Dislcaimer: I do not own Princess Princess.

Picture Perfect Illusion
By Silver Sailor Ganymede

"This is Hell! This is hideous! If I had known that this was going to happen then I would never have gone to this goddamn school; I would have gone somewhere else, somewhere normal!" Mikoto screamed, his face turning as red as both his hair and the dress he had been forced to wear. "For crying out loud, I look like a girl: a girl from a fucking Lolita manga! Whoever came up with this idea was a complete and utter moron and I'm going to kill him! And did I mention this looks hideous!?"

Yuujirou sighed. It was lucky that the guy who had designed these outfits for them wasn't there; he would have broken down completely, Yuujirou knew that much already even if he couldn't for the life of him remember his name. In fact there were only four names that had stuck in his mind at that time: his own, Mikoto's, Arisda's and someone called 'Sakamoto-sama,' the last of whom Yuujirou had no idea of the identity of yet.

He turned his attention back to the red haired boy next to him, who looked just about ready to rip his dress to shreds, and said the only thing he could think of at the time.

"Will you shut the Hell up?" he snapped, "I already have a headache and your constant complaining is making it even worse."

"I have a right to complain!" Mikoto snarled back. "I'm a guy, I have a right to complain about being stuck in girl's clothes! Not that you care about this, you fucking pretty boy. It's obvious that you're a fag."

Yuujirou rolled his eyes, "Why are people always so quick to jump to conclusions about my sexuality, damn it? And by the way, people who live in glass houses should really try to avoid throwing stones if they can help it."

"What do you mean by that?"

"What I mean is that you're just as 'pretty' as I am in clothes like that. And the fact that you're slinging round terms like that just proves that you're not certain about your own sexuality," Yuujirou yawned; he had heard things like that from people so many times before that this was boring him to death. He would rather just get out there and get their presentation as 'princesses' of the school over and done with. The other boy seemed just to want to put it off for as long as he possibly could, even if it meant letting his temper get the better of him and saying stupid things to do so.

"I have a girlfriend," Mikoto snapped.

"You're probably in denial," came the reply, which served to infuriate the redhead even further.

"What's with your obsession with me not being straight?!" he yelled.

"What's your obsession with me not being straight?" Yuujirou calmly shrugged.

"Well you look like a girl for one thing," Mikoto muttered.

"And so do you when we're dressed up like this, don't you?" Yuujirou fought the urge to laugh at the stupid things his fellow 'princess' was saying.

"I'M NOT A GIRL!" Mikoto bellowed and Yuujirou flinched.

"Didn't I tell you earlier that I already have a headache?" he hissed. "And I know you're not a girl, though you're acting like on right now with all your blasted hissy-fits. It's like you have PMS or something." Mikoto opened his mouth to speak again but Yuujirou held up a hand to shut him up. "Look, I know you're not a girl, you know you're not a girl, and the boy's in the school know you're not really a girl, so why do you have a problem with this?"

"How can you not have a problem with looking like something out of a smut novel?" Mikoto asked incredulously, and Yuujirou shook his head.

"You can't see any aesthetic appeal in this, can you?"

"Can anyone?" came the reply.

Yuujirou sighed, "Obviously, otherwise we'd be out of this job."

"I can only wish."

"Personally I don't mind it, but that's because I can actually see the beauty behind it, or at least why some would consider it, and us beautiful."

"Beautiful?" Mikoto scoffed. "You really can see the 'aesthetic appeal' behind everything, can't you?"

"Most things yes," Yuujirou sighed. "But all aesthetic appeal is, is the front of an illusion. This is just acting: it's not real. Reality is never
beautiful after all. That's why I don't care about this; it's not real, it's just a game, and it's a game where, really, we're in a win-win situation." He shrugged, "So long as we look picture perfect and act like complete idiots, no one's going to care that we're actually just guys in girl's clothing. It's like dressing a wolf as a lamb; it's not what it actually is, but people can fool themselves into thinking that it's something else, you follow?"

"No," Mikoto muttered, still as confused as ever and somewhat annoyed at the blond's uncessary babble.

"I didn't think you would," Yuujirou sighed, "Well to put it simply so you can actually understand, we're still guys and they still know we're guys even though we're dressed like this. It's a picture perfect illusion. That's why I opted to come here actually, so they can still be picture perfect and I can disappear without ruining that."

"What?" Mikoto didn't understand.

"Never mind," Yuujirou shook his head, "I don't really want to go into it; I really would appear to be an over-sentimental teenage girl if I did."

Mikoto shot the blond a confused look and was about to attempt to persue the matter further anyway when there was a knock at the classroom door.

"The presentation is in five minutes," someone called.

"We'll be right there," Yuujirou replied then he turned back to Mikoto. "Now are you going to come with me or not?"

Mikoto just stood there: Yuujirou sighed. Oh well, he had asked nicely and it just hadn't worked, and they had to get there somehow or they were both for it. It looked as though he had no other choice than to drag the other boy out with him.

"Well I can see you're not going to move willingly, but come on," Yuujirou said in a mock-cheerful voice as he grabbed Mikoto's hand and dragged him from the classroom. "I'm not going out there on my own. And besides, we have a show to do and a picture perfect illusion to uphold."