"Forced" Fem Ch. 4

“Wait, so they just, like, appeared?”

Scott had met Randall in the library for a study session, and somehow they’d ended up on the topic of Scott’s wardrobe.

“Maybe? I mean, I don’t remember buying them, but it wouldn’t be the first time I ordered something on Amazon and then forgot about it. My best theory is that somehow laundry is getting mixed up. There’s only one shared washer and dryer for the whole building, so maybe someone’s socks are accidentally getting left behind?”

“Huh. Well, finders keepers. I mean, I’m sure you’d look cute with the stripey knee-highs.”

Scott awkwardly looked down at the open notebook in his lap, letting a curtain of his grow-out side bangs fall in front of his face. He really didn’t know how to respond to someone saying something like that to him. His face felt distinctly warm and he hoped that it wasn’t too obviously blushing.

After a brief pause, he decided to change the subject. “By the way, maybe we could invite my housemate next time we study together? They’re in some of the same CS classes.”

“Sure!” Randall said. “Maybe you can make a group chat and we can figure out logistics. I guess doing it at your place would probably be the easiest thing, if that would be okay with both of you.”

“It’s fine with me, but I guess I better ask them before confirming,” Scott said. “I mean, they’re pretty social.”

“Cool,” Randall said. “Oh, you already made the group. Wait, is that picture really of them?”

“Yep,” Scott said. “Why?”

“I, uh, I guess I expected a dude? Sorry, probably shitty of me to assume that. Even if the department is, like, 90% male.”

“Fair enough,” Scott said. “Anyway, I honestly think my brain has stopped working for the day. I’m just banging my head against the wall with this one problem. Would you want to maybe get dinner?”

“Sure. I’d love to!” Randall said.

***

The two of them ended up chatting about random shit for what was, in retrospect, for hours. It turned out they watched some of the same anime and were subscribed to a lot of the same YouTubers. It was nice. Scott was a little relieved to be talking to a fellow degenerate. If he was cut off from the topic of cursed online shit, he had a hard time holding an interesting conversation. Another reason he vibed with Aylin, who was honestly significantly more cursed than he was.

He was intrigued to learn that Randall had high-quality, subbed rips of a magical girl anime he’d been unable to find online in anything other than potato quality.

“Actually, are you free after this?” Randall asked. “Maybe, uh… we could go back to my place and watch a few episodes?”

“Sure! I think I’m free. Let me just let Aylin know I’ll be back late.”

“That reminds me,” Randall said, leaning in closer to Scott in a conspiratorial manner. “Are… are you and Aylin, like, dating? Or–”

“No, just friends,” Scott said. “I mean, I don’t really think they’d be interested in me. For the most part they don’t like guys unless they’re particularly androgynous or something.”

“Damn, they must have a high bar then,” Randall said, raising his eyebrows.

“What do you mean by that?” Scott asked.

“Well…” Randall floundered for words for a bit. “I mean because, y’know, you’re sorta androgynous.”

“I am?” Scott asked, surprised. “I feel like I very clearly look like a dude. Like, I wish that was less the case, honestly.”

“Huh. Don’t think I agree,” Randall said. “To be honest…”

“Yeah?” Scott asked.

“When I sat next to you in class… I, uh, really wasn’t sure what was up in the gender department until you introduced yourself as Scott. Then I was like, ‘oh, probably a dude, then’.”

Hearing that made Scott a little bit upset, for some reason. He found the idea of someone being unable to discern his gender kind of novel and appealing.

“I kind of hate my name, to be honest,” Scott said. “Scott. It sounds like, I don’t know, a middle aged white guy who works in an office and wears suits or something.”

Randall laughed briefly. “I guess I can see that? I mean, if you really don’t like it, have you thought about changing it?”

Scott thought for a moment. “Not really? I mean, unless I really had a good reason, I don’t think I’d want to make people around me have to put in the effort to switch over. Besides, from what Aylin says, getting your name changed with the university sounds like a huge hassle.”

“Well, maybe you could just have friends use a different name, and if you introduce yourself to people with it they don’t have to get used to anything. I dunno. I think not liking your name seems like a perfectly good reason to change it, to me. Maybe you could go by your middle name or something.”

“Eh, I see what you’re saying, but… I don’t think my middle name would be great, at least. It’s my mom’s maiden name and… I dunno, being a Korean with the first name Kim feels a bit silly.”

“Oh, you’re half?” Randall said. “Cool. I thought you were maybe mixed.”

“Yeah, uh, people seem to just usually assume I’m white,” Scott said. “I dunno. Perception of race is weird. Oh, anyway, uh, what got you interested in Future Girl Multi? It seems to be pretty obscure here in the States.”

“I saw one of the character designs on 4chan and thought it was cute,” Randall said. “Turned out to be a boy and not a girl like I initially thought, but that’s fine. I firmly believe that cuteness is justice.”

“Wow, you’re a braver man than I for venturing into such waters,” Scott said. “I mean, I haven’t used 4chan but it sounds… not great, from what I’ve heard.”

“Yeahhh, you kinda have to learn to tune out all the casual antisemitism and whatever. Not gonna claim it’s great, but at least it’s led to a few things like funding fan translations of manga we’d never have seen in English otherwise.”

“Oh, also apparently in Japanese it’s not really clear what gender that character is? The third person singular pronoun used to refer to them isn’t gendered, and the character themself uses boku. Or that’s what what a tweet Aylin sent me said, at least”

“Huh. Good to know,” Randall said.

***

“Oh, this is where they’re introduced!” Scott said excitedly, pointing at the anime playing on Randall’s TV. A moment later, he frowned. “Aw, I wish these subtitles would use they/them pronouns. It would be a more accurate translation.”

“Yeah…” Randall said. “I feel like maybe they did it this way so the relationship between them and Makoto is, like, straight-coded.”

“Oh, they just found the wand from Technus that the robot girl dropped! Transformation sequence incoming.” This particular sequence was one of the only ones uploaded to YouTube in high quality and Scott had watched it at least a dozen times before.

“I am kinda disappointed that they use basically the same transformation sequence as from the fantasy future. I mean, I know they say it’s nanobots, but come on. If it’s nanobots, why are they glowing and how are they floating in midair?”

“Well, they gotta conserve the budget somewhere,” Scott said. “I mean, think about how much money went into those hair physics.”

Randall laughed. “Speaking of physics, uh… they really went hard on the jiggle physics for basically all the elf characters, huh? Like, I’m not complaining but even I think it’s a little much.”

“Yeah, it definitely feels like someone who worked on the show had an elf fetish or something. I know Hiro running into her during the transformation is supposed to be a running gag, but, like… Oh, fight time!”

After the episode ended, Randall turned to Scott. “So… I have a little bit of a weird request. Feel free to say no, but…”

“Yeah?” Scott asked.

“I, uh… I have one of the outfits from the show. I bought it for my ex but she refused to wear it and I, uh, think you’re about the same size as her?”

“Which outfit?” Scott asked, a weird hollow feeling developing in his stomach, but somehow in a good way.

“Oh, uh, the one Aoi gets when her powers are upgraded.”

Scott raised his eyebrows. “The… the one with the crop top and miniskirt?”

Randall rubbed the back of his neck. “Never mind. Forget it. It was weird. We can just go back to watching the show.”

Scott surprised himself by saying, “No, I… I want to try it.”