제 눈에 안경이다

[Pippi]

You know, this whole conversation would probably be a lot less stop-start and full of a lot fewer hesitations and unintentional pauses if Lucille was just a tiny bit less distracting!

Bethan couldn’t say she was really upset by it, though, not without lying through her teeth at least. She’d noticed all of the little actions Lucille had been performing, all of the little movements and gestures. The girl hadn’t been particularly subtle with any of them. Perhaps she hadn’t intended them to be. The bicep flex, the things she’d said, the way her blue eyes - piercing and intense, but in such a way that they made you want her judgemental gaze to fall on you - had scanned over her entire face and body, the freaking coy bite of the corner of her lip?

Yup. That had all grabbed Bethan’s attention most assuredly.

It was just, like… she’d come here to the fitting rooms with Lucille, quiet and out of sight of prying eyes, under the impression that the other girl had needed to tell her something important. And she had! And Bethan had tried her hardest to help out, and had done a pretty dang decent job at it in her own mile-a-minute way, if she said so herself! It just felt a little… weird? Wrong? Selfish? All of the above? For her own overactive imagination to have taken sway of the conversation, for her attention to have shifted to things Lucille might not actually have been doing intentionally, or at all. The little wistful fantasy Bethan had zoned out about a few minutes earlier had returned to the forefront of her mind with a vengeance,

But after a moment, she smiled, nervous but eager, face still burning brightly. She’d moved closer to Lucille, she realised, now standing in the entrance to the changing cubicle, gaze lingering on the muscles oh-so-visible now beneath her sleeve.

“Well, uh, hmm, let’s see!” Bethan started speaking, tapping her chin with her finger again, making sure she kept her eyes firmly on Lucille the whole time, watching to see her reaction, every now and then flicking over the shape of her arms and legs.

“I mean, obviously first off I think it’d be pretty cool to, like, go to a rave with somebody rather than just to meet somebody, y’know? Although I guess if I was dating someone in the scene then it wouldn’t exactly be too special, doing what we do normally, huh? And I know there’s every chance that the girl I’m with is super not into the warehouse rave side of cybergoth stuff, which is like, still totally cool, I think it’d be super neat to go on a date to a concert for whatever sorta music they’re into as well! Ooh, but I was also thinking of, like, the zoo, or maybe the aquarium, something like that, I know the zoo closest by sells candyfloss - sorry, cotton candy - and stuff like that so I think that’d be pretty cute! And I know it’s super cliche, but there’s so many nice restaurants and stuff downtown, I think it’s super romantic to go to a fancy restaurant with your girlfriend, or like, girlfriend-to-be. Oh but, also, I’m a pretty good cook too, we could always just spend the day hanging out together before I, personally, cook her a lovely meal to cap it all off!”

Bethan breathed, and giggled, and smiled at Lucille, a mischievous glint in her eyes, expression coy and playful.

“Do any of those strike your fancy?”

Hey, if you didn’t shoot your shot, then you’d never get a chance to hit.

[Slam]

Amy focused on her breathing. It was one of her learned techniques for situations like this, where she needed to manage her social anxiety. In through the nose, down to fill out the lungs, then out through the mouth. Visualise the flow of air. She was still bouncing on her heels to the beat of her breathing. Slow, but easily done for her ballet strengthed legs. Thankfully, there was no-one else in this corner of the store to see her acting such a way. Or so she thought.

Seo’s hand might as well have slammed down on Amy’s shoulder for the shock it sent through her. She had been so absorbed in trying to collect herself that she hadn’t noticed the ringleader of their expedition sneaking up. Vision’s of Jaw’s hand, played by Richard Kiel, dropping down on Roger Moore’s shoulder from behind flashed through her mind. Seo wasn’t seven feet tall or a man of course, and she was comparably better looking, but the feeling matched that dangerous scene. Her mission to calm herself had been compromised.

She looked at Seo without a word as Seo offered her comforting praise, Amy maintaining her perpetually stoic face. But she started to bounce slightly faster, and breathe slightly quicker. Her relaxation was being undone.

“Please don’t put your hand on me like that.” she replied in a matter of fact tone after Seo finished, pulling herself out from under Seo’s shorter reach. She didn’t have issues being touched, but she didn’t like being touched out of the blue while she was trying to focus on calming down

More than that, Seo’s words had stung. Was she really having that obvious a hard time fitting in? Of course she was, that niggling little voice in her head responded. Did Seo need to talk down at her? She did not, the inner boldness replied. She wanted to belong naturally, not be babysat through her nerves. Treating her like something as simple as going to the mall with a group of girls her own age was some huge step was, in fact, very embarrassing for Amy.

Static in the air lingered as Amy looked mutely at Seo, considering her next words carefully. “Ok, let’s do that.” she finally said, deliberately echoing Seo’s last line. She continued breathing through her nose as she tiptoed around the other girl towards the counter, still clutching the necklace in her fingers. Handing it over to the cashier, who looked at her with the typical disinterest of an overworked employee, she pulled out her card and paid off her purchase, which was packaged into a predictably metallic bag. The perfect parcel for an alien’s fashion accessories. The fact that this trip was supposed to be Seo's treat did not occur to her at the time of purchase.