Chapter Text
Shigeo is used to being overwhelmed by his feelings.
He's usually pretty calm most of the time, even described as “flat” or “boring” by some people. Contrary to common assumptions, though, he feels quite a lot; sometimes a bit too much than he thinks he should.
Right now, he thinks he feels a bit too much happiness, a bit too much anxiety, and just a bit too much confusion.
He's staring at his reflection in the dirty bathroom mirror, just a little spaced out as he feels Reigen pulling at some of his hair. He takes in what he sees in the reflection;
A knee-length pleated skirt, patterned with a dual-colored tartan design. A blazer colored a deep red, an elegant gold embroidered crest on the left breast. A bright blue striped bow, shining just a little under the yellowed lights.
“...Aand I’m done!” The voice of his Shishou draws him back to reality. He feels Reigen’s hand pat him on the back. “What do you think, Mob?”
… I love it.
It fits me.
It's weird. I feel weird.
This is wrong.
It's perfect.
It's uncanny.
“...What sort of job do we need this for, anyway.” His words come off a bit heavier than he expected them to.
Reigen is wearing a soft smile as he adjusts his own collar. “Not a fan, huh?” he says quietly. “Sorry about this, I know it's uncomfortable. But hey, sometimes you gotta put yourself in uncomfortable situations,” Reigen says as he starts walking to the door. “If you don't, you'll be stuck where you are and you'll never grow to be the person that you want to be.”
Mob thinks about what to say for a bit, before realizing he took too long and just settles on nodding in response. Soon enough, he's out the door and on the way to their supposed meeting place.
Reigen has always had a talent for understanding people, Mob noticed. Even someone like him, with very little variation in his facial expressions, he somehow always knows just what to say, as if he's able to read his mind and emotions like an open book.
Strangely enough, though, this time he feels that his Shishou had greatly misunderstood him.
As expected, they're stopped by two police officers as soon as they reach the gate of the school. Mob is relieved that he doesn't have to keep wearing this now, but somehow, at the same time, he wants to keep wearing it? His thoughts and emotions seem to be contradicting themselves a lot today.
At the very least, he knows that he doesn't want to put up with any more stares. After all of a single short walk in the city, Mob thinks that he wants nothing more than to curl up in his futon and wait for the paranoia to wear off.
One of the officers comes in front of him, smiling gently. “That was close, huh?”
His mind blanks. Huh.
“Come on, hurry up and get away from the pervert.”
“Eh?”
They think I'm a student here?
At the all girls school?
They think I'm a girl…
For some odd reason, the thought makes him strangely happy, and his mouth wobbles as he tries to hold back his smile.
Mob is relieved that the job is over. He'd been a bit on edge the whole time, as the possibility of someone finding out that he was a boy was constantly in the front of his mind; Though, part of him is also just a bit sad. He tries to hide the urge to shrink into himself when he looks in the mirror again, only to see himself in the same black uniform he usually wears.
He asks Reigen how he managed to avoid getting arrested, a question that the man avoids answering by one of his meaningless rambles. Mob doesn't really care too much, though, as he finds his head full of thoughts about today.
Reigen seems to have noticed, because he soon told Mob to go home for the day, apologizing again as he handed him his ‘pay.’
“I'm sorry you had to go through that. It must've been tough, huh?” He brings a hand to the back of his head. “You should go to bed early tonight.”
Mob wants to respond, and wants to ask Shishou about the weird complicated mess of feelings that he had today, but he doesn't know how to bring it up without Shishou thinking he's weird. It's not right for a boy to enjoy wearing girls' clothes, is it?
So instead, he just nods silently and turns to leave.
“Mob,” Reigen calls out one more time. He stops in his tracks and looks back at the man.
“...You know you can talk to me if things bother you, right? If there's ever something you really don't want to do, or something happens and you need somewhere to go, my door is always open.”
“...” Mob hesitates at those words. Shishou is a liar, that much he already knows. But he wouldn't lie about this.
He starts playing with his hands, standing in the doorway awkwardly, looking anywhere but at Reigen.
Shishou would be willing to hear him out. He's done so before, listened to Mob’s troubles about his lack of friends or his math problems, and he's always been willing to help him out, whether that was by solving the issue with him or just being there to provide a shoulder to lean on.
…Would he be willing to help me with this, though?
And it's with that final thought that crosses his mind that gets him to nod at Shishou once more, before leaving the office.
Mob is not sleeping tonight, that's for sure.
Instead of trying to rest, he's got the search engine app opened on his flip phone, hiding from nothing underneath his blankets. He feels hesitant to just write the words out, to see them on the screen. But eventually, finally, he decides what to put in the search bar.
Boys that wear girls clothes
Just reading the words he wrote has his face growing warm, even though he knows there's no one around to watch.
He begins going through the various results to his search, the first few being forums starting with questions similar to his; ‘Why do I want to wear girls clothes if I’m a boy?’ or ‘can boys wear women's clothes?’
His heart beats embarrassingly fast as he reads through what he finds. He's quite relieved to learn that it's actually not as unusual as he thought; there's a lot of different types of people out there, after all. He reads various peoples’ opinions on the matter, who say that some men just like to wear dresses, and that's not uncommon, even if people generally frown upon it.
There is one response that sticks out to him, though.
“Have you considered you might be transgender?”
He pauses, then continues reading: “You might have been born a boy, but really want to be a girl. Wanting to wear skirts and dresses doesn't automatically mean you're a trans girl, but it's also a possibility that you could think about.”
Shigeo feels weird; that same sense of strange excitement mixed with anxiety that he felt earlier comes back full force. Quickly, he leaves the site and looks up “transgender.”
‘A person whose gender identity or gender expression does not align with the one they were assigned at birth.’
Shigeo stares at the words on the screen, turning them over in his mind. Girls can be guys… and guys can become girls…
The thought makes him ecstatic.
That is, until he sees another set of words on the screen.
‘Gender Identity Disorder.’
He freezes.
…Shigeo suddenly finds himself very tired.
He gently shuts his phone, gets up to put it on his desk, then crawls back into his futon. As he's curled up in his sheets, he finds himself thinking very briefly,
Is something wrong with me?
Before his eyelids slowly flutter shut.