Pairing: None - Fujin-centric
Genre: angst
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: I do not own Final FantasyVIII or any of the characters, and this piece of fanfiction is for the sole purpose of entertainment.
Summary: Of the insecurities and awkwardness of growing up, and that feeling that maybe there's just something wrong with you. Puberty was never beautiful or easy. Fourteen-year-old Fujin and reminiscence. Pre-game.
A/N:I think that Fujin is absolutely beautiful, both physically and in character, and is my favorite female FFVIII character. But I can't help but imagine her feeling so out of sorts with her body during puberty and plagued with doubts.
Something Wrong
Sometimes she thinks there is something wrong with her.
She isn't quite sure what normal or correct is supposed to be, but she feels that there is something off about her.
The first instance she felt that something was wrong with her was when she was a young girl. When she started changing and began to leave behind that oblivious innocence. She never had a mother figure to guide her through it, let alone explain it, and there was no class offered at the Garden about the joys of puberty. No, she was left alone in the dark on this awkward matter.
And it had frightened her to no end.
She didn't know that it was natural for her body to feel sore randomly for no apparent reason. And the sudden appearance of hair on her once unblemished form—no, that was not something she had expected. It was also certainly nothing she could discuss with anyone. None of the other girls spoke of this frightening phenomenon, so she was left with her speculations that something was wrong with her. After all, it wasn't natural to begin to grow minute hairs along her legs, right?
It was then that she resolved to wear pants at any given chance. She wasn't about to let anyone see her abnormality. And the uniform? It wasn't uncommon for girls to don the uniform slacks, especially considering the training they endured.
The changes in her body continued to frighten her. When little buds of flesh started rising on her chest, with no exact definition or shape, she was at a loss as to what to do. She thought that they vaguely resembled the round mounds on women's chests, but they were much too small. They were mere bumps on the flat expanse of her skin, and for a time, they refused to grow past that.
Small, lumpy bits on her chest.
The other girls in her classes didn't seem to have this problem. They had no odd bumps on their bodies. As far as she could tell, their bodies were still flat and streamline behind the scratchy uniforms. She didn't like the fact that she was the only one that seemed to be experiencing these odd changes.
She even pondered the idea of going to the infirmary to ask the doctor what was wrong with her, but the idea of needles and endless testing dissuaded her.
The next change she was subject to followed quickly behind the formation of the odd swells on her chest. The once tight flesh between her legs seemed to be softening. She'd discovered it one day while washing. Her fingers had brushed against the flesh, slippery with soap, and she nearly slipped on the wet tile at the change she felt there. The line formed by the flesh seemed to be elongating, some of the skin puffing out almost strangely.
Waking and showering early, as to avoid the crowd in the communal showers, had always been a habit of hers. After this discovery, she had made certain to always be alone when bathing.
After a stretch of time which she could only characterize as a lapse into paranoia, she started to notice that the changes which had haunted her were not something abnormal. The other girls began to change too, their bodies altered in the strange fashion which hers was. Her fears were instantly quenched then, and there was a glimmer of hope that maybe, maybe she was normal.
But somehow, she never changed completely like them.
The bumps on her chest had grown minimally over the span of a few years, and although she had hair in all the right places, nothing else had changed much. She was cursed with the menstrual cycle as all the other girls were, but that was the only sign of her development. Otherwise, she remained every last bit the gangly child she had always been.
She watched as the girls around her changed. The odd bumps on their chests filled out and took the form of breasts, varying in sizes. All were equally soft and plump, and something so perfectly normal, despite the insignificant differences. And the hair she'd noticed growing was quickly removed by a careful blade, and suddenly, they weren't children anymore.
None of the others had truly become women; no, they were far from it. But they were undeniably no longer children. They were just something in the nebulous middle—simply girls, without a doubt.
Unlike the others, she never blossomed.
Her form remained thin and disproportional. She never filled out into the curves a woman was supposed to have, as so many of her classmates had. There was never a definition between her waist and her hips, perhaps only a slight dip giving any indication. The breasts that had so disturbed her at their early arrival never fully formed—they remained undefined masses of flesh without the proper roundness, much too large to completely ignore and too small to be of notice. Ugly, in every single sense.
She never could fill out a proper bra, and the clasps of the training bras—the only ones that seemed to fit her—only proved to be bothersome. That left her wearing sports bras, which pressed her breasts flat against her chest, and it almost seemed like they weren't there and she didn't have to worry about them. But at the end of the day, when she shed her clothes, they were still there, strange and unnatural.
She never became beautiful, like some of the others had.
When she watches her roommate rush around in nothing but a bra and a skirt haphazardly pulled on, something in her stirs. The other girl is everything that she can't quite become.
She watches as the girl gets ready for the date she has that night, not even noticing her presence as she fiddles with the towel and her hair, the flecks of moisture that managed to escape the dark strands clinging luxuriously to her pale skin. She takes in the full breasts, seemingly too large for the bra which encased them with the way the flesh seemed to push out from the top of the lacy garment, creating a tantalizing crevasse in her chest. She notices the long legs, shaved carefully and curved in all of the right places, and the tapered waistline, sloping ever so delicately into full, rounded hips.
She tries to ignore the strange feeling in her chest, but it lingers heavily on the edge of her mind like a phantom lover.
Sometimes she still thinks there is something wrong with her.