Riku only dabbled in cross-dressing in my room.
When we were little, he used to go out boldly wearing girls’ clothing, but he’d stopped doing that in public as we approached puberty. Even his family didn’t know about his hobby. We were next-door neighbors in the same apartment complex, and both our families assumed the reason he came to my room almost daily was because we were dating.
Most of the time, Riku was a perfectly nondescript teenager attending high school in Sapporo. He never used any vocabulary that would come off as feminine. He styled his short hair with wax and wore a disheveled school blazer. He used male pronouns. He was just your average seventeen-year-old boy.
Still, it wasn’t uncommon to find him mingling with the girls at our school.
“What kind of tools do girls use to put on makeup?”
We were supposed to be discussing the upcoming school festival in sixth period homeroom. Our class, Class 2-A, had permission to serve refreshments at the booth we’d be running for the festival. As time ticked by, though, we still hadn’t settled on a concept.
Hokkaido’s rainy season had ended, and each day brought us closer to the preparation period that would run through the start of summer. The festival itself would take place on a three-day weekend in mid-July. Each class would run a booth, and the school’s athletic and culture clubs were also working hard on performances and exhibits. Our homeroom teacher, who had a laissez-faire teaching style, had left us to our own devices; he appeared to be nodding off in one corner of the classroom.
Poplar fluff floated by outside the window. Our school was in the middle of Sapporo; from the school grounds, you could faintly make out the Sapporo TV Tower in Odori Park, and when the sky was clear, you could sometimes see Mt. Moiwa. It wasn’t visible on hazy days like today, though.
Sakura Chiaki, our class representative, was supposed to be overseeing this discussion, but he had less influence than the popular kids. If someone voiced an opinion, they’d hit a dead end if that group didn’t approve. The students at the top of the pecking order had grown bored with the discussion, though; the girls were arranging their cosmetics on their desks.
They’d already touched up their makeup at lunch, but now they seemed to be rushing to get ready for whatever lay ahead after school. Both girls and boys were supposed to wear a forest-green necktie with their school uniform, but some girls disregarded that requirement, using their own ribbon instead.
Iguchi Hikaru, an exceptionally gorgeous girl who happened to sit right behind Riku, was dabbing perfume on her wrists. Riku watched with fascination as she pulled one item after another from a makeup pouch that was almost bursting at the seams.
Iguchi-san was applying mascara when she adjusted her mirror and caught Riku spying on her. “Is my makeup routine really so interesting that you feel the need to stare?”
“Yup,” he replied. “By the way, what do you tell your stylist to get them to dye your hair that color?”
Our school rules were pretty lax. As long as students passed hair and uniform inspections held at key stages of the school year, like right after summer vacation, they had a fair amount of freedom to style their hair and makeup as they pleased. The academic level at our school was relatively high within Sapporo, so no one risked pushing those freedoms to the limit. That meant everyone was able to enjoy dressing up within reasonable boundaries.
“Also, are those color contacts you’re wearing?” Riku continued. “Isn’t it a pain to put them in every day?”
“My hair and eye color are both natural. No one ever believes me when I tell them that, though.”
Riku couldn’t suppress his secret hobby completely; he took every opportunity he could to speak with the girls, and he got away with it thanks to his inherently affable personality. He seemed most interested in those who had the latest products from brands he’d read about in magazines, and those with eye-catchingly beautiful hair.
Having an audience while they applied makeup didn’t bother the girls. They even shared tips as Riku reached over to look at some products. A few other boys eventually joined the conversation, and it went without saying that I was in the mix as well. Riku and I were in the same class, and he was by my side virtually all the time, fortunately for him. He knew that if he did something that might give him away somehow, I could help smooth things over.
“That blush shade just came out. It has pretty good pigmentation.”
“A magazine just reviewed this mascara.”
“This eyeliner doesn’t make very clean lines. It’s a shame since it was kind of expensive.”
“Oh, yeah?” Riku said. Exchanges like these helped him build his knowledge base.
Other boys became curious and examined the assorted cosmetics themselves.
“Do you like girls who deck themselves out in lots of makeup, Tono-kun?” Iguchi-san probed. She stared him down with thickly lined eyes; her liner was drawn to perfection.
Riku looked completely unintimidated. “I’d say I prefer a more natural look,” he grinned.
“Of course you do. Guys like you always end up going for girls who are cute without needing to do anything at all.”
Riku was more than aware that a natural look was the hardest makeup to master, but he didn’t let that show. He was also highly critical of the makeup style Iguchi-san was wearing, which emphasized the undereye—he said it looked like you’d “drawn eye circles on purpose.” And he wasn’t interested in Iguchi-san herself. It was her brand-new lip gloss that caught his attention.
Since the boys were also tired of the festival discussion—which was going nowhere—they started to play around, putting makeup on their own faces. One elicited a few laughs by painting his lips bright red. At that point, someone piped up with, “Hey, what if we held a dress-up café?”
At that suggestion, Riku’s eyebrows twitched upward noticeably.
“The girls could dress us guys up in women’s clothes, and we could serve customers!”
“Didn’t some of our senpai do that a few years back? I heard it wasn’t very popular. It weirded people out.”
“Well, we can do it better! Just having a normal café would be boring, right?” countered another student.
The popular guys were getting on board with the idea. As students started exchanging a flurry of opinions, the class suddenly came alive. It was hard to believe that until only moments earlier, the discussion had been at a complete standstill. The wave of excitement even roused our teacher from his catnap.
“I’m not too sure about calling it a dress-up café, though,” he commented, raising his head our direction.
“You’re finally offering an opinion after snoozing this whole time, Rintaro?!”
Kakei Rintaro, our homeroom teacher, was still new to the job, and most students in our class didn’t bother speaking to him with honorifics.
Still rubbing his sleepy eyes, he finally stepped up to the blackboard. “I have to submit the application for whatever you’re doing by the end of the school day. Can you just decide already?”
“At this rate, it really will end up being a dress-up café,” Chiaki sighed.
“What’s wrong with that?” asked one student. It seemed like the class’s mind was made up. “We should do something about that description, though. It’s kind of lame.”
“How about calling it a drag queen bar?’” suggested another. “We could dress up all flashy, like the entertainers you see on TV sometimes.”
“I don’t know if we should call it a ‘bar.’ It’s not like we can serve alcohol.”
“Okay, then… How about ‘cross-dressing café’?”
“Perfect! ‘Cross-dressing café’ it is!”
With just a few minutes of homeroom left to spare, Class 2-A had finally picked a concept for its festival booth. The bell sounded just as we finished hurriedly putting everyone in groups to work on various café prep tasks.
As soon as school ended, the executive committee members headed to the festival representative meeting. Meanwhile, the students who’d been appointed group leaders had to attend an orientation session. As everyone bustled around, getting ready to leave for the day, I stole a glance in Riku’s direction. His profile gave away none of his feelings on this turn of events. He stood and headed toward his assigned group without even realizing I was looking at him.
“Tono-kun seems like the type to be really picky about his girlfriend’s look.” Iguchi-san had finally finished her makeup. She watched Riku walk off, muttering under her breath, “I definitely couldn’t deal with a guy like that.”
Then she turned her gaze on me.
Riku was popular with the girls at school, but there was talk among some students that he and I were dating. That was probably why I was on the receiving end of Iguchi-san’s stare.
Riku hadn’t done anything to quell the rumors floating around about us. On the contrary, he might’ve realized he could benefit from them. Even if we’d denied that we were in a relationship, it’s not like anyone would’ve believed us. After all, we arrived at school together in the morning and went straight to my room once we got home.
Still, seeing him reject every single girl who confessed her feelings made me wonder if he was even interested in the opposite sex. Though he touched my body, even at the susceptible age of seventeen, it didn’t go further than that. He studied fashion magazines and online makeup tutorials passionately. He even wore skirts, beautifully transforming himself into a girl. Cross-dressing wasn’t some fetish; taking on a feminine appearance seemed natural to him.
Yet I still didn’t understand the depth of his fascination. I could see how it might’ve happened if he’d grown up surrounded by sisters, but Riku didn’t have any.
Even when his fingers grazed my chest, he never did anything more. He’d slide his hand down my skirt and stroke my thighs, but that was the end of it. He touched me the way someone would cuddle and play with a doll. There was nothing sexual about his feelings toward me. Either I wasn’t attractive to him as a woman, or he wasn’t interested in girls in the first place. I had no doubt he’d reject me if he learned that we weren’t on the same page—that I saw him as a man.