“Dear Itefeil, I heard you’ve recently been promoted to Chief Inspector. All the girls are thrilled, so we unanimously agreed to hold a girls’ get-together at Feilin’s for afternoon tea one of these upcoming afternoons off. That was the plan, anyway.”
It was signed by Feroi.
“Ah… a girls’ get-together…”
Itefeil immediately felt a headache coming on. It wasn’t that she had trouble getting along with her friends or anything. It was just that she always seemed out of place at girls’ get-togethers. She was actually pretty good at doing her makeup, but when it came to putting outfits together, she was completely hopeless.
“Itefeil, you wear your uniform every day. If you put on a cute skirt, you’d attract tons of men!”
Her close friends said things like that all the time. One reason Itefeil had never figured out how to put outfits together was that women’s clothing came in far too many styles: formal wear, casual wear, outfits for banquets, outfits for meeting close friends—there were more than she could count. Her family was just above commoners and below nobility, but her parents hadn’t gone out of their way to teach her about any of this. On top of that, she’d entered the police academy not long after coming of age.
She knew next to nothing about women’s fashion, so when she went out, she wore the same few uniforms over and over. At home, she’d throw on sleepwear—or sometimes just wear revealing underwear.
“Sigh, whatever. I’ll just go like this. At least the makeup I put on this morning won’t go to waste. I’ve worn this same outfit before, anyway.”
La Luna stood nearby, watching Itefeil’s expression change over and over. Thinking the letter might contain bad news, she leaped into Itefeil’s arms and lowered her head to read it herself.
“Meow?”
(What’s the big deal? It’s just a friend asking you to go out and have fun.)
Then La Luna heard Itefeil complain about worrying over what to wear.
“Meow, meow?”
(You can get worked up over something like that??)
La Luna froze for a moment. In her experience, the girls always dressed up beautifully for their get-togethers. Even in poor times, young girls would tidy their messy hair and put on clean clothes before going out.
“Meow!”
(Outfit coordination? Ask me!)
Itefeil scooped up La Luna, wondering whether she should take the little thing along. Then La Luna suddenly wriggled free and ran into her room.
“Hmm… I’ll take you out for a bit after all. Let those women see that I have a cat, too!”
Petting a cat in secret was pretty great, but having a whole group of people watch you pet a cat was even better!
“La Luna, how about I take you out this afternoon? I’ll introduce you to some handsome tomcats!”
“Meow?”
(Huh? Something’s not right here, buddy.)
La Luna’s little paw trembled as she opened the wardrobe. Was this girl already trying to set her up for breeding????
But the thought only flashed through her mind. After the magic-strengthening meditation she’d done today, her body was stronger than ever. If some tomcat got frisky and tried to paw all over her, she’d slap him so hard even his own mother wouldn’t recognize him.
Then La Luna opened Itefeil’s wardrobe. Or, well, the clothes didn’t exactly stay inside it. The moment the doors opened, they came pouring out like a burst dam and buried La Luna beneath a mountain of clothes.
(What a mess!!!!)
La Luna used levitation to send the clothes flying into the air, then quickly scanned them with her excellent dynamic vision and enhanced eyesight.
…Damn, they were all uniforms?
La Luna was stunned. Was this really a girl’s room? Was this really a girl’s wardrobe??
She remembered how, in her previous life, she’d spent a fortune hiring a female model so she could practice drawing the human figure. They’d worked together for a whole month, and in all that time, La Luna hadn’t seen the model wear the same outfit twice. There were long skirts, short skirts, business clothes, school uniforms, casual wear, and even cosplay outfits inspired by games and anime.
And look at Itefeil! A whole wardrobe full of uniforms! Even La Luna had owned one or two pretty skirts in her wardrobe in her previous life!!!
Don’t get the wrong idea. She’d only kept them for practicing how to draw clothes.
“La Luna, what was that noise just now?”
Oh no. Itefeil was coming over. She had to tidy this up, fast.
La Luna used magic to bundle the pile of clothes into a ball and stuff it back into the wardrobe. There was no need to worry that anyone would notice she’d touched them, since it had already been a mess to begin with…
“La Luna?”
Itefeil walked into her room and saw La Luna crouching on the bed. As soon as she came in, the cat hopped down to the floor.
“What’s wrong? Are you embarrassed because I said I’d introduce you to a handsome tomcat?”
At that, La Luna crawled under the bed again. Why bring up the one thing she didn’t want to hear?
Hm? What’s this?
“Come out, La Luna. I was only kidding.”
“Meow!”
Itefeil knelt beside the bed and peered underneath. She came face-to-face with La Luna, who was just about to crawl out.
“Oh! You little rascal. Hm? What’s this?”
Itefeil suddenly noticed the unknown object La Luna had dragged out in her mouth: a pitch-black tote bag, with a box inside.
The tote bag looked vaguely familiar, but Itefeil couldn’t remember what was inside. She pulled out the box, and the few gold-embossed letters on it identified what it was.
『revenant』
“Oh—wasn’t this the outfit I bought with Mom and Dad at the Ghost Festival a few years ago? So it ended up under the bed. I wondered why I could never find it.”
Itefeil opened the box and took out the clothes.
“It looks practically new. I wonder if I can still fit into it after all these years.”
(Maybe she’ll put it on and realize she’s gained quite a bit of weight ┐(´-｀)┌)
La Luna thought this wickedly to herself. The outfit really was gorgeous, though. But what was with the style? Why did it look so much like the long military coats worn by those Woodpecker Cavalry Regiment people?
The outfit was black all over, with two neat rows of large white buttons down the front. They looked purely decorative. The waist was cinched, and the skirt-like tailoring around the hips revealed split tails at the back. The front hem was shorter, while the tails were layered and folded, showing off the feminine figure. The only thing missing the mark was the chest… It was truly a disappointment to—no, to a cat.
“Wow, why are these pants so short?”
After putting them on, Itefeil realized the pants left both her pale legs exposed. More precisely, they only showed her calves, but she was so used to wearing uniform trousers that anything else felt a little strange.
“Oh well, I’ll cover them up with a pair of long stockings…”
After searching for ages and not finding a single pair of uniform trousers that went with the top, Itefeil had no choice but to resort to that.
