Make-Up
By Elf Asato

Subaru was the one who died that day. AU.

Check out Hini-chan's Become, which is a really cool fic which has Subaru the one to die instead of Hokuto. Kind of the same premises yet reverse for this drabble. This doesn't mean that I plagiarized her fic in any way, though a reviewer thought otherwise. I never took any of her words or even, consciously, the concept. I just wanted wanted to pimp a friend's fic and found similarities, you know? Kind of like a "hey, if you like this concept, check out this story"; it's just a great story that I think is sorely neglected. Hini-chan has read this drabble without complaint, by the way. And sorry for this extended author's note. I know I hate reading authors harp on and on about what a reviewer said, but crying "plagiarism!" is a serious thing that should be addressed. I have in no way altered any of my original words in this top section (except that I added a break after "AU."), by the way; just added this note after "kind of the same premises yet reverse for this drabble" (which is, I assume, the vague sentence that prompted all this).

I don't own these characters or this series and I never will. This and a few other drabbles were done for an icon-drabble meme... Written April 17, 2006.

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"Hokuto! Don't spend too much time on your hair, dear, or we'll be late for the ice cream social with the girls!" a young and dangerously thin woman warned with a smile as she stood in the small apartment's bathroom doorway, watching her friend Hokuto Sumeragi from fashion school ready herself for the social. The two girls met on the first day of art school, studying fashion marketing and design, and had been steady and fast friends ever since. The woman, twenty-two and a stunning model for an underground fashion magazine, was exceptionally proud of the intimate relationship she had gained with the enigmatic and boisterous yet sometimes sad Miss Sumeragi who was heiress to her family's fortune. But while the two shared all the words and secrets they could muster under the sun, there was one crucial fact that Hokuto had kept hidden:

She was a he.

When the real Hokuto was killed by a beloved friend, her brother panicked at the loss of his only twin's existence and dedicated his life to filling in the gap her death created by ibecoming/i her, pretending that ihe/i had been the one to die in her place. One day he would get revenge upon Seishirou for her death, yes, and perhaps that time would be the conflict in 1999 that he would inevitably have to take part in, but in the meantime he worked hard to have Hokuto accepted into a prestigious and desirable Tokyo art school, persuing the one thing she loved most, besides him: fashion.

It was a secret ino one/i knew...except for the man who killed her. Or rather, the man who killed Subaru.

'Hokuto', armed with an aerosol spray can and a comb, waved the woman off. "I'll be there in a bit, darling." Then she smiled as she did her hair.

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I really like this idea, but I know that I'll never get around to writing a full fic about it, so if you want to take the premise and do something with it, you're welcome to it by all means. Tell me about it so I can read it and go "coool", too.