DetectiveRed

Once again huge thanks to Trismegistus Shandy. Their editing is just such a godsend. Please check out their work. This chapter was a little wild. Shandy's work can be found on TGstorytime here and Big Closet here.

I should probably start putting a content warning for dysphoria on this story. James goes through a lot of it. I guess that's par for the course with a lot of trans fiction. 

The person in the mirror still wasn't him, but at least he couldn't tell they were a girl at first glance. His hair being tied up made it easier for him to get a look at his face. When he had first seen his face, he’d focused on what was missing and what had changed. Now that he looked without the lens of panic, his face was more androgynous than he had thought; it was bonier than usual, and his eyes seemed to be more sunken in. His hairline seemed to maintain some of its angularity. For now, he looked more sickly than girly. Even so, it was still frustrating that, no matter how much K changed his clothes, he couldn’t see his face in the mirror. His face was an androgynous husk. The only proof of his previous appearance, what he really was, was in the photos he rarely took. 

If he looked closer, he still noticed his chest poking out from under his hoodie; it was hardly noticeable, but it made him feel sick. He wanted to forget those things were there. He had even closed his eyes while he changed between different tops and hoodies to make sure he never saw them again. He never thought he would hate seeing a woman's chest, but when it was attached to him, all he could think about was removing it. Despite that, everything else made him feel more at home in his appearance: the way his body shape disappeared under the hoodie, the way his hair was tied up and hidden. It was similar to his normal style. It was comfortable.

"James, you alright?" 

K had changed how James looked so effortlessly; it was amazing he even came close to resembling his usual self after this curse, but they’d somehow managed it. He wanted to go out there and hug them. It was a relief to know he had them around to make him look more masculine.

"I'm fine." It still felt so awkward to be in this body, to hear this voice.

He had to get away from the mirror; despite the improvements to his appearance, it still hurt to see himself like this. 

K was waiting outside; it was nice to see a face that wasn't his.

"Are you feeling any better?"

"Yeah." He hadn't noticed how much deeper his voice had become when it dropped until it changed back. "But in your opinion, do I look like a loner teenage girl or a twelve-year-old boy?"

"You look fine, okay? Handsome even."

He often struggled to see K as a girl, but at that moment he couldn't see her as anything but, it was embarrassing. Her eyes seemed so kind and her cheeks were so full and soft looking. He had to turn away to hide his slight blush. He tried to remember that K wasn't a girl, despite how cute they looked right now. He tried to remember all the times they’d spent watching anime and cartoons; that was all Kieran, not Katie. He tried to remind himself they were the same person, yet now he could only see Katie, despite what he thought he believed.

"Are you sure you are alright, James? You seem a little out of it."

"I'm fine, Kay--" He stopped himself, the person in front of him was Kieran and only Kieran. Katie was just a girly part of Kieran, a mask they used to hide their true self. They always used to hide, why would they stop now? But still, they'd called him handsome; he felt relieved and flustered. A guy shouldn't be able to make him feel this way. 

"I'm fine,” he restarted his sentence. “Thanks for helping me with that." He didn't know what he would have done without them. Regardless of whether it was Katie or Kieran.

"You're welcome." 

The day went by uneventfully, all things considered.  It was odd how easily he forgot about how bizarre his situation was. In the end, he sat there in a girl’s body, wearing shorts and a hoodie, with his ex-best friend who was now a mix of a stranger and their old self, playing whatever games they could and trying to catch up on time they had lost. He didn't want the feeling of normalcy to leave, but every time he looked down or had to go to the toilet, he was reminded of how female he was.  

For dinner, James asked K to order pizza, while he set up the guest bed. After his last experience on the phone, he didn’t want to risk being called a girl again, not after he had spent the entire day trying to forget his issue. Even after a day of snacking, all he could think about was eating. He begged K to order the biggest, meatiest pizza available; she reluctantly agreed and rolled her beautiful eyes. He noticed he had begun to think about them as a girl again. He didn’t feel like he had the energy to think about it.

He offered his bed to K, who told him they didn’t want it. He thought it was odd that someone would refuse a bed over a mattress on the floor, but he didn't question it. He tried to set up the old mattress they kept in case of guests. It wasn’t the most comfortable thing, but it wasn’t awful. It had been a while since he had had a friend over. It sucked that it was under these conditions. 

K answered the door for pizza. James gave K the money but was still too scared to be seen by anyone. He felt like if he got called a girl to his face, he would probably break down crying. K sat on the bed he had set up in the lounge room and he sat on the couch behind her. They turned on the live-action Scooby-Doo movie and began eating their pizza. The large meat lover’s pizza he’d ordered looked like it would almost be enough food for him, and while K slowly ate their small garlic with cheese, James had almost eaten half of his huge pizza.

James noticed K had begun to drift off when they stopped making fun of the terrible acting in the movie. He realised how much he had been relying on them. Without them commenting on the movie, it couldn’t distract him enough. He was tired; the pizza he had just filled his body with had left him sleepy, yet he couldn’t stop thinking. His brain began going through every possible thought about his situation. 

Was it possible he would wake up and have his body back? If he slept, would he find out the last day had been a dream? If it was, then seeing K again wasn't real; how would he feel if that were true? How was he going to have to adapt to living as a girl? He had been a man all his life? Why couldn't this have happened to Katie? At least they would know what to do. How was he going to explain this to his mum? Would she accept it? Would she help him become a guy again?

It was overwhelming. He couldn't close his eyes, no matter how much they were drooping. He didn't want to imagine himself as a girl, he couldn't. He needed some of these questions answered. He needed to know if talking to K again was temporary.

"K if you're still awake, can I ask some questions?"

"Mmmhmmm?" they hummed sleepily

"If I'm stuck, will you help me learn to be a girl?" It hurt to ask, but K might be the only one who knew what it was like to go from being a guy to living as a girl, even if it had been less than perfect for them. 

"If that's what you want, then I can try. But I'm not sure you'll ever be a girl." They said it so matter-of-factly like she couldn’t think of him as a girl. 

"I have this body though. I might have to be one."

"James, that's not what I mean." It was like they knew something he didn’t. It was cryptic and annoyed him.

"Then what do you mean?" He snapped back.

"You didn't wish for this, did you?"

"Why would I wish for something like this?"

"Exactly, you don't want to be a girl. I'll explain tomorrow, but can we just watch this awful movie for now."

He had no idea what they were talking about. He couldn't be a man like this; he couldn't even look at his own body. He couldn't even do what most men would do in this situation and touch their new body.

Maybe it was worth trying to feel his body again. He started with the first big change; his chest. He couldn't bring himself to call them boobs, they were just his chest. He felt sick just thinking about touching them. He had avoided them all day because of how foreign the masses were, but he needed to properly confirm they were real. He put his hand on his chest and took a deep breath; they and his hand rose and fell with his breathing. They were real. He wanted to vomit, he wanted to rip them off, he wanted his old body back. He had wanted to touch boobs before, but all feeling them did was make him feel more emasculated and terrified than he already did.

Against his better judgement, he went to the bathroom and tried to mentally prepare himself for what he needed to check next. He reached down to his crotch. He expected his dick to be there; he thought he could feel it there, even after it had been gone all day. It took him touching the space where his dick used to be to confirm his feelings were wrong. Every logical part of him told him to pull his hand away now, but he had to feel it for himself.  

He knew he would have a vagina, it would have to be the case. He had to have used the toilet from somewhere but touching it for the first time while he was fully conscious made no sense to him. He leaned over the toilet bowl, unsure if he just felt sick or if he was going to throw up. This body made less sense to him the longer he inhabited it. What was he meant to do with this body? His entire body screamed that everything was wrong. 

He needed to sleep. He needed to wake up tomorrow in a body that fit him. He needed his body back.

He grabbed a blanket from his room and laid on the couch. He didn’t want to wake up alone that night.