Who: Tenoh Haruka and Kaioh Michiru, with a bonus appearance from Meetra Surik What: Shenaniganry. And confusion. When: Sometime? Where: Haruka and Michiru’s flat Rating: Assume the worst. MA for brief sex before trauma occurs Status: Complete
She’d finally gotten used to actually living with Haruka, after several times of accidentally walking to her own apartment and going ‘Oh shit, I don’t live here anymore’. She unlocked the front door and started to tidy up. For a racer who kept all her things for the sport tidy, the rest of the house became a royal mess. She shook her head and picked up a pair of boxers from the floor, along with a coat, and jeans. These may or may not have been from an escapade they did.
After effectively cleaning the entire flat, she sat on the couch and began reading her book. She’d told Haruka to at least try and keep things semi clean, but no, she couldn’t be bothered. She sighed and brushed her hair back, she was going to at least get her to being semi cleaning if her life depended on it.
It was around 6 by the time Haruka got home and she heard the click of the door open. “You didn’t do anything I asked you to.”
It wasn’t like Haruka had done that intentionally. Sure, part of it had been down to laziness, but then she’d been called down to the track at short notice to fix the damage one of the inexperienced mechanics had caused to her car. It’d been a pain in the ass, and it was a wonder she hadn’t tried to put the idiot through a wall.
“Car trouble. I don’t know what they teach the mechanics here, but it’s like nobody respects cars anymore...” she sighed, shaking her head. “At least there weren’t any weird miniskirt moments today. Hate that thing.”
Michiru couldn’t help but roll her eyes and continue reading her book. Car trouble or not, she could have at least put the laundry in. Haruka definitely was male in the brain. She pulled the book closer to her face. She is going to ignore Haruka for as long as she can, because she is rather pissed at her.
It wasn’t just down to the car and its issues. It had been down to her being lazy as all hell. She let out a heavy sighed and loudly flipped the page. Hell, she’d worn something that covered from head to toe just to be a total bitch to Haruka’s constant need to see at least a little bit of skin on her.
She was just going to ignore her? Oh well, Haruka could deal. Mostly. Today was a relative low in the dysphoria, probably helped by spending time with her pit crew. Sure, there was that one idiot, but most, if not all of them were fairly convinced that yes, she was as male as she tried to present.
“I can start work on it now, if it bothers you that much...”
She didn’t respond, didn’t give so much as a shrug of her shoulders. In fact, she stood up and walked entirely to the opposite side of the flat. She sat on the window seat she purchased and continued reading. Haruka should still be happy that she’s even reading it.
It was a book called Genderqueer: Voices from beyond the sexual binary. It was something she’d picked up at a small shop on her way from a rehearsal. She wanted to just try and understand just a little bit more. In fact, reading the book was angering her. She put the bookmark down and set it in obvious plain sight and stood to get undressed for a shower.
It did take Haruka a moment to realise just what she was reading. Never before had she had a girlfriend who actually embraced who she was, who didn’t try to ‘fix’ her and make her conform more to what women were apparently meant to be.
“Michiru... look, I’m sorry.” Okay, being near her whilst she was undressing was a bad idea. Terrible, terrible thoughts... which, inevitably, led to her coming closer, just lightly running her hands up her sides. “Let me make it up to you?”
And her initial reaction is to slap her clear across the face, she pushed her back a bit, and went to locking herself in the shower to deal with getting clean. She was even angrier now. Haruka always seemed to assume that she could just seduce her and everything would be fine. There was more to fixing problems during a relationship then just make up sex.
She turned the water on hotter than usual, and kept to cleaning herself as slowly as possible. Haruka needed to learn that, despite liking the massive amounts of sex they had, it’s not what she wanted when problems arose. She felt she hadn’t even asked that much of her, hell she didn’t ask much of her to begin with, and yet she had to put so much of her time and effort into everything.
Haruka winced, lightly rubbing at the point she’d slapped. It wasn’t even like she’d been implying sex, or anything like that... honestly, a lot of the time, she was totally fine with the closeness. She knew, though, that trying to reason with an angry Michiru was practically impossible.
She moved to sit on the couch, having picked up a random book off the shelf to occupy her time with. Maybe the shower would calm her down some. Certainly couldn’t make her any angrier.
It did calm her to some extent, but she was still rather upset with her. She got out of the shower, slipping into something that revealed a little more than the long pajamas had down. She sat by the window, drying off her hair before running a brush through it to help get the rest of the moisture out of it.
“I just wish you’d listen and not put the blame on everything else. I know cars can take a lot of focus, but you could have at least shown some effort that you’d been trying.” She kept her head down, focusing on her hair before tying it in a braid. Once braided, she picked up and continued on in the book.
That earned a sort of half-shrug from Haruka. “I do listen. Most of the time.” It wasn’t like she’d ever purposely tuned out Michiru. Some things just didn’t sink in with her - that was why she’d had the occasional girlfriend that just stuck post-it notes on her for when she woke up, just in case she’d forgotten something.
Maybe she could suggest that if this kept happening.
Michiru shook her head, trying not to let it get to her. this relationship was hard, harder than anything she’s ever done. She knew it was out of love, but sometimes she hated how much of herself she had to put into it. It was hard altering pronouns for everything, hard trying to decide what sexuality to give herself when people dared to ask. Cooking and cleaning wasn’t that difficult, it was just tedious as all hell and something she felt she didn’t have to do on her own. The only messes she made were with her art.
There was also the chore of keeping up such a huge illusion for the world. She bit her lip, put the bookmark back in between the pages again, and walked off to the kitchen to take what she’d put in the oven out. She’s staying insanely quiet the entire time, only sound that eventually escapes is the familiar huff she makes when keeping back tears of frustration.
That was one way to cut straight through everything and get Haruka’s attention. She knew that sound, simply because of the number of times she’d managed to accidentally piss her off one way or another - they didn’t tend to fight, but that didn’t mean either of them were without their flaws.
“I know being with me isn’t exactly easy,” she set the book aside, having admittedly not really looked through it. “I’m more than anyone should have to deal with. I’m a man, but I’m not, but... I’m made up of contradictions, I guess. Not easy for me to deal with, so... must be even worse for you.”
It was at times like this where she was honestly tempted just to give up and come out publicly. Sometimes, it wasn’t worth the pain it caused both of them.
“I’d just like to feel you’re putting at least half the amount of effort I put into this.” She’s getting rather violent with cutting the vegetables for the sushi, which isn’t really the best things to be with sharp objects. She slammed the knife down and brought her hands to her face to cover her eyes and will them not to let the gates fall open.
It was rare for them to fight, rare for them to voice their frustrations with each other. But when they did, it was because either of them had welled them up so long that is just blew up all over everywhere. That’s what happened here. She went to run to the bedroom, still not comfortable with willingly crying in front of Haruka, but hands wrapped firmly around her from behind.
When would Michiru learn that she simply couldn’t run from Haruka? She’d always been fast, and that even seemed to carry through to their dreams. “Michiru. I’m sorry,” she didn’t loose her grip in the slightest, instead pulling her against her. “I’m an idiot most of the time. I know that. Just like I know that I don’t deserve you. You do so much, and... I just don’t know what I can do in return most of the time.”
Aside from the obvious. Hey, she was trying to be deep for once!
“You deserve only what you let your mind grasp.” she pushed back against her, taking a light grip on the arms around her. “I just wish I could come home for once without having so much to do... I feel like a housewife while still having several different jobs. And our vacation had to be canceled...” Put her head down and sighed.
This was not fun, she hated being this weak around her. It wasn’t because she thought Haruka would tease her for her, it was because Haruka was always so strong. “Why are you always so true to your emotions...” Saying that felt familiar, and she didn’t even know why she said it. It didn’t have any relation really to the conversation!
“Part of who I am, I guess.” There wasn’t any sense in not being true to them, right? “I’ll make you a promise: tomorrow, when you get home, I’ll have everything done. We can have a night that’s just about you.”
“You promise?” Turned around where she stood so she was pushed up against her. “Not the kind of promise you give and then sleep through the entire day and forget, right?” That had happened all too much, to the point she’d become used to it.
She pushed her head on her shoulder, gripping tight to her shirt. And damn this woman for finding a different cologne. She had to push away. “Are you wearing something new?”
“An actual ‘I will wake up and actually do the damn things’ promise. And you can kick me if I don’t.” She was almost disappointed when she pushed away, but when it clicked just why, she couldn’t help but smirk. “Yeah. Thought you might like it.”
Michiru had to pull away even more to escape it. “I... I do. You know what things like that do to me, Haruka.” She coughed and tried to ignore it, finding it rather hard because it had already rubbed off on her shirt.
She let out a tiny moan, trying not to make the tightening of her legs together to be as obvious as it probably was.
Haruka’s smirk only intensified. Of course she’d noticed - you didn’t get to get such an amazing reputation in bed if you didn’t spot little things like that. “Of course. That’s part of why I got it, you know... well, that and helping me pass a little easier.”
At least she had subtlety with it, unlike some real men.
She let out another little moan and moved further from Haruka, looking at something that was her, and got closer to the window in hopes of making the smell on her clothes not as noticeable.
There was an obvious solution to that. Haruka pulled her close, arms wrapped firmly around her waist. “A guy could get the wrong idea, Michiru...” Her voice was low, possibly even huskier than it usually was.
The fact that her nose was pushed right against her neck so she could strongly smell it was bad enough, but add the voice and she became putty in her arms. She struggled to keep her knees from going out from under her and held tight to her shirt. “Haruka...”
She couldn’t help herself. When she gained a tiny bit of coherency, she yanked her down for a rather fierce kiss, letting herself go blind to everything but it. Damn her and knowing her weaknesses.
Haruka couldn’t help a low chuckle, responding to the kiss as fiercely as she dared, letting her hands roam just a little. Maybe it wasn’t a prelude to sex, but... hey, she was allowed to touch her girlfriend, right? If it happened to make her jump her quicker, that was just an bonus.
A sexy bonus.
The touch made her tremble and yank her to the couch, pulling her on top of her. When any of her strong fetishes kicked in, she was putty and there was no changing the course of her actions. She quickly stripped herself of her pants and panties, her shirt following suit before moving to straddle Haruka and tug at her shirt to get it off of her.
She wished times where she got like this were rare, but they happened far too often. Haruka had a spell over her and she couldn’t really complain.
Haruka couldn’t help a short laugh, helping her with her shirt. The binder was staying on, as far as she was concerned, unless she asked otherwise. It wasn’t like anyone’d see it, really, and she’d lost most of her objections to letting Michiru see what lay underneath.
“I could almost think you were desperate,” she teased, nipping lightly at her neck. “Any preference this time?”
“I...” She moaned at the bit, jerking her hips down. “I’d like to start with on my back on the floor. But may I ask one thing?” She trailed her hands gently down her shoulders before working on getting Haruka’s pants and in turn boxers off.
So what if she was a little bit desperate, Haruka should have known what wearing something like that around her would do.
That was half the point behind wearing that particular cologne. Haruka pulled back just enough to assist her with getting her pants off, quickly returning to her once that entire thing was dealt with. “You can ask me anything. Within reason.”
It’d been a while since she’d last asked things during sex. At least as far as Haruka could remember.
“I’d like it if the binder were off...” Lightly trailed her fingers down it. “If only because I love knowing we’re both completely naked. Not so much what is there, but the fact skin can touch together.” She bit down gently to her lip, nervously trying to keep from just jumping her right then and there.
Ah. That question again. Haruka bit her lip for a moment, before nodding. “I think I can deal with that. Just... careful where you touch on the front.” She was still allowed her terms for this, right? Especially since her dysphoria tended to be a massive pain whenever it was off.
“I know where is okay to touch, and where isn’t.” She helped her get it off and pulled her on top of her onto the floor. Once there, she positioned her hips and smirked. “Get inside me already, I know you need to as much as I do.”
With that she yanked her down for another fierce kiss, jerking her hips up a few times.
Dear God, this was why she adored Michiru. Haruka responded to the kiss as fiercely as she dared, moving to roughly jerk into her.
Okay, change of plans. Despite how good it feels she wants to be in control. she roughly flipped Haruka onto her back and began to roughly jerk her hips down against it. She’s starting to get a rhythm going when she heard the doorknob turn and her face goes pale. They are in direct view of everything if the door opens.
Meetra pushed the door open, balancing some bags on one arm as she did so. She figured she'd surprise them with some presents, to thank for the dinner, and just in general, before she headed to London.
Her jaw dropped, followed by a bag full of sweets.
Her brain scrambled to process what she was seeing, which wasn't really making as much sense as it should have. She dreamed of aliens, assassin droids and the Force, but Haruka being a woman had never actually entered her mind as a possibility.
She'd been effectively fooled through-out their friendship. Defensively, she said, "Well. At least I still have the largest breasts. This could have been terrible otherwise."
Kneeling, Meetra picked up the bag she'd dropped and closed the door, then walked past them into the kitchen to put everything down, her face burning red from embarrassment and anger.
And we all know that anger leads to the Dark Side. There was almost an undercurrent of that emotion in her wake.
She leaned on the counter, facing away from them and closing her eyes.
“Meetra!” She quickly got off of Haruka out of fear of being thrown off and scrambled for the blankets she kept by the couch. She wrapped one around herself and handed the other to Haruka. She’s pretty much conflicted, go and try and recover any form of a friendship, or the pain she knows Haruka is going to feel from the level of dysphoria that comment would give her.
She opted with Haruka first. “Love are you...” Bit her lip and whispered it so Meetra couldn’t hear that her first concern was on Haruka’s mental state. “Are you alright?”
“I’m fine.” That came out perhaps a bit rougher than Haruka had intended, but she could be excused for it. Outing was painful enough when she did it voluntarily, but to have something like this happen... she let out a sigh, reaching for the binder and quickly redoing it. Of all the times for her to walk in... “We... should explain. Before she assumes.”
Not that explaining would be easy or anything.
Meetra of course had no idea about any such conflict, and would have been horrified with herself if she'd known. Being upset was no excuse for hurting a friend like that. She wasn't even sure why she was so upset, except that she somehow should have known, and it was some woman (okay, a friend and good person too, but that was beside the point) that had shown up one day who learned first before Meetra, who'd been friends with Haruka longer. There was a surge of...of jealousy.
It wasn't like she would have approached Haruka without compassion, or trying to understand. She wouldn't have judged him. Her. Whatever. The shock was starting to wear off when her eyes narrowed, a metal utensil nearby suddenly bending in half.
Her voice was icy, and that fork twisted into a knot, "So, Michiru. How's the baby doing?"
She hadn't exactly seen much below the waist, so it was theoretically possible Michiru could have still been knocked up. But intuition was telling her this probably wasn't the case.
And so she'd been pranked hard. Doubly so. The fork actually shot off the counter, unbent, and embedded itself in the wall.
“Meetra...” She trailed off, trying to figure out what to say. The fork into the wall made her step back, concerned as all hell. What was she going to say, anyway. Her hands are shaking as she tries to speak. “We... It’s... “Sighed and looked down. “There is none. We just went along with the tabloids for... Well for fun at first. “ She bit her lip so hard she could almost taste blood. “There’s more to this than you can actually see...”
She went to get properly dressed, looking around for Haruka’s take on all this. She stepped back and took her hand, squeezing to try and show some support. This can’t be the easiest thing on her. “Just... Meetra.” Ran a hand through her hair. “Sit across from us and we’ll explain. We’ll answer any question.”
“Guess there’s no point in setting limits. You’ve... seen the truth,” Haruka wasn’t really looking up, largely focusing in on herself, trying to will the dysphoria down. It likely wouldn’t work, but... it was worth an attempt, at least. “I’m so sorry, Meetra. Really. I just...”
She didn’t even know why she was apologising. It just seemed like the natural thing to do.
Meetra straightened, rubbing her arms for a moment as she listened to them. She wasn't sure what hurt more, the baby thing or just the simple fact she'd been kept in the dark for so long.
Turning the Jedi regarded them with watery eyes, "You were really upset, really freaking out. There are pranks and then there's emotional manipulation!"
She sighed, picked out a smushed donut and chewed angrily on it, before taking a few steps towards them. She stopped walking and seemed to visibly cool down. Anger led to the dark side and she cared about them too much to let it claim her. She had few enough friends as it was.
"Haruka, I wouldn't have told anyone you weren't a man. Please help me understand?"
Haruka honestly didn’t know if she could explain it. The few people she’d come out to in the past had been at least a little aware of things that fell outside the gender binary, people who weren’t a man or a woman but... something in-between.
She sighed, running a hand through her hair. “Basically? My body’s female. I don’t like it, but I tolerate it... I bind my chest, I use packers, I do everything I can to make myself seem more masculine. I want to just... be the person I am in my mind, I guess.”
And if that explained anything, she’d be astounded.
She looked to Meetra, unsure if she should add onto it. She’s read lots of books on the topic in hopes of understanding. “Meetra... The only real reason I found out was because.” Sighed and took hold of Haruka’s hand. “Because we wanted to be together... Well, I hit him and he showed me and then... We’re not going there.” She blushed a bit and shook her head. “I kept the illusion going because without it... “
This is not coming out as eloquently as she’d hoped. For a woman who knew how to use words, they sure were failing right about now. “It causes him discomfort if many people know because of fear.”
It didn't really explain much. Meetra scratched at her head, "Do you want to be a man?" She wasn't sure if that was entirely it, because it wasn't like Haruka couldn't afford procedures if that was what he wanted. There was always the public reaction of course. That would be enough.
She at least didn't seem angry any more, but confused.
Well, that was actually what Haruka had expected. “It’s not that simple. I... think I already see myself as a man, without the need for surgeries and hormones and whatever else they come up with.” Which would probably confuse the matter even further, really. “I think they call what I am ‘genderfuck’. Can’t blame them.”
“Just because he happens to have a female body, doesn’t make him any less of a man.” It’s something she’d come to accept. The books also helped a lot. She thought for a second and got up. Grabbing an apple, and orange, and another orange. She grabbed a knife and carefully peeled the orange as best she could without cutting into it too much and wrapped it around the apple.
She gave a noise and got up to grab a larger apple and began to hollow it out. Once hollow, she put the orange inside it and pushed the cork she’d made back in. she turned it in such a way so that no seems could be seen. “If you didn’t see me do that, would you know the difference?”
Leaned back. “Without looking close enough to pry.”
"If you already see yourself as a man, why do you bother with the binding?" Meetra was mostly trying to figure things out, and the best way was questions, "Why not breast reduction surgery? It would be a lot less painful and awkward over the long run, even if you didn't do anything else."
She watched Michiru carve the fruit, "No, but the apple would know, if you wanted to get metaphysical about it."
“Yes, both would know that deep down, what is shown to the outer world, the gender that their outer body is, is not the same as what’s inside their head. The apple will know that it’s an apple, despite having a shell of an orange.” Tipped her head and brushed her hair back. “In the same way that the orange will know it’s an orange, despite what the worlds sees as being an apple.”
She set the knife aside and leaned back against Haruka. She hopes that helped explain things just a little bit. “What the world and society sees, isn’t always, and most often isn’t the right answer.”
Meetra did raise a good point. Haruka had to think for a moment. “I guess it’s just... I don’t want to change my body, even though it doesn’t exactly fit. I don’t like doctors to begin with, so having to put up with them for something like that... it’d be like a nightmare.” A very clean and surgically precise nightmare at that.
Really, the binder was just a far more sane and mostly tolerable alternative.
"You're still uncomfortable in that shell though, or the binding and.." At this she blushed, "The packing wouldn't be necessary."
God, sex had to be awkward at times. She really hoped Michiru was skilled at getting Haruka off around these issues. Meetra's brain actually spent a moment trying to calculate how that would work, with a woman who probably didn't like being touched as a woman.
She decided to be polite and not ask.
"There are a lot of strange things I see in my dreams. Aliens, robots, things that can't really be described. There are probably aliens with three or more genders. Maybe you're really more of a man in yours and that's part of why you feel like an orange hiding inside an apple?"
Reaching a bit, Meetra knew, but now she'd gone into a sort of problem solving mode. Or at least a 'dig for answers until things make more sense' mode. She ran her fingers through her hair, "I don't really know but you're so obviously distraught about all of this and I wish I could help, I'm sorry."
She'd have to be upset about the deceptions later.
Michiru let out a sigh of relief, so very glad her description of things didn’t totally fly over her head. She actually felt rather damn proud of herself. There was still that guilt in the pit of her stomach for the wool they pulled over her eyes. She didn’t quite know exactly how to explain things to her. “I’m sure I can speak for both of us when I tell you that we’re sorry. I know the pregnancy prank was horrible, and I just got caught in the moment with the tabloids...” She drooped her shoulders down. “I do understand if you don’t want to forgive me... I really do.”
She could say another reason why she felt bad, but that would involve Haruka finding it out too.
“We did actually consider adopting. Of course, there’s probably a limit on how many places would actually let us...” True, her driver’s license did actually say she was male, as did most of her other papers, but... people had their ways of finding out. Haruka was sure of that.
Anyone else would probably call her paranoid, and rightfully so. “For the record, I’m definitely the same in my dreams. Still dress like a man most of the time, but... occasionally, there’s that miniskirt thing I mentioned.”
"I forgive you. I was just..upset." Meetra sat down and hugged her knees, "I don't really know the laws here but it probably wouldn't be too much of a problem. I doubt in vitro would be an option either of you were interested in."
She gave them a tired smile, "I'll try to keep the teasing to a minimum. If only because I know you both can give it out tenfold."
“You tease too much and we’ll make up things for the tabloids.” She sighed and took hold of Haruka’s hand. “I guess he and I could have told you sooner... and without you walking in on us fucking...” Coughed and tried not to blush.
“Things about kinky threesomes,” Haruka was quick to interject, smirking. Yes, it was terrible, and yes, she fully expected to get hit for it. “I can’t count the number of times I’ve wanted to tell you. It’s... not an easy thing to do.”
As this encounter was rather proving.
"Roland wouldn't want to share me," Meetra quipped, her expression softening, "I understand, in hindsight, Haruka. I'm sorry if I've ever said anything insensitive."
“You’re better than most people, Meetra,” there wasn’t any denying that. They’d been close for a fairly long time, and she’d largely gone along with Haruka’s terrible flirting - even without being able to tell her, she’d managed to help. In a way. “The only things you really have to avoid around me are... well, things that draw attention to the parts of me that don’t really fit.”
It wasn’t that she wasn’t comfortable around Meetra. It was just that it took a lot of work for her to so much as acknowledge anything like that. Hell, even Michiru would have a hard time with stuff like that.
She was far too happy that the examples had helped, way too pleased even now. She leaned against Haruka some more and yawned. She’d planned on sex, then sleep. Well, had planned on just sleep after cleaning, but Haruka came home and cheated.
“If you have any questions, just ask either of us. A lot I can actually help with.”
“Nothing that’s not probably incredibly embarrassing,” Meetra replied with a wry grin. “I think I have the gist of it, and you have my silence.” She paused then added, “Would this make me the brides maid or best man?”
“You’d be my bride’s maid.” Gave her a face and chuckled answering any other that she came up with,