:Warnings! Description of body mutilation and gore, self-harm mention, in-depth talk about menstruation (Honestly, get over it though, half the world suffers through it) severe dysphoria, panic attacks and general gender weirdness, transphobic slurs and fighting.:
:I wish I owned Bleach. Biggest LBGQAT manga in the world? yes, it would be.:
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He wakes with the edge of a scream on his lips, catching on the skin like a sharp blade before he chokes it off, eyes wide and unblinking as he twitches.
The pain is beyond anything he's ever felt and he vaguely wonders if he's going to vomit, his abdomen practically convulsing internally with the way his gut spasms and clenches and cramps. It's too low to be his stomach and he realises it's his /uterus/, horrible, abomination that it is inside of him.
The pain peaks and his vision blackens at the edges; and suddenly it pushes further and there's a disgusting, wet sound and blood everywhere.
His fingers curl and his tunnel vision hooks on the empty expanse of his torso, bone and flesh splattered on the bed around him, up the nearby wall and on the floor. His spine is jagged and he can see the inside of his back, muscle and flesh peeled and wet and fuck, it smells awful, less savoury things than blood and meat soaking into the sheets. He can see some of his ribs, and he wonders how this would look to someone else. Like a hollow ripped out his guts, probably. It feels like one did, anyway.
He can't really make sense of the organs, or lack thereof, and he can't feel his legs or anything below his shoulders, really.
He's pretty sure his uterus just exploded.
He's pretty sure he should be feeling something other than relieved it's gone.
He actually wakes up this time, sweating and shivering and vaguely aware of the gross slide of blood out of him, face pinching into a look of disgust as he processes the dream and the reality, grateful for the 'patented female diapers™' that are his salvation and source of shame all at once. At least he won't be ruining his bedsheets with blood.
God he hates this.
The dysphoria hits him then, crippling in its intensity and he curls up on his side, wishing his uterus really would explode, and take his tits and even his life with it. His skin crawls and he fights down vomit as his uterus cramps and his pelvis shifts to subconsciously push more blood out. He shudders at the emasculating feeling, tears catching in the corners of his eyes.
The next morning is... Difficult, with Karin quietly breaking off a few squares of chocolate from their bar and wordlessly handing them to him, and Yuzu heats up a rice bag for him when she does hers as well. It's difficult to thank them, because he wishes it wasn't happening, but they understand that he's grateful.
All three of them curl up on the couch with blankets and painkillers and shitty movies, and even the ever-gleeful Isshin seems to tone himself down for the three suffering children who've synced in their cycles.
Karin is fine tomorrow, flow lighter than Yuzu's or his, and cramps never lasting more than the first day, or the one before the bleeding starts. Yuzu is the least lucky out of all of them, but she's a tank about it, popping painkillers after the lazy day they all have (it's practically tradition) and soldiering through like a champion, hit with the occasional cramp the entire five days of her cycle, but always mild-mannered and calm about it.
Ichigo always takes it the hardest.
Yuzu and Karin sometimes take turns helping him through the odd panic attack when he can feel the blood leaking out (it's wrong, it's like a wound that won't heal) and Chad becomes his personal guard at school, a solid, steady presence like he always has been. Tatsuki always makes sure to carry extra pads for him in case he's forgotten them at home or is startled by unexpected heavy flow, and he wishes he could use a goddamn tampon to stop the slick-slide feeling, but he can barely wash down there let alone shove something up it.
He blanches at the thought.
Not everyone knows, the open secret that it is held close but carefully, and Tatsuki never tells him to man up during the hellish week like she does to the others when they're being what she perceives as wussy, and he appreciates it so much.
When he needs the safety, Chad walks him to the bathrooms and stands just outside the door as he changes with shaky hands and bile in his throat, unable to avoid looking at the blood even as he wraps the stupid diaper thing in toilet paper and disposes of it in the bin. It's not a 'specifically for hygiene products one' but there's no way in hell he's ever going into a girls toilet. Not ever.
Sometimes he needs to wash his hands for ten minutes to calm down, cold water and scrubbing til his skin is red, and Chad comes in and let's Ichigo just lean on him, and they've never had to speak to hold conversations.
There have been jokes and rumors and barbed comments about exactly what Ichigo and Chad get up to in their extended bathroom trips but it doesn't ruffle either boy. They're not lovers, never will be, but the bond they've forged is closer to platonic soul mates than best friends.
In primary school people knew. Ichigo was just a weak little girl and Tatsuki would wipe the floor with him and then cast threatening glares to people who'd mutter about the silly kid who thought she wasn't a she.
It still hurt. One boy came and pushed him off the swings and kicked him in the thigh and called him awful, awful things and he cried until the teachers noticed and broke it up. Masaki was called and there was a long, long discussion where Ichigo had to wait outside the office, and in the end his wonderful, amazing mother simply scooped him up, kissed his forehead and called him 'her brave little boy'. The validation was worth everything.
Not that Masaki had ever not been the epitome of understanding.
He was small when he realized he wasn't a her, or his fathers 'darling baby giiiirl!' Or any iteration of female.
At five and a half he'd looked up at his mother and said, 'do I always have to be a girl?' And she had looked down at him and said 'of course not. Do you want to be a boy?' And he'd nodded, and she'd spoken with Isshin, and that was that.
When she'd told him he would have to be a big boy, and be strong and brave and take care of his little sisters he'd swelled with pride and she'd smiled.
When she died his world crashed around him.
The next person to misgender him got a punch to their face.
The gangs that followed him around due to his hair ridiculed him if they knew of his 'special status' (he called bullshit. He was just another boy out of 50% of the world's population) and he laid them straight; with judicious application of force and pain. It was easy, simple, and the strain of his binder only helped solidify the fact in his mind that he would always, always be fighting to be heard and seen as the correct gender.
Turning thirteen and coming into his 'chest' (small, thankfully, if he'd had anything like Orihime's he would have clawed them off in a fit of panic) his father sat him down, brought out a box, and they talked about safe binding for hours before Isshin had handed over the two pieces of clothing (life savers, is what they were.) They talked about shortness of breath, and compression, and how it could damage him if he wasn't careful so he was only allowed to wear them for twelve hours a day, and not at all on the weekends unless he was going out. It helped that Isshin knew he was going to cut them off as soon as he safely could, or his father would have insisted on only wearing it every second day. It was still a slight debate between them.
Ichigo learnt how to arrange himself properly inside the restricting material, how to not get his arms stuck (that had been awkward, God bless Tatsuki and her hysterical laughter at the state she found him in during that sleep-over, arms up and tangled and hooked in the unforgiving cloth) and now Ichigo could go around the house 'shirtless' and people started automatically assuming he was male at first sight.
The first time someone didn't glance questioningly or need to be told, they just said 'hi, Ichigo right? You're that guy-' He had nearly broken down from glee. Such a small thing, but it felt like the world.
The scowl that had become his automatic expression helped with the masculine look, according to a snickering Tatsuki's analysis. ("You look like a grumpy old man, Ichigo-") And things were getting easier.
Once every month life was very, very hard, but he wasn't so prone to freezing up, or hunching over himself and digging scratches along his breasts in the shower in fits of dysphoria.
There was still a deep feeling of being incorrect, often, but it faded when he wore his binder, and when he fought, or trained, or spoke to Tatsuki and Chad or his family.
When Karin sat back in their chair at dinner one day and said "Oi, goat-face, Yuzu, Ichigo." And they'd all fixed them with their attention- "I'm agender." Ichigo nodded, Yuzu specified their pronouns and Karin confirmed, and Isshin wept with pride and yelled at the poster of their mother on the wall that he was 'so proud of our nonbinary children, Masakiiii~!' Until Ichigo had kicked him in the head and sent him flying.
He put a hand on Karin's shoulder, said he had some books about gender if they ever needed them, and then gave them a hug and said he'd help them beat the tar out of anyone who misgendered them. Yuzu had smiled at them both, Karin had told him they didn't need his help but they'd tell him all about how they beat anyone who did so up, and that was that.
It was easy.
He always wore baggy shirts to bed, and he had a good collection of boxers and boys underwear, because even though he could have worn panties the smallest things, like men's socks and shoes and undies, made all the difference to his dysphoria. Sometimes they had to refit men's pants to the waist and hips he inherited from his mother (which makes it hard to hate them, because anything that was his mother's should be cherished) but he inherited Isshin's broad shoulders as well and that fills him out. He'll always be lean and slim for a boy, muscle mass sleek like a swimmer or runner, never packing it on, but it was enough. There were plenty of effeminate boys in the world, and plenty of them weren't trans like he was.
It was getting easier to like himself when he looked in the mirror.
At fifteen he'd adjusted to wearing binders so well that the shortness of breath was barely a hindrance while fighting, the tightness even helping absorb blows to the sternum occasionally.
The ghosts never misgendered him. People didn't either, now, unless they were assholes and knew he was trans.
He had a routine. Get home from school, beat the hell out of goat-face when he tried to surprise attack him, spend some time with Yuzu helping in the kitchen if she needed it, check on Karin and sometimes help them with their schoolwork before heading upstairs, shedding his binder and spending a few minutes gently and clinically rubbing blood back into the... Unwanted chest protrusions.
He was getting creative with not calling them 'breasts'.
He'd pull his shirt back on and settle in to do his homework, sometimes playing music if he felt like it.
The girl stepping through his wall was in no way expected.
...0...0...
:Hey,guys! Thanks for reading, I guess. Leave a review if you'd like!:
:Honestly though, I had the dream at the top, and it turns out that if you write about your personal heroes and favourite characters suffering through what you suffer, it makes for decent stories? Surprise.: