A/N: Dear reader,

I hope it isn't wrong for me to assume that you all see how important fasion/clothes/accessories are to the story of Gals? In this little collection of one shots, I'll be attempting to show you all a few insights into the personalities of the guys and gals by the clothes and accessories they wear. There won't be romance, but there will be feelings. There won't be drama, but there will be angst. There won't be much of a plot, but there most certainly will be a story. And, hopefully, there will be you. Reading. Please do enjoy.

-Hachi

Aya

Camouflage: A leopard's interpretation of its own spots.

When certain students at her school had called for the banishment of uniforms as a means to the end of the stifling of individualism and creativity amongst students ("Stop being such a hardass dictator, Naka-teach! When did wearing a choker become a crime?"), Aya had secretly been glad that the faculty had remained firm on their stance of loyalty to tradition and order ("When you began using them for an argument and an excuse to put off doing your work. Now take that thing off your neck, shut your mouth, and finish that quiz, Kotobuki!"). The plainness of the button-up color shirt, skirt, and loafers would, thankfully, remain the norm.

With the same outfit among many, it gave Aya a feeling of being able to get lost in the crowd. She liked the temporary loss of competition, where no one really won and certainly no one lost.

Besides, pants, jeans in particular, made her uncomfortable. They felt tight, form-fitting, and revealing because girls her age and girls her style were supposed to wear jeans tight, form-fitting, and revealing. The modest, secluded Aya found she disliked this immensely. It felt too forward to her: letting complete strangers memorize her honest curves, to be appreciated or scorned. Aya hated the feeling that people she may never know were passing judgment on what she was. Jeans and she were different lyrics for the same song.

Shorts were simply out of the question.

Aya made exceptions though; she did wear jeans, at times. Ran was to blame for that. When it came to shopping, her high-school flunking friend was a genius, one that was determined to share her gift, whether it was welcomed or not. Sometimes they were skirts, and Aya always breathed an immense sigh of relief when those were the items Ran chose to thrust in her arms.

"Try 'em on and let's see how awesome you look!" she would say, already knowing Aya was mentally calculating the needed funds out of her wallet because they always were simply perfect.

Other times, there were jeans that her style-conscious friend saw: aggressive, slim, and outrageous, Aya would think, just like Ran.

"They're too perfect for you, Aya!" was this Ran's argument against all that the prim girl loathed and avoided, and Aya simply couldn't tell her 'no.'

She hated jeans because she was a coward, and she wasn't able to tell Ran such things because she was that same coward. It was times like these that she didn't simply wish to be with Rei, she wished to be Rei, or all that the beautifully tragic boy stood for, really.

She had practiced it in the mirror, wrote down a draft –edited a hundred times over!- of what she would say to Ran: telling her why denim simply has never been and will not ever be her style choice. Every time a new pair of jeans had been offered into her grip however, the words had faltered on her lips and Ran's confident smile just seemed utterly so convincing and her own convictions so pointless…

When she tried them on and Ran was there throwing harmless catcalls and Miyu was there sweetening the air with sprinkles of compliments, Aya began to think that maybe she shouldn't spend so much time worrying what others thought, and should just enjoy the feeling because it was aggressive and it was outrageous. It was fun. She looked in the mirror and saw Miyu's compliments reflected back at her, and Ran's smile. She almost always bought the jeans.

It was only when she was home again, in her room and lacking in the string of kind words and wide grins that kept her shy smile in place, that she sometimes found her way to the mirror again. With only herself as judge and jury, she saw what she didn't want to see. The way the material puckered almost unnoticeably at her hip. The slightly awkward, angled look to her thighs, as if she were standing on a subtle incline. The way she was too skinny in some places, and too fat in others. She was a convulsing mass of gelatin and the rotting remains of a skeleton all at the same time and it seemed to Aya that there was no middle ground.

Needless to say it hurt.

She couldn't see how anyone could stand to look at her lower half, let alone speak nice words of it – she certainly couldn't -, and it was times like these when she tore off her pair of horrid, malicious, wrathful jeans and promptly put on a skirt.

Then it all vanished. Ambiguity was hers again, draped around her legs in the form of a mild-colored fabric. People couldn't know now and they didn't need to know, and she liked it.

She could walk in shadow where the truth was her own and pairs of eyes couldn't pry her open like medical students might dissect a cadaver on a lab table.

Still, there were times when she put on those jeans, but to her it seemed more as if Ran wore them and called herself Aya, because Aya never felt quite like herself when she had them on. Those were the times when Ran and Miyu were smiling at her, Yuuya might sneak an approving glance when he didn't think anyone –read as Mami- was looking, and, if she was lucky, Rei might offhandedly throw out the words, 'You look nice.'

When they were all around her, surrounding her, supporting her, she almost felt like she could forget what she was and how she was. And she did, sometimes. For a few moments she let herself lose her own vision and gain another's eyes. They were warm, confident, and let Aya feel like she deserved honest smiles too.