Taeyeon spent every night like this, standing there in her pretty dress with her long hair, staring into her mirror and being so..  so unhappy with the person staring back at her. She had planned to make a  change for a while but now that the scissors were in her hands, admittedly she was a bit scared.

“What the is wrong with you? I raised a little girl not a little boy!”

That was the last thing her mother had said to her today. In some ways she guessed she should thank her mom because those words were the motivation she needed to finally get herself a bit closer to the haircut that she wanted. In the morning, she borrowed her brother’s old suit and snuck past her mother who was passed out in the living room.

~

Taeyeon was the personal assistant to the CEO of a semi-successful upstart company. His name was Lee Jinki. His family started the company about 20 years prior but he had managed to triple the company’s profit since taking his position as CEO. He was a nice man, especially for a CEO, Taeyeon thought. She had been working for him for five years and she loved her job but she had prepared herself for the worst. If she couldn’t do it AND be her true self then she decided that it wasn’t worth it. Hopefully he wouldn’t fire her..

She took a deep breath before opening his office door.

“Good Morning sir!”

“Oh good, Taeyeon, you’re here. I-” He did a double-take.

“Um sir. You have to sign off on the advertisements for the new website and then you have a meeting at 11:00 with the admissions officer from-”

“Tae..”

“Y-yes sir.” He looked at his boss.

“Tae, what the hell are you wearing?”

“Well sir, I’ve thought about this for a while and really, I understand if you’re upset but I just..  feel better like this and I hope-”

“No, Tae. Just-”

“Sir, I-”

“Taeyeon, you look ridiculous!”

Taeyeon blinked back tears before they could form and cleared his throat. “I want.. I would like to be taken seriously.” He lowered his gaze. “As much as when I was wearing a skirt.”

“Tae, that suit is disgusting. Did you steal it off of a corpse?”

“huh?” Taeyeon gaped

“and your hair, Jesus! I’m surprised you’re not bleeding!” he chuckled and ruffled his hand through Taeyeon’s hair.

“Sir..” he was in a state of disbelief.

“Look, I used to dress really bad too. I will not have my best little employee looking like he shops at the big&tall. Cancel my meetings! This is more important.”

~

Jinki took Tae to get his hair cut first. After some protest due to the fact that Tae felt guilty that his boss was about to spend a bunch of money on him, he caved. His new haircut was nice. The sides were shaved and the top was about a pinky’s length. Tae assumed they were heading to some fancy department store next. The guy was stacked after all. But no, they stopped outside of a cute little boutique near the meat-packing district.

“I have a friend who can help. He helped me when I was in your position.” Tae nodded. Wait, what did he mean by that? When he was a fashion victim or was he also trans? ...Shut up, Tae!

When they entered, the shop was very colorful and there were clothes everywhere. A very stylish man emerged from the back room.

“Hello, welco- Jinki, is that you?” they hugged “It’s been ages and all you brought me was a burlap sack full of ?”

“Kibum be nice, this is my assistant, Tae. Tae, this is Kibum.”

“N-nice to meet you.”

“You as well, cutie.” Kibum smiled

“Kibum, we need your help.”

“Obviously.”

~

After something reminiscent of an 80’s movie montage, Tae came out with a few things he liked. They thanked Kibum and headed back to the office. In the car, the atmosphere was a bit dark for the situation and when Jinki stopped the car, he noticed that Tae was crying.

“Tae, what’s wrong? Are you okay? Did I do someth-”

“No, no, you’re amazing. That’s just it..” Jinki waited “No one has ever been this nice to me before. Not even my mother. She’s only ever pretended to love me. My brother is amazing but I’m pretty much an only child because he’s 13 years older than me. When I realized who I really was, no one was there for me, no friends and my mother rejected me even more furiously than before and blamed me for screwing her life up. I don’t even know why I’m telling you all of this. I..” Tae fiddled with his hands. “I’m so grateful for everything that you’ve done for me today and I.. I just feel guilty for thinking you might want something from me in return because I’ve been there too and i..”

“I was presumptuous before. Let me start over.” Tae looked at him confused. “What would you like to be called?”

Tae thought a bit.. “Tae.. Taemin. You can call me Tae if you want.”

“Okay, easy. And your Pronouns?”

“he.. or him”

“Alrighty then!” Jinki slapped his hands on the wheel and turned to Tae. “Taemin, I met you when you were in 10^th grade pretending to be a senior so that you could start interning here. You’re hardworking so I scooped you up as my assistant before anybody could find out and kick you out. It has been ten years since then and you are practically family. Look, I’m sorry that your real family doesn’t see how special you are but if you need someone to lean on, I’m here for you. I already knew you were different and If I was gonna love you any more or if I was gonna love you any less, it would’ve happened by now.”

Tae wiped his tears and took Jinki into a big hug. Jinki squeezed him tight before they let go.

“Can..  can I call you hyung?”

 “Sure!” he said and Tae smiled.

“Just not in the office.”

 

 

 

 

 

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there :3