tailor-made

Yuri looped his measuring tape around the model in front of him. A high profile fashion show was coming up in just a week. This could determine the immediate future of his company as representatives from the dominating turf-ready brands would be there to scrutinize his construction and style. If this went well, they may collaborate with him or want to absorb his brand into theirs entirely. Having mass produced, turf-ready clothing… what a dream.

Everything had to be perfect, and his star model had… changed since their last fitting for her body-tight dress.

"How much bigger do you expect those to get?"

"Hmm. You sound annoyed." Earl’s smooth voice drawled.

He stared directly in front of him at her chest, it being eye level thanks to their unbelievable height difference. Yuri pushed up his reading glasses before moving the tape around her torso as he remeasured and took notes on a clipboard.

Even if he was outwardly seeming irritated, he was extremely glad for the reason he had to do this in the first place. Earl’s slender body started filling out with gentle curves after she started HRT a few months ago. He’d never known her to feel self-conscious about her body, but the way she held herself now and smiled easily… in a word, she looked radiant. He was so happy for her, but their friendship was built upon mutual teasing, so he couldn’t just say that.

"It is annoying when I have to change measurements. You think you have rights to make me do alterations because your tits are out of control?" The short octoling squinted up at her.

"Well. They'll probably be the same size as yours in a week or two." Earl cupped her chest, looking thoughtfully at the slight weight in her hands.

“You must be joking! Mine are D and yours are A at best!”

“Could just triple dose the estrogen to catch up, yeah?”

“I am certain it doesn’t work like that.”

Yuri was alone with Earl in the expansive backroom of his shop, and he was glad for it. If Mori were here she would enthusiastically butt in on this boob measuring contest and try to beat out Yuri by the millimeter with her identically sized chest. If Cove were here… well, either Yuri would have to kick his teenage apprentice out, or they would become one with the floor from embarrassment before he had the chance to.

“Anyway! Now that I have measurements, it is time to fix.” Yuri disengaged from his and Earl’s banter to plop down in his wheeled desk chair. A small scoot was enough to send him flying across the polished concrete floor to his sewing bench. Earl didn’t look so happy that her fun was being stopped, but she entertained herself by poking through the bolts of fabric and mannequins littering the room all while her loyal service slupp was on her heels.

There was only so much expensive fabric to poke at, though. She quickly became bored and sat in an empty space on the table next to Yuri’s bench. He was fully focused on the clipboard in front of him as he triple checked his math on the alterations before he did them. He only looked out of the corner of his eye when Earl stretched her entire body with a small whine before lifting her long legs up onto the table with her. Like lazy overgrown cat, he thought before refocusing on his work.

He only spared her brief side glances while he tried to map out how to go about this alteration. There wasn’t much fabric allowance for him to make the garment bigger where it needed to be, due to the skin tight nature of latex. He could just remake the whole thing, but the fabric was custom printed and limited… Maybe putting in some side panels for blocks of color would add both interest and an easy way to expand and cinch the dress where he needed to. But would that look cheap?

Yuri’s jaw clenched and his eyes narrowed as he became absorbed in his sketching. Not only did it have to look perfect, but it had to make Earl feel perfect. The soft ‘ow’ he heard when she put on the too-tight garment earlier today broke his heart. The physical changes she was going through made her body sensitive, and if he needed to get more creative with his design or scrap it entirely for her comfort, he would. Even if he only had a week.

His face must’ve been doing something because Earl would not stop looking at him. Her sleepy eyes were full of concern, and he was too busy to notice when she called his name. He didn’t hear the sigh that came after when he didn’t answer, either.

“Hey, Yuri! Kiss me.” That startled him enough to draw his attention completely. His cheeks were flushed as he turned to Earl, who looked much too pleased with herself at his reaction.

“Excuse me!?” His scratchy voice cracked.

“You heard what I said. Let's make out." She said with her signature, toothy grin.

“You’re fucking with me! I know you too well for your games to work!” He laughed at her, but really he could feel his heartbeat hammering in his chest. Embarrassing… Earl laughed back at him and held her hands up passively.

“No, really. Listen.”

She waited until he put down his clipboard and looked at her. It was kind of hard to take this seriously with Yuri blushing and Earl lounging and grinning like a Cheshire cat.

“I make out with Camo. You make out with Camo."

She laced her fingers together in front of her, then closed her eyes and nodded her head with an air of wisdom.

"We could complete the circle."

"You're fucking insufferable." He deadpanned.

"You love me." Earl smiled sweetly and Yuri made a show of rolling his eyes and sighing before picking up his clipboard again. The tall squid reached out as if to push it away from him, though she was a little too far away for that. "The offer is serious, though."

Yuri gave her a conflicted look. Surely she was just kidding, but what if she wasn’t? He wasn’t really sure what he would accept that offer or not if it was for real. Giving it even a moment of thought made his heart do weird things, so he once again disengaged.
"Some people are working! Thanks."

He turned his chair fully away from her and scribbled on the side of the paper his math was on. It was an attempt to look like he was working, but it was a little hard to focus on the numbers in front of him. He didn’t get much of a chance to try before his chair was spun around, his clipboard ripped from his hands, and a giant beanpole of a woman plopped down squarely in his lap.

“Earl…”

“You’ve been freaking out about this gig for months.” She fixed him with a firm stare that shut him right up. “Your skills are suffering for it. Then you stress out about having to go over what you’ve already done. Then you get upset because you think your pieces don’t look good enough. You need to chill, yeah? You’re going to start panicking.”

Yuri sighed deeply and looked up at her. She was towering over him in an almost comical way, his vision only filled with her. This wasn’t the first time he found himself with this giantess in his lap, and he was sure it wouldn’t be the last.
His arms gently looped around her waist and he gave her a pathetic look, his eyes bleary from lack of sleep and his lips in a vague pout. He was so tired, so stressed out. She responded with a knowing smile as she pushed his tentacles out of his face.

“This isn’t my first show with you. It happens to all fashion designers. Even the best of them. And you are one of the best of them.” She gently complimented, and his face only got warmer.

“And your way to get me to chill is to smother me in affection until I die?” He tried to retort, but with no real bite.

Earl just hummed at the question, then poked a finger to his forehead. She gently rubbed the furrow between his eyebrows until his expression softened. It did really relax him. He almost always relaxed whenever she did… whatever this was. This curious and overbearingly affectionate thing she did that felt horribly suffocating when she first started doing it, back when they’d recently rescued Capri, but now somehow made the all tension leave his body.

Not that she even knew about what happened with Capri back then. She just noticed Yuri becoming despondent and receding into himself and wanted to help her friend. Earl had so much love in her heart, and physical affection was the way she knew how to show it. She cared a lot, like she always has and still does. He smirked tiredly but fondly.

“What would Bosco, MC, and Camo think of this… making out arrangement?” Yuri asked absentmindedly as her long fingers moved to rub his temples. He swore he might’ve purred.

“Camo would think it’s hilarious. MC wouldn’t care much. Boss would probably strangle me for debasing her brother.” Earl said with mirth in her voice. Yuri let out an amused huff through his nose.

“Strangle me too. If not bury me alive.”

“She’ll hang us both upside-down from Deca Tower… if we’re lucky.”

They both laughed loudly at the grim thought, and he leaned back in his chair to simply… regard the woman sitting on top of him. Earl was an entity in his life that he was never sure how to describe. She had become one of his best friends through their work together, then through their mutual girlfriend. Her presence was always a must at his fashion shows; she provided a firm emotional anchor for him as well as her being the most stunning model for his looks.
He’d never really thought about it too much… all he needed to know was that she was beautiful, strange, kind, and had a unique ability to see right into him, even if he always had a hard time guessing what she was thinking.

His fingers drummed against her hip while her intense red eyes searched his bright green ones. He knew she was reading him like an open book, and he was fine with that. Her smooth voice, gentle broken sentences, and carefree lease on life disguised her attentiveness and understanding. Yuri knew she would never push him to do anything he really didn’t want to do, but she did always seem to know what he needed.

After a moment of just looking at each other, his mouth cracked into a crooked grin. What did he have to lose really? And if he was going to let her push his buttons like this, he might as well try to get her back a little bit.

“Okay, yes. You win, Earl. You happy now?”

A genuine smile overtook her face as her hands moved from massaging his tense face to cup his cheeks. While he was prepared for this, he wasn’t a total idiot. Watching a gorgeous model lean down with the intent to kiss him made his mouth go dry. He briefly wondered how many people would kill to be him right now.

“Don’t worry. I wouldn’t do anything untoward to you, dear prince.” Earl teased, maybe sensing how his arms tensed around her.

“Shut your stupid mouth. Get down here.” He scowled and moved one had to rest behind her neck and pull her closer. The woman just cackled and complied, adjusting her position so she could actually lean in with their insurmountable height difference.

Yuri kept his eyes open just slightly, watching as the edges of his vision filled with more of her fluffy mint hair. They pulled each other closer, and Earl closed her eyes as she tilted her head only a few inches from his face. Why am I so okay with this, he wondered as he felt her warm breath against his lips. The realization made his whole body feel weird. His heart leaped and his fingers grasped her hair.

But in his mind he’d already committed to the bit. With a tinge of regret buried under his impishness, he disappeared in an instant.

The loss of his body underneath her caused Earl to fall to the floor with a hilarious squawk. Yuri still sat on his chair, now in his small octo form, trembling with laughter while Earl scrambled upright. Koicha boofed at him, clearly unhappy with whatever was going on. He’d learned from Camo long ago that if you really want to get back at someone for pushing your buttons, there was no better time for it than with the tension of a kiss.

“Yeah, right! As if it could be that easy!” Yuri cackled maniacally and smiled wide, invisible in this form but it reached his eyes. Earl sat up and stared intensely at the little octo. Her face was fully flushed and her tentacles fluffed up from the fall… or maybe her rage. Her normally heavy-lidded eyes were wide and her pupils narrow. He’d never seen that look before. Yuri felt his entire body go cold, oh shit.

“You’re the worst! Hateful little twink!” She screeched shrilly, not a noise he’d thought she was capable of making. She grabbed him tightly and he squeaked. “You had me! Where did you even learn how to play someone that smoothly? Stupid little…”

She threw Yuri across the room, and he hit the floor and skid on the concrete like a curling bomb until he crashed into a stack of fabric bolts. Everything around the small octo toppled over loudly, and Earl just watched as she single handedly wrecked a corner of his workshop.

He human formed again if only to not get lost in all the wreckage, and he braced himself against a table while his head spun.

Yuri swallowed and tried to collect himself. He didn’t mean to make Earl mad. Not like actually mad! He just wanted to tease her, maybe get back at her a little bit… not hurt her feelings in any way. He took a deep breath, fully ready to apologize, but he was cut off by roaring peals of laughter.
Earl was still on the floor, now doubled over holding her stomach with the biggest smile he’s ever seen plastered on her face. The quiet woman laughed loudly, genuinely, a sort of booming laughter he only ever got to hear from her rarely.

“S-Sorry just-” She tried to speak but kept being interrupted as another laugh bubbled out of her. “No one’s ever... been able to prank me like that.” She used her wrists to wipe the tears forming in her eyes. “God damn it. That was good.”

He felt his entire body relax in an instant. She wasn’t angry at him; she was actually having fun. He couldn’t help the smile on his face, one that actually pulled at the numb side of his lips. “You’re fucking absurd, you know that, yes?”

His statement only reignited her giggle fit, and he couldn’t stop himself from joining her. They both laughed until their ribs hurt. Earl was practically rolling on the floor and Yuri was braced against a worktable. It was ridiculous, but it was somehow exactly what he needed.

When the fit finally died down, Yuri reached down to help Earl to her feet and took a moment to pat the dust off her clothes. She still shook slightly but was trying to regain her composure.

“Earl, listen. I’m honest this time.” She fixed him with a suspicious look. “Seriously! I am!”

He plopped back down in his desk chair, grabbing his nearly forgotten clip board and flipping through the notes… It was quite a bit of work to do and he didn’t actually feel like doing it right now, even though he was in a significantly better mood.

“Let me finish sketching this, then we get dinner, yes?” Yuri offered and Earl immediately perked up.

“And drinks?”

“Obviously.”

“And then...” She left the question hanging as they just looked at each other again. There was the familiar feeling of her red eyes scanning him, but he found it a little bit easier to read her. She was leaving herself open for him.

The unsaid question. Then… they’d forget about this whole thing? Not that, they both enjoyed this. Then… they’d continue whatever this was? This strange friendship where they’d tease each other relentlessly, care for each other fiercely, hold each other tenderly, then laugh until they cried. Of course they would keep doing this. Then… he would actually let her kiss him? Well, that one was harder to answer, but his face felt warm if he let himself think about how tempted he was to abandon his prank.

He put his hand to his chin in thought, and Earl’s brows furrowed as she tilted her head. It was clear to both of them that neither of them knew what to ask.

“...Sure.” Yuri broke the silence with a shrug and a vague answer. Earl laughed gently, somehow knowing exactly what he meant.