In the halls of Osier High, there were many rules. For example, no running, no yelling... no pushing, no swearing. You weren’t allowed to bully others, though that one was rather hard to enforce because it was vague. Besides that, there was also... No indecency... No crude behaviour... No drugs.

One rule stood above all the others, though. It was rather infamous; it was the rule that put Osier High on the map. 

At Osier High, you were not allowed to have a relationship with a member of the other sex. Or at the very least, if you did, you weren’t allowed to let anyone know.

It was more than just, like, preventing public displays of affection, though. These relationships were, like, entirely banned. To the point where most students were too afraid to even get into them outside of school, in case the rumour got out while they were in school and they got punished for it.

The thing is, nobody actually knew what the punishment was for being in a relationship. There were some rumours, of course. “No relationship ever survives the punishment.” “Students have had to drop out after being caught in one.” “They say one student died because he broke the rule...”

So anyway, as weird as it was, that was the culture of Osier High. A land without love. Without flirting, without horny teenage rumours of nights spent together. Everyone was way too scared for that.

Or, well, most people were. But what can I say...

I like playing with fire.

~

“Warner, what are you even talking about?” Emma asked, rolling her eyes. “You know that’s not allowed. No way, I don’t want to be expelled or something. And you shouldn’t either.” She gave me an irritated frown.

She and I were currently standing underneath the centerpiece of the school grounds, a pretty willow tree in front of the school. I’d asked her to meet me here after lunch... “It’s important!” I’d assured her. Well, apparently it was less so to her, but it definitely was important to me...

Anyway, if not for the school’s rules, I was pretty sure this spot — underneath the willow tree — would be the prime place for this kind of thing. You know, to ask people out! Unfortunately, though, the rules did exist, so it wasn’t, but... Well, I wasn’t one for following rules. At least, not when they harmed my goals. 

So here we were!

“Yeah, but, like, you like me, don’t you?” I smirked, raising an eyebrow. 

Emma immediately took a step back from me and the willow tree, shaking her head in disgust. Did... did this not work? But I was following all the guides! 

Come on, Emma, you know you want this! ...Right? I’ve honed my skills at being... eligible, or whatever... haven’t I? Hours upon hours, days upon days, weeks, months... no, years of effort... all for the sake of being in a relationship. You wouldn’t just dismiss me so easily, would you?

And it was a painful journey, all that effort! There were so many times I’d felt like I was going to need to surrender... Much of the time I’d spent trying to fix myself, to follow advice in order to make girls like me... so many things I’d had to do had been such hard pills to swallow. Some of them, like keeping neatly trimmed facial hair and a buzzcut, bulking up, and being good at sports... ugh.  They’d been the biggest challenges I’d had to face, and they’d been that way because... Well, deep down I knew that I actually hated all of them with a passion. I didn’t want facial hair, I actually preferred longer hair, and I hated muscles. 

But, well, what else could I even do, right? It wasn’t a magic bullet, it wasn’t going to fix everything, but... it allowed me to meet my goal. Thereby, it was important. And if that importance wasn’t a perfect reason to force myself into things I disliked, I didn’t know what was. I’d done so many things I otherwise wouldn’t have, you see... only because of that sheer willpower. With an indomitable mindset, I’d transformed every painful step in my journey into just one more hurdle to overcome!

So, obviously, yeah, the bizarro rules of Osier High had only been one more hurdle in that journey of mine!

“I mean, yeah, I like you, but not in that way,” Emma’s face turned a bit red, and she turned around to walk away a little faster. She mumbled back over her shoulder, “That’s why I’m your friend.”

Dang! Still the friend zone with you! For me it didn’t matter, but for others... it seemed that the threat of Osier High still was too prevalent. 

Hmm...

I needed to be in a relationship, though. Like... I needed to. 

Okay, sure, I didn’t know why I needed to be in a relationship so bad, but I knew I did. Girls were just... important. That’s why I couldn’t stop thinking about them... That’s why I couldn’t stop staring at them! (At appropriate places, mind you, I wouldn’t want them to be uncomfortable.)

And also, Emma was, like, super nice, and caring, and, well, hot. That’s why I was trying so hard for her. She always wore these flannel shirts and tight jeans, and she had the prettiest golden hair that she always had in the best hairdos (the ringlets were my favourite)... And her skin looked so soft and bright, and she had such big eyes and perfect eyelashes... She always looked so... flawless... 

Honestly, I had no idea how she managed to look so good every day. She must spend hours upon hours making herself up each day, or something, I’d think. So much effort that I didn’t put in... 

Granted, for men — you know, like me — it wasn’t as if there was much I was supposed to do. Keep myself neatly trimmed and bulked up and stuff. That was all.

Sometimes, though... 

In my darkest moments, I... I honestly wished I didn’t have to do that stuff. To be honest, I was pretty sure that, if given the choice, I’d be totally up for spending hours upon hours doing what the prettiest of girls did to make themselves up. Not that it sounded easier, but, like, the rewards would be better? I don’t know.

Anyway... That was not the case, so here we were. I had a girl to woo! A girl who was currently walking very quickly away from me.

I frowned, running forwards to Emma’s side and entering the building with her. “But... okay, we don’t need to call it a date, then?”

She rolled her eyes again. “We already hang out all the time, doofus.”

“Yeah, but...” I didn’t actually have a convincing argument here. Dang, I should have accounted for this in my plans! I didn’t make a fallback for this exact situation, and I was absolutely horrendous at improvisation! And she was walking away! She was almost to her locker!

“But nothing, I’m not going to date you. Nice try, though,” she said, arriving at that locker of hers and entering the combination with a few practiced spins. Then she popped it and the door open with a click and a creak.

As I opened and closed my mouth, trying in vain to find something to say, something that could convince her... she finally looked back to me. “Please don’t push it?”

I pouted. “I’ll... I’ll change, though! Whatever you need me to be!”

She snorted and mumbled something under her breath.

“No, really! I will!”

At that, she looked back up at me with a bit of a harsh glare, pretty eyebrows furrowed. “Drop it.” 

“Okay, okay,” I mumbled. My lips sufficiently zipped, she grabbed her books, then locked up her locker once more.

I breathed a long sigh as I watched her form retreat down the hall towards her next class, and, well, it got just a little bit colder at that retreat. I mumbled again, then, mostly to myself, “Maybe when we stop going to Osier, then.”

“Drop it!” she called back to me.

I stood there for a moment, just watching the now-empty hall, feeling for all the world like everything was useless.

Dang it! 

My plans... all the nights spent thinking about this situation... all the fallbacks on fallbacks on fallbacks... they were all entirely shut down. 

All that effort! Everything was totally ruined! It didn’t work at all. 

It went so poorly that I almost had to think that maybe I’d been doing something wrong! Like all those guides I’d followed, all my self improvement... like it just wasn’t going to work for her. It was almost like there was something... I don’t know... fundamental? that was preventing us from getting together. She just had... zero interest in me that way, it seemed like.

I sighed again. 

Well... maybe... You know, I was sure I could figure out another strategy later. Just, well... One... more... hurdle... One more hurdle, no matter how much hurt I’d gotten from that rejection. No matter how hard it was to overcome, it was one step closer towards the goal.

I’d get there... wouldn’t I?

I spun around, intending to head to my next class, but I bumped right into something soft. Oh! Err, someone. Wow, I hadn’t even noticed her. 

Luckily, she dodged mostly out of the way, but, still... She was small and I was huge, and that made me worried... 

“I’m so sorry!” I apologised to the girl I’d run into. “Are you okay?”

Taking a step back, all I could think was... Ooh, cute! In a totally different way from Emma, too — this girl was rather short, with an angled cut of black hair that matched her black clothing. She had purple lipstick, dark eyes with deep grey eyeshadow, and she wore a nose ring, too. Oh, and she had a ring on her eyebrow... Oh, and two more on her upper ear... I liked them like that, that was cute. Wished I could do something like that without looking dumb. 

Hmm... the nose ring was only on one side, but I had a feeling that the other ones were asymmetrical as well, even though I couldn’t actually tell for sure because her hair obscured that entire side of her face.

For a moment, I was pretty sure the girl looked angry — the half of her face I could see had enough of a glare to send a shiver down my spine, apparently — but then she turned away. When she looked to me again, she wore a wide smile, and she batted her eyelashes up at me. “Of coooourse I’m okay,” she intoned. “Especially now that I’ve met you...”

“Uhhh...” I blinked. “What?”

“Instead of going out with that girl...” she started, still batting her eyelashes. “Why don’t you go out with me?”

What.

What.

Well... that was... fortuitous? Maybe?

“Uhh...” I frowned, thinking of Emma. For some reason it felt like cheating, after chasing after her for so long... 

But she’d... she’d said no... So... it was okay if I said yes, wasn’t it? It wasn’t like I was bound to Emma. She was just my best friend. That’s what she thought of me, anyway. I was sure she’d be happy for me, wouldn’t she? 

And, like, my ultimate goal had always been to just... date a girl. That’s why I’d done so much to improve my appearance and stuff. Get... manly, or whatever...

Well... screw it. Why not, right? If this was my goal, I might as well jump in. Even if this girl’s reasoning was confusing. Although, it was closer to what all the guides had told me would happen if I went all in on flirting with girls after getting all bulked up and stuff. So... who knows, maybe Emma was the exception here. 

I finally shrugged. “Okay, I guess...”

The girl’s demeanor instantly changed, and she smirked, then snorted, spinning around and walking off. As goosebumps raised on my arms, I was pretty sure I heard her mutter something like, “Boys are so stupid.” But on the other hand she might’ve said something entirely unrelated, about, like, “toys,” and “cupid,” or something. You never could be too sure when it came to muttering, after all.

“What was that?” And... wait, where was she going? I’d said yes, but was... was that it? Somehow I’d expected more... I don’t know. Fanfare? “Wait!” I called, my throat feeling funny. I cleared it, asking, “Are we not going out, then?”

“Oh, no, we are,” she waved her hand dismissively, not even bothering to turn around. “‘Till you change your mind later, at least.”

I blinked a couple times at the girl... and then she’d disappeared, already gone around the corner. What a strange girl. I was apparently dating her, but I didn’t even know her name...

~

When I sat down in my next class, History, I did not open up my History notebook. No; rather, I first opened up my special, secret notebook. This notebook... this was my most important possession; it was the notebook I’d had for the past five years, a notebook filled with pages upon pages of plans and checklists. If at some point I were to lose this notebook, I wouldn’t even know what to do, where to take my life. You could say that this notebook was as important to my continued existence as the air I breathed. 

Yeah. It was some real, serious stuff. 

Anyway, I flipped past all those plans and checklists from years past — minor successes, minor failures, and discarded plans, now. I flipped near to the back of the notebook... And that’s where I found the newest page I’d been working on. 

What was on this page?

Why, my ‘Ask Out Emma’ plan, of course! Unfortunately... I was just here to cross it all off. And I did, but not without a very heavy sigh. I wasn’t dating Emma, so that plan had kinda gone badly. One more failure to add to my ever-growing mountain of them. But, on the other hand... I was dating someone else, now, so... I guess it was time to move on from that? Hey, at least I could always make another new plan! 

Hmm. This time...

Be A Good... I started writing, then shifted uncomfortably in my seat. Boyfriend.

I held the back of the pen up to my lip for a moment. What all did I need to do... Ah! 

Learn girlfriend’s name.

That was a good first step.

What else? Oh, I could—

But then, someone tapped my shoulder. I turned around, and the girl behind me blinked, opening and closing her mouth. 

“What?”

“I... I was gonna ask if you had a spare pen, but, now... Do you moisturise?” she asked, looking very surprised and excited.

“...What?” The heck did that mean? Did I moisturise? What?

Obviously my extreme level of confusion was pretty apparent, because the girl elaborated, “Your skin! It looks so soft and nice!” She pursed her lips, then gestured to her own. “I put on so much facial cream, and lotion, and my skin’s always dry and pimply and... ugh. I’m jealous, your skin looks amazing. What do you use?”

“I...” I furrowed my brows. “Uhh, nothing.”

The girl furrowed her brows back. “There’s no way your skin is just... that nice without products.” She giggled. “Like, look at it. It looks so soft! And clear! And... well, here, give me your hand,” she held out her own.

“Uhh...” I had no idea what was happening, but I did, holding it out to her.

“Woah...” she said, grabbing it and playing with the skin. 

Girl. Stop. 

This was really weird. 

“You’ve gotta moisturise, no boy’s just got skin like this. And, like, haven’t you played sports for years? It’s like you’ve never used your hands a day in your life.”

“I don’t moisturise, I swear,” I mumbled. But now that she was saying that, my skin actually did feel really soft... Like, I could tell by my clothes, even, all my clothes felt... weird. Why would my skin be so soft? Had I just never noticed this?

“Actually, your hand just looks like a girl’s hand,” the girl said, holding it up against her own. “Look, it’s not even much bigger than mine, either... How’re you any good at basketball with such small hands? Don’t they make women’s basketballs for smaller hands or something?”

“Uhhhh...” I mumbled, starting to get a little freaked out. That did not look like my hand. “I... I gotta go.” I jumped up, hurriedly closing my secret notebook and starting to run between the desks... and then I hit my hip on one. “Ow!”

Someone snorted at me, but I kept going, this time making it a good four steps further! ...Before I tripped on my own pants and fell flat onto my face.

At that, a few people snorted, but I was too scared to worry about that now... or my sore chin, for that matter. I got right back up, and holding my pants this time, I ran out of the classroom, just barely missing the teacher, who spun to wag a finger at me as I kept going.

“Hey! Where are you going?” he exclaimed. “Class is starting!”

“B-bathroom!” I called back. “Emergency!” You bet it was an emergency, I had no idea what was happening but everything felt really weird right now. 

“Should’ve done it on your break!” he called back. “No running in the halls!”

I rubbed my sore, but still quite smooth chin as I ran, my mind spinning with no traction as I tried to figure out what was—

Wait, why was my chin so smooth?! Had my facial hair all fallen off?! 

Maybe I’d accidentally used some of my mum’s hair removal cream as shaving cream or something? But that on top of all the other things happening... Ahhhh!

Completely ignoring the advice of my teacher, I continued to run down the halls of Osier High. I ran down a staircase and to the right, arriving at the nearest bathroom only a minute later. I charged in... or, well, I tried to, only to slam right into a guy and nearly bowl him over. He only stayed upright due to his... oh my goodness this dude was very tall. He was like a giant! Like, seriously, I was already like 6’4” or something, but this dude towered over me. What would he have to be, like 7’? 7’6”?

Wait, but... I knew this guy, though! This was one of the dudes I played basketball with... Steve! And last time I’d checked, Steve was the exact same height as me. Dang, dude! That was one hell of a growth spurt! He’d be dunking the basketballs left and right! He wouldn’t even have to jump!

“Oh, I’m sorry,” Steve said, after he’d caught his breath. “The girls’ is the other side.”

I just blinked at him, brushing my messed-up hair back behind an ear. “Uhhh... what?” I asked. Oh, that was a weird feeling; it felt like there was something caught in my throat.

“This isn’t the girls’ bathroom,” he repeated. Dude, did you lose a couple brain cells when your head reached the clouds? Why are you telling me this stuff?

“I don’t have time for this,” I grumbled, shoving him out of the way as I tore into the bathroom.

“I’ll... stand guard outside, then,” Steve said. What? Stand guard? What did that even mean? 

Whatever. Sure, dude, if it makes you happy.

I finally got into the bathroom and... What was I going to see? I knew I’d lost my facial hair, but apparently my skin had changed, too, and, like... I still just felt weird...

Then, nervously, I turned and looked at the mirror. Oh god, there was some girl in here! Standing in front of the mirror! Why was she—

Wait, no, she was inside...

...the...

...mirror.

Oh my god why was I a girl.