Chapter 5 That Shines On Me…

After the prize giving, I was chatting to my team members when Naozumi came up to us to congratulate us on our performance. He had another man with him who he introduced as a spotter for the national gymnastics team.

This man had been watching us with an eye out for members of a national Olympics squad. If we had known that we would have been too spooked to perform! He did say that there were a couple of entrants he had seen who would be contacted to go to a training camp but declined, at that time, to name anyone. Naozumi told us that he had come to Osaka to see our display and was captivated by our grace and movement. He also said that we would be contacted to go to Tokyo before we started our third year so that we could meet the group and talk about the dance routine and get something started before we went for the rehearsals. We told him that he needed to let us know how many he wanted for the show as some of the team were going to be doing other things in the next school year.

Before the first term of my third year started I was given an appointment to see a vocational guidance officer with the aim to see what I would be best doing for the rest of my time here. She shook me to my core when she addressed me as Miss Tachabana and I asked if she had mistaken me for my sister. She laughed and told me that I was more miss than mister these days and my studies had proved it. Although I had done well in the science subjects, I had done better in biology, languages and history.

“You exhibit the classic career path for girls, Miyoko. If I had nothing else to work with I would point you at an arts stream with history as your main subject. However, we have your other accomplishments to add to your file and it points you in a very definite direction. You have excelled at the gymnastics, bringing much honour to the school. You have also been seen to be a good teacher of dance and performance. On top of that you have appeared on stage and, I am told, will likely be performing in Tokyo in a few months.”

I just sat there, wide-eyed, as she went on. “I have a report from Machiko Ryoji that is glowing in its content. She tells me that she wants you to be one of her assistants for the coming year. The success of the Flames has created a monster and she has sixty students who have signed up to try for the team in the next term. With that in mind I suggest that for the rest of your time here you should work towards a teaching certificate and take the arts stream, concentrating on dance, dance history and choreography. The alternative is to train as a physical education teacher, concentrating on gymnastics; the choice is yours. Discuss this with your family and friends and get back to me before the start of the term. I can tell you that your friends Okemia, Tamura and Masuko will all be going down that arts path so you will not be alone. I was at the recent concert and saw you all on stage and I can tell you that I was impressed. I am also instructed to tell you, on behalf of the school, that if you want to go down the path to true womanhood we will do all in our power to help. A lot of the staff are behind you as we all think that you are destined for something good.”

That evening we had a family chat and I told them what had been said. On the career side everyone said that I should go for the dance side. On the gender question my mother said that I hardly had any true male clothes in my room, Aiko said that I was more fashionable than she was and my father said that I had done so much while I had been dressing as a girl he thought that going the extra distance would probably be for the best. “Beside” he said “you have been dressing and acting like one for most of this last year. I don’t think you could go back to the way you were and you are the right age to start hormone treatment.”

That evening marked the true turning point. I was going to study dance and I was going to transition. Before we went to bed Aiko left us for a few minutes and as I was going to my room she told me that she had left some items on my bed that I would need in future. When I went in I saw several nighties in bright colours and cute pictures on them. When I was ready for bed I put one on and put all of my scratchy old pyjamas by the door to go out to a charity shop. I was now going for girlhood, twenty-four seven. Before I went to sleep I thought about the decision and realised that I never really had that much masculinity to start with. Even before I left home some of my classmates were talking about sex and bragging about how much juice they had produced when jerking off. I was coming up to fourteen and still had never even had a wet dream.

The following day I went back to the school and gave the vocational guidance officer our decision. She said that she was happy for me and told me to come back in the week before term started to meet with Miss Ryoji, now to be my mentor. She also gave me a list of doctors who would be able to take me along the feminine path. My mother rang around and we found one who could see me in a couple of days. We went in and spent a long time filling out the forms with my mother signing them. When I did get to see the doctor he was surprised that I already looked so feminine. He was certain that I must have been taking hormones already and when I said I hadn’t he said that the bloodwork would prove it one way or the other. I was examined, X-Rayed and measured and when he had finished I was allowed to redress. Actually, I was wearing a dress that day anyway.

He said that the results would be available in a few days but his initial examination showed that I had extreme arrested puberty and he thought they would show a hormone imbalance. We then went shopping for underwear and nightwear as a girl can’t have enough of those. This was followed by shoes and a visit to a beauty parlour where I had the full treatment, including pierced ears. My first steps on the new path were certainly different.

My mother and the new me were sitting in the shopping centre in Mino City having lunch when Okemia saw us and came over. She told me I looked fabulous and gave me a kiss and a hug. We chatted about the year to come and she said that she had also been asked to help out with the gymnastics class so we made a date to go and see Miss Ryoji together.

When we did that we found out that there would now be four evening classes a week to start with. Monday and Wednesday for half the class and Tuesday and Thursday for the other half. We were told to call Miss Ryoji by Machiko when we were not teaching and that our first job would be to weed out the unsuitable candidates while she would be working with the second years and those from our year who wanted to continue with apparatus work. It was down to us to nurture the next award-winning Flames Team and we would get credits towards our finals, dependant on how well we did.

When I went back to see the doctor he apologised for his instant diagnosis, which he admitted was quite wrong. The test proved I had never taken hormones but did prove that I really didn’t need to as my testosterone levels were so low already. I left with a couple of sore buttocks from injections and a prescription for hormone tablets in my bag.

On our first day back at school it was certainly different. I gave up the jeans or leggings and went with a skirt and top and my pixie boots. I now sported a ribbon in my hair and several items of jewellery. We had fewer classes but those we did have were longer duration. We had studied plant and animal biology before but now moved into human biology with a concentration on muscular development. We dropped physics and chemistry and gained psychology. We continued with geography and added the specialist subjects of dance history and choreography; the ‘light and movement’ as our instructor put it.

On Monday after school we were given name badges and Machiko addressed the gathered students, telling them that we would be evaluating them for a few weeks and that there was no loss of face if they realised that they were not suited for what they had signed up for. So Miss Miyoko and Miss Okemia, with Tamura and Masuko as their assistants, split the group into two smaller groups and started their first teaching class. On Tuesday afternoon we had the same procedure with the rest of the new students. We were all regarded with a little awe, being twice interschool champions, but soon got them working hard to make the grade. By the end of the third week the two groups had dwindled to around fourteen or fifteen each. All those who left had done so voluntarily.

This allowed us to pull the sessions back to two a week that allowed everyone more time on their studies. Machiko was able to work with the second years, many of whom had been in the competition, as well as just supervising the others doing individual training, following the manuals. Naozumi had been true to his word and had sent us clips of Honey Popcorn to look at and I started to look at our new girls to see if any had that look and attitude that would allow them to be on stage. The group that had performed before was now split and there was just the four of us third years and two of the second years who would be available. We needed to find about four from the first year who could fit and who wanted to do it. Okemia made me laugh when she graded all the possibles’ by a kawaii scale but it did work.

We ended up getting the gym for Wednesday so we could work on a dance routine and the first time we met I explained why we were there to the newcomers and told them that they would need parental agreement before we went further. All of them came back with signed forms and a big smile on their faces. We looked at the clips we had been sent on a computer and started putting together dance moves. In June we got a message that the members of Honey Popcorn wanted to come to Osaka to give their own approval of us for the performance.

Marianne G 2021