Chapter Text
Something young children didn’t tend to think about was their own gender. They just knew that they were born X or Y and thus were X or Y. They usually never thought about why they were born that way. Again, usually.
Ichimatsu knew that he was a boy. Boys enjoyed playing baseball and getting into fights, which were things he would do with his brothers. He never thought about why he had been born a boy, it’s just who he was. Kids like him had bigger things to worry about, such as how to get out of doing chores and if they did well on their homework.
What boys didn’t enjoy, he thought, was being called cute or wearing dresses. There wasn’t a rule written anywhere about that being the case, it was just something he had accepted like it was a law. He was a boy, and boys like him were to grow up to be men. Men grew up to be strong, manly, and handsome. Not cute. Ichimatsu had no desire to be cute.
Or at least he thought he didn’t.
It was when he and his brothers were all ten years old, slowly approaching eleven. Totoko, who was a friend of the sextuplets, had invited them all over to her house so that she could show them something. It was apparently a surprise that she was really excited to show off. She had promised that she’d play with them after, but the boys didn’t need any convincing. They all had a crush on her, so they agreed to come over right away.
The six of them all sat in their friend’s bedroom, waiting patiently for Totoko to come back with her surprise. They were all excited for what it could be.
“I bet Totoko bought a new toy!” Todomatsu guesses. “She wants to play with us so she can show it off!”
Choromatsu was doubtful, though. “That can’t be it, though. It has to be something very special!”
“And what do you think that would be?” Osomatsu asks.
“I don’t know, I’m still thinking!”
“Maybe she made us something to eat?” Karamatsu suggests. “Like chocolates, or a bento!”
Jyushimatsu’s mouth waters. “Mmm... chocolate.”
“Do you really think she’d do that, though?” Ichimatsu wonders.
“Of course!” Karamatsu says with confidence. “If mom can do it, so can Totoko!”
Ichimatsu doubted that. Totoko was his good friend, and he’d never speak ill will of her aloud, but she wasn’t the “make food for other people” kind of person.
Jyushimatsu then lights up with an idea. “Ooo! I know! She’s going to play baseball with us!”
“She’s already going to play with us after, Jyushimatsu,” Choromatsu reminds the fifth eldest.
“Oh yeah, I forgot.” He laughs, then turns towards Ichimatsu. “What do you think Totoko’s surprise is, Ichimatsu?”
Ichimatsu also didn’t have any idea what it could be. The possibilities were endless. He thinks for a few seconds longer, then suggests, “Maybe she got a new pet? Like a dog or a cat?” If he was right, he hoped it was a cat. Ichimatsu liked cats.
“No no no!” The eldest yells. “All of your answers are wrong! I already knew what Totoko’s surprise was as soon as she told us!”
“Really?” the five younger brothers say in unison. This was back when they didn’t need to take what Osomatsu said with a grain of salt.
“Yeah! Her surprise is...” They lean in with anticipation as Osomatsu pauses. “She’s going to say which one of us she likes!”
That gets all six of them excited. Ichimatsu himself was blushing at the thought of Totoko choosing him.
“Okay, I’m ready!” Totoko calls from outside the bedroom door. “Close your eyes!”
They all do as said. If this was a confession, then Ichimatsu wondered if she was going to kiss one of them on the cheek? He hopes that’s the case.
He hears the sound of the door open and close, followed by footsteps walking up and stopping in front of the six of them.
“You can all look now!”
They all open their eyes and find that Totoko’s had... nothing. Her hands were at her side, and she wasn’t holding anything in them. She was just standing there, smiling.
“So, what do you think?” Totoko asks. She spins around, her overall skirt twirling with her. Something about the movement mesmerizes Ichimatsu.
“About what?” he hears Choromatsu ask. Big mistake.
Totoko’s cheeks puff up as she frowns. “My new skirt! My mom bought it for me yesterday! Don’t tell me none of you hadn’t noticed!”
Truth be told, none of them had. It was nearly identical to her old one, something the Matsuno sextuplets were the definition of.
Totoko looks at each of them one by one, before she gets to the end of the row and her eyes lock with Ichimatsu’s. He simply stares back in fear, her eyes bearing into his expectantly.
“I-I noticed!” Ichimatsu stutters, a shaky smile on his face and two thumbs up as he tries to sound convinced. “It looks great on you, Totoko-chan!”
Totoko’s expression softens. “You really think so?”
“Yeah!” Jyushimatsu joins in. “You look like a whole new you!”
“You look amazing, Totoko-chan!” Osomatsu compliments.
“So adorable!” Choromatsu swoons.
“Everything you wear looks amazing, but this especially!” Karamatsu adds on to what Osomatsu said.
“The color is nice and new,” Todomatsu says, even though it’s the same shade of red as her previous skirt.
Even with the boy’s half baked attempt to not anger their friend, Totoko eats up their compliments like she’s been given ice cream for breakfast. “Thank you! I knew you’d all like it! My old clothes weren’t trendy anymore, so I needed new ones right away!”
The dress was cute on her. Then again, Totoko was cute in general. If boys like him were expected to be manly and all its other synonyms, then girls like her were expected to be cute and grow up into beautiful women (at least that’s how his kid logic understood it). That’s when his first question about gender pops into Ichimatsu’s head.
Why did it only have to be girls who looked cute?
Then it’s followed up by a second question.
Why can’t he look cute, too?
And before Ichimatsu realizes it, he sits up excitedly and shouts, “I want to wear a dress, too!”
The room falls silent. Ichimatsu’s brothers all look at him with a mix of surprise and confusion. It was unlike the fourth eldest to exclaim something so boldly, let alone admit that he’d want to wear something girly. The silence almost makes him think he said something wrong.
Before he can brush it off as a joke, Totoko smiles at him. “I don’t see why you can’t.” She then takes Ichimatsu’s hand and guides him along towards the other end of her room. His brothers curiously follow behind. Once they stop in front of her closet, she rummages through it until she pulls out a red overall dress similar to the one she was wearing.
“This is my old one!” Totoko then shoves the garment into Ichimatsu’s hands. “Try it on!”
Ichiko looks at the dress in awe, his eyes sparkling. His brothers whisper behind him things like “Is he serious?” and “There’s no way he’ll actually put it on, right?”, but he doesn’t listen. He’s too focused and excited on the fact that he’s actually going to actually try on a dress. It was big enough that Ichimatsu didn’t need to remove any of his current clothes, so he just slips it on. Totoko helps him adjust the buckles on the straps, but other than that it was no effort to get the dress on him.
“Aww, Ichimatsu!” Totoko claps her hands together. “You look adorable! Not as adorable as me, of course!”
The compliment makes Ichimatsu light up with glee. “Really?”
“Really!” She finds a hand mirror and holds it up to him. The young Matsuno looks at his reflection, and he’s happy with what he sees. Totoko was right, he did look adorable! Ichimatsu then remembers when Totoko spun around, and decides to spin as well. The skirt spins just like it did with Totoko earlier. Once more, Ichimatsu is mesmerized by this. Who knew looking cute could be so much fun!
As Totoko puts the mirror back down, she gets an idea. “Hold on, I need to get something!” She then runs out of the room, leaving Ichimatsu and his brothers alone again.
As soon as Totoko is gone, Osomatsu starts laughing. This confuses Ichimatsu.
“What’s so funny?” he asks the eldest.
“You are!” Osomatsu answers. “You look so silly wearing Totoko’s dress!”
Silly? Why would he look like that? Totoko said he looked adorable, and Totoko was never wrong. “I’m not silly, I’m cute!”
That only makes Osomatsu fall on his back as he laughs harder.
“You are wearing a dress over your regular clothes,” Karamatsu points out, trying and failing to hide the smile on his face.
Jyushimatsu sides with the two eldest. “Yeah, that does make you look a bit silly, Ichimatsu.”
Ichimatsu’s cheeks flare up in anger. “That doesn’t make me silly!”
“What’s sillier is a boy wearing girl’s clothes,” Todomatsu comments, who wasn’t even attempting to cover up his giggles.
“Todomatsu’s right,” says Choromatsu. “You can’t be cute, Ichimatsu. Only girls are cute.”
“Says who?” Ichimatsu yells.
“Says everyone!”
“Well then everyone is wrong! If I want to be cute, then I’m cute!”
Osomatsu sits back up. “Okay then. If that’s what you want... Girlymatsu.” The other four demons snicker at the nickname.
Tears start to pool at Ichimatsu’s eyes. “It’s not funny! Stop laughing!”
“Osomatsu, you made our sister cry!” Karamatsu fake scolds.
Ichimatsu glares at the second eldest. “I’m not a girl!”
“Will braiding your hair make you feel better, Girlymatsu nee-san?” Todomatsu teases, grabbing at the ends of his hair.
“You’d need to grow out the ends of your hair first, Girlymatsu,” Jyushimatsu adds, also grabbing at his brother’s hair.
Ichimatsu shoves both his brothers off him. “Stop calling me Girlymatsu!”
“Ichimatsu-kun!”
He turns to whoever is speaking to him now only to be blinded by a flash. Totoko was back, and she was holding a camera in her hands.
“I thought you looked so cute that I wanted a photo,” she explains as the image pops out from the bottom of the camera. Ichimatsu walks up close, along with the rest of her brothers, as the photo develops. Totoko takes the photo out as the image comes into view.
What develops is a red faced Ichimatsu wearing a dress that was too big for him. Tears were running down his face and snot down his nose. The photo only makes his brothers laugh harder.
When he looked at himself in the mirror, Ichimatsu believed Totoko when she said he looked adorable. Looking at the photo now, he saw something completely different. He looked horrible, not just in the dress but in general. He looked like an ugly freak. Nothing like the cute boy he once thought he was. All the dress did was help highlight this.
Holding back a sob, Ichimatsu rips the dress off and throws it to the ground. He then walks right past Totoko in the doorway as he begins descending down the stairs.
“Ichimatsu-kun?” he hears Totoko call out in concern. “Where are you going?”
“Home,” Ichimatsu spits. Once at the bottom, he turns his head around to find Totoko and his brothers all standing at the top of the staircase. “Alone.”
“We were just teasing you!” Osomatsu yells at him, no longer looking amused but annoyed. “No need to be so sensitive!”
It didn’t feel like teasing to Ichimatsu. Before he can hear anymore, he gets his shoes on and stomps out the door, making sure the door slams behind him. Once outside, he starts running home. It’s not that far of a journey before he’s back at his own home.
Opening and closing the door more gently this time, Ichimatsu steps inside and lets out a weak, “I’m home...”
He looks up to see his mother sitting in the other room, watching the TV as she writes something down. The writing pauses as soon as she notices how upset her son looks.
“What’s wrong?” Matsuyo asks, immediately concerned. Ichimatsu gets his shoes off as quickly as he can before stepping up from the genkan and running towards his mom. He buries himself in her lap as he lets out the sobs he’d been holding back.
Matsuyo wraps her arms around him. “Oh, my poor boy. Tell me what happened, Karamatsu.”
“I’m Ichimatsu,” he sobs. Usually when one of them came crying to their mom, it was almost always Karamatsu. So Matsuyo was surprised, but not any less concerned, that it was Ichimatsu this time.
“I’m sorry, Ichimatsu.” She flattens his bangs with her hand.
He then begins to explain everything. “We were at Totoko’s house. And, and she showed us a new dress she got, and I wanted to wear a dress too. And she let me and... and then everyone laughed at me! They made fun of me and they... they called me Girlymatsu!” They’ve all teased and insulted each other before, but this time they were just being jerks. Ichimatsu couldn’t just brush this one off. It wasn’t fair.
“You’re going to cry yourself sick,” Matsuyo comforts, once more brushing his hair down. Ichimatsu does his best to try and calm down, but he keeps on hiccuping sobs.
“Ichimatsu, can you look at me, please?” Ichimatsu does so, watery eyes meeting with his mother’s. Matsuyo rubs a hand on his cheek, wiping away the still falling tears. “Was it just your brothers teasing you, or was it them and Totoko?”
Ichimatsu shakes his head. “No, it was just them. Not Totoko. She said I looked adorable.” It was nice of her to say, even if it was a lie.
“And did it make you happy?”
Ichimatsu nods.
“Then that’s what’s important. Your brothers shouldn’t have made fun of you for wearing a dress.”
“But they said boys can’t be cute!”
“And who decides that?”
“...everyone?”
“Well then it’s everyone who's wrong! Do you know what I thought of you and your brothers when you were born?”
Ichimatsu shakes his head. How was he supposed to know that? He had just been born!
“I thought I had the cutest boys in the entire world!” Matsuyo reveals. “And you still are, even if you are a handful sometimes. If you still want to be cute when you grow up, don’t let anyone say otherwise.”
She boops Ichimatsu on the nose, making him giggle. Sadly, his mother’s reassurance does nothing to stop the doubt creeping in his mind.
“Are you okay now, Ichimatsu?” she asks.
Ichimatsu nods tiredly. All that crying had worn him out. “Can I stay with you, mom?” he asks.
Matsuyo smiles. “Of course, my little Ichimatsu.”
He lays his head in his mom’s lap and holds on to her free hand. She then goes back to writing while the TV continues to play what is now background noise. Ichimatsu tries his best to keep himself awake before sleep wins over and his eyes flutter closed.
Hours later, Ichimatsu wakes up from his nap. He finds that he’s been moved to the couch.
“Ichimatsu,” his father calls, standing outside the hallway. “It’s dinnertime.”
“Okay.” Ichimatsu stands up and follows Matsuzō downstairs. His brothers have all returned home. They were sitting at the table alongside their mom. Ichimatsu’s surprised they haven’t started eating yet. Then he notices their expressions. Some of his brothers look sadly at him while the others look at the table with shame. Only one of them looks like they’ve been crying, and unsurprisingly it’s Karamatsu.
‘Crybaby,’ Ichimatsu thinks as he sits, not realizing his own hypocrisy at all.
“Before we eat,” Matsuyo begins. “I believe there’s something you all want to say to Ichimatsu.”
Now everyone’s looking at him, and it makes Ichimatsu uncomfortable. After a few seconds, Jyushimatsu is the first of them to say something. “I’m sorry I teased you, Ichimatsu nii-san.”
“I’m sorry, too!” Karamatsu cries. “I didn’t mean to hurt you! Forgive me, Ichimatsu!” His tears are most definitely seasoning his dinner.
Osomatsu is the next to apologize. “I’m sorry I laughed and called you Girlymatsu.”
Then there’s Choromatsu. “I’m sorry I said you couldn’t be cute.”
Finally, there’s Todomatsu. “Sorry, Ichimatsu nii-san. I won’t pull at your hair anymore.”
Matsuyo looks over at each of her boys as they apologize, and then back at Ichimatsu. “What do you say to them?”
Ichimatsu had been told when someone apologizes to you, you then forgive them. The problem was Ichimatsu didn’t forgive them, and he didn’t even want to pretend to. Half of their apologies sounded forced to him, like they only did it because their mom made them. Plus, their words had really hurt him. He wasn’t doing anything wrong, he was just curious and then he got made fun of for being so.
He just wanted to be cute.
“I forgive you all,” he lies. They probably know he doesn’t actually, but he doesn’t care.
Still, it’s enough to satisfy their mother as she finally lets them all eat. As Ichimatsu picks up his chopsticks, he sends a glare to each of his brothers who all flinch. They don’t look at him for the rest of the night and mind their own business with their own food.
‘They’re right, you know. A freak like you will never be cute.’
Still, it would be nice to relive that moment where he thought it was. Before his stupid brothers ruined it for him.
A faint dark aura that would become all too synonymous with the fourth eldest starts to form around him as he angrily eats.