Chapter Text
“I don’t get it. How can she be so…So… Alluring!” Yoshiko complained, crossing her arms and collapsing back onto the floor from her sitting position. “She’s like a succubus, Mari-Chan! Well, if succubi were cute instead of hot.”
Mari merely laughed in response, Yoshiko had been hoping she would give some advice or say anything that would remotely help. However she quickly realised that was far out of character for her. “Hanamaru-Chan? I don’t see it.” she said bluntly. “She’s pretty nice, yeah. But nothing but her chest stands out that much.”
“Always the chest with you…” she grumbled “She’s just! She’s so nice to me! And she’s always smiling at me and offering to help me with things or do stuff. I don’t get it!” she continued her ramblings, she wasn’t quite sure how they had gotten onto the topic of her romantic frustrations, but she was determined to see it through to the end.
Yet again, Mari laughed. However it was a different sort, more of a dark giggle than the simple amusement of earlier. Yoshiko could tell she knew something she didn’t. “H-huh? W-what is it?” she asked frantically, jerking up to look at her so quickly she almost got whiplash.
“Oh my. You really don’t realise?” She teased, giggling into her hand and staring at Yoshiko. She was caught in her trap, now all Mari had to do was build suspense and make the final strike. “Well, I guess I’ll have to explain it to you.” she said, feigning irritation. “Hanamaru-Chan loves you.” she stated nonchalantly, her smile growing wider as she watched several individual levels of shock run amok on Yoshiko’s face. Quickly, her giggle evolved into a rambunctious rampage of laughter, it seemed to take up the whole room.
Yoshiko blushed not only because she was embarrassed, but at the mere suggestion Hanamaru had feelings for her. To her, it seemed more like a fantasy than anything resembling reality. Something among her wildest dreams of fallen angels and dark rituals than the world she lived in. “N-no way!” she exclaimed dismissively. “D-don’t be so foolish, Mari-Chan!”
She realised she had to get out of the conversation, and fast. She decided she couldn’t face the idea, not yet, not ever. Luckily, she had a solution. She changed her voice, deepening and changing it slightly. Punctuating the start of her sentence with a villainous cackle, she began “Besides. How could a fallen angel such as myself ever love a human? I am beyond such feelings.”
“Oh! Yohane!” Mari announced, her accent coming through far more than usual. Most of the time she would let Yoshiko go wild with her fallen angel persona, but she couldn’t let this opportunity pass her by. “If you don’t then why are you blushing?”
Yoshiko wasn’t blushing at all. But the mere suggestion of it ripped her out of character. “Wh-what? I-I’m not blushing! Seriously, I don’t like her!” Ironically, her attempts to deny any blushing only caused her face to grow redder. “Besides, why would I like her? She’s always so concerned for me and preventing me from getting all weird in front of people! I-it’s suffocating! A-and how she smiles at me? It’s… It’s… Irritating! Why does she always have to smile at me? Can’t she do anything else with that cute face?” she ranted, growing more and more enamored with each loving comment she attempted to disguise as anger.
“You’re in love with her too!” Mari taunted, leaning over the table between them and beaming at her. Yoshiko finally conceded with a grumble, gaze locked on the ground in an attempt to hide her red face.
After a long pause, she spoke. “I don’t know. She makes me feel...things. But I don’t exactly know what those things are.” She emphasised the word things especially, her confusion especially evident whenever she uttered the word.
“Well, tell me about those things.” Mari replied, excited and intrigued.
“Um. She makes me want to smile. Which I do… A lot. And she makes me want to like. Hold her? And be close to her. Y’know all of those things they do in lame romantic movies. I wanna do all that stuff.”
“I see, I see.” she said, breaking into English all of a sudden. She ignored the confused look Yoshiko gave her, she rarely ever acknowledged the fact that to her she was speaking pure gibberish and she wasn’t about to start. “Do you ever want to just…” she elongated the vowels in the final word, building up suspense and giving her time to articulate what she would say next. “Push your face between her boobs and just. Rest there?” she asked, completely seriously.
Mari was met with the single most bewildered look in her life, it was almost as if she could read Yoshiko’s thoughts in that moment. She was wondering how exactly Mari could have arrived at the conclusions she did. How she could possibly think that; One, it was something anyone other than her thought about often. Two, it was the most important question to ask someone confused about their feelings. And three, that Yoshiko would even have an answer for such an outlandish question.
Seamlessly, she covered up her entirely serious question with an “It’s joke!” Despite Yoshiko being largely unable to understand English, she knew what that meant. Mainly thanks to Mari’s constant use of it.
Yoshiko thanked god she had taken the question back, she could only imagine Mari’s reaction to her saying yes. “Okay, let’s just assume. Just assume! For the time being that I love Zuramaru and she loves me back. What would I do in that situation?”
Mari laughed, unintentionally diabolical. “So you want some romantic advice, do you?” she asked, despite already knowing the answer. “Well, you’ve come to the right place! After all, I’ve got not only one…” she puffed out her chest proudly and held up two fingers for effect “But two! Two girlfriends!”
“I know that Mari-Chan.” she sighed. “Everyone knows that. You don’t exactly hide it…”
She shushed her loudly, it was almost violent. “Anyway, let’s start with how I got Kanan-Chan and Dia-Chan.” it was clear it was moreso an opportunity for Mari to brag than an example for Yoshiko to follow, however she still listened intently; she was curious to know how someone like Mari managed to convince not just one, but two people to date her.
“Well, first of all there’s all this.” Mari gestured to herself pridefully, earning her an eye roll from Yoshiko. “Which uh, you don’t have…” she playfully insulted. “Then there’s my personality. Cute, exciting, fun. Overall just shiny!”
“Do you even know what shiny means?” Yoshiko sighed, Mari’s excessive English had always bothered her slightly and now was a good a time as any to figure out if she actually knew what she was saying.
“Of course I do! It means something that gives off this bright, appealing light. Something that draws you in and pulls at your heart. Well, that’s what it means for people at least.” she shrugged. “Like, Kanan-Chan is shiny. So is Dia-Chan. And clearly, so am I!” she grinned, elated. Yoshiko couldn’t quite tell if she had just made the explanation up on the spot or if she had planned it all along. Regardless, the explanation made a lot of sense to her.
As she considered Mari’s definition, her mind was dominated by a single thing. Hanamaru. No matter what she did, she couldn’t stop assigning those traits to her. As she envisioned her in her mind’s eye, she could practically see her glowing like the sun. She forced herself to move on “Clearly you think highly of yourself Mari-Chan…” she replied, smiling smugly at her, glad to have finally gotten a shot back at her.
“Hey! There’s nothing wrong with that!” she defended. “Anyway…” she examined Yoshiko up and down. “You don’t have a lot going for you, do you? Unless Hanamaru-Chan is into crazy demon girls. Which she very well could be.”
Although Yoshiko knew Mari was only kidding, her words managed to affect her. She wondered if she really did have nothing going for her, if she even had any appealing traits. Self confidence had never really been a problem for her before, but all of a sudden doubt started eating away at her.
“Luckily for you, I can teach you Mari’s Methods! Sure fire tactics to get you the girl of your dreams.” she announced. “So, here’s what I did with Dia and Kanan. I was really physical with them, of course. You know what that entailed.” she made a little grabbing motion in the air, grinning sinfully. “You don’t have to do that though, hugging and hand holding and stuff works too.”
She flushed “H-hand holding? Hugging?” she questioned, her blush taking over more and more of her face as she repeated Mari’s words. Despite them being such minor shows of affection they flustered her to no end, as much as she would love them she knew she could never initiate them herself.
“Yes! Physical affection is essential! But if you can’t there’s still other stuff.” she shrugged.
“Well, what is it?” Yoshiko pressed, the more and more she thought about Hanamaru the more desperate she grew to figure out just how she could date her.
Mari was silent. Eyes and mouth closed for dramatic effect. “Flirting.” she said, her voice piercing through the veil of dramatism and silence she had built up.
“Oh, that’s it?” she asked, the idea didn’t embarrass her as much as anything physical for whatever reason. “I thought you were gonna suggest something way crazier.”
“What do you mean that’s it? Flirting isn’t that easy, y’know!” Mari snapped, her pride seeming somewhat wounded. “Anyway, yes. Flirting. It’s pretty simple. You give them compliments, hint at romantic and well. Other. Stuff. We’ll talk about that when you’re older.”
“Mari-Chan, you’re not that much older than me…” Yoshiko responded. “I know what you’re talking abo-” she found herself being shushed, and so decided to withdraw and just let Mari continue.
“Gifts are good too. Flowers, chocolates, that kind of stuff. Just anything they like. What would Hanamaru-Chan like?” she was clearly becoming more interested in actually helping, which Yoshiko thanked every demonic force she could think of for.
“Uhh. Well, any food really. And books. So, I should get her those, right?”
“Yep! Wait, do you have the money for it?” she leaned over the table excitedly, happy to be making progress.
“Uh, let me see.” Yoshiko took out her purse, fearing she already knew the answer.
She did. And unfortunately, the answer was no. Inside her purse there was a meagre sum of money, she could barely buy a page, let alone a book. Mari looked inside it and let out a shocked “Oh!”
Immediately she reached into her own bag, frantically pulling out her own purse. She took Yoshiko’s hand and plopped in more money than she had ever held before. “Wh-what? Mari-Chan, how much is that?” she asked, eyes locked on the large sum of money in her hand.
“Uhh. Twenty? Thirty thousand yen? Something like that.” Mari said nonchalantly.
“Th-thirty?” she was tempted to refuse it outright, but she couldn’t help but want to keep it. After all, it wasn’t every day your friend would hand you a ridiculous sum of money. She settled to simply say “Thank you” and continue staring at the money.
“That’ll cover any future dates too.” she said, winking. “You should probably get a new outfit with some of it too, I don’t know if restaurants appreciate your demon getup.”
“R-right.” she was still far too shellshocked to reply properly. “Can we get back to flirting, please?”
“Okay! Well, a classic technique is Kabedon. Are you familiar with it?”
“Kabedon…” the name sounded vaguely familiar, but she couldn’t quite understand it. “Wall hitting?” she said, attempting to reverse engineer the word. Mari could practically see the gears turning in Yoshiko’s head. “Oh! Is that what I see Dia doing to you all the time?”
Mari’s eyes widened more than she thought humanly possible “Y-you’ve seen her doing that?” she questioned, clearly shocked at the revelation.
“Yeah, all the time. I pass by the student council room and there you two are. Just, Kabedonning it up.”
Mari cleared her throat loudly. “Okay, okay. So you know Kabedon. Do that to Hanamaru-Chan. Combine that by telling her how cute she looks. That with some more flirting and gift giving should be a sure fire way, okay?”
Yoshiko found it hard to answer, the concept of resolving to finally take that step with Hanamaru, it was hard to face. Her personality shifted, her confidence was restored. “Of course. I’ve fallen from the very heavens, asking Zuramaru out is no challenge.”
“Heheh, alright. I suppose you’re all set. I didn’t even have to tell you my secret techniques…” Mari smirked, knowing she would catch Yoshiko in her trap for sure.
“Secret techniques?” her character broke. “Wh-what are they?” Hook, line and sinker.
Mari whispered into her ear, doing her best to stifle her laughter. “Okay? Sounds weird, but I’ll try it…” Yoshiko said softly, confusion clear in her voice.
“Okay, when are you gonna do this. I want to see.” she asked, snickering to herself. It was guaranteed to be an entertaining sight.
“Um, I don’t know. Whenever the opportunity presents itself I suppose.”
“In other words, I’m gonna have to make you…” Mari teased.
“No! I can do it myself!” Yoshiko argued.
“Sure, sure. We’ll see about that.” Mari mocked, earning herself a pillow violently tossed at her face.
The room delved into a cacophony of pillow throwing and plush violence and momentarily Yoshiko managed to get her mind off of it all. But once the chaos had ended, her thoughts returned to the same thing they always did. The way Hanamaru shined.