June and Kelan continued their steady march through the store. The further they walked, the heavier a weight seemed to fall upon June. She couldn't tell what was wrong. So far, none of her changes had been inherently "bad." Strange, yes. Surprising and a little alarming, yes. But she felt she was actually settling into the gothic cosplay nicely. Kelan's affirming remarks helped with that, although what he said wasn't the end-all, be-all. It was just a nice little extra push.
And yet, something was pushing down on her right now. She glanced at him. His eyes were roaming about, seeking the aisle where he'd pulled the vampire costume, but his expression was uncomfortable.
Maybe some small talk would help them both?
"S-so...," June mumbled as she tried to cobble together a polite question. "So, um, what do you do? For fun?" She bit her lip. Small talk was not her strong suit, but she really did want to get to know him. She hoped he wouldn't see through the transparency of her effort.
He turned to her, a little frazzled. "Oh, sorry? Could you repeat that? You're speaking a bit quietly."
Thank goodness, she thought with an inward smile. He was just as nervous as her. "I said--" she paused and cleared her throat. Now that he mentioned it, her voice was rather soft. "I said...," she put more effort into speaking at a normal volume, and found it oddly difficult. "...what do you do for fun, Kelan?" Adding his name at the end felt appropriate, like a gentle nudge that she was interested in him, and also that she wasn't bothered that he didn't listen the first time.
His eyes brightened up a little. "I cook."
June cocked her head. "You cook... for fun?"
He smiled with a look that said he was expecting her to say that. "I really like to try out different ways to prepare stuff. I work at a grab-and-go kitchen, but making the same things week after week got boring, so I started trying my own stuff at home, and..." He shrugged. "Turns out, I just really like cooking."
"That's amazing," June smiled back. "Where do you work? I'll have to stop in and try it."
He suddenly stopped and pointed ahead. "There."
June thought that was a weird answer, but when she followed his finger, she realized he wasn't answering her at all. The aisle coming up was full of black and otherwise-dark-colored costumes, accessories, masks, and other things gothic and creepy. The pair continued forward, ditching their conversation.
Just like in the '70s aisle, Kelan inadvertently pulled ahead of her as he strutted to a group of vaguely Romanian suits, cloaks and cowls. He deposited the costume he'd been carrying and then gave some of the surrounding outfits a considering gaze.
June slowed her already delicate pace to look at the racks and shelves, too. A lot of objects spoke to her growing taste. There were vampiric makeup sets, claw-like press-on nails, crowns of briars and black roses, even fake tattoos. Some of the black dresses rivaled her own lolita-centric goth getup, but they were supremely slender, body-fitting and without the frills and lace that attracted her to the look she'd adopted as her own.
Almost reading her mind, Kelan turned to her and asked "Do you wear various goth styles, or do you prefer cute and fancy?" (Did he just call her cute?)
She stifled a giggle that welled up in her from somewhere wonderful and grinned through inky black lips. "I prefer gothic lolita. It's more fun than the others, I guess. More loose, but still reserved in the sense of the black and the muted colors. I guess I like... the selective playfulness of it? If that makes any sense?"
Kelan scratched his head. "I don't know, but you look great in it. As far as playfulness, you definitely give off a doll vibe. Especially your big blue eyes."
He was flirting with her, she knew.
"And that's not a wig, is it? That's your real hair?" he continued.
She nodded proudly. Her black pigtails gently swayed beside her and made little shuffling noises as they brushed the puffy shoulders and frilly upper layer of her dress.
Kelan was impressed. "You must not cut it for a decade. It's so perfectly straight, too. How do you keep it so well?"
A decade was an overstatement of enormous proportions, but Kelan had no way of knowing her original hair was cut much shorter, and she saw a hairdresser six or eight times a year. "Oh... I..." She stalled for an answer to pop into her mind, sliding a couple of pale fingers through one of the silky tails. "It's just very cooperative. I'm naturally lucky to have always had this kind of hair."
Kelan said something in response, but June didn't listen. She was distracted by the sudden discovery that her fingers were still working their way through her locks. She glanced down, seeing her arm fully stretched out, pushing into the wide bell of her knee-length skirt and still touching a generous amount of black hair, which was now draped over the full length of the skirt and spilling over the edges. Her pigtails had doubled in length... as though... as though they hadn't been cut in ten years!
Now that she'd put two and two together, June looked back up at Kelan. He'd stopped talking and was apparently waiting for her reply.
"Uhh..." She blushed pink through her near-white cheeks. "I'm terribly sorry," she felt compelled to stress the apology. "Could you say that again?"
He grinned awkwardly. "It's okay. You're distracted by your hair. I bet that happens a lot. I said I'd love to long hair, too."
June raised a hand to her forehead to brush her trimmed bangs, only to find them completely gone. In keeping with Kelan's words, her entire head had not been cut in ages. What were once her bangs were now tied up along with the rest of her locks in her pigtails... the tightness of which she now felt more strongly, pulling ever so gently at her scalp. It was kind of distracting.
"You do want to grow out your hair?" she repeated, making sure she understood him.
"Yeah! I'd love to have it flowing around my head. It'd be perfect for the gothic look, wouldn't it?" He looked eager at the thought.
A kindred spark lit in June, filtering out of her through sparkles in her larger-than-average blue eyes, made all the more bright by the heavy black shadow around them. She smiled wide. "I've got good news. We're in the perfect place for you to have exactly the look you want."