[Fanfic, 100% OJ] Suguri(a)'s Secret

Genre: Humour/Romance

Length: 6228 words

B/D: Alternative title: Suguri is Teased Continuously for 6300 Words. I worked pretty hard on this one; I wanted to do something a little fun and a little risque. It ended up being a little long, as well... I might go back and edit this later since I'm much less comfortable working with such long stories and I'm bound to have made mistakes, but it's fine for now. Enjoy!

Nath was many things – tall, deadly, owner of a pair of beautiful fuzzy eyebrows that were the envy of her friends and which struck terror into the heart of evil. But on that particular winter day, the thing she was most of all was ‘unimpressed’. Suguri, who she liked and respected for being the only one in her household with a train of logic even distantly connected to reality, had woken her up that morning with a phone call. It was a very exciting phone call. It had sentences like ‘come quickly’, ‘I need your help’, ‘bring Sora’, and ‘don’t tell Hime. I don’t want to drag her into this’.

All of the above rather suggested to Nath that there was justice to be dispensed, guns to be gattled and explosions to walk slowly away from and refuse to look at. Even Sora was excited. (Sora, Nath found out on the flight over, had spent the morning watching professional wrestling with Hime. Hime appreciated it for the subtle choreography and athleticism underlying each movement. Sora appreciated it because the wrestlers got sweaty, grappled a lot, and then somebody’s spine broke at the end.)

Sadly, it seemed that the most dangerous enemy they had to fight was gravity, which was like fighting a feeble toddler with a bad attention span. The location Suguri gave them was, alas, not a back-alley in a gothic city populated by ne’er-do-wells and forgotten dreams; it was not an industrial complex filled to the brim with gun-toting goons who had sold their souls to their corporate masters for a shilling and an extra sachet of sugar in the office canteen; it was not even a fast-food restaurant, which Nath considered a less immediate kind of evil but all the worse for their insidiousness.

They touched down in a small town shopping centre, the kind where there were at least five shops whose name included ‘Ye olde’ and where every shopkeeper would be glad to sit down and chat with you about how their grandparents made a living fashioning hats out of old fence posts or something like that. There were hanging baskets of hellebores, their wide-open petals blooming in cream and pink and even black. Upon the wall of the central shopping hall was a huge clock, the hands of which still had a light dusting of early-morning frost. They found Suguri sitting on a bench, huddled over a cup of hot chocolate that had a towering mountain of whipped cream applied to the top, some of which Suguri had accidentally applied to her face.

“Thank you for coming so quickly,” she said, running her tongue along her upper lip.

“It’s fine. We’re here to help… uh… do something,” Sora began. “Oh, I know! You must need help drinking your hot chocolate.”

Nath couldn’t suppress a smirk, but reset her face to a neutral frown in short order. “That’s highly optimistic. What are we actually here for? I was expected there to be more fire and explosions, but it seems perfectly peaceful.”

The silver-haired girl hesitated, almost hiding her face behind her cup. “I need fashion advice.”

A number of different emotions flickered across Nath’s face. She had gotten up early to be here. She’d put on her prosthetics arms, one of which had been hastily patched up by the techs only a couple of days ago. She’d even thought of a cover story for Hime – she and Sora were meant to be exploring the world of trains right now. It was, in short, a lot of bother to go through for a shopping trip. But she still believed, for better or for worse, that Suguri was a reasonable person, and resolved to be diplomatic about it.

“I’m not going to agree or disagree with that statement… What are you shopping for? A dress? Jewelry?”

This time, Suguri was definitely hiding her face behind her cup. “I… want to buy some cute underwear.”

This was not something that Nath had an answer for. Luckily, Sora could be counted on to jump in and steer the conversation in a good direction. Nath had faith in her, right up until the moment that she tilted her head.

“I thought your shipment came in a month ago?”

“Shipment?"

“Yes. Underwear usually only lasts a few years before it starts getting worn out. When I turned 500

I got tired of replacing it all the time, so now I just buy a whole bunch in one go. It saves a lot of time. I recommend it.”

Sora nodded. “I was surprised. I pried open the crate with a crowbar and there were just hundreds of identical boxer shorts and sports bras. I thought it would be a dishwasher. I’d like a dishwasher. And some hot chocolate.”

Nath rolled her eyes. Boxer shorts and sports bras. What a bizarrely illuminating order. She wondered if Suguri took the same approach to all her clothes – just rack after rack of identical jackets and skirts, all nicely pressed and ready to wear until they got bullet-holes in them.

“But that’s everyday underwear. I need cute ones. Help me pick.”

“Are we really the right people to ask for this…? I know you said not to bring Hime, but it seems like she’d give you much better advice. Why not ask her about it?” Nath asked, arching an eyebrow.

Suguri fidgeted. “That’s classified,” she said, and those two words said as much as a full length dissertation. “You two are my only hope.”

Which, in Nath’s opinion, meant she was hopeless. But she was still in diplomacy mode, and now began to task of trying to diplomatically extricate herself from the situation. “I don’t know. It’s a little strange.”

Sora looked up at her balefully, as if sensing her attempts to escape. “It’s not strange. We’re three friends shopping for clothes together. That isn’t strange at all.”

Nath frowned. “Yes, but if we’re going to be working together, we’ll have to trade bra sizes and measurements and such. That doesn’t strike you as being too much?”

“That’s fine. I trust you and Suguri, and it makes it easier for you to buy me presents.”

“Please, Nath. I need your life experience,” Suguri asked, and suddenly the front against Nath was united.

“I’m… not an expert on underwear,” Nath said, looking away.

“That’s because you don’t – mfpffpf.”

Nath had never quite appreciated the convenience of hands as much as she did when she jammed hers over Sora’s mouth. “Shush,” she said, and turned her head back to Suguri. “Sorry. I just don’t know if I’d even be helpful.”

“You can be moral support. Please.”

“Mpfpf.”

Suguri’s wide, red eyes suddenly had a very puppy-dog like quality to them. Sora’s lower lip had developed a devastating tremble. Nath’s temples were already beginning to throb. She massaged them with artificial fingertips, and felt her will to resist rolling away. “Ugh. Why, out of all the 10,000 year old women that I know, am I the only one who acts like an adult? Fine, I’ll go lingerie shopping with you. But don’t expect me to be much help.”

It was a victory, or close enough. Sora gave Suguri a celebratory high-five, and the two immediately started discussing their plan of attack.

“We should all go in together,” Suguri began.

“Un. No woman left behind,” Sora agreed.

“If Nath isn’t good with underwear, than means you’re our expert, Sora. You can be point guard. I’ll be in the middle, and Nath can defend our rear.”

“Please don’t say I’m defending your rear right after talking about underwear.”

“Why not?”

“It’s strange!”

“It’s not strange. I trust you to watch my back. So I also trust you to watch my backside,” Sora said sagely, with her open, innocent eyes. Nath wasn’t fooled.

“You’re doing this on purpose,” she accused.

“Maybe.”

Little did Nath know, bickering was a very efficient method of transportation, and by the time she was done proving empirically that she had never deliberately looked at Sora’s hindquarters, they had reached the store Suguri picked out for the mission. It had wide, clear windows, a revolving door that had no doubt claimed dozens of unwary consumers, and mannequins with no heads and no limbs set out to display the merchandise. Nath looked at them and suppressed an involuntary shudder.

“I know what it’s like to be armless, but I wouldn’t like to be headless,” she muttered to herself.

“They take the heads off so they don’t blush when everybody sees them in their underwear,” Sora said authoritatively. She was rather enjoying being an expert for the day, and had already furnished the party with several helpful facts, all of which were wrong but which she said with such earnestness that Nath couldn’t bring herself to contradict them. “Okay. The first thing we should do is find the petite section.”

“I’m not petite,” Suguri grumbled. “I’m aerodynamic. It’s a feature.”

Regardless of anybody’s feelings on size nomenclature, finding the petite section was easier said than done. The doors of the store opened up to an expansive world of silk, ribbon and lace, dotted with the occasional shop assistant who had become lost in the maze of stands and mannequins. Sora marched towards the nearest one like a shark approaching a stricken life-raft.

“Excuse me. Do you have anything in ablative high-stretch nanofibre?”

The shop assistant shook their head.

“What about tensile titanium weaves?”

A second shake of the head.

“Not even heat-resistant polycarbonate mantling?”

She received the magic third headshake, and marched back to Suguri and Nath with crossed arms and a scowl.

“I knew technology had gone backwards since my time. But I didn’t think fashion had, too,” she complained.

“Let’s narrow down what we’re looking for,” Nath said. As much as she promised that she would be no help, somebody needed to help move everything in the right direction. The sooner begun, the sooner done – and there was something about being surrounded by rack after intimidating rack of ladies’ undergarments that did wonders for her work ethic. “Suguri, what kind of colours do you like?”

Suguri thought about it for a moment. “Grey.”

“...and?”

“Grey.”

Nath knit her eyebrows. This was going to be harder work than she had anticipated. “Okay. Well, what do you want out of it? Do you want it to be cute? Sexy? Practical?”

“All.”

“What kind of fabric do you want it to be make out of?”

“The good kind.”

“Alright. That should be easy enough to look for. Nath, you take south. I’ll take east, and Suguri can take north,” Sora said.

Nath mouthed a silent apology for what she was about to do, but the time was upon her. If she wanted to get out of the shop, she would have to apply the three values she cared most about: truth, justice, and social engineering. “Actually, Sora, can you do me a favour and go ask at the counter if they sell body paint?”

“Roger,” Sora said, and was gone in a rush of golden hair and good intentions. Suguri looked at her go, utterly aghast, and was about to set off in pursuit when Nath put a hand on her shoulder.

“I’m not going to paint on my underwear!” she hissed.

“Of course not,” Nath said. It was time to give the silver haired girl a little bit of a push. “The idea is that you give it to Hime and ask her to paint some for you.”

All the colour drained out of Suguri’s face to make way for the flood of red headed towards her cheeks. She struggled for words, but the only sound available to her was a quiet, high pitched wail – like air escaping from an old fashioned kettle. Eventually rediscovered her tongue. “T-that’s…”

Nath couldn’t stop her mouth from narrowing into a smirk. “You imagined it, didn’t you?”

“Absolutely not,” Suguri said. To her very great credit, she had brought her voice back into non-supersonic frequencies, but any attempts at dignity were ruined by her shaking her head so fiercely that her hair flew around her like a lion’s mane.

“Well, that confirms that you’re doing this to impress Hime. Look,” Nath said, dropping her voice to what she hoped was a low, conciliatory tone. “I don’t know underwear. But to save us from wandering around this shop all day, I have some advice.”

Suguri said nothing, because all previous attempts at conversation had dug her a grave from which even she couldn’t fly out of. But with a short motion of the head, she indicated that she was listening.

“Don’t worry about getting any specific style, or colour. Don’t even worry about what Hime’s tastes are like. Just get something that makes you feel confident. Something fun to wear. Nice clothes are all fine and good by themselves, but really they’re about highlighting and bringing out the best qualities of the person wearing them. Lingerie is probably the same way.”

Suguri mused on that for a second. “I see. It’s like the clothes are the side dish, but I’m the main meal.”

“Uh… something like that. And if you really want to give that girl a treat, bring her along next time and ask her to pick something out for you.”

Suguri thrust her hands in her pocket and knit her brows together. “But then it won’t be a surprise… and she’ll probably pick something scandalous to tease me.”

Nath grinned; she couldn’t exactly disagree with that assessment. “Wear it anyway. It’ll show how much you value her input, and she’ll have fun picking out something for you to wear and imagining you in lots of different things.”

“I see,” Suguri replied. The frown that had caught her lips was disappearing now, ebbing quietly out of existence. “I knew it was a good idea to bring you.”

“Hold that thought,” Nath said as Sora fought her way through the racks to reach them. “What’s the verdict?”

“The only colour they have is laurel green, like on army fatigues,” the blonde girl replied. “You can paint yourself as a dinosaur, though. Nath, you’d be a great dinosaur.”

“Go and ask if they stock anything edible.”

“Roger.”

Suguri didn’t say anything as Sora picked her way back through the lingerie forest, because her face already said it all. Nath put a friendly hand on her shoulder. “You said it yourself, right? It’s like the clothes are the side dish, but you’re the main meal.”

“I’m going to look for something by myself. Don’t follow me,” she replied; her voice was cold. But she was starting to look at the racks in a different way, occasionally rubbing the material between thumb and forefinger; somehow, Nath knew that her work was done.

Which of course was her cue to wait at the entrance, the better to make a speedy escape. She fought the urge to whistle as she walked (for all her strength, she had never quite been able to carry a tune), as well as a tingle of guilt for teasing Suguri quite so hard. When it came to teasing, she reminded herself, what goes around comes around – and since Sora had been teasing her all morning, somebody else had it coming.

It was not until she felt Sora’s hand grab her own that she realised that the wheel can turn quickly indeed.

“They’re sold out of edible clothes,” Sora informed her, which by itself was enough to make her silently give thanks to the whims of fortune. “But I found something nice on the way back.”

She was holding a matching set of bra and panties cut with fabric the colour of seashells; the panties had a low, sweeping hem to hug the edges of the hips, and some parts – in fact, most of the parts – were made of fabric so sheer you could see through it. The bra had a deep plunge and was accented with lines of rose gold at the cups, which were also distressingly translucent.

The main thing that worried Nath, though, was that the set was far too big for Sora – but not too big for her.

“You cannot be serious,” she moaned.

“Why? We came all the way here. I think these would look good on you,” Sora said, and gave Nath’s arm a gentle tug. “Come and try them on.”

Sora, unlike Suguri, was not a reasonable person. She was brave, and gentle, and quite arguably beautiful, but not reasonable. She couldn’t be bargained with. She couldn’t be intimidated. She couldn’t be teased into submission. The world could count itself lucky for that, because a reasonable person would not have fought against both sides of the world’s biggest war with no plan and no backup. But it did mean that when she had an objective, she was truly relentless in her determination to achieve it.

So Nath did not struggle as she was led by the hand toward the changing rooms, because she knew that Sora’s current objective was for her clothes to come off and the underwear to go on, and she rather preferred to retain as much control over the whole process as was possible. Instead, she set about milking the situation for all the advantage that could be had.

“This is a one-time thing, do you understand?” she asked. Perhaps if she were not normally deficient in fingers she would jab one at the air to embellish her point; alas, the habit had not been formed, and her artificial hands remained stoically at her sides. “I’m only doing it because it’s you.”

“Thanks. You have to come out and show me how it looks, though,” Sora said peacefully as she watched the assistant hunt down a slightly tattier store copy of the set and spray it liberally with disinfectant. “No hiding.”

“You didn’t say that before,” Nath replied. She had been hoping she’d get away with a quick change and then a ‘looks good, but not my thing’. Apparently, no such luck.

“I said it just now. Go on. I’ll be here if you have problems.”

And thus was Nath banished to the changing rooms. She had no problems with the changing rooms. Each cubicle was the size of a small closet, with a full-length mirror affixed to the back wall, but she had slept in closets before. If there had been an option for room service, she might just have lived out the rest of her life there. It might be preferable to venturing back outside to wade through a tide of embarrassment. Sadly, a world with no wine and no legroom was too high a price to pay for pride, so there was nothing to be done but get on with things. The sooner begun, the sooner done.

She shed her clothes quickly and unceremoniously. In some ways it was easier to dress and undress with arms, but she was so used to doing it without that sometimes she just felt like the prosthetics were getting in the way. Before long she stood in nothing but her own skin, bronzed by years of adventure and dotted with scars. She frowned at her own reflection in the mirror, at her stocky thighs and broad shoulders; she had been taught as a girl that tall women were meant to be willowy and graceful, and it had been hard to stop believing it and embrace her own shape. Sometimes, just for a moment, she would imagine herself in flowing clothes and with a soft, narrow silhouette… but just for a moment.

She was halfway through putting on the set (and secretly quite pleased with how the pale colours set off her skin) before she hit what would go down in history as ‘The Snag’.

“Sora,” she hissed, peeking her face out of the changing room. Sora blinked at her peacefully. The shop provided a bench for people to sit down on while their companions tried on the wares, and Sora was currently draped across it like a well-beaten rug. “I can’t do the… the thing.”

Silent confusion flashed through Sora’s eyes, and she begrudging dragged herself into what could be generously described as a sitting position. “What thing?”

“The hook. It’s got a hook at the back and I can’t quite get it.”

“It’s okay. You just get it in your fingers and–”

“I don’t normally have fingers. Listen, I’m changing back.”

“Hold on,” Sora said, and the expression on her face was one of ominous peace. “I’ll help.”

Nath had just enough time to face the other way and clutch the cups of the bra to her breasts before Sora slipped soundlessly beyond the curtain. She suddenly became very acutely aware of two things: how little space there was to share between two people, and how easy it would be for Sora to look over her shoulder at the full-length mirror in front of her.

“I didn’t say you could come in!”

“Hime says it’s better to ask for forgiveness than permission. Besides, I’m helping.”

Nath was about to deliver a long and passionately argued lecture on the fact that that idiom did not apply in any situation even remotely connected with sexuality, but was cut short by Sora’s fingers grazing the blades of her shoulders. In spite of herself, she gasped; despite how lightly Sora had touched her, it felt like there was electricity flowing through where her fingertips had been.

“You have a lot of scars,” Sora said, and her fingers trickled down Nath’s spine to rest on a scar at her waist. “This one… I think this one is mine. Ah! I’m sorry. Did it hurt?” Nath had jerked when she touched her, a brief, involuntary movement. Goosebumps were already collecting under her fingertips.

Nath gulped. “It didn’t hurt. I was just… surprised. And embarrassed.” The warmth that had been settled in her cheeks was beginning to spread through the rest of her body, and her skin suddenly felt very sensitive to the coolness of the air, and the warmth Sora radiated in the confined space. She closed her eyes and resolved to keep them that way, only to have them spring open as Sora idly stroked the scar.

“Why? There’s no need to be embarrassed.” Sora’s fingers began to move back to the task, tiny flashes of sensation on her back – fiddling, fitting, adjusting. She felt the fabric at her breasts grow taut and secure as the hook found its purchase. Sora’s big green eyes flicked from her back to the mirror and rested there, unapologetic.

“Don’t stare… It’s strange if you stare.” She folded her arms across her breasts, which felt heavy and tight.

“It’s not strange,” Sora said, and her voice had such dreamlike certainty again, like the day when she had hugged her and declared that they should be friends. “I like how you look. So, I’m looking at you. Put your arms down?”

The shift in tone was so slight, but so important; it wasn’t a childish demand, but a request. Slowly, almost without her thinking about it, her arms fell.

“They really suit you. They’re… I forget the word. Exotic, but innocent at the same time.” A pause, perhaps for breath. “Do you like them?”

She looked at herself in the mirror, then, at the scars and the blemishes, the muscle and the skin. At the way her clothes emphasised the swell of her breasts and the soft curve of her hips. At the way that Sora was looking at her with deep, piercing eyes through the proxy of a mirror. She would never be willowy, or small, or cute. But she felt more than ever like a woman.

“I like them,” she said, finally, and watched Sora’s reflection break out into a soft, contented smile.

“…Actually, I have some of my allowance left over. If I get these for you, will you wear them?”

“I think I would, yes. They’re fiddly, so maybe not all the time. But sometimes.” She paused, and even though her fingers were strange and alien to her, she still curled her hands into little balls. “But you don’t have to do that, Sora.”

“I want to. Because you’re my friend.”

Again Sora’s hands fell to her waist, and pulled her back into a soft hug. Her skin tingled at the places where their skin touched. “You’re my friend, but you didn’t have to be. I shot you and I scarred you, but you’re still my friend. And you still bring me out on days like this to have fun. I wanted to say thank you.”

“It’s fine.” Nath said, and put her own artificial hand over Sora’s. “I’m grateful to you, too. Life is less boring with you around.”

They stayed like that a few minutes longer, not speaking. Then, reluctantly, Nath pulled herself out of the embrace.

“I should change back. Suguri will be wondering where we are.” A long pause.

“Oh. Oh! Sorry. I wasn’t going to watch,” Sora said, the thought finally clicking in her brain. Quietly, she disappeared through the curtains again, probably to wander off and find Suguri.

Nath took one last look in the mirror, and sighed. Hopefully bras were easier to take off than they were to put on.

(-+++-)

For Hime, it had been a slipper day.

Actually, Hime had four different pairs of slippers, all for different purposes, because she believed them to be a superior footwear choice for somebody who never had to set foot on the ground if she didn’t want to. But slipper days were all about the pink, fuzzy, enticingly soft bunny slippers that Suguri had bought for her as a joke and which had backfired horrifically. Yes, they were tasteless. Yes, if she ventured outside the house in them she was liable to find herself in the loving hands of the fashion police. But the fact remained that some days, you didn’t want to dress up. You wanted to lounge on the loveseat and watch one muscular human smash another muscular human through a table. Multiple tables, if it had been a bad week.

She was still lounging when she heard the key in the front door, and she knew immediately that it was Suguri’s. The front door might have been her one true rival for Suguri’s attentions, so long had the silver-haired girl known it; she spent a quiet hour every fortnight easing a layer of oil around the hinges and checking for signs of mould or rot. It must have been replaced at some point, Hime thought, since after ten thousand years even the most well-kept of doors would have rotted away to nothing, but Suguri maintained that their portal was quite permanent, and always had been.

The truth of the matter remained a mystery, but the take-home message (so to speak) was that Suguri could open the door as quickly and quietly as a jaguar stalking through a rainforest. Sora, on the other hand, was usually a mess of keys and some small amount of shoulder barging. Hime was ashamed to admit that she had also been forced to rely on percussive persuasion to get into the house at times, but she kept it to a minimum.

“Welcome home,” Hime called, hovering to her feet and padding out to the entryway. Suguri being home meant that there was hugging to be done, a duty that Hime always discharged with a smile. The silver haired girl had a greater repertoire of hugs than she had facial expressions, one for every occasion and probably a few secret hugs for occasions that hadn’t been invented yet. There was the soft, dopey ‘good morning’ hug, the quick but emotional ‘thank you’ hug, the lift-your-feet-off-the-ground ‘nice to see you’ hug. Not to mention the slow and sensual ‘I missed you’ hug that they had enjoyed only recently.

Today’s hug was quick, a little jittery, and hampered by the bag dangling from Suguri’s arm. An excited hug. The ‘I have news’ hug. Between the bag and the behaviour, Hime foresaw a present in her immediate future… but it could wait. Although she did love presents, they had slowly descended her list of priorities as time went by.

“How was your day? I wondered where you were going so early in the morning. Do you need anything to eat?” she asked.

“No. Well, yes. Maybe later. I went shopping,” Suguri said, kicking off her boots. She did not, Hime noticed, put down the bag. “I want to show you something.”

In Hime’s view, there were few things she could be shown that were worth going hungry over, but her friend’s mouth was creased into a determined little frown, and she knew better than try and slow her down with pleasant morsels and small talk. Sometimes, Suguri just needed to go fast.

“Please close your eyes and wait in the living room. I’ll be down in a moment,” Suguri said as she ascended the stairs, thump-thump-thump-thump-thump. She turned at the top to look at Hime with baleful eyes. “No peeking.”

No peeking! Now there was an instruction that made Hime’s heart race. Not only was this mystery thing important enough to postpone brunch, but it was worthy of peeking at. And peeking was well within her power. She could fly up the stairs so Suguri would never hear her footsteps, gently ease open the bedroom door and… oh, the temptation was there, and it was delicious. Perhaps intentionally so. But there was a certain decadence in waiting for Suguri to come to her and in letting the anticipation build, so she trotted back over to the loveseat and put her hands demurely over her eyes.

The wait was longer than she expected; the seconds seemed to tick on forever, even as she counted them in her head. One, two, three, a minute, five minutes. An eternity, floating silently. She strained her ears, alert for the sound of footsteps, and was disappointed when none came.

The first inkling she had that her wait was over was when she heard a deep intake of breath. There was a nervous hitch in the sound, and then a long, slow exhalation. She kept her hands over her eyes, in good faith. After another two steadying breaths, she heard Suguri’s voice.

“You can look now.”

She opened her eyes to see Suguri standing in front of her, which was always a fine treat. Perhaps it was strange that she never got tired of looking at her, but anybody who thought that had never tried to derive enjoyment from looking into the blackness of space for ten thousand years.

Even better than seeing a Suguri, though, was seeing a Suguri who was wearing very little – which, in Hime’s humble opinion, was the highest state of being a Suguri could attain. It gave her the best power to weight ratio and was more aerodynamic, and wasn’t that a wonderful goal for the world’s fastest girl?

To make things sweeter, the little that Suguri was wearing was very kind to the eye – a lovely little two-piece lingerie set in a dark burgundy that flattered her pale skin and matched the red of her eyes (and also the red of her cheeks). The lace had been inlaid with a pattern of roses, and the cut – while a little conservative – was clean and flattering. Hime had to try very hard not to lick her lips – or at least not to lick them too obviously.

“What do you think?” Suguri asked, and although she had been quite deliberate about thrusting out her chest and standing confidently, her voice still had something of a timid maiden about it.

“I think you are a treasure, Suguri. Did you pick those out yourself?” A solemn little nod of the head. “I’m quite impressed. They really do look marvellous on you. But what brought this on? I seem to remember that you own more pairs of underwear than any girl on the planet.”

Suguri gulped. Hime had taken a rather dim view of her bulk buying habits. “The normal stuff is fine, but I wanted something for special occasions.”

Hime sighed, but there was a smile behind the sound. “It seems like such a shame to limit it to special occasions. Why not get two or three pairs, so you could wear one whenever you wanted to feel just that little bit extra on a day? Oh well. You shall always be wearing lingerie in my heart.”

“A-actually!” Suguri began sharply, spotting her opportunity. “I was… maybe thinking of going again, and… you could pick something out? For me?”

Hime pressed her hand to her lips, and when it came away she was wearing an indulgent, mischievous smile. “Oh, my. I would love that. Not to say I don’t like your current ensemble, but there are a few little things I might change.” She got up, and walked over in slow, deliberate steps; Suguri stood her ground, but it was hard to avoid shrinking away. “The fit could use a little work… Something less conservative, perhaps. And with a little less padding underneath, hm?”

Suguri’s eyes flicked down to her chest and then back up to Hime’s face. When she spoke, her voice was low and furtive. “You could tell?”

“Of course I could tell. I live with you. I wake up with you. We’ve fought together, danced together, explored together. I know how big your breasts are, Suguri. They are exactly perfect, and I wouldn’t give or take a single centimetre from them.”

Suguri turned away. The sentiment was heartwarming, but also possibly the most embarrassing thing that had ever happened in human history. So she didn’t see the deviousness that was creeping into Hime’s smile, although she certainly heard it in her voice. “I do have a question, though.”

Suguri’s heart – ahead of her brain by a few seconds, as usual – seemed to stop dead. “Yes?”

“I’m here, alone in the house with a beautiful woman who has very strongly insisted on showing me her lovely new lingerie. Now, one of the functions of lingerie is that it should make you want to remove it, so… Am I to take this as an invitation?”

Hime was teasing her. She knew Hime was teasing her. She had that glint in her eye, the curve to her mouth. But it didn’t stop her heart from pounding in her chest, or her fingertips from shaking. What would Nath do in this situation…? No, not Nath. Sora. Sora never seemed embarrassed. What would she say?

“Y…you need to buy me dinner first.”

“Oh? As I recall, we went out for dinner together not too long ago,” Hime replied. She was enjoying herself too much to mention that neither of them had actually eaten anything and that the restaurant in question was on fire when they arrived. But, she thought, it was rude of her to tease so hard when Suguri was already out of her comfort zone. She put her palms up in supplication. “Oh well. I see your point. Old-fashioned girls like us should kiss before we descend to more carnal pleasures.”

“Y-yes. That’s the proper order. I agree,” Suguri said, and breathed a sigh of relief.

“I’m so glad you think so,” Hime replied, and flashed her the dazzling smile of a woman who knows she has won. “In the meantime, I shall ponder what to put you in when we go shopping together. Now, if you’d like to go upstairs and put on some clothes, I’ll start on brunch. In fact, I’ll start brunch even if you stay down here and let me enjoy the view a little longer. It’s really your choice, although I expect Sora will be back from her train adventures soon.”

Actually, Sora was probably lying on her belly in Nath’s apartment, petting the cat that Nath maintained she didn’t own. The atmosphere between them had seemed happy, albeit awkward, as they exited the shop; Nath had taken Sora aside and quietly implied they should give Suguri some privacy that day, for which she was grateful.

“Okay. I’ll be right back.”

“I imagine that you’re dying to get back to your boxer shorts. I did, perhaps, go a little hard on the teasing,” Hime said, a little ruefully. It was as close to an apology as she was willing to step.

“No… I think I’ll wear these a little longer. I have to get used to them. See you in a minute.”

She bounced up the stairs and out of view, feeling giddy and excited. Hime might have gotten the best of her, but she had done it. She had gone out, bought underwear almost by herself, and flirted semi-successfully (albeit clumsily). And the day was only half done! She threw on her skirt and jacket and looked at herself in the mirror, and saw a slightly different person to the Suguri who had been there this morning. Even after ten thousand years, she was still growing. Still changing. It was so exciting.

Maybe it wasn’t that hard to socialise. Maybe next time Hime teased her, she would be able to tease back. Slowly, and carefully, she pulled down the zipper of her windbreaker to show just the tiniest sliver of burgundy before going downstairs to join Hime at the table.

A/N: As I said before, I'm much less comfortable with longer stories than with shorter ones; this was me trying to push the envelope a little and get more used to the idea that a hefty wordcount isn't necessarily a bad thing. I do feel like it has some bloat, and that I lose the snappiness as time goes on; however, for a first attempt, I'm relatively pleased with both the quality and the turnaround time. Hopefully it's not too bad, and doesn't push things too far so far as the fanservice elements go. I might take a little break to recharge with some drabbles before I do the next Community Card art story, but the last time I said that I totally didn't, so... who knows? The title, by the way, is a pun on Victoria's Secret, a lingerie manufacturer. not a good pun, but still.