Nathan stared down at his open sock drawer in confusion. This absolutely was not the way that it had looked the day before. He’d had maybe a dozen white socks and a few black dress socks. He certainly had not had three dozen pairs of socks of varying lengths and colors, some with pictures of animals and cartoon characters. And there was no way that he’d had a small collection of rolled-up tights and leggings of various colors and patterns.

Maybe… maybe his mother… his mother what? Did she come home from work early, dump a whole bunch of new socks into his drawer, and neglect to mention it? To mess with him?

And Nathan knew that his father certainly wouldn’t do something like this.

Tyler might, but he probably wouldn’t go so far as to actually pay for new things to mess with Nathan’s head.

Nathan pulled out a pair of grey ankle socks with images of Hello Kitty stitched into them. It’s not like anyone would see them beneath his pant legs, and he didn’t ever take his shoes off in school (though his parents would see them that afternoon walking around the house), so it really wouldn’t be a big deal, would it?

A quick rummage through the rest of his dresser only confirmed that Nathan didn’t have any of the socks he thought he’d had to choose from, so it really was this or nothing. Especially since it wasn’t yet warm enough to wear sandals without his toes freezing off.

Of course, when he actually went to go get his shoes, Nathan was in for another unpleasant surprise. His regular shoes had been replaced by a pair of casual sneakers with a flower pattern on them. They looked like something that a girl would wear. Sure, they were in a better condition than his own shoes—which looked like they would fall apart if he stepped in a mud puddle—but they weren’t his. And his mother would definitely have mentioned buying him a new pair of shoes.

Unless… unless she had and he’d simply missed it. The way he’d been so distracted lately by school and thinking about Valentine’s Day, maybe she had said something and Nathan had simply never heard her. It wouldn’t be the first time.

Either way, both his mother and his father were already gone off too work, so he wouldn’t be able to ask them now (though what a conversation that would be: “Mom, did you get these for me or did a stranger sneak them into my closet?”). Since he didn’t have time to search for his old shoes before the bus arrived, Nathan slipped these new shoes on instead. Besides, they weren’t that girly.

And they fit well enough. Very well, actually. Which was… odd. They certainly looked smaller than Nathan’s regular shoes. He’d expected them to be at least a little tight, but they were comfortable enough that he could probably wear them all day and not feel the least bit sore by the end of it. It was eerie. Sure, he was a teenager, so he was still growing, and his feet were going to get bigger, but these shoes were still pretty small. They didn’t even look like women’s shoes, they looked like girls’ shoes.

On the bus, Nathan his the fact that he was wearing different shoes by sitting his bag on top of his feet. But once he was in school there was no getting around getting around the fact that he was wearing girly shoes. But, surprisingly, nobody said a thing. Nobody stared. It seemed like it didn’t matter to anybody what kind of shoes Nathan was wearing.

But the real surprise for the day came after lunch, as Nathan was opening up his locker to get his English books.

“Hey there.” Gavin had followed Nathan to his locker, which was surprising in itself, but he looked distracted, not even looking Nathan in the eye.

“Oh hey,” Nathan replied, “What’s up?”

“Not much. I was just wondering… you’re not busy this Saturday, are you?”

“Huh? No, I’m not doing anything. Why?”

“Well…” Gavin looked uncomfortable, and it was beginning to worry Nathan. Finally Gavin blurted out, “I thought that maybe the two of us could go see a movie together. If you want to.”

“Oh, sure. That sounds great,” Nathan said, “What movie?”

“I… uh… was going to let you choose. Unless you want me to choose?”

“I don’t mind,” Nathan assured him, smiling gently.

“Great. So… I’ll let you know tomorrow?” Gavin asked.

“Yeah, that’s good.” Nathan pulled out the flowery binder he used for English and slipped it into his backpack. He closed his locker, adding, “I’ll see you then.”

It wasn’t until Nathan got to class and sat down that he remembered: Saturday was Valentine’s Day. He began doodling in the margins of his paper, wondering why Gavin had made such an obvious mistake. Hadn’t he said he was planning to ask someone on a date? Maybe she’d turned him down and Gavin didn’t want to do nothing all weekend.

At least he’d bothered to ask if Nathan was free instead of assuming.

And really, it wasn’t that big a deal anyway.

A blond girl—Nathan remembered that her name was Emily—sat down at the desk beside him. He took a moment to look at her shoes. She was wearing a pair similar to Nathan’s, but he couldn’t help shake the feeling that hers looked a little bigger.

Then he realized that she was looking at him.

“Oh,” he said, “I… uh, I was just thinking that I really like your shoes.” It wasn’t a total lie, even if he told himself that it was.

“Oh, thanks,” Emily replied, “Your shoes are cute too.”

Nathan blushed and turned to face the front of the room, thinking that maybe he should have just worn sandals instead.

Nathan had learned that waiting until the morning to pick out an outfit to wear was not a smart choice. After all, if he wanted his clothes to match and look good, he needed time to pick them out. Tomorrow, he was going to wear a tee shirt (plus his jacket) with shorts and knee-high socks. Part of him worried that this wouldn’t look right—he always seemed to be wearing outfits that nobody else wore—but nobody ever actually called him out on what he was wearing.

When he went to go grab a pair of underwear to add to the outfit, however, Nathan saw something that he simply couldn’t handle. All of his boxers had been replaced with girls’ panties. He fumbled around in the drawer for a bit, but there were no boys’ underwear—boxers or briefs—at all.

But who…Tyler!

Tyler must have been responsible for this… somehow. He was trying to pull some kind of prank on Nathan, apparently. It couldn’t have been their parents, and as far as Nathan knew they didn’t have any other siblings. That meant that nobody but Tyler could have been responsible.

He stormed down the hall and banged on his brother’s door. Tyler opened the door, a look of shock and confusion plastered on his face.

“What?” he asked.

Nathan confronted him, asking, “You think you’re so funny, don’t you?”

“Funnier than you,” he retorted, folding his arms with a smirk.

“Well this isn’t funny.”

“What isn’t? You’re face? ‘cause your face is pretty funny.”

He was cocky, but he wasn’t acting the way he normally did when he’d pulled something. It crossed Nathan’s mind that he might not actually be responsible for what happened to his underwear drawer. If we was, he’d be egging Nathan on, calling him a girl or something.

“Oh good. There you are.”

Their mother had arrived with a basket of freshly-folded laundry.

“Nathan, this is your stuff,” she said, handing the basket over to him. Neatly folded on top of the stack were two clean pairs of panties.

“Um, mom, aren’t these yours?” he asked, nodding at the underwear.

“No dear. I checked. It’s all your stuff.”

She left and Tyler closed the door to his room. Nathan was alone with his panties in the middle of the hallway. Quickly, he retreated quickly to his room; Tyler and their mother might not see anything wrong with this, but there was always the possibility that their father could, and that would lead to a scolding.

In his room, Nathan thought about the situation he was in. Slowly, he pulled off his pants and boxers. Now he was naked from the waist down holding a pair of girls’ underwear. Checking again that the door was locked, he slid the panties up his legs.

They were… nice. He didn’t dislike them. Even though he didn’t have a mirror in his room (for some reason), Nathan thought they felt and looked pretty good. He would even be willing to wear them if he didn’t have any boxers. It’s not like anybody would see them.

He started to take the panties off, but stopped. Looking around, he spotted his pants, but nothing else. He had to have been wearing underwear a moment ago, but there wasn’t anything but the folded panties on the bed with the rest of the laundry. And since he wasn’t going to go without underwear for bed, Nathan opted to just leave the panties on.

As he pulled on his pajamas, though, Nathan had to pause again. It felt odd, like he wasn’t used to the thick cotton fabric.

I must be more tired than I thought, he decided, climbing into bed.

As Nathan rinsed the shampoo from his hair, he realized that his hair felt longer than he’d thought. Briefly, he considered if using a hairdryer would help it dry faster, but with the amount of time he had in the morning to get ready it was a moot point. No, he should probably just schedule for a haircut instead.

Once (mostly) dry and in his room, Nathan took off his bathrobe and slid into his panties. As he pulled his shorts on, he noticed that the feel of denim against his legs was a little unusual—it felt rough against his thighs. It also didn’t help that they felt way too loose on him.

Great, I’m getting even smaller! Nathan thought, but laughed the idea off as a little silly.

When he went to grab his shoes, though, Nathan was shocked to see a pair of bright blue ballet flats in the closet next to his sneakers. Immediately he thought of all the ways he could change his outfit so they’d match. But even as he was reaching down to pick them up, a pang in the back of his mind told him that maybe they were a little too girly, at least to wear at school. He’d have to leave them for now.

Still, a guy could dream.