Ken had never been sure if the term ‘furry’ described him. He had an interest in drawing anthropomorphic characters, but they tended to mostly just have ears and tails and lacked actual fur. However he still had a few habits of furries. He had a wolf fursona, though like his drawings it only had the tail and ears. Then sometimes he did wish he had a real tail, though he feared judgment from others. Then lastly there was the activity he was engaging in now. He was making his own set of wolf ears and a tail to wear for fun. At least, he was trying to.

Ken left the third fabric shop he had stopped at today. He had most of the material he needed, but unfortunately he just couldn’t find a fabric that would make a nice set of wolf ears. There were plenty that could have worked, but they had the defect that he would look slightly toony and just a bit silly wearing them. So he was looking for a fabric that he could get some degree of realism in. He hadn’t had much luck so far, but was going to try one more shop before heading home.

Now at this point one must understand there is a very special type of shop in the world. The type of shop is the one you can only find when you’re exhausted, a bit angry, and just want to find what you’re looking for and leave. The shop always seems to be conveniently located on the closest corner you make a wrong turn on, and always sells exactly what you’re looking for. The issue is the item you’re looking for is always defective, and you don’t discover the problem till after you’ve arrived home. Then when you try to return it to the shop, you can’t find it and instead wind up at a restaurant selling overpriced coffee claiming that such a shop has never been in that block.

Unfortunately for this shop, Ken did not make a wrong turn today, and it was forced to appear on main street, which would lead to a good deal of confusion since mysterious old shops are not meant to be out in open sight. However the shop would be located wherever bad luck demanded it, and so such a shop was the next one that Ken ventured into.

Naturally the shop had exactly the type of fabric he was looking for, and even had excess of it so he ended up with about four times what he needed just for a set of ears and tail. So he headed home happily with his shopping bag tucked under one arm, and within a week it was no doubt, he would want a refund.

Ken arrived home to find he had the house to himself. His parents had gone out for the night and his brother was off with a friend somewhere. Ken used this opportunity and quickly got the fabric and other materials out from his bag and then borrowed some sewing equipment from his mother’s room. The tails and ears seemed a surprisingly easy task to complete.  He had made them without any mistakes on the first try and not had to try a second time with the extra fabric. He stared at them for awhile, and at the extra fabric trying to decide what to do, and then finally came up with an idea. He went to work and soon made a pair of matching paw gloves to go with his ears and tail. Once more it was incredibly easy as if it didn’t even require real effort on his part. He still had leftover fabric after that though, and he didn’t want to just waist it. He thought for a few moments, and then started on the last item he could think of, a pair of paw boots.

Finally all the fabric had been used, and he had completed his costume. It was a bit more than he originally planned, but he was happy with it. The last step was to make sure they fit. He carefully used hairclips to put on the wolf ears, then next he fastened his tail to his pants using a safety pin. He then quickly took of his shoes and socks, and slipped his boots on. Lastly, he put the gloves on one at a time. After donning the costume, he went to look into a mirror, and was startled by just how realistic the costume looked.

“I should probably take it off, before my parents get back.” Ken thought out loud to himself. “But they’re out for now, so I guess I can wear it for a bit.” Ken grinned for a moment, then let out a howl as if he were a real wolf. He looked around the room sheepishly, then seeing no one there the embarrassed feeling passed.

He decided to keep the costume on until his parents got home, and then headed up to his room. He still had work to do tonight if he wasn’t going to miss the deadline he set for himself for posting a new issue of Mirror Life. He begin to work on his manga, though during the entire time he felt distracted. It just felt as if there was a strange tingling in his body, but every time he checked it the feeling vanished. The first time was his tailbone, the second were his ears, and then later his feet and his hands. The more he paid attention to it though the less noticeable it became, and soon he forgot completely about it while going about his work.

It was about eleven at night when he heard the front door open, and then quickly slammed his bedroom door shut. He didn’t want his family to see him in the costume, so he quickly pulled the ears off. Or at least, that’s what he intended. As he grabbed at his ears and pulled, he felt a sharp pain in his head, and by instinct he let go.  Figuring it must have been stuck to some hair, he tries to remove it a bit less slowly, but with much the same result, and the ears were stuck on good. He changed his attention to trying to get his tail off instead. He tried to pull it off his pants, but like his ears this just lead to an intense pain. In a hurry before his parents would walk in, he quickly took his pants off to try to detach the tail that way. When he got them off, he found a hole about the same size of width as his tail in the back of his pants, and his tail was still attached. He quickly put his pants back on as he tried to figure out what was wrong.

Panicking a bit now, he opened his door and peaked out. No one was in the hall, so he quickly ran down to the bathroom and locked the door. It would be easier to explain why he had that door locked, and maybe he could get the costume off if he could see it in the mirror.

He looked into the mirror, and first examined his ears. They looked as realistic as ever, and he tried to search through his hair and find the hairclips. They were gone. He tried touching one of the ears, and it twitched at the touch, but that wasn’t the scary part. He could actually feel the ear being touched. Trying to find how they were attached he slowly ran his hands down his head and side of his face till he felt something, or more so a lack of something. The sides of his head were completing smooth, Looking in the mirror, he could see that his human ears were completely gone!

Not knowing quite how to react Ken slowly reached back and touched his tail. Like his ears, the tail also had a sense of touch. He slowly ran his hands up it till he got to where the hole in his pants were. He felt the tail, it went through the hole, and he could feel skin around its end at the tailbone. It was physically attached.

It slowly started to dawn on Ken what had happened. He quickly tried to tear his gloves off, but before he tried he already knew what would happen. The paws weren’t just attached to his hands, they had replaced them. His feet were likewise also paws, which now included claws and pads he had not even thought to include when he made them. They weren’t pieces of a costume, they were real paws now.

It wasn’t that Ken wasn’t thrilled about the changes. He liked the idea of having a tail. However, he did not like the idea of being a freak, or the idea of a science experiment when people try to discover how he changed. He decided he had to find a way to reverse it, but until then he couldn’t let anyone see him. He would just sneak back to his room, lock the door and claim to be feeling ill for the night. Then he would retrace his steps the next day and try to figure out what had happened.

He opened the bathroom door, and quietly snuck down the bathroom hallway.

“Ken?” Came the voice of his mother from behind him.

“Erm yes!?” Ken spun around as his ears flattened and his tail drooped. “Oh um, mom I….”

“Shouldn’t you be getting to bed, it’s quite late you have class tomorrow. Why are you sneaking around the house at this hour?” She didn’t even bat an eye or seem to notice that Ken was now part wolf. “Bed time now.”

“Mom but, I, wolf I.” His tail twitched a bit as he tried to figure out how to react to her lack of reaction. “Don’t you notice anything different?”

“What, did you get a haircut? I don’t care it’s bed time now!” His mom replied.

“Um right.” Ken went back to his bedroom. Was everyone going to pretend not to notice like his mom? He changed clothes to his sleepwear, noting that there was already a tail hole in his shorts, and then went to bed. Wasn’t anything else he could do tonight, would have to figure things out tomorrow.

The next day after school Ken returned to Main Street to search for the store. He had started to get used to his new body by now. He started to find it less and less strange that no one noticed the changes. He had figured out to not accidentally shut doors on his tail after only a few hours into the day, and he had gotten used to running around bare foot since shoes didn’t fit his paws. However, he was still uncomfortable with the fact the change seemed to have just occurred randomly. He had more or less figured out the fabric had caused it, and for that had decided to return to the store.

When he arrived at where the store was though, there was no fabric shop, and instead there was a tea shop run by a little old lady who insisted she had been running her shop in that location for a few years. Ken even tried looking it up the phonebook but it didn’t even seem to exist. He was going to be stuck with his new form forever.

Despite knowing he was stuck like this, as he turned to walk home, Ken couldn’t hide the smile on his face and his tail begin to wag