Lolita Love Story

Paint and primer filled the art room, the pungent odor burning Kougou's nose a little. He forced himself to breathe as shallowly as possible while he waited for Saikai. His briefcase was heavy in his hand, reminding him of the responsibilities he'd set aside for this moment. College applications, job applications, notes for the finals coming up, several internship responses...

Small, weak steps echoed through the hallway and Kougou perked up suddenly, straining his ears for any other indication of Saikai's approach. She turned into the art room, looking at him with listless eyes before setting her briefcase on the floor beside her chair.

"Saikai, what's wrong?" he asked, afraid to move from the door. She carefully unwrapped the newspaper from around her paintbrushes and set them on the floor near her feet. She grabbed a tube of black paint. "Saikai?"

"I don't want to talk," she said softly, tonelessly. Her uniform was form fitting, no longer fluffy, and her pastel pink socks had been exchanged for a plain, stony gray. She turned her head toward him a little, looking carefully at the paintbrush in her hand as if he were not worthy of her gaze. In a few days, everything about her had changed. Her long red hair which had once hung to her hips had been cropped to her chin and dyed a bright blonde. Her eyes were rimmed with thick black eyeliner and her lips were smeared with a dark purplish-red lipstick.

He looked at her for a moment, feeling something inside cringing. What had she become? She was not the same sweet girl he knew from before. This Saikai was like a taboo, a word that if spoken too loud could cause chaos and pain, but if whispered sweetly brought some sort of inexplicable excitement and satisfaction.

"What are you doing?" he heard himself asking in a voice too loud to be his own. "What have you done?"

She smiled the kind of smile that a martyr gives before being killed. "What I always wanted to do." She stood up suddenly in a fluid, graceful little turn that flounced her blonde curls. "Shouldn't I be allowed to do what I want? Shouldn't I be allowed to express myself?"

"This isn't you," he said, shaking his head and backing away from her. Her lips quirked with amusement and she followed his step, closing the gap between them. She leaned toward him, lips slightly open to steal a kiss. "Saikai!" He held her back with both hands, though it seemed a bit excessive.

"Was that too much?" she asked suddenly with a smile, regaining her sweet charm. Her cheeks suddenly turned pink. "Sorry to scare you. I wanted to try a different style." She twirled, tugging on her blonde hair to reveal that it was actually just a wig. Piles of red hair came flowing out from under it. "Did it work?"

Kougou frowned at her, but was nearly weak with relief. "That wasn't funny, but yes, it did." He took a seat next to her, watching as she stuffed her hair under the wig again. "Your grandma let you out like that?"

"Well, to be honest, she was sleeping," Saikai admitted, sitting down and resuming her art. "So I kind of sneaked out like this. I guess she would be pretty mad if she knew I borrowed Rie's clothes."

"Those are Rie's?" Kougou asked, finding it hard to imagine Rie wearing anything similar. She could never pull it off quite like Saikai had. But when she had... she had become something other than herself.

She nodded, looking like a child again with a faint and distant gaze. She made a long brush stroke across the canvas, leaving a trail of wet black paint. "Why were you waiting for me, Kougou? Did you want to talk to me about something?"

"Yeah, I..." Kougou found himself unable to speak despite the hours he lay awake in the nights before, rehearsing what he wanted to say. He never had quite come up with something passable. "I guess it can wait."

"Oh... are you sure?"

"Yeah. Yeah, I'm sure," he said, relaxing a little. His heart was pounding, but he just had a feeling that now wasn't the time. Things were too strange with Saikai. "So... why did you feel like doing this today?"

"I've always wanted to try a new style. I've just never had the chance," she said, dipping her brush into a small can of water. "My grandma doesn't like anything but the standard style and sweet Lolita. She thinks anything else is inappropriate. But I'm getting older, you know?" Saikai's voice softened at the end, sagging a little as if aging with her words. "Shouldn't I stop dressing like a child?"

Kougou listened to her voice. The way her words lifted and flowed together like a breeze gently blowing through his thoughts. "I don't think you're getting older."

"Kougou. Be serious. Every day, we're both growing older. Everyone's growing older." She sighed. "I just didn't want to think about it until now." She paused, taking a thin brush from the water and dabbing it in blue paint. She swirled it around, watching the water unable to mix with the paint. "I keep thinking... how will I feel about this style when I'm 30? Will I still dress like this when I have children?"

"You mean that you want to get a more mature style?"

"I think so." She made little circles on the canvas with the blue paint, blending it into the black. "I don't want to give this up right away. It is really a part of my identity... a part that I want to cherish while I'm young... but..." She set down the brush, looking down at her hands in her lap. "I won't be young forever. I'll have to give this up someday too...

"That's why I wanted to try this style. I want to try many things while I still have the ability to do so. When we're young, people will accept much more than when we're older. Adults have a lot of responsibility for their image... that's what I think."

"I think you're taking this a bit too seriously, Saikai," Kougou admitted softly. "If these clothes are really a part of who you are, let them be. Just let things change as they do. Naturally."

"Easy for you to say, Kougou," she said, smiling. "The only thing you'll ever have to change to blend in is that stripe in your hair."

He smiled a little. "Hey now, this stripe isn't going anywhere."

"So you're going to keep that thing all the way until you're 80?" Saikai asked, leaning toward him to touch the lock of hair. He let her run her fingers through it, feeling the slight tingling on his scalp. His heart ached sweetly and he found himself smiling truly, a smile he'd felt building up since he realized his feelings for Saikai.

"Who said I'm going to stop at 80? Maybe I'll die with it," he said as her thumb traveled down his cheek. He leaned toward her, noting her smile, and kissed her.