Those who broke promises were the lowest of the low, the cancer cells of humanity, the stain on a pure white shirt freshly out of the washing machine… okay, the metaphors were getting a bit out of hand, but the point was…! I refused to break a promise I made. 

Buuut, at the same time, going out in the fox hoodie outfit might lead to me being spotted by the heroes and subsequently arrested. And maybe I was just being dumb again, but spending time behind bars along with other hardened super criminals sounded like a future I wanted to avoid if I could help it.

So how was I going to go about solving this dilemma? By going shopping for a new outfit, of course!

“Sure, where do we meet up?”

For some reason, though, Fern insisted on going with me… as did Miranda and Kelly. Troy declined, saying that he didn’t want to ruin our girl’s shopping trip, although something told me he just didn’t want to end up as the guy carrying all our bags around.

“Uhm, we can meet at the mall… at four?”

“Alright, looking forward to it!”

Luckily, Fractal being the best boss imaginable, he’d let me have a day off to mentally recover from almost dying by being crushed by a hotel and then facing off against two heroes.

Had I already mentioned that he was the best boss ever? Because he was. Seriously, why did he even have the supervillain label? It didn’t make sense. What had he done? Why had he decided to go villain? So many questions.

But that was for later. Right now, I was about to go shopping for clothes.

Past me would probably feel annoyed and would speedrun getting the most generic and boring-looking clothes possible just to quickly get it over with, but the current me was getting giddy once again.

Like a girl.

…

Not like… I was a girl. Just… like a girl.

After all… I still couldn’t know for sure whether I was trans or not. Still hadn’t had the big ah-ha moment where everything came together and stuff…

Anyway! No point in brooding over this right now! Time to go shopping!

I ran to my wardrobe in order to get dressed… before I realized I only had the boring guy clothes and the old outfit I couldn’t wear.

I grumbled to myself in disappointment. Damn, I wanted to be cute… like a girl.

…

Ignoring that thought, I headed to the bathroom to put on my make-up. I’d gotten pretty skilled at applying it and before I knew it, the ugly guy face turned into the cute girl Aster.

Heh… and I used to think girls were inhumanly fast when applying make-up. Now I got to the level of a girl myself!

…

Aaaaaargh!

“Um, Aster? You okay?” the assassin called Miranda sneaked up on me.

I jumped and turned to face her. “I!” I forcefully breathed out. “I AM COMPLETELY FINE!”

Before she could say anything, I ran out of the bathroom past her and into my own room.

Slamming the door behind me, I stood in the middle of the room and took deep breaths, while my thoughts kept flickering back to the dangerous topic.

Then I turned around and met my gaze in the mirror.

It was a girl.

Even without the feminine clothes, my mind could not parse the reflection as anything other than a girl.

My reflection was a girl.

I was a girl.

That thought shook me, and for some reason, my reflection began to cry.

I wasn’t pretending to be a girl, was I? No, I was a girl. I was just too dumb, too stubborn to accept it.

What was I so scared of? People judging me? Everyone who mattered had no problem with it! Who cared about the idiot kids back from school? I could do whatever I wanted now!

My parents? They had never cared about me anyway! They had only cared about my image! What grades did I have? What school would I get to attend? And in the end, they had still been disappointed that I didn’t end up as a lawyer (ew!), or a doctor, or a rocket scientist.

So why should I care about what they thought when they never cared about me?!

That’s right!

I was a girl and everyone who didn’t like it could suck it!

“YEAH!”

I grabbed the mirror and stared into my determined eyes with a grin.

“YEAAAAAH!”

“Uh, Aster. Are you really okay?”

I whipped my head around to my door and strode over to it.

I flung it open and stared at the three people gathered in front of my room. They were all staring at me in shock.

“I AM A GIRL!” I shouted at Miranda as if we were having a heated argument and I wanted to get my point across.

Their eyes went even wider.

“Uh… y-yeah?” Miranda finally replied as a grin began to creep onto her face.

 I turned to Kelly and repeated it -- “I AM A GIRL!” -- then at Troy: “I AM A GIRL!”

That left me heaving for breath as I continued to stare at the trio, daring them to challenge my opinion.

“Y-yeah! You are a girl, Aster!” Kelly beamed at me.

“Welcome to girlhood, Aster!” Miranda hugged me, with Kelly joining us a moment later.

Troy didn’t. Instead, he stood there in silence for a second, before saying, “We already knew that, though?”

“Shut up, Troy!” the three girls in the room said in unison.