Chapter Text
Chuuya picked up his phone from his bed to see who was calling. It was a lazy Friday night, the air warm and humid. Chuuya had been finishing up his homework, but calls from Dazai tended to be important. His texts may be nonsensical, but they generally only called when something big came up.
[ mackerel ] is calling
“What do you need, Dazai?”
“It is time.”
“Huh?” Chuuya asked. The bastard always talked in fucking riddles.
They took a dramatic pause. “The tides have turned red with seemingly everlasting blood. I shall be tainted by this curse until the day I die, or the day I truly become me- nothing shall ever be the same! Oh Chuuya, tell me what to do?”
Oh the shit he put up with. Chuuya sighed. “Normal speech, please.”
“I got my period.”
“Oh. Shit. You have anything to use?”
Plastic crinkled on the other end and he could practically hear Dazai’s confusion.
“Uhh, maybe? I think?”
“D’you want me to come over?”
“Yeah.”
“Okay,” Chuuya says, “Unlock your front door if you can, if not I’m coming in through your window. I’ll be there in a minute.”
He hung up.
Okay. Things could... technically be worse. They weren’t dying or trying to even though he probably felt like it.
Getting over to Dazai’s house wouldn’t be a problem either. Chuuya had a ground floor window that was literally 2 feet above the ground, and he would just leave a note on his bed if Kouyou came in for some reason.
This wasn’t the first time the 2 of them had met up at night. It was only 11pm though, so not unbearably late.
Chuuya got up off his bed and pulled a hoodie over his tank top. He left his binder off, not wanting to fuck up his ribs any more than he already had.
Then he stumbled through the dim lighting to wear his bathroom door was and fumbled around until he found the light switch. Whoever designed the house had been a fucking idiot and decided to put the light switch in Chuuya’s room as far away from the door as possible.
He grabbed a plastic shopping bag from under his sink and stuffed in some pads and tampons of various sizes.
Kouyou had crossed out all of the gross shit that said ‘girl pwr’ and ‘uwu female blood cycles are so natural’ because yes, that’s good for girls but Chuuya was most definitely NOT a girl.
Oh what he wouldn’t give for a inexpensive gender neutral brand of period supplies that could be accessible world wide. But that was apparently ‘too much to ask’ and writing angry emails to the heads of several tampon and pad companies to ‘harass’ them about making a gender neutral or a discreet line by threatening them was ‘too much.’
With a bag of sanitary materials in hand, he climbed out his window and almost fell into the bush. Again.
He had a skateboard hidden in the bush though, so that worked out nicely.
The streetlights shown down on Chuuya as he glided down the road. The moon was out tonight, and the sky was left blank with no clouds.
Dazai’s house was only a few blocks away from Chuuya’s. The elaborate landscaping seemed out of place, but if Dazai’s parents had to move here then they decided that everything must be the best. It worked to his advantage though- all the trees hid the ladder that was left leaning against the side of the house and had a rope tying it to a tree.
But first the front door. Chuuya hopped off his board and tucked it under one arm before jogging up the winding path. He jiggled the handle. Locked.
Oh well. Guess that meant the window.
He went around back and went up 2 rungs before pausing and shaking himself a little to see if the ladder would fall. When it didn’t move, Chuuya resumed his climbing.
The window was already open. Chuuya crawled in and noticed the bathroom light shining out from under its door. So there they are.
“Dazai,” he knocked on the wall. “I’m here.”
Footsteps sounded from inside the bathroom before the door creaked open and out came Dazai.
His eye bags seemed deeper than usual and were slightly red, almost like he had been crying. Other than that, they were the same as always.
Fluffy hair, stick thin frame, paler than a vampire- the whole desire on social medias for a skinny half-dead skaterboy had hit him hard.
Dazai leaned against the wall, obviously not wanting to sit down.
“Okay. Do you know what to do, do you want me to explain what’s happening to me,” says Chuuya.
They scrunch up their nose and reluctantly ask, “Please explain.”
Chuuya grabbed his arm and towed them into the bathroom so he could move the shower curtain back to sit in the edge of the tub with him. He opened up the bag and pulled out a pad. Okay. Let’s not fuck this up and make this worse for them than it already is, he thought.
“Okay. Do you only have boxers?”
Dazai nodded. “I tossed my old underwear right after u started transitioning.”
Well they weren’t going to like this. “So pads kind of only work if you have that kind of underwear? Boxers aren’t cut so pads can stick.”
He groaned and put his head in their hands before rubbing their eyes. Chuuya slapped them away.
“Stop that. It’s bad for you, idiot.”
“But I don’t wannaaaa!”
“Shush. Now, wanna learn how a tampon works?”
“Don’t you shove those up your ass?”
Chuuya choked. “Uh- not quite? I was gonna explain that part after but I guess not.”
More groans came from Dazai.
Explaining this in a way that wasn’t horribly dysphoria inducing would be hard.
“So. You have a vagina. Unfortunately.”
They snickered.
“About every month, your body goes, “Hmmm, I want a baby! You’re gonna bleed now!” Unless you get pregnant. Your uterus sheds it’s walls when you don’t get pregnant, and that comes out in the form of periods. So clumps in it are normal, and so is brown and pink period blood as long as it doesn’t last your whole period.”
Dazai stuck his tongue out. “Yuck.”
“Oh, it gets worse. This will most likely be painful too. Don’t freak out if you get stabbing pains- like duct tape removing leg hair but on the inside of your stomach.”
His friend looked close to slamming his head against the tile. He could just take pain kil- oh. Right. Dazai hated pills.
“Heat also works. Your cold ass probably has a hot pad already,” he says. Judging by their determined stare directed at the floor, Chuuya guessed correctly.
This would probably be the worst part. “I don’t know how much you’ve...explored... down there, but you have three holes. Piss-blood-shit. You put tampons up the blood one.”
The bathroom went silent.
Dazai turned to him, eyes swirling with confusion. “Does it... feel good?”
Chuuya slapped that back of his head. “No! It’s dry cotton, not a fucking dildo.”
“Ack! Okay, don’t hit me again. Short people shouldn’t be this strong.”
“Who are you calling short! You’re just freakishly tall!”
“Sure. Keep telling yourself that.”
He took a deep breath and resisted the urge to choke Dazai. Not the time, Chuuya, his mind told him.
Silence reigned over the bathroom again. They both knew what was coming.
This time, Chuuya pulled a tampon out of the bag.
He opened the wrapper and pulled the little plastic thing out, tangling it in front of Dazai.
“First,” he started, “open it.”
“No shit Sherlock.”
“Shut up! Put the big end right in front of your opening, and push the long end. It’ll feel a little weird but don’t worry about that. It should be inside you now, with a string hanging out. Change it every 5-8 hours.”
Dazai rolled his eyes.
“Seriously though,” Chuuya says. “You can get toxic shock if it’s in longer. Then someone will have to go fishing, if you catch my drift.”
They cringed.
The redhead stood up and dropped the bag in Dazai’s lap. This part was something Dazai had to do by himself. They were best friends, but Chuuya really didn’t want to insert a tampon in someone else.
“Scream if you think you’re dying. I’ll be just outside.”
They nodded, looking somewhat apprehensive.
Chuuya closed the door and flopped onto the brunette’s bed. Well. Could’ve gone worse. They’ll need to go shopping later for pads and tampons and whatnot. And chocolate. Chocolate fixed everything. And another good dysphoria hoodie would help as well.
Dysphoria was a fucking bitch. Thanks to Kouyou helping him transition, Chuuya had felt a lot better about himself and less dysphoric.
Oh he still felt bad. Everyone had their bad days- including Chuuya, who may or may not get into fights at school so he can act like just another dumb teenage boy. But Dazai also made it better. And he sure hoped that he made it better for Dazai. They had known each other since they were 8, and Chuuya could se show much happier post-transition Dazai was. It was hard not to be happier when you could finally start to be yourself.
He was startled out of his thoughts by a voice from the bathroom yelling, “What do I do with the string?”
“Tuck it inside with the tampon so just a little’s hanging out. That way you can pee with one in!” Chuuya hollered back.
“‘Kay!”
The sound of running water came a few minutes later before he emerged from the bathroom and flipped down next to Chuuya, burying their head in his lap.
Chuuya carded his finger through their hair. At this point, he might as well stay the night. Dazai’s parents wouldn’t be home for another week.
They always claimed ‘important business.’ God knows what they were actually doing. It made a shit ton of money, though, if the house Dazai lived in was any evidence.
Without pausing his ministrations to their hair he asked, “You good?”
“Sure. Close enough,” he said.
“Alright. I’m staying the night.”
“Yeah, that sounds good.”
“Okay.”
“Okay.”