Even the insane, unhinged event known as a cross-dressing contest is still a contest after all. It’s a legitimate competition promoted by the Student Council and sanctioned by Temple.
There’s a cash prize for the winner, and the competition is well organized.
The good news is that the number of participants is so small that there are no qualifiers.
You don’t have to deal with the bullshit of cross-dressing men trying to be charming to determine the finalists.
It’s straight to the finals. You come out by number, you do your pitch, you go get off the stage, and then they vote on the winner.
You can’t enter as an actual girl, but you can put on makeup, wear a different outfit, and act out a personality so that even if someone knows you, they won’t be able to tell.
I have a cheat key for this situation, Sarkegaar’s ring….
I feel like an idiot for saying this, but….
There’s no way there’s anyone prettier than me in that room….
So what I need is a dress for the competition.
And I need to figure out what kind of bullshit I’m going to do for my introduction… I need to decide….
Should I dance or sing?
I really, really wanted to cry. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been frustrated and sad in my life here, but I’ve never been so frustrated that I felt like I was going to cry.
To me… Why are you doing this to me….
I must never act like ‘Reinhardt’, lest they guess it’s me. I had to rein in my usual shitty temper. .
If I suddenly snapped and picked a fight, someone might think, “Oh, that’s Reinhardt, isn’t it?”.
Most of the people at the tournament don’t know me, but there are some who have heard of my notoriety, and Kono Lint has a very good chance of coming.
Eleris returned before too long.
She was empty-handed.
“Well, first of all… I went to the boutique and found out that… most dresses are custom made, so… they need to take your measurements to make them. Of course, there are made-to-order ones, but… but they wouldn’t fit you.”
“….”
I’m about 5’11”.
I can change forms with Sarkegaar’s ring, but it’s a risk to adjust my height just in case I get caught.
‘Why did you go to the cross-dressing contest?’
‘Wait, but at that time, wasn’t he short?’
‘How did you do it?’
I may hear such comments, so it’s better to be on the shorter side in this case.
“Let’s get a dress with a longer skirt. You’ll be able to say you were bending your knees, so that’s how you can play off being a little shorter.”
“Oh, you mean a hoop skirt.”
I don’t know exactly what she was talking about, but I think that’s, what it’s called, a hoop skirt.
Sarkegaar’s ring could reduce my height. If I cover my legs with a big hoop skirt dress, if I get caught later, I’ll have the excuse that I was bending my knees.
Being shorter means they’re less likely to recognize me.
As long as the organizers are good at secrecy.
I felt like a loser because I’m already preparing for the eventuality of being found out, but I can’t help it. I can control the shape of my body to a certain extent, so I can make my body fit the clothes instead of the other way around.
Eleris turned to leave, saying that she would go back.
“You know, that… I think the sleeves should be longer.”
Hearing my words, her lips twitched again and she nodded.
“Oh, that… yes… Your Highness.”
Fuck.
Seriously.
I hated myself for trying to figure out how to be a proper crossdresser!
Still… I had to win….
I had no choice but to win… I’m really going to want to kill myself if I came in second place or something….
I stared blankly at the ceiling, my mouth hanging open as I waited for Eleris, who had gone out to buy a dress.
For the introduction… What the hell am I going to do….
Someone, please, kill me.
In the end, all I’d been doing this entire Sunday was preparing for the cross-dressing competition.
I should be focusing on the main event of the tournament, which starts tomorrow….
For some reason, I feel like I’m treating the cross dressing contest as the more important of the two.
As for the dress, I flipped through the collection of designs in the boutique’s booklet. The design was one thing, but it was the sleeves and skirt length that mattered. I picked a dress in the style of a wedding dress, with a hoop skirt.
After seeing the dress, which Eleris brought back, in person…
I felt a lot of self-pity, but in the end, I couldn’t let it go to waste.
Like I said.
There’s no point in fighting your way to the top if you’re not prepared.
If I didn’t get first place, then this whole thing would have been bullshit.
“….”
“….”
I was now trying on the dress. When I looked at it before, I realized I had to test out one thing before anything else.
Whether I will be able to wear it by myself.
So, here I was, wearing the dress that Eleris had bought me.
I hadn’t changed my face, but I had adjusted my hair and height to match the length of the dress.
To make sure that no one would recognize me, I went from my usual blonde hair to silver hair. A different hair color would make a much different impression.
Eleris was looking at me with a lukewarm expression.
“Say something….”
If it’s stupid, at least say it’s stupid!
“I don’t understand why you have to do this….”
Eleris pursed her lips in embarrassment.
Even though the Demon Realm has been defeated, the Demon King’s successor was currently having his cross-dressing inspected by a subordinate. It would be stranger if she didn’t act all weird.
“That, but… This, strangely… It suits you well.”
Fuck!
Don’t praise me!
“That’s not the important thing here! I mean, do you recognize me?”
“Yes? I mean, only the hair color has changed… I don’t think it’s made much of a difference to your appearance….”
I guess so. After all, I’m still the same person, and I’m not wearing makeup, so there’s no way I couldn’t be recognized.
“I can give you a mirror… Would you like to take a look?”
“….”
I didn’t want to look.
I didn’t really want to see myself in a dress.
“Show me….”
Still, I must see it.
Eleris summoned a reflection in thin air. I saw myself in a mirror formed by magic.
Reinhardt (silver haired version complete with dress) stared back at me, as if he was carrying all the burdens of the world.
My stomach churned.
I felt dizzy.
I… Just what am I…?
Was this my karma after all?
Was this for when I played the trick of transforming with Sarkegaar’s ring and being confessed to by Kono Lint? Because I tempted him with a future that didn’t exist in the first place? Now that I think about that, maybe this is karma coming at me full circle.
That was depressing. Maybe it’s also because I made Reinhardt look good too.
But the thing is.
Though I couldn’t be recognized when viewed from afar, it was easy to identify me when up close and personal.
So I still needed to do this.
“That… where should I start… what do I do?”
Eleris carefully laid out the makeup she’d bought in front of me.
She said she didn’t know how to apply makeup. It was a skill she had no reason to know.
Still, she told me, she learned how to apply makeup in addition to looking at dresses in boutiques.
I’m not sure how much skill with makeup she picked up in that short time, but I don’t think I needed to worry. Eleris was Eleris, so I figured she’d be good at it.
Except it’s not her face, it’s my face.
I slipped out of the uncomfortable dress and plopped down on the chair.
I’ve tried on the dress. I don’t need to wear it anymore.
The only time I’ll ever wear it again is at the pageant.
“Whew… Okay, let’s do it.”
“Yeah….”
I felt like I was on death row.
I’d rather be in a situation where I was competing in Miss Temple. There I could just take on a different form altogether, and I think that would be easier.
But this is a cross-dressing pageant, and I entered under Reinhardt’s name in the first place.
I have to fulfill the bizarre goal of looking like a completely different person, while maintaining as much of Reinhardt’s appearance as possible. While the organizers would actually keep my identity a secret, they knew the truth, and they’ll think it’s weird if someone else shows up.
So I changed the color and length of my hair, and called it a wig.
And the makeup. When you put on a lot of makeup, you can look like a completely different person. The funny thing is, Eleris seemed to be very good at it, considering she had to learn it very quickly. Her skill with their hands wasn’t ordinary, and I’m sure the result wouldn’t look much different from that of a professional.
I just entrusted my face in her hands with a dying expression.
There was also the fact that she couldn’t enter Temple.
I had two options.
I can either learn how to apply makeup from her, or I can go to her on the day of the contest, get my makeup done, and return to Temple.
Both of them suck.
“….”
Both my face and hers were wilting with each passing second.
Her eyes were squinting, like she didn’t know what she was doing, but she didn’t stop at least. And I’m the one who asked her to do this anyway.
But as she applies more and more makeup, her expression becomes more and more uncertain.
What the… She looked like she wanted to say something.
“…What’s wrong with you?”
“That… That… How should I say….”
Eleris’s lips quiver.
“You look so pretty….”
“…mirror.”
I could see my face, her makeup almost finished.
“…damn.”
I muttered.
Too much makeup.
It’s true that Eleris did my makeup too well, but it’s also true that the face itself was basically good looking, so no matter how she did, I thought I could pull it off.
Then again, Reinhardt’s face wasn’t really my face in the first place, it’s just a face that I made with Sarkegaar’s ring.
I could change it at will.
I couldn’t even remember what the original face of Valier looked like now. I mean, technically, it’s fine.
I’ve had Reinhardt’s face longer, so this one felt more like my face.
Anyway.
It’s weirdly good looking, which made it even more annoying.
Here’s the thing.
“… It looks like you no matter how you look at it.”
“Well, yes… it does.”
Reinhardt’s face wasn’t intentionally designed to be memorable, but I had a feeling that because of the way I lived, it had left a strong impression.
Because of that, the only thing you could think of while looking at the reflection was a real-life version of “What if Reinhardt were born as a girl?”.
Even if they didn’t immediately recognize me, I feel like anyone who knew me will inevitably say, “Isn’t that Reinhardt’s sister?” or “Does Reinhardt have a sister?”.
I can’t help but imagine Kono Lint asking me to introduce him to my sister.
It’s the worst….
Even makeup can only do so much. I succeeded in making it look plausible, but it didn’t hide my identity very well.
Now for the final task.
“First, I need to do something about these dirty eyes.”
I started to work on the details of my new face. I used the power of Sarkegaar’s ring.
I made a few small adjustments to the dirty eyes and made the jawline thinner, not overly noticeable, but by a very small amount.
Let’s put the self-doubt aside for now.
I’m going to win.
Whatever it takes, I was going to win this!
It took me about three minutes to finish fine-tuning my face in front of the mirror.
Just like saving a preset, I memorized this look, just like I memorized Reinhardt’s look.
When I was done, I thought my eyeballs were going to fall out.
“…Your Highness.”
“…what.”
“Looking at you now, and knowing you’re not a girl… It feels a little strange… you’re already at the level of… I’ll stop now.””
Eleris stopped speaking as she saw the look on my face.
Right.
With a face like this… unless it’s actually a girl, it’s even weirder.
“But… The more I look at this, the more I think it’s Reinhardt’s sister….”
“Yeah….”
Since we can’t change the actual figure, whether we change the hair color or fine-tune the face, we still end up with a Reinhardt derivative.
And you can’t just start over from scratch.
This felt like hell. Eleris hesitantly opened her mouth, struggling to speak.
“Your Highness… I think I know what the problem is….”
“What is it?”
“Your expression.”
Eleris pointed to my face in the mirror.
“Your expression is the problem.”
My expression in the mirror.
I looked like I was dying, and that I was stressed as hell. Like I was a second away from snapping.
Well.
It’s the Reinhardt Mk.1’s default facial expression.
The usual, unnecessarily belligerent expression. I didn’t have dirty eyes in the first place, but I’ve been wearing an expression that made my eyes look dirty.
But now that I’m more stressed because of this preparation, my dirty face is ten times dirtier than usual.
So, right now, I’m ten times more Reinhardt-like than usual.
“Look… Why don’t you try smiling….”
“…I’m not even in the mood to laugh”
Well, when I thought about it, what’s not to laugh about in the reflection in the mirror?
I tried, but it didn’t work.
The corners of my mouth twitched as if they were going to turn up.
Forcing a smile was harder than I thought.
Damn, practicing smiling in the mirror. What kind of host am I?
“A bit more refreshingly….”
“I’m trying….”
I was in a shitty mood, but I had to put on a fresh face.
What a fucking treat.
Eleris was right about the facial expressions.
“Apparently… it looks to be working.”
All I had to do was change my facial expression, and I looked like a different person.
It wasn’t even recognizable.
I’d just replaced the frown I always wore with a smiling face.
Eventually, another hour passed, and another, and another, until it was the middle of the night and I was practicing smiling in Eleris’ semi-underground room.
Finally.
“This is… I think it’s perfect, you’re like a completely different person.”
“Really…?”
As I looked in the mirror, my mind shattered into a million pieces, but there was a disgustingly bright smile on my face.
It was obvious even to me.
This person didn’t look like Reinhardt
And with that, all the preparations for the pageant were over.
So this is what it’s like to have a bitter taste in one’s mouth.
That night, I almost cried myself to sleep.
No, not really…
There was a little stinging in my eyes, though.
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