Just a fluffy little one shot I wrote in order to clear my head. I've always loved the idea of Enrique and Oliver getting together and had played around a few times on the idea of adult Oliver transitioning and whether or not that would put a strain on their relationship.

I'm trying to be as respectful as possible to the trans community but I'll give a trigger warning that I switch up pronouns when going from past to present.

Anyway, I hope you enjoy.

May make it a two shot if people seem interested but am not interested in making it a full story.

At first glance, I knew I recognized her, unsure of exactly where I might know her from. Sure, I had my fair share of flings and one night stands, it came with the territory, but I firmly believed that I could have pinpointed her face from a line up of women who I had relations with. That wasn't how I knew her… I could have simply asked, working up my charm in order to use my confusion in order to ring her in.

Excuse me, ma'am, I debated saying, only using the dialogue within my own head, It's making me crazy trying to figure out where I've seen you before, I just can't accept that I would ever forget someone as beautiful as you, would you care to join me?

I would pull out the chair that sat unoccupied at the cafe table I currently resided alone at, kissing her hand so long as she allowed it and offering her the most expensive items on the menu before offering a day of sight seeing, and yet… something about her made me nervous to speak. For the first time in my life I felt like my goal wasn't to get her to my home or into my bed, instead wondering what I could say in order to make it clear that I wanted to remember how I knew her, and that if I didn't know her, showing that I wanted to change that.

I didn't travel as much as I used to post retirement, accepting that the years of being a part of Europe's championship beyblading team were now behind me and had been for a long time. We had all chosen to continue our studies instead and in doing so had fallen out of touch with one another, leaving behind our less than typical form of friendship in order to pursue what it was that we could give back to our noble families. Oddly, she brought back thoughts of those days when we were only teenagers, causing me to wonder if I might know her from those specific travels. She wasn't a native of Rome, I would remember her if she was.

Sliding my chair out, I got to my feet, stumbling slightly and managing to knock it backward, hitting the ground with a less than quiet crash that immediately brought all attention onto me, her hand covering her mouth delicately as she jumped backward at the sudden noise.

Blushing as our eyes made contact, I picked up the fallen chair and placed it back under the table properly, scratching at the back of my neck in embarrassment.

"I apologize." I smiled. "I didn't mean to startle you."

She crinkled her brow ever so slightly, eyeing me up and down as shame forced me to take back my own eye contact. The wheels in her head seemed to be turning the same way that mine were… she knew who I was, but could she actually pinpoint it?

"Enrique?"

A flutter filled my chest at the unexpected sound of my own name. I wasn't going crazy… I did know her.

Brushing a section of her lime colored hair behind one ear, she took a moment to adjust one of her twin pink barrettes before flattening out any of the wrinkles that had built up on her brown sweater vest and matching shorts that I had mistaken for a skirt at first glance. She appeared to adjust herself out of nervousness, suddenly unsure of what to say to me.

"I thought I knew you from somewhere." I smiled, able to work through my own nerves now that hers had begun taking over. "It's been driving me crazy."

"Yeah." She mumbled, "It's been awhile."

If my suspicions were true and we had in fact known each other through any of the world tournaments that I had participated in during my teen years, then I must have made some sort of impact for her to recall me by name. After all, we were all in our twenties at this point, meaning more than enough time had passed for me to become a face in the crowd if you didn't take my family name into consideration.

"Would you like to sit down?" I asked, offering a chair, "I can't possibly forgive myself for forgetting a face like yours, I would like to make it up to you, what's your name again?"

Her eyes appeared fearful as she took a small step back, smudging her gloss as she bit at her lips.

"Vera." She said quietly.

"Are you related to Oliver?" I asked at the notice of her french accent that I could pinpoint even though she spoke to me in English. "Is that how I know you?" She did have the same lime green hair and lilac iris'.

"You could say that." She shrugged, painted nails gripping tightly to the Louis Vuitton that hung on her shoulder.

"I'm sorry?" I said with confusion. "I'm not sure I understand."

"Enrique, it's me..."

I still didn't understand what she meant… I could recall Oliver's sisters names and she wasn't one of them, was she a cousin who I had met once?

She had begun fidgeting with her shoulder length hair, twirling it around her finger the way I vaguely recalled Ollie doing when he was anxious. Her mannerisms… her distinct eyes… her fear as she addressed me.

"Oliver?" I spat out in shock, taking in exactly what I was seeing and attempting unsuccessfully to wrap my currently quite fragile brain around it.

"Vera. Olivera." She corrected, standing her ground more firmly now. Or he? What was I supposed to call her? Was this some sick joke in order to mock me? Oliver liked men, we had all known and accepted that back when we were a team, although I would occasionally make a snarky comment regarding changing room civility, giving him a playful elbowing while reminding him to keep his eyes to himself no matter how attractive he thought I was. It was all in good fun, he knew I didn't care if he secretly snuck a glance at Hiwitari's ass when he walked up to the stadium.

"I'm honestly not sure I understand." I said. "Why are you dressed like a girl?"

It felt more polite to ask than: Why do you have breasts?

"I am a girl." She stated with a glare.

"I've been in a hot springs with you, Ollie, no you aren't."

"Vera." She stated again.

None of what was currently happening made any sense, Oliver had been one of my best mates back in the day. Sure, he was a bit on the fruity side and had always been rather feminine looking, but I wasn't attracted to him; never had been. Although true that I never faulted him for his preference toward other males, it definitely wasn't a direction that I myself swung. I had known that I loved the female figure since I was a tot, so what was the attraction that I was feeling? Was it just because I hadn't been able to tell?

We had gotten drunk once years ago and I had kissed him on a dare, but it hadn't meant anything and if anything it had been the act that destroyed our friendship completely. The alcohol in my body had made me feel and behave strangely toward him, I had closed my eyes and imagined him as a woman when the kiss happened, that was why my body had a physical reaction to it, in fact the reason we pulled away from one another was that I had gotten confused and attempted to cop a feel before remembering that he didn't have breasts.

At least at that time he didn't.

He was a girl now? Was that something that was even possible? I knew that sex change surgery was a thing that existed, but he was still the same person who I had known since we were children. He looked like a girl now, but he was still Oliver, right?

Looking her up and down once more while paying more significant attention to the curves that currently filled her once very slender figure, it took some time in order for my brain to catch up with the rest of me, spending a few moments saying and thinking absolutely nothing until the words finally managed to come out.

"Would you like to sit down?" I asked a second time, chair still pulled out into my hands.

She smiled just slightly, hiding behind her bangs and shyly turning herself away.

"Yes."

xxx

I wasn't sure how long we spoke for, mostly reminiscing tales of a shared childhood over a bottle of rather expensive wine. She was open about her transition and what it meant, even though she got offended when I asked for specific details about what was happening in her downstairs area, glaring at me harshly and stating that it wasn't any of my business.

"You're family never really accepted that you were gay." I reminded her. "Did this conversation go any differently?"

Oliver had flown to my house out of nowhere that night, stating that he needed somewhere to stay while things cooled down. Overall it had been an odd situation, we had never really been that close, but it would have been impolite not to offer him a room for a day or two.

"I don't speak with my family." She stated bluntly, facial expression now hard and tense. "I'm doing fine on my own with my trust fund and culinary education. I have a restaurant just outside Paris, financially things have been working out okay."

I still struggled to see her and Ollie as one and the same, unable to fully process the beautiful woman who I now sat beside as being none other than my childhood best friend who I had lost touch with long ago. Whenever her eyes met with mine, something within my stomach dropped the same way that it had that night all those years ago. It was a feeling that I would have run toward without question had I not known her truth.

I wasn't attracted to men.

Did she even count as a man anymore?

"I'm sorry." I said as her words drifted away, leaving us to sit in silence while we drank.

"You have nothing to be sorry for. Life has been better without them."

"That's not what I'm sorry for." Raising her glass to her now red stained lips, she met my eyes in confusion, unsure what it was that I was going on about. She didn't seem to know if she should speak or if she should wait for me to continue, clearly wishing to know the rest of the emotions that were taking place within my own head. "I mean… I'm sorry for how I acted when we were kids; for choosing not to stay in touch."

"You're talking about when I dared you to kiss me?"

"Of course."

"It was stupid of me to ask of you, I knew you were straight and I knew you didn't see me the same way that I saw myself. I wasn't a girl to you, even I was in denial of it during that period of my life."

"So why did you ask me to?"

Twirling her glass in her fingers, she kept her eyes focused on the table below her, shrugging stiffly and uncomfortably.

"She liked to come out when I drank too much." She sighed.

"Who?"

"Vera. She's always existed inside of me, even when I hid her from everyone including myself. Subconsciously I always knew that I wasn't born in the right body, but she was easy to close off. When we got drunk that night, she came out hoping that if she flirted with you that you might accept her advances."

"So what?" I questioned, "Are you saying she had a crush on me?"

"She's me, Enrique, don't forget that."

I had only been joking around when I would give Oliver a hard time about having a thing for me, no part of me had ever believed that he may have felt something romantic toward me, especially knowing that he never questioned whether or not I swung the same way he did.

"You had a crush on me?" I asked more bluntly.

She smiled slyly.

"Well I sure as hell didn't have one on Robert or Johnny."

"So why me?"

"You're cute."

"I suppose I can't argue with that."

I elbowed her playfully, temporarily forgetting how to appropriately behave in front of ladies but also unsure if I should be changing my behavior at all. I had known her longer than I'd known any women who were born that way and at the end of the day there was a comforting notion that I could be myself around her the same way I would have when we were children.

"I suppose I should be getting back to my hotel." She smiled at me, twirling her hair playfully once again. "The sun is starting to set."

"Where are you staying?" I asked.

"Nowhere fancy, it's just a short ways downtown. It's not the Ritz, but at the end of the day it does what it's supposed to do." She paused slightly, giving me a knowing smile. "It brings back memories, do you remember the first tournament we participated in as a team? When our sponsors tried to make us stay at that cheap hotel?"

I put a hand over my mouth to stifle my laughter, catching the childish giggles in my chest.

"I thought Rob was going to have an aneurysm, he kept going on and on about how there wasn't a fountain at the entrance, I half expected he was going to end up buying the place just so he could tear it down."

"It was our own fault, we were such spoiled little brats, I don't think we even understood what a sponsor was. We had absolutely zero understanding of the concept of money, I don't even remember how much extra interest we offered in order to get a better place."

"Speak for yourself, I'm still a spoiled brat."

"I'm doing fine financially, but I'm definitely not hitting millionaire status anytime too soon, even if I open up a second restaurant." She had begun standing up, smoothing the non existent wrinkles in her clothing once again and pushing her chair in as I followed suit. "That's why I'm here, you know, I'm looking to open up a place either in or outside of Rome."

"You should have called me if you needed a place to stay."

"Enrique, we haven't spoken in years."

I blushed while recalling the truth of her words, wondering now why I had allowed all of us to drift apart so easily. I would never have called any of us the best of friends, but there had been a closeness that you couldn't deny. We had all know each other since primary school and yet as adults our relationship had become no better than that of strangers.

Now as Vera walked, I followed her, unsure of what I was supposed to do with my arms after becoming too used to having them around the waist of a woman. I couldn't flirt with her, she had once been one of my closest male friends.

"You don't need to walk me back." She smiled, cautiously wrapping her arms around herself. A faint blush had filled her face, causing a fluttering sensation to fill my chest.

"It would be impolite not to."

"You've always prided yourself on being a gentleman."

Although I didn't respond, I couldn't help but smirk at her words; at her memory of the person she knew and remembered that I was. Going after women had always been my nature, I meant no harm in it and was always honest about my intentions, sometimes having two or more at my side at once and flirting with both simultaneously. Hell, I had lost my virginity via a threesome.

So what was it about Oliver back in the day that had made me so willing to kiss him? To just try it? He hadn't forced or pressured me in any way and I think he had fully expected me to turn the dare down. Back then I would have told you that it was a simple issue of pride, that I wasn't one to turn down something as simple as a dare. It hadn't been our first time getting drunk while underage and finding ourselves in some sort of juvenile party game, most of which ended in Robert scolding us for acting like children and Johnny taking his anger out on some sort of priceless antique, but it had just been the two of us that day.

"Do you have much memory of our shenanigans that night?" I asked, sliding my hands into my pockets as a chill began filling the air.

"Pardon?"

"When I kissed you..."

She frowned while losing herself in her own mind, picking at her brain for the memory that neither of us had thought about in years.

"We had been playing Truth or Dare, Robert wasn't there to scold us for our behavior and Johnny wasn't around either. It was just us."

"Do you remember why?"

"I don't like to."

In the beginning, Oliver hadn't wanted to tell me why he had flown all the way to Rome on such short notice, unsuccessfully attempting an act of carelessness, like he had just done it to have fun, but the hurt in his eyes that night wasn't something he could hide.

"I had brought up the idea of Truth or Dare in order to get it out of you." I recalled. "Something was wrong, but you wouldn't tell me what."

"My parents had already threatened to disown me, 'Rique, I couldn't handle the idea of losing you too."

It had taken a few glasses of wine for him to admit what had happened, eventually finding the right words to tell me.

"On the contrary," I said, "I was actually quite proud of you."

"You were adamant that you had already known."

"That you were attracted to men? Yeah, I think we'd all had some sort of idea or assumption regarding it. I used to mock you in the locker room all the time. Hell, you were flirting with Tyson Granger when you first met him, even if he was too airheaded to notice."

She nudged me gently, her smile warming the chill that had begun taking over my body the more the sun went down. She had begun clutching her arms for warmth and although neither of us had hit a point of shivering, it was clear that the cold was beginning to have a negative effect.

Stopping for a moment as we crossed over one of the bridges and peering into the dark water below, I hesitated slightly out of nervousness before taking my coat off and draping it over her shoulders, fearful of the aspect of my hands touching her bare skin for reasons I was unsure of. Inching closer to me so that her waist touched mine, the warmth of her body caused my heart to beat rapidly.

"Thank you." She said, taking just a moment to lean her head into my shoulder before pulling away again. Her hair brushed up against my cheek and I was able to catch a whiff of coconut shampoo, making me wish briefly that she had been a stranger. Had she been someone who I had just met I would have wrapped an arm around her, pulling her close enough to my side to smell any perfume she may be wearing.

"Have you kept in touch with anyone?" I asked, stuttering slightly as I spoke.

"I speak with one of my sisters on occasion, other than that… no."

"I've never liked your family much."

Smiling playfully, she bumped her hip into mine before beginning once again to walk.

"You're a terrible liar."

"Who says I'm lying?"

"My family adored you, are you really going to sit there and pretend you didn't take advantage of that? If they had it their way, they would have arranged you to marry Genevieve."

"Pretty sick idea seeing as your little sister hadn't even hit puberty yet the last time I saw you."

"The bit of blond peach fuzz that lived on your upper lip at the time did not count as you hitting puberty."

"You were all jealous of my mustache."

"Yeah, I was so jealous that I got laser hair removal just because I knew I would never match up."

We were both giggling by the time we reached the entrance of her hotel. She hadn't been incorrect in regards to how she worded the place, it wasn't spectacular, but it seemed to make due just fine.

"Robert would never approve." I said with a shake of the head. "There's not even a fountain at the entrance, and where's the piano?"

"If I remember correctly, Robert didn't even know how to play the piano." Vera smirked.

"He didn't buy it to play it! He bought it because it looks nice!"

"Did you just quote The Kardashians?"

"Rob damn near is a Kardashian."

Smiling as me as she laughed daintily into her hand, she handed me my coat back, touching a hand to my shoulder and pulling me down just slightly so that my back was arched enough where our height difference had evened out and touching her still wine stained lips to my cheek.

"I'm really glad that I ran into you." She said while pulling herself back and releasing her gentle grasp. "I've had a nice evening."

"I hardly did anything worth thanking me, all we did was reminisce parts of our teen years."

"It's never easy to pinpoint how someone from my past is going to treat me." She said, tucking a section of hair behind her ear again and bringing her gaze shyly to one side. "Growing up, you only ever knew the person I was pretending to be, but it hasn't stopped you from treating me like-"

She blushed, stuttering some.

"Like?"

"Like a lady."

"Now Oliv- Vera," I corrected myself, "It's the 2000's, aren't we moving past the point of treating women like dainty damsels?"

She chuckled with me once again, looking toward the door as though she was reluctant to go in before bringing her gaze back to me. For a moment she only stood there, watching me as though she was waiting for me to say more before closing her eyes in a deep sigh and bringing herself into my body, arms wrapping around me and cheek nestled against my chest.

It was a new sensation… We had never hugged one another before.

Brushing my fingers through her thick locks of lime colored hair, I returned her embrace, trying to ignore the rapid beating that went through my chest as our skin made contact.

"Goodnight, Enrique." She said, releasing me and taking a step backward, making enough space between our bodies to look at one another. My hand held hers now, an act that I didn't remember doing.

Not allowing myself time to overthink it, I held her palm gently, bringing it to my face and kissing the back of her hand.

"Goodnight."