After several days of loneliness I found myself longing for my friend, being apart was somehow painful for me. Reading for leisure had lost its appeal for a time, though it did not help that I had no good books to read anyway. Visiting the art room was boring without Isaiah there to tease my paintings or wow me with his own art. My school life truly was devoid of any amusement without him. 

Perhaps, I thought to myself, this would have been the perfect opportunity to make new friends. That was a decision I instantly regretted. Attempting conversations with other students, especially this far into the school year, simply resulted in awkward silence followed by excuses to leave. Whispers around the facilities clued me into why I apparently gained a reputation as a social outcast.

"Your father must be so disappointed," a royal child from our neighboring nation mocked me one day at lunch, "knowing his only heir is screwing a pleasant boy must kill him inside."

"Excuse me?" I had never spoken to this boy before, I knew him only by reputation, and to think that was the first conversation we would have, well it certainly was not a good first impression.

He scoffed at me and rolled his eyes, "you're not fooling anyone, we all know what you two are doing behind closed doors." He passed his index finger through a loop he made with his other index finger and thumb, "you two really are disgusting."

"You do not know me, yet you slander me, why?"

"It's not slander if it's true," another boy jeered. 

The next few days I would continue to hear many people say things like, "He is gay," "careful his queerness will rub off on you," "he's definitely sleeping with his roommate," and other such rumors that began to float around the school.

Honestly, it did not surprise me, even among my own family I had become accustomed to such accusations. Still, I began to feel extra isolated without my companion there. I tried to distract myself, spending the next few days isolated, enjoying extra opportunities to wear my dress, but I felt strangely numb.

One night I laid restless, stirring constantly in my bed, loneliness choking me like a poisonous miasma, when I got an idea. I crawled down the ladder of our bunk bed, and slipped underneath Isaiah's covers. He was not there, so what harm would it do for me to sleep in his bed? Being closer to the ground may help me feel less anxious, I rationalized, though I knew that was not the true reason for what I was doing. 

His pillow smelled like strawberries, likely from his shampoo. Surprising, and possibly even a little cute, I honestly had not expected him to care about his scent so much. Then again, he was always very hygienic, even reminding me to bathe regularly. I hugged his pillow close to my body and breathed in, my anxiety melting as I slowly drifted to sleep.

Perhaps I was odd, a normal person does not sniff their friends' pillows, hoping to hold onto any lingering trace of their presence. So, it was true what they said, I was gay, though I suppose I already knew that. What boy wears dresses in secret if he is not a queer? Though perhaps that was not quite the right way to look at it. I did not feel at all like I was a homosexual boy, those words just did not seem right for me. I contemplated these things as I finally found myself slumbering soundly.

The next morning I found it quite hard to get out of bed. I was comfortable, my mind at ease, and my body was warm and snuggling with something equally warm and soft. The pillow I had latched onto felt different, however, because while it was soft, it was also hard, boney, and bigger. Oh no, the realization set in as I felt his arms pull me closer to him.

“Isaiah!” I tried to pry myself away from him, but he just held me tighter the more I squirmed

“Mornin sleepy head, can ya keep it down?” he yawned, smiling a soft little smile as I stirred him awake.

“What are you doing in my bed?” I asked, only to be immediately reminded it was I who was in his bed.

He laughed and pressed his nose against mine, “silly goose, you’re in my bed.”

I felt my cheeks flush as I began to stammer, “I, uh, well yes i am, but, uhh…” 

His soft cute laughter only made my panic worse as he pulled me into a tight hug, holding my face against his chest, “I missed that adorable blushin face of yours,” he teased me, “you know I realized somethin while we were apart.”

“Wha, what did you realize,” I asked, wondering if he had come to the same conclusion that I had.

“I have the cutest best friend~” he sandwiched my cheeks between his hands and focused my face in front of his, “like seriously, you just don’t get cuter than this.”

I could not tell if he was bullying me or genuinely complimenting me, but either way it made my heart flutter. Honestly, since I had known him my cheeks have spent more time flushed than their natural color, perhaps I can say that blushing had become my natural state thanks to Isaiah. “You, you do not really mean that,” I huffed.

“And what if I told ya I mean it?” He sat up and flashed me a sly little grin, “what would you do?”

Was he flirting with me? Like genuinely flirting? I could not tell, and I was so afraid to flirt back in case I was wrong. “Then I would have to kiss you,” is what I had wished to say, but instead I caved into my own shyness and hid my face behind his blanket, “please do not tease me, Isaiah, it’s not nice,” after all this time away from each other, I had hoped to have a pleasant reunion, but my own anxiety that I was just being toyed with kept me from enjoying it. 

He pulled the blanket back so he could see my eyes peeking out, and lowered his face closer to mine, “alright, I’ll stop,” he said, dropping back down next to me and wrapping an arm around my body, “but you gotta let me cuddle with you longer, okay?”

“Why do you want to cuddle me though? It is weird for boys to cuddle like this, is it not?” 

He frowned and let me go, “sorry, I, I guess I just was lonely, ya know?” Despite my objections, I wanted him to continue to hold me, but I could not admit that to him. He slowly crawled out of bed and stretched, his shirt rising up allowing me to spy what looked like dark bruises and lacerations on his back.

“Isaiah, did they hurt you?” My question came as a shock to him, as he quickly pulled his shirt to cover his lower back. “Please tell me what happened,” I got out of bed and gently placed my hand on his shoulder.

“It was a crazy two weeks,” he forced a grin to hide the fact he was holding back tears, “don’t worry about it though I’ll be,” he didn’t get to finish his sentence before I embraced him in a powerful hug, cutting him off.

“I am so, so sorry Isaiah, this is all because you defended me,” I cried into his shirt, “I am sorry,”

He hugged me back, gently stroking my hair as he held me, “don’t go blamin yourself now, it’s okay, I’m fine.”

My face rubbed into his chest as I shook my head, “no, it is not okay,” I held him tighter and he grunted in pain, “oh no! I am sorry!”

“Calm down, it’s alright, I’ll be alright,” he smiled at me, his pink and blue eyes shining with a sincerity as he looked into mine, “I got you to care for me so everythings okay in my book.”

Later, I retrieved some medical supplies from the infirmary, a task that was accompanied by a lot of prying questions from the staff there, and returned to our room, immediately getting to work cleaning and dressing his wounds. He sat topless on his chair, covering his chest with his hands as if he had felt compelled to hide it out of modesty, and huffed. 

“Damn, that kinda hurts more than the whip did,” he whined as I treated the lashes with some mild disinfectant, “gah, damn yea that stings!”

“I am sorry, but it is important to keep your wounds clean,” I felt like a mother doting over her injured child, a sentiment he seemed to share.

“Okay mom, I’ll be good then,” his quip filled me with a silly bit of giddiness, as though the thought of being a mother filled me with some odd euphoria. Quieter, but still fidgety, he sat there and allowed me to finish cleaning him. There were so many cuts, and enough bruises to nearly cover his entire back in black and blue.

My concern for my best friend was rivaled by my anger towards the people responsible. “Isaiah, this is terrible,” I once again found myself crying for him, the extent of this punishment was far too great, and his suffering had to be immense. 

Again he reassured me, “I’ll be fine,” before trying to shift my focus, “I thought of a good idea for our novel!”

 I had honestly almost forgotten about that, my mind was just so preoccupied on other things that it had slipped from my thoughts entirely, “oh, what idea is that?”

He looked back at me and smirked, “so like you know how the endin to ‘When Ashes turn to Fairy Dust’ implies she dies right? Well what if we write a story where she’s reincarnated in another world?”

“A reincarnation story?” I had known those kinds of stories were popular, but I myself had found them passé, still I decided I would hear him out.

“Yea, so like a story about how she dies right, then when she ends up in another world she’s still got the body of a boy,”

“But if she has a boy’s body then does that not mean her wish did not come true?”

“Yea, yea that’s the point, right?” he waved his arms, “so like she reincarnates into a world where everyone knows magic, unlike her old world where magic was a part of a secret world, and like she decides to take her transformation into her true self into her own hands,” he explained, “so like the message would be about how you can’t rely on gods to help ya, you gotta take your fate into your own hands.”

Though I felt the idea was a bit contradictory to the ending of the novel, I also sort of liked the concept, “so then, she wakes up in a new world and has to learn magic so she can turn herself into a girl, that is what you are suggesting?”

“Yep, I think it’s a pretty good idea honestly,” he patted himself on the back, metaphorically of course, “we can call it ‘Gender Dysphoria in Another World’~”

“What is gender dysphoria?” I felt as though I had heard the term before, but could not remember where.

He frowned and cocked his brow, “what do you mean? Gender dysphoria is like literally what Fairy Dust was about,” he sounded disappointed that I had not known, “you tellin me you really don’t know what that is?”

“I am sorry but I honestly do not know,” I actually started to feel a bit foolish for not knowing, as if it was supposed to be common knowledge that I just never learned.

“It’s like, when you feel discomfort or anxiety about your body for like things that you perceive as not fittin your gender identity,” he tried to explain, “like ya know, when you’re a girl inside, but your body is a boys body and it makes you all depressed.”

Despite his lack of eloquence, I believe I had understood what he meant, “oh, like how Sophie hated her beard in the second chapter and talked about how it felt like an animal gnawing at her face?”    

“Yea exactly, just like that,” honestly that was relatable, I too hated facial hair, body hair as well. I hated many things about my body, I thought that everyone hates their own body. I never thought there was a word for it, though I suppose that it is because I never got to talk to anyone about it before. 

“Is that why I hate my body?” the words simply slipped out, I was not even aware I was saying them.

“What’d ya say, Bonbon?”

“Nothing, it was nothing,” I lied.