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“Haai, now get out and say ‘cheese’!”
“I’ll kill you.”
“Wrooong answeer,” Mizuki says in that annoyingly cheerful, teasing tone of hers that always drives Ena up the wall.
“Put. The phone. Away.”
Ena tries to sound intimidating, and knows she fails miserably based on the look on Mizuki’s smug face.
“But you look so cute!”
“It’s too revealing!”
Mizuki rolls her eyes, amused. “A bit of belly, Ena, really. You’re so old-fashioned.”
“I’m not! And it’s not just- It’s pretty low-cut, don’t you think?!”
“Well, it’s not like there’s that much to show anyway, so you’re good.”
“You-” Ena lets out a little annoyed scream in her throat, without opening her mouth. Mizuki shoots her that annoying, sly smile she always wears when she’s teasing her and that never fails to make Ena see red.
“You’re so…” Ena doesn’t even have the words. Mizuki is impossible.
“Come on, we had a deal! You said any style I wanted and here we are. Now let the curtain go and strike a pose for me…”
Ena stomps her foot. “Of all fashions out there you had to dress me up like a gyaru-”
“Tsuyome gyaru,” Mizuki corrects her, raising a finger, “And I picked it because I thought it would fit you and I bet I was right as usual.”
Ena opens her mouth to chew Mizuki’s head off but of course the menace interrupts her. “You’re the one who lost the bet and you gave me your word of honor! If you don’t stick to your word how can I ever trust you again? Sob sob.”
Mizuki theatrically pretends to cry hiding her face in her hands. Unfazed by her friend’s typical and unserious histrionics, Ena heaves a defeated sigh. She did lose that stupid bet.
The truth is that the only reason she is resisting so mightily right now is that she is really scared of how she will react once she lets go of the curtain and Mizuki will finally see her fully. Dressed like that. Because Ena knows she will probably blush so much, there is no way that someone as infuriatingly sharp as Mizuki won’t be able to tell how embarrassingly infatuated Ena is with her best friend. She might as well just admit it, at least to herself. Never to Mizuki, though.
“Okay, fine,” she hisses, and Mizuki lights up. “But! I decide how this works.”
Mizuki tilts her head to the side, and Ena jabs a finger in her direction, making sure the curtain is still safely covering most of her body. “I step out and strike a pose and you have exactly five seconds to take one picture and then I’m hiding again. Deal?”
Mizuki pretends to ponder seriously, cradling her chin in her hand.
“Deal,” she finally agrees with a grin. Ena narrows her eyes at her.
“You promised,” she warns.
Mizuki nods, crossing her heart.
Alright, come on now, Ena thinks to herself. She can do this. She can totally do this and be normal and not reveal her big fat crush. Just a pose. A few seconds. The outfit isn’t even that bad. The big bow is a stretch, and yeah, everything is a bit revealing, but she thinks she looked pretty good in the mirror’s reflection. She inhales, steadies herself, and lets go of the curtains of the changing room.
She tries her best not to look at Mizuki’s face, knowing it will be her downfall, and focuses instead on thinking of a cute pose. Her brain goes blank. What should she even-
Snap.
While she’s standing there staring into space like an idiot, Mizuki takes a picture. And then another.
“Hey! I said one!”
“I thought you meant only one picture of you posing and you’re not posing right now so…”
Snap.
Ena refuses to look right at Mizuki. But she needs to end this.
She closes her eyes and turns her head in Mizuki’s general direction, slightly bending her knees and leaning forward. She tries to pull down the hem of the (skimpy, too skimpy) jeans skirt Mizuki chose for her. She can at least save a modicum of dignity.
“Fuck youuu,” she lilts through gritted teeth with a forced smile, using the same intonation she would to say ‘cheese’ when posing cutely for a picture.
Ena waits for the sound of Mizuki’s phone to signal that the pic has been taken and she can go hide behind the curtains once again, but it doesn’t come.
Confused, she opens her eyes, and sees that Mizuki is staring at her with an expression Ena hasn’t really seen before. She looks… Well, Ena would like to say she looks soft, somehow. Infatuated, even. But that can’t be. And anyway, it doesn’t matter, because Ena definitely imagined it, since less than a split second after she opens her eyes Mizuki breaks into her usual mocking grin and the illusion is broken. Wishful thinking is going to be Ena’s downfall.
“Take the damn picture!” Ena shrills, and Mizuki does, looking so smug that Ena is this close to tackling her to the floor.
As soon as the picture is taken, Ena runs back into the safety of the changing room. She pulls the curtain closed and leans against one of the four walls, breathing heavy. When she catches a glimpse of her reflection in the mirror, she’s horrified to see how flustered she looks. She presses her cold hands to her burning cheeks and takes a deep breath.
“Ena?” Mizuki calls. Ena doesn’t answer. She’s mad.
“Are you okay?”
Mizuki sounds worried now, and Ena curses the way her body reacts on its own every time Mizuki seems sad, or worried, or anxious. She instinctively turns towards the entrance of the changing room, as though to reach for her, but her hand stops short from grabbing the curtain. Close call.
“I’m fine,” she grumbles, taking a step back.
“Are you sure? I’m sorry if I really, like, made you uncomfortable. I’ll delete the pictures, if you want.”
Ena sighs.
“It’s fine, don’t worry. It’s all good.”
Mizuki is quiet on the other side of the curtain, and Ena aches to fix this. Suddenly, an idea pops into her head.
“Actually, you know what?” As she talks, Ena grabs the curtain so she can peer at Mizuki, who jolts in surprise seeing her. “This isn’t fine.”
Mizuki looks so guilty at her words that Ena’s heart gives a painful twitch in her chest.
“This isn’t fine, because it’s unfair only I should be subjected to humiliation, even though I lost a stupid, stupid bet. So, after I change, I’ll pick an outfit and you’ll try it and I’ll take pictures, okay? To make it even.”
Ena thinks she’s a genius. She gets her revenge (thus lessening her humiliation) and she gets to wipe Mizuki’s guilty expression off of her annoying, pretty face.
Mizuki frowns for a split second, before her face breaks into a soft expression, an endearing smile playing at her lips. She shakes her head fondly and then her features morph again as she grins teasingly at Ena.
“I see, you wanna dress me up and take pictures of me to use as your lockscreen… You just had to ask!”
Ena throws the curtain closed after (quite literally) growling at Mizuki, like she’s an angry dog or something. That’s what she gets for being nice. But… Mizuki looked normal again. Ena can’t help but smile at her feet, currently stuffed into shoes she’d never wear and almost completely hidden by fuzzy legwarmers she would also never wear.
She changes back into her regular clothes as fast she she can, quite excited at the idea of dressing Mizuki up. Once out of the changing rooms, she unceremoniously drops all the clothes into Mizuki’s arms.
“Go put those away. I’ll go pick something out for you. Meet you back at the changing rooms, ‘kay? Ah, and no peeking at what I’m getting you!”
This said, Ena turns on her heels and heads to the furthest corner of the store from the area with the changing rooms. Once she’s certain Mizuki is nowhere near her, she takes a deep breath, pressing a hand to her chest. This might be a bit too much for her heart, actually.
She peruses the various clothes in the store, taking her time—she wants to find something good for Mizuki, after all. In truth, the idea of avenging her honor by picking something horrible or too revealing for Mizuki is sounding less and less appealing by the second. She never wants for Mizuki to feel uncomfortable, or sad, or upset (or any negative feeling, really) under her watch.
The clothing store they’re in is specialized in gyaru fashion, and Ena has to admit she is quite ignorant about all potential subtypes of the fashion, since she has never truly looked deeper into it. As though by design, she finds herself in an area of the shop that seems to have clothes that would fit Mizuki: everything is pastel-colored and cute and frilly.
As soon as she sees it, she knows it’s the one. The dress seems to have been made just for Mizuki, and Ena sighs in relief when she sees that, despite being the last one on the rack, it’s in Mizuki’s size. Ena knows it is because even though they have never told each other their clothing or shoe sizes, they shop together often enough for the both of them to know anyway.
Okay, now she has a dress. Time to find a matching hair accessory or two. Oh, and shoes. The dress is pink, almost overwhelmingly so, and Ena thinks she shouldn’t stray too much from the base color. After some investigating, Ena finally finds a dark pink bow that Mizuki can pin to her hair, as well as a pair of light pink high heels in Mizuki’s size. She nods satisfied at the items in her arms. Mizuki will look good in these.
She walks back to their meeting point and finds Mizuki leaning against the wall opposite the changing rooms, staring at her phone without moving her fingers. When Ena approaches her, she startles slightly and quickly locks her phone.
“Here,” Ena says, handing her the outfit she put together.
“Hime gyaru?” Mizuki asks with a cute tilt of her head.
“I guess,” Ena grumbles in reply. “I mean, I don’t know much about gyaru fashion but I thought this would fit you. Now go!”
Ena physically pushes Mizuki into the changing room, causing Mizuki to giggle a bit as she disappears behind the curtain.
Ena is going to die of a heart attack before this shopping trip is over.
She waits for a while, listening to the rustling of clothes coming from the changing room and attempting to school her features so that she won’t drool or something equally embarrassing once Mizuki comes out.
“Waaah!” Mizuki exclaims from behind the curtain, sounding delighted.
“What?”
“This is cute!”
“Well, then come out so I can take a picture of you.”
Mizuki dramatically throws the curtain open and spins a couple of times before she curtsies.
Ena can’t help but let out an amused giggle, at which Mizuki looks up at her with her eyes twinkling in delight. She stands up straighter and opens her arms, turning left and right.
“You look like a magical girl from one of those movies you always drag me to see.”
Mizuki rolls her eyes, but she’s smiling so much that the gesture does not carry any weight. If anything, it only makes her look a bit flustered—her cheeks and neck are slowly reddening.
“Pfft, I only took you to watch a MiraMagi movie like, twice.”
Ena says nothing in response, mesmerized by Mizuki’s giddy smile—it seems Ena has chosen the right outfit.
“You do look very cute,” she finds herself saying, and can’t even be mad at her mouth for betraying her thoughts—she thinks there isn’t a single person in the world who wouldn’t react like this to seeing Mizuki, right now.
Mizuki bashfully looks away, but her sheepishness lasts a grand total of two seconds, after which she turns to Ena with a playful glint in her eyes. Ena braces herself for the teasing.
“But, Enanan… I thought this was your great revenge, yet you dressed me up all cute… Fufufu, do you like me or something?”
Ena’s whole body grows cold.
Oh, this is bad.
She needs to hold herself back, because if she did what her instincts are screaming at her to do (scream and deny and stomp her foot and maybe even cry), well, that would just be a confirmation. She bites the inside of her cheek, hard.
“You wish,” she grinds out through gritted teeth, and Mizuki chuckles.
Relieved that she has (probably) salvaged the situation, she whips out her phone and aims it at Mizuki, mostly to hide her face behind it.
“Okay, now pose and let’s be done with this.”
Mizuki cutely holds up a peace sign with her left hand as she pops her hip, resting her other hand on it. She looks right at the camera and sticks her tongue out with a wink.
“Brat,” Ena mumbles as she takes the picture.
“You’re just jealous my pose is super duper cute while you looked angry.”
“I didn’t- I smiled!”
“Not happily enough.”
Ena takes another picture, which perfectly captures Mizuki’s annoying, oh-so annoying expression.
“Hey!” Mizuki complains, frowning.
“Now we’re even,” Ena muses, smugly smiling back at Mizuki with a wink.
Mizuki turns around and crouches on the floor of the changing room to rummage through her bag. Ena watches in confusion as Mizuki takes out her phone and fiddles with it for a few seconds before standing up and shoving it in Ena’s face.
“Fufufu, now I can see your angry smile every time I pick up my phone.”
Ena stares in horror at her own stupid picture, currently set as Mizuki’s lockscreen.
“Change it!” She squeaks, attempting to grab the phone, but Mizuki is too damn fast and effortlessly hides it behind her back and out of Ena’s reach.
“Iyaa, I can’t wait for Lil Bro to ask me for the time at school…”
“Ah, is that how it is? Fine,” Ena spits out, furiously tapping away at her phone to change her own lockscreen to the picture of Mizuki where she is posing like a gyaru, tongue sticking out and all.
“How does it feel, hmm?” She hisses as she shows her phone to Mizuki, who rolls her eyes with an amused smile.
“You’ll change it before we even leave the store—you wouldn’t be caught dead with my picture as your lockscreen.”
Ena glares at her and extends her hand. “First to change it loses. Deal?”
“Hmm, what are the stakes?”
“Loser has to do whatever the winner says for a whole day.”
Mizuki thinks about it for a couple of seconds.
“Deal,” She finally replies with a smug smile as she shakes Ena’s outstretched hand.
Mizuki is so stupid, Ena thinks, hiding a victorious grin. Mizuki loves cute lockscreens with silly anime characters that match her phone case, and won’t compromise her aesthetic for a silly bet. Ena, on the other hand, is elated at the idea of having an excuse to look at Mizuki’s cute face every time she picks up her phone.
She has this in the bag.
