The front door closed behind Ethan with a dull click, echoing through the house like a verdict. His backpack felt impossibly heavy on his shoulders, but not with books—he could feel it pressing against the tension in his chest, the pull of the neckce against his skin, the relentless insistence of Eri pushing from beneath the surface.

  Mom was in the kitchen, humming softly as she washed the dishes. Mira was at the table, quietly scrolling through her phone, though she lifted her gaze every few seconds to watch him with that careful, steady look that seemed to pierce through him. Yui sat cross-legged on the floor, drawing in her sketchbook, oblivious—or at least pretending to be.

  Ethan forced himself to smile. The mask was fragile, cracking, but it was there.

  “Hey, Ethan,” Mom said cheerfully. “Did you have a good day?”

  He opened his mouth, and for a heartbeat, it felt like he might colpse entirely. Words surged forward, a flood of unspoken truth: I’m not okay. I’m not Ethan. I’m… I’m Eri. I can’t breathe in this skin anymore. I hate it. I hate it all. I hate lying to you. I hate lying to everyone. I want to be me. I want to be free. I want…

  But the words never left his throat.

  He swallowed them, thick and bitter, and managed a weak, “It was fine. Long day, you know?”

  “Long day, huh?” Mom said, gncing at him with concern. “You look tired.”

  Ethan’s chest tightened. Tired? That was nowhere near the word for how he felt. Hollow. Fractured. Torn between the two halves of himself, suffocating under the weight of pretending.

  He wanted to scream. He wanted to throw the neckce across the room and run into his room, rip it off, and curl into the warmth of his tails and ears, let Eri take over fully for at least a moment of peace. But here, in the kitchen, he couldn’t. He couldn’t risk revealing even a fragment of her to anyone.

  Mom’s gaze lingered on him. “Ethan… are you sure you’re okay?”

  Her voice was quiet, patient, but there was a sharp edge beneath it—the awareness, the unspoken knowing that he couldn’t hide from her. She had seen enough to understand that something was wrong, even if she didn’t have the whole picture.

  “I’m fine,” he lied again, a little tighter this time, a little shakier. His hands itched to fidget, to curl into the shape of his own tailless body—but Eri stirred beneath the surface, restless and impatient, curling and stretching invisibly, pressing against him in ways that made his breathing shallow.

  “Fine,” Mom repeated, tilting her head slightly. Her eyes narrowed with subtle concern. “Okay. But if you need to… talk…”

  Ethan’s jaw clenched. The words were on the tip of his tongue, but as always, the sentence couldn’t escape. Talk about what? About the girl inside me? About the tails and the ears and the body I want to be? About how every second I spend like this feels wrong?

  He forced a nod, a smile that didn’t reach his eyes, and turned toward the stairs. Every step was deliberate, careful, trying to ground himself in the world that demanded he be Ethan. But inside, Eri shifted impatiently, stretching through his muscles, curling along the edges of his mind.

  By the time he reached his room, the weight of the day had broken down the fragile barrier he had been holding up. He shut the door, leaned against it, and let himself exhale. The neckce felt heavier than ever, pressing against him like a chain.

  I can’t do this anymore, he thought. I can’t stay Ethan. I can’t pretend. I can’t…

  He grabbed the neckce, fingers trembling. For a moment, the familiar thought of removing it flickered through his mind, teasing him with freedom. Eri surged, impatient, almost pushing him toward the inevitable, toward the body that felt right.

  But he paused. Even alone, even in the safety of his locked room, the reality of transformation made his chest tighten. The knowledge that school tomorrow would demand Ethan again, that his family still waited in ignorance, that this moment of peace would be fleeting—it was almost unbearable.

  He clenched the neckce tightly, pressing it against his colrbone. Eri writhed beneath the surface, and for a long, tense moment, he almost spoke.

  I am… I… I…

  His throat seized. Words that could expose everything stuck halfway, suffocating him. He had no voice to release the truth. He had no courage, not yet, to tear the world apart with it.

  Instead, he sank to the floor, dragging his backpack aside, curling into the empty space of the room. The neckce hung uselessly against his chest as his mind tried to sort the jumble of emotions—anger, fear, longing, exhaustion. Eri’s presence was a soft, insistent pressure now, curling around his limbs, whispering, We could be free, we could be her, we could be… me.

  His hands ran through the imaginary weight of her tails, feeling their phantom softness as if they were there, wrapping him in warmth and safety. He let his ears twitch in his mind, remembered the gentle curl of her fur, the silver glint of her eyes, the small, comforting pressure of her tail-tips brushing against him.

  The truth pressed against him so hard that he almost screamed. Almost.

  He curled further, pulling his knees to his chest. He could feel the tension in his shoulders, the tremble in his hands, the twitch of his foot against the bed—all Eri’s, all him, all merged in this fractured existence.

  He wanted to tell someone. He wanted to break the neckce. He wanted to run upstairs, yell at his mom, dad, Yui, and just say I am not Ethan. I am her. I am Eri. I am me.

  But he couldn’t.

  Not yet.

  So he stayed silent.

  He let the weight of the day press down, the pull of Eri curling around him in invisible coils, the quiet ache of longing in every part of him. He couldn’t speak. He couldn’t move. He could only curl, breathe, and feel the relentless pressure of the truth pressing from the inside.

  And for the first time that evening, he realized just how close he had come to snapping.

  The neckce didn’t need to be removed. The words didn’t need to be spoken. Eri’s presence alone was enough to fracture him.

  Alone on the carpet, with the faint light of sunset spilling through the blinds, Ethan pressed his forehead to the floor and whispered into the quiet, I can’t… I can’t…