DISCLAIMER

The following is a fan-based

FICTION

Tokyo Ghoul, Tokyo Ghoul Root A and Tokyo Ghoul:re and other products related to the TG Series are all owned by Sui Ishida, Shin Towada and Shueisha.

Please support the official release.

Omake 11: It doesn't matter

"A-Are you sure you don't mind, Ryo-kun?"

Juuzou's voice was currently showing a degree of uneasiness as he gave an unconscious twirl with his… outfit. It came out as a surprise when I ended up walking on him trying a pretty white and red dress in his room. The fact he had picked an incredibly well-matched long-haired wig, had put on some make up and literally took a more feminine pattern while moving or reacting. It was so surprisingly perfect that I was stunned by it.

We had just recently started to visit each other to go through the homework together, and I had gone to his flat and his room without thinking too much about it… and so I wasn't really prepared to see what kind of things Juuzou was capable of doing.

"I… don't," I replied slowly, my brain having yet to grasp what I was looking at. "It's just… how are you doing it so well?"

I saw his lips twitch in surprise, a layer of soft-rose lipstick applied to accentuate those.

"I… I do this from this to time," The white-haired young man admitted curtly. "It's just… something I like to do. You really don't-"

"I just said I don't, Juuzou," I recalled with a frown, noticing a flinch coming out from the boy as soon as I said this. "And… I'm sorry for snapping, it's just that I can't still wrap over the fact you look so good in it."

…

"W-What?"

"I mean, it's just- you look so pretty. If I didn't know you up until now, I would have said you were actually a girl in disguise."

A blink, then two. Juuzou, tilted his head to the side and hummed. "What if I am?"

The entire shift caught me off-guard and I remained mostly quiet. Juuzou? A girl? While his current outfit would just scream of a cute girl, I had known him for long enough to remember that there was a guy in that. That hypothesis, albeit fueled by quite the tricking sight, just didn't hold much sway within my mind as I just couldn't imagine Juuzou having kept this kind of secret from me with how close we were.

"Uh?"

"What if I am a girl, Ryo-kun? What would you do?"

There were many things that could be said about it, but I was mostly interested in one in particular. What if Juuzou had been a girl? What if that would have changed our friendship in some aspects? Because, while many could easily go with the idea it would have become 'more', the truth was that it could have also not taken off at all and we would have remained just a pair of friendly acquaintances. It wasn't exactly an easy question, so I went for something safe to prevent any awkward issues about it.

"You're not one tho," I replied with a confused tone. "Juuzou, do you remember that we went to the public showers back when we last visited the beach?"

He opened his mouth, perhaps expecting to find an easy comeback out of this circumstance, but he paused and frowned as he realized that there wasn't one for that question in particular. Instead, his mind brought up a strange detail of what I just said, and he used that to push up the conversation to a favorable stand point.

"You… wait, did you actually lo-"

"Juuzou, I think I can recognize a guy without looking down," I interjected fiercely. I might have looked down unconsciously, taking notice of the fact he was slightly… scarred due to what kind of abuse he had to go through back before he was retrieved by the CCG. He had yet to tell me anything about it, but I could tell the reason why he didn't was more tied to his unwillingness to speak of his own trauma. It was just way more painful than I could bring up with my own experiences and I just allowed him as much time and preparation to come up with the best way to tell me. Eventually.

"Eh, sorry~," He replied mirthfully. "Still, I didn't expect you to be… fine with all of this."

I frowned again. "Why?"

"Well, I've been told that… it's not alright. That a guy should only wear masculine clothes but… girls can still wear guy stuff when they want," Juuzou explained with a confused tone. "I really don't know why that is important, but I've been told to just keep up with that."

"That would make sense if it was for formal-related stuff," I remarked quietly. "This is just a hobby right? That's how you make it seem."

"Sorta. I just… like to do this from time to time," Juuzou added while nodding. "I guess this counts as a hobby."

"I guess then it's fine if it's just that. I don't have any issue with it," I confirmed with a sigh and Juuzou took this chance to approach closer and give me an intense look. "What?"

"Do you really think I look like a pretty girl, Ryo-kun~?"

Sighing, I could only reply with a positive response. That got Juuzou in a fit of giggles as he decided that it would have been nice to just put me in the role of judging the various outfits he had to yet go through and… it wasn't really that terrible.

This talk would highlight a major change in Juuzou's personality and a sudden deepening of our friendship. While my input didn't seem important at the time, Juuzou still took it at face value and started to be more at ease when it came to wearing feminine clothes. Sometimes it was for his own amusement, sometimes it was just to tease me by going for the question of 'do I look pretty in this?' or 'Do you think I could do better?'.

I would keep as honest and blunt as possible, a quality that Juuzou found endearing and enabling in some aspects as it wouldn't take long; he would just claim some cuddles while wearing dresses. It wasn't a frequent circumstance, yet it wasn't unusual for that to happen from time to time. It wasn't horrible or unpleasant… just a tiny bit weird since my brain just couldn't easily connect dots on the fact that Juuzou was just so petite and yet he was my best friend.

And it sure led to some future issues when the real trouble started to come back for him…

AN

Blep.