by Blitz Kiva
Real clothing: in other words, realistic clothing. Airi admired Lady Gaga, but her style was the polar opposite of “real.” It was impossible to imitate.
Then, at the cutting edge of the fashion world, there was always the top brand prêt-à-porter by the likes of Prada and Chanel. Real clothing took elements from these and converted them to match the tastes of the general public, bridging oceans as well as societal and economic gaps. That might have sounded like drudge work, but it was actually extremely challenging. The needs of making something more broadly available clashed with the need to customize it to match the tastes of an extremely diverse market, so a real clothing designer needed an inherent sense of how to make those two things work together.
Airi had seen a TV show while she was in middle school that had described real clothes as “clothes that match the lifestyle of the one that wears them.” She always thought that was a wise saying.
Fuyo’s designs were everything that real clothing should be. They kept the luxurious quality of those top brands, while also being charming in some way, or stunning, and sometimes simply beautiful. They were full of personality and confidence, and told you everything about the lives of the diverse array of models that wore them.
Looking at Fuyo’s designs, Airi felt a renewed sense of the kind of monster she’d picked a fight with. How could she possibly make something better than this? She didn’t have the slightest clue. She’d been designing since morning, and had only hit upon two ideas that barely qualified as decent; the rest of it was utter trash.
Ah, on top of my lack of talent, I’m also cutting down forests, Airi lamented, gazing at the balls of scrap paper in the trash can. Forgive me, trees of the world...
She glanced at her watch. It was already 5:00 P.M. She’d been eating now and then, whenever she felt hungry, but she hadn’t realized so much time had passed. The sight of the hour brought a feeling of exhaustion surging up within her.
She had completely hit a wall. She couldn’t even tell what was good and bad anymore.
Airi tied up her bulging trash bag and carried it out to the front door. She tidied up the large pile of A4 paper and magazines, and scanned in the two “barely maybe okay” designs. She could send the completed .pdf files to the Miraive Gear X. She hadn’t 3D modeled them, but she didn’t have the energy to do that just now.
Maybe I’ll just log in, she thought.
Airi put the Miraive Gear on her head, then lay down on her bed. She turned the power on, initiating the transmission of quantum information between mind and machine.
She wondered what the young heir was doing now. Airi knew that this challenge was up to her, and her alone. If he interfered, it would lose its purity as an expression of her skill. It wouldn’t mean anything to win that way, and it would just make her feel even more pathetic if she lost. It was just... it was becoming all too clear that this opponent was too big for her to take on all by herself.
She couldn’t ask for his help. He was the one person she absolutely could not ask for help. As these complex emotions churned over and over in Airi Kakitsubata’s mind, her consciousness was merging with the fictional world.
The first thing she heard upon logging in was Felicia’s voice. “Wow, did you draw all these, Itchy?”
The next thing she heard was Ichiro, speaking in his usual tone. “I didn’t design them all from scratch. They’re combinations of existing ready-to-wear separates.”
He was sitting in a chair, reading a book while Felicia looked through an array of image files spread across the desk.
The young heir immediately noticed the new arrival and looked up. “Oh, hello, Iris.”
“H-Hey...” Iris’s response was the epitome of spinelessness: pathetic, after all her grand declarations the day before.
Kirschwasser poured her usual cup of tea. Iris accepted it, and Felicia came up to her with one of the image files in her hands and a beaming smile on her face.
“Hey, hey! Iris! What do you think of this?” Felicia asked eagerly.
Iris was taken aback as she saw the design drawn there. It was a horizontally-striped blouse in cooling colors just right for summer, paired with flower-patterned skinny pants and platform sandals. It was an outfit that took into account the pattern-on-pattern trend that was “in” this year. Good taste, too; it looked like a ready-made separates combination you’d see in a magazine. Of course, it was nothing terribly novel, but even so, just the sight of it set Iris trembling in fear.
Had the young heir drawn this? Iris looked at Ichiro. All he did was flip a page in the book he was reading. He was using a proprietary app that let you read e-books in the game. Iris looked closer, and found it was a fashion design reference book that she was quite familiar with.
But of course it was. He was a genius, after all.
Was this his way of trying to offer support? Ichiro had promised not to offer money, or aid of any kind. Maybe he had come up with these ready-made pairings in the hopes that it would help the struggling Iris somehow.
But this...
As a pained expression appeared on Iris’s face, Kirschwasser asked her, “Have you finished a design that you like?”
“Oh... no. Not a single one. Total block,” she lied, smiling a superficial smile.
Her confidence had taken a nosedive. The young heir’s attempt to be considerate had inspired thoughts of self-loathing inside her. In the face of ready-to-wear clothing like this, Iris’s designs really were trash. She wished she could tear up the two .pdfs stored away in her app right now.
Kirschwasser’s expression was dubious. If she met his eyes any longer, her feelings would become obvious.
Iris began to wonder, Did I declare that this was my challenge and refuse the young heir’s help because I was afraid of being reminded how untalented I am?
“Iris?” The smile disappeared from Felicia’s face, as well.
Despite knowing that she shouldn’t, Iris began checking through the design drawings spread over the table. They were all modern pieces that somehow still had a fantasy flair. They were appropriate to the game, yet she felt like she was being shown something she didn’t want to see. Here, in the young heir’s ready-to-wear sets, she had found the conclusion that she had failed to come to on her own.
She mustn’t be angry, Iris thought. The young heir was hateful, but he wasn’t a bad person. He surely hadn’t done it maliciously. The fact that he had kept his nose in the book the entire time was proof of that.
“Iris,” Ichiro said, without looking up.
“What?”
“There’s still time. There’s no need to get so worked up. I’ll help in any way I can.”
She felt a twinge of temper.
There was nothing there for her to be angry about, but her emotions had reached their boiling point. It wasn’t any one thing, but there was something extremely aggravating about Ichiro’s unflappable expression, and the way it seemed to mock her hard work and struggles.
“A-As if you could ever understand...”
“Iris?” At last, Ichiro looked up. Their eyes met. The golden eyes of the Dragonet seemed to stare right through her.
“To you, this competition would just be more of the same,” Iris said bitterly. “You think it goes without saying that you’d win. If you competed, you’d win easily, so you’re letting me do it because it amuses you. That’s how you’re thinking of it, right?”
What am I saying? Even Iris was panicked by the way the words poured out of her. It was as if a dam had burst. She hadn’t thought she was this angry, yet the accusatory words came so easily to her lips, her feelings gushing out in a torrent.
“Someone as gifted as you couldn’t understand the struggles of a mediocrity like me. Stop acting like you understand when you don’t. Don’t say things like ‘Don’t get worked up’ and ‘Let me help you’ so lightly.”
She had said it. What an awful person she was. Ichiro continued gazing at her without the slightest trace of change in his attitu
de.
“Iris...” Ichiro said her name in his usual cool tone of voice. She knew instinctively that whatever he was going to say next, she didn’t want to hear it. It was just going to make her feel pathetic, so she cut him off at the pass.
“S-Sorry. I’m just so tired, I don’t even know what I’m saying. I’d better cool off.”
As she turned to run, a voice inside her head admonished her for running away.
Yes, she thought, I’m running away. I can’t face him right now. I can’t deal with a monster like that when I’m already at my breaking point.
She knew the young heir had said what he did out of concern. But still, it had annoyed her so much. Was it because she had spent half a day trying to come up with an answer, only to find that he had come upon it effortlessly? That might be it. There were probably several reasons; he was that kind of person. But whatever reasons there might be, the thing Iris hated most of all was letting it get under her skin.
“Ah, Iris!” She heard Felicia shout as she ran for the door. For a second, she thought about stopping, but her legs continued to carry her out. She wasn’t about to stop anywhere that man could see her.
Ichiro did not pursue Iris immediately. He just sat in his chair, watching her run off, then at last, said this:
“I suppose I got her angry.”
“Wh-What should we do?” Felicia stuttered. “Did I do something I shouldn’t have, too?”
“You’ve done nothing wrong, Felicia,” Ichiro assured her.
Before he’d logged in, Sakurako had said, “I’d forgotten what a nasty person you can be,” and he suddenly realized, vaguely, what she had meant.
Perhaps, then, Iris was right. The gifted could not understand those who were not. He was aware that his tendency to do whatever he wanted had hurt people more than a few times in the past. Ichiro Tsuwabuki was always on the “Amadeus” side of things.
Given all that had happened, it was hard to say if Iris was a very strong person, or a weak one.
As Ichiro sank deep into thought, Kirschwasser cast a glance at him and whispered, “I always knew you’d make a girl cry someday, Master Ichiro.”
“Nonsense... is one thing I find I can’t say right now,” Ichiro said. “Sir Kirschwasser, would you run after her?” He knew that even if he went after her and apologized personally, it probably wouldn’t help right now.
“Ah, wh-what about me?!” Felicia asked.
“You needn’t force yourself to follow,” said Ichiro. “She’s likely feeling delicate right now. Let’s allow Sir Kirschwasser to handle it.”
“What will you do, Master Ichiro?” asked Kirschwasser.
“I’m going to remain here, reading my book, like the nasty person that I am.”
It was a truly expected response, coming from him.
“Please wait, Iris!”
Out on Glasgobara’s main street, Kirschwasser grabbed Iris’s arm. Even though Kirschwasser hadn’t invested much in agility, he caught up to her easily, perhaps thanks to the vast difference in their levels.
Her response made it clear how torn she was. Rather than shaking off his hand, she just stopped obediently.
Given how many people there were around them, watching curiously, Kirschwasser was relieved that she had been willing to stop. “That’s a good girl, Iris.”
“I’m sorry, Mr. Kirsch...” Iris said, her face still bowed. “I’ve just become a load of trouble, haven’t I?”
“It’s all right. Trouble is part of a woman’s nature, after all.” As soon as the words were out of his mouth, he suddenly remembered he was playing a male character.
Iris looked up at last, her expression astonished. “I can’t believe you just said that...”
“The current incident happened because Lady Nem is being troublesome, did it not?” asked Kirschwasser.
“I guess that’s true...” Unsatisfied with just watching, the rude rubberneckers had also started listening, so Kirschwasser finally shooed them off. It wasn’t the sort of thing he usually did.
“I guess I’m also kind of... bipolar, you know?” Iris said. “Lately, it’s all deep depressions, then soaring heights, over and over again... I probably seem pretty crazy, huh?”
“Well, I cannot deny that...”
Kirschwasser switched over to listening mode as Iris began analyzing herself. It was true that he had seen something unbalanced in her personality, and he was hoping to help her stabilize. Besides, that was his role. He could not leave it to his master, who—despite having keen powers of observation—was powerfully lacking in delicacy.
Knowing Iris’s age (Kirschwasser had heard it was 17), he knew that the way she had been battered back and forth by this situation had to be bewildering for her. Kirschwasser wondered whether she had always been a person of such emotional extremes, or whether her naturally open personality was simply reflecting the inevitable highs and lows of the drama of recent days.
Iris let out a big sigh. “I know what the young heir was trying to do. It just made me so mad.”
“He can be very condescending,” Kirschwasser agreed.
“I know, but...”
There was a trace of self-loathing in her sigh this time, and he knew that the abuses she had hurled at the young heir weren’t how she truly felt.
Iris continued talking as she resumed walking. Kirschwasser walked by her side.
“Mr. Kirsch, you work with the young heir, right?” she asked. “How do you stay sane? Doesn’t he ever make you feel... inferior?”
“Not at the moment,” said Sir Kirschwasser. “I act as his servant, and I do everything I can so that he does not trespass in my territory. He would even do the housework if I let him.”
“What a creep,” said Iris.
“Indeed, he is a creep,” Kirschwasser agreed.
It was fine that Ichiro knew he would always be the best at everything. It wasn’t bad for him to act knowing that that was true, either. But there was only one person who could be number one in anything, and being number one would always be a kick to the self-confidence of everyone else competing. In order to remain equals in dealing with Ichiro, a person either had to tame their inferiority complex or find some field in which they could believe they were his better. It was likely that both of them were difficult options, for Iris.
At the least, Ichiro seemed to like Iris’s attempts to stand on equal footing with him. He probably wouldn’t want to see her feelings of inferiority break her. That was why he was trying, in his own way, to be kind to her—even if he didn’t realize that himself.
For now, though, Kirschwasser had to get her out of her unhealthy mental state. “Iris.” He smiled at Iris, trying to make a suggestion. “Sometimes, even when you like something, if you do it for too long, you lose sight of whether or not you really do like it.”
“Wh-What?” Iris stopped suddenly, and looked over at Kirschwasser.
“I don’t believe your current way of thinking is productive,” said Kirschwasser. “Master Ichiro should not enter into the equation at all. But I suppose ignoring him is easier said than done...”
“Yeah, it is.” Iris let out a small sigh. “I mean, I really don’t have any talent...”
“Hmm...” murmured Kirschwasser. Periods of soaring over-confidence, followed by periods of desperate self-loathing. A girl with truly overactive biorhythms.
“Mr. Kirsch, have you seen the movie Amadeus?” Iris asked.
“Yes, it’s famous,” Kirschwasser said. “I’ve heard it was originally an English play.”
Amadeus was a movie depicting the composers Mozart and Salieri, and the torments of the latter upon realizing the genius of the former. It was often used as a reference when discussing the presence or absence of talent. Kirschwasser/Sakurako, having never really worried about feeling inferior, had simply enjoyed it as a piece of entertainment, but...
“The first time I watched it, I never thought I’d end up as Salieri,” said Iris.
“Compared to Mast
er Ichiro? Or to Lady Nem?” asked Kirschwasser.
“Both.” Iris looked up at the sky. “Whenever I see someone with loads of talent, I lose all my confidence. It’s like the gap between a turtle and the moon... or maybe a turtle and Betelgeuse.”
“B-Betelgeuse?” Kirschwasser stuttered.
Of course, Iris meant that she was the turtle. How ugly must a single turtle be, compared to that brightly burning red giant? That was what she was trying to convey.
“So seeing that big reminder of his talent stripped away my pride and left my heart with shell shock,” Iris continued.
“I’m not sure this is the time for clever plays on words...” Kirschwasser muttered. Still, seeing her this way—compared to her great declaration of confidence to Ichiro the day before—made it all the more clear how unstable she was. She could end up in a manic high tomorrow, only to sink back into deep depression again the day after. What they needed was a way to bring her back into balance.
But what could they possibly do to help the “shell-shocked” Iris? He wasn’t clever enough to offer a hint, and Ichiro, while clever enough, was too lacking in delicacy.
“Just don’t compete in her arena,” a voice said suddenly from behind.
Kirschwasser and the turtle—Iris, that is—turned around to see the shining metallic Machina standing there.
“Lord Edward,” Kirschwasser murmured.
Iris said, “I always seem to see you when the young heir isn’t around.”
“I do try to avoid Mr. Tsuwabuki.” A speech icon conveying displeasure appeared over Edward’s head. It was a new system of emotes for full face-type Machinas, though the effect was more comical than anything.
Kirschwasser cast a glance towards Iris, but the little misunderstanding they had had before—rather, the completely unjustified fight that Edward had picked with Iris—seemed to be water under the bridge, as far as she was concerned. She really was a good girl, with an unassuming personality.
