Jon wasn't sure why he'd hesitated before getting dressed. Nobody seemed to think his outfit was at all strange, and he found his friends hanging out at their usual spot in front of their first period class. Everything was fine! That is, it was until Mikey Gibson showed up.
It wasn't that Mikey was doing or saying anything wrong. It's just the way Mikey was looking at Jon made him uncomfortable. Mikey didn't verbally make fun of Jon's outfit, and he didn't really come too close to Jon. But every time Jon looked up, he saw Mikey quickly turning his head away. Like the boy didn't want to get caught staring at whatever he'd been staring at. It made Jon feel strange, like he was getting attention that he didn't want. Like Mikey had bad intentions. And the more time went on, the stronger this feeling became. By the time the first bell rang for class, Jon couldn't explain it, but he just felt... unsafe.
Which was weird, because he'd been 18 just the day before, hadn't he? He should be able to handle a middle-schooler. But was he 18? Or had that just been the side-effects of a wish? Jon didn't want to think about it. All he knew was that he was having fun before Mikey showed up, and now he felt scared.
"Miss Warren," Jon ran up to his teacher's desk the moment the door opened, "Miss Warren, Mikey was staring at me."
Or, that was what Jon had intended to say. The sentence that actually came out of his mouth had an extra word at the end: "Miss Warren, Mikey was staring at me again."
Again? Had Mikey been staring at Jon before?
"Mikey, is this true?" The teacher called the boy over for a brief talk before class got settled. "We just talked about this. I even moved your seat. What's going on?"
"I-- I just..."
In all honesty, Mikey hadn't intended to stare. But it was strange for him to see Jon Malucci in a skirt, and he wasn't sure why nobody else was commenting on it. Mikey didn't want to be rude, but it just drew his attention. He couldn't help but look at it. Even now, with Miss Warren admonishing him for the behavior, Mikey found that his eyes unwittingly kept getting drawn to Jon's corduroy skirt.
As Mikey continued to fidget, procrastinating his answer even as he kept on looking at Jon, the boy in the skirt seemed to shrink before him. No, he didn't seem to, he was shrinking. Not in height, but his arms and legs became thinner, his frame narrower. Jon was literally changing right before Mikey's eyes!
"Mikey!" Miss Warren intervened, as the boy's stare went from casual to bug-eyed. "I'm in the middle of scolding you for staring at Jon, and right in front of me, what are you doing?"
Sometimes it's more important to keep the peace than to be right. The words suddenly came to Mikey. Jon had-- no, Gina had just told him that the other day, hadn't she?
"I'm sorry," Mikey finally got out. "I didn't mean to, and I'll try not to do it again."
Miss Warren was about to say something, but Mikey found himself unwittingly blurting something else out first: "It's just I think you have a really pretty skirt!"
Miss Warren's expression changed, and Jon's did too, but in a different way. For Miss Warren, her understanding of the situation shifted, and she was trying to think of how to pivot her mediation into a tactful birds-and-bees discussion. For Jon, he suddenly felt his face flush red, and an unfamiliar warmth building low in his belly. It wasn't welcome, but it wasn't entirely unpleasant.
"Mikey," Miss Warren glanced at the clock, "if you just stare at someone, they don't know why you're staring. But if you use your words, maybe they'll understand, and they won't feel so bad. Now get to your seats, I need to start class."
Both Jon and Mikey mumbled their understanding, then went to their seats: Jon's in the back row where Gina normally sat, and Mikey's right up front, where he had been recently moved.
