"Cinderella."

 

Sanghyuk was only three years old then, arms crossed with his bottom lip out. They were in the aisle of an "everything" store, the kind you could get your groceries and household items in. They'd been through this in years past though the struggle had grown significantly for his parents at age three. He knew what he wanted recently, from wanting cookies over broccoli and playtime over bath time. Now he wanted a sparkling blue dress over the arrangement of little boys halloween costumes. 

 

His mother didn't have a problem with the dress, but she knew his father would. 

 

Sanghyuk threw an ear piercing tempter tantrum in the middle of the aisle that had them escorted out of the store with a spiderman costume in hand. 

 

 

At age five Sanghyuk sat in the chair at the hairdressers, black cape wrapped around him. 

 

"I don't want it short," Sanghyuk gritted his teeth that had just started becoming loose. 

 

"Honey, it's overgrown now," Sanghyuk's mother it out of his eyes as though to prove a point. 

 

"All the girls at school have hair longer than me and I want long pretty hair like them," Sanghyuk crossed his arms under the sheet and pouted. 

 

"Go ahead. Short," His father instructed the hairdresser in a low voice. 

 

Sanghyuk still heard him, though. He clutched onto his locks and kicked his legs, screaming while his face reddened and tears streamed down his face. He didn't understand. He wanted long hair like his sister that he could put pretty clips in and look like a princess. He wasn't hurting anyone. 

 

A haircut could not have taken place without accidentally snipping Sanghyuk's tiny fingers so his father took things into his own hands, shaving him down to a buzz cut while holding his crying son still. His mother couldn't listen to it and though Sanghyuk called for her, she remained at the opposite end of the house with her hands over her ears. 

 

 

By age ten Sanghyuk understood. He understood that he couldn't wear his sister's clothes without being scolded and why putting on his mother's makeup was wrong. It was because he was a boy, and boys did boy things. Sanghyuk didn't like boy things much, but he didn't hate them either. He started playing soccer when he was ten on the agreement that he could keep his hair in a longer 'boy cut' featuring side swept bangs and a blonde dye job. 

 

This was the year that he told his mother that he wanted to be a girl. She said that she knew already, and that she wished Sanghyuk had have been born a girl. 

 

Sanghyuk's glimmer of hope was shattered when that was followed by the same explanation he'd been hearing his whole life. He was a boy. He had to do boy things. It wasn't okay for him to be a girl. It was unnatural. 

 

Sanghyuk was over throwing tantrums because he understood at age ten. He'd moved on to pressing his lips together and nodding obediently, saving his tears for when they wouldn't break his mother's heart. 

 

Sanghyuk was sixteen and had his ear pressed to his bedroom door. He wasn't sure why he was still listening knowing where the conversation was headed. Yet there he was, lip between his teeth and hands bunched in his night gown. His mother bought him the gown to sleep in so long as Sanghyuk swore his father would never see it. He wore it nearly every night. The voices outside the door alternated from a deep, demanding voice to a soft and understanding one. 

 

His mother, "You'd have to be blind not to see that we clearly do not have a son."

 

His father, "No boy in this family is going to be walking around in skirts claiming to be a female. It's repulsive."

 

His mother, "What's repulsive is your backwards thinking. Sanghyuk is clearly unhappy, I see it in her everyday." 

 

The female pronoun made Sanghyuk's heart leap. She then decided that she never wanted to be referred to as 'he' or 'him' ever again. 

 

Her father, "Do not use that word. He is a boy and we will continue raising him as one."

 

The male pronouns felt like stabs. 

 

Her mother, "I can't keep treating her like this. It's wrong and abusive."

 

Her father, voice raised to a shout, "Then you can raise the children how ever you want. On your own."

 

Her mother, through obviously clenched teeth, "Don't let the door hit you."

 

There was rustling, and a bark of, "I'll get my things in the morning," before a large slam lead into a few moments of stark silence.Sanghyuk held her breath, mind numb and whirling all at once. Her father was awful to her, awful to her sister and worse to their mother but Sanghyuk couldn't help but feel wounded. This man, who was supposed to love them all unconditionally, is disgusted by his own flesh and blood because of something that Sanghyuk used to be sure hurt nobody. Only then she wasn't so sure as she heard a long and shaking sigh from outside the door. 

 

Sanghyuk opened it tentatively, the creek giving her away. Her mother, who had been sitting on the couch with her head in her hands, stood up and took large steps over to Sanghyuk. She looked worried and sad, but at ease all at once. 

 

Sanghyuk hugged her tightly, "I'm so sorry."

 

"Don't cry," her mother petted her hair. Sanghyuk didn't realized she was crying. Apparently she was. 

 

"I'm sorry," Sanghyuk repeated. 

 

"Hun, we've been disagreeing for years. Not only about you, about everything. It was bound to happen eventually. I'm glad it happened now," She held Sanghyuk's head and spoke into her hair, tears of relief and hope for her daughters future dampening it, "I love you, my beautiful daughter."

 

"I love you, mom," Sanghyuk sobbed. 

 

"Hey, no more tears. This is a good thing," Sanghyuk's mother cupped her face in her hands and swiped away tears with her thumbs, "School starts on Monday. What do you say we do some shopping tomorrow?"

 

"For girl stuff?" Sanghyuk sounded like a four year old but she didn't care. Maybe it was the slightest bit pretentious, but she felt like this process was her being born again. The way she should have been born sixteen years ago. Sanghyuk would act and dress as she pleased and no longer let anyone else tell her it was wrong to do otherwise. 

 

 

 

 

After sixteen years Sanghyuk felt like everything was finally falling into place. 

 

 

Sanghyuk couldn't peel the smile off her lips if she wanted to. She'd gotten up two hours before she normally did and made a proper mess out of all the new clothing her mother had bought her. Sanghyuk gave her appearance as little thought as possible in the past, not wanting to think about how baggy her jeans were and how tragically masculine the fit of her shirt made her shoulders look. 

 

But that day perfection was important. She would meet her classmates, or rather they would meet her. Not Sanghyuk, the quiet boy who always seemed angry at the world, but Sanghyuk, the girl who'd never felt more at peace with herself than that very day. 

 

She didn't want to go all pink and frilly because that wasn't her and this day was all about Sanghyuk being herself. She'd chosen a sky blue pair on snug jeans for the bottom, that much was easy. It did take some wiggling and situation to accommodate for her flaw, but she made it work. Paired with the jeans was an oversized sweater, pink an grey knit that fell down to the middle of her thighs. Something about the hugeness of it made Sanghyuk look tiny and that alone made her chest tight. The pink on her flats matched the sweater as well as the little flower clip that her mother slid into her hair. Sanghyuk's sister did her makeup after crying and rambling about all of the sisterly bonding activities that they had to catch up on. Sanghyuk was excited, though bra shopping sounded more embarrassing than amusing. 

 

She'd been staring at her reflection forever it seemed but Sanghyuk still couldn't get used to it. She felt pretty. In the past she'd been told by girls that she was hot or by relatives that she was becoming such a handsome young man, but pretty was a new concept. One that Sanghyuk very much wanted to cling to. Her hair almost touched her shoulders when it was pin straight like the runs of the flat iron had made it though it was a tad messy from the amount of times Sanghyuk had squealed in joy and bounced up and down that morning.

 

"We have to leave in ten minutes or you're going to be late," Sanghyuk's mother said after rapping on the door softly. 

 

"Come in," Sanghyuk replied. 

 

"Oh my god," she covered her smile and walked in behind Sanghyuk's reflection in the mirror, pulling Sanghyuk's hair out of her face. Tears brimmed her eyes. Sanghyuk found it odd that though the past few days had consisted of a lot of crying, none of it had been over the loss of her father. Tears of happiness fell constantly, though none of sorrow even threatened to spill. 

 

"Do I look okay?" Sanghyuk asked, more so wanting to hear it than actually needing to know. She knew she looked great. 

 

"Beautiful," that word had been dropped constantly from her mother's mouth during this process. She checked her watch and went back to being all business, "Did you-"

 

"I made a post online so everyone knows that I'm a girl and I have friends meeting me in front of the school to walk in with me," Sanghyuk answered without hearing the rest of the question that didn't need finishing, "I'll be fine, mom."

 

"Okay, no, yeah, you're right," she squeezed Sanghyuk's shoulders and sighed, "I'm proud of you, always."

 

"Enough!" Sanghyuk's sister cried and took Sanghyuk by the arm, practically dragging her away from the mirror, "If you're late, I'm late."

 

 

"Wah! You're so cute! You're going to turn me straight, I swear to god," Hakyeon cooed as Sanghyuk hopped out of her sisters car.

 

Sanghyuk hung out with the gay kids. It wasn't on purpose that they all somehow clung together, but it worked out in such a way that they had that label attached to their lunch table. Hakyeon and Taekwoon were boyfriends and had been dating since middle school. They were polar opposites, though, and Sanghyuk wondered how they ever found each other. Hakyeon was all loud cries and firetruck red hair where as Taekwoon always had his hands folded in front of him and spoke just a bit too quietly all the time. It didn't matter because they made each other happy, they were just confusing. Jaehwan and and Wonsik were girlfriends, Wonsik a cisgendered butch girl who only smiled with one side of and Jaehwan was transgendered and enjoyed pink skirts and being a cheerleader. That was how the school knew them, but Sanghyuk just knew them as people. Just like the school knew Sanghyuk as the consistently frowning boy but his friends knew that his fits of teenaged angst were more than warranted. 

 

"You're very pretty," Taekwoon said softly. 

 

"Now that Hyukkie has come to her true self girls officially outweigh boys in the friendship group," Jaehwan explained as she threw an arm around Sanghyuk. Jaehwan was someone Sanghyuk was glad she had to hold her hand through this. They'd spent hours on the phone last night to help sooth Sanghyuk's nervous excitement and Jaehwan had pulled a smile from Sanghyuk's crying fits of 'this is unfair' and 'can I just die and be reborn'. 

 

"You look so happy," Wonsik said with a smile on only half of her face. 

 

"I am."

 

"That's really, really good," Wonsik squeezed the arm not being crushed to her side. 

 

Apparently seeing Sanghyuk happy was a new phenomenon for her friends and Sanghyuk felt kind of bad about being the personification of a black cloud before. 

 

 

The day went shockingly well. Other kids that Sanghyuk vaguely knew offered her smiles and pleasant small talk as though to wordlessly that she had their support. She got apologies when the wrong pronouns were used and it appeared that by lunch she was forgotten about, just another face in the hallways. Gossip travelled fast and got replaced even faster, so by the time 'so he's a she now' swept through cliques word of some girl getting arrested was replacing it on everyone's lips.

 

That was okay. In Sanghyuk's perfect world everything would go on as though Sanghyuk was never pretending to identify as a boy. She still scooted into the nurses office to use the uni washroom when she had to. Balancing that out was the fact that was the fact that some kid in each of her classes managed to speak up when their teacher misused male pronouns. 

 

The amount of acceptance was bittersweet. Sanghyuk wasn't stupid. She knew that for each kind gesture thrown her way was an equal and opposite whisper behind her back. Sanghyuk tried to ignore the glances her way that were accompanied by a lip that pulled into a scowl. Maybe they would just have to get used to her, or she them. Either way it was uncomfortable and Sanghyuk wished she didn't see her father in some of their eyes. 

 

 

Two weeks into school Sanghyuk had been dubbed welcoming committee to the new kid. He was in her first period math class and situated himself right beside Sanghyuk. Naturally she felt bad for him because catching up on two weeks of missed math would surely be a poor addition to the rest of his classes and adjusting to a new school. He was also in Sanghyuk's fourth period art class, hence why she ended up giving him the run down of how things worked. 

 

He was cute. He had a huge smile that he didn't hold back on bearing, dressed nicely, had sweeping black hair, dark eyes, and asked a lot of questions. His name was Hongbin. 

 

 

"So this dance," Hakyeon slammed his hands down on the cafeteria table, "you're all going, right?"

 

"I am," Taekwoon whispered. 

 

"I know, baby," Hakyeon smiled at him and patted his hand. 

 

"We're going," Wonsik answered for both herself and Jaehwan who nodded along with her voice. 

 

"I'm probably not. I mean you guys have each other and the odds of me finding someone to hang out with let alone dance with..." Sanghyuk trailed off. They all knew what she was getting at. Any boy who gave her a second thought would surely run in the opposite direction when the learnt about her flaw. 

 

"I'll hangout with you," Hongbin said quickly. He'd become a regular fixture at their lunch table. Sanghyuk wasn't sure if it was because he actually liked them or because sitting with them beat sitting alone. He brought a bagged lunch everyday that he shamefully admitted was packed by his mother in the morning. Hongbin didn't like these tiny little bite sized pieces of cream cheese sandwiched between two cucumbers but he didn't want to hurt his mother's feelings so Sanghyuk got into the habit of eating them for him. 

 

She popped a cucumber bite into and gave Hongbin a confused look, "You will?"

 

"Don't look so surprised," Hongbin smiled, "I want to experience the school and what better way to do that than a dance?"

 

"The boy offers a valid point," Jaehwan wagged a carrot stuck in the air, "and though he evens the gender count, he does seem like a suitable male caller for our dearest Sanghyuk."

 

"We'd go as friends," Sanghyuk snapped before she had to hear Hongbin say it. 

 

"Whatever you want," Hongbin smiled and slid the rest of his cucumbers to Sanghyuk. 

 

"Anyway," Hakyeon said slowly and turned to the rest of the group while keeping his eyes on Hongbin and Sanghyuk. The tension between them was so thick Hakyeon thought that if Jaehwan threw her carrot stick it might get stuck airborne. This wasn't something they weren't used to. Over the few weeks that Hongbin had been sitting with them he'd dropped the occasional flirty look and complimented Sanghyuk like it was his job. Sanghyuk of course skirted around these cleverly until Hongbin looked defeated and Hakyeon took it upon himself to use chatter as a means of distraction. He tapped his nails on his plastic tray, "Wonsik, since this is a semiformal, you don't suppose we could get you into a dress?"

 

"Ha!" Wonsik spat, "You'd have better luck getting Jaehwan to not wear something that she'd probably describe as 'pinkalicious'."

 

"Hey," Jaehwan frowned, bright pink lips curving downward. 

 

"You're cute," Wonsik assured with a quick kiss on Jaehwan's cheek. 

 

"Hyukkie, let's go dress shopping," Jaehwan asked with the linger of Wonsik showing in the flush of her cheeks. 

 

"What are you going to buy? You've probably had your dress for three months," Taekwoon mumbled against the lip of his cup. Sanghyuk laughed along with the rest of them because the only time Taekwoon strung more that a few words together was to fire shots at Jaehwan. It was never mean so much as it was teasing and Jaehwan would always find a way to return the favour. 

 

"I need something to wear too," Hongbin gave Sanghyuk and lopsided Wonsik-smile. 

 

"Come with us," Sanghyuk suggested. She knew that an invitation was what Hongbin had been looking for and she really didn't mind, though she did find it hard to believe that Hongbin had nothing to wear to a semiformal. Hongbin was vests and cardigans and crisply ironed fabric, so to think he didn't have anything to wear was absurd. Sanghyuk thought that he probably just wanted friends outside of school, "Saturday?"

 

"Works for me," Hongbin showed all of his teeth when he smiled, a very Hongbin smile. 

 

"Ouch," Jaehwan winced. It appeared Taekwoon had jabbed her in the ribs. She straightened up and pasted on an obviously fake frown, "Actually, I have a family thing on Saturday and I do already have my dress. Are you two okay without me?"

 

"I'm sure we'll be fine," Hongbin said and Sanghyuk smiled nervously and agreed. 

 

 

"I think we should start with you," Hongbin suggested. They were sitting in the food court of a large shopping mall in their area, people bustling around them as was to be expected on a Saturday afternoon. After they'd entered the hectic mall and spent a moment blinking at the long list of stores they decided that t would be best to fuel up and make a game plan before tackling the stores. Hence why they were talking over a shared large fry a little too close to the table beside them, but it was the only available spot so they'd make it work.

 

"Why is that?" Sanghyuk asked. 

 

Hongbin chewed on a fry and thought for a second, eyes looking past Sanghyuk before he swallowed, "I want us to match and it's easier to match my tie to your dress than your dress to my tie. I'm the boy and essentially your accessory. Like at a wedding nobody leaves thinking about how beautiful the groom looked because the girl is the star."

 

"Wedding? Jesus, at least take me on a date first," Sanghyuk joked. She found it rather adorable that even though they were just going as friends Hongbin still wanted to be coordinated. It was a very Hongbin thing to want. 

 

"I'd like that," Hongbin hadn't laughed which was not a very Hongbin-like thing to do. He shifted his hand on the table so that their fingers just touched. 

 

Sanghyuk didn't want her heart to pick up it's pace or for heat to rise to her cheeks, but it was one of those things that could not be controlled. It was undeniable that she liked Hongbin and Sanghyuk wasn't so naive as to try to suppress it. She simply accepted it. Yes, she liked Hongbin and found everything he did endearing but no, she couldn't have him. It was a feeling that Sanghyuk had grown used to, though it was somewhat disheartening that she had to get used to it. Sanghyuk gave Hongbin a sad version of a Wonsik-smile, "You don't want that."

 

"I do, though."

 

"You think you want that," Sanghyuk explained. 

 

"Tell me what could be so wrong that I wouldn't want to take the cutest girl I've ever met on a date," Hongbin leaned on the table as though he was prepared to counter whatever Sanghyuk said. 

 

Sanghyuk felt like she was going to be sick, nervousness making everything that typically came easy skewed and strange. Her breathing was uneven and her heart pounded, fingers shaking where they were folded in her lap. Sanghyuk let took a long inhale before she began, eyes on their mess of fries, "I'm not...well, I mean, I am but...I wasn't...I was born with the wrong...parts."

 

Hongbin chuckled, "I don't understand."

 

"I'm a girl but I don't have...girl parts," Sanghyuk pressed her lips together and closed her eyes. Hongbin's face probably showed disgust, either in her or in himself for ever feeling attracted to her. Every second that Hongbin didn't reply Sanghyuk felt more and more hopeless. 

 

"Oh," Hongbin said softly and paused a moment. He stood up and for a moment Sanghyuk thought he was going to leave, in fact she didn't expect anything else. Much to her surprise Hongbin reached into her lap and grabbed her hand to hold over the table. He smiled, a wide and gorgeous Hongbin-smile, when Sanghyuk looked up at him, "Sanghyuk, will you go to the dance with me? As my date, not as my friend."

 

"Are you gay? Because I'm not a boy. I can't be your boyfriend."

 

"I'm straight, I told you that weeks ago when you asked me if I had a boyfriend," Hongbin laughed a bit at the memory of Sanghyuk's apparent shock when she learnt that he was heteroual. 

 

"I can't give you what you want, then," Sanghyuk sounded sad. She was sad. Desperately she hoped that her eyes weren't welling up the way she felt them doing. 

 

"Lets just stop for a second," Hongbin squeezed Sanghyuk's quivering hand before he leaned back in his seat, "You look like a girl. You act like a girl. You smell like a girl. Actually, you smell really nice all the time. Anyway, you are a girl. Is there something I'm missing?"

 

"You are something else," Sanghyuk shook her head and examined Hongbin carefully as if it make sure he was real, "I'll go to the dance with you. As your date."

 

"Really?" Hongbin's face lit up with excitement so genuine that Sanghyuk felt her heart leap. 

 

Sanghyuk gave him a coy smile, "Unless you don't-"

 

"No!" Hongbin cut her off with waving hands, "No, I want to. I'm excited. God, you're so cute."

 

Sanghyuk giggled and buried her face in her hands. 

 

"Okay, we do need to shop, though," Hongbin said in a more serious tone. He was doing a poor job hiding how worked up he was, "What kind of dress were you thinking?"

 

"Are you sure you're straight?" Sanghyuk raised an eyebrow. 

 

"Fashion is a very straight thing to take interest in."

 

"Right. Can I tell you something?" Sanghyuk chewed her cheek and Hongbin nodded. She hadn't really given the style of dress much thought as Sanghyuk was purely excited to get to dress up. A thought did come to mind, "When I was younger I wanted to be Cinderella for halloween but my parents wouldn't let me because it was a girl costume."

 

"But you are a girl," Hongbin said as though it was the most obvious thing in the world. 

 

"I know, right," Sanghyuk rolled her eyes. 

 

"Do I even want to know what they made you wear?"

 

Sanghyuk laughed heartlessly, "I've been spiderman, a lumberjack, a cowboy, a police officer, and a ghost before I gave up on halloween."

 

"Lumberjack?" Hongbin was laughing with his head thrown back. 

 

"Yeah. A ing lumberjack."

 

"Well that settles it," Hongbin stood and extended his arm as an invitation for Sanghyuk to join him, "We are going to find you a Cinderella dress."

 

And they did. Hongbin located a light blue number in the window of a store and upon trying it on they both deemed it perfection. It hugged Sanghyuk's torso and was embellished with jewls and glitter, the skirt flaring her hips out wide enough that Sanghyuk couldn't put her arms close to her sides without them feeling cushioned by the fabric. It fit strange in some places and Sanghyuk couldn't properly fill out the bust, but Hongbin insisted that they would figure something out and that she looked stunning anyway. Sanghyuk thought that taking someones breath away was a figure of speech used to romanize situations, but Hongbin's gasp and delayed sigh when he first saw her said otherwise. 

 

Hongbin found a dark grey suit and white button down shirt that he paired with a light blue tie. Sanghyuk could then verify that breath could be taken away. 

 

 

Their art teacher was a peculiar man. He wore essentially the same outfit everyday, khakis and a polo, but in different colours. He had an obvious combover and drove a tiny yellow car with a painted sun on the side of it, even though the car itself was expensive looking. Classes would start with a loud boom of some sort of life lesson rich quote before they launched into a project.

 

Projects fell under two categories, those being skill-building and actual works. They broke up large projects with skill building activities. That day was a skill building day. They'd been told to use watercolour and ink to create a simple image of something they found pretty. The teacher had told them that pretty was separate from beauty because beauty could be backed by reason and pretty just was. He used the example of finding a poem beautiful because one may relate to it and it featured the use of strange words versus finding flowers pretty just because they were. Sanghyuk went to work with thick of watered down brown to create a long braid with random daisies in it. Needless to say, Sanghyuk loved long hair. 

 

"What are you doing?" Sanghyuk asked without looking away from her paper as she tried to control the way the water streamed down the page. 

 

"It's a secret," Hongbin sounded equally as distracted. He sat across from Sanghyuk and was always disgustingly private about his artwork. This puzzled Sanghyuk because everything he produced was amazing. He peaked up, "What about you?"

 

"Hair."

 

"It's getting long, you know," Hongbin swirled his brush into his empty yogurt container of water, "When I met you it was an inch below your chin and now it's touching your shoulders."

 

Sanghyuk scowled, "I want it to touch my ."

 

"It'll get there," Hongbin chuckled, "It's pretty at any length."

 

"Thanks," Sanghyuk said shyly and went back to adding yellow to the centers of the daisies. 

 

Hongbin had been painting Sanghyuk's dress. He said that he would have painted Sanghyuk, only he found her beautiful and painting beauty was against the rules. 

 

Sanghyuk was immensely exited for the dance.