BethOfTheWild

Uh bonus points if you know which specific university this is based on lol

Scott scratched his head as he stared at the clothes in one of the drawers of his black Ikea wardrobe. He could have sworn he had more regular white gym socks, and didn’t remember having all these striped thigh highs at all. Weird. Maybe there was some kind of mixup with the laundry.

Well, he was out of regular socks and he had to get to class, so he went ahead and grabbed a long blue and white striped pair. No one would be able to see them under his jeans anyway, and as a bonus they matched the striped briefs he was wearing. Speaking of which, he could have sworn more of his briefs had a fly.

Ah well, it’s not like he used them much anyway. Most of the bathrooms on campus were pretty gross so he generally tried to go at home, and he just sat because it was easier to keep looking at his phone without really having to worry about his aim.

Pulling on a pair of jeans and a light blue t-shirt, he could swear they were both a little tighter, or at least more form-fitting. “Maybe I’m running the dryer too hot?” he muttered to himself. Finally, he made sure his rimless glasses were clean, and he was off.

After that first class, the nearby cafe on campus had opened, so he swung by to get a breakfast burrito–bacon was extra–before continuing on to his next class on the other end of campus. For some reason all the computer science buildings were way to the north end of campus and also relatively uphill, even though most students lived southside. Maybe it was a ploy to trick CS majors into actually getting some exercise. He munched on his burrito on the way.

The next class was a pretty big lecture. He managed to find his roommate Aylin without too much trouble, though, as their asymmetrical blue undercut really stood out in a sea of short black and brown fades. He plopped down next to them and fished out his laptop before shoving his backpack under the seat.

“Hey,” Aylin said.

“Hey,” Scott responded. “You want any of this?” He thrust his burrito in their general direction.

Aylin shook their head. “Nah, I drank a Soylent earlier.”

“What time did you end up going to bed?” Scott asked. When he’d gotten up to use the bathroom at, like, 3 AM he could hear the sounds of Overwatch coming from their room. And he could see they now had dark circles under their eyes.

They shrugged. “Not sure, exactly. I’m trying to get on our Overwatch team.”

“We have one of those? Is it, like, official?”

Aylin shrugged. “I think so? I mean, the university doesn’t like to let even things associated with them use their branding unless it’s, like, the football team, so who knows.”

“Anyway, I’m amazed at how functional you seem to be today. I would be totally incapacitated in your situation.”

They shrugged again. “I got used to not sleeping much during high school. And I mixed in a 5 Hour Energy with the Soylent. I might have to be up kinda late too, cuz my online friend wants me to participate in their online game jam.”

“Alright. Well, uh, try not to die.”

“I–”

Just then, they were cut off by the sounds of the lecture finally actually starting. Scott opened a new Google Doc and started writing copious notes. He probably needed to write less stuff down, really, because it was honestly too hard to find any one specific thing if he tried to go back to his notes later. But it was hard to tell what would be on the tests. They loved to spring the obscure stuff they’d mentioned, like, once on you.

Blessedly, this was the last lecture of the day for both Scott and Aylin–one of the benefits of being a senior who didn’t really need more units–and so they headed home together.

“You wanna get any boba before we get home?” Aylin asked.

Scott shrugged. “I’m fine either way, I guess? I mean, we did have some earlier this week.”

“You fool, that’s nothing. I’ve known a girl who drank boba every single day!”

Scott winced. “Oof, that can’t be easy on the wallet.”

Aylin shrugged. “Well, I think her parents were rich, probably. She’ll be fine.”

“God, I wish that were me,” Scott said.

“Anyway, you know what, let’s just go home. I have some mugicha left in the fridge from yesterday so I can just drink that.”

“Alright, sounds good,” Scott said.

After walking past boba places and Indian restaurants and houses neither of them would ever be able to afford, they reached their somewhat run-down apartment building. Unfortunately there were pretty much only two options for housing if you were looking for anything near campus and cheaper than a new luxury unit, and neither of those two rental management companies were exactly beloved. Especially the one where the founder went to jail for human trafficking. It was at times like this that Scott wished that his parents were both doctors or something, instead of being a high school teacher and a receptionist.

He vaguely got the vibe that Aylin’s family was actually loaded but had cut them off after they came out as trans, only paying tuition directly to the school. That really sucked. He was glad to be pretty certain that his parents would accept him if he ever came out or anything like that, not that he expected anything like that to happen.

He was glad he’d been able to help Aylin get housing they were comfortable with, at least. Apparently they’d been pretty uncomfortable with some of the other potential housemates they’d talk to. One set said they wanted “only AFABs” and another had general frat bro vibes and misgendered Aylin several times while talking to them. Yike.

Why did so many people suck so much? He’d been a bit surprised when his friend from freshman returned after being gone for a semester looking rather different, but after they’d explained the general situation he hadn’t found it too hard to update their pronouns in the lookup table in his head. Although early on he’d messed up a few times, which he still felt really bad about two years later.

After unpacking his stuff, Scott skimmed the assigned reading he had for the one required philosophy class he had to get out of the way, and re-checked the code he’d written for a project before submitting it. He liked to finish projects way before they were technically due, just to feel like they weren’t hanging over his head. 

The only other big thing he had in terms of homework was a long-term project for a graphics class that he was working on with Aylin. Simulating smoke was bullshit and he’d already banged his head against the wall enough that week.

He thought Aylin might be free–they generally got work done pretty fast so they could return to playing video games, sometimes finishing everything on the syllabus in the first few weeks of the semester–so he went and knocked on their bedroom door.

“You can come in! I’m wearing clothes!” Aylin shouted. Scott peeked his head in and saw them playing some JRPG he forgot the name of. They turned to glance at him and pulled off their pink cat-ear headphones. “What’s up?”

“Uh, just wanted to see if you were free to hang out. Oh! And I seem to have some socks missing? Any chance they somehow ended up mixed in with your stuff?”

Aylin paused the game and stood up from their gamer chair’s bucket seat, stretching a bit as they did so. “God, my fuckin’ back hurts again,” they complained. Scott briefly thought about offering a massage but decided that would be weird.

They walked over to their wardrobe and made a show of searching through their socks and underwear drawer. Scott felt a bit awkward seeing some of the somewhat scant, lacy underwear mixed in there. He internally commanded himself not to be weird about it, and hoped his quarter-chub would soon recede. He felt really bad about being, like, a creep. A weird pervert. He always felt that way about seeing stuff that some part of his brain classified as private Girl Stuff ™, even though in this case the owner wasn’t even a girl.

It would probably gross everyone out if they ever learned of the few times he’d tried on some panties. He’d bought them online one night and had been incredibly anxious waiting for them to arrive. But once he put them on, the initial good feelings were quickly overwhelmed after he glanced at himself in the mirror. Some part of him had hoped that he’d look like a girl, or at least a cute femboy or something. But no. He just looked like some nerdy dude wearing panties. Ew.

After that, he took them off and threw them away, after wrapping them up in some toilet paper to help conceal them.

Scott’s internal angst was interrupted by Aylin repeating his name. Shit, he had zoned out again. “Oh, sorry, yeah?”

“I didn’t find any of your socks, sorry,” Aylin said. “If you need more though feel free to borrow mine. I went through a phase where I impulse bought way too many of them.” They pointed to their almost overflowing drawer. Scott could see a pair of socks with a pickle print, another with a stylized cat face repeated, and several more stripey ones, some of which resembled pride flags.

“Well, they are pretty quality socks,” Scott said. “Although, uh, I probably shouldn’t wear those ones, haha.” He pointed to a pair covered in a tiled pattern of blue, pink, and white stripes.

“Why not?” Aylin asked, making sudden aggressive eye contact with Scott. Scott almost physically stumbled backwards, surprised by their sudden intensity.

“Well, uh, I wouldn’t want to be appropriating someone’s culture, you know? Or I wouldn’t want to, like, accidentally make someone think I was claiming an identity that I don’t have any right to.”

“Well, I think you have some right to it,” Aylin said, quirking one eyebrow.

“I mean, I do have a few trans friends, sure, and maybe it would help normalize the visible expression of trans pride for both trans people and allies? But on the other hand, I mostly just own jeans and they’d be pretty much completely covered up.”

“Oof, that must have been sweaty lately,” Aylin said. The city had been going through a bit of a heatwave.

Scott shrugged. “Well, it’s really warm in the early afternoon but then when it gets into the evening it actually becomes kinda chilly, with the breeze and everything. Maybe I should wear more layers or something, so I can adapt to the evolving situation?”

Aylin laughed. “The evolving situation? You sound like a politician, dude. Also, I have a great idea.”

“What is it?” Scott asked, slightly terrified by the gleam of mischief in their eyes.

“Why, it’s time…” they paused, to build tension–”for JORTS!”