Just a reminder that this story's rating has been updated from "Teen" to "Mature".
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Yang Xiao Long rhythmically drummed her fingers on the table. She had a package tucked under one arm, and was looking up its return address on her phone with the other.
It was a pharmacy.
She heard the door creak open, and her brother grumbling something about the mailman.
"I already grabbed it, Rye-rye." Yang called back towards the entry, using her best "mom" voice.
Her brother was as white as a sheet when he stepped into the kitchen.
"Hey, sis." Ryan squeaked, playing with the hem of his old, red hoodie. "You're home early."
"My last class for the day got canceled." Yang offered nonchalantly, not taking her eyes off of her brother.
"Well, it's good to see you." Ryan shifted uneasily, glancing back and forth between her and the package under her arm. "Was there anything for me?" He was trying his best to hide the tension in his voice.
"That depends." Yang said, flipping her phone face down on the table, lilac eyes locked onto grey. "Ryan, where do we get all your medications from?"
There was more uneasy shifting as Ryan rubbed his right arm with his left.
"The… uh… the drugstore on the corner?"
"Mmmhmm." Yang set the package on the table, leaned over it, then linked her fingers under her chin. "So why would some random pharmacy in Thailand be sending mail to you?"
"Well uh… you see…" Ryan lightly bit his lip, causing Yang to glare, and the lie died before it came out. "I didn't know if dad would let me get these ones." Ryan pulled out a chair and slumped into it, defeated.
"Oh Rye-rye…" Yang's expression shifted to concern as she reached a hand across the table. "I know you don't have a lot of friends, but take it from the cool kid: getting high isn't going to help you get more."
"That's not what they're for." Ryan sighed as he covered his face. "They're… they're so I can be me."
Yang raised her eyebrow, and tried to read between the lines.
"Rye-rye, you're plenty creativite! You don't need to get high to be an art-"
"That's not - They're not for getting high!" Ryan shouted, punctuating the sentence by slamming his hand down on the table. Then, he quietly added: "That's not what they're for at all."
Both siblings froze as a tense silence filled the room, Ryan wilting under Yang's glare. It remained unbroken until Ryan continued in a whisper.
"I'm supposed to be a…" His breath hitched, and he shuddered, before looking up with watering grey eyes and finishing with more conviction. "No, I am a girl."
Yang tried to suppress her laugh at the absurdity of the situation, she really did, but it came out deep, from the belly, and she was unable to stop until she noticed Ryan shrinking back on himself, hiding in his hoodie.
"You're joking, right?" Yang asked as the giggles subsided.
"No." Ryan painfully choked out, pulling the drawstrings on his hoodie tighter. "I was afraid that… I knew you wouldn't understand."
"Ryan, sweetie…" Yang offered, going for the soothing version of mom voice. "That's not how it works. You're a guy. Always have been, always will be. And there's nothing wrong with that. It's just how you were born."
"Then I was born wrong." Ryan said quietly from deep within the recesses of his hoodie.
This called for more effective comforting. Yang abandoned the package as she rounded the table, and wrapped her brother in a big hug.
Or, well, she tried to. For the first time ever, Ryan flinched away from her, and her heart broke as she watched the little sobs shudder their way out of the crimson fortress.
"You weren't born wrong, Rye-rye." Yang felt her own eyes watering. "You're perfect just the way you are."
"No I'm not." Ryan wailed pitifully. "That's what I need those for. I need them to be me… because I'm… because I'm trans."
"What, a transexual?" Yang scoffed. "Like those weirdos on TV?"
"Transgender." Ryan insisted. "And we're not weirdos. We're just... people."
"Okay, but…" Yang sighed. She was reeling from this. Her mind scrambled to put the pieces together, but none of them seemed to click into place. Either way, it seemed to be bothering Ryan. A lot. She needed to get to the bottom of it. "It just… it doesn't make sense. You're into cars. And mechanics. And guns. And videogames. Those aren't girly things."
"Does that make you a boy?" Ryan asked, turning to face her, one eye peering out of the tiny opening of the hoodie. "You're into videogames too. And motorcycles, and MMA…"
"Fair point." Yang said, looking away. "But still… I know you so well… or… I thought I did! I've been doing everything I can to look out for you after mom…" Yang's voice hitched, "to make sure you were… there weren't any signs! Or, at least, none that I ever saw…"
"Were you looking?" Ryan asked, shifting to face her a little better.
"I guess not…"
"Well, you might not have found them if you were." Ryan let out a shuddering breath, slumping into the chair. "I was… I was trying to hide them. For a while? Even from myself."
Yang went for a hug again, and this time was not rebuffed.
"So… um… how do you know, then?" She asked, calmly petting the back side of his hoodie. She wouldn't be able to figure this out, to know how to actually solve the problem, without knowing how he was approaching the matter.
Ryan shuddered for a bit before tensing. Whether he was steeling himself for a hard conversation, or preparing to flee, Yang couldn't be sure.
"I… Kinda always knew I wanted to be a girl." Ryan took a deep breath before continuing. "But… I also knew I wasn't supposed to want to, y'know?"
Yang nodded, continuing to pet and indicating that it was safe for Ryan to continue. She wasn't going to give him any reason to feel like he had to run away from this.
"So I… I tried to convince myself that I didn't want it. I tried so hard, Yang. Tried to make it just… go away. To be happy with what I had. But... so, so many mornings, I'd just… wake up, and I'd be really disappointed that I didn't just… magically transform into one overnight."
"So what changed?" Yang asked. There were many other questions she wanted to ask, but she also knew she needed to let Ryan explain on his terms.
"Well, I uh…" Ryan swallowed. "I went online. And, like, you know how 'nobody knows you're a dog on the internet', right? So I… found a place to hang out and… if people asked, I told them I was... a cute girl with wolf ears and a tail."
"Oooh-kaaay." Yang drew out the word, failing to hide her discomfort with the idea. Was Ryan also a furry now? Was this place more… adult in nature? What exactly had these people been convincing her baby brother of?
Questions for the end, she told herself.
Ryan squirmed a bit under her, but didn't shake out of the embrace.
"So… one day, things… happened." Ryan sighed. "I was feeling really down in the dumps, and I ended up telling them I wasn't really a girl… just that I… wished I was. And… I was terrified! I thought they'd hate me for it, y'know? But instead, they were just like 'well, if you wanna be a girl, you already are one' and I was all like 'whaaa?' because I… um… I had a lot of the same reservations as…" Ryan's voice dropped into a more despondent territory, "well, the same reservations you have."
Yang nodded and tightened her embrace. Guilt fought against her more protective instincts. Was Ryan afraid of her? The shuddering he was doing in her embrace made her feel like… like she'd done something wrong.
"And then I found out that a lot of the people there were… like me. Trans." Ryan continued. "I talked to them, and... the more I did, the more I had in common with them. I learned that… the stereotypes aren't really accurate. That most of us, y'know… try to be what society says we gotta be. That no one really wants to be trans and I…" There was a particularly violent shudder and a loud sniffle from under the hoodie. "I learned that… that they were happier, after they stopped trying to fake it for everyone else's approval. And I learned that… that you could just try it out. And… it'd take a long time to be permanent, so if I didn't like it, I could just… stop."
"So… this is you trying it?" Yang asked softly. "With shady drugs from Thailand?"
There was a heavy, shuddering sigh from under the hoodie.
"It's not… I'm already past that point. I tried it and… I don't just like it…" Ryan pushed her back a bit, so he could look her in the eye through the opening again. "Yang… I need it."
"You're addicted." Yang confirmed quietly. This was going to be difficult. Moreso than it had already been.
"No, Yang!" Ryan emphatically shook his head, voiced pained. "It's not an addiction! It's… I just… I can't go back to being so… numb. For the first time in my life I'm feeling how normal people feel and I… I just… p-please don't… don't take..."
Ryan hiccuped, and Yang pulled him back into the embrace as the sobs overtook him. They sat like that for a long time.
Minutes passed, leaving Yang alone with her thoughts, Ryan shuddering and shaking underneath her chin. This was affecting him. Terrifying him. Even hurting him, it seemed. Yang never wanted to hurt him! She didn't know what to do! She kept trying to figure out what went wrong; where she failed. What could she have done to keep him from feeling the need to go down this path? What should she have done to keep him happy?
And she couldn't stop the words that kept forcefully echoing through her head:
"You have to promise me you'll take care of your little brother for me, okay? While I'm gone?"
It was a promise that had long ago been etched deep into the very fabric of her heart. Its meaning could not be changed.
She had to take care of her little brother.
No.
The meaning couldn't change, but the wording could.
She had to take care of her little sister.
It wasn't an easy shift to make but…
Here, Ryan had poured his - no, her - heart out to her, and even if she couldn't understand it, she couldn't just… reject that, could she? If treating Ryan like a girl was what it took to make her happy? To make this obvious pain stop? She had to do that, right? She wouldn't knowingly hurt her… sister. She couldn't.
But she still needed to be the adult in this situation, even if she'd only recently turned 19. Someone had to be.
"I'm not going to take them away from you, okay?" She said, hugging her sister close. "But… if you're gonna do this, you're gonna do this the right way. We're gonna go through real doctors, okay?"
"But… then, I have to tell dad." More trembling from under the hoodie. "I don't… I don't think he's going to take it well."
"Well," Yang gave a squeeze. "I'll be with you every step of the way, okay, Ryan? I'm here for you, no matter what. If you… being a girl is what it takes to make you happy? If… if trying to be a boy is hurting you? Dad… dad will understand. I'll make him understand, if I have to. Don't worry. I've got you, okay?"
She could feel her nodding softy against her shoulder, relaxing for just a bit before the tension returned.
"Could you maybe… call me Ruby?"
"Is... that what you want your name to be?"
There was another nod.
"Okay." Yang took a deep breath, and continued deliberately. "Ruby." Yang squeezed tighter. "My sister."
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