Disclaimer: I don’t own ‘em, and they don’t like me.
Nenene was angry.
This, in and of itself, was nothing terribly out of the ordinary, as Nenene indeed spent about eighty-five percent of her time in this perturbed mental state. At least, when one discounted time spent sleeping.
Sleep, incidentally, also took up no small amount of the young woman’s schedule.
Nevertheless, although she might have preferred to be asleep, Miss Sumiregawa was, instead, glaring daggers as effectively as she could whilst her vision was obscured by seeing red, at the lovely, if decidedly sheepish, Miss Michelle Cheung.
“What are you doing here?” Nenene demanded, no more sharply than one might have expected.
“You know, it’s a funny story,” Michelle laughed nervously, pulling out the chair opposite the younger woman’s in the little café and sitting.
Nenene lifted one eyebrow.
“I bet. Go on.”
Michelle hesitated.
“Um…okay,” she agreed slowly. “Well, you know how you were supposed to meet that friend of mine for a blind date tonight?”
“Yes, I do,” Nenene agreed pleasantly, with a decidedly shark-like smile. “That’s why I’m here, in this crowded, noisy café instead of at home, relaxing.”
“Y-yeah; well, my friend couldn’t make it after all.”
The brunette nodded thoughtfully.
“And…you couldn’t have mentioned this in advance? Before I went to the trouble of leaving the house?”
“Nenene, you spend far too much time cooped up inside that house,” Michelle said severely, conveniently skipping over the fact that the nice boy from the produce isle had called the date off in decided annoyance when she had finally mentioned that it would be not her, but her slightly…temperamental and very strong-willed author friend that he would be spending the evening with. “I thought you needed a nice night out, even if it wasn’t with my friend.”
“Great,” Nenene said flatly. “Well, I’m not having dinner and going to a theme park alone.”
Michelle beamed.
“That’s why I’m here!”
Nenene, who had just begun rifling through her wallet for a bit of spare cash to pay for the drink that had gotten her through half an hour of waiting for a date that apparently had no intention of showing up, froze. She lifted her head very slowly, and fixed Michelle with an ominous glower.
“What?”
“Well, I feel horrible that the date fell through – I know you were looking really forward to it.”
“Have I been giving that impression?” Nenene asked flatly, finishing her drink in one gulp and flagging the waiter down for another, just for good measure.
“So, I thought I would make it up to you by keeping you company tonight!”
Nenene stared in baffled annoyance for a very long moment.
“You’re going to keep me company,” she repeated. “By coming on the date with me in place of your friend.”
Michelle nodded brightly. Her smile wilted a little as she took in the younger girl’s dark scowl, and she pulled at her cheek sheepishly before plastering on a wheedling smile.
“Oh, Nenene, it’ll be fun! We can have dinner here, and then we can spend the evening at the amusement park, and ride the ponies, and the teacups, and eat sugary snacks, and go on the roller coaster twenty-seven times!”
“And who’s footing the bill for all this?” Nenene asked suspiciously. “I don’t suppose your friend gave you a big wad of cash to take me out tonight.”
“W-well, no, but—”
“Okay, fine, let’s go,” the brunette sighed, cutting her off. “We’ll go. Under one condition.”
Michelle gulped nervously, a reel of horrifying images flashing through her mind. A year without books, scrubbing the kitchen floor with a toothbrush, peddling matches around the neighbourhood to pay for the evening out…
“Alright, Nenene, anything you want,” she finally managed to squeak out.
Nenene smiled, and Michelle wondered in vague bewilderment if it was just the dim lighting in here that was making her imagine the shred of mischief.
“Wear that white dress again.”
End Notes: Time to preface this with a semi-apology. I wasn't drunk when I wrote this, I swear! If the last line made you go "WTF!", just consider this: We know (or at least suspect) that Nenene...ahem, cares deeply for Yomiko, right?. This indicates that she can be attracted to girls. And Michelle is frickin' hot, right? ;) Therefore, my reasoning was that okay, she may not be madly in love with her, but Nenene could still enjoy looking at Michelle in a sexy dress.