It was an ordinary Wednesday morning, and Alex (Alexander, but no one used his full name) was uncomfortably standing in the crowded bus for his 15 minutes ride to school. He was feeling quite tired in the morning, something that had become his new normal in the past few weeks due to the upcoming university entrance exams. Being at the top of his class, he was working hard to keep all his grades up and ace the exams, so he could attend the best university in the country and get closer to his dream job as a researcher. Still, this has been an extenuating time for him even if his goal was worth it.

When the bus finally stopped, he was quite glad to get down form it and regain his freedom of motion. He was also surprised to see that Aiden, one of his best friends, was also riding the same bus, most likely hidden from his sight during the ride due to the crowd inside. He waved slightly at his friend and the two students started walking together to class.

“Morning, Aiden”, Alex said tiredly with a half-smile.

“Good morning, Alex!”, Aiden replied energetically. “Man, you look exhausted today too… Good thing the exams are in a couple of weeks, I’m not sure you would survive this much longer!”, he continued, half joking half genuinely worried about the health of his friend. “I’ve said it before, but I feel you would be able to get top marks even if you didn’t work so hard, not that you would listen to me”, he shrugged.

“You know that if I didn’t do this, instead of relaxing I would just be worrying nonstop over not preparing the exams anyway. Still, I’m a little jealous of your carefree attitude, you know?”, Alex replied. “Still planning on working at your parents’ restaurant?”

“Yep”, Aiden said. “I’ve been part-timing over there most of my life, so my skill level is quite high for the job”, he smiled. “Also, it means I get to not have to worry too much about my final marks, unlike some people I know.” He playfully punched Alex in the arm while saying that.

The pair finally reached their class, and parted ways since they sat far away from each other. Alex got to his desk, middle row close to the window, and left his heavy bag on the floor. Sitting down, he scanned the packed class of 30 students until he found who he was looking for, his girlfriend of two years Sophie, talking to two of her friends. Looking at her, he got lost in thought. She was looking pretty as always, with her blue, gentle eyes and her straight, shoulder-length blonde hair tied with a black headband. As usual, the school uniform (the girls’ consisting of a dark-green cardigan over a white shirt, a light-brown knee-length skirt, green socks, and black shoes) looked very nice on her thin body (even if the color scheme was quite horrendous). Alex always felt that the female uniform was much nicer than the male one (even though they shared the color scheme), a feeling that was exacerbated on these hot mid-May days, where wearing long trousers felt quite inconvenient. In any case, he had gotten used to those feelings as part of high school, like everyone else he supposed.

Coming back to thinking about his girlfriend, he once again wondered how such a nice and gentle girl had accepted going out with him. Not only was she pretty, but she also had a very nice personality that everyone liked. She supported him in everything he did, always calm and serene while he tended to freak out (even if secretly) whenever a problem or setback came to be. He always felt that he could push through anything with her support, a support that allowed him to become first of their class. Of course, he helped her out too when she needed, like with her studies, but he felt their score was not tied at all (even though she disagrees). In contrast to her many attractive qualities, he felt he had little “charm”. He was kind of tall with his 183cm (and looked even taller when they were side by side, given her 164cm), and had kind of a strong build (characteristics he never really cared about, useful in some situations he guessed); but his short, black hair and face were somewhat plain and unremarkable. On top of that, he was not very talkative or outwardly emotional, and had what people described as “scary eyes” (he always liked their light brown color, though). Many people praised him for being smart, but he didn’t feel he deserved it that much. Additionally, he wasn’t much of a “partygoer”. In his free time, he mainly simply stayed inside and played videogames or watched anime (often with his girlfriend, who was invincible at smash bros even though she didn’t even own the game herself!). Thus, he was grateful to be able to have such a wonderful person in his life.

Sophie was chatting with two of her school friends, Lauren and Kate, who she normally walked to school with, just before the class started. At some point, she noticed that her boyfriend was looking at her from his seat across the room and decided to wave at him while smiling. Alex seemed to be a bit out of it, so it took him a few seconds to answer by smiling and waving back, clearly a bit embarrassed. She decided to chat with him for a bit too, but unfortunately, when she started to walk towards him the teacher of first period entered the class, and she had to go back to her seat. She sat down a bit disappointed, and took out her book, notebook and pencil case, like the rest of students in the class.

First period was math, a subject she was just ok in, but thanks to her boyfriend she was able to achieve decent grades. She was very glad to have his help, even though he always insisted that it was of no importance. He always tended to undervalue his achievements, effort and qualities, and Sophie sometimes felt bad for him for it. Still, he was already like that back when they first met, two full years ago. They were planning to celebrate the occasion, but only after the entrance exams had passed. She had already covered the material for today with Alex, so she decided to look at her boyfriend (his back from her seat) for a bit. Since he was trying hard for the upcoming exams, he had already learnt all the material for the subject, so he was clearly studying at his own convenience, most likely something else. All the teachers were aware that some of the advanced students were self-studying, and did not really care provided they did not disturb the rest of class. He looked both troubled and tired, which had become his signature look in the past few weeks. She was worried about his health, but reassured herself that all this was going to end in only a couple of weeks, and Alex already had so much to worry about to try to talk to him about it. They really needed to make special plans for this summer, to be able to relax after all the effort. Looking at the board, she decided to doodle in her notebook for a bit, since the class was not going to become more exciting anyway.

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Second period finally came, PE. Alex was glad first period was over, since reviewing history material was not exactly an exciting start for a day. He quite liked PE, since it allowed him to burn some steam and forget for a while the problems and responsibilities of daily life, even though he was not very good at sports in general. The whole class got out of the classroom, and went straight to the gym locker rooms, where the students changed into the gym uniform. This uniform was pretty much the same for both male and female students: a white T-shirt, a dark-blue sweater, dark-blue shorts (or long trousers for the winter) with a white and green stripe on the side, and unrestricted socks and trainers.  Alex went straight to the male locker room, and changed as fast as he could. He has always felt a bit uncomfortable having to change in front of his peers, even if there was nothing particularly wrong with his body. He just felt somewhat embarrassed he guessed. He was also not very comfortable seeing his male classmates on their underwear.

After changing, he got out of the locker room and into the gym, where only a few classmates and the teacher were waiting. He decided to sit down on a side bench to wait, and a few minutes later Sophie got into the gym. She immediately saw him and sat down beside him to chat for a bit. They talked about meeting this weekend and play videogames together (“getting his ass beat, most likely” Alex thought), and Sophie tanked him again for reviewing today’s material with her. When everybody got into the gym and the teacher decided it was time to start the class, she kissed him slightly on the cheek before standing up. Alex, a bit flustered, followed a couple of seconds later.

Today, the class was going to play volleyball, which he wasn’t too bad at. They played for about 30 minutes, where somehow Alex’s team lost most matches. Still, he didn’t really care about that, feeling better than before starting thanks to the exercise. As the class ended, the teacher asked him to put back the material into storage. He was not very fond of his lazy teacher always asking students to put the material back on his behalf, but this time it was only going to be a couple of balls, so it was no big deal.

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When Sophie exited the female locker room with Kate after having changed back into their regular uniform, they approached the group of students that were waiting for everyone to finish and go back to class, along with their teacher. Surprisingly, her boyfriend was still not there, which was odd since he was always one of the first ones to finish. Furthermore, she found that none of the male students remember seeing him inside the locker room. The teacher was also surprised to hear that, since while it was true that he had asked Alex to put the material back into storage before getting changed, there were only a couple items so it should have taken very little time. Sophie got a bit worried that he might have had an accident and get injured, or maybe he got himself locked in the storage.  She decided the best course of action would be to go check up on him herself.

“Teacher, I’m a bit worried about Alex, can I go look for him?”, she asked.

“That’s probably the best”, the teacher replied. “I was about to ask for a volunteer anyway, I’m starting to worry. He’s supposed to be inside the storage room inside the gym, please don’t take too much time”.

“And don’t use this as an excuse to do anything wei-bugh!”, a male student replied jokingly, getting cut off mid-sentence by Lauren’s elbow to the side.

Paying him no mind, she went straight to the gym. First, she called Alex out from the door of the gym, but there was no response. Thus, she continued straight into the open, unlit storage room. She could not see very well inside but could at least make out the shapes of the biggest items inside, like the trampoline and the boxes of sport equipment. Everything seemed to be organized, so she could rule out the possibility of an accident. Getting further inside, she could make out the shape of a dark-haired girl in the corner, sitting on the floor and hugging herself while crying silently. She decided to turn on the lights before addressing the girl, allowing her to maybe identify her. She didn’t know who she was, but she seemed familiar. Her wavy, mid-back black hair was falling all around her, given the position she was sitting in, and was wearing the school’s gym uniform, even though it looked a bit too big on her. Sophie decided to try to calm her down, see if she could help the girl and ask her if she knew where her boyfriend was.

She sat on the floor in front of her and started talking in a calming voice. “Hello, is something wrong? Do you need help? My name’s Sophie, who are you?”.

“S…So…phie? Is it you?”, she answered quite shaken.

“Y…yes? I’m Sophie. Do I know you from somewhere?” The girl seemed to know her, and was familiar to her even though she could not really remember where she had met her before. “What’s wrong? Maybe I can help?”.

“It’s… It’s me, Sophie. Alex”, the girl replied quite shaken.

“Wh…What, what do you mean you’re Alex? You mean my boyfriend Alexander?”, she replied dumbfounded.

“I know it sounds crazy, but it’s true!”, she shouted. “You have to believe me, Sophie! I… I need your help”, she said while starting to cry again.

Sophie studied the girl in front of her earnestly. She had familiar factions, including a touch of his boyfriend’s signature scary eyes. Also, her hair and eye color matched Alex’s, and her clothes matched what her boyfriend was wearing before. On the other hand, none of that was relevant given the claim she was making after all. Still, she felt inclined to believe her. The way she was freaking out was quite like Alex’s, and it would be quite difficult to fake these strong emotions. Also, what would be the end goal here anyway? It would be in very bad taste for a joke, and Alex did not make jokes of this kind in any case. Thus, she decided that this girl was telling the truth, and was really Alex.

“Ok, I believe you”, Sophie said calmly. “Please, Alex, can you calm down a bit and explain how did this happen? Breathe, in and out”, she said, trying to allow her boyfriend to breathe, calm down a little and collect his thoughts.

“I don’t know!”, Alex started saying loudly. “I was once again doing the teacher’s damn job and putting the balls back, and just as I was done and started to leave, there was a huge flash of light and I was like… this!”, Alex shouted, pointing to his new breasts on his chest, their shape and size clearly noticeable through the shirt. “Fuck, what am I going to do?? Look at these, I don’t know how the hell I turned into this, I don’t know how to turn back!! I cannot go to a hospital, I cannot go back home!”, Alex was clearly starting to panic again, his talking speed increasing.

“Alex”, his girlfriend said, trying to make him focus a little.

“My life is ruined! How can I keep on living!? I don’t even have an ID, let alone student records! And what about us!? Aren’t you affected!?”, he continued, ranting a little.

“Alex, please calm down”, Sophie said in a serious voice, trying to look at him in the eyes.

“How!? I’m no longer a guy, can we even be together? What will everyo---”, Alex started, but was interrupted by his girlfriend hugging him. He was still clearly shaken but hugged her back. She was as calming for him as always and allowed him to focus again. It was her who broke the hug, placing a hand gently on his boyfriend’s face.

“I still love you, Alex. I always will.” Sophie said lovingly. “I don’t know how this happened, and I don’t know what we are going to do, but we will figure this out. Together. So please, will you calm down?” Sophie decided not to remind her boyfriend of the fact that she was bisexual herself, so him being a girl temporarily or even permanently was not necessarily going to be an obstacle between them anyway.

“I love you too, Sophie.” Alex was so glad that she was the one who found him, and started crying again softly from relief. She had made all this issue look less dire, once again her support being invaluable to him.

He closed his eyes, and decided to kiss Sophie tenderly, to show his appreciation for everything. Sophie closed her eyes too and reciprocated, glad that Alex was calm once again and noting the slight differences in her boyfriend’s new lips. They shared the kiss for around 20 seconds, after which they parted and opened their eyes. Alex was back to normal.

“Huh”, they both said. It took them a couple of seconds to process the unexpected development.

“I’m… I’m back!? I’m back!”, Alex shouted happily, relief all over him. “I’m once again me! I can go back home! I don’t know what happened, but I’m back!”

Suddenly, his girlfriend called to him. He turned to look at her and started asking “What is i-“. He was cut off mid-sentence as she surprised him by kissing him again. When they parted, he was a girl again. Alex was frozen in place, unresponsive, after her sudden action. Sophie decided to kiss him once again, and Alex turned back into a guy. They both stared at each other.

“So this is how it works…”, Sophie said to herself, surprised by this new discovery.

“How can you be so calm about all this!?”, Alex replied, flabbergasted at his girlfriend reaction and experiment. What was he going to do now!?