>>538146939
>“You know how I… look?” Huohuo began, her voice barely above a whisper. “How my body is… different from some other Foxian women?”
>Qingque’s eyebrows raised slightly, but she didn’t interrupt. She just nodded, encouraging her to continue.
>“It’s because… I wasn’t always… I mean, I was assigned male at birth,” Huohuo finally blurted out, the clinical phrase feeling both alien and freeing to say. “I’m a trans woman. I’m pre-operative. That’s… that’s why I don’t have breasts yet. I’m saving up for it. And I’m on Alchemy Commission hormones, but they’re… slow.”
>She braced herself for confusion, for awkward questions, for the well-meaning but painful “I never would have guessed!” that she sometimes feared.
>Instead, Qingque leaned back in her chair, a slow, understanding smile spreading across her face. It wasn’t a smile of pity or surprise, but one of genuine warmth.
>“Oh! Okay. Yeah, that makes sense,” she said, as if Huohuo had just explained a simple rule of a game.
>Huohuo blinked. “It… it does?”
>“Sure,” Qingque said with a casual shrug. “The universe is all about probability and potential, right? Sometimes the dice roll one way at conception, but the soul knows it was meant for a different outcome. It’s like drawing a terrible starting hand. You don’t just give up. You play the tiles you’re given until you can make the hand you’re supposed to have.” She gestured to her Celestial Jade set. “You’re just still collecting your tiles. Nothing wrong with that.”
>Tears pricked at Huohuo’s eyes for the second time that day, but these were born of sheer, unadulterated relief. Qingque’s analogy was so perfectly, uniquely her—so simple and profound all at once.
