Kenjiro Tanaka—"Bombom" to his gym bros—lived for his own reflection. Every polished surface was a potential mirror, a chance to admire the masterpiece he'd sculpted with sweat, discipline, and a clandestine affair with anabolic steroids. The scrawny, insecure kid he'd once been was buried beneath layers of chiseled muscle—an armor against a world he felt had always judged him.
His whole life was a performance; every flexed bicep, an act in a one-man play about power and masculinity. He was internet-famous, known across countless gym forums, meme pages, and short videos. Everyone recognized him for his iconic catchphrase:
"It's thirteen! Descending trapezius! The monster is getting out of jail! BIRL!"
It was during one of these acts that the curtain tragically fell.
Crossing the street, he caught a woman's eye. It was all the motivation he needed. He pivoted instantly toward the mirrored façade of a corporate high-rise—his perfect stage. Puffing out his chest, squeezing his biceps, he shot his titanic reflection a winning smile. Then, channeling Johnny Bravo, he turned to the girl and said, "Hey girl, check this out."
The look of awe on his own face was the last thing he ever saw.
The world dissolved into a symphony of a blaring horn and screeching metal. The speeding truck, completely invisible inside his bubble of vanity, was merciless.
Consciousness returned not with the searing pain one might expect, but with the softness of black silk against his skin. Kenjiro's eyes fluttered open to a room ripped straight from a gothic romance. The ceiling was high, with dark wooden beams, and daylight filtered through stained-glass windows in shades of deep purple and crimson, casting dancing patterns on the stone walls. He was in a lavish four-poster bed, and the body moving under the sheets felt strangely light, delicate.
Panic began to bubble as he tried to sit up. His arms, once thick as tree trunks, were now slender and pale. Desperate, he threw his legs over the side of the bed and scrambled toward a large, ornate silver-framed mirror. The scream that tore from his lips wasn't his. It was higher, melodic.
The reflection staring back was a complete stranger.
It was a youth of ethereal, androgynous beauty, his black hair styled into a trendy wolfcut that brushed against his pale skin. His eyes, once a fierce brown, were now his own familiar brown, yet they held a new softness. His body was slim, almost fragile, clad in a simple black shirt and a pleated purple miniskirt that felt impossibly strange against his legs.
He was, for all intents and purposes, a goth femboy.
Where were his muscles? His pecs, his biceps, his six-pack abs? Everything that had defined his existence was gone, replaced by this delicate figure that looked like a strong wind could topple it. The reality of the situation hit him with the force of the truck that had killed him. He had died. And been reborn.
The heavy oak door swung open, revealing a woman of regal posture dressed in elegant, Japanese-inspired robes. Her eyes widened in pure delight as she saw him.
"Oh, my precious rarity! You've awakened!" she exclaimed, approaching with graceful steps. "You are even more exquisite than the whispers described."
"Who are you? Where am I? What happened to me? Why am I small—and why am I blushing so hard wearing this tiny skirt?" Kenjiro's voice was a shaky, unfamiliar thing..
The woman, who introduced herself as Lady Ayako, the curator of the estate, gave a calming smile. With practiced patience, she explained the inconceivable. He was in Eldoria, a world where the scales of value were drastically different from his own. Here, brute strength was considered primitive, a trait for beasts and barbarians. The true admiration of high society was reserved for beauty, art, and above all, rarity.
And in Eldoria, nothing was rarer or more coveted than the "Twilight Lilies," as femboys were poetically called. Their androgynous beauty was seen as the apex of grace and aesthetic refinement, a perfect fusion of the masculine and feminine. They were living treasures, patrons of the arts, and muses to the realm's greatest creators.
"You, my dear," Lady Ayako said, her eyes gleaming with genuine reverence, "are a miracle. A Twilight Lily of a beauty not seen in centuries."
Kenjiro felt the floor vanish from under his feet all over again. The very appearance that would have earned him scorn and ridicule in his past life was now the source of worship. The weakness he'd spent his entire life trying to eradicate was now his greatest virtue.
The days that followed were a torment of cognitive dissonance. Kenjiro spent hours in front of the mirror, searching for any trace of the man he used to be. He'd try to flex muscles that no longer existed, feeling only soft skin over delicate bone. Rage and frustration consumed him. He, who had prided himself on his strength, now felt powerless, like a porcelain doll on display.
Lady Ayako, sensing his anguish, became his guide. She brought him finely tailored clothes, taught him the etiquette and culture of Eldoria, and introduced him to a young tutor named Lysander.
Lysander was a poet with silver hair and kind eyes. Unlike the overwhelming adoration from everyone else, he saw the pain in Kenjiro's violet eyes.
"Your previous form was your armor, wasn't it?" Lysander asked one day as they walked through the mansion's sculpture garden. "It protected you, but it also imprisoned you. Perhaps… perhaps this new form is a kind of freedom."
"Freedom? I'm weak! I'm an… an ornament!" Kenjiro shot back. He gets angry and shout "I'm going to break everything and knock down all the trees in Ibirapuera Park."
"The strength of a storm is not the same as the strength of a mountain, yet both are powerful," Lysander replied enigmatically. "Your presence here has already caused ripples you cannot imagine. You inspire beauty, Kenjiro. Is that not a form of power?"
Kenjiro gets upset and starts climbing a tree, yelling, "Birl, it's thirteen! Let me out of this cell!" He then jumps down from the tree, tired and embarrassed because some people who were watching saw under his skirt. He returns to Lysander. "Okay, whatever, j-just… guide me."
Lysander guided him to his room. The time had come for Kenjiro to make his formal presentation to Eldorian society.
Dressed in a black and silver velvet ensemble that seemed woven from night itself, Kenjiro felt every stare like a physical weight. As he entered the grand ballroom, a reverent hush fell over the crowd of nobles and artists.
They didn't look at him with the kind of admiration he knew—the kind mixed with envy and challenge for his physique. Instead, some guy with an oversized belly, wearing an anime shirt and holding an action figure, suddenly yelled, "THIS IS MY WAIFU!"
Kenjiro felt… different. Disgusted. Desired. Weird. He started blushing and kept walking alongside Lysander.
An elderly duke offered him an arm. Kenjiro grabbed it and said, "Let's have a wrestling match, old fart."
The old man just smiled and politely declined, guiding him gently through the room. A famed painter asked permission to sketch his profile. A group of musicians began playing a soft melody that, they claimed, was inspired by his arrival.
For the first time, Kenjiro didn't feel the need to perform. His mere existence was the spectacle.
Later that night, he caught himself looking at his reflection in a glass of wine. He still saw the stranger, the goth femboy. But behind the makeup and the delicacy, he began to glimpse something else. A resilience that didn't come from muscle, but from enduring an impossible transformation.
His journey was only just beginning. The shadow of the bodybuilder he had been was still long. But on that night, surrounded by an appreciation he never sought, in a form he never wanted, Bombom took the first, uncertain step—not as a statue carved from muscle, but as a Twilight Lily, learning to find strength in his own, unexpected beauty.