BUT LOOK AT HARUKA ON THE PRALINE PLANET BOX WITH HER ROLLED UP SUIT SLEEVES CAN YOU IMAGINE MICHIRU’S EXASPERATED EXPRESSION, “‘Ruka, that’s not how you wear a suit..” “It’s hot, Michi. I don’t want to have to wear this suit, why can’t I wear my usual yellow suit? Most of this thing is black, in the summer time. I’m dying.” “It’s not that hot, dear. I’m not sweating.” Minako snorts in the background. “You never sweat, Michiru-san. You glow.”
Okay but YES PLEASE LET’S TALK ABOUT THIS ANGELIC TRASHBAG. You
know she showed up the day before the shoot and they gave everyone their outfits
for the “Can Usagi Be Saved From herself? Sweet Sailor Senshi Chocolate Praline
Teatime Extravaganza!” photoshoot and was handed a dress just like the other
girls, with a wide, fluffy skirt, and a huge bow.
“ahaha” she laughs, “No, see I’m HARUKA, I’m the tall butch
one not the tall femmey one.”
The guy looks down at his chart. “Yeah, Haruka Tenoh.”
She’s clutching the dress like it has personally wronged
her. “I don’t wear stuff like this.”
The guy says nothing, but looks over at a poster of the
Senshi in costume.
Haruka blushes so hard she practically glows. “That is
DIFFERENT, it is a MILITARY UNIFORM, and MICHIRU TOLD ME IT’S JUST LIKE ANCIENT
SPARTANS, SO SUPER MANLY AND SHOWS I HAVE NO FEAR.”
The guy clips his pen back to his board “ooookay.” And wanders
off.
Haruka frowns at the dress.
She goes home that night, Michiru trying to soothe her soul
but unable to figure out how to turn a Victorianate tea dress into something Haruka
can live with. “It’s to serve our princess, really, you know how Usagi cares
for these things, to say nothing of the free chocolate she’ll be getting.”
It’s the best she can come up with, as Haruka fiddles with
the dress on the couch.
It is not until much later in the evening, when Haruka is
flipping through one of Michiru’s Oscar Wilde plays—people think she’s too much
of a stupid jock to appreciate these things, but she is always reminded of Mina
whenever she reads about Algernon—and her face lights upon an illustration, and
she is seized with a sudden plan. Michiru can barely say so much as goodnight
as Haruka dashes up the stairs to her little hobby room, pulling the sewing
machine onto the desk and grabbing some drafting paper.
She’s not a magnificent sewer, but simple garment
construction and mending, a little light tailoring—having been thin, poor, and wanting
to wear ‘boys’ clothes’, though she no longer really thought of them that way,
as a teenager had supplied her with a basic skill. She gently seam rips the dress
apart, not wanting to ruin any of the fabric, or the large satin ribbon she
intends to use for an accent. She won’t disappoint anyone, she’ll match in her
own non-matching way, like she always does. The girls won’t care anyway. The
photographer might, but Haruka doesn’t care about that.
And, god love her, in the space of one night she finishes…whatever
this is. She puts on her tux pants and shirt, thinking it goes, kind of, and in
any case she doesn’t have time to make something that matches better. She puts
spats on her shoes. At least that matches the style, kind of.
She shows up and it’s horrifying, but, at least, Michiru
thinks, its Haruka brand horrifying.
“My love, why not wear your sleeve down, I think that might
look a bit more appropriate.”
Haruka look at her forearms. “I didn’t have enough fabric to
make the sleeves fit.”
SittingOverHereDreaming 