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As much as she heard her colleagues complain about 1A, Kayama still loved teaching art history with them. When she was saying something, most of them listened (or pretended to listen) or just drifted off with their thoughts, entering a new plane of existence. She let them. Now, she got that normally it wasn’t a great thing to do as a teacher, but at the end of the day this was just art history and they were all in the Heroics course and already had more than enough things to learn, so she let it slide.
Plus, whenever they did something practical, all of the students managed to create something, most of the time even pretty interesting. Yes, technically she was teaching art history and not art, but there’s no better way to learn about some old painting style or technique than to try and imitate it. She also really liked what they came up with.
Which brought her to her current problem: the lesson was almost over and Kouda had yet to draw anything. And he really wasn’t the kind of kid to refuse working during class for no good reason.
“You’ve got ten minutes left!” Kayama clapped her hands to really undermine her point, “Your desks better be tidy by then!”
That got everyone to speed up what they were doing considerably. If she’d hoped this would get Kouda to draw something, she would’ve hoped in vain. The only thing he did was slowly start to put his things away again. Yeah no, she really didn’t like that.
Soon enough, the bell rang and the class left the room, eager to head to the cafeteria to grab food. Kouda passed by.
“Hey, Kouda? Could you stay for a moment longer?”
He froze for a second, but nodded after a moment.
They waited in silence until it was just them.
“Is everything alright? I noticed you barely did anything today.”
Kouda drew his shoulders up and Kayama saw him fighting the urge to put his arms around himself, knowing fully well he’d need those to sign.
“I’m really sorry!” His signs were even smaller and less energetic than usual, which was more than enough confirmation that something was actually wrong, “It’s just… private problems, please don’t worry about it.”.
What was that saying? Her moms didn’t raise a quitter, but they did raise a sexy, sexy fool?
“Kouda, you know you can always talk to me or one of the other teachers about whatever’s going on, right? Especially when it interferes with your ability to do your school work.”
He sighed.
“It’s just,” he shoved his hands forward as a clear sign of cutting off that sentence, “you wouldn’t understand anyways.”
Oh, now that was a challenge if she ever heard one.
“Try me.”
Again, he took a while to reply, which only made Kayama worry even more.
“You’re so pretty, you obviously wouldn’t know what it’s like to hate your body because…”
He cut himself off there, lowering his hands slowly.
Now it was Kayama’s turn to sigh. This really isn’t something she told most people, hell, her best friends only knew about it because they’ve known her since way before she ever did anything. Still, she could tell Kouda really needed assurance right now.
“Believe me, I do. I didn’t look like this for a long time. Sometimes I still feel like a fake because of it,” Kayama took off her glasses and began cleaning them with her sleeve, “I was born with a body that didn't suit me and lemme tell you, I hated it as well for a long time. Words can’t describe how thankful I am that my moms were always supportive of me. They helped me get everything rolling and before I knew it I was on hormones and no longer hating everything.”
Kouda stared at her with wide eyes and an awed expression like she personally had promised him that he would never need to wait in line in the cafeteria.
“You’re- You’re trans?” His signs were exaggerated enough that he almost looked like Yamada. The next moment his eyes grew even wider with shock. “I’m so sorry! That was really rude of me.”
“Don’t worry. I sure am! It’s not something that’s public knowledge though, and I’d like to keep it that way.”
“Oh. Thank you for telling me.”
He didn’t seem too happy about that.
“You’re still disappointed.”
“Hormones wouldn’t be able to ever fix me, either.”
Shit, that’s not what she’d been trying to tell him (them? her?) at all.
“Woah, let’s take a step back. That’s not what I meant at all.” She realized she was still holding her glasses and put them back on. “You don’t have to tell me, but you’re trans, right?”
Now Kouda finally wrapped their arms around their body. Kayama let them sort their thoughts out first and waited for them to answer.
“I wish I could be a girl. Some people online think that and it feels nice, much better than being a guy. But I know that’ll never happen.”
Fuck, she(?) sounded so resigned, but still couldn’t let go of the sadness and grief that slowed her signs.
“Kouda, I promise it can. I know everything sucks tremendously right now and dysphoria is the fucking worst, but if you want to be a girl, I swear on my life you can be. You don’t need to be thin and have long, flowing hair, you can just be yourself. That’s enough. If you say you’re a girl, then you are and everybody who tells you otherwise is allowed to take the issue up with me, got it?”
Kouda just stared at her, a billion different emotions flashing over her face, eyes slowly starting to fill up with tears.
“I get that it’s not something you can just accept from one short pep-talk, but please know I’m always there for you, okay? You’re not alone in this, I know what you’re going through.”
She sniffed and quickly wiped at her eyes.
“I don’t know if I can believe that. It can’t just be that easy?”
“Don’t feel bad about it. It takes time to actually realize these things, which is a lot harder than people would think. But you’ve still got a long and bright future ahead of you to figure everything out. It’s okay to feel doubtful or overwhelmed at the moment, but that’s just temporary. You’ll learn to accept and love yourself. Your pace might differ from that of others, but self-acceptance isn’t a race.”
The poor kid simply stood there, not even being able to sign something back. This was a lot, Kayama figured.
“Do you want a hug? That always helps me feel better.”
After a moment, Kouda nodded, so Kayama stepped closer and wrapped her arms around her. It didn’t take long for Kouda to start crying in earnest and Midnight held her through it, rubbing soothing circles onto her back. She was definitely going to check up on her regularily from now on.