take off all your cool | ✔

"This is ridiculous."

May giggled, then held her hands to her mouth—as if that could have masked her amusement—as she stared at the sulking, fumbling boy next to her in the full-length mirror.

Above their heads, a vaguely familiar tune filtered out of the speakers and May hummed along to the catchy melody, which only seemed to put Drew in an even worse mood than before. She watched as his fingers caught against the lapels of his purple suit, smoothing an invisible wrinkle before falling to his side, twitching slightly.

She smothered her laugh before it could escape again, but it came out as a more-than-obvious snort that elicited a scowl.

"May, I swear"—another giggle—"stop. Please."

If Drew was even willing to say please to her, he must be seriously embarrassed.

A whole new region meant a whole new set of Contest rules to follow. May had been strolling in the city's shopping district when she'd stumbled across Drew, who had been flustered to see her.

He'd tried to play it cool and evade her, but it soon became pretty clear he was out here for the same reason as May—they were both looking for Contest costumes. The shopping district had a long stretch of tailor shops and fabric stores to choose from, and while May had initially wanted to make her own costume from scratch, she was finding it pretty fun, trying out different fanciful, ready-made costumes along with Drew, who she knew had never lifted a needle and thread in his life.

So here they were now, in a tiny, stuffy costume shop by the corner of the street, just out of the equally small fitting rooms and standing side-by-side in front of the dust-layered mirror. Their shoulders were almost touching, but May tried to pay it no mind. Behind the counter, the shop attendant stared at them relentlessly, watching their every movement... but other than her, it was just the two of them. No Solidad, no Harley, like she was used to, when they hung out with each other.

It was making her feel a little self-conscious. May had to admit, it was pretty weird doing shopping of all things with her biggest rival, but on second thought, it didn't seem that bad. After all, competing in Contests along with him through Hoenn, Kanto, and Johto had made the two of them a lot closer than they used to be. So, she didn't mind this all that much.

Drew, on the other hand...

It had been clear right from the start of their impromptu shopping trip that Drew wasn't all that fond of dressing up, which she thought was a little strange—because Drew, with his dramatic hair flips and ever-ready red roses, had always struck her as the dressing-up type. Although she guessed he did need better fashion sense, but at the end of the day, he was a Coordinator, and a lot of Coordinators loved to dress up—herself, Dawn, and especially Harley, who in particular seemed to adore cross-dressing.

She didn't know why Drew was so uncomfortable—of course, he was trying to play it off as sheer ridicule, but May saw right through his act. But... it wasn't as if he looked bad in that stupid purple suit—in fact, he looked good—but there was no way May was ever going to tell him that.

Instead, as he snapped at her to stop laughing for the second time, she opted to raise an eyebrow at him.

"Make me," she said playfully, and turned back to admiring her dress—it had a pale pink skirt that darkened to a dark crimson and flared out at the bottom and reached a little below her knees. It glittered with the tiny rhinestones embedded into the hems.

She had half a mind to ask Drew his opinion on the dress—but when she cast her gaze at their reflections in the mirror, the way his green eyes seemed to linger on her made her pause, her breath hitching in her throat all of a sudden.