[SFW, Crossdressing]

“So, how’re you feeling?”

It had been a little while since the incident between Albert and his would-be-girlfriend, Emilia. All things considered, the light-pink haired boy seemed pretty cheerful, despite the fact that he had just lost the love of his life. At least, that’s what it looked like to his friend Hatsuhiko, who sat on one of his room’s windowsills.

“Me? I’m… Well, I’m good, aren’t I?” Albert replied with his usual dorky looking smile as he brushed his hair, making sure to keep it as fluffy as ever. He prioritized looking as spiffy and as cute as he could be, because that was part of his personal appeal. No matter what kind of outfit he wore, he wanted his hair to fit it perfectly. Of course, he never truly changed the style itself, but it’s the thought that mattered.

Hatsuhiko shook his head slightly as he climbed off the windowsill, sighing. “I’ve known you for years, buddy. You’re not okay. You’re thinking that you’re okay, and that’s why you’re trying to keep face in front of your friends. What’d she say?” He explained, wanting to just make the boy spit it out before he bottled it up for too long.

The younger of the two looked down while putting away his brush, sighing. “I really can’t hide anything from you, Hatsu?” He asked, and his friend shook his head in return. “...She told me that… well, she had fallen for my Sister. And, really, I’m… I’m happy for them! Sure, I can’t be Emilia’s boyfriend, but… Alice needs somebody just as much as I do, and…”

“You’re making excuses, Albert.” Hatsu sighed as he put a little finger underneath his friend’s chin, pulling his eyes up to look into his own. “You need to get over it and think about something else. Do you remember what I told you on that day, when I was helping you get over it in the moment?”

Albert blinked for a few seconds before nodding. “We’d go on a date, and you could help me get a new girlfriend?” He said, questioning his own memory a bit as he recanted it.

“Maybe not that far, but I’ll still go out with you.” The brown-haired boy replied with a bit of a smile as he grabbed his friend’s hand, pulling him out of his chair as the two stood across from one another, making them look like they were made for one another with their nearly matching outfits and their boyish frames. “That day’s tomorrow, you know. Think you’re ready for a date with your best friend?”

The young man quickly nodded rapidly. “Yeah! Oh gosh, I’ve been waiting so long for this day, you can’t believe it!” He giggled as he started sprinting around the room, pulling out a lot of prepared items that he stacked on the table with a bright smile. “I bought us a couple of movie tickets, two for each kind of movie that we could watch, then I also made sure to reserve a table at a high-class joint after we’re done, so we can have the best meal to finish off the date. It’s going to be perfect, and that’s before we go shopping and such!”

“I can’t believe that you have so much money to splurge around…” Hatsu muttered under his breath, while smiling a bit due to how excited his young friend was. “Okay, okay. I think it’s time that I go home and get a nice night’s sleep. You wouldn’t want your date to be tired, would you?”

Albert agreed with a nod. “Sleep tight, Hatsu! I can’t wait to enjoy tomorrow with you!” The boy chimed as his friend left his room, eagerly running around the room as he started gathering all the other supplies that he’d need…

Little did either of them know how wrong their day together could go…

---

Morning had come and gone, and the brown-haired young man was frantically searching through his closets in an attempt to find something that fit him properly. Not the kind of lax clothes that he had bit of laying around, that wouldn’t do for a date with his best friend. No, he needed something that really stood out and showed that he cared enough to pretty himself up.

“Come on, I didn’t throw everything in the wash yesterday, right?” Hatsu muttered to himself as he threw another few tank tops onto the bed, practically sweating bullets as the seconds ticked by. The date wasn’t going to happen for another few hours, but that didn’t make him feel any less stressed by the lack of proper clothes. Where had they all gone? He even tried checking the washing machine just an hour ago, and all the clothes in there were wet, so he wouldn’t have time to dry any of them…

Eventually, after throwing what seemed to be a couple dozen improper outfits onto the bed, he realized that he had dug far enough to find a certain… stash of his. One that he had been keen to keep hidden from his family ever since it started growing. Initially, it consisted of nothing but a simple dress meant for some elegant playing around, but as he spent more time with Albert, the pile grew and grew. Not because the boy showered him in feminine outfits, far from it, but because he had been experimenting with a few outfits like them.

“I’m… I’m going to have to put one of these on to look pretty, aren’t I?” The youth muttered to himself as he carefully dug his hands into the pile, not wanting to dirty it up too much considering how much care he had put into keeping it neat and tidy. The less damage to his special outfits, the better…

He was going to have to bite the bullet. He couldn’t wear anything else, and… frankly, wearing these clothes would have a positive effect on Albert, wouldn’t they? Considering it’s because of him that he started building that collection. Surely he’d smile from ear to ear when he’d see that.

The thought of his friend’s smiling face made Hatsu blush as he quickly examined the outfit that he had picked out. Compared to the outfits he had thrown onto the bed behind him, it wasn’t radically different. It mostly concerned the diameter around the chest as well as the length of the shorts, leaving him with a much looser fitting tanktop that didn’t expose his upper torso too much and a pair of shorts that were so tightly cut that it could arguably be called a second pair of underwear from how much leg they showed. They were the kind of clothes a tomboy would be seen wearing, not a boy his age. Should he really put them on and show up to a fancy movie and dinner after that?

...Yeah, he should. Albert would be ecstatic, and if there’s one thing he had learned from sticking around that boy for so long, it’s that you had to own up and enjoy what you wear. No matter if it’s meant for girls or for boys. It’s your fashion, not anybody else’s.

Hatsu carefully stripped himself down, avoiding eye-contact with himself as he put his new outfit on. He squirmed ever slightly from how tight his pants were, while also playing a little with the top once he realized how easily it would flap and flop in the wind. Not that it mattered much, it wasn’t going to be windy at all, but it was kind of cute. Made it seem more like a streamlined dress if anything.

Now, he just hoped that his friend hadn’t gone too extravagant with his own outfit…

---

“Where is he?”

Albert, dressed in a white suit with a tie that matched his hair, was waiting in front of the movie theater some hours later, tapping his foot against the ground ever slightly. He wasn’t too early, was he? Was he late? Actually, was this the right theater at all? Worries like that quickly crept into his mind, just like that awful day a few weeks back. Maybe Hatsu was going to stand him up just like Emilia had, and…

“Quit looking like you’re about to lose your hide.” Just as the boy was starting to feel his worries overwhelm him, a comfortingly abrasive voice echoed through his ears. Standing not far from him was the young man that he had agreed to go on a date with, almost looking a little miffed at how the boy was acting…

There was just one teeny tiny strange thing about the young man, at least in the light-pink-haired boy’s eyes. Namely, his attire. Normally, his friend went for clothes that were formfitting and didn’t allow for much imagination. Tighter shirts, pants that weren’t baggy, those kinda things. But here? While the shorts were still painfully short and tight, they showed off a lot more skin than he would’ve ever done on his own, and that tanktop, while masculine in its own right, had a bit of a feminine charm thanks to how wide it was and how loosely it fit the youth. Was he going for a new look? Actually, come to think of it…

Albert’s eyes lit up as he started putting two and two together. “You’ve tried out new fashion!” He shouted, only for the other boy to quickly shut him up courtesy of a hand going across his mouth. “Sorry.” He muffledly apologized, knowing that he got a little too worked up from the sight.

“Just my luck, you’re bringing attention to the way I look…” Hatsu sighed as he started playing with a bit of his hair after pulling his hand away. “Now how am I going to pass this off? I didn’t want to wear this today, far from it. I just didn’t have anything else on hand…” He muttered under his breath, not really feeling it at this point. If his friend was going to make him look like he was a girl…

...Was there really anything wrong with that, now that he thought about it?

“By owning up to it, Hatsu!” Albert chimed, though not nearly as loudly as he previously had. “You know what I wear, why don’t you just accept it and own it like it’s just a part of you? You don’t have to bother defending it, it’s just something that you wear. Besides, it looks really good on you, it brings out a charm that I haven’t seem from you, ever!” The boy explained excitedly, giggling a little as he kept his hands to himself. As much as he wanted to teasingly touch his friend’s thighs…

Hatsu looked him in the eye, wanting to shut him up because he didn’t know what he was talking about… but, at the same time, he didn’t anticipate being called cute. Was he really cute? He didn’t really do anything special with his outfit or how he acted, but… it kinda felt nice being called cute. “...Can you call me that again?” The boy asked, wondering if he could feel that nice sensation pumping through his chest once more…

“Cute? Sure, you’re really cute, Hatsu!” His friend chimed, putting his hands behind his back. “You’ve never really wanted me to call you that kinda stuff before, I didn’t think you’d like it that much!” The feminine boy chimed…

The young brunette scoffed. “Easy for you to say, you decided to come here in a suit for once! For all your talk of femininity, you’re the one that-” As he attempted to reprimand the younger boy, he felt a soft chill run down his spine, almost as if it was warning him about something that was about to happen…

“‘ey, look at that sweet flat broad, boys! Ain’t she a pretty one?” He could hear the sounds of boys approaching the two, and they… they were confusing her for a girl?

“I dunno, doesn’t she look kinda familiar? Like, that hair and that look in her eye’s kinda giving me a mad case of deja vu…” They were getting closer, and were starting to figure out that he wasn’t a girl, which mean they’d probably grill him.

“Yeah, that’s that Hatsuhiko kid, isn’t it? Two grades below us? What’s he doing wearing girly clothes like that?” The three boys got close enough that it would be hard for them to not figure out that he was indeed who they thought he was, and if he spoke up then they’d especially realize it. He wasn’t ready for this at all, what should he do? What could he do?

As the three boys whispered amongst themselves while peering down at the crossdressing boy, Albert got in between them. “What? That’s not Hatsu.” He said with a determined edge to his words, covering his friend in his time of need. “Didn’t you hear that he had a cute sister named Rei? He doesn’t like talking about her much, because she’s been dating me! So, you all better get outta here, or I’m gonna tell him that you all tried to hit on his sister! And Hatsu’s a strong guy, he can probably take you three without breaking a sweat!”

His friend had just covered for him, and the three boys that were from a grade or two above him… well they rightfully apologized. “Yeah, right, sorry kid.” The eldest said, cracking a bit of a grin in the process. “You lost a girl a while ago, didn’tcha? Well, good on you for getting such a cutie as your next GF. Take real good care of her, alright?” He gave him his vote of confidence, before strolling off with his homies, none of them clever enough to see through that pathetically awful ruse that the boy at set up…

Once they were out of earshot, Hatsu’s heart was still racing. Not because of the humiliation that he had just avoided, no… it was what Albert had said that got to him. So much so that he couldn’t manage to squeeze out a word as his friend took his hand.

“Rei? Is something wrong?” Just to make sure that they weren’t going to be harassed again, the suited boy had swapped to the fake name. And when it ran through the crossdressing young man’s head, it just made his heart skip another beat, prompting him to nearly collapse into his friend’s arms… “W-Whoa, okay, you’re…”

The brunette tried his best to calm down, while clinging to his supportive friend… “I’m… I’m fine, I’m fine. Let’s just go watch that movie, and… and we can talk about it when we have dinner. Okay?”

Albert nodded as he helped his friend into the theater, using another few white lies to avoid the theater staff asking too many questions… while also making his friend’s heart flutter every time he called him ‘his girlfriend’...

A feeling that would persist until they went to have dinner…

---

Another few hours, and the two boys found themselves sitting on an expensive looking balcony, each enjoying their meal as the gentle wind brushed through their hair. The movie… well it wasn’t anything special, barring the fact that it was a romance between a young couple around their age. Something that had been resonating with Hatsu as he tried to handle the pulses running through his body…

“...Albert?” The brunette spoke up after taking a measured bite of the salad that they had ordered. “Why’d you cover me like that? I could’ve…” He trailed off as the words became little more than mutterings…

His friend just smiled. “Well, you looked like you were terrified out of your mind, so… I wanted to help, and it was the first thing that came to mind. It’s something my Mom taught me, if you’re not comfortable as yourself, it’s okay to pretend to be somebody else.” He explained, before chuckling a little. “I… Never really followed that advice, since I was always comfortable with me, but I think it came in handy here, didn’t it?”

Pretend to be somebody else? ...Maybe he could give that a try, sometime soon. The sound of being his friend’s girlfriend was enticing enough for him to try, anyhow… “...What else did she say? Anything like that?”

“Uhhh…” Albert’s jaw hung agape for a minute before he cleared his throat. “Sheeee… Oh, gosh she said a lot of things to me… But, I think she said… If you act like something for long enough, then it’ll be true. So, I guess if you wanted to become something else… you just gotta keep up the act until you’ve convinced yourself? Something like that, anyway.”

The words were a little blunt, but Hatsu was a clever boy. He could figure out what his mom meant. If he wanted to be Albert’s Girlfriend… then he just had to keep up the act and it’d eventually come true. In every way. Maybe he’d even become a girl. It… didn’t sound half bad, if it meant that he could be by his side.

“That’s some pretty good advice, honestly.” Hatsu commented as he took another bite, twirling his fork just slightly… “Your mom… She’s good at making people look the best they should, isn’t she? Bring out their inner beauty?”

Albert nodded after taking a big bite of his meal, which was noticeably higher in protein given the sizable amount of beef on his plate. “Yeah, she’s really good at that. Good at clothes too, why, do you wanna try and have her bring out your beauty?”

“What else? I think she’d do a great job.” The brunette shot back, before he put the silverware down and just looked out towards the horizon, a glint of self-discovery in his eye. “...Albert, could you do me a favor?”

“Mmm?” The boy nodded with his mouth full of food, wondering where he was going with this.

“Don’t think of Hatsu as a nickname anymore, alright? Think of it as a proper name.” His friend said, smiling from the depths of his heart.

Albert swallowed the meat and giggled just a little. “Got it. Hatsu’s Hatsu. If you wanted to swap to Rei, I would’ve called you that more often too, because you’re my friend, you're the one that chooses what your name is.” He stood behind the boy’s decision 100%, as he dug into his meal once more....

Hatsu giggled back, as he watched the sun set in the distance, putting an end to this chapter of his life. The life he lived as Hatsuhiko. From now on, he was just Hatsu, and he looked forward to where his budding love for Albert would bring him…

A whole new chapter of his life was about to begin, with all the trials and tribulations it’d bring...