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Chie Satonaka couldn"t believe she was doing this.
"This is gonna be so humiliating…" she moaned to herself, adjusting her cap in the mirror.
"Don"t say that, I think you look really nice. Plus I"m sure he"ll appreciate it." Chie"s best friend sat next to her, putting the finishing touches on her makeup on the same mirror.
The two were preparing for the Investigation Team"s big Halloween festivities, which included a trip through the festival grounds where Inaba was getting into the spirit.
In the past year the town had revitalized. Sure Junes still dominated the shopping district, looming over it like an evil castle, but the smaller stores had adapted. Marukyu had gained fame from the media circus around Rise, for example. She and Naoto had schemed a way to boost the brand using her likeness in a way that Rise felt wasn"t exploitative. The soon-to-be-returning pop idol and diminutive detective then forced the same plan onto Tatsumi Textiles.
All of it meant the town had another opportunity to throw a festival besides the summer and winter seasons.
"Ugh. At least it"s better than what you made me wear last year." Chie stood up and adjusted the hem on her outfit. She didn"t like not wearing spats, but Yukiko said it would ruin the line of the skirt. That and it wouldn"t fit the costume.
"I think you were a perfect pumpkin! And wasn"t it nice that we matched?" Yukiko turned in her seat with a big, goofy grin on her face.
"Matched? You were a witch! How does that match with a pumpkin?" Chie furrowed her brow and planted both hands on her hips.
"Because witches have pumpkins," Yukiko said matter-of-factly. Her grin didn"t shake at all.
"What are you talking about? Pumpkins don"t have anything to do with witches." Yukiko just tilted her head, covering her mouth with her hand.
"Don"t they? But isn"t there that story about the boy and the girl who get lost in the woods and they come upon a witch who bakes them a pumpkin pie?" Yukiko"s eyes narrowed and she looked to genuinely be deep in thought.
"That doesn"t sound right…" Chie felt the story was outright wrong, but considering she didn"t know any witch stories herself she didn"t want to fully contradict her best friend forever.
"Well anyways, your costume this year is perfect. You just need to hold this!" Yukiko circled around her chair to her desk, giving Chie a simple clipboard. "There you go. Now… uh, just put your leg out… stand up straighter…yeah! Now you look perfect!" The taller girl looked very proud of herself.
The shorter girl, on the other hand, almost instantly reverted back to her natural posture. "You know, I"m mostly going to be wearing my jacket most of the night. And my legs are still gonna get cold! There"s got to be another costume I can wear."
"Nope! There"s no backing out now. And I only have these two costumes, and I"m not going to let you wear mine!" Yukiko twirled in a circle to show off her kimono.
"That"s not even really a costume! That"s just a white version of what you always wear." Even with the icy blue lipstick and makeup to make her look even paler than she already was, her outfit wasn"t that different from what Yukiko normally wore at the Inn.
"I"m a snow woman! It"s spooky~!" Yukiko held her hands straight out in an imitation of a Yuki Onna luring a lost traveler to their doom in a snow storm.
"Hmph! Well, don"t give Marie-chan any ideas or she"ll start a blizzard just for fun." By this point it no longer seemed strange to the girls that they were friends with a literal goddess who controlled the weather.
"Snrkt… a blizzard? HahaHaha! A blizzard on Halloween? That would be so weird! Hehehe! Imagine everyone in their costumes covered in snow!" Yukiko slowly devolved into one of her laughing fits and Chie couldn"t help but smile. Moments like this were part of why she loved her bestie so much.
It really would be funny if everyone suddenly got blanketed in snow.
"You better not let that happen!" Chie fake scolded, leaning forward and wagging her finger at Yukiko.
"Hehehe… I"ll be sure, haha… to not upset Marie-chan…" Yukiko began to breathe normally, but her laughter had brought tears to her eyes, messing up the ghostly palor she had created with her makeup.
"Oh, Yukiko, your makeup. Right around your--" Chie was interrupted by the beeping of her phone and it"s rumble causing it to crawl a few centimeters across Yukiko"s vanity. She picked it up and opened it with a click.
「Dude, I"m here w/ 🥩 Where"re you?」
"Oh, it"s him. He"s already at the Samegawa." Chie purses her lips, looking down at her costume and taking a deep breath.
"Well? You should get going!" Yukiko urged her, ushering her out with an applicator in one hand.
"Can I at least use some of your makeup to make me look like a zombie or something?" Chie asked with hope in her voice.
"You"re already going to be late!!" Yukiko didn"t even look up from her makeup reapplication this time. Chie sighed and typed a response.
「I"m at Yukiko"s. I"ll be there soon.」
Chie closed her phone and took another deep breath. "Wish me luck," she said to the girl who had given her this whole idea in the first place.
"Good luck! He"s going to love it, promise. We"ll see you when we meet up later tonight." Yukiko smiled largely at Chie, returning her attention to the mirror and her makeup.
Chie put her jacket over her shoulders in the way Kanji still does on occasion. It wasn"t her big fluffy coat, but it wasn"t cold enough for that one anyways. And the truth was, she was wearing it more for the covering than the warmth.
Another SMS tone and the vibration in her pocket.
「Hurry up! Me & 🥩 are getting cold!」
Chie put the phone back into her pocket and picked up her pace. If anyone but Yukiko asked her, she"d probably say the steak getting cold was her priority. She knew the truth, though.
Chie naturally had a quick gait, so rushing she was able to get from the Amagi Inn to the gazebo at the Samegawa floodplains in just over half the time she would have normally. Still, the sun wasn"t quite setting and she silently cursed the ample light. It meant doing this would be that much more embarrassing.
"Here goes nothing," she said, psyching herself up. She pulled her coat tighter around her and approached the gazebo, drawing the attention of the boy sitting there. Her nerves were slightly bolstered by the delicious smell wafting from the two styrofoam containers on the table.
"Yo! You made it," came the overly relaxed voice of the boy Chie Satonaka had the fortunate misfortune of being in love with. He leaned back from the table on the bench, pulling the headphones off his ears and draping them on his neck.
"H-hey, Yosuke." Chie sat down opposite him quickly, arms briefly snaking out from her coat to pull the takeaway box closer to her. "I like your costume. Is that a genuine Samurai Blue jersey or one of those cheap knockoffs?"
Yosuke Hanamura pulled the bottom of his jersey out to better display the entirety of the shirt. "Nah, it"s one of the knockoffs. We sell them at Junes. But I figure it doesn"t matter, I"m still supporting our team!" He let go of the shirt and placed his elbows on the picnic table.
"So why did you ask me to come out here an hour before we"re supposed to meet everyone else? I"m guessing it"s not to get a sneak peek at what your boyfriend would look like if he were playing in the World Cup." The boy grinned and tossed his head in a way that caused his hair to fling away from his face in a dramatic fashion.
Ugh, why was this moron so cute when he was trying too hard to be cool?
"Like they"d let a bozo like you play for the national team," she said with a laugh. The Prince of Junes didn"t even look upset anymore. Not since she"d caught him totally off guard when she admitted her feelings in a spur of the moment comeback. It had been totally worth it just to see him so flabbergasted when, rather than give him a snappy insult, she had responded yes to one of his "does that mean you"re falling in love with me?" jokes.
Actually, it had been totally worth it because she could call him her boyfriend now, but that wasn"t why she was dating him.
Ok, it was why she was dating him, but like, it was also to mess with him, alright? Cause messing with him was part of what made her love him so much.
"Whatever!" Chie said out loud, accidentally merging her inner dialogue with her outer dialogue. Her eyes went wide when she realized it and looked up at the boy.
"Yikes, alright, alright. Sorry I asked," he said looking down at his own takeaway box and moving to put his headphones back on.
Darn it, Chie hadn"t been paying attention so she had no idea what she had just offhandedly dismissed.
"No!" She said, reaching out to Yosuke before he put his headphones on over his ears. "I"m sorry. I didn"t mean to say whatever to you, I wasn"t paying attention." Yosuke was looking at her now, but what had been an oft used face of resignation at another of Chie"s outbursts had turned into a wider eyed look of disbelief.
"No way…" Yosuke said.
Chie followed his gaze. In reaching out to him she had caused the jacket she was wearing across her shoulders to slip, exposing a significant portion of her costume.
"Uheh… surprise?" Chie let the rest of her coat slip off her shoulders and expose her entire costume. She even stood up so he could see all of it.
She wore a light pink blouse that buttoned up along one side. The top"s collar was wide, white, and wing tipped. It matched the cap she wore that Yosuke hadn"t asked about. She picked up the clipboard Yukiko had given her as a prop.
She was a splitting image of a nurse from the local hospital.
From the looks of him, it was also everything Yosuke had ever wanted.
"Whoa," was all he could say.
Chie"s face turned crimson and she quickly dropped the clipboard and pulled the jacket back up onto herself. "I knew this was a dumb idea." Chie sat back down and hunched back over her takeaway box.
"No, no! I"m the one who"s sorry. I… wow. You look… really hot. Let me see it again?"
"Ew, you make it sound so pervy when you say it like that!" Chie pulled the jacket tighter around herself.
"Oh, c"mon, I don"t mean it like that! You"d still look hot even if you weren"t wearing it."
"Ew! That"s even worse!" Chie half turned her body away from him now.
"What? Ugh, no, what I"m trying to say is my girlfriend is hot no matter what she"s wearing! It"s just tonight with this costume you"re looking especially hot." The boy"s voice lilted from excitement to a softer tone.
Chie hazarded a look over her shoulder and sure enough Yosuke"s expression has calmed down as much as his voice did. His smile always got to her. There was something about the way his eyes seemed to sparkle, the lopsided grin, and the slightest tilt of his head when he was smiling at her that made her melt inside.
Chie stood up again, this time not holding the coat as tightly around herself. She swung a leg over the wooden bench and made her way around the table to be on the same side as Yosuke. Stepping up into his bench and then stepping down to sit next to him, Chie rested her head against his shoulder.
"You"re gonna feed me," she said without looking up at him. "Then when that"s done… we can walk around together until we"re supposed to meet up with the others. And I won"t wear my jacket."
She could practically feel her boyfriend"s excitement at the prospect, immediately opening up his takeaway box and cutting into the now-cool hunk of meat. "Whatever the Dragon wants, the Dragon gets!" Yosuke"s nickname for her was derived from those awful titles they"d received during the P1 Grand Prix, but she had grown to like it since that nightmare of a tournament. At least it was better than the carnivore thing where he claimed she wanted to eat him. Literally.
"Here you go," he said happily, holding a fork with a piece of meat to Chie"s mouth. She chomped it happily as he returned to cutting more bite-sized chunks of the steak. Despite the movement of his cutting, Chie made no effort to move her head from Yosuke"s shoulder.
"Be sure to cut that one for me, too." She gestured with her chin at the other takeaway box.
"What? You mean you"re going to eat both of them?"
"The Dragon gets what she wants or else she"s not going to turn into a Nurse at the end of her meal!"
Yosuke"s hand reached for the other box faster than he"d ever reached for anything in his life. Chie buried her face in Yosuke"s shoulder, unsuccessfully stifling a giggle.
"You moron," she said, voice full of love.