#current timeline

Verbally unresponsive, Miki blankly stared back for a few seconds, seemingly taking in Nakamura's answer, before moving her gaze towards Maehara's instead and raised an eyebrow, prompting him to speak up.

Maehara immediately looked sideways, avoiding her gaze once again. "Well, you told me last week that I should cancel my date with Remi-chan and that's what I did so now I have nothing to do-"

"Bullshit," Miki cut him off, clearly not amused. "That was last month, you bastard."

Nakamura lightly scoffed at that.

"I uhh..." Maehara trailed off, his gaze darting everywhere until they landed into Miki's hair. "Your hair!" He cracked a tight grin, obviously trying to change the topic. "It looks cute today!"

"I know," Miki answered dryly. Her hair is currently tied into loose twin dutch braids. "I see myself in the mirror everyday."

"Nevermind that, there's something I wanted to ask you," Nakamura butted in, "who's that guy? He looks familiar." She gestured towards the person standing next to Miki, who had worn his bucket hat down to his face, making it almost impossible to make out his appearance.

The said person let out a deep, seemingly annoyed, sigh at the question. "You can't even recognize me and yet you decided to follow us for almost thirty minutes straight?" He breathed out.

Nakamura immediately recognized that voice. "Chiba-kun?!" She exclaimed.

"Wait, Chiba?" Maehara took a step closer towards the guy to get a closer look at him.

Chiba clicked his tongue in irritation, pulling down his bucket even further while turning his head away. "Yeah, it's me."

Maehara stood almost awkwardly by the aisle as he watched the other three go over some make up products and try them out.

...or rather it was Miki trying out the products onto Chiba while Nakamura was going through the shelves.

After their mini confrontation by the street, Miki soon had told them that she was out with Chiba to shop for make up products to use for his future stages.

"The red palette was getting kinda boring lately so I thought of experimenting with colours on him and see what fits him the best," she explained to them earlier.

Maehara admitted that, aside from what he saw or heard from his older sisters, he doesn't know that much about make up since he was more of a skincare kind of guy.

Almost 30 minutes have passed ever since Miki and Chiba settled themselves at the testing corner of the aisle, and Maehara felt like he should entertain himself with the skincare section of the store instead of awkwardly waiting for them to finish.

As he was about to excuse himself, he saw Nakamura suddenly approaching him.

"Hey, so I just saw this tint right here," Nakamura held up a product in warm pink colour in a shape of some plastic tube Maehara can't make out of, "and I thought it would look good with your skin tone."

Maehara blinked in confusion. "But I don't really wear make up though-"

"Relax~ The colour's not that pigmented and it won't even feel like you have something on your lips at all!" Nakamura breezily reassured while opening the tube's lid.

Maehara quickly stiffened when Nakamura suddenly grabbed his chin. "Now stay still," she ordered.

"Hey this is kinda..."

"Don't get any weird thoughts here, Maehara-kun~" Nakamura quickly cut him off without missing a beat.

Meanwhile, Miki slowly leaned backwards to examine her work so far. "Oooh the warm purple is kinda sexy with the faint gold!"

"Oh! That does look nice on him, miss!" A nearby clerk praised when she took a closer look.

"Right?!" Miki grinned before turning back to Chiba. "You holding up there?"

"This is nothing," he shrugged. "Though I have to be honest, I'm slowly starting to get embarrassed with all these people around..." 

Miki smiled reassuringly at him in response, gently brushing away loose strands of hair from his face. "Well, at least people here hardly recognize you. So perhaps that helps a little, right?"

"Yeah, it does..." Chiba softly replied, his gaze following Miki's fingers as she went through the lip products she has scavenged so far. "What happened last week at class was borderline torture."

Miki stiffened at his remark, clearly remembering the exhaustingly chaotic events that had occurred in less than an hour that day. "Aha..."

Chiba just rolled his eyes at her lack of response. "Say, can you hand me a smaller mirror? I want to take a closer look on what you've worked on so far while you keep looking for uhh... whatever you're looking for, I guess."

"Here," Miki handed him her own compact mirror, before returning her focus to finding the right colour for him. "Ohh this is nice!" She barely heard him say.

"Umm miss?" Miki approached the clerk who had praised her earlier. "If you don't mind, I was wondering if you could help me with selecting the right lip colour that would go well with his eyeshadow?" 

She then laughed sheepishly afterwards. "I'm not too well-versed with things like colour theory, you see..."

"No worries, I would love to help!" The clerk smiled brightly at her in return. "Just let me take a closer look again so I can help you find the right fit!"

"Oh that kinda looks sexy, don't you think?" Maehara commented as he and Nakamura watched Miki do her work.

"That's what I thought..." Miki almost whispered, carefully applying the chosen colour onto Chiba's lips.

"Must be nice," Nakamura suddenly blurted out after quietly watching for a while. 

"Which is...?"

"Working on those kinds of lips," she answered.

Miki hummed in agreement, now blending out the pigment with a small brush. "I find it easier to apply technique if your workspace is wide enough."

"No wonder I struggled with this guy..." Nakamura let out a disappointed sigh, barely gesturing towards Maehara. "There's barely any space to work on with how small his lips actually are."

Miki nearly choked at the revelation. "Wait, they are?" Failing to suppress an amused grin, she turned to look at a now annoyed Maehara to see it for herself.

"Oh, the colour's nice. Good choice," she first complemented, taking note of how well the faint coral tint goes with Maehara's warm skin tone and brown hair. "You did a great job applying it, Rio. It doesn't even look like he's wearing anything on his lips."

"Ahee~" Nakamura grinned widely at the. compliment.

Miki cracked a smile. "But yeah, somehow it made it obvious how small his lips actually are," chuckling, she turned back to Chiba and continued her work. "Even I just noticed it."

"I don't know how I am supposed to feel right now..."

Nakamura nudged Maehara with a cheeky grin. "Hey, at least she basically said the colour looks good on you~"

"I would honestly be more convinced if she wasn't still mad at me..." Maehara sighed in disappointment.

"If only you never lied to me~" Miki hummed, not even once looking at him.

Maehara groaned in response. "C'mon Miki, that was way back in April. Can't you just drop it?"

"I think we're done here!" Miki suddenly announced, standing up straight after minutes of leaning. 

Maehara sighed again, not surprised that she was purposely ignoring him. He's more than aware that last month's discourse with Kaho truly had him lose Miki's trust. He just didn't think that she was the type to hold grudges for this long.

"I don't know about you, but I think it'd better if you just stop bringing it up to her every other day?" Nakamura said in a low voice, quirking an eyebrow at him. "Like no offense, Maehara-kun, but if I we're in Miki's position right now I'd be annoyed too."

"Rio, can you help me put back the testing palettes to their shelves?" Miki called out now from the other end of the aisle.

Sending Maehara one last look, Nakamura walked towards the taller blonde. "Sure~"

Maehara was then once again back to awkwardly standing by the shelves. However, it didn't take too long for them to return the testing products to their respective shelves.

"Say, Ryuu. You want me to remove all that now or are you planning to just leave it on?" Miki called out despite her hands currently full.

Chiba was examining Miki's work through the long mirror on top of the shelves. "Hmm I think I'll just leave it on and take it off myself once I get home," he answered, running his hands through his hair. "The shadow work is not heavy enough to look weird to wear in public.... thankfully."

"Yeah it doesn't look like you're wearing much," Nakamura commented, walking away from the counter near the aisle and towards him. 

Most of the heavy shadow work Miki had done were on Chiba's lower lids and on the outer corner of his eyes. Hence why, unlike earlier when he had them half-closed, which made them look more obvious, they were barely noticeable now that he was looking ahead.

"Kinda looks like you're just wearing eyeliner with some colour here and there," Nakamura added with a slight grin. "You look good though, by the way."

"Thanks," Chiba replied almost shyly, though his following smile was making it more prominent. "My stage makeup is much heavier than this, especially the shadow work. Miki tends to go all out around my lower lashes especially..." He explained to them briefly, though more to Maehara since the guy looked kind of lost for a moment.

Maehara nodded in understanding. "Ahh that explains why it doesn't feel the same as last week's..."

Chiba hummed in reply, proceeding to mess with his hair again. "It's getting hotter outside but I can't leave my hair loose like this. I don't have anything to have it up," he briefly gathered his hair again, as if he was planning to tie it into a ponytail, but soon let go of it. 

"...can't even wear it down with all the makeup now," he sighed, brushing it again with his fingers.

"Just tolerate the heat and make do with the bucket hat," Nakamura suggested, handing Chiba his white bucket hat which now that he thought about it, he had no idea how she even got a hold of it in the first place.

Maehara watched as Chiba brushed all of his hair backwards before putting on the hat. "Hey, don't pull it too down."

"Nah I'll look weird otherwise."

Maehara raised an eyebrow at his response. "What are you talking about? I'm pretty good-looking myself-"

Nakamura let out a gagging noise.

"but even I can- Will you stop that?!" Maehara hissed at Nakamura, who only stuck her tongue out to him in response.

Taking off the bucket hat, Chiba approached the counter where Miki was still waiting in line. "Miki, do you have anything with you?" He asked rather tiredly. "Hair tie, clip, a beanie, or just anything I can use?"

"Let me check," Miki quickly went through her tote bag. "Ah I have my beanie, though it's those bigger types..." She brought out a red beanie and handed it to him.

Chiba happily took it from her hands. "Oh I have one like this in blue, thanks!" 

He went back to where Maehara and Nakamura stood and immediately wore the beanie. Tucking the rest of his hair behind his ears, Chiba looked at the mirror in mild satisfaction. "Hmm yep I guess that does it."

"Cute," Nakamura cheekily commented, thus ruining Chiba's composure as he broke into a shy smile.

"Be quiet," he muttered, turning his head away from the now grinning duo.

"Is it even fine for you to be seen with us on a Sunday afternoon?" Maehara suddenly brought up when they left the store.

"I think it's fine," Nakamura answered before Chiba even opened his mouth. "We took pictures last week and I posted some of mine on twitter too. So, it shouldn't be surprising to people that 'Lead Guitarist-kun' is hanging out with people his age on a weekend."

Miki hummed in agreement. "He's just a rather popular member of a local band in this town," she then scoffed, "not a damn celebrity for him to be not seen in public."

"That's true but I'm talking about us being class E students," Maehara turned to Chiba. "Since the reason why you even hid this whole band thing from us was so that people won't find out that you're a class E student technically participating in club activities," he elaborated.

Chiba nodded in confirmation. "You're right. But as they said, it's fine."

They all came to a stop before the pedestrian lane, waiting for the stoplight to turn green.

"We're not wearing our uniforms, so it'll be hard for people to even recognize you guys as students from class E.... let alone wonder why I'm hanging out with you," he reassured with a small smile.

"Exactly," Miki agreed before wincing when the sunlight suddenly came back. "Anyways, you guys got any place y'all want to go to? I don't like the sun..."

Maehara scoffed at her last remark. "Are you a vampire or something? Anyways, I want to go-"

"If you say Marui, I will deck you."

"Come on now. I didn't even say anything!"

"That place is on the other side of the town, you dumbass, and I'm about to die here."

"A little sunlight won't kill you!"

Nakamura just watched the two continuously bicker and turned to Chiba with a grin. "There's a cafe nearby just across the lane. Wanna go there and get some of their iced offers?"