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“Be more ladylike, Minho.”
First of all- fuck that. Why should anyone be forced to fit into a box of a set personality because of their gender?
Second of all- if someone called him that one more time, someone was going to end up in the hospital tonight (maybe Minho, maybe the other person, it’s yet to be decided).
He was so fucking tired. In general. And of life. And of feeling like he’s lying no matter what he does. Acting like a “girl”? Pretending to be something he’s not. Trying not to look like a “girl”? Literally becoming something he’s not.
And he was tired that they were right, that he would never be feminine enough to be the girl everyone expected him to be. He was loud and vocal about his opinions. Just one of his thighs was nearly the size of his best friend’s waist - to the point he couldn’t fucking find clothing in the “women’s” section that fit anymore. He didn’t know the last time he chose to wear a dress or put on makeup.
It was stupid, because none of those things made a woman any less of a woman, it just made him feel like less of a woman.
He’d rather take care of someone else than get taken care of - which made him and Jisung joke about what a good boyfriend he’d be if only the universe had made him a guy.
He didn’t know when that stopped feeling like a joke.
Didn’t know when he went from thinking he didn’t like boys in the way a girl was supposed to, to thinking maybe he liked girls instead, to realizing that he liked boys in the way a boy wasn’t supposed to.
That doesn’t make sense. He knows that.
The fact it doesn’t make sense doesn’t change that fact that it felt right.
He never watched a romance drama and thought - I could imagine myself being the female lead. Instead it was a lot more like - I could imagine myself being the male lead. Maybe because his personality fit that “cold but secretly sweet” thing that those CEOs were written as.
Maybe because of something a little bigger.
Jisung had pulled up some “coming of age” type movie for them to watch, and Minho didn’t really care that much about it until it hit him- how much he felt like the main girl. This 13 year old girl with an obsession over a boy band trying to figure out how to become okay with her hidden secret (although he kinda wished this hidden side of him was a red panda alter ego, like the girl in the movie, that sounds way more fun).
And that felt so dysphoric in so many ways. Feeling like a 13 year old girl, when he was a 26 year old something other than that.
Because that’s what these stupid coming of age stories don’t tell you. It doesn’t stop when you figure out something about yourself in your teens, like his weird gay-adjacent crisis when he thought he liked girls.
Sometimes you go through that same fucking identity crisis when you’re 7 years out of your teens, and you realize you are gay after all as you’re hiding in a giant hoodie that makes you forget about the shit on your chest (literally and metaphorically).
The whole being gay thing was a lot easier to come to terms with, if he’s being honest. He loved Jisung more than anything else (yeah, maybe even more than cats), and it was just a part of himself he had to embrace. People were gay all the time, and he had developed a weird affinity for BL series over the past few years so it’s not like it felt weird or foreign.
But this? He has to embrace the feeling of wanting to change who he is to… become who he is? It feels backwards and just - a little wrong.
“Jisungie, would you love me even if I was secretly a red panda shapeshifter?” he asked at the end of the movie.
Jisung’s face lit up, expressive in the way you would think is only possible for a cartoon character. “I think I’d love you more if you were secretly a red panda shapeshifter, honestly. Like you’d be so soft and cuddly, I would never want to let you go.”
“You already never want to let me go.”
Jisung muttered, “That’s true,” under his breath like it pained him to agree. And yeah, they should probably talk about their whatever-ship but honestly it felt too complicated once he started feeling like… well feeling like a ‘he’.
“Jisung, would you love me if I weren’t… this?” Jisung just hums in confusion as Minho gestures to himself vaguely.
“If you weren’t what? One of the most stunning people on the planet?” And Minho can’t decide between laughing and shrugging, and it makes some weird mangled something in the end. “Minho, I would love you if you were ugly - which is genuinely not possible by the way - or if you gained weight or lost weight, if you were bald, if you were a boy. I genuinely don’t care as long as it’s you.”
“You’re serious about that? You-,” he pauses, catches his breath, tries to even his voice that he knows is shaking, “If I were a boy?”
“Yes, Beyoncé, even if you were a boy. Come on, first of all, I’m offended you would think I’m straight. Girls are hot. Guys are hot. Why choose? Second, Minho, I just really fucking love you no matter what.”
“That’s actually the hottest thing you could say to me, I could kiss you.” His tone is joking, but he’s not, and he knows Jisung knows that too.
“Something tells me now’s not the time, like maybe there’s something else we need to talk about.”
“Not tonight, Jisungie, I - I can’t talk about it right now.” And Jisung- fucking angel that he is- just smiles, closes the laptop, and pulls the blanket to cover them both. Wraps his arms around Minho’s waist and holds like he’s the only thing anchoring Minho to this world. Maybe he is.
---
“Minho, please tell me you slept last night,” Jisung says as he sets the table for the breakfast Minho’s made.
“For a few hours, yeah. I just like making breakfast, you know that.” Minho sets the omelets he’s made onto each of their plates before sitting in his seat.
“Okay. Talk before or after eating?”
“During? I can’t do this on an empty stomach but if I wait until we finish eating I might put it off even more.” Jisung just nods, digging into breakfast but staying quiet so Minho can start talking as soon as he’s ready.
“I mean after last night, I’m sure you have a guess,” he starts, then shoves a cherry tomato into his mouth like he needs to stop himself from saying something. Maybe it was just to give him a bit of a distraction. “I’m not really- I don’t really like looking like this, being you know- a woman.”
“I was okay with it, as a kid, but over time I just realized I don’t - I’m not- it’s that I would prefer more if I was a guy. Like if given the choice, I would start my life over as a guy. And not just because of misogyny, don’t get me wrong male privilege sounds like a dream, but it’s just- all these little things.”
Jisung continues nodding along, then looks up when he feels Minho’s eyes on his head. “Sorry, am I supposed to act surprised?” which Minho kind of gawks at, “you’ve always liked being one of the guys. I think I’ve known longer than you have. I’ve seen all the little things, the clothes, the hair, the wording. I just didn’t want to be reading things wrong or rush you.”
“But isn’t it- isn’t it weird, at least a little bit?”
“Not really. And besides, you don’t need to justify yourself, if you’re my hyung then you’re my hyung, simple as that.”
“I take back what I said last night, that’s the hottest thing you could say to me.”
“Oh dear god, he has a hyung kink.”
“I do not! I just meant the whole respecting it without any questions.”
“Right… sure you did, hyung.”