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‘Riko rifled through her closet. She hadn’t, in a million years, planned to go on this date with Yoshiko. But she couldn’t help but feel excited, emotional—'
“What’cha writing, Dia?”
Not a moment later, the lid to Dia’s laptop was slammed shut. In her engrossed stupor, she had failed to notice Mari sneak up on her.
“N-Nothing!!!!! Just going over Student Council matters, budgets and such, certainly nothing you’d be interested in!!” She had to deflect, lest Mari discover what she was actually writing.
“Somehow Dia, I doubt that,” Mari teased, “but I’ll believe you.” She sauntered around to the front of Dia’s desk, eating up her increasing uneasiness. “It just so happens that I was about to go over the budget reports, if you’d allow me to take a look—”
“Absolutely not!” Dia rejected, in outburst. “I-I mean, I’m not through reviewing them, I’ll send them your way when I’m finished—”
“Nonsense, Dia. Why don’t I just take over from here? You’ve worked so hard, after all~” The blonde eyed her fellow third-year with a sly grin. “Unless, you weren’t working hard…?”
Dia’s eyes grew wide, sweat beading down her forehead. Mari obviously knew she was lying through her teeth. But of course, Mari liked to make her prey do the ol’ song and dance before she finished them off. The quicker she told Mari the truth, the quicker she’d stop toying with her.
“…O-Ok, I wasn’t working on Student Council matters…”
“Oh?~” Mari sing-songed, “What ever could you have been working on?”
There was a hesitant sigh from the president. “…I was writing fanfiction.”
A large grin replaced the sly smile on Mari’s face, the blonde attempting to hold back her laughter. “Fanfiction? You?”
“Yes, now can we move on?” Dia averted her gaze, trying, in vain, to hide her embarrassment.
“So, what were you writing about?” the blonde continued to press.
“N-Nothing interesting, I assure you…”
“Is that so?” Mari’s fingers stroked her chin, an exaggerated display of curiosity. “I could’ve sworn I saw the names of a certain redhead and fallen angel that we all know and love.”
“P-Perhaps I was writing about some anime characters—”
“Or perhaps, you were shipping members of Aqours?”
Dia grew silent. She knew there was no beating the conniving Mari Ohara at her own game. But it was partially her own fault. She got careless, thinking she could write at school instead of in the private confines of her bedroom. But she couldn’t help it. She was getting to the juicy part of her “YohaRiko” fic (as fellow shippers so dubbed it). Writing brought her such joy, an escape from her tedious, daily endeavors. But her secret hobby was a secret no more. There’s no doubt Mari would blab about it to the entirety of Aqours.
“Look, don’t tell the others,” Dia pleaded, admitting defeat. “They don’t need to know that I’m shipping all of them with one another—” She clapped her hand over mouth, instantly regretting the words that slipped out. But too little too late.
“All of us, you say?” Mari’s smirk returned. “So, Dia, who is the incomparable Mari Ohara paired with?”
“L-Like I’d tell you!” Dia reacted, defensively.
“Oh, so it’s DiaMari, huh?~”
“What? No, of course not, DiaMaru, is obviously superior—” Shit, she’d done it again.
“Ooooohhhhhh~” Mari was having too much fun with this, “So you have a crush on our little Maru, huh?”
“S-Shut up! I swear to god, Mari, if you tell her—”
“Relax, Dia, relax,” the shit-eating grin returned, Mari slinging her arm around Dia’s shoulder, “I’m definitely gonna tell her.”
Dia was dreading practice that day. Lord knew Mari was about to have a field day, and Dia could do nothing to stop her.
She slid the door to the clubroom open, finding Mari standing on top of a chair, the rest of Aqours listening attentively to what looked like some sort of oration, the blonde reciting something from her phone.
“‘Chika felt a pair of warm hands on her back as Yo began to untie—'"
Dia recognized that line. She’d written it after all. “M-Mari, w-what’re you doing…??”
“Oh, Dia! You’re just in time!” The blonde smirked, a deliciously evil smirk, “You’ll never guess what I found surfing the web today!”
Dia stood, frozen, afraid to respond.
Mari took her silence as a sign to continue, “I found a whole bunch of Aqours shipping fics! The author sounded oddly suspicious, let’s see here…‘NotDiaKurosawa’. Curious, isn’t it?”
“Uh huh…” Dia gulped. It looks like Mari hadn’t divulged her secret…yet.
Mari resumed the story, “‘Yo peeked up at the mirror to see Chika’s entire front side exposed—'”
“STOP, MARI! STOP!” Dia screamed. She knew all too well where this scene was headed.
The blonde grinned, hopping off the chair, heeding Dia’s request.
“Aww,” Chika whined. “It was just getting good!”
“Chika!” Yo hushed her, her cheeks growing increasingly red.
“Could it be, Dia,” Mari taunted, “that you know what happens next?”
“I-I could surmise as much,” Dia spluttered, “and I will have no such content reaching Ruby’s ears!”
The blonde shook her head, “Or could it be…that you wrote it?”
Dia fell silent, to the increasing suspicion of her fellow idols.
“Onee-chan…is this true?”
Dia’s mind was swimming. The others began whispering amongst themselves, doing nothing for the commotion going on inside her head. She had to come clean. If not, Mari would certainly do it for her.
“Yes, I wrote it. Are you happy, Mari?”
To her surprise, the blonde smiled with simple satisfaction, letting her pack of wolves do the rest.
“Dia-san who’s my pair?”
“Onee-chan, what’s going on?”
“Which little demon have you shipped with the great Yohane?”
“I-It’s not like that between Chika and I!”
Dia rubbed her temples in frustration. What had been a nice, creative outlet for her stress, had turned to shit, backfiring in no time at all. But apparently that’s what happens when you ship your friends.
“Well, Dia?” Mari prodded, as if she was asking for permission, now of all times.
“Fine,” Dia grunted, resolved to let this whole fiasco run its course.
The blonde grinned. “Gather ‘round, children, Mother Mari has ships for all of you!”
Dia just up and left, right then and there. She’d rather not stick around to see the aftermath of her headcanons. And it was quite clear that they wouldn’t get around to practicing today.
Dia had calmed down considerably since the previous day. She found herself alone in her office, not unlike the day before. But this time, she could write in peace; Mari had already destroyed any shred of secrecy Dia had clung onto, it’s not like getting caught a second time would do her any more harm. Yet, after all that had happened, how could she possibly be in the mood to write?
There was a gentle knock on the door, Dia absentmindedly calling out permission to enter. The door creaked open, a shy brunette revealing herself before inching her way inside, slowly closing the door behind her.
“H-Hanamaru-san…?”
The brunette glanced timidly at the ground. Her cheeks were positively flushed. It was then Dia noticed it. She was wearing her hair in a ponytail.
Despite enjoying shipping off her friends, Dia rarely wrote about herself. There was some sort of next-level embarrassment that took over whenever she thought about her own ship, whenever she thought about Hanamaru. That same embarrassment washed over her now, as the girl with whom she was so enamored stood before her. Just once she'd decided to write DiaMaru, “for the hell of it” her reasoning at the time. And what had started out as a simple story about how Hanamaru would look cute in a ponytail, evolved into a rather bittersweet representation of her true feelings on the matter of Dia x Maru, about the unlikelihood of such a ship setting sail.
“I…um…I read your story,” Hanamaru confirmed, with moderate trepidation, “The one about us…”
Dia had no words. She hadn’t the faintest idea why Hanamaru would be in her office, now of all times. But if the ponytail was any inclination as to her intentions, Dia could only surmise that the last thing Hanamaru intended to do was scold her.
The brunette slowly approached Dia’s desk. “…I was kinda confused, zura. A-About why you paired me with Yoshiko-chan…” She paused, coming to the conclusion that Dia would not soon interject. “B-But the more I read, the more I understood how you felt…how you’d be sad had that happened in real life...”
Well damn. Hanamaru really had read it. And more than that, she was able to see Dia’s true feelings through the page. As a writer, she’d be flattered, but Dia’s mind was otherwise occupied at the moment.
“I um…I don’t know if everything you wrote is exactly how you feel,” Hanamaru prefaced, simultaneously brushing her ponytail with her hand, “but…”
But what? Dia wondered, still oblivious as to Hanamaru’s intentions.
The brunette puffed out her cheeks, gathering up every ounce of courage she had before leaning over the desk, kissing Dia on the cheek.
“I-I think you’re super cute too, Dia-san!”