The Prince and the Plant Whisperer

A Dress

[Posted 5/31/21]

Kai and Lukas stand in the courtyard, facing each other. The morning light falls across the older student's face, giving a copper glow to the messy black crop of hair that curves down over his forehead.

"A dress?" Lukas asks, his eyebrows flicking upward.

"Is that weird?"

"You wear dresses?"

"It's for the freshman dance."

Lukas pauses. Then he asks, "You going?"

She sighs. Nods.

"With—?"

"With my roommate, Lilly, and her...." Kai's voice trails off. She doesn't say "date," in case Lilly's romantic attentions swing back to Lukas in the future.

In case that happens, she thinks. In case that happens in the future, it is YOUR duty—as Lilly's good friend—to do whatever you can, to get Lukas to notice her.

Lukas says, "So you're going with Lilly, and—?"

"Just a big group of friends," Kai adds, wanly. She almost over-emphasizes the word "friends" because the word seems so contrived.

Because, really, it'll be Taeyong, whom Kai has met once. And Tom Levay. They hardly constitute a "friend group" in any true sense of the world.

Suddenly, without warning, Lukas stops. He leans his bike on its kickstand, positioning  it upright.

Then, with his hands now free, he suddenly wrests the package with the dress in it from Kai's grip.

"Hey!"

Lukas twists away, holding the package out of her reach.

"Hey!" She begins jumping—with the sudden feeling that she's a seal trying to grab fish from a trainer's hands.

He really is too tall, this guy.

"The psychology experiment was missing a question!" he exclaims, sternly

"Huh?"

His voice is authoritative. "Question number 37: What're you wearing to the Freshman Year Formal?"

She can't believe he's teasing her—like this.

It's useless. She stops jumping. Settling down with her arms on her hips, she retorts, "You first! What did you wear?"

"I didn't go."

The scene they're making—it's so surprising that Kai doesn't even have time to feel self-conscious when a few students stop to gawk.

His voice stern, he repeats: "Your turn. What are you wearing?"

"I don't know!"

"You don't know? How can you not know what you bought online?"

"My roommate picked it out."

Lukas's voice is deep. "I want to see it." He's smiling a smile that also seems slightly dangerous.

Tearing open the package, he pulls the dress out of its plastic sleeve and unfolds it. As he holds it up, it's flapping in the wind.

The dress is a knee-length tube dress. It's strapless and dark-gray, with a metallic sheen. Under the sunlight, it's gaudy, but all its sparkles probably looks more subtle in the low light of a nighttime dance.

It's not quite revealing by modern standards. But a night out in that dress would give Kai an ulcer. Each minute, she'd worry about which next body part of hers was just about to pop out into view.

Lilly! You promised it wouldn't be revealing.

Kai could picture Lilly chuckling evilly to herself in her dorm room, like a bridge troll pleased with its mischief.

Lilly! ARGHH.

Lukas has grown silent, his jaw working again. His hands fall to his sides and he gives the dress to her.

"So you're going to wear this—" His voice is serious now.

She grits her teeth. "I'll have to figure something else out."

"Wear whatever makes you feel good." His voice is low, serious. "If it's this, it's this."

There are somehow layers of significance and meaning in his words, that she can't quite parse.

"That thing's really not my style," she says, forthright.

"Hm."

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