Kaya never thought that he would be glad that his Sunday evening went by quickly. But today he was. Comfortable in his bed Kaya couldn’t wait to fall asleep, hoping that a night’s rest would wash down the bad taste in his mind.
And luckily a good night’s sleep quickly came.
Now, it already having become Monday morning, Kaya was walking to school again like normal after having a quick shower and breakfast. His facial expression wasn’t the same however as he was trying to form a smile, but struggling to do so convincingly.
It was only when he ran into another student, that he couldn’t afford to struggle anymore. As soon as he saw the sight of his school’s uniform, it was quickly followed by the waving of an enthusiastic female upperclassman.
“Hello Kaya! Want to walk to school together?”
Luckily Kaya’s smile had come quicker than the upperclassmen could turn around, and Kaya greeted her with an unwavering smile, as genuine looking as always.
“Yes, I would love that.”
Unfortunately, this was a common occurrence for Kaya, but that didn’t stop him from letting out an internal sigh as it wasn’t something he was looking forward to in the slightest after the rough weekend.
In the 15 minutes it took to walk from his apartment to the school, Kaya had already amassed a group of around twenty people that were walking with him. Kaya being the center of it.
There wasn’t a moment where Kaya could let go of his pretense, which was slowly burning his already depleted mental battery that day.
As they arrived on school grounds, though, the group split ways. Some people who Kaya was walking with were from other classes, or even different years entirely.
The only person who Kaya was left with was the energetic Bryan, which wasn’t really a positive thing. Bryan seemed to deplete Kaya’s mental battery the most. And looking at the smile on his face, today wasn’t going to be any different.
“How was the weekend? Anything fun?”
Luckily Kaya had become accustomed to handling Bryan. Just throwing a little bait could make Bryan go off on a rant where he would talk about honestly anything for a long time. And that was exactly what Kaya needed at the moment, to get a moment of rest to recharge his battery.
Taking a short breath in, Kaya looked up at Bryan with a smile on his face and tried to sound as enthusiastic as possible.
“I just studied all weekend for the test today, you know me. What did you do? Knowing you, something interesting must have happened.”
As soon as he saw the look in Bryan’s eyes change, instantly becoming more vibrant, Kaya knew that he had landed his bait hook line, and sinker.
“Yeah, the craziest thing happened yesterday! When I went to the arcade with Sam, Liam, and Ryker there was this -”
Hearing that was enough for Kaya to roughly know what happened so anything that Bryan told after that went in one ear and out the other.
‘Finally, a moment's rest.’
For at least the next few minutes, Kaya had some rest while Bryan was ranting away.
As they arrived at the English classroom, Kaya greeted some people before sitting down in his seat. Meanwhile, Bryan was still telling his story, which Kaya occasionally entertained with a nod or an interested “Really?”.
A few moments later though, the sound of the bell rang meaning that classes had officially started.
The whole classroom suddenly quieted down and even the chatterbox Bryan quickly got to his seat. Walking in front of the class with heavy strides, a grumpy old man with glasses on the tip of his scrunched-up nose was making his way to his chair.
You didn’t need to be good at reading people to notice the annoyance of the students directed towards the teacher.
“Quiet down everyone. Today will be a book reading class. If I catch anyone talking, you will have to attend detention.”
Before the teacher had even said this, everyone was already quiet as they knew not to mess with this particular teacher on a Monday morning. He didn’t give out empty threats.
Ironically, the only person in the room with a smile on his face at this moment, a genuine one, was Kaya. He knew that he could get some rest in this class to recharge his mental battery, and looking at the rest of the classes he had today, he was going to need it.
This class was scheduled for two whole hours, so Kaya felt relatively better, at least as much as two hours of ‘rest’ could grant someone.
‘I think I’ll manage to make it through the day at this rate.’
Taking a deep breath in, Kaya put up a smile again as he saw some people walk up to him.
“Wanna grab lunch with us, Kaya?”
If they would have asked the same question at the beginning of the day, Kaya would have found an excuse not to go, but now he just responded with an enthusiastic “Sounds good.”
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Of course, he would still rather not go, but he had already gone back into the usual autopilot mode, acting like the person he was in others’ eyes.
Just like that, class after class passed as Kaya just went with the flow. The classes today were pretty mentally draining with a lot of group work, but Kaya got through it like normal.
Surprisingly, time had passed relatively quickly and it had already become time for the second to last class of today to start, the hologram questionnaire philosophy class. Sitting down, the class was as rowdy as ever in anticipation of the question that was going to be asked today.
This class had quickly become a favorite of most people. It was a class where they could just mostly mess around and talk amongst each other. On top of that, the novelty and hype from the reality of the hologram being real hadn’t died down yet either.
For Kaya though, it was slowly becoming his least liked class as he measured his liking to a class on how mentally draining it was and the questions that were popping up seemed to be more and more mentally draining for him by the day.
It wasn’t long after Kaya sat down that the question of that day appeared, instantly silencing the rowdy class. Seeing the questions, Kaya’s thought about the questions becoming less and less trivial was unfortunately confirmed a little more.
[Q: 13 - Do you feel 100% in line with your birth gender?]
[Yes] ; [No]
‘Well, I suppose no one can feel literally 100% about that.’ Kaya thought with a sigh, almost knowing that he would be getting more after-questions.
And he was right as another hologram instantly replaced the previous one. ‘Yup, there it is.’
Leaning back in his chair, annoyed at how often he was getting after questions, Kaya got a good look around the class. Once he did, he couldn’t help but raise his eyebrows slightly in surprise.
‘Why is almost everyone…’
Looking around, it seemed like most people had answered [Yes] as they were already talking to their friends again, meaning that they didn’t get any after-questions like Kaya did.
‘How can someone feel 100% of something?’ Kaya couldn’t get that thought through that logical head of his. ‘They must have just answered not taking into account the 100% part of the question... Right?’
Still gazing around the classroom, Kaya locked eyes with Bryan who was in the process of standing up to start walking towards him.
This time Kaya was luckily quick enough to act, pointing at the few people around him who were still answering and then pointed down, lip-syncing ‘sit down’ to Bryan with a jokingly stern expression on his face.
With that dealt with, Kaya directed his focus back on the hologram. He once again had more after-questions to answer.
[Q: 13.1 - Do you feel more female than male?]
[Yes] ; [No]
Kaya almost sighed out loud as he read the question. ‘Just because I don’t believe one can feel 100% of something does not immediately mean the extreme opposite applies.’
[Q: 13.2 - Do you feel more male than female?]
[Yes] ; [No]
‘Okay, better question.’ Kaya thought, a little less annoyed. ‘I am a male, so why would I not feel more male.’
[Q: 13.3 - Do you fulfill the male or female gender role more?]
[Male] ; [Female] ; [Equal]
Unlike the other two after-questions, Kaya didn’t have an immediate answer to this question. And strangely, there were no suppressed thoughts wanting to surface like what happened when answering the previous days’ questions.
Kaya was genuinely stumped by this question. Normally he would have an answer for everything, but now he just didn’t. He had never thought about this.
Deep in thought, Kaya faintly lost track of his surroundings. Only when he felt a gaze directed towards him did he snap out of it. Looking up, he met eyes with a female classmate standing in front of the class as she began speaking.
“I answered yes. Honestly, I thought everyone would immediately answer yes, so I was a little surprised that people took longer to answer or answered [No].”
Kaya didn’t know why she was looking at him while saying this, which got him a little worried. He didn’t like the unknown.
“But I kind of changed my thought process when I saw that Kaya also took a little longer to answer-”
Hearing him being called out, a slight frown unconsciously formed on Kaya’s face.
The girl seemed to have noticed the subtle change in Kaya’s expression, but just smiled back and continued talking.
“If I were to answer for Kaya, I would say he would fulfill both gender roles.”
Upon mentioning this, the whole class instantly became rowdy as this got the attention of everyone in the class. At this point, all eyes were on her and Kaya.
Kaya, however, didn’t notice the eyes on him. After hearing her mention ‘gender roles’, he immediately sat up in his chair, becoming interested in what she had to say as it might help him come closer to an answer he couldn’t give himself.
“First of all, I would like to say that I see Kaya as a man as much as everyone does, so you can stop glaring at me. He is a strong person, takes on a leadership role, an authority figure even, keeps the other boys in check and overall just does boy stuff. So, as far as a traditional male goes, he couldn’t be more male. But -”
As she said the first part, everyone couldn’t help but agree with what she said, which made the stares less fierce. But as she added a ‘but’, everyone quieted down a bit as they waited in anticipation of what she was going to say.
“But, I also think that Kaya is very good at taking on female gender roles. When he talks to me, and other girls, he takes on a more gentle role. Something that people would say to be more of a female gender role, talking about feelings, emotions, and... well, female stuff. Whenever he is with the female group, I sometimes can’t help but think of him as one of the girls. So, yeah, that.”
Abruptly wrapping up her opinion, the girl made her way back to her seat, becoming a little flushed in the face as she walked past the gaze of Kaya.
Hearing this put Kaya with a lot of thoughts in his head, but he didn’t have time to process them yet as more and more people began speaking about their opinions, with Kaya being the center topic.
Nearly an hour later, filled with people arguing if Kaya fit the female or male gender role more, did Kaya finally give an answer to the question of the hologram.
[Q: 13.3 - Do you fulfill the male or female gender role more?]
[Male] ; [Female] ; [Equal]
With so many views on the matter, Kaya couldn’t help but have this answer be thrown in his lap. He had never viewed it like that, but as it sounded, the [Equal] options fitted him the best, so he chose that. Still not entirely having given it a place in his own mind.
And before he could give it a place in his mind, another hologram with an after-question popped up.
[Q: 13.4 - If you could change your birth gender without ANY consequences, would you?]
[Open answer]
‘Oh, for god’s sake.’ Kaya exclaimed with a defeated sigh, thinking that this would be the last question. ‘Why am I getting after-questions and open answer possibilities so often.’
Kaya couldn’t be bothered with it anymore and just began filling in the raw thoughts that were being formed on the spot about this new understanding of himself.
[I am a male, I feel like a male and I wouldn’t do anything to change that as that is bothersome and not needed for what I want to achieve in life. But, if I were born, or suddenly woke up as a female, I couldn’t care less. It wouldn’t change my life. -
As Kaya mentally completed his answer, a last thought of his was added to his answer before it was sent.
- Hell, I could be genderless and I couldn’t care less. Hmm, maybe that isn’t even that bad of a thought.]