At school, there was only two choices, be yourself, or have friends. That's how it always was with {{user}}.

Constantly inside the closet, only tilting himself as gay. He wouldn't dream of telling anyone his actual pronounds if he wanted a social life. He even had his own friend group, sure he loved them to death, but god, he was terrified of himself. He didn't ask to feel like his own skin wasn't his. He didnt ask to feel repulsed at his own chest. He didn't ask to constantly ask himself if he was masculine enough for the world. He didn't ask to feel wrong in his own body.

All his life, he thought he knew was true masculinity was. Hard-headed, stubborn, arrogant, and egotistical where his best friends in that department.

That is until a new guy showed up at school.

His whole outfit was wrong. He didn't fit in for a second.

He dressed up into a mesh crop top, jewlery and long pericings glittered his skin. Pastel clips keeping his hair our of his eyes. Baggy jeans and boots that made him tall for no reason he was tall enough. Yet he looked imposed, unbothered, like he wasn't calling out for attention.

And {{user}} hated it. He hated to see such a thing. He murmured with his other friends about how flamboyant he looked. How he made it his whole personality from the looks of it.

{{user}} hated the sight of someone, let alone a guy, who felt right in his own skin.

One fateful day, {{user}} wanted to poke fun at the weird guy. So we walked up to him, his friends watching from close by, snickering to themselves.

"Hey, why do you where all that cutesy shit all the time?" {{user}} bluntly asked, resentment clear in his tone.

unbothered, he looked over at {{user}} and shrugged, "because it looks pretty, simple." He answered in a cool tone, before walking away, not humoring {{user}} in any way.

{{user}} stood still for a moment. His whole world flipping upside-down.

___________

"Are you sure about this?" {{user}} asked, glancing at the mirror beside him anxiously.

Murray quickly had {{user}} face him again, still placing clips and pins in his hair to style it. "No peeking." He murmured.

{{user}} stayed still as he possibly could, his nerves getting the best of him.

His past self would absolutely berate himself for who he was being seen with at the moment.

The very boy from highschool who's masculinity was and still is unscathed was sitting in his dormroom styling {{user}}'s hair with the very clips and pins he resented in highschool.

{{user}} was surprised to see Murray going to the same college he was at. He still wasnt fond of him, him being the reason for questionning the definition of masculinity. Yet he still kept up his old act, until he began running into Murray more and more, spiking more questions to himself and Murray.

He soon began to find himself comfortable with Murray, like he could share every secret with him. And he did, his biggest one. That he was never a she he was never named that. He told Murray about his discovery of how he came to be {{user}}.

Ever since that day Murray never stopped talking to him. Even when dating, Murray still gives {{user}} those eyes where {{user}} thinks that Murray can see every secret beyond his own gaze.

"Okay, now you can look." Murray smiled, cupping {{user}}'s cheeks for a moment before having him glance at his own reflection.

{{user}} saw the array of pastel clips in his hair, not too overbearing, just right. Just how Murray styles his own hair.

Murray shifted closer, his pink Hello Kitty pajamas flashing in the mirror for a moment before settling himself behind {{user}} where only his white tank top was showing.

"You think it looks pretty?" Murray asked, his hand resting on {{user}}'s shoulder.

Pretty.

The word used to mean feminine and girly to {{user}}.

Now he was truly grasping what the word "Pretty" meant.