The Princess

We had arrived back at school and were sitting in front of Ms. Lourdes in her office.

“I have to give it to you two, you surely outdid yourselves. Having both the victim and attackers cooperating together in public is a big step forward toward turning this mess around.”

A flag was being triggered inside my head. This was going to be troublesome. There is no way she invited us just to praise us.

“As luck would have it, I was just reading this interesting yuri novel about an idol formation. Kunoichi, you might have read it too. This novel gave me some knowledge about the subject.

Ms. Lourdes eyes were very sparkly, and I thought I saw her pupils turn into heart shapes for a second. This condition was clearly spreading.

Kunoichi? The patterns of that novel popped into mind. That story had an idol center as it’s main character, didn’t it? But that would mean... Oh no...

“The way I see it we are still missing a center for the formation.”

And there we had it.

“And who better than the yuri Jeanne D'Arc that is already part of the CYA and that has been getting so much online attention to be at the center of it? I already called your mom and she said it was fine with her.”

I knew it, I should have stopped them back at the hospital. Now I got into another troublesome mess without a way out.

“I decided that I will be producing the band with the CYA, but I will pass the day to day management to someone else. Until I have recruited someone, I will pass that task to Ms Lyst. When I heard her passion about the subject on the phone I was convinced that even without real experience she would at least do a decent job.”

Anna's eyes sparkled behind her glasses. She looked at me and said “You are going to be the greatest center of all time. I can see it right in front of me!”

She was already in another world.

“You do realize that I really don't have a good singing voice?”

This should be a way out shouldn't it?

“That can all be arranged with digital enhancements these days. You should not worry about that Claire.” Ms. Lyst said, and thus closed my final escape route.

So I sighed and said “I guess I have no choice in the matter. But there will be no such thing if Tina and Elsa do not accept the apology of Therese and Eve.”

I held on to that last straw of hope. I really did not want to be in an idol formation. I hated being in the spotlights, and I wanted time to cook in my kitchen. This was a real nightmare that was unfolding in front of me. How come that every time I let my control go for even a quarter of an inch around that woman, it ends up spiraling out of control in astronomical proportions? I looked at Anna, she was still fantasizing about her ideal idol formation. In the blink of an eye the situation seemed to have come to the stage where I would have to become an idol to keep my promise to Anna. An idol.. me who's bad with crowds and attention... Could they possibly find something worse to torment me? Oh no, I just tripped another flag didn't I?

“I am counting on the two of you to make that work. If we can't make them make up, we will have not much hope of getting out of this situation.” Ms. Lourdes then answered in a tone that clearly let shine through how grave the situation really was.

I nodded reluctantly, and then said, “I am sorry we will have to cut this meeting short, we have an appointment with Valerie. We need to sort that out to deal with the other half of the bully situation.”

“Then we will continue this at a later time.” Ms. Lourdes said.

We walked toward the FBY office and suddenly I saw a yellow dot making its way toward me at turbo speed. Then the dot jumped and hugged me. I staggered a little and then recognized the culprit. It was of course Fien. “Hi Claire! We missed you so much. I worked with Elodie and Gazette during break, we had a lot of fun spreading yuri stuff on Bicker and Fazebuke. You wouldn't believe how fast things spread once Gazette gets to work.”

So it seemed Gazette and Elodie had been spreading the yuri word. But what could they be working on? I hope it was something else than more of that yuri Jeanne D'Arc stuff..

We arrived at the FBY office, Elodie and Gazette were already there, lounging in the sofas clearly waiting for the others to arrive.

“I hear you guys had some fun during break?”

They looked up and started smiling. We heard from Elsa, then we went to Ms. Lourdes and she confirmed and told me you would center an idol group. So we immediately started a media campaign on the fact that the yuri Jeanne D'Arc would become the idol center of the newly formed group “Yuri Blooms”. She showed me her smartphone, and said “LOOK!” Again, it had gone viral in a matter of minutes. It has been out there for only 2 hours and there were already almost a million views.

“Everyone is looking forward to seeing you on stage.”

Yes, everyone but me...

And that shattered my last hopes of getting out of this. I sighed. I shouldn't have tripped that flag earlier... If only that woman hadn't started talking about idol groups. Yes, it was all that woman's fault wasn't it. Again! I was about to flip, but just right in time there was a knock on the door, and the prince entered the office. She walked up to me, bowed and gave me a kiss on my hand to greet me. I started to blush instantly at this embarrassing scene in front of everyone. Fien, Gazette and Elodie squealed, but Anna seemed for some reason not impressed by this typical yuri scene. Guess she wasn't a knight in shining armor type lover. But the embarrassment did flush out the anger I started to feel.

Looking at the Prince, I realised it was time to cut to the chase.

“Ah Valerie, do sit down, we need to talk some more. We had a very long chat with Mia. We learned about your history with her sister.”

Valerie looked a bit surprised. She clearly had not expected Mia to talk about that to us. Then she sighed and said “That was a stupid thing to do wasn't it. I admired her sister. It was only after she rejected me that I realized I did not love her, as a matter of fact it did not hurt that much either. It made me realize I really loved Mia. So I confessed to her.”

“But she thinks you are just using her to get back at her sister?”

“That pretty much sums up the situation.”

We started talking about which yuri novels had the closest pattern to this situation. “I know what we need to do! Fien suddenly shouted, “We need a situation where the two of them are forced to work together in a romantic setting for a period of time so that they can naturally forge a new bond and leave the past behind, and there is one yuri staple that does that!”

Anna's eyes started to sparkle, this could not be good... She then said “You don't mean...”

Fien's eyes were sparkling and she nodded. Then I saw two sets of pupils turn into heart shapes and they both exclaimed at the same time “A Romeo and Juliet play to be performed at the school festival!”

Now Gazette and Elodie's eyes were sparkling too. I could see Elodie's imaginary tail wag and she asked enthusiastically ''Does that mean all of us get to be in it too?”

I really really should not have tripped that flag earlier… This was going to be so troublesome.

Valerie then said with a sigh “If you guys think it will help me, I am willing to put the effort in, if you can convince Mia.”

Then Mia suddenly opened the door, apparently she had been eavesdropping. She clearly had a sense of drama and said “No worries, I am game on one condition. I am Romeo and you are Julia. I want to see the Prince wear a dress and become a princess for me.”

Everyone was silent. All eyes were on Valerie. She was hesitating. Then she looked into Mia's eyes and said. “I said I was willing to put the effort in, and I would not want to be called a liar.”

“They switched positions. We just witnessed the famous top-bottom switch!” Fien ran around and zipped across the room like an excited chihuahua. She was clearly excited about all of this. Well it was her idea, and that little bonus afterwards had clearly overcharged her system. Her excitement was clearly infectious because everyone in the room seemed overjoyed all of the sudden.

But the prince and Mia already looked closer than they were the last time we saw them and they were actually talking in a civil way. We had bitten through the first obstacle. Getting them to do something together willingly.

Gazette then announced “I've already received permission from the headmistress, and put it on the school forum. The Ms. Lourdes did say we need to find a teacher to supervise the project. But I do not think that will be a problem. Leave that to us at the communications department.”

At this point did it even matter anymore. I sat down defeated. Another troublesome activity was going to cut down on my dear cooking time.