I don't catch a break Sunday morning. We wake up to another message from the school, clearly sent to all students, informing us that yesterday's construction is complete. When I head downstairs with Ken, everybody is talking about it. No one knows what's going on for sure, but there are a ton of rumors, a lot of them including Leona freaking out and attacking the school administrator.

And even though the signs were destroyed, so many people saw them, now the word 'tranny' has spread through virtually the entire student body's vocabulary.

There are questions, people not even getting it after it's explained to them, jokes about men wearing dresses, and more than a few guys laugh over the idea of any man ever wanting to be a weak woman or wear women's clothes.

I barely even make it down to the first floor, and I'm already holding my stomach and fighting back tears. It wasn't supposed to be like this. I was supposed to just go live in the women's dorm. Why did she have to turn it into this?

When we reach the front, we find the door into the new area now holds no large sign to indicate what it's for, but there is a flyer stuck to the door itself. It's standing directly next to the dorm monitor's spot so he'll see anyone who comes or goes, the same as using the main entrance.

There are a bunch of guys crowded around the door already, and we join them to read the big flier posted. I'm not sure at first, what sort of thing would be written. If it was any sort of explanation, everyone wouldn't look so confused.

Then I manage to get a look. It's a list of rules. First and foremost, on the list: You can't use this to get into the wrong dorm, the doors on either end will only open for people registered on that side.

What does that mean for me? My room is in the middle, not on either side. Can I open both, or neither? Can I even get to my new room? At this point, I wouldn't put anything past that bitch.

I can read the rest later. Right now, I hit the scanner next to the door, and I'm grateful when it slides open. However, the instant I step through, it closes again, damn near clipping my back on the way. Ken has to open it again afterward so he can follow me, and it does the same thing to him.

Once we shake off the surprise, we look around and my first impression is pretty bleak. The space is no more than a few meters across to the opposite door. It's not like the separating wall was ever all that thick. In fact, it's more of a surprise they had this much wasted space before.

However, the hall we're in is unnecessarily narrow, so I can't even stand shoulder to shoulder with Ken comfortably. There are a few other people, all of them guys, exploring the area too. The walls are the same weird teal as everywhere else, but it feels rough and unfinished when I touch one. Even with other people around, it feels like we just stepped into a haunted house or something. It's just off compared to the rest of the dorms.

Like it doesn't belong...

We squeeze past the guys, spotting a a door on either side around the halfway point, with the numbers one and two on them. Isn't my room number ten? Where is it? There are no more rooms before we reach the far door, to the girl's side. I tap the scanner, trying not to get my hopes up, and still end up disappointed when it doesn't respond.

Figures. Trying not to take the evil woman's actions to heart, I turn and start looking around. Where is my room? She didn't fuck that up too, did she? That's when I see the stairs. Not too far from the sliding doors, there is a case of spiral stairs tucked into a little alcove off of the hall. This area has multiple floors? We start to climb, and I have to wonder, why is everything here so cramped, even for me?

When we reach the second floor, I figure out that there are two spiral stairs at either end of the hall, a pair of rooms in the middle, counting up. No doors out, except for the ones all the way down on the first floor. Room ten puts me on the fifth floor.

I'm the only person in this section of the dorms, so she decided I have to climb five flights of stairs to get to my room.

God damn it...

When we finally arrive on the fifth floor, it's totally empty. No one else bothered to venture past the second. I curse the stairs silently. They had to make them narrow and spiral. If I slipped, there's a good chance I'd tumble all the way to the bottom. Not to mention, there are no windows here either. Isn't this a fire hazard?

We reach my room, and I'm trying to keep my expectations as low as possible to avoid being disappointed again.

I don't have any idea how low she'll go to fuck with me. I hit the scanner.

The door doesn't open. I blink and hit it again.

I'm not registered to the door, I realize. She didn't actually register my print to my new room, even though it's already on file.

My fists clench, and I have to stomp down five flights of stairs to register my damn handprint for my new room, then climb all the way back up again. It's still morning but I'm already hot and sweaty. God my stomach hurts... I hit the scanner and the door opens this time.

When I step through, I'm actually pleasantly surprised for once. The furniture looks like the same things as my old room. It's almost suspicious. That is, until I realize the problem.

It's not the furniture, it's the room itself. It's small, really small... The walls are bare and blank, no windows, no doors. Do I not have a wash room? Where am I supposed to shower? What if I have to use the toilet?

The men and women have a public bathroom on every floor, as well as attached wash rooms with a toilet and shower for every dorm room.

This new section has five floors of nothing. There aren't any toilets available outside of the dorm rooms either. Unless I got someone to let me into their room or ran all the way to the main school building, I literally don't have anywhere to pee.

This... this is unlivable. There's no way it can be legal to give me a room without access to basic human necessities like running water. I pull out my mobile to text Leona. No service... Shit, with no windows, there isn't even sat signal here. It's basically a concrete coffin. We have to go all the way down and out just to contact her, then all the way up to my new room again.

She meets us outside my room a handful of minutes later. I show her inside and explain the problems.

“That bitch, no one could live in these conditions. It's inhumane. In fact, I think it's literal torture.” She groans, and takes out her mobile, to call psi-ops. Of course, that means another trip down five flights of dangerous stairs to get out of the dorms just for a signal. This is fucking insane.

Standing out on the lawn, the call connects. “Mejja, we have a pretty serious problem,” she starts in after a brief greeting. “Seiko is supposed to be starting as a female student tomorrow morning. Seiko is moving into a new dorm room today, but the school administrator...” She sputters out a little, not even knowing how to put it for some time.

“She is literally human garbage.” Blunt, but true. “She's had it out for Seiko the entire time but-” she coughs, sputters indignantly. “She refuses to allow Seiko into the women's dorm. She had an entire new addition to the dorms constructed so she could isolate Seiko in an area with no light, no people, at the top of five flights of stairs without a lift, no running water, no sat signal, and no way out in case of fire. At this point, I wouldn't put it past her to start one herself in an attempt to kill Seiko. Mejja, she's insane and dangerous, what can I do?”

After her long rant, Mejja actually pauses for a few long moments. “Wow, you really ran into a grade-A cunt. Thanks for calling, it's good Maka-san didn't get trapped in there. I'll make some calls, someone I know will send down a direct order for where Maka-san stays. Do you have a room in mind?”

“Mine is fine,” Leona immediately suggests. “Haven't seen my roommate in months.” Wait, she does have a roommate? She just hasn't seen them? Isn't she worried about them disappearing?

While I'm spinning in my own head over the implications, Leona goes over the room number he needs, and they end the call with hardly even a 'bye' between them.

“Come on Seiko, Mejja will take care of everything. Let's move your stuff to my room.”

“Sure. And thanks for everything Leona. There's no way I could have made it through this without you. And Mejja-san too, I have to thank him for this later.” I sniffle, wiping a couple tears from my eyes, and my friends pull me into a hug.

“Don't worry, we're here for you,” Ken tells me warmly. “We all are.”

Together, we leave the dorms. We go to the school store first to pick up a number of cardboard boxes for packing up all my stuff.

When we get back to the dorms, all of our friends are waiting for us with these big, knowing grins.

“Guys...” I wipe at my face while Ken rubs my back. Lucy bounces up to me and hugs me. It's sudden, but I see it coming, and hug her back. Everyone else closes in around us, with Runa and Amari rubbing my head while we all end up in a sort of group hug.

Soon enough, we break apart, all heading upstairs to my old room. With so many people, all my stuff is packed up in boxes in a flash. I feel a little bad sitting around and watching them, but my stomach is killing me after everything today. I need the time to relax and de-stress a little. It's sad to see my already well-loved half of the room stripped bare, but my new room with Leona will be nice too.

“What about the TV?” Ken asks, looking up at the projector on the ceiling. “You bought it, so you should take it.”

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

“It's fine,” I wave off his concern. “You use it way more than I do and I have a ton of money to buy another if I want. Besides, this will probably keep being our hang out room from now on.” I glance around, and it's clear everyone knows that. Especially now that it will just be Ken's room, I'm willing to bet we'll all wind up here a whole lot from now on too. Maybe I should leave a blanket and a couple pillows for the free bed...

“Well, fine,” he runs a hand up through his red hair, clearly not a hundred percent pleased about keeping the projector I spent so much time saving up for. I get it, but at the same time... things are kind of different now.

“Don't worry, you've done more for me in the last few months than money could buy.” I grin up at him, and he finally lets it go. With that, we're finished.

“You ready?” Leona asks meaningfully. When everyone sees us carrying all this stuff over, it's going to cause a huge stir. And I wouldn't put anything past the administrator at this point, even with direct orders on my room assignment from her superiors, we might still have some kind of fight on our hands. Anywhere and any way she can weasel out of giving me the things I have every right to.

I want to say yes, but... “How about lunch first? I'm betting we're going to be too busy to eat for a while with everything coming up.”

“Good idea.” Leona accepts my decision easily. “Early lunch, everyone?”

“Hell yeah, is Runa cooking?” Finn asks. I do a double take when I realize he's here. Wait, he doesn't even know what's going on, does he? We never told him about me. Why does he think we're packing up all my stuff?

Then Matt Bell joins in. “Yeah, food!” He- he isn't even my friend, is he? What's he doing here?!

I sigh, then finally start laughing. You know what, who cares? We've all been hanging out for months now and they either haven't noticed, or haven't cared about the changes. With all my boxes stacked up near the door, we head out to the kitchen. There are nine of us, so we're going to have to make a pretty big meal.

In the kitchen, I stop. Looking everyone over again, it feels like someone is missing. After some thought, I take out my mobile and text Gon, asking if he wants to join us for lunch. When he doesn't respond at first, I add that I'd really like him to come, as thanks for all the help with my new clothes.

It takes him a little while longer, but he finally come back with a 'sure.' I tell him we're in the male dorms, third floor. He doesn't respond, I assume that means he's nearby and he'll be right over. I turn my attention back to Runa, who is looking just a bit overwhelmed at the prospect of cooking a meal for nine-now-ten people.

“Hey, what are you thinking of making?” I ask.

“Well... Something good for a lot of people, mostly. A big, heavy casserole of some kind... Something filling, so stuff like meat, cheese and pasta.” She starts to fill a large pot with water, even as she keeps thinking.

“Alright, I think I have a plan. Grab some chicken to start.” I do as she instructs, putting it on the counter next to a cutting board. “I'm thinking mushrooms, broccoli, cabbage... let's chop a bunch of vegetables into it, alright?”

“Sure.” I keep grabbing ingredients as she calls them out and throw them all up to join the chicken. She's done filling the pot, so she puts it on the stove to heat. We split up the cutting job, Amari, Lucy, and Jen joining us. Even Ken asks if there's any way he can help.

Since there isn't too much he can do, he gets assigned to the pasta. He just has to put it in when the water boils and set a timer, then pull it off the heat when it's done. A few minutes of quiet chatter pass as we all work our way through chopping the different vegetables and meat.

The hard ones go in a pan with some oil to soften while the rest are poured into a big casserole dish, and we start the oven heating. After some searching through the cabinets and the fridge, a red sauce and a bunch of different cheeses go in too, and we carefully stir it all together.

With that done, I step back and take a breather. I lean against the counter and rub my stomach. “You doing alright?” Leona asks. I turn to answer, only now noticing that Gon has already joined us.

“U-uh,” I stumble, and she follows my eyes. He notices too and offers a shy wave, which I return. I shake myself and address Leona again. “I'm alright, just stressed. I think this is helping,” and gesture around to all my gathered friends. Even with my whole life changing, they're all still here for me. Then I look over and say, “Hey, Gon. Thanks for joining us.”

“Yeah. I didn't realize there would be so many people, but... what are you making?” It looks like he's trying to not pay attention to the people all gathered in the kitchen.

“Some kind of casserole, I'm not really sure. Hey, Runa, what is this exactly?” I ask.

“Pretty much that. Just a casserole. Casseroles can include any mix of ingredients you want, so it's not like they have one fixed recipe.” We both nod slightly to the new information.

When the timer goes off, Runa helps Ken out straining the pasta. It looks like long, tube shaped noodles. When I ask, she calls them 'penne.' Once strained, they get mixed in with everything else in our big, cheesy casserole. Then even more cheese gets thrown over top and the entire thing goes in the oven.

“Now, we wait,” Runa declares. There's a half hour for the whole concoction to cook in the oven, so we cluster into one area of the common room, circling up on some couches, all squished in since there are so many of us. Of course, I go between Ken and Leona since I don't think I'm comfortable enough with the others to be quite this close. I lean back on the couch, letting my head rest, close my eyes, and breathe for a while.

It helps. Between that and the slowly spreading scent of food from the kitchen, my stomach cramps ease for a while. I mostly ignore the chatter going on between my friends, something about a TV show some of them have seen lately. At some point, a nagging thought reminds me to change my tampon before we eat and get into everything else today, so I grab Leona to come with me. Even though my room is right there, I'm not taking any chances today.

However, when I hit the scanner on the door, it doesn't open. “Uhh?” I look at her and she tries too, but there's still no response. Did they already...

I pull out my mobile and check the time. It's like, three minutes after noon. Their message said to be out by midday, but to think that means they would wipe my room registration at noon... I shake my head. Of course they did, the bitch administrator probably saw to it herself. And now that it's not my room, of course she took Leona's out too.

With a sigh, I try to shrug it off. I grab Ken to open the door up, letting everyone know what happened in the process, then put the whole issue out of mind. I refuse to let her shit get to me right now. Once I'm done in the wash room, we return, just in time for food.

As intended, it's a whole lot of nice, heavy, filling food so everyone can dig in to their heart's content. I eat my fill too, rubbing my belly from time to time when it throbs a little worse than usual. I manage a decent amount of food too, nice and full when I'm done.

The other girls finish up, and then it's just the guys, all grinning and gorging themselves. Like always, there are dozens of jealous eyes on us, but I just stick up my nose at them. If they wanted good food, they'd actually pay attention in cooking class! Even so, when we're finished and satisfied, we all rest for a minute.

Before we can move onto anything else, I clear my throat to get everyone's attention. “So, I just wanted to thank everyone. Runa-chan for the food, Ken and Leona for always looking out for me. Gon-san, for helping so much with clothes I can actually wear. Jen too, for, you know, teaching me the basics. I wouldn't have gotten this far without that.” I still feel awkward about us, but there's no denying how much she's done too.

“Amari-san, Lucy-san, thanks for showing us all to Jostole, hanging out there has been great. I hope we can keep going.” The girls grin and Lucy gives me a thumbs up. “Finn-san and Bell-san, umm...” I scratch a cheek. It feels weird to just leave them out, so... “Thanks for, like... just being cool and stuff?”

“Cooool...” Bell drawls lazily from his spot at the counter with a half-cool, half-silly hand gesture.

At the same time, Finn snickers. “Sure thing, Sei-chan.”

“Hey, Sei,” Ken speaks up right after, bringing one big hand to rub the top of my head from his spot at my side. “Thanks for sticking it out so long. Never hesitate to call me up if you need something. Now, let's all hope things go well, ready to take on the world?” He turns the last question to everyone, getting a mix of confident, and worried nods. And plain confusion from Finn and Bell of course, totally out of the loop as they are.

While that finally prompts them to ask what we're actually up to, Runa calls in the watching guys to finish off our leftover food as always, and we head back to... Ken's room. When he hits the panel to open the door, I remind myself I don't live here anymore.

Once we're inside and everyone's starting to pick up the cardboard boxes of my stuff, I give the other two guys the explanation they've been missing. The whole school will know tomorrow, I may as well fill in the rest of my not-exactly-friends beforehand.

“I'm moving dorms,” I mean, that much should be obvious-

“Oh, I get it!” Finn snaps his fingers, face lighting up with understanding. “That new section of the dorms, you're a tranny?”

I flinch. Gritting my teeth, I take a few deep breaths so I don't cry. “Well... I mean... yeah, kinda, I guess. But don't use that word, it's a slur.”

“Oh, sorry,” he immediately grimaces, “I didn't know. So umm... what's the right word?”

“That would be...” Wait, what is the right word? So far, I've just been saying I'm a girl, because it's true. That word is used to say I'm sort of like a girl but not really. Which, duh, is what makes it a slur. I am a girl. Not a fake girl, not a guy dressing as a girl, just a girl.

But... most people like me would still have a biologically male body, wouldn't they? Even if they're girls, soul and all, they'd be stuck in a body that doesn't fully match. God, I can't even imagine how painful that would be every day...

I pull out my mobile, trying to search for the correct term. Even if it doesn't fit me exactly because my body was changed by a supernatural phenomena, there must be some term for others like me, right?

“There,” I raise my voice when I find it on a message board and pull up a definition. “It's called 'transgender.' It means... someone whose gender assigned at birth doesn't match their actual gender. Oh, that does fit me.” Since the term doesn't have anything to do with physical sex, it's just 'what the doctor thought I was.' It applies to anyone that they get wrong, doesn't it?

Because they assign gender based on sex instead of, you know, gender. I know it's probably not feasible to put newborns in a scanner to check their actual gender, but still... In any case, physical body changes don't have anything to do with it, so the term still applies to me perfectly.

Scanning past the word... “It looks like it gets shorted to 'trans' a lot.” Then I mumble, “No wonder why 'tranny' is the slur for it... Ugh.” It's basically the shortened form, twisted to sound ugly.

“So... you decided to be a girl?” Bell asks, cocking his head to the side in confusion.

“No, I figured out I already am one. It just took a while because of the way my parents raised me. And before you ask, no. Being male or female has absolutely nothing to do with your anatomy. Doctors just assign gender that way because doing it properly is too hard.” Well, that and if everyone around me is any indication, the vast majority of people aren't transgender. So I guess it's a 'good enough' method for them. It doesn't fail them often enough to care about.

“Huh...” the guys don't really seem to get it, but at least they aren't hurling insults at me or anything, like that bitch did.

“Meh. Girls, guys, who cares?” Finn finally shrugs the whole thing off. I don't know exactly what he means, but I'll take it as a good sign for now.

“Anyway, I'm changing dorms because I told the school I'm actually a girl and got my enrollment changed. The whole new wing fiasco was caused by the school administrator trying to fuck with me. Those rooms aren't livable, and I'm pretty sure illegal. I'm moving into Leona's room instead.”

“Oof, that's rough.” Finn shakes his head, and everyone else agrees vehemently.

“Pretty much. I'm probably going to have a lot more fights for my rights to, you know, everything, but that comes later. Right now, it's moving time. Everyone ready?”

With a round of agreement, everyone gets to picking up boxes. Time to do this.