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"Cool and refreshing, smooth as silk in your throat! Come share a HapiJuce with me, Big Sister, Big Brother~!"
The bottle is far from cool by now, though it drips with false condensation as Rosia gulps it down and shivers with perfectly acted excitement.
"Puh-aah~!"
There's a certain trick to make a drink look especially appetising as you pop it from your mouth, a specific smile and a specific gleam and a specific tilt to the head, and even a specific way to make the pink ponytails swirling down from her head bounce. CMs are all about presentation, and Rosia is a master at presentation, she knows exactly what to do to appear the very cutest.
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The bottles of colourful drinks, colours matching each for of them, pink, red, green, blue, clink against each other, and if they hadn't been sitting in their temporary green room for hours while recording all those short and long snippets of video, they would have been a nice treat in the sweltering heat MiDiCity was currently experiencing.
Rosia shadows her eyes with her petite, well-manicured hand, looking out across the mid-day city and its neon lights drenched in sunlight.
Her attention shifts as she hears a weak groan, and reflexively wraps an arm around Jacklyn, who looks like she's about to wither in the harsh sunlight, despite the umbrella she clutches. Her tail droops, the eyes at the top of her head look like they're drying out and wishing to cry. Rosia's fluffy pink ears twitch, and she makes sure her hold on her band mate is secure.
She doesn't say anything, just leans her cheek against Jacklyn's green hair, bops her tail gently against hers. Jacklyn sips slowly from a water bottle Holmy has given her, and nibbles on a salty treat from Tsukino, trying to revive herself but only managing to refrain from collapsing. Rosia has seen Jacklyn go down for the count in lesser temperatures; being an aquatic myumon can't be easy in this weather.
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There is the loud sound of an exhaust pipe, and a shoddy black and red car painted with gaudy fire pulls to a stop in front of the four girls, and a window rolls down, the driver hanging half-way out of it. "Oi, brats, hop in already."
Rosia refrains from scowling in annoyance- there are people watching, and some are clearly Cricri fans, and so, she has to keep up her public persona. So she pouts, and scolds the man, tone playful. "Aww, you're so rude, Big Brother Crow, you have to be nice to girls." She waves at a fan who looks concerned, as though wondering who this rough and angry-looking punk talking smack to his faves thinks he is. And she, without a worry, helps Jacklyn into the shoddy car, and with the windows being tinted, she allows herself to wrinkle her nose at Crow, who scoffs, "Not your damn brother," at her, as though he doesn't know Cricri's schtick.
"Why're you here anyway?" she asks, partially (mostly) (almost entirely) dropping her facade. "Big Brother Rom was supposed to pick us up, not you."
Crow groans, annoyance clear. He drives surprisingly steady for a guy like him, but he's always so rude. And even when he has such cute young girls in his car. "Not interested in 'cute young girls' and you know it, I'm not a creep." And he's married, besides, so he's not even interested in cute women, either. Rosia's charm doesn't work on him, and it's annoying. She can charm anyone but not those so-called adults in Crow's band. "Also Rom had something come up at work, so he couldn't make it."
Blowing a raspberry his direction, Rosia comments, "You just wanted to drive around your shiny new car," with sarcasm dripping in her voice. The car might be new to Crow, and he sure is proud of it, but it's really just a hunk of junk to anyone but him. It's certainly no limousine. But she'd take not working for Dagger over a limousine any day.
"Shut up, you damn brat," Crow snaps, then he makes a noise of surprise. Rosia looks ahead too, expecting a traffic jam or something.
Instead, she sees a single drop of water on the window. Followed by another, and another--- quickly, the sky turns dark, and rain pounds on the crappy old car so hard it sounds like it'll break.
Crow curses his luck, but Jacklyn seems suddenly alert, snapping up from Rosia's shoulder and leaning forward between the seats to look out. She smacks at the buttons up front, the wipers start smacking the sides of the window, the horn blasts, and the radio blares with a sudden Trichronica song that Crow must have turned down to ignore. "The hell, girl?!"
"Open- open it, th' roof, open it!" Jacklyn demands, accidentally smacking Crow in the chin with her knuckles. Her tail smacks Rosia in the face, too, and all of them stare in bewilderment at Jacklyn's sudden change in attitude.
"There's no fucking opening this roof! And even if there was I wouldn't! The seats'd be fucking ruined!"
His vocabulary is amazing, Rosia notes and rolls her eyes, and she peers out the windows. The streets, previously filled with crowds of myumon going about their day, lays deserted, and she pokes Crow, pointing him toward the opening to an alley she knows is a short little thing between some shops. He arcs an eyebrow, but manages to maneuver the car to stop by it, despite Jacklyn's flailing. (He's probably going to have a black eye in a bit, it looks like. Jacklyn sure can fight.)
As the car pulls to a stop, Rosia wraps one arm around Jacklyn again, and she opens the door next to her. It's not hard to pull Jacklyn out of the car, she realizes half-way through that Rosia is pulling her into the rain, and she lets herself be tossed onto the pavement in the alley, hidden from sight of anyone that, despite everything, might pass by. She flops down, arms and legs kicking up in the air and sending droplets everywhere; "Yay, rain!" she exclaims with such cheer, then she lets her limbs fall, spread out as much as she possibly can on the rain-soaked ground. Rosia, not at all as happy to suddenly be drenched and shivering, adjusts her skirt to cover her properly, and kneels next to Jacklyn, her hands curled around her knees and a firm pout on her lips. She ignores the cursing Crow is tossing around, tuning his shouting about ruining his car into just a background noise. "Jacklyn," she says, and peers down through bangs plastered to her face at her friend. "That was dangerous."
Jacklyn's smile of bliss falters, and instead, she gets an apologetic look on her face. "I'm sorry... I was jus' so warm... I saw th' rain an' I just. I needed t' be wet. I'm amphibian, I'll die 'f I dry out, y'know?"
"Mmm..." Rosia pats Jacklyn on the cheek. "You'll have to say sorry to Big Brother Crow, though. He's being really annoying."
The little insult makes Jacklyn laugh. She sits up, and she's looking vibrant again, as though she never wilted in the sun at all. "Rosia," she says, her voice a soft bell in the pouring rain. She grabs Rosia by the face, and Rosia notices that the webbing has spread between her fingers, making the sensation of her cupping her face all the more intimate. Her breath is hot on Rosia's lips. Her mouth is soft. Rosia's tail twitches, fluffing up; she purrs. Her hand tangles with Jacklyn's hair, soft and voluminous thanks to her being a tadpole myumon.
A loud noise pierces the sound of the falling rain hitting the asphalt, and they startle apart. "Oi!" Crow shouts. "I have places to be, damn it!"
"Oh shut up," Rosia mutters. One of Jacklyn's hands darts up to her mouth, half covering a giggle. Then, spry as a frog, she hops to her feet, and holds out a hand for Rosia to take. She easily hauls her to her feet, and she's beaming. "I guess we gotta be goin' huh!" she says, and she pulls Rosia by the hand toward the car. As Crow protests the water soaking into his seats, Rosia sticks out her tongue at him, and leaves the placating to Holmy, who sits in the front passenger seat looking at them with a frown.
Rosia has more important things to do than care about curses and grumbles. Like Jacklyn's lips, still wet from the rain and tasting like a sweet ocean to drown blissfully in.