Work Text:
If you asked Diamond and Pearl if they were ugly, they wouldn’t be able to give you an answer. It wasn’t that they didn’t know, but rather that they just didn’t care. Whether or not they were pretty honestly didn’t matter, and as far as the two of them were concerned, there were other more important things to worry about.
The two of them had some strong opinions about plenty of things. They were both funny; they were both tall. Diamond was fat while Pearl was thin; Pearl was fast and Diamond was not. Those things mattered, even if it was just a little bit. But if you asked them if they were ugly, they would probably just stare at you, trying to contemplate it before inevitably deciding it didn’t matter and jumping right back into a manzai routine about the topic and ignoring you altogether.
And then there was Platinum, and everything was different. Platinum was undeniably pretty by everyone’s standards. She was dainty and fragile, like a little porcelain doll, and sometimes it even seemed like a crime to hold her hand, lest you squeeze it too hard and break it. Everything about her was a cameraman’s definition of beauty, from the curve of her eyelids to her perfect symmetry to her hands and legs and belly and smile and everything. Just everything. Admittedly, Diamond and Pearl never really thought about that either. Platinum was stuck-up at first, but she learned. She was curious and lady-like, naïve but kind. That’s why she was their friend, their more-than-Friend. The fact that she was gorgeous and they were a little less so didn’t really matter, because they were a perfect trio. They didn’t notice, but it seemed that everyone else did.
Diamond realized first, because he was always the observant one. They were just walking through the park; Pearl was scribbling in his Manzai notebook as they walked as to “not forget this brilliant idea for a routine” while Platinum tried to keep him from tripping and falling into a fountain like last time. Diamond meandered behind them, passing crackers to Lax as they walked, when he heard some couple start muttering to themselves. He tilted his head a little to listen, but suddenly wished he hadn’t.
“You think that girl does that on purpose? Hire weird looking guys as her bodyguards to make herself look better?”
Diamond walked away to keep himself from hearing what they said next. He didn’t want to know. For some reason, unlike any insult to his slowness or size or mannerisms, Diamond couldn’t seem to let that one go. So he did what he always did when sometimes was bugging him: he told Pearl. Pearl didn’t really know what to say about it either, and soon after Diamond began to regret telling him at all. The two of them sat there in silence, wondering what people thought of them. Were they ruining Missy’s reputation? Was this why her parents didn’t want her associating with commoners?
Perhaps they had been ignorant. Their image hadn’t mattered before. No one in the Manzai world cared if you were attractive as long as you were funny. But here, in the land of rich people, it wasn’t the same. Everyone cared about how you presented yourself, and the way they accompanied Platinum was... less than ideal. They weren’t like Paka and Uji. They weren’t handsome or powerful or symmetrical. They were making their little miss look bad, and that was something that mattered.
Slowly but surely, they tried to change. Some things they couldn’t change, like their heights and the shape of their faces. But their gait, their posture, their clothes, that they could control. So they tried. But the comments still poured in, even if Platinum seemed blind to them, and as time went on their need to try twisted and turned into something nasty. They tried and tried, but Platinum was just so beautiful, and they were simply... not. Not less so, not “capable of being so if only they tried”, just Not with a capital N. They were not nearly as pretty as she was, and they were weighing her down. So finally, just when it seemed like Platinum was catching onto their strange behavior, they popped the question.
“Do you think we’re ugly?” Pearl asked for the both of them. Diamond nodded silently as Platinum stared at them like they had three heads between them. Since when did they care? Since when did it matter? Since when had she even considered that? Platinum stayed silent, unsure of what to say as she looked back and forth between them. She had to be honest with them, right? They were the ones that taught her that lying would solve nothing.
“I never really thought about it,” she admitted. “It doesn’t matter to me, why do you ask?”
“No reason,” Diamond piped in with a soft but obviously forced smile. Platinum felt herself frown despite her best efforts.
“Where are you getting these silly ideas in the first place?” she asked.
“Well,” Pearl replied. “We were just thinking you’re a lady and we need to make sure we’re not harming your reputation by giving less than our best first impression and if you think we’re ugly we should probably try and fix that because it’s no-“
Platinum zoned out, wondering what in the world they were talking about and why they suddenly seemed to care so much. Who would be saying things that made them think like this? It was absurd! Preposterous! Ludicrous! No knights of hers were ugly. It was so irrelevant she felt angry even talking about it. Without waiting for Pearl to finish and still deep in thought, Platinum stood up and walked out.
It was strange, the way that suddenly, once they put the thought in her mind, it was the only thing she noticed. They were out to dinner one night, and as she was about to dig into her ragú— they were trying foreign cuisine that night— she suddenly heard a couple at the table behind them begin to gossip.
“— think the blond one looks so malnourished because his friend keeps stealing his food?” one man asked. His husband chuckled, saying something along the lines of ‘probably’ that made Platinum’s blood boil. When she looked up, Diamond and Pearl were staring at their plates, pretending not to notice. But Platinum did, and she also noticed how Diamond politely declined anything the chef recommended afterwards, claiming how he “wasn’t hungry” even though she caught his stomach growling soon after they got home. A few days later they were at the beach, and someone commented on how sickly and pale Pearl looked as they walked by. When she looked back over at him, he was pulling his shirt back on as if nothing had happened.
It seemed that each time they went outside, all three of them together, someone took issue with them. And each time, the two of them subtly tried to change in a way that Platinum wouldn’t notice. But she did. She noticed every sideways glance, every double take, every snide comment and whisper and eyebrow raise and knew for a fact they weren’t gawking at her. She noticed how Pearl tried to walk straighter even though she knew it hurt his back, how they wore different things they clearly weren’t comfortable in, how Pearl stopped fidgeting and Diamond stopped snacking even though she knew it drove them half to madness. And, soon after, she realized she was miserable.
Then it all came to a head when they went to the beach again. It was different from last time, even though the two of them tried to pretend it wasn’t. They weren’t loud or silly, they wouldn’t play frisbee with her without nervous contemplation, they never went in the water. They never took their shirts off or gave her silly sandy hugs. And though they insisted otherwise, they didn’t look happy. Platinum didn’t know what to do, so she just left to go buy some iced tea and think about it for a little bit. The two of them were no fun when they were sad, and she didn’t want them feeling so awful around her just because of some snide comment by some filthy misanthrope who didn’t know their place.
When she finally came back to their umbrella, she saw a man with a microphone talking to Diamond and Pearl. Excitedly, she wondered if this was their big break. Maybe they were here to discuss their Manzai or baking or how they saved the world... that would give them the confidence boost they so desperately needed! Creeping closer and trying not to be seen, she saw the reporter lean in an ask,
“How does it feel to be dating someone way way out of your league?”
Diamond and Pearl stood there for a moment, stupefied and embarrassed as they stared at the reporter. That was it. Platinum simply couldn’t take this anymore. Appearing seemingly from nowhere and grabbing the microphone from the reporter’s hands, she said,
“It makes me the happiest girl in the world. I consider myself incredibly lucky to have met them.”
The reporter stared at her, dumbfounded, as Platinum smiled and handed back the microphone. The reporter stuttered out an “ok” and walked off as Platinum fell back into the sand and threw the iced teas under the umbrella.
“People are assholes,” she said, staring up at the umbrella and the way it glowed a brilliant orange as it blocked out the sun.
“You cursed,” Diamond said, as if trying to convince himself he wasn’t hallucinating. Platinum just grunted in response, staring silently up at the sky. Diamond and Pearl sat down beside her, and they stayed like that for hours until finally they decided they had all had enough and packed up to go home.
The silence weighed heavy in the air as the three of them sat in the hotel room.
“What’s with you guys?” Platinum asked as she lay on the bed. Diamond and Pearl looked at each other and then at her but stayed silent.
“You know what I mean,” Platinum said, annoyance dripping into her voice. “You’re clearly not happy. Why are you making yourselves miserable?”
“But we are hap—“ Diamond protested. Platinum sat up, her eyes burning with fury, and quickly cut him off.
“Do NOT lie to me,” she snapped, making Diamond and Pearl recoil in surprise. There was a tense silence between them before Diamond eventually sighed.
“Ok, you win, we’re not happy.”
“Then why are you doing this?” Platinum replied.
“Because we love you!” Pearl cut in. “You see how those people look at us when you’re with us. We’re making you look bad, and we don’t want to hurt your family or your opportunities because we can’t figure out how to be worthy of someone as perfect as you.”
Platinum closed her eyes and sighed.
“Have you ever considered I don’t care?”
Diamond and Pearl looked taken aback. They gawked at her, absolutely flabbergasted, as Platinum continued.
“You asked me a few weeks ago if I thought you were ugly and I said I never thought about it before. That’s the truth. I never once thought about whether or not you were ugly because I don’t care.”
“But Platin—“
“Pearl please don’t interrupt me when I’m talking.”
The two of them looked guilty as she looked up at them, so she softened her gaze before she continued.
“I do not care what you look like. I did not ask you to be my boyfriends because you were pretty or ugly or anything else. Do you want to know why I asked you to date me?”
The two of them didn’t respond, so Platinum just kept talking.
“Diamond, I asked you to date me because you always know just what to say. I asked you to date me because I love your smile and how you’re always there for me even when Im not so nice, how you know what I’m feeling before I do, and how you’re always thinking about me.”
Diamond looked just about ready to cry as Platinum turned to Pearl.
“Pearl, I asked you to date me because you always make me laugh. You’re always encouraging me to try and helping me even when I’m stubborn about it, and I love you because you give me the tough love I need to keep going even when I don’t think I want it.”
Pearl already WAS crying.
“I dated you both because I love you and because there’s no one else on this planet who cares about me like you two do. I’m going to love you until the world falls apart and FUCK any rude bitch who says otherwise.”
Diamond and Pearl suddenly began to clap, startling Platinum from her rousing monologue and making her giggle as Pearl sobbed “encore, encore!”. The three of them leaned in to hug without thinking, sitting there on the hotel bed and crying into each other’s arms. This was much better.