I have to run to catch up to Ken, and end up meeting him halfway to the school building. I guess he didn't know when I would show up, so he left before I got back to our room.

“Oh, hey, Sei,” he calls with a wave. He shortens his strides, and we fall into step. We walk across campus with the sun slowly rising for a while.

“So, what did you talk about with Jen?” Ken eventually asks, eyeing the area to ensure none of the other students traveling this path are close enough to overhear.

“Well...”

Breast development.

Body hair.

How to clean my girl parts.

“N-nothing much, don't worry about it.”

While I'm blushing furiously at the ground, he just 'huuhh's at me, but doesn't press any further. We make it to the right section of the building much faster than on our first day, and it's pretty clear that Ken knows his way around better. He did have all weekend to get acquainted with the campus...

When we reach our classroom, we stop at one of the first desks at the front of the room. Oh, it's Zeke.

“Hey, Zeke-san, what's up?” Ken raises a hand in greeting.

“Hey Kentan-san,” I catch his eyes falling on me just for a moment, before he looks back to Ken. “Sei-san.”

“Hey.” What was that look for? I'm getting a little nervous with the way he isn't really looking at me. I've got my uniform on, shirt, vest, tie, jacket. All like normal, so there's no way I look any different than usual...

While I worry about that, they exchange a few words about not meeting up last week and how we should hang out again sometime, before Ken moves on, and I quickly follow behind. Gon isn't in his seat, probably hanging out with his friends in another class, so I sit there, and try to chat with Ken to calm my nerves while the room fills and our class time approaches.

“Yoohoo!” The greeting alone is enough identify Lucy. “Hi guys, long time, no see.”

“Good morning, Lucy-chan,” we both greet her together, then follow with Amari as she comes up behind.

“Good to see you-” she starts to respond before Lucy cuts right back in.

“Woah, Sei-san, your hair is longer!”

“Hah?” Ken and me have identical responses. Then I grab my hair, pulling one of the platinum blond locks around to get a better look. The appearance is the same as usual, so I pull an arm back and try to feel it behind my back. I'm barely flexible enough to reach, but I manage. My eyes widen, immediately realizing that my hair doesn't fall to the top of my shoulders anymore, now it's at my shoulder blades. That's what, seven or eight centimeters? In two days?

Impossible.

I have no way to explain. I don't even know how to try. Then Ken comes in with the save before I can completely fall into panic. “Oh damn, that's pretty crazy, isn't it, Sei?”

“Y-yeah, wow. That's so weird.” Are we... convincing...?

Lucy looks back and forth between us for a few seconds after that. Then, “So, uhh, you have no idea? That looks like six months of new growth you know,” she grins and looks amused.

I shrug. “Got me.” I think that sounded believable enough... Lucy laughs at my nonchalant response and starts running her hands through my hair, still with that same grin.

“Heeeh, you heard about that psi tremor? Maybe that made your hair grow,” she jokes, and I try to chuckle. So does Ken behind me, and I can feel the hint of nerves even without looking.

Lucy doesn't notice though. Thinking it was just a throwaway joke, she hops up to sit on Ken's desk and continue running her hands through my hair. Without even thinking about it, I lean back, just enjoying the treatment, and sort of tune in and out of the conversation the three hold about some teacher for one of our classes.

Fortunately, much of the day passes without issue. No problems with any of the other students or anything. We just hang out and chat. Jen comes over with Finn or Runa during breaks and lunch, and we all talk about news and games and whatever. “Jenna-san, Jenna-san,” Lucy calls during the first break Jen comes over. “Look how long Sei-san's hair grew! Isn't that weird?”

“Oh wow, yeah, really weird. I, uhh, totally didn't notice earlier, Sei,” she laughs, but she gives me this apologetic look that tells me she missed it because of, well, everything else. Thankfully, nothing comes of the comment, and life moves on. We make it through most of the day just like that.

Unfortunately, Leona Vicca never shows up.

Even sitting, chatting, and having the girls laugh and play with my suddenly longer hair, I can't fully relax. Not completely. Not while worrying about my body, and not when I catch glimpses of Vance's spiky blond hair on the other side of the classroom.

The way Zeke doesn't come over to hang out bothers me too. Is he avoiding us now that we're in high school? Or is it just me? He talked with Ken like it was no problem...

With another bell ringing through school, Jen waves goodbye and rushes out of the room for her own class across the hall, dragging Runa behind her. I check my schedule, again. We're almost to last period.

“...Shit...” I curse. Gym class. I was not thinking about this earlier.

“Alright alright, everyone!” comes a guy's voice, cutting through the rising noise. He moves up to the front of the room to stand beside the teacher's desk, clapping and getting everyone's attention as they quiet down. This guy, he's the class rep, right? Bray Folle, I think his name was.

“Time for gym. We'll be sharing the period with class D. Girls change in here, guys change in D. Got it?” Then he claps his hands a couple more times and starts waving everyone out. Looking away from Folle, I catch Jen rushing back into this room.

“Guess I'm changing in here, tehe~” she makes a funny sound, and we both shake our heads at her. That draws an amused pout for a moment, before she gets serious again.

“So, Sei?” She doesn't need to say anything else.

“I'm... going to the toilet,” I answer. Both of my friends nod together, and wave for me to get going. I stop at my locker at the back of the class to grab my change of clothes, then leave, trying not to be conspicuous when I head down the hall toward the nearest toilet instead of class D.

The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

Turning into the men's room, I listen for a moment but don't hear anything, and enter a private stall. Ugh, tight... Without much room to maneuver, I struggle out of my clothes, doing my best to fold up my uniform and stuff it into the bag I pull my gym clothes out of.

As soon as I get my top layers off, I look down, seeing the little lumps of my breasts. It's... weird. Having these all of a sudden. I poke one lightly. Yeah, still kind of tender. Moving on, I throw on my gym shirt. It's white and I'm a little uncomfortable in it. It's not super form fitting, but doesn't do much to hide my figure either...

At least I have my gym jacket, so I throw that on and zip it up. Yes, that's great. It's a dark navy blue, and big enough to completely hide my body. I pull down my pants, then stop. Actually, this is a good time to relieve myself, isn't it? While I know I'm alone and without drawing any attention or anything...

Thinking as much, I sit down. I don't really have to go that bad, but try anyway. The feeling of relaxing my muscles is different, and it feels way different coming out too. Not bad, just... different.

It does leave a bunch of pee all on my skin down there though because the hole it comes out of is like, inside now, instead of out on the end of a penis. I never thought about it like that before. No wonder why wiping is more important... I make sure to do it carefully, just like Jen taught me, until I'm all dry, and it's done.

Huh, even with the changes, it's not really difficult, I can manage it fine. Feeling a little more confident, I finish changing into my big, baggy gym shorts. They match the dark blue of my jacket. They're so big, and my legs are so skinny and girly looking...

I shake my head. Now isn't the time, I have to get to class. Stuffing the rest of my clothes in my gym bag, leave the stall and wash my hands. When I leave the toilet, I'm surprised to see everyone waiting for me.

Not just Ken and Jen. Lucy, Amari, and even Finn and Runa, they're all hanging around, chatting.

“A-ah! I'm sorry, I didn't mean to hold you guys up. I didn't realize you were going to wait for me.”

“No prob, no prob,” Finn waves lazily in the background, while Lucy is the one to step forward with a playful look and her hands planted on her hips.

“What, you thought we'd just abandon you here? Do you even know how to get to the gym?”

“...” I raise a hand, but have absolutely no response for that. “True.” One snarky grin and wave down the hall later, we all set off at a quick pace since so we won't be late. They're all so much taller though that I need to jog to keep up.

“Still...” Lucy speaks as we walk. “I guess you're pretty self-conscious, huh?”

I can't even deny it. With or without the recent changes. Changing for gym has never been a pleasant experience before...

“I totally understand,” Amari suddenly sighs from the side.

“Really? But you're so pretty!” Jen chirps, but that makes Amari look away shyly. When Jen makes a questioning sound, Lucy is the one to explain.

“Amari hit her growth spurt early. Like, a year and a half before the rest of us.”

Jen hisses. “Ooh, that's rough...”

“Yeah, same,” Ken nods from the side.

“It's different for girls,” Jen scoffs at him. “You guys all get bigger and stronger and all the guys think you're awesome. You know what I mean.” He gives an affirmative shrug, since she's right. That's exactly what happened when he started shooting up and putting on muscle. The other guys basically worshiped him back in middle school.

The conversation is put on pause when we hit the stairwell, all circling from landing to landing as we descend to the ground floor. Once we're out, Jen picks back up where she was.

“For girls, everyone else gets weird around you, or jealous. It sucks.” I glance Runa's way at the comment. Were other girls that jealous of her? She was always the best looking, and is a close second or third now, behind Leona Vicca and possibly Lacey Monasta.

As I look though, she's just staring off into the distance, like she's not paying attention. “I mean, just think how much things suck for late bloomers, right Sei?”

I jolt when Jen suddenly calls on me to chime in, but in this context... I have to keep my hand from coming up to my chest automatically. Everyone else's are bigger because they're older than me and went through puberty normally. Mine are like this because even with the strange change that happened to me, I still 'started' extremely late.

No no, that's not the point at all! I don't care about their size, I'm supposed to get rid of them!

“Y-yeah,” I make myself respond like I'm not freaking out in my head. “It really sucks seeing everyone else grow up around you.”

“We've all got our own problems...” Finn summarizes the whole conversation in a wistful tone, like none of this concerns him in the slightest. It makes the rest of us laugh as we approach the gym. Even rushing, we're the last to arrive, the teachers already looking over the girl and boy sides of the classes.

Splitting up, we trot over to our groups and slide to the floor at the back. When the teacher eyes me, it makes me nervous, but he doesn't say anything. Even with my appearance, I guess he assumes I'm not really a girl dumb enough to go to join the wrong group by accident?

Once he goes through the class roster, he confirms it, then calls us all up and says we'll be running laps for our first day. It turns out the girls are doing the same, but they send our groups going around the gym in opposite directions so we can't run together.

Shrugging it off, I match pace with Ken. He's so much taller, with such long legs, I have to put extra strength into my steps to lengthen my stride. It's no big deal though, it lets me keep up without issue.

It's kind of fun, actually. Since everyone's always been a year ahead of me, I never got to have class with them before. Playing sports and stuff with my friends might actually be pretty nice.

Only one problem. Despite their small size, my breasts have this little bit of bounce to them. At first I don't mind it, but the longer we run, the more my nipples start to hurt as they rub against my sweaty shirt with every step. Is this normal? What do girls with big boobs do? When I glance around, it doesn't look like theirs are bouncing quite as much as I'd expect, even girls like Amari with really big boobs.

Whatever, just ignore it, I tell myself. Men are supposed to endure things, right? I just have to do that. Just remember what Dad said...

'If you can walk, you're fine.'

----------------------------------------

“Haa, that was nice,” I sigh out when they finally blow the whistle to stop.

“Wow, I never knew you could run like that,” Ken pants out, a clear expression of surprise as he looks my way. I shrug, but get an unexpectedly sharp sting from my chest for it. I think I overdid it there...

Sweating and panting, the girls all come over. “Wow, Sei-san,” Lucy slides an arm over my shoulder as she leans down on me, “I saw you keeping pace with Kentan-san. I'm really impressed!” I suppress a wince at the movement, and just laugh her comment off.

Wow, she's so sweaty though. Actually, they're all really sweaty, and panting a lot. I'm pretty hot in my jacket, but it's not that bad...

That's all the time we have before our teachers call the two groups back, give a short talk about keeping it up, and dismiss us to get washed up. As soon as everyone heads for the showers attached to the gym, I start to panic. What do I do now?

Actually... I get an idea, running over and calling out to Jen. The move draws a lot of eyes, but I don't know what else to do here. She comes without question as I go over to my teacher. “Excuse me, sir. I'm not feeling so well.”

He waves it off. “I'm not surprised, I saw you pushing to keep pace with that other guy.” He gives a sort of guy-gesture, where he jerks his chin up, toward Jen. “Get him to the infirmary.”

“Yes, sir,” she answers succinctly, wraps an arm around my shoulder, and makes a show of herding me out of the gym.

“Good move, Sei,” she whispers once we're far enough away. We only make it so far before she adds, “Though, you didn't actually push yourself too far, did you?”

“Oh no, I'm fine,” I assure her. “I do have one problem though...”

She raises an eyebrow, and I glance around. There are no occupied classes this close to the gym, so it's pretty empty. Even so, I wave for her to lean down so I can whisper in her ear. “My, uhh, nipples are really sore...”

She takes a moment to process that, cheeks turning pink, while I blush at the floor. Then she clears her throat, and whispers back. “Right, uhh, shit. Sorry. I didn't think about that...” She lets out a hissing breath, then asks, “How bad is it? Should I actually take you to the infirmary?”

“N-no, I'm fine. I can ignore it for now. I'm worried about dealing with the doctor if we go, you know?”

“Yeah, I get it,” she sighs. “Let's head back to class then.” I nod, and we quickly head off.