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“It’s soooooo hot,” Shinji moaned, sitting down on Kaworu’s bed. It was the middle of August, and he was staying the night at Kaworu’s apartment, just for kicks. Even with the fan going full blast and the window open, it was still a sticky 90 degrees Fahrenheit in the small room.
Kaworu sat down next to Shinji, handing him a bottle of some kind of greenish drink. Shinji took it gratefully, not questioning the colour.
“You could always take your shirt off,” Kaworu offered, having already divested himself of his own. And his pants. He had opened the door for Shinji in nothing but a pair of black boxers decorated with little bird skulls, much to Shinji’s chagrin.
Shinji sipped his drink and ignored Kaworu’s suggestion for a moment. The thought was tempting, but he didn’t know what Kaworu would think…
Sweat dripped down his forehead. The fan droned ineffectively. He felt like he was being boiled alive.
Every other boy got to go shirtless in the summer, so why shouldn’t Shinji?
Putting the bottle down on the windowsill, Shinji started fiddling with the buttons on his collar, and glanced at Kaworu, who was watching him curiously, head cocked to one side.
Each time Shinji looked directly at Kaworu, he couldn’t help but blush. He usually didn’t mind, because there wasn’t anything he could do about it. But at the moment, it was only making him feel hotter, and he did not appreciate that at all.
“You win,” he said, and Kaworu grinned.
After quickly but methodically unbuttoning his shirt, Shinji folded it quickly, and shoved it under the bed, soon followed by his pants. (His boxers were pretty boring compared to Kaworu’s, but that was alright.) He was aware that Kaworu was still watching him, so he turned towards his friend self-consciously and said, “You were right. That’s much better.”
Even though it wasn’t perfect, because he was still wearing his –
Kaworu reached out and snapped the strap of Shinji’s binder. “What about this undershirt thing?”
Shinji shook his head. He knew that Kaworu wasn’t making fun of him by calling the binder an undershirt. As far as Shinji could tell, Kaworu had no idea he was biologically female. With anyone else, Shinji would have been suspicious, but Kaworu was so blithely oblivious that Shinji really could believe he hadn’t figured it out yet. Even with all the jabs and angry hints that Asuka, the class bully, dropped on a regular basis.
“Suit yourself,” Kaworu said cheerfully.
The moment of potential tension had passed. Kaworu hadn’t pressed the issue. Heaving an inward sigh of relief, Shinji flopped face-down on the bed.
“Now what?” he mumbled into the bedspread. At least the fan was finally drying the sweat that was collecting all over his body.
Suddenly, he felt a tickling sensation on his lower back.
“What are you doing?” Shinji complained, turning his head so he could see Kaworu’s grinning face in his peripheral vision. Kaworu leaned forward and hovered over him, a permanent marker in one hand.
“What did you draw?” Shinji yelped, shooting upright. Craning his neck, he tried to see his back, but could only make out vague black scribbles below the edge of his binder.
“It’s a hedgehog, Shinji-kun. Just like you,” Kaworu said, smiling beatifically.
“What the heck are you talking about? You’re the one with spikey hair,” Shinji said.
“I never said you look like I hedgehog. You just are one,” said Kaworu, who then proceeded to draw a crescent moon on Shinji’s arm.
“What? Hey – Cut that out!”
Though Shinji wanted to snatch the marker out of Kaworu’s hands, he didn’t think he could muster enough energy for that kind of struggle. He made a half-hearted grab for it, but Kaworu just jerked it out of his reach.
“You don’t want to be drawn on, Shinji-kun? Why not? I think it looks nice.”
Shinji examined his arm doubtfully. Before he could give an opinion on Kaworu’s drawing skills, Kaworu said, “Oh, I know. You can draw on me instead.”
Instead of having to fight for it, Shinji suddenly found the marker being shoved into his fist, and Kaworu lying directly across his lap.
“Get off,” he said, shoving Kaworu away. “You’re too hot.”
Obligingly, Kaworu stretched himself out in front of Shinji instead.
Shinji eyed the bare expanse of Kaworu’s back. For a moment, he wanted to stroke it, to just – ahem. Draw on it. He wanted to – was going to draw on it.
Draw what? Well, if he was supposed to be a hedgehog, then Kaworu’s was… uh… something elegant, that flew, but was also slightly ridiculous. A goose? No, that was too ridiculous. A swan, maybe. Good enough?
“Your face is very red,” Kaworu observed.
“It’s the heat,” Shinji said hastily, dropping his eyes to Kaworu’s shoulder blade, where he began drawing one wing. He passed several minutes doodling before he realised that Kaworu was being unnaturally quiet – and that he was watching Shinji intently. With a yelp of surprise, Shinji almost dropped his marker.
“Why are you looking at me like that?”
“You’re cute when you concentrate,” Kaworu said.
Shinji said nothing to that, instead blushing again. Kaworu’s odd comments made him feel all – soft inside. On one hand, the feeling was a happy one. But on the other hand, it was almost – vulnerable, so Shinji didn’t know how to respond to it. Usually with silence. That was the safe route, but he did feel as if he should say something in return – to make Kaworu feel the same thing.
But that was silly. Boys didn’t act that way around other boys.
“What are you drawing?” Kaworu asked, resting his chin on his folded arms.
“Wings.”
“Why?”
Shinji shrugged, preferring not to try and explain further.
“Hmm, good choice,” Kaworu said. “May I draw some on you, when you are done?”
“No!” Shinji said hastily.
“You don’t want to take your shirt off,” Kaworu guessed correctly.
“No,” Shinji said, starting on Kaworu’s lower back, which made accidental eye contact even more impossible.
“Shinji-kun, I really don’t understand,” Kaworu said. Shinji kept drawing, concentrating fixedly on the precise black lines he was carving on top of Kaworu’s smooth, pale skin.
Kaworu was the only person who treated him like a real boy. He couldn’t know the truth, not ever. That was what Shinji had always told himself.
Oh, but some part of Shinji hoped desperately that Kaworu would still treat him the same even after finding out the truth, and wondered how good it would feel to know that Kaworu really and truly accepted him, not just out of ignorance. And in this relaxed, sluggish room, his mind lulled by that ever-buzzing fan, Shinji suddenly felt as if he might be ready to tell Kaworu.
“Kaworu-kun…” he began hesitantly. “What would you say if I said that maybe I wasn’t born with the same kind of body as you?”
“My hair isn’t brown,” Kaworu said.
In spite of his resolve, Shinji’s fingers were starting to tremble. The ink lines were still alright. He moved the marker to the other side of Kaworu’s spine and started the third wing.
“Not like that,” Shinji said. “I – Kaworu-kun, I –”
As if sensing that it would be better to try and maintain the calm, pressure-free mood of the room, Kaworu had his eyes closed. It made him look almost angelic. Shinji took a deep breath to steady himself, and said, “Kaworu-kun, I was born in the body of a girl.”
His hand trembled so badly as the words left his mouth that he stabbed Kaworu with the marker. A big blotch of ink filled the top of one slightly lopsided feather, but Shinji felt too paralyzed with anxiety to do more than clutch the marker tightly and stare at the inkblot. To his eyes it wavered, because he was already tearing up with remorse.
He knew what came next.
You freak! – like Asuka.
That doesn’t make any sense. How can you be a boy? You have girl parts. – like Misato.
You’re probably just going through a phase. Don’t worry, we’ll forgive you afterwards. – like Aida and Suzuhara.
“You’re a girl?” Kaworu said, cracking one eye open.
“No, I’m not! I’m a boy!” Shinji practically shouted.
“Good?” Kaworu said, sounding totally bemused. “I would hope that you know what you are, Shinji-kun.”
The use of the male honorific calmed Shinji slightly.
“But I – I have breasts,” Shinji said, his voice dropping to a near whisper on the shameful word.
“That’s strange,” Kaworu said cheerfully. “Is that why you never change in the boys’ room at school?”
It took Shinji a minute to process the mismatch between Kaworu’s tone and his first comment. Kaworu’s dismissal of such a distressing fact almost made Shinji feel like maybe everything would be okay. Like Kaworu might just not care what kind of body Shinji had, and saw him as the boy he really was in spite of what everyone else thought.
“Yes,” Shinji said.
“So you are what you people refer to as a transgender?”
Even though Shinji had never been able to figure out why Kaworu insisted on drawing a verbal line between himself and the rest of humanity, he said, “Yes.”
“Thank you for telling this to me, Shinji-kun. But I still don’t understand what that has to do with whether I am allowed to draw wings on you or not,” Kaworu said petulantly.
With that easy reply, Shinji’s heart was flooded with relief. Kaworu understood. He understood that Shinji was a boy, and there wouldn’t be any arguments or insults or any bad things at all. Inhaling a big gulp of air, Shinji sniffed back his tears and hid a tiny smile.
“Shinji-kun, are you well?” Kaworu asked.
“I’m just fine,” Shinji said, sniffing again, and wiping his eyes with the back of one hand.
Thank God. Thank God Kaworu hadn’t rejected him like so many others had. Kaworu might be socially awkward and constantly unpredictable, but he had never once turned Shinji away, and to Shinji that meant the world.
“You can draw on my stomach instead,” Shinji offered. Maybe someday he would explain to Kaworu what dysphoria was, but that was enough intense emotion for one day. Instead, he flashed Kaworu a rare but genuine smile, and Kaworu grinned back, his eyes crinkling at the corners in a way that was, to Shinji, absolutely beautiful.
“Thank you, Shinji-kun,” Kaworu said. “Did you know that you have freckles on your stomach that are almost exactly the same as the stars in the Big Dipper?”
“No,” Shinji said, wondering when, exactly, Kaworu had figured that out.
“Are you nearly done?” Kaworu said, getting a quick drink off the bedside table. Shinji tucked the marker behind his ear and surveyed his work.
In spite of the one ink blotch (oops), he had produced a reasonably nice set of wings on Kaworu’s back. Maybe ones on his shoulders would also look good?
But what kind of creature had more than two sets of feathery wings?
An angel, maybe. An angel and a hedgehog. What a pair.
“I’m almost done,” Shinji said, wiping sweat from his palms onto his boxers, then uncapping the marker again. A little seed of happiness had been planted inside of him, though at the moment he didn’t know it.
But he knew that Kaworu-kun loved him, his real self, and that was enough to make him smile again as he continued to draw. For one afternoon, everything was alright with Shinji. Even if both he and Kaworu were a little sweaty.