The Emasculation of Cat-Ears: The Cage of Adoration and the Cage of Labor
The air in the kitchen of “Nyan-Nyan” was always thick with oil particles and erratic heat. For Yuto, this square space was his only sanctuary. The stainless steel prep tables, the well-used knives, the roaring exhaust fans—here, “strength” was justice. Carrying heavy stockpots, commanding the flames, and finishing a perfect dish within the time limit. There was a sense of accomplishment in physical labor, and his body was nothing more than a rugged, blunt “tool” to achieve that purpose.
“Yuto, give me a hand. I can’t reach the zipper on the back of this costume.”
It was thirty minutes before opening when Rina poked her head out from the staff room. She was the star maid of “Nyan-Nyan,” the protagonist of this castle of fiction. She wore a layered mass of frills and ribbons that seemed detached from actual gravity. Yuto wiped his dirty hands and moved behind her. There, he saw a waist cinched to an unnatural thinness by a corset, and soft flesh forced upward into an artificial swell.
“…Isn’t this too tight? Can you even breathe?”
“This is the specification for the ‘Rina’ package. Don’t complain.”
Through the thin skin beneath his fingertips as he pulled up the zipper, he felt a slight tremor. To Yuto, it felt less like a pre-show shiver and more like a physical scream from a body forcing itself into grueling emotional labor.
“Hey, Yuto. I’ve been asking you for a while, but why don’t we swap for just one day?”
Rina looked at him through the mirror with eyes that were defiant, yet profoundly exhausted.
“I want you to experience, just once, what it’s like inside these frills—how heavy it is, and how little freedom there is in a place you think is ‘easy.’ I want you to take over this body.”
Yuto snorted.
“I never said being a maid was easy. But I can’t do it. There’s no way these arms are drawing hearts on pancakes.”
“Oh, you’ll be able to. …Because once you become ‘me,’ every single finger moves only to respond to someone else’s gaze.”
Rina held out a small, silver coin of unknown origin. The moment she placed it in Yuto’s palm, a sharp pain like static electricity surged through him, and his vision warped violently.
His internal organs surged up his throat with a force that felt as if heaven and earth were being inverted.
It was a hideous sensation of “reconstruction”—bones shrinking, muscles melting, and lungs being compressed to their absolute limit. When Yuto next opened his eyes, the first thing he felt was a devastating “crash in perspective.”
The stainless steel shelves of the kitchen, which he had always looked down upon, were now higher than his head. Not only that, his shoulders were unnaturally narrow. A physical “weight” was clinging to his chest. And the certain “center of gravity” that had supported his existence between his legs had vanished without a trace.
“…ghk, uh, ah…”
The moment he opened his mouth, what leaked from his throat was the scream of a vulnerable girl—sounding like silver bells rolling, yet thin at the core. Yuto touched his face with trembling hands. There were no rugged cheekbones, no sandpaper feel of stubble. There was only the clinging smoothness, the terrifyingly fragile silhouette of the “product” known as Rina Suzuki.
“…Unbelievable. This body… it’s so light, so quiet.”
His own former voice echoed from behind. He turned to find Rina, inhabiting Yuto’s body. She was proudly rolling the broad shoulders he had struggled with and took a powerful step forward, defying gravity.
“This is it. This ‘weight’ is what I wanted. …A body like steel, where I can claim my territory just by standing there, without anyone touching me.”
Rina (in Yuto’s body) grabbed a kitchen knife and swung it down to test its weight. Swish. A sharp sound of cutting wind. It was a decisive, powerful strike—one Yuto had never managed to produce himself.
Meanwhile, Yuto (in Rina’s body) had slumped to the floor. The hem of the heavy skirt tangled around his legs, and the corset tightened around his ribs. Amidst the sensation of cold tiles, he began to understand that in an instant, he had fallen from a “laboring subject” to an “adoration vessel”—decorated, consumed, and existing only to reflect the expectations of others.
The story accelerates from here. The story of an emasculated man, forced into a pair of fake cat-ears and pushed onto the stage.
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