Not finding anything else, Ken decided to try and find out what the liquid was. Taking off the stopper, he dipped his finger in and licked it clean. Ken shuddered right down to the tip of his tail. It was horrible. Lemon water. Too much lemon, in fact. Putting the bottle back where he’d found it, Ken dug through another cupboard, scratching a long, pointed ear. This time, his search was more productive. He found *gasp!* A CAN OF TUNA! *insert triumphant sound clip here*
Ken opened it with the claws that doubled as fingernails, sat down where he stood, and munched happily away, eating the fish straight from the can. When he’d finished, a few thoughts popped into his head, just as he was about to throw out the can. These thoughts were:
Ken jumped up and skidded over to the nearest mirror, failing to stop in time and crashing into the adjacent wall. >.<! He picked himself up, and stood in front of the mirror. What he saw caused him to jump so high he hit his head on the ceiling.
Ken rubbed his head, picked himself up, dusted himself off, and stood in front of the mirror again, just to make sure his eyes weren’t playing tricks on him. They weren’t. He was now the proud owner of a big set of pointed ears, fingernail claws, and a tail, all feline in nature. He had been transformed, without a doubt, into a Neko-jin!
Ken blamed the lemon water. One should never trust oddly-flavoured water kept in small, unlabelled crystal phials.
It was then that Ken remembered that his shift started in less than five minutes, and his heart sank. He couldn’t work like this! Visions of tail-pulling, name calling, and all that fun stuff danced through his head.
“KEN!” Aya’s voice called from the back of Koneko. From the shop part. Just his luck, the others were off until about 5. He COULD NOT work like this. He entered the shop with his tail between his legs, and ears drooping.
End Chapter One