She was finally here. Kyoko couldn't believe it herself. This was her first movie premiere. She felt light headed and a laughter of relieve bubbled up in her throat, but she just smiled widely. The mild September evening was alight with the flashes of cameras. The paparazzi shouted at her to pose and smile for them. The all blurred into one big mass of people holding their cameras in front of their faces. They looked a bit like some strange one eyed aliens. A short giggle escaped her lips at that thought. In awe Kyoko looked around her. Everything was so shiny and sparkling here. If it weren't for all the people, she was sure; some mishit fairies would love to play here. She felt a bit like a fairy herself in her dress. It was a light silvery-grey dress made out of thin layers of transparent silk that ended around a hand over her knees in the front, but fell to the floor in the back. It was light and fluttery and the heart shaped neckline was decorated with many glittering white and grey gems. With a smile she remembered how she the day she chose it together with her best friend a week ago.
X
Kyoko didn't realize until that moment that she started to become known to the public. She always thought of herself as unremarkable and too normal for anyone to notice her. But here she was smiling with these two teenage girls who begged her for a selfie together. She felt awkward, but faltered at the same time.
"Thank you so much! It's so great to meet you. Nobody would believe us, if we say we meet you just here." Teenage1 told her excitedly. Her friend stood next to her bushing madly. Kyoko couldn't say if it was because of meeting her or because she was embarrassed about her friend blabbering on nonstop for at least five minutes. "I mean I can't even believe that we meet you here at a bike rake like this. I mean, aren't stars always driving around in limousines or something?"
It felt strange to stand here with two girls she didn't know, they could have at least introduced themselves (or maybe T1 did, but Kyoko was to shocked from being jumped by them to registered it), and take photos with them. "You know Tokyo is a megacity and like in most megacities the fastest and most comfortable way to get from A to B is with the bike." She replied while scratching the back of her head.
"EHH!" T1 let go of a high pitched squish as an answer, that made Kyoko's ears ring for a couple of seconds. "You're so down to earth and COOL! We will totally see your movie when it comes out!" She grabbed one of Kyoko's hands and promised her with a sincere look on her face.
"Eh, thank you very much. I hope you will enjoy it." Kyoko didn't know what to say and tried to smile on. Her eyes darted to her watch. "I would love to talk more, but I have a meeting in a few minutes…" She really hoped they would get the hint without needing to send them away.
"Ah, of course a star like you probably never as any free time and the little you have you even spent on us." T1 swooned over her in excitement, grabbing onto her shy and blushing friend. "We will leave you to your business. Good bye and thank you so much!" She pulled her poor friend like a rake doll behind her as she ran off.
Kyoko waved after them and signed in relieve once there were out of sight. Now, that had been strange. If superstars like Tsuruga-san have to deal with this all the time? She looked at her watch once more, before panicking. "Wah! It's this late already?! Moko-san is waiting for me!" She kickstarted into a full run the three blocks to the café, they had agreed to meet at. She abruptly stopped at the table with her best friend, making her jump in shock. Gasping for air she explained her, what happened. "I'm so sorry! I was on my way here, when those two girls showed up and they asked me for a photo and I didn't know what to do and I didn't want to be rude and talked with them and then a saw that I'm already late!" Tears streamed down her face as she bowed down to her friend.
"It's alright. Now stop crying. It ruins your makeup and image!" Kanae forcefully trusted a handkerchief into her hand awkwardly petted her shoulder. "Now sit down already; it's embarrassing, mo." She harshly ordered her fellow actress with a deep red blush on her face. "Next time put on sunglasses or something."
"You are such a good friend." Kyoko gratefully took the offered handkerchief to dry her tears and sat down with a brilliant smile. "You are the best friend anyone could wish for." This caused Kanae to turn her head away and to bite her lips with a troubled face, but didn't reply anything to it.
"Well, nevertheless we have something to do today. We have to get some dresses, right. I have a contract with Lovicheé to wear one out of their new collection at our premiere. They know at the store that I'll show up there today. What about you? Do you have any contract?" Kanae looked down on her mobile phone to check the route to some stores. She looked beautiful as she stroked some of her long elegant hair out of her face. Kyoko stared in awe and envy at the casual beauty and grace her friend radiated. By the passing waitress they both ordered green tea.
"I don't have any contract. I'm completely free to choose whatever I want… It's not like I'm that good looking that people pay me to wear their dresses." She signed dejected and with a depressed look in her eyes.
"Oh, snap out of it. Drink your tea and think where you want to go. Do you have a budget limit?" Her best friend reprimanded her gruffly.
This question made Kyoko uncomfortable and she nervously shifted in her seat. "Not really." This earned her a raised eyebrow. "Takahashi-sama said, I should choose something and they would pay for everything." The young girl avoided eye contact with her friend as she said this.
"Hmpf. You know, you should harvest the opportunity to have such a powerful sponsor like Takahashi-sama more. Others would die to be in your position." A twinkle of jealousy lashed Kanae's voice as she advised the other girl.
"Well, do you want to go to your store first? I can look around there too if I see something, right?" Kyoko obvious changed the subject to avoid discussing this topic. The other girl looked very displeased with this behavior and stared Kyoko down for some time screwing up her face, before giving up.
"We can, but I'm not sure if they have something that would suit your style. But there are a couple of other stores that we can look for something." She reassured Kyoko with the last sentence because of the dejected look on her face. Kyoko smiled in return, but before more could be said about this, the waitress arrived with their tea and their conversation shifted to other topics until they decided to leave the café.
It took them twenty minutes to find the Lovicheé store, because they took a wrong turn once. When they finally arrived at the posh store, they were greeted by a too thin to be healthy shop assistant, who mustered them with a disdainful look on her face. This look changed immediately as Kanae introduced herself and Meiko, she not only told them her name, but that she is a model herself, became the most helpful person you could imagine. While she showed Kanae the changing room, Kyoko looked around the store a bit. It created a welcoming atmosphere with soft light and quiet western pop music. The whole ambience was designed to appear western and cosmopolitan; paintings of international landmarks, the magazines where in Japanese and English. The clothes itself was made out of fine materials and dad the grace to be without prize tags. The dresses for Kanae weren't in the store yet. The collection would be available for the public a week after the premiere.
Apparently Meiko was satisfied with the first three dresses Kanae should put on and herded Kyoko to a small coffee table in front of the dressing room. The stylish chairs were surprisingly comfortable; somebody had the mind not to substitute function for design. The shop assistant slipped in and out of the dressing room once more to help Kanae with her dress. After a few moments the beautiful and tall actress stepped out to show of the dress.
"It's um…" Kyoko searched for the right words to describe the dress. It was in a rich turquoise color and left quite a bit uncovered. The material was wrapped around her chest and two ribbons crossed over her flat belly forming a bow in the middle, that was decorated with a cute butterfly brooch. They continued to tightly wrap around her butt again. It leaved a triangle under her chest and around her navel open. The sides widened to a nearly completely open back, only the wrapping around her chest and a thin chain out of filigree butterflies down to her butt obscured the view.
"Glorious sexy. Chin chin!", finished Meiko her sentence cheerfully as she passed a glass with champagne to each of them. Both actresses looked uncomfortable at the glasses, they were both too young to drink alcohol, but took a careful slip anyway.
"I think I would like to try on some more dresses." Even the normally so confident Kanae appeared nervous in this dress, fingering with the fabric of the dress to cover some more of herself.
"Oh, but of course." Meiko hushed her back into the changing room. This whole process repeated a couple of times. They got more relaxed after a while, maybe because they got more used to the revealing dresses, or because they each drank nearly two glasses of champagne. They giggled over some stupid joke and Kanae changed her dress once more.
The next time she stepped out, Kyoko's breath hitched in awe. It dark forest green dress hugged her friends curves perfectly with its mermaid fit. It for once hinted more than show. The skirt had a slit in the front allowing a peek at her long legs with each step. The neckline had a deep asymmetric cut that have a teasing hint at the soft swelling of her chest. This cut was covered with a transparent black cloth decorated with silver and black gems; the same that formed elegant flowers on the left side of her chest. Kanae looked like a femme fatal in this dress and downright glorious.
"That the one.", breathed Kyoko in a quiet voice. "It's perfect." Kanae mustered herself critically in the mirror before nodding to Meiko with a satisfied smile on her lips.
"Wonderful chose. I will fetch the right shoes for it. One moment." And off she was, only to return seconds later with beautiful black high heels. "Now it's perfect. Put on some jewelry and makeup and you could go out and bring any guy to his knees, I promise you that."
The dress needed to be slightly shortened and would be ready for her in time. While they looked around for a dress for Kyoko, they could find anything that would fit. The dresses were either to revealing or tried too hard to be cute. They played with big flowers or bows that would look overloaded and out of proportion on Kyoko's petite build. That was why they said good bye to Meiko and looked for other stores. After four hours Kyoko felt depressed. Kanae was a very honest critic. Sometimes she just wordlessly waved her back into the changing booth; other times she verbally ripped the dresses Kyoko tried on apart
"You know, I could put on a potato bag and hide behind some of the better looking actors." Kyoko offered in defeat. Her feet hurt, she was hungry and she was dead tied.
"Stop talking rubbish. It can't be that no stupid store in Tokyo has the perfect dress for you. Something that flues the curiosity of the people, without making you look like a ten year old or slut… or a ten year old dressing up as a slut." Her best friend replied harshly. She feverous tripped something in her phone, probably the navigation to the next store.
"Don't say stuff like that!" Kyoko blushed a deep red at the other girl's crud word chose.
"What? It's true." She mumbled as an answer. "Ok, next one is one and an half kilometer from here."
Kyoko groaned at this order. "Could we maybe get some water first?" Only for a short moment it seemed like Kanae was ready to argue against it, but her own thirst or tiredness won over and she agreed. It turned out, that it was surprisingly difficult to find a store that just sold bottled water in the middle of the city. They had to cross through some smaller streets to find a little supermarket. On their way back Kyoko saw this tiny store sandwiched between a doctor's office and some second had book store. In the window were one dress and a couple of other clothes mixed together without any real concept apart from showing as many things as possible in the small space the window offered.
"Let's go inside, Moko-san." Kyoko didn't wait for an answer and dragged her friend with her. The store was on the inside as small as it appeared on the outside. Everything was stuffed with some kind of display for the clothes and there were even a couple of mannequin even wore clothes still in the making. That was where she saw it, her dress. It was displayed next to a punky shirt. Kyoko fell in love with it at first sight. She looked at Kanae with hopeful eyes. "Would it be great?"
The other actress knitted her nose, while she personal thought that to a premiere something more elegant would be fitting, she couldn't deny that the dress could look good on Kyoko and that it maybe would even give her a way to show the sweet and cute side of herself to the public opposite of the mostly dark roles she was known for. "Well, it could hurt right." They looked around for a changing booth but couldn't find one or an employee to ask. "This is ridiculous." Kanae complained vociferously, before shouting: "Hello?! Is there somebody, we would like to buy something!"
With her call she summoned a young woman from a nearly hidden door at the end of the store. The thick glasses gave her a bug like appearance. "Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't hear you enter and I should, I mean I want to sell my stuff, right?" She blabbered an apology to them. "What can I do for you?"
"I would like to try this dress on, if that's ok? But we couldn't find a dressing room or anything." Kyoko pointed at the silvery dress with a shy smile.
"But of course!" The woman took the dress of its display. "Please follow me." She leaded them to door that she had appeared from only moments ago. "You can change in here, it's my atelier." Pride filled her voice as she opened the door. The room was slightly smaller than the sells room, but even more packed with things. On the desk laid dozens of sketches with clothes and next to it was a sewing machine. The shelves at the walls were filled with rolls of different cloth. There seemed to be a vague order of colors and materials to the chaos surrounding them. There were even more mannequins with half finished clothes on. "If you need help, just say so, ok?" With that she shooed Kyoko in and closed the door behind her.
Kyoko put the dress on and immediately liked the feeling in her body. She felt pretty and free in it. As she stepped out again Kanae surrounded her and mustered her critically from all angles. "Not bad." She nodded appreciatively.
The young woman clapped in delight and pulled out some floor-length mirrors behind some stuff. "You look so cute in it. That's how I imagined it." She let Kyoko turn a couple of times in front of the mirrors before stepping next to her and pull at the dress in a few places. She fixed some needles there with nimbly fingers. "A few stitches here and there and it will be perfect."
"I want it. When will you have it ready?" Kyoko's eyes shone with excitement as she watched her reflection spin in the mirror.
"If you pay for it now, tomorrow noon." The young woman replied, trying and failing not to sound too eager.
"Deal." Kyoko hurried back into the room where she had left her bag. She pulled out the credit card Takahashi had given her. This earned a raised eyebrow from Kanae, but she didn't comment on it.
X
One reporter stepped next to Kyoko, together with her camera man. On her microphone the letters TTv3 were written. "Hello. We are from fame&name and want to ask you a couple of questions for you." The reporter herself was in a long black dress.
"Sure, asked away." While Kyoko still felt nervous when giving an interview she covered it with a brilliant smile.
"This is your big premiere. Everybody waited for it. How does it feel to be finally here?" The reporter seemed friendly and good natured as she asked her question.
"Fantastic, I feel like I'm on cloud nine." The answer was accompanied with a small laughter.
"Ok, obligatory question: where did you get your beautiful dress?" The camera took a shoot of her whole body running it up and down.
"Oh, it's from a small local designer here in Tokyo. Her name is TaikiLaLa." Kyoko spun around for the camera.
"An underdog designer for the underdog movie. How fitting!" The reporter said half to her half to the camera.
A.N.: Ok this is my new story. I will take you with me on a little mystery chase. The story would be told linear, but will jump around like in this chapter. Actual I would like to know if somebody would like to be my beta for this story; not only for spelling and grammar issues, but to be somebody I could use to bounce ideas on and who would help me making sure there are no plot holes or the timelines get to confusing. If somebody is interested please tell me. To everybody else, I hope you enjoyed it and I would love it you leave a comment and help me improve.
Disclaimer: Skip Beat! Isn't mine. I don't make money with this.