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Hanazawa Teruki. It’s not a far cry from who he could have been, had his parents not “chickened out”. He asked them once (when he couldn’t have been older than three or four) if they’d ever considered calling him something different. To think- the name he’s fallen in love with was one he already could have had.
There was some trouble in changing his name in the registry for Black Vinegar. Despite hardly reaching out to him, his parents were in frequent contact with the school. They heard about him passing out in the middle of the day second-hand, and had sent him an email demanding he take better care of himself. Acting like an adult and getting all of his meals together was hard- maybe he was struggling more than he wanted to admit. Nonetheless, after about 17 emails his teachers were seeing the right name. It was even easier to convince them to let him have the “boys” uniform. The blazers everyone wore were the same, it just came down to the ties and slacks or bows and skirts. The shop providing them was relaxed about gender and had already given students pieces the school fought against, and after only months of Teru’s class rebelling, the school had given up entirely.
Naturally, most of his accounts were under his dead name. Anything his parents had set up or interacted with, as well as anything that demanded his legal information. Yes, Teruki might be a rather androgynous name, but there was something about that old name that felt so frilly and feminine. It gave him memories of pouting every day he wound up in a dress and got in trouble for getting the edges muddy, or when a classmate in elementary said he couldn’t play dragons with them because he was a girl.
He’s gotten good at not being told what to do, actually. Gender was a carnival ride he was on by himself, and it was messy as heck, but he got to choose what happened. So what if the pastels he loved were girl’s colors? And yet the tight feeling in his chest as everything fell into place when he donned his first binder, a sleek black half-tank, proved the pain of pretending was so much worse than the hurdles of making people respect him. He had psychic powers, and the classmates who made fun of him got to feel the weight of the air and reflect on what they did to him.
He kept hearing the name Hanazawa-kun. Mob was nothing if not polite, so though he’d suggested that Teru was fine, the formality remained. The respect from Mob was like no other, and as much as the name Hanazawa felt more of his parents than his own, maybe it was a little sweet to hear it being used so gently. Today they were walking along the edge of the stream next to Salt Middle School, occasionally swerving their path to give a respectful distance to the people picnicking or gazing up at the clouds. Mob, as always, was rather deep in thought when he had initially approached, but as Teru started talking, he felt eyes on him with so much sincerity that it left him choking on his own ramblings.
That night, he was still thinking about Mob and getting flustered. He couldn’t remember the last time anyone paid attention to him for him. His parents clearly didn’t care whether he lived or died, with the exception of the “burden” sending him a monthly allowance apparently was. He was kicking his legs in the air like a little kid. Even if Mob’s admiration felt so foreign, it was too good to ever give up. He was ready to text him to thank Mob for the good day, but- wait… he’d need a phone number for that.
Mob invited him to head to Spirits and Such at some point, saying his Shishou was always excited to have more recognition of the office. Teruki probably wouldn’t provide them with more jobs himself, but according to Mob, the more people who had even heard of the business’s name, the happier his Shishou seemed.