Ambiguous Stockings: The Shinigami's Guide on how to Not Find Somebody's Gender

Death the Kid found himself in the school sexual harassment course. He didn't even know schools had sexual harassment courses. Normal schools would just suspend kids for that type of thing. Then again, Shibusencertainly wasn't your run of the mill school.

There were only two other people in the course. Black Star, something that definitely didn't surprise kid. However, the other was, by some irony, the reason he was in this stupid course to begin with.

"I don't know how to deal with this," Crona squeaked, looking around nervously. Ragnarok slapped the he-she upside the head.

"You don't even have to be here, Idiot!" The sword yelled, hitting his host's head yet again, "You have legs, don't you? Or did you forget how to use them?"

Crona's gaze shifted towards the door, then back to the floor.

"But they told me I-"

"Do you have no free will?" Ragnarok screeched, pulling some of Crona's hair, "Just do what I tell you, or I'll pull your hair out and make you bald."

"But I don't know how to deal with having a bald spot!" Crona whined, "Besides, you're contradicting yourself. How can I have a free will if your forcing me to-don't do that!"

Ragnarok flipped up Crona's skirt, and Black Star and Kid looked away. It was easy to guess why the pink haired student was in here.

"Talk about freaks," Black Star had said. Kid scoffed. As if the blue-haired boy was really one to talk.

"So, why are you here?" Kid asked, trying to make conversation.

"A girl had a spider on her chest. Girls are afraid of spiders, so I decided to kill it before she noticed it."

Death desperately wanted to respond to the statement and point out the kid's fallacies, but decides not to. He had figured out long ago that Black Star was a most cause.

"Why are you here?" Black Star asked, "Did Patty and Liz turn you in for being a perv, or something?"

"I am not a pervert!" Death retorted. "I am here because of a simple misunderstanding."

Death the Kid stared at Crona. It had dawned on him that he didn't know the kid's gender. Ragnarok was obviously male, but that meant nothing. Crona was much more...ambiguous.

It was bugging the shinigami. All this time, he had been referring to Crona as a woman, due to the hair. However, the mor Kid looked at Crona, the more uncertain he was. This would haunt him.

If Crona turned out to be male, that would mean he had been referring to the Meister with the wrong pronoun all this time. In his list of people he knew in order or how symmetrical their body was, it would mean he had written Crona's name in the wrong color. Boys were written in blue, girls in red. If Crona wasn't a girl, that would mean there was a mistake on his list. What if Crona was some gender that wasn't even known? What color would Kid put then? He would have to get a entirely new list! He needed to know.

And so, he decided to find out by the only way he could think of.

He lifted Crona's skirt, hoping to get a look. Crona screamed.

Black Star was laughing his head off, much to Kid's unamusement. It wasn't funny. Now it was in the entire staff's head that he was a pervert. Spirit had even offered to take him to a "special club", something which really creeped him out. When he tried to explain he wasn't a pervert, Patty had to tell everybody he had groped her and Liz.

"Ragnarok, stop it. Please!"

Ragnarok was still playing with Crona's dress and Black Star gave Kid his famous "I have a really stupid idea" smile.

"If you want to know..." he said, gesturing over to the two. Crona's attention wasn't on them, and Ragnarok was doing all the work for them. Kid smiled. Maybe. That way he wouldn't be the one actually touching the dress. He was just an innocent bystander.

The two boys slowly made their way towards Crona, waiting for the perfect opportunity to get a good view. It didn't take long, though, as Ragnarok's human host fell, and the ambiguous meister's back hit the floor. Ragnarok the flipped up the skirt, and Black Star grabbed it, giving Kid the chance to see what was underneath.

Kid couldn't tell. Crona' sex was hidden under a pair of white leggings. Of course, he thought, and suddenly winced at his stupidity. It made sense. People wanted to wear something so they wouldn't expose themselves. Even if Crona wasn't wearing leggings, the meister's true gender would be hidden by a pair of underwear.

Kid saw the expressing on Crona's face, and decided to give up on this quest. He wasn't about to strip someone down to find out their gender.

Unfortunately, Black Star didn't seem to be getting it.

"Ah man, you can't see anything through the leggings!" Kid watched, as the idiot reached to take them off. Crona's face looked even more terrified then before, while Ragnarok was just laughing his head off.

"Black Star, stop it!" Kid yelled. Black Star looked at him, confused.

"What?" The blue haired boy asked, "But you're the one who wanted to know. Now you don't?"

The Star-Clan member really wasn't getting it.

"Not like this! I will live without knowing."

"Well, when I find out, I won't tell you."

He was an idiot. Kid realized why he was put in sexual harassment. He saw his error, and accepted it. Black Star was a different story. Did he even know what sexual harassment was?

"Black Star, I said stop!" Kid yelled, grabbing Black Star's hand and throwing the kid away from the terrified he-she. However, in doing so, Kid lost his balance and fell on top of Crona.

"What the hell is going on here?"

That when Yumi Azusa had the unfortunate timing of coming into the room. She was the one his father had commissioned into doing the course. The senior Death knew that if anyone was going to get people into not sexually harassing anybody, it was her. Kid paled, as he realized just how this would look. Crona's dress was still slightly flipped up, and he was on top of the kid.

Ragnarok popped his head up over Kid's shoulder.

"Don't you know not to leave an easy target such as Crona was a bunch of sexual offenders? You were just asking for this to happen!" Ragnarok yelled.

Kid sighed, and looked once more to Crona.

"I was trying to help you." he said. Crona didn't say anything, the child's body still shaking.

He prayed to his father that people would realize how big of a misunderstanding this was.

Yumi grabbed Kid by the collar, pulling him off of Crona. Kid saw the look in her eyes and shuttered. Out of all of his father's Death Scythes, Azusa was the only one he actually feared.

That had only been the first three minutes of the sexual harassment course.

I've never been able to decide what gender Crona is. It's actually a challenge to write about Crona, and not use any pronouns like "he" or "her" or anything alluding to gender. The real challenge is it's hard to do it in a way that doesn't dehumanize Crona.

Anyways, thank you all for reading. Let me know what you thought, or if I have any glaring errors in this story.

Fayth