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It had been four days since Kirishima had come out as trans to class 1-A. And every night since then, someone had knocked on the door to his dorm.
The first night it was Bakugou. Kirishima’s heart leapt to his throat when he opened the door and saw his crush standing there, nonchalantly leaning against the door frame. For a while, the two stared at each other in silence. Then Bakugou looked away, looking back down the hallway.
“Wanna watch a movie or some shit?” Bakugou asked, and Kirishima felt his face light up in a blinding smile. They stayed up quite a bit later than Bakugou usually did, watching some show that Kirishima couldn’t remember the name to. When Bakugou got up to go to his own room, he stopped in the doorway.
“Don’t ever think that I’ll treat you differently for being trans.” He said, looking intensely at Kirishima. “And if anyone else gives you trouble, I’ll kill them.”
Kirishima’s face hurt from smiling by the time be got into bed.
The next night it was Midoriya. He was muttering to himself by the time that Kirishima opened the door, and seemed surprised when he saw Kirishima standing there.
“Hey! Uh, Kirishima! Can I come in?” He glanced into the room as if to see if anyone else was in there.
Kirishima let him in, and was surprised when Midoriya told him that he was trans too.
“I never thought I could be a hero because I was trans,” Midoriya said, looking down at his hands, “but you inspired me. I’m not ready to come out to the rest of the class, but, maybe someday.”
For the second night in a row, Kirishima went to bed smiling.
The third night it was Mina. Kirishima had wanted to talk to her, so he was glad to open the door to her. She was the one person who already knew before he came out, and he wanted to thank her for not outing him sooner.
“Don’t worry about that!” She had replied, “I know how important it is to keep these things on the down-low”
She leaned in then, and whispered “I’m a lesbian”
Speaking normally again, she said, “You may be the first to come out in our class, but you’re never alone.” She smiled at him, and he smiled back.
She then convinced him to play Stardew Valley with her and Tsu, even though they had an assignment due the next day. He was up until 1 am finishing it.
The fourth day, it was Mr Aizawa. Kirishima was shocked when he opened the door and saw his teacher standing there.
“May I come in?” Aizawa asked, looking like his usual exhausted self
“Oh, uh, yeah.”
The teacher didn’t sit down, or get remotely comfortable, and simply said. “So you’re trans?”
Kirishima grimaced. “Am I in trouble?”
“Not at all.”
The boy let out a sigh of relief.
“I would never stop someone attending our school for such a discriminatory reason.” Aizawa continued. “However, you should know it won’t be easy for you. Whether you choose to be openly trans or not, there will be unique challenges.”
Kirishima nodded, his heart still pounding.
“I wanted to ask you about your hero costume”
“My what? Why?”
Aizawa then sent a stern look at the boy that made him gulp. “Have you been binding your chest unsafely?”
The two of them talked about gender affirming costume solutions for the good part of an hour before Aizawa left. That night, Kirishima found himself crying, but he couldn’t tell why.
The fourth night, Kirishima was getting a bit tired of visitors. He was glad they hadn’t come all at once, but he was starting to miss his normal life. So when he heard the knock on the door, he considered ignoring it. It was only when he heard the quiet, almost scared sounding “Kirishima?” did he get up off his bed and go to the door.
He opened the door to a very pensive looking Kaminari. Seeing his friend there made him a bit nervous. Ever since he had come out, Kaminari had been very quiet around him. He was scared that Kaminari would avoid him, or stop being his friend at all. He had been very loudly confused when Kirishima first came out, asking “How do you feel like a boy or a girl?” which Kirishima had explained to the best of his ability. He was afraid he hadn’t explained it well enough, because they hadn’t had a normal conversation since that day.
But now, seeing that Kaminari would come to his door, he was no longer afraid of being avoided, but he was certainly afraid of something. Losing a friend, maybe, or blatant transphobia. But Kaminari didn’t seem like he came out of his way to attack Kirishima. He looked too insecure to do that.
“I have a question” Kaminari said, not looking Kirishima in the face.
“Sure man, what’s up?”
Kaminari glanced down the halls, as if he was making sure no one was around.
“Do you, uh, want to come in?” Kirishima offered, and before he could get out of the doorway, Kaminari was pushing past into the room.
Kaminari sat on his bed, and grabbed a pillow, hugging it to his chest.
“It’s about gender” Kaminari continued in a hushed tone.
“My gender?” Kirishima asked with a tired smile. But Kaminari shook his head.
Kirishima fell quiet. The silence between them grew, until it was a bit awkward. Kirishima thought about breaking the silence with some sort of joke, but Kaminari looked so deep in thought, he decided against it.
Finally, Kaminari started talking. “You’re a man because you feel like a man, right?”
Kirishima nodded.
“If a- If someone who was born a man felt like a woman, that would make them a woman, right?”
Kirishima nodded, slower this time.
“Well, what if-” Kaminari paused. Looking around the room, anywhere but at Kirishima. “What if someone felt like nothing at all?”
Kirishima’s heart was pounding. This seemed like such a big question to Kaminari that it must be personal. And the fact that he chose to come to Kirishima to ask, it meant they were still friends. Good friends. That idea, that Kaminari chose to come to him with deep questions warmed his heart.
“Well,” Kirishima began, “That kinda sounds like they might be nonbinary to me, but it would depend on what the person felt like.”
“Nonbinary” Kaminari repeated. “What does that mean?
“Someone who isn’t a man or a woman might be nonbinary”
Kaminari frowned “Like, they’re half and half?”
Kirishima sighed internally. This was going to take a lot of explaining. As a trans man, Kirishima knew a bit about nonbinary genders, but he certainly wasn’t an expert. But Kaminari came to him! So he had to give it his best.
“There’s a lot of different ways of being nonbinary, none of them right, and none of them wrong. Someone might feel like they’re half and half, or they might feel like they have no gender at all, or they might have a completely different gender.”
Kaminari finally looked him in the eyes. “You can do that?” He asked, amazement in his voice. “Have no gender at all?”
“Sure,” Kirishima said. “I think it's called Agender.”
“Agender” Kaminari repeated. He was quiet for a long time before he whispered “I don’t feel like any gender at all.”
Kirishima wasn’t sure how to respond, so he didn’t say anything. Instead, he held out his hand. Kaminari instantly held it and squeezed it tight.
“What do I do now?” Kaminari asked. “Am I agender? Am I nonbinary? Does this mean I have to wear a skirt?”
Suddenly his hand squeezed so hard that Kirishima activated his hardening quirk to avoid getting crushed.
“What uniform do I wear? What bathroom do I use? Oh my god, what will my parents say?”
“Whoa whoa, Kaminari” Kirishima said. Kaminari looked up at his friend with tears beginning to form in his eyes.
“You might be agender, but you don’t have to change anything yet. You don’t have to tell anyone you’re not ready to tell, and you don’t have to do anything you’re not ready to do. This gender stuff? It takes time. It was years before I told anyone I was a boy. You can take this slow.”
Kaminari took a deep breath, and loosened his grip on Kirishima’s hand. He was silent for a while.
“But, could I wear a skirt if I wanted to?”
They spent most of the night on the internet, looking at different trans websites, looking at flags, pronouns and skirts.