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Maho’s ears could only hear the rushing sound of two separate taps and her eyes could only see the porcelain of the bathroom sink and the oddly-textured mix of red syrup and tap water swirling down the drain.
Switching off the faucet of one of the sinks, Maho grabbed more paper towels to dry up her hair. Once she felt her hair was sufficiently dried, she tossed the more stained towels in the nearby trash can, while she used the cleaner ones to try and wipe away that particularly stubborn stain on the front of her dress shirt.
Maho grumbled and frowned, as the red syrup only seemed to further stain her shirt, the more she attempted to wipe it. The end result looks as though Maho got fatally stabbed in her chest. She hung her head and sighed, resigning herself to simply zipping up her hoodie and blazer, and hoping that the remaining stains in both of them remain unnoticed until she can get home.
And to think, this all happened because an overexcited Rinku Happy Around-ed while she had a slushie in her hands. And, wouldn’t you know it, Maho ended up getting a cold mixture of red syrup and ice dumped onto her head and the front of her uniform. Rinku was mere centimeters away from slamming her head into the cafeteria’s linoleum floors in apology, before Muni dragged Maho into the nearby restroom to help her get clean.
Or, at least, that was the subtext beneath Muni’s agitated passive-aggressive remarks about the tomboyish DJ “needing” her help, but Maho was too frazzled by the cold slushie ice touching her skin to even attempt at retorting.
Speaking of which, Maho turned her head over to check up on Muni.
The first thing she noticed was how hard at work the bunny-eared girl was in scrubbing the stains out of her hoodie. And considering that the DJ’s blazer was already set down and expertly folded, with not a stain in sight, Muni seemed to be almost finished with cleaning them out. Throughout the entire cleaning process, Maho could pick up on Muni’s frustrated muttering about Happy Around’s designated chef not knowing how to properly clean up stains.
Muni focused her attention on making sure the hoodie was clean, because the only other option was to look at Maho. With her sleeves rolled up to show off noticeable arm muscles, her thin white dress shirt does little to hide either them or the general fullness of her body. Muni could only theorize that Maho purposefully hides her buff body beneath that frumpy hoodie to prevent herself from being trampled by a literal tsunami of sapphics. That pathetic-yet-handsome boyfriend aura already helps.
And Happy Around has room for only one attention-grabber.
In the midst of her jealous grumbling, Muni had finished washing the stains of Maho’s hoodie, before handing it to the buff girl, who could only smile awkwardly in response.
“Woah. You’re awfully good at cleaning, aren’t you? I still haven’t gotten this stain out of my dress shirt.”
“Well, of course, duh! I’m the one and only Muni-chan after all! Artistic genius, technological genius, and cleaning genius! Always got to look my best after all!”
Just to further sell her own appealing image, Muni struck a particularly pretentious (if adorable) pose. Although, that pose quickly deflated, as her eyes filled with a sardonic nostalgia. Almost as if slushie-related disasters weren’t exclusive to Maho.
“I must say, you’re lucky it was just the raspberry flavor. If it were the blueberry flavor, then you’d really be in trouble!”
Yep. That confirmed Muni’s experiences with slushie-stained clothes in Maho’s mind. And considering Muni’s over-the-top customizations of her school uniform, Maho actually thanked her lucky stars that Rinku’s slushie hit her and not Muni. She can just imagine the angry tirade coming from the vain VJ and the hundreds of spin cycles it would take to even scratch the surface of the stains off that frilly shirt of hers.
“The blue syrup is truly the worst! Especially if it goes down your shirt! I looked like a creature out of Avatar when I got slushied.”
In an instance, like the phrase activated a sleeper agent, Maho’s expression and posture shifted from an awkward one to one that was much more excited and cheerful.
“Oh! I saw Avatar, like, six times!”
“...Oh.”
That was all Muni could muster in response to this sudden personality shift.
Muni always saw Maho like Happy Around’s reluctant mom. A mom that sucks at cleaning, but a mom all the same. Always looking after Happy Around, as if they were her own little siblings. Always giving that little exasperated half-smile whenever Rinku chases after the next novelty that catches her remarkably-short attention span, before Rei follows Rinku to stop her, before inevitably getting herself stuck in.
The Maho before her, however, threw that entire image out of the window, looking just as much of an easily-excited dork as Rinku. The otherwise mature DJ even gained an excited twinkle in her eyes that’s a dead ringer for Rinku’s own.
And all because she namedropped some sci-fi flick.
Maho seemed to recognize this, and awkwardly scratched the back of her head soon after. It was a pathetic gesture that only seemed to amplify the DJ’s signature “loser boyfriend” charm.
“Hehehe…sorry. I’m just…a really big sci-fi geek. Almost had myself acting like Rinku there for a second.”
“Well, this is Hapiara. A big dork like you would fit right in!”
Maho could only let out a small chuckle at Muni’s dig towards her. Muni’s feistiness and quippy remarks have always been part of her charm, as much as she tries to project a cutesy image. Although the latter part is always a plus to her general attractiveness, no matter how over-exaggerated it can get at times. One could really feel the passion for her craft radiating from those golden eyes of hers, especially as they begin staring directly towards you.
“Lor menari…”
“Wh-”
“It means ‘You have pretty eyes’....it’s Na’vi?...The Avatar language?”
It didn’t truly sink in for Maho what she had just said to the other girl, until her damp hoodie and blazer were shoved into her face, covering her eyes with darkly-colored fabric.
Upon removing them from her field of vision, she was greeted with the sight of Muni stomping away, with a blush redder than Rinku’s slushie and more noticeable than a penlight in a dark concert hall.
Letting out her signature half-smile, she put her hoodie on to hide her stained dress shirt, and followed Muni back to class.
A dork like Maho really does belong in Happy Around.