Chapter Fifteen: Ten Frames of Pain
Once the fitting was over and the dust had settled, all of the girls were decked out in clothes from the closet to match their favorite colors. Aiko was ecstatic about her black and blue outfit and wouldn't stop spinning around in the skirt, which was black with blue hearts all over it. Keiko was wearing a white Victorian-style blouse paired with crisp white pants and compared her outfit with Natsumi, who wore a silky purple top with a frilly purple skirt. Reiko wore a dark red top with black lace pattern matched with a slinky maroon and gold skirt that made her feel mature and elegant. Sakura wore a pink lace-up top with a pink skirt that had brown hearts on it that she was matching with products from La Vie Rose. Sayaka had on a brown halter top with brown pants, while Suzumi wore a similar halter top in blue coupled with her uniform skirt worn over a pair of jeans.
Kirari evaluated each girl's look one-on-one and dispensed the necessary makeup to enhance their features. To Aiko, she applied a layer of brown eyeliner to accentuate her blue eyes, but didn't do anything to her naturally curly hair. Keiko and Reiko's hair was placed partially in curlers and the result was that their ends were wavy and made them immediately look at least 16. They were given honey-colored lip gloss to accentuate their full lips. Natsumi (Kirari said the same thing about her that the desk woman did) was given a dusting of gold eyeshadow and a liberal coating of mascara. Her hair was also straightened to iron out the curled-up ends. A part of Sakura's hair was made into two pigtails and she was given pink lipstick coupled with mascara. Sayaka's hair was left alone, as it was too short to do much to, but she was given a coating of berry-colored lip gloss and mascara. Suzumi requested that Kirari do something wild to her hair, so Kirari took sections of it and placed them all in little ponytail holders.
Junji then snapped ten frames of each girl, going through a regimen of normal model poses and showing each girl how their frames looked right away on the computer that the camera was plugged into. He asked each girl to select her favorite, which they did, and requested that one of the desk people print a copy of the favorites as a keepsake. The girls were swathed in kindness—even Irie was nice once she got out of her cold shell—a kindness that quickly dissipated when Minerva was called in to appraise the photos and decide who she should talk contracts with.
"No," she immediately said to Suzumi's entire portfolio. "Who suggested this terrible hairstyle? It reminds me of something a washed-up punk rocker would wear." Suzumi looked defeated, though Aiko comforted her by patting her on the shoulder and whispering that she thought the hairstyle was cool. "Heavens, no," she said to Sayaka's portfolio. "Her nose is too bulbous." Sayaka rubbed her nose. "Too curly," she said about Aiko's hair, which Aiko saw as her crowning glory. "Lips are too full," she said about Reiko and Keiko. "Too cutesy," she said about Sakura, leaving Natsumi's portfolio to be critiqued.
"She's so mean!" Sakura stage-whispered.
"This one," Minerva began, indicating Natsumi's portfolio. "Is beautiful! My goodness, she looks like 100 model material." She found Natsumi, went up to her, and jabbed her finger into Natsumi's chest, just above her heart. Keiko, who was watching this whole scene even though she felt bad, swore she saw some sort of energy emission when Minerva did this bizarre thing to Natsumi's chest, but didn't make any comments. "What's your name, darling?"
"Um, Natsumi," Natsumi said shyly.
"Full name," Minerva said impatiently.
"Oh, Natsumi Aino," Natsumi answered.
"No wonder you're such great material! You're Minako's girl, aren't you?" Natsumi nodded. "Well, you look just like her! Come on, Natsumi, let's go discuss contracts. The rest of you are free to leave."
"'Bye, guys," Natsumi said cheerfully, waving to her defeated friends as she and Minerva made for the back rooms. The other girls, not knowing what else to do, changed back into their uniforms, took their favorite shots from Junji, and ran out of the building.
"I hate that woman!" Aiko roared as soon as they exited.
"She's so cruel, leading us on like that," Reiko declared.
"Making us think we were model material," Sayaka grumbled.
"And then she just went ahead and chose Natsumi," Keiko added.
"Probably because she has a legacy," Sakura said, tears shining in her eyes. "Let's just go home," she added, her voice cracking as a sign of the crying to come.
The subway ride home was awkward for each girl, as they all thought about the defect in them that Minerva pointed out so brutally. Suzumi tore the elastic holders from her hair that kept the style together and threw them to the floor of the train, though her head throbbed with pain afterwards. Sayaka stared into the window next to her and touched her nose. Aiko ran her hands through her hair, imagining them to be a straightening iron that would make her hair perfect. Reiko and Keiko unconsciously touched their fingers to their lips, wondering if they really were too full. Sakura took her hair out of the style that Kirari put it in, declaring silently that she wanted to stop being cutesy.
At the place where the girls separated to go to their respective homes, they bid each other goodbye in the way that someone leaving a funeral might and trudged home, wallowing in their own pain, completely unhappy even though they just had a fun shopping trip and it was now break time from school.
Natsumi sat in Minerva's office, picking at her cuticles as Minerva called Minako and asked her if she would consent to Natsumi signing a modeling contract. Minako was happy but cautious; she only wanted Natsumi to do modeling when she didn't have school to worry about, but she did tell Minerva that Natsumi was a good singer and, in the end, allowed Natsumi to sign a contract.
"I feel bad about my friends," Natsumi said as she signed her contract.
"Why so, Natsumi?" Minerva asked sweetly.
"Well, you really dealt them a harsh blow," Natsumi said.
"That's reality," Minerva said with a shrug. "I was actually being pretty nice to them. Some agents have full-on told girls that they're ugly or told them they need to get plastic surgery before they try again. I know one woman who personally paid for a girl's nose job because her nose was just terrible." She paused to let that sink in. "But Natsumi, you'll do great. I'm going to ask my assistants about possibly writing a song for you to sing."
"By myself?" Natsumi asked bashfully.
"By yourself," Minerva said with a nod. "What do you think?"
"I think that would be great!" Natsumi declared, smiling widely.
"Great. I'll tell the assistants," Minerva said, taking the signed contract from Natsumi. "You're not going to regret this." For some reason, this statement had exactly the opposite effect—Natsumi started to feel bad about the rest of her friends, but this feeling was quickly squashed when she felt a tingle in her heart and became excited again about what this contract could possibly mean for her.