My name is Takeru Takaishi. I'm fifteen, I live in Odiaba, Tokyo, Japan, and... Well, I guess I should start from the very beginning to explain this, but I've not been what you'd call normal for years. Or, at least, for years, I've not accepted that a change in my life might have become normal.

When I was younger, I guess everything was what you could have called normal back then. Oh sure, there was one incident when I was around three or four, related to the normal of now but I don't remember it. My parents divorced, but really, that's not unusual for the normal of then.

When I was about eight it all went crazy.

Most kids, when they go to summer camp, just have a fun time. Make new friends, learn new skills, all the kind of stuff that normally happens. Me and my friends? We got taken into another world, the Digital World and wound up saving that one and the Earth. That seemed pretty much the pinnacle of weird to me back then. 

After that, I moved away from Odaiba for a while. My and my mother. I missed all my new friends and my brother a lot, which was a real kick while I was down. At least I could see those friends easier, when I visited my dad every second weekend or so. That was a change to how it was before but it slowly became normal. I wasn't accepting that normal though.

I moved back when I was eleven. Met my old friends again, made some new ones, and then? The Digital World needed us again. Me and my friends saved the world more than once before we were all even in Junior High. The last battle of all that was the one that made the strangeness of the Digital World become normal to other people. 

Roughly one in six thousand humans gained Digimon partners, and we, the group that saved the world, managed to conceal ourselves among the extra Digimon groups. Sure, some people knew the truth, but we didn't want the attention that it would bring. Not everyone with a Digimon could enter the Digital World at will: Most of the million new people with Digimon Partners had the wrong Digivice. All the "old" Digidestined got theirs all upgraded, but even then, we had become normal again. Sure, we were still trusted with looking after the Digital World itself, but our strange lives to that point became normal. I was ready to accept that as normal.

I didn't have very long to enjoy it.

We'd become sort of peacekeepers. Sometimes it seemed Digivices would be randomly upgraded and a new person would access the Digital World. We couldn't dismiss the risk at least one of them might cause problems.

Me and Daisuke had been in the Digital World checking something out when a Renamon attacked. It lunged for Daisuke, and I shoved him out of the way. It managed to get me, and bite me instead. It was a mistake on the part of the Digimon. It apologised, and ran away. And I thought a little ring of small teeth marks was the only thing that was going to last from that day, until later that night.

If I tell you it was a full moon, you can fill in the blanks from there, right? Yeah. And now I'm not normal at all. It's happened every full moon ever since. Four years. Thirty days in the lunar month give or take, so... That's about fifty times. Maybe more, maybe less. I've not counted them all because I had just hoped it would stop. I hoped I'd go back to as close to normal as my life had become.

I've tried to hide it, only a few select people I trusted learning the truth. I've been afraid of others learning the truth because people barely accepted all the new Digimon floating around. I'm afraid they might get freaked out and think all Digimon can do whatever that Renamon did. I've tried to find out carefully: Nothing like this has happened to anyone, or, at least, it's never been reported. I'm afraid of a lot of things that could go wrong even if they find I'm the only unlucky bastard who had this happen.

And now I'm afraid someone I don't trust might be getting onto me.

One of my classmates spotted a pattern. Every month I rush home from school at the end of the day, especially in winter. They thought it was a little weird.

And it had to be today of all days. I've hid it from even my mother, but I'm afraid that my classmate will stick their nose in. Try to phone me or something. And the phone is out because my voice changes too.

I explained my worries to Patamon.

"You could pretend you're me if your nosy classmate does phone..." 

"No good. You can't answer the phone and somehow the whole class knows it. Plus, your voice is a little, uh... Higher. How do you figure someone would react to a deep voice claiming to be you?"

Patamon frowned.

"Okay. But what will you do?"

I thought for a moment. I looked at the calendar again. I know it happens, of course, but sometimes, days like this, I look there and hope I don't see that damned full-white circle beside the day.

"I'll say I'm heading over to Daisuke's after I've done my homework and got changed..."

Patamon kept frowning.

"I don't like that euphemism you use."

I sighed. I didn't like it either, but what else was I supposed to say to my mother? I had to get out of the house anyway. 

****

It was a little later, and I had just finished my homework, printing it off. I thought I had plenty of time left and then it happened.

Like always, it starts with a little tingle. Even though I know everything that happens, my blood runs cold and somehow at the same time, I start to sweat. Panic as I realise I haven't got ready for the change. I tried to yank my shirt off, and just in time to save that. The rest of my clothes, not so lucky. 

"Aah…" I gasped, managing to stop it from being a full-blown scream and alerting my mother. The painful part had started. I didn't want to change, so my mind was fighting the transformation in my body.

I quickly abandoned efforts to remove my clothes, and lay on the floor. If I tried to stay seated or stand I'd not be as calm. I breathed deeply, trying to fight my natural instinct to rebel against my change. If I fight it, it wins and the change just hurts like hell.

It's strange. If I relax, the feeling as I change is simple enough. If I fight, like I said, it hurts. Basically, the first change is my body starts getting slightly larger. Bones shift shape, muscles alter their positioning. Not fighting, it's an unpleasant feeling, like something gently squeezing the bones and the muscles flowing like an oily liquid.

Fighting, it's like every one of the bones is being smashed apart, and the muscles torn to shreds.

Some parts, like my jaw, elongate into a snout. My fingers merge into three digits instead of two. My feet, the same with my toes. My ears shift up my head and elongate into those like a fox. When my ears move it sounds like everything is underwater. Worse, when my snout emerges I sometimes I find myself unable to breathe. Even if I was calm, I panic, and suddenly everything that felt weird is agonising.

And of course, as some things get bigger, they tear any clothes that don't fit. Today, my shorts suffer it. The waistband doesn't stretch, so for a few seconds my wider waist is squeezed into them, and then it rips. 

Even if it doesn't, I need to use my new claws to get it off anyway: the legs of the shorts have burst open by now anyway. It's lucky that happens though actually, because at this time my tail bone stretches way out beyond the short stub that humans have as a vestigial remnant of primate ancestry (as Koushiro explained it to me) and becomes a long and eventually very bushy tail. More on that later.

My socks usually are a little luckier. They stretch. I need to be careful removing them later, though. New claws on hand and foot, and they're sharp. Many a hole has been made if I rush.

But the other change during all this always feels the same. It's pins and needles as the fur grows. A fine downy coating starts with the tingle, and gets thicker as the bones begin rearranging. It's mostly dark-yellow, but the patches around my feet just below the ankle are a light grey. A huge mane-like grown on my chest is also grey, and my hands too. There's also a portion of the front of my torso, from the mane to the pelvis, is grey. I finally have two sort of yin-yang symbols, on either leg. They're dark green.

But by then, it's done, and I'm a Renamon. A male one. They happen, but only about one in ten examples of a Renamon winds up with a male gender. Digimon don't strictly have them, but they do have the characteristics of genders, so for humans it's close enough to say male and female.

Compared to a female Renamon, I don't have any colour on the tips of my tail or ears. The white fur is grey, as I noted, and the symbol is green, not purple. The mane is larger, and the hips aren't as wide in proprtion to the rest of my body. The arms are wider, the torso more muscular, and the tail slightly thinner. My ears are shorter and more rounded at the tips, while the final change is that I lack the gloves/sleeves of most Renamon I've seen, including the one other Male one I spotted.

When I'm sure it's over, I stand. I'm now nearly six foot high, and I cut off the last rags of my wrecked shorts. Patamon has watched me change from a perch on top of a shelf.

"Feeling okay?"

I nod. Post-change, my stomach squirms a little and my heart speeds up to get used to the new system. It's not pumping anything identifiable as blood really, but processing data. My senses are a little overwhelmed, as they're improved and now taking in a lot more information. 

The good news though, unlike werewolves of legend and myth, my were-rena body has no issues with things like silver, or becoming a mindless killing machine. I'm still me, and I have the same strengths and weaknesses as any other Renamon or Human depending on what time of month it is. 

"I… I'll head off now. Can you help me get my stuff into my bag?" I asked Patamon as my body settled.

Patamon flew down to help me pack. Things I'd need to have when I woke up human again in the morning. School stuff. The usual.

And then I went to one of the few safe havens I have like this.

***

What I'm doing is hiding. And in plain sight to get there. Digimon scamper around Tokyo now, so one more leaping over rooftops isn't odd, even if it is carrying a rucksack.

I trusted a select few people. I also trusted their parents, because, well, I was afraid my own would find out and freak. Sure, some of my friends parents had mini-freakouts too but the point was, if it was their own kid saying they turned into a Digimon once a month? Insanity. Mine can never know.

Sora used to be the closest and easiest, but there was a small problem in that her mother became naturally nervous about the fact a boy was waking up in their house sometimes, and well... I told you my clothes tore up, yeah?

Taichi and Hikari's place had the same issues, though for some reason it seemed their mother wasn't too worried. No idea why. Taichi just seems to wince every time I ask why that was, and Hikari giggles. 

Koushiro is the other one I have I can use without fear of parents concerned about the whole waking-up-in-the-morning thing, since they generally never entered his room without knocking in the first place. But he tries to convince me to try experiments. We'd looked for a cure, but gave up. Generally, I only go to his if I want a relatively uncomfortable night, or help with homework. The worst part is he convinces other people I trust to show up for the most embarrassing ideas he wants to experiment with but, uh, the less said about that the better. 

Where did he even get a rectal thermometer anyway? 

I tried the Digital World and found a snag if I go in there as a Renamon. I wake up in the morning as a Renamon, it seems. The first time, I freaked out as I woke up at dawn six hours after I arrived, with the sun overhead and still covered in fur. Ling story short, I wound up letting Mimi into the circle. I thought at the time I was stuck, so I went with her to New York. 

I reverted in her bedroom, to general embarrassment and relief. Then I turned straight back into a Renamon because it was still night there. 

Daisuke's house is closest, and both his sister and parents know. This place can be a little tricky at times, not Koushiro-tricky, but awkward tricky. You see, Jun, Daisuke's sister, has a Digimon partner of her own.

And it’s another Renamon. A female one.

Luckily Daisuke can lock his door at night. 

I climbed in his window, getting just a wave as a greeting while he and Veemon played something on his PS3. Daisuke lost soon enough.

"So, Takeru, what's up?" My friend said. 

"I think someone's on to me..." I explained. He listened.

"Your mom's still in the dark, right?" Veemon enquired.

"I hope so..." I sighed. 

"Well... Do you mind if I ask Jun and Rena to help think up any ideas to help you?" 

I sighed.

"Oh, no, go ahead. I could use a hug(!)" I deadpanned. It was a yes, but a reluctant one when a ball of lighter-yellow slammed into me a few minutes later.

"Hi Takeru!" Rena, as Jun's Renamon called herself, said.

There are really two types of natural Renamon. Silent, cold and calculating tough types, and then ditzy hyperactive goofballs. The former, all call themselves Renamon. The latter, Rena.

Every male (natural) Renamon apparently is only ever the former, except one in Australia who I pray I never, ever meet. 

So, that's my problems summed up with this. The weirdness or pain of the changes. Worries like this. A crush on me from a hyperactive Digimon. And the fact I wake up in my birthday suit one morning a month and have to do so in someone else's house. I'm lucky it's just the night of the full moon proper I change on. 

One other problem I'm able to mention here: Summer. Imagine wearing a fur coat all the time at night. That's summer for me when it's a full moon. 

Anyway, Jun wandered in after her Digimon.

"Hi." She smiled. I like Jun, to be honest. She might be a little boy-crazy, but her heart's in the right place and I know she usually jokes when she mentions stuff like this.

"Daisuke explained, and I think my original idea would work."

"No." I said quickly.

"I like it..." Rena hummed as I tried to squirm out of the glomp.

"Keep trying, Jun." Veemon encouraged, to a glower from me and Daisuke. The little blue rat just ignored us.

"But it's perfect! You date me most of the month, and Rena every full moon night! How many guys can say they have two foxy ladies?" Jun smiled.

"Can we be serious for a minute and not weird?" Daisuke groaned.

We tried to think of some excuse. 

"Maybe you could say you want to take photos of the moon?" Veemon said.

A nice idea, but when have I ever taken photos?

"Monthly internet radio show you want to go listen to?" Jun tried.

Maybe, but what could I possibly say that was worth rushing home for?

Daisuke smirked.

"What about a long-distance relationship?"

"If he doesn't want two real girlfriends, why would he want a fake one?" Rena said, confused.

"That might be it..." Jun said.

"A fake girlfriend? Sorry, but no." I said.

"Not a girlfriend as such... A pen friend, or something like that. Someone who you only ever get a good chance to chat with monthly, or email monthly. A relative in France?"

I thought that through. It might work.

And that's really how my life has been since then. A problem arises. I get help. In the end, we find a way to pretend I'm normal.

But I want to stop pretending. I want to be back to that normal I had for a few weeks. I don't want to accept this normal.

I'm terrified that some day though, I might have to...