"Oooh, bright '90s colors," Panda says.
"What?" you ask.
"In the '90s bright, BRIGHT t-shirts were in fashion for a while, I mean I was like negative three at the time so all I know about it is what I read on the internet, but apparently it was like you could see skate parks from space, and hey, is that a board?" Panda said without pausing for a stop. Run-on sentences seem to be her preferred mode of speech. There definitely wasn't a pause long enough to be a semicolon.
At least she's seeming more confident.
You ask her, "You know about fashion from before you were born?"
"Well, yeah," Panda says. "I mean if you don't know history then you've got no context and you're just in a bubble, divorced from everything, you need to know where your come from if you want to make sense of the world don't you think, Brain?"
You nod, of course you think so. You haven't made it this far in your studies by not paying attention to history. You just didn't really expect her to think so. Then again, you don't know her well at all, but you're definitely starting to like her. Could this be what having a friend is like. You've avoided it all your life, you've seen way too many people crushed by friendship betrayed to ever risk that yourself, but you're liking listening to her talk. Maybe you should pull back. It feels too good. Well, honestly it just feels normal good, but you usually feel completely normal so normal-good might be an overload for you. If you get sucked in, if you make a friend, there's no telling where that might lead.
For a little while you both rummage through the bag in silence. Baggy jeans, low top puma sneakers. Panda called it. You can tell this is '90's skate fashion even though you never even paid attention to it. Just watching movies is enough to see that.
"You know," Panda said, in a slow way that seemed completely out of character for her, "this stuff is all pretty unisex and it looks like it's your size, Brain."
"So?" you ask, taken completely off guard by the statement.
"You're smart, but you're not always quick, brain," Panda said. "I'm saying you could put this on, cover up that vulnerable exposed skin of yours, and skate with me. None of my friends are around and I don't like the idea of just sitting on a bench while other people skate."
"You could skate," You say.
"I don't want to skate alone, come on, Brain, we're at the skate park, skate with me," she says.
"I don't have my blades," you say. Clothes or no clothes, you can't skate without your roller blades.
"Duh," Panda says in a playfully mocking tone, "there's a skate board right here."
"I, uh, don't board," you say, somewhat flustered. On blades you're untouchable, on a board you're liable to fall on your face.
"Of course you do, everyone does, it's just a question of whether or not you can do it well," Panda says. "You've seen me you know I can't so it's not like I'll laugh at you." You're unconvinced. She can see that and she says, "We'll fail together, it'll be fun."
Failure fun? It's so tempting, is this what having friends is like. Finding nonsense compelling? This is a bad idea, you know it, and yet you're so tempted to give in.
"Look at it," Panda says. "There's a bag with everything you need to start boarding right here, right now, --even the board itself-- it's obviously been abandoned, for quite a while judging on the dirt on the bag, the law of the skate park is 'free to good home' if something's here even an eighth of the time it's clearly been here... it's almost like the universe wants you to skate today." She looks you in the eyes and you've basically lost already, you know you're going to skate with her. "Please," she asks. "Do it for me?"
Before you can tell her that, yes, you surrender, she turns back to the bag and says, "And it looks like it would all fit you," as she sifts through shirts and pants. "Except for that," she says quickly as she uncovers a hot pink bra and panty set.
You flush bright red.
She curiously looks at the underwear, rummages a bit, finds more in a compartment of the bag that had been mostly closed before. "I guess that's why we didn't notice it before," she says. As bras and panties go they're fairly conservative. They're made to cover the appropriate parts, not show things off. The initial set was clearly meant for ordinary wear, simple bikini panties and an unremarkable bra. There are also sports bras, boy-short workout panties, and such. They're all hot pink. "Pretty monochromatic tastes, don't you think?"
Panda turns to you and notices that you're blushing. "Ohh, now you have to wear them," she says. Her voice is playful, but she seems serious. She holds up the first bra and panty set she found.
For a moment you don't say anything, then you say, "What? No."
"You hesitated."
You hesitate again. "I didn't."
"You did." You blush deeper. "Come on, Brain, aren't you just the least bit curious?"
You are, and more than a little bit. Some part of you would really like to wear these things, you weren't interested in wearing the clothes at all before she found the underwear, you were going to put them on but that was just so you could skate with your new ... friend. Now that it might involve wearing pink underwear, panties and _bra_, you find yourself drawn to wearing it. What if you and Panda could be girlfriends? Wouldn't that be awesome?
Your brain is going into overdrive trying to categorize these new feelings. You're definitely not gay, unless by "gay" one means lesbian, in which case maybe you are gay but... you force yourself to stop thinking. You go into academia: you can clearly be classified as gynephilic, you are sexually attracted to women and women only, but your gender identity might be being called into question and--Panda interrupts your thoughts.
She seems to realize that you're on the verge of giving in. She says, "Do it for me?" drawing out the "me". She holds out a bundle of clothes, an unremarkable, if extremely bright, orange t-shirt, baggy jeans, the puma sneakers, the pink bra and panty set.