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Author's Note:This is the first chapter, its going to be a bit different. It might go a bit slow, I have 3 full chapters written, I'm currently on the 4th. The character is story can be called a Mary Sue but bear with it, they're a lot of fun. Anyone familiar with Chinese short dramas might see some of this coming :D I appreciate any kind of feedback or comments that people might have :).
 

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1.

"Are you sure?"

Jason sighed, sitting up on his bed. He stared at the phone in his hand, the screen reflecting a face that often caused people to double take. His blonde hair fell in soft, shimmering waves past his shoulders, framing a face with delicate features and wide, sparkling blue eyes. To a stranger, he looked more like a teenage girl than a boy. He wore an oversized cream sweater and slim trousers, a choice that prioritized comfort and a certain aesthetic over the rugged expectations of a fifteen year old boy.

"I double checked, boss," said the voice on the other line.

Jason groaned. "Don't call me boss".

The person on the other end, Maya, chuckled.

He leaned back, the springs of the cheap mattress creaking under his slight frame. The information on the screen was definitive. The Whitmores were real, they were wealthy, and they were expecting him. For most kids, finding out their birth parents were still alive and rich would be a dream, but Jason felt a familiar knot of anxiety tighten in his stomach. He knew how the world worked, and he knew that the people who lived in luxury rarely appreciated things that didn't fit a specific mold.

He stood up and walked toward the mirror, adjusting the oversized sleeves of his sweater. He didn't dress to provoke people, he simply liked the feel of the fabric and the way the silhouette softened his edges. To the outside world, he was just a fragile, oddly dressed orphan with a penchant for oversized knits and long hair. He looked at his reflection and saw the mask he had spent years perfecting. It was a shield that kept people from looking too closely, allowing him to move through life as a ghost while he built empires in the digital shadows.

They didn't even know if he was a boy or a girl.

Even the kids at the orphanage were never really sure. The only one who knew for certain was his best friend, Trix. Even then she liked to pick on him, liked to tell people they were "girlfriends" when they were out and about. Their relationship was pretty platonic. They were close, like "sisters" but never went further. Even though it was clear both of them really wanted too.

Trix was his only family.

They met as little kids. They grew up in the orphanage together until Trix ended up in a foster home at ten. She was the lucky one. Her foster parents were good people, adopted her two years later. Jason had bad luck. Not that he was ever put with bad people but none of them wanted to keep him. He was just "too weird", their words, not his. He was the quiet kid, the one who liked to study and do nothing else.

"Hey smarty-pants, you still there?" asked Maya, breaking his thoughts.

He grunted. "Don't call me that either."

Maya laughed. "Says the Kid Genius".

"Tell me more about the Whitmores" he said, trying to change the subject.

Maya shifted on her end of the line, the sound of typing clicking rhythmically in the background. "They are a legacy tech family. The old man started in semiconductors, and the kids scaled it into a network empire. Current estimates put their fortune at five hundred million, though that is probably a conservative guess. They are the kind of people who buy islands because they don't like the crowds on the mainland."

Jason listened to the silence between her words, wondering how that kind of money would react to a son who wore cream sweaters and grew his hair out. Maya continued, her voice taking on a tone of clinical observation. "There is Arthur, the patriarch. He is cold, obsessed with efficiency, and views everything as an asset or a liability. Then there is Eleanor, the wife. She is the social architect of the family, maintaining a level of prestige that borders on royal. They have three children. Meredith,Julian and Clara.

"Meredith is twenty five and the golden child of the boardrooms," Maya explained, the clicking of her keyboard speeding up. "She is the image of the perfect heir, all sharp suits and calculated smiles. She handles the scaling of the network empire. Julian is 20. He’s a bit of a playboy layabout. Then there is Clara, who is seventeen. She is two years older than you, Jason. From what the socials say, she is a perfectionist, a high society darling who treats the world like her own personal runway. They are a tightly knit unit of privilege, and they do not like outliers."

Like me, he thought and sighed.

"They've been looking for you for fifteen years" Maya continued, typing away, "But let's be real, Jason. They didn't look very hard. It took a specific set of digital breadcrumbs to lead them to your current location."

"Why now?" he asked, speaking his innermost thoughts out loud.

Maya paused, her tone shifting from clinical to cautious. "That is the part that doesn't add up. Julian has already been groomed for a decade. He is the face of the company and the designated successor to the throne. The Whitmores aren't looking for a second heir, Jason. They have everything they need in Julian. This sudden interest in a long lost son feels less like a family reunion and more like a retrieval mission."

Great, he thought.

The last thing he needed was to get involved in some crazy family politics. Especially with some rich family like The Whitmores.

"My best guess is an image thing" Maya continued. "They did throw some money at an expensive PI. He did a pretty decent job too. They didn't really start looking until 6 months ago. They put on the pretense of looking for 15 years to look like normal human beings but like I said, it was nothing thorough".

Jason stared at the phone, his expression flat. "They probably think they are bringing home a mini Julian. A second chance at a perfect heir to polish up".

"Exactly," Maya replied, and he could hear her leaning back in her chair. "And that is the kicker, Jason. They have no idea. They haven't seen a current photo of you, just those outdated files from the orphanage. They don't know about the hair, the clothes, or the fact that you do not exactly fit their definition of a young man. To them, you are just a blank slate to be molded into a Whitmore. They are expecting a boy, not whatever it is they are going to find when you step off that car."

Jason looked down at his hands, fingertips tracing the soft wool of his sleeve. He liked the ambiguity of his presence, the way he could drift between the masculine and the feminine without ever fully committing to one. It was a quiet rebellion, a way of blurring the lines that the rest of the world insisted on drawing in permanent ink. For Jason, gender was not a rigid box, but a suggestion, and he preferred the fluidity of a silhouette that left people questioning. It was the only part of his life that felt honest, a stark contrast to the layers of deception he maintained in his professional existence.

It was also the best way to hide.

People saw thing, heard one thing and thought one thing.

It was easier that way.

"So Coop, what do you want me to do about..."

He cut her off. "I'll deal with it as it goes." He had his laptop opened now, typing away as he did so. "I'm thinking about high school".

"What?" The surprise in Maya's voice was loud. "You're kidding? You already graduated college last year, remember?"

Jason didn't look up from his screen, his fingers dancing across the mechanical keyboard with a speed that would baffle a professional typist. "On paper, maybe. But if I'm going to live in their house, I need a reason to be there that doesn't involve sitting in a library all day. A fifteen year old needs a school. It gives me a place to hide in plain sight, a reason to be out of the house, and a way to blend into the background of their high society circles."

Maya was typing again. "Clara goes to Mount Valor. I can get you in no problem. You want both uniforms or one?"

Mount Valor? Why did that name sound so familiar.

"Get two. Also tweak the transcripts a bit. Make me sound normal. You know, like before."

Maya's laughter crackled through the speaker. "Normal is a stretch for you, Coop, but I can make you look like a C-student who barely scrapes by. It'll be the perfect camouflage."

Good.

The word hung in the air for a moment before Jason clicked the end call button, plunging his room into a sudden, heavy silence. He stared at the blank screen of his laptop, the cursor blinking like a steady heartbeat. He felt the weight of the masks he wore, each one a carefully constructed layer of armor. To the world, he was a void, a ghost who existed only in the margins of people's perceptions. To the Whitmores, he was about to become a disappointment in a cream sweater.

His phone vibrated against the mattress a minute later, the screen lighting up with a photo of a girl with a wild grin and bright green hair. Trix.

"Tell me you aren't actually going," she said the moment he picked up, her voice brimming with a mixture of amusement and genuine concern. "You're really going to walk into that lions den looking like a soft little cloud? They're going to eat you alive, Coop."

"What do you suggest?" he asked, curious.

Trix liked to shake things up. Its one of the reason he loved her so much. She was the kind of girl that bounced into a room, stirred things up and left with a smile. She was also the only one in his life he trusted more than anything.

His only TRUE family.

"I suggest you lean into it," Trix said, her voice taking on a mischievous edge. "Don't try to fit their mold, Coop. If you walk in there trying to be the son they want, you'll just be a puppet. Go as yourself, but bring an attitude. Give them a version of you that doesn't care about their money or their legacy. Let them be the ones feeling uncomfortable for once."

He was afraid of what she was about to say next. "I'm scared to ask?"

Trix giggled. "Remember Cara Jones?"

He groaned. Cara was a girl the two of them met in one of their journeys into town. She was one of those girls with pink dyed tips, dark eyeliner and lots of piercings in her ears. She was definitely the kind of nightmare that would scare away rich parents.

"You want me to go in there looking like I just walked out of a punk rock concert," Jason said, his voice flat.

"I want you going there looking like the kind of girl that makes their skin crawl" Trix giggled again.

Jason leaned his head against the wall, imagining the expression on Arthur Whitmore's face. The man viewed the world as a series of assets, and Jason was currently a very confusing asset. Trix was right, though. If he tried to play the part of the dutiful son, he would be fighting a losing battle against their expectations. If he arrived as a puzzle they couldn't solve, he held the power. He didn't need their approval, and he certainly didn't need their money, though the irony of that fact remained a secret locked away behind his calm expression.

"Where are you right now?" Trix asked a moment later.

"The Wright Street apartment" he said without skipping a beat.

"Oooh, I love that one!" He could hear Trix springing up from her bed. "I'll have the driver bring me over. We gotta perfect your Cara look before you leave tomorrow!"

The call ended with a playful pop, leaving Jason alone with the humming of his laptop.

The Wright Street apartment was not his favorite but it was suitable for things going forward. It was on the smaller side, with only three bedrooms but it had a great view of the city. It fit the story they knew: Jason Cooper, orphan, the long lost heir they'd been looking for.

It was all they needed to know.

It was all he was going to let them know.

For now.

The silence of the apartment was shattered less than an hour later by the aggressive honk of a car horn from the street below. Jason didn't even have time to stand up before the door flew open, admitting a whirlwind of neon hair and the scent of overly sweet perfume. Trix didn't walk into a room so much as she invaded it, carrying a heavy black vanity case that looked like it belonged to a professional makeup artist and a olive green military type duffel. She looked like a girl preparing for war. She dropped the gear on his coffee table with a loud thud, her eyes scanning him with a critical, predatory glint.

"There's my pretty girl!" She gleefully chirped before throwing herself into his arms.

Pretty girl.

Trix was the only one who openly chose a gender for him. Most made assumptions on what they saw and he tried not correcting them. He'd never once corrected her. She was His person. He'd give her the Moon and more if she asked for it.

She pulled out of the hug, took his hand and dragged him to the couch.

"I missed you last month" she said, putting her head on his shoulder. "Not being here with you is like swallowing jelly instead of air."

Jason let out a small, rare laugh, his shoulders relaxing for the first time in days. Trix was a chaotic force of nature, but she was also the only mirror in the world that reflected him accurately. She didn't see a freak or a blank slate. She just saw Coop.

"Alright, enough with the sentiment," Trix declared, springing up from the couch with a sudden burst of energy. She snapped open the black vanity case, revealing a dizzying array of palettes, brushes, and shimmering glitters. "If we are doing this, we are doing it right. We aren't just giving them a shock; we are giving them a cultural crisis. I want you looking like a painting that Arthur Whitmore would be terrified to hang in his hallway."

Jason often lazily blurred the lines, he never went fully one way or the other. What Trix wanted him to do, it was farther than he'd ever gone before. But according to Maya, most people generally assumed he was female to begin with. What's more, he secretly preferred it that way. Not that he'd ever openly admit it.

Trix worked with a surgical intensity, her tongue poking out from the corner of her mouth. She started with his eyes, applying heavy strokes of dark eyeliner that made his gaze look predatory and sharp. She blended a deep, smoky eyeshadow across his lids, casting a shadow that made his blue eyes pop with an eerie, luminous quality. To finish the face, she applied a thick, shimmering gloss to his lips, giving them a plump, polished look that screamed defiance.

"Hold still," she commanded, her voice humming with excitement. She moved to his hair, applying a vibrant, neon blue dye to the very tips of his blonde waves. The contrast was jarring, a shock of artificial color against the soft, natural gold of his locks. While the dye set, she carefully used a piercing gun on his ears, adding three new piercings to each one.

"Where did you get that?" he asked after the last tiny silver hoop was in place.

She smirked. "You have your sources, I have mine".

Trix grabbed his shoulders and pivoted him toward the full length mirror. Jason froze, his breath catching in his throat. The person staring back was a different version of himself, a vivid, enhanced but rebellious looking creature. The dark eyeliner sharpened his gaze, turning his soft blue eyes into something piercing and knowing. The smoky shadow added a layer of moody depth, and the neon blue tips of his hair looked like electric sparks dancing through a field of gold. The silver hoops in his ears caught the light, adding a metallic edge to his delicate features. He looked ethereal, expensive, and entirely out of place in any boardroom in the city.

This was not a child a rich person would cherish.

The Whitmores would HATE it.

Moreso knowing he was their SON.

Jason starred for a few seconds, mesmerized before turning and asking her, "What do you think they're actually planning for me?"

Trix sighed. "I did some poking. The Whitmores took a hit last quarter. Not massive but enough to shake them. My best guess, they want to secure an alliance."

Jason didn't like the sound of that. "You think marriage?"

Trix frowned behind him before wrapping her arms around him. "They can try but they'll have to fight me first."

She even playfully pouted, Jason smiled.

He had privately poked into the Whitmores himself. He actually knew about their financial troubles and had suspected it might come to this. The timing was too precise. If he had to guess, they would probably try forging a tie with the Bradfords. They were the only ones who had a daughter that was within marrying age of him. Which meant his future bride-to-be was none other than Callie Bradford herself.

The thought made him ill.

Callie Bradford was not just a daughter of wealth; she was a social media heiress whose entire existence was a curated performance. Her life was a series of high definition snapshots, a polished stream of luxury travel and brand deals that reached millions of followers. She was the gold standard of the digital age, a girl who viewed the world through a viewfinder and judged people by their engagement metrics. To the Whitmores, she would be the perfect bridge to a new empire, a merger of legacy tech and modern influence. To Jason, she sounded like a living nightmare of vanity.

Flighty, bottle blonde and overly fake.

He turned, placing his hands on Trix's shoulders. "You're not going to like what comes in the next few weeks."

She sighed and nodded. Trix was a smart girl, she had long figured out who they were going to try to pair Jason with. But she also knew two very important things. One, Jason presented as a girl nearly all the time. Even when he tried to look like a boy or genderless like now, he still looked like a girl. There was no way for him to hide it. Callie was high profile, had a lot of very well known boyfriends. Masculine boys. Not Jason.

The second thing was far simpler: Jason was hers.

Trix stepped back, her eyes scanning his frame with a designer's precision. She dove back into her gear---the bag this time--- tossing a bundle of fabric onto the couch that looked more like a costume for a futuristic street brawl than a wardrobe. She insisted on skinny black distressed jeans that clung to his legs, paired with heavy, scuffed combat boots that added a much needed weight to his stride. Over a thin, white long sleeve mesh top, she layered a cropped black tank top. The look was an intentional contradiction; it was aggressive and fragile all at once, a visual paradox that mirrored the way Jason existed in the world.

Jason grunted in the mirror when the final look was assembled on him. "I look like an extra from an Avril Lavigne music video."

Trix giggled, wrapping her arms around him. "But a really really cute one!"

He couldn't argue about that. Boy or not, he was a very pretty girl. There was no denying it.

She squeezed his sides. "I thought about raiding your closet but you're too girly girl for our experiment."

"What's that supposed to mean?" he asked, feigning offense.

"It means you have more pleated skirts than a college cheer squad" she said, giving him a ticklish poke.

Jason rolled his eyes, but he couldn't hide the small, satisfied smile. He stepped back from the mirror, the heavy combat boots grounding him as he looked at the chaotic mix of neon blue hair, dark eye makeup, and mesh fabric. He felt like a living contradiction, a glitch in a system that demanded binary categories. To the Whitmores, he was supposed to be a missing piece of their corporate puzzle, a son they could polish and present.

He smirked.

Wait until they get a load of me.

Author’s note: As I’m sure all of you know, comments are life blood to an author. I’m not begging or demanding, but I certainly would appreciate anything you have to say (or ask). It doesn’t have to be long and involved, just give me your reaction to the story. Thanks in advance...EOF