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Wow.. Rikai sure talked a lot. Ohse thought to himself as he sat with his knees curled up to his chest, listening to Rikai ramble about something only important to him. But if it was important to Rikai, it was important to Ohse too. That was just how they were together. Rikai talked, Ohse listened.
However, Ohse kept getting lost in Rikai’s fast paced words, his robotic hand gestures, his bright crimson eyes, the way he smiled at him when he spoke. It was easy to lose track of what was actually being said with such a perfect example of a functioning person in front of him.
Ohse was nowhere near as functional as Rikai, so he often liked to study him to figure out how he should act himself. The proper way to stand, the proper way to sit, the proper way to exist in general. Studying Rikai like this made his heart flutter in a way that Ohse wasn’t exactly comfortable with yet. He hadn’t given himself the time to dwell on this feeling because it scared him, so he continuously pushed it down.
Just then, Ohse was observing Rikai’s upright, perfect posture as he droned on about something he should probably be listening to. Ohse shifted his own posture to match, uncurling his legs up from his chest, placing them in criss cross position as they were seated on the floor of Ohse’s room. He even straightened his back and held his head up, appearing to look attentive and listening.
Rikai immediately took notice, giving him a compliment on his good posture.
“I see you’re a quick learner Ohse! And who other to lead by example than me! You matched my posture perfectly and I didn’t even need to scold you!”
Ohse merely smiled and hummed in response, nodding his head to acknowledge his friend's praise. Ohse had always had a hard time taking a compliment, his self-deprecating attitude had always gotten in the way of such things, but Rikai had almost made it feel easy. Compliments from Rikai felt good and made him actually want to better himself, making him forget how much he deeply loathed himself, even if only for a moment.
Suddenly Rikai’s tone shifted from what he had been rambling about before and he seemed to be more sincere and quiet. Ohse’s attention immediately shifted back to what was being said, wanting to support his friend.
“Ohse, I’m so glad I have a friend like you..” Rikai spoke from the heart now. The sudden tonal shift had caught Ohse a little off guard, especially at how genuine the compliment sounded.
“I’m sure you have far better friends than me.” Ohse grumbled, falling back into his self deprecating behavior.
“I mean it, you’re really a great friend. You’re the only one willing to listen to me when I have something to say, you believe in me, you follow my example, I enjoy our talks and I enjoy being around you. You’re-” He paused as if to fully consider his next words. “-my best friend, I think..” He smiled at him, a nice, warm, genuine smile.
Ohse was rather taken aback. Best friend? He was his best friend? Out of all the other people in their house, out of all the other people in the world , he was the one he chose to be the best? The words coming out of Rikai’s mouth were enough to make his heart sing, but how could anyone say anything like that about some freak like him?
“Are you sure?” Ohse asked, coming out ruder than intended. He quickly slapped a hand over his mouth, shocked by his own tone. His question had been genuine, meant to be filled with self doubt. He was unsure that someone so perfect would consider him for such a high honor, but it sounded more ungrateful than he had meant. “I’m sorry, that came out wrong. I’ll go kill myself now.” Ohse got up and started walking towards the window, more embarrassed than anything.
“Wait-” Rikai grabbed his wrist, pulling him back down to a seated position in front of him. “I understand you didn’t mean it the way it sounded, you were just doubting yourself again.” Ohse curled his legs back into a criss cross position and nodded. Of course Rikai understood, he always understood. He was so smart he could always figure him out, and that both bothered and comforted Ohse.
Was he really that transparent? Yes, yes he was.. He was pretty open about his genuine distaste for himself, he probably wasn’t that hard to figure out. Rikai knew all too well about Ohse’s unsavory attitude towards himself, yet he still stuck around. This part of himself usually drove people away, but to Rikai he saw it as a challenge. An opportunity to place his wisdom on someone who needed it, and oh how Rikai loved to spit some wisdom.
But at the same time, their friendship wasn’t one-sided. As much as Ohse would like to tell people that Rikai was the only one doing any good in their relationship, what Rikai said earlier was true. Ohse was a good listener, he did genuinely care about what he had to say, he did believe in him. He was in fact a good friend to Rikai, Ohse just had so much trouble believing it.
Then Rikai started to make a face. He put a hand up to his own chin and looked off to the side, perturbed by a thought. “You know Ohse, I-” He started, struggling to find the words. Ohse listened intently, wondering what was plaguing his mind. What would possibly have him making that face? Was he going to take back his stance on him being his best friend?
“Sometimes I wish you had been born a girl…”
“What?”
Rikai had almost said it so quietly that Ohse thought he had misheard him. He couldn’t possibly mean what he thought he said.
“I’m sorry, that was silly of me to say. It’s just..” He looked off to the side and itched the back of his head, embarrassed. “-We compliment each other so well and being my best friend and all, sometimes I wish you were a girl so I could just propose to you..”
So he had heard him correctly. “Propose? Like you want to marry me?” Ohse was beyond disbelief, feeling like this had come out of nowhere.
“I know it sounds stupid! Thinking that of someone who’s also male? It doesn’t make sense!” Rikai looked a little panicked, perhaps regretting letting his impulsive thought slip. “But- I’ve just never met someone like you. Someone who believes in me like you do, someone who listens to me like you do. Someone so kind and genuine and caring, I’ve never found a girl quite like you. It would just be so much easier if you were born a girl so that I could properly marry you.”
Ohse was shocked. Blush creeped up on his round cheeks, lightly dusting them with pink. Was this some sort of confession? No one had ever confessed to him before, especially not in such a roundabout way. He didn’t think he deserved to be admired in such a way, especially not thought of as a candidate for marriage, they weren’t even dating! Plus there was something Ohse had never told Rikai before..
He had been born a girl.
But was now the right time to tell him that? How would he react? Rikai seemed put off by the idea of even being in love with someone of the same gender, how was he going to explain his transition to him?
“Rikai, I think there’s something you should know.” Ohse started, uncomfortable with the idea of outing himself, but if he was ever going to do it, now was his chance. If Rikai had a problem with it, then he didn’t know what he would do. Probably kill himself if he was being honest. But another part of himself deeply desired to be understood, especially by someone he cared so deeply about.
“I was born a girl, actually”
Rikai blinked several times in response, confused.
“Huh?”
“You said you wished I had been born a girl, I’m telling you that is true.”
Rikai’s face was frozen in place as if he couldn’t even begin to understand how that was possible.
“Come again?”
Ohse sighed and lifted up his shirt to reveal his top surgery scars, opting to just show him rather than speak on deaf ears. When he lifted his shirt, Rikai looked away and covered his face with his hands.
“STOP! THAT’S INDECENT!”
“Rikai just look! I promise I don't have boobs!”
Rikai peeked an eye out from between his fingers, more out of curiosity than anything. When he saw that Ohse was telling the truth, he slowly uncovered his face.
“Woah..” Rikai began to look a little too intently at Ohse’s chest, and more importantly, his scars. “Who did that to you?” Rikai looked worried. Did he think that he hadn’t chosen to get his breasts removed by his own free will?
“My surgeon did. I paid a lot of money to have them removed.”
“You did that on purpose? Why? Surely you were a beautiful woman?”
Ohse was a little surprised. Rikai was only 25, surely he had heard of transgender people before? Was he not familiar with the concept?
“I have something called gender dysphoria, a lot of trans people have it. It was just really important to me that I wasn’t a girl anymore, so I changed myself.”
“Oh, I’ve heard of trans people before, I just don’t think I’ve ever met any, until you of course.”
Ohse wasn’t sure if now was the best time to bring up Terra, one of their other housemates, was also transgender. But he thought it was probably not his place to out Terra like that.
Ohse put down his shirt, Rikai’s burning gaze was making him heat up more than he had expected, even if it was just the older man being curious.
“So..” Rikai looked away when Ohse put down his shirt, embarrassed that he had been staring. “You can just change your gender? Just like that? Isn’t that like, defying the laws of nature or something?” His question was inherently a little transphobic, but it was filled with genuine curiosity and sounded like he really did just want to understand. So, Ohse was determined to explain it to him the best he could. He was going to make his best friend understand.
“Mmm I think of it more like this.” Ohse got up and went over and stood in front of an easel in his room that had a canvas on it.
“You are born as a blank canvas when you’re young.” He motioned for Rikai to come over and join him. Rikai obediently followed suit, getting up and standing next to Ohse at the easel.
“Then, everyone takes a brush and paints all over you with their own perceptions, expectations, and ideas. Because we are so young, we don’t really know how to think for ourselves yet.”
As he was speaking, he picked up a paint brush, dabbed it in some paint and placed it in Rikai’s hand. He held Rikai's hand and moved it closer to the canvas, inviting him to paint on it before letting go. Rikai hesitated, but wasn’t about to interrupt his demonstration, so he placed a few strokes on the canvas, aligning them to make a perfect pink square in the middle of the canvas. Then, and only then did Ohse continue.
“But as we grow older, we grow more uncomfortable with the story everyone has already painted for us,” He traced his finger around the edge of the pink square, smudging the paint a bit. “-and we find new ways to express ourselves as we begin to find the words.”
Ohse then picked up another paint brush, dabbing it in blue paint. “We then buy our own paint, our own brushes and we make our own story.” With a swift motion, he swiped the brush across the canvas, ruining the perfect pink square.
“We paint a beautiful self portrait on our own canvas and become who we were truly meant to be.” He worked at the canvas intently for a few minutes. Painting an abstract but recognizable self portrait of himself. He cringed here and there at the action of depicting a loser like him on canvas, but it had to be done for the demonstration. When he was finished, he took the pink paint brush from Rikai and put both of the brushes into a cup of water, turning to look at Rikai.
“That’s kinda how I view not only being transgender, but life in general.” Ohse smiled up at his friend. “Being transgender is just another fact of life and something I get to be because it is part of my truth. That’s all I’m doing, living my truth. Something you helped me realize that I need to do by encouraging me to live. I can’t live if I don’t live my truth.”
“Ohse..” Rikai almost looked moved to tears. “You finally were able to paint yourself.. And.. you called it beautiful. You called yourself beautiful!” Rikai sniffed, his eyebrows creasing his forehead but a smile pulled at his lips.
“Oh.. yeah.. I guess I did.” Ohse breathed, looking at the ugly, abstract self portrait of himself he had managed to stain the canvas with. “Well I wouldn’t really call it beautiful, but what it represents is beautiful.” Ohse reconciled that his view on the beauty of self actualization and his own self hatred were rather contradictory, but that was something he had yet to dwell on fully, so he decided to not bring it up to Rikai because it might muddy the metaphor he just gave for being transgender.
“If being transgender makes you feel beautiful, if it encourages you to live your truth, and to live at all, I think it is beautiful too.” Rikai clasped a hand on Ohse’s shoulder and gave it a great big supportive squeeze, followed by a great big supportive smile.
Ohse looked for any semblance of deceit in his eyes, since Rikai had been so unsure of this a second ago. But as he searched his crimson irises, deceit was nowhere to be seen. Instead he was met with an incredible warmth and understanding no one had shown to him for as long as he could remember, and it made him feel… Loved?
“You are beautiful, Ohse.” Rikai’s hand traveled down from his shoulder, trailing his upper arm, to his forearm, until it fell into the other man’s hand. “Truly.”
Ohse’s eyes went wide and he felt the blush return to his face as Rikai held his hand. But then, an inkling of doubt began to plague his thoughts as he recalled something Rikai had said earlier and he pulled his hand away. “You’re not just saying all this now that you know I was born a girl right?”
Rikai’s expression changed from loving to puzzled in the blink of an eye. “Well, I had no idea you were born a woman in the first place, and my perception of you has not changed knowing what I know now..” Rikai’s eyes moved all across Ohse’s frame, studying him, trying to figure out if his own words were true. “I still definitely see you as a man. I think what I meant earlier was that if you had remained a girl, that would make things much easier.”
Hearing this both reassured Ohse and confused him. How could Rikai accept that Ohse was transgender, but not accept the fact that he himself had feelings for another man. Rikai was confusing. Maybe he could accept queerness in other people but not himself? How sad..
“Rikai, there’s nothing wrong with being attracted to another man. But there is something wrong with being attracted to me. A loser like me doesn’t deserve your affections.”
Rikai suddenly got flustered at the implication. “I’m not attracted to men! I was just trying to say I would be attracted to you if you were a woman- I think..!”
As much as he hated himself and didn’t think he deserved to be loved, a part of Ohse’s heart broke just then. Whatever it was that he was wanting to hear, it was not that.
“O-oh… I’m sorry for assuming. How conceited of me, I should just go ahead and die.” Ohse turned around and grabbed the knife off his desk. However, instead of stabbing himself, he just stared at his own reflection in the blade, psyching himself up to actually go through with it.
Internally he was thinking of all the times Rikai had encouraged him to live, and how good that had made him feel about himself. That someone finally cared enough about an asshole like him to not only stop his rampant suicide attempts, but to help him work towards accepting himself more.
But that same person had just flat out told him he would only ever truly love him if he was a girl. Something Ohse had run from his whole life. In order for Rikai to love him, did he need to go back? What was he saying? He just gave a whole speech about how he needed to live his truth. But what if needing Rikai to love him more than just a best friend was also his truth?
These were all selfish thoughts of course, and Ohse hated acting out of selfishness. It made him feel even worse about himself than normal. But he had been grappling with these feelings for Rikai for a while now, and hearing Rikai’s pseudo confession ignited that feeling within him tenfold. More than he even realized he had felt before. He had a shot, but at the same time he didn’t, and it was tearing him apart.
Is that what he needed? To be loved by someone? And did that person have to be Rikai? The pang in his heart certainly told him so. That pang in his heart was actually starting to over power his hatred for himself and was convincing him to fight for his shot. If Rikai truly cared about his well being, he would not fault him for acting out of selfishness just this once..
Rikai was already moving to take the knife away from Ohse before he slammed it on the desk and whirled around to face Rikai once again. “Can’t we try?”
“Try what?” Rikai asked, defeated, already knowing what he meant.
“You and me? Can’t we give it a shot?”
“I’m not gay, Ohse..” Rikai said with sorrow hanging heavy in his tone.
“How do you know?” Ohse was sounding more desperate than he had ever before.
“I- I don’t know.. It’s just not proper.”
“How can you be fine with me being transgender but not the idea of people of the same gender being together?” Ohse pleaded, getting frustrated with Rikai for being dense.
“It’s fine for other people to be like that, just not me . It’s not proper for me. I’m just living my truth, Ohse. Like you.” Rikai stared at Ohse intently, despair upon his face.
“I don’t think you are!” Ohse shouted in anguish.
“Goodbye Ohse.” Rikai was done with this conversation. He was frustrated and confused beyond belief, but he knew he needed to be anywhere but in that room.
Ohse’s feelings for Rikai were released like a flood, everything he had been pushing down for their stay at the share-house was being put on full display. As if he were standing naked and exposed before a crowd of people, confessing his undying love towards the brick wall behind them. How stupid he was to believe it would ever return his affections. How embarrassing. How cruel.
“I can be a girl if you want me to be!” Ohse reached up to cup Rikai’s face in his hands. It was his last futile attempt to get Rikai to stay and it was nothing but pathetic.
“I should have never said anything… goodbye, Ohse.”
And with that, Rikai hurriedly left the room, shutting the door hard behind him.
Ohse lowered his hands and stared in despair at the closed door in front of him. Slowly he dropped to his knees and began to silently sob.
How had that gone so wrong?
Ohse stared over at the painting on the easel, the one they had painted together. All he could see was the stain of a self portrait he had left and it reminded him of how pathetic he truly was.
Ohse got up swiftly, running over to tear the painting off the easel and throw it to the ground. He took the knife off the desk and began to slash at the image of himself on the canvas, destroying it again and again with each stab. Tears fell onto the canvas and reactivated the paint, smudging and destroying it even further until it was completely unrecognizable.
If he couldn’t kill himself, he could at least kill that depiction of himself. The very depiction that represented what separated him and Rikai. What in the end tore them apart.
And though he would never stop living his truth, the truth did hurt, and he was just going to have to live with that.