Accidental Friends | A BTSxReader friendship fic

Chapter 40: Surprise! Pt. 2

"Let's go!" Jimin and Hobi giggles while the others smile, shaking their heads. They stand up, put on their glasses, lower their caps, bucket hats, or beanies, and put on their mask. Sometimes I forget they have to be in Incognito mode most of the time because they always so politely reveal their face when they're getting coffee and when they drop in at the store. Namjoon and Jin were also bare-faced when I see them at the museum, but I guess there are less chance to be mobbed in a museum than on the street, an open space where people can easily gather.

Out the door, we walk in leisure. There's no real hurry—which I take as a sign that whatever is going to happen today is not time sensitive. Ever since I graduate high school, Monday stops becoming a special day in the week where the hours loom darker than the rest. Nonetheless, today feels the furthest away from a Monday in my life. Maybe it's the emptier-than-usual streets, the lack of machinery whir and complain honks I hear along the way. Maybe it's the first time I've had this many people celebrating my birthday with me as friends instead of mere classmates or acquaintances. If anything, today feels like Early Sunday morning.

"Where are we going? I ask.

"Almost there."

After a walk in a good weather, we halt to a stop in front of an old-looking little shop, located exactly I the middle of a line of very non-interesting places like accountant offices, ATMs and many more formal-businesses. The shop, however old it looks, has a large yellow, blue, and green neon sign of its logo—a chameleon—on top of it, and it looks to be the only thing alive—and not grey—among the shops in the street. It's quite curious, the sign when compared to the rest of its exterior I mean, but upon entering the shop, I understand it entirely. If one gaze at the interior collectively, without focusing on any particular hanger or costume on a mannequin, it looks like a blur of colour, like if Jackson Pollock and Andy Warhol decide to play paintball together. Yet, miraculously, it's not a headache-inducing mess. It's more inspirational than suffocating, even though the racks are overstuffed with the amount of costume in the room exceeding logic and looking like they are all about to blow up and then spill into the street. Aside from that, for a costume rental(?) shop, I'm glad there isn't any funny smell or visible dust anywhere in the room. Everything is clean. Thank goodness.

"You must be Miss Hunnie," a man in a polo shirt says the moment we walk in. "I was really surprised when I heard you need at least seven monkey suits, and even more surprised when you suddenly said you need seven more."

"Excuse me, did you just say monkey suits?"

"Mr. Bae, I'm more surprised you have fourteen, monkey suits, in store for rent," she laughs. She has a point though. It's a relatively small rental shop—though it's brimming with things, which I guess comes from variety and not quantity. How the heck do they have fourteen monkey suits? No. 'Why' should be the question.

"Can I see them?"

"Sure," Mr. Bae enthusiastically grabs one of the hangers on the rack-with-wheels and unzips it. I release a breath in relief. Thank goodness it's one of those friendly-cartoon-character-or-emoji-looking monkeys and not the scary realistic ones or I'll be scared hanging out with my friends for the rest of the day.

"Y/n, go get change. We'll change too."

"Three of you can change there," he says, pointing at the changing rooms in the corner, "while the rest can change upstairs. There are five more changing room upstairs." Oh, there's an 'upstairs'. I completely missed the stairs behind two racks of some sort of period outfit. Maybe fourteen isn't that weird.

"Where's the two people I told you about? Are they here yet?"

"They're upstairs changing too."

"Alright, thanks." The man gives her a thumbs up. She then turns to the guys.