Content warnings: non-graphic depiction of self-harm in one section, nonconsensual childhood kiss, misgendering language from parents

You're six, and they told you that you couldn't keep the dog, and you cry all the way home, clinging to your father's leg and sobbing in deep breaths. The girl called Chie was looking at you with something like pity as she held the wriggling puppy, and that makes you cry even harder. Your father looks tired and constrained when you get home, plucking you off his trouser leg.
"Don't be such a girl, Yuki." he tells you.
You sob that you hate him and you love Chie. Your mother sighs and gives a fond smile. Maybe you'd marry Chie one day, she whispers to your father. Marry a girl, you think? Not likely.

You're seven, and Chie comes over to play on a mild winter's day. She's entranced by the inn, the quiet music playing, the shoji screens, and you in a silk, five-piece kimono. It's pretty, she tells you, wide-eyed, tugging at the sleeves. You blush and say quietly that you don't think it's supposedto be pretty.
Chie came in a red dress, western-style, forced into it by her parents for her first visit to the Amagi inn. She hates it. She wants to play kung fu, and you reluctantly agree. Chie always wants to play fighting, but it only makes you nervous that you might break something. You wish she'd brought the dog with her. To be honest, you mainly invited her because you hoped she might.
She pins you to the floor every time, breathing fast, and her red skirt flies up over her head when the two of you tumble across the tatami. She looks annoyed and hops off you, leaving you lying on the floor wincing. She starts to struggle out of her dress, saying that nobody could ever do any good fighting in this thing. It's discarded on the floor and you can't help but stare for a moment, blushing. Chie looks a lot like you naked, with a slightly more portly tummy. Her undies are frillier than yours, though. You look around and whisper you'll get in trouble.
She laughs.
"I wanna wear your kimono," Chie demands, starting to pull at the sleeves, and you whine. "I wanna dress like a sumo wrestler. You're no good at fightin', anyway."
"Then I'll be nude," you whisper.
"You can wear my dress. You like stuff like that anyway! You're a girly, Yuki!"
She says it cheerily, matter-of-factly. You accept this accusation and stare at the dress on the floor. It's cold. You pull off your kimono and step into Chie's dress. You don't know how to do up the back, but Chie helps you with the zipper. You stare down at yourself. You look a bit stupid. Chie has no idea how to get into your kimono, and has resorted to draping the obi around her neck and doing a warrior dance like that. She's not looking at you. You're alone with yourself in a red dress, air on your thighs, and the thrill is secret and private.
Chie gasps and points at the screen door. "It's snowing! It's snowing!" She tugs it open and runs outside hollering. You follow, watching your skirt sway. This is nice.
You stand in the garden staring up at the sky with your mouth open. The snowflakes are falling thick and fast, and for a moment you feel peaceful. You aren't worried about getting married, or the inn, or your parents' expectations, or anything at all. You are Yuki Amagi in a red dress. You're just yourself.
Then you hear your mother's shriek behind you, and shame collapses down like a torrent on your shoulders.

You're nine and wearing cute little shorts when your mother instructs you to play with Kanji-kun while she talks to Mrs. Tatsumi. Kanji-kun is bigger than you, and looks like the boys at school who you're scared of, and you stand silently next to him in his room. He then sighs, seems to pick up on your fright, and decides to introduce you to all his teddies. His favourite, Mr. Bun, is really a rabbit. You shake its little pink paw and say hi. Kanji-kun smiles, slightly embarrassed. He says he doesn't think it's bad to like cute stuff just because you're boys.
You agree, and tell him about you and Chie's dog. Kanji is awestruck, and yells that he wants to see it. When he yells, he sounds scary, but he's really nice, you know that now.
It's 11:11 and Kanji says that you should tell secrets, breath hot on your ear.
"I like a boy at school," he whispers. "I want to marry him."
You blush and nod and it rises up from you, the things that you want to say. "I wore Chie's dress," you say in a voice that is barely there. Then you pause. You feel like if you say it out loud, it becomes real, and all the bad things that people tell you become real. But Kanji would understand. Probably. It comes out of you in one swift, near-silent breath. "I wish I was a girl."
Then Kanji kisses you on the mouth, and you punch him hard.

You're twelve and Chie has dragged you on a shopping trip, complaining that you don't dress well. You point out things that would look good on her - a green zip-up jumper that you think looks cute with her new short haircut. She tries to sneak you into the fitting room, but the sales assistant is having none of it, so she just pokes her head out of the curtain and beams at you, yelling that you have great taste.
You walk around Okina's shops for hours, it feels like, but find nothing that catches your eye. Chie huffs, and eventually makes you buy a pair of black skinny jeans. They're nice, you guess. They compliment your long legs. But you feel like you have more of an eye for girls' fashion, and that worry bursts in your mind, that you might be the dreaded gay that everyone at school uses as a go-to insult.
Chie doesn't seem to think so when you confide in her. "Nah, Yuki! I mean, I don't know about that stuff, but it's about... who you like, right? And you don't like boys."
It's true. You don't like boys. You're terrified, in fact, of boys.
You bite your lip and ask Chie if she wants to be your girlfriend.
She stares at you and frowns. "...Nah, dude. And... I don't think you want me to, either. It's okay for us to be best friends, y'know?"
She can see right through you like that. You go back to silence and hunched shoulders. You don't know what sort of person you will grow to be. You don't know who you like. You don't even know who you are.

You're fourteen and shaking and there's blood in the sink. You feel dizzy. Then Kou Ichijou walks out of a stall and sees you and grabs your wrist and you start sobbing, and he runs out of the room, and then Chie is inside the boys' room and she's crying, crying like a baby like you've never seen Chie do, and she slaps you in the face and pulls you to the infirmary, and everyone in the corridor stares, and you wish you'd gotten far enough to make it stick -
You sit in the infirmary with Chie and a bandaged wrist and the school counsellor is asking you quietly why you did this. You shake your head. You don't want to have to explain yourself to anybody. No-one will ever understand this feeling inside you, when you can't even put a name to it yourself.
"I hate who I am," you finally say in a shaky voice. "I don't want to be this person. I don't want to be Yuki Amagi any more. Everything in my life feels wrong. It's all decided for me. I want to be my own person."
"What kind of person is that?" asks the counsellor, and you're at a loss. But Chie looks at you, and you think that maybe Chie knows; has always known. And when you realise what Chie knows, that's when you know it yourself.
You pick up a pencil and write your name.
天城 雪
Then you twirl the pencil around in your shaking fingers, and make a simple addition.
天城 雪子
You can feel the counsellor's stare, feel its significance, and your blush is burning through you, but Chie's relieved sigh is all you need.
Her arms are around you, and she whispers in your ear as you start to cry again. "I thought this might be it. And I'm going to be there for you no matter what."

You're fifteen and you've locked yourself in your room. Dad is hammering on the door. "Yuki! Yuki, let me in, for god's sake! We only want to talk. We're not angry any more."
You don't answer. You won't answer. But then he's gone and rummaged around for the spare key to your bedroom, because of course your parents can't ever let things be.
He sits down on your bed and won't meet your eyes.
"I know your mother and I haven't been the most understanding. But son -"
You wince audibly, and then open your eyes, and see your dad is crying.
"Y-Yuki... Yukiko... This isn't really what you want. Those people have such unhappy lives."
I already have an unhappy life, you think angrily, but can't bring yourself to say. I don't want to be unhappy any more.
"There'll be awful bullies at high school. Even people you used to consider friends may turn on you. I don't want you to go through that. And you're still going through adolescence. Your hormones do all sorts of things when you're a teenager. Maybe you're confused."
"Dad," you say leadenly. "I don't need you to tell me anything or do anything. Just let me do this. Please just let me be Yukiko."

You're coming up to sixteen, and it's the first day at Yasogami High, and you're wearing a red scarf around your neck from Tatsumi Textiles, a red cardigan, and a black skirt. You've spoken with the headmaster, the teachers, and the school counsellor, and everything should be okay. Chie will protect you, anyway.
You fiddle with your scarf. Mrs. Tatsumi was so nice to you when you came in. She must have heard, you suppose, through neighbourhood gossip. You know that you were the favourite topic of all the local housewives for a good six months. She beamed at you and said "Yuki-chan, you look lovely today," and somehow her smile was genuine, and you had given a weak smile back. She picked it out for you. In the back of the shop you think you might have seen Kanji-kun, but - well, you don't know what he thinks.
Your homeroom teacher calls register and doesn't pause before your name, but you see a few heads swivel. Some new faces, some you've known since elementary. None of them are readable, but when you drop your hand, Chie reaches out and squeezes it.
After class one of the new faces in the room comes up to you - some bleached-hair city boy named Hana-something - and your heart begins to pump like a rabbit's. God, what has he been dared or goaded into saying? Or maybe he just took one look at you and decided to put in his piece.
He sounds oddly honest when he asks in a shaky voice if you'd like to go out some time, but you blink and immediately blurt out a no. This has to be a joke or a ruse.
"Amagi Challenge failed!" you hear someone say, and you want to bury your head in your desk, but Chie's hand is still in yours, and you feel safe.

You're sixteen, and Chie is trying too hard. You walk home with her and the new guy Seta, trying not to think about that horrible fish-eyed boy outside school. Trying not to think about all the work there is to do at the inn. You'd thought you were free of their trap, but no - now your parents are holding you tighter than ever, using all this as a guilt trip. You have to be the inn's best manager. You have to do your duty by your family. You owe them that much, for all the trouble you've caused.
Chie is talking. "Hey, so you think Yukiko's cute, huh?" God, you wish she wouldn't.
"Chie..." you mutter.
"She's so popular, but she's never had a boyfriend. Weird, huh?" Why is Chie doing this? Is she trying to set you up? Is she just using the advantage of Seta being a transfer student to try to overemphasise your femininity before he works anything out? Why can't she ever let you fight your own battles? And then you feel just awful for thinking that.
But you don't feel like his eyes are raking appraisingly over you like every other boy, and that, at least, is a relief.

You wake up in a castle, and there are monstrous black shapes that take the form of kings and knights and more horrible things, but the most horrible thing is the mocking, yellow-eyed version of yourself. If this is a dream, it's just going on, for days and days, and it's awful, and she says things that can only have come from you. You lie on the steps and feel helpless, in need of rescuing, just like you always do.
Then they burst in - Chie and Seta and Hanamura, of all people, wielding weapons, and it says those things about Chie and you see the hurt in her eyes, and you scream that it's wrong, and everything gets worse.
The shadow's form feels like a nasty mockery with its feminine curves, and you do nothing once again. They're fighting it with strange powers and all you can do is watch. But when you face up to that Yukiko, to the yellow-eyed girl in pink, something bursts out from the core of you. Konohana-Sakuya shimmers in your vision, and she feels like the proof you've been needing all along. You smile and then you pass out.

"He wasn't like that when he was younger," you say pensively, and everyone's head swivels towards you. You blush and think of shaking Mr. Bun's little stuffed hand. Can Kanji-kun really have changed that much?
...What will he think, now, of the boy who wanted to be a girl?
The young man in Tatsumi Textiles is slight of build, and when he doffs his hat towards the group of you cordially, you see his round face and pretty eyelashes and feel the slightest sense of oh- maybe, but you tuck it away. It's certainly not your business. When you see him outside talking to Kanji-kun, you conceal a little smile, though, at Kanji's wide-eyed blushing response. You have a sneaking suspicion your childhood friend hasn't changed that much when it comes to short, dark-haired boys.
He looks towards the group of you and you see a glimmer of recognition and confusion in his eyes, making you coil away in fright, but then he just barks an empty threat. You breathe. Kanji-kun may be trouble, but he's really nice, you know that.

You're drunk and hugging Souji, who is soooo nice. He's like... the best boy you've ever met. You want to stay in his arms for a long time, but Rise-chan is whining for her turn. You can't tell what Souji-kun feels. He's blushing. Maybe he likes you! Maybe he really, actually likes you!
Naoto-kun is sat in the corner, fiddling occasionally with his white shirt, straightening it and coughing and reprimanding you for getting drunk off... whatever. You don't care. Naoto-kun is cute, too, isn't he? You want to know more about him. You want to know something intimate. You secretly want - you have to admit - to hear him say that he's like you. But he doesn't, and you respect that.
Chie holds you steady as you sing your way back to the hotel room. You flop down on the bed with her and Rise-chan, and think about Naoto-kun's soft skin. You stroke Chie's arm and she says nothing. You like Souji... But you like this, too.

"Do you not like being a girl?"
After you blurt it out, you realise how it sounds, and just feel awful at Naoto's crestfallen look. You could have worded that a thousand times better, but the want to know just leapt out of your throat. Was it like that for Naoto, too? Was there that itching sense of wrongness from childhood? Is Naoto a boy, you guess is what you want to know, or does Naoto just think that being a boy would be better for other reasons?

Everyone else starts referring to Naoto as a girl. You guess that's the consensus they came to, but it didn't seem to be with Naoto's permission. Naoto doesn't really seem to know what to think. You guess for everyone, it's not so easy to pin down.
You decide to stick to "Naoto-kun" and "she". Make a compromise unless Naoto decides different.
Kanji-kun seems at a bit of a loss, too. He had been sure, and now he wasn't. You take him aside and try to explain that it doesn't have to be pinned down to gay or straight, boys or girls. You're not sure he entirely gets it, but he seems to decide not to worry.

You're seventeen and in Souji's room and your heart might take wing and fly out of your mouth at any moment. Your shirt is undone. He looks at you to ask if this is okay, and you nod breathlessly. It's more that okay. His hand is on your bra. You are terrified. You are delighted.
After a period of fumbling and making out, you stop his hand pawing at your skirt. This was nice, but you're not there yet. He chuckles and says that's fine by him.
You pause and ask him in a quiet voice if it was weird. He thinks for a while and then says, "Yes."
You sit up and feel a lump in your throat. Congratulations, Yukiko, you've ruined everything with him.
He smiles at you and continues. "Kissing a girl is a lot different than kissing Yosuke."
...There's relief, and then you punch him hard.

Notes: Mutatis mutandis is a Latin phrase meaning "changing [only] those things which need to be changed" or more simply "[only] the necessary changes having been made" -wikipedia, mate

The character Yukiko adds onto her name is the "ko". Although 子 means "child" by itself, when used at the end of a name, it becomes a girl's name.

I'm aware that having a character's birth name be a letter away from their name is pretty tired and inaccurate, but I felt like it was necessary seeing as Yukiko talks about hating the "yuki" part of her name in her dungeon.
I am trans, but not mtf, so if you're mtf/dmab trans and feel this is misrepresentative, do let me know. I've always felt a lot of That Trans Feel from Yukiko, so I pretty much needed to get it out in a fic.