“So by chips… you mean like fries right?” Maddy asked from beside me as we walked towards the cafe that was at the bottom floor of the business building.

“Yeah! Sorry, it’s my Kiwism slipping through,” I said, my face colouring a light pink.

“Kiwism? You’re from New Zealand?” she asked earnestly.

“Yeah lived there for most of my life. My parents moved us all back to New York State like four years ago I think, but I still haven’t lost any of it,” I said embarrassed.

“That’s cool! My parents are from scotland, but they moved here before I was born so I’ve only ever lived in the US,” she told me, bouncing along beside me with a cute little smile on her face.

“Oh so that’s where the accent is coming from?” I asked.

“My… my accent?” she asked haltingly, looking down at the path and biting her lip.

Oh. Oh that lip bite. Her lips were so full and it was all I could do to keep my mind from running away with the image of that uncertain nibble on her lower lip.

“Yeah um, you have an underlying accent that slips through sometimes,” I nodded, trying to push the image of her lips out of my mind.

“Gosh, that’s embarrassing!” she blushed, biting her lip some more and looking over at me.

She was way too adorable. I could feel my insides turning to mush as those deep brown eyes looked into mine. I was so caught up in our odd staring contest that I missed the steps we had been approaching, my foot swinging out into mid air and finding nothing to stand on.

Instantly my powers took over, and suddenly I was kicking off into the air with the still grounded foot, using the outside railing to make a second launch. High in the air, my board found its way under me almost of its own volition, and I was using the center rail to grind down to the bottom. I landed easily and hopped off my board as fast as I could, my breathing heavy.

Maddy still stood at the top of the stairs, her eyes wide and shocked, “W-what was that?”

“Please don’t hate me! It was my powers! They take over and turn disasters into miracles! I’m sorry! I promise I’m not like, evil or anything,” I squeaked in a rush, my voice rising in fear at what she might think.

She opened and closed her mouth several times, shaking her head, then rushed down the stairs, almost stumbling along the way in her haste to get down to me. I felt like there should be hearing the sounds of bouncing pots and pans as she landed in front of me, somewhat unsteady on her feet. She started forward, almost like she wanted to hug me or something, then thought better of it and stayed in place.

“No! No! You’re not evil! Of course not! You’re really cool and I… and I… I um… I think you’re cool and I want to be your… friend…” she blurted, stumbling over her words and pausing frequently.

“Thank you…” I said. I knew she’d seen my powers before, but my anxious mind had reacted without thinking, like she had also been poisoned by fox news like my dad.

She stepped a little closer, concern written across her face, “Why did you react like that? You know I know you’re Emerged. It’s not some terrible thing to be afraid of…”

“I guess I just… I don’t know. I think you’re really cool too and I don’t want to scare you away!” I told her meekly, staring down at her hands rather than her face.

“Well… Well I’m not going anywhere!” she exclaimed with a determined frown, “We’re going to be friends and that is final!”

“Okay!” I said, a smile growing on my face even as a blush followed.

“Good!” she nodded, then softened and said, “So do we still get lunch?”

“Yes definitely!” I agreed, motioning for her to walk with me again.

We walked in silence for a few moments before she asked quietly, “Where were you during the first emergence?”

“I was at home. We watched it on the news,” I said with a shrug. It hadn’t been all that exciting as far as Emergence stories went.

“I was in Seattle,” she said in a deadpan.

“Oh,” I nodded, not pressing her further. The stories that had come out of Seattle were haunting.

“We were driving through town. My parents and I. We were visiting family… my dad’s brother and his family…” she said quietly, trailing off.

I didn’t really think about it, I just reached out and took her hand, pulling her to the side of the path. I tried to get a good look at her face hidden behind her fluffy messy hair, but she was turned slightly away from me.

“Hey, no need to talk about it okay Maddy?” I said gently.

She breathed deeply, gripping my hand almost painfully tight, then let go and looked up at me, her expressionless mask replaced by a little smile.

“I’m okay,” she told me, and my heart tried to pull me toward that adorable freckled smile.

With another deep breath under her belt, she pulled me back towards our destination.

****

“Suicune huh?” I said after swallowing a mouthful of sandwich, “Yeah that makes sense.”

“Makes sense? What do you mean?” Maddy asked, picking lamely at the food she’d brought from home.

“I don’t know… I can just totally see you as a Suicune fan. You have the same hair,” I said, a tiny teasing smile sneaking onto my face.

“No my hair isn’t nearly as cool as that. It’s just boring brown!” she said, shaking her head emphatically and causing her hair to whirl wildly about her.

I shrugged and looked down at my sandwich, “I don’t know. I think it’s nice. You could try dying it though?”

My eyes flicked up to see her reaction just in time to catch another blush. She blushed at the drop of a hat, it was so damn cute. I wanted to keep saying things that made her blush, just so I could enjoy how beautiful it made her look.

“N-no! I couldn’t do that! I’m not like, a rebel or anything! I think I’ll keep my hair how it is. I mean but… like one day I might dye it. I don’t even know what colour to pick though,” she said, shaking her head half heartedly.

“Whatever colour you wanted. Make a chart if you need to, organise it and stuff. Pros and cons, that type of thing,” I said, pretending to draw a chart on the table.

“Maybe… What about you though? What’s your favourite pokemon?” she asked, deflecting the conversation back to me.

“Milotic,” I said without hesitation, already having my mind made up on that one, “I like the shiny version, but I’ve never gotten her legit.”

“Ohh yeah. Milotic is pretty,” Maddy agreed, nodding her head slightly.

“I haven’t played any Pokemon games for a while though, not since like, third gen,” I said.

“Yeah neither. My DS broke and I never bothered to get another nintendo console. Seemed like too much money for a Pokemon and Zelda machine,” she said, smiling over at me, “Plus, I had a whole lot of options open up to me when I finally saved up for a decent computer.”

“I knew I liked you for a reason,” I giggled, smiling back into her sparkling eyes.

“L-liked me?” she gasped.

“Y-yeah! I mean like, as in… not a weird way… or whatever,” I blushed as I realised what I’d said. Fuck I could not control my cheeks at all around this girl. I went from feeling normal and chill one moment to melting and flustered the next.

“O-oh! Yeah. Not that I would be upset! If you liked me in a… you know. Like, I totally get it!” she said, trying to placate me and only succeeded in knocking her water bottle over.

She scrambled to grab it, but I was faster, my powers carrying me around with almost superhuman speed to catch the bottle.

“Uh, here you go,” I said self consciously placing the bottle back on the table.

“That power of yours is so useful. What… what else can it do?” she asked, her face turning a blazing pink.

“What else can it do? I don’t know… a lot of things,” I replied, eyeing her blush with confusion.

“Really? Wow, gosh. Um. That’s really great. I hope… yeah,” she said, somehow reaching new levels of neon pink in her embarrassment.

“Yeah… Maddy, why are you blushing like that? Am I doing something wrong?” I asked, worried and a little flustered. She looked really good flushed.

“Blushing?! I mean, it’s nothing! I don’t know!” she stammered, reaching for her water like it was a lot warmer than it really was.

“Okay… if it’s not too weird of me to say though, you look… um, you look really pretty when you blush,” I told her, feeling my own face heat with the admission.

She made a kind of strangled squeaking sound and her eyes went wide around the bottle she was drinking from. I saw her cheeks puff out as she tried to stop from inhaling the water she had just moments before been drinking.

I watched her with increasingly embarrassed amusement as she seemed to struggle for control of her throat, before finally downing the excess water.

She lowered the bottle with a gasp and sat there, her face red from her hairline to her neckline, panting like she’d just run up a hundred flights of stairs. Gosh that was a look. I wondered if she’d look like that after I’d... 

My cheeks flared hot as I realised where that thought was going, and I felt my mind close up as the wanting emotions robbed me of my ability to speak.

I had known she was cute for a while now. How could anyone look at her and not think she was adorable? It was now though that I was noticing her more… sexual assets. Her hips were wide. Really wide. I was pretty sure you could have driven a smart car through the gap between her thighs. It made her waist and shoulders seem small, simply because by comparison, they were.

Funnily enough, it wasn’t her boobs that captivated me about the upper portion of her body, it was the little things, like the curve of her waist, or the arch of her neck. Even the way her spine was a graceful wave entranced me. Glancing down at her boobs though, I realised that they were probably pretty nice under the big jumper she wore.

Gosh, where was all this coming from? It was like the horny switch had been turned on in my mind and all I could think about was her flushed panting face and her lightly padded and curved body. Fuck. This was not the type of thoughts I should be having for a friend. She was like the opposite of Brook. Instead of toned muscles and lithe grace, Maddy was all soft from her gaming habits and inactivity. Instead of Brook’s tall willowy build, she was as short as me, with an intensely soft feminine body that was… just as, if not more alluring than Brook’s.

“Elsie?” Maddy asked breathlessly, her eyes slightly lidded.

Oh shit. The way she’d just said that. I felt her breathy use of my name go straight from my ears to my groin, where it sparkled into a fuzzy warm feeling down there.

“Yes?” I managed to squeak out.

“U-uhhm. Should we… should we start going to class?” she asked, struggling with some inner emotion of her own.

Oh thank the goddess, an excuse to think about anything other than how gorgeous her skin must look without… I coughed and nodded, unable to speak.

She nodded back, and I stuffed the last bite of my sandwich into my mouth as I made sure I had everything packed up. Maddy did the same, and before long we were awkwardly making our way back across campus towards the room our tutorial would be held in.

****

“I have her for another class as well, and last year too. She’s a bit crazy but she’s harmless,” Maddy whispered as we took seats together in class.

I eyed the woman frantically bumbling about at the front of the room with suspicion. She was short. Very short. I would be surprised if she even reached five foot. What she lacked in height, she made up for in width. It was kind of adorable really. She was like a hamster, small and round, with seemingly relentless energy and speed. I swear she must have been Emerged, the way she was doing about thirty things at once.

“If you say so Maddy. I’ll trust you,” I whispered back.

We’d sat at a table midway back against the wall. Maddy had wanted to sit at the front, but I’d asked her, for my anxiety’s sake, to sit somewhere less conspicuous. She’d happily complied and now we had a table to ourselves while the rest of the class huddled in their cliques.

“I am very trustworthy,” my new friend told me earnestly, her face serious and concerned.

I couldn’t help a wry smile as I nodded in agreement. She was so… honest, with her emotions. She had no filter between what she was feeling and what she showed the world. I liked it a whole lot.

We both turned to the front when the bustling finally stopped, and our professor began to tell us what we’d be doing. This was the first class of the semester, so I thankfully hadn’t missed anything.

“Hello everyone! Welcome to Victorian Era Fashion! We have some ridiculous long winded name for the paper, but it’s not a useful thing so we’ll skip that. Throughout this semester we’re going to be exploring the world of fashion in Great Britain from the year 1837 till the year 1901. I’m going to assume you all have a basic understanding what this entails, but you must realise something. The period we will be studying was over half a century, and though the speed of fashion back then was slower than the frantic pace that today’s fashion sets, there was never the less great changes from one end to the other,” she told us, and I found myself leaning forward as she spoke.

The way fashion evolved like some sort of living thing had always fascinated me, and I was really keen to study that in detail, especially considering how damn cool the dresses had been back then. I might even be convinced to wear something that the men had worn, provided the fitting was done in a way that still showed off my womanly body.

The teacher spoke at length, diving straight into a broad overview of the period and the fashion trends of the time. She mentioned an assignment later that would involve detailing how events during the time had influenced what had been worn and considered fashionable.

By the end of the hour and a half long class I was totally nerding out, and Maddy had been wildly typing on her laptop the whole time, like she was possessed or something. A quick glance over at her screen revealed that she wasn’t precisely taking notes, but rather writing her thoughts down as the class went on. It was kind of fascinating to see what was going on in her mind as she flooded a page in google docs.

She was also interested in the evolution of fashion, but she was off on a tangent about architecture, which I thought was hella cute. I got distracted watching her, she seemed to be absentmindedly struggling with her hair. She’d push it out of her face, only for it to fall back moments later. I wanted to reach over and fix it properly for her, and I almost acted on the impulse before I caught myself. I wanted to play with her hair so badly.

Maddy was just an intoxicating mix of adorable and hot that was driving me crazy. I had to constantly remind myself that nothing was going to happen between us. It was even harder than with Brook, where I was only interested in her in a sexual capacity, as opposed to romantic as well as sexual when I was with Maddy. This was all so confusing. When did my life suddenly become so complicated? Oh right. The Emergence.

As the class ended, our excitable professor told us about the first assignment, “Now, your main project for this paper is to pick a time period and design a series of outfits that would have been considered the height of fashion during that time. You’ll be working in pairs on this project, and while it’s not mandatory, if you turn up on the last day with a physical outfit, I will be impressed. Now, any questions about the assignment or the paper in general?”

Some of the students had questions, but I didn’t listen to them. All I could do was sit there and think about wanting to do the project with Maddy. I hadn’t turned to her. I couldn’t really. I was too nervous that she’d reject me. Maybe she had another friend lined up to do the project with. My anxiety was in full swing and I couldn’t make myself ask her.

I was in the process of going through my breathing exercises to calm myself when I felt Maddy poke my shoulder and timidly ask, “Do… do you want to work with me Elsie?”

I turned to her in surprise and struggled to say, “Y-yes!”

“Yay! Uh, thank you! I don’t um, I don’t have any friends in this class,” she smiled, nervously poking at her laptop.

“Yes you do! Me!” I smiled.

“Oh right,” she grinned.

“Alright, you’re all free to go!” the professor called, moving to her desk to pack her things.

Still smiling shyly at each other, we packed our things and left the class.