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— eita stares at her messy floor, scratching her head. she has to meet with you in an hour, and she has no idea what to wear. you invited her to a jazz club, so she believes it’s her duty to attempt to dress appropriately.
normally, she wears…well, what she normally wears. lots of accessories, darker colors, funky belts, grungy. the style doesn’t match yours at all. if anything, her fashion might be the opposite of yours entirely.
she starts digging around her drawers again. she groans, feeling a bead of sweat roll down the back of her neck, but can’t even complain.
“eita, do you like jazz?” you had asked, holding onto her bicep as the two of you strolled around the park, autumn leaves crunching under your boots. “there’s this jazz club downtown that we could maybe go to for a date, since you like music.” you looked at her, eyes hopeful.
yes, eita really wanted to spend more time with you. and it was true that she did love music— jazz, though? not really.
so she lied, of course!
“yeah, i love jazz,” she told you, raising her eyebrows as she pressed her lips into a smile, ignoring the unease of mistruth in her stomach.
somehow, she makes it out on time to meet you in an all-black getup: the simplest and proper plain sweater she could find, paired with clean bootcut jeans. she convinced herself she could just shed the outer layer, so she settled for a dark detailed coat. you wave, smiling brightly in a similar jacket with a matching brown skirt and chic white button-up underneath.
“you look gorgeous,” she tells you, breathless from running all the way from the train platform to the venue. “thank you! you don’t look too bad yourself,” you reply with a wink, running your hand over the fur trim of her coat. your fingers, clad with rings, secure around her inner elbow as you pull her in.
“no necklaces?” you ask, sounding a bit disappointed as you pat her chest. eita laughs, pretending like your touch and your concern is doing nothing to her. “nah, i thought it’d be too much,” she admits. you give her a puzzled look, but don’t say anything.
the two of you find your table and settle down. eita helps you with your jacket, draping it over the back of your chair before removing hers and sitting across from you. “they’ll be playing covers of compositions by chick corea, dizzy gillespie, and himiko kikuchi,” you tell her, putting your bag to the side.
so those were all musicians eita’s never heard of. you continue to talk about them, naming songs and bands that she didn’t even know existed. the two of you order your food, and the music starts to play, starting out soft. “windows,” you state, folding your hands in front of you neatly. “chick corea. any favorites?”
she decides to concede, not knowing how much longer she can drag out the lie. chuckling, she leans her elbows on the table to whisper in your ear. “i’m not a jazzhead,” she confesses, cheeks warm. “i’ve no clue about the songs, or who those people are.”
you turn to her, surprise etching your features. “really?” “really,” she affirms. “that’s right, you’re a rock musician,” you muse, seemingly in thought. “hmm. you’ll like this set, then.”
eita listens in earnest as you tell her a little bit about the composers. she’s never felt so out of her element, but it turns out jazz and rock are much more similar than she thought. eventually, the food is served, and she enjoys the conversation as you tell her about some jazz fusion songs.
“were you running late?” you ask after a while, a teasing lilt to your voice as you sip your drink. “you forgot a lot of your staple items.” you gesture to her outfit. eita knows what you mean. she’s usually decked out with necklaces, bracelets, and rings. she looks down at herself, rubbing the back of her neck with a sheepish grin. “i do feel sort of naked without them, can’t lie.” “you mentioned earlier that it would be too much,” you point out.
faint trills of what you told her was gillespie’s hot house play in the background as she tries to figure out how to answer you. “ah…yeah, i wasn’t sure how i should dress for a jazz club,” she tells you honestly. “i didn’t wanna be uncool.”
she almost laughs at your scandalized expression. “eita, you’re the coolest girl i know!” you exclaim, putting down your fork.
your words, which probably mean only a little to you, echo in her ears despite the trumpet solo in the background. eita is flabbergasted. she can feel her face and her ears heating up as she practically stutters out a reply. “you- you’re kiddin’, right?”
your pretty laughter slips through the gaps of the music. “oh, sweetie, i wouldn’t hang out with you if you weren’t,” you assure her, stroking her forearm from across the table. eita chuckles, a nervous one that bubbles out of her throat at the sound of that pet name coming from your lips.
“i don’t really care if you don’t know that much about jazz,” you tell her, taking a bite of your food. “i lied to you, though,” she says apologetically. you shrug dismissively, twirling your utensil. “you admitted it. i like that in a partner,” you say approvingly.
eita has to distract herself from your gaze by gulping down her drink. idle chatter floats around you two, passing the time.
after a lovely night of pasta and jazz, she walks you back to the station. “i did like that one song,” she tells you, then hums a few bars. “look your back! by kikuchi, yes!” you praise her, squeezing her hand in yours. “i’m glad you enjoyed it.”
eita sits with you on the train until your stop, then bids you goodbye before plugging in her headphones on the ride back. as a parting gift, you had offered a playlist of yours for her to listen to.
when she arrives at her place, she blanches. right. all those clothes she was ripping out, trying to figure out what would be best. she begins to put them away, folding them carefully and placing them back in her drawers.
faint strains of casiopea’s tears of the star fill her room as she lies down to retire for the night. something about you makes it impossible for eita to try and prove herself. it’s weird. on one hand, she wants to impress you in any way she can. on the other, she wants to lay herself bare.
she thinks she’s getting closer to the latter. not that that’s a bad thing.