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The melatonin gummies aren't where they're supposed to be. Hyun has been trying for over three hours to fall asleep, but no matter how long he closes his eyes and lays there, sleep won't come. He finds himself groggily stumbling out of bed to the bathroom, moving with muscle memory, somehow not waking Rui or Wumuti in the process.
He rifles through the bathroom cabinet, certain the plastic container must still be tucked behind the paracetamol where it had been yesterday. But as his hand feels around the cool shelf, he finds only empty space and dust.
He sighs, rubbing a hand over his tired face, and gets down to open the drawer under the sink, though it's hard on his long limbs in the cramped space. He rifles around in there for a while as well, pushing aside bottles of vitamins and likely expired cold medicine. He's losing hope, ready to just give up and stare at the ceiling, that is until his fingers brush something unfamiliar at the very back of the drawer.
His brow furrows. By touch alone, he can tell it's a prescription bottle. But all their prescription medication, mostly just Rui's ADHD meds, are always kept in the kitchen cupboard. He frowns as he pulls it out. There's no patient name on the bottle, which is strange, and he doesn't recognize the medication name.
He reaches back into the drawer, confused, and what he feels this time, pushed far into the dark corner, makes his stomach churn with sudden unease.
Hyun pulls them out, small glass vials. He sets them on the floor, his heart beating almost out of his chest as he reaches back in one last time. His fingers close around something large, heavy, and metallic, a metal box.
Hyun nearly drops it when he cracks it open. They're needles. An entire box of syringes, individually wrapped.
The world narrows to the sound of his own breathing, rapid and shallow, and his mind races with worst-case scenarios. His shaky hands reach again for the vials and they feel heavy as lead when he picks them up, turning them to catch the dim light, trying to read labels that blur in his rising panic.
"Hyunnie?" He hears a whine faintly from the bedroom. "Can you turn the lights off? It's so early..."
"Come here." His voice sounds strange as he speaks to Rui, distant, hollow. "Now."
It's quiet for a moment, then Rui's footsteps echo across the floorboards. He appears in the doorway, hair mussed from sleep, wearing only boxer shorts. His bleary gaze finds Hyun first, confused by the urgency, then drops to the array of medicine spread across the white tile.
"What-" Rui's face scrunches up as he crosses the small space in two strides, kneeling beside him. "Hyun, what is..." He stops dead when he sees the needles, his face going pale. "Oh god."
Hyun can't speak. He watches as Rui picks up one of the vials with careful, trembling fingers, turning it until he can read it.
Hyun watches his face, waiting for an explanation, but Rui gives little away. He only notices the way Rui has gone very still. Then he sets the vial down and reaches for another. Then the pill bottles. One after another, Rui reads them silently. Then he swallows hard. Hyun watches as understanding seems to crystallize across Rui's features.
"They're... um," Rui starts, still holding one of the bottles. His voice comes out thin. "They're hormones." He pauses, sets the bottle down, "Estrogen, progesterone, and an androgen blocker."
The words take a moment to penetrate Hyun's mind, but when they do, his breath catches in his throat.
"Oh," he breathes out.
The bathroom feels suddenly too small, the air too thick. Hyun stares at the bottles and his mind works backwards through the past year, recontextualizing everything. There had been many things he’d noticed, things both he and Rui had whispered about in the dark.
The way Wumuti had started wearing exclusively oversized clothes even at home. The way they'd stopped changing in front of them, always retreating to the bathroom with the door locked. The way they'd flinched away from their touches, especially anywhere near their chest or hips.
"Oh, Muti," Rui whispers, the realization heavy in his voice.
They're still kneeling there, surrounded by evidence they weren't meant to find, when a voice comes from the doorway.
"Come back to bed..." Wumuti's tone is sleepy and irritated, muffled through the hoodie sleeve she's using to wipe sleep from her eyes. "What are you two even-"
She stops. She stops dead in her tracks when she notices what Rui and Hyun have congregated around.
Her gaze moves from their faces to the bottles arranged on the tile, and all the color drains from her skin. The sleeve falls away from her face.
For a long moment, no one moves. No one even breathes.
Wumuti's lips part, then close, then part again, like she's trying to come up with something to say, but no sound emerges. Her eyes are wide, terrified.
Hyun stands slowly, his knees protesting the hard floor. He doesn't know what to say.
"Muti..." he starts anyway.
Wumuti takes a sharp step backwards. Her back nearly collides with the doorframe, her whole body curling in on itself. Her hands twist in her sleeves, pulling them down past her fingertips.
"I can explain," she says finally, and her voice is so quiet and shaky they almost don't hear it.
"Okay," Hyun whispers, trying to be gentle despite the hurt expanding in his chest. "Explain."
Wumuti's gaze drops to the floor and she swallows hard. She doesn't look at either of them and for a while the silence stretches, broken only by the hum of the heating system clicking on.
"How long?" Rui asks eventually, when it's clear she's not going to speak on her own.
Wumuti's jaw tightens at the question. "Eight months," she whispers.
Hyun feels something twist in his chest. It's not anger, but a sick sort of unwarranted betrayal that makes his stomach turn.
"Eight months," Rui repeats, and there's hurt in his voice as well, raw and exposed. "And you..." He stops, swallows hard. "And you didn't think to tell us?"
Wumuti's hands tighten in her sleeves until her knuckles must be white. She still won't look at them, her gaze fixed on a point near their feet.
"I was going to," she says, but the words sound hollow.
"When?" Hyun's voice is desperate, frustration bleeding through.
"I don't know." Her words come out barely audible and fragile. "I- I was..." She stops. "I kept waiting for the right time."
Her shoulders hunch further and she lets herself lean on the doorframe behind her. She's shaking slightly now, the silence that follows feels suffocating.
"But why?" Hyun asks finally, his throat dry. "Just... why were you waiting to tell us? Why didn't you want to?"
Wumuti's throat works. Her lips part but no sound comes out. She looks trapped, cornered, her eyes darting between them and the door behind her
"Muti, please," Rui's voice breaks on the plea. "We just want to understand."
"I couldn't." The words tear out of her, desperate and raw. "I couldn't tell you. I-" She stops herself abruptly, jaw snapping shut.
"Why?" Hyun asks again, not letting her fall into silence.
"I just... couldn't," is all Wumuti responds. Hyun waits, for a moment for anything more, though nothing comes.
"That's it?" Hyun asks, and he can hear his own voice rising despite his efforts to stay calm. "That's all you're going to say?"
Wumuti doesn't respond. Just stands there with her arms wrapped around herself, making herself as small as possible, trying to disappear into the doorframe.
"Muti, we've been..." Rui stops himself, breathes shakily. He stands as well, joining Hyun though he stays a step behind, not wanting to crowd her. "We've been trying for... God, for months to figure out what's been wrong." His voice cracks on the last word.
He steps closer, his frustration giving way to a desperate sadness. "Muti, for months you've been cold. You pull away from every touch. You won't let us see you. We live together, we share a bed, and I’ve never felt further away from you."
Wumuti doesn't look at him, she only wipes at her eyes, "I don't know why you're so upset," she whispers out, looking down, her tone taking on a defensive edge to mask the guilt. "I- I don't need to ask for permission before making choices about my own body."
"You know that's not what I-" Rui starts but Hyun cuts him off.
"We're not upset about the medication," he tries, but the words stick in his throat because clearly they are upset, they are hurt, just possibly not for the reasons Wumuti thinks. "We're concerned because- because-" He swallows hard. "Because we should trust each other and you’ve been hiding something this big and we didn't even..." He stops himself, jaw clenching. "We didn't even notice."
The last part comes out quieter, more wounded than accusatory.
"Do you not trust us?" Rui asks, and he's gone very quiet. "Did you really think we'd react badly?"
Wumuti's hands are shaking now, badly enough that even tucked into her sleeves, the tremor is visible. Her eyes are bright with unshed tears that catch the unforgiving bathroom light.
"I don't want to talk about this," she says finally, and her voice has gone small again, childlike.
"But we need to talk about it," Hyun counters. "We need to talk about it, you can't just-"
"Can't we just go back to sleep?" She looks at them now, finally, and the pleading in her eyes is devastating. Tears track down her cheeks in silent streams, "Please, I just... I just want us to go back."
The vulnerability in her voice stops Hyun mid-sentence. He exchanges a glance with Rui, sees his own uncertainty reflected back.
"Muti," Rui tries again, softer now. "Please, we-" He stops, breathes shakily. "We want to understand."
Wumuti shakes her head, mute. Tears continue falling but she makes no move to wipe them away. She seems caught between the urge to flee and the knowledge that she can't.
"I can't," she whispers finally. "I can't do this right now."
"When, then?" Hyun asks, and he's trying to keep his voice level but exhaustion is creeping in around the edges. "When can we talk about this? Because we need to-"
"I don't know!" The words tear out of her, loud enough to startle all three of them. "I don't know, okay? I don't have an answer for you. I don't- I never wanted-" Her breath hitches. "I can't-" She starts hyperventilating now, her chest heaving with rapid, shallow breaths. Her hands come up to press against her face, against her eyes, trying to stop the tears that won't stop falling. The sound of her breathing fills the small bathroom, ragged and panicked.
Rui takes an instinctive step towards her, but Wumuti backs away, her spine hitting the doorframe and then she's sliding down it, her knees giving out.
"Don't," she gasps out. "Please don't-"
Rui freezes, his hands hovering in the air between them. "Okay," he says quietly, crouching down slowly so he's at her eye level. "Okay, I won't touch you. But you need to breathe. Can you try to breathe for me, love?"
Wumuti shakes her head frantically. Her breathing only accelerates, panic overtaking her. She draws her knees up to her chest, making herself impossibly small.
Hyun watches helplessly as she curls into herself, her face buried in her arms, her whole body wracked with sobs that sound torn from deep inside her.
The sound is devastating.
Rui looks at Hyun with stricken eyes, clearly at a loss. His hands hover over her back but don't touch, respecting the boundary she's set even as every instinct clearly claws at him to offer comfort.
They stay like that for what feels like hours but is probably only minutes.
Eventually, Wumuti's breathing begins to slow. The sobs taper into hiccupping gasps. She keeps her face hidden, but her body relaxes incrementally, no longer rigid with panic.
"‘m sorry," she whispers finally, the words muffled against her arms. "I'm so sorry."
"For what?" Hyun asks quietly, his voice hoarse.
"For lying, for-" Her breath catches. "For all of this."
Rui slides incrementally closer to her, still maintaining some distance. "We're not angry," he says, and it's true. The anger is burnt out if it was ever there to begin with. "We're just..."
"Confused," Hyun finishes. He joins them on the floor, his long legs folding awkwardly in the cramped space. "And okay, maybe we're a little hurt, Muti. Because you didn't trust us enough to tell us."
"I do trust you," Wumuti says, but she still won't look up. "It's not..." She stops and tries to blink the tears out of her eyes, though fresh ones immediately replace them. "I wanted to tell you."
"Then why didn't you?"
She doesn't answer.
"Muti," Rui says gently. "We can't help if you won't talk to us."
"Maybe I don't want help," she bites out and Rui flinches at the suddenness.
"Why?" Hyun asks, bypassing her attempt at defensiveness. He still genuinely doesn't understand. "Why would you want to go through something like this alone?"
Wumuti's hands tighten around her knees. Her whole body curls tighter, making herself small against the doorframe. When she finally speaks, her voice is so quiet they have to strain to hear it. "Because I was scared."
"Scared of what?" Rui asks.
Wumuti shakes her head. She still won't look at them, won't lift her face from where she's hidden it against her knees. The heating system clicks off. In the sudden quiet, Wumuti's breathing sounds impossibly loud.
"Scared of what?" Rui asks again, softer this time.
Wumuti lifts her head slightly, just enough that they can see her soft face. Her eyes are red and swollen, her cheeks wet. She looks at them both for a long moment, and there's such naked fear there that it makes Hyun's chest physically ache.
"I didn't tell you," she chokes out, "because I’m not the man you fell in love with." The words hang heavy in the cold air of the bathroom.
Then, with shaking hands, she grabs the hem of her hoodie and pulls it over her head, discarding it on the floor, leaving her in sleep shorts and a thin, sheer shirt. She lets her knees extend out in front of her, so they can see clearly now all the ways she's changed.
Hyun tries not to look, tries to keep his gaze on her face, but it's impossible not to notice. The subtle swell of her chest, still small but pressing slightly against her shirt, undeniable. The softer lines of her shoulders and waist, the way her skin seems softer.
"Be honest," she says, and her voice is hollow, emptied of everything except exhaustion. "Right now, look at me." She gestures at herself with one trembling hand. "Can you seriously say that you still want this?"
Hyun opens his mouth, closes it. His mind is blank, every reassurance he'd thought he could offer dying before it reaches his tongue. Beside him, Rui has gone very still, his dark eyes fixed on Wumuti, taking in everything he hasn't been allowed to see for months.
"Because my body's changing," Wumuti continues when they don't respond, and she sounds resigned now, like she's already accepted their answer. "And it's going to keep changing. And I- I don't know if you'll still..." She stops herself.
"Still..." Hyun manages, though his mind is only half there, still processing what he's seeing.
"Want me." The words come out broken. "I don't know if you'll still want me. This- I know this isn't what you signed up for."
"Is that what you think?" Rui's voice comes out shaky, his eyes finally meeting Wumuti's again. "That we're that shallow?"
"I think..." Wumuti wipes at her eyes with her hand, smearing tears across her cheeks. "I think you fell in love with someone who looked a certain way. And I'm not-" She breaks. "I'm not that person anymore. I'm changing and I- I know-" She stops, swallows. "You're not attracted to women. You won't be attracted to me now that I'm..." She gestures vaguely at herself. "Now that I'm different." She looks away, unable to hold their gazes any longer.
Rui, still sitting on the floor, doesn't move. His jaw works like he's trying to form words that won't come.
Hyun feels a thick sensation in his throat that he keeps trying to swallow down. He opens his mouth again, trying to find something reassuring to say, but the easy words don't come. Because Wumuti is right. Physical attraction does matter, and pretending otherwise would be another lie added to the pile already between them.
"Muti," Rui begins, his voice rough. "That's... that's not fair."
"It's true," she counters instantly. She looks like a ghost of herself, thin and drawn and small, her knees coming back up to her chest, self-conscious, covering what she'd just shown them. "You and Hyun are not-"
"Stop it," Rui cuts in, sudden and sharp. He finally moves, pushing himself up to his knees, closing the small gap between them. He gets close, his gaze intense, forcing her to look at him. "None of that matters. This is about you."
"But that's all it comes down to, eventually!" she cries, the desperation flooding back. "I've tried so hard to be a person you can desire. To just be content with wearing pretty clothes and playing with my hair and makeup like all of you do because that's fine! That’s all okay and this," she gestures wildly at her body. "This isn't. This is me- I'm changing everything because all of it just wasn't enough for me and I knew- I knew the second I took that first pill that I risked losing you both forever. And I... and I still did it."
Her voice cracks on a fresh sob. "Because every day I spent pretending, I was so fucking miserable. It felt like I was dying inside and I would have these moments where I- I couldn't breathe and then I felt like I was dying on the outside too and-" She squeezes her eyes shut, more tears escaping to trace paths down her cheeks. "I couldn't stand being me anymore. I couldn't."
Rui's face softens, pain flooding his features. "Oh, Muti," he breathes. He reaches out this time, and gently curls his fingers around her shoulders, the touch feather-light, giving her room to pull away if she needs to. "Why did you think you had to choose between being happy and being with us?"
"Because I love you," she whispers, her voice broken. "I love you both so much, and I... I’ve been so selfish. I kept delaying and hiding, trying to cling to whatever scraps of you I could before you finally looked at me and realized."
"Realized?" Hyun asks quietly.
"That you don't want me anymore." She's crying harder now, her whole body shaking. "That you can't want me. That you'll never want me again, not like this. Not when I'm-" She stops, swallows. "Not like this."
"You could change in every way and we'd still love you," Hyun tries, desperate to fix the crack he sees forming.
"But I need you to want me," she confesses, the phrase stripped bare and raw. "Not just love me like a friend. I need you to want me. And if I’m a woman... you won’t."
Hyun watches Rui eyes meet his again and he's sure they share the same devistation.
"I don't know," Hyun admits finally, his voice barely a breath. The honesty feels like pulling out his own teeth. He sits forward, resting his forearms on his knees. "I can't lie and say it changes nothing."
Rui's eyes snap to him, sharp and almost accusatory, as if scolding him for saying what he shouldn't.
Wumuti flinches at the words as well and he sees her start to pull away, to retreat back into herself.
"But..." He reaches out, takes her free hand before she can disappear completely. "But, Muti... We fell in love with you, the artist. With your brain, with your passion and your brilliance.
"You fell in love with a boy," she whispers.
“We didn't fall in love with you for your body-" Hyun tries to continue.
"Yes you did," she says flatly. "At least to some extent- please, please don't lie to me."
"What's changing is just the outside," Hyun continues, speaking over her protest, squeezing her hand, willing her to hear him. "It terrifies me that you thought we’d abandon you for choosing to live how you want. It hurts that you’ve been going through this alone." he rubs the back of her hand with his thumb, "Like I said, you could change in every way and we'd still love you."
"But you don't want to fuck me." She says bitterly and the crudeness of the statement, coming from Wumuti who rarely swears like this, shocks them both.
The affirmative is like ice water. Hyun watches Rui's hand tighten slightly on Wumuti's shoulder, watches him struggle for words that won't come.
He pauses, makes himself meet her eyes. "I don't know how this might change things physically. I won't lie and say that it won't be..." He stops, swallows. "Complicated. But the only thing that's made me want to leave lately is this distance there's been between us. Not this." He looks at her, at the changes she's so afraid of, then back to her face. "Not you. Never you."
Wumuti is crying silently again, fresh tears spilling over. "But what if-" Her voice breaks. "What if we try and it doesn't work? What if you realize you can't..." She can't finish the sentence.
Rui shifts closer, his hand moving from her shoulder to her face, cupping her cheek with devastating gentleness. "Then we'll figure it out," he says quietly. "But we're not leaving you. We’re never going to leave you."
"But-"
"Muti, please." Rui's voice cracks. He pulls her forward into his arms and this time she doesn't resist. She collapses against him, her face pressed into his shoulder. Hyun moves closer, wrapping around both of them, and for a long moment they just hold each other on the cold bathroom floor.
"I'm so tired," she eventually says against Rui's shoulder. "I'm so fucking tired of pretending and of hating my own body, of waking up every morning and wanting to crawl out of my skin because nothing feels right."
"Then stop pretending," Rui says, his arms tightening around her. "Stop hiding."
"If I were to truly be myself, you-" she starts, "you won't love that person. I don't want to lose you and the real me is someone you can't-"
"We already love the real you," Hyun says quietly. He rests his forehead against the nape of her neck, breathing in her familiar scent. "We've been in love with her this whole time."
Wumuti doesn't speak again after that but Rui can feel the new exhausted tears leave her cheeks and stain his chest. She just lets herself be held.
Eventually, Hyun picks her up. She feels lighter than he remembers, fragile. He carries her back to the bedroom, Rui in tow.
He rests her on her side under the blankets, then comes up to hold her again.
Wumuti leans into his touch, seeking the warmth she’s denied herself for months. "I'm sorry," she whispers. "I'm so sorry I didn't trust you, both of you. I was just so scared."
"We know," Hyun says. "But we're not going anywhere."
"Not unless you want us to," Rui adds where he's settled on Wumuti’s other side so they're both bracketing her in.
Wumuti shakes her head frantically, gripping the sheets. "No. No, I don't-" Her voice breaks. "I don't want you to go. I never wanted you to go.”
“Then we won't.”