The pain was a live wire, crackling from his shoulder to his fingertips.
Hiro sat hunched on the edge of his bed, bare back gleaming with sweat in the moonlight filtering through his window. His right arm lay cradled in his left, a traitorous limb that no longer obeyed the fundamental laws of his being. For the seventh night in a row, he'd attempted the transformation. For the seventh night, his body had betrayed him.
He focused, drawing the familiar energy from his core. The warmth spread through his veins, a comforting, ancient heat. His eyes began their luminous shift, casting gold light across the dark room. The first tremors of change rippled across his skin—the prickle of emergent fur, the deep ache of expanding bone.
Then it hit.
A white-hot spike of agony lanced through his right forearm, so vicious it stole his breath. His transformation stuttered, reversed, leaving him caught in a horrific halfway state. His right arm was misshapen, bones visibly misaligned under the skin, fur patchy and coarse. A choked scream tore from his throat as he forced the change to collapse entirely, returning to fragile human form.
He collapsed onto the floor, gasping, tears of frustration mingling with sweat. His right arm throbbed with a dull, persistent anger.
"Why?" he whispered to the empty room, his voice raw. "What's wrong with you?"
The arm offered no answer, only pain. A deep, structural wrongness that all his accelerated healing couldn't touch. For a week, since the chaos of the truck accident, he'd hidden it, believing willpower alone could fix it. Now, staring at his trembling hand in the moonlight, the terrifying truth settled in his gut like stone.
Without the transformation, he wasn't just weakened.
He was broken.
"You're not eating."
Luna's voice, gentle but firm, cut through the rooftop lunch chatter. Hiro hadn't touched his bento. He sat slightly apart from the circle of their friends, his right arm held stiffly at his side. He'd managed to ditch the sling, but the careful, guarded way he moved was its own tell.
"Not hungry," he muttered, prodding a piece of tamagoyaki with his chopsticks.
A silence fell over the group. Yuki and Kaede exchanged a look. Takeshi stopped mid-bite. Lolo's keen eyes, always observant, narrowed.
"You've been 'not hungry' for a week," Luna pressed, her fox ears twitching with concern. She shifted closer, her tail curling around her ankles. "And you're pale. And you're holding your arm like it's made of glass."
"It's nothing, Luna." His tone was meant to be final, but it came out frayed.
"It doesn't look like nothing," Lolo stated, her voice cool and clinical. "You're favoring your entire right side. Rotator cuff? Radial nerve issue?"
"It's not a human injury," Hiro snapped, then immediately regretted it.
The air on the rooftop tightened. He'd said too much.
"Hiro," Luna said softly, laying a hand on his knee. "Please."
The concern in her eyes—the worry in all their faces—was a pressure he couldn't bear. It was the fear in his own heart, reflected back at him, and it was too much. The dam broke.
"I can't do it anymore!" The words erupted, harsh and loud. He shot to his feet, wincing as the motion jolted his arm. "The transformation. My arm… it won't reshape. The bones get stuck, it feels like they're going to snap. I've tried everything. Every night. It's just… broken."
The admission hung in the air, terrible and naked.
Yuki's hands flew to her mouth. "Hiro…"
"So that's why you've been hiding," Kaede said, understanding dawning.
"What happened?" Takeshi asked, his usual boisterousness gone.
"The accident," Hiro said, his anger now morphing into a desperate shame. "Something must have… I don't know. But without it, I'm—" His voice cracked. "I'm useless. What good is a beast folk who can't become his beast? I'm just a defective hybrid."
Luna flinched as if struck. "Don't you say that," she breathed, her own eyes glittering. "Don't you ever say that. You're Hiro."
"And what is that?!" he shouted, turning on her, the fear twisting into rage. "A guy who can't protect his friends? Who can't even control his own body? Maybe my father was right—maybe some things are just too mixed to work!"
The moment the words left his lips, he wanted to claw them back. Luna's face crumpled. Not just hurt, but devastated. The others stared in stunned silence.
He had done the one thing he swore he'd never do: he'd used his own inherited self-hatred as a weapon, and she was in the blast zone.
"I… I'm sorry," he stammered, the fury evaporating, leaving only a cold, sick void. "Luna, I didn't—"
But he couldn't face it. The damage was done. He turned and fled, ignoring their calls, the fire in his arm nothing compared to the shame burning in his chest.
"He's scared."
Lolo said it plainly, stirring a spoon in her teacup. The group had reconvened at her family's estate, not in the grand sitting rooms, but in a cozy, book-lined study that felt more genuine. Luna sat curled in a large armchair, looking small, her tail wrapped tightly around herself.
"He's an idiot," Kaede grumbled, though her anger was undercut by worry.
"He's both," Takeshi sighed. "But that pain… I've never seen him like that. It wasn't just the arm."
"His identity is tied to his strength," Yuki offered quietly. "To being able to stand between us and danger. If that's taken away… who does he think he is?"
Luna looked up, her voice thick. "He's the boy who makes terrible jokes. Who helps Yuki with her courage and Kaede with her patience. Who listens to Takeshi's endless stories. Who… who makes me feel safe, even when he's not transformed." She wiped her eyes fiercely. "He just can't see it right now."
Lolo set her cup down with a decisive click. "Then we make him see. But first, we fix the arm." She stood up. "My family's physician, Dr. Hayashi, is discreet and brilliant. He's handled… unconventional cases before. I've already spoken to him. He's waiting."
Hope, fragile but tangible, flickered in the room.
"Will Hiro even agree?" Yuki asked.
Luna uncurled herself, a new determination squaring her shoulders. "He doesn't have a choice."
Convincing him took an hour. It involved Luna refusing to leave his apartment doorway, Lolo citing medical journals on shifter biology, and a tearful, furious rant from Kaede about male stubbornness that was so passionate it finally broke through his walls of shame.
Now, Hiro sat on an examination table in Dr. Hayashi's pristine medical suite, feeling exposed under the bright lights. The doctor was a man of gentle demeanor and sharp eyes that missed nothing.
"The pain is localized here?" Dr. Hayashi pressed carefully along Hiro's forearm.
Hiro hissed. "Yes. And it's… a blocking sensation. Like a dam in the middle of a river when I try to… you know."
"Initiate the metamorphic process," Dr. Hayashi finished smoothly, showing no surprise. "Let's take a look."
The X-ray machine hummed. When the images flashed onto the light screen, the problem became chillingly clear. Everyone crowded around.
"There," Dr. Hayashi said, pointing a pen at a tiny, viciously bright sliver embedded between the two bones of Hiro's forearm. "A fragment of tempered glass, from the vehicle's windshield, I'd wager. No larger than a grain of rice."
Hiro stared, his mouth dry. "Glass?"
"It's acting as a physical wedge," the doctor explained. "When your osteoblasts attempt to rapidly demineralize and reshape the bone matrix during transformation, this foreign body creates a shear point. The process seizes, causing immense pain and structural instability. Your healing factor is trying to repair around it, but it can't dissolve silicate."
"So it's just… stuck there?" Luna asked, her hand finding Hiro's.
"Precisely. The solution, however, is straightforward. A minor surgical procedure to remove the shard. Once the obstruction is gone, your inherent physiology should do the rest. Recovery for a human would be weeks. For you?" Dr. Hayashi gave a small, knowing smile. "I'd estimate two to three days."
Hiro looked from the ghostly image of the shard to Luna's hopeful face, to the steady, supportive gazes of his friends. The fear of surgery was nothing compared to the terror of being permanently locked out of his own skin.
"Do it," he said, his voice firm for the first time in days.
The operating theater was silent save for the steady beep of monitors. Hiro, draped in sterile sheets, remained awake, having insisted on local anesthesia only. He needed to be aware, to know the moment the blockage was gone.
"You will feel pressure, but you should not feel pain," Dr. Hayashi's calm voice said from behind his surgical mask. "Beginning incision."
Hiro turned his head to the side. On a monitor showing a magnified view of the surgical site, he watched as the skilled hands made a precise, small cut. There was a strange, distant tugging sensation. He focused on his breathing, on the thought of running in his wolf form, the wind in his fur.
"I see it," the doctor murmured. "Remarkable. The tissue has tried to encapsulate it… There. Got it."
A subtle, almost imperceptible click resonated through Hiro's very bones. Not a sound, but a feeling—the release of a tension he had grown so accustomed to he'd started to believe it was part of him.
On the monitor, he saw the tweezers withdraw, holding a tiny, bloody crystal that caught the light.
"Obstruction removed," Dr. Hayashi announced. "Closing now."
Outside, in the luxurious waiting room, the news was delivered along with the tiny vial containing the culprit. Luna cried with relief. Lolo nodded with satisfaction. The group exhaled as one.
When they were allowed in, Hiro was propped up, looking tired but serene. The vicious, hunted look was gone from his eyes.
"Hey," he said softly as Luna rushed to his bedside.
"Hey yourself," she whispered, carefully taking his good hand. "How do you feel?"
"Empty," he said, and then a real, weary smile touched his lips. "In a good way. The thing that was stuck… it's out. I can feel the difference already."
The next two days were a lesson in being cared for. Takeshi brought action movies and terrible commentary. Yuki and Kaede arrived with enough food for an army. Lolo provided a stream of medical updates and casual conversation that demanded nothing from him. And Luna simply stayed, a quiet, comforting presence, reading or talking or just sitting with him in peaceful silence.
His body did the rest. They watched, amazed, as the incision healed from a red line to a pink seam to a faint silver scar in a matter of forty-eight hours. The color returned to his face, the strength to his posture.
On the third day, a sunny Saturday, he gathered them all in their favorite park, near the old oak tree.
He stood before them, whole. The stiffness was gone. He held himself with a new grace—not the rigid control of before, but the easy assurance of unblocked energy.
"I owe you all an apology," he began, his voice clear and carrying. "A real one. I was cruel, and afraid, and I weaponized my fear against the people I care about most. Luna…" He turned to her, his gold-flecked eyes earnest. "My words were unforgivable. They came from a place of hating myself, not you. You are the best part of my world. I'm so sorry."
Luna's smile was watery, but bright. "You're forgiven. Just don't be so stupid again."
He chuckled, a rich, warm sound they hadn't heard in too long. "I'll try." He looked at the rest. "Lolo, you saved me. Truly. Yuki, Kaede, Takeshi… you wouldn't let me drown in my own pride. Thank you for being my family when I forgot how to be part of it."
Lolo stepped forward, her usual reserve softened. "That's what we are. All of us. A chosen family."
"A pack," Kaede declared, grinning.
"So," Takeshi said, bouncing on his heels. "The moment of truth?"
All eyes settled on Hiro's right arm. He nodded, rolling his shoulders. The nervousness was there, a faint flutter, but it was outweighed by a blazing hope.
He closed his eyes. Breathed in the scent of grass, of his friends, of possibility. He called the change, not with force, but with an invitation.
The energy flowed, smooth and unimpeded, a river returned to its course. Gold light suffused him. The shift was seamless, powerful, and utterly painless. Fur, muscle, bone—everything expanded and reformed in perfect, glorious harmony.
When he opened his eyes, he stood in his full wolf-man form, seven feet of primal strength. He raised his right arm—his powerful, clawed, perfectly transformed arm—and flexed his fingers. A deep, rumbling laugh of pure, unadulterated relief echoed from his chest.
"It's back," he growled, his voice thick with emotion. "It's really back."
The cheer that erupted from his friends was deafening. Luna didn't hesitate—she launched herself at him, laughing and crying, burying her face in his thick fur. "I knew it! I knew you were still in there!"
One by one, they joined the hug—Yuki, Kaede, Takeshi, even a slightly stiff but smiling Lolo—a tangled, laughing, crying heap of limbs and tails and unconditional support under the afternoon sun.
That evening, walking Luna home under a lavender sky, a comfortable silence settled between them, filled with the chirping of evening insects.
"You know," Luna said, swinging their joined hands, "I wasn't scared because you couldn't transform."
"No?"
"No. I was scared because you were in pain and you chose to be alone in it. That's a different kind of breaking." She stopped, turning to face him. "Promise me. Next time—and yes, there will be a next time, you're a trouble magnet—you let us in. Not just when you're strong, Hiro. Especially when you're not."
He looked down at their hands, then into her earnest, beautiful face. He saw not just the girl he loved, but a pillar of his life. He saw the reflection of all his friends. His pack.
"I promise," he said, and it was a vow. "No more going it alone."
Later, in his room, he stared at the faint, silvery scar on his forearm—not a mark of weakness, but a testament to healing. A reminder. His gaze shifted to the framed photo on his nightstand: all of them, mid-laugh, a frozen moment of perfect, unguarded joy.
The strength of the pack is the wolf, an old saying echoed in his mind. And the strength of the wolf is the pack.
He turned off the light, and for the first time in weeks, he fell into a deep, dreamless, and peaceful sleep, whole in body and spirit, held in the quiet certainty that he was not, and would never again be, alone.