#gonna still get that machine fixed it’s an ungodly tank

[britcision]

So this week in “the universe makes a concerted effort to give me more panic attacks”:

- my sewing machine has broken for the second time this month. Last time it fixed itself. This time it will not. Tried replacing the plug in just in case it wasn’t the whole machine - no good

- went hunting for mother’s sewing machine, which needs an extra huge transformer to be plugged in in this country without burning down the house

- found mother’s machine. No transformer. Pooled the family brain trust. The transformer may have been thrown out (mother’s machine also despises me and was why I never picked up sewing again for a decade)

- partner’s mother’s sewing machine is 3 hours drive away each way, and they do not currently have anywhere we can stay over while retrieving it (this machine also HATES me and will not sew for more than 2 inches without jumping)

- we have at least 3 costumes to finish by mid May, all of which are at least 6 different garments - and another 2 by mid June

- my disabled ass has finished two costumes in May before, both much smaller and I nearly died

- just found out I need to entirely redo the lining on one of them from scratch because one of my panels was too small but I trimmed the goddamn seams early to try and french seam the fraying fuck

- for some ungodly reason the embroidery thread I was using to try and make a lil doll face is bleeding black dye across the fabric that will not wash out

- just found out I’m not getting anymore billable hours at work, possibly until mid April

- my insurance company has now decided to stop covering half my meds up front, correctly deducing that it’s gonna be way harder for me to submit receipts for reimbursement because their online portal is a hellscape. Unrelated to sewing crisis, just not helping

Fortunately I do not stand alone against said universe and between us partner and I were able to sneak in on a huge sale today and afford an actual new sewing machine, which can be repaired by the shop we bought it from if it also dies

(If we’d waited another 2 days no chance we could not have afforded it, woulda had to get a dinky baby machine and hope it was as powered by dark gods as the last one or go thrifting

One friend who went to sewing school has told me multiple times my previous machine should not exist (sewed 8 layers of insulated padding on tension setting 2) - the model is completely discontinued and I couldn’t even find refurbished

Another friend has now acquired 3 thrift/given machines, none of which actually work and are all missing parts

This was somehow literally the best week this could have happened if it had to happen at all)

So yeah hyperventilating still happened but I am learning new tricks to stop that and didn’t get a full blown panic attack, we remain triumphant

And we made pancake cookies

[sugarmiyu]

Why Do I Keep Doing This to Myself?

Idolm@ster Cinderella Girls / Jougasaki Mika/Ohtsuki Yui 

Summary:  Mika has a well earned day off from being the country's #1 Charisma Gal (tm). But after spending years running from one place to another, she finds there isn't much to do without the chaos of her job. Thankfully, her girlfriend knows how to make every day a little less boring.

Read on ao3 / give me a ko-fi?

Mika couldn’t remember the last time she had a day off.

Rolling onto her side, the weight of the blanket pressed against her body. Rika had left for the office hours ago. She had a gig with Decoration today and Mika had already set up the DVR the night before to record the program. The midday sun shone through the gap between the curtains that adorned her windows. Even without an alarm clock, Mika’s body had instinctively woken her up at 8 a.m. So she lied there, checking her phone and falling in and out of sleep until the clock had lazily spun forward to just past noon. She had shrugged her blanket off her body somewhere during the course of her morning in and traced the cold of the sheets with her toes.

Her stomach let out a low growl and Mika rolled over onto her stomach, propping herself up on her elbows. She picked up her phone, looking at the stream of messages and Snapchats from everyone back at the agency. Opening Snapchat, Mika’s eyes skipped the long line of names until she reached Yui - saved with the name of “My Girl” followed by a multitude of sparkling hearts and a slowly building Snapchat streak. The picture lit up on the screen, Yui taking a selfie in the brightness of the dance studio. Yui held up a peace sign and stuck out her tongue, a tied up cherry stem resting on top of it. It was captioned: “Guess I’m pretty good with my tongue huh babe~ ;)” and decorated with heart emojis.

Mika buried her face in her pillow. If she could cringe, roll her eyes, groan, sigh, pinch the bridge of her nose, and crawl into a hole all at once she would. Instead, she resigned herself to taking a picture of her headboard, feeling too naked without makeup on to send anything close to a selfie. She carefully arranged the face-palm emoji in lines of five before sending it out. Her head was dizzy and she sat up in bed. The picture that Yui had sent was with her back facing the wall-mirrors that lined one side of the studio. They had gone out to choose that tank-top she was wearing together, talking about how chic the practically backless design was. Now, midday with nothing to do, Mika couldn’t keep her mind off the dip of Yui’s back and the outline of her skin against the fabric of the sports bra.

Wow, she really needed to do something else.

Opening the curtains sounded like a good idea. Mika got up, stretching out her stiff arms and reaching over to let the light into her room. It was sunny and she opened the window just enough to let the breeze in. She scooped up the pile of clothes she’d left behind the night before after coming home at some ungodly hour and unceremoniously dumped them in the laundry hamper. Picking up a hoodie and tiny gym shorts, Mika figured a shower was all she needed for now. A bath could wait until later tonight but she could still feel the cling of last night’s perfume and the places where her foundation hadn’t come off completely.

On her way to the bathroom, Mika flipped through the rest of the Snapchats she had ignored earlier in favor of prioritizing her girlfriend. The LiPPS group chat was as unintelligible as ever - though it seemed Kanade, Syuko, and Frederica were currently in a competition to see who could get the most candid shots of Arisu during a Project Krone meeting. Mika sent them a shot of her hallway with a timestamp and was immediately met with messages about how lucky she was to get a day off. She grinned as it generated just the response she expected. Shrugging off her shirt, Mika was nearly ready to get into the shower when her phone buzzed with another snap from Yui.

The picture was of Yui’s hand (Mika noticed she was wearing the bracelets they had picked out together on a date last week) making a peace sign (again?) in front of a vending machine. The rest of Yui’s fingers were precariously holding onto the top of a Pocari Sweat and Mika could barely make out Chinatsu standing off to the side. This one wasn’t captioned but it wasn’t hard to imagine the scene. Yui had probably overdone it during lessons and Chinatsu, ever the responsible guardian over her best friend, had probably gone with her for a much needed hydration sesh.

Mika rolled the options around in her head. If she didn’t respond, she would ruin their streak and Yui would make a big fuss about it like she had the last time it happened. But, there wasn’t much to snap without it being awkward. She was already half-naked and while the giant mirror in her bathroom was usually her pride and joy, it made for an inconvenience when she wanted to take pics without exposing herself. Looking around, the only viable item seemed to be a pile of towels stacked on a shelf by the door into the bath. It was tucked away enough to be free from the voyeurism of the mirror but obviously signaled where she was. She took a quick picture, captioning it with “BRB gotta shower babe - don’t get any weird ideas ♥” before putting her phone on top of her clothes.

When the hot water finally hit her skin and the steam helped clear her mind, Mika spent about half an hour wondering why in the world she had sent that.

~

“Onee-chan! Can you see me?”

Rika’s grinning face took up nearly the entire screen as their Facetime started, “I can see you~ Maybe a little too well. You need to work on choosing the right angles, Rika.”

“Boo! I can totally hit the right angles,” Rika said, the image shifting to a more reasonable distance, “What’cha doin’? Right now, Kirari and Miria are taking pictures together!”

“Hm? Nothing much,” Mika glanced at the dishes she had left in the sink after lunch - she made a pretty damn good seafood pasta. She’d have to make it for Yui some time. “I ate a little bit ago and now I’m not sure what to do. Maybe I’ll play one of your video games.”

“Wha- no fair! You’re gonna clear all the levels before I get to!”

Rika looked adorable with her pouty face and scrunched up eyebrows. Mika wanted to be there in person so she could give her little sister a flick on the forehead. But because technology hadn’t progressed that far yet, she grinned and said, “Fine, fine. I guess I’ll read some magazines or something. We’ll play together some other time.”

“Yay!” Rika grinned, “You know, earlier today, Ranko was talking about…”

After about half an hour of chatting, Rika had to hang up to begin their recording. Mika was proud of her younger sister, but with her days usually so busy with work, they two of them didn’t get much time to spend together. She got up from the couch, walking towards the dishes that had been ignored for a few hours. Feeling the hot water hit her hands, Mika shuddered and looked up towards the clock on the kitchen counter. It was almost four - the day having passed without anything at all having been done. If she had been in the office today, she probably would have finished up one job and would be on transit to the next site. Or maybe, she would be packing up after a hard day’s work to hit her favorite karaoke places with Rina and Yui. Or she would have been trying to fix LiPPS’ newest mess.

Mika shook the water off her hands after placing the last dish on the rack. Checking the clock again, it had only moved forward fifteen minutes. She wiped whatever water was left on her hoodie and picked up her phone, only to be greeted by a screen full of notifications. They were all from Yui and Mika opened up the newest message. It had been sent a minute ago and asked, “Are you home, babe?”

Looking through the previous twenty or so messages - all of them variations of “Mika” and “my beautiful girlfriend” and “i want to see you” - she turned her attention back to the most recent. “Yeah, I’m home” she responded, following up with a sticker of a pink cat with a large question mark.

“Awesome!!!!” Sent with a sticker of a yellow puppy with its tail wagging. No more messages.

Mika could guess what Yui was up to. She made her way upstairs, looking through her closet for something better to wear. Even though she loved her girlfriend, her reputation as a charismatic gyaru was in jeopardy if she ever went out dressed like this. Just as Mika was putting the finishing touches on her makeup, she heard the doorbell ring. It was thirty minutes from when Yui had sent that last message - about the same amount of time it took to get to her house from the office. Adjusting her bangs in the mirror, Mika came downstairs and opened the door to Yui with a big grin on her face.

“Hey, babe!” Yui said, hands totally not suspiciously behind her back, “I thought I’d come surprise you since I finished my work early today. You can, like, totally take in how awesome of an idol your girlfriend is.”

“You’re an awesome idol, but you have some work to do on being awesome at surprises,” Mika smiled and poked Yui’s forehead, “I could tell what you were up to, you little scamp~”

“Aw man, you’re too sharp for me Mika,” Yui knitted her brows together, “And here I thought I was really gonna wow you today. But, if you’re so clever, I guess you won’t need this.” From behind her, Yui brought out a trendy looking cake box. Splashed onto the side was the logo for an extra-famous and extra-trendy cake restaurant from Shibuya that Mika had been dying to go visit for weeks. Mika stared at the box in dumb surprise while Yui opened it up with a smug look of triumph, “One orange mille feuille for you madame~”

“How did you-?”

“Well, me and Rina were picked to be the poster girls for this place’s ‘Take Over Shibuya with Fashion’ campaign so we went to the store today! The producer sweet talked the manager into letting us get away with some of the goods,” Yui’s grin turned sheepish, “I-I know you’ve been eyeing this place so… Yeah… C-Come on, babe, say something.”

Mika grabbed Yui’s wrist, pulling her through the doorway. Closing the door behind her, Mika pulled Yui in for a kiss. The cake box between them prevented it for lasting more than a few seconds but Mika hoped she got her feelings across. She could feel the blush creeping up along her neck - she wasn’t usually the one to initiate affection between them. But this was a happy exception. Yui stood for a second, mouth agape and eyes wide. She spun on her heel, placing the box on top of the cabinet near the door before tackling Mika against the door.

“Mi~ka! I’m happy you like it!” Yui grinned, touching their foreheads together.

“Of course I like it,” Mika said, wrapping her arms around Yui’s waist, “You’re the best girlfriend ever, Yui.”

She brought her girlfriend into another kiss, tasting the remnants of Yui’s lip gloss from earlier that day. Mika felt her blush creep towards her ears as Yui deepened the kiss. Their lips parted for each other and Mika’s head was starting to feel dangerously empty except for the smell of Yui’s perfume and the lingering image of her in that open-backed tank top…

Mika let out a small yell when she felt a hand slip under her shirt, fingers lazily tracing circles around the small of her back. Yui tilted her head to the side, kissing along Mika’s jaw and towards her ear. Another hand slipped under her shirt and Mika’s hips were pushed closer until they were flush with Yui’s. Mika struggled to find the energy to speak, out of breath from their kiss and barely able to manage above a whisper.

“Y-Yui, wait a second,” Mika said, biting her lip as Yui moved down towards her neck, “Y-Yui…!”

“Hn?” Yui looked up, tongue sticking out just past her lips and eyes wide, “O-Oh wait, I went too far again, huh?” Yui drew her hands back, taking a step away from Mika and staring towards the corner where the floor and door frame met, “S-Sorry…”

Mika readjusted her clothes - she loved Yui but her girlfriend was a bit of a hair-trigger. This was why they always had to be careful when they were out together. Who knew who was watching them and Mika wasn’t going to give the tabloids the pleasure of leaking her relationship out to the masses. Yui wrung her hands together and was making tiny circles with the tip of her shoe, like a child that had been caught with her hand in the cookie jar. Mika smiled, leaning over to kiss her on the forehead.

“It’s okay, Yui. Come on, let’s go eat this cake together since you brought it over,” Mika took the box and walked past Yui, neck still a flushed red, “A-And maybe later we could, um, y’know… Keep going.”

Yui turned her head around at break-neck speed and said, “Y-Yeah! Totally, dude! Babe!” She nearly stumbled over the step from the entrance of Mika’s house up into the hallway as she tried to kick off her shoes. As they walked into the living room, Yui let her hand hover out a few times towards Mika’s waist until the other girl took it and placed it there herself. The two settled down on the couch and took in the pleasing visuals of the cake box. Even the plastic forks they gave out were chic! They took plenty of pictures that they could post later and dug in. Yui got cream from her strawberry shortcake around her mouth and Mika happily wiped it away with a decorated napkin.

After they had eaten the cake, they had sat around and talked about their days until Yui had fallen asleep while Mika was posting the cakes on Instagram. Yui had curled up on one side of the couch, face buried in the crook of her arm. Mika thought she looked like a puppy and decided to make her little comparison a reality. She finally managed to make Snapchat recognize Yui’s face long enough for her to get a picture of her sleeping girlfriend with the dog filter. Sitting back down on the couch, Mika mulled over what she could caption a picture like this. Writing anything out seemed too sappy and just the thought of it made her cheeks warm. Eventually she decided to just put a sticker of an orange heart in the corner.

“Perfect,” Mika whispered, saving the image onto her phone. But, ultimately Mika was a creature of habit. She had intended to send the picture to Yui - it would have been cute to see her reaction afterwards at the candid after all. However, almost instinctively, Mika’s fingers had tapped several other contacts. Notably: the LiPPS group chat, Rika, the group chat she shared with Yui and Rina, Miho, and her story. When she realized what she had done, she had already pressed send.

A minute after she had sent it/posted it/done that incredibly stupid thing, Mika was hit with a flood of messages from LiPPS. Then came the messages from the others. In response, Rina sent a picture she had taken a while back of a sleeping Takumi with cat ears drawn on it. Miho was surprised that the two of them were so close that Yui came to hang out with them on their day off. The poor, oblivious girl. Rika immediately jumped to complaining about how it wasn’t fair that Yui got to hang out with her sister instead of her. And there were only more people sending her messages because of the post on her story.

For the second time that day, Mika wondered why in the world she had sent something like that.