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“Chuuya,” Kouyou started, from her spot across from him, her voice gentle and smooth, much like a white opal, “when are you going to tell me what’s wrong?”
The boy sputtered at the sudden question, coughing into his teacup: pretty, porcelain. Drops of green tea hit his tan, freckled face, but the drink wasn’t hot enough, anymore, for it to hurt. Then again, Chuuya possessed a higher pain tolerance than most: a result of others’ betrayal and brainlessness.
Embarrassed, Chuuya moved the white, embellished cup away from his lips. He wiped at his face with one of his black, leather gloves, pretending that he hadn’t floundered. His life was much like that: pretend. He couldn’t imagine what it was like, really, to be a normal person.
“How do you know something’s wrong?” the boy questioned, realizing too late that he could’ve at least tried to lie—but he had really believed that he had hid his thoughts pretty well, tucking them into deep crevices where they couldn’t spill out.
At the inquiry, Kouyou’s raspberry-colored eyes scanned over him, like she was picking him apart, bit by bit. She had always been an intuitive individual—it had aided in her success—yet she was one of the few that didn’t make Chuuya feel stupid.
Still, it wasn’t exactly nice to be observed.
“Well, you’re sitting correctly,” the young woman noted, no bite to her words. “That’s one thing.”
In return, one of Chuuya’s eyebrows raised. “I always sit correctly,” he stated.
Kouyou made an expression, then, much like disagreement—her rosy lips pinching; her soft gaze sharpening. Respectfully, she held her tongue and took a sip of her own tea, far more gracefully, placing the fragile cup back in her lap. “I’m certain there are many other things that you could currently be doing.”
At the words, dripping in truth, the teenager glanced away, finding himself ensnared. Weakly, he attempted to break through the thin, simple net—his heart not in it; his heart nonexistent. “Maybe I just wanted to hang out.”
“Maybe?” the mafia executive repeated, prodding at a tower that was bound to collapse. “May I hear why you’re truly here?”
“I—”
The ginger fell silent, hesitating. He had been hesitating since the moment he stepped into Kouyou’s space, pretending to care about green tea and haute cuisine. Seafood was good, yes, but it wasn’t that good. He had never been a picky eater. He wasn’t given the luxury.
Admittedly, it was strange to think that some people were. It was strange, too, that he could afford whatever he wanted, now. He had once spent nights starving, wishing for something good to eat, and here he was, able to afford it, and there were still some nights where he ate senbei for dinner.
“I want to tell you something,” Chuuya finally admitted, and he had to say it quickly, or he wouldn’t have said it at all, the words all tacky.
Curious, Kouyou leaned in. It was interesting, really, how someone could be so poised—even while doing the most mundane things. “I’m listening,” the young woman assured, some strands of her salmon-colored hair shifting ever so slightly.
The mafia executive looked the same that she always did: stripped from a canvas. Her lips were rosy, her eyes were painted, and her kimono was free from any wrinkles—and yet there was a different air about her, today, that Chuuya was certain had less to do with her and more to do with his own worries.
There was a knot in his stomach that wouldn’t go away: tight, thorny. It stabbed against his stomach lining, in all of its stubbornness, and it almost made him nauseous. “I just don’t want you to see me any differently,” the mafioso muttered, voicing the rotten truth. At it, his insides squirmed and pulsed.
“Ah.” Kouyou moved the teacup in her lap to the low, expensive table between them, porcelain meeting the glass surface with a small, delicate clink. Only when the cup was placed and her hands were free did the woman wipe at her kimono—despite Chuuya seeing nothing on it. “It is human nature to make mistakes.”
“It’s not a mistake,” Chuuya stated quickly, unintentionally raising his voice.
He didn’t think that it was a mistake, at least. He was a boy. He knew that he was a boy. Such small things—cutting his hair; hiding his chest; being called a boy—filled him with a euphoria that wouldn’t make sense, otherwise.
He just didn’t want Kouyou to judge him, with all of her formalities. So, he found himself taut, pulled by the urge to be open and also the urge to hide. He knew the woman cared for him—that was part of the reason why he wanted to share his secret—but he also understood that certain mentalities were ingrained.
He just couldn’t handle it, if Kouyou started to call him a girl, and their dynamic shifted.
The mafia executive hummed, clearly awaiting an explanation, the sound velvety. Chuuya tried to focus on it—on its tenderness, before he spoke again.
“Have you ever just—I don’t know—wanted to be completely different?” he asked, the words—stupid, now—mimicking his scrambled mind. He hadn’t been the best at conversing to begin with. He preferred to settle things equally: with a fight, whether it ended in one’s demise or not.
Kouyou was silent, for a moment. “A long time ago,” she finally answered, and there was something about the words that felt so heavy.
Like he was bearing them, too, Chuuya looked down, his heterochromatic eyes—brown and blue—focusing on his teacup. He was suddenly aware of his own fingers, pressed against his gloves. “Did you ever have it, y’know, happen?”
The ginger imagined Kouyou pursuing her lips before she softly answered, “No. Not in the way I had hoped.” She paused, then, like she was thinking, and Chuuya clung onto the silence, wishing he could wear it like a blanket, all bundled around him. “But I did change.”
The teenager grew curious at the statement, but he knew better than to question it. Kouyou, like most members of the Port Mafia, kept her past tucked away. Trauma was a blade that anyone could yield—including oneself. The boy knew, all too well, how his memories could hurt him at the earliest hours, when his room was too quiet.
“I had it happen,” Chuuya said, slowly glancing upwards. He caught Kouyou’s gaze, brown and blue meeting raspberry. “In the way I had hoped.”
“I’m glad,” Kouyou responded, with a softness to her stare, and she sounded sincere.
“But, now,” the teenager started, his words soft and vulnerable, “I kinda feel like a fake.” It was frightening, really, how many aspects of his life that the statement could apply to. Did someone like him really deserve to exist?
“Why is that?” Kouyou inquired, with a slight tilt of her head. Her gaze remained focused, fixed like a feline’s, and Chuuya could feel something burning, faintly, beneath his freckled flesh. He looked down.
“Ane-san…” The boy said it softly, only to trail off in hesitation.
Trying to prepare himself, he took a deep breath, hyperaware of the rise and fall of his chest. It was hard to breathe. It was hard to think. Before Chuuya could speak, he folded into himself, finding comfort in the one person that—without Corruption—couldn’t betray him: himself.
The words tasted like poison. He still pushed them out—because how could he ever be a man if he was scared to be a boy? “I used to be a girl.”
Kouyou was silent, for a moment. Then, in a tone difficult to read, she spoke. “I see.”
Surprised by such a simple reaction, Chuuya glanced up once more, trying to figure out whether or not Kouyou was upset—disgust at her brows; anger at her eyes. He found, unexpectedly, that the salmon-haired woman was smiling fondly, the corner of her curled, painted lips visible, even with the lifted, manicured hand obscuring her face.
“Hey,” Chuuya said, loudly, his eyebrows pinched, “are you smiling?”
Kouyou laughed, then, the sound playful rather than mocking. Chuuya could hear the difference. Some people couldn’t—and the young woman used that to her advantage. “I’ve always known that.”
“What?” the young mafioso voiced, the words falling from his lips like water from a broken dam: sudden, strong. He had spent so long fretting over Kouyou’s reaction, and she had already known? For how long?
“I took your body measurements,” the woman explained, like she could hear his thoughts, “quite a bit ago. Do you remember that?”
Chuuya did, after thinking about it for a second or two. He had been asked to attend an important event, the dress code fixed, and, to no surprise, had nothing to wear. He preferred pizzazz over professionalism. Some people didn’t like that—too boring.
It must have been his bust size, then, that had given it away—if Kouyou hadn’t already had her suspicions.
“Yeah, but—” Chuuya paused, finding himself blinking quickly, as the reality of the situation hit him all at once. He wasn’t daydreaming. “So, you aren’t upset?” Quietly, he took a small breath. “You don’t think it’s wrong?”
“Why would it be wrong?” Kouyou asked in return, and despite the knowing air she always carried, the young woman did sound genuinely confused.
That was enough to make the teenager grimace, nasty, nauseating thoughts rising to the surface of his mind. Unfortunately, it wasn’t unfamiliar. “It’s not biologically normal,” the boy explained.
“Who said that?”
Unsure, Chuuya bit at his lip, careful not to press too hard. He used to have a habit, when he was younger, of tearing the thin tissue. Taking care of other kids, as a kid himself, was stressful.
“Have you heard of the split gill mushroom?” Kouyou said suddenly, taking Chuuya off guard.
“Uh, no,” the teenager answered, honest. He wasn’t much of a plant person. Gardening was too gentle for someone like him, who felt a rush when fists collided. The quaint activity took patience—and he wasn’t patient. The quaint activity took time—and Chuuya didn’t have much of it. Besides, training was far more useful than filling a watering can.
“It boasts more than twenty-five thousand distinct sexes,” Kouyou declared.
Chuuya blinked. “Huh,” he voiced, uncertain of what else to say. That was a really big number.
“And more than four hundred types of fish change their sex,” the mafia executive added, far more knowledgeable than Chuuya had originally thought. Had she researched this, perhaps? Why?
“Doesn’t the clownfish do that?” Chuuya questioned, surprising himself. He didn’t know where he got the notion from—although he did have his suspicions. Several members of the Sheep had been fond of animals. Perhaps it was nice, for the kids, to think about beings that didn’t truly understand abandonment—wishing it could be them.
“Mhm,” the other hummed in agreement, jogging Chuuya’s memories.
“But that’s only if its female mate dies,” the boy noted, like it was an argument—like he didn’t believe that Kouyou should’ve accepted him as quickly as she had, despite him wanting her to.
“And that’s different?” Kouyou inquired, making Chuuya’s fingers twitch.
“I don’t have a dead wife.”
“But the girl you were was never truly alive,” Kouyou stated, calm, and there was something about the statement, as truthful as it was, that made the boy feel like he had been kicked in the stomach. “Are you more comfortable, as a boy?”
“I am,” Chuuya answered. He hoped that he didn’t look as weak as he felt.
“You only live once, Chuuya,” Kouyou said carefully, knowing that fact intimately. “Why rob yourself of comfort?”
“I—”
The ginger tried to form a sentence, but the words got stuck, clinging to the roof of his mouth. Even as he swallowed a gulp of air, trying to push them back down, they remained in place.
“If you find being a boy more agreeable, then, at the moment, you were meant to be a boy,” the young woman stated, her words flowing like water down a stream, fueled by certainty. “You’re allowed to change your mind, if something else seems more fitting, yet for now, I’m”—Kouyou began to smile—“pleased that you know what you want and are sticking by it.”
Something burned in Chuuya’s chest, warm, relieving, and wonderful. There was a certain sensation at his eyes that he tried to will away. “I was worried that you’d judge me,” the boy admitted softly.
Kouyou lifted an eyebrow, almost teasingly. “But be fine with torture?”
The question hit Chuuya all at once, and he found himself laughing: short yet loud. “Yeah.”
“Goodbye, lad,” Kouyou said, playfully shooing him away with a flick of her slim hand, the light catching in her red-colored nails. “Go play your video games.”