The Skirt
Fandom: Boku no Hero Academia/My Hero Academia Summary: Denki wears a skirt in front of her classmates for the first time. Warnings: Coming out, genderfluid character Word Count: 1,796 Ships: Kamanari Denki/Sero Hanta
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“You can do this, you can do this,” she chanted to herself over and over again. Despite the affirming words, her hands hovered over the handle to the door. She could do it, she could leave her room and go downstairs. It wouldn’t be any different than it had been the other dozens of times that she had done it.
“Except this time it’ll be completely different,” she removed her hand from the doorknob completely and sat down heavily on her bed. “Everything’ll be different.”
Panic began to creep up from her stomach and sit heavily in her chest. She ran a hand shakily through her hair, though she was careful to avoid the cute clips that she had worked so hard to get into her hair in a way that didn’t look stupid. A couple more deep breaths had the panic simmering back down for the time being. She could tell that it was there, resting in the background and waiting to spring back up and choke her at any moment, but it was dormant for now.
“Come on, you’ve been female for a week now. You can wear a skirt in front of your classmates and ask to be called your proper pronouns,” she encouraged herself. “Kyouka promised that she’d be there for you if things go badly anyway. You can do this. It won’t be like last time. They’re heroes, they’re not going to be transphobic.”
The other voice in the back of her mind, the one that had stopped her from doing this up until now, spoke up again. It reminded her that genderfluidity wasn’t really accepted as an identity by quite a lot of queer people, and that it was a burden to ask people to remember the correct pronouns when they changed so often.
She didn’t get much of a chance to mull that over as someone knocked on the door. She sat upright as panic fluttered throughout her again, but it quickly settled down as she heard the voice of her childhood friend. “Hey, you missed breakfast. I’m heading to class now, but I’m going to force a granola bar into you during break,” she promised.
The other teenager heard Kyouka’s hurried footsteps as her childhood friend left to go to class. Denki let out a small hiss. She was hoping that she would have been able to get some of the reaction out of the way before class started, but she had waited too long and now everyone would see her at the same time.
She stood up, a fierce determination taking over her. She flung the door to her room open and fled down the hall after making sure it was securely latched. She was going to do this, she wouldn’t chicken out. She had Kyouka by her side, and she logically couldn’t be the only trans or queer person at this school. Hopefully whoever the other queer people were would recognize that her gender and feelings were real and back her up. If they didn’t at least she had Kyouka.
The trip across the campus was quick and painless. There were very few people traveling over the green or on any of the sidewalks, and those that were didn’t recognize her and she didn’t recognize them. The nervousness that she had been feeling all morning returned to her when she reached the door. She puffed up her chest, smiling slightly as the shirt hung over her differently, giving her the illusion of being physically female like she wished she could be at the moment.
The euphoria of looking like the gender she currently was inside let her open the door and she quickly walked inside. She could feel the eyes of her classmates following her, though there were still the normal speckled conversations that usually took place before their teacher woke up and began classes.
She sat down at her desk, placing her bag next to her. Panic was heavy in her chest but she was doing her best to keep it down and away from the surface. She was doing something that scared the shit out of her, and she couldn’t let them see weakness like she had done in middle school.
Nobody said anything, though more and more of the conversations were dying down as people realized that something was up. Soon she had nearly every single person looking at her, and it was really beginning to get to her. She shifted awkwardly, staring down at her lap. Her nervous mannerisms began to pick up and she started to brush her hands over her skirt and fiddle with the loose strings of her button up shirt.
“Uh, Denki?” someone finally spoke up.
The blond responded by snapping her head up and looking directly at who had spoken. Mina was sitting closest to her and had apparently been the one to finish reeling first too.
“Are you wearing a skirt?” Izuku asked from the other side of the room.
The blond shifted again, swallowing down nothing as she tried to dampen her nerves. She caught the confident smile that Kyouka was wearing and then nodded. “Yeah, I am. I’m wearing makeup too.”
“Why?” Hitoshi asked.
“If my boyfriend wants to wear a skirt and makeup then he can, whenever he wants to,” Hanta said from behind Denki, immediately getting defensive of her.
Dysphoria flared up in her again as she shifted in her seat. “Actually, um, I’m wearing makeup and a skirt today because I’m a girl.”
“You are?” Hanta asked, blinking. He then panicked, “Not that that’s a bad thing! I just wasn’t expecting it. I still want to be here for you if you need me.”
“Well, I’m not a girl all the time,” the blond got out before any more of the chaos in the classroom could unfold. “I just… I’m genderfluid. It means that I feel like my gender changes. Sometimes I feel like both, sometimes I feel like neither, sometimes I feel female, sometimes I feel male. I know it’s kind of an annoying thing, so I’m not going to ask any of you to change pronouns all the time, but I just want to be myself.”
“Nonsense,” Tenya called over the top of the clamoring of voices from some of the students. “Everyone will respect Denki’s pronouns no matter how often they change, and if you don’t I have some firm words for you.”
“Yeah, same! Disrespect my friend and you and I are going to have a problem,” Eijirou called. “Transphobia is so unmanly!”
To her surprise, the next person from her friend group to speak up was Katsuki. “More than a problem. You might not live to see your birthday if you decide to disrespect her. Got it, you bunch of losers?”
“None of us want to disrespect her, Kacchan!” Izuku called, having become a lot more outward now that he was comfortable around the rest of the class. There were a couple of crows in agreement, before the conversations began to pick back up and people returned to what they were doing.
Momo was up from her chair and gathering Denki up in a hug. “Thank you for coming out to us, it means a lot. I have a couple tips and tricks for this kind of dysphoria if you ever want to spend some time together,” she beamed.
“Ooh! We should invite her to girl’s night on the weeks that she’s feeling like a girl!” Tooru clapped her hands together in excitement.
“Yeah, we could do your hair and paint your nails!” Ochako chimed in, looking just as giddy and excited. “I bet that you could give us some tips on eyeshadow too, you look really good today.”
“Thanks. I used to do it on my sisters and I guess I just got really good over time,” she flushed and rubbed the back of her neck in embarrassment.
Tsuyu was the next one to speak. “Also, you don’t have to be female to come to girl’s night. You can be nonbinary or agender like me and still show up. It’s mostly just for us to do girly stuff like gossip and paint each other’s nails.”
“That sounds really nice,” she grinned. “I’m pretty good at painting nails and braiding hair.”
“This is going to be so much fun!” Mina grinned. “You and I have to go shopping the next time that we get a weekend outside of school. I want to have a fashion show with you.”
“Kyouka already took me shopping when I was in middle school, I’ve got some feminine clothes. And it’s not like I have much of an allowance to spend,” she shrugged awkwardly.
The pink teenager rolled her eyes. “My dads spoil me with a big allowance, and I’m sure that they’d be more than willing to help if I told them that it was to get clothes so that you would feel more comfortable!”
“Yeah, okay,” she nodded finally after a moment of deliberation. Mina quickly got caught up in a conversation with Tooru across the aisle about which shops that they should bring their new feminine friend to.
Denki jumped as she felt someone tap on her shoulder. She turned around to see her boyfriend sitting there with that stupid smile that he always got when he was looking at her. “Hey,” she whispered. “I hope that this isn’t too weird for you. And that you’re not mad I didn’t come out to you first.”
“It’s okay,” Hanta shook his head. “I now that coming out can be really difficult. It took me three years just to be able to tell my parents that I was questioning my sexuality, and even longer to admit to them that I was bi.”
She reached out to grasp the hand that was resting on his desk, threading their fingers together. “I just wanted to get it all done and out of the way at once. Coming out is so hard, so I wanted to do it once instead of half a dozen times.”
“I get that. Thanks for sharing this with us. I’ll try my best to remember your pronouns and change around some of the pet names that I use for you,” he brightened up. “Does this mean that I can finally experiment around with some of the girly ones?”
She laughed, “Yeah, it does.”
“Awesome,” he beamed, leaning across the desk to gently give her a kiss on her lips.
“I love you so much,” she giggled. “Thank you for being so supportive of me.”
“Of course. What kind of a boyfriend would I be if I wasn’t supportive?” Hanta snorted. His face softened and he rubbed the back of her knuckles with his thumb. “I love you too.”
