“Did you know I was a kemoman before today?” I asked, curious.
“No,” he laughed “Sorry but there’s no mystical kemoman psychic power; I could only tell because of your pheremones and you didn’t produce them before today.”
I nodded, that sounded reasonable. “Any idea why I started changing now? Why not a week ago, or last month? Or why not on my birthday?”
He shrugged “That I cannot say. It’s sort of like how everyone starts puberty at different times, and for everyone it lasts for a different length. We can tell it’ll happen in a general window, but not exact dates. Kemonomimi change between the ages of ten and twenty, although most start and finish before fifteen while kemoman mostly change between fifteen and twenty, although I have a distant cousin that changed at twenty-three, So there are exceptions.”
“My dad said earlier that medical science doesn’t know much about kemoman because of their rarity making it hard to get groups together to do research and studies on, so I guess that doesn’t help.”
“True. And because we’re not widely known about most of us only know what gets passed down from other kemoman or that’s recorded by specialist researchers like your father.”
“So are we isolated, or is there like some sort of secret network of kemoman?”
Rin-kun laughed. “Nothing quite so dramatic. There are groups of us all over the world that meet regularly. The one here in Stonepoint meets once a month. It’s an informal gathering more like a family gettogether than a club or the like.” He grinned, “The next one is on the weekend actually - if you like you can come along and meet your new ‘brothers’ and ‘sisters’.”
“I’d like that,” I smiled. “Are there many in town?”
“A handful. One or two older ones, a few between mine and your father’s ages, and three your age actually; two girls and a boy. He’ll probably be glad to meet you.”
“Is he anyone from school?”
“Nope. He goes to Lakepoint High I think.”
“I take it there’s no group over in Lakepoint then?” I asked. It made some sense I supposed as the two towns were fairly close together, separated by a lake from which Lakepoint took its name. Lakepoint was situated where the Stonerush River entered the lake in the south, which was pointed at that end, mostly on the western side of the lake, but with some on the eastern side of the river. Stonepoint, sat athe the northen end of the lake, sitting on the finger of land between the lake and the sea and bounded to the north where the Stonerush exited the lake and opened up into an estuary into the sea.
“Not much point,” Rin-kun nodded “The two towns are so close that they’ve shared a group for as long as anyone can remember.”
I nodded, guessing as much. Then it occurred to me that the stone had a range limit. How far was it exactly? Not far enough and Rin-kin was refering to people who’d never show up to the meetings, but on the other hand Lakepoint wasn’t that far so maybe it too was in range and had been effected. I just hoped that the range didn’t cut out in the middle of town otherwise today would have been very awkward over there. I made a mental note to wish up some safeguards.
Before either of us could say anything else, there was another knock at my door.
“Wow, I should fall down stairs more often if I’m gonna be this popular,” I chuckled. To the knocker I called “Come in!” And in stepped...
