(Arya’s note: there is a side chapter that happens between the events of chapters 20 and 21, you can find it here: https://www.scribblehub.com/read/929493-serendipity-side-stories/chapter/955246/. The relevant plot points will be mentioned in this chapter, so there is no need to read the side story to understand the plot. The chapter is perfectly SFW.)

Alex was driving to Sophie’s home very early in the morning. It was the Saturday of the weekend following their time alone together, and all the first times that came with it. Today was the day of one of the most important events of the summer: the yearly anime convention! She was really excited (they hadn’t attended the last couple of years for different reasons), so she was driving early in the morning to pick up Sophie, finish getting dressed in the car, and get in line ahead of time. It was always really packed!

Alex was a bit nervous about this, since she was going to cosplay a girl character at the convention, so she would be in her female form all day. They had agreed to this right after their trip to the mall with Alex in her female form some weeks before. Thankfully, she was already completely fine from her period, since as they suspected last weekend, time continued moving forward on her female form even when she was in her male one, so it just naturally ended a couple of days ago.

This week both Sophie and her had been hard at work trying to finish their respective cosplays. It had been a bit stressful for Alex, since she had had to hide it completely from her parents, instead saying that this time they would not be attending dressed up. There would have been just too many questions from them if they had even seen the outfit, and she was not ready for it at all. The finished costume sat in the back seat in a pile, ready to be put on.

Once she reached Sophie’s house, she was already waiting for her outside, in front of the door. She was carrying a pile of her own, her costume. While Alex had suggested that Sophie could have simply come to the convention already in cosplay, she had insisted to get dressed up together, so they would get the full effect of the costumes at the same time. Sophie left her pile carefully besides Alex’s, and sat on the copilot seat, giving Alex a long loving kiss and smiling at her. It took her a few seconds to readjust the driver seat to her female form’s size, and after that they took off, Alex blushing and smiling in equal parts.

They parked quite some distance from the entrance, as the congress center where this was organized was huge and the parking lot was massive to accommodate it. After all, some times there were more than one convention of different things happening at once (not now, though). They were both super excited, but they had time to carefully dress up and get in line. It was still more than an hour before opening time and they had already purchased their tickets online (like pretty much everyone else that was attending, they thought). The plan was that they would be going on ahead, and Aiden would meet them at the line a little bit afterwards. He mentioned that it would take him some time to get dressed himself. They both wondered what this “surprise cosplay” he had mentioned would be, and whether it would be a crossplay indeed, now that they both knew that he liked crossdressing in private (Alex had learnt about it at his house on Tuesday, and told Sophie after confirming with Aiden that she could). They suspected it so, since he did say that he wanted them both to know about it beforehand.

But that was for later, now it was time for them to put on their own cosplays. Alex and Sophie had chosen to dress up as the protagonists of a web novel series they were reading, in this case two girls that were actually a couple themselves and more or less their age. The series was pretty much unknown, so they knew no one would actually get their costumes, but they didn’t care. Alex had randomly stumbled upon it on the web one day and told Sophie about it since she was enjoying it, and she also came to like it too. It was still pretty new though, having only 12 chapters so far, so they didn’t really know how the story was going to play out at all.

The characters, Gale and Sofia, were currently studying at a magic school to learn how to use magical abilities in combat and real life situations. Alex’s character, Gale, had been born a farmer and was now exploring the world after finding a mysterious tower in the middle of a forest. Sophie’s character, Sofia (which she additionally liked because they had a similar name and she found it amusing), had been born the daughter of a very rich family, but she gave that all up because she wanted to be an adventurer. This differences were noticeable in their respective outfits.

Alex undressed in the back seat of the car, while Sophie did the same on the front seat. Alex’s outfit consisted on a cloth shirt and undershirt, comfortable pants and hunting shoes, topped off by a leather chest plate. They were all in gray-brownish colors, since the character was supposed to have experience in hunting and needed the camouflage. It was a look that screamed “fantasy adventurer”. Sophie’s, on the other hand, consisted in a nice looking deep blue long cloth shirt, sand-brown fitted pants and dark brown comfortable shoes. They contrasted with Alex’s and showed more of Sofia’s higher-class upbringing.

After getting dressed, they got out of the car and started putting on their accessories. They both put heir hairs in mesh caps, and fitted their respective wigs. Alex’s wig was mid-back length, with teal hair with some strands ending in a deep red color. It was styled with the top half of it in a ponytail, letting the bottom part rest on her back. Sophie’s, on the other hand, was brown and reached past her mid back, styled in a long braid (which had been harder to style than expected).

Finally, they picked up their final accessories to complete the ensemble. Alex put a small wooden shield on her left arm, while having two sword sheathes on the left side of the hips, carrying an iron sword and a black sword. They were, of course, made out of cardboard, they wouldn’t have been allowed inside the convention otherwise. Alex still remembered how hard it had been to hide all these items under her bed, specially with how her mother was… curious, to put it nicely. Sophie’s was carrying a deep blue bundle of cardboard on her right hip. It was made out of concentric cardboard cylinders, and could extend and contract easily, made out to represent a water whip. It wasn’t very flexible, but could be “summoned” and “unsummoned” easily, and didn’t occupy much space. Alex was once again marveled at how amazing it was that Sophie had been able to do all this on her own. They decided not to use colored contacts, so they were ready to go. Hand in hand, they took off towards the convention center.

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A few minutes later they arrived at the line, and were amazed at how many people were already there. There had to be more than 500 people already in line, and it was still an hour before opening time. They were going to be reaching a record attendance for sure. From their place in the line, they could see lots of people in different cosplays, from anime to videogame or movie characters. Not too far from them there was a group of three people dressed as the same character, the protagonist from a very long running anime series. They probably didn’t know each other, but this being a convention, they were taking pictures together collaborating on different battle poses. In one of them they were even pointing at each other…

After twenty minutes or so of waiting in line they heard Aiden calling for them from behind them. “Sorry, girls, it took me a bit longer to get here than expected. The hood was a bit tricky to navigate and I was stopped a few times for pictures on the way here…”

As they both turned around to tell Aiden that it was fine, they saw his costume and their eyes shot wide open. It was probably one of the best cosplays in the whole convention! They were both amazed at it.

“Do you like it? It took me quite a while to make”, Aiden said with an embarrassed look. “Also, its not technically crossplaying, I was not confident in dressing as a girl character so soon…”, he added in the end.

Technically was the operative word here, Alex thought. Aiden was dressed as one character of their anime open world game, the femboy god of the wind. He was dressed in white clothing with golden trim and accents. He was wearing very short shorts, shorter than most of the boxers Alex usually wore on her male form (but not tight so there would not be… unsightly things); a sleeveless triangular crop top that only reached down to what would be the bra line and had his shoulders exposed, with a teal disk surrounded by gold in his chest; opera-style gloves up to close to his armpits, but showing his whole hands; a hood that covered his head and was attached to the top; six flat pieces of cloth resembling feathers, coming from the top of his shorts and reaching past his legs, with the inner part in teal; and a single stocking covering his right leg. Additionally, he was wearing a short dark blue wig with a big white flower, from which two teal-ended braids rested on his shoulders, and he had painted a triangular symbol on his chest below the crop top, and a zigzag line encircling his left thigh in phosphorescent teal color. Finally, obviously, he was wearing white sneakers, as he was not going to be walking barefoot in a public place.

“Are… are you going to participate in the cosplay contest at the end?”, Sophie asked, still a bit shocked by her friend’s amazing cosplay and very feminine appearance.

“Yes, of course!”, he smiled confidently. “I tried really hard, I want people to see as much as I can”, he finished with a small laugh. “It’s a pity I didn't make the wings, but they would have been really unwieldy”.

Alex couldn’t believe that Aiden was brave and confident enough to go out in such a revealing and feminine outfit as a man. She was really starting to admire him, she would have never been so brave at all.

After two additional hours of waiting in line (due to the slow rate of entrance to the venue), in which they each took a turn to explore the line and take a few pictures with amazing cosplayers they found (and in Aiden’s case, the other way around), they finally could redeem their tickets and enter the building. Alex couldn’t wait, she had been expecting this for some months now!