Dazzling Darlings: Friendly Fangirls- yuri story

Sayuri was not one to keep secrets. Her family always trusted her, her friends liked her for her openness and miscellaneous acquaintances perceived her as a naively honest, happy-go-lucky ray of sunshine. Secrets did exist in her, but they were buried so effectively that no one saw her as a liar.

Mao was not one to feel like a stranger around Sayuri. The two had spent the previous year gushing about pop sensations ‘Cool’ Kasumi and ‘Cute’ Hotaru. This began when Mao saw a keychain with Hotaru on it attached to Sayuri’s schoolbag. The two were inseparable ever since.

Sayuri’s bronze hair was long, wavy and flowing. Her hazel eye salmost sparkled and her skin possessed a tan that would render any sun god envious. In her free time she wore clothes which billowed in the breeze, frequently dresses, and her uniform was always impeccable.

Mao’s almost straight black hair was in untidy pigtails. Her eyes were technically green but they appeared almost grey. Her complexion was somewhat pale but cursed with blotches and pimples. Her clothing of choice included sweatpants and loose but heavy shirts. Her uniform was often a mess, but she wore that mess with pride.

The one thing that connected the two was their love of pop idols such as Kasumi and Hotaru. They spent their allowances on attending concerts and buying merchandise.

One sizzling summer’s day, Sayuri and Mao set out to go to a concert filled with sweaty bodies and lacking in any air conditioning. There was no way they would break their promise to attend every concert featuring Kasumi or Hotaru near their area just to avoid the sweltering heat.

The concert was not to commence for a few more hours, so the friends sat in Mao’s room. The television was barely audible under the sound of the fan on full blast but the two girls were not paying much attention to what was occurring on the screen.

This changed when they saw Hotaru on the television. “Turn the fan off!” Mao shouted. Sayuri obeyed her and stared at the screen with equally open eyes and ears.

The reporter spoke of a new scandal. “I bet it’s a fake controversy like last time,” Mao suggested bitterly. “There’s no way she’s as mean as the news says she is, right?”

Sayuri shrugged and turned up the volume. The reporter continued. “Are Hotaru and Kasumi a couple?”

Photos of the two singers holding hands while on the sidewalk filled the screen. Video footage of Kasumi pushing paparazzi away with her free arm, her other arm now around Hotaru’s shoulders.

“Stay away from us!” she yelled.

Mao gasped. “The news is usually wrong about Hotaru, but they’ve got video! Weird, huh, Sayuri? Sayuri?”

She put her hand on her friend’s shoulder and pulled her towards her until the two were facing each other. Mao felt as if she had been struck with lightning when she saw Sayuri’s tears.

“Hey, what’s wrong?”

Sayuri sobbed into her friend’s chest, leaving Mao unsure how to react. Mao rested her hand on Sayuri’s back. “Seriously, what happened?”

“Did-didn’t you watch the news report? Hotaru’s with someone! She… she’s always been single, so why does she have a girlfriend?”

“Well, everyone’s got to have someone they care about, right? It’s weird, but it’s nothing to make someone cry.”

Sayuri pushed herself away from her friend. “Isn’t it obvious? I love Hotaru! She can’t be with someone else! I need her to wait until she meets me and then fall for me at first sight! That’s how it’s supposed to work!”

Mao’s jaw dropped. “You… you can’t be serious. You…. You mean to tell me you’re a lesbian?”

Sayuri’s eyes quivered as Mao grabbed her arms with frightening force. “We were supposed to tell each other everything, even weird things like that. And what’s up with that stupid dream of yours? Did you honestly think that you could get Hotaru to fall in love with you at first sight? Don’t be so ridiculous!”

Sayuri broke out of the other girl’s grasp and slapped the girl with such strength that it could have broken the Armour of Karna into pieces ¹. The two looked into each other’s eyes, identical guilt in their hearts. Sayuri stood up, grabbed her bag and rushed out of the room, her tears hot with rage.

Mao turned the television off and lied down on the bed she had been sitting on. It seemed cold and unloving without Sayuri’s presence, but Mao knew she had to get used to it just like she did every night in which Sayuri did not sleep over.

She began to cry as she touched her stinging cheek. She pondered whether to go to the concert at all.

Mao never knew she and Sayuri could feel such anger. The two had never fought before, so she had no idea where those vile displays of rage came from.

Sayuri continued to run until she found the convenience store, where she decided to let off steam by exploring its aisles. She stared at her sore hand and tried not to let her tears defeat her tear ducts in a battle of emotions versus spacial awareness. The tears won.

She took a few deep breaths, trying to push Mao’s shockingly harsh words out of her mind. She picked up a packet of Nine-Tailed Fox™ Chips. She bought them, ripped open the packet, ate them quickly and instantly felt more powerful, as if she could face anything.

She debated going back to Mao’s house, but her mental judge ruled that Mao did not deserve to see her again.

The next day, the friends saw each other at school, but did not speak to each other. The same circumstances occurred the day after that and the day after that as well.

Mao took that time to think about Sayuri’s feelings for Hotaru. How torturous would it have been to keep that secret locked away in her heart?

She also allowed herself to simply stare at her friend. Sayuri was definitely beautiful, which explained her popularity with boys, though Mao was unsure what kind of beauty she possessed. Was it the type of beauty that even a girl could fall for?

Mao would lie down on her side on her bed in the afternoons, wondering what would happen if she never talked to her friend again. She craved her smile.

Eventually Mao couldn’t take it anymore. She stood behind Sayuri as the classroom was emptied for the end of the school day.

“We promised,” she whispered in her ear.

Sayuri turned to face her former friend. “What?”

“We promised we would go to every Hotaru and Kasumi concert we could go to. We have to go to the next one together.”

“What’s the point? You were right. Hotaru would never like me back.”

“Then try me.”

Sayuri quietly gasped. “You can’t be serious.”

Mao grabbed her friend by the shoulders and pulled her slightly closer. “Pretend that I’m Hotaru and go out with me.”

“Why? What kind of plan is that? It’s not the same. And besides, you don’t like girls, so it’s not good for you. Why would you even suggest that?”

Mao’s throat felt dry. She let go of Sayuri. “I… I don’t know. I was being stupid. I just wanted to continue hanging out with you. Can we be friends again?”

Sayuri nodded. The two gave each other a quick but loving hug. Mao laughed as the two walked to her home. “I don’t know where that ‘go out with me’ came from. It sounds so weird. What’s it like being a lesbian?”

Sayuri combed her fingers through her hair. “I don’t know. It’s like being the same as a straight girl, I guess. Well, except for the fact that I can tell it’s going to be hard to find dates. Maybe in the future I’ll be so desperate that I’ll take your offer and go out with you. Haha! How silly is that?”

Mao nodded. “Yeah… silly…”

The two continued their daily lives as if Sayuri did not confess her love for Hotaru. To evade awkwardness Mao changed the topic of their conversations from Hotaru to Kasumi.

A frightening thought entered her mind. ‘Are idols all we have?’ The two scarcely chatted about anything else.

As time fluttered by like the heart in Mao’s chest, she decided to let Sayuri squeal over Hotaru like usual. This gave her time to have a proper look at her friend when said friend was excited over something.

Sayuri had an even more gorgeous appearance when smiling. Mao frowned when she realised this, a desire to talk about her behind her back contaminating her heart like mercury in water.

Eventually this wish was replaced with something more potent and inescapable. Mao noticed that she wanted to touch Sayuri’s hair or caress her cheek.

She was unaware of this sudden obsession until one day of indecisive weather. Lunchtime arrived, so a boy slowly and carefully headed towards Mao’s classroom. He knocked on the door, which was opened by one of Mao’s classmates.

“Um… can I speak to Ms Nishimura?”

Mao stood up. “Me?” she asked. ‘Not Noa?’ she wondered resentfully. She mentally shook her head. ‘She doesn’t even go to this school,’ she reminded herself.

One of the girls snickered. “No, there’s no way he’s going to ask her out,” she ‘whispered’ to her friend in a voice that was blissfully unaware of its volume. “No offence to her, but she’s not really that pretty.”

“Shh! She’s right in the room!” another girl hissed back.

Mao blinked a few times before exiting the classroom with the boy. “Don’t listen to those girls,” the boy said in as commanding a voice as possible given his situation.  “I… ahem… I think you’re really pretty.”

“Thanks,” Mao said with a friendly smile. The two students stopped underneath the stairs, where no one could see them.

The boy peered at the ground. “You… you don’t even know who I am.”

“Well, that is a bit of problem. I can’t go out with you if I don’t know you.”

“You don’t think I’m creepy, do you? I’ve been watching you whenever I’ve seen you. N-not in a stalker way, but… just whenever I happen to see you. I’m making everything worse, aren’t I?”

“Not really. I… I appreciate you liking me and everything, but… I don’t really see you in that way. Sorry.”

“It… it’s okay. I… I think you like someone else anyway. I… I don’t want to be in competition with a girl.”

The boy turned around but Mao grabbed his arm and pulled him back. “Wait, what do you mean by that?”

“You’ve been looking at a friend of yours weirdly. It only just started happening recently. You look like you want to kiss her.”

“What? I’m not… I’m not a lez!”

“Oh. Did I get it wrong? Sorry. It just seemed like you really like her.”

“Who?”

“I don’t know her name. She has brown hair. She’s really pretty, but not as pretty as y-”

“You… you’re kidding, right?” The boy shook his head. Mao stood still for a moment, her lips tingling with yearning. “How… how did this happen?”

The boy shrugged and stepped away from the girl. “Well, uh, good luck, I… guess.” His hands were shaking but he bravely walked away.

Mao, meanwhile, felt so ungodlily weak that every movement towards her classroom threatened to make her collapse. She sat down, sweat creeping into every portion of her body.

She tapped her pen against the desk, trying not to look at Sayuri. She swore in her head multiple times and bit her nails with her free hand.

‘I’ve got to tell her, right? She deserves to know. But she likes Hotaru, not me! But she could like me back in the future, couldn’t she? So am I a lez for liking her? Am I a hypocrite? This is all way too confusing. No, that boy probably just convinced me that I like her. There’s no way I can see my best friend that way… right?’

Mao spent the next few days blushing every time Sayuri laughed or became excited about pop idols. She was torn between the part of her that enjoyed seeing Sayuri so elated and the part of her that wanted to throw Hotaru into the deepest pits of hell.

One week later, Mao was exhausted by her psychological battle. She decided that the best method of alleviating the stress was to ask her friend a complex question. She did this as the two were walking home from school. Amaterasu must have decided to retreat into a cave again, as darkness quickly fell over the town.

“Are you ever going to get over Hotaru? It… it’s not like you can like her forever.”

Sayuri brushed her hair with her hands. “Hotaru likes Kasumi anyway, right? You could fall in love with some other girl.” Mao twirled her own hair around her fingers.

Sayuri’s grip on her hair tightened. “Hotaru can stop liking Kasumi. I… I know you really like her, but I can’t bring myself to like Kasumi. Hotaru’s way cuter anyway. Why do you sound so desperate to get me to fall out of love with her?”

“I…” Mao bit her nail. “I have this strange feeling that… I might be a lesbian.”

Sayuri’s jaw dropped so much that it was as if a tiny version of Thor was jabbing it with his hammer. Anger rushed through her body like lightning.

“So… you like Hotaru too? You want her all to yourself, don’t you?”

“What? No! I like…. I like…. You really thought I liked Hotaru? I like you.” She spoke the last sentence quickly and with accidental nonchalance. “Oh my god, I actually said it.”

Sayuri put her hands on her hips and leaned forward. “How on earth was I supposed to know that?”

“I didn’t want you to know. Great, now I’ve made things awkward, haven’t I? Damn it.”

Mao swiftly turned away from her friend and ran home as fast as she could. It had been a while since her strong legs and time spent in the track club had come in handy, and Mao was truly grateful for them. Sayuri was left by herself in the deep red and navy blue sky.

When she opened the door, a rarely seen face emerged. “Noa!” she greeted her cousin.  She gave her a short but loving embrace. “What are you doing here?”

Noa flipped her hair out of her eyes and smiled. “I’m staying over while my house is renovated. How are things?”


“Fine, fine. I… I just ran away from Sayuri. How are things with you?”

Noa ignored the question. “Why? Isn’t she your friend?”

“Well, long story short, I sort of… confessed to her.”

Silence fell, eventually broken by Noa’s failed attempts at being comforting. “Oh. I-I didn’t think you were into that sort of lifestyle, but… wait, no, it’s not a lifestyle exactly, it’s… I don’t know what I’m saying.” Noa rubbed the back of her neck. “I’m kind of new to this whole knowing gay people thing. A female classmate of mine confessed to me a while back, you see.” Noa played with her hair, and Mao did the same with her own hair. “What are you going to do now?”

Mao shrugged. She mentally swore at herself. “I… I guess I better… go back and apologise to her.”

“Sounds good. Uh… good luck. You’ve always been so close so it would be a shame if things didn’t work out.”

“Th-thanks.”

“Oh, sorry. I’m no help, am I?”

“So how should I apologise to her? And how am I going to soften the blow when she rejects me?”

“Just take a deep breath, I guess. Speak to her slowly and clearly. I know you tend to rush things when you get nervous.”

“Thank you. I’ll see you in a bit!” Mao waved goodbye and rushed out of the house. Noa held her hand out, trying to grab her cousin’s arm. She laughed lightly, mostly out of shock at Mao’s brashness.

Mao saw Sayuri stroll past her home and skipped towards her.

“Sorry!” she cried. Sayuri’s eyes somehow managed to sigh. “I didn’t mean to run away. I was just… how do I say this? I was worried. I know you like Hotaru a lot.”

“I-it’s okay,” Sayuri replied weakly. She slowly and cautiously grabbed her friend’s hand. “I like you a lot too.”

“Wait… as in…”

Sayuri shook her head. Her cheeks heated up. “I may change my mind, though. Give me some time to think about it.”

Mao’s heart tickled with happiness.  She wondered how long it would take until the angel who was constantly enriching her life would return her feelings. Sayuri’s hand was as soft as feathers.

^{1. ↩}Karna was one of the greatest warriors in a Hindu epic called the Mahābhārata. His armour was impenetrable.