Chapter 22: The Choices Neither Spoke Aloud

The desk was covered in documents.

Star track maps, blueprints of the old teaching building, magnetic field data sheets printed by Lin Yu, and several orange candies were scattered between the pages, their crystal-clear wrappers reflecting the light of the desk lamp.

The most conspicuous item was the sailor uniform folded neatly at the corner of the desk.

It was blue and white, with a slight fading around the collar.

It was the one I wore when I transformed.

Xiao Yan had taken it home, washed it, and brought it back.

“Keep it here,” she had said at the time, her tone casual, “just in case we still need it.”

I didn’t ask what “just in case” meant.

I simply took it and placed it on the corner of the desk, where it caught my eye every time I flipped through the materials.

Right now, I was sitting on the left side of the desk while Xiao Yan sat on the right.

Our chairs were separated by half an arm’s length, much like before, but I always felt like something was missing from the air.

What was missing?

I couldn’t say.

It was like eating an orange candy; the candy was still sweet, but I could no longer taste that warm sensation that used to slide down the back of my tongue and into my heart.

Subconsciously, I pressed my legs together, knee to knee, and placed my hands neatly on my thighs.

Then, I suddenly realized.

This was how a girl sat.

‘I’m a boy now; I should sit with my legs spread wide.’

But sitting that way always felt uncomfortable.

I tentatively moved my legs apart a little, then felt like something was wrong again, and finally went back to pressing them together.

Fortunately, Xiao Yan was looking down at her phone and didn’t notice me.

Xiao Yan’s phone screen lit up several times.

Each time, it was a message from Lin Yu.

She would take a quick look and hurriedly lock the screen, her grip on the phone tightening until her knuckles turned white.

Several times she opened her mouth as if to say something, but swallowed the words back down.

She would either pretend to drink water or look down to flip through the materials, turning back and forth on the same page.

Even when she performed the routine of handing me an orange candy, her hand trembled slightly.

“Here.”

“Thanks.”

I took the candy, lowered my head to unwrap it, and popped it into my mouth.

It was sweet, yet I felt as though I couldn’t taste its flavor.

She was acting very strange today.

My intuition radar was pinging.

‘Is she hiding something from me? Is it about the old teaching building? Or about the transformation?’

I stole a glance at the female school uniform.

The collar used to sit just below my collarbone when I was a girl, neither loose nor tight.

Now that my shoulders were half an inch wider, the clothes probably wouldn’t fit.

My fingertips unconsciously picked at the corner of the desk, gouging a shallow mark into the cork texture.

Picking at desk corners was also a habit I developed as a girl; back then, my fingers were soft, so it didn’t hurt to do it.

Now my nails were shorter and my fingertips were rougher, making the picking feel a bit sore.

While flipping through the materials, an old photo slid out from the Astronomy Club archives.

I picked it up to look.

Two girls stood side by side at the entrance of the observatory, wearing matching sweatshirts and smiling sweetly.

Their shoulders touched, and their shadows overlapped on the wall behind them, making it hard to tell who was who.

It was Lin Ming and Bai Lu.

I stared at the photo for several seconds, my heart suddenly skipping a beat.

‘Was I like that back then, too?’

Shoulders touching hers, shadows overlapping, the backs of our hands brushing against each other as we walked.

Xiao Yan was looking down at a data sheet and didn’t notice me.

I quietly tucked the photo into my notebook, my fingertips repeatedly tracing its edges.

The paper was slightly yellowed and the corners were curled, but the smiles of the two girls in the photo remained very clear.

“President?”

Xiao Yan looked up and called me.

“What are you looking at?”

“No… nothing.”

I quickly closed the notebook, feeling the tips of my ears turn red.

“It’s just an old photo.”

“What photo? Let me see.”

“No, it’s fine.”

I stuffed the notebook under a pile of books.

“It’s just an old photo of the Astronomy Club, nothing special.”

Xiao Yan looked at me.

To my surprise, she didn’t press further.

However, her movements as she flipped through the materials slowed down.

Her finger stayed on one page for several seconds before she finally turned it.

I lowered my head and pretended to organize the star track maps, my heart still racing.

‘Why did I hide that photo? Was I afraid she’d see it? Or was I afraid that after she saw it, she would discover the thought in my heart?’

I couldn’t say.

But my heart was beating very fast.

“Let’s go out and buy something to drink,” Xiao Yan said as she stood up and stretched.

“We’ve been sitting all afternoon.”

“Okay.”

The two of us walked out of the residential area, heading toward the convenience store along the tree-lined path we often took.

The ginkgo trees hadn’t grown new leaves yet, their bare branches casting thin shadows on the ground.

Xiao Yan walked in front, her pace very slow.

In the past, she would walk on my left, and the back of her hand would occasionally brush against mine before she naturally took hold of it.

Now, she walked half a step ahead, her hand hanging at her side without reaching back.

Following behind her, I suddenly realized my strides were very small — so small that they were the same as when I was a girl.

Back then, my legs were short, and I’d be out of breath if I walked too fast.

Now my legs were longer, but my steps still wouldn’t widen.

I walked with a slight bounce, as if I were chasing someone with tiny steps.

I tried to take larger strides and nearly tripped over myself.

Fine.

Tiny steps it is.

Xiao Yan walked quickly, occasionally glancing back at me with a look of indescribable struggle in her eyes.

When we reached a bench by the road, she suddenly stopped.

“We sat here before, when President was still a girl.”

She pointed at the bench, a smile on her face, but something was hidden in her eyes.

“You even said it was embarrassing to have ketchup on the corner of your mouth.”

I froze for a moment.

I remembered.

That day, not long after my transformation, I wasn’t quite used to a girl’s body yet.

I was sitting on the bench eating a hamburger Xiao Yan had bought.

Cheese and ketchup were stuck to the corner of my mouth.

She reached out to wipe it off for me, smiling as she said, “President is so cute.”

At that time, I was much shorter than her.

Sitting on the bench, my head rested on her shoulder.

Her hair would brush against my cheek, feeling ticklish.

“Yeah.”

I lowered my head, looking at the bench.

“I remember.”

“You were so short back then.”

She laughed softly, her voice very light.

“Your feet couldn’t even reach the ground when you sat on a high stool.”

“…I wasn’t that short.”

“You were.”

She gestured with her hand, marking a spot not far from the ground.

“Probably about this high.”

I realized we were both trying to change the subject to cover up our own thoughts.

Neither of us spoke again.

The wind blew, brushing her stray hairs onto her face.

She reached out to tuck them behind her ear, her movements very slow.

I looked at her profile.

My gaze slid from her face to her shoulder, then to our two shadows on the ground.

My shadow was a good head taller than hers, and the outline of my shoulders was broader.

Standing next to her, I was like a wall.

‘Wait, do I actually miss being like that?’

I quickly looked away, pretending to look at the ginkgo trees by the road.

But when I walked side by side with her, I felt truly at peace.

I really wanted to go back to the past — back to that brief and brilliant time.

***

When we got home, Xiao Yan went to the kitchen to cut some fruit.

I sat alone in the room, my gaze falling on the female school uniform at the corner of the desk.

I reached out and picked it up.

The fabric was soft.

It had been washed several times, but the collar still held a faint scent of laundry detergent.

No, it wasn’t detergent.

It was a scent from even earlier — something hard to describe, but it felt familiar.

I unfolded the uniform and held it up to the mirror, aligning the collar.

The collar sat below my Adam’s apple, half an inch lower than before.

The shoulders were a size too narrow, and the sleeves were short.

This outfit no longer fit.

Nonetheless, I held the uniform in my arms, my nose brushing against the faint fragrance lingering in the fabric.

Looking in the mirror, I noticed the way I was holding the clothes.

Both arms wrapped around it, the clothes pressed against my chest, chin resting on the collar.

This was a girl’s habit for holding things; boys rarely did this.

I tried to switch to a one-handed grip, but it felt so awkward that I switched back.

‘Did I feel more at ease like this?’

What did “more at ease” even mean?

Was it that wearing girls’ clothes felt more natural?

Or was it that I felt more at ease when I stood side by side with Xiao Yan, our shadows overlapping?

I didn’t know.

But I held the school uniform a little tighter.

The door opened.

Xiao Yan stood at the door with a fruit plate.

Seeing me holding the uniform, she froze for a second.

I hurriedly shoved the uniform behind me, my ears turning red enough to burn.

“Why are you still holding that?”

She said with a smile as she walked in.

She placed the fruit plate on the desk, her tone casual.

“It’s too small now. You can’t wear it anymore.”

She didn’t say anything else; she simply turned and left.

As she closed the door, her hand hesitated for a moment, and the hem of her sweatshirt brushed against the doorframe, shaking slightly.

After the door closed, I heard her stand outside for 2 seconds before walking away.

She saw it, but she didn’t ask.

‘Why didn’t she ask?’

I looked down at the uniform in my hand, my fingertips repeatedly stroking the hem.

When the doorbell rang, I was folding the uniform back onto the corner of the desk.

Xiao Yan went to open the door.

Lin Yu stood in the foyer, holding the silver-gray weather observation instrument, with blue data flickering on the screen.

“Latest data.”

She walked in and set the instrument on the desk, bringing up a dense sheet of data.

“The magnetic field fluctuations in the basement of the old teaching building have intensified.”

The three of us gathered around the desk.

Lin Yu spread out the data sheet, tracing her finger along the curve until she stopped at the highest point.

I leaned in to look, and Xiao Yan did too.

Our heads nearly bumped into each other.

Her hair occasionally brushed against my arm, still smelling like those orange candies.

“Peak intensity.”

Before Lin Yu could finish her sentence, the data sheet slid off the edge of the desk and drifted down to my feet.

I bent down to pick it up.

When I did, I saw the back.

On the back, a line of small words was written in red pen:

“If the magnetic field is unstable, there is a chance to change gender again and then fix it permanently.”

My fingers froze.

Rechoosing a gender, and then making it permanent.

“Hey!”

Xiao Yan reached out and snatched the data sheet away, clutching it tightly until her knuckles turned white.

“Lin Yu’s data always has weird notes. Don’t take them seriously.”

She laughed it off, her tone light, but she shot a secret glare at Lin Yu out of the corner of her eye.

Then she stole a look at me. Seeing that I didn’t say anything, she breathed a sigh of relief.

But her hand was still gripping the paper so hard that her nails dug into it, wrinkling the edges.

Lin Yu shrugged and didn’t say anything more.

But she looked at Xiao Yan, then at me, her lips twitching as if she wanted to say something, only to swallow it back down.

I looked at Xiao Yan’s hand gripping the data sheet, her knuckles white with a hint of blue.

I had seen that line of small print.

‘Is it possible to become a girl again?’

The thought in my heart suddenly became clear.

If I changed back into a girl, would things return to the way they were with Xiao Yan?

She would walk side by side with me, eat with me, and suddenly grab my hand, interlacing our fingers as we swung our arms.

I looked at Xiao Yan’s profile.

She pretended to be focused on the data, her eyelashes lowered, hiding her eyes.

But her lips were trembling slightly, as if she were biting back a sentence she didn’t dare to say.

She didn’t want me to know.

But she clearly missed the girl version of me too.

Why?

After Lin Yu left, Xiao Yan leaned back against her chair and rubbed her temples.

She didn’t speak immediately, remaining silent for a long time.

“Lin Yu just likes to be an alarmist.”

She picked up her glass and took a sip of water.

Her tone was relaxed, but her voice was a bit hoarse.

“Tomorrow… let’s not go so early. We’ll wait until the magnetic field stabilizes in the evening.”

She didn’t mention the possibility of becoming a girl again.

But her eyes kept darting away — looking at the ceiling, the window, the uniform at the corner of the desk — anywhere but at me.

She was lying.

She was hiding something from me.

“Okay,” I said.

I didn’t argue.

But I already had my answer.

I looked down and opened my notebook, my fingertips gently stroking the edge of that old photo.

In the photo, the two girls’ shoulders were pressed together, their shadows overlapping on the wall, smiling sweetly.

Honestly, I think I wanted to return to that state even more.

***

The sky darkened quickly.

Xiao Yan packed her things, put on her bag, and walked to the door.

“I’ll head back first then.”

“Yeah.”

The two of us stood at the entrance of the stairwell.

The streetlights were dim, stretching her shadow long on the ground, leaving half a step of distance between her shadow and mine.

She looked up at me.

Her lips moved but closed again.

They opened once more, then closed.

“President, tomorrow…”

She paused for a long time.

“I will help you stabilize your male form! I promise!”

Her voice was soft, but every word was clear.

Her knuckles were white where she gripped her bag strap.

But her gaze suddenly stopped wavering, filled with determination.

I was stunned.

Help me stabilize.

Stabilize my male form.

Even though she loved me when I was a girl.

Her final choice was to help me remain a boy.

She was sacrificing her own preference for my sake.

But what I hadn’t said aloud was that I actually seemed to want to change back into a girl more.

“Okay,” I said.

She nodded and turned to go downstairs.

The sound of her footsteps echoed in the stairwell, one by one, very slow.

When she reached the corner, she paused for a moment but didn’t look back.

“Xiao Yan.”

I called out to her.

She stopped.

“Thank you.”

Her shoulders trembled slightly, and then she continued walking down without looking back.

I stood at the door, watching her figure disappear around the corner of the stairs.

I was still clutching the hem of that school uniform in my hand.

The fabric was soft, but I had squeezed it into wrinkles.

She chose to help me stabilize my male form.

She clearly knew there was a “chance to change back into a girl,” but she chose to hide it.

She chose to help me move toward the ending she believed was best for me.

She didn’t know that I seemed to want to go back to that form more.

Walking side by side with Xiao Yan, having her help me adjust my clothes, being able to lean on her and act spoiled, being able to play without restraint, and being able to say many, many things that I couldn’t say now.

I looked up out of the window.

In the deep black sky, the faint blue light of a flight occasionally flashed by.

My phone vibrated.

A message from Lin Yu:

“Tomorrow night at 10:00 PM, there is a 10 minutes window period. The magnetic field peak intensity is 300%, which theoretically can stabilize your current form.

Xiao Yan just sent me a message saying she’s decided to help you stabilize your male form.

She asked me not to tell you that there’s still a chance to become a girl because she’s afraid you’ll do something stupid for her sake. But I think you have the right to know.

You decide for yourself.”

“I’m sending you an attachment. These are the conclusions I’ve gathered. Everything you want to know — about fixing your gender or the method to change it — is in there.”

I stared at those lines of text.

Xiao Yan decided to help me stabilize as a boy.

She asked Lin Yu to keep it from me.

But she didn’t know that I wanted to change back more.

My fingertip hovered over the screen for several seconds.

I didn’t reply.

I simply locked the phone and gripped it in my palm.

I folded the hem of the sailor uniform and tucked it into my backpack.

Tomorrow.

What would happen when two opposite decisions collided at the old teaching building?

I didn’t know.

But my heart was beating so fast.

As I walked out of the stairwell, I subconsciously shoved my hands into my jacket pockets.

When I was a girl, the pockets were shallow, and my fingers would peek out even when I shoved them in.

Now, the pockets of these male clothes were very deep; my entire hands were buried inside, unable to feel the bottom.

I paused, pulled my hands out, and let them hang at my sides.

The moonlight stretched my shadow very long.

I looked down at my own shadow.

Broad shoulders, long legs, but with tiny steps and a slight pigeon-toed gait — it felt indescribably awkward.

It was as if a girl’s soul still lived within this boy’s body.