Rosebuds, Chapter 15

"I like this one." Mireille's muffled voice came from the back room before the Corsican blonde emerged, glowing with eagerness. Kirika leaned over to see which design she had chosen.

Mireille carried the bolt of fabric over to her desk and unrolled several yards of it. It was a mix of cotton and polyester in a pale fawn shade with darker stripes of various widths streaking across it diagonally. Kirika ran her fingers over it and slowly nodded as Mireille picked up her sketchbook and laid it on top.

"We need to get a better lamp," she commented. The walls of their little office were covered with various fabric samples, and more were stored away in the back room. Most of the sunlight from the windows had been blocked out, giving the room a dark, dingy feeling. Mireille was constantly ruffling the curtain-like fabrics, trying to shake out some of the dust that she knew wasn't there.

"Is that supposed to be a fold?" asked Kirika, gesturing to a few vague lines on Mireille's drawing.

Mireille blushed at her lack of artistic skills. Generally she came up with the ideas and Kirika did the sketching, but this morning she'd been too eager to wait for that and had dragged Kirika out of bed and down to their office before the sun was even up. With a few hasty lines she'd sketched out a rough drawing of the shirt she had in mind. Kirika had raised an eyebrow upon seeing it.

"I was thinking of a fold from the left shoulder down to the right waist," she said, "except not as wide and droopy as the one we designed yesterday." Mireille's last idea had been crumpled up and lay in the trash. She picked up the cloth and grasping the end with one hand, threw the bolt to the floor so that it could unravel on its own. "Here, let me show you."

Within a few minutes Kirika understood Mireille's idea and still swathed in cloth, began to erase Mireille's lines and sketch in an exact design. Mireille sat down on her chair, facing her partner, and crossed her legs. This was how it usually went-she came up with the designs and often had to go to some lengths for Kirika to follow her train of thought before she could sketch them herself. Of course, it would have been much easier had she been able to draw her own diagrams, but Mireille found herself unfortunately lacking in that aspect. Kirika had even sketched a model onto each page of her sketchbook in hopes of making it easier, to no avail.

Their designs were sent off to some obscure company in France who would then review them and decide whether or not they would sell in a real store. Although Mireille knew she had no real say in what fabrics or colors or patterns were used in her designs, she couldn't help having her favorites. She had sent off samples more than once and stood, flushed with pride, when she saw that the company had accepted her suggestion and that her clothes were now hanging on shelves in the store-in the colors she had selected.

She hadn't been able to resist the temptation to flip out the tag stitched neatly in the back and see their names stitched in fancy cursive: Mireille & Kirika.

They weren't going by a codename anymore-there was no more Noir. They had left their mark simply as "Mireille & Kirika", as simple as that.

All this skipped through Mireille's mind as she relaxed, watching Kirika draw. She loved her life now; she and Kirika were working together on something they both loved, something that had a role for both of them to play. It had been over a year since their return from Japan and although it hadn't been easy to start a new business, they had both thrown themselves into it whole-heartedly.

Kirika paused, her pencil hovering a few millimeters above the paper, and brushed a strand of hair out of her face. She handed the picture over to Mireille.

"I like it." Mireille smiled. "It never ceases to amaze me how you manage to understand exactly what I'm thinking from a few yards of cloth wrapped loosely around you."

Kirika laughed. Having been indirectly reminded, she began to unwind the cloth and wrap it neatly on the bolt again, pausing to slice off a square foot. Mireille turned the page and stared at the next model, hoping for some glint of inspiration, but none came.

Kirika returned from the storage room. She sat down on her chair and yawned.

"Tired?" asked Mireille, then set down her pencil as she remembered. "Sorry. I shouldn't have dragged you out of bed so early in the morning for this."

"It's fine," murmured Kirika, in a sleepy voice. She opened her eyes fully and commented, "We won't be able to fit many more samples of cloth in the storage room."

"I know." Mireille grinned guiltily. Almost every time she went out, she would come back with more bolts of cloth in various shades. Kirika teased that she was spending more money on cloth than they were making, although both knew they were bringing in a decent profit. Mireille's last design of an elegant gown had been the rage across Paris among all the girls of age, and the money had been streaming in. The company had been telling them to put up a website for ages, but they hadn't gotten around to it. Or, as Mireille suspected, she just didn't want to have anything to do with the Internet again.

For the first time that warm summer morning since she'd opened her eyes at 4 AM, Mireille felt a wave of sleep submerging her. "Kirika, we'd better head back, unless you'd like to sleep in that chair."

Almost unwillingly to leave the comfy padded chair, Kirika stood up slowly. Mireille laughed and brought a large orange pre-addressed envelope from the shelf by her side. There was a copying machine beside the second-hand sewing machine that was seldom used-only when Mireille wanted to see how a particular type of stitch would look-and she fed the sketch through the machine, producing several copies in a span of seconds. She placed two in the envelope along with the necessary forms and the square of cloth that Kirika had cut before sealing it.

She ran her fingers lightly over the words that had been printed onto the envelope ages ago: Mireille & Kirika. She was used to keeping their identities secret, not letting their names get out. And now their names were embroidered into thousands of gowns across France. And they were getting fan mail, too, that had been forwarded by the company that actually produced the clothes: a girl in Madrid had just written them, asking when their designs might possibly come to Spain.

She liked it a lot. She knew Kirika did too.

As they stepped outside, Mireille dropped the envelope into the mailbox.

Author's note: A bit of insight into Kirika and Mireille's new life. . .yet AGAIN. I was considering deleting this story since it's nothing like I originally wanted it to be, but I'm not sure. . .

I used a translation bot for the title, but it should mean "The two fashion designers."