Behold, Loud House fanfic readers! I posted a story earlier today, and now I'm posting another one, causing confusion among my fans as to which story they should read! My evil knows no bounds! NYEHEHEHEHE!

But for real, this is actually an idea I had for a long time now, and I needed to write this out one way or another. Oddly enough, I was gonna write this as a smut yaoi before I realized... it was pretty dang awkward. And that may be something some of you like, and I understand, but I don't have all the time in the world to write this thing.

And besides, after the most recent episode of the Loud House, "City Sickers" and one of the characters it introduces, Nikki, causing a lot of confusion, I've been pondering: Why is it only now that people are getting confused? I mean, I know the girls in the show usually have eyelashes, but there's always the possibility those may be fake eyelashes, right? I mean, Lincoln used fake eyelashes for his disguise in that one episode where he disguised as a girl, how do we know other characters with eyelashes aren't using fake ones?

But I've rambled long enough, enjoy this little one-shot. Or at least, try to.

My name is Lincoln Loud. And a long time ago, I had this crush on this girl named Paige, a crush that eventually turned into full-on love as my balls took their sweet time to drop. So, once they dropped, I gathered the courage to ask her out on a date. And then, she asked me to go the bathroom with her.

The boy's bathroom.

Paige leaned against the wall, waiting for Lincoln to arrive. And as soon as the guy did, he was actually surprised to see Paige wasn't even bothering to try and hide her person, she was quite clearly outside for everybody to see. It's almost as if she didn't feel the need to hide.

That, or she was too nervous about the situation to think about it.

"Uh, hi Paige," Lincoln nervously greeted as he walked towards Paige, getting her attention in the process. "I came here as you asked, i-is something the ma-"

"I know my request may come out of nowhere, but... it had to be done this way," Paige sighed and put her hands behind her back. "Listen, Lincoln, I've been keeping something secret for a long time, and I just don't want to keep it hidden anymore. You're yet another person who thinks I'm a girl-"

"You don't see yourself as a girl? That's perfectly okay with me!" Lincoln replied, trying to watch his words as he dug himself deeper. "I know some people who don't see themselves as the gender they were born in! For example, my sister Lynn identifies as a demigirl! And for some reason, Lucy identifies as a vampire."

Paige threw an angry look at Lincoln, then grabbed his hand and made him touch "her" crotch.

It wasn't long before Lincoln felt the "girl" had a little extra thing down there, that he thought only boys had. And once he looked at Paige's face, and saw "she" was blushing, his theory got some more proof. But as soon as he released the "girl"'s crotch, he started showing denial:

"W-W-Well, maybe you're just pranking me?"

As the boy continued to blabber on, an annoyed Paige unzipped "her" pants and took both them and "her" underwear, giving Lincoln concrete, visual evidence. Needless to say, Lincoln's face became redder than a tomato, and as soon as he shrieked, Paige covered his hands, "her" junk in plain sight all the while.

"Listen, I understand why you'd react like this, but if anybody comes here and sees me like this, we're going to be in even more trouble than we already are! And yes, I know the fact I'm plainly out in view would do that anyway, but that's not important right now!" Paige whispered to the boy as he slowly calmed down. "So please, let me explain first, okay?"

Lincoln paused, nodded, and Paige uncovered his mouth afterwards.

"Y-You're... a boy?" he asked as Paige put "her" underwear and pants back on.

"Yeah, 100% a boy," Paige casually answered, blushing as he explained, "You see, for some reason, my hair grows longer than most guys so it goes past my shoulders, and despite wearing masculine clothing, everybody thought I was a girl. And no matter how hard I tried to explain myself, nobody would believe me, so I eventually gave up on convincing people that I was a boy."

Paige put his underwear and pants on and zipped them as he added, "So, while I was out on the streets or in public in general, I acted like a girl, but whenever I was in some private place, I acted like what I really am: A guy."

"W-What about the eyelashes, though?!" Lincoln pointed out. "Only girls have those!"

Paige gave the boy an "Really?" look before he took off his eyelashes, revealing they were fakes, and prompting Lincoln to remark, "I can never trust eyelashes ever again."

"They were never trustworthy in the first place," Paige rolled his eyes and put the lashes back on. "Listen, I revealed this to you because I didn't feel comfortable lying to you anymore. Actually, I felt uncomfortable lying to anybody, but you seem more trustworthy than every other guy I've met. And besides..."

Paige paused, looked away and blushed as he finished, "I kinda knew that you had a crush on me all along."

A chill went down Lincoln's spine. "It was the love letter, wasn't it?"

Paige nodded.

"W-Well, what convinced you I sent it?" Lincoln scratched the back of his head. "I mean, all my sisters' name also begin with L so-"

"You're the only Loud I know, dummy," Paige put his hands on his hips. "Even if any of your other sisters wrote the letter, I've never met any of them, so I would still have to guess that you're the one who wrote it."

The feminine guy looked at the ground. "And now that you know my real gender, I'm fairly certain you don't want anything to do with me anymore, right?"

"Not at all!" Lincoln exclaimed, startling the girly guy. "B-By that I mean, we could try to make this work! I didn't get a crush on you because I thought you were a girl! Well, I did think you were a girl at the time, but that wasn't the main reason!"

Lincoln grabbed Paige's hand. "I got a crush on you because, when I was feeling down after a... troublesome event, you were there to cheer me up. You came up to me, asked me what was wrong, and played some games with me until I felt better about it. The issue didn't go away, of course, but... it was still very nice of you to do that."

Upon seeing Paige's shining eyes and luminescent blush, Lincoln quickly released his hand and stuttered, "S-S-So, if you're willing to try make this work, we could... you know-"

"We could do that, but maybe not now, I'm certain we both need to think about this a bit more," Paige replied. "Anyway, I gotta go-"

"Wait, people probably might be coming here, and they'd be freaked out to see a "girl" in the guys' bathroom!" Lincoln hastily pointed out. "Let me go outside and take a look."

Paige nodded, and Lincoln ran out of the bathroom, with both boys facepalming once the other was out of look, I'll let you know when you can leave."

Paige just nodded, remembering he was supposed to act like a girl, and Lincoln immediately ran out to see if anybody was coming. Once the other was out of view, Paige and Lincoln facepalmed and sighed, glad that the awkward event was finally over.

Needless to say, my world view was shattered that day.

Paige wasn't a girl. He was, matter of fact, a boy. He just let his hair grow, and everybody were just assuming he was a girl. Including me. Gosh, I felt so stupid once I processed what that meant: As if the billion identities weren't enough of a problem, now I was in the middle of a case where I didn't know how to feel.

I mean, I still loved her... him... Paige. I still loved Paige. But, I didn't know how people would react to that. My sisters would tease us, no doubt about it, and Clyde and his parents would probably be okay with it, but everybody else? I didn't even want to think about it.

Like Ronnie Anne! What would she think if she found out I liked a girl, who was actually a guy?! She'd tease me harder than all of my sisters combined!

I don't even want to think about it, either. And I don't want to leave you all hanging like this, so, let's just say that, for Paige, I have...

Conflicted feelings.