Vanity
Summary: Five times Misaki Ayuzawa stood before a mirror. OneShot.
Warning: Probably for silliness. 30-minutes challenge because it's late.
Set: Story-unrelated
Disclaimer: Standards apply.
I.
Misaki Ayuzawa is by no means a vain person.
She never thought herself especially beautiful: she has a plain face, dark, straight hair and brown eyes. She lacks Sakura's beaming smile and blond hair or Shizuko's sweetness which is only there when the normally remote girl decides she likes someone. Misaki also never managed the knack of using make-up. As is with household duties, cooking and other genuinely female things, she lacks the qualities of applying them while her sister Suzuna excels at them.
It never bothered her much.
It's the reason why she feels severely misplaced at the Maid Latte in the beginning. All her coworkers are genuinely female: Subaru-san with her exquisite elegance and her intelligence, Honoka-san with her kindness and her seemingly double-edged character, Satsuki-san with her habit of throwing flowers everywhere and her extreme love for anything remotely romantic and Erika-san who seems like a normal college student, girly and nice. Everyone is so much more girl-like than Misaki is, even Aoi-chan. They talked about boyfriends and love life and make-up and clothes and meetings and cats' ears and during the first few days Misaki felt like her head was about to explode. Too vivid colors, too sweet coffee, too many intimate questions.
"You can't go in there like this, Misaki-san!" Honoka caught her before she entered the café for her shift.
"Why not?" She was taken aback. She was wearing the uniform and her cap – what was wrong?
The small woman's eyes glittered. "Wait a second!"
And really, it took her only seconds to comb Misaki's hair and apply a soft layer of make-up onto her face. When Misaki was handed a mirror, she didn't even see a difference.
"There you go!" The woman said, satisfied. "Don't you look beautiful? Now go and stun them."
Hesitantly, Misaki got up and threw a last, helpless glance in Subaru-san's direction. But the tall woman only smiled and nodded encouragingly, and Misaki headed off.
II.
If even make-up didn't make that much of a change, what was its use at all?
It wasn't as if she had the time to beautify herself. She got up every morning, took a quick shower, put on her uniform and dragged a brush through her hair. Breakfast – and off she was. There always was business to attend to before school started and she was the student council president, anyway.
Sometimes, she caught herself looking.
Most girls of Seika High were typical girls – shy and small and pretty. They flocked together and giggled, pouring over magazines and pictures. "They are so pretty, aren't they?" Well, yes, probably they were, all those actresses and idols and models. Misaki wasn't sure what she was expected to say in those situations, so she went with just nodding semi-enthusiastically. The women and men on the shiny magazine paper all looked alike to her: tall and blonde and thin, wearing expensive-looking clothes, women carrying around little dogs in their handbags and men glowering at the specators with weird expressions. Misaki didn't see the difference in their clothes – she hardly was able to discern between the color petrol and turquoise, she had realized – and their faces always were the same. High cheekbones, expressive lips. Make-up? Probably. For men: dark eyes, strong jaws. Where they supposed to be pretty? Misaki thought Sakura was so much prettier when she blushed at the mentioning of Kuuga-idiot-kun's name or when Kimiko-san let her long, black curls fly without the confines of her usual hair-band. When she saw the girls she wanted to protect them, nothing else. Not once did she look and feel jealousy.
"Where are you going?"
Suzuna caught her on the stairs and Misaki was tempted to just run. She was late already, having hesitated far too long. In the end, she had put everything on: the shoes, the dress, the tights and the jacket. The bag hung over her shoulder and she did feel dressed up but, at the same time, she felt… nice.
"Nee-san, come here for a moment…"
Make-up, and hair, and Suzuna even made sure she wore a necklace. Misaki felt like a complete dressing-up-doll. And it was getting later and later.
"There we go," her little sister finally said, seemingly satisfied, and came to stand next to her. Together, they looked into the mirror.
Misaki saw two girls: both dark-haired and dark-eyed, with high cheek-bones and thin lips. Suzuna had put up her hair in a way Misaki would never be able to do it herself. She had applied a bit of make-up and even though the difference didn't seem big, Misaki felt like she was looking at a stranger there. The person looking back at her from the mirror almost looked… pretty. And she wanted to look pretty, she realized and felt the heat creep into her face. She wanted to look pretty because she wanted him to look at her even if his gaze would confuse her even more than his mere presence could. She wanted to be able to stand next to him and feel like she belonged there because Aoi kept going on how she wasn't cute and pretty when she was dressed in her normal clothes and if she wanted to stand next to Usui she would have to be pretty because he was.
Misaki never felt remotely beautiful, hadn't had the time to even think about it. But for today, she wanted to be.
"Nee-chan, when was your date?"
"It's not a da- I have to go!"
Late in the evening, Suzuna heard her door opening a crack. Someone stood in the door, illuminated from the soft light in the corridor.
"Nee-chan?"
"Sorry, Suzuna," Misaki apologized. "I didn't want to wake you."
"I wasn't sleeping."
"I just wanted to say Good Night. Sleep well."
"You too."
"… And, hey, Suzuna?"
"Yeah?"
"Thanks."
III.
What she came to notice was the fact that, in the evening, she almost liked looking at her own reflection.
Late in the evening, after a day of studying or working or whatever, while brushing teeth and washing her face, she often threw a short glance into the mirror. Usually just for a second, out of habit, and she seldom did it consciously.
But sometimes, she stopped.
And continued looking.
Why was it, she wondered, that she seemed to look particularly nice in the evening? Her hair, which she had put up quickly in the morning, had come down halfway and framed her face. She looked tired, too, but somehow… She couldn't describe it, knew no word for it, but there was something that made her stare right back and feel regret. She never, ever would look like this during day.
(Unknown to her, Usui has a theory for this.
He has seen her during school, in harsh daylight, but he has seen her in the soft candle-light of her birthday cake in his apartment, too, in the darkness only illuminated from the street-lamps outside and in the soft, silvery-white light of moon and stars. And, although he thinks she always is beautiful, to him she is particularly pretty when the light is softer. During day he shares her with a school full of noisy people, with Sakura and her friends and the student council and Yukimura and the Maid Latte staff. Daylight is sharp and merciless, illuminates her face entirely and bares her to the world. Semi-darkness brings out her real beauty. Shadows make her face even more intriguing, highlight her cheekbones and her lips, soften the line of her brows and she seems softer, more vulnerable, more beautiful than anyone else in the world. The evening half-light suits her, caresses her like a lover, and he feels jealousy rise.
She is beautiful.)
IV.
Comparing oneself to someone else is bad.
Really bad.
Maria-chan is pretty, petite and fragile, with her huge eyes and her golden, long hair. She seems vulnerable and is pretty clumsy and yet everyone loves her, loves her, loves her.
Misaki doesn't like to admit it, but she is annoyed by the teacher.
V.
On some days, she wondered.
She was plain, nothing special. Not overly beautiful, nor ugly, either. It was fine. She could live with it. She wasn't vain about her appearance, not at all. And she knew trying to look different would only make things worse. Not that she wished to do so. She was fine with herself. Well, for the most of the time, at least.
She also couldn't say what the hell Usui saw in her. He had told her often enough but somehow she never seemed to be able to believe him. She sure as hell wasn't cute and even if he did accuse her of not having pity with him and not going easy on him she had no idea what he was implying. It made her angry and a tiny bit happy, too. She liked to dress up for him – only for him, though – but she knew whatever she wore, she still remained herself. Not much change there and in her face, so why care?
Misaki Ayuzawa is by any means a vain person.
Still, when she meets him in the Maid Latte in the afternoon, when he passes through the door so silently she starts when she hears his greeting, and he passes by her with a smile and a touch of his hand on his way into the kitchen, she blushes.
And she is vain enough to check her reflection in the mirroring glass of the next door as she passes it.
She doesn't look too flushed. Her hair is fine. She looks like herself.
Why Usui loves her might be beyond her but maybe that is a part of the answer.