[multipart] Stronger Than You Look

[thesecretdoor]

Title: Stronger Than You Look
Pairing: none. Maya-centric.
Rating: PG-15
Word Count: 6893
Disclaimer: I don't own anyone. The characters and inspiration are from the manga/drama 'Shiritsu Bakaleya Koukou'.
Summary: I wrote this because Maya's story is far too complex and serious for the amount of coverage it got in the series.
Warnings: very angsty, gender/emotional issues, self-harm, attempted suicide...
A/N: I feel like this fic deserves a mention. Since my fic is based on the same idea as this one, naturally there are a few similarities (like timings and situations that were mentioned in the drama) but our takes on it are quite different. Posted in celebration of Taiga's birthday.



He has to tell her tonight. His hands are shaking as he carefully applies his mascara. He blinks back the moisture in his eyes and looks up, it wouldn't do to have to start all over again, but he's so scared he just wants to cry. It's not anger he's afraid of, not pain, he fights so much these days that pain is almost a familiar friend. No, it's her he's afraid for, what she'll do to herself once he tears her world apart, and if she could ever love him after it.

He puts on the pretty dress she likes, the pale pink one with the white frilly trim. It's uncomfortable and he hates it, it's too short, the shoulders too tight even on his delicate frame, and it makes him feel like he's working at one of those maid cafes. It's just for tonight though, and then maybe, just maybe, he won't ever have to wear it again.

He tugs on his frilly white ankle socks, his hands lingering and then running up his calves. They're so smooth, shaved just yesterday. His mother taught him to shave just as soon as the hair started growing thicker and for her sake he's had to keep up with it ever since, he's strangely curious about how it will look when he lets it grow naturally.

“Maya-chan.” his mother calls up the stairs. “Dinner is ready.”

He pulls his hair back into a bobble and fastens up the sides with decorated bobby pins, she likes the ribbons best so he goes with those, and then he turns back to the mirror for the final look over. If he looks at himself objectively, he looks pretty cute, his face a little long for wearing his hair up like this maybe, but his mother hates the way he cut it recently so it can't be helped.

He nods to his reflection and takes a deep breath before turning quickly away, if he looks too long it makes it harder to pretend it isn't him. The longer he looks, the more he despises everything he sees. When his mother calls again, he walks out of the room, shutting the door behind him and he makes his way slowly, daintily down the stairs.

Her face lights up when she sees him, such genuine happiness shining from moist eyes despite her tut. “You always spend so long up there doing your make-up, it's only dinner you know.” she says, but he can hear how thrilled she is about it in the excited tone of he voice. She takes a few steps closer and strokes his porcelain cheek gently. “My little princess always looks so beautiful, I'll bet all the boys are after you, huh?”

He bites his tongue and shakes his head slowly, hoping she takes the angry red filling his face as blush. She just chuckles and mumbles something about him still being too young to worry about boys.

She leads him over to his seat and pushes it in as he sits down. He's sixteen years old, but in her mind he seems to be stuck somewhere around eleven or twelve, she probably finds it easier to ignore the flatness of his chest, the lack of periods and the boys he doesn't bring home if she still sees him in the androgyny of youth.

It must be easy for her, living in denial and pretending like he isn't getting older, that his male body isn't developing, that his body isn't raging with hormones and testosterone. Things aren't so easy for Maya, he has to live with it bottled up inside him every day, the loneliness and confusion and the increasing effort it's taking him to switch back to being a girl when he arrives home from school, the increasing despair he feels when he looks at himself in the mirror and wonders who he is.

It's hard on everyone, he knows that, he sat through the classes in school, he knows that it is disorientating but he can't help resenting everyone else for having it easier than him. Nobody else has that same internal battle along with everything else, trying to be the girl he was raised as one minute and the next being the man he wants to be, the man he's still trying to figure out, the man he's not allowed to be.

“You're not hungry?” his mother asks suddenly, snapping him from his thoughts. He's still sitting there, eyes unfocused with his chopsticks in hand and his food untouched.

He shakes his head in dismissal and tries a small smile, dainty, polite, feminine. “I'm sorry, I had a big lunch.” he answers in his naturally soft voice. It's not a lie either, he and Satoshi snuck off campus again to go to the combini where they bought a weeks worth of onigiri, bread and sweets and ate the lot between them.

He smiles at the memory as he remembers Satoshi's bellowing laugh on the walk back. For the first time in years he has friends again, friends who laugh at his jokes and enjoy being around him, friends who like him for who he is, or what they know of him at least. He'd die of embarrassment if they ever found out about this though, he thinks as he glances down at the white lace decorating his dress.

His mother is looking at him, bemused, no doubt trying to figure out what fantasy of knights and princesses is playing through her 'daughter's' head. He sets his chopsticks down slowly, she seems to be in a good mood, there's more lucidity in her eyes than there often is, maybe now would be a good time. “Mama...” he starts slowly.

“Yes princess?” she prompts when the rest of his words stick in his throat. Her expression doting, adoring.

He can't do it. He feels like a deer caught in the headlights of a truck. He shakes his head softly again “I have homework, could I be excused?” Not tonight, he can't build her up like this just to tear her down.

He wanders back to his room, he doesn't have homework, Koba-sensei stopped bothering to hand it out when nobody did it. They don't even pay attention in class so there's no hope of them doing classwork outside of school. Maya wouldn't even mind it too much, for the last few years school work had been like an escape for him.

Back in elementary school, he'd gotten along fine with the other girls, the girls, he mentally amends. He'd had friends, they played games and talked about make-up and jewellery and cute, fuzzy animals and then boys, and back then he hadn't even minded. That was just how he was raised. Of course he knew that he wasn't like the other girls, the girls, he reminds himself again, but he looked like one, he dressed in the school's female uniform and since his mother had registered him as female at the school, not even the teachers were any wiser.

Back then that was who he was, he felt like a girl. He liked pink and and ribbons and lace and ponies, and no matter how much he tries to deny it to himself even now, he's always liked boys. Despite having the parts himself, parts he wouldn't even acknowledge were there unless absolutely necessary, the boys fascinated him as much as they did all of his friends.

Around the start of junior high though, puberty hit. His friends started growing breasts and talking about bras and periods and Maya felt lost. He talked to his mother about it, even cried about how it wasn't fair for him not to have those things. It wasn't like he really wanted them though, he just wanted to keep up with his friends, they'd been with him his whole life and now they were growing up without him and leaving him behind. Only they weren't, Maya was growing up too but in a very different way.

He still looked like a girl, though he had to stuff his bra with tissue, but every day he felt less and less like one. Even looking back he can't pin-point what is was, it wasn't like he stopped caring about fashion, or that he outgrew cute animals, or even that he started to like sport or action movies, he just didn't feel right any more.

When he voiced those concerns to his mother she cuddled him gently and told him that it was just normal, that everyone felt uncomfortable in themselves when they were at that age, but Maya knew it was more than that, for the first time in his life, he felt how different he really was.

He hadn't known what else to do other than carry on as he was. Nobody knew the truth and he had no reason to tell them it, not until his third year of junior high. Compulsory swimming lessons.

His mother had dragged him around from store to store, trying on hundreds of bathing costumes but there wasn't one that could hide the fact that he was a boy. For the first couple of weeks he managed to get out of it with notes from his mother, he had everything from his first period to contagious skin conditions but they could only last so long, and after calling in sick on swimming days for the next few weeks, he was starting to get into trouble with the school.

When there was nothing left for his mother to do, he went in and tried to feign his illness again despite being dragged along to the local swimming pool with his class. His friends had encouraged him the whole way thinking it was a fear of water that had kept him off, but there was nothing they could do to help him either when his intimidating P.E teacher had ushered him into the locker rooms and told him to stop whining and get changed.

He tried everything, from pretending to pass out to claiming he had no swimsuit, but all his teacher did was find a spare from the pool office. When there was nothing left to do, Maya had dropped to the floor in tears. And when stern Mizusawa-sensei had dropped to crouch beside him and ask what was wrong now, the words slipped out easier than he'd ever imagined they could “I'm not a girl.”

By the next day, everybody knew.

There was a huge uproar against the school of course, that a boy had been permitted to secretly share the girls locker rooms and toilets for years and the fallout of it all settled heavily on Maya.

Maya still turned up to school, and still in his female uniform, but he was disallowed to use the female facilities. Not that he would have been welcome there anyway. The girls that he had once called his friends wouldn't even look at him, the rest of them sneered at him as he passed by, calling names like 'freak' and 'pervert'. They were cruel and hateful, vandalising his uniform, hiding his possessions and even throwing things at him.

He was no more welcome in the boys locker room, they were worse, they pushed him around and hit him, laughing about how girly he was, on one occasion they even ganged up on him to rip off his uniform and get proof that he really was a boy, despite already having seen the proof in those cursed swimming lessons.

He was completely alone aside from his mother. He couldn't tell her about the things that were happening to him of course. When he was kept late after school, for beatings or to find his missing property, he would tell her with a smile that he'd been out shopping with his friends. He'd care for his wounds himself, scared and alone, thinking of excuses for the visible ones and then hiding the bruises as best he could with a few extra layers of make up.

When the school had first found out about him, or rather when he had first told the school about himself, her main concern had been that now that everyone knew, he would feel the pressure of being a boy and change his lifestyle. It would have been worth trying, Maya had thought himself, but when his mother broke down in anguished sobs about how they were trying to take her only princess away, he couldn't do it.

His sisters had all fled the nest by now, the youngest one of them, just two years his senior had left with their father when he'd walked out ten years ago, and the older two were already in their twenties and living on their own. Maya was all his mother had left, as she'd constantly remind him, the only one of her princesses to be able to tolerate her eccentric behaviour, he just couldn't tell her he didn't want to be part of it.

Since most of the last year of Maya's junior school life had been devoted to studying, alone, at the edge of the classroom where he could only barely hear their whispered snickers, he passed every high school entrance exam he took. He had his pick of schools, but there was only one that would offer him the fresh start he needed, only one that was so squalid and disreputable that nobody else from his junior school wanted to go to it. Bakada High.

His mother couldn't understand why he didn't want to go to the same school as his friends, but he could hardly explain to her that firstly they weren't his friends, and secondly, it was highly unrealistic for him to expect to be accepted at an all girls school. Still he managed to give her just enough information about Bakada, admittedly, some of it fabricated, for her to agree to letting him go there. There were things he had to keep from her too though, things that he knew would hurt her too much, namely that Bakada was an all boys school.

He let her buy him a plain navy pleated skirt to go with his new Bakada blazer, and a simple white blouse. He left the house each morning dressed that way, but just around the block he'd pull his secret pair of navy trousers from his bag and pull them on before taking off his skirt and stashing it away. He'd had his hair cut too, had them chop off his long, sleek hair in favour of a short, layered, but not entirely boyish style. His mother had cried about it for hours, but he managed to placate her with cute pigtails which he'd pull out on the way to school along with the pretty hair clips and replace them with a plain, stripey purple crochet headband.

There was so much more for Maya to change about himself, girly habits to unlearn, and while he still felt a little uneasy each new thing was like a discovery about himself. It was the little things, like learning to urinate standing up, sitting with his legs apart, eating with his mouth open. Each day that he dressed as a boy, and got away with it, gave him a little thrill.

He still attracted a lot of attention, and once or twice even a wolf-whistle, but nobody knew him here, nobody even really cared who he was, and it wasn't until his second week that anybody even bothered speaking to him.

He was sitting alone in the classroom, munching his way through the bento his mother had prepared for him when he was approached by a boy he recognised as one of the stupider of the cool kids. “So what's your deal then?” the boy asked bluntly.

“Pardon?” Maya asnwered, kicking himself for his polite language, they didn't speak that way at Bakada.

“What school did you go to? I don't recognise you.” the boy continued with a shrug “You don't seem to have any friends here and you don't really look like the typical Bakada student if you know what I mean?”

His eyebrows furrowed in anger “I'm not sure I do.” he answered in a slightly clipped tone.

The boy laughed “I didn't mean to offend you just...we're all delinquents here...you look kinda girly for...”

He was on his feet before he'd even thought about it, the words slipping out just as easily as they had a year ago. “I'm not a girl!” The boy looked more amused than scared and something inside Maya snapped, he would not let them think of him like that here, not after he'd gone through so much and fought so hard to be rid of it. “I'm not a girl!” he shouted again, kicking his desk away as he took the boy by the collar.

“Oi” came another voice from behind him, and a firm hand spun him around to face Tatsuya, self proclaimed leader of their year. “What are you planning on doing to my friend? Do you know who I am? My big brother runs this place and...”

He didn't hear the threat, his hands let go of the other boy and his rage turned onto the new intruder, lashing out with a fist to the cheek. He'd never hit anyone before, but it lit something inside him, soothed him even. With another scream of “I'm not a girl!” he lunged forward again, this time hitting Tatsuya in the stomach.

The fight lasted longer than he could have hoped, but with two on one and his frustrations gradually easing, he couldn't hold out forever. He landed on the floor beside his desk, now overturned, his lunch on the floor beside it. Less than a metre from him, the other two flopped down to the floor too and for a few minutes only the sound of their laboured breathing filled the room.

The first boy broke the silence first, bursting out into a fit of laughter that Tatsuya joined, before pushing himself up onto his feet and stumbling over to Maya. “You're a lot stronger than you look.” he said, looking over Maya with what he could only describe as admiration. “I'm Tatsuya.” he finished, holding out his hand and dragging Maya back to his feet when he took it.

“I'm Satoshi.” the first boy said, scrambling to his feet too.

“Maya.” Maya answered quietly.

“We spilt your lunch...” Satoshi said glumly.

Tatsuya only shrugged “We're going to the combini anyway, come with us and I'll treat you to Nikuman to repay you.”

That's the way it's been since, only with the addition of a handful more members to their group. They're a few months through their second year and they still hang out and do silly things together, they still go to the combini for lunch and they still fight, only now they fight for the same side, for Bakada. After the tragic death of Tatsuya's brother towards the end of their first year, Bakada's honour rests on them now.

At school, Maya finally feels like he belongs somewhere. But when he arrives home, and changes back into his girl clothes before his mother arrives home, he feels lost again.

He hates the double life he leads, he hates the guilty feeling that he gets from not wanting to be who his mother tells him he is, from not wanting to be her little princess any more. It would break her to lose him.

He sits down in front of his mirror, cursing himself for not having the guts to do it, and then for being selfish enough to even want to. His mother has raised him, she's always done whatever she could for him, it's the least he can do to put on a pretty dress and make up, to sit and watch romance dramas and listen to Jpop artists when she's around, if that's what it takes to make her happy.

He only has to keep it up for a few more years and then he can move out and do whatever he pleases. He'll still have to dress up to visit of course, but it won't be as often, he won't have to look into the mirror every day and see a girl staring back at him.

“I'm not a girl.” he whispers to his reflection, but he can see the pink, glossy lips moving, refuting the words even as he speaks them. He rubs hurriedly at them with the back of his hand, but then his eyes move up to fix on themselves, the soft pink eye-shadow, the perfect thin lines of black liner, his lashes naturally long and thick, only enhanced by the mascara coating them.

“I'm not a girl.” he says again, more hissing than whispering, and he reaches out for a face wipe, his hand shaking as he scrubs it across his face, rubbing his eyes almost raw with it until they sting and water but he's still not free of the make-up.

He grabs another, rubs harder and doesn't stop until his face is clean, red and raw. He looks a mess, he knows it, he's glad of it, he doesn't look like a lady now. He hates his perfect, porcelain white skin, he hates how soft and flawless is it. And even if he could never let his mother see him that way, he takes some kind of strange pleasure in seeing it cut and bruised from battle. He likes to see it marred.

He feels alive when he fights, it's liberating to feel the fresh sting of pain,to feel all of his anger and rage and frustrations, channelled, released in bursts of fury that knock men twice his size to the ground. They don't call him a girl then.

He can feel it bubbling up even now, the aggression, the anger, the hatred, only he's the one mocking himself now. He looks down at the pink and the frills, up again at his own accusing eyes and he knows that this time, he's the only one to blame. “I'm not a girl!” he tells himself again through gritted teeth and his hand reaches automatically for his dressing table draw, as it has done a hundred time before, and retrieves the switch blade inside it.

He flips out the knife, small, but sharper than it looks and presses it to his cheek. He wants to do it, he wants to scar that girly face looking back at him, to shred it into something even his own mother won't be able to call beautiful. But then there would be questions, doctors, therapy and truths that he doesn't want the world to know.

No, it has to be somewhere nobody will see, the one place even his mother had never been able to look at. He pulls his dress up and pins it there under his chin as he lowers the top of his frilly pink panties. His groin is already littered with scars, as far round his hips as he can reach, three years worth of them. He finds a place where the cuts are old and presses down, inhaling deeply and then letting it out slowly as the blade slices flesh, leaving beads of crimson in it's wake.

He closes his eyes and inhales a few times slowly, letting the adrenaline wash over him and soothe him, and then he looks down as he does another, this one longer, lower down, almost running into the crease of his thigh.

The third and final cut he allows himself is much smaller, but deeper than the others and just millimetres from the base of his penis. Those ones give him the most satisfaction somehow, despite the fact that he's come to accept it as part of his body now, now that he's actively living as a boy.

He doesn't dare do any more than that to it though, he learnt that lesson years ago, back when he wanted so desperately to be like the other girls, back when he blamed that thing's existence for stopping him from being who he should have been, who his mother told him he wanted to be. The scissors had been almost blunt so they barely left a scratch but the nick he gave himself at the crosspoint of the blades bled for hours, reopening and bleeding again whenever his adolescent body did that dirty thing he didn't even want understand.

When he's done, he reaches for the anti-bacterial wipes and cleans first his cuts and then the blade, storing it away safely before padding tissue in his panties to soak up the rest of the bleeding.

He feels calmer when he's done, but he knows that his emotions aren't quite in check yet so he forgoes the frilly nightgowns he usually wears for bed and curls up instead in just his underwear. He hates when he gets like this, taking his anger out on someone else's face is one thing, but curling up in bed, crying and bleeding makes him feel like the very thing that causes his anguish. He feels like a little girl.

The next day starts the same way as any other, with him trying to gather the courage to tell his mother the truth tonight. He never does get the courage too, but that doesn't matter. All it takes is a little carelessness.

“We can't sit around and wait for them to come to us.” Tasuya bellows, riling up the others along with him. “We're not girls, we're not wimps...let's take the fight to them.”

There's a chorus of cheers from all around him and any other day, any other gang and Maya would agree, but not this time. They've traced the gangs hangout back to a disused club, just down the street from the restaurant where his mother works.

For the first time since he joined their group, Maya bails on them. He feels terrible for it though, and as he sits in front of his mirror that evening tracing his lips with a pale red lipstick, he can't help but question if it was the right decision.

The chances of running into his mother are small, and even if he did, she'd probably not even recognise him at a distance. On the other hand, if he stays home, all dolled up for his mother, he'll be letting down his friends when they really need him.

He doesn't think too long about it, worrying will only change his mind and instead he reaches for the face wipes, scrubbing off what little make-up he'd already put on, and then he changes back into his uniform and dashes from his house.

He takes a few back alleys and it takes him longer to get there, but he's safe inside and there's no sign of his mother.

He's glad he came when he hears shouts coming from the back room. Tatsuya crying out in pain, and Tetsuya's desperate cry of “Tatsuya!”

Maya kicks down the door and rushes in, barely stopping to take note of his surroundings before charging at the gang leader and wrestling Tatsuya from his grip. There's far too many of them, they'd estimated around fifteen, maybe a few extras, the rookies with no fighting skill. They thought it'd be easy but there's more than thirty of them there, and his friends don't look to be doing so well.

Yuuki and Makoto are still on their feet but they're surrounded, there's too many for them to make a move, it's as much as they can do to keep circling, their backs pressed together, and defend themselves from the onslaught.

Satoshi is on the floor already, his face barely recognisable under a layer of blood, and even Shohei is being pinned to the floor by a particularly ugly looking thug. Tatsuya is free again, but Tetsuya is on his knees, his arm twisted inhumanly behind his back as he cries out.

They can't win this round, but they'll still have to fight their way out.

Tatsuya turns to him and nods, and together they dash forward, Tatsuya bowling Satoshi's captor off of him while Maya aims a kick over Tetsuya's head, hitting his captor in the face.

There are reinforcements though, new members rushing forward to take their turn and three of them are on Maya before he can turn and defend himself. One knocks him down with a kick to the back and another is waiting to kick him in the stomach. He tries to roll away from it, but then there's another foot aimed at his chest and that one knocks him breathless.

The third guy drops to his knees beside Maya's head and grabs him by the hair. He slams his head back just once against the concrete and Maya sees stars, fading to eyes, a face far too close to his. “It's a shame to hit such a pretty face.” he hisses and that's enough to start something twisting inside him.

He spits as hard as he can, a mix of blood and saliva covering the man's face and then he hisses “I'm not a girl.” before forcing his head up into the guys nose.

It stings, and when he wrenches himself free of the grasp and struggles to his feet, his face is wet with blood, whose, he can't be sure. He turns to his other two attackers and screams as loud as he can, enough it seems to make them back away. There's no shortage of others to take their place though and Maya musters up his strength for the next showdown.

“Retreat” Tatsuya calls out.

“Never!” Yuuki shouts back, but the word is drowned out by Satoshi's roar of anger. Maya looks up to see him running head first towards Tetsuya, on his knees again and about to receive a metal pipe to the back of the head. Maya tries to shout out a warning, but Satoshi is there first, more falling into Tetsuya than pushing him out of the way and even when the pipe swings safely past them, neither seems to have the energy to get up.

“Maya!” Makoto shouts out in warning, but the rest of his words are drowned out as one of the thugs breaks through their defences and drags both him and Yuuki down to the floor.

He feels the sharp sting against his hip before he even registers the threat of the guy with the metal pipe edging towards him, the next blow strikes his shoulder and then his feet are swept out from beneath him. He manages to roll out of the way when the pipe comes whizzing down towards his face, but when the next blow strikes him in the ribs he knows he's done for.

It's Tetsuya to the rescue, he peels himself away from Satoshi and staggers over to the cluster of tables at the other side of the room, he opens a bottle of what Maya expects is some kind of alcohol and splashes the contents all over the surrounding area. The next thing he sees is orange, and he can smell burning wood.

Whatever it is he's set fire to must be important, in the next moment every member of the gang retreats running to help assuage the flames.

“Come on!” Tetsuya yells impatiently, and then Tatsuya is beside him dragging him to his feet.

The others are ahead of him, dashing out and across the bar room itself. “This isn't over!” Yuuki shouts back in English and Tetsuya clearly understands enough to respond.

“You've got that right, it won't take them two minutes to put that fire out.”

“Run faster” Tatsuya adds.

They're all limping, bent crooked and bleeding but they make it out of the front door and into the cool night air, running as fast as they can manage along the street.

Maya freezes. No. That's the wrong way, they can't...he can't go that way.

It's Satoshi that turns back to holler at him, practically screaming at him from a good forty metes away. “Maya! Come on!”

He can't, he can't go past there, he can't risk running so close to those glass windows, if she sees him it's over. He turns to run the other way but there's the gang leader right behind him, he can't fight any more, and he can't run, time seems to stop and still he can't move.

“Maya!” his friends chorus, turning to run back towards him as a hand grabs him by the hair.

He's pulled back against a hard body and then there's a low growl in his ear “Can't keep up with your friends, little girl?”

He doesn't even think, just throws his head back and breaks his second nose in one night. He takes advantage of the temporary release to turn and punch him in the stomach before knocking him down to the floor. He's free, he should run, he can still hear his friends calling out to him, but he's not done.

He gets to his knees, straddling his assailant and then shouts right into his face “I'm not a girl!” before proceeding to pummel him.

What's left is barely even recognisable as a face by the time Tatsuya pulls him giddily to his feet, but then he sobers instantly at the sound of a familiar voice behind him. “Maya-chan?” his mother questions.

He can't face her, he can't look at her, he doesn't want to know what emotion is shining from her eyes as she looks at him, dressed in his male uniform, his beautiful face bruised and bloody. She pulls him around to face her, but he keeps his eyes on the ground. He doesn't see it coming, but suddenly there's a sharp slap across his face and this one hurts more than the rest of the hits he's taken combined. “I'm sorry.” he manages to croak, but his mothers gentle sobs are the only reply he gets before she turns and walks away.

Even the gang members, now crowding around their fallen leader seem to sense that it's over for the night, and they just watch as Tatsuya turns Maya around and together they head back to their den.

“Was that your mom?” Satoshi asks, and Maya nods softly, but there are no more words than that, they understand, or think they do, that Maya's mother is disappointed in her son for fighting, and Maya doesn't care to correct them.

When he's cleaned his face and hands, and seen to the small cut on his lip, the only thing marking his face, he waves a silent goodbye to the others and heads home.

His mother is sitting at the kitchen table in tears. He sits down beside her, and after a long silence he speaks, his tone the same soft one he always uses with her “Mama...”

“Don't take that tone with me.” she hisses back “You are not my daughter.”

This is it. He takes a deep breath “No, I'm not. Since I started high school I've been living as a boy outside of these walls. I'm your son.”

She looks momentarily surprised, but then it melts into something worse, something dark and cruel. “I don't have a son.” she says, barely louder than a whisper. “I had four beautiful princesses and now I have nothing!”

He'd expected anger, he'd expected her to shout and hit him, but he hadn't expected her to reject him quite so bluntly. It hurts more than the cold stares from his junior school class mates, this one moment hurts more than that whole ordeal had.

There's nothing more he can say to that, nothing that will make things right. He gets up silently and heads to his room. He despises it all, everything in there reminds him of what his mother wants him to be...of what he's not.

He's not a girl. He wishes he'd been born one, but he wasn't and he can't change that, dressing in girls clothes and wearing make-up won't change that, acting like a girl, talking like a girl, it won't make him one. But how can he be anything else when his own mother won't even acknowledge him otherwise?

His school bag is right there on the chair where he left it, he walks over to it and pulls out his skirt, throwing it onto the bed along with his bobbles and hair clips, and he replaces them with the least feminine clothes he can find in his wardrobe.

He doesn't even turn so see if his mother looks up as he walks out of the front door.

He's lost again. And this time he's completely alone. He can't go back home, if he can even call it that. He won't go to his friends either, they don't know what he's going through, and would they still be his friends if they did?

It's cold in the train station overnight, but there's a roof, and light, and a bench that he can curl up on, he'd prefer something a little less public but he doesn't exactly have room in his head for better ideas, not when there's so much spinning around in there already.

He makes his way to the school gates the next morning, but just looking up at the building is too much, it holds so much responsibility, he's expected to be someone there, but he doesn't know if he can be, he doesn't know who he is at all.

With a sad sigh he turns away again. He doesn't even have anywhere to go so he just wanders aimlessly, his feet moving of their own accord as his mind chases itself in circles.

He could go back, he could go home and put on a dress and hope that everything will go back to normal, only that would be defeat, he doesn't want to be a girl. He doesn't even know that she would have him back, and even if she would, she wouldn't let him go back to Bakada. He would have nothing but her and frills and lace. It doesn't even bear thinking about it.

It won't take long for his friends to find out the truth either, they probably found out his address from Koba-sensei and went looking for him already, Tatsuya wouldn't sit idly at school when his friend was missing, assuming they still consider him a friend.

His mother would have told them everything, why wouldn't she? As far as she's concerned he was living happily as her little princess until he met those boys, she'd do anything to turn them against him.

No matter how he looks at it, there's nowhere left that he belongs, it's over. Once he realises that, it's strangely quiet inside his head. He feels calm even.

The evening draws in cold, a gentle wind chilling the air, but he doesn't shiver, his body feels strangely numb, his mind feels detached from it, floating, the body he's struggled to accept and understand for so long, no longer feels like his.

His feet move on their own, his mind not controlling them, yet still knowing where they're taking him, and he's ready. He stops at the centre of the bridge, looking out over the water, the cool blackness of it and it feels almost like looking into a mirror, like seeing his true reflection for the first time, the emptiness that has always stayed with him.

He reaches out for the hand rail, barely feeling the cold against his hand, and then steps up onto the railing. He pauses, only for a second, and his heart skips a beat, he feels like he's finally free.

That second is all it takes for the voices to reach him. Tatsuya's the loudest, bellowing out curses at him. He has to do it now. He lifts a leg and gets as far as swinging it over the railing but before he can even gain enough balance to pull the other over, Tetsuya is slamming into him, grabbing him around the waist and turning, pulling him back over.

He fights against the hold, his hands grasping for the railing, pulling himself towards it. His own voice echoes among his friends' shouts, 'Please' and 'No' and 'I can't' but there are already three more sets of hands on him, dragging him down to the floor and collapsing with him in a pile of limbs.

There's no way to win against them, they hold him firmly, Tatsuya straddling his legs and Tetsuya behind him, Satoshi half laying across his chest and Shohei crouched beside them, running gentle fingers through his hair. He shouts until his throat hurts, and then he cries, harsh gasping sobs as his muscles still twitch in a bid for freedom.

They let him cry, they don't try to speak, they don't even try and get his attention until only sporadic sniffs are left breaking through the silence. Then they gently peel away from him and get up, leaving only Tetsuya pinned between him and railing.

Tatsuya holds out a hand to him, and with the half smile on his face he looks exactly as he did the day Maya met him. “I've always said you're stronger than you look right? Don't prove me wrong now.”