Ambiguous Things

Author's Note

TLDR at the end.

I'll admit, I had a hard time making sure all of Leo's pronouns were 'they'. I'm too used to referring to Leo as 'he' and I'm trying to break that habit. When I looked up Leo's gender, the answer was "ambiguous" which proved to be unhelpful when I looked into it, as it normally refers to a baby with genitals that looked neither male nor female (intersex e.g., penis without a urethra opening at the tip, closed labia, empty scrotum). Then I saw that Harada made a statement that Leo's pronouns can be anything you want, which was also unhelpful at first, but it made sense when I found the term 'pangender'. At first, I wanted to label Leo as nonbinary here but I looked up the definition and felt like something was missing. Then I became familiar with agender. Though it felt close, it wasn't what Leo was described by Harada. So, I looked up other genders under the genderqueer category (?) and saw pangender. Pangender is identifying as all genders at the same time or having multiple gender identities, and it fits! This was what I was looking for!

TLDR; Leo is pangender in this fic.

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When Leo's family finally settled down in a small town outside the city, the topic of education came up during their first few weeks of moving. Leo was sheepish at first, seeing how they didn't interact much with other kids their age with how often they traveled. Their parents agreed that it was going to be a good learning experience for a 19-year-old.

Life wasn't all that bad when Leo first enrolled in Mishima University. Though the culture was not something they could get used to, they preferred a peaceful life in a university. That was the first mistake they made. No rich university is peaceful, and certainly not a university that had fighting experience in their requirements to enroll. At first, they assumed it was a sports thing, that the students are expected to participate in martial arts clubs and tournaments.

They did not expect to see that everyone regarded sparring as a normal pastime during breaks and after school. Well, so much for a normal life as a 19-year-old.

Surely, their classmates in Physics class are less aggressive?

Wishful thinking, was what they thought the moment they opened the door to the classroom. A buff guy with slicked-up hair was trading punches with another guy with orange hair.

"No fair, Jin! There's not enough room here for me to kick your face!"

"Not my problem" he received a punch to the face that had Leo wincing.

"Oh, you're new here, aren't you?" the man, who they figured was Jin, looked at them.

"I am" Leo's eyes looked around the classroom, suddenly feeling nervous with everyone staring at them.

"Have a seat, don't mind our fights"

How comforting, they snickered in their head.

"Okay..." choosing not to converse with him any longer, they sat in an empty seat right next to a younger-looking girl with blonde hair.

Now, this was someone they were familiar with, at least in the sense of knowing the names of famous people. Emilie De Rochefort. She was dressed like what you'd expect of a rich girl.

"Oh, you're the new kid," she said without even looking at them. "Can you change seats? Asuka sits there, and I'll be damn if I don't get to bother her the entire period"

Leo sighed and stood up to find a different place to sit, which happens to be next to a girl with pink hair. They flinched when the girl suddenly turned her head to look at them.