Who? (An Academy Fanfiction)

Chapter One: And You Are...?

Pic above is what I think Sang would look like dressing as a boy.

Disclaimer: I do not own the Academy series (Ghost Bird or Scarab Beetle) All rights go to C.L. Stone.

Rating: Rated K+ for violet themes, language. May contain triggers for some people. Read with caution.

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I turned of the blow drier and unplugged it from the wall, replacing it into the drawer with all of Marie's makeup. I grabbed some gel from the counter top and started running my slimy fingers through my hair so the ear length strands would stay held back away from my face on the top of my head. The sides were shaved- Marie's latest attempt to give me a more 'in' hairstyle. Apparently, I wasn't supposed to embarrass her at our newest school by being a wallflower.

I capped the gel and placed it back where it had been before. This would be year five that I would spend as a male. I knew why my stepmother wanted me to be a boy. It was because I looked too much like my mother when I had long hair- that and the fact that Sang Sorenson didn't exist. Seth Sorenson, however, did. However illegal it was to buy a birth certificate with fake information, both my parents preferred it to having Sang around.

Marie, leaning on the bathroom doorjamb, glared. "Don't mess up this time." She hissed. I looked down at the counter and finished up with my morning routine before leaving the bathroom. Four months ago, at an outing to get winter clothes at a re-use it shop, one of the workers had recognized me from school- back when I was still dressing as a girl. Thankfully, she though maybe I was a twin or brother, but our stepmother was still convinced that it was too close of a call to say in Illinois any longer.

Dad's transfer was just the excuse Mom needed to move us to the Mason-Dixon and start us over again.

In my room, I grabbed my leather jacket and slipped it on as I grabbed my backpack. I checked my cheek in the mirror once more for the darkness that I knew was hiding under the makeup that was left over from last nights punishments before following Marie down the stairs.

Dad had already left for work, but Mom was stumbling from the kitchen back to her room still in her bathrobe. Marie and I both avoided making too much sound as we left the house. Even if Marie didn't get the same kind of punishment as I did, she still got yelled at quite a bit.

Out on the curb, Marie met one of her friends- Danielle, I remembered her name to be. She stared at me as I paced myself at the other end of the driveway to wait for the bus. I gave her a slight tip of my head in hello, but she quickly looked away as if I hadn't done anything.

I wondered if I had done something wrong. I'd been dressing, and acting, as a boy for so long that I thought maybe I had let too much femininity into my mannerisms. Maybe I was too man-ish? Was she offended by the typical male greeting? I shook my head. Danielle was Marie's friend, not mine. In fact, neither of us were supposed to be hanging out with the neighbor kids. If Mom found out, both of us would be in huge trouble. That was why I said nothing about the nights that Marie snuck out to see her friend.

"You're an idiot," Marie said as my attention caught on the green Sudan that pulled from the drive acrossed from our house. I cocked my head at her. "Dressed like that, everyone's going to think you're a nerd- or worse, an easy target."

My eyebrows found my hairline. At our old school a pair of nice jeans and a button-up was what everyone wore. Hell, Marie had been the one to find the leather jacket at a garage sale right before we left Illinois. I'd spent my only five dollars on it just because she said I'd look more like a boy in it. Apparently, if I pretended that I was a bad-boy, everyone would dismiss my girlish look.