'So exhausting.' Between the fainting and the tales of the cursed springs and magic being real and whether or not my Pops being half panda made me a quarter panda I was all tuckered out. Amazingly the panda curse hadn't been a deal-breaker for Soun and he'd even offered us a guest room to stay in.
It seemed both our fathers were strangely serious about this engagement deal that they'd made before any of us were born. Honestly I didn't see the point, unless Pops was after the dojo. Even that didn't make much sense considering our school of martial arts emphasized adaptability. All environments, all weather, it was all an opportunity to learn. Spending too much time in a dojo would just dull our skills.
'At least I'm getting a bath out of this.' I was tempted to jump right into the warm water of the furo but I wasn't an animal so I set to scrubbing with cold water first. The walls meant that for once I didn't have to worry about peeping strangers or jaguars so I was able to take my time. I was tempted to use soap but I wasn't sure how they'd feel about me using theirs. I also wasn't sure how my still sensitive skin would take it, particularly my chest and the area between my legs. I didn't care to start itching again. The shampoo though…
After a few seconds hesitation I doled out a small portion. My hair was getting rather long lately but it was in such poor condition that it was hard to tell. My bangs were curled and snarled, and my pigtail was fraying heavily as it stretched down to the bottom of my shoulder blades. I needed the shampoo, and I was confident they'd never notice it missing.
A few minutes later and my hair was considerably cleaner, but I wasn't making much progress on undoing the snarls. It didn't help that every time I tugged too hard on a knot I reflexively shot ki up through my roots and made my hair super-strong. The texture was all off too. It was obvious that the swim through the salty sea hadn't done my hair any favors.
'What's this?' An orange bottle on the shelf caught my eye. "Con-di-tio-ner?" It had been a couple years and I was a little out of practice at reading Japanese. Not that I was ever very good at it. It wasn't like I needed to read to throw a punch. Reading was girly anyways. And ultimately a picture was worth a thousand words. There was a drawing of long hair on the bottle so that was all I needed to know to give it a try.
I sniffed bemusedly at what came out of the bottle. Very fruity. I wasn't sure what the point was adding scent to things that were just going to be washed away. Regardless, I'd smelled like far worse things at times during our trek through Asia so I didn't hesitate in rubbing it into my hair.
"Oh wow, this is amazing." My heart skipped a beat as I realized I'd let my voice rise again. Thankfully a quick glance around revealed that I was still very much alone in the bathroom. I went back to scrubbing it through my hair. I couldn't guess what was in it but it was making my hair silky-smooth. Tangles were coming apart like they were nothing. I even felt confident enough to take apart my braided pigtail, hair light and loose for the first time in ages.
The silky feeling persisted even after I washed out my hair. It didn't feel right to braid it immediately when it was in such good condition so I tied it into a loose ponytail instead.
'Is that me?' The mirror caught me by surprise. Now that the conditioner had puffed up my hair I could see that I had even more of it than I thought. I was long overdue for a haircut, but I did wonder if Pops would let me keep it until summer. Having long hair could be handy in the colder months, especially if it was full of volume like it was now.
More than the hair, it was my face that truly surprised me. This was the first time I'd seen myself in anything other than the surface of a stream in ages and it allowed me to see something that water couldn't.
'Since when did I look so pretty?' I could see a little of where Kasumi was coming from now, and I suspected it was even more apparent now that I was clean. I looked… shiny. Shiny eyes, smooth skin, lips pouty and red with a cute button nose. Framed by my lustrous raven-black hair I was undeniably pretty. Not like a girl though. Definitely not. I was lean, unlike the soft cheeks of a normal chocolate-eating girl like Kasumi. I was definitely a manly sort of pretty.
A glance downwards revealed familiar changes from a different perspective. "Hmm…" My altered groin looked really odd and alien up close, but from this angle it was quite inoffensive. Very neat, with nothing hanging out. I wasn't sure that anyone else would agree and I certainly wasn't going to show off that I was cursed, but personally I was coming around to the look of it. It was easier to fight and swim without anything hanging and now I was coming around to the aesthetics of it, at least from some angles. As curses went, maybe this one wasn't so bad.
Going back to China for a cure could wait. For the time being I was going to treat this as a vacation and take as much advantage of the plumbing as I could. It was time now to sink into the warm waters of the furo and leave my troubles behind. And after that would come the shift back, renewed curse greeting me with a burst of warmth and energy as its clock reset.
I stepped into the family-sized furo, feeling the shift hit me as the water crept up my thighs. It was weird seeing and feeling my twig and berries hanging between my legs so soon after accepting their absence. I'd hardly had them for five hours in the last couple months since Jusenkyo and at this point I was starting to feel more comfortable with them gone. I fully intended to ignore the strangeness I felt towards them though and just focus on the warmth. Or at least I did until the door suddenly swung open.
I stared, frozen, as Akane stared back at me. She was quite naked, only the towel nervously clutched between her breasts hiding her groin from my roving eyes.
'...?' What was going on here? I knew married people lived together but did they bathe together too? And we weren't even married yet — or ever, if I had my way. But strangely I didn't want her to leave as badly as I thought I should. There was something about the slight wobble of her chest that was strangely intriguing. I felt a stirring, a heaviness between my legs. It had been long enough since the last time that it took me a a few seconds before I placed what was happening and hurriedly covered my groin.
"Pervert!" Akane screamed and ran away.
'That was awkward.' I wondered if I shouldn't go after her to apologize or something. Nah. I'd already seen that talking with her never seemed to make anything better.
I settled into the tub, though not entirely comfortably. The thickness between my legs made it tricky to sit the way I wanted to. It was something of a relief when the water cooled another degree, just enough to shift my groin back to a more minimalist state. For some reason though I still felt a little shifty until I finally managed to block the image of Akane from my brain.
I relaxed into the water, warm water a pleasant balm to my sensitive skin. For once I was able to bathe without my nipples tensing up or my skin breaking into goosebumps. It all felt so good that I never wanted to leave. My mind though was somewhat more troubled than my body.
That thing that happened with my member wasn't new to me. It had happened randomly over the past year now prior to the curse, often at very inconvenient times. This was the first time though that I was able to link the transformation to a likely cause. Between Akane and my recent experience with the existence of curses, it was obvious what had happened. 'She used dark magic on me.'
With this new revelation it was no longer any mystery why so many monasteries banned all women from their grounds. Having dark magic users around would totally screw up the chi of their temples. It was amazing that I hadn't known about this previously. Pops told me all the time about girls being weak and detrimental to a martial artist's training but he'd never warned me about their magical powers. It was obvious I was in hostile territory. And it wasn't necessarily just Akane either. Judging by the interest I'd felt for Kasumi it was possible that all three of them were witches.
"Hmm…" I'd have to be careful, but this could still work. I wasn't going to give up a vacation full of hot baths just because of a few witches. Well, at least so long as I stayed in my cursed form I wouldn't have to worry about showing a bump in my pants. Maybe they'd give up once they saw that their spells had no effect on me.
Eventually I found the strength of will to leave the furo. In hindsight I should've gotten out sooner. The last thing I wanted was to have anyone else walk in while I was in my cursed form. From here on out I'd have to triple-check the lock before getting naked in here again.
It was a pain to put on dirty clothes after getting so clean but there was no other choice. I'd have to put getting a second outfit on the top of my list. Having a choice between going naked or wearing wet or dirty clothing was such a pain, especially now that I was back in a populated area and could be compared to someone other than a smelly panda.
I was drawing up one leg of my pants when I spied another possible option. Akane had left a fresh set of clothes behind in her haste to flee. She'd also left her dirty clothes behind, but I chose not to think about what that implied lest her dark magics affect me again.
Could I really dress in her clothes, I wondered. They were girls' clothes which would make wearing them unmanly, but they weren't that girly. Akane was without a doubt a tomboy, her chosen shirt far less girly than the one I had now. Well, I hoped. I apparently wasn't too good at telling that sort of thing, but at least her purple shirt didn't have any frills. It was pleasantly soft too, enough that I could probably skip my undershirt without worrying about it itching. And the pants were just a simple pair of soft sweats, perhaps for sleeping in.
Stealing from the girl struck me as a bit off, but was it really stealing? We were engaged and already sort of sharing a house, sharing some clothes was a small thing in comparison. And I'd just be borrowing it for a little while, just until I'd washed and dried my own clothes. With some application of my ninja skills no one would ever know.
I'd convinced myself to wear my fiancee's clothes but the underclothes gave me pause. Skipping the chest protector was obvious. Her t-shirt was soft enough that I didn't need it, and it was a little too big to fit me since I didn't have those strange wobbly breasts that so many girls and the occasional chubby guy had. Her underwear though… It actually had that same funny bear I'd seen on that pair I'd liked the look of in China. And I wasn't out in the wilderness anymore. It seemed right that I wear underwear at least some of the time. And it was a fresh pair, always important.
Before I could change my mind I slid them up into place. 'Hmm. Not bad.' The fit was very snug but not in a too-tight way. It would take some time to get used to the way it hugged me but overall it was a far better fit than the boxers I'd thrown away weeks ago.
Without giving the underwear another thought I slipped into her pants and shirt. A little pull of the draw-string had the pants tight around my waist. 'Good enough.' The shirt was rather clingy but after wearing my undershirt for a few weeks I was rather used to that.
I went back in bathroom and gave my own clothes a quick washing before hanging them up on a branch outside to dry.
****
A/N: more chapters available ahead of time at Lycelia