Worlds Apart (or not!) | ONC 2021

Farryn (I)

"So~, what do you think?"

I looked in the mirror, at the outfit that Keaton and Elizabeth had scraped up from my closet. "It looks great! I like it."

And then I looked around my room. "Was it really worth the mess?"

The price for a good first date outfit: a trashed room.

My closet was all but empty, its contents scattered on the floor, on the door, on chairs, on tables, and on the bed. There was not a single piece of folded clothing at that moment, for even my socks, underwear, and other miscellaneous clothing items were tossed around in Eli's mad scramble.

Usually, I wouldn't care about what I wore, which led to a lot of unused clothes in my closet. Some stuff in there had been there since I moved in, and I just forget about them.

Leave it to my simple fashion taste to render half my clothing useless. In case you were wondering, my usual outfit would be jeans/joggers/shorts (depending on the weather), a graphic t-shirt, a thin jacket, and sneakers.

That accounts for like, 20 percent of my entire wardrobe, but that's all that's used.

Not this time, though!

After 30 minutes of digging through long-forgotten clothes, Eli managed to whip up a complete first date outfit for me.

Eli waved her hands at me. "Nonsense! Any one of my creations are worth all the effort and mess."

A gray inside t-shirt, a blue flannel button down on top, tan chinos, white sneakers, and a pair of fake glasses. Also a nice metal watch. No socks though.

"Were the glasses necessary? I could just wear my regular glasses instead of contacts," I said.

"Your glasses are too nerdy! Too big and blocky! I wanted something cooler, like half-rimmed, silver, thinner frames, and smaller lenses."

Wait, what she wanted?

I looked at her. "You didn't. . . dress me up. . . as your ideal partner. . . right?"

She wouldn't meet my gaze. She even laughed dryly.

I pinched the bridge of my nose. "Ah, whatever. I like it anyway. Thanks for helping."

Eli smiled. "You're welcome."

"At least you actually came by."

Yeah, Keaton was a no-show and Kevin was. . . busy.

Should I even try to guess why Keaton didn't show up? He's got a terrible sense of time and a terrible work ethic. Procrastination is almost a daily--or should I say nightly--occurrence for him. He wouldn't miss anything on the video games he plays, but his homework would lay unattended at his desk until the final hours before they were due.

Truly an amazing sense of priority. I bet he slept in and forgot to come here too.

With nothing better to do, I started picking up the scattered clothes.

"So when's the date?" Elizabeth asked.

I thought for a moment. "I don't know. Nothing's been communicated yet," I said while cleaning up the room.

Suddenly, a hand came chopping down on my neck.

"What was that for?!" I asked.

"Stupid Robbie! Of course nothing's been said yet! They're waiting on you to say something!" She shouted at me.

"Me?!"

"Yes you! Think of all the other species' civilizations compared to humans. They're not as open-minded as we are. Their courtship culture is still from 300 years ago! Males have to be the one to make the first move. That's probably what they've been taught, and now you have to follow through," she explained.