Work Text:
“Good morning Mii-kun!”
“Ready for breakfast Mii-kun?”
“Mii-kun, you need to eat your food so Rii-san doesn’t get on your case for playing with it.”
“If you’re not gonna eat that, can I have it, Mii-kun?”
“Mii-kun, are you alright? You don’t look that well…”
“Mii-kun?”
“Miiiii-kun.”
“Mii-kun?”
“Miii-“
Miki stopped the voice with the oh-so-delicate means of slamming her hands on the table. “Would you stop calling me that!!” Miki yelled. “I’ve asked you time and again to address me using my actual name, but every single time you ignore me and continue calling me that! It’s a name, why the fuck is it so hard for you to-!”
Miki cut herself off. God dammit. Right, Miki remember to breathe. Breathe in… 1… 2… 3… 4… And out… 1… 2… 3…
As Miki struggled to reign her frustration in, she forced herself to pay attention to the rest of the room. There was Rii-san, holding her hands to her mouth and leaning back in surprise. There was Kurumi, tensed and halfway through reaching towards her shovel. Out of instinct at the loud noise, hopefully. And there was Yuki… mouth open in surprise, eyes wide, lips trembling, like she was the victim here.
Wrenching her gaze away, Miki pushed her chair back, barely resisting the urge to topple it. “I’m going to step out for a bit,” she said dismissively as she turned and stormed out of the room. No one stopped her by the time she had opened and slammed the sliding door shut.
Some time later, Miki was still hiding curled up in a deserted classroom on the third floor she had collapsed in as soon as she felt she was far away. She’d been in there for… the sun was up in the middle of the sky, so it was maybe noon? So maybe 4 hours? Without a working clock in the room, it was surprisingly hard to tell… She was getting hungry though, which probably meant it was indeed around lunchtime.
Not that she was going to leave anytime soon.
It’s just… why couldn’t Yuki get her fucking name right? Was it really that hard to do it? It was the same number of syllables even! She called Yuuri and Kurumi by names they liked! And she was usually accommodating in other areas too, so why was this one so hard!?
And sure, maybe she’d overreacted a bit to being called a nickname, but she’d tried asking nicely! She’d asked every single day and Yuki still didn’t do anything! Plus with everything else-
Miki cut that thought off and forced herself to breathe. She’d already been over that issue way too many times and didn’t want to think about it again when she couldn’t exactly do anything about it.
Still… Miki let her head lean against the wall and sighed. She really didn’t want to head back. She’d have to apologize for her outburst, and if Yuki called her that name again she’d… well, probably wind up here again, but openly sobbing instead of the little trickling she had been doing…
Miki tensed suddenly as the door slid open with a creak. She braced her hands on the ground in case she needed to get away, eyes tracking to the door. A hand entered, followed by an arm, a standard uniform, a shovel, long, black twin-tails… oh, it was just Kurumi. Miki relaxed a little bit but remained where she was while Kurumi’s eyes tracked the room, eventually landing on Miki. When they did, the athlete smiled hesitantly.
“Oh good, you’re here. I’ve been looking through the floors, and was starting to get worried you’d left for good…” One way or another, Miki added darkly. “Do you mind if I join you?”
Miki didn’t respond. She didn’t really want to interact with anyone at the moment… But she also didn’t want to further antagonize the group she was staying with needlessly and Kurumi wasn’t the one who’d butchered her name before… Doing nothing was just easier.
Kurumi visibly hesitated at Miki’s non-answer, before trying again. “Ok, do you mind if I sit over here?” She indicated a space a good 3 meters away from Miki. At Miki’s continued non-responsiveness, she walked over and sat down, carefully propping her shovel up against the wall. She actually wound up a little closer than 3 meters to avoid sitting on a particularly nasty bloodstain on the wall, but whatever. It was far enough.
After making herself comfortable looking out the window opposite where they sat, Kurumi continued. “I’m… not entirely sure what I should be doing here, but… Well for starters Rii-san managed to get Yuki into a game of creating new nicknames for you. Of which we’ve managed to convince her to let you choose which ones you actually want to be referred to by. Thankfully that wasn’t too hard, I don’t think she realized how much you didn’t like that name or she would’ve switched earlier… But, uh, if you have anything you want to talk about I’m here for you. Like, why you don’t like ‘Miki-kun’ or anything else going on? Or I can keep you company for a few hours, whatever you feel like.”
She lapsed into silence after that.
“Why do you care?” Miki finally asked when she couldn’t take it anymore.
“Hey!” Kurumi exclaimed with a cocky grin. “You’re a member of the School Live club. As your senpai, I gotta take care of you. Plus, well… I know it hasn’t been that long, but I do consider you a friend at this point.” That… did Miki consider the rest of the group friends? Probably yes… They’d saved her life, and even after that had made efforts to reach out to her even when she messed with their internal dynamic and went off on Yuki. So they were her friends. In which case… maybe she could open up a bit?
“People… people addressed me with ‘kun’ a lot when I was younger. But, when they said it they meant that I was a boy. Which, well, hurt because I’m a girl.” There, that was an accurate statement.
Kurumi frowned at that. “Well, that was shitty of them. Why the hell would they do that to a cute girl like you?”
Miki felt a smile briefly crawl up her face against her will at that. Damn cute girls and their compliments, for some reason they were really good at getting through her shields…
“Admittedly, um, most of them didn’t know I was a girl when they first met me… So they weren’t like, intentionally trying to hurt me. Well, except the ones that kept doing it after I corrected them, anyways, they were the worst.”
“Sounds like it,” Kurumi agreed. “Though, uh, you do know Yuki didn’t mean it like that?”
“I know, I know,” Miki responded while rolling her eyes. “Yuki-senpai was using it as a sign of closeness and intimacy. And I know my feelings are silly, basically no one has called me ‘kun’ in anything other than a feminine sense for years. Well, outside of the aforementioned assholes. I’m even fine being called it most of the time!” And she was! Hell, she’d held a part-time job last summer where her supervisor had addressed her with ‘kun’ basically every time, and she hadn’t once had this kind of issue! But…
“It’s just… even if I know that they don’t mean any harm by it, the word itself hurt me. A lot, at times. And… well, particularly when I’m having a bad day it can be really hard to keep the bad associations separate from the positive associations, especially when it’s in a similar setting…”
“Makes sense,” Kurumi replied. “Sounds kind of like how I rely on shovel-kun here-“ She tapped it with her hand “- a lot, but have a lot of… bad memories associated with it too.”
Well, she wasn’t sure those were entirely the same, but… “More or less,” Miki agreed.
“Well aside from that, you mentioned you were having a bad day? Want to talk about that?”
Miki blinked. Fuck, she had used that phrasing. And now- she sneaked a glance at Kurumi, who had a slightly worried expression on her face. Yeah, if she didn’t give some sort of explanation Kurumi would be worried about her, and she didn’t really want that after the girl had let her vent.
As for what to say… well the truth was inevitably coming out at this point, so why the fuck not just be honest?
“I ran out of hormones today,” she finally admitted, pushing her head into her knees.
“Oh shit,” Kurumi said in an alarmed voice. “That’s a medication, right?” Miki nodded. “Dammit, that’s really bad. Um, if you mind me asking… is your condition, ah, life threatening?”
“…Not directly anyways,” Miki admitted grudgingly. “It’ll mostly just make me feel miserable and generally terrible…” and make me feel like I want to die.
“Right, we’ll have to set up a supply run to the nearest pharmacy. Do you know how urgent this is?” Miki shot her head up at that, turning to face Kurumi in surprise.
“…The worst of the effects should take place over the course of weeks or months…” she responded after a second.
“Ok, I’m sure we can set something up for later this week, we’ll just need to get some prep in.”
“Seriously? Just like that?”
“Well, yeah?” Kurumi looked at her with a surprised look. “This sounds like something you really need, and you’re one of us. So of course we’ll do our best to get you it.”
“…You don’t even know why I need them…”
“…Do I need to know anything other than what you've already told me? You’re hurting and need help. Plus I’m sure we can stock up on a bunch of useful stuff from a pharmacy, so it’s not like this is that big a deal.” Kurumi gave her a cheeky grin and thumbs up at this.
Was it really that simple? She could’ve just said she needed these hormones and they would’ve helped her? She took an extra hard look at Kurumi. She seemed sincere, though others had before… Still, for now…
“Thanks, Kurumi-senpai,” she finally said.
“Hey, anything for my junior, eh? Now do you want to go join the others and get started on planning, or?”
Miki smiled softly, and let the smile stay on her face this time. “Sure, let’s get going.”
—————-
True to Kurumi’s word, 10 minutes later Yuuri was pulling out a map and was trying to pinpoint the closest pharmacy, with Kurumi and Yuki spouting out suggestions.
“Well there’s one pharmacy located only a mile from campus,” Yuuri was pondering, “but they tend to have a limited selection of items… Miki-san, could you tell us what medication you’re looking for? I might have seen it there…”
“Ah…” Well here goes. “Estradiol and spironolactone.”
“Hmm… I don’t think I’ve heard of those befo-“
“Oh! Takae-chan has some of that at school,” Yuki suddenly declared. I’m sorry, what? Miki thought. “I think she keeps it in her locker since her parents are kind of… bad about it. I could ask her if we can borrow some though!”
Wait, what?
“Oh great!” Kurumi said. “That should give us some leeway.”
No seriously, what?
“Wait, um…” Everyone turned to glance at Miki, which did not exactly help her anxiety. This was probably a terrible idea, but she had to know now. “Why exactly did-does Takae-chan have those?”
Yuki instantly started hemming and hawing at that. “Well, um, I’m not really, you know, supposed to tell… I can go run and ask her though?”
“Sure?”
“Ok! Be back in a second.” With that, Yuki took off.
“...Right.” Yuuri said. “Well, while we wait, you could look through this list Yuki made while you were gone.” She gestured to a piece of paper with the only somewhat legible handwriting that was a trademark of Yuki’s. “Some of her suggestions are a bit off the wall, but we’ve had a talk and I’m pretty sure she’ll only use the ones you want her to.”
“I… sure,” Miki agreed. Looking through the list there were indeed a few that stood out. Like ‘Mii-kurigako.’ But there were also several more normal variations, including just ‘Miki-san.’ Which was definitely appreciated. And Miki was tempted just to choose that option, and only that option, but... She wasn’t that opposed to a nickname in general, just that specific one, and on the good days, it might even have felt a little nice that Yuki called her by one…
Oh well, it’s not as if she didn’t have time before Yuki got back.
—-------------------
Several minutes later Yuki skidded back into the room. “I’m back!” She stated. Kurumi and Yuuri looked up from where they had continued to plan and Miki quietly slipped the sheet with names back onto the table.
“So what’d she say?” Kurumi asked.
“She gave me permission! But only if none of you say anything to anyone.” Yuki said, putting on her best attempt at a stern look while wagging her finger at them. It… mostly came off as adorable instead, but that was how Yuki worked.
As everyone spoke their agreement, Miki briefly pondered the morality of revealing the secrets of the likely dead without permission…Before concluding that since they were likely dead it probably didn’t matter that much.
“Ok! So here’s the secret.” Yuki gestured for the others to get closer to her, which they obligingly did. When everyone was close enough, Yuki dramatically whispered, “Basically, when Takae-chan was born everyone thought she was a boy.” Miki felt the ground drop out from under her. She’d been half expecting it from hearing about the medication, and the entire reason she went to the school in the first place was that their administration was fairly friendly…, but the confirmation that there was another person like her was just… She only half noticed Kurumi giving her a significant glance as Yuki continued.
“But she wasn’t, of course. It took her a while to make them understand, but she did, so she got to go as a girl to school and everything.” Here Yuki’s expression turned into a slight frown. “Unfortunately her body was still being silly and not working the right way. So she got medicine to make sure she got the right, ah, pu-berty and everything. Which is what those pills were for!”
Ah, there’s the karma for asking about another person’s trans status, Miki thought as both Kurumi and Yuuri shot looks at her. Kurumi’s noticeably more thoughtful.
In an attempt to distract from the inevitable, Miki floundered for something to say. “Ah, that’s, um, really interesting. How exactly, uh, did you learn about this, Yuki-senpai?”
…Well it could have been better, but she was curious…
“Hm?” Yuki cocked her head briefly. “Ah, well, um…” Yuki mumbled something out, while awkwardly turning her head to look anywhere other than at them.
“Yuki-chan, could you speak up?” Yuuri asked for the group.
“Oh, right, um….” Yuki’s second attempt was only marginally better than the first. And… were her cheeks getting redder?
“Yuki-chan, please speak at an appropriate volume,” Yuuri reminded more sternly.
“Right! I will…” Here Yuki took a deep breathe, releasing appropriately releasing, “So I noticed she was sad one day and when I asked her about it she said her parents had taken her hormones because they didn’t think she should get them which is silly because of course she needed them cause that’s when puberty is happening and she told me because I already knew because I accidentallywalkedinonherchangingand and she told me everything and after she mentioned the hormones thing I said I could help her get them and keep them at school so her parents couldn’t take them so she could still use them.” Yuki’s face featured a healthy bright red by the time this finished, still directed away from the rest of them.
As Miki absorbed that terrible word vomit, she found her face flushing to match. Yeah, that would be… Suffice to say, she was very happy that Kei had been the one with her in that room. Things were already awkward enough with a complete lack of privacy and limited spare clothes with her closest friend in the know already, she would not have wanted a complete stranger added to the mix. Not to mention the possibility that they disagreed with her existence that she was going to stop thinking about now.
“That’s… nice, Yuki-chan,” Yuuri replied, evidently deciding to avoid commenting on the perhaps too personal information Yuki had revealed. Kurumi for her part seemed to be holding back snickering, based on what her face looked like. “Now, I’m… not entirely sure if this is appropriate to ask, but Miki-san, do you need this medicine for the same reason?”
Ah. Well, that killed the embarrassment at least. Replaced it with a swift surge of fear at being put on the spot, but Miki could look at the upsides. Totally.
“I, well, um…” She really didn’t want to answer this question.
“You don’t need to answer if you don’t want to,” Yuuri moved to reassure.
“No, it’s… fine…” It wasn’t fine, but… well, Kurumi may have been a jock but was more than capable of figuring stuff out. Between the need for the same medications and what Miki had told her earlier, she had everything she needed to make all the connections on her own. Granted, Miki could try to misdirect everyone into thinking she had some other hormone-related condition, but there were downsides to that too. It was annoying to have to get her own private space every single time she needed to change, after all, and a scenario like the one Yuki described wasn’t impossible even with her best efforts. Especially given disaster could strike literally any time…
Plus, even though Kurumi had probably figured it out, she hadn’t done anything about them besides shooting her some thoughtful looks. at Miki. And apparently, Yuki had literally helped smuggle hormones, so she was likely to be supportive. She clearly didn’t get everything about being trans, but she had definitely figured out the basics down.
That didn’t make it any easier though…
Miki found her gaze had wandered to the floor while she was thinking, though she wasn’t exactly inclined to move it. “I…” Fuck it. “Yes, that is my situation, basically.”
She waited in silence as the others processed that. What do they think of that? Are they ok with me being here, really? Are they going to kick me out? God dammit, this was a terrible idea…
Her thought process was rudely interrupted when Kurumi clapped her hand on her shoulder. She flinched and almost leaped backward before her gaze found Kurumi’s wide, welcoming smile. It almost looked… proud?
“Thanks for telling us, Miki,” she said.
Hesitating, Miki shifted her gaze over to Yuuri, who was smiling softly.
“Yes, thank you for telling us Miki-san. I… don’t completely understand, but please let me know if I ever make you feel uncomfortable.”
Miki felt herself relaxing slightly at that. That was two people down, and the ones most likely to make a fuss. Now there was just Yuki…
Who, now that she was paying attention, seemed to be adopting an increasingly slack jaw look. Without saying anything.
Miki felt herself faltering slightly. Is she having second doubts? No, probably not. Does she not believe I could be trans? Please, please don’t make a spectacle of this, I really don’t want to deal wi-
“I’M SO SORRY MIKI-SAN!”
Miki paused her internal dialogue again, as Yuki dropped straight into a dogeza pose. Blinking to make sure her eyes were working right, Miki managed to articulate an “ummm…. What?”
“I DIDN’T LISTEN TO YOU WHEN YOU SAID YOU DIDN’T LIKE THE NAME I WAS CALLING YOU!” At Miki’s nervous step backward, Yuki continued in a slightly more sedate tone. “I should have listened, I just thought you liked it because you smiled the first time I called you it and I thought that meant you liked it, but clearly you didn’t…”
“Oh, um…” damn, what was I thinking then? Oh right. “I, um, smiled because I thought getting a nickname was a good sign towards becoming a part of the group? And, um, really it’s fine, today was a bad day but I can, um, deal with it.”
Yuki lifted her head to look Miki in the eyes, and stated, “That’s what Takae-chan said too, but she never seemed to be fine with it.” Miki shifted uncomfortably and slid her eyes away from Yuki’s. Dammit, why does Yuki choose to be insightful now!?
“Though, um, she only did that because she didn’t like people making a…big deal… out of it…” Yuki said, eyes widening as she took in her position and earlier statements.
In an instant she was on her feet, starting to shout “I’M SOR-“ before cutting herself off as she realized that was the problem. Eyes flicking around, she rubbed her hands together trying to figure out what to do. At one point she almost threw herself back into her dogeza position before visibly restraining herself.
Miki meanwhile, watched in growing amusement at Yuki’s frantic attempts to apologize without actually apologizing.
After about a minute of Yuki attempting to do something before stopping, she finally killed all her momentum and held still.
“Ah, got it!” She exclaimed. Rushing to the table, she grabbed the nickname sheet that was lying there, before offering it to Miki. “Miki-san, do you like any of these?”
Miki smiled at Yuki’s solution to her problem, before thinking it over. There were several workable names on the list, but she didn’t want anything too complicated. And something similar to Mii-kun might be nice… She obviously didn’t want to be called that, but it was an earnestly given nickname and on good days it approached nice, even if the connotations detracted from that…
“I think I have one,” she eventually stated quietly.
“Which one?” Yuki asked.
“Ah, well, it might be a bit simple…”
“Hey, it’s your nickname, simple is fine,” Kurumi clarified.
“Right.” She took a pause to breathe, before choosing. “I think I like Mii-chan. Because it’s similar to the old nickname but feels a bit more feminine.”
Yuki beamed at her. “Alright Mii-chan! Oh, now that Mii-chan has a new nickname, we can welcome her to the club properly!”
“I, um, don’t know if that’s necessary,” Miki stammered out.
“Mhmm, well I think it’s a great idea to show our acceptance of Mii-chan,” Kurumi stated with a sly grin. Miki couldn’t help the heat rising to her cheeks. “Don’t you think so, Ruu-san?”
Taking a look at Yuki and Kurumi’s eager looks, Yuuri sighed. “Well, I suppose it can’t be helped. We’ll just have to welcome Mii-chan properly.” Miki felt she could probably melt into a puddle at this point. “Though we should probably make sure Mii-chan has her medication first.”
“Oh right. We can go check out Takae-chan’s locker! I have the combination and I’m sure she’ll be willing to share her hormones.”
“Maybe at night… given, um, all the delinquents will be hanging out around there,” Kurumi hurriedly tempered Yuki’s enthusiasm.
“Oh, that should be fine, right? Mii-chan ran out today, so if we get it before tomorrow she won’t miss a day!”
“I, yes, that’s correct,” Miki managed to reply. “And, um… thanks a lot for accepting all of this. I, um, know it’s a lot, but it really means the world to me.”
“Of course girl, we got your back.” Kurumi flashed her a thumbs up.
Miki smiled back, wholeheartedly this time. There would undoubtedly be complications in the future, but with friends like these… maybe she would get through all of this after all.