Twilight falls upon cracking ivory paint, spilling in through blinds as it enters the suburban household uninvited. The orange kiss of dusk travels empty halls, dim and quiet, before finally touching the door to April's room. A woman of 21 years, April takes pride in her rejection of the lengths most of her friends have taken to prove their age, the girl accepting her attachment to the relics of her youth and sharing them with those close to her. In a nostalgic scene of sleepover, the blonde sits on the floor in front of her bed with quilt pulled over her knees, shoulder leaning against that of her best friend of seven years. 

"Isn't Arisa just the cutest, Iris? If more girls acted like her in real life, I'd be in heaven. If any girls were like her, even... I'll take what I can get hehehe." April is subjecting the guest to the first four episodes of her favourite anime, a slice of life shoujo series with very little plot to speak of and the ditsiest cast Iris has ever endured. 

"Yeah she's uh, something." April's friend responds politely, knees pulled up to her chest and long black hair gripped tight between her fingers. "Listen, I'm thinking... I should probably go? Sorry April, I thought I wanted someone with me tonight but I guess my damn mind can't make itself up."

Something in Iris' phrasing causes April to grin before wiping that inappropriate expression clean off her face and pausing the show. "Oh, sure. I hope my idea to cheer you up with some classic anime didn't end up making you feel even more depressed, ehe... oh god that's an insensitive thing to say huh?" April covers her mouth dramatically, causing Iris to cringe for the umpteenth time tonight. 

"It's fine, just seeing you try is enough to make me happy okay? You're doing a better job than the meds anyway, not that I've taken them for days I swear they just make me feel worse than I did already. On my second type so maybe third time's the charm, right?" Slowly pulling herself up onto her feet, Iris feigns a yawn to expedite her exit. April really is her best friend, but sometimes that airhead act unnerves her, makes her wonder what the blonde is like in the lab she's interning at. 

April lights up once again at Iris' words as though her friend is reading directly from prepared script, the intern chemist humming disarming tune as she creeps over to the set of drawers beside her bed and retrieves a clear zip-lock bag with a week's worth of medicine inside. With the corner of the bag held tight betwixt forefinger and thumb, April turns towards her friend and presents the tablets with a wide grin. The drugs have no markings and are certainly not prescribed in any official capacity, their colour a surprising hot pink. "Third time's the charm, hm? I was debating whether or not to even offer, but you've just looked so down lately and I don't think my anime is doing the trick hehe... this isn't strictly legal, but we've been developing a pretty potent antidepressant in the lab. It was actually part of the reason I chose that place as one of my options for an internship, I was elated when they accepted me. I... I really care about you, Iris, I'm so desperate to help you with your problem." April closes the distance and gives her closest friend an unassuming, soft smile, delicately pressing the bag of magenta meds into the other's palm. Her words are a razorblade cutting into Iris' better judgement, manipulative and masquerading as charity.

"Well, ah... how can I refuse?" Iris stares down at the bag in her palm, considering that her friend must have snuck these out of the lab at great risk to more than just her internship, rosy hue tinting her cheeks as gratitude binds her, blinds her. "So just one a day? It's not gonna put me in the hospital, right?" 

"There's always a risk with clinical trials, and this is strictly off the record hehe, but for what it's worth they're perfectly safe. Tested on mice and even rabbits, though I promise not to introduce stressful stimuli to you Iris!" April's nonchalance lulls Iris into a false sense of security and acceptance despite the light apprehension still sitting in her chest, the raven haired test subject slipping her new drugs into jeans pocket and giving self-derisive smirk.

"Yeah I've got enough of those already, uh... thanks April, I'll let you know how it works out. Maybe next time we hang out I won't be such a downer, haha..." Iris tugs on her lip with her teeth, curling toes against the rug as her urge to be alone grows and grows. It's a strange desire to have when the moment she's without company the loneliness begins to torment her just as badly, though perhaps she'll afford herself the slim hope that these pink tablets will set her straight. 

"Mhm! I want to have fun hanging out with you again, silly, so be a good girl and swallow up. You can take the first one when you get home alright? I'd recommend a mouthful of water." April's words seem cruel and controlling, but Iris has not the self respect to do anything but nod and refrain from telling her closest friend that she obviously knows how to swallow tablets. 

"Well... be seeing you then, thanks for having me over. I'm not going to wake any of your housemates on the way out am I?" With hands in her pockets, Iris makes for the door. 

"Oh, no no... they're very deep sleepers." A bright, cheery smile from the blonde with absolutely nothing to hide. "Goodnight Iris, I'd see you to the door but..." Her turn to yawn, dropping down onto her bed as her friend laughs at the girl who seems to live in her very own world.

"Gotcha. Night, April." 

Click. 

...

...

...

"You can come out now, Aergia, I need a footrest." April hums her tune as the doll, formerly her roommate Gwen from their college days, steps out of the closet in an antique Victrorian dress, black with white trim. Uniform footsteps carry the doll in gothic adornment to the centre of the room and onto her knees, its body grateful to not be standing after hours of remaining out of sight for its owner. Heels drop onto its back and Aergia gives its prettiest smile, guardian of the dream existing on the outside only to serve its master's whims. A piece of furniture should not lament its use, and so it finds itself content as footstool for as long as that remains its function.

April resumes her show and sneers at the screen, the rush of excitement from how easily Iris is playing into her hands making her want to use her living doll as more than just furniture tonight.

Back at her apartment, Iris stands before her bathroom mirror which undresses her desperation and reflects naked stupidity. It would be unwise to knock back this bright pink tablet in her palm and chase it down with unfiltered tap water and yet... it's exactly what she does. If there's a chance it's going to make her feel normal again, a functioning member of society, Iris knew from the start she did not have enough willpower to resist committing to the unregulated trial.

Head rests down onto pillow and Iris curls up in bed in just a loose tank top and briefs, imagining what sort of cute pyjamas her more feminine friend would be slipping into around now. Sometimes Iris wonders if it wouldn't be so bad to explore her own 'girly' side but then she laughs it off as insecurity imposed upon her by straight society. She's quite content in her style, it's one of the few things she does have a handle on in this world that slips away from her day after day. Every morning it feels more impossible to leave her bed and every night comes around quicker than the last, days shortening as though collapsing in on themselves and leaving her no room to breathe and figure herself out. Idly, the girl wonders if it would be better if tomorrow never reared its ugly head at all. 

Sleep hits her like a drug on account of the sedative effects of her new untested antidepressant. April's spectral lips part and plant a kiss upon the sleeping form, smothering her in soft red skin from head to toe and reverberating a single word in constant hum. 

"Sleep."

And much to Iris' delight, the pink drug does not permit her to dream at all. To some, like April's former roommate turned doll, dreams can be the ultimate escape, but Iris' dreams have long since been weaponised against her by the girl's own hostile mind. To be spared a dream is to have fresh air pumped into her lungs, April's hot pink breath giving her chest a new lease on rise and fall. 

To not dream is to sleep without interruption, a new day beckoning before she even has a chance to deny its tempting touch. 

Iris wakes, checking the time to see that it has been around seven hours since she took the experimental antidepressant and carrying herself into the bathroom to shower. 

Iris waters, scrubbing away her typical mental baggage in those dancing jets as steam fogs the mirror, her reflection unable to taunt her before she's even dressed herself this morning.

Iris flowers, deciding that for the first time in months she'll go ahead and do her make-up properly, put her best foot forward and try her best to aid this experiment with a sense of optimism she had thought lost. 

Iris blooms, sitting on the stool and staring at her own face as a smile creeps onto it, head light and fuzzy as a newfound excitement begins to take hold. She doesn't want to jinx herself but begins to accept that the drug may just be working. 

Turning the key in apartment door to lock it and skipping out into the sun's rays with a hopeful leap in her heart, Iris beams. A brand new day has taken hold, and for the first time in weeks Iris turns up to work with a glow in place of a glower. Her co-workers whisper, her regulars compliment her and her boss looks relieved. During her break, Iris sends a text to her friend April who responds to the gratitude with an obnoxious number of emojis. That's just the sort of person April is, Iris thinks with a long sigh. 

As Iris exits the restroom and ties her apron in place, cutting across the diner while humming the tune she picked up from April, a customer grumbling about waiting in line for over an hour reaches out and pinches her rear with a string of complaints escaping their lips unpleasantly as they do so. Iris doesn't react to the touch at all, trying her best to resolve the issue as a co-worker suddenly slams the counter and runs around it to push the man away forcefully. 

"Hey pervert, keep your hands to your fucking self!" Barks Iris' protective colleague, hooking an arm around the raven haired woman's, Iris tilting her head in confusion at what exactly transpired as the frustrated customer storms out of the diner. "Jesus, Iris, you okay? You don't have to take that, you know? It's sexual harassment."

"O-Oh right, yeah. I noticed he was doing it but I guess it just sorta slipped my mind he shouldn't be, haha, I've been a bit distracted." With an embarrassed smile that only makes her co-worker more concerned, Iris scratches her head and wonders if it's really such a big deal. It's not like she wanted to be touched like that, of course, but it just sort of feels like the outrage she should be experiencing has become inaccessible to her. Maybe it's a side effect of the drug, she thinks with sudden panic, before reasoning that she'd still consider this a worthwhile trade given how she had felt before. It's fine. It's probably fine. Iris bargains. 

"Well don't be such an airhead on the clock and let these dickheads think they can touch me like that too, I'd probably get fired for breaking their fingers. You're ruining my image of you as the hard as fuck butch senior, ehehe..." Iris' redheaded colleague playfully pushes the woman's shoulder before returning to work with a shake of her head, making the young woman pause and reflect. Airhead, huh? Well, it beats being a deadhead. 

Second day on the drug and Iris sits up in bed to the sound of the phone ringing, lazily reaching over to see it's a call from her boss and finding the usual anxiety rolls off of her completely. Answering the call without a moment's hesitation, Iris gently nods along to her boss's words with an indifferent expression plastered over her face the entire time, accepting the words like water flowing through a filter. 

"So I'm like... fired?" She stands up from the bed and makes for the bathroom, yawning from the early hour and wishing the call could have just been a text. "Oh, okay." It turns out that the customer from yesterday made a formal complaint that has somehow resulted in management buckling and getting rid of Iris entirely. Fucking chains, she should be furious given she was assaulted and it wasn't even her who stepped in to stop it, but Iris just can't bring herself to raise her voice this early in the day. "Got it." Her boss's hollow apology and the disappointing news about severance pay flow through Iris and she just sighs, waiting for the call to end before setting her phone down and assessing herself in the bathroom mirror. This is terrible news, she has rent to pay, and yet... she cannot even force herself to cry in front of that reflective silver pool sitting on the wall. 

Iris smiles instead, considering the positives over the negative for once in her life. She never much cared for that job but felt trapped in it all the same, so she breathes deep the air of freedom and finds her smile change almost imperceptibly. Plastic emotion. 

With her day unlocked to her, Iris heads out and agrees to meet up with April at the local mall like they're living out one of her best friend's anime plots. A slice of life awaits her and Iris finds herself hungry enough to take a bite, waving with an easy-going smile as she approaches her friend April and the blonde's girlfriend, Gwen, the two drinking from colourful smoothies that make Iris' mouth water. "Hey ladies, what's good?" Iris approaches with her best impression of a typical creep swooping in to bother them, April rolling her eyes with a giggle while Gwen just gives a thin smile, mouth still around the thick straw of her drink.

"God, Iris, you're such a tomboy." April invites her friend to sit and Iris shrugs, having not heard anyone use that word to describe her since middle school and laughing at how different of a world her closest friend lives in to herself. 

"I know, you're jealous of the khaki shorts. I think these were cargo pants that went down to my ankles once upon a time but summer calls and the wallet cries, right? Fuck, speaking of which... I need a job." Iris gives a sheepish grin and sits without a drink, feeling the bum of the group almost instantly but far too prideful to ask for April be her sugarmommy for the day.

April leans on the food court table with her usually disarming smile while Gwen really does seem to act as more of an accessory than a partner, sitting passively to the blonde's left. "Well you don't seem particularly downtrodden over it, hey is that because of my uh, little gift?" Her eyes narrow and Iris can't help but laugh nervously, shrugging. 

"Must be, I'm shocked I'm not having a total breakdown over it to be completely honest. Last week I let some yoghurt expire and it was a total day ruiner, god I'm so fucking fragile. To think some people are still convinced I'm cool when I'm crying over gone off dairy, I hate these current trends of people acting like they're attracted to messes like me when they'd fold so quick in the reality of it." With all the bitterness she's still able to conjure, Iris leans against the table and looks between Gwen and April curiously. It's funny to think that even when April came out to her, Iris has yet to admit that she's--

"Ooh, sounds to me like you're looking for love! If you need me to find you a girlfriend you only have to say, what else are besties for right?" April says the words so casually it takes Iris a moment to realise, her reaction somewhat muted by the drug but still expressive enough to seem human. 

"H-Hey, how'd you know I like girls? We never really talked about it, uh, did we?" Hair shaved on one side, several pieces of metal piercing her ear and lip, plaid shirt staring back at a grinning April... how could she have figured it out? 

"Well, I am your best friend, and besides, there were signs." April leans over and grips the carabiner hanging from Iris' waist, using it to pull them closer as strawberry and lime flavoured lips coat her best friend's. Iris' eyes widen but she accepts the kiss without much of a physical reaction, gaze drawn to Gwen's who watches them with a placid smile. 

April pulls away and giggles playfully, telling Iris without so many words that a kiss between friends like that was nothing but a little fun. Relaxing more easily than she should, Iris watches as April pulls magenta tablet from her skirt pocket and crushes it on the table with the corner of her phone. Long nailed fingers pinch the resulting dust and sprinkle it into her smoothie, April sliding it across the table and smiling sweetly. "You look thirsty, Iris, and I can tell you liked how my lips tasted so here's that flavour right from the source."

"But... is that the same drug--"

"Mhm, I'm upping your dose. Drink up, silly, these ones are for the rest of the week. I think you can handle two a night." Reaching into her pocket again, April slides the bag over to Iris without so much as making sure the coast is clear. To a passer by this must look like... well, exactly what it is.

Quickly grabbing the bag and stuffing it into her breast pocket, Iris purses her lips weakly. Uncertain hand closes around the partially frozen drink and stirs the pink powder into it properly. "I don't know if I need more than one a night, though? It's been working pretty well... I think."

"If one is working pretty well, then two will be even better, right? Unless there are any serious side effects I should know about?" April slips bare foot out of her flat and runs it over Iris' leg, assessing her curiously and biting her lip when her friend pays it no mind whatsoever. 

"Oh, well... I guess some asshole groped me the other day and I like... just didn't care? Could that be because of the drug? That's... probably something I should care about, right?" Iris pushes her leg out instinctively, slurping on the smoothie without thinking while trying to discuss if she even needs a higher dose. 

"I don't know about that, Iris, maybe you just secretly liked it? You're lonely, right? I'm sure physical intimacy feels good, so maybe you just wanna take it where you can get it, hm?" Insulting, demeaning words to most pass through Iris like her boss's had, her head just idly nodding as she works on finishing the smoothie with an easy smile. 

"I guess, I mean I wouldn't say no to another kiss for sure." The test subject laughs and April slips her foot between her legs, tapping toes against her thigh under the table while Iris finally begins to squirm. "Ah, that's... wh-what're you--"

"Oh my! I just meant to kick my legs up like I'm back at home, I didn't notice you there haha. Sorry about that, Iris." The foot lifts and then sets back down in the space between Iris' legs, remaining there even if the words tell Iris she realised her mistake and pulled away.

"Oh it's fine, it didn't like... feel bad or anything. Wait, that's a weird fucking thing to say, sorry." Iris rubs her cheek, not noticing the foot still testing the firmness of her thigh now that they've moved past it, her cheeks flush with embarrassment and... 

"Sit forwards a bit, okay? I can barely hear you hehe." A simple command from April and Iris sees no reason not to oblige, not to obey, shuffling closer as her best friend's sole flattens against her crotch and Iris tightens her grip around the plastic cup in her hands, giving smile just as taut. 

"Uhm... April, I guess... I'm worried this drug is numbing me to some things, making me unaware of certain sensations being wrong... not having full access to my emotions, even? I guess not being sad or angry and stuff is... nice, but are you sure I'm going to be okay?" 

Grinding her intrusive foot into the front of Iris' shorts, April revels in testing her limits and seeing how far she can push it already after only a few doses. Power has her face flush with excitement, hand cupping her cheek while her other arm laces fingers into Gwen's. "You'll be okay if you continue to be a good girl and take your medicine, Iris, if you have any problems I'm here for you. You can trust me."

Iris squeezes the foot between her thighs and wonders why she's feeling so turned on, breathless against touch she doesn't even register because it wouldn't make any sense to think that her sweet best friend is fucking her under the table in a public setting while holding hands with her actual girlfriend, right? The drug helps her rationalise these things, whereas before she would have simply jumped to conclusions. "Okay... I trust you, April." She's worked up, giving into the touch without even realising, her breath sounding so indecent in its shaky exhales.

"Good girl. Keep taking the drug, two tablets a night, and we'll have another girl's night this Saturday alright? I'll convince you that my show is as good as I keep telling you it is, hehe, and this time you won't be able to resist enjoying it. You won't be able to deny my tastes, because your own will just be so numb."

"Uhm..."

"Just a joke, pretty. You're meant to laugh."

Iris doesn't feel like laughing, but she does so anyway. The foot recedes and slips back into flat, April standing up with Gwen in tow in a doting manner that suggests so little purpose on her own part besides following April around as her second shadow. 

A goddess of deceit in unassuming summer dress steps beside Iris and chuckles to herself at the way this prey just accepts so much already, temptation getting the better of the blonde as she raises her hand and suddenly strikes her friend. A sea of heads in the mall cafeteria turn at the sharp noise and Iris feels the sting of her best friend's hand against her cheek, tilting back to look up at the other calmly. "Hey, what was that for?"

"My hand slipped~" Unmasked glee pools in April's cruel eyes, such power to hold over another person as she watches Iris accept the flimsy excuse, chemical control forcing her to rationalise so much now. Anything can be explained and excused, the drug is making her numb to it all, feasting on her passion and reducing her into moldable clay with a pretty face. By Saturday her canvas will be so eager to accept anything its given, painted over with a new existence April has fantasised about for months as she planned her latest conquest.

"Well... try and be more careful." Iris smiles politely, rubbing her sore cheek and rolling her eyes, indifference becoming her blind spot. 

Already so cute and lovable, thinks April with admiration over that red handprint on Iris' face, but after the weekend she'll be better than cute...

She'll be a true 'Moe Girl'.

Saturday swings around in a flash, the rest of Iris' week having felt like she lived it on autopilot, idly applying for jobs while finally getting around to catching up on all the chores in her apartment she had been neglecting for months. Making her living space spotless proved a very potent distraction from just how numb she was becoming, every dose of April's antidepressant beginning to take more than just the negative emotions until Iris began to stop feeling much at all. It worried her at first, but soon her worry was taken too and she was left with little more than anticipation and most of all, acceptance. 

Iris sits in her room passively, accepting that she's at least more productive in this stunted form than she had been as a depressive mess. There's a meditative calm that she takes solace in when she's lucid enough to consider just how wrong it is not to feel. It feels like April's tablets cored her out completely and left little more than an instinct driven machine, one beholden to invisible programming that carries her out of the apartment, that compels pliant fingers to text April when she's approaching the innocent ivory home of death and rebirth. 

"There you are! Gosh, you don't look very human at all right now Iris. Are you feeling alright?" April teases, as she is always wont to do, hooking her arm around her friend's as she drags the young woman inside. Iris doesn't feel much like a woman anymore, as numb to her irrelevant gender as any other part of her. She feels utterly rewritable, not even caring that she might be replaced with a new version of herself soon enough. She accepts, with a ghost of a smile, that if it's what April wants then it's only reasonable to pay her back for all that risk she took giving her those drugs. 

"I feel fine... I... actually, I feel nothing." Iris decides that honestly is best, vindicated by April's understanding, the blonde guiding her carefully up each step and into her cosy hideaway. 

"Does that scare you?" Asks April with an innocuous lilt, skirting around the room to dim the lights and turn on her television. With eager touch the room's owner pushes down on Iris' shoulders, guiding her into place on the floor as the canvas accepts the guidance in stride.

Iris shrugs, staring at the static and finding that it closely resembles her current state of mind... standby signal. "No, why would it? I feel normal... uhm, default? I'm just so empty, I had a job interview yesterday and they asked what I liked to do in my spare time. I said... 'Nothing at all' and they laughed, like it was a joke. Am I funny, April?"

"Mmmhhh, a little I suppose. You'll be plenty funny soon enough, in a cutesy and clumsy sort of way. How's that sound?" Questions from April might as well be rhetorical at this point, though Iris is too empty to deduce as much. Locking the door with a click, April crouches down in excited rush and inserts the disk of her favourite anime series into the player, a bright and colourful menu casting light onto blank canvas. 

"Well I don't know... I'm not supposed to be this... malleable... am I? It'd be easier if you just told me how it sounds, how I feel. That's what you want, right? I figured out where you were more or less going with all of this days ago, but I just accepted it and kept taking the meds. Because... because you told me I had to. It made me feel pathetic for the night, then by morning I just forgot how to experience shame." The empty slate sits still with crossed legs and slumped shoulders, having been hollowed out by April's drug and yet appearing so highly functioning still. It's working perfectly. 

"You didn't have much of a personality anyway, not a very fun one, so I'm doing you a favour. You can go ahead and thank me Iris, you'll be doing that a lot from now on as my cute moe girlfriend~" The melodic hum April fills the room with as she prances around, setting up her night of foundational anime viewing, must sound so innocent to any bystander.

"Thank you, April. Isn't Gwen your girlfriend, though?" 

"Oh, Gwen isn't real. She's just a dream, that doll is called Aergia and it isn't well suited for dating. A doll presents a very different blank canvas to yourself, Iris. I removed her soul, she's nothing but a living, breathing piece of highly posable and programmable furniture. My new drug sapped you of your emotional responses and your personality, but it left your soul intact... better to say that it locked those things away and I'm able to redistribute them at will. The new person I make you into will very much still be a person, if a fictional one. To illustrate the bizarre paradox presented there I've decided to model you after my favourite anime girl! It's more for personal satisfaction and amusement really, hehe, but it looks better on my paper to say there's a philosophical basis for my indulgence!"

Iris does not pretend to understand a word from April's explanation, just nodding in passive acceptance as learned habit takes over. 

"Now, I'm going to start from episode one because I don't really think you were paying close attention before. You need to focus on her expressions, her mannerisms, her likes, dislikes, her gait, her fashion... I want you to really study her, Iris, absorb her into your psyche. But above all, I really want you to enjoy the show! Okay, silly?" April sits down on the bed with remote in hand, pulling Iris back until the woman on the floor sits with her head between April's thighs, the blonde running possessive fingers through her new conquest's raven black hair. 

"Okay... and I'll become like her? I'll start to feel again?" As though pulled on strings, Iris tilts her head up and gently rests it in April's lap, wide and accepting eyes staring up at the possessive chemist. 

"Yes! You'll be cute, innocent and clumsy. You'll be really dependent on your girlfriend and I'll dote on you because you deserve to be cherished. You'll be such a girly girl, Iris, cooking in just a tiny apron... cleaning my room in a maid uniform with a bashful tomato red hugging your adorable face. I can't wait to see just how moe you can become for me." An aroused April closes her thighs around that head staring up at her, wanting to ride it into the night but knowing she'd never start the show if she did that. 

"A... girly girl?" The soft butch considers her current outfit, baggy bottoms and a band tee faded enough to be considered vintage. Dog tags hang from her neck, chunky silver rings adorn her left hand and beat up trainers sit by the door. Iris' name is the most feminine thing about her, she often thought, wondering if she'll really be able to live up to April's expectations. 

"Mhm, I think you're hot as you are but the contrast is what really turns me on. I'll make you as hyperfeminine as this shoujo protagonist, but also just as much of a ditz. You'll be my cute little airhead from now on, there's a reason my favourite show in the genre is the one set in an all girls academy with no male characters. They weren't explicit with any romance in the show but... well, that doesn't mean we won't be~ I can train you on the fanfics after we finish season two, you'll love it, being shamelessly 'kawaii' for your girlfriend's amusement. You won't even know how embarrassed you should be, it's that earnestness that'll make it so fucking hot to parade you around in public. I wonder what your parents are going to think... gosh, I'm starting to think the golden gates won't open for me when my time comes, hehehe." April pushes Iris' head forwards to focus on the screen as she finally presses play, a naked Aergia strutting into the room with a tray of refreshments in one hand and in the other, a series of increasingly 'moe' outfits for Iris to change into as they progress in her re-education. 

Cute anime opening begins to play and Iris recognises it as the tune April has been humming this whole time, realising that past her really hadn't been paying enough attention and resolving to correct that on her rewatch. As the opening song implants itself into her canvas mind, colourful light baptising her in hot pink hues, Iris feels excitement bubbling deep within and lights up when she realises it's working already. 

She's not only going to become a person again...

She's going to be April's anime girlfriend!

A week has passed since Iris' binge viewing of April's favourite show, which is of course her favourite show now too. How could it not be when she feels such a kinship with the female lead, often hopping up during repeated watchings to mimic the dance in the opening without a shred of shame left in her pure, moe heart. April giggles from the bed and Iris plays her new role to perfection, mimicking the idol motions without an idle bone in her body.

April has decided to take her new girlfriend on their first proper public date, Iris having overslept and now running to the meeting spot they both agreed upon with skirt flapping up and giving a private show to all who look her way. Just like in the show Iris blushes and shoves the garment back down, though secretly feels happy to have shown off the pretty pink panties April bought for her after she accidentally lost all her other underwear. Out of breath, the poor girl stands on street corner hugging the thick cardigan hanging from her shoulders and quickly checking she hasn't messed up her makeup again. While waiting for the pedestrian crossing to go green, Iris smirks and casts horizontal peace sign over her eye in the make-up mirror, posing for her personal satisfaction while lost in her own world of cute. 

If only she had a piece of toast in her mouth to completely the look, thinks April with her sides starting to hurt as she watches Iris' hasty approach and waves her girlfriend over. "There you are, what took you so long?"

Iris gives an overdramatic bow of apology, repeating the action twice before puffing her cheeks out and hooding her gaze. "I overslept... I got reeeeaaaally into that romance manga you lent to me, so I kinda stayed up all night reading it ahaha... I woke up to several volumes spread across my bed. A-Anyway, I'm making it up to you by dressing cute, see?" The woman with dyed pink hair held in place by bright red clips gives a twirl, April's eyes tracing upwards from bottom to top as she admires her handiwork. A simple tablet and a little reconditioning has brought her show to life. Glossy mary janes give way to knee-high white socks, leaving a slither of skin before plaid skirt stretches to high waist. Frilled shirt is tucked into the skirt, buttoned up with a ribbon bow at the collar and a thick roseate cardigan to keep her warm. "You'll forgive this lovestruck baka, won't you?"

With the satisfaction of a true conqueror, April cups her cute girlfriend's rosy red cheek and rubs it with her thumb. "Of course, Arisa, it's impossible not to."