In the Eyes of a Natural
Chapter Iti: Party
"Room."
"Yes, Nana."
"What would look better? This silver micro mini dress or this aqua strapless dress?" I asked my new room in Shuffle Mansion.
"The silver dress brings out your eyes but the aqua dress brings out your personality. Both look fantastic. Go with whatever your heart desires." the room commented.
I sighed. Sometimes being famous could be so headache-making. I mean, your room is designed to go with whatever choice you go with and always compliment you, even if its wrong. You could look like an ugly and it would compliment you. The room was no help in picking dresses. I don't even know why I bothered to ask. This required people advice. I snapped a picture of the two dresses on a rack with my eyescreen- I had a camera surged into it. I put it into the feeds asking which looked better. Seconds
later, pings started popping up. I sifted through picking out the people who's rank was less than one thousand and deleted the rest.
Blue, blue, silver, silver, silver, sliver- it shows off your legs, none- don't wear anything, blue, silver. I smirked at the comments of people who said something of sex appeal. Looks like I was going with the silver one.
It was still five hours until the formal party. I pinged my friend, Kao, to come over. Kao wasn't a natural pretty like me, but her surge made it look like she was. She went with the classic bubblehead look, but her nose was naturally perfect so they left that alone. It tied the whole look together.
A few minutes later, the room said,"Nana, there is a visitor for you. Her name is Kaori Kazumi."
"Send her in," I replied.
Kao walked in. "Hey, Nana. I saw your post. The silver dress is really pretty. Do you have a date for the party?"
I didn't think about a date. "Thanks, so what are you wearing?" I avoided the date question.
"Well, let me show you." Kao walked over to the hole in the wall. She was a tech-head, so her outfit was most likely made of smart plastic while mine was silk. The hole scanned her camera eyescreen for the picture of the design. A few minutes later, the dress popped out. "What do you think?"
The dress was fascinating. It wasmade of smart matter. The pale pink dress touched the ground, but it wasn't a ball dress so it wasn't poofy. It was slim and had ruffles. The smart matter was programmed to make the ruffles ripple, so it looked like a sea of primrose waving in the wind.
"I love it," I breathed, but I wasn't going to let Kao steal my spotlight as much as I loved her. I threw the silver dress back into the hole in the wall and told it to make the dress shimmer and sparkle. When it came back out, it looked better than Kao's.
Kao didn't see me put the dress in the hole and take it out because she was too busy admiring hers so when she looked up she said, "Hmm, I didn't notice that your dress sparkled. That'll make an even bigger entrance. By the way, you never answered my question about the date. Who are you going with?" I was hoping that she wouldn't notice that I didn't answer. If I showed up without a date, then it would be all over the feeds, and there is such thing as bad press.
"Well who's yours?" I fired back.
Kao blushed. "Ren Machino." She looked away. "Hiro Fuse's friend."
"Oh, the tech-head? He's perfect for you!" I exclaimed. Ren wasn't very famous. It was normally kickers who were. Like Hiro. Maybe I could bring Hiro, I thought. Nah, I want to bring someone more famous. Like Daiki Haruto, the most famous tech-kicker. Or possibly Frizz Mizuno, that way he could tell me how pretty I looked all the time. I pinged Daiki asking him if he was going to the party.
He pinged back a second later Yeah, wanna go with me? Of course he asked. I thought about it, wondering if I wanted to go with a kicker.
"So, who are you going with?" asked Kao.
"Daiki Haruto," I blurt out. Crap. I pinged yes back to him. It looked like I didn't have a choice.
"That's a nice choice. He's pretty cute," Kao looked at her nails. Perfect as usual. She looked up. "Did you see his latest story? It was about how they are making hoverboards that use the Earth's magnetic field, so you could go into the wild and not worry about staying close to metal."
"Yeah I did. But who would want to go into the wild?"I said wild like it was a disease, and in cases, it was. There were so many out there.
"Tally Youngblood and the Cutters," Kao looked at me with a serious-making face.
I frowned at their name. So what if they ended the Prettytime. I was a naural born pretty. I didn't need the operation. Tally Youngblood was the leech who was standing in my way of being the most famous person in the city, and if I started traveling, the world. I mean, how many other natural born pretties are there?
"I need to get ready," I sighed. Tonight was going o be long.
It was 9:00pm. The time the party started. I was waiting until 9:30 so I would be, what the Rusties called it, fashionably late. Kao and I sat in the private hovercar, waiting.
"So, Kao, how did you and Ren meet?" I asked, trying to make conversation.
"Well, I was at a party a couple weeks ago at Naomi Mansion and Ren was hanging out with Hiro. I saw him sneak out and followed him. He was going to the roof. On the roof, I hid behind a rack of bungee jackets. Ren pulled out a hover-touch. The new invention Akio Daisuke invented. Well, Ren was hacking Gamma Matsui's eyescreen. I saw it pop up on the hover-touch. He was controlling all the feeds that Gamma was posting and changing them to say stupid-making things. Like what was 'At a mega party with Nana' was changed to 'Stripping at a mega party for Nana'." Kao laughed. "Sorry, but when I saw that post on my eyescreen, I was shocked that it even worked, and I gasped a little too loud. He turned around and got pretty mad that I knew what he was doing. He picked up his hover-touch and left. The next day he pinged me saying he was sorry and asked if I wanted to go to the formal party with him tonight. And that's it."
"And you never told me this?" I asked shocked.
"I wanted it to be a surprise," she confessed.
"Well, good thing you don't have Radical Honesty," I said looking at the window at the people walking in Ayaka Mansion, one of the only buildings in the city from early Prettytime, where the party was held. "Let's head in."
We got out of the hovercar onto the red carpet leading into the building. Our dates were waiting near the entrance where hover-cams were filming and taking pictures of everyone with their dates. Soon the whole city would think that I was actually dating Daiki. They walked over to us.
"Hey ladies," Ren said looking at Kao. "Beautiful dress. Shall we?" He held his hand out and Kao took it. She blushed and smiled at me. I smiled back and mouthed 'Good luck'.
Daiki smiled at me. His smile was gorgeous. Maybe I should give him a chance. "Hey. You look amazing as always, Nana," he smiled and bowed. I giggled a little and took his hand.
"As do you, Daiki, and there is no need to bow," I looked at him.
We walked into the mansion hand-in-hand. I smiled at the cameras and waved. Daiki was a good choice.
"Maybe we should show a little something for the cameras," Daiki whispered to me. If my Japanese was right, he was telling me we should kiss. Crap. But it would give me a lot of publicity.
I leaned up to kiss him. When our lips met, a shock went through me. I wondered if he felt it too. The cameras were flashing, putting it on the feeds. Soon everyone would know we were together. My fame would skyrocket. We broke apart and walked into the building.
The big screen was replaying our kiss over and over and over again. I looked at my eyescreen. In the city at the moment, I was more famous than Tally Youngblood, and Daiki was number two, but at the moment, I was still thinking about our kiss. His lips were warm and soft. I had kissed many guys before, but this was the best, even if it was just for publicity. I wondered if I should stick with him for a while or if I should just let him go. Either way would mean major publicity for both of us.
The party was strictly top five-thousand. Classical music from the Rusty days was playing. Kao and Ren were dancing. I saw Hiro at the bar talking to a few girls. They were laughing and having a good time. A pang of jealousy shot through me. Why should I feel jealous when I have the most wanted guy in the city right now? NeoFoodies were floating around, but most people decided to eat solid food so they had a buffet table across the back wall. I took a sip of champagne from the self-cooling glass.
Daiki came up to me from talking to a few of his kicker friends. "Having fun?"
"Not really," I sighed.
"We could go if you want," he said.
Gamma Matsui walked up to us. "Nana! Lovely to see you so soon."
"Hey, Gamma," I tried to smile but that guy was always on my nerves.
"Enjoying the party? It's mine," Gamma persisted.
"No, not really," I burst his bubble. "Daiki and I were just leaving." I handed him my half empty glass and pulled Daiki behind me.
"What is up with that guy?" he asked.
"I don't know," I breathed. We walked into the garden. "That was a really sucky party."
"Well, we weren't in there long enough to get drunk. Who knows what would have happened then," Daiki smirked and put his hands in his pockets. He turned to me. "Nana, do you really like me or are you just trying to get publicity?"
I was shocked he asked that question. Although at first I was trying to get publicity. "I really do like you, Daiki." It was the truth.
He walked over to me and put a stray piece of hair back in place, then leaned down and kissed me. This kiss was more intense than the one in front of the cameras. I wrapped my arms around his neck. Daiki pulled me closer. His lips tasted of liquor and beer. But I broke the kiss. "I- I gotta go." I let go of him and ran toward the hovercar waiting for me. I hopped in.
"Shuffle Mansion," I breathed. What had I gotten myself into? I couldn't be with a kicker. He would just post all my secrets and his fame would boost to the most famous. But fame wasn't why I did it. It was betrayal. He was a kicker and kickers betrayed people. I needed someone I could trust. Then again, in today's society, the only person you could trust was yourself. Even that was iffy.
AN: I haven't read the books in a while, so if I get something wrong, please tell me!