“Husband and wife scientists find the fountain of youth! That’s what the news reports were going to say. Brilliant scientists have spent their entire adult lives devoted to finding the secret to eternal life, and they’ve finally invented it in their own lab! That’s what the news would have said around the world!”

“I know, I know,” Minhyuk says, trying to calm his wife down.

“Now, what will they say?!” she wails. “Brilliant husband turns his wife into a talking cat! Oh, how could this happen?!”

“Maybe he used extract of kitty instead of the youth serum,” their lab assistant, Sungjae, says from his seat across the lab.

Sora hisses at him.

Sungjae jumps, but laughs. “Wow, she really is just like a cat.”

He stands up from his rolling desk chair, and walks toward the countertop where Sora has been perched since she tested the serum twenty minutes ago and suffered the, unfortunate, side effects.

“Can we keep her, Minhyukkie?” he jokes.

Sora swipes at him with her new, sharp claws.

Sungjae jumps back from the countertop, laughing his head off.

“Don’t joke!” Minhyuk snaps, running his hand through his hair. It’s too long. Sora usually cuts it for him, but Sora doesn’t have opposable thumbs anymore!

“You’re fired if you make one more joke about my current state,” Sora tells the young lab assistant.

“I’m sorry, noona, but this has never happened before, you know? It’s so weird. I gotta joke.”

“You don’t have to joke,” she tells him, arching her back, and giving her tail a swish. “You have to help my husband figure out how to change me back into a human!”

“I’m just an assistant! I don’t really know what I’m doing. You guys pay me to make jokes and wash beakers.”

“Don’t sell yourself short,” Minhyuk mutters. “You’re intelligent. We just need to figure out what went wrong. How could this happen? When we did the test yesterday, everything went well.”

“Well, you just squirted a little on your hand, hyung. You didn’t drink a bottle of it.”

“Still, how could it have made my hand look twenty years younger, but turn Sora into a feline! It doesn’t make any sense. It follows no logic whatsoever.”

Sungjae hums. “Yeah, it would make more sense, I guess, if your hand had turned into a little kitty paw. Then, we would have known not to let noona drink it.”

“You’re joking again,” Sora points out, lying down on the counter. “But you make a point. If something had happened to his hand, if fur had grown, or even claw-like nails… That would make more sense, but his hand was noticeably younger looking. Rather than being the hand of a thirty-six-year-old man, it looked like the soft hand of a teenager.”

“What does it look like today?” Sungjae asks.

Minhyuk holds out his hands. His left hand is slightly wrinkled and calloused from years of working with his hands in the lab while his right is smooth and tight. “It looks the same.”

Sungjae nods. “Yeah, I see that.” He scratches his forehead. “I was hoping maybe it wasn’t permanent.”

“We wanted it to be permanent!” Sora argues. “We wanted the youth serum to work, to make people young and healthy forever. Not to turn them into cats!”

Minhyuk pets her head. “Don’t worry, Sora, I’m going to fix this.”

“Don’t pet me! I’m not a house cat, Minhyuk! I’m your wife!”

Minhyuk jerks his hand away from her. “Of course not. I’m sorry. I just don’t know what to do to comfort you in this… form.”

“Just figure out a way to change me back!”

“How? I don’t know how!”

“A reverse formula?” Sungjae asks.

Minhyuk shakes his head. “I don’t know. I…”

“Testing on animals now, Lee Minhyuk?”

Minhyuk jumps, and turns quickly when he hears the voice of his longest rival and most-hated enemy, Eunkwang, speak. Eunkwang has always been jealous of Minhyuk. He was never as intelligent. He had to cheat to get where he was. He also never had what it took to win Sora. When they were younger, they were friends. When Sora fell for Minhyuk instead, and followed him off to college in the States, their life-long feud began.

“No,” Minhyuk snaps. “I would never stoop so low. Only a cruel coward would subject an animal to testing.”

Eunkwang and his partner, Peniel, were known for subjecting any animal to the cruelest of tests if it meant getting the results they needed. They had even roped Sungjae’s young friend, Ilhoon, into working with them. Ilhoon sometimes told Sungjae horror stories about their lab animals.

“It’s my cat,” Sungjae says, picking Sora up from the table.

Sora feels violated, but knows better than to voice her discomfort. Eunkwang would likely wish to dissect her.

The older scientist stalks across the room, a devilish grin on his face. “Well, isn’t she a pretty thing? Black cats are so feared.” He is muttering more to himself than the others. “But there is something regal and beautiful about them…” He reaches out to Sora’s face.

As soon as his fingers graze her fur, she swipes a clawed paw out.

Eunkwang shrieks, and jumps back, holding his bleeding arm. Sora hisses and growls as Sungjae struggles to hold her tightly against his chest.

“She doesn’t like to be touched by strange men!” the young lab assistant says, backing away from the scientist.

“You’ll pay for the bill to have this tended, Minhyuk!” Eunkwang shouts as he stumbles toward the door.

“Oh, don’t be so dramatic,” Minhyuk shoots back. “Poor some alcohol on it, and bandage it yourself, you old fool.”

“Old fool!” Eunkwang reels around, and lurches toward him. “Don’t speak to me that way!” His eyes flit around the lab. “Where’s your wife, Minhyuk? Hmm? Have you lost her?”

His eyes inadvertently travel to the cat in Sungjae’s arms before he leaves, his lab coat fluttering dramatically behind him.

Minhyuk sighs after the door slams shut behind Eunkwang. “He was always been such a drama queen,” he mutters with a roll of his eyes.

“Did you see that?” Sora asks.

Minhyuk turns to her with a smile on his face. “Did I see you scratch my biggest rival a good one? Yes, I did. Even as a feline, you are the strong-willed woman that I love.”

“Awww,” Sungjae coos.

“Put me down!” Sora meows loudly, and jumps out of his arms before he can attempt to do as she demanded. She flies onto the table, and walks gracefully toward her husband. “That’s not what I meant, Minhyuk. Did you see the way that Eunkwang looked at me?”

“He looked at you like he wanted to kill you for scratching him,” Sungjae points out.

“He looked at me like he knew it was me. After he made that comment about your wife being missing, he looked at me in a very meaningful way before he left. You didn’t notice?”

Minhyuk shakes his head. “I guess I didn’t. How would he know it was you?”

“If he sabotaged us, he would know.”

“But how is that possible? The lab is always locked up, or we’re in it. He wouldn’t have had access.”

Sora turns her head, and then her body to look at Sungjae. “Sungjae’s friend and roommate is his lab assistant.”

Sungjae shakes his head. “Ilhoon would never betray me like that.”

 

“It worked perfectly!” Eunkwang laughs.

Peniel’s lab assistant, Hyunsik, is tending to Eunkwang’s wounds. As much as Eunkwang had wanted to serve Minhyuk with a bill from the medical center, even he had to admit that it was a little much.

Peniel is perched on a stool in front of his workstation. “Is Minhyuk an animal?”

Eunkwang shakes his head. “Even better – he seems to have turned Sora into a feline! I should have known that she would be the one to test the serum! Minhyuk never was the brave one. Sora was always the adventurous and courageous one.”

Peniel couldn’t care less about Sora or the torch that his partner still holds for her. The youth serum was all that he cared about. “Do you think it’s enough to distract him while we pass his youth serum off as our own?”

“Oh, I’m not so sure,” Eunkwang admits. “But if his beautiful black cat of a wife were to go missing… That might be enough to send him into a frenzy.”

“You could just kill her,” Hyunsik points out. “She’s only a cat.”

Eunkwang shoves him away. He had finished with his bandage anyway. “Don’t even think it! I would never harm a hair on Sora’s precious head!”

“Well, you did turn her into a cat, so…” Hyunsik shrugs his shoulders.

Eunkwang ignores him, instead turning toward his partner. “Why do you keep this insolent fool around?”

Peniel shrugs his shoulders. “He amuses me.”

“He’s useless. At least my assistant is worth something.” Eunkwang crosses the room to the desk at which Ilhoon is sulking. Eunkwang pats his blond head. “You did well, Ilhoon,” he tells him. “Swiping that keycard from your little friend without his knowing. Very good. You’ll be well compensated.”

“I don’t want the money,” Ilhoon says. “I just want the grade that I deserve. I don’t want to fail. I need your course to get my degree.”

“You’ll get a perfect grade,” Eunkwang assures him. “You needn’t worry.”

Ilhoon had done nothing, but worry since he snuck out of the apartment that he shared with Sungjae with the latter’s keycard stuffed into his pocket. He had managed to sneak it back in just before Sungjae had emerged from the shower. He was lucky that his roommate had a strict schedule that he never deviated from. Seven hours of sleep. Shower. Breakfast. Lab.

Ilhoon hated to betray Sungjae. He had been his best friend since they started at the university, and he had never done anything to deserve such a betrayal. Professor Lee and his wife, Professor Park, had never done anything to deserve it either, he was sure. If Professor Seo hadn’t threatened to fail him, he never would have done it.

“I do need you to do one more thing for me though.”

Ilhoon jerks his head up to look at the professor looming over him. “What? But you said that all I had to do was sneak in and switch the serums!”

“Well, I know, but the circumstances have changed a little.”

“Professor…”

“I just need you to get a cat for me, Ilhoon. How hard could that be?”

 

“I could kill him. I’ll kill him. As soon as I’m human again, I’m going to throttle him!”

Sora is pacing along the countertop while Minhyuk frets in the corner, and Sungjae spins around in his desk chair.

“You need some catnip,” the latter says.

“We need to think of something to do. Eunkwang cannot get away with this! I want my wife back,” Minhyuk says, chewing at an already jagged index fingernail.

“We can’t break into his lab,” Sungjae argues. “He keeps it locked up tight.”

“So do we!” Sora insists. “Ilhoon had to have stolen your key card! You can steal his and break in.”

“Professor Seo also has cameras everywhere. He doesn’t trust anyone.”

“We should install cameras too. Why didn’t we do that, Minhyuk?” Sora prances down the countertop toward him. “We should have cameras. We have important things in here. They should be guarded.”

“You’re right,” Minhyuk concedes. “I just never thought that someone would stoop so low.”

Minhyuk’s hands are rested on the countertops on either side of his hips that are rested against the corner where the countertops join. Sora rests her paw atop his left hand. “You are very trusting, Minhyuk-ah. That’s not a bad thing.”

Minhyuk looks down at her. She has always been his rock. Since they met in school, she has been the one to help him through the tough times, and make his good times even better. He has no idea what he’ll do if he can’t correct this and turn her back into her human form.

 

“I should not even be here talking to you, Ilhoon!” Sungjae hisses.

Ilhoon had texted Sungjae after his conversation with Eunkwang, asking him to meet him behind the science building where the laboratories were located.

Sungjae met him there, against his better judgment. He was sure that Ilhoon couldn’t have stolen his keycard, but his bosses seemed positive that it was the only explanation. If they caught him, it would not end well.

“Sungjae, listen to me. I’m so sorry.”

“Sorry?”

“Well, you must have figured out that I stole your key, if you think you shouldn’t be talking to me.”

“You really did it?”

Ilhoon frowns, and stares at the grass between them. “I didn’t want to do it, Sungjae, honestly. Professor Seo threatened me. He said that he would fail me if I didn’t take it.”

“Oh, yeah, and what will he do to you if he catches you telling me all of this? You think he won’t fail you for that?”

“I don’t care anymore.”

Sungjae bristles. “You cared enough to steal my keycard – when? Last night! This morning?”

“I know, Sungjae. I’m really sorry, but now he wants me to steal the cat, Professor Lee’s wife.”

“How did he do that?”

“Do what?”

“Turn Professor Park into a cat.”

“Oh, that’s something he invented a long time ago. He thought it was useless until now. He also didn’t know it would be a cat. It changes, but it’s always a small animal. Once, it was a guinea pig.”

“So, he’s just turning people into animals and no one notices?!”

“Homeless people.”

“Oh, so that makes it okay?”

“No, it doesn’t make it okay, Sungjae, but that’s why no one notices! Look, I’m trying to help, okay?”

“After you messed everything up!”

“I could have just stolen Professor Park and let him do whatever he wants with her!” Ilhoon shouts. “But I didn’t,” he adds in a lower voice.

“Fine, so what are you going to do?”

“I want to try to steal the antidote. There’s a way to turn them back from animals. Sometimes, he doesn’t bother, but the first time he did. Just to see if it would work, of course. It does. I can get it, but I don’t know how to do it with them there. I need some way to distract them.”

“I think I know a way.”

Both boys jump at the sound of Sora’s voice. Sungjae looks down to find the black cat sauntering toward them. “I followed you,” she says. “I thought you might be sneaking off to meet Ilhoon.”

“Professor Park,” Ilhoon says with a bow. “I’m sorry.”

“I heard it all, Ilhoon. Sungjae, pick me up, so I can be closer to eye level with the two of you. I feel ridiculous looking up from the ground.”

Sungjae gently picks her up. “Don’t pet her, whatever you do,” he warns Ilhoon. “She won’t even let Professor Lee do that.”

“Shush, Sungjae. Now, listen up, Ilhoon. I want you to kidnap me, just as your professor instructed you to.”

“Professor Park! I can’t!”

“You must. I want you to. I can talk to Eunkwang. He has been in love with me since we were young, but he was always too harsh for me. Short temper.” She shakes her head. “I can talk to him. I’ll convince him to turn me back, but I need you to steal back our serum. It’s ours. It’s our life’s work. We don’t deserve to have that taken away from us, least of all by Eunkwang. The man has never gotten anything fairly. He doesn’t deserve to have this.”

“How will I do that?”

“I’ll have him distracted.”

“Peniel and Hyunsik will be there.”

Sungjae rolls his eyes. “Those two goons. How do they even keep their jobs?”

“You’ll have to do something to get them out of there,” Sora says.

“I don’t know how to do that.”

“You’ll figure something out! Now, come on. Kidnap me.”

“Sora, does Minhyuk know about this?” Sungjae asks as he hands her over to Ilhoon.

“Of course, he does. He wasn’t happy, but he agreed that it was the only way. Get back to the lab, and stay with him until I return.”

 

“That was brilliant, drawing Peniel and Hyunsik away by fabricating a summons from Changsub,” Sora says as Ilhoon carries her carefully toward Eunkwang’s lab. They’ve just watched the other scientist and his assistant leave the building to walk across the huge campus to the office building where the head of the science department’s office is located.

“Well, Dr. Lee is probably the only person that actually intimidates Peniel or Eunkwang. It was the only way.”

“It was good thinking. You’re a bright young man, Ilhoon. You could really do better than working for Eunkwang.”

“Well, after today I don’t think I have to worry about that, Professor Park. I’ll be out of a job.”

“You can always come to work for Minhyuk and me. We would be happy to add you to our projects.”

“After I betrayed you?”

“You’re making up for it, aren’t you?”

Ilhoon doesn’t say anything. They’ve almost reached the door. His mouth has gone dry.

“Let me do all of the talking from here on in, Ilhoon,” Sora tells him.

Ilhoon is thankful, as he is fairly certain that he couldn’t utter a word even if he was paid. He opens the door, and enters the lab slowly.

Eunkwang turns away from his work station. He had been analyzing a drop of the serum that he confiscated from Minhyuk and Sora’s lab. A menacing smile transforms his lips.

“Eunkwang!” Sora wails in a pained voice as she leaps out of Ilhoon’s arms. “Oh, Eunkwang! Look what Minhyuk has done to me!”

Eunkwang backs up against his work station, his eyes wide, and mouth ajar – the menacing smile gone.

Sora jumps onto the table beside him. “Look at me, Eunkwang! It’s me, Sora! Minhyuk has turned me into a cat!”

“S – Sora,” Eunkwang stammers, inching away from her. The scratches on his arm seem to sting a little more in her presence.

“It’s me,” she says in a pathetic, whiny voice. “Can you believe what Minhyuk has done to me?”

Eunkwang glances from Ilhoon who is wearing a perfectly bewildered face to Feline Sora. “Minhyuk did this to you?”

“Yes! He has never been man enough to test his own experiments, so I had to test it, and look what it did to me!”

Eunkwang straightens up a little. “Man enough?”

“Oh, you know him, Eunkwang.” Sora jumps down, and moves to a different table where she lays out, stretching her feline body. “I have never wanted to admit that he wasn’t man enough. I foolishly fell for him when we were just kids, you know?”

“I know,” Eunkwang grumbles as he moves toward her.

“I’ve never been one to throw in the towel, you know that. I’m a fighter. In the lab, in my marriage, but this!” She jumps up on all four of her little paws. “This is the last straw! He doesn’t even know how to reverse it! He’s so ignorant that he’s created this ridiculous serum, and subjected me to it without having any idea how to reverse it!”

“So… You came to me?”

“Of course, I came to you!” she wails, falling onto her side, and rolling around in the cute way that she’s seen her house cats do when they beg for attention.

The rolling is a success. Eunkwang can’t help moving toward her more until he’s at the edge of the table, his hands resting on the cold metal.

Sora jumps up, and stands on her hind legs, resting her forepaws on his chest. “You’ve always been the more intelligent, more daring one, Eunkwang. Surely, if anyone can reverse this, it’s you. Please tell me that you can help me.”

“I… I… But… That was you earlier in the lab,” Eunkwang says. “You scratched me. It bled, Sora. I was bleeding.”

Sora hangs her kitty head, and then brushes the side of her face against his pristine white shirt. “I’m sorry,” she says, jerking away and brandishing a paw like a sword. “It’s these claws!” she wails. “They just come out! I was trying to reach out to you. I hoped you could somehow sense that it was me. That was foolish, but I reached for you, and Sungjae, that stupid lab assistant just crushed me to his chest!” Sora collapses on the table like she is crying.

Eunkwang is completely lost in her story. Her plight tugs at his heart. “Sora, I think I can help you,” he says, a finger down her back.

Sora wants to scratch his eyes out, but she plays along, purring a little for him. “Can you please?” she asks, rising, and looking at him.

He nods. “What… What will you do when you’re human again?”

“What do you mean?”

“What will you do about Minhyuk?”

“Maybe I’ll turn him into a cat too!”

“You wouldn’t!”

“No. That’s cruel. Being this way is miserable, but I can’t… I can no longer continue with this charade, this sham of a marriage. I need a real man.” She stands up with her paws on his chest again. “I need a man who isn’t afraid to push boundaries and then embrace it! I need a man who isn’t afraid to test his own serums!”

“I… I am going to test the serum that I’m working on!” Eunkwang spouts, desperate to win the heart of this woman that he has loved since he was a teen.

“That’s real bravery. That’s being a real scientist. What are you working on?”

“Um, well, a new serum to… to make one more handsome or beautiful.”

“Well, I hardly think you would see any results testing it on yourself.”

“What do you mean?”

“Oh, don’t be modest, Eunkwang. It doesn’t suit you. You know that you’ve always been devilishly handsome.”

Eunkwang blushes. He actually blushes. “I, well, I would look more like I did when we were younger.”

“You were so handsome when we were first met. I never should have run off to the States.”

“That’s all changed now,” he says frantically.

“It has.”

“Let me show you.” He makes a move to leave the table.

“Shouldn’t you change me back first?!” Sora shouts, drawing him back in. “Change me back,” she says in an alluring tone. “Change me back, because I don’t think I’ll be able to keep my hands off you.”

“I, yes, of course!” Eunkwang races into the storage closet to find the antidote to the serum that had transformed Sora.

Meanwhile, Ilhoon makes a quick switch on his work station, seizing the bottle of youth serum and placing a different serum in its place.

Sora smiles as best she can in her current state, and turns toward the storage closet, anxious for Eunkwang to return with the serum that will save her.

He emerges a moment later, small bottle in hand. “Here! Sora, I think this should work.”

“Oh, thank you, Eunkwang. How will I ever repay you?!”

“We can think of something,” he tells her as he uncorks the bottle, and steps closer to her. “Open your mouth, darling. Let me pour it in for you.”

Sora feels a rush of vomit when he calls her “darling,” but manages to hold it down as she stretches open wide.

Eunkwang pours the liquid into , and Sora gulps it down.

After a few moments, her entire body is filled with a tingling sensation. She shakes, quivers, and suddenly, she’s back to herself, and perched on the edge of the lab table, thankfully with her legs crossed as she is as the day she was born. She crosses her arms to cover her s.

Ilhoon turns away quickly as Eunkwang jerks off his lab coat, and wraps it around her.

“Thank you,” she says, blushing as she hops off the table, and wraps the lab coat tightly around her. “Oh, thank you so much!” She wraps one arm around him, hugging him as tightly as she can. She knows that the charade is not complete. She must play this repulsive part a bit longer.

“You’re welcome, my darling,” he says, grabbing her chin and tipping her face up to his.

Sora feels her stomach rumbling. She is going to vomit. “I’m going to be sick,” she says, darting away from him to release the contents of her stomach into the nearest trash bin.

“Sora!” Eunkwang rushes after her. “Are you okay?”

“I… I think so. Side effects, maybe? Oh, do you think this will be permanent?”

“No, I… Well, it shouldn’t be.” None of his other subjects suffered from vomiting or even nausea.

Ilhoon smirks behind them, sensing the real reason behind Sora’s sickness.

“I’m so sorry, Eunkwang. You help me, and I repay you by vomiting in your trash bin.”

“No, no. Don’t worry. Would you like to lie down? My office is next door, and…”

“I would rather see your serum test, and then maybe we can go to your office together.” Sora steps closer to him, and rests her hand on his forearm.

Eunkwang practically jumps away from her and lunges toward his work station.

“Um, Eunkwang…” She steps up to the station. “Does your assistant really need to be here? I’m so grateful that he agreed to bring me here when he found me roaming around outside my lab, but… I’m okay now, and…” She lowers his voice. “Maybe we want to be alone…”

“Ilhooon,” Eunkwang clears his throat when his voice comes out as squeaky as a teenage boy during puberty. “Ilhoon, you can go.”

“Thanks, Professor.” Ilhoon bows, and walks out of the lab.

Once free of the laboratory and sure that he won’t be seen by his (former) boss, he runs as fast as he can to the other side of the building to get the serum in his pocket to its rightful owner.

 

“Where is Sora?” Minhyuk frantically shouts when Ilhoon dashes into the room.

“She’s still with Professor Seo. I got the serum!”

“But you left her there!?” Minhyuk’s hair sticks up at all angles. He’s been pulling at it since Sora left.

“It was her idea! She told Professor Seo to make me leave. I could tell that she wanted me to get the serum to you.”

“What if he hurts her? What if he kills her?!”

Ilhoon glances down at the floor awkwardly. “I don’t think there’s any chance of that happening, Professor Lee…”

 

“You are so y when you take charge, Eunkwang,” Sora purrs, standing far too close to him as he takes the serum into his hand.

Eunkwang practically drops the bottle as he attempts to uncork it.

“Let me,” Sora says, taking the bottle from him. “Open your mouth, darling,” she whispers into his ear.

Eunkwang does so, and she pours the entire bottle down his throat.

“Sora, I don’t think we should have used all of it!”

He hadn’t had a chance to try to replicate Minhyuk’s work yet. She just wasted all that he had.

“But you’re so brave and strong. I thought you would be able to handle all of it…”

Eunkwang can’t argue with that. He offers a nod, and then the trembling starts. Slowly at first, then violently.

Sora takes a step – a leap – backward, and watches, in amazement as he transforms, growing smaller, and smaller until he’s lost in a pile of white shirt and khakis.

She bends to pick through the clothing, and finds him in one of his brown leather loafers – a tiny white mouse.

“Oh, look at you,” she says, picking him up by his tail. “I would have thought you’d transform into a snake. That would certainly fit your personality. But I guess a weak, squealing little creature isn’t far off either.”

“How could you?” Eunkwang shrieks.

Sora can just barely make out his words. “How could I?” she repeats. “How could I?! You stole my life’s work, you insulted my husband, and you TURNED ME INTO A CAT! How could I? You have some nerve, Seo Eunkwang. I hope that you enjoy your new life as a lab rat.”

“You can’t do this to me!”

“Oh, but, darling, I already have.”

Sora crosses the room, drops Eunkwang into an empty cage, hangs his lab coat over it, grabs a plain lab coat with a belt, and quickly leaves the room.

 

“Sora!” Minhyuk jumps up from the stool he had finally taken a seat on when his wife rushes into the lab.

“Minhyuk!” Sora jumps into his arms, hugging him tightly around the neck. “Oh, Minhyuk!”

Minhyuk kisses her neck, because it’s all that he can reach, and holds her tighter. “I’m so glad that you’re okay. Where is Eunkwang?”

“Oh, he’s just learning what his lab rats feel like.”

“You turned him into a rat!?”

“His horrible serum did that! I just dropped him into an empty cage.”

“Oh, Sora, but what if they kill him?”

“I hung his lab coat over it. The rest of his clothing is on the floor in a pile. I think his partner is smart enough to put two and two together.”

“And if he isn’t? I don’t want to kill anyone, Sora.”

“Ilhoon, send a text message to Peniel or his assistant to let them know that Eunkwang will need a little modification.”

“Will do.” Ilhoon pulls his phone out of his pocket, and taps away at a message to Hyunsik.

Sora looks back at Minhyuk, her arms still around his neck. “Now, what should we do? We have our serum back. Should I test the real thing?”

Minhyuk shakes his head. “I think it’s time that I did the testing.” He pulls the vial from his pocket where he’d put it when Ilhoon handed it over to him.

“Only a little, Minhyuk. We have yet to replicate it,” Sora says, taking a step back from him.

Minhyuk nods, and takes a little swig of the liquid. Ilhoon, Sora, and Sungjae stare intently.

After a few minutes, Sora gasps, and claps a hand over .

“What?” Minhyuk asks.

“You’ve grown a tail, and pointy ears!” Sungjae shouts.

“Sungjae!” Sora scolds.

Minhyuk holds up his hands. “My hands look… younger.”

“You look younger,” Sora says. “You look just as you did when we started at university.” She runs her fingers through his thick, black hair. “You were so beautiful, and full of hope then.” She wipes a tear from her eye, remembering things that happened to them almost twenty years ago.

“I’m still full of hope,” Minhyuk says, caressing her cheek with his softer fingertips.

“This is creepy,” Ilhoon says. “You look younger than Sungjae and me.”

“Does this mean that I don’t have to call you hyung anymore?” Sungjae asks.

Sora shoots him a look, and he laughs. “How do you feel, Minhyuk? Do you feel okay?”

“I feel great! My back doesn’t ache anymore, and my head is clearer. I don’t have that hay fever feeling that I usually do this time of year.”

“We’ve done it!” Sora jumps up and down, clapping her hands. “We have really done it! We can change the world, Minhyuk!”

“We will change the world,” he says, scooping her off the floor, and spinning around with her in his arms.