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Beepeeep-- Beepeeep-- Beepeeep--!

The blaring screech of a digital alarm clock woke Lin Xiaorui up from his slumber.

Xiaorui shot straight up from his chair as if jolted, and nearly fell from his seat.

The papers and textbooks messily sprawled across his desk rustled as they were disturbed from their places. The scorching sunlight of Hangzhou's [1] mid-summer morning was already brutal despite the early hour, and it filled Xiaorui's bedroom with sharp golden light. The temperature was hot and sweltering, as it always was in the summer months off the shore of Lake Xihu. The red LED light on the desk clock steadily blinked 7:15 AM, flickering as the alarm blared its shrill tone.

Clearly, Xiaorui had fallen asleep at his desk while pulling another all-nighter studying, just like he often did in high school.

How nostalgic.

Groggily, Xiaorui rubbed his eyes as he reflexively silenced his alarm clock. But moments later, he suddenly hesitated.

Wait a minute.

Why was he in his old room at his parent's house?

Lin Xiaorui was age 25, a PhD student in electrical engineering at Harbin Institute of Technology in Shandong province [2]. The last time he had been home to visit his parents was during Chinese New Year's, which was several months ago. Right now, he was supposed to be on campus working on his thesis. In fact, the last thing Lin Xiaorui could remember from yesterday night was passing out at 2:00 am in the break room at his university's lab while toiling over piles of academic papers for an imminent deadline for a poster presentation.

Xiaorui stood up hesitantly from his chair, deeply confused.

How had he suddenly teleported to his parent's house in Hangzhou?

Was this supposed to be an elaborate dream of some kind?

The smell of freshly boiled soy milk and steamed buns wafted up from downstairs. The odor was both nostalgic and vivid, almost too real to be a dream. Back when Xiaorui was little, his grandmother often used to get up early in the morning to make homemade soymilk, and the odor from stewed soy beans was very distinct. On very special days, such as when Xiaorui had an exam at school or on a birthday, she would go outside to buy fried dough and rice cakes from the street stalls and take them home for breakfast. That had always been his favorite. Sadly, she had passed away several years ago.

But the fragrance of soy milk...

Xiaorui glanced down at the papers scattered messily across his desk that he had formerly used during his grade school years.

Several sheets were crumbled up and slightly damp from where he had drooled on them after a night of sleeping.

However, Xiaorui could clearly make out that about half of the worksheets were organic chemistry problems, and the other half was scratch paper filled to the brim with famous lines from classical Chinese poetry that had been copied over and over again for rote memorization.

Xiaorui blinked a few times with a puzzled look at these worksheets.

How long ago was it since Xiaorui had last looked at an organic chemistry problem? And furthermore brute memorization of classical Chinese poetry? This sounded a whole lot like stuff he had done during high school...

Was he somehow dreaming about the past? Xiaorui wondered.

At that moment, a raspy elderly voice called up from downstairs.

"Rui-Rui [3], are you awake yet? You'll be late for your mock exam if you don't come down soon."

Xiaorui immediately froze upon hearing that nostalgic-sounding voice.

It can't be. Was this really a dream?

+ + +

"Good morning, Lao-Lao." [4]

Xiaorui spoke almost hesitantly as he sat down at the kitchen table and pulled a bowl of soy milk towards himself. He also grabbed a piece of vegetable steam bun and slowly began nibbling on it, almost doubtful that the food was even real.

Meanwhile, his mind raced. By rapidly picking up on cues from around him, Xiaorui had roughly placed the date as sometime in the summer between his first and second year of high school. In other words, sometime in July or August... 2008... during summer vacation... which, well, left a very ambivalent taste in Xiaorui's mouth.

Out of all years it could possibly be, did it really have to be this year?

He glanced at the back figure of his beloved grandmother. By the upcoming winter, she would be diagnosed with Parkinson's Disease, and her memory would begin progressively declining before finally passing away by 2010. And that was just one small part of the reason why 2008 was such a dreaded year.

Xiaorui opened and closed his fingers, squeezing the soft white dough between his fingertips as if testing its sponginess, almost in disbelief. His palms were practically sweating.

Counting the years back, this would make his age... 16?

"Rui-Rui, you're a growing boy! Eat more! Eat more! Your brain will break down in the middle of the exam if you don't stuff your belly with good food!"

Lao-Lao chimed as she jumped from one frying pan to the next, oil sizzling and crackling.

"There's your favorite shengjian buns [5] in the bag. The youbing [6] I'm making will be done in just a few minutes. Since you're not changed yet, hurry and go get changed. I'll pack breakfast for you to go so you can eat it on the bus in the meantime. Hurry! You'll be late otherwise!"

"Ah, yes," Xiaorui fumbled as he stood up and excused himself, almost spacing out.

He paused on his way out, and then suddenly felt compelled to turn around to say something he hadn't said in a very very long time.

"Thank you, Lao-Lao," he spoke hesitantly, "...for always taking care of me."

"Geez! What is a kid like you even saying at a time like this! Go! Go!"

Xiaorui's grandmother waved her hand in exasperation without looking back.

Xiaorui smiled wryly to himself.

This was a dream right?

If so, at least he felt glad to be able to share those words to his grandmother again.

+ + +

Making his way back to his room, Lin Xiaorui stopped in front of his calendar.

Today's date was was Friday, August 8th, 2008.

[Cram school mock exam for the Gaokao [7] at 9:00 AM] was noted on the box.

Yesterday's date was actually circled in red, labeled brightly as Qixi Festival. [8] In other words, Tanabata, the festival of wishes.

Huh... how coincidental.

Xiaorui vaguely remembered being fairly superstitious when he was young. Tanabata was in fact one of his favorite holidays, despite the fact that it was hardly celebrated at all in China. Part of the reason he was so fond of it was because he was half-Japanese, and Xiaorui had some cherished memories from prior summer vacations that he had spent in Japan with his dad. Being as young as he had been, all the colorful paper wishes dangling from trees had left a deep impression on him.

In fact, growing up, Xiaorui always fondly maintained a potted bamboo plant in his bedroom.

Xiaorui glanced at the bamboo plant by the window, but he unexpectedly noticed a small slip of paper was caught amidst the bamboo shoots, fluttering in the breeze. It must have been a piece of trash from outdoors that had gotten caught there somehow.

Xiaorui walked over to the potted plant and picked up the piece of scrap paper, planning to toss it into the waste bin.

However, it unfolded in his hands, and Xiaorui caught glance of what was written on the paper.

> "Please let me experience high school as a girl."

It was in his own handwriting.

Xiaorui's heart stopped beating for a second.

A flood of memories that he had haphazardly crammed into a deep closet somewhere in the bottom of his soul long long ago suddenly flickered before his eyes.

It was just a flicker though.

Xiaorui brought a hand to his forehead as his temple pounded.

Oh right, there was that.

After all these years, Xiaorui had nearly forgotten.

In the real world, after going to university, he had tried really hard to forget about "back then". In fact, being constantly busy with his university work had done a fantastic job at distracting him from the "thoughts" that had used to bother him. Xiaorui had gotten pretty good at it actually -- not thinking about "it", that is.

If you never thought about "it", it would never bother you.

If you pretended "it" didn't exist, you could make yourself blind to it.

And then "it" wouldn't haunt you.

That had been the philosophy that Xiaorui had lived by for the past five or so years. Thinking about "it" only set him on nasty spirals of total paralysis, brutal self-harming, and relentless self-deprecation. So obviously the only way to escape the cycle was to stop thinking about "it" in the first place, and steer one's brain far far far away from those dangerous pit holes that sucked him in like vortexes. He couldn't afford to step into those murky dark pools with all the responsibilities he had as an adult.

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Xiaorui crumpled that sheet of paper in his fist and immediately threw it into the wastebasket.

He wanted to pretend he never saw it.

If he could convince himself that had never seen it, then there would be nothing wrong at all.

Or so Lin Xiaorui thought, as he walked into the bathroom.

+ + +

Standing in front of the toilet to pee, Xiaorui's mind went completely blank.

Blank. Blank. Blank. Blank.

Nothing was there.

As in, literally, nothing was there.

Somehow he hadn't noticed until now, but it was gone.

His penis had vanished. It was gone almost like had never been there in the first place.

+ + +

Besides promptly sitting down to pee (well, he had to go, you know?), Lin Xiaorui remained dazed for several minutes, his mind too shocked to even think.

This had to be a bizarre dream, right?

Or some kind of cruel joke?

There was... no way...

Xiaorui felt his bladder empty as he sat on the toilet seat, painfully aware of the fact that every minute detail around him felt so real. Too real, in fact. He had been trying to deny it in his head up to this point, but there was a limit to disbelief.

The smudge of a stain on the bathroom tiles; small splashes of water on the surface of the sink; the roll of toilet paper that was ragged at the border from being previously torn roughly at a lopsided angle; the sound and distinct smell of urine drizzling into the toilet bowl.

Was it even possible to have a dream as vivid as this?

Xiaorui pinched his arm, thinking it might be able to wake him up, but it only left a stinging red mark on his skin.

He pinched it again, and again, and again, and even dug his nails into his skin, almost desperate to will himself to wake up.

But the results he got were no different than reality.

+ + +

He stepped in front of the mirror, slapped his cheeks a few times, and splashed cold water onto his face.

Xiaorui hated mirrors. He always had. He still hated mirrors even now, but he forced himself to look.

Xiaorui didn't quite understand it.

His face still looked quite the same as before. Of course, it was the younger 16-year-old version of himself, but it wasn't any different from how he remembered from the past.

His hair was black, thin, sleek, and short. His jaw was thinly angular, his nose was sharp, and his adam's apple was prominent. He even had some slight stubble growing, thanks to the oh-so-wonderful miracle of puberty. Everything about his face screamed masculine, and it was everything about his face that he had hated about himself in the past.

It occurred to him to strip off his shirt as well.

After pulling his arms out of his T-shirt and standing stark naked in front of the bathroom mirror, Xiaorui felt his hands clench instinctively into fists.

He hated this.

He hated all of this.

"I hate this," Xiaorui whispered, his voiced choked.

The pitch of his voice was as deep as it ever was since it first started changing when he was 13.

In the mirror, Xiaorui grimaced at his wide shoulders, his 175cm tall, slightly muscled, and undeniably masculine torso that couldn't tell lies. He was too tall to pass as a typical asian girl without getting strange looks, no matter what the best surgeries or hormones could accomplish in the world. His upper body was too triangular and too broad for most women's clothes to ever look flattering. Even in the deepest pits of his misery in his teenage past years ago, Xiaorui had never even tried crossdressing for that exact reason.

He knew he'd look like a creep, and felt too disgusted with himself to even try.

No matter where Xiaorui's spirit and true feelings stood, from the beginning Xiaorui had always felt deep down that it was never an option to "transition" as transgender women. He would look like a freak if he even took medicine and saw surgeons.

If... he had simply a body that could let him passed unnoticed... it didn't have been remotely attractive or even pleasing... if he could even have a mediocre body that could actually pass as a woman without raising eyebrows, Xiaorui might have considered the "transgender" route in a heartbeat.

But instead Xiaorui had a male body that he hated with disgust. No matter how he looked at it, it seemed ugly to him. In his brain, it was if he was a woman with too much body hair or too much muscles.

Ugly. Ugly. Irrefutably and undeniably ugly.

He hated every piece so much he wanted to avert his eyes. Why did he have to be born in a male body?

On this masculine body, overnight the penis had vanished, and in its place was a living and breathing vagina, as if teasing a fact that he would never find happiness living as a woman, no matter how "real" he felt on the inside.

Was this some kind of sadistic joke?

The gods twisting wishes in a horribly remorseful way was a far too overused trope in fiction.

Xiaorui had no idea what was the status of his internal organs, but based on vague intuition, Xiaorui had the sense that he might have actually legitimately transformed into the female sex in the most purely literal yet ironic sense of things overnight: namely, having gained ovaries and a uterus, but only that alone. Devils and gods are notorious for staying true to their words, down to every last letter.

However, whichever divine god had done this had clearly neglected to reverse the effects of testosterone that had accumulated over the years. Xiaorui knew enough biology doing research on transgender people to know that those effects were irreversible. No matter how much estrogen his body might be flooded with in the future, his bones would never shrink, his fused hips would never widen, and his voice would never lighten. Even if he had functional ovaries and uterus divinely inserted within him, or his Y chromosome changed to an X, the outcome would be no different.

Such was the fate of female-to-male transgender people who took testosterone shots as well. Testosterone was a more powerful hormone than estrogen, and those exposed to it would never be able to have its effects reversed. Those effects were permanent, and transgender people learned to live with them, forever.

+ + +

Standing there naked in front of the mirror, Xiaorui felt the tears welling and fought the urge to cry.

He... or she...?

Xiaorui no longer knew what pronoun to use anymore.

Xiaorui didn't even know how to think of themself.

It was all too much to be suddenly confronted with, especially after years of self-denial and self-loathing.

What was gender, even, anyways?

Xiaorui didn't even have time to let it sink in.

There was a frenzied knock at the door that shook Xiaorui out of that extended moment of daze.

"Rui-Rui?! You've been in the bathroom for ages! Did you fall asleep on the toilet, young man?! Hurry up! You'll miss the bus at this rate! Get your silly ass moving!"

Reality flooded back to Xiaorui.

Rubbing the moisture away from her eyes, Xiaorui took a deep breath.

She couldn't stay still. She had to keep moving, keep living, and keep breathing.

No matter what life threw at him, he had to take in stride, man or woman.

Whichever it was, anyways.

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Author's Notes:

1. Hangzhou: A major city in Southern China, near Shanghai. It was historically the capital city of a few major Chinese dynasties. Hangzhou sits on Lake Xihu ("West Lake"), which is an enormous lake in the middle of the city.

2. Harbin Institute of Technology: One of the top universities in China, part of the C9 League (the equivalent of the Chinese "Ivy League"). The Weihai campus in Shandong province is one of HIT's three campuses.

3. Rui-Rui: Nicknames in Chinese are often made by repeating a portion of a person's name.

4. Lao-Lao: Translation: "Grandma." The term used to address a maternal grandmother.

5. Shengjian Buns: See wikipedia article.

6. Youbing: Fried dough. The most famous variant are scallion pancakes.

7. Gaokao: China's standardized university entrance exams.

8. Qixi Festival: The Chinese version of Tanabata. In China, it is celebrated on the 7th day of the 7th month of the lunar calendar, which in 2008 placed it on August 7th. In contrast, Tanabata in Japan is celebrated on the Western calendar, so the date remains the same every year.