Page 10 of Monster Married
Inkiri was grinning at Lissir though. I was missing something here yet again, and I couldn’t even guess what it was.
“Whatever for?” my bagu asked. He was totally overacting.
“My gift to the both of you for accepting each other as mates. I’ll see him dressed fittingly.”
Nokim nodded eagerly. “Can I come, please?”
Lissir huffed. “That’s a bit unusual, but you may carry our bags.”
I wasn’t sure whether I should be scared or excited. “Wait, what? Bags? As in, more than one?”
But Inkiri, instead of saving me from going clothes shopping with the bagu who could make Vergis change out of his broody hoodie and baggy pants, leaned down and ran his rough tongue over my neck.
“Have fun, Sadir,” he whispered into my ear, and since his voice had the power to melt me like dissent jelly on the tongue, I nodded.
After all, I’d been in the drama club forever, and I’d been fitted for a tree costume, so how bad could this be?
Chapter 4
Sunlight flooded the streets around Nokim, Lissir, Vergis, and me. It was warm out; much warmer than it had been in Ireland, where it had been a pleasantly warm May. Here, it felt like that hottest part of summer when you leave the windows open at night and spend your days in search of ice cream and cold drinks. Of course, if the honk roar week happened after harvest, that made sense.
While we were nowhere near the market where the celebration was centered—or at least where all the foodstuffs were, as Nokim had been somewhat crestfallen to realize—I still couldn’t stop looking at everything around us.
It started with the houses. Most of them looked like they’d been built from wood. Two stories seemed like the average, but some were taller. Many had balconies that ran all the way around the second floor, though at least in this part of the city, I didn’t see too many gardens. Houses stood close to their neighbors, and at most, small trees or bushes grew from pots set right next to low walls or fences. The roofs curved slightly, reminding me of Chinese or Japanese architecture, though some houses had colorful rows of tiles that seemed entirely an Aër thing.
Then there were the people. I noticed the abundance of horns, obviously, but people kept them a lot more colorful than my guys, and I leaned over to ask Lissir about that.
“That bagu there, with the red rings around his horns. Are those normal?”
Lissir followed my line of sight. “Normal for some. It’s makeup.”
“Ahh.” That was fascinating and made me try to pick out who was putting makeup on their horns and who wasn’t. I looked at Lissir, Nokim, and Vergis. “You guys don’t use makeup. Or do you?”
Vergis snorted.
“I do sometimes,” Nokim said. “But I’m not good at it.”
Lissir clicked. “Which is why I keep telling you I can help you with it.” He turned to me. “Raikengana are supposed to stick to a dress code. No makeup unless you are attending a social event or need to blend in for some reason.”
“Ah. Is that because that Raiken thing is, like, a political entity? Or because it works like a school? I mean, my school had uniforms too.”
“Nepo baby,” Vergis said.
I blushed. “Well, I didn’t get a say what school I went to, okay? I mean, I got to choose the one with the good arts program, but there was never a question about me attending a private one. That was my parents’ decision though.”
Not that I owed him the explanation. Mostly, I figured my parents wanted me somewhere where they wouldn’t really be bothered, or where they could just make a donation in case they ever felt bothered. It had worked out okay for them.
“What’s a nepo baby?” Lissir asked, and Nokim looked just as curious.
I wanted to kick Vergis, but I knew he had knives. “Uh, I’ll tell you later. But about that makeup rule, is it like that?”
Lissir tapped his chin. “In a way. But maybe also not. Raikengana are supposed to be helpful to the people. When you approach a Raikenga, you’re supposed to see the Raiken as a whole and not the individual Raikenga.”
Was that like the military or the police? I wasn’t sure. I wanted to learn more about how the bagua did things, but out here in the streets, I couldn’t concentrate on all the questions that were forming in my head. I was beginning to see more and more of the people all around us.
Apart from the makeup, there were also distinctions in terms of clothing. Compared to Earth, the clothes people wore here seemed more elaborate and just generally more high-end, even to someone who’d had the spending money to go for all the trendy brands before the apocalypse.
I could kind of excuse Earth people not dressing as nice, what with the apocalypse being really bad for the fashion industry, but even so, athleisure or grunge didn’t seem to exist here, not even distant relatives of those particular fashions. People here wore flowy layers of fabric that wound around their bodies or formed elaborate designs that hinted at complicated sewing techniques. Many bagua wore something reminiscent of skirts or culottes. All in all, they just knew how to dress, whether it was understated or more in your face. I admired that.
