Chapter 43: This grade is final.
Friday she had tests and school was stressful. Fortunately they had very little weekend homework, although Hikaru still worried about her final grade. Risa and Shizuoka were both free that afternoon, so they went with her to pay for the shelf.
"Are you going to be OK? Mirage has hardly been playing," Risa asked anxiously.
"Yeah, we've been really busy, we play Sunday afternoon though, at a hotel," Hikaru said.
"I haven't seen a notification," Shizuoka protested.
"Really?" Hikaru asked and stopped to message Ryuske.
Ryuske replied a few minutes later, "It's done now."
Shizuoka said at the same time, "Oh, it just arrived. Woah, I can't afford to go though."
Hikaru looked at her own copy of the notification and said, "Oh, want me to ask if I can get two extra tickets?"
Risa and Shizuoka refused. "I'm really impressed that you guys can play at an event that charges a couple hundred to get into though," Shizuoka said.
"Well, that's not just to see us," Hikaru pointed out.
Risa grinned and asked, "Can you try on the dress I'm working on before the event? Maybe you could wear it!"
Hikaru frowned and told her, "I'll try to make time to try it on, but I don't want to wear a dress onstage until after I've graduated."
"Oh," Risa said with disappointment.
Shizuoka said, "You don't want to let people see it until the fashion show anyway, we don't want anyone to copy it."
Risa sighed and said, "I don't think my designs are good enough that people will copy them."
Hikaru smirked and suggested, "Even after they appear on Mirage's album cover?"
"What?" Risa asked.
"We're wearing white for the Mirage video, and I'm going to wear the bowed jeans you made the cutouts in for me. I need to choose a white shirt though. I thought maybe just my school uniform shirt," Hikaru said.
"No way!" Risa and Shizuoka protested in unison.
After the shelf was paid for and the delivery arranged for a couple hours later, they dragged Hikaru off shirt shopping. Risa chose a slick turtleneck and took them to a fabric store for some silky corded edging and embroidered white on white silk.
Hikaru protested, "I have to leave this evening."
Risa promised, "I'll have it done in time."
She went home after receiving Hikaru's promise to stand for fittings in a couple hours.
Hikaru messaged Ryuske, 'I might have to take a later train.'
Ryuske sent back, 'I'll just switch all our tickets to the last train, Rin said the same thing.'
Shizuoka exclaimed over Kiri's pretty house when they arrived. "It's so warm and cozy," she said bouncing a little where she'd sat on the couch.
"Rin said it seems dead because we have no houseplants," Hikaru told her.
Shizuoka stared at her and asked dubiously, "Mirage's Rin? Long haired, bass playing, motorcycle riding, womanizer Rin?"
"Yeah," Hikaru agreed and grinned.
Fortunately they'd gotten home before the shelf, which was delivered 15 minutes after they got in. Shizuoka helped Hikaru position it in the office room. When they were moving things, Hikaru found a roll of old posters.
"Wow," she said, looking at one.
Shizuoka peeked over her shoulder and told her, "Don't worry about it, all guys have stuff like that."
Hikaru laughed and asked, "Think he'd mind if I hung it up?"
Shizuoka stared at her.
Hikaru pulled it gently from the stack and unveiled it completely. It had Night Dreams emblazoned across the bottom and the band members leaning casually against a wall that had been replaced by the woman's hip and thigh. "It's my dad's band. He's got a couple from Edge too." She grinned.
"Oh, wow!" Shizuoka gasped when Hikaru showed her Edge's posters. "They are so hot! Is that really Ryuske-san?"
"Yeah," Hikaru laughed.
"He should grow his hair out again!" Shizuoka exclaimed.
Hikaru frowned and said, "No, I don't think he will. I think he probably cut it when Aisha died."
"Oh," Shizuoka said, somewhat subdued.
Hikaru shrugged and gently replaced the posters.
Shizuoka helped her unpack. Hikaru placed her Pikachu on the section where she'd pictured him, and he gazed back with his empty black eyes.
"Do you think it's too childish?" she asked a little ruefully.
Shizuoka put her hands on her hips and said firmly, "If it's too childish for him, then you are too. Don't change for him, isn't that what you've taught me, that it's OK to be how I am?"
Hikaru stared at her. "I taught you?" she asked uncertainly.
Shizuoka nodded and blushed. "Ever since you and Risa became friends with me, you've both always just accepted me, no matter how I dressed or who I dated," she explained. "And whenever I asked if I should tone down to match you, or if I should try to change for one of my boyfriends, you always said no."
"Well, of course not," Hikaru said.
"Keeping your stuffed animal is the same," Shizuoka insisted.
"I don't know," Hikaru replied dubiously.
"It is!" Shizuoka exclaimed.
Someone knocked, and Hikaru ran to answer the door. It was Risa, with her arms full.
"Tell Hikaru that she should keep her stuffed animal out!" Shizuoka demanded, taking part of Risa's burdens.
Risa laughed and asked, "Creepy Pikachu?"
"He's not creepy!" Hikaru protested.
Risa grinned and replied, "He's the only Pikachu I've ever seen that wasn't smiling."
Hikaru tried on the modified turtleneck. "Wow," she said after looking in the mirror. They had her put on the jeans and her sandals.
Risa had put matching triangular cutouts into the top, but then filled them with the embroidered silk. She frowned at the jeans and demanded, "Take them off, I need to replace the bows."
"Why?" Hikaru asked as she complied.
"Because those are getting tattered and that way they'll match better," Risa explained patiently.
While she worked they ordered food and showed her the posters. Risa thought Hikaru should definitely put them up.
"But they're Kiri's," Hikaru protested.
"Didn't he ask you to change things?" Risa pointed out.
Hikaru nodded. "But before that, come sit on the bed and sew, and Shizuoka can help me hang the shelf I got to hold my fans."
The three girls retired to the bedroom and Hikaru showed them the decorative frame. Eventually they decided to move Kiri's hangings to the side wall, though that was a little crowded and place the fans at the foot of the bed.
"If you put it a little higher you won't brush things off it with your shoulders when you pass," Risa recommended from where she sat carefully edging ribbons she'd trimmed out of the silk.
They raised it a bit.
Hikaru looked at Kiri's hangings thoughtfully and asked, "Should we move the short wide one over here under the shelf?"
They tried that and agreed that it felt more balanced.
Hikaru laid her fans out on the pegs and then joined Shizuoka and Risa on the bed. "I like it," she said hopefully.
"Yeah, it's good," agreed Shizuoka.
Risa nodded and said, "That frame is perfect for your fans." Then she asked, "But since it matches the shelf, why didn't you put them in the same room?"
Hikaru shrugged.
"Nevermind," Shizuoka laughed and ruffled her hair.
Even when the food arrived Risa didn't stop sewing. Hikaru and Shizuoka laughed and fed her bites when she refused to pause saying, "Since I took it apart, I need to have it finished before Hikaru leaves."
Hikaru got everything else ready, and cleaned up after their food. Shizuoka went home first.
"Thanks," Hikaru said after awhile of sitting and watching Risa sew.
Risa grinned and said, "When you're famous and you're doing interviews, you have to tell them I worked on your stage outfits."
"Of course!" Hikaru agreed. "I can brag about how the famous designer I went to school with launched my career by making me look presentable," she said and grinned back.
Risa laughed.
Kiri only had time for messages, but promised to call Saturday afternoon.
Weekly Power Status
-- Power
Ranking 
-- Power
stone