Chapter Text
When Arataka Reigen was 16 years old and not yet named Arataka, he walked into the kitchen where his parents were already seated for dinner, and announced that he was a boy from now on.
His parents laughed. Well, his mom laughed, while his dad sighed, shook his head and muttered ‘Here we go again,’ with a derisive little chuckle.
Reigen had partially expected that, and while it was better than screaming and shouting and getting kicked out…
He stormed out of the room and left his parents to wonder and muse over the confusing, overdramatic follies of youth. They stopped wondering and musing real fast when Reigen came back long after they’d cleared up dinner - he had scissors in one hand, chunks of hair in the other, and an awful, choppy, very short mess on his head.
They took him to the hairdresser the next day for a proper haircut. They took him out shopping the following week for a boy’s uniform for school.
Mr. and Mrs. Reigen weren’t sure how to deal with the issue. Their child had gone through several strange, outlandish phases during her - his? - youth already; they’d thought he’d be too focused on psychics and spirits for the time being to dive into any other trouble, and yet…
His father was unhappy with this new development, to say the least. To him, it felt like a cry for attention, a silly teenage girl acting out - yet again - because she was bored and feeling stagnant and just so happened to be going through another identity crisis. He figured she was just trying to cope with being a lesbian, or bisexual, or whatever she’d claimed - and while he wasn’t exactly happy with that, either, it was better than whatever the hell this whole “boy” thing was.
His mother, though, was a little more open to the idea. Maybe it was another teenage rebellion thing, or a temporary identity crisis, or another silly phase - but maybe it wasn’t . He’d always been a tomboy, she reasoned, and this really did feel like a natural extension of that. Maybe it was best to indulge the kid, call him by masculine terms, let him cut his hair, let him wear the boy’s uniform, let him be whoever he wanted. After all, he seemed rather serious about this, above all his other little phases, and from the way he spoke it was clear he’d done his research, so really, what was the harm in indulging him? Let him explore his identity a little!
Well, until he started talking about surgery and hormones and physical, medical, permanent changes. Suddenly, she balked. Playing at being a boy was all well and good, sure, whatever, let the kid pretend. Actually changing his body? That took the whole silly thing too damn far. She put her foot down, much to his father’s exasperated relief, and his own dismay.
Reigen was a natural-born talker, but somehow it felt like his silver tongue had rusted over. It didn’t matter how much he insisted, then shouted, then begged, wheedled, cried, sulked. His father refused to believe him, and his mother refused to hear him out. She would still call him her son, sometimes, and she’d stopped asking him to shave his legs, let his hair grow, wear some makeup - but whenever he tried to bring up any possibility of medical transition, it was like a door was slammed in his face; ‘we’re done here, sweetie.’
He gave up, eventually, slowly, frustrated and defeated, voice hoarse from trying to talk his way through a brick wall.
When Arataka Reigen was 16 years old, almost 17, and still not named Arataka, he picked up smoking because he heard a middle aged woman on the street, chatting with a friend and holding a cigarette aloft in her hand. She sounded rough, coarse, masculine, despite the tight skirt and low-cut shirt showing off obvious, identifying, feminine curves. The idea that maybe he could sound like that - his high, breathy, soft, undeniably and undisguisably feminine voice roughened and deepened into a gravelly, androgynous rumble - shot his heart into his throat, made every nerve twitch, had him running the rest of the way to the corner store to pick up his first pack - it took a bit of work, but his silver tongue had the bored teenage cashier vaguely convinced of his age within a few minutes.
He coughed and spluttered his way through the first few, alone in an empty corner of the park late in the evening. The next time was easier, if not much more pleasant, but the thought of that woman and her voice kept him taking deep drags on the cigarette as he watched acrid smoke curl into the orange dusk sky.
(When Arataka Reigen was 27 and finally named Arataka, he thought of a kid with a backpack and a bowl cut walking into his office and coughing through the heavy haze of smoke, and he put out his last cigarette prematurely.)
When Arataka Reigen was 17 years old and not yet actually Arataka, he passed out during his regular P.E. class and almost broke his nose.
He still had the girl’s uniform, much to his chagrin, but he could live with it. He’d stopped using the girl’s locker room, sneaking off to the nurse’s bathrooms by himself to get changed. It was easier, being alone - no one bothered to ask why the hell he had bandages wrapped tight around his chest. If they had asked - and he’d bothered to answer honestly - it was because it felt better, because it stopped him from feeling sick and nervous and exposed and uncomfortable, because it kept the unnatural lumps on his chest still, because it made him a little less on edge all the time. Yes, it was uncomfortable; yes, it was sweaty and smelly; yes, they slipped a lot; yes, it was hard to breath right; yes, he had to change a few times a day; and yes, he did end up spending a lot of money on disposable bandages and medical tape, thank you for considering his finances.
Like hell he was gonna stop, though.
Reigen knew a lot of things he did were stupid, to be fair. It wasn’t like he was entirely unaware of his own actions and their inevitable consequences. He was a smart kid, good at reading the atmosphere and manipulating situations in his favor - he just also happened to have poor impulse control and a slightly cocky sense of teenage invincibility.
He also had an unsafely-bound chest and the beginnings of smoker’s lungs. It took about twenty minutes of running around in the midday sun playing soccer for him to start seeing stars, for his vision to go black, to end up face first on the dusty school field with a rather unsettling crunch as he made impact.
Nothing important broke - except for his pride, which shattered when he woke up in the girl’s locker room with a cold towel, a bloody nose, and an unbound chest. He rubbed the dirt out of his eyebrows and the gravel out of his scraped cheeks and tried to keep his breathing steady as the female gym teacher talked at him for far too long.
He got to use the situation, at least. His mother was horrified, shaken that her child would do something so reckless; his father was disturbed that he’d been stealing all their bandages from the first aid kit. Reigen tearfully, dutifully, vindictively recounted his tale of woe, of how much suffering he endured living in this body on a daily basis, how he’d rather struggle through the day with tape crushing his ribs than have his chest be the way it was.
He was hamming it up, sure. But he wasn't exaggerating much.
The next day, Reigen came home to his mother, armed with a tape measure and a sewing machine. A few hours later and he stood in front of the mirror, running a hand over the flat, cotton-and-elastic-bound surface of his chest, marveling at what his mother could do with some fabric and thread, marveling at the fact that he could breathe and have everything be flattened at the same time.
She hugged him and called him her handsome young man. He blamed his watering eyes on allergies.
It wasn't hormones, it wasn't surgery, it wasn't permanent; but it was a start.
(He wore sports bras for every following gym class, though)
When Arataka Reigen was 17 years old and almost, but not quite yet, named Arataka, he helped his mother put away the dishes from dinner, as was the usual. His mother asked him to hand her a dish, calling him by the name her and her father had given him when he was born, as was the usual, but today, slightly different, he shook his head.
“Actually, my name’s Keiji now.”
His father, watching the evening news in the next room over, slammed his drink against the coffee table hard enough to dent the surface.
“No, god dammit, absolutely not! Call yourself a boy, cut your hair, get your damn breasts cut off, fine! Fine! I don’t care at this point!” He raved, standing and turning to face his stunned wife and child. He was getting dangerously hysterical and wheezy-sounding as he went on.
“But for the love of god - for the love of god , I am not, under any circumstances, having my daughter name herself after a- a fucking television psychic !”
The silence was long and awkward.
Later, Arataka would claim (if ever asked) that this was a ploy. He’d chosen something ridiculous to make them realize transitioning wasn’t really all that bad, that they’d rather have a normal son than a daughter who, say, tried to emulate a famous psychic despite having all the mystical abilities of a shoe. He’d never admit that, deep down, he really had wanted to be Keiji Reigen, second coming of the most powerful esper ever seen and psychic extraordinaire of the 21st century someday.
(When Arataka Reigen was 27 and watching the corrupted ghost of Keiji Mogami get sucked into a flask by a strange esper in an awful pinstripe shirt who could control evil spirits, he figured that maybe he should call up his old man and thank him.)
When he was just barely almost past the age of 17, Arataka Reigen settled on a name for good. His parents thought it was ridiculous (he out loud, to the newly-minted Arataka’s face, her silently agreeing but defending her son’s choices out loud nonetheless), but they both agreed to use it, eventually, after a good few slips and stumbles along the way.