As it pulled them inside the room holding them in its arms, Kris's face, along with everyone else's, wound up pressed against the red panda creature's fluffy chest to silence their screaming and quiet them down. Kris had already stopped screaming and was now frozen stiff with shock, but Miriam, Abby and Priya were still scared shitless and still screaming in terror.

"Hey!" The thing shushed them, trying to calm them down. It's voice definitely sounds like Mei's. "It's okay! Everybody be quiet! Everybody, it's just me! Shut up! It's okay, it's me!"

The three girls finally settled down and ceased their screaming and at the same time, slowly they all began to realize that this beast before them really was Mei, since it spoke exactly like her.

"It's Mei! Calm down, alright?" Mei just needed to make sure. "I'm gonna let you go now and you're gonna be chill. Got that?"

Everyone nodded to her and Mei freed them from her fuzzy grasp. Then they all took a moment to drink the situation in and try to wrap their heads around it. Granted, all of this was a huge surprise. The biggest surprise they'd ever seen in all their young teen lives.

Kris himself couldn't believe it either. Meilin Lee, his best friend for life, his secret crush was standing before them all in the form of a larger-than-average red panda. Then all of the sudden, he thought back to when he saw a flash of red fur yesterday at school. It wasn't a hallucination after all.

That could only mean that whatever he saw that ran by him was Mei all along. But how?

"Mei?" asked Miriam with awe.

"Are you a werewolf?" asked the ever-enthusiastic Priya. She and Stig have been watching too many horror movies together.

"No! What?"

"She….is a red panda!" shrilled the hyperactive Abby with a crazed look on her face as her kawaii obsession boiled to the surface due to fluffy animal cuteness overload. She's always been a sucker for all things cute and soft.

"Sick." said Priya.

"You're so fluffy!" Abby's demeanor heightened to near psychotic levels as she slammed herself into Mei's panda body, rubbing her face all over her red fur, which weirded Kris out. He'll never understand how Rudolf falls for a girl like her. "YOU'RE SO FLUFFY!"

"I've always wanted a tail." Priya intoned, playing with Mei's tail.

"Priya, Abby, quit it!" Miriam barked at the two like a stern mother hen.

"Mei?" Kris stepped forward, not even the least bit put off by Mei's brand new otherworldly appearance. Mei, however, looked upset that the one person she cared about even more had to see her in such a questionable state.

"Oh, Kris." She whimpered. "I'm so sorry that you had to find out this way. I was really hoping you wouldn't notice."

Kris, nonetheless, took her giant paw in his hands while Mei blushed from the physical contact. It felt really soft as the boy tenderly rubbed at the fur with eager curiosity.

"So this is why you didn't show up at school today?" He asked curiously.

"Yes."

"How did this happen?" He asked.

"You know, it's just some inconvenient, uh, genetic thingy I got from my mom." Mei explained the best she could. "I mean, it'll go away. Eventually. Maybe."

"You got this from your mom?" Kris asked with disbelief.

"Well, my mom says that our ancestress, Sun Yee, made a deal with the gods or something like that to turn her into a red panda and apparently it's been happening to the women in my family ever since." The nerdy girl replied, but tears started forming in her eyes as the poor girl sat down and began to sob.

"Mei…" Kris consoled, trying to comfort her along with her friends.

"I hate this!" She cried. "I'm slobby! I'm smelly! My mom won't even look at me and now, 4*Town?! When are they coming?"

"May 18th. They just announced it." Abby answered.

"There's no way this will be gone by then!" Mei complained, her fuzzy cheeks stained with tears. "Just so. Go be women without me. And Kris, you should just forget about me."

"But I don't want to." argued Kris. "This is fine, Mei. It'll all be okay."

"No, it's not. I'm a freak!" Mei didn't buy it. "Just….just leave me alone."

Mei went to sit on the floor away from her friends, curling herself up in a ball, even grabbing her toy, Wilfred, for comfort. Kris hated seeing Mei like this, looking so vulnerable and so devastated by her new self. Then the girls all gestured for Kris to go to her and he obliged. He sat down next to her and laid on her body as she sobbed, hugging her comfortingly. Then Miriam, Priya and Abby all started beatboxing until they broke down into dancing and singing to one of their favorite songs by 4*Town.

Though not a 4*Townie himself, Kris nevertheless danced along with them to help raise Mei's spirits and cheer her up. Eventually, it worked and Mei suddenly joined in. Finally their little dance number ended and Mei now felt a lot better since her friends still had her back no matter what.

"Thanks, guys. You're the best." Mei smiled gratefully before turning to her male friend. "Kris?"

"Panda or no panda, you're still the same girl I've come to admire. You're still our Mei. You're still…..my Mei." Kri expressed, once again hugging her furry body. Mei felt so over the moon right now when he said that and couldn't help herself when she picked him up and they hugged tightly.

"No fair! Why does he get panda cuddles?!" yelled a jealous Abby.

"Not now, Abbs." Priya nudged her and the pudgy girl pouted.

Then….POOF!

In a sudden puff of pink smoke, Mei had returned to normal while hugging Kris, much to her surprise. However, her once dark, black hair was now a bright shade of red.

"Mei!"

"You're you!"

"Hmm, red actually looks good on you." Kris commented, lightly flicking at a lock of her newly-colored hair, earning him a blush on her face. Abby, however, looked upset at seeing the cute red panda disappear.

"Is it gone?" She balked.

"For now. But if I get too excited, it'll come right back-OW!" Just as Mei explained, Abby tried pinching her cheek, desperate for the red panda to come back out, making her friend yell out in pain and anger. "Abby! What the he-?! Huh?"

Mei froze in her words and stopped herself when she realized that she hadn't transformed back into the red panda, despite her immediate wave of irritation. This gave her an idea.

"Something feels different." Then the redheaded girl presented her arm to her plump friend. "Abby, hit me."

But instead of pinching her arm, Abby just legit socked her friend in the face, knocking her to the ground. Kris winced while Abby grinned deviously, anxious for Mei to become the panda again, but nothing happened.

"Who raised you?" Kris groused at the Korean girl's lack of restraint.

"You know I have a weakness for cute, fluffy things!" Abby defended.

"Oh my gosh!" Mei shouted with delight. "I stayed calm! Something about you guys, like, neutralizes the panda."

"Aw, it's our love!" Miriam gushed.

"We're like a warm and fuzzy blanket." Priya gushed as well in her own blank-faced way.

"Yeah." Abby said somberly.

"So this means that you got this…red panda thing all under control now, right?" asked Kris gently, trying to make sure that Mei is now able to lessen her transformations.

"It seems so." Mei answered. "This also means I can have my room back. I can have my life back!"

Mei squealed giddily as she tightly hugged Kris, hopping on her feet like an excited child in a candy store and her friends eagerly hugged her back. Then she gasped as a thought struck her mind like lightning.

"No. Even better. You can come with us to 4*Town!" Mei told Kris.

"Yeah!" Her trio of gal pals cheered.

"Uh, no thanks. I'm not really into that. This 4*Town is not for me." Kris stammered out his rebuttal, more into death metal rock than cheesy boy bands. But unlike Ming, he wouldn't dare to blaspheme them in front of Mei and the girls, their number one fans for all time.

"Come on, please? It'll be even more fun if you were there with me." Mei held the Norwegian boy's hands softly and gingerly.

"R-Really?"

"Yes!" declared Mei. "We're all asking our parents tonight. We're making our stand."

"Yeah. You in or you out?" asked Abby.

"Alright, fine. I can never say no to you." Kris sighed as finally caved in. "But are you sure your mom will be okay with this?"

"Gosh, you're right." winced Mei with deep worry, knowing her mom all too well. "I can't just ask her. I'm a furry ticking time bomb!"

"Of awesomeness!" Miriam sang.

"So just prove it to her and she's gotta let you go!" Abby urged anxiously.

"Mei-Mei?" Everyone paused with fright as soon as the voice of Mei's mother called through outside the door.

"Shit! I gotta go! Bye!" Kris whisper-yelled to them as he quickly, but quietly snuck himself out the window so that his boss wouldn't catch him inside her daughter's bedroom when he for sure wasn't allowed inside the Lee household, especially since he's supposed to be manning the register right now, which he had completely forgotten about during his talk with the girls. Then Mei scrambled to rush her friends out of her room as well before Ming could catch them, too.

Kris was back behind the gift shop counter with inhuman speed, hoping and praying that Ming hadn't noticed his absence during the group's little chat and got right back to work, attempting to appear as if he never left at all. With minutes flying by, paused for a brief moment to inhale through his nose and mouth, trying to mentally exercise the stress out of his systems when all of the sudden….

ZAP!

His hands sparked, making him jump. He gasped with bewilderment when it happened, though not sure how it happened. Perhaps it's just static? But just at that very second it happened again. Only now his hands sparkled and zapped, electrical currents fizzling through his fingers. The surge of electricity even caused the lights in the shop to flicker and he shook his hands to get it to stop and it did.

This was new. First his friend turning into a red panda, now he was producing electricity with his bare hands? Not to mention his weird strength he had in school today when he punched the locker. What was going on? Why and how was this even happening?

Then a loud slam caught his attention, forcing him to face the steely gaze of an annoyed Ming Lee.

"We're closing, Mr. Bengtsson. Go home." She ordered.

"Yes, ma'am." He nodded and headed over to the temple entrance before Ming stopped him.

"Not so fast." Turning him around to face her again, she showed him the 'Out to Lunch' sign he had put up earlier, glaring at him. Kris grew pale.

"You know you're not allowed to take breaks unless I allow it." Ming reminded him, crumbling up the paper and stuffing it in her pocket. "So that's $5 subtracted from your wages."

"I'm sorry. I just got a little bored and lost track of the time-"

"I don't care." His boss snapped, shutting him up. "Your laziness will not be tolerated. Period. Just for that, no more breaks for you. Now good night."

"Oh, come on, it was just-"

"Good. Night." Ming repeated rather pointedly, turned her back to him and walked away without another word.

The boy just sighed and left. Once Kris got a good distance between him and the temple, he grit his teeth and roared with some hardly contained restraint, jumping up and down, stomping the ground and he growled out his frustration before his hands produced more bolts out of nowhere, ending his tantrum.

Kris stopped to look at his hands once more, trying to figure out why they were doing that. He then noticed from out of the corner of his eyes strange oddities like none before. First, he thought he saw the long tail of some kind of giant reptilian beast, then he thought he saw a humongous humanoid creature in the distance as the sky turned red and burnt orange that raised a giant flaming sword of some kind.

Now Kris was listening to a sound.

A sound he couldn't make out where it came from.

The loud, repetitive sound of metal clanging echoing all around that seemed to get louder and louder and louder as if coming toward his direction. But then the final thing that tipped him over the edge was when he saw the same again in his reflection when he looked at the window to one of the stores.

Kris shrieked and ran down the street. Just full-on ran down the street, feeling like he was being chased. He didn't stop for a second and ran all the way home.

"Got any fours?" asked Grandpa Morten.

"Go fish." answered Grandpa Carl.

"Seriously. Again?" snapped Stig with exasperation.

Elsa, Stig and the two grandfathers were playing a game of Go Fish at the kitchen table when all of the sudden, the front door slammed open and Kris slammed the door and ran upstairs to his room. The abrupt noise of the door bursting open and slamming shut, startled everyone at the table, causing Carl to accidentally let some cards fall out of his sleeve.

"Ha! I knew it!" Morten bragged at seeing him caught red-handed while his parent-in-law frowned at him in annoyance.

Stig was about to get up to go speak with him, but Elsa stopped him and got up herself to go handle it herself. As much as Stig didn't show it very well, he was deeply worried for his adopted brother. The mother went to knock on the door and when the boy didn't answer, she let herself in to see her son laying on his bed, covering his face with his pillow.

"Something happen today?" She asked.

"I think someone was chasing me." said Kris.

"Who?"

"I don't know. But he's probably gone now."

"Kris." His mother sat down on the bed with him. He knew that tone. It's impossible to argue with her now.

"It's just…my boss." He said. "It's getting harder and harder to deal with her at the temple."

"Oh, don't I know that." She nodded with a sigh. Then she seemed to have an odd…..nostalgic gleam in her eyes. "Did you know?"

"What?"

"Ming Lee and I used to be friends once." She explained gloomily. "It was way back in high school when I came here to Canada as a foreign exchange student. We were very close. Like sisters, even. We'd share everything together. Secret personal stuff. Favorite singer, favorite activity, favorite celebrity, favorite crush. In fact, that's when your dad and I first met. Ming even dyed her hair bright ruby red that one time. Looking back now, I think it had something to do with rebelling against her mother. But, that's when things had changed for the worst."

"What happened?" Kris realized that Elsa's tone started to turn low and wry.

"After she ditched the redhead look, she kinda started to….distance herself from me." Elsa said, having a bit dread in her heart. "I tried speaking with her, but she kept turning me away. It was like she decided to just cast me aside and it only got worse from there. Whenever Ming would speak to me, it was to make judgemental comments or ridicule me. She just wasn't the person I remembered her as. I'm beginning to think that perfectionist mom really did a number on her."

Then she took a great deep breath.

"And after my semester had ended and it was time for me to return home to Norway, I went to her house to say goodbye, but she just told me never to speak with her again and that our friendship was over. 'Have fun living your wild, crazy and abysmal life', she said. 'Whatever you look for, I hope you find it somewhere else', she said. I…I never thought that my only friend would say something so….cold like that to me in my life."

It now looked like Elsa was ready to cry, but she fought back tears and breathed in again.

"But friends come and go. You can always meet new people, right?" She lamely suggested. "I still had your father with me. But even…that didn't last."

At that subtle reminder of his father, Kris held a distressed look on his face, which he rolled over on his side, facing away from his mother to hide it. Then Elsa quickly cheered up and tousled her son's hair.

"But whatever. Anyway, just remind me if this job gets too much for you, okay. Your grandpa and I are making shepherd's pie."

"Mmm, okay. I like that." He answered. He did love shepherd's pie.

After she left, Kris sat there thinking. Only this time, it wasn't the usual existential, self-loathing or hateful thoughts he usually had whenever he got back home. His mind now went back to his conversation with Mei this afternoon today and the peculiar discovery he's made in the process.

A red panda?

Well, he probably shouldn't be too surprised as the idea wasn't very far-fetched since their family temple is everything red panda-themed. All the decor, the exterior and interior designs, all the trinkets, knick knacks and whatsits they sell in the shop and the statues, Bart and Lisa, outside the entrance. Not excluding the fact that their ancestress, Sun Yee, had a love for red pandas to begin with.

It all made perfectly sense.

His best friend was a red panda.

Surprise! Mei's a red panda, folks! And thankfully, Kris isn't too bothered by it.

In fact, you can just make out how closer the two are just starting to realize their feelings for one another. The red panda, ironically enough, might be the push they both need into achieving that. The red panda has been viewed as a blight in the Lee family, even though they say that it was given it them as a "blessing", which is kinda hypocritical in a lower sense. I wouldn't say that Kris is a furry, he just really loves the new changes in Mei as in his point-of-view, it represents her growing up, her becoming her own woman and her rebellious phase as a teenager. Regardless how the family sees it, this curse may actually be a good thing.

However, things couldn't said the same for Kris on his part. The changes he's going through are much more difficult to explain and understand as it's seemingly happening out of the blue. Whether or not this is a family thing remains to be seen. He's becoming strong (like inhumanly strong), is conducting electrical currents with his hands and now he's having auditory and visual hallucinations, now seeing glimpses of the same man from his nightmare.

And yes, his mother and Ming used to be friends in high school before circumstances drove them both apart, mainly due to Ming's mother, the same expectations SHE'S been made to live up to and the vice-like hold her mother has on her.

Next Chapter: After failing to convince their parents to go to a concert for their favorite band, 4-Town, Mei and the girls hatch a plan to drum up some money to go by making and selling Red Panda-themed merchandize around the school with some help from the boys. Meanwhile, Kris's friends urge him to try to express his true feelings for Mei, though Kris worries about what her mother will think.

Next Update: February 24, 2023