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“Hey…”
Lee’s trepidation did more to ruin the moment than the stomach-wringing question sitting on his tongue. Him and Neji were sitting together. It was a little blurry now, but it was one of their secluded spots. Hidden away in Neji’s room, or sitting in Lee’s car. Maybe it was over the phone. But Lee still regrets the calloused feel of the other boy’s hand in his.
“Have you told your parents yet? That I am trans. Your family. Or your cousin, Hinata.”
It was a new concept. Lee had been out for five or so years now. He trudged through the daunting halls of his junior and high school in the body, in the visage of someone foreign. He can hardly remember it now. Time and effort in the gym yielded the marks of a sculptor. Shitty and cheap, suffocating binders turned to sports bras and compression shirts as muscle filled his frame. Cutting his braid off in the bathroom at 2 A.M. had been the best decision he’s ever made. The bowl cut really helped– people really didn’t expect someone who wasn’t a man to choose that. Voice training and practice made him sound a little more familiar. Still, he hadn’t been able to through any sort of hormone therapy. He still felt girlish. In his hands, in his hips. Sometimes in his walk when it slips. In his face.
The idea of his boyfriend’s family ‘knowing’ was a new concept to him. It should be obvious that, if not fully a man, Lee was somewhere in the middle. But it had been resting heavy on his mind for whatever reason. Him and Neji had been dating for half a year now. Six months. The most he knew was that Neji’s relationship with them was strained. Immigrant family, hard-working parents, poor financial situation. They were close though. Close through the day-long fights over what Neji was supposed to do with his future.
“No.” Neji shook his head.
He waited for more. An explanation, preferably. Nothing really came.
“Why?”
“I don’t know how to break it to them,” Neji said, and his pale lips pursed. Even now Lee still had a hard time reading the emotion in his eyes. “I don’t know how I’d bring it up. I’ve thought about it, of course.”
Lee’s stomach dropped. “You have not talked about me? At all?”
Neji was around Gai all the time. They’ve talked, they’ve been to outings, the three of them. Countless times. And Neji never brought Lee up to his family? It’s been half a year. Neji has gone to every family and friend event/outing since they’ve started dating. Everyone knew about Lee’s other half. They've even discussed marriage.
“I don’t really mention my personal life when we talk,” Neji still wasn’t looking at him. He was fixated on the space in front of him, whatever it was at the time. “Besides. They’re conservative. I just don’t think it’d go over very well.”
I thought we were healthy, Lee stopped himself from saying. Instead, he nervously fidgeted with the fraying bandages over his hands. It was a problem of his, getting carried away at the gym, or in his martial arts classes. “I have met them once. Did they not get a very good look at me?”
“They don’t…” He paused, reconsidering his words. “They don’t get things like that very quickly. They still like you.”
“Do you not call me your boyfriend with them? Or use my pronouns?”
Neji wasn’t looking at him. Which was a little more hurtful. He had always done a really good job making Lee feel seen– there was something he said that was particularly eloquent once, ‘Whatever you decide you’re most comfortable being, I’ll support you. I’m here for who you are as a person’. It didn’t quite feel like that anymore. “I just refer to you by name. They know we’re dating.”
They sat in their uncomfortability.
“When do you intend on telling them?”
“I don’t know.”
“Do you not have a timeline…?”
“Not really.”
I feel like you don’t stand up for me, Lee frowned. I feel like you never will.
“I understand.”
Lee couldn’t wrap his head around it very well. This is who he was. If Neji was so enamored by him, in love as he had stated before with such tenderness, then what was this supposed to be? He didn’t understand it in the slightest. He thought that happy couples were supposed to try their hardest for each other. Maybe it was different. Maybe Lee was supposed to repent to everybody for how he was born.
It never really seemed fair.