It's one of those dreams everyone has...

[braidstobows]

She's already late for school. Homura runs at top speed - and of course she has a test today, which she never realized until this moment. She hasn't studied.

(It's still better than the dreams where she runs into battle, just a moment too late, just in time to see her best and only friend falling-

How many times has that happened? How many times has she relived it in nightmares?)

By the time she rushes into the school, breathless to the alarm of her classmates who are used to her calm punctuality, she wants nothing more than to sink into her seat. But then their confusion turns to laughter. Homura very, very slowly reaches up to her head...

... and runs her fingers along the headband with cat ears Madoka talked her into wearing as a costume when she spent the night. She pulls and tugs and yanks at it, but it won't come off no matter what she does. She frowns uncomfortably. Madoka, a pink-haired girl with pigtails sitting just nearby, gives her a sympathetic smile and will probably use the lunch period to tell her it's alright.

So much for the cool Homura.

Comments

[lamentoso]

Sayaka was just about ready to doze off. Today's first lesson was guaranteed to be especially hard to concentrate on and her eyelids seemed to just be getting heavier and heavier...

It'd be all right if she just closed them for a little while...

Just as her chin began to slide off of the upturned palm of her hand, the sound of the classroom door opening shook her back into awareness. As she began to register just what was going on, and what Akemi was wearing... the realization brought with it a trail of soft chuckles from behind Sayaka's hand.

Were those... cat ears?!

[braidstobows]

It was worse when she was being laughed at. Homura shot a look towards Sayaka - not quite the frosty expression that could have stopped a person dead, but enough to make her displeasure known.

She decided to concentrate very carefully on the teacher, but that only lasted a few minutes (she'd heard the lesson at least a thousand times). Finally, she gave up and sat at her seat, arms crossed.

Fortunately, the bell rang.

[lamentoso]

The look silenced her laughter, but it did nothing for the mischevious twinkle anyone could see sparked in her eyes. This was rich. The calm and collected too-cool-for-mitakihara-school Homura Akemi was sitting in class, wearing cat ears. It was too perfect. Sayaka couldn't have asked for a better set up. The delight alone she was taking in the situation was enough to keep her awake and alert -- right up until the bell.

As everyone else stirred in their seats, Sayaka grinned in Homura's direction, following Madoka as she made her way over.

"Always have to make an entrance don't you?" though for obvious reasons, the blue-haired girl seemed more pleased with this one than usual.

[braidstobows]

"They seem to be stuck," Homura said, recovering her usual calm in defiance of the situation. But it was hard to sound aloof and in-control when she had just made a rather disruptive entrance into the classroom.

Sigh.

"We'd better be sure not to be late to the next class." She was considering cutting it, actually - the class, not the hair, though the hair idea was becoming tempting, too.

[lamentoso]

"Stuck, huh?" Sayaka replied incredulously. All of her things were gathered up in her bag already, so she had time to tease Homura as the three of them made their way out of homeroom. "Sounds like an excuse to me. I bet you just wanted to wear them to make a statement or something, huh? Maybe you wanted someone to notice you more than usual, eh~?"

[braidstobows]

If her eyes betray her, they'll go right to Madoka; but she consciously keeps them from straying.

"If you'd like," she invites, "You can try to take them off for me." Let Sayaka see for herself that they really are stuck, and this is no stunt for attention. Not even Madoka's.

[lamentoso]

"And ruin your fun?" there's a trail of laughter that follows Sayaka's words. "No way, I wouldn't dream of it! Besides..." she continued in a slightly lower voice, turning to Madoka herself, "I bet Madoka thinks they look great on you, don't you, Madoka?" As though she was going to help the transfer student out of this one! This was one of the best days she'd had since Akemi's arrival!

[braidstobows]

It would be far beneath Homura's dignity to scowl.

But she might have felt like it, a little bit. And Madoka's cheerful smile and words of encouragement, rather than making things better, only seemed to heap coals on top of an already burning pride.

"Miki Sayaka," she said finally as the bell thankfully rang and she gathered her belongings, "Do you intend to skip your next class?"

[lamentoso]

"Eh?" she hadn't even noticed the time had passed so quickly. They say that happens when you're enjoying yourself... "Of course not, let's get moving!" she chirped, not being able to wait to see how the students in their next lesson reacted to the cool Homura's new look. "We could all go together... unless you wanted to make another dramatic entrance of course."

[braidstobows]

"We'll go together." This belied her plans to slouch and see if she could essentially hide behind the other girls. It probably wouldn't work, but it was better than calling even more attention to it.

A testing tug proved the ears weren't going anywhere. If it was anyone but Madoka responsible, she'd be upset.