The morning light bled through the classroom windows, soft and too bright for my liking. I sat in the last row, near the window — the same place I always chose. From here, I could see the courtyard, the cherry tree already stripped bare by the wind. The students around me laughed, loud and full of that strange energy humans carried — fragile, fleeting, alive.

I tapped my pen against the desk once, twice. My reflection stared back from the glass — brown eyes, steady… human enough. But for a moment, I saw the faint gold flicker beneath the surface, and the shape of something moving behind me. A tail.

“Juwon-ssi?” The teacher’s voice cut through the noise. I blinked, pulling myself back.

“Yes, seonsaengnim,” I answered, my tone calm, practiced.

She smiled, but I felt the unease behind it — the instinct humans had when their soul recognized something their eyes refused to see. The whispers started again. The new transfer student. Too quiet. Too perfect.

Someone passed by my desk and their shadow brushed mine. My pulse stirred — faint, wild. I caught the scent of iron from their bracelet and my skin burned where it brushed me. I clenched my hand, forcing the foxfire down before it could spark.

Not here. Not again.

I looked back out the window, letting the world blur until all I saw was the reflection of gold eyes and a forest that didn’t exist anymore.

One hundred years, I thought. And I still haven’t learned how to be human.