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Looking at all the old and wrinkled-up clothes crowding up her wardrobe, Tsugumi couldn’t help but sigh, and wonder if the fashion-loving antics of Himari and Tomoe started rubbing off on her. While Tsugumi always tried her best to keep everything in her room as neat and tidy as possible, it appears that mere months of shopping with her friends was enough to crowd the entirety of her closet with clothes of all sorts of colors and styles that were never given the chance to be worn by her and left to simply gather dust.
However, not being one to get discouraged by something as silly as a mere messy closet, the brown-haired girl slapped her cheeks a couple of times and took a couple of deep breaths, in order to get herself into the wardrobe-cleaning spirit. After that, in addition to some reassuring words, Tsugumi puffed her chest out with all the confidence she could muster and marched inside, ready to take on the day.
—-----------------------------
When it comes to her regular closet-cleanings, Tsugumi had a system that she always used. She first checked to see if the clothes still fit her, and if they fit, she gets to keep them. On the other hand, if she managed to grow out of those clothes, she would sew any rips or tears on the clothes and pass them down to any of her shorter friends. And considering that she was already on the shorter side, that mostly meant giving these clothes to the likes of Ako or Tsukushi.
After around ten minutes of cleaning, Tsugumi managed to clean out a good majority of her closet and laid out each piece of clothing onto her bed into the appropriate pile. Internally, the keyboardist breathed a sigh of relief that around half of her closet was cleaned up in such a shorter span of time, and felt the need to give herself a nice pat on the back. Upon going back into the closet to pick up where she left off, however, one particular piece of clothing caught her attention. Or, more specifically, an outfit.
One unfortunately familiar outfit.
An outfit that shocked the rest of Afterglow and caused Ran to run outside crying that this “isn’t Tsugumi at all”.
Running her fingers over the spiked shoulders of the leather jacket, Tsugumi expected the memory of such an outfit to bring back feelings of cringe and regret. However, for some reason, thinking back to the time she wore the outfit, she felt a bit…warm. It may have been a bit excessive and she did overdo the whole “punk rock biker” bit, but something about wearing a more boyish outfit made the barista feel oddly happy. Almost as if wearing this outfit would lead to her discovering a brand-new and more Tsugurific part of herself that she somehow remained oblivious to up until now.
At this point, the temptations overtook Tsugumi, and she just had to try on the outfit again. With some changes in order, of course…
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With her eyes wide open and her heartbeat quickening with that same indescribable emotion, Tsugumi couldn’t help but stare at the unrecognizable figure in the mirror copying her every movement.
After carefully removing the spikes from the shoulders of the leather jacket, she layered the dark jacket over a plain-white button up shirt and a tie that matched the color of the jacket. She also retained the black slacks and matching fingerless gloves from the original outfit, but swapped out the tacky platform boots for her regular brown slip-on shoes. All in all, Tsugumi felt stronger and more confident with her appearance than ever, much to her internal confusion. She may have been insecure with a bunch of stuff, but her appearance was not one of those things.
At least, most of the time anyways....There were times when she admired and envied the coolness and masculine charms of people like Ran or Tomoe. But then again, what member of the sapphic population wouldn’t?
Feeling around in the pockets of her jacket, Tsugumi pulled out and found the sunglasses that she wore. However, she opted to simply nestle the sunglasses into her short dark-brown hair, resulting in her bangs being momentarily pushed back, causing the odd euphoric feeling to return and quickly dissipate. Wanting this strange sensation in her chest to return, Tsugumi pushed back her bangs yet again, being careful not to crush the lenses of the shades. And just like the barista predicted, the euphoria returned once again, her heart overflowing with that confusing feeling of joy. Testing the waters with this new masculine appearance, Tsugumi tried to channel her inner Ran and lower her voice to sprout a pick-up line out of only the cheesiest of teen dramas, which managed to somehow make her brain explode from the overflow of this weird euphoria. On the outside, this translated to her rapidly jolting and turning away from the mirror and hiding her blushy and joyful face in her knees.
And from that emotional high came a…frankly bizarre daydream, centering around a biker version of herself. Some particularly confusing aspects of these daydreams included Tsugumi somehow using martial arts to beat up guys twice her size in order to rescue a petite and nerdy girl, said petite and nerdy girl having a close resemblance to Sayo, and, above all, Tsugumi being referred to with terms like “handsome”, “hunk”, and “he”, which only caused the confusing feelings to almost flow out of her orifices.
The brunette barely had time to contemplate the odd daydream before the ringing of a familiar bell and two familiar voices snapped her out of that elaborate fever dream, one husky and awkward and the other slow and goofy.
Rushing over to the front counter, Ran’s expression instantly bristled at the sight of the leather garment, but instantly softened upon seeing that Tsugumi wasn’t going “full biker” with the get-up, unlike last time. However, his expression promptly bristled again, once Moca decided to playfully flirt with the brunette and compliment her new get-up, coincidentally using the same terms as the fantasy version of her crush.
Handsome. Hunk. Bad boy. Guy. He.
Upon seeing Tsugumi’s flustered behavior at these particular terms, something clicked in the ashen-haired breadaholic’s head as they smirked and continued to use these terms to both butter up the brunette in front of them, and to see what is, without a doubt, gender euphoria emanating from Tsugu’s Tsugu-rific being. That is, until the jealous black-haired vocalist forced his partner to turn back to him, in order to shut them up with a kiss. Needless to say, this shut both sides of the couple up, as they buried their faces onto the table.
But in the midst of Moca’s buttering-up, Tsugu managed to put two and two together. After all, when spending your childhood with the likes of the very-not-cis Afterglow, you start to get a built-in trans-mission of sorts. And honestly, knowing just where those sudden unexplainable bursts of happiness from trying on more masculine fashion comes from, ending up giving Tsugu even more euphoria than even the action of putting on the masculine-leaning clothes. And with that realization, he is brimming with confidence and ready to attack the day with his new-found and Tsugu-rific identity.
After setting down a simple couple’s dish that he prepared for the happy couple (chocolate french toast topped with strawberries), Tsugu decided to take his new outfit and newly-found identity out on the town. Just before he could go around the block, however, he decided to text Tomoe and Himari about his recent discovery.
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tsugurific: Um…
tsugurific: I have some news for you…
tsugurific: I may be a fellow masc,@noodlehead…
noodlehead: trust me. moca figured it out.
pan (ran) eater: mocas a genius ya know
pan (ran) eater: congrats on your egg crackin
noodlehead: same pronouns as me. right?
tsugurific: That would be amazing! ^v^
tsugurific: THANKS!
tsugurific: Some days, I may need to switch to she/her or they/them, however.
noodlehead: no worries.
Ei-Ei-Oh!: You know what that means? Uwu
tsugurific: Uh-oh!
SOIYA!: A SHOPPING TRIP!
Ei-Ei-Oh!: A SHOPPING TRIP!
tsugurific: Guys! Are you sure you wanna go through with this?!
tsugurific: I just finished cleaning out the closet from the last hundred shopping trips!
pan (ran) eater: sorryyy
pan (ran) eater: you know the afterglow traditions
pan (ran) eater: come out to the notgirls go shopping with the notgirls
SOIYA!: I have only the coolest and manliest outfits in mind! Maybe I should bring Ako with us!
pan (ran) eater: u sure that takin advice from ako hot topic udagawa is the best advice?
pan (ran) eater: last time they tried to give fashion advice to tsugu poor wittle ran shut himself in his room and was in the corner for the whole day…
pan (eater) eater: think of what this would do to his gf (sayo)
tsugurific: MOCA!
tsugurific: But…
tsugurific: If it would help me look more manly…
tsugurific: Than sure! I’d love for Ako to come with us!
noodlehead: NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!
(noodlehead exits the chat)
pan (ran) eater: wooops
pan (ran) eater: looks like moca has to go and help their love recover.
pan (ran) eater: brb
pan (ran) eater: tell me when you finished the shopping
(pan (ran) eater left the chat)
SOIYA!: Okay! By the time we’re finished with Tsugu, he will have Sayo ABSOLUTELY, 100%, DOWN BAD for him!
Ei-Ei-Oh!: ^
tsugurific: ^^
(Ei-Ei-Oh!, SOIYA!, and tsugurific left the chat)
(tsugurific entered the chat)
tsugurific: Wait, what exactly are you going to do to me?