ɪ ʜᴀᴛᴇ ʙᴇʟʟ ᴘᴇᴘᴘᴇʀꜱ [𝓐𝓺𝓾𝓪 𝔁 𝓚𝓪𝓷𝓪] {𝒪𝓈𝒽𝒾 𝓃𝑜 𝒦𝑜}

ℂ𝕙𝕒𝕡𝕥𝕖𝕣 𝟙𝟟 ~ 𝕁𝕖𝕒𝕝𝕠𝕦𝕤𝕪 𝕚𝕤 ℍ𝕦𝕞𝕒𝕟𝕚𝕥𝕪

Annie POV:

If tears could make things go one's way, then my life would have already been perfect.

I screamed until my throat was dry, cried until my eyes were red, but all to no avail. Ophelia's stubborn old heart couldn't understand my feelings. 

At least Mina could. I had always disliked her unpleasant personality, but she was at least human, not under the spell of that Arima Kana.

"Why don't you understand?!" I sobbed. "This is the biggest moment of my life! I've looked forward to this competition every year! This is my dream! You can easily take new shoots for me. There's still time! I'm your only loyal model! Why would you do this to me for some stranger girl you don't even know?!"

I couldn't wrap my head around it. I just couldn't.

"Annie, dear," Ophelia said desperately, "You know why. I've told you this many times now. We were desperate yesterday to get a model, and Arima-chan was kind enough to come here. She did a whole shoot for free! It would be disguistingly rude to ignore her hard work."

I gritted my teeth. Who cared about that?

"Besides, you know there are limited spots available for presentation for Model Up. If we submitted photos a day later, we might not have been accepted. There's a limit of 1,000 entries- yesterday, we only just made it.

If we drew Arima-chan's entry out now and replaced it, our position would surely immediantly be taken and your shoot wouldn't be judged." Ophelia sighed.

She made a fair point, but I refused to accept it.

"Why can't you just- I don't know, make up a fake name for a different company and submit my photos as well?" I seethed.

"You know that wouldn't work out. We would easily get fined for faking legal documents and you would have gotten in trouble." 

Mina watched quietly, her long, flat mouse-brown hair in a schoolgirl ponytail, her arms crossed and her eyes narrowed. 

I opened my mouth to argue, but tears were building up again and this time, I didn't want Ophelia to see me cry.

I spun on my heel and marched towards the door, but suddenly the creaky old thing burst open, almost hitting me on the forehead.

And I came face-to-face with the girl I had sworn to hate.

Kana POV:

It was Annie.

She was just as I remembered from our short conversation at lunch- long, sleek ink-black hair and unique facial features that couldn't exactly be deemed model-worthy. Except this time, she wore a mask of fury.

"Oh no, it's you," she growled, "The girl who stole my dream!"

At her words, I instantly felt bad, but told myself I hadn't come here to apologise, or to argue. "Look, Annie, I just need to talk to Ophelia."

"Oh, no you don't! Don't you dare, unless you're telling her you're resigning from the competition after all!" Annie shouted. "Just go away- never have anything to do with Machistar again!"

"That's exactly what I intend to do," I muttered under my breath, then quickly pushed past her to avoid any more shouting. 

"Ophelia- here." I handed the bracelet to the suprised woman. "I'm so sorry I forgot to take it off yesterday."

"Darling, don't you worry. It's not your fault," Ophelia enveloped me in a warm hug. "Thank you so much for your work. Please don't be deterred by Annie- your shoot will be in the competition. We couldn't thank you enough for your help yesterday!"

I tentavitely smiled back, while Annie glowered at me. Ophelia released me and gave me the brightest, happiest smile that I had ever seen.

Ophelia was in her fifties, with thin dyed blonde hair and pretty blue eyes that were probably her youth's treasure. She wore a flowery nanny dress and teenager-styled sneakers- the pair didn't exactly match.  But somehow it still gave off a lovely light that I wanted to stay in forever- in warm hugs, kind words and smiles that told me everything would be okay.

If only that were true.

"Thank you- I was happy to do it. Well, I must be going now," I shot a furtive look at Annie, who was literally growling, "I'll call you if there's any further issues. But for now... I think it's best if I steer clear of Machistar from now on."

"Oh." Ophelia's face fell. "I see. That's quite a pity- I would have liked to offer you a job."

"Thank you, but... I'm not a model. Yesterday was a spur-of-a-moment thing," I hastily backed towards the door. "But thank you for everything. Goodbye!" I spun around, pushed open the doors and started down the stairs, hoping I would never have to go back there again.

I had already gotten in hot water with Annie. I never wanted to have that same experience again.

Ruby POV:

When Kana came back, she didn't say a word, didn't stay to chat or suggest a training session- only shot me a furtive smile and went straight up to her room.

When I went up to her room to ask if she wanted to practice some choreography, she had been typing away furiously on her laptop and didn't shoot me so much as a look, only shook her head.

I didn't get to see her laptop screen up-close, but I could tell it was the format page of Twitter.

I didn't want to believe Kana was hiding something again.

I hoped she wasn't.

I didn't want to lose trust in her again.

But deep inside, I knew, and I couldn't run away from it- I knew that Kana wasn't telling the truth in some way, and she knew more than she let me know.

A/N: We are so, so, so close to 50 followers- ONE MORE PERSON!!!