Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The clock ticks slower than usual. The scent of coffee is drained from the air as everything is cleaned out at WEEKEND GARAGE. Despite the boring atmosphere of the café at closing time, An and Kohako are having a full conversation about god knows what. Maybe about practice today, or their crushes, not even Ken knows at this point. He just drowned out their conversation while cleaning out coffee grinders of their now gross leftover grounds.

“And it was so weird when Emu actually picked up the frog! She said it peed in her hand and… I almost threw up. It was so gross, but I think we had a lot of fun.” Kohako was explaining the frog incident at the park a couple of days ago to An. He was chuckling while
explaining it, “We ended up unintentionally finding a geocache too! I considered taking it, but Emu told me not to…” He trailed off.

“Hey Kohane —” That was the word Kohako hated the most, and he couldn’t bear to correct An about it.
“—are you sure you didn’t make a mistake on your Nightcord bio? It says ‘he/they’ when I thought you used she/they.” An asked, almost out of nowhere. Was she checking Nightcord again? Indeed she was.

Instead of an answer, she was met with awkward silence from the other party. She looked at Kohane with confusion and slight concern. Mostly confusion. She hadn’t seen her like this since they dated for that short period of time. It was… awkward for both of them. 4/10, will probably never do it again.

“Uuhh… can we talk about something else??” Kohako asked nervously, breaking the short-lived silence, while glancing to the side, as if something on at the tables would help him escape this topic. His hands fidgeted around before An finally suggested talking about the practice last night. It was hilarious, Akito fumbled multiple times on his solo in one of the songs.

“His solo part in CRaZY goes kind of hard, though, what a shame he messed up the English part,” An said, before bursting into laughter again. They laughed and laughed before Kohako checked the time. 8:30 pm.

He looked at the time as if it was his enemy. He had to get home, or his parents would be concerned.

“I’m sorry, An… I should really be getting home. It was fun chatting with you, though. Same time tomorrow?” Kohako gave a shy smile as An gave a thumbs up. He waved goodbye and exited the building. The moment Kohako did, he panicked about what he was supposed to do when An found out about his secret. The one thing he swore to keep a secret until he was ready. The one thing out of millions he couldn’t tell An.

As Kohako’s feet hit the ground repeatedly, he thought about Akito and Toya. Were they even remotely aware? Was anyone on Vivid Street even aware of the changes he’s tried to make to his body? Has anyone noticed his voice deepening slightly? Was he trying too little? He thought his voice was okay. However, it seemed like nobody cared that much.

Only minutes of dreadful thoughts later, Kohako arrived home. His parents had gone to sleep early, apparently. He went to his room, a mess of water bottles and bloody tissues sprawled across the floor. There were countless energy drinks hidden around his room, as he didn’t have the energy to perform most of the time after ‘countless excuses’ he’d made to his teammates. His bed was made neatly, and all of his hair ties were in a mini drawer, though. He would try to clean his room up. Eventually. Maybe.

However, Kohako threw himself on his bed and began to sob lightly. Would he ever be masculine enough? Would he ever sound how he wanted to sound? God, he wishes he would’ve just been born a boy so that he wouldn’t be sitting here right now. He wouldn’t be crying. He wouldn’t even think of being sad over not being assigned the right gender at birth. But here he was, a feminine body with a trapped male soul. He looked… wrong. He looked distorted. Imperfect. Flawed. No matter how much he tried, he looked wrong. Everything in his very existence wanted desperately to be masculine. Was he even right to want to look like Akito or Toya?

No. It wasn’t right. Every time Kohako looked in the mirror, he saw a person named Kohane. Someone who looked like him. Who wasn’t him anymore? A shell of his former self is all he could see. The tears he was crying began to create a wet spot on his pillow. Tears of weakness. Men aren’t weak, or so he had been told. So why did he feel so weak against all the negative thoughts? If he wanted to become stronger, he would have to do something about it.

Tears still falling down his face, Kohako approached his closet. In a fit of emotions, he began tearing the clothes out of his closet that didn’t fit who he was. His bridesmaid dress ripped. Any skirts? Gone. Dresses? Also gone. He looked at his now bare closet, derived from anything he hated. All that was left was a few shirts he had gotten from festivals or as gifts for his birthday and some sweatpants. And the top half of the Miyamasuzaka Girls Academy uniform.

*

An was just getting home while all of this was happening. She got a notification from Kohako on Nightcord, and INSTANTLY checked her DMs. The message contained a picture of Kohako, still in tears, lying on the floor, now dressed in pajamas with the caption ‘I did it :)’. An was confused by the message and replied ‘wdymm…???’

She didn’t get a response immediately, and she just shrugged it off and began to get ready for bed. She tied her hair into a bun, put on her pajamas, and went to bed.

*

The same couldn’t be said for Kohako. He was sleeping on the floor, in that same pile of clothes he had taken out of his closet, with his hair untied and sprawled across the surrounding area; around his head. His eyes were puffy as he drifted off into a crying-induced sleep.

Chapter Text

Awakening from the uncomfortable nest of clothes, there lies a groggy Kohako, eyes puffy and hair knotted. He’s waking up and noticing the nest of a mess he made. The mess he’s sitting in. Slowly standing up, he checks the time. 8 AM, 45 minutes until class starts.

Kohako was rushing to prepare for school. He only takes a few moments to brush his teeth and comb his hair, in which he ties into a messy bun instead of the normal pigtails. His outfit isn’t as easy to get done, however. The top half of it is relatively okay to wear, but the skirt is ripped. He guesses it was in that fit of emotion from last night. However, that means he has no skirt.

Picking through whatever’s left of his closet, he finds a pair of jeans and chooses to wear those. They’re ugly, but they’ll do. He hurriedly buttons up his jeans and puts the top part of his outfit on, slips on his shoes, and grabs his backpack. Closing his bedroom door, he rushes to get out of the house.

Kohako's thoughts while speed walking to school were full of his various, mostly fictional crushes, most of which were men. Some were hot or pretty women he found in his favorite games. No way, he plays video games with hot women! Mods, GET THIS MOTHERFUCKER!

Arriving at school during the first passing period, he felt as if all eyes were on him. Everyone was surprised to see someone breaking dress code for the first time since that one exchange student’s awful fashion statement. People were whispering about it, texting about it, all forms of communication you could think of.

However, Otori was skipping down the hallway with her overly joyful attitude in effect. She eventually ran right into Kohako, who was speed walking down the hallway to avoid the countless number of people talking about his questionable outfit choice.

“Oh!! Hi Azusawa-Chan!!!” Emu beamed while Kohako tried to regain his balance. Before she could say anything else, Emu noticed the pants Kohako was wearing. She gasped, before her eyes lit up.

“Ooh, what’s going on, Shirt Pants?” This made her friend stare at her. Shirt Pants?? Seriously, Emu?

Kohako didn’t say anything and walked away from Emu, feeling bad that he did. She was innocently asking a question, why would he not even try to answer it? He bowed his head down in shame as he made it to his locker. Emu, not too far away, was upset, but decided until later to actually confront him about it.

Kohako stared at the mini mirror in his locker. He hated how he looked. He grabbed his things and went to class.The halls were emptying as girls flooded into classrooms, and he joined the crowd.

Sitting down in the homeroom, his teacher came up to him as soon as he sat down. Shit.

“Azusawa, why don’t you have your skirt?” Teacher asked aggressively, still looking at the ugly jeans. Kohako cleared his throat while thinking of an excuse.

“Umm… I accidentally washed the skirt with my clothes and it got ruined…” He lied. However, the teacher believed him, and called the office to tell them about the situation and stuff like that. (I don’t go to Miyamasuzaka, I wouldn’t know.)

The rest of the morning went pretty normal, minus the constant upset stare from Emu. Does she really want to know why Kohako is wearing ugly jeans that bad? Are the jeans really that important?

Then came lunchtime. Girls flooded the halls once again, chatting as if they’ve forgotten about this morning. Kohako grabbed his lunchbox from his locker and went up to the rooftop instead of the lunchroom. He wanted to be alone, with himself and his thoughts.

He sat down, and set his lunchbox aside. What was wrong with him? Why did people gossip when he walked into school with pants instead of a skirt? He was panicking this morning, he couldn’t help that. Could he have stopped himself last night, though? Could he have restrained his urges successfully and just went to sleep?

Before he could dwell further, a distressed Emu bursted through the rooftop door.

“Azusawa! I found you!” She cried out. Kohako knew she needed to know why he was wearing pants and what was going on overall.

“Hi, Otori!” He said in this mock-happy tone, “W- why are you coming up h- here?”

Emu sat down, letting go of some of the emotion taking over her brain. She sat a small distance from Kohako.

“I wanna know what’s going on… you’ve been acting awfully weird today?” Emu said.

“Umm…” He was hesitant, “I- If I’m being honest, I’m transgender. That means I’m a boy trapped inside a girl’s body, to put it e-easily. I’m sorry if you don’t like this, you can just leave if not,” He sighed, looking at Emu. The first thing he saw was a glittery-eyed girl, about to jump at him. He did, indeed, get jumped at.

“Why would I leave?! I’m your best friend after all, you know I’ll be here, whether you’re feeling wonderhoy or not!!” Emu said, embracing Kohako in a tight hug, “I’m so happy for you!!”

“Ah, th-thank you…?” He chuckled, and Emu began laughing too. They were both laughing for a good minute, before their laughter died down and they began chatting about random stuff, like the frog incident or Emu accidentally getting soap everywhere in the bathroom, somehow. Lunch seemed to be forgotten, as the two were chatting so much it could fill a stomach. They soon heard the end-of-lunch bell ring, and they walked together to their lockers and to classes.

They were inseparable for the rest of the day! They even went over to WEEKEND GARAGE, which Emu had never done before, and she ended up getting a really sweet pancake. An was there too, working in place of her dad. She was happy to see the two get along so well, and to see Kohako’s confidence shining through whenever he talked.

“I suppose being a shirt pants isn’t so bad after all,” Kohako thought, as Emu spoke about Phoenix Wonderland and all the cool stuff they do there.

Chapter Text

- Kohako and Akito date for like 4 days
- Break up
- An finds out Kohako is trans and has a crush on another person (Touya knows this person very well, it’s Touya himself)
- VERY supportive
- Wingman
- Helps get Touya nd Kohako together
- They date for a good while
- and then the wicked bitch Kohako commits suicide because they broke up LOL