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“You don’t understand how hard it is for me.”
Tears stung Changmin’s eyes. He couldn’t believe what he was hearing. Maybe it was just a dream. It would go away once he woke up again. He’d be okay. They’d be okay.
But it wasn’t a dream, and they weren’t okay. His own boyfriend was standing in front of him, telling him how he made his life difficult.
His lip quivered and he stared Kyuhyun down with a darkness that was very unlike him. “How dare you?” He took a deep breath. “How fucking dare you?” A tear escaped his eye, damn thing. “You think it’s hard on you? What about me? You know, since I’m the one who’s actually experiencing it.”
Kyuhyun scoffed. “You seriously can’t see where I’m struggling? One day you’re a guy, one day you’re a girl, one day you’re neither. Why can’t you just choose one?”
Changmin ran a hand through his hair. “Get out.” Kyuhyun stared at him in shock. “Are you deaf? Get out, and don’t even think about calling me later. We’re done.”
Kyuhyun opened and closed his mouth, trying to form words that he couldn’t put in order. He slowly backed away as if Changmin was a wild animal before turning to leave the apartment. Changmin waited until he heard him speed off in his car before he let himself break down, shaking, sniffling, and screaming into his pillow.
She focused on her reflection in the mirror as she applied her eyeliner, thinking herself blessed to have perfected such a skill so quickly. She chose a lipstick that called itself “Rouge Pur.” It was a bright red, but softer than her others of a similar shade, and it complimented her nicely. She finished up her look with a wig. It was a deep brown and came down to about half of an inch past her shoulders in the back. She made sure it wasn’t sticking up in odd directions, as it was supposed to be straight, and then did the same check on her solid red dress, making sure it wasn’t wrinkling or bunching up. When satisfied, she smiled to herself and grabbed a small black purse and slipped on some black four-inch heels. It had taken her a while to master the art of walking in them, and she was rather proud of herself.
It was a ten minute taxi ride to the doctor’s office, and the driver didn’t make any comments, which she found rather refreshing. She gave him a couple extra singles for being so tolerable.
When she walked into the building, no one looked up, despite her heels clicking on the floor. There was no line at the receptionist’s desk, so she walked right up. The woman didn’t look up from her computer screen.
“Excuse me,” she said quietly, despite trying to look confident. “I have an 11 o'clock with Dr. Choi.”
“Name?” The receptionist still wasn’t looking up.
“Jangmi.” A pause. “Well, on the records it’ll say Changmin. Shim Changmin.”
The woman nodded in understanding. “Please sign for consent to treatment.”
Jangmi sighed, picking up the stylus and signing the magic touchscreen-like box. She didn’t understand why she had to sign every time. Wasn’t her appearance consent enough? Someone must’ve gotten sued once or something.
The doctor showed up almost the exact moment she sat down in the waiting room. He beckoned her over with a pleasant smile. Everything about him was pleasant, from his sharp facial features all the way down the 183 centimeters to his toes.
“Jangmi today, huh?” His tone was anything but judgmental, and if anything it was warming, and that’s why Jangmi liked Dr. Choi so much. He made her feel safe. “How have the past couple weeks been?”
Jangmi shrugged, but the look on his face told her he wasn’t buying it. “I broke up with Kyuhyun the other night.”
Dr. Choi seemed shocked. “The guy you’ve been seeing for the past few months? Why?”
She paused, a bit unwilling to relive the harsh words. It took several minutes of “um”s before she managed to say it, and Dr. Choi was patient. “He said my gender identity - or lack thereof, in his opinion - was too hard on him. That I had to choose. I told him to get lost and for once in his life he listened. It’s been liberating, sadly enough.” The words came out a lot more casually than they felt.
“Liberating?” the doctor repeated. “How so?”
“Well, he always complained about walking on eggshells with me. It’s nice to not have to worry about getting in his way anymore.”
Dr. Choi nodded in understanding while scribbling some things down. That was weird. She almost never saw him write things down. Maybe she just didn’t pay attention. “Anything else?” he asked.
“No.” She shifted her weight in her chair to adjust the way she had been sitting before, and crossed her legs in front of her.
“Cool.” The doctor started fumbling through some drawers until he found a worksheet. “I want you to fill this out.”
Jangmi groaned before she even looked at it, but she took it from him anything and glanced over it before giving him her best are-you-kidding-me? look. “The Genderbread Person?” Her tone perfectly matched her expression.
Dr. Choi grinned. “I was hoping you would appreciate the pun. As silly as it looks, I need you to do it seriously.”
She looked over it again. There was a really cute drawing of a gingerbread man with some smaller illustrations in areas corresponding to the boxes to the right. There were five boxes: gender identity, gender expression, biological sex, sexual attraction, and romantic attraction. Each box had a scale that ranged from female to male to neither. Jangmi scribbled in what she felt was appropriate before handing the paper back.
“Interesting,” Dr. Choi commented, looking over it several times. “For both gender identity and gender expression you just drew scribbly lines all over the place.”
“That’s how I feel about it. All over the place.”
He nodded. ¨You strongly favoured the masculine side of the spectrum for the rest of the answers.¨
Jangmi shrugged. ¨I can’t really lie about that.¨
¨Well, you could try,¨ Dr. Choi said, trying to ease the tension a bit. It didn’t work. ¨So, what I’m curious about is how you’re so certain on those answers but otherwise you’re just...¨
¨All over the place?¨
“I wouldn’t put it that way, but sure.”
She sighed and looked to the floor. “I don’t know. It’s just...how I feel? One day I feel really masculine, another day I feel like the prettiest girl on earth...and sometimes I feel either nothing at all or right in the middle. I looked it up a while ago...I saw something about being ‘genderfluid’ or whatever, and I think it fits.”
Dr. Choi nodded and scribbled some more words down onto the paper. They made idle conversation the rest of the hour before they schedule more appointments for the next few months. She probably could go once a month, but she was a bit apprehensive that something would come up in the meantime, so she kept them at every other week.
They said their formal farewells before Jangmi left, feeling only slightly better, but that was better than feeling slightly worse.
After her appointment she had decided to get her nails done, choosing to do acrylic nails with a deep red colour that went with the rest of her look. She hadn’t originally planned on it, but she opted to go out that night. She had worked hard the past couple days and she felt she deserved a drink or two. Okay, three. She returned to her apartment to freshen up, and then made the walk to the nearest bar. It was only a few blocks away, plus she wanted the fresh air. It was liberating to be on her own and not have to worry about a boyfriend who was worried about how walking with her was going to affect his image.
When she got to the club, she ignored the dancing mass of people and made a beeline for the bar. She couldn’t quite remember what she ordered, it was something with a fancy name that made it sound better than it was. As she went to take a sip, she felt someone come up next to her. She could tell they were male from his voice as he ordered a drink.
He looked at her while he waited. “Hey,” he said, followed by something almost as cringey as “Do you come here often?” that she had chosen to ignore purely because she didn’t want to experience any secondhand-embarrassment.
Great. She hadn’t expected to pass well enough to have someone start talking to her, let alone grace her with such an awful pick-up line. “Hey,” she replied. She still hadn’t looked at his face, so she didn’t see him frown, but she from the corner of her eye she saw his shoulders sag.
“You’re not one for conversation, are you?” he asked.
“I’m not too fond of strangers,” she answered much too quickly.
When he received his drink he turned his body to face her. “Well, that’s a bummer,” he muttered.
She finally turned to look at him and damn it he was actually handsome. He had a well-defined jawline and small features, as well as black hair that he had styled to sweep to his right. He was broad in build with muscles that were noticeable, although only slightly so. “Maybe I can make an exception.” She wanted to kick herself for that comment. It sounded like they were in some kind of bad romance film.
Luckily, he smiled, and even chuckled, too. “I’m Yunho, what’s your name?”
She swallowed and opened her mouth several times unsure how to answer when-
“Be careful of that one,” said an eerily familiar voice from behind her. “She’s a trap.” She looked behind her and it was of course Kyuhyun. Perfect.
“Excuse me?” Yunho was confused, but also taken aback.
“Oh, I guess I should say ‘he’s a trap,’ shouldn’t I?”
She didn’t say anything, didn’t look at him. She tried to hide from both of them the fact that she had started shaking.
“What are you talking about? Who are you to her, anyway?”
Kyuhyun shrugged. “Just trying to save you from some disappointment. Ask him for his driver’s license.” Yunho gave him a puzzled look, and he gestured to her. “Go ahead.”
Yunho didn’t even have the chance to stutter before she was shoving the piece of plastic at him, face glued to the floor. He looked it over and then his eyes scanned over until they reached the part that said “Sex” and there was a nice, capital “M” next to it. “Oh,” he said.
Kyuhyun smirked. “He may be a pretty lady tonight, but tomorrow he’ll probably decide he wants to be a man instead. Besides, I didn’t want you to take him home and then be caught with an unpleasant surprise.”
“‘Unpleasant’?” Yunho echoed, offense very present in his voice. He grabbed Jangmi around the waist and pulled her closer to him. She almost yelped in surprise. “Lucky for her, I swing both ways.” Kyuhyun’s jaw dropped and he smirked. “Why don’t you run along and cause trouble elsewhere before I make some for you?”
Kyuhyun tried to open his mouth to say something but in the end decided it was better to turn around and scurry into the crowd like a dog with its tail between its legs.
Yunho noticed she was still shaking and looked at her. “Hey, what’s wrong?”
Jangmi tried to speak but sobs interrupted her instead. She hadn’t even noticed tears were falling.
“Hey, hey,” he said, softening his voice. “Let’s get out of here, come on.” He kept his hand around her waist and started guiding her towards the door. “Did you drive?” he asked.
She shook her head. “No, I,” she started, stopping to take a breath and try and calm herself down. “I walked.”
Yunho nodded in understanding. “Do you want me to walk you home?”
“No!” she yelled quickly. “Well,” she stopped. “I don’t mean ‘no, I don’t want you to take me.’ I mean ‘no, I don’t want to go home.’”
“Where do you want to go? I can take you.”
“Well, that guy back there, his name is Kyuhyun, and he’s actually my ex-boyfriend. I, uh...Well, he thought all this,” she gestured to herself, “was deceiving and confusing. He told me I had to choose. So I told him to get lost...I want to go somewhere he can’t find me.”
Yunho nodded again. “Understandable. I wouldn’t want to near him either. Correction: I don’t want to.”
Jangmi laughed in spite of herself. “I feel bad laughing. He wasn’t that bad outside of that.”
“I disagree,” Yunho said. “He isn’t good enough for you if he can’t accept you as you are. You made a good choice getting rid of him, at least as far as I can tell.”
She didn’t notice she was crying again until she felt something wet drip onto the front of her dress. “Oh, sorry, it’s just, well, I,” she paused to collect her thoughts. “No one’s said something like that to me. And no one’s ever defended me like that. I really appreciate it.” She tried to wipe her eyes gently. “Ah, great, my makeup is running, isn’t it?”
Yunho shrugged his shoulders. “No need to thank me, honestly. It doesn’t take much effort to be a decent human being.”
“You’d be surprised,” Jangmi said with a chuckle.
He thought it over for a second. “I can’t disagree with that.” He looked around. “I never did get that name.”
“Oh...I thought, since you saw my license,” she trailed off.
Yunho shook his head. “It is true I saw it, but is that really what you want to be called?”
“Yes, well, no.” He looked at her in confusion because that was in no way a straight answer. “When I’m like this,” once again gesturing to herself, “I prefer to be called ‘Jangmi.’ Only my doctor knows that...and Kyuhyun. But otherwise ‘Changmin’ is good.”
“Good to know,” Yunho smiled. “I don’t want to call you the wrong thing and make you uncomfortable.”
Jangmi returned the smile. “Thank you.”
“So about tonight...where should I take you?”
“Oh!” she said. “Uh, about that.”
Yunho laughed. “How about my place?” he offered.
Jangmi was taken aback. “A-Are you sure?” She stuttered a bit while asking, not wanting to impose.
“Perfectly. You said yourself you can’t go back to your place. I drove myself here. Giving you somewhere to stay is the least I can do.”
She nodded. “Okay,” she thought it over again. “Okay.”
“Come on,” he removed his hand from her waist and moved it to her forearm just above her wrist. “Let’s go.”
The drive to Yunho’s place took about fifteen minutes. They sat in silence the entire time, neither of them sure what to say next or what questions to ask to start up a new conversation. It turned out Yunho lived in an apartment complex, his own living space being on the second floor of the fourth building. It was small, with only one bedroom, but he was also the only one living there and it was really nice. He somehow managed to make a plain space look decent, with a plant in the corner and some nicely coloured wooden furniture. There were some dirty dishes on the table and a shirt lying on the floor. They took off their shoes at the door and Jangmi watched Yunho to figure out what to do next.
“Sorry about the mess,” Yunho muttered, moving to start picking everything up.
“It’s okay,” Jangmi said. “You weren’t expecting me. Everyone has those moments.”
“You were a pleasant surprise, not going to lie,” he said while he threw the plates in the sink - literally - and tossed the shirt into his room.
Jangmi was rolling her eyes before she could even think to stop herself. “You already got me, you don’t need the cheesy pick-up lines anymore.”
The comment seemed to have flicked a switch because suddenly the look in Yunho’s eyes changed from playful cat to those of a tiger stalking its prey. He put an arm around her waist and used his thumb from the other hand to move some hair out of her face. After admiring her for a few seconds he leaned in slowly before committing to the idea of kissing her. Jangmi was surprised for only an instant before melting into it. She put her arms around his shoulders and softly moaned into it. Yunho nipped at her bottom lip and ran his tongue along it before she let him slide it past her lips. He used his hand that was behind her to undo the zipper on her dress, which was the moment she panicked, eyes widening and jumping away. “Stop!” she yelled.
Yunho took a couple steps back. “What’s wrong? Did I do something? I’m sorry, I-”
Jangmi used a hand to tell him to stop talking. “It’s not you. I’m just not comfortable. Not like this.”
He nodded, looking down at the ground for a couple seconds before realizing something and looking up again. “Do you want me to zip your dress back up?”
“Yes, please,” she said, turning around for him to do so before facing him again. “Thank you.”
He smiled softly, before sitting down on an old, worn sofa that was behind him. He patted the spot next to him with his hand. “Come here.” She obliged, sitting next to him, pulling her legs up on her other side so she could sit more comfortably with the dress. She leaned on him after about ten minutes of conversation, comforted by the sound of his breathing and heartbeat.
Changmin didn’t remember falling asleep, but he sat up and the left side of his neck hurt from the angle he had been sleeping in. He looked at Yunho, then looked at himself and his heart sunk immediately. He got up from the couch and frantically looked for the bathroom, which only took him about thirty seconds since the apartment was so small, and then looked in the mirror.
“Damn it,” he muttered. “What was I thinking?” He took off the wig, and that was that, but his face and outfit caused him the most dismay. He couldn’t remove the makeup without the proper stuff, and he had no change of clothes. He started to panic and saw the nails on his fingers, bringing them to his mouth so he could start trying to bite them off. “Ow,” he muttered. He had just gotten them yesterday, so they were really hard to get off. He knew Yunho probably didn’t have any nail polish remover or rubbing alcohol or anything of the kind. The next course of action he had was to sit on the floor, against the wall, with his knees drawn up to his chest, and cry. He couldn’t stand being in his own skin, his own flesh causing immense discomfort.
There was a knock on the door. Shit. Yunho must have heard him. “I’m fine!” he yelled, except his voice broke and he sniffled, so it was obvious he was lying.
The door opened and Yunho looked in to see the mess of Changmin on the floor. “Hey,” he said softly, sitting next to him. “What’s wrong?”
Changmin struggled to breath, his lungs not quite filling enough with air. “Me. I’m what’s wrong.” He went back to trying to bite the nails off, and succeeded in getting one off of his right ring finger, but he tore the nail bed and it was bleeding. “Fuck!” he yelled, eyes blurring with tears. “I hate this, I- I..”
“Hey, hey,” Yunho said softly, putting an arm around him. “What do you need?”
Changmin took in a breath, trying to collect himself. “Do you have anything I can wear?”
Yunho nodded. He left real quick to grab a shirt and some jeans before leaving Changmin to change for himself. The shirt was a bit baggy and he needed a belt for the jeans, but it was better than the dress. Much better.
It took a while to figure out a solution for the makeup and nails, but they fixed it eventually. It
wasn’t perfect, but it was better than before. He felt semi-comfortable now as opposed to feeling like he was covered in fire ants. They were cuddling on the couch again, Yunho’s arms around Changmin, who was between his legs and leaning back on his chest.
“Thanks,” he muttered. “Sorry I was such a mess earlier. I just...I looked awful.”
“Hey,” Yunho said sternly. “I think you look great. You’re really cute.” He ran his hand through Changmin’s hair.
“Really? Even like this?”
“Yup!” he replied enthusiastically.
Changmin smiled and leaned into him a bit more, just for the sake of being closer. Yunho was warm and safe, and he was the first person he didn’t have to tiptoe around. He closed his eyes softly. “Thank you,” he muttered. “No one’s ever been this kind to me.” Yunho nodded and hummed a small tune to himself, which helped Changmin to relax more. He let his head fall back, using Yunho as a pillow as he let himself drift off to sleep.