"Now that's the look of a young maiden in love."
Shirley Fenette stopped in her tracks and turned to her right. A wizened elderly Eleven had set up a street-side shop, selling what looked to be a variety of knickknacks and, frankly, garbage out the back of a sturdy but old and worn-looking cart. The Britannian girl didn't especially care for the cruelty of her peers, but at the same time it did strike her as rather cheeky for this Number to make such a presumptive, embarrassing statement like that.
"That's not any of your business!" She turned her nose up, tried to retain a little bit of dignity, and stepped off trying to put the incident past her. Oh! Come to think it wouldn't be too surprising if Milly had put this poor woman up to this in some effort to tease her over her (NON-EXISTENT) feelings for that handsome, misunderstood, kind, considerate, funny...
"Oh, but it could be my business," the old woman continued. "I can tell from the look on your face, my dear. Unrequited love is such a painful experience to endure, is it not?"
"Don't pretend like you know the first thing about me," Shirley scoffed. "Lelou told me all about cold reading, so that sort of thing won't work on me!"
"My dear, if I was cold reading you, then you've just told me that the boy you're interested in is nicknamed Lelou," the woman continued. Shirley rolled her eyes and kept on walking. "Then how about something more concrete? Like the fact that your love is not as unrequited as you might think?"
That stopped her. Yet it was dumb. That was such an obvious sales trick. Tell the customer what they want to hear. Maybe it was the persistence? Yes, that made perfect sense. The woman was so blasted persistent that there <i>had</i> to be something to it. Or something. Right? Right!
At the very least pretending to play along might get her to shut up.
"I don't know what you're talking about," she firmly said. "And I don't think you do either!"
"Oh, but it's written on your face!" the woman said. She pulled out a magnifying glass and peered into it at her. "Yes, yes. There it is! Ha-ha! You're in love with a boy that wouldn't recognise romantic love if it bit his adorable little sister on the nose. She rather likes the idea of having you as a sister-in-law, by the way."
"Did Milly put you up to this?" Shirley yelled, backing off slightly. "Milly Ashford, this is just the sort of thing you'd do!"
"Hahaha, still not a believer?" the old woman asked, grabbing hold of Shirley's hand to examine her palm through that magnifying glass ... And then turning deathly silent. "Ah... Well. That's - ahem! Quite the convergence between those two lines. Oh dear... Oh dear, oh dear..."
In an instant the mood had completely changed. The old woman's jocular salesewoman attitude completely evaporated the instant she caught sight of Shirley's hand. While the Britannian girl looked at her own palm and didn't see anything particularly interesting about it, the old woman wandered off back to her cart and plucked out a pair of handmade bracelets.
"Here," she said. "Give this to your beau. Make sure he and only he wears it, and you wear the other one. If you are happy with the results, I'll come for payment then. If not... Keep them anyway and consider it an apology for bothering you."
... Huh? What? After all that this old woman was simply going to <i>give</i> Shirley something and ask for payment later on? What kind of - "Hey, wait a minute!" she yelled while the old woman wandered off, pulling her cart full of junk behind her. "What was this all about, anyway?"
The old woman turned a corner... and just like that, she was gone. Leaving Shirley holding onto a pair of multicoloured wool bracelets with the word "friend" embroidered on them. Her mouth worked automatically, but she didn't know what to say. She considered throwing the things away, and yet...
And yet....
<hr>
"I got you a gift!"
Lelouch stared at the bracelet sitting in his palm with a great deal of suspicion. It was not his birthday. There was no reason for Shirley to give him a gift. Normally he wouldn't be all that suspicious of the girl in front of him. She was a fairly up-front sort, you could tend to read her emotions pretty easily, but right now he was a little bit confused. Partly because, so was she.
"Huh. Handmade?" he asked, slipping it on to see how it looked. Not really his style, but at the very least he could be polite about this. "What's the occasion?"
"Well, to be honest..." Shirley began. Eyes darted left. That meant there was a lie in here somewhere, and he was determined to spot it. "I had really weird encounter with an old Eleven woman." True. "She gave me these bracelets," true, "and told me to give one to the first best friend I saw." False. She broke eye contact just as she was saying that.
"Huh. Did she say why?" he asked.
"S-Some sort of mystic nonsense," Shirley stammered, but that was probably true as well. "At first I thought she was doing that cold reading thing you were telling me about, but then she started saying things she couldn't possibly know unless someone told her, and then she looked at my hand funny and tossed me these bracelets -" Pause for breath. "We are friends, aren't we, Lelou?"
"Of course we are," he said, reaching over, tilting up her chin and tenderly pressing his lips against hers. She jumped at the sudden contact. He didn't think anything strange about what he was doing, nor her reaction peculiar. He was just giving Shirley a physical reminder that they were close. Very close. After a moment Lelouch broke the kiss and brushed her cheek. She was completely still. How adorable. "If you see that old woman again, point her out to me. I would like to have a word with her about freaking out one of my friends."
"...'Kay..." Shirley mumbled. Alright then. With that settled Lelouch wandered off, putting this issue to the forefront of his mind. Aside from the predictable game of chess he had tomorrow as a stand-in against a nobleman, there wasn't all that much going on right now to keep him entertained. An investigation into an old Japanese woman getting under the skin of a close, personal friend of his was definitely outside the status quo, and required his immediate personal attention...
Meanwhile, Shirley watched Lelouch wander off down the corridor. As soon as he was out of sight, she clutched her arms and giggled.
- Someone saw the encounter! Someone's getting teased during the next council meeting.
- Shirley puts two and two together, figures out the bracelets are magical, exploits to full effect.
- Same as above, but fills Lelouch in on her findings instead of exploiting it.
- Lelouch sets about investigating the mysterious old woman.
- Something else happens
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