chic & snazzy

When he woke up, Tetsu went to the bathroom, brushed his teeth, checked his text messages, and realized he had to care for another person. Knocking on his new housemate's door, he suddenly realized he didn't know what to say. Thankfully, he didn't have to say anything as Nero pushed the door open and "What do you have to eat? I didn't realize how often I needed to eat." She brushed past him and into the dining room.

Tetsu followed her into the dining room, pointing out the cupboard with the cereal, and the fridge with milk. She picked one, a bright green box labelled with clovers, horseshoes, and other symbols of good luck. She reached a hand in to taste a little bit and "BLEH, its too sweet! Why would you eat something like this for breakfast? I was drawn in by symbolism and I get pure sugar!" Tetsu chuckled and showed her another, more grown up cereal. "I used to eat that when I was a kid, it's supposed to give you sugar energy to jumpstart your day that way, us adults are supposed to do that in more displeasing ways now" They sat down and ate a bowl of honeyed oatmeal, and then discussed what they'd do that day.

"What exactly did you bring with you? I'm curious, but also, there's certain thing you just need to have to really live well in this world. Or at all." Tetsu wondered what exactly led up to her dropping to earth with "nothing but the clothes on your back and your pockets!?!??? Geez, I don't wanna pry but just who thought that was a good idea?" Nero winced at that before giving some good news. "I did alongside my ID have some gold, its a stellar standard as well as an international one for a reason, though any more and customs would've gotten suspicious" Interesting that there was customs even in space, but oh well. "Well, how about we go clothing shopping? There's some close by, and more outfits will help throw people that might or might not be looking for you off the trail."

"I'm not that important, that someone would be looking for me all this time later, but yeah, let's go clothing shopping." It was only later that Tetsu would realize how poetic it was that their first thing done together was clothing shopping.

Being college age, even though he had a house, a car was too much upkeep and money to have at the same time. Besides, the town was so small that you could easily get everywhere you would want to go within a half hour of walking. So they walked to the store. There wasn't a mall, but there was a street that had basically the same effect. Cars barely drove on it because there was so much foot traffic, and there was at least one store of every type you could find at a mall.

Crucially, there were multiple clothing stores. Being a small town, there were quite a few name brands missing, so local stores took up names that echoed them. Madame's Myths, Zeitgeist, Lily's, there were quite a few choices at hand. Tradition said that Madame's Myths, the most womanly of the three would be where boyfriends would take their girlfriends, but that would be immensely embarrassing to be found in by someone he knew.

"W-well, how about Lily's, I know you need some new jeans, and that store is the one with the biggest selection in styles so..." Tetsu got out, finally. "Hmmm... Wouldn't Madame's be better for, the facade" Nero said slowly and deliberately, relishing in the way those last words made Tetsu squirm. "Hey. You shouldn't say that out loud, someone might get suspicious and-" Nero butted in to say "By saying that you're drawing more attention to it, and that was a joke. Cmon, let's go to Madame's, I want to change up my wardrobe." Tetsu could probably have resisted more, but he didn't have the strength to fight that battle. Besides, he was always wrong when it came to things like that, and it's not like meeting someone would have a negative impact on, the facade.

Tetsu immediately regretted not protesting more. As soon as he walked into the deep pink store and saw the sultry red lingerie and the hot pink plastic torsos modelling underwear, he knew he was not welcome here. He was a hunter among prey, a wolf amongst sheep, a werewolf within the village. He knew that he was unwelcome among the beauty, the decadence, the lust. He knew he was here to be tortured, not treated.

So he kept his eyes on Nero. He kept looking straight ahead and trailed behind her as she picked out clothes that she liked. He blotted from his mind the oversized yet still perfectly proportioned models of all the wrong parts, the pictures of models wearing just the advertised clothing, the... "Tetsu!" Nero called out to him, she had been carrying the few outfits that had intrigued her, but now they were at the dressing rooms. "I can only take in a few items at a time, can you wait here and watch the rest while I try these on?" Tetsu was only half paying attention, staring off into space at the path they walked in with, the only space in this store that wasn't jam packed with clothing for someone he was not.

After an indeterminate amount of time, Nero came out wearing all red. A fancy red dress that went down a bit below her knees, light pink socks, a hair clip studded with small pink crystals, and a scarlet blush on her cheeks as she clutched one arm with the other. She opened her mouth as if to ask "does it look good?" but closed it and ran back into the dressing room. A little later she sneaked out and swapped the clothes she had tried on for the ones she hadn't. It was at this point that Tetsu finally realized what had happened, and blushed heavily just as Nero came back out, having tried on all the clothes, and back in her normal attire.

"Y-you looked nice, by the way" Tetsu stammered out, before grabbing some clothes and heading for the cashier, using them to hide his face from Nero. They had forgotten to go to the pawn shop first, and so he ended up paying for the clothes. There was a nice selection among them, but they didn't say a word to each other on the walk back. When they got home, Nero quickly went back to her room.

As Tetsu sat down on his bed he reflected over the day's activity. Nero was a nice looking woman, but he wasn't interested in her like one. He definitely felt like their relationship was complicated, how could it not be, but whatever it was that made them blush at each other couldn't have been love. It just couldn't be. Could it?