Lady was heading to the school's entrance when he suddenly felt like something was missing, there was a noticeable absence that he couldn’t put his finger on. It was only when he reached for his phone in the pocket of his hoodie that he realized he wasn’t wearing it. The hoodie had belonged to him for as long as he could remember and thanks to his unchanging stature, he had never grown out of it. In an ever changing sea of hand me downs, broken phones, and broken glasses, the hoodie was the one thing that Lady felt he truly owned. He felt incomplete without it.

Lady remembered that he had taken it off in his last class, P.E. He was exempt from nearly all of the activities in the class due to his poor physique and often sat on the bleachers working on homework. Regardless, the air conditioning in the gym was borderline useless and Lady remembered leaving his hoodie in the boy’s locker room. He began fighting through the waves of students eager to leave as he headed back to the school’s gym. 

When he reached it, he was surprised to see that the gym doors were closed. He prayed that they were not locked as he grabbed the handle and tested his luck. Thankfully, the doors swung open easily and Lady walked inside. The lights had all been turned off but the gym was still partially illuminated thanks to several large windows that lined the top of the walls. As lady approached the locker room, he quickly noticed that the door was slightly ajar and light was spilling out of the room. He approached the door and opened it slightly before peeking in.

Sitting on one of the locker room benches was a tall athletic girl with short black hair. She was surrounded by a mess of clothing, everything from sports uniforms to mens underwear was lying on the floor around her. What’s more, her slender suntanned fingers were clutching onto a pair of gym shorts as she held it up to her face. She appeared to be panting heavily as she pressed the shorts against her nose and inhaled. Lady was stunned as he thought to himself “What are you doing Lily?” No, he realized as the girl's eyes popped open and she turned her head, he hadn’t thought it, he had said it out loud.

Lady was now locking eyes with the beautiful sophomore that had been kind to him and offered him encouragement, the one that he thought he might be able to make friends with, the one who was now sitting in a pile of freshly worn gym clothes that she had either smelled or was planning on smelling. 

Lady bolted. He was certainly not good at running but he put all the energy he had into his legs as headed towards the gym door. Unfortunately, his effort was useless in the face of a trained athlete. He heard a set of footsteps behind him that increased in volume with each passing second. He was nearly at the door but it was too late, the footsteps and the girl they carried were already upon him. He felt a hand grab at his waist as he reached for the door handle and suddenly he was upside down. His glasses went flying off as he spun midair and landed on his back. 

Lady didn't land particularly hard but he still felt the wind get knocked out of him. He laid on his back breathing hard and struggling to focus. A blurry shape came into view and Lady felt a weight on top of his chest. He reached his hands out to push whatever was on top of him off only for his wrist to be grabbed and his arms forced above his head. Pinned to the ground, Lady could only writhe under the weight of his oppressor as he struggled to regain his breath. 

His eyes slowly refocused and despite his lack of glasses, Lady could still see Lily above him. The wringing in his ears finally began to subside and the sound of crying became audible. “I didn’t mean to” Lady began but Lily cut him off. “You saw, didn't you?” Despite phrasing it as a question, both Lady and Lily knew what she had been doing in the boys locker room when Lady saw her. “You must think I’m a freak right. I bet you’re going to tell everyone” she said. “I won't, I promise and I don’t think you're a freak.” Lady replied honestly. 

“Liar,” Lily said. “You say that but I know what you’re thinking. You must think I’m weird right? That I’m some kind of pervert. So what if I am? Are you gonna bully me like they did? I don’t care anymore. I don’t care what you do.”  She removed her hands from Lady’s wrist and buried her face in them before continuing to sob. Lady was able to slightly worm his way out from under her. He sat up and looked at the girl in front of him still crying before wrapping his arms around her. She didn’t protest as he held the trembling girl in his arms despite her being nearly a foot taller. 

After she had stopped crying and her breathing stabilized, Lady began talking to her. “I don’t hate you, or think you’re weird or gross, or anything like that. I know that you’re a good person because unlike everyone else here, you’re the only person who was nice to me. I’m sorry that I saw you like that but I didn’t mean to, and it won’t change how I think of you.” After he had finished, Lady noticed that the girl was quietly laughing. “You’re really weird” She chuckled. 

Lady let go of her and she picked up his glasses off the ground before handing them back to him. Thankfully, they were not broken though Lily still insisted she buy him a new pair as an apology. Lady tried to stand but nearly fell before Lily caught him. She apologized profusely for throwing him and picked him up in a princess carry. “I’ll take you to the infirmary,” she said as she gingerly carried him through the halls. Lady was worried that other students might see them but they didn’t encounter a single person on the way there. As he was being carried, Lady couldn’t help but admire Lily’s strength as she had no trouble handling him.

When they reached the school’s infirmary, the nurse was nowhere to be found, so Lily set Lady down on one of the beds and promised to walk him home once he felt better. As he laid there recovering, Lily began recounting what had led her to that point. “It started in junior high. It was just one day when I was doing laundry that I noticed the smell of my younger brother's clothes made me feel weird. I thought there was something wrong with me so when I went to school the next day, I waited till everyone had left the classroom and then smelled the jackets of one of the boys in class. His jacket made me feel the same way. After that, I realized that those kinds of smells made me feel good. The way boys smelled that is. None of my friends had ever talked about it so i didn’t think it was normal. I kept experimenting in secret and started to become addicted to smelling boy’s clothing.” 

Her eyes started to water as she continued, “One day, when I was in the classroom doing that kind of stuff, one of the boys walked in and caught me. He told everyone in class what I had been doing and rumors began spreading around the whole school that I was a pervert or a smell freak. I started getting bullied and eventually, I dropped out. After I transferred schools, I was a lot more careful but I still had that same desire. I started doing research online and found out that I had olfactophilia but no matter what I did, I couldn’t find a way to stop it. I couldn't fix myself. I thought I had finally gotten over it but it got way worse in high school. I don’t know if it was because of puberty or the fact that boys were more active but I quickly became obsessed again. Doing stuff like that in the locker room is the only way I’ve been able to control myself for the past year.”

Lily hung her head down in shame after she finished and waited for Lady to react in admonishment or disgust but he never did. Instead, she felt a small childlike hand pat her on the head as Lady said, “It’s true that it’s not normal for people to be obsessed with smells like that, and it’s true that people made fun of you for it and bullied you for it but that doesn't mean it’s right. I never asked to be short, or weak, or have weird gray hair, or no parents. Likewise, you didn’t ask to like certain smells and have trouble controlling yourself around them. We didn’t ask to be made this way so it’s not right for people to hate us for it. It’s not our fault. No matter what anyone says or thinks, I'll never hate you.” He lifted his hand off her head as she looked at him with tears in her eyes. Thank you she mouthed as she wiped the tears from her eyes. She held out her hand and asked, “then can we still be friends?” Lady grabbed her hand and shook it lightly before replying, “Sure.