heart pounded like mad — so hard I was afraid he might hear it.
"C-come here, hurry..."
I urged him without meaning to. I wanted that warm embrace. Soon.
Hearing me, Kyle smiled lightly and walked to the bed. Then he lay down. But he didn't reach for me. He simply lay there, quietly closed his eyes, and—
"Good night, Sera."
He offered only a brief greeting.
Why...?
Hadn't he come back? Like before, treating me as a woman—
In that moment, I felt the emptiness at my neck again. Once more, my hand unconsciously stroked my throat.
That was it. Kyle still wasn't seeing me as a woman.
My gaze drifted, on its own, toward the drawer.
If I wore that... everything would be solved.
The thought arrived unbidden — just as I'd acknowledged I was a woman, couldn't I wear the choker for just a little while?
I slid the drawer open. The choker lay inside.
I stared at it for a long time. In the end, my hand wouldn't reach for it. I closed the drawer and lay back down.
The fatigue, the condition that wouldn't improve. In the end I'd spent last night with my eyes open as well, and only managed to fall asleep at dawn. I didn't think I'd slept even an hour. Just as I was wondering whether I should close my eyes again, Kyle's voice reached me.
"Sleep well?"
He was leaning against the headboard, looking down at me. Unlike yesterday, he didn't seem to have left the bed first.
"...Yes."
Some unnameable satisfaction made me agree even though I hadn't slept well at all. I was tired, but the unpleasantness that had been lingering seemed to have vanished.
He smiled at my answer and got up.
"Let's eat breakfast."
"Okay."
I got out of bed after him. We left the room and arrived at the kitchen, where Kyle brought me a meal the way he always did.
"Eat up."
"Thank you..."
Right. Like usual... The actions were the same as always, but something was subtly different. Kyle wasn't looking at me. He didn't bring up my sleepwear, or the underwear we'd bought last time, or anything else meant to provoke me.
As if he were treating me like a colleague. Actually — I was a colleague, wasn't I?
But thinking that, for some reason, the fact didn't sit well with me at all.
Once again, I felt the emptiness at my neck.
Why was this happening? It wasn't as though he was ignoring me. It wasn't as though he'd been disappointed in me, the way he had before. He just wasn't thinking of me as a woman.
As much as my chest ached, thoughts of the choker in the drawer only grew larger.
Three in the afternoon.
I opened the front door and immediately collapsed onto the floor. After Kyle left following breakfast, I'd headed to the company training facility to work out — trying not to be swept up in stray thoughts the way I had been yesterday. I'd driven my body to exhaustion trying to erase him from my mind, but thoughts of him still wouldn't disappear.
An attitude that seemed no different from usual, yet carried a subtle distance. No — more precisely, it was an attitude of simply not treating me as a woman.
I got up from the floor and opened the bedroom door at once. My footsteps headed, as if of their own accord, toward the drawer beside the bed. For some reason, my body moved in that direction.
I slid the drawer open, and the black choker came into view. Smooth leather, no particular decoration — just a single silver ring at the center. At the back, a small clasp and loop that could be tightened to fit the neck.
I picked it up without a word. A smooth texture, just as it looked.
Just for a moment... wouldn't it be okay to wear it for just a little while...
Matching the moment I'd acknowledged I was a woman — couldn't I put it on for just a little while and take it right off...
If I did that, this tangled feeling seemed like it might finally settle.
Holding the choker, I approached the mirror and held it against my throat. The touch of cold metal was unfamiliar at first — then it seemed to sink naturally into my skin.
"Ah..."
I looked at the woman in the mirror.
It was clearly me, and yet she looked like someone else. A face that seemed at ease, happy, with a quiet sensuality clinging to it. Looking at her, it felt as though my breath had stopped.
Then — the sound of the front door opening from outside the room. Kyle had come back.
Afraid he would see me like this, I quickly put the choker I'd held to my neck back in the drawer and left the room.
"What were you doing?"
As I entered the living room, Kyle asked, looking at me.
"Nothing. I was just... around."
I mumbled it, staring at the floor to hide my face. I couldn't forget the sensation of the leather that had been against my neck only moments ago.
"Yeah? You doing okay?"
Fortunately, he didn't press further. He asked after me the way he had yesterday.
"...Yes. How about you, Kyle?"
I hadn't been doing well at all, but I just agreed. Revealing my condition felt like saying please treat me like a woman.
Along with my answer, I asked after him too. He'd asked, so I asked — but I found myself hoping he'd say he hadn't been doing well. A wicked little wish that he, like me, had felt the emptiness and the discomfort.
What the hell am I thinking...
I scolded myself at once. Wishing discomfort on him — my benefactor. Why was I like this.
"I was fine too. I'm gonna wash up."
Kyle answered and went into the bedroom the way he had yesterday, heading straight into the bathroom to shower. Once again, I was left alone in the room. His attitude unchanged.
My gaze drifted on its own, and at the end of it was the drawer.
The emptiness and discomfort I was feeling now — and even the emotions I couldn't name. There was something in that drawer that seemed like it could resolve all of them.
Once again, I opened the drawer and took out the choker. I didn't even know how many times a day I'd taken it out and put it back. I didn't know what I was doing. As if possessed, my fingertips were always finding this leather.
When I felt the cold, smooth texture in my hand, the face I'd seen in the mirror earlier came back to me.
Clearly... that had been a woman's face. Not forced — a natural, satisfied face, as if something had been set free. Even if I tried to cover it with a male identity, it seemed like a true form that could not be hidden.
"Huu..."
Once again, I wrapped the choker around my neck. As the cold metal and smooth leather sank into my throat, a corner of my heart settled.
Right. Right now, I am a woman. So wouldn't it be okay to wear it only for this moment, and take it off right away.
I'd felt resistance toward being seen this way — but rather, it felt as though this could finally make my chaotic identity clear. To express, without ambiguity, whether I was a woman or a man. Right... so...
The clasp clicked shut.
"Ah..."
My hand had moved without me knowing. The leather wrapped snugly around my neck. I'd fastened it without meaning to — and I didn't feel like taking it off.
Contrary to the sensation of it tightening around my throat, my chest felt at ease. A sense of stability, as if something that belonged in its place had finally, properly settled there.
The rush of water stopped. The bathroom door opened.
"...!?"
His presence — which I'd briefly forgotten. Even though I'd decided to accept the choker, the thought of him seeing me like this made my face burn.
No. Before he sees. Quickly.
I hurriedly tried to undo the clasp at the back of my neck, but the small, delicate mechanism made it nearly impossible. My fingers, sent behind me, only groped at empty air.
"Sera?"
Kyle's voice, calling my name.
"Ah..."
Our eyes met. And he saw. How I looked right now.
"Kyle, th-this is—"
I tried to scramble together an excuse. That I'd just worn it by accident for a moment. That I was going to take it off now.
But he reached me first, and set his hand against my cheek.
The moment I heard those words, the emptiness and hollowness of the past two days seemed to melt away — and the resistance toward the choker melted with them.
Along with that, Kyle gently stroked down my neck. A careful, delicate touch, as if handling a work of art.
I looked up into his eyes as he said it. A fierce gaze, nothing like the words of praise.
Ah...
I felt the danger — but it seemed I had realized it far too late.