tomorrow

"Annie-chan, Annie-chan, Annie-chan! Let's sing it again!"

Mahiru faked a smile, vowing to make sure all the boys felt her wrath later, though it was also partly Sonia's fault. It all began a week ago, when Sonia revealed that she enjoyed watching movies with a lot of singing to them. She felt like she could relate to some of the Disney princesses, but in her native country, there wasn't much of a variety of movies, and so she asked the group for recommendations. Naturally Souda, like the lovestruck blockhead he was, started to roll off his tongue any singing-related movie that came to mind, and the two traded sighs and gasps until Gundam suggested Annie.

No, Sonia never heard of that one, and neither did half the group, but Mahiru was all too aware of the 1982 film adaptation. It starred a bright and lovely orphan named Annie, whose bright, red hair and optimistic nature warmed the hearts of her fellow orphan kin and the wealthy Oliver Warbucks. The movie was okay - Mahiru preferred watching documentaries over musicals - but she hated that whenever someone knew about it, that person would always tease Mahiru of her own red hair. She was not an Annie but a Mahiru, and she tried to convince the others not to choose it for Movie Night, but she was unfortunately outvoted by the majority.

So on Friday night, most of the group gathered around the great television, eager to watch something different. Kuzuryuu was out doing whatever gangsterlike things he did, and Chiaki was holed up somewhere playing video games, but Mahiru didn't want to be rude by not showing her face. Besides, Hiyoko sat next to her, about as annoyed as she was as she kept taunting poor Mikan. "I bet you'll like that pigheaded orphan because you're a pighead yourself, Pighead," the blond whispered.

"Blu-bluuuh, I'm sorry, Saionji-saaan…"

But as the movie started, Hiyoko grew quiet. She was the first one to make the connection, darting her eyes between the television screen and Mahiru, but it was Sonia who made the first comment, her eyes twinkling as she gasped in delight. "Koizumi-san, you never told me you played Annie-san!" she cried.

Good grief. Koizumi lifted her bag of popcorn to her face to hide the blush running through it and groaned. Being Sonia's lap dog (and not much of a thinker), Souda was next to comment, grinning stupidly with those pointy teeth of his. "Hey, you're right, Sonia-san! Hey, Koizumi, was Miss Hannigan really that mean?"

"Do you still have the tap shoes?"

"How is your hair that orange on the screen?"

"Ugh, shut up!"

Mahiru threw the popcorn bag at Souda and ran off to her cabin, flustered. She hadn't meant to get so upset over something so stupid with her classmates, knowing they were (mostly) joking, but she knew her self-esteem was still too fragile for mindless name-calling. Before the people who used to liken Mahiru to Annie always used to do it in an insulting way, indirectly calling her unattractive or overenthusiastic. But her fellow classmates seemed to only be awe-stricken, and she felt bad for snapping so suddenly.

When she heard knocking on the door, however, she did not expect Ibuki to be the visitor as the girl spun into the cabin, hyper as always. After burying her face in a couple of Mahiru's pillows and blankets, Ibuki flopped on top of the bed, pointing a finger in the air. "Yooo~ Koizumi-chan, Koizumi-chan, Koizumi-chan!" she said, growing louder with every word. "Why did you walk out on the MOVIE? It was good, though it could've used some GUITAR and some DRUMS and an ACROBAT instead of that Indian guy to make it awesome. Sonia-chan was SUPER-stoked, though. So was Hiyoko-chan~"

"I'm sorry, Mioda-san. It's just I've seen it before-" Mahiru suddenly paused and turned back to Ibuki, who kept rolling around on the bed. There was something just a bit off with Ibuki's sentence…well, off for Ibuki, at least. "Wait, did you just say Saionji-san liked it?"

"Liked it? She LOVED it! Well, she didn't want to show it, saying it was a lame movie and all, but Tsumiki-chan caught her all starstruck, and so she called Tsumiki-chan an ugly pig! Eheh." Yep, that sounded like Hiyoko. Ibuki rose back from the bed, delighted in telling her tale. "But then Hiyoko-chan admitted it! She thought Annie-chan was COOL and danced like an AWESOME PRO, and she said her Koizumi-onee-chan was just like Annie-chan! Ooh, she said it'd even be cool to sing with Annie-chan one day. Koizumi-chan, I know you're not Annie-chan, but it'd be cool to play Annie-chan one day, right? You can sing like Annie-chan, right?"

"Well, I can sing a little…"

It was the start of a long, dark path. With Ibuki's help Mahiru found an old red dress and a pair of tap shoes from her wardrobe and transformed herself into a living, breathing Annie. She didn't like doing this too much, but it wasn't like was using this as an apology for wasting food on Souda. No, he deserved every kernel that was thrown on him. This was for Hiyoko, since she had expressed an adoration for the curly, redheaded protagonist. On the first night she did this, when she entered Hiyoko's cabin, the girl was suspicious and called Mahiru a few nasty names. But that chilly reception quickly passed, and soon the two began singing songs from the soundtrack.

But it was exhausting. Hiyoko kept her up all night, and when she trudged out of the cabin on the next morning, all she could think about was her bed. She even ignored Kuzuryuu, whose gawking became a standard of Annie-week, since hadn't the slightest clue of what Annie was. At least she made Hiyoko happy. With the ongoing chaos that those wretched stuffed animals, Monokuma and Monomi, made, it was nice to see some smiling faces when it wasn't Movie Night or breakfast time.

One week after the initial Annie screening, Hiyoko danced around Mahiru, begging to sing that song again, but tonight she felt too tired to stay up all night. Pulling the shorter girl on her lap, Mahiru wrapped her arms around Hiyoko's waist and rested her head on hers, smiling. "Of course, Hiyoko-chan, but this might be the last time for tonight," she said, yawning. "Annie-chan's getting very sleepy tonight."

"Okay. Thanks so much for being Annie-chan, Koizumi-onee-chan. I'm glad you were Annie-chan for only me and not stupid Sonia."

Koizumi began to blush. She Hiyoko knew. She knew that her friend wasn't stupid, but she was a little surprised that the charade lasted this long. But relieved that Hiyoko knew who she was, the redhead sighed, squeezing against her friend's stomach. She was glad she was only doing this for Hiyoko, too. If she had been doing this for Sonia, this charade might have been neverending. Smiling, she played with Hiyoko's hair, truly glad that she could sing this last song with the girl before they fell asleep. "The sun'll come out tomorrow. Bet your bottom dollar that tomorrow there'll be sun…"

(Original notes: headcanon that Monokuma has a movie room similar to the one in Addams Family Values. He uses it on the less cutesy kids.)

Originally written February 18th, 2014 on tumblr for femslash february. I like this one a lot.