Business Kawaii

A business catgirl turns into an embarrassingly anime catgirl. In the middle of the office, no less! Explicit.

Tara’s big presentation for the board of directors had gone well, until her hair turned candy-apple red.

For instance, she’d gotten to the conference room with half an hour to spare, so that her laptop would be hooked up and ready to go. She’d even had enough time to duck into the bathroom for a couple minutes, to make sure that both her chin-length black hair and the feline ears poking out of it were brushed and tidy. And once she got started, she didn’t even have to check her notes. She was only a few slides away from the end when things went wrong.

One of the board members raised their hand and leaned forward. They didn’t even look up from the phone in their hand. Tara couldn’t remember their name but was immediately sure they had always been on the board and she shouldn’t question whether they had. Unable to guess whether she ought to call them sir or ma’am, she had to settle for asking, “Yes?”

They kept their eyes on their phone. “Question. Have you considered kawaii?”

Tara breathed in sharply and a small chill ran down her spine, all the way to the tip of her black tail. One of the board member’s jackal-ears twitched, as if they’d heard her gasp. Did they know? She’d worked hard to keep her whole thing a secret. Her laser pointer rolled anxiously between her sweating fingers. “I’m...not familiar, so no.”

“Really? I thought you’d be familiar with, y’know, nyan.” They curled their hand in a paw-like gesture.

As if a gust of wind struck her in the face her hair blew back from her face, then swung back down again, its color warmed to a bright, glossy red. With a flick of her ears and a swish of her tail, both of them had turned pastel pink.

For a moment she stood still, with the hair on the back of her neck prickling and her heart beating faster and faster. She didn’t know what to do or say. Everyone was staring at her, except for the one board member who had asked the question—they had settled back into their chair, once again occupied with their phone.

She gulped and then said, “S-sorry, Tara has to excuse herself.”

Past Present

Blackshirtboy's birthday present is a free trip to Egypt Times, complete with a new catgirl princess persona. Mature.

Just as you settle down at your desk with some tea, your computer chimes with a new message:

Uh oh.

You pause and double-check to make sure you’re not a panther, or a dragon, or a dog. You’re not. As far as you can tell, all your parts are still in their usual configuration. So you tell Kotep no, and wait for a minute or two to see if they’re going to send you something. When nothing comes right away, you shrug and grab your tablet pen so you can get to work.

A couple minutes into drawing, a warm draft ruffles the back of your shirt. You glance up at the window, which is wide open to the outside, with only a pair of linen curtains to soften the breeze. It’s not getting hot and sticky again, is it? Summer should be over by now. But the fresh air is light enough to soothe rather than stifle, and it carries the dry green smell of date palm blossoms into your room.

You narrow your eyes suspiciously at the window. It’s off, but you’re not sure how. You’re definitely not getting up to stick your head through, that’s for sure.

You turn back to your tablet and keep drawing.

The window stretches taller and taller and its panes disappear completely. Columns rise quietly from the receding walls, growing white and tapering until they blossom into wide lotus-petal capitals, painted red and green and gold. They meet the ceiling, then slowly and steadily push it higher and higher. Your small room isn’t so small any more.

You’re not paying attention to that, though. Your fingertips have turned black.

Black fur, smooth and short, sweeps over your hands. It ripples beneath your skin as it moves and reshapes your fingers, leaving them light and nimble. You barely have time to sit up in surprise before it moves up along your arms, like a pair of velvet gloves being tugged up past your elbows. The sleeves of your shirt cleave away from the rest, fall down your arms, and grip your arms as they re-form into gold armbands inlaid with blue lapis.

Hello My Name Is...

A customer at Katie's diner is messing with words, and Katie—or whatever her name is now—has got to stop it. Mature.

Katie kept her name tag pinned above the left breast of her pink button-down blouse. It was part of the outfit she had to wear: the blouse, the matching skirt, and the apron she kept her pen and order pad stuffed into. At the start of every shift, she dug her name tag out of the bowl in the back next to the shift schedule, and pinned it to her chest. It was the one part of the dumb, outdated outfit that she had no problem with.

At least, not until today.

Two other name tags were missing from the bowl when Katie clocked in. The first belonged to Liz, who was making herself busy in the late-afternoon lull by tidying up around the register. Her shift would be over in an hour and change, and Katie knew she was just counting down the minutes, because that's what she did herself when she had the eleven o'clock shift.

The other was Benny's. He was just the busboy, but he was six-foot-something and had once tackled someone who'd tried to leave without paying. Katie had never talked to him much, but she gathered he'd played football while he was in school. She was jealous of him, because he didn't have to wear pink.

As far as Katie could tell, it was a normal, slow day at the diner. She'd gone around to each booth and pulled down the blinds, so the sun wouldn't be glaring in through the windows, and had checked to make sure the table of college-aged guys didn't need anything. They were no one she knew, thankfully.