Kiyotaka, Part 3

"Oh, you're here, Sayaka-chan! Come on in!"

Asahina ushered the pop star into Kiyotaka's room. The prefect in question was now at his desk, and Sakura leaned over him, careful to stand such a distance away that she didn't cast an enormous shadow over his work.

Asahina had always found it odd that he had a desk as well as the table already provided by the school, but he had said something about being seated so low to the ground and bending over being bad for the back. He used the table for study groups and large projects, but always did his homework at his desk. She walked to his side and heard Maizono following after her, and noticed Chihiro sitting on the bed and texting someone.

"Whatcha doin' there, Taka-kun?"

"It has to be perfect," he responded, though she still didn't know what he was talking about. She looked quizzically at Sakura, who shook her head and sighed.

"He is checking off the 'yes' box on the note."

"But he's been sitting there for, like, five minutes."

"Precisely. He says the check mark has to be perfect."

"But— Taka-kun, that's ridiculous!"

"I tried telling him that."

"You two just don't understand. Kyoudai has very messy handwriting! It must have taken him a long time to make such a pretty note!"

Kiyotaka gestured at the paper after he'd leaned back to allow everyone to see it. It was pretty, they had to admit. Mondo had apparently found some pale yellow paper, and had drawn some kind of swirly border along the edges and corners. That, and it was legible.

"How did you even know it was from him?" Maizono murmured. Kiyotaka responded by sliding the note upwards a bit more and pointing at the bottom corner, where there was a small doodle of a fluffy dog's face.

"He draws it on his homework all the time," he hummed.

The more Asahina looked at the note, the more she felt the urge to laugh, and she eventually gave way to a fit of giggles. It was too hard to picture— Mondo always sported boots and a leather jacket, and his hands were big and tanned and calloused. Imagining him hunched over his desk and doodling a puppy on a confessional note was just too much, and her giggles eventually spread to everyone, thankfully including Kiyotaka.

The girls indulged him and allowed him a couple more moments to finish his perfect check mark, and he then carefully refolded the note. He moved to put it in his pocket, and then stopped.

"Wait, what are we doing? Kirigiri-chan said she had something planned, so I'm sure I will not be simply stopping by his dorm to hand this to him. And if we are to meet someplace else, maybe I shouldn't be wearing my uniform."

At this, the girls near the desk squealed and Chihiro giggled. She had always found it amusing that he wore his uniform nearly all the time, and she often made strange remarks about his boots (Kiyotaka still didn't understand what was wrong with them).

"Oh, I knew you'd wanna get dolled up! That's why I called Sayaka-chan here, she's great with all that stuff. If there's anything you want her to help you with, she can do it." Asahina gestured dramatically at Maizono, who responded with a bow.

Everyone took their seats around the low table, and Maizono was filled in about everything that had happened. She clicked her tongue and patted Kiyotaka on the head, taking a moment to feel his hair.

"I think your hair is just fine. I'm not sure you need anything done! You take good care of your skin and everything. It's rare to meet a boy with such good hygiene."

Kiyotaka opened his mouth to say something, then furrowed his brow and closed it again. Chihiro leaned in.

"What is it, Taka?"

"...If I can be entirely honest, I am mostly comfortable with my appearance, but there is one thing I'm self-conscious about." He looked pleadingly at Maizono, and then he lifted a hand to point directly at his brow.

"...Your eyebrows? Taka, Mondo likes you just the way you are. You don't have to change anything if you don't want to," Chihiro pleaded. She looked a bit worried.

"I second that," Sakura said softly, patting his shoulder. He smiled at her, but shook his head.

"I understand that much, but this is something that would help me feel a little bit better. A confidence booster, if you will."

Maizono nodded. She'd seen younger pictures of Kiyotaka, and his eyebrows hadn't always been quite as thick as they were now. She had an idea of what to do— she'd give him a slight touch-up just to boost his confidence, but she wouldn't do anything drastic. They were a major part of him, after all. A Kiyotaka without bushy eyebrows wouldn't look much like Kiyotaka at all.

"Well, take a seat at your desk chair and I'll see what I can do," she said, and Kiyotaka beamed.

Kiyotaka really hadn't ever concerned himself too much with people's looks. They faded, after all, and were rarely the important thing in the end. Of course he appreciated attractive people, as everyone did, but he didn't fawn over them like others did. Oftentimes, a pretty face concealed an ugly heart.

That said, he really did find Mondo incredibly handsome. The hair was distracting, as was his overall dress and the eyeliner. But he'd seen him without those things, in his natural state when he wasn't trying to impress or intimidate anyone. And at that point, he'd realized his friend was gorgeous. He knew that after all the effort Mondo had put into the note, he'd probably try his best to look presentable, and it was the least he could do to try and do the same.

"T-Thank you," he stammered, and Maizono smiled at him.

As he sat down and Maizono looked over his face, he noticed Chihiro still looking strangely at him and looking at her phone every once in a while. He felt like she was hiding something from him, and that was unlike her.

"Chi, is something bothering you? You can tell me," he called out. Chihiro jumped, and her expression betrayed that she felt she'd been 'caught in the act', but she shook her head.

Maizono disappeared for a moment to go to Kiyotaka's bathroom, and for some reason Sakura and Asahina followed her. They whispered to one another for a minute or two before Maizono returned with a washcloth and some tweezers.

"It helps me to wet the brow and shape it first. That way, I know exactly what I'm doing. The cold water also helps lower the redness afterwards," she explained as she dabbed his face with it. He gulped as he saw the tweezers.

"I've never taken tweezers to my eyebrows before, so I know it's going to hurt. I think it is best that you just do it as quickly as possible! Don't mind me if I cry or scream!"

Maizono actually withdrew at that and raised her eyebrows. She'd always noticed that Kiyotaka had a... slightly masochistic streak? She didn't know exactly what to call it, but he sometimes asked to be hit if he did something wrong. It was truly jarring and bizarre. She sighed.

"I'm not going to take off that much! And I'll be gentle, I promise. It'll be over before you know it." Maizono didn't worry too much. Kiyotaka seemed to have a pretty high threshold for pain, but it could simply be that he was too stubborn to admit when something hurt.

Maizono took the tweezers to his face, and he stiffened his shoulders, but remained still. As she began to pluck, he bit his lip, and she figured it would be best to distract him.

"So how long have you liked him?"

Kiyotaka hummed at that, the long and drawn-out sound he made when he was thinking.

"I'm not entirely sure. I know it has been a long time, though. It started sometime during our first year."

It had been barely three months since they had started their new year, but that still seemed a long while to hide something. Maizono shook her head sympathetically.

"Boys can be so silly. You should have simply said something to him!"

"I— I didn't think he liked boys!"

"Sometimes it's not about whether someone is a boy or a girl. Sometimes a person is just a person, and you're special enough to him that it shouldn't matter."

"...I suppose," Kiyotaka said mostly to himself. His face was turning red now, and it seemed he was so embarrassed he wasn't actually focusing on the pain. Maizono guessed that was a kind of success.

The pain returned before long, and Kiyotaka squeezed his eyes shut and whimpered every once in a while, but he kept tears from falling. When Maizono had finished, she ruffled his hair as she took the cold washcloth to the redness.

"There you are. You still look like you, but it's a bit more focused now. It really brings out those pretty eyes of yours."

Kiyotaka smiled awkwardly, and the other girls gathered around to observe him. They made various sounds of agreement and surprise.

"That's quite nice, actually. I was worried for a moment that you would he rendered unrecognizable," Sakura breathed as she took it all in.

"I'm a bit jealous! So many people think thick eyebrows are bad, but they lend themselves to a nice strong shape. Me, I have to pencil mine in!" Asahina put her hands on her hips and pouted. Kiyotaka blinked at her questioningly.

"Girls seem to know an awful lot about eyebrows. Is this not considered, er, cheating?"

Sakura and Maizono chuckled, and Asahina scoffed. Chihiro giggled somewhat nervously.

"No, of course not! Most girls do at least this much. You wouldn't believe what Sayaka and I would look like without our hair and makeup routines! People don't just wake up this gorgeous. ...Except for Sakura, of course," Asahina explained. She playfully shoved the larger girl. Sakura flipped her hair over one shoulder and grinned.

"My beauty IS mostly natural, as I do not wear any makeup, but even I put special effort into taking care of my skin and hair."

Kiyotaka nodded along as they explained. He had never known that the pursuit of beauty was so complicated, and he felt a pang of sympathy for the pressure many young girls likely felt to conform to such a high standard. But he did not know how to put this into words, and so he didn't.

"Now that that's done, what are we gonna dress you up in?" Maizono asked, her tone cheery as she clapped her hands together. Almost the moment she did, her phone vibrated, and she pulled it out of her pocket to glance at the screen. She frowned and chose to ignore it, hitting the rEd dismissal button. It was apparently a call rather than a text message.

"He has all these really cute sweaters, but what color is best? Do we have any idea what Mondo-kun likes?"

"From what I've sensed, he seems to find Ishimaru-kun especially cute in nerdy clothes," Maizono thought aloud. "Maybe because they suit him so well?"

Asahina giggled as she pulled clothes out of the dresser drawers and laid them on the bed. Sakura quietly sorted her friend's haphazard piles into neat stacks divided by article of clothing.

"You can't wear your boots, though. Do you have any other shoes?" Chihiro asked, and Kiyotaka glared and crossed his arms.

"I still don't understand what's wrong with my boots!"

Chihiro, as always, ignored his confusion on the subject, and he eventually sighed and pointed at the space underneath the dresser. Chihiro knelt down to pull out a few pairs of dress shoes, a pair of slip-ons, and a pair of somewhat tattered sneakers.

"...When was the last time you got new shoes, Taka?"

"Oh, not in quite a while. Shoes are terribly expensive these days."

"I guess we'll have to make due with one of these, then. Mondo isn't terribly detail-oriented, so he probably won't notice anyway."

He heard Maizono sigh as her phone vibrated again, and this time she picked it up and headed to the bathroom for a moment of privacy. Everyone's been using their phones an awful lot, Kiyotaka noticed. When Maizono returned, her expression had changed, and she bowed apologetically.

"I hate to leave before I get to see you in your cute confessional outfit, but I'm needed elsewhere." She stood up straight to look Asahina in the eye. "That was Leon," she said emphatically, and Asahina nodded in understanding. Kiyotaka didn't know what was going on, and didn't ask.

Maizono left the room, and a moment or two later Asahina started talking loudly as if in an effort to distract him. He joined the girls as they looked through his clothes and narrowed down options— options which were, apparently, very limited by his small selection of shoes. He didn't understand why it mattered, but he did think it was important to match and look presentable, so he let them lead the way.

Several minutes passed. Chihiro had just held up a golden-y caramel-colored sweater vest and smiled when her phone vibrated in her pocket. She carefully placed the sweater down and pulled out her phone, and she instantly turned a bit pink. Suddenly she was doing the same bow that Maizono had done earlier.

"I-I have to go, Maizono-san wants my help with things." The tiny girl scurried away before Kiyotaka had a chance to ask for clarification, and then he felt Sakura's hands on his shoulders turning him to face her. Asahina shoved an outfit into his arms, one that included the sweater Chihiro had liked, and then pushed him towards the bathroom.

"Well, go ahead, try it on! We'll be waiting!"

Kiyotaka sighed as he changed, but perked up when he saw his reflection in the wall-length mirror, and Asahina and Sakura voiced their approval in the form of clapping their hands. He wore a white-button up and brown slacks with the sweater vest, and the clothes were cut in a such a way that he felt they flattered his figure. He did a little spin, and Asahina giggled.

"So where did Maizono-chan and Chi run off to so quickly? I saw the two of you whispering to—"

"So what are we going to do about some accessories? And we have to make sure your shoes match!"

Kiyotaka frowned. Apparently both girls knew exactly what was going on, but had no intentions of telling him just yet. He couldn't be mad, as he was sure they had their reasons. He thought back to what Kirigiri had said about keeping things running smoothly. Were they assisting Mondo somehow? The biker probably needed just as much help as the prefect did.

Kiyotaka smiled and nodded his head. He didn't know exactly what they were planning, but he'd go along with it for now. It was nice to know that he wasn't alone.