Hadashi-Sensei supervised the hall monitors moving me onto the stretcher and followed them to the infirmary where he helped move me onto a bed before shooting them away. When they were gone he turned back to me and took a deep breath, and I wondered if he too would be one of my suitors. If so I was glad he was in his mid twenties rather than his sixties like Mr Jackson my maths teacher.
“Hmm,” he said eying me.
“What’s wrong?”” I asked nervously.
“Hmm,” he appeared to ignore my question and probed my head again. “Roll over I need to check something.”
“Weren’t you just worried about spinal injury?”
“I’m confident that you’ll be fine. Please, just roll over.”
I did as I was told and gasped as he pinched something on my back near the base of my spine. Something protruding.
“As I thought,” he mused “Oh you can roll back now. And stay lying; I think you’ll be fine but you still need some bed rest.”
“What is as you thought?” I asked, rubbing my back and feeling snub where he’d pinched.
“You’re a kemoman,” he commented, drawing the curtains around my bed.
“A what?” I asked, playing dumb even though my wish meant I knew exactly what was going on “Is that some sort of kemonomimi?”
“Not exactly,” he smiled “More like a half-breed. You’ve felt the bumps on your head growing right? Well those are your animal ears coming in.”
“Animal ears? Doesn’t that mean I’m just a late bloomer?” I asked, “Although both my parents are human so I don’t see how...”
“That’s because you’re not a kemonomimi. Kemoman are the product of the mating between a human and a kemonomimi, either their direct offspring or a later descendant that pops up through recessive genes. Most people don’t know about them however, so to the general public they’re mistaken for late bloomers.”
“Then how do you know I am one and not the other?” I challenged.
“Two reasons,” he replied taking a deep breath through his nose “First, you’re giving off all the pheromones that are the hallmark of a kemoman emerging for the first time. Second,” he reached inside the waistband of his trousers and undid something. To my shock he reached around, grabbing his tail and with a smooth motion pulled it off revealing it was a fake attached to the strap he’d just unbuckled. “I’m one too.”
