Chapter Text
Honoka Kosaka was seven years old when she realized she was a girl.
It had started with an off-hand comment from Kotori’s mother to her own mom one day while she had been playing with Kotori and Umi at the park.
“My my, it’s almost as if █████ is just as much a girl as those two!”
Honoka wasn’t sure what to think of it at the time. She wasn’t a girl, she was a boy, wasn’t she? Honoka wasn’t much of a deep thinker. After all, she was only seven year old, but for the first time in those seven years, Honoka started thinking. Hard. Really hard even.
‘Am I… not a boy…?’
That thought stayed with her the rest of her afternoon at the park, on the walk home with her mother, during dinner with her family, and even after she had tried going to sleep.
What did being a girl mean? What made them different from boys? She thought about the girls at school as she laid in bed, her fingers absentmindedly playing with her hair.
...her hair! Most of the boys at school all had their hair cut short, and so did her dad! But she had always refused a haircut (not because she was scared, absolutely not), leading to her hair being about the same length as her mom’s, and even the girls at school!
Honoka frowned. Sure her hair was long, but there were some boys with long hair too. So did that really mean she was a girl?
Honoka sat straight up and started thinking about the girls at school. So they both had long hair, but what else was she missing?
...accessories! Lots of girls at school wore their hair up in ponytails with little scrunchies! Without even thinking, Honoka leapt out of bed and rushed over to her table, grabbed some ribbon from a homework project she had been working on earlier that night, and taking a clump of hair on the side of her head, tied the ribbon around it. When she turned to look in the mirror, she was awestruck. Was that really her? Reaching out to touch the glass, Honoka swore her chest felt warmer than usual, and she smiled.
‘Maybe being a girl wouldn’t be so bad!’ she thought to herself.
---
“Kosaka-san? Are you alright?”
“Huh?” Honoka snapped back into reality, seeing Kotori and Umi staring at her, Umi looking visibly concerned.
“Y-yeah, of course I am! And y’know you don’t need to call me that, Umi-chan!”
“A-ah, right, sorry █████-san!”
Honoka couldn’t help but frown. Ever since that night that she had put her hair up in a ponytail she had been thinking more and more about what made a girl, well, a girl, and the next thing that had come to mind was her name. █████ wasn’t exactly a very girlish name when you got down to it, and she had grown more and more sick of being called that in the past few days. But that begged the question, what name could she use instead?
“█████-chan, are you sure you’re okay? You’re not sick are you?”
“N-no way, Kotori-chan! Just uh…” Honoka felt her voice go quiet. Could she tell Umi and Kotori? She wasn’t even sure herself if she even was a girl, but what would they think? Would telling them help her come to a decision herself?
Honoka took a deep breath in.
“Actually, uh… I was thinking about something…” She took another deep breath. “Um, the other day when we were at the park, Kotori-chan’s mama said that I was ‘as much a girl’ as you two…”
“Really? Mama said that?”
Honoka nodded, and Umi looked absolutely shocked out of her mind.
“B-but you’re a boy! What would make her think you’re a girl?”
“I-I dunno! But, ever since then I started thinking, what if I was a girl, like you two? Would that be weird?”
Kotori and Umi were both silent and looked at each other, Kotori being the first to look back at Honoka.
“I don’t think so, █████-chan! If you wanna be a girl, why not give it a try!”
“I agree with Mina- er, Kotori-san!” Umi piped up. “But, if you decide to be a girl, would we still call you █████-san?”
“Ooh, that’s a good point Umi-chan. It’s a pretty boyish name isn’t it?”
Honoka nodded in agreement. But what would they call her if she decided she was a girl? Honoka looked down at her shirt, the hiragana for ‘ho’ printed on the front.
“Ho… ho…” Honoka muttered to herself as she propped her elbows on the table, trying to think of something that could possibly follow ‘ho’.
Kotori and Umi seemed to be just as deep in thought, Umi suddenly popping her head up after a few moments of thought and quickly scribbling the character 和 on a piece of paper.
Honoka’s face brightened almost immediately upon seeing it. “Yeah, that’s great Umi-chan!”
“Don’t you think it could use a little more than that though? I don’t think I’ve heard of any girls named Hono before.”
Honoka sighed and flopped her head on the table. “Kotori-chan’s right…” The three girls sighed, staying relatively motionless until Kotori suddenly turned her head towards the window.
“Ka!”
“Ka…?” Honoka and Umi both said in unison, tilting their heads in confusion.
“Ka!” Kotori repeated, pointing at the flower pot on the windowsill. The two girls beside her turned to where she was pointing and suddenly realized what Kotori was referring to. With a smile back on her face, Honoka snatched up a piece of paper and a crayon, quickly scribbling out two big characters and turning it to show her friends.
“Hono… ka…” They said in unison, their expressions quickly matching their friend’s. “...Honoka!”
With a triumphant grin and a newfound heat passionately burning within her, Honoka stood up on the table, ready to declare to the world (or at least the two girls in the room with her)...
“From this day forth, I am… Honoka Kosaka…!”
---
“█████!!! It’s time for dinner!”
Honoka groaned at the sound of her deadname. She was thirteen years old now, and it had been five years since she had, as she had learned from the Internet, come out to Kotori and Umi. Ever since then her two friends had been nothing but supportive of Honoka’s new path in life, both going as far as to lending her clothes of theirs that they thought she might like. Kotori had even given Honoka her favorite yellow scrunchie, which now sat proudly on the side of her head, keeping her side ponytail in place. Umi had lent her some of the more “girly” clothing she had received as gifts from relatives, most of which was pink, but Honoka didn’t mind that one bit. If it made her look girlier, that was all she cared about.
“█████!!!”
Honoka groaned again, yanking out her scrunchie and pulling off her clothes to get changed back into her ‘normal’ clothes. It had been easy keeping this a secret from her parents at first, back then she could just go over to Kotori or Umi’s house and they could just say they were playing dress up, but now that she was a teenager it was getting harder and harder to hide things. Honoka had already lost a skirt to Yukiho when her mother found it peeking out from under her bed, who thankfully hadn’t given it a second thought, but she wasn’t sure how much longer her luck would last.
““█████! Dinner!”
‘Shit, now dad’s calling…’
“Just a sec…!” She called down, shoving her clothes into the back of her closet and rushing downstairs to join her family for dinner.
“Sorry!! Was just finishing up some homework!” Honoka hastily explained as she took a seat next to Yukiho and was about to start eating before her father cleared his throat. Honoka felt a chill run up her spine.
“Before we eat, there’s something we’d like to discuss with you, █████.”
“Wh-what is it…?”
“We know that right now you’re going through a lot of changes, █████.” Mrs. Kosaka started off, “but lately we can’t help but notice you seem to spend all your time locked away in your room.”
“And if it’s not there you’re with Sonoda-san or Minami-san.” Mr. Kosaka continued.
Honoka could swear she was starting to sweat, and the way Yukiho was looking at her wasn’t helping matters either.
“S-so? What’s so bad about that?”
“Well, ordinarily, nothing. It’s just…” Mrs. Kosaka trailed off.
“You know what they say about boys your age that hang around with girls so often, █████.”
“...n-no way! I-I’m not, no!!! W-why are we even talking about this here!? Yukiho’s way too young to hear about this…!”
“We’re just trying to make sure you’re safe, █████.” Mr. Kosaka explained. “But it is odd you still insist on spending time with those girls so often.”
“Your father’s right, █████. What will the boys at school think of you if they found out?”
“I don’t care what they think!” Honoka suddenly shouted, catching everyone at the table off guard, save for her father. “Kotori-chan and Umi-chan are the only ones who understand me, I can’t lose them!”
There was silence at the table for a few moments before Honoka’s mother spoke up.
“█████, what do you mean by that?”
‘Damnit…’ Honoka thought to herself. Her whole body was shaking from her outburst and her fists were balled up on her knees as she tried to recompose herself.
“█████,” Her father said, “answer your mother.”
Honoka took a deep breath in and looked up at her parents, doing her best to keep a calm expression.
“M-mom, dad, I… I’m actually a… a girl…”
Silence.
For the first time in what felt like years, Honoka’s father looked to be visibly surprised, while her mother looked like she was just trying to process what she had just been told.
Honoka wanted to cry. This wasn’t how she had wanted this to go, she didn’t even know how she had wanted to come out to her family, but this definitely wasn’t the way.
Seconds felt like hours before she felt a hand on her shoulder. When she looked up she saw her father looking down at her, a warmth in his expression that she had never seen before.
“Dad…?”
Honoka’s father knelt down next to her, keeping his hand on her shoulder. “How long have you felt like this?” He asked.
Honoka struggled to speak for a moment, but eventually got out a raspy “five years”.
“I see…”
“Y-you’re not mad, are you…?”
“Oh █████, of course not.” Mrs. Kosaka assured her, kneeling down next to her husband. “Though now that I think about it, that does explain the skirt I found under your bed…”
“And how you never get your hair cut!” Yukiho chimed in, Mr. Kosaka giving her a stern look. “I didn’t mean it in a BAD way!”
“Regardless of any of that, we could never be mad at you for something like this. You’re our child… our daughter…” Mrs. Kosaka said, looking to her husband.
“And we’ll support whatever path you choose to take in life.” Mr. Kosaka finished.
“M-mom… dad…” Honoka threw herself towards her parents and wrapped her arms around them, tears streaming down her face. “Th-thanks you guys…”
The rest of the night went rather uneventful, with Honoka helping her parents with the dishes once dinner was over. As she turned to leave the kitchen and go back to her room, her mother called out to her.
“███- actually, I can’t imagine you want to be called that anymore, do you? Is there another name you want us to use going forward?”
Honoka felt a heat in her chest, not too dissimilar to the one she first felt five years ago, and she smiled just as she had then.
“...Honoka. I’m Honoka now.”