The Road Ahead -1 (2026-03-11)
She woke on the hard tile of the bathroom.
The place still carried the strong scent of Lux from when the floor had been mopped not long ago. The girl blinked, then staggered upright.
She had slept well, but her body refused to obey.
Even though the tile was dry, her ankles felt as if they might slip at any moment, and the thighs used to lift her body shook without mercy.
“Hah… hah…”
Her belly, meant to anchor her center, swayed with every rapid breath and refused to settle. Her arms, stiff like an old tree, braced a body that was about to collapse.
It wasn’t a physical problem.
When she had still been a boy, the health she had built up was still there. The fact that she had woken without issue after sleeping on the hard, cold tile proved how healthy her body truly was.
But apart from that health, her body was falling apart.
It was a body her owner rejected. The depersonalization that made her feel like she was someone else, not herself, overlapped with the six months she had already spent fully as a woman, yet her mind still hadn’t adapted. It was destroying her body.
The way to use muscles when standing, the way to walk, how to lift her head, how to meet someone’s gaze… All of it clung to the habits of an 185 cm boy even though they had become those of a 158 cm woman.
It was like forcing a sports car engine into a small compact car. Her body collapsed helplessly.
If she had simply accepted her girl’s life and lived more comfortably, but instead she had forced herself to live as a boy, all her health had crumbled.
“Heugh…”
Still, the girl didn’t care. It was the last day of the part-time job.
To become a good person, to finish every task given to her until the end, she moved her creaking body outside.
The work didn’t suit the girl’s body, which could barely stand straight on its own.
Three hours a day, loading and unloading heavy cargo.
If she had been a tall, muscular boy, it would have been easy. But now it was quite difficult.
She felt the weight of a 2 L water bottle; how much heavier must 25 kg boxes feel?
She lifted them carelessly, ignoring her posture, and her back ached while her shoulders slumped.
Her whole body screamed in pain, and sweat poured down even though standing properly was already hard.
Yet the girl still lifted the boxes.
Despite the pain that felt like her nails were falling off, her creaking waist, and muscles screaming, she forced her body upright, moved her feet without rest, and somehow managed to shift the loads within three hours.
“Rin, are you okay?”
To the point where the observer’s heart would clench, she unconsciously reached out a helping hand. The girl carried the loads from the truck to the warehouse in a precarious manner.
Even though her thin spring t-shirt was soaked with sweat and turned gray, she didn’t stop.
“There are other people coming soon. Why don’t you let them help? This is the last day.”
“I-I’m f-fine.”
The boss told her to take it easy, but the girl shook her head left and right immediately and answered that she was fine.
Yet as she did so, the high-pitched voice that came out—unlike when she had been a boy—made her reflexively frown and grab her neck.
As if trying to change her voice like a man’s.
But doing that wouldn’t change her voice, and in the end she answered with her female-typical high tone that she was fine.
She forced a smile as if nothing was wrong and looked at the boss.
She shouldn’t expect anything from others.
If she only received from someone and expected from others, it would only be a nuisance.
She was someone who could stand alone.
Thinking that, the girl stepped hard with her feet. The boss watched her back and recalled what she had said about flowing away, thinking he had to grab her.
“By the way, Rin, you said you’re going on a trip after the part-time ends. Where are you going?”
“…Ah.”
“Can you take a photo? I’m getting too old to wander around like that. I’d love to see where you go.”
“I-I’m s-sorry.”
“Ah… never mind. If it’s hard, then it’s hard.”
But the carefully extended hand was swatted away by the girl, cutting through the air.
“Still, you look happy.”
“…Yes.”
In the end, what the boss could do was simply watch the girl’s smile.
He thought the anxiety he felt seeing the girl was a misunderstanding and let it go.
The girl’s smile was beautiful.
When her body had changed to female in the middle of illness, it had always been a dying person’s face, so she could make such an expression. It was that beautiful.
Diligent, hardworking, trustworthy…
…Anxious, precarious, precarious.
The boss who had watched both the girl when she was a boy and the girl now had a stomachache from that contrasting smile.
If she had been a bad person, he wouldn’t have worried.
But the girl was a kind person who didn’t lose her smile when seeing others even after experiencing the big change of gender swap.
Even though she said she was fine, she bowed her waist to apologize for not completing the loading/unloading on time, and when asked for help she would stay late to help.
A young 21-year-old just entering society.
Where was the adult who wouldn’t be concerned about a kind kid trying to become an adult by standing on tiptoes?
“Hey, Rin.”
“…Yes?”
“Um, after you rest this time, when you come next time, tell me? I’ll find you another part-time job.”
So the boss did his best to hold the girl. The girl looked at the hand holding her with wide eyes, smiled, and nodded.
Then, when the girl returned home, she took a deep breath, grabbed the notebook and pen that had been rolling on the floor, and first organized the part-time pay she had received.
The money, which hadn’t been used for almost a year, was quite a lot considering it was collected from a short three-hour part-time job.
Money to go on a trip without doing anything.
With that money, the girl unconsciously smiled bashfully, went to the page where she had organized the money she could use, and started writing one place she wanted to go.
But the places the girl wrote were not like what ordinary people wrote.
Not landmarks or famous tourist spots, but high places or places with animals, described with verbs or adjectives.
It wasn’t for a purpose either.
She wasn’t doing it for something, nor to feel something.
The girl just wrote the destinations as if any place was fine as long as it was such a place.
And it wasn’t strange at all for the girl to put the preparations into the suitcase she had bought not long ago.
She stuffed a lot of clothes first, and prepared toothpaste and toothbrush.
Her hands were very clumsy.
Even though she had watched YouTube several times, she folded the clothes like folding paper, and the disposable shampoos were roughly shoved into some easy-to-lose place.
As if she had never stepped somewhere far away before…
Actually, that wasn’t wrong.
Her parents had locked her up at home and raised her, so she had never gone on school trips or training camps.
So she had never gone far away from home.
Four kilometers from home.
That was the girl’s world, and since there was no need to prepare for a trip in that world, she couldn’t help but be clumsy.
No small know-how like collecting shampoos in a plastic bag or separating towels and clothes.
So what was clear was this: how much she was expecting from this trip of leaving home and going somewhere.
The girl who had been breathing out while standing and breathing out was expecting a trip to the point of smiling.
That alone was very clear.
Like a light in this dark room, like the girl of that age, she was smiling with bright eyes while putting all the preparations into the suitcase.
And after a while, the girl fell asleep as is.
Hugging the suitcase, closing her eyes with a smile expecting something, unlike when she slept on the hard tile of the bathroom, she slept expecting the future.