She looked at the next girl in the circle, who was the only non-white person in the room. Is she looking at my chest? she wondered. "What's your name?"
The girl spoke English with a noticeable accent but there was no issue in understanding her. "My name is Yuki Meshida." She didn't want to mention it was actually Yukio. Yukio was usually a boy's name...it showed the fact her late father had named her before he even knew her gender, certain he'd have a son. "I moved here at the beginning of the school year to live with my uncle."
Some of the others looked at her. Miss Fine deduced that most of them barely knew her, possibly because of her apparent reluctance to talk. "Just relax, Yuki," she said. "Remember...everyone around you is going through a similar situation," she said, softly.
Yuki looked at her. "My Uncle Toshi says that I can be whatever I want to be here...that he left home because he wanted more freedom. But..." she pointed at some of the people in the room. "They made fun of me the first time I said anything...and then I forget my English...and they make fun of me more. But they are all different now...and..." she felt a bit of anger welling up instead of her. In a somewhat uncharacteristic bit of candor, she finished. "...let them see how they like being made fun of for something that is part of who they are."
Several of the group listened, considering it was, in many cases, the longest thing they'd heard her utter.
Miss Fine continued with the session. She'd set the conditions in the room to induce the group to open up. She looked forward to studying the footage later.
