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The cold air hit my face like a blast from the snow monsters themselves when I stepped off the bus and into the little onsen town of Mount Zao. In the distance, steam rose up on all sides. I'd spent the past few weeks grappling with my own issues and trying to reconcile them with the desire to take part in one of Japan's greatest customs: its natural hot springs and their unabashed nudity. I settled on here because the Internet told me some of them were unmanned. No front desk meant no chance of awkward, grasping and hauntingly futile explanations in broken Japanese: yes, it says "M" on my ID. No, I can't go into the men's side, because my body is still currently female. The humidity was already dampening my face; I breathed in sulfur and uncertainty as I opened the door to the ladies' room and stepped inside. It would be the first time in two years, which suddenly stretched further behind me. I was faced with the same obnoxious and gut-churning flaws that I'd wrestled with for many years, even before my transition. But now they would be noticed by strangers. There were only two women in the bath. Middle-aged, and one of them had a long scar running down the center of her torso. They greeted me cheerfully and didn't flinch at what they saw: an androgynous gaijin female with piercings and masculine amounts of hair. My face was clean-shaven, but there was no hiding the rest. "How is your Japanese?" one of them asked in accented English. I told her I understood a little. The floorboards were clean but damp under my bare feet, and the small bathhouse was filled with the noise of sloshing water. The pool's natural minerals sparkled in the rays of sun that lit through the clouds and pressed their way in between the planks. They laughed at my expression as I stepped in. I knew it was a hot spring, but I hadn't expected the burn that came with bliss. "First time," I said, to their delighted amusement. I slowly sank down until the water rose to my neck, and suppressed a smile of my own at the grunts of "atsui!" (hot!) drifting from the men's side. It was like ripping off a bandaid. They only saw the surface, which didn't include my version of reality. They didn't have to. With a day-to-day life that included anxiously hiding my chest and trying in vain to make myself seem taller, I realized then that I'm entitled to a vacation from my incongruity now and then. These moments don't make up the entirety of my life; that's how I'll cherish them.