"You're still not gonna tell me how you knew?" I was teasing, but it was actually kind of freaky.

She was right about the pop-quiz in math. We decided to play safe though and went to English anyways, but sure enough Ms. Brooks was missing and some dopey substitute showed up five minutes late and just had us all read for an hour.

Now the two of us were walking back to my place. We had our backpacks slung over our shoulders, and we were each carrying a bag from the corner store. We had a couple two-litre bottles of cola and a few bags of chips.

Lexi shrugged "Like I said, it was just intuition or deja-vu or something, I dunno."

I grinned at her, "Don't suppose you know the lottery numbers for tonight?"

"Dumbass," she rolled her eyes. "If I did, I'd have bought a ticket."

I just chuckled. When we got to my place I unlocked the door and soon enough we had the drinks in the fridge, a bag of chips open, and we were in the den figuring out what to play first. I actually had a new game I wanted to surprise her with. Well not new, but new to me.

When I turned around to tell her about it, I saw she'd finally taken off her hoodie and suddenly her figure was on display. The skinny jeans showed off her wide hips, rounded butt, and narrow waist. And the tight green shirt did nothing to hide the curves of her chest.

I didn't mean to stare but it was maybe the first time I'd ever really seen her like that. Like usually she dressed like me, to kind of hide her figure not show it off.

After a second or two I snapped out of it, and I hoped like hell she hadn't actually noticed me staring.

I smiled at her, "Hey, did I tell you I got a new game?"

She eyed me suspiciously, "New-new, or new as in you found another dusty old so-called hit that you're gonna force me to play?"

"Hey," I protested. "Retro is cool. And this is a rare one. I found it online at one of those auction sites. It just came in the mail the other day."

Lexi groaned, "And I bet you spent a fortune on it."

"I mean..." I blushed. "Ok yeah I blew most of my birthday money on it. But it's totally worth it! It's a fairly typical swords-and-sorcery thing, but the graphics are supposed to be pretty good for that generation? And its got great character customization options, which was really unusual back then."

She laughed "Ok here's my next prediction. You're going to play a girl, she's gonna be a mage-healer combination. And if the option's available, you're gonna stick cat ears and a tail on her."

I felt my face going red. Of course she was right, but that didn't mean she had strange prophetic powers. It was pretty much every character I played. If the game had the option to play a girl, I played the girl. If it didn't have the option, I usually didn't play at all.

It didn't matter if the girl characters were weaker or had some other drawbacks. I'd rather have a character that looked good, that I was comfortable with, that I related to, than one who had a point-two percent advantage on some stat or whatever.

Alexis was the opposite. She'd always been more about the game-play and mechanics and stats advantages. She'd play guys or girls, it didn't matter to her as long as they had the right mix of skills or abilities to do what she wanted. She didn't ignore the customizations, she just didn't obsess over it the way I did.

Despite my blush I grinned back at her, "Yeah. That wasn't much of a deja-vu or whatever, Lexi. Like I know you'll either be playing a big muscular tank, or a fast light DPS."

She just smiled, "Ok so lets see this game."

I got the old console plugged in and pulled out the disc. It was still in really good shape, despite being almost twenty years old. Damn game was older than me, but that was part of the charm.

I got it all set up and the two of us settled on the sofa and got started.

The game was called Fate's Cauldron. We both sat through the opening screens to get the lore and stuff. It was fairly standard. Players had to go on several quests to gather the scattered pieces and reassemble the cauldron, which had the power to change destiny and ultimately save the world from the forces of darkness.

Of course we spent over a half hour just in character creation. Sure enough my character was a girl and a mage. No cat ears or tail, but my character was a cute little blonde with long hair and blue eyes. I dressed her up in a short skirt and tight bustier, made her look kind of hot. Lexi went for a DPS this time. Her character was a guy, tall and slim with brown hair and dark eyes. She dressed him up in a fairly typical outfit, dark jacket, pants, boots.

We paused there and I got us both a couple glasses of cola. We had a bowl of chips on the sofa between us, and soon enough we both settled in and started playing.

The characters were fairly limited at the start, we each only got three slots. I filled mine with spells. One ranged attack spell, one close attack, and one healing spell. Lexi took a bow, sword, and knife, for two close attacks and one ranged. Neither of us went for armour, we'd both rely on speed and stealth. Of course we'd get bonuses and improvements as the game progressed.

I figured she must have enjoyed it because she didn't complain about anything. Like the graphics weren't anywhere near what modern consoles could do. Hell they weren't even in the same league as what modern phones could do. But it was pretty good for its day, and the actual gameplay was all right.

We were at it for a couple hours, the chips gradually disappeared and our glasses were empty.

It was finally getting towards eight o'clock when I suggested "Hey how about we pause this for now, and get some dinner?"

"Sure," Alexis nodded. "I could use a break anyways."

We both got up and stretched. She started towards the washroom as I said "I'll call Primo's. Get our usual?"

Primo Pizza was a local place, way better than any of the big chains. They were cheaper too. The only downside was no website or anything.

Lexi paused and looked back at me. There was a little flicker of something in her expression again, then she frowned. "Primos isn't a good option tonight. Try the Wings-n-Wedges place instead."

I raised an eyebrow, "Another deja-vu intuition thing?"

She bit her lower lip, and God did that look cute. I felt another pang of jealousy, I couldn't help wishing there was some way I'd look that cute someday.

"Yeah," she finally replied. "I mean, you can try calling them but... We'll end up getting Wings-n-Wedges anyways, so may as well save an hour and do that first."

With that she turned and went into the washroom, while I just stood there wondering what was going on.

Finally I gave my head a little shake and grabbed my phone. On a whim I called Primo's, but there was no answer. It just rang and rang. That was weird, Friday was usually their biggest night. I could understand getting a busy signal, but no answer was odd.

I hung up then opened the browser and went to the Wings-n-Wedges website instead. We didn't order from them as much but we still had a 'usual' so that's what I got us. A double-order of hot wings, and a big bucket of potato wedges. I just finished putting the order in when Lexi came out of the washroom.

"Hey," I told her. "Placed the order, it'll be here in forty-five to an hour."

She just nodded, but she looked a little freaked out. Like this premonition thing was starting to get to her.

I watched her for a few seconds then asked, "Is everything ok? You've been acting kind of weird today."

Lexi hesitated. She bit her lip again which was going to drive me crazy sooner or later. Finally she said "I'm ok. Everything's ok. Let's keep going with the game till the food gets here."

"Sure," I nodded and we sat back down on the sofa. I was starting to feel anxious again and more than once I screwed up in the game. I was hoping to have that talk with her while we ate. And each passing minute brought that conversation closer.

She seemed just as distracted though. Not only was she not calling me out on my screw-ups, but she made her share of mistakes as well. In the end we both kind of stopped playing and just sat there staring at the screen. My stomach was churning with doubts and uncertainties. I had no idea what was on her mind but she seemed kind of quiet and anxious too.

We both jumped when the doorbell rang.

I got up and took care of it. When I came back to the den, Alexis already had some plates and napkins and stuff there for us, and she'd brought one of the bottles of soda from the fridge so she could refill our glasses. I set out the food on the coffee table, and we both sat back down and started to eat.

We were quiet at first, like awkwardly quiet.

I was playing things over in my mind, rehearsing how I was going to break the ice. I'd been practicing this in my head for the past few days, as if I was preparing a speech or something.

Finally I grabbed a napkin and wiped my hands, then picked up my glass. I realized my hand was shaking slightly and quickly had a few gulps of cola. I hoped to hell Lexi hadn't seen that, but she'd know how nervous I was anyways the second I opened my mouth.

I set the glass back down and took a few deep breaths, then turned and looked at her.

"Dude, there's something I gotta tell you, and it's gonna sound crazy. But hear me out, ok? You're the only person I trust with this."

My eyes slowly widened as I stared at her. It's like she read my mind or something. She just said my whole spiel word for word, exactly what I was about to say.

I must have stared at her for a minute or something, but all I could manage to say was "What?"

Lexi gulped and said "Steve... You know all this weird deja-vu crap that's been going on? It's not just that. There's a ton of other bizarre shit today that's making me feel like I'm losing my mind."

It took me another minute to figure out she wasn't reading my mind or anything. Like I literally thought she was going to tell me she already knew my secret or something like that. I was relieved, but also a bit disappointed that I wasn't going to get a chance to tell her tonight. She beat me to the punch and had some secret of her own to share.

I took a deep breath then asked, "Like what? What's going on?"

She looked down at the floor, and her cheeks started to go red. I could tell she was embarrassed about whatever she was about to say. She bit her lip again, and I tried not to let that distract me.

Finally she sighed and whispered "I think... I think I might be a guy."

Once again I didn't know what to say or how to respond. It literally never crossed my mind she was trans. In retrospect though it made perfect sense. The tomboy thing, wanting to be called Alex, the baggy clothes to hide her figure, I felt like a complete idiot for not figuring it out sooner.

And I didn't know whether to laugh or cry, that we'd both picked the exact same moment to come out to each other.

The one thing that didn't make sense was why she suddenly tried going femme the same day she decided to come out.

I took a few deep breaths and said "Ok. Wow. That's big, but I get it. Do you want me to go back to calling you Alex again? Do you want me to start using he/him pronouns for you?"

She looked at me in confusion for a few seconds. Then she shook her head "No, I mean... Sorry. What I mean is I think I was a guy. Like up until yesterday? I was a guy named Alex. Then this morning when I woke up... Suddenly I'm a girl named Alexis."

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