Hi!
Today when I came back from university, I don't know why I suddenly wanted to try translating in English the fanfiction I'm currently writing in French: "And then I became a boy" (At first I wanted to translate the title of this English version in French, but as it sounds quite stupid – because all sounds better in English anyway – I putted it in Japanese instead: "soshite danshi ni natteshimatta" – because all sounds better in Japanese too \o/).
As I was on an exchange semester in Japan last year (Yokosuka, Kanagawa-ken héhé), I want to be as much realistic as possible about Japanese lifestyle. Basically you're going to read the adventure of a half Japanese and half French intersexual Sanji in Japan x)
The prologue and summary are now beta-ed by ringtailedpheonix! Thank you so much!
Disclaimer : Oda-sensei's property is Oda-sensei's property! The rest is.. well... mine? x) Have a nice reading ;)
Thursday 28th august.
Dear Diary,
My name is Sanji, but all the people I've met until then only know me as "Sunny". A little weird, right? Well, it's not as if a diary could answer or agree with me anyway, but if I'm writing it's to free me from all the thoughts which has been weighing down my brain for quite a while. So whatever.
My story, my body, the story OF my body is so complex that in my head it feels like there's a giant mental knot giving me headache each time I try to untangle it. But I need to do it anyway; I need to write it down.
One month earlier, I was Sunny, living in southern France with my family: my father Masaki , my mother Emma , my little sister of nine years Ambre, and I was a girl, or at least considered as it.
Now, call me Sanji. I moved on the west coast to a city called Yokosuka, in the Kanagawa prefecture of Japan. My high school is in the neighboring big city - Yokohama - and I have to attend it as a boy, in a... male uniform. Besides, I had to cut my long blond hair which I had finally succeeded growing down to my hips. Remembering it makes me feeling sick.
As an explanation to my weird situation, you first need to know that I'm an IS. An intersexual. Intersexuals are, to explain that with simplicity, people whose the body couldn't decide properly between "girl" and "boy" and ended choosing both. My body is a freaking rebel. There are tens of different IS types, and honestly I didn't bother to learn all the possible cases. I already barely manage to remember the name of my own case, so... wait, what is it already? ... Ok, well, I forgot again, but it doesn't change anything for me.
People like me aren't recognized by society. I don't exist. That's right, except for some websites which want themselves look more eccentric than other, did you ever see official formularies with the "intersexual" box next to the "boy" and "girl" 's boxes? I didn't. And I honestly don't think that the "one in four thousand people" who are in the same case as me didn't ever have the "pleasure" to see it either. Anyway, it's not something you can't say out loud in public, so we better hide, yeah, so no one can realize our existence. You never can tell, people might mistake us for aliens invading Earth, haha.
Yet I wish I could tell people I meet who I really am, without any fear to be judged.
The majority of IS's parents decide to make their baby have an operation shortly after their birth. They just take the time to decide on what they prefer having: "a little girl or a little boy?" and the operation is done. Even if there are risks of infertility for the infant, it's still better than being "too much different" according to the parents.
In my case, my parents decided the operation could wait. Wait I became mature enough to decide myself the destiny of my own body. But in the end I still had to have the operation, because my female internal organs where badly placed and could reveal itself carcinogenic later if not removed. Thus I became a boy in a boy's body, and with the "boy" 's box checked on the family record book… end of the story? Not really.
Even if my body is identical to any other man – a man with more delicate features than the average and with a skin abnormally soft, but well… – my psyche went to the pink side, not to the blue one.
I love (well, I "loved" would be more exact, since I can no longer do most of these things), cooking, sewing, beaming in front of cute things, accessories, dresses, putting blush on my cheeks, doing my hair, applying myself to doing the presentation of the dishes I made, eating sweets, reading shôjo mangas à l'eau de rose (1)… ah, and if one of my nails break and I don't have a file with me I seriously go psycho… nah just kidding (or not?). My little sister is my favorite doll since the day she's born.
And last but not least, I'm so hard to please I'm often called "Princess". Just a way to tell me I'm a pain in the ass, but I like it anyway.
In view of my tastes, you could say I'm a stupid Barbie doll, but it's not the case and my temper tends to prove the contrary to people who would judge me too fast. I'm not a brainless bitch, I enjoy reading novels, poems, and also going to the cinema or theater. I'm open minded… unlike men…these stupid cavemen.
Anyway, since I was a child, that's how I've grown up, and my parents never tried to stop me when I was playing with dolls with my nursery school friends – all of them were girls.
They even adopted the name by which I referred to myself when I still couldn't pronounce "Sanji" properly: "Sunny".
At each start of the school year, a little meeting with the director, the nurse and my class teacher and I was classified as a girl for the entire year. I was Sunny. But now I have to put an end to that.
I don't know if it's because of all the changes created by our move to Japan, of if it's natural – probably both – but my body had been relatively upset by this.
It's well known that girls always hit puberty before boys, but even if among my friends' newly acquired womanly curves I was taken for a breadboard because of my flat chest ("Hi mademoiselle, is your father a baker? Because you're a real breadboard, LOL"… haha, so funny), I still had a thin frame which could easily be mistaken with a girl's one. And the voice too.
As soon as we arrived here, in Yokosuka, BOOM! Growth spurt: stretching chest and shoulders; wearing one my dresses is no longer an option as they're all way too small now.
BOOM! Puberty on accelerated mode: hairs thickened and multiplied, even reaching the tip of my chin. Not to mention that my voice – ordinary so soft – BROKE. And all that in only just one FREAKING month in which I was confined to bed with a fever.
With the round-trips to the hospital, the testosterone pills supposed to help my body developing I had to take, and the pain due to my sudden spurt, useless to mention how much I had the feeling to be transforming into a monster. I didn't even have the time to explore at least a little bit of the new country I moved in…
When I first visited my high school four days ago with mom, the usual conversation we would have about my situation appeared us obviously useless this time, as I no longer look like a girl.
My class teacher showed me the school, my new classroom, gave me my new schedule and took my measurements for my future uniform… Male uniform, of course.
Tomorrow the adventure begins and as you can guess my dear diary, I feel sooo ready with my body all weakened by my "transformation" and the humid heat of Japanese summer!
Mon dieu. (2) I don't even know whether I'm going to be able to sleep or not.
Ok, time for me to take those stupid pills. That's all for today.
(1) à l'eau de rose : You can say a movie or a book is "à l'eau de rose", it means it's very sentimental and girlie. If literally translated, it means "rose water".
(2) Mon dieu : Oh my god x)
If you were wondering, no, the next chapters aren't all diary's entries. I thought that Sanji's situation would be difficult to explain so I choose the diary as a way to explain it easily.
In this fanfiction, Sanji can speak French and also Japanese thanks to his father. But you can guess he might going through some difficulties about kanjis and young people's language and some culture shocks too ^^
Also, the French chapters are really long. I think I'm just going to cut them in several parts so it doesn't take me an eternity to translate and post more ^^
Thank you for reading, I hope you enjoyed this prologue, and I would be really happy if you tell me your feelings about it :D
Pocky