[REND] 15.4 - Besties Together, Strong

“Weeee…” I said in a deadpan tone as the car went round and round the circular ramps leading to the higher parking levels. “This is why I don’t like driving a car—looking for a place to park is such a hassle. I didn’t expect Sanders Mall to be already packed at this time.”

“People are getting off work.” Deen expertly drove her car up the spiral. If it were me driving, I would’ve crashed already. “The employees from the buildings around us funnel to the mall to eat and shop. Destressing after a long day, you know? You’ve worked before, haven’t you?”

“I have. For a couple of years before law school. Doesn’t include internships and stuff like that. How about you? Have you worked?”

“What’s with that tone? Don’t you think I’ve worked a day in my life? Of course, I have.”

“Really? Serious work? Not like working for your family business, where you don’t have any real responsibilities. Work, as in you’re an actual employee with an actual salary.”

Deen sheepishly grinned. “If that’s your definition of work, then… no. I did an internship at a law firm, if that counts. I did nothing useful there, though. It’s just that Dad referred me to his lawyer friend. Everyone at the firm didn’t want to tell me to do anything. I would’ve made them coffee if they asked me to.”

“So… no. You haven’t worked, like, in ever.”

“But I do feel stressed at times, and I go to the mall and shop to relax. That’s what we were talking about, wasn’t it?” We reached the fifth floor of the multistorey car park attached to the mall. “Oh, there’s an empty spot. Given the levels of stress we’ve experienced lately, we deserve this.”

“Destress. Sure, sure.” I checked the car passing by as we pulled into the parking space. A family with two kids was riding it. The next car had a bunch of loud girls. Nothing suspicious. “And anyone following us will see we’re doing normal things.”

“Thinking that only adds to stress,” Deen said. “We’re not doing anything suspicious, so let’s not keep our guards up. If we think like that all the time, we’ll cultivate paranoia and ruin our mental health. We’re going shopping, and we’re going to enjoy it,” she added, sounding almost like a command.

Enjoy shopping, huh? I wasn’t ‘like other girls’—in a different sense than the normal use of the expression—but I was also like other girls since I did enjoy shopping for clothes… online.

Browsing online stores was one of my ways to destress and waste time. I would add the latest arrivals I liked to my basket and have them shipped within the week. Voila! No need to wade through the seething masses of humanity at the mall, which always left me with a feeling of ickiness. The thought of cute new outfits was appealing, but the process of physically acquiring them? Not so much.

While we strolled through the mall, heading to a fashion boutique that Deen preferred, I casually inspected my surroundings to see if we were followed. Then I realized that I need to be vigilant all the time. I wasn’t cut out for the criminal life. Unfortunately, I was already one.

Oh well, I’d just wait for the problem to come to me and deal with it then.

“Sensibilities.” It was the name of the store we were about to enter. “This is an expensive brand, isn’t it?” I said, following Deen inside.

“Don’t worry, I’ll buy you clothes. Just pick out something you like.”

“You’re not my mom, Deen. You don’t have to buy me clothes.” She’d appreciate that I turned down her offer, showing I wasn’t after her money or something like that. Anyway, I wasn’t too comfortable with the too girly designs of Sensibilities. “If I see something that I like, I’ll buy it… charged to my real mom.” I approached the nearest rack and pretended to look over the displayed clothes. Looking at the prices, I calculated that I could buy a lot of croissants instead.

Deen sidled beside me and checked the clothes I was rummaging through. “They have affordable pieces here,” she said, changing the meaning of ‘affordable’ in the dictionary. She picked out a light pink cardigan and held it up, comparing it with my body. “I bet this looks good on you.”

“Is this even my size?” I said, taking it from her.

“I have a PhD in shopping, so it likely is.” She picked another item. “How about this? White goes well with black hair. Oh, blue as well. Depends on the blue. This one. Classic blue is the color of the year.”

Who the hell decides the color of the year? “I don’t really have anything in mind that I want to buy. Just do your own shopping and don’t mind me. I usually do my shopping online.”

“Sorry for my technologically backward ways, oh, High Priestess of Online Shoppers.” Deen pretended to bow before me. “I hope I didn’t offend your religion.” She grinned. “Is it because you’re an introvert?”

“One of the reasons. It’s way faster to do it online, too.”

“Have you not gone shopping with your friends back in high school or college?”

“A few times, but it’s really not for me.” I didn’t explain that I hated keeping up my face for the entire day for the same group of people. It was mind-numbingly boring and disgustingly exhausting.

Not to mention that shopping dates were scheduled on mega sales days. The lines were insane! My high school and college friends could zone out and endure all that waiting, chatting with each other, or maybe browsing their phones. But as for me, I had to concentrate not to let my guard down and drop my face. I always wondered what I would look like to other people without a face up.

“Shopping online is indeed faster and less effort,” Deen said. “But you don’t receive it immediately.”

I rolled my eyes. “I’m mature enough to understand the concept of delayed gratification.”

“Watch out, people! We have a sophisticated adult here.” Deen tried to poke my sides again, but I dodged her finger. “I’ll buy a couple of tops. It’ll take like ten minutes max. Are you fine just staying here?”

“Super fine.” I gestured to shoo her away. Though I hated this, I wouldn’t let it show. One, it’d go against my best friend face. And, two, I didn’t want Deen to think bad stuff about me. I knew that she was scared when I blacked out during training. “Think of me as a guy waiting for his girlfriend to finish her shopping. I’m not angry or anything. I’m just waiting. I’ll browse some stuff here.”

“If you’re the guy, then you’ll be incredibly lucky to land a girlfriend like me?”

“Buy your stuff already!” Nine minutes later—I timed it—we were out of Sensibilities and heading to the sports stores. Points for Deen keeping her promise. I was a firm believer that people who didn’t follow an agreed-upon time should be executed by a firing squad of archers.

Would archers be considered a firing squad? Technically, they were ‘letting loose’ their arrows instead of firing them. There was no firing involved.

“I would’ve preferred buying sports bras at Zed Sports,” Deen said, disturbing my ponderings of life’s greatest questions. “But there’s always a traffic jam there at this hour. They still haven’t fixed the traffic lights there. Broken traffic lights, broken bioscanners. La Esperanza isn’t as glamorous as I once thought. But I think there are shops here with good quality, high-impact sports bras.”

“What’s that high-impact part?” I asked.

“They’ll keep things in place better during intense physical activity compared to regular sports bras. Someday, we’re going to move around a lot while fighting.”

“I don’t have much to keep in place,” I muttered. Some self-depreciation to trigger friendly banter. Just keeping up my face.

“Oh, don’t be like that, Erind.” Deen patted my head like I was a kid. “I have an idea. When you’re wearing a sports bra, you can pad—just kidding!” She laughed as she evaded my swipe.

My strike had super strength behind it. It whistled in the air with how fast and strong it was. If it connected, Deen would’ve been sent tumbling across the floor with a broken spine. But I knew her Guardian Angel would protect her.

“Ha, ha, and also, ha,” I sarcastically said.

“On a serious note, I’m sure the female Corebrings wear sports bras. A high-tech version of it. Their suits probably came with those. They always look so fashionable in blue and gold.”

I nodded as an idea brewed in my head. Superheroes needed suits for fighting. Something more durable than regular clothes, while being comfortable for all that movement. I should know; I had lost several pieces of clothing already.

Should I make a costume? A main character should have one. Red and black would be the colors of my costume, same as my transformation.

Or maybe… a different color scheme was better. I could pretend that my transformation and I were different people! 

I wasn’t transforming. Rather, I was switching bodies with that sexy monster—no one would expect this. If someone transformed, everyone—including the police, BID, and the Corebrings, too—would expect torn or stretched clothes. If I played things correctly, no one would discover my secret. The confusion brought about by two bodies that were actually one would be my alibi. I was thinking like a criminal now. Nice.

But I had to make the costume myself. Not like I could hire someone to do it. How would I make sure they’d keep it a secret? Kill them?

And where would I get the materials for it? Maybe I could buy a really high-quality body suit and tweak that. Lots of tutorials on the internet about sewing and dyeing. It’d be a fun project.

We entered Sporticular Needs—I liked that name—and browsed the sports bra selection. We tried on a few, taking turns showing them off to each other. Outfit montage! The scene needed a catchy pop song as background music.

“This is insane,” I told my reflection in the fitting room mirror as I adjusted a black sports bra with green lines down its sides. It had a good fit and covered my artificial Core well. I liked the design too. But the slight glow of the Core seeped through the black fabric. I should go for a lighter color to disguise it. “Really, really, really insane.”

Never in my short existence on this terrestrial plane did I ever expect to choose sports bras for fighting interdimensional monsters and criminal masterminds engaged in illegal human experimentation. But then again, a lot had happened that I didn’t expect. Like, I didn’t expect House of Bread to release a strawberry custard croissant.

“How is it?” Deen asked, poking her head in between the curtains.

“Another color, please.”

“Your wish is my command,” she said, bowing while giggling.

Amusing to think that the store attendant we asked about the features and advantages of this or that brand would never have guessed in a million years what we were buying sports bras for. She probably thought we just wanted to work out at the gym.

After leaving Sporticular Needs, Deen wasn’t done shopping yet. She wanted new outfits for law school, stuff that hid her cleavage. Every fiber of my being wanted to leave, but my face prevented me from doing so. Suffering for another hour or two was my fate.

“Do you have else anything you want to buy?” Deen asked after exiting our fifth store with yet more clothes bought. This was the sixth store we had shopped at, if counting Sporticular Needs.

“Nope, nothing,” I hastily replied. “Time to go home.” We were already carrying so many bags and boxes. They didn’t weigh much, even if we didn’t have superstrength. But they were so bulky and cumbersome. There was no need for a gigantic paper bag for a couple of blouses!

“What about a keychain?”

“A keychain?”

Deen nodded. “I noticed that you’re collecting them. Your favorite is that wolf one, isn’t it?” She nodded at the keychain. I had attached it to the phone that Deen had given me. “Is that a wolf with glasses?”

“It’s the wolf from the story of Little Red Riding Hood,” I explained.

“What?” Deen asked, probably surprised that I brought up an old children's fairy tale. Or genuinely confused?

“It’s a children’s story. A wolf wore glasses because he was pretending to be the grandmother to eat the girl, Little Red Riding Hood.”

“That’s her name? Too long and awkward, isn’t it?” Deen’s tone told me that she heard about this for the first time. Didn’t her parents read her fairy tales? Or a babysitter?

“Her actual name wasn’t mentioned in the tale,” I said, “because the kid listening to it would place themselves in the shoes of the girl and learn a moral lesson. Not to trust strangers or something. Well, in one version the girl was called Blanchette or something.”

“Blanchette?”

“Yep. But that was a weird version. The girl was saved by the hoodie she wore, which turned out to be magical.”

“I see… I know of a story about wolves, too. Are you familiar with the Native American legend about the two wolves? I’m not sure of which tribe. Cherokee, I think?”

“No, I haven’t heard of it.” I wanted to roll my eyes. Deen felt compelled to share a story because she didn’t know about Little Red Riding Hood. Very childish.

“There are two wolves inside of us,” she said, adopting a mysterious tone. “What they represent differs in various versions of the story. There’s light and darkness. Hope and despair. And, of course, good and evil. The two wolves continuously fight inside of us. Which one do you think wins?”

“That’s it?” Where could she have heard this? Sounded like something a college kid would think was deep but really wasn’t. Maybe a past boyfriend told her? “Not much of a story,” I said. “More like a—”

“Answer the question, Erind,” Deen interrupted, swinging her bags at me. “You’re ruining my moment to sound wise.”

I shrugged. “I don’t know.”

Deen leaned towards me and whispered, “The one you feed.”

I stared with a brow raised. Then, I snorted, stopping a laugh. “What was that supposed to be? I don’t get it.”

“I know, it sounds cheesy,” Deen said. “But it has a moral lesson. See? It’s like your Little Red Riding Hood story too.”

“It’s not my story. What’s the moral lesson of yours?”

“Thoughts and actions we nurture will affect our lives. Something like that, probably. I take it as a lesson in mindset. Very applicable to us, given our… problems. Won’t you agree?”

“Very applicable,” I said, clenching my right hand. It was becoming awkward to close it because the golden threads had spread again. My palm was more a sheet of metal than skin.

I was feeding Spooky Erind.

But I might be able to stop her if I feed on some mutant brains.