Elite || Marhinki

•Chapter Twenty-Five: Pearl•

The wardrobe in my hotel room was insane.

I'd gotten a text on my watch telling me to pick out an outfit, so I'd made my way to the closet. Despite knowing that we were going to be visiting a Pearl District today, I hadn't made the connection that the clothes might be a bit... extreme. I'd been expecting casual clothes.

What a mistake that had been.

There were rows upon rows of clothes inside, each one crazier than the last. Shirts that were cut across the shoulder, leaving half of your chest exposed. Pink suits that were covered in glitter. A few dresses that were intentionally cut for men. Fluffy scarves. If you could imagine it, it was here, and somehow even more extreme than you'd imagined.

It was hard, but I ended up finding something that was sort of normal; a black suit. Except for the fact that half of it was made out of leather and the other half silk that seemed to change colour every few seconds. Not exactly my style, but it was the best I could do.

The walk down to the main hall was the most awkward one of my life. Wearing this outfit made me feel a lot of things, but confidence wasn't one of them.

There was only one other person there; Shayne. He was wearing a simple, sparkling pink suit. It looked pretty good on him, and he looked pretty confident wearing it, which I envied. I would never be able to wear that. Back home, there was so much social pressure to appear as masculine as humanly possible that I'd been terrified to do anything remotely feminine. I hadn't gotten over it in my time away, and I doubted that I ever would.

The next one to show up was Wes, wearing the exact same outfit as me and looking awkward as Hell. We gave each other a small, knowing smile.

Then Mari showed up. She was wearing a rainbow dress, and didn't look happy about it. She'd tried to cover it with a leather jacket with spikes, but it hadn't quite worked. Along with the dress she had on black tights and combat boots.

"I hate this," she mumbled as she walked up to me. I put my hand on her shoulder in reassurance.

"I take it they didn't have any shirts in your closet?" I asked.

She grimaced. "Not even a tank top."

Mr. Lee Yang showed up next, wearing a simple black suit. Wes, Mari, and I shot him a glare of jealousy. I would've worn the same suit as yesterday, but the cleaning staff had picked it off the floor last night while I was asleep.

Finally, about ten minutes after Mr. Lee Yang had arrived, Olivia and Noah decided to show up.

They looked fantastic. Olivia was wearing a blue dress covered in what looked like feathers and had a pearl necklace on. She wore tall blue heels that glittered. Somewhere, she'd found makeup, and had on wicked light-blue eyeshadow along with blue lipstick that somehow looked natural on her.

Noah had taken a similar route. His makeup was identical to her's, except red. Wicked red stilettoes that looked like they could be used to kill a man with adorned his feet, which you could see through the cut in his floor-length red ballgown. A leather belt was wrapped around his waist.

And I thought Shayne had confidence.

We got a lot of looks from people on the streets as we got on our bus. Their eyes made my skin crawl. When we got to the train station, I couldn't get on the train fast enough.

Wes, Mari and I spent the entire ride in silence. I didn't even bother to look out the window. The Pearl District seemed daunting now. If we were expected to look like this, then I couldn't even begin to imagine what Pearl citizens looked like.