Childhood Part XVI – Present – Start
Komaru comes out of the changing room wearing a sailor scout suit from a certain magical girl Anime, she spins around and strikes a pose while looking towards the small audience that was composed of her friends and a employee of the establishment. "Ta-dah!" The brunette girl twirls again. "How am I?"
The employee, a woman named Noriko clasp her hands and in a exciting tone says. "You look perfect sweetie!"
Komaru nods happily before looking towards her friends. "You look great Komaru." Her older brother replies, making the young girl blush.
"I think so too." Chiaki nods, agreeing with Makoto.
The last one of her friends had a hand on her cheek and a look of concentration. "Uh, yeah, you look… great." Tsumugi says forcing a smile.
She was being strangely quiet ever since they started trying out some of the costumes.
Komaru notices it. "If you have something to say, I don't mind." She then crosses her arms and pouts. "I'll be mad if you just lie to make me happy!"
After some seconds of silence, Tsumugi gets up and walks towards Komaru.
Inspecting the other girl from every angle, Tsumugi crosses her arms. "The problem is not with you Komaru-chan." She then circles around her again. "It's with the costume." Noriko throws a glance to the young girl, but she just ignores it. "The colors are slightly wrong, the length of the skirt is above what it should be and the upper part of the costume seems to lack some details." She pushes her glasses up and continues. "Outside of that, there's no extra accessories to make the costume really work."
Noriko cough nervously. "Obviously, we do offer extra accessories, but those for this specific costume are not available right now." She forcibly smiles.
Tsumugi looks at the woman. "Really? Because most of the characters my other friends try on also didn't have any accessories." The woman starts to sweat heavily. With a sigh, the otaku turns around. "I'll be honest with you Komaru-chan, this doesn't look good on you, purely because of the costume's bad quality."
"Oh, now that you pointed it out, the skirt does seem a little bit weird." Makoto comments.
"And the colors seem off… I think." Chiaki agrees, looking more closely at the costume her friend is wearing.
Noriko turn to them and says with a bit more anger than she probably intended. "Are you going to take the costumes or not?"
Makoto look towards Tsumugi and then shakes his head. "I don't think we will."
After Komaru changed back to her regular clothes, the ground of friends walked out of the store with a obviously very pissed Noriko accompanying them to the exit.
Once outside the store, Tsumugi turns to the rest of the group and bows. "I'm sorry."
"H-Huh? Why?" Komaru asks and the other girl adjusts her glasses.
"If I wasn't so picky, you guys could have brought your costumes." Tsumugi explains, before bowing again.
"It's nothing." Makoto approaches the blue-haired girl and smiles. "If you hadn't pointed out we probably wouldn't even notice those little inconsistencies."
"And we can always check out other stores… I think!" Chiaki says while cutely putting a finger in her chin.
"I-I don't know about that." Tsumugi says. "Those costumes that those types of stores sell are just cheaply made to get idiots to buy them." The otaku looks to her friends with passion in her eyes. "They don't do it for the love of their craft!" Crossing her arms, the girl continues to rent. "And that only leads to a result like that one we saw! Full of inconsistencies and I can't have my friends buying something so worthless!" She stops once the girl notices her friends staring at her. "S-Sorry." Blushing, she bows again. "I got a little carried away and started rambling."
Makoto just smiles and chuckles. "Don't worry about it." The boy pats her on the shoulder. "It's actually really nice of you to be so worried about the quality of what your friends are going to wear."
"R-Really?" Tsumugi blushes and Makoto nods.
"But if what Tsumugi-chan is saying is true, then what are we going to do about our costumes?" Komaru asks and the others just look at each other.
Tsumugi takes a deep breath before looking up at them with determination in her eyes. "I know!" Everyone looks at her and she continues. "How about I make your costumes?"
All three of her friends blink twice before Chiaki asks. "Can you really do it?" The blue-haired girl nods. "I'm not saying this because of your skills, would you even have enough time to make them?"
"I-I think so!" Tsumugi exclaims, before looking down at her feet. "No! I know I can do it!" She then looks up with a determined expression.
"Heh, you sure look fired up." Komaru giggles before nodding. "I trust you can do it Tsumugi-chan!"
"If Komaru believes in you, then so do I." Makoto agrees with a smile.
"Then I'll trust you can do it too… I think!" Chiaki says also smiling.
"Great! Making costumes is the only thing I'm confident about!" The otaku exclaims. "Nanami-san, Komaru-chan, Onii-sama, I won't disappoint you!"
"That's the spirit!" Komaru laughs as she pumps her fist into the air.
Makoto looks to the time on his phone, before turning to his friends. "Well, we still have time until meeting with our parents. What do you girls want to do now?"
"Can we drop by the game store? There's some new games I want to buy." Asks Chiaki.
"Of course we can." Makoto replies with a smile making the mauve-haired smile. "I mean, if you two don't mind." He turns to his sister and Tsumugi.
Both girls nod.
With their next destination in mind, the group of friends walk to the closest game store.
Once inside the game store, the group goes their separate ways to shop around.
Thanks to not ranting any costumes, they could buy some more expansive stuff on the store.
Chiaki went to look at some games she's really excited to play, while Komaru and Tsumugi went to look at some figurines that are in display at the shop.
Makoto on his part just kind of wandered around the store, looking at whatever caught his attention.
When walking around, the brunette stops at where they are selling some merchandise.
He grabs a plush of a yellow rat in his hands and giggles. "Chiaki would probably like this one." He smiles. "Huh, now that I look at it more, I guess Komaru would like it too." Turning the plush around, he finishes. "Well, so would Tsumugi now that I think about it." Looking at the price tag, the boy sighs in relief. "It's cheap, so I guess I can grab three of them."
He goes to pick up two more plushies, but his from the corner of his eye, the boy sees something.
"Huh? What's that?" He approaches the thing he saw and looks more closely at it. "It's a little spaceship from that game Chiaki-chan likes!" Then, his eyes fall into the price. "W-Wow, that's kinda pricey."
"Oh, I see you found something that caught your eye." A male voice comments.
Standing there behind him is the manager of the store.
"Yeah, what is that?" He points to the little ship.
"That is a fairly obscure piece of merch." The manager walks up to the packaged ship and picks it up. "It's a hairclip, apparently this series was very popular with girls, so they made some hairclips based on the main ship's design." He then puts it back where it was and turns to Makoto. "It is a bit more expensive than the other items, considering that it isn't being made anymore."
"I see." Makoto sighs. "Chiaki-chan would really like that." He looks at it for some seconds and then makes up his mind. "Uh, screw it. I want to buy it."
It was very pricey, but Makoto really wanted to buy that.
He wanted to surprise Chiaki before he finally talked to her about the Hope's Peak invitation and that seemed like the perfect gift, his savings be dammed.
The boy went to the counter first, to pay for the hairclip without anyone seeing it.
Not too long after, the girls all came to the counter too, Chiaki with the three games she wanted to buy, Tsumugi and Komaru decided to not buy anything.
After they packed everything up, the group of friends made their way to where they should meet their parents.
"Makoto, Komaru-chan!" Honoka calls while seeing the siblings getting closer. "Well, you're here early, what happened? Did you rant the costumes?" She asks as the group stops in front of her.
"Actually-" Makoto tries to explain, but he is interrupted by Tsumugi.
"No, we didn't." She says. "All of the costumes we saw are of terrible quality and very poorly designed." Adjusting her glasses, the otaku continues. "I can't let my friends walk around in something like that, so I'm going to make the costumes myself!"
Higashi blinks, before asking. "Make them yourself?" He approaches the group. "Is that even possible?"
With a amount of confidence that no one has ever saw in her, the blue-haired girl nods. "I can! And I'll make them the best costumes possible!"
"And you all think that she can do it?" The man asks, prompting them to nod.
"Yes! I saw some of the costumes she makes, they are amazing!" Komaru says, making Tsumugi blush at her friends praise.
Honoka laughs. "Well, if all of you trust her, then so will I." She then looks at them and asks. "So, we are all done here?"
Makoto looks at the others and all of them nod. "Yes, I'll say so."
"Then, it's time to go home." Says Higashi.
It was decided that tomorrow they would all go to Tsumugi's house, so she could take their measurements.
After hanging out with the siblings a little more, Tsumugi and Chiaki had to go home, leaving the two siblings alone with their mother.
Komaru still had some old homework that she had to catch up, so she went straight into her room.
Makoto meanwhile just sat down at the living room and looked at the hairclip he brought for Chiaki.
"Oh, what's that?" Asks Honoka upon entering the living room.
The boy replies, without taking his eyes off the hairclip in his hand. "It's a present I brought for Chiaku-chan."
"I see." The woman smiles, before sitting down together with her son. "I take you've made your decision?"
Makoto nods, still not taking his eyes off the present. "Yes." A small, sad smile appears in his face. "This is a great opportunity, I can't take that away from her." He looks at his mother.
Honoka smiles. "I knew you'll say that." Wrapping a arm around her son, the woman continues. "You're doing the right think Makoto, pushing her to better opportunities."
"I guess." The brunette replies with a soft smile.
Until it was time to make dinner, the two just watch some TV and talk about random subjects.
Tomorrow was going to be a busy day.
Childhood Part XVI – Present – End
Another chapter done.
Truth be told, this chapter was supposed to come out Monday, but my internet just died and only came back yesterday late at night, so sorry about that.
Anyways, I wanted to ask how are you all feeling about this Tsumugi arc? Mostly because it is getting close to it's end, so I kind of wanted to know if you all are liking it.
I don't know how I'm going to struture the story arcs once we get into Hope's Peak, because the cast of characters will be larger, but until that starts I'll probably figure out.
Also, for some reason I'm really enjoying writing those Honoka and Makoto scenes and I hope you are enjoying reading them.
One last thing before we end those notes.
This has nothing to do with the arc on hand or the chapter, but I actually forgot Mukuro and Junko are twins.
I don't know why, but I did.
Anyways, hope y'all liked the chapter.
See you around!