Chapter 1: The Transformation: A Desperate Plea
The lab door slammed open, cracking against the cinderblock wall with a sound like a gunshot. Donghae jumped, nearly dropping the weathered copy of Heechul’s notes he’d been trying to decipher. The single overhead bulb swung, throwing long, dancing shadows across the shelves of grimy glassware.
“Donghae.”
The voice was ragged, a broken version of a sound he knew by heart. He turned.
Hyukjae stood in the doorway, breathing like he’d sprinted across campus. But it wasn’t Hyukjae. Not the Hyukjae he knew. The familiar grey hoodie was strained across new, soft curves, the zipper pulled taut over a chest that hadn’t been there yesterday. The jeans, the same ones he’d seen a hundred times, were tight over hips that flared out in a way that made Donghae’s brain stutter. The face was sharper somehow, prettier in a way that felt violently wrong, framed by hair that seemed longer, softer.
“You’re the only one I trust,” Hyukjae said, the words tumbling out in a panic. His voice—her voice?—was higher, laced with a tremor. “You have to fix this.”
Donghae just stared. His best friend’s eyes, though wider, darker-lashed, held the same frantic, mischievous light. That was still Hyukjae in there. Everything else was a funhouse mirror.
“Hyuk…jae?” The name felt strange on his tongue.
“Who else would it be?” Hyukjae snapped, pushing into the room. The movement was clumsy, off-balance, like he was piloting a new and uncooperative body. He—she—grabbed Donghae’s sleeve, the grip surprisingly strong. “It’s me, you idiot. Look at me! Heechul’s stupid… thing. The catalyst gel. It wasn’t a dermatology sample. It was some neuromorphic, bio-recombinant crap. He said it was for ‘elasticity.’ I believed him!”
Donghae’s mind raced, pieces clicking into a horrifying picture. Professor Kim Heechul’s sudden sabbatical. The frantic, half-erased notes about cellular plasticity and hormonal cascade triggers. The locked cabinet Donghae had never been allowed to touch.
Hyukjae let go of his sleeve and paced, a new, unfamiliar swing in his steps. “I was just messing around in here last night after he left. I saw the vial, labeled ‘Test Dermis—Harmless.’ I put a little on my hand. It tingled. I… I was stupid, I put more on. My face. My neck.” He stopped, running those now-slender hands through his hair. “I woke up like this. My clothes don’t fit. My voice. Everything… echoes differently.”
The fluorescent lights chose that moment to flicker, a sickly amber strobe that illuminated the panic on Hyukjae’s transformed face and the chaotic sprawl of Heechul’s workstation. A beaker sat there, half-full of something that glowed a faint, malevolent purple. The air hummed, thick with the scent of ozone, burnt sugar, and beneath it, the clean, terrifying smell of vanilla.
Donghae finally found his voice. “Okay. Okay. We fix it. Heechul’s notes.” He held up the binder, pages fluttering. “There has to be a reversal protocol.”
“There isn’t.” Hyukjae’s shoulders slumped. “I read them. All of them. He was trying to create a perfect, adaptive epidermal layer. For burns, or… or something. It says the change is ‘catalyzed by subjective self-perception stabilized by ambient pheromonal feedback.’ What does that even mean?”
It meant Heechul had gone off the deep end. It meant this was uncharted, terrifying science. It meant Hyukjae was stuck.
Donghae’s eyes kept catching on the details. The curve of a jaw he’d never noticed before. The way the lab’s harsh light caught on new, delicate collarbones. A part of him, a secret, shameful part he’d buried for years, uncoiled and whispered something treacherous. He’s beautiful. The thought was immediately followed by a wave of nausea. This was Hyukjae. His best friend. Who was currently trapped in a nightmare.
“We have to find Heechul,” Donghae said, forcing his gaze to the notes.
“He’s gone. Off-grid. His phone goes straight to voicemail. The department head just shrugged.” Hyukjae hugged himself, a gesture that looked entirely feminine and utterly foreign. “Donghae, I can’t go to class like this. I can’t go home like this. My mom would have a heart attack. The guys… they’d…”
They’d lose their minds. They’d hoot and holler. They’d never look at Hyukjae the same way again. Donghae understood. The social obliteration would be complete.
“So we figure it out ourselves,” Donghae said, more firmly than he felt. He moved to the workstation, carefully avoiding the glowing beaker. “The base compound is listed here. If we can replicate it, maybe we can engineer an inverse reaction.”
“You’re a literature major.”
“And you’re a dance major who turned yourself into a girl! We’re working with what we’ve got!” Donghae’s voice cracked. The stress, the absurdity, the sheer blinding reality of the person in front of him, it all surged up at once.
Hyukjae flinched. For a second, the bravado melted away, leaving raw, naked fear. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, Donghae. I shouldn’t have dragged you into this.”
The apology, so uncharacteristically meek, did something to Donghae. He stepped closer. “You didn’t drag me. I’m here.” He meant it. Through anything. Even this.
Hyukjae looked up at him. Really looked. Donghae was used to looking down slightly at his friend. Now, he was looking into his eyes. The height difference had shifted. The dynamic had shifted. Everything had.
“What…” Hyukjae swallowed. “What do I feel like? To you.”
The question hung in the chemically thick air. Donghae’s heart hammered against his ribs. He could lie. He should lie.
“Different,” he whispered, the truth yanked out of him. “You feel… different. The air around you moves differently. You smell different. Not bad. Just… not like you.”
A strange expression crossed Hyukjae’s face—part horror, part fascination. He lifted a hand, stared at the smooth skin, the tapered fingers. “It itches. Everywhere. But not on the skin. Under it. Like my bones are the wrong shape.”
Before Donghae could respond, a low whine emanated from the workstation. The purple liquid in the beaker began to bubble, thin tendrils of silver smoke curling from its surface. The humming in the air intensified, vibrating in their teeth.
“Get back!” Donghae grabbed Hyukjae’s arm—softer, the muscle beneath unfamiliar—and yanked him away from the bench.
The beaker shuddered. Then, with a silent, contained pulse of light that left after-images streaked across their vision, the liquid simply… changed. The purple deepened, then cleared to a transparent, oily sheen. The humming died abruptly.
In the sudden, ringing silence, they stared at the now-innocuous-looking glass. A single, yellowed sticky note, dislodged by the pulse, fluttered down and landed at Hyukjae’s feet. Donghae bent to pick it up.
In Heechul’s frantic script, it read: STABILIZER TEST 7: Inert unless exposed to primary subject’s stabilized bio-field. May prolong or lock state. DO NOT MIX WITH CATALYST.
Donghae’s blood ran cold. He looked from the note to the clear liquid. “Its stable,” he breathed. “It’s not reversing. It’s… it’s settling.”
Hyukjae understood instantly. The color drained from his new face. “No. No, no, no.” He stumbled toward the bench, hand outstretched as if to smash the beaker.
Donghae caught him around the waist, pulling him back. The contact was a shock. The warmth, the pliancy, the sheer fact of the body he was holding. Hyukjae struggled, a gasp escaping him—a soft, frustrated sound that was nothing like his old laugh.
“Let me go! We have to destroy it!”
“And what if that makes it worse?” Donghae hissed, his mouth close to Hyukjae’s ear. He could smell the vanilla scent now, clear and strong, coming from Hyukjae’s skin. It was the scent from the air, he realized. It was coming from him. “We don’t know what any of this does! We need to think!”
Hyukjae went still in his arms, his back pressed against Donghae’s chest. Both of them were breathing heavily. Donghae was acutely aware of every point of contact, a checklist of impossible sensations. He forced himself to let go, stepping back as if burned.
Hyukjae turned, his eyes wide and glittering in the bad light. “Then what? I just stay like this? I have a life, Donghae! I have practice on Monday! What am I supposed to do, walk into the studio and tell everyone the old Hyukjae is gone, but hey, here’s the new, improved model?”
The sarcasm was pure Hyukjae. It anchored Donghae somehow. “We hide you. Just for now. You stay at my place. My roommate is gone for the week. We figure this out. We find Heechul, or we… we make our own reversal.”
“How?” The word was a desperate plea.
Donghae looked at the beaker of stabilizer, then at the chaotic notes, then finally at his best friend’s terrified, beautiful, unrecognizable face. The weight of it all, the crushing responsibility and the secret, unwelcome thrill, settled onto his shoulders.
“I don’t know yet,” he admitted softly. “But you’re not doing it alone.”
A faint, almost imperceptible shudder ran through the lab. From the hallway outside, they heard the distant click of the main lights being turned off for the night. They were locked in, surrounded by silent, bubbling experiments and the ghost of Heechul’s ambition, with only the flickering bulb to watch over them. The world outside, the normal world of classes and laughter and known identities, ceased to exist. There was only this room, this problem, and the two of them, changed in ways they were only beginning to understand.
Hyukjae hugged his own arms again, a shadow of his former confidence. “Okay,” he said, his new voice small in the darkening room. “Okay. Your place.”