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“...maybe we should call this off?” Mina asked, looking at her girlfriend with a bad imitation of her usual grin. “They’re probably really busy today, and I can wait, and-”
Ochaco stopped her with a quick kiss, before pointing a finger into Mina’s face and telling her, “You’ve been putting this off for weeks! Let’s do it today.”
Making an exaggerated face of woe in reply, Mina didn’t gainsay that. Checking her phone, Ochaco could see the bus was still a few minutes away, and with nothing else to do, she looked at her girlfriend.
Mina had only been out and socially transitioning for about a year, but by the time Ochaco had met her in their political science class, there’d been no way anyone could mistake Mina for anything but a woman. To start with, the girl had dyed her normally brown hair a sharp pink, like a beacon calling for Ochaco’s attention. Her flashy use of make-up, with dark eyeliner and expert contouring, gave her already soft face a beautiful femininity, and her voice...
For someone who complained often about how voice training ‘wasn’t doing anything’ and that ‘no one can tell I’m a girl’, Ochaco had never heard a voice who activated her “Girl hot” button as quickly.
She tended towards sharp colors, purples and blacks and greens that clashed in a very pop punk way. Mina spoke with a bouncy affect, chipper and bright, just like her usual attitude. Sometimes it was a little harder to deal with, say at eight in the morning, but Ochaco was quickly falling in love with it. And her.
Something she hadn’t said yet.
They’d only been together three months! And Ochaco was just a chubby bi girl who fell in love too quickly. Who struggled to find cheap clothes to fit her stupid body. Who struggled to pass classes that others had no problems with.
None of her previous relationships lasted more than half a year. Izuku, Tenya, Jiro, all started great, but none of them survived the ‘I love you’ bomb. Which was why Ochaco had been holding it in for almost a full month.
It kept almost slipping out. Looking at Mina standing there, waiting for the bus, humming a bubblegum pop song to herself to steel her nerves...the sounds were there, on her lips, ready to be formed with breath and tongue into the short sentence that could ruin everything.
The bus finally arrived, knocking Ochaco out of the dilemma. They got onboard, using their college id for free bus fares, before taking seats and waiting for their stop. Without even thinking about it, Ochaco held Mina’s hand, and the other girl squeezed it for dear life.
In sharp contrast, Mina sounded perfectly fine as she asked, “So, like, what exactly is the point of those seats on the side? Why aren’t they all, y’know, facing the same direction?” Mina hadn’t ridden on the bus much. The only reason they were using one now was that her mom refused to drive her to this appointment.
Bitch , Ochaco thought to herself. Mina’s parents weren’t outright unsupportive of their daughter, but they did put up roadblocks anywhere they could. Ones that Mina whistled and walked around, mostly.
This was different, though. Ochaco couldn’t pretend she understood why. Like most difficult subjects, Mina danced around it with the skill of a master of the art. Though considering Mina’s outfit, a black miniskirt so short it was probably banned in most high schools, paired with purple leggings and a pink crop top, maybe dancing wasn’t a good idea.
Not that such logic would stop Mina. If anything, the girl seemed to enjoy pushing boundaries like that.
“They can fold up, creating extra space for people in wheelchairs and other mobility aids,” Ochaco explained, and pointed to divots in that area on the floor. “There are straps to make sure they can secure themselves and ride the bus safely.”
Elbowing Ochaco with a smile on her face, Mina said, “You must ride the bus a lot.”
With a shrug, Ochaco silently admitted that was true. After all, she didn’t have a car or anyone to drive her around. “That, and one of my ex-boyfriends used an electric wheelchair.”
“Oooh~” Mina gasped, “Secret Ochaco lore! Spill, girl!”
Seeing the clinic coming up, Ochaco hit the button to call for a stop. “Will you look at that? Time to get off the bus, we can come back to this topic never.” The bus started to slow down and pull up to the curve, and Ochaco stood up.
“Orrrrrr we could do this another day and you could tell me about your dating past while we loop around?” Mina asked hopefully.
Sighing, Ochaco looked down at her, stumbling a little as the bus stopped. “Do you really want to do that? We can postpone the appointment if you really want.” After a second or two of thinking, Mina shook her head and stood up too, walking out into the late morning sun hand in hand with Ochaco. “I’ve got to say, for someone so interested in my dating past, you haven’t told me anything about yours.”
They approached the doors to the clinic, and with every step Mina seemed to get more anxious. Shorter steps, head drooping down, hand tightening on Ochaco’s. “There’s nothing to tell. You’re my first...anything.” There was no attempt to add any cheery seasoning to the words.
Heading inside, Mina was handed a bundle of papers to fill out as a first time patient, and the two took seats in the waiting area while Mina worked on them. “How is that true?” Ochaco asked, thinking about it. “You’re gorgeous.”
The small laugh Mina gave in response didn’t have any humor to it. “Yeah, I am. Always have been. But...if I’d dated any girls before this year, they’d have thought they were dating a guy. Didn’t want to, like...deceive them about it, or anything. Ugh...doesn’t really make sense.” She slowly filled out the forms, occasionally reaching into her purse to grab a needed id or card to add to the paper.
After nearly twenty minutes, during which Ochaco mainly watched the movie they were playing on the waiting room TV ( Hocus Pocus , always a favorite of hers), Mina finished the forms and went up to give them to a receptionist.
One trip to the bathroom to fill up a cup with pee and five more minutes of waiting later, and a nurse came out to ask, “Mina?” The two girls stood up and walked up to the man with the clipboard.
“Can I take her with me?” Mina asked with a pouty, pleading look. The nurse didn’t object, and before long they were in a small room with the nurse, a blond boy who’d added a streak of black near the front.
“Let’s see...” the boy, whose name tag read ‘Denki he/him’, started with, “...just to double-check, your name is Mina Ashido, pronouns are she/her, and you’re here to start Hormone therapy?”
Ochaco watched as Mina took a breath to steady herself, then energetically shot back, “Yep, yep, and yep! Gimme them tiddy skittles!” Unable to stop herself, Ochaco chuckled.
Denki did more than that, he burst out laughing. “It’s too bad I’m on the clock, or I’d have a funny reply. Anyway, sounds good. When we call you on the phone, is it okay to say...” and from there came a barrage of questions. Some of them made sense to Ochaco, a lot of others didn’t, but eventually he left and they were stuck waiting for the doctor.
Alone together again, Ochaco saw that Mina’s appearance of joviality was gone again, replaced with naked anxiety. Putting a hand on her knee, Ochaco asked, “Can I ask a question?”
“You just did, silly,” Mina replied weakly, trying to smile.
“Why is this so scary? You’ve tackled every other part of it...fearlessly, as far as I can tell. You tell off teachers who don’t use your pronouns, you fire off one-liners at assholes at school, you skirt around your parents being jerks...but this scares you.”
“Because this feels...bigger?” She frowned, as though annoyed at herself for the incomplete answer. “It’s like...changing my clothes, my name, my hair, all of that wasn’t, like...permanent. I could always do take-backsies. But HRT is gonna change me. I keep reading stuff online, and...I’m excited. I hope it goes well. It might not, though. I might get a bad reaction, or it could really fuck up my antidepressants, or...or maybe I’m not even really trans.”
“...” It took a while for Ochaco to really digest all of that. Formulating an answer took even longer. “I’m not trying to minimize your worries, sweetie, but...you’re kind of the girliest girl I’ve ever met.”
The other girl groaned. “But what if I’m not! What if I’m just doing this for attention, or I’m confused, or I change my mind later?” She lightly kicked the desk the doctor would be sitting at. “I know it’s just imposter syndrome stuff, but...it won’t stop bothering me.” Mina didn’t look like she was close to crying, but her muscles were tight with unreleased tension.
Squeezing her leg, Ochaco tried to reassure her. “Remember that meme you sent me? ‘Wondering if you’re not really trans is the number one sign of being trans’.” That made Mina laugh, and Ochaco bumped their shoulders together. “If you want, we can still call this off. I love you the way you are.”
It was only a second later that Ochaco realized what she’d said. Freezing, she noticed numbly as Mina’s eyes did tear up, and she looked at Ochaco, astonished. “You...love me?”
A pit forming in her stomach, Ochaco couldn’t think of anything else to do but nod her head. This was it. It had been a really great relationship while it lasted...
“I love you too!!” Mina cried, pulling Ochaco in for a passionate kiss, then resting her head on Ochaco’s shoulder. “Gosh, babe, how’d you do that? I’ve been stressing out over telling you since our third date!”
“Third date?” Ochaco asked, eyes wide.
Shrugging, Mina said, “What can I say, I’ve got to bend to lesbian stereotypes. Speaking of, why haven’t we moved in together yet?” The question came coated in humor, but Ochaco was fairly sure there was some truth buried in it.
“How about a cottage near the woods? We can practice witchcraft and collect cats.” By the time the doctor came in, the two were laughing so hard they couldn’t breathe.