Chapter 1:

One

Can You Love Me?


Like every school day, my alarm wakes me up at 07:30 and not a minute later, I hate getting out of bed since it's my comfortable safe space, no one disturbs me there and I'm free to be who I am. However, if I don't get out of bed and get myself ready for school I won't be there in time, and with the amount of classes I've missed already I can't miss another or school will mail my parents about my absence. School mailing my parents about me missing school is my worst nightmare, we all know how parents are, "Why are you missing school? Is something wrong?" Those are the kinds of questions I don't want my parents asking since they wouldn't understand me, even if I told them what's wrong. Wrong isn't the right word, because nothing's wrong, loads of people around the world experience the exact same thing as me, but I don't have a better word for this. 
Anyway, I haven't even introduced myself yet, my name is Kazuki Takeshi, but most people don't call me this. Actually, only one person calls me Kazuki right now, but you have to start somewhere! There's no way I'm telling my parents to call me Kazuki, they wouldn't understand.
I get up and start getting dressed, this is another thing I hate doing since I have to look at my own body, I know I could get dressed without looking at myself and I have tried this before, but it's harder than you think. Dressing is, regrettably, something you have to do, since going to school in your pajamas is a no go. You either get funny looks, laughed at or, worst of all, unneeded questions from the teachers about why you forgot to (or decided not to, both are probably a bad sign) put any clothes on. No, I'd rather look at myself all day long than get questioned by the teachers, just let me be me in class, and let me go home as soon as school ends, no further attention needed. Nothing to see here, definitely nothing going on with me that I want to talk about with a teacher. I know teachers are there for their students, but getting questioned means people are more likely to figure out my secret, no thanks.
"KAZUKOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!! Hurry up or you'll be late!" Yells my mother up the stairs, I hate it when she does that, not the fact that she yells, that's actually pretty helpful when you accidentally doze off again when questioning if it's even worth it to get out of bed, but the fact that she uses that name, "Kazuko". I know it's not something I can blame my mother for, if I want her to call me Kazuki I know I should tell her to do so, she's not going to figure that out on her own, but it still hurts a bit every time I hear it. 
"Yeah I'll be right there!" I yell back, and start to actually make some progress, I know I said I started dressing already, but I kind of lied. Starting to get dressed for me means I start thinking about getting dressed, I need to mentally prepare a little bit before actually doing so. I get out of my pajamas and, to just rip the band aid off, the first thing I do is put on my bra. Had I mentioned that my body is that of a woman? Well, now I have. Now you're (hopefully) a bit less surprised about me using a different name than the one my parents gave me, not wanting to tell my parents about this, and me not wanting any attention in class. Kazuki Takeshi (given name Kazuko Takeshi) is transgender.
Some of you may wonder, why make that small of a change? Why go from Kazuko to Kazuki and not just a wholly different name? But, unlike you may think, it's not like I hate my given name. I know I just said I hated it when people called me that, but I actually like the sound of it. It's just that Kazuko is a feminine name and that's what I didn't want. So changing it to Kazuki, a masculine name, makes it so I still have it's cool sound, but without the femininity. Combine that with the fact that a small difference in sound is easy for people to change in their pronunciation, and that if someone calls me by my old name I will still react, be it out of habit or because I hear "Kazu-" and start reacting expecting to hear "-ki" at the end. I get why some people like me would opt for a bigger difference, but at the end of the day, it's my name.
I finish dressing up in my usual hoodie to hide my breasts and baggy pants to hide my hips, it doesn't work perfectly, but fine enough I guess, and go downstairs to, as usual, meet my mom in the kitchen. We have our daily little conversations covering absolutely nothing and she's off to work. This is how the school day mornings usually go, a talk with my mother that covers nothing interesting and breakfast, nothing more. If you're wondering where my dad is, he works night shifts at the hospital, so he's almost always either at work, or asleep.
I finish breakfast and go to school, I use my bicycle to go everywhere, and school is no exception. Unsurprisingly, I'm just in time, everyone is already in the classroom, my best friend Taiki (he is currently the only one who refers to me as Kazuki), the classmates who we can skip over, I usually call them "class filling" in my head and Nana, the only one in the room who I will use any text on. I desperately want to tell her how much I like her, but then there's the elephant in the room, she'll either think I'm lesbian (which would be a major problem since either she is too, which means she'll maybe like me, but as a girl, or she'll be like "eww no I don't wanna have a girlfriend, I'm straight") or I'll have to tell her I feel like a guy, and there's no way anyone, either straight or gay, would want to be in a relationship with a trans person, right?

Sarski
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Koyomi
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witch
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Can You Love Me?