I've only just finished the second trial of this game, but the idea of trans girl Saihara wouldn't get out of my head, so I wrote this self-indulgent bit of fluff. If anything in it contradicts something you learn later in the game, I apologize, and you can just pretend it's part of the AU.

It starts with a missed haircut. Saihara's uncle suggests that Saihara wait to get his hair cut until right before school starts, so it will look good for his ID picture. It's a sensible idea. Then Saihara gets wrapped up in a case until the day before school starts, and he's so busy it slips his mind entirely.

It's not like it particularly matters to him. He wears a hat whenever he's in public anyway. They make him take it off for his ID, which is uncomfortable, but he doesn't intend to go around showing that off. No one's ID picture is ever flattering.

The first day goes all right. He meets his classmates, and they're perfectly nice people, with a few exceptions. By the time class lets out he's already tired of Chabashira calling him a degenerate male. He knows he has thin skin, that he needs to toughen up, but he still winces a little every time she says it. If only they weren't in the same class.

But they are, and it's not like it's the end of the world or anything. Even she isn't trying to be rude. He's on good terms with most of his classmates by the end of the first week, and in the process has managed to befriend Akamatsu somehow. Everyone else likes her too, because she's a wonderful person and a delight to be around, but she seems to have latched onto him as her companion of choice. It's puzzling, but pleasant.

That's a pretty good summary of his high school experience. He probably should have guessed that things would be strange when he first learned there would be a robot in his year.

A robot who doesn't have a gender, as the class learns when Chabashira tries her degenerate male schtick on him. "I've never really thought about it," Kiibo says with a shrug. "It didn't seem necessary. I'm fine with you thinking of me as whatever."

"Oh, good," Ouma says. "It's finally admitted that it doesn't matter what we call it."

"That's not what I meant at all!"

The situation devolves from there, as it does whenever Ouma opens his mouth. Saihara ignores it. He's busy mulling over the idea that you could just… not have a gender. He's always accepted the fact that it was something you were born with, like your eye color.

He decides it's probably a robot thing.

The school year creeps forward. Akamatsu somehow doesn't get bored of his presence, and even encourages him to talk more about himself. "You don't give yourself enough credit, Saihara-kun," she tells him when he tries to brush off his latest success story. "You solve crimes on a regular basis! That's cool, even in a school full of Ultimates."

He opens his mouth to disagree, or at least heavily qualify that statement, but Akamatsu glares at him and he backs down. It doesn't seem worth an argument.

He's also at least 60% sure he has a crush on her, but that's his problem. He doesn't want to be the sort of guy who only sees female friends as potential girlfriends. Being friends with her is still so incredible he can barely believe it. He's not sure that he's as good a friend to her, but he does what he can.

Even the way she says his name is beautiful. The lilt of her voice across it is almost as melodic as her piano playing. The only problem is the way it drops into the honorific. It jars, like she's hit a wrong note. But he's seen her play, and he knows she doesn't hit wrong notes. He decides the problem must be with him. It's just an honorific. She's hardly the first one to use it for him, and she won't be the last.

He resolves to be twice as supportive of her, as if that will compensate for his own faults.

He never does find a good opportunity to get that haircut.

He's out interviewing people, looking for leads on their latest missing persons case, when a little girl mistakes him for a woman. He doesn't have the heart to correct her, especially since she sounds so excited by the idea of a female detective. He just smiles at her and tells her she could be a detective too. She nods solemnly and runs off to find a good detective hat. He's still thinking about it a week later, and it brings a smile to his face in time.

It's inevitable that the first person Saihara willingly takes his hat off in front of at school is Akamatsu. She laughs when she sees how long his hair is getting, but then she calls it cute, which causes his heart to do complicated things. He stares at the floor while she laughs again at how he's turning red.

The final straw comes in some random class discussion. Saihara doesn't know how they started talking about what they wanted to be when they were little kids, but most of the answers are entirely unsurprising. You don't get to be Ultimate quality unless you found your passion early.

Then Momota mentions that his dream was to be the first woman on Mars. There's a pause as everyone in the class rewinds their mental record to make sure they heard him right. "That was before I realized I was a guy, obviously," he says.

That's all the excuse Angie needs to start in on how she wanted to be a priestess, as if they haven't all already heard her. Saihara's just grateful for the excuse to tune her out. He wouldn't have been able to pay attention if he'd tried. Is it really that simple? Even if you're not a robot, you can just decide to be a man? He definitely wouldn't argue that Momota is actually a woman.

Without meaning to, he starts putting things together. He thinks about his past school year, and even farther back, and he's not entirely comfortable with what he finds. He's got to be wrong. There's got to be another explanation.

But he's promised Akamatsu that he won't run from the truth anymore. It's scary, but Saihara can't use that as an excuse forever.

And the truth is that Saihara is pretty sure she's actually a girl.

She proceeds to sit on this revelation for another week, mulling it over. There's a difference between accepting her conclusions and announcing them to the world. Still, seeing things from this frame just feels right. Nothing changes, no one notices anything out of the ordinary, but somehow everything is different. She's a girl. She doesn't know everything that entails, or not yet, but it's true, and thinking about it always brightens her mood.

Once she's sure of herself, she goes to tell Akamatsu. The thought of someone knowing is absolutely terrifying, but she images Akamatsu treating her like a girl, and that image is more than worth it.

There's just the problem of getting to that point. She can't bring herself to confess anything standing in the hallway like this, and ends up asking Akamatsu if she wants to study with her. Akamatsu can definitely tell that Saihara is nervous, but she's a wonderful person who doesn't comment on it.

They end up sitting in Akamatsu's room, as usual. Akamatsu relaxes on her bed with an open textbook. Saihara's on the floor, leaning against the bed. She's taken her hat off, the way she's grown accustomed to when visiting Akamatsu, but she can't make herself put it down or stop fidgeting with it.

She finally decides that getting it over with is better than sitting here and freaking out. "Akamatsu-san," she begins, and realizes she doesn't know how to begin. She doesn't think she can just say it directly, and she can't think of a good preface.

When she doesn't continue, Akamatsu probes gently, "Saihara-kun?"

Saihara latches onto the opening, grateful as always to Akamatsu for knowing just what to say. "About that," she says. "Would you be willing to call me Saihara-chan?"

She immediately winces. Now that she's said it, it sounds creepy and overly familiar, like Ouma infringing on everyone's personal space. She wants to walk out the door and never come to school again.

But Akamatsu just nods, though she looks puzzled. Saihara supposes that she wouldn't have expected that either. "If you like," Kaede says, "Saihara-chan."

Saihara's just as glad she's sitting down, because if hearing her name from Akamatsu before was like a piano piece, now it's a whole symphony. For that moment, she feels like she's where she's meant to be, like the universe has come together to bring her to this room with this girl.

Her doubts creep back in an instant later. Akamatsu is still looking at her, and she rushes to explain. "Ah, sorry to spring that on you! It's just." She swallows. "I don't think I'm actually a boy. I think I might be a girl."

She stares at her hat, wondering how weird it would be to bury her face in it and block out everything else. She braces herself for a round of questions she only has the faintest of answers for.

"Congratulations," Akamatsu says. Saihara is so confused she forgets to be nervous about looking up at her. Akamatsu is smiling, though, so at least Saihara hasn't ruined everything yet. "Being a girl is pretty great."

Saihara isn't really sure how to respond to that, but after a week of tentative girlness she's inclined to agree. "Yeah."

"Thank you for trusting me enough to tell me." Akamatsu looks Saihara in the eye, suddenly sincere, and Saihara couldn't look away if she wanted to. Akamatsu is bright and beautiful and lovely and loving, and Saihara has never been so in love with her.

The thought occurs to her that that probably means she's gay, or at least not straight. She shoves it to the side. There's a difference between willfully ignoring the truth and deciding to deal with it later, and she can only handle so many personal revelations in such a short timeframe.

For now, she's just going to revel in the fact that she's a girl, and maybe it will all work out okay.