Possibilities
What IF 2 – Lady in Black
"Oi, Komaru. You done watching that show yet? There's a documentary about Hope's Peak I want to catch."
"Five more minutes bro, I'm just waiting for- ah, there she is!"
The runway on the television was dimmed to near pitch, the only colour the harshly contrasting white of the backdrop, broken up only by more dark shapes that made up a winter's forest for the newest model's entrance as she stepped out from under the broken branches. Spotlights followed her as she made slow and steady progression down the catwalk, the light gently accentuating her form in the figure-hugging dress that trailed out behind her. The girl continued the theme of white and black combating yet enhancing the best of one another, with black lips and eyelids on an expression so stoic and flawless she was indistinguishable from a china doll, crafted just for the awed audience's desires. The crawler bearing her name showed similar reverence, announcing her as Mukuro "Black Ice" Ikusaba as Komaru sat in open-mouthed worship.
"So beautiful!"
There was no denying that, otherwise she wouldn't have been a model in the first place. But there was something about the way she looked out over the crowd with that listless, empty gaze that was just off-putting to Makoto. The poor girl looked so sad it almost made him want to cry for her. But it wasn't like he was any great expert on fashion, or anything else really, and so he simply snatched up the remote as she left the stage.
Mukuro was always pleased when work was finished. Whether it was a catalogue shoot or a runway display, from beginning to end she was always a mile away, waiting for the final lightbulb flash. Admittedly, today's shoot had been slightly more durable due to her team-up with a tamed wolf, a surprisingly friendly member of the species. She'd got to sit down alongside and pet it too, the sensation of fur beneath her unsuitably thin gloves more than making up for the fact that she was stuck filming on a winter set again. Always winter sets, and never Christmas ones but isolated lakes and stripped-down forests, especially designed to invoke the barrier between her and the world. She'd been a young girl when the title of "Black Ice" had been attached to her, and now it was all that defined her career, thanks to her younger self's inability to speak up against it. Black Ice. Cold, dangerous and prone to catch you off-guard if you didn't devote your full attention to it. A perfect image for a pale beauty that never smiled.
The company car slowed to a crawl, bringing her outside to the block of apartments where she resided. She exchanged a quiet word of thanks to her driver, same as she did after every trip out, and made her way up the silent stairs relieved to be shot of yet another pair of unforgiving heels for the rest of the day. That relief lasted all the way until she made it to the door of her home and found the door unlocked. No, not unlocked. Busted open, the lock buckled and splintered by what must have been a rather hefty blow. Mukuro sighed as she reached into her handbag to arm herself with pepper spray. She had very little in the way of valuable possessions, and even if it was a thief she was happy for them to steal away with some of the more expensive, yet never worn outfits that had been dumped on her by various companies over the years in lieu of worthwhile payment. It was more likely to be another errant fan that had fallen in love with the girl on magazine pages. This was the second one this month, she'd thought that even the more determined fanatics had been deterred after she'd nailed the last unwanted piece of company with a taser. She sighed, pushed the door open and made to get it over with. As it turned out, someone had beaten her to the punch.
"So hey, you wanna know how I got these scars? This one's from Budapest. Turns out grenades make pretty piss-poor substitutes for footballs, go figure, huh? This one's from Australia, where I fought twelve dudes in a knife fight until the sun came up. You ever fight twelve dudes for six hours? You learn things about your body you kinda wish you could avoid learning. What I'm saying here is, you can struggle all you want, but I'm like a third of your weight but ten times your strength, so you're staying pinned under my thighs for a good while Sonny-Jim. But hey, look at the bright side, for once you get to be up close and personal with a girl that's not printed on a love pillow! Now, where was I? Oh yeah, these…"
There were two people in a living room that usually only saw one, both entwined with one another in what was almost an intimate position if you ignored the desperate escape attempts of the one pinned to the floor by nothing more than a teenaged girl. The one on the bottom was a stranger, the one straddling his bulky chest and running her mouth nine to the dozen a girl Mukuro hadn't seen in a while. Both turned to look at her with differing levels of elation. The man, presumably because he thought he was saved, the girl for another reason as she pulled her shirt back down and bounced up to greet her sister.
"Hey, there's my big sis! Still as drab and gloomy as ever, huh? Sorry for breaking your door, I lost my key punching out a Modern Major General. Don't ask. In other news, this guy came in and started yelling at me. I would have murdered him, but it's a pain in the ass to get blood out of cream carpets. Why do you even own cream carpets, it's the colour choice of masochists, just begging to get stepped on and ruined with dirt."
Without giving Mukuro a second to reply, Junko had already wound her long red hair into a ponytail, fixed a pair of glasses to her face and was carrying on, albeit in a calmer, more controlled tone.
"Unless of course, my dear yet utterly regrettable sister is hiding secrets from me? I suppose that is to be expected, considering your social status as a model. But I must say, such deviant behaviour is most unlike you, considering even a minor fetish would lead you one step along to path to forming an actual personality."
"Hello to you too Junko. How was Brazil?"
Junko just sighed at the downplaying of her antics and went back to her captive. To look at the pair, one would have second-guessed their nature as twins. While Junko had kept their natural hair colour and grown it out, Mukuro kept hers cut short and dyed it black to the roots, one of the few stylistic choices forced on her over the years that she'd taken to. And while her pale complexion added greatly to her image it was nothing compared to the story Junko's marked and tanned skin told, the veteran marks of a hundred battles in her time at Fenrir. They'd maintained more or less the same face though, even if Junko had picked up a couple of freckles from her time in warmer climates. The personality switching was a new trait, but Mukuro chalked it up to her sister's unique outlook on the world and followed her to the floor, kneeling beside the portly man that had been overwhelmed by the child soldier.
"Hello Mr Kamogawa. My apologies for my sister."
"Mukuro, I know you'll take shit like the first-class toilet you are, but you don't need to be nice to the nerds outside of work, you know?"
"Junko, Mr Kamogawa is my manager. And the deed owner of this apartment."
"Well, that explains why he wouldn't shut up about the door." Junko conceded as Mukuro helped him up from the floor, an attempt that took two tries as she was unable to hoist him up without assistance from the one who had knocked him over in the first place. Once on his feet, a fat hand found a well-used handkerchief to mop his brow, Junko taking the chance to flounce off and raid Mukuro's kitchen for snacks. Kamogawa grunted discontentedly as she went, the act setting his jowls in motion.
"Despicable girl. She'd be better off in prison than in the army. Thank god I got the well-mannered sibling. What is she even doing here? I thought that last tour of hers was supposed be a three-year affair."
"Yeah, funny story. All my comrades died, so I'm the last surviving member of Fenrir. I was gonna go avenge their deaths and all, but then some sort of bullshit peace treaty got called, so here I am back home in glorious Japan."
Junko was nothing if resourceful, devouring a tub of peanut butter that Mukuro didn't even know she had as she made her way back in.
"But just when I'm worrying about if my talents were gonna go to waste, what should drop in my lap but this?"
She pulled out two white envelopes from nowhere, Kamogawa's face turning a whiter shade of pale at the sight for some reason.
"You've got one too sis. The geezers that run Hope's Peak finally got some taste and sent out the call for us."
Mukuro was unaccustomed to large displays of emotion, but even she couldn't help but go wide-eyed as she read through her invitation letter. To say that Hope's Peak was prestigious was an understatement. It was a high school for the elite of the elite where only pure talent or exuberant payments could get one in. More to the point, it was a high school that had invited her. Mukuro hadn't been to school in years, all of her learning handed down by various tutors assigned by the company. Next to her, Kawogawa wrung his hands nervously.
"Mukuro my dear, you can't possibly think about taking this offer. Between school work and your career, you'd be worn to the bone. More to the point, a high school is no place for such a beauty as you, what with all those teenaged perverts running about in hormonal frenzies. It's hard enough for us to protect you after shows, but without us around anything could happen! I must advise you to decline post-haste."
"What the hell old man, you trying to lock my sister in a cage or something?"
"I am simply saying…"
The argument faded into white noise all around Mukuro as she found a chair and read through the letter again. An uncertain weight had lodged itself in her chest, and Kamogawa's protests had set a spark of fear to it. That spark caught and burst in no time, and soon her mind was ablaze with questions. Would she really be able to adapt to school life after so long on the tour circuit? How would she cope with hundreds of new people all about her when her press and fan events were presided over by no less than three bodyguards at any one time?
Her worries were suddenly shunted aside as Junko leapt into her lap with a heavy thump, collecting her winded sister up like a spider setting to work. Her expression was overly cutesy to the point of being venomous now, as she spat more insults at Kamogawa. Mukuro couldn't help but be thankful even as she tried to regain her composure. Junko's forcible intrusion had given her the only reason she needed to go to Hope's Peak: because Junko was going and Mukuro would follow her anywhere. And so she turned the porcelain face that the world had gifted her with to Kamogawa, and apologised for the inconvenience, turning him down like so many other fans.
She'd known that her decision would have consequences, but she hadn't been expecting everything to go wrong on the first day. Of course, that was mostly thanks to an extensive list of morning chores that had been thrust upon her by the company. She'd spent an hour painting her face and needed to redo her lipstick twice because she'd forgotten to eat breakfast first. Choosing a dress had been equally painful considering that all of her clothes were simply too fancy or complex for everyday use. She'd managed to dig up a pencil dress in the end, which her driver had consented to more out of necessity of time than because he thought it proper representation for the brand. And after all that traffic had bitten them hard, resulting in the twins having to forego the car in favour of running so that they could make it for their first day on a semblance of being on time. They'd pushed into the building with two minutes to spare, only making it to the main hall for induction thanks to Junko shaking down a random upperclassman for directions. The sole mercy of the morning was that they were shuffled into the seating at the back so that they didn't stand out too much. After that they'd been given their class arrangements, and were now waiting for their homeroom teacher to arrive so introductions could begin.
Mukuro wasn't sure what to make of her class. She knew Junko but the rest of the personalities seemed to be as strong as hers, and slightly stronger in the case of the strait-laced Moral Compass and the overbearing biker roaring at one another. The others were sitting back and watching the shouting match unfold, with the expectation of Junko herself, fliting around like a social butterfly from student to student. She was clearly getting a heads-up on starting her new unit. Mukuro decided to keep herself to herself until it was time for formal introductions, if only to stay away from the chaos. Besides, she wasn't sure how to gauge the looks she was receiving from some of the students. The redhead with the piercings had yet to retrieve his jaw from where it had dropped upon her arrival.
Her thoughts were interrupted by the sudden scrape of chair legs in front of her, and when she turned she found a new student pulling up in front of her. At least, she thought he was new, since she could have sworn he hadn't been in the room before. He caught her looking at immediately smiled sheepishly.
"Sorry, was anyone sitting here? I thought I'd grab a seat now."
"I believe that it's free. Go ahead."
"Thanks. Oh, I'm Makoto Naegi. Pleased to meet you."
"Mukuro. Likewise."
She wasn't sure what made her drop her family name, but thankfully Makoto was happy to overlook the social faux-pas, his smile only growing wider as he took his new seat. Not that she was complaining, as it was a very nice smile. Junko's were always tinged with madness and Kamogawa only ever smiled once a show or shoot was over. Seeing a smile for the sake of a smile for once was rather nice, even more so because he hadn't recognised her at all. Maybe she would have an easier time fitting in then she'd imagined. But any further introspective on smiles would have to wait as their teacher entered.
Things rather went from bad to worse after that. Her introduction was crippled from a lack of things to talk about describe herself, and it hadn't helped that the redhead- Leon, as he was called- had immediately begun to sing praises about her beauty, setting off a chain reaction as everyone took turns at playing "moon over the celebrity", a fate she'd shared with the idol in the class, Sayaka Maizono. Even her new neighbour had been shocked at the news, going very red in the face and crushing any hopes he would talk to her normally.
The initial classes hadn't been much cop either, as she'd fallen behind from the offset in the rational subjects like maths and science and had been paralyzed in the face of more active classes of drama and P.E. Her class had turned out to be even more chaotic than she'd initially thought; a far cry from the silent and controlled photoshoots she was used to. And while she'd had Junko to hang around with during the day, her dear sister had run home the first chance she'd gotten, already bored of civilian life and determined to make the most of her free time. Which had left Mukuro to head down to the administrative offices alone in the hopes that she could sign up for a dormitory room. If she had to spend an hour each morning applying make-up to look proper for the company's purposes, having the rest of the school be a five-minute walk away was better than a fifteen-minute drive. It wasn't like she was particularly attached to her apartment anyway. But just as she was about to knock, she heard voices floating through the wood.
"I don't see why we should have to bend over to some conceited bastards anyway! It's not like the girl is any sort of spectacular asset to Hope's Peak. Her "Talent" is getting dressed up and gawked at by delusional nitwits and rancid prevents! I tell you something…"
Mukuro was already walking away, knowing exactly what would come next. Her contract had forbidden her from strenuous exercise on the grounds that sweating would ruin her image, a clause that the gym staff had been rather displeased with. Her fists tightened at her sides as she went about in no particular direction. It wasn't her fault things were like this. She never asked to be the Ultimate Fashionista. She never asked to be dressed up and gawked at. She never asked to be separated from people to the point she had to cling to her younger sister to make it through a day that had been completely alien to say the least.
Her feet took her to the first bathroom they could, and it wasn't long before she was peeling the pallor away with uncaring scrubbing. She was still pale underneath, but at least it was the pale of her own skin, not some artificial china lain over it. Her eyes were red from lack of sleep and mascara had clumped on the tips of her eyelashes, and in her opinion she'd never looked better. She stormed out filled with something akin to confidence, fully intent on going back and getting the forms looking like a human to prove the teacher wrong, only for it to be knocked out of her as she ran into someone not three steps out the door and went sprawling to the ground. The frantic apologies started before she could make a move to get up again, and she found herself looking up at the boy who had chosen to sit in front of her earlier.
"Ah, Miss Ikusaba! I'm so sorry; I wasn't looking where I was going."
"It's fine. Really."
She picked herself up, noticing as she did so that she wasn't the only one to have been scattered on the floor. Having made sure that she was alright Makoto had taken her place, kneeling down to gather up a bunch of stray papers that had been knocked this way and that when she'd run into him. It took her a second to realise that she should assist him, picking up the one that had fallen under her foot. She was about to hand it back to him when she caught the title, the page the first one out of the dormitory assignment pack that she had been planning to acquire. Her grip tightened as he bobbed back up, looking around for said sheet.
"You're applying for the dormitories?"
"Yeah, it'll be easier for my parents that way. Easier for me too, now I only have to get up at eight instead of six each morning. My sister's not too pleased with me, so I might not even have a room to come back to for the holidays. She said something about converting it into a swimming pool."
What was it about younger sisters that enticed them to be engines of destruction? Mukuro let the thought pass by, instead pinning down another one. But when she made to voice it, it got caught in her throat. She had never asked for anything before, as it normally led to receiving an impatient sigh or an outright refusal. But Makoto seemed nice, right?
"Naegi, could I ask a favour?"
"Oh course. It's the least I can do after bumping into you."
He smiled at her again, the simple act impacting awkwardly in her chest with a not unpleasant thudding sensation.
"I was… I was just hoping to collect one of these forms myself. Would you… be able to accompany me?"
"Of course I could. We can fill them in together, I can never get my head around small print."
"You can leave that to me… I've endured enough contract signings before."
"I'll leave myself in your capable hands then."
He smiled at her again, and this time the thudding went into overdrive, leaving her clutching at her chest as they made their way back. They were small steps, but each one made her feel better. Talking to someone who wasn't Junko or Kawogama, daring to ask a favour, moving to a home of her own. She might have been made up into a doll for the public, but she would take her humanity back, one small piece at a time.
