“Does this look good?” Scott asked.

Aylin tilted their head and squinted at the jeans Scott was pointing at. “Uh, I’d recommend going a little lower than that. You can always cut off more but you can’t uncut. Well, I guess you could sew stuff back on, but that’s a pain in the ass and unless you do some weird special stitch it would leave a visible seam.”

“Alright. I just want to make sure that it’s high enough that it can leave most of my legs nice and bare when it’s hot, but not so high that people can see, uh, stuff that should remain private.”

Aylin laughed. “Yeah, fair. Although there are things that can help with that, if you’re interested?”

“What do you mean ‘help with that’?”

“Oh. Well, there’s stuff that, uh, makes your junk take up less space and be less visible. Have you heard of tucking?”

“It sounds vaguely familiar?” Scott said. “Wait, yeah, I think I read a manga about crossdressing that described it. I got the impression it’s a lot of work and potentially painful, or at least uncomfortable.”

Aylin shook their head and muttered something.

“What? I didn’t catch that?” Scott said.

“Oh, I–sure, it’s a lot of work etc. if you’re gonna be all hardcore about it and shove your balls up into the integument or whatever, but that’s not really what I meant. There’s just, like, underwear that can help compress stuff and you can kind of have your dick positioned back between your legs, and that works fine if you’re wearing relatively sturdy pants like jeans. You can kinda have it run along the seam.”

“Oh, I guess that makes sense,” Scott said. “That does sound a lot easier. Maybe I’ll try that? I do sometimes want to wear stuff more like this but I worry that, well, a bulge or something is going to be overly visible and make others uncomfortable or something.”

“Do you worry a lot about making other people uncomfortable?” Aylin asked.

Scott shrugged. “As much as any other guy, I guess? I mean, any other guy who doesn’t suck, at least. I don’t want to do stuff that makes anyone around me uncomfortable or creeped out, especially girls.”

“Eh, I get that,” Aylin said. “Honestly, that reminds me a lot of, like, me in high school.”

“Oh, really?” Scott asked. “How did you get over it?”

“Well, feeling more comfortable with yourself helps a lot, I think. At least in my case there was probably some projection going on, where I felt like I was creepy. Also I think it helps to just, like, develop social skills over time. I think sitting there and being silent because you’re worried about saying something wrong is probably more likely to creep someone out than if you make small talk and say something slightly awkward.”

“Huh. Fair enough, I guess. I won’t lie and say that I never cringe when I look in the mirror. I keep thinking that maybe I would feel better if I worked out more and got a better haircut and stuff but I’m also just not that motivated. I guess I kinda feel like I’ll look bad no matter what.”

“Aw,” Aylin said. “Hey, can I give you a hug? You seem like you could use a hug. And I realize this probably isn’t helpful because you need to work on your own self-perception, which external validation isn’t gonna be a real substitute for, but I think you look fine.”

“Go for it! The hug, I mean. I like hugs.”

“Absolutely!” Aylin said. They hugged Scott. It was nice.

“Time to get back to these jorts,” Scott said after the two of them released the hug. “So… here?”

“Yeah, that looks perfect,” Aylin said. “Just above where thigh highs would come up to.”

“What?” Scott said, having been distracted by trying to line some of Aylin’s pinking shears (apparently that’s what the funky zigzag cloth scissors were called).

“Ah, just ignore me,” they said. “We can get to that later.”