Be Dazzled Read online

  There are a million reasons for a cosplayer to want to be on the floor, but none of them are why I’m here, and I know it. I’m hoping to see Luca. I want him to know his presence hasn’t fazed me, not one bit. And soon I am rewarded.

  “Raffy!”

  I hold my pose and glower into the lens of a camera. It lowers, the photographer shows me the shot, and I nod in approval.

  “Raffy!” Luca shouts again.

  I was an idiot to come here, I realize. I just wanted Luca to see me, not talk to me. But there’s no going back now. He appears all at once. In the glow from the skylights, I can see every detail of his work.

  (Well, Inaya’s work.)

  He is wearing nearly nothing, just hide shorts with a flared tuft of a tail that quivers as he slips through the crowd. Someone asks him for a photo, and he pivots like he’s never not ready, and I get a full view of his back. Soccer, I reason, should be considered a performance-enhancing drug in the world of competitive cosplay, because it has absolutely weaponized Luca’s body in a way that cloth and foam cannot match.

  “You look great,” he says. His eyes shine like onyx beads against the soft white makeup masking his brows and head.

  “Fuck you.”

  Shock curdles Luca’s posture, and a few photographers lower their cameras. I’m just as surprised as they are. The sound drains from our small pocket of Controverse, and I race to pour something into the emptiness I’ve created. In my rush, I pour in a lot of nastiness. It’s what I have ready.

  “You could have called,” I say. “Or texted. Or even paid me back for any of what we made. But you just went dark, and then you show up here with Inaya, and you’re dressed as my concept? Does she even know that? Or did you tell her it was your idea?”

  Instead of backing up, Luca steps forward. He’s bigger than me, but he can’t intimidate me. Not when I’m dressed like this.

  “Abandoning me for Inaya wasn’t enough? You had to give her my idea, too? And after everything, you think the best way you can re-enter my life is with a compliment? I don’t want a compliment, Luca. I want an explanation.”

  I meant to say exactly none of this. I meant to say, “Hey.”

  But I mean every word.

  Luca gets real close. The next words he says are only for me to hear.

  “Don’t do this here. Don’t ruin this for both of us.”

  “Ruin?”

  I stare back at him. Then there’s a flash, and, surprisingly, it’s not the anger punching through my brain. It’s a camera, then another camera. People are mistaking us for a pair, seeing his fawn costume paired with my floral robe.

  In my mind, I page through the visions of me and Luca from the future, a destiny we will never inhabit. I had so many plans for us. So many ideas to create. And here, in the midst of our fight, the vision of being photographed together in cosplay is happening. But this isn’t right; none of this feels good.

  Luca and I still pose, masking our fight. And other cosplayers join in. Suddenly our argument is taking place through the other people modeling with us.

  “I told Inaya it was your idea,” Luca whispers to me. “She told me she checked with you. I would have checked myself, but you have me blocked on everything. Still.”

  “We go to the same school.”

  “You know I can’t say shit in person. You know that.”

  I’m tapping my foot. “Inaya didn’t check.”

  “Well, that’s not my fault.”

  “It’s not that simple,” I snap back. The other cosplayers between us shift away, hearing the edge in my tone. They give us a confused look before the next people take their place.

  “It is that simple,” Luca spits back. “Sometimes, shit is simple, Raffy. Not everyone is one of your complicated little projects.”

  I don’t get a chance to respond before Inaya, in all her zombie-deer glory, lithely slips through the crowd to join us. People see the two deer costumes side by side and start to cheer and laugh, finally getting it, and I am suddenly on the outside again.

  “Raffy, you look amazing,” Inaya says, air-kissing me. I don’t move a muscle. She says, “Wasn’t that wild? I can’t believe Craft Club sprang for that stage! And all those lights! I’ve never been in a competition like that before. How’d you do?”

  I turn to go. Luca is one thing, but Inaya wants to pretend like we’re friends now, too? I know myself, and I know my anger. I better go before I say something I can’t take back.

  “Raff, wait!”

  A hand digs into the flowers on my shoulder, crushing a few blossoms. The grip is firm. Desperate.

  “Please,” Luca pleads.

  “You stole my idea.” I say this right to Inaya’s face.

  Inaya laughs. “Are you really trying to take credit for this? You don’t even touch gore makeup. You were never gonna pull this off.” She smiles. “Not like this.”

  “Inaya, come on,” Luca cuts in.

  I really, really want to be anywhere else right now.

  “No, you come on,” she snaps back. “If Raffy wants to talk about it, we can talk about it. You don’t have to protect him.”

  “No, Inaya, look.” Luca pulls her around, and I turn, too. We’re facing into the bright lights of two cameras balanced on the shoulders of two people wearing clubber outfits. A third person has a mic and is talking to the cameras excitedly, our little fight the backdrop for whatever they’re recording. And then they turn to Luca.

  “And here we have three of the youngest competitors. Luca, tell us about how you pulled off this amazing look,” the interviewer says.

  “He didn’t,” I cut in. The interviewer turns toward me, eyes shimmering.

  “These two aren’t much for complicated projects, or complications in general,” I say to her in a bright tone. I try to slam on the brakes, but my mouth keeps working. “It’s why Inaya chose him over me, because he’s a lot hotter, right? And Luca lets people use him for his looks as long as they make him look good.”

  The interviewer is confused. Luca is confused.

  “It’s an inside joke,” Inaya says. “We go way back.”

  “So you know each other from outside the competition? Drama! What can you tell us about being friends with your competitors?”

  None of us says a thing. It’s super awkward. All I want to do is run, but Luca’s got his hand on my shoulder still.

  “Raffy,” he whispers. “Please.”

  “What is the deal with you three, anyway?” the interviewer asks, nervous now.

  How can we answer this without admitting what we used to be to one another? I look right at Luca, who isn’t out yet. After everything that’s happened between us, there is still a trust that I would never break. Bruise, maybe, but never break. I would never out him like this. I would never out him at all. But as noble as I think I am, Luca’s face is full of fear that I know I’ve put there. It makes me hate myself even more, knowing that when he sees me, he sees me with my dagger raised and ready. He fears my temper. I fear my tongue. It’s why I keep him blocked. Luca ruined us once, but I’ve been so busy being hurt that I knew if we talked before I was ready, I’d ruin us forever.

  I need to go. I shrug out of my robe easily, the heavy garment pooling at Luca’s feet as I snatch up May’s dumb bag of popcorn. I lurch away, but my foot catches in the cloth, and suddenly I hit the floor. Luca reaches for me at the same time and we knock heads. Then we’re both on the ground, clumsily tangled in a storm of fabric and flowers. And popcorn. Oh, there is popcorn everywhere.

  “Get off him,” comes a familiar voice. May, barreling out of the crowd, shoving Luca off me so that he slides away in a cascade of popcorn and petals. I shakily stand, aware that the space around us has doubled. Two security guards push through the crowd, and when she sees them, May thrusts a finger at Luca and shouts, “He started it!”


  “We weren’t fighting,” I say, but the guards are already herding us away from the crowd. Luca, for once, is agreeing with me, but they want us out of here.

  I throw a last look at May. She’s still got some moss clinging to her ear. Text me, she motions solemnly. Inaya stands next to her, somehow looking completely innocent while covered in zombie gore. Then she turns back to the cameras, the interview becoming all hers.

  Shit.

  Luca and I are led through a set of back doors. The guards ignore us as we beg them to listen, eventually pushing us into a small conference room full of boxes of lanyards. One stays with us while the other talks on his radio in the hall. After a long time, the door opens, and in walks Madeline. The person running Trip-C. She regards us with restrained annoyance and…is that fear?

  “She wants to see you both.”

  Eight

  Then

  Thirteen months ago

  As soon as we get to the studio, Luca ducks into the bathroom to strip off his shirt and try to scrub away the paint. A little baffled by the whole situation, I do what I always do when I’m nervous: I get to work.

  I consider pulling from my brand-new Plasma Siren fabric, but something tells me Luca won’t want a shimmering gossamer tank top with scalloped, eyelash-edged lace. What else do I have? A few months ago, I did a simple Chihiro cosplay. She’s the main character from Spirited Away, a Miyazaki classic. At the beginning, she wears a simple shirt with a fat, horizontal stripe in frog green. I made it roomy so it’d give me the look of a kid, but that means it’ll still be a little tight on Luca. I find it crumpled up at the bottom of one of my many bags, hidden in the studio’s cedar closet. It’s wrinkled, but it’s nothing my steamer can’t handle. Easy.

  But I don’t want easy. Somehow, this boy, flecked in gold, has followed me all the way home. Maybe he’s straight, but maybe he isn’t. Either way, just handing him a shirt feels terribly anticlimactic. I’ve got a live audience for once, and I want to show off.

  The water shuts off in the bathroom, and Luca emerges shirtless and damp (yet again). I suddenly wonder why I’m racing to put a shirt on him at all.

  “I have an idea,” I tell him.

  And that’s how Luca and I end up collaborating on a tank top. It’s just a simple garment, but he takes it very seriously when I tell him the fabric choice is up to him. We spread scraps from previous projects all over the table, and Luca considers each one with the care of a vintage wine enthusiast. When he finally does pick one, it breaks my heart to tell him that he’s chosen wrong.

  “But I like the color.”

  I take the fabric from him. It’s a bright orange canvas, waxy and inflexible. Maybe he is straight after all?

  “We need a knit fabric. It’s got to be able to stretch.”

  “Knit? Like a sweater?”

  I pull out a swatch of jersey knit in viridian, leftover from a hipster Midoriya cosplay I did last year. “See?” I say as I stretch it out. “This is knit together, and it has good recovery. It stretches, but it takes back its shape when released. Perfect for tight clothing.”

  “But I like the orange.”

  I scan the heap before us. There’s no other orange. But then I get another idea. I race away and return carrying a toolbox full of sewing supplies, popping it open with such a flourish that Luca lets out a whistle.

  “That’s a lot of needles.”

  “They’re pins.”

  “What do you do with them?”

  “Pin things.”

  I find what I’m looking for: a length of neon orange bias tape.

  “What if you pick a workable knit and then we finish it with an accent trim in this bias tape?”

  This sentence, while perfectly reasonable to me, earns me a few slow blinks from Luca. I’m ready for what’s coming—a scoff, or maybe a taunting laugh as he strolls out of here—but instead he says, “Say that again, but with different words.”

  “Want me to just show you?”

  He crosses his arms and smirks. I do my best to keep my eyes on his. His smirk opens into a smile, which he wipes away with a cupped hand. “You know what you’re doing, don’t you?”

  Not really, I think.

  We end up going with a cotton blend rib knit in a rich forest green. I consider using his ruined shirt to make a quick pattern, but again, my efficiency fails in favor of flare. Instead, I made Luca stand still as I take his measurements.

  This takes me one hundred years to get right. I hold one hundred breaths. I’m halfway under his arm when I realize I have not written down a single number, and I start over again, hoping he doesn’t notice. The whole time, he watches me with amusement.

  “You’re shaped weird,” I tell him.

  “What’s my shape?”

  “Somewhere between anime man and upside-down Dorito. Very triangular torso.”

  “Are you calling me top-heavy?” he gasps, clutching his chest.

  I’m a little self-conscious, aware that at any moment, the conversation could turn to my own body. I’m not like Luca. I am soft and round almost everywhere. I don’t want him thinking he has some sort of upper hand because of his athletic figure.

  “Just busty,” I say, tapping the tape.

  Luca just grins, watching me.

  While I cut the fabric, I pretend I’m streaming on Ion. At first, it’s much weirder to have a person to actually talk to, but then it’s the easiest thing in the world to narrate as Luca peppers me with questions. I let him do some cutting, and I like how careful he is with the scissors. I let him do some pinning, and I am enamored with how delicate his fingers can be. When we get to sewing, I sit him down in the chair, introduce him to the pedal, and coax him into stitching a seam that starts out wavy but is pin-straight by the end.

  “Good, see? You’re a natural.”

  I handle sewing on the bias tape, since it’s tricky. As I feed the garment through my sewing machine, Luca sits on the other side and gathers it into his palms, whistling with amazement. And then we’re done, and I recognize the glow of accomplishment that hovers around Luca as he pulls on his new tank top.

  “It fits!” he exclaims.

  “Of course it fits. That’s why we measured.”

  “You didn’t write any of that down, though.”

  I shrug. Stay cool, Raffy. I’ll admit I’m a little disappointed he’s dressed again, but then he asks something that totally disorients me.

  “Can we bedazzle it?”

  I slow blink, astonished. Maybe not as straight as I thought, then?

  “Nothing crazy,” he adds. “Just, like, a few jewels. Someplace my parents won’t see, though. Like when an artist signs their work.”

  Dazed, I drift over to the gems, pluck out a few Sea Foam Dreams and some E6000. I return to Luca, and he’s standing so rigid that I pause.

  “Just do it,” he says through clenched teeth, like I’m about to tattoo him.

  I look him over in his new tank top. It’s perfectly fitted, and the dark green works with the garish trim to make a sort of military combination. Gems will look weird wherever I put them, so I elect to put them on the inside of the collar, where only Luca will see them. He consents to this, and we’re quiet as I carefully dot on glue and press the stones on with my fingertips.

  “Sooooo,” he says while we wait for the glue to dry. “Your mom just lets you do whatever in here?”

  “It’s a multipurpose space. If we have an artist living with us, they use it as a workshop, but we haven’t had anyone here since May. So I use it.”

  The studio is a converted garage, insulated so that it stays cool in the summer and warm in the winter. We order in brand-new supplies for whoever is here, and the space is set up for a bunch of different media. The last person here was a wood-carver, so right now the sunny brightness of the studio is laced with the smell
of sawdust and scorched aspen.

  I watch Luca’s eyes land on each object as I describe the loft, the couch, the TV, and the bed. I watch his eyebrows carefully, but they betray no intent. I tell him about how May and Inaya and I have game nights in here, and the occasional party. Evie either doesn’t care about those, or doesn’t notice.

  “I recognize this,” Luca says, picking up a mannequin head. It’s a wig form, but right now it’s bald. “I thought this place would be smaller. I guess you just use that corner, though.”

  I remember belatedly that Luca has seen my videos. I still find it hard to understand.

  “Do you watch a lot of cosplayer streams?”

  “Just yours,” he says. He glances back at me, and I find myself drifting after him. Before I make it too far, I force myself to stop, one hand gripping the table. Then, because I’m sure I’ll forget myself again, I sit on the table and crush my hands under my thighs.

  “You’re so fast,” Luca says. “I’m always amazed at how quickly you make stuff.”

  “I’ve been doing it for a long time.”

  “I wish I could do what you do. I have all these ideas I would make if I knew how to do it.”

  Luca’s voice contains an entire reality that only he can see. One full of characters and costumes that live in his head, not at his fingertips, like in the reality I’ve shown him.

  “You’re good at other stuff,” I say, rocking on my hands. Luca crosses behind me, but I keep my eyes ahead on the glass of the cabinets, watching his reflection.

  “Like what?” he asks.

  “Soccer, I assume.”

  He stops moving, turning to smile at my back. Then, catching my eye in the reflection, he leans against the table.

  “You like soccer?” he asks.

  “No.”

  “But you like soccer players.”

  The question catches us both off guard. I decide I have no reason to lie, having just taken in, washed, and clothed this boy after he interrupted me painting. Finally, I turn to face him.