Aleksei was born a boy into a world that did not yet understand that transgender and non binary people existed, and thus Aleksei had no terminology or knowledge base to share about what they felt. And they felt it, every day of their life. Making them feel increasingly alone and in distress as they tried to understand themselves and the fact that they were exceedingly different. Added to that was the fact that boys who liked boys were considered depraved.

And Aleksei Nichols had known for a very long time now that boys were what they liked. Girls would never make them feel the way they had felt when Jasons and his lips had met. All in all, Aleksei - despite being known for being quite cheery - had a lot of deep secrets that they felt they could never share - despite not even feeling like their romantic interest in boys was wrong no matter what society said about the subject.

"I suppose it's not so much as I wish I were born someone else but I don't know how else to explain it." I'm not a boy, Aleksei thought to themself but did not say. "I'm sorry, I'm not explaining myself very well but I don't understand it when I'm the one feeling these things about myself so I suppose that was a given."