- 5 -
The Morning After: Cure Maid and Niko Blows Up
Kotori had told the school Saturday that Nico couldn't come in for the half-day as she wasn't well. She also said she had to tend to Nico. If anyone had seen them out on their date, she would have forthrightly told them it was a "mental health day" and that a crying Nico wouldn't be very productive in school anyway. Nico was very glad it hadn't come to that. By now, word that Nico and Maki had been dating, had broken up, and that Nico had basically fallen apart over it, was circulating on the rumor vine. Since most of the girls at Otonokizaka were well-brought-up and with kind hearts, no one would probably have any incentive to rat them out.
But now it was Sunday morning, and Kotori still had big plans. Right now, before Nico, who was impossibly cute cuddled up next to her, woke up, Kotori took stock. Last night, everything had been in place for them to take the enormous step they had taken. Kotori was even a little sore, and there was a little blood on her sheets. I'm really not a virgin anymore, and Yazawa Nico was my first lover, she thought. Wow. She hugged her pillow. Am I different now? Yes, she decided. The next time she saw Honoka and Umi, she'd be a woman with knowledge and they'd still be girls. Even though it had hurt, Nico had been so gentle, loving, and determined to make Kotori feel good. She'd also cried a lot, but that was nothing new. In fact, Kotori had deliberately let Nico get into a blue mood in order to record her singing from the heart at karaoke.
As much as Kotori wanted to lay in bed and just think about everything - she had already planned Sunday out, as well. By Monday, she wanted to go to practice with a Nico who was at least comfortable holding hands with her in public (although they would not do that at practice, as Maki might react badly). So, the first thing was breakfast, then a morning spent editing and uploading film to her Minalinsky account. It was all Kotori could do to keep from squealing and waking Nico. Her sempai had wildly exceeded her expectations, making it worthwhile if Kotori had been a little mean to her.
She decided to nudge Nico, after all. My first *nudge*, she thought. Somehow, this was the moment when her wild idea hit her in the gut. We - did it! I'm nudging the woman I had sex with for hours last night! It kept hitting her.
Nico, meanwhile, made cute little animal noises and even put her hands over her eyes and said "Mama, I don't wanna get up!" It was so adorable, Kotori was glad they'd put a week limit on their affair. Otherwise, she'd have been tempted to make more of it than Nico would want, or could even handle. Nico rubbed her eyes and looked around blearily. When she saw Kotori sitting up, topless, next to her, her eyes went wide, and she sat up, clutching the sheet to her tiny chest.
Kotori was not going to give Nico a chance to freak out this whole weekend. "Nico," she said, "I am going to make us a very light breakfast. I know you feel obligated to be the cook, but I am good at making some things, and you are going to lie down and wake up while I go do it. If you want, you can use the bathroom first. I'm just going to wash my hands quickly and throw on an apron. And with that, Kotori got up, stark naked, and turned towards Nico and said, "No molesting the cook when she's frying things, Nico-chan!" And with a wink, she dashed into the bathroom, washed her face and hands, and came out past the bedroom and headed for the kitchen, still naked. Apparently, an apron was all she was going to wear.
In this situation, Nico thought, Umi might really have a heart attack or something. She would faint multiple times, at the very least. The more she thought about that, the more she thought that this dating Nico seriously thing would end whenever Umi's name came up. Kotori had been shameless even by Nico's standards last night. Images and other sensations came back to Nico and she blushed.
"I want you to show me everything Maki-chan did, Nico, and everything you did to her. Tonight you are my sempai, and so is Maki-chan. After tonight, we'll teach each other, ne?" So Kotori had said to Nico. And she had insisted Nico make her not a virgin anymore, even if it would hurt. Eventually, after a lot of other things, Nico had done what she asked.
If Nico hadn't been a little drunk and a lot lonely and sad, she wouldn't have even considered doing *it* with someone she regarded as purely a friend. Even now, she almost couldn't believe she had done those shameful things with someone that wasn't Maki. She felt shallow, like a wading pond. But that was so unfair to Kotori, who was nothing but giving, that Nico decided she felt even more guilty thinking that way than feeling sad and guilty about being untrue to Maki. For all Nico knew, Maki might very well get a girlfriend while they were "taking a break" — and only because Maki had refused to say how long that would be for had Nico really despaired. An *indefinite* break to give Maki her space felt like giving Nico false hope that would only break her heart again. And when she talked it over with her friends, they had agreed.
When Nico left the bathroom and entered the kitchen, Kotori was finishing breakfast in just an apron. Since she was putting tsukemono in dishes, Nico decided the rule about not molesting the cook didn't apply. Of course, all she did was hug Kotori from behind and nuzzle her a little. "Are you all awake now, cutie?" Kotori asked? Nico blushed and carried some food to the table alongside Kotori.
Like the snacks last night, Kotori's breakfast had been simple, and portions moderate. Steamed rice, miso with tofu, a little grilled smelt and a small amount of tsukemono. "We're going to have brunch at a cafe, Nico-chan!" Kotori had promised. She had changed out of the apron in to just a long t-shirt, and had left another one in the bathroom for Nico. If Nico had looked under the table she could have seen Kotori's region. She laughed. Kotori looked at her quizzically. "I was thinking about Umi," Nico said, grinning. "Don't underestimate Umi, Nico. She has more sides to her than anyone but me and Honoka know about," Kotori replied.
As she and Nico were done with their food, Kotori said, "Nico, I had you bring all your books and homework, and I have to do something now for a couple of hours. You need to catch up while I do it." Nico looked a little surprised. "Nico, part of this is us being able to work side by side at what we need to do without entertaining each other."
Kotori even closed her bedroom door, and Nico could hear her computer start up. Nico worked in the living room. On her, a long t-shirt was like a short dress, so she wasn't indecent. Still, working on her schoolwork in the living room of the principal's house, not wearing any underwear, did feel a little scandalous. Oh, and she'd taken the principal's daughter's first time, let's not forget that detail. Fortunately for Nico, µ's hadn't had to talk face-to-face with Principal Minami for a while, as Nico didn't think she could do it.
Niko concentrated on catching up. One of the things almost all her µ's friends had emphasized was the need for Nico to keep her grades up, above all else. In truth, while she had a reluctance to do anything much nowadays, once she got involved in her schoolwork it took her mind off of Maki. With that thought, she realized yet again that Kotori's Nico project was very thoughtful. It respected Nico's grief and kept her either too entertained or too busy to dwell in self-pity.
She heard music coming from Kotori's room. It stopped and started as if Kotori was editing it. It seemed familiar. Only after about an hour had gone by did an awareness of what it was seep into her awareness. Or rather, of who it was. It was Nico herself, singing karaoke last night. She hadn't realized it wasn't commercial music for quite a while. Why would Kotori be editing Nico's music? To put up somewhere? Nico didn't think the music matched her idol image at all, so she hoped not. She'd tell Kotori that. Umm, probably. She remembered Kotori putting on her cutest puppy dog eyes and saying "pretty please?" last night and wasn't sure she could resist a full on Kotori assault.
Well, whatever. She heard Kotori talking, and it sounded like she was calling herself "Minalinsky." Aha. Like Nico, apparently Kotori did video blogging, in her case as her famous maid character. That was probably a good sign, as Kotori had never outed her actual name as far as Nico knew. After another hour, Kotori came out. She was all smiles, and dressed in her maid cafe uniform.
"Nico, you should see and hear this," was all she said. Nico got up and followed her into her bedroom. She notice Kotori had taken her sheets off and put them on the floor and that reminded her of Kotori's innocence. Impulsively, she hugged Kotori. "You're okay, Kotori-chan?" she whispered. Kotori looked down at the floor then looked at Nico seriously. "I am," she said. "Really, I could have done worse, and if it were Umi or Honoka, it would have complicated everything and unbalanced it. We discussed this, even Umi agreed with me and Honoka about this. I know that's hard to believe. Honestly, I think you're getting a glimpse into our world, the three of us, that µ's hasn't seen."
"Hi, Minalinsky here, how are all of you, friends?" Nico heard. "Okay, I won't talk a lot today. I wanted to have you hear some songs from a friend of mine. She's very shy, so I will just call her Singer X, shall I? When I heard her singing, I thought, I want to share this on my video blog, so I am doing that today."
As she was speaking, music had been rising up. Now the video showed the singer. Nico almost didn't recognize herself. The karaoke place had had dim, sort of club lighting, and the way the video had been shot didn't make it obvious it was a karaoke place. What she saw was a young woman who looked older than Nico normally did, with a sad, wistful expression, singing a blues song. The audio quality was amazing. Whenever the singer's eye caught the camera, she looked away, true to Kotori's lead-in. However, you heard Kotori's voice asking a question and saw Nico look at the camera for a while. Her expression was troubled, but she had a kind of mature beauty Nico'd never seen in herself before. She didn't have to get upset with Kotori. Only people that knew her personally would recognize school idol Nico-nii.
By the time they got to the duet of Minalinsky and "Singer X," Nico was very moved. It felt like she was seeing herself through a haze, somehow. As if it weren't her at all. Her and Kotori harmonized very well. Both of them were at a range different from their singing with µ's, and it was very effective. Then, the final song came up. Nico could now understand why Kotori had badgered her so much, strained her, let her dwell on her sadness, and even get a little drunk. She would never have imagined this could come out of her.
By the time the song was over, Nico was in tears. Against her firm determination, she cried on Kotori's shoulder. She hated herself a little but she was beyond control. "I love her, Kotori," she cried. "I mean, I love her. I want to marry her, I want to raise children with her, I want to die with her. She has my heart, she's so big to me. And now I don't know what to do. How to do anything. How to live with it. I'm sad, Kotori! I'm so sad!" she drenched Kotori's shoulder with tears as Kotori patted her and made soothing noises. Meanwhile, "Minalinsky" was saying farewell, and saying "I will try to get my friend to let me show you more of her songs sometime in the future. Isn't it beautiful? She has no idea, so please share your love if you appreciate this."
"Sometimes to get something under control, you have to feel it first, Nico. There's no shame in admitting you're unhappy. The way you're feeling now, a lot of people who watch my video blog are going to feel. But you have to go through that to get to the other side. It's what blues songs are for."
Nico looked up tearfully. "Your viewers won't hate you? For being suddenly sad?" Kotori shook her head. "No, I think they'll be impressed. You can't have everything be cheerful, all the time, and people that think Minalinsky is beautiful or elegant are going to see the beauty in your singing, Nico. It's a kind of feeling bad that also feels good. It gets those feelings out of your system, I think. But you know what? I have no idea, really. I am going to find out the same time you do. Maybe I will lose viewers or maybe I will gain viewers. That's what makes this an adventure!"
Kotori really did look honestly excited. "Nico, our week is giving me chances to change myself, not just you. I remember when I went off to become a maid character. I wanted to change, and I did. This feels like that again. And on that note, Nico ..."
Kotori explained that Nico should dress up somewhat like she had at the karaoke place. Kotori had taken her dress that was the closest to what Nico had worn, and altered it before they went on the date. After Kotori did Nico's hair and makeup, she gave her a pair of stylish sunglasses and said, "Nico, more is less, and this will disguise you better than your attention-getting spy outfit ever did. In addition to hiding what you are, you have to give people something else for you to be to them, and it has to be understandable and normal so they don't have any urge to look deeper."
The place they were having brunch turned out to be the legendary Cure Maid in Akihabara, and Kotori had not only made reservations, but had come as Minalinsky Friday evening and asked if she could film herself and a singer friend there for her video blog. After she'd signed an agreement to not do anything that would harm Cure Maid's reputation, they had told her she was welcome to film. The famous maid cafe was traditionally cooperative with popular internet figures in the maid world.
Their reservation was for a nook out of the way of the other customers. A seasoned pro by this time, Kotori set up the camera on a pivot that she could control from her seat. While they waited for their food, she put her laptop on the table where the camera could see it behind her and started it up.
"Hello, all my friends and honored customers, this is Minalinsky at Cure Maid! And if that is not enough, I am going to spoil you even more. Earlier, I put up some songs by my friend, who I called Singer X. And she is with us now. Please wave to my viewers, Singer X!" and she pivoted the camera so you could see Nico. Nico looked embarrassed, but set herself and waved, bowing her head at the same time. It probably wasn't very cool.
"We are having brunch, so even though I am in my maid outfit, today we are honored customers. And Cure Maid has graciously let us do impolite things like filming here and putting my laptop on the dining table. We are going to look at this mornings video blog. We should just now be getting an idea of how many people saw it and how many liked it." She, and Nico after a prod to the elbow, turned to the laptop. The camera was panned and zoomed over so you could see part of the backs of Nico's and Kotori's heads and also the laptop screen. Kotori reminded herself that if this was a disaster, she didn't have to post it. And if Nico was devastated, she had worked out a plan with some of the other µ's to rescue Nico and console her. After all, Nico might have been right about her fans wanting only a "cheerful Minalinsky." She would still put up the footage of her and "Singer X" at Cure Maid because she was stubborn, but not of them watching the earlier video and its reception.
She need not have worried. Already, she was getting more views, and more favorites, and more reblogs, than she could remember getting ever before in such a short period of time. Most of the comments said "Singer X" needed to go for it and go beyond being a club singer and put out an album, and then do concerts. It probably helped that Minalinsky had posted to her address, to an area on NicoNico, and to YouTube at the same time, which she only did for special occasions. Just re-post three times, and it almost had the impact of a media campaign. Nico had no idea how Minalinsky's blog worked. She realized immediately it was many times the response Nico's own blog usually got.
"Is this good, uh ... Minalinsky-san?" she stammered. "It's very good, Miss X. It's the best I've ever done. Nico started to tear up, so she looked to see if their food was coming. It was. Kotori moved the laptop to the center of the table to make room for their food. Then she had herself and Nico turn around and pose with the maids bringing their food. The maids were thrilled at being on the video blog of "Legendary Maid Minalinsky" and wondered who the beautiful girl she was with was. Could it be a girlfriend? The little whiff of scandal only added to the excitement.
The follow-up blog at Cure Maid bloomed almost as well as the original song post, which was still expanding.
Nico and Kotori spent the rest of the day shopping and took in another movie. They went home afterwards, and Kotori had them take a bath together. After that, they retired to her bedroom after a light dinner — as Kotori put it, nothing would prevent them having more late night snacks tonight. Later.
"This time, Nico-chan, we should talk a little as we go. I already know why Maki-chan did some of the things she did. It turns out, pinning a helpless little Nico-chan down and doing things to her is very thrilling. Nico is my neko, and even my koneko this week. Also, Nico got used to being teased by Maki-chan and I think that would be a good thing for me to do as well."
"Does Nico-Neko get any say in this, Kotori-tachi?" Kotori grinned, but nodded. "Nico wants us to come at the same time. Otherwise, Nico is a little sad." Thank goodness, Kotori thought, that neither she nor Nico had said yesterday was a mistake, or "too embarrassing" or "too meaningless." Two nights in a row would be the charm. After this it was just getting in sync. When your relationship only had seven days to live, you had to treat every day as vital. Kotori's vanity was hurt by the thought that the woman who took her virginity would forget what making love with her was like. She wanted Nico to remember everything about her. How she looked with her skin flushed. The noises she made as she came. How her body felt. How she smelled. How she tasted. And she only had seven days to accomplish that. "Koneko's tachi-sama promises to lead us to orgasm hand in hand, Nico-tan."
Despite the fact that she'd no doubt betrayed several personal vows about never touching anyone but Maki, it was good to see Nico was still very romantic about lovemaking. It was important to Nico - all-important — that everything be as loving as possible. Really, she was such an insecure girlfriend. Kotori could already see the signs of what Maki was complaining about. But easing that insecurity was very rewarding. It was definitely a dilemma. But if you put up with it for only a week, it was mostly a fun dilemma to have.
With that thought in mind, Kotori set to work pleasing Nico - and herself. In fact, they fell asleep entangled in the sheets and each other, without having any midnight snacks.
It turned out, Nico had nightmares. Mostly about her father. Sometimes about the rest of her family. Sometimes about school. Quite often, about her failed idol club. Sometimes she cried out and woke Maki, who wasn't used to having her sleep interrupted. It made her reconsider sleeping next to Nico. Then again, when Nico tearfully snuggled into Maki, it somehow made it very easy to go back to sleep. Maki tried to be fair.
When she heard Kotori had posted something that was getting a lot of buzz, Maki checked her Minalinsky blog. It was odd in the extreme that Kotori was still clinging to that. It was like Nico and her pigtails and catch-phrase, complete with childish mime. She could understad clinging to past moments of glory if you were Nico. God knows, she'd found out Nico had litte enough to cling to - so much so that she'd clung to Maki like a koala. Kotori seemed to be having fun, though. Maki had learned not to underestimate that. To a degree, from Nico. But also from Rin and Honoka. Sometimes in tandem with Nico. Whatever.
Of course, she realized immediately who "Singer X," the subject of all the hype was. She was - impressed was a good word. It wasn't like anything she'd even seen Nico rehearsing before. Kotori probably had a future as a manager, in addition to all the other careers her many talents made possible. She winced when she saw how earnestly Nico sang blues songs drenched in pain. Was this what people who dated pop stars felt like when they heard them sing their songs about being "done wrong?" In fact, one of the songs was more on the angry side than the heartbreak side. The implication was that her ex wanted Nico to fail and die, but she was thriving to spite them. Maki didn't move or react after that, though she listened all the way to the end. It was a heart-rending finish, no doubt about it. Maki would have to make plans.
