That’s not what Yuri Blooms is about!

A photoshoot is a lot more serious than I thought it was. In the meantime, I had posed a few times for Eline and Elodie's photoshoots before, but this was a different brand of sugar.

Edith gave orders on the poses and explained to Elodie and Eline at the same time, why they needed to go for these poses.

Since I was a special guest for their group they started by taking pictures of just the four idols. I thought some of the poses they were asked to take were rather on the edge of acceptable. They were really risqué.

When I asked about that Edith said: “We are selling lesbianism. So we got to lay it on nice and thick. We will rework those pictures afterward. Nothing untoward will be shown to the public.”

Anna nodded with that assessment. “They do that a lot for fashion shoots too. They take a bunch of pictures and rework them into a perfect whole.”

I decided to wait and see a little longer. But somehow this felt awfully wrong.

After a while, I was asked to join in for a few shots to promote the school festival. The other girls, who had been going for a while, were no longer shy but that did not go for me.

When Elsa grabbed me from behind to hold my breasts, while Tina sat on her knees in front of me touching my inner ties and Therese and Elsa were looking at me with dirty eyes, I had enough.

I felt really uncomfortable and stopped everyone.

“This is not what this idol group is about!” I said.

“You're just being a selfish prude Claire,” Elsa answered. “I did not hear you protest when the four of us were posing earlier.”

“Actually, she was asking concerned questions,” Anna replied to that. “And I am starting to understand what she is getting at.”

I directed myself to Edith and said “I think this is wrong. We are not trying to sell lesbianism, we are trying to promote yuri-awareness. This idol group should show the beauty of yuri, not become some cheap softcore flick. It should awaken pure and fluffy feelings.”

Anna looked at me and said “I was blinded by the dark side. How could I not see something so obvious?”

Edith sighed and said: “Do as you please. We will see where it gets you.” Then she mumbled: “I have no time for this nonsense. I can't believe Ms. Lyst is putting money into this.”

Edith turned toward her pupils a started taking in her friendly demeanor from earlier: “Elodie, Eline, finish this shoot and send me all the pictures you took, and tell me which one you decided on and why, that will be your homework.” and then, she just left.

“Claire, what do we do?” Gazette asked. “You wanted different kinds of pictures, so tell us what you want.”

Why did they ask me that? Sure I criticized what I did not want, but I had not really thought about what I did want.

“Yes Claire, what did you think of when you were saying pure and fluffy feelings?” Anna asked with a shine in her eyes, like I was going to say something truly profound. The other girls were also looking at me with expecting eyes.

“I wasn't thinking of anything specific. Just the feelings that pop up when you read a cute yuri manga.” I answered them.

“Brilliant!” Elodie shouted.

Did I say something?

“Yes, let's go with that idea!” Gazette agreed.

“I'm sorry. What idea?” I asked.

“What you just said, silly,” Anna answered. “We are going to do all the cute poses from yuri mangas.”

“Ah.”

Elsa, Tina, Therese, and Eve looked excited at the prospect. Elodie scurried out to get a few mangas as a reference from the office next door.

One by one we took the poses Elodie and Gazette showed us. Now the pictures would be cute, pure, and wholesome, but still very yuri.

I felt a lot more comfortable having this shoot in this new atmosphere and everyone was having fun looking for new poses in the mangas and everyone was making suggestions on how to bring the scenarios more to life.

Anna looked more relaxed too and was giving suggestions, and sometimes went back and forward to the office to get another manga to show which pose she meant.

I was surprised that I was actually having fun with this. Time flew by, and before we knew it, it was time to start and get ready to go to Louisa's funeral.

At the mention of that, Elsa, Tina, Eve, and Therese looked serious at me. Together with Anna, we went over our plan one last time. We needed to work together to give Elsa and me an opportunity to put the voodoo dolls Louisa made of us into Louisa's casket before it was cremated. We went up in our discussion but made one fatal mistake.

“What are you girls talking about?” Gazette asked, with Elodie standing next to her. Both of them looked very interested in our plans.

How could I have become so sloppy? That went for all of us. Gazette and Elodie were still in the room. We planned to keep this among ourselves. Gazette had picked up one of the diaries and was leafing through it. Her eyes became bigger and bigger. “This is some seriously messed up stuff!” She said. "Who would have thought Louisa was so far gone?"

I took the book out of her hands and said, “Please keep this a secret.”

Then Elodie noticed the voodoo book and put two and two together by what we were saying.

“Are you girls really taking this voodoo hocus pocus serious?”

“It might be easy for you to say. You aren't in it. Ever since she died, I had plenty of horrible stuff happen to me.” Elsa said. I could see she was really scared of the whole situation. Tina was already comforting her.

“Everything she did happen. It might be a coincidence, but can we really take that risk?”

“I'm pretty sure those are just coincidences,” Elodie answered. “It is your mind that makes you think these things are real.”

“Would you really say that if it was for instance about you and Eline not being able to get married?” Elsa retorted.

I saw a flicker of emotions in Elodie's eyes and she said. “Fine, I won't tell for now. But after the cremation, you girls are telling Ms. Lourdes everything. If you don't, I will.”

I never considered Elodie to be such a stickler for the rules. I felt my courage sink, but Anna supported me and said “We will brief her tomorrow.” as if it would all be a cinch. Anna was radiating confidence. With Anna with me, I was sure we would be able to explain everything without being grilled to bits like Ms. Odes usually got. But every time I started thinking about explaining what we were about to do, I felt we were really doing something crazy, just because we got spooked.

Gazette and Elodie left the room after that.

It was time to get dressed for the funeral. After putting on Thea's dress, the other girls looked at me with big eyes.

“What? Is there something wrong?” I looked around to see if my underwear was showing or something stupid like that, but couldn't find anything.

Suddenly Anna hugged me from behind and whispered. “They are staring because you look gorgeous.” and she kissed me on my nape.

I blushed because she did that in front of the other girls.

Therese and Eve squealed. “The two of you really are so cute together.”

I noticed a faint blush on Anna's face. At least she was nervous too. Sometimes she plays it so cool that I wonder how she does it. I needed to make sure to get back to her for that surprise attack.

We could hardly go to the funeral with the same make-up as the happy and sexy one we wore for the photoshoot. A more solemn atmosphere was needed, so we all helped each other bring changes to our makeup. I was surprised by how much the other girls knew about applying make-up. Therese was something like a make-up guru and knew all kinds of simple tricks to make something look completely different with minimum effort.

When we were ready, we went to the FBY office to get the other girls, because we would all be going together.