In the evening, I went back to find Caruncle lying beside Evelyn in bed. She was half-asleep, but he moved in close, pressing small kisses along her neck, inching toward her mouth.

  It was awkward.

  The thing about Caruncle—what made him so easy to hate—was that the more you looked at him, the more pathetic he became. A hollow man wearing the shape of something whole. I liked watching him fail.

  The room was suffocating. No windows. Stale air. The kind of place where things fester. The sheets smelled like perfume that had long since faded, like something trying to hold on.

  Evelyn stirred.

  “Wait, stop—stop.” She pushed him away, voice thick with sleep. “I told you not to do that.”

  He sat up. “I was waking you. You said nine.”

  “Not like that.” She rubbed her face and turned away from him. “I don’t like it.”

  There was a pause.

  Caruncle scratched his head. “What do you expect me to do at this point?”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Are we pretending this isn’t expected?”

  Evelyn exhaled, slow and tired. “Forget it.”

  Caruncle let out a sharp laugh. “See? And people say I’m the one who plays games.”

  She didn’t take the bait. Instead: “What are you going to tell your brother?”

  He went still.

  “What?”

  “You said you had something serious to tell Valentin. Are you going to tell me first?”

  A long silence.

  “I can’t.”

  And there it was—Caruncle retreating. I could have called it before he even opened his mouth. A man too weak to move forward, too afraid to step back.

  “Why not?” Evelyn’s voice was softer now. She already knew where this was going.

  “Because I only have so much strength,” Caruncle said, staring at his hands. “I need to save it. I need to say it once, and then never again.”

  She studied him.

  “What if I told them for you?”

  “It wouldn’t work.”

  “Why?”

  “Why do you hate it when I kiss you?” The words came out too quickly, like he was trying to outrun them.

  “What does that have to do with anything?”

  “Maybe everything.”

  She didn’t answer right away. I wondered if she would just get up and leave.

  Then, softly: “Do you even love me?”

  Caruncle’s throat worked around an answer.

  “I think you’re beautiful,” he said at last. “You’re kind. And if I could be near you forever, maybe… I’d feel whole. Even if nothing else changed.”

  That almost sounded like love. Almost.

  “‘Maybe’ whole?” she echoed.

  Caruncle’s jaw clenched.

  “I don’t feel complete.”

  Evelyn studied him. “Because of me?”

  “No. Because of me.”

  Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock.

  “Caruncle…” Evelyn hesitated. “Why do you flinch when I touch you? Why do you only reach for me when I’m not looking? Why—when we’re together—do you always have that look on your face?”

  “I told you—I won’t kiss you like that again.”

  “You know that’s not what I mean.”

  “I know.”

  “So tell me why.”

  A long silence.

  Caruncle exhaled. “Can I ask you something first?”

  “What?”

  “Do you think I’m unpleasant?”

  She frowned. “Is this about the marriage arrangement?”

  “No. This is about me.”

  “I think…” Evelyn hesitated. “I think you’re a good man. But something is wrong with you, Caruncle. And you won’t tell me what it is.”

  “I disgust myself.” His voice was flat, factual. “I don’t just hate myself. I can’t stand myself.”

  Evelyn flinched. Not because she disagreed.

  “Caruncle,” she started, carefully. “You’re always desperate. Desperate about me. About your father. About whatever war is happening in your head. But you won’t talk about it. You let it eat you alive, and I won’t let it eat me too.”

  The clock ticked between them.

  “I’m sorry,” Caruncle said at last. “I should have loved you better. You deserved that.”

  Evelyn swallowed. “You can still change.”

  Caruncle stood. “Let’s go to Percival’s.”

  “Caruncle—”

  But he was already reaching for the door.

  “I need to clear my head first,” Caruncle muttered. “Maybe then things will make more sense.”

  They dressed in silence.

  I was already sick of watching him collapse in on himself, drowning in his own self-pity. I had seen him like this countless times before. Crying, always crying. At some point, I’d leave—because I had my own suffering, my own punishment to deal with, and it was far worse than his.

  But eventually, I’d come back. Morbid curiosity.

  It was never worth it.

  Caruncle and Evelyn stepped outside, his hand looped stiffly around her arm. He moved like someone wearing a body that didn’t fit.

  Above them, the full moon hung low, soaking the street in cold light.

  Evelyn looked at it and thought—maybe in another life, she would have been an explorer. Maybe she would have left the planet, vanished into the sky, and never looked back.

  Caruncle, meanwhile, stared at the city. The streets felt foreign to him, no matter how many times he walked them. The gaslights. The carriages. The roads, rough and crumbling, worn down by time and neglect. The air reeked of filth. It all felt wrong.

  They stood together, but neither spoke.

  Minutes passed. The carriage arrived.

  Inside, the velvet interior swallowed them up, trapping them in its warmth.

  Evelyn, watching the world blur past through the window, finally broke the silence.

  “What were you thinking about?”

  Caruncle blinked. “What?”

  “Before the carriage came.”

  “Oh. That.”

  “Yes. Tell me.”

  He hesitated. Say it, Caruncle. Just say it. It won’t change a damn thing.

  “I was thinking… I still haven’t gotten used to this place.” A half-truth. A weak, meaningless compromise.

  “The city?”

  “…You could say that.”

  Evelyn turned back to the window, scanning for the moon. She couldn’t find it anymore.

  I let my attention drift, running my fingers over the velvet lining of the carriage. The only real thing in this suffocating, useless conversation.

  “Did you ever get lost in the city as a kid?” Evelyn asked.

  Caruncle thought for a moment. “I don’t remember.”

  “You don’t?”

  “I don’t remember much of my childhood.”

  “I see.”

  Thirty minutes later, they arrived at Percival’s home.

  Caruncle stepped out of the carriage and looked up at the house.

  It leaned too much to one side, groaning under its own weight. It looked like it could collapse at any moment.

  He didn’t realize he was thinking about himself.

  ***

  They arrived at Percival’s house, which looked like it owed gravity a favor and could collapse at any second.

  Inside, the hallway was so narrow and dimly lit that it felt like walking into an underground crypt. Caruncle immediately regretted coming. He considered running, dramatically throwing himself out of a window, maybe even faking a seizure—anything to not be here. Unfortunately, his legs had chosen violence and refused to move.

  By the time he realized the hallway was over, he was already sitting in a chair by the fireplace. Trapped.

  “I hope you’re doing alright, Caruncle,” Percival said, placing a candlestick on the wall. His voice was warm, which somehow made it worse.

  Caruncle shivered. “Why are you here tonight?” he asked Felicity.

  “Evelyn invited me.” Felicity crossed her legs under her ridiculous mountain of a dress—a massive, frilly, aggressively yellow monstrosity that made her look like a human-sized canary.

  Caruncle felt personally attacked by how much space she took up.

  “I thought she should hear what you have to say,” Evelyn added.

  “Suit yourselves.” Caruncle scratched his head. He felt like a prop in a play where everyone else had been given the script except him.

  “You should really get to the point,” Percival said, settling into his chair.

  Caruncle glanced at Valentin, who had been staring at him like he was trying to will him into shutting up.

  “You want me to talk,” Caruncle began. “You think I can help. I can’t. But I don’t think you can help me either. So, I’ll just say what I came to say so we can all go home and pretend this never happened.”

  “Caruncle, you still haven’t told us what you need help with,” Felicity pointed out, raising a hand like she was a teacher and he was an underperforming student.

  “You want to know what I know, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, I can’t tell you what I know because if I do, you won’t help me.”

  “…I have several questions.”

  “Go ahead.”

  Felicity took a slow, deliberate breath. “It seems like we’re going in circles. You say you know something. You also say you can’t tell us. You also say you need our help. But you won’t tell us what you need help with until we agree to help you. Are you seeing the issue here?”

  Caruncle blinked. “…Yes.”

  “Great! So, let’s start with what you need help with.”

  Caruncle rubbed his forehead, staring at the fireplace like it might offer him an escape route. His heart was going insane.

  Then, in the most awkward, tragic, and absolutely humiliating way possible, he blurted out:

  “I want to be a woman.”

  Silence.

  This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

  Valentin tilted his head. “…What?”

  “I want to be a woman. That’s what I said.”

  “…PFFT—HAHAHAHA!!” Felicity lost it.

  She threw her head back and cackled, the sheer volume of her laughter so aggressive that Caruncle was genuinely concerned for the foundation of Percival’s already questionably stable house.

  “Oh, he’s messing with us again!” she wheezed, wiping a tear from her eye.

  Caruncle, stone-faced, did not find this particularly amusing.

  “I—WHAT?” Valentin stood up so fast his chair nearly fell over. “This—this is the thing you dragged us here for?!”

  Felicity was still laughing. “Oh my God, imagine if you actually had something important to say—”

  “STOP LAUGHING!” Caruncle snapped.

  Felicity did not stop laughing. If anything, she laughed harder.

  In fact, she seemed determined to die from laughter, which was probably inconvenient for everyone else in the room judging by how they looked at her.

  “Felicity, can you—can you just—wait,” Percival finally interrupted, rubbing his temples like a man who had seen too much. “Let’s just—Caruncle, what do you mean? I don’t think we quite heard you properly.”

  Caruncle turned toward him with the dead expression of a man who had already mentally left the building.

  “I meant what I meant,” he said, voice monotone and exhausted. “I want to be just like Evelyn, like Felicity, like your mother or mine—"

  “STOP TALKING,” Valentin burst out, throwing his hands up like Caruncle had just threatened to blow up the house. “This is ridiculous! What are you even talking about?!”

  “If you don’t want to hear me out, you can leave.”

  “You said you had something serious to say, and THIS is your grand revelation?!” Valentin’s foot started tapping like he was about to teleport out of sheer frustration.

  “I told you what I needed,” Caruncle muttered, barely holding back tears.

  “You just told us you are hysterical.” Valentin pinched the bridge of his nose. “I’m pretty sure the only thing a doctor would prescribe for you is a knife through your balls. And maybe a hammer through your skull.”

  “Oh, really? I didn’t know you were a doctor,” Caruncle shot back. “Are you planning to include that in your next shitty novel?”

  Valentin stood up so fast his chair screeched.

  For a brief moment, I really thought he was going to commit to murder.

  “Yes, yes, everyone sit down, let’s talk like civilized people,” Percival practically threw himself between them. Evelyn, meanwhile, had physically forced Valentin back into his seat before he could start throwing punches.

  Percival took a slow breath and turned back to Caruncle. “Okay, when you say you want to be a woman, what does that entail?”

  “A physical change.”

  “Alright. Do you, uh… know how you envision this physical change?”

  “Well, I know what I want it to look like,” Caruncle muttered and immediately started eating his nails.

  “PLEASE, let’s just stop right here,” Valentin groaned. “It’s clear he got hit in the head too hard as a child.”

  Evelyn dragged both hands down her face. “Caruncle, I—of all the things you could’ve said—you might as well have said you wanted to be a frog.”

  “Or a pig!” Felicity added, grinning like a demon. “So he could roll around in filth all day like he already does.”

  “That sounds more like you than me,” Caruncle snapped.

  Felicity cackled harder.

  “Wait, wait, everyone, I think we started on the wrong foot,” Percival, ever the optimist, attempted to regain control of the situation. “Caruncle, listen. I think you might be—if you allow me to say—experiencing a crisis. You might feel like if you were something else, if you didn’t have so many responsibilities, or if—”

  “You could not be more wrong,” Caruncle cut him off, voice flat and miserable.

  “…Also,” Percival added, blinking, “Divinity wouldn’t approve of thoughts like this.”

  Caruncle turned toward a ridiculously buff statue of a naked man sitting dramatically on a rock.

  The statue was beautiful. The perfect symbol of Divine Judgment.

  Caruncle, maintaining direct eye contact with the statue, spat on the floor.

  Felicity gasped like she had just witnessed a crime.

  Evelyn: horrified.

  Percival: deeply offended.

  Valentin? Valentin chuckled.

  “Okay,” Percival exhaled, visibly trying to restrain his anger. “But have you considered that your… feelings might stem from a nervous affliction?”

  Caruncle blinked.

  “Physicians have documented cases of ‘hysteria’ in women,” Percival continued, clearly talking out of his ass. “It’s not entirely inconceivable that a man might suffer from a similar disturbance of the nerves.”

  Caruncle slowly turned back to look at him.

  “…Are you saying I have girl disease?”

  Felicity, still grinning like a gremlin, crossed her arms. “We adhere to the natural order as Divinity intended, because that is what gives us order. Men have their place, and women theirs. To blur these lines wouldn’t make you any happier, and you know it.”

  Caruncle, staring dead-eyed at the floor, mumbled, “I understand, but I still want to be one.”

  “A what?” Valentin, voice dripping with sarcasm.

  “A wo…man.” Saying it out loud again felt like throwing up. I could see it. The physical cringe rippling through his entire body. Glorious.

  “Caruncle,” Evelyn’s voice cut in, sharper than usual. “You know what I went through, right? Do you remember when my family moved here?”

  “Yes, remember it well.”

  “So why are you saying all this?” Her tone was flat. “If you were a woman, you’d have to follow the same path. My studies? Paid for by your family. I wasn’t even allowed to choose my own profession, do you know why? Because everything I do has to involve you.”

  “I’m well aware.”

  “You… you remember why we are together, right?” Evelyn’s voice shook. “It’s not because we love each other.” She wiped her eyes, refusing to look at him.

  Caruncle swallowed. “You don’t have to blame yourself.”

  “Really?” Felicity arched a brow.

  Caruncle finally glanced up. It was eerie how still he was. Like a corpse processing a joke. The kind of stare that made you want to back away slowly.

  “She doesn’t care about you, don’t you have anything else to say?”

  “Don’t put words in my mouth, Felicity,” Evelyn snapped, still not looking at him.

  “She doesn’t love me,” Caruncle muttered. “But I do.”

  Felicity, delighted, tilted her head. “Really? Even as a faggot?”

  No one moved.

  No one breathed.

  I, personally, was waiting to see if Caruncle would simply evaporate out of shame.

  Finally, Percival, ever the host, cleared his throat. “I feel this might deserve a talk on its own, but in the meantime… let’s go back to the topic at hand.”

  Caruncle turned toward him, his expression horrifically neutral.

  “You say you want to be a woman,” Percival continued, visibly struggling to make sense of his own words. “Does that mean that you… want to be married to a man?”

  Caruncle looked like someone had just punched him in the face.

  “No,” he said, disgusted. “I don’t see myself with a man.”

  “You can’t stop the act now,” Valentin scoffed, arms crossed. “You barely touch your fiancée, you want to escape your duties as a man, what else would you want to dress in drag for if not to be some man’s toy?”

  “That would be immoral,” Felicity murmured, as if that was the most offensive thing she had heard tonight.

  “I don’t want to be in drag,” Caruncle said, staring into the void. “I want to be a woman.”

  Percival, ever the diplomat, raised an eyebrow. “And what, exactly, do you plan to do if you don’t find a suitor?”

  Caruncle, genuinely confused: “I don’t know.”

  Felicity, with the cold efficiency of a guillotine: “You need to learn your place. Your job is to provide. That isn’t something you can avoid.”

  “I still want to be a woman.”

  Valentin’s foot tapped. His fingers twitched. He looked this close to throwing a chair across the room.

  “You can’t just escape your own responsibility,” he finally hissed. “You can’t just choose an easier life because you’re disappointed in yourself. You’ll burn our family’s reputation to the ground. Do you understand that?”

  Caruncle’s eye twitched.

  “Escape?” His voice was low. “You think I would choose something like this? You think this is easy?”

  Valentin finally stood up. Arms crossed, jaw clenched.

  “You’re mentally ill,” he announced.

  “Oh, thank you, Doctor,” Caruncle deadpanned.

  “Living with someone this hysterical is not something I want to be a part of,” Valentin continued, ignoring him. “I’d rather have you cured. Or exorcised.”

  “I’m not hysterical—”

  “You still have a penis.”

  The entire room gasped as if Valentin had just dropped the atomic bomb.

  To be honest, I didn't get why it was such a big deal. But people just kept silent. Their faces said something like "The audacity. The horror. The guts it took to acknowledge genitalia in this economy." I just had lost all notion of having a body and it had completely numbed me to the discussion.

  Felicity? Felicity chuckled. My beloved.

  Finally, Caruncle broke eye contact. He stared at his hands like he had never seen them before.

  “I can’t,” he muttered. “Not here. It isn’t possible here.”

  “It’s not possible anywhere,” Felicity chirped, pointing at him. “The most you could do is cut off your balls and even then, you wouldn’t be a woman. Because you are not!” She then opened a bottle of wine and started drinking straight from it.

  The room settled into a heavy silence.

  I turned toward Evelyn. She hadn’t said anything in a long while.

  She just sat there, her face unreadable.

  And finally, when she spoke, her voice was cold.

  “Do you even understand,” she asked, “what the life of a woman is?”

  Caruncle, breath hitching, wiped his face, smearing tears across his sleeve. “I understand.”

  “No,” Evelyn cut in, voice sharp. “I don’t think you do. Because if you did, you wouldn’t be wishing for something like that.”

  I had to admit, their sheer rage over something physically impossible was hilarious. The looney man wanted to walk to Mars, and they were all furious about it. Who was really insane here?

  Caruncle straightened his spine. “I would accept any pain in the world, as long as I could live as a woman.”

  Evelyn stared. “But why?”

  “I just want to.” He said, while finger twiddling.

  Fantastic answer. Bravo. Give the man a standing ovation for clarity.

  Percival sighed, rubbing his forehead. “If you were a woman, you wouldn’t just be vulnerable. You’d be weaker.”

  “I am fine with that,” Caruncle whispered, stroking his hands like they were foreign objects. “Maybe who I am inside isn’t someone that’s strong.”

  Valentin, now thoroughly entertained, chuckled. “You sound like one of those flamboyant homos.”

  Caruncle blinked, unfazed. “And if I were?”

  Valentin’s smirk widened. “Would you like me to bring you a skirt? Huh? Would you put it on and twirl around like a pretty little girl?”

  Caruncle, pouting: “What if I did? Afraid you’ll get infected?”

  Felicity, stifling a laugh, turned to Evelyn. “I feel so sorry for you.” She patted her shoulder like a doctor delivering a terminal diagnosis. “Your fiancé is humiliating you. I suggest you make him stop.”

  “I’m not trying to humiliate anybody,” Caruncle said, still weirdly calm. “I’m just saying what I feel.”

  Felicity’s grin returned. “But that’s the thing. I still don’t understand. Why?”

  Then, with perfect comedic timing, she snapped her fingers. “Wait. I know. It’s because he’s a pervert. That’s what this is.”

  Oh, I loved this part. I had been cheering her on all night, but now? Now, I was actually pissed off.

  Caruncle, meanwhile, looked blank.

  “I always knew something was off about you,” Valentin mused, getting closer, eyes dark with glee. “And now that you’ve finally said it, it makes perfect sense.”

  Oh no.

  No, no, no.

  I could see where he was going.

  “I bet you steal Evelyn’s dresses,” Valentin continued, voice dripping with mockery. “Wear them in secret. Sniff them. Get a hard-on just thinking about yourself in them.”

  Then, he slapped him.

  I didn’t laugh this time.

  Percival stood up. “Valentin, I must ask you not to do this in my home.”

  “You’ll have to forgive me,” Valentin said, completely ignoring him. “But I need to bring some sense into my brother.”

  Then he punched him in the stomach.

  Caruncle collapsed. Gasping, clutching his ribs, doubled over like a sack of broken bones.

  Felicity and Percival exchanged glances but didn’t move.

  Evelyn, tears in her eyes, clenched her fists. She said nothing.

  I, meanwhile, was checking out. This was no longer funny. It was boring.

  Boring, predictable, exhausting.

  Maybe, if I was lucky, one of the candles would catch the curtains on fire and end this whole thing.

  "Hey everybody look through the windows! It's the giant monster penis attacking us right now! It's about to destroy our lives!" I yelled, but nobody laughed.

  Valentin crouched down, voice low. “You will stop talking nonsense. This isn’t just disgusting. It’s dangerous. If this gets out, do you know what happens? Do you?”

  Caruncle, barely able to breathe, managed to whisper: “Being a man is the grossest thing I have ever had to experience.”

  Then he started sobbing.

  I rolled my eyes.

  “Don’t make this worse than it already is,” Caruncle begged, voice small.

  …Okay. Maybe he just needed another beating.

  “Oh?” Valentin tilted his head, grinning. “Do you need help? Do you want me to help you become a man?”

  Ah. Here we go.

  Valentin, stretching his neck like a boxer about to deliver a knockout, smirked. “You started going insane the moment you started growing hair on your balls. Since then, you’ve had that creepy-ass look on your face, like you’re about to burst into tears because you got a boner in church.”

  Honestly? I was over it.

  Valentin sounded tired.

  I was tired.

  Maybe I should’ve left for the night. It was clear this wasn’t getting any funnier.

  Outside the window, I noticed a couple of moths fluttering against the glass.

  They were beautiful.

  “I’ve felt this way since I was a child,” Caruncle choked out. Barely understandable.

  Between his sobs, I had half a mind to leave.

  But watching him suffer was still somewhat entertaining.

  Maybe I could stay a little longer.

  Felicity, shaking her head, finally sighed. “Ridiculous.”

  Then, from the corner of my eye, I saw Valentin’s expression shift.

  For the first time, he looked… panicked.

  “Have you told our mother about this?”

  Caruncle, shaking violently, whispered, “No.”

  Silence.

  Percival, ever the diplomat, stepped in. “People. Let’s not forget why we’re here.”

  Right. That.

  We were originally here because Caruncle had claimed he had some big, earth-shattering knowledge.

  Which, at this point, I had completely forgotten about.

  Percival continued, gentle as ever. “Caruncle. You can’t change into something you aren’t. But… maybe we can still help you.”

  Caruncle stared at the floor.

  “Is there anything else we can help you with?” Percival pressed. “Anything at all?”

  Caruncle, voice empty: “Nothing.”

  “Nothing?” Percival tried again. “Are you sure? Maybe financial help? Maybe your relationship with Evelyn? Perhaps if you—”

  “Nothing.” Caruncle let his head hit the floor. “This is the only thing I want in my life.”

  His tears were already staining the carpet.

  Which, by the way, was wonderful.

  Valentin, finally remembering why we were all here, straightened.

  “Right.” His voice was flat. “You’re not leaving this house until you tell us what you know.”

  Caruncle, muffled: “Screw you.”

  Valentin grabbed him by the collar. “You’re not leaving. Talk.”

  Caruncle, weakly shoving him off: “You’ll have to kill me, then.”

  Valentin snorted. “Our mother would be so disappointed if she knew how pathetic you are.”

  Caruncle didn’t respond.

  He simply closed his eyes.

  With his vision blurred, the candlelight dim, and his body beaten, he barely noticed as the room faded away.

  He let himself sleep.