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Once upon a time, there was a beautiful girl called Hikawa Sayo. Her hair was a turquoise so bright that it could rival phosphophyllite, her skin more flawless than the finest china, her small lips were red as poppies – and beneath her perfect complexion was a mind equally brilliant, and manners as impeccable as could be expected of a lady of her high station.
Her parents loved her dearly, and she lived happily in their care. But one day, this all changed.
No, her mother did not die and her father did not remarry. She did not have two evil stepsisters to bully her everyday.
It was her younger twin sister, who also loved her as dearly as her parents did. But Hikawa Hina was a thorn in Sayo’s side. Hina was as beautiful as Sayo. No. Though they looked identical, Hina was more beautiful owing to the wonderful smile she wore. While Sayo was subdued like the night, Hina was as dazzling as the sun. And for everything that Sayo could do, Hina did better. It was not so apparent when they were younger, but as they grew up, the gap in their abilities became more obvious.
“Miss Hina is such a genius! I am sure she would make a great successor for your legacy, isn’t that right, Professor Hikawa?”
The day Sayo heard that careless remark from her father’s colleague, her happy life had shattered. Before, she could put up an act as Hina’s equal. Her parents had collaborated with her lie, praising both daughters equally despite Hina’s obvious superiority. And even Hina, in all her naïve cruelty, had always pretended to look up to Sayo. That was right, Sayo knew it had all been a pretense. But the fragile bubble of that pretense had kept their family living in blissful ignorance. Now, that bubble had been punctured, and there was no going back.
Since then, Sayo had immersed herself in housework, doing all the hard chores in their home. There was one thing she bested Hina at, and that was resilience. Sayo was patient. She was hardworking. Menial labour did not depend on one’s intelligence, nor would it make one beautiful. But it was in doing this that Sayo found her self-satisfaction. “You don’t have to do this, Sayo,” her mother had said with a worried expression on her face. That was what Sayo wanted to see. No one could say they didn’t appreciate Sayo’s work, nor could they criticize the way she left every corner of the house sparkling clean. They only worried for her well-being, and that alone was enough – she had earned their attention in a way Hina could never eclipse.
When Sayo was sixteen, an invitation came from the Royal Palace for all noblewomen in the kingdom to attend the princess’ ball. There was speculation that the princess was looking for a bride, but god forbid, wasn’t it a bit ridiculous to marry a stranger you’ve spent a single evening with?
“I heard this is Queen Lisa’s idea,” Mrs. Hikawa gossiped, “It is an open secret that Princess Yukina has no friends, let alone a girlfriend.”
“Oh, so like Oneechan?” Hina piped in, completely oblivious, or uncaring, of the fact that Sayo was eavesdropping from around the corner.
“We should get Sayo to attend. I don’t want to force her to open up, but in this world we live in, it’s hard to get by when you are unskilled at interacting with others. She needs to at least learn how to make small talk! Though come to think of it, you are no better in those regards, Hina. Don’t you think you can get away with this just because you are a genius.”
“Eh? But small talk is not rururun!”
“The world isn’t rururun.”
Sayo did not want to attend the princess’ ball. She knew if she went with Hina, everybody would draw comparisons between them. She had enough of it.
“I don’t want to go, Mother. I have no decent dress for the occasion!”
“Let me lend you one, Oneechan!”
“No! I don’t want to wear your dress!”
“What about the one we bought for your birthday?” her mother suggested.
“I accidentally ripped the sleeve yesterday while mopping the floor.” As accidentally as tearing it off with her free hand at any rate.
“Oh, I know, I know! I can make you a magic dress!”
Hina procured a wand from thin air, and in a wave, a pumpkin in their greenhouse grew to gigantic proportions, bursting the glass walls, only to reconstitute them as windows on what was now a pumpkin carriage. With another wave, the field mice turned to horses, and a frog and a wandering goose into footmen. One last wave turned Sayo’s ash-covered dress into a glittering blue gown, her worn shoes into a pair of glass slippers. When did Hina learn magic? She must’ve hardly practised the art either, as Sayo never noticed her doing so. But logic never applied to Hina – her very existence was more than just genius; she was an overused fictional trope.
“Why did you do that, Hina? You could’ve just repaired the sleeve of my dress!” Was this Hina’s way of showing off her ridiculous character specs? The audience is getting tired of suspending their disbelief, damn it!
“It’s more rururun this way!”
“There ought to be some limitation to all this. Let me guess, your power would only last till midnight!”
“Midnight? Hahahaha, you’re funny, Oneechan! Why would I cast a spell that would only last till midnight? I want Oneechan to enjoy the ball for as long as you want!”
Sayo was herded into the pumpkin carriage by the goose-turned-footman and set off for the ball with her loving mother and sister. They arrived at the magnificent palace in due time, joining a crowd of gorgeous young ladies – there were more than enough to form five rock bands! Six as an afterthought. Seven if you count the one that originally only appeared in the anime. But in this alternate universe, they were all dancers, swaying and twirling on the dance floor.
Sitting on their thrones atop the dais were Queen Lisa and Princess Yukina. Princess Yukina had been uninterested in the scene the queen had arranged for her. She and the queen were the same age to begin with. When Yukina’s father had disappeared on a journey of self-discovery, and her mother died from a lack of plot relevance, Yukina’s next door neighbour was made regent by the late queen’s will to fill the missing motherly role. Queen Lisa fulfilled her duty to a T. If not, why would she care whether Yukina had friends? Even if Yukina had wanted friends, she could interact with whom she wanted when she wanted on her own terms. This chaotic scene of girls in varying shades of bubblegum hair pattering around her own house was making Yukina’s eyes hurt!
“Aren’t you going to dance, Yukina?” Queen Lisa asked.
“You are the dancer, Lisa. Or is that just an area conversation the writers forgot about?”
“Hahaha, you’re funny.” Lisa laughed awkwardly. She looked to divert the topic and found her chance when she caught sight of a pair of stunning twin sisters at the entrance hall. “Oh look, here comes Professor Hikawa’s daughters. Wow! How gorgeous! I especially like that blue gown. Maybe I should make a matching one for you, Yukina.”
“No thank you. The last time you gave an article of clothing to your brother, he was murdered offscreen…”
Princess Yukina’s voice trailed off when her eyes met their green counterparts in the elder of the twins Queen Lisa had pointed out. For once, Lisa was not exaggerating. The elder Hikawa sibling really was spectacular. And though Yukina prided herself on not being so shallow as to fall helplessly in love at first sight, she was indeed attracted. While the younger Hikawa sister shared the same facial features as the older, the older wore them with such calm grace. The way she carried herself was measured, each step precise, like she was sure of her purpose in life. But a desolate air surrounded her. She was struggling with something, though Yukina knew not what. She was still intrigued, for in the elder sister’s image Yukina saw her own. Those struggles, whatever they were, resonated with her.
“You might want to reconsider my suggestion and dance with her?” Lisa said with a smirk, eliciting a full-blown blush from Yukina.
“No.”
“No?”
“Absolutely not.”
Yukina had more principle than to dance with a stranger. Or rather, she can’t dance. Plus, she wasn’t about to do what Lisa told her to. Lisa wasn’t actually her mom! So Yukina sauntered off into the depths of her palace, determined to stay away for the duration of this ball that had been forced upon her. Her determination wasn’t so necessary, really, as she soon got lost chasing her own cat. What did you expect? Her seiyuu is Aiai after all.
Yukina came to an empty hallway of many doors, probably one of the wings for the guest rooms. She walked briskly down the hallway, trying to get back to a place where she more often visited, but somehow, after a dozen twists and turns, she still ended up here. Tired of walking in circles, she decided to rest in one of the rooms.
Just when she was about to enter a random room, she heard melodious strumming from one of them. Captured by the sound, she turned the doorknob and entered. As per cliché, the most unbelievable coincidental meeting took place – there, in the middle of the room, holding a stringed instrument in hand, was the woman Yukina was previously captivated with. What was her name again? Hikawa?
“I am sorry!” Sayo broke the silence, hurriedly putting the instrument back on its rack, then dropped into a deep bow before Princess Yukina. Yukina waved off her apology.
“No need to apologize. Your sound was perfect. Play more.”
Sayo could only abide by the royal order, thus she picked up the instrument once more and played according to the instructions of a manual she had found in the room. For the past hours before Yukina’s arrival, she had practiced the musical progression recorded on the first pages of the manual. Instead of flipping through to the latter parts, she had concentrated on mastering the first. It was a bit embarrassing now that she was asked to play, as the progression was simple and clearly meant for beginners. Yukina didn’t seem to mind though.
“Wonderful. Is there more?”
“I am afraid not, Your Highness. This is all I have self-taught to play.”
“Then play it again. I would like to listen once more.”
Sayo played it again, and again, and again. Being pessimistic by design, she wondered if the princess was treating her like a jester, alas, she was too prideful to not put her greatest efforts into each playthrough, playing better each time compared to the last. But in reality, Yukina was not mocking her; instead, she was deep in thought. Sayo was talented. It was no ordinary feat to be able to self-learn a foreign instrument from a manual alone, and to catch your own flaws to improve upon them with each run of the score. That, alone, was impressive enough, even if Sayo wouldn’t recognize her own feat, yet what shocked Yukina even more was her patience. Yukina had already asked her to play the same passage ten times. Granted, Yukina was a princess, so a commoner would not refuse her request outright. But Sayo did not even ask why. She also did not grow tired of the exercise. She kept bettering herself. Such dedication was what Yukina admired – her intuition had been right; they really were alike.
On the eleventh playthrough, Yukina sang along with Sayo. Sayo nearly faltered from the shock of Yukina’s powerful voice. For the sake of time, we’ll skip through an over-the-top description of Sayo’s jaw-dropping awe – you have chapter 3 of Roselia BS1 for that. And so, Sayo’s disaster lesbian heart started to race as they sang and played together in a heavenly match. It was so perfect that the Moon cried and birds fell from their nests…I know I said to refrain from the over-the-top descriptions but fanfics have the obligation to outdo canon ridiculousness, okay? Ahh…Sayo felt like years of her self-imposed pain had eased, and she was being heard. Yukina’s voice echoed her feelings of inadequacy, like she too was chasing something, someone far ahead.
“May I ask…” Sayo broke the silence that hung between them after the last note, “who is it are you chasing, Your Highness?”
Yukina smiled. “My father.”
Sayo listened intently to Yukina’s tale of the king who had given up his entire country to go on a journey of self-discovery. Over what? The instrument in Sayo’s hands, which apparently frustrated the former king when he realized he couldn’t keep chopping its strings with his pick like an emo teen and expect to fill the country’s coffers with CD sales when he didn’t have the face of a cutesy idol. If this weren’t a mobage fanfic, Sayo ought to be thinking “You serious? How old is he? Thirteen?”, but this is a mobage fanfic, so Sayo was deeply touched by Yukina’s strive to…follow in her father’s stupidity. She decided then that she’d stay by the princess’ side no matter where she went. They would literally hike to the top of the musical world – was there a Mount Music in their kingdom? If only this were a modern AU, Sayo would’ve dug out her smartphone to look it up on Google Maps. Unfortunately for her, this was a medieval world, but please don’t ask me why CDs existed here. There are some things that logic can’t explain, but for everything el- *ahem* everything it can’t explain, there is Hikawa Hina.
“I, Hikawa Sayo, pledge my loyalty to Your Highness’ goal!”
Sayo got down to one knee, letting Yukina rest the instrument’s neck solemnly on her shoulder. “You have been knighted, Sayo.”
Sayo received the instrument from Yukina’s hands and slung it over her back before laying the fateful kiss of true love onto Yukina’s outstretched fingers. Fireworks blasted off outside, lighting the room with dancing colours. The world rejoiced as HMS Yukisayo set sail – dissidents might consider it a mere raft, but its sailors knew it was a nuclear-powered aircraft supercarrier. Hey, we have the “Power of Believing in Your Dreams” on our side!!
As everybody expected a happily-ever-after ending at this point (because the author has already crapped out 2.4k words, which is longer than her usual average for one-shots), the story took a horrible turn. From absolutely nowhere, Hikawa Hina slammed open the door - without knocking of course - and pointed at her sister.
“There you are, Oneechan! And you have my guitar too! So rururun~”
It turned out that the instrument was called a guitar, and it had been invented by none other than Hina, who had gotten bored of it a second after she had pulled it out of another universe. Thus, the guitar was gifted to the king of the land just because.
The fireworks died, replaced by a flash of lightning and the loud crack of thunder. This time, Sayo crashed onto both knees, her crouching shadow was long and ominous.
“Why?”
Anybody, even Yukina, would know it was a rhetorical question. Except Hina of course.
“Hmm?” Hina hummed.
“Why are you stealing everything from me again, Hina!???”
“Err…but like, I invented that instrument, Oneechan.”
Another flash split the skies and rain pelted down onto the dark night. Sayo let out a deafening howl – she’s a cute doggy, remember? And then she ran, glass slippers and all. The clock chimed at midnight, just when Yukina’s missing kitty had attacked Sayo’s slipper since it was shiny as a laser dot. It successfully clawed the slipper off and Sayo was left with one foot bare while stumbling out of the palace and back into her pumpkin carriage.
“Aren’t you going to give chase, Yukina?” a late-arriving Queen Lisa asked.
“Well, I can just visit Professor Hikawa’s house tomorrow, right?” Yukina answered.
“Good point.”
But when the next day came, Yukina lingered in her bedroom.
“I thought you were going to look for Professor Hikawa’s daughter?” Lisa asked, nudging Yukina who lay on her fluffy canopy bed with macarons encircling her body.
“I’m busy.”
“You’re not. You’re lying in a bed full of macarons. By the way, why not my cookies? They have superpowers, you know?”
“You just make them with steroids.”
“Oh shush. This isn’t about my cookies. This is about your marriage, Yukina.”
“What marriage?”
“You can’t be saying you’re not thinking of marrying her! I didn’t raise you to be so irresponsible!”
Yukina’s eyes drooped further in confusion. “Firstly, you didn’t raise me. Secondly, what responsibility are you talking about?”
“You were in a bedroom! Alone! With Hikawa Sayo!”
“Oh. Like how you are in my bedroom now?”
“I’m your mother!” – well, not, but that never stopped Queen Lisa from nagging.
Yukina sighed. “We are sixteen. Even though this is a medieval AU, we have to be aware of the modern reader’s sensibilities, so a marriage is out of the question.”
Lisa rolled her eyes. “Then at least go fetch your soulmate back and open a coffee shop with her, else she might start coughing up flowers.”
And so, they set off to find Sayo before Hanahaki Disease set in. Well, not really. Yukina was still upset that Sayo had run off, prioritizing her sister complex over the Princess-Knight pre-relationship they shared. Thus, she only conceded with Queen Lisa’s plan to parade the kingdom asking every woman to try out the glass slipper Yukina’s cat had stolen from Sayo last night – Sayo ought to throw a jealous fit if somebody else were to impersonate her and steal her true love, right?
Many women tried out the slipper. Some, like Yamato Maya, found the slipper too small. “But…it’s so tight…and cosy…”
Yukina narrowed her gaze. “I have no interest in your fetish. Next!”
Others, like Udagawa Ako, found the slipper too big.
“Tada! The slipper is totally cool, just like the rest of my shiny outfit. It’s badass as the…the…hammer of Odin, right?”
“You are wearing a punk boot on one foot, a glass slipper on another. Yes, a glass slipper, not a hammer. And it is so big that you look about to trip,” Yukina remarked flatly.
“Eh? So, it’s not a bong?” Aoba Moca, who had been next in line to try out the slipper, was busy shoving a stem full of weed into the opening just beneath the slipper’s strap.
“Don’t you dare smoke pot from My Sayo’s shoe.” Yukina snatched the slipper back, then waved for the next in line. “You! Your turn.”
“How troublesome…” the next woman, Mitake Ran, said before shoving her foot into the slipper. It fit.
“It fits, but it’s not you. Next!”
“They call you Your Highness so much that you really think your short ass is better than the rest of us, huh? You wanna pick a fight with me, Minato Yukina!?”
“Wait, Ran, you sure you wanna marry her?” Tomoe asked from her side.
“Like hell!” Ran kicked the slipper off her foot and smacked it right in Yukina’s face. How satisfying.
To Yukina’s credit, she nonchalantly picked up the slipper and pointed it at what was left of the line, “Next!”
The kingdom’s finest actress, Shirasagi Chisato, stepped forth. Or maybe she wasn’t so fine after all, the bulging vein atop her forehead cracking her polite façade. She gave a very forced smile. “Your Highness, the author ships us together, but this particular one-shot is tagged YukiSayo, so would you please refrain from taking up more of our time and just go live happily ever after with your girlfriend in this universe? This has already dragged on for 3.3k words.”
Chisato shoved Hina forward and whispered something into the latter’s ears that was immediately announced to the world by the younger Hikawa’s boisterous tongue. “So Yukina-chan is lost? You could’ve just said so. I’d fly you to my house with a rocket!”
Hina, would you please stop pulling deus ex machina? I can’t tell if this is a medieval AU anymore!
But because the author is too lazy to come up with a conceivable plot, Yukina and her band of merry misfits were forcibly shoved into Hina’s rocket and blasted off to the Hikawa mansion. There, Yukina asked for all the women in the household to gather to try out the slipper. They all turned up, except Sayo of course, who was in the attic being emo. The slipper didn’t fit any of the maids, but it did fit Mrs. Hikawa. Yukina patted her back.
“Very well, I shall marry you.”
An anguished scream came not from Mr. Hikawa, but from the one in the attic. Such a powerful scream it was that it blasted a hole in the ceiling and down fell Sayo before them like some sort of superhero.
“You can’t marry my mother!” Sayo screamed.
“Why not? She is of age.”
“You are not of age!”
“Oh. Then I will marry your mother in two years.”
Lisa watched how the whole household seemed entranced by the argument. Wait, this wasn’t the point, right? Had anybody asked if Mrs. Hikawa wanted to marry a self-centered brat the age of her daughter? And what happened to the coffee shop plan?
“You are supposed to choose Hina over me, not my mother!”
Yukina shrugged, her hands flopped to the sides like in the Persian Cat Room Guardian meme. “Who would want to marry someone who barges into your room uninvited, yapping off on how stupid you are while smiling like Garfield? Wait…I guess the Garfield part might warrant my reconsideration…”
Lisa stepped forward to defuse the situation. “Yukina, if it’s about the smile, you should just marry me. My smile is most cat-like.”
“Ew! No!”
“There you have it. So, you do have considerations other than cats, right? Say it. Speak your love to your destined other half!”
For once, Yukina agreed to Lisa’s demand. Her face red, her stature awkward as she rubbed her hands along her own forearms, she stuttered. “Well…I knighted you, Sayo. You promised…to follow me. I want to reach the peak of Mount Music. But…like…I am physically unfit, so I was thinking you’d carry me.”
This was Yukina’s touching final speech? Lisa sweatdropped. Wasn’t this supposed to be about music? Or a coffee shop? Music coffee shop? But since when were they hiking instead?
She didn’t get it, but Sayo did. Sayo looked touched by Yukina’s words, her face now full of tears. “You…You will take me, instead of Hina? Even though the slipper in your hand was made by Hina too?”
“It is your foot that I choose.”
Lisa swore that most people played a guitar with their…hands. But oh well.
Anyway, nobody was looking for her rebuke, so she just shut up for once and watched the couple embrace. Everybody clapped. The church bells tolled. They were, for all intensive purposes, married. And they set off immediately for their not!honeymoon hike, leaving Queen Lisa to govern the country.
“Why me? I am just the friendly neighbour!”
Sorry, that’s what you get for being a busybody. Clap clap. The End.