The Next Chapter: 10

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The Next Chapter
Chapter 10: Care to Sing?

Kyosuke had his stuff packed early into Friday afternoon, and Polaris (now a tall, busty woman) showed up to help lug it all over not long after. She made a show of picking up the heaviest items not with her hands, but with some lifting-and-carrying type magic that had those items float along in the air behind her. That was fine with the kitsune; it meant he didn't have to carry them.

It had been agreed that he'd room with Robert—Camilla's boyfriend—who (from what Kyo understood) been suckered into joining the sorority by the kind of simple-yet-clever scheme that any fox might be envious of. There were plenty of completely unoccupied rooms in the OZK house, but both Kyo and Rob were used to rooming with someone else, open to meeting a new person, and—of course—would be among the originally-male members transformed by the house. Also, the room was right across the hall from where Polaris and that monster were now living.

The Celestial set everything down on Kyosuke's side of the room. "Well? Any further assistance required?"
"No, this should be fine. I'll just start getting my stuff unpacked and settled."
"Excellent. I shall be off, then." With that, she headed out, leaving Kyo to his work. He quietly hummed to himself as he worked to get everything in just the right place.

Around halfway into the process he paused, his ears twitching. Off in the distance, faintly...was that Jay's voice singing? This house had pretty good magical sound-dampening, but it was mostly focused on keeping bedrooms and bathrooms private; more public areas had their walls and doors much less aggressively muted. Still, it was more than enough to prevent someone merely singing or humming to themselves from being heard (even by fox ears) at this kind of distance. Curious what was going on, Kyo paused his work to go track her down.

She was singing along to some kind of backing track, which had the sound quality of being played through some high-end speakers. Kyosuke identified the genre as some kind of synth-pop as she moved into what was very obviously the chorus. More importantly, however, Jay's singing was incredible. Her voice was beautiful, melodious, and powerful, and she sang with a confidence and energy that perfectly fit the song. He couldn't know whether she was hitting all of the "right" notes, but all of it sounded perfectly consonant and on-rhythm with the music behind her.

Finally, the kitsune located the source of all that sound: The little "theater room" of OZK's house. It had a big screen and some seating, so he'd assumed that it was just for watching movies or videos, but upon walking inside, he found that its acoustics were actually quite good for this performance of Jay's. He also wasn't the only one listening. Ed, Nancy, and L'hoxifel were seated in various spots near the front of the room. At about the time of Kyo's arrival, the song reached a climactic part with a long series of notes and words coming out rapid-fire. While his English was very good most of the time, he couldn't parse half of what these words were; Jay, however, seemed to hit every single one without stumbling over a consonant or missing a beat. After that was one final chorus (with a key change, of course), and then the song came to an end.

"Haahh...phew." Jay bent over slightly, panting. The three seated audience members gave their applause, and Kyosuke joined them, noting that the fox-girl had been singing at that volume with no microphone.

"Amazing! How are you already so good at singing in a brand new voice?!" Nancy said.

"Is the rap section supposed to go that fast?" the demon-girl asked.

"Yeah, it is," Ed answered for Jay, who was just now starting to catch her breath.

"Aahahah...I've just been singing since, like, middle school. Turns out the technique and stuff carries over even if your voice is totally different," The fox-girl said, shrugging. "Aaaand, I might've listened to Ursa's whole album on repeat one too many times."

Jay had mentioned being a huge fan of an "Ursa Major" during their date back on Tuesday, and talked excitedly about her and her music until Kyo managed to very tactfully change the subject. Evidently this was one of her songs, and he had to admit it did seem fairly catchy. At this point, Jay noticed his presence, and waved. "Oh, hey Kyo! You get all moved in already?"
"Mostly." Seeing that this had brought the attention of everyone else in the room his way, he shrugged, taking a few steps farther into the room. "I was just unpacking, and heard a siren song that compelled me to come. You do have a really beautiful voice."

"Awwwh, heheh~," she giggled. "We were just doing some karaoke, is all—Nancy's idea. You wanna join us?"

"I guess the rest of unpacking could wait," he said. "If the rest of you wouldn't mind?" A brief chorus of affirmation followed, so he came up toward the front. There wasn't exactly a "stage", but the room's acoustics seemed designed to make the whole area in front of the screen—where the speakers and Jay were—easy to hear throughout the whole room. There was a computer off to one side, maybe belonging to someone already in the room, that they'd used to play the song for Jay. After some brief encouragement from all present, Kyo went and found a song he knew on that.

He wasn't the best singer, by his own estimation, but he could carry an easy tune like this one. The only thing that his audience were likely to find odd was the language. Well, he couldn't really help the fact that every song he knew well enough to sing confidently was in Japanese, and they seemed fairly likely to be cool about it anyway. Indeed, once he'd given his performance, including using some of his illusions to illustrate certain parts of the lyrics, he got a full round of applause, and couldn't resist giving a couple of bows.

"Thank you, thank you—I'll be here all week, hahah! I suppose it's someone else's turn for now, though?"

"Yeah! Ed was gonna be up next after me," Jay said without reservation. The wolf-girl growled softly, looking off to one side with her face flushing slightly. "Whaat, you thought you were off the hook? You're the only one who hasn't sung anything yet! C'mon." The fox-girl grabbed her hand and pulled her up off of her seat and to the "stage"; Kyo quietly moved himself out of the way and to an unoccupied seat before they got there.

"I don't really...know any songs. And my voice sucks anyway. I-I mean..I'm not used to how it sounds at all..."

"Well, you're not gonna get any more used it staying quiet," Jay said. "Besides, you complained about 'Love-spell, Hate-spell' being stuck in your head literally last week."

"That's because I don't like it."

"But you know it, riight? C'mon, I found a version with the words up on the screen," Jay said, gesturing at the computer. "Just give it a shot, okay?"
"Ugh, fiiiine."

This was presumably another of Ursa Major's songs, but its style was markedly different from the one Jay had sung to. It was a little slower in tempo, with more of a rock style, featuring guitars much more prominently. Despite her protests, the wolf-girl wasn't any worse a singer than Kyosuke figured himself to be. If anything, she kind of got into the song around the halfway point, and seemed to be actually having fun by the end of it. She also didn't seem to need to look at the screen much for the lyrics. Almost as soon as the song was over, she apparently noticed the happy look on her own face, and quickly forced it back to the sour expression she'd had on before.

"There~! That wasn't so bad, was it?" Jay said. "You didn't even mess up any of the notes."

"Wh-whatever! I'm not gonna do it again," she said, hurrying back to the seats.

"Your voice is lovely, Ed," L'hoxifel chimed in, and the wolf-girl responded to that with a bright blush and some embarrassed mumbling.

"Pardon the intrusion, but! Is this a display of talents I'm encountering!?"
The kistune muttered under his breath, "Uh-oh." Even if he didn't already know the sound of his former roommate's new voice, her manner of speech was unmistakable. Besides which, she was striding her way into the center of the room already.

"I simply must partake in this myself! Singing as perfect as mine deserves to be heard by all and sundry."
Kyosuke was pretty sure that the Celestial knew she was completely tone-deaf. He knew Polaris to occasionally slip from being honestly vain about her own, genuinely incredible abilities into being ironically, humorously vain about those talents she completely lacked. The only problem was that she tended to commit to this bit just a little too hard, and in this case, that would mean inflicting that voice on at least five other people.

Already the group (especially Jay) were happily encouraging Polaris to join them and pick out a song to sing. Kyo wondered: Should he warn them? As someone who wanted to get along with these girls, he probably should, but as a kitsune, it was also practically his duty to let a funny situation like this play itself out. He decided to give them all a subtle hint and leave it at that. He stood up, making a small show of looking at his phone in his right hand.

"Oh, man, it's been that long? Sorry, I've really gotta finish unpacking and get some homework done. It's been fun—we should do it again some time!" he said, waving goodbye while hurrying out of the room.

"Okay! Join us for supper later," L'hoxifel called after him. "I'll let you know when it's ready."
"Thanks!"

Kyo was walking backwards, then sideways, during this brief exchange. So it was only thanks to his keen hearing and quick reflexes that he didn't slam sideways into Mary, and instead went awkwardly stumbling around her to one side. "Whoop—uh. Sorry!" Once past her, he took off at a sprint.
"It's fine, really. You don't—hmn." His ears picked up her response, but he'd already turned a corner to get out of sight by the time she'd finished saying it.

Jay had mentioned how amazing a chef L'hoxifel was, and even Polaris had sworn that she would be "extracting her secrets" at some point. Kyo naturally interpreted these as kind overstatements, but getting to eat a supper made by the demon-girl for himself, he concluded that they were both completely sincere and serious. What was this girl doing in a creative writing major when she could be a five-star Michelin chef?! The kitsune resolved to at least try and get someone close to her—her friend Camilla, or Ed maybe—to suggest such a career, if only to find out the reason she wasn't already going after one.

Everyone was present for the dinner except for Rob and Camilla, who were apparently on a date or something, making for a very lively gathering. Kyo quickly got a feel for the dynamics among the group: Nancy liked to be the center of attention maybe even more than Polaris did; Mary, as expected, leaned back and quietly watched everyone with those eerie black eyes of hers. Jay liked or pretended to like everyone, and was having fun just hanging out with them; and Ed was quietly contemplating something, deeply enough that she wasn't always paying attention to the conversation. The kitsune himself just cheerfully people-watched, responding pleasantly when addressed but otherwise keeping fairly quiet.

It was past sunset when Kyosuke finally met his roommate. He was chipping away at some homework when the door opened, and Rob—a tall, handsome purple-haired guy with fuzzy ears and a catlike tail—walked in. He set his work down and stood up, hurrying over to greet him. "Hey! Kyosuke."
"Rob," he responded, shaking the hand gently. "I guess we're roommates now."
"Yep. I mean, unless you don't like it. There's lots of empty space for either of us to move into."
"Nah, I already agreed to it," he said, shrugging. "It's weird being on my own. Too quiet."
"Hah, I get that."

After some more general introductions, Rob said, "Hey, so—you've always had like, animal ears, right?"
"Yeah?"
"I got a question. How do you..how do headphones work with these things?" he said, pointing to his own ears.

"They make earbuds that go right in, for one thing," Kyo said. "'Human' buds can be stuffed in there too, but it's pretty uncomfortable. Me, though—" he pointed to a pair of big, classic-style headphones propped on his desk next to his laptop. "I just use the cheap stuff. If you turn them upward toward your ears, and focus on listening to what's coming out—y'know, which points your ears at them—it works great."
"Huh. I guess that makes sense. But...I'm used to totally blocking the world out when I'm doing art, is all. I can't figure out a way to stop...hearing stuff."

"I've known some people who were new to animal ears," Kyo said. "They all start out that way, but after a bit, your brain gets used to hearing tons of extra little noises, and learns to filter out what you're not actually interested in hearing. It's always taken me conscious effort to really hear everything my ears can pick up. Oh, but they do make noise-canceling stuff for fuzzy ears; it's just, kinda expensive. For the best kind, they have to actually get your measurements so it'll fit right. Or—they've started selling this noise-canceling enchantment stuff, but since it's so new, it's super expensive."

"Wow, cool," Rob nodded. "Ugh, I guess I just need to 'practice' until my brain gets used to these, then, huh?"
"Sorry, but—I'm sure, as someone who plays sports, you know: 'No easy path to success'. Even in a little thing like this."

A little later, when both of them were sitting at their desks, Rob turned his chair around the kitsune's way. Kyo paused his music in time to hear him say, "So, uh..."
"What's up?"
"I guess you..I mean, there's no way you don't know what you signed up for, right? I mean, after you go to sleep tonight..."

"The house's enchantment will change me into a woman, I know," Kyo said, nodding. "It's done that for you as well, hasn't it?"

"Yyyeah. Kind of by accident. I'm a guy right now, just 'cause I'm wearing this thing," he said, poking a ring on his left hand.

Kyo leaned in slightly toward it. "Huh. Quite an ingenious little enchantment. Very complex, to my senses."

"Sure, but...I just mean. You're..cool...with that?"

"Absolutely. I've become somewhat curious since this opportunity presented itself to me. Some of my kitsune relatives have told me that being transformed by outside magic can help make it easier to learn to transform ourselves, which is something I want to master at some point. And..there is a stronger reason, too."

"Stronger...?"

"Exactly. Let me ask you something...Camilla likes that female form of yours, right?"
"Uh..." Rob blushed. "Y-yeah?"

"I understand things happened in the sequence: You were transformed, then brought to live here. But if instead she had asked you to move into the house with her and get transformed, because she perhaps thought she'd like the results in the first place...do you think you would've done so?"

"Hhhhuh." Robert's expression changed for a moment; he was seriously contemplating something that had not occurred to him before. Some kitsune had a "favorite expression" that they liked to cause other people to make; this one was Kyo's.

"I guess...yeah. I would. Totally. Camilla and me are..pretty serious, you know. Even if the house itself wasn't so great, being close to her, uh, is worth it. It's annoying when she steals my ring to make me turn into a catgirl for her, but...like, if she asked me to take it off instead, I probably would..."

"Hah, well, there you go. I"m in a situation a little like that. While we've barely met, and so are nowhere near as serious as you and Camilla—Jay made it very clear that she'd be interested to see how I look as a woman. So, in view of the other reasons I already had for joining, my decision felt rather obvious."

"That make sense," Rob said. "Oh, but uh...Jay seems, really high-energy to me. I guess it's just your taste—I feel like I'd be exhausted even just dating someone like that a couple times."

"We're hardly very far into the courtship," Kyo said, shrugging. "I'll wait and see how it goes. I admit I find that energy very charming so far, though."

Another while later, Rob stood up, got some things from his dresser drawers, and started toward the bathroom. "I'm...going to bed," he said. "So uh—gonna go change, in there."
"Understandable," the kitsune said, nodding. She came back out in some full-body pajamas, setting down the outfit her male form had had on on her way to the bed. The kitsune decided he was getting pretty sleepy himself a little later, and changed for bed too. He usually wore just boxers and an old shirt, and had no problem with magic reconfiguring that into something that would fit post-change.

Kyo tended to take a little while to get to sleep, once he was lying down with the lights out. His thoughts would run away with him, and he sometimes had to resort to actual meditation to make his brain shut up. Tonight, his thoughts eventually went back to the conversation with Jay a couple of mornings ago. She thought he'd be 'super cute' as a girl..and had openly brought up the idea of picking a female Kyo up in a big hug and petting her. He was definitely excited by the idea, and sincerely hoped to wind up with the kind of body that Jay would enjoy doing that with. It was a very strange thing to consider, he realized, but a world full of magic tended to create a great many bizarre possibilities...

"...Mrrfh." Kyo stirred partially up out of sleep, thoughts like those still the last thing he could remember. He only knew that he had been asleep because a brief squint through his eyes revealed a subtle difference in the moonlight coming through the closed window blinds, which proved it was later into the night than his temporal memory could account for.

Polaris had said a thing or two about how the OZK house's enchantment worked. Kyosuke's magical senses weren't as finely honed as the Celestial's, but at this moment, he could feel the magic pushing in at him, and at the same time physically restraining his movement. He could tell right away that he wasn't powerful enough to resist it; instead, he invited it in. It took effect very quickly, making him shudder as a tingling proceeded from the tips of his ears and tails inward to the rest of his body, flooding all the way across it. The change being made to his fur was subtle: A mild softening, a slight increase in length and fluffiness. His skin, too, was softened a bit, along with the more obvious shift of a swift loss of body and facial hair. The tingling remained on his scalp while the rest faded off for now, growing his hair out longer while making similar changes to its volume and feel as it had to his fur.

And then...Kyo could feel his own power began pulling him inward. "Aah...!" It was a startling, sharp feeling that made him jolt and cry out briefly. He found himself picturing Jay in front of him, shorter than him, and then his perspective rapidly sinking, bringing her up higher and higher. And he really was shrinking at that rate, not only shorter but smaller in nearly every way he could think of. "Aa~ah..mmh, mm~mmh..!" His face grew smaller and rounder; his arms and legs slimmed down; his frame collapsed inward, narrowing his shoulders down; and even his voice was 'shrinking' in the sense of growing higher-pitched, like the sound of a smaller creature. "Mrr, rr~rrh..!" The sensation of this shift, along with the mental image of Jay's pretty face coming up to his eye-line and then rising even farther, made him squirm around, softly crying out, and caused quite a lot of excitement down between his legs. But he knew that wouldn't be there very long; it, too, shrank smaller and smaller even as the rest of him did!

"Mnngh...rr~rrfh..!" Kyo's voice settled quickly into a mid-range alto tone as the shrinking slowed toward a halt. In the mental image of standing before the voluptuous fox-girl, he could picture her impressive bust coming up into his view; his heart raced at the thought of her reaching out then, to pick him up and hold on tight, rubbing his ears..!

Or rather—that would be—her ears. Kyo's manhood began slipping inward as the rest of the shrinking slowed to a halt. "Mmh—mmMMMmmh—rruufh..!" He thrashed around a little bit, enjoying the ride, until it fully melted away, coming inside her body to reform into some fully female parts. This was accompanied by a rush of pleasant, fuzzy feelings down there that made her let out a high, cute "Aa~ah!" Then there was the sensation of her hips pushing their way out, her shorts very suddenly pulling tight—including becoming flat right between her legs. Now she could really picture Jay holding on to her, maybe the feeling of some fingers on her ears...! Or maybe even her tails? "Mrrr~rrhh...!" The very thought of that had her churring excitedly and happily, so...just wait until she could feel the real thing...!

"Mnnf...aah, rr~rrRUFFH...!" The kitsune welcomed the sensation of her chest pushing out into some new, small breasts too, They'd press nicely against Jay's enormous pair, maybe especially if they were a little bit bigger than this...? And so they pushed out again, and then yet a third time, each one coming with a wave of more fuzzy sensation down between her legs..! "Aa~ah...mrrr~rrnh..." Finally, the new vixen let out a soft, low "Ooo~oooh...!" as one final, more slow-and-steady push expanded her bust out to what would be its full size, completing her change and letting her feel one last, especially strong burst of girlish pleasure.

"Hfffh...fffh...mnn~nnh..." Kyosuke wondered whether every magically-induced change of sex was like this? Or at least anyone's first time. Probably not quite so pleasant, she reasoned; someone who'd been welcoming it like her would probably enjoy it the most. She slowly caught her breath, gently prodding around at her new form (and discovering that her shirt had split itself apart down the middle in the process), before finally realizing that she actually felt very physically exhausted by the expenditure of 'her own' magic, boosted as it had been by the house's enchantment, to transform her like this. So she took a couple of deep breaths to calm down, closed her eyes...and, for once, fell back to sleep immediately.

"Mrr~rrnh." She did dream of Jay, however, and woke up still thinking about the gorgeous redheaded fox-girl. Her ears twitched as she stirred toward fully awake, listening to the sound of the shower running—Rob, it seemed, was already up. Then she slowly sat up, got herself down off the bed, and looked around. The bedroom seemed so much bigger from down here...! Other people might feel disoriented or vulnerable from such a loss of height, but Kyosuke just felt excited. She went over to examine herself in the room's mirror, and immediately liked what she saw.

A cute, fairly curvy woman grinned back at her from the mirror, still blushing a bit from those thoughts of Jay. her jet black hair fell down to about waist-length; her two tails swished back and forth excitedly behind her. These restructured bedclothes didn't leave much of her figure to the imagination, showing off her somewhat larger-than-average bust, her slim, flat waist, and some pretty nice hips and legs. As expected, she was quite good-looking as a girl.

She was...also feeling kind of hungry. Maybe even very hungry. There had been a few warnings that the house's magic tended to make people hungry right after, which made sense given how it worked; Polaris hadn't been, but her magical efficiency was freakishly high. Kyo wondered briefly whether there was a man or a woman taking a shower in their shared bathroom right now, but shrugged—she wasn't really that interested in Rob in the first place. So instead of worrying about that, she tossed off her top to put on an (admittedly ill-fitting) t-shirt in its stead, then scampered off to the kitchen for breakfast, figuring this was decent enough to get away with. Besides, she could always fix it later.