About midway through the next week was when Rarity and I went on our outing to the mall. Her idea of fun seemed to be dragging me around from clothing shop to clothing shop to “fix that horrid style” of mine. In my defense, I used to be much better about the clothes I wore out in public and was fairly concerned with my physical appearance as well. Considering that I was becoming more active with Rainbow Dash and Applejack, all of that was slowly coming back to me, but most of it had been lost throughout my state of depression. Yes, I enjoyed looking good, but as for the idea of fashion, I would applaud her if she actually got me interested in it.
“Oh, come, dear, it’ll be a magnificent evening,” she explained, her hand clasped around my wrist as she pulled me into the mall. I was suddenly hesitant due to a thought which popped into my mind.
“What if… what if people think I’m your gay friend or something? Isn’t this the perfect stereotype?”
She paused for a moment and placed her free hand upon her chin as she pondered the thought. “I guess I never really thought of it like that until now. Certainly not only gay men go shopping with their female friends.”
“Uh, certainly they do… I mean, even if people aren’t actually dumb enough to believe something like that, they’ll still make fun of me, especially if we see someone from CHS or something.”
“You’re not going to let the opinion of others bother you, now, are you?”
“Heh, look who’s talking,” I grumbled, giving her a mischievous smirk.
“Oh… oh… I do not dress the way I do simply for the attention if that’s what you’re trying to get at! I, well, I-I do it for myself… of course, er, fine. If worse does come to, you can tell them that I am your girlfriend,” she muttered softly, her voice tapering off into a whisper as she spoke the final dreaded word. She cleared her throat and returned to her normal tone. “Simply because that will be the easiest way to discern between any thoughts about you being homosexual and the reality of the matter.”
“Heh, um, yeah, alright, sounds like a plan to me,” I muttered, scratching the back of my neck nervously and attempting not to blush at the idea.
“Remember, I’m only doing this for your own well-being. Don’t think for a moment to take advantage of it, and yes, it is only make-believe.” Although the idea had made me even more anxious and uncomfortable than I already was at first, it did end up calming me after the initial shock. I felt composed enough to stroll through the mall with Rarity, but the thought of her picking out close for me was still quite concerning.
Nearly as immediately as we walked into the mall, it’s cool but stuffy air poured into my lungs. Throngs of people ranging from many ages filled my vision along with the many different texts and backgrounds of the shop names along the edges. Then, of course, there was the incessant rumble of voices, laughter, and feet pattering against the tiled floor. I could barely even set my attention upon the mall’s rather dull architecture and interior, mainly consisting of whitish, almost faded hues. It seemed as though, excluding the stores themselves, the place was in need of a remodel. Yet, recalling my struggle to pay attention to this aspect rather than the hordes of shoppers, it’s understandable as to why they hadn’t. Did anyone really care about it besides the fact that it kept them cool or warm and provided the many shops they wanted to visit?
I felt slightly overwhelmed by the abundance of noise and people, leading to a sense of exhaustion and impatience even though we had yet to do anything. I had never appreciated malls, that being one of the reasons. I let out a long, drawn out yawn, stammering slightly from its surprising power.
“Now, dear, don’t tell me you’re not up for this now,” Rarity whined with concern as she paused a moment so I could catch up to her.
For a short moment, I pondered saying that I wasn’t, but, of course, I had been the one pushing for it… although clothes shopping wasn’t necessarily what I had expected. I should have since it was Rarity. “Yeah, I am, I just had a long day at school. I’ll be good though.” In reality, my day at school was fairly normal, maybe slightly busy, but nothing I wasn’t used to. I figure it was the anxiety and stress that got to me so quickly.
“Ah, well, in that case, how about after visiting a few shops we head to the cafeteria to get some coffee to liven us up a bit for more shopping?”
Coffee did sound like a great idea. I could always go for a cup of that wonderful liquid, especially in the state I was in. “Alright, sounds good,” I said with a nod and smiled.
“Then let’s get shopping. The longer we wait around, the longer it is until you get that coffee, you know?”
Although not pulled this time at least, she did usher me along hurriedly to the nearest store she had approved for me. I had no time to read the sign above its entrance. Though I could immediately guess what kind of store it was by the first few glances at the clothes it held. All of the clothes and accessories were incredibly modern and trendy, almost beyond trendy and on the verge of hipster. It was a store for teens my age and slightly below. I could feel the aura of douchey-ness oppressing my very being. Of course she would want to bring me to a place like that. At least, I thought to myself, at least she didn’t bring me to Hot Trot, the birthplace of all completely fake goth, emo, and punk kids along with those scene kids. They were almost as bad, if not worse than the jocks, hipsters and other popular students at CHS. Although Hot Trot had changed quite a bit since I first encountered it. I could always quench my nerdy desires there by purchasing an accessory or item related to one of my favorite shows or games. I guess I really have no room to shame it too much.
“So, uh, what exactly are we looking for?” I asked curiously, not exactly sure where to begin with all the almost foreign looking apparel around me.
“I figure this is the perfect place for buying you some everyday outfits. You do need an upgrade after all.”
“So pants, shorts, t-shirts…?” I asked, my eyes scanning the room for jeans or cargo shorts.
“Oh, darling, everyday outfits don’t consist only of simple t-shirts and jeans. How about instead, we start with some nicer collared shirts, some chinos perhaps, maybe even a pair of dyed slim fitting jeans, a new pair of shoes… I’m sure the one’s your wearing now even feel dreadful… and maybe some t-shirts… as long as they are fashionable enough. Oh, and we need accessories!”
“Please… whatever you do, don’t make me buy a scarf and fake glasses,” I groaned, smacking a hand against my face.
“Of course not!” Rarity gasped in response, offended by my statement. “That style went out a few years ago.”
“So, you’ve evolved beyond hipster even?” I teased.
“Oh, puh-lees, darling. I’m a fashionista, not a hipster.”
“Whatever you say, Rarity,” I said with a smirk, chuckling to myself.
“Anyways, enough of this. Let’s get you in some new clothes!” she cooed in excitement, once again pulling me along. First I was pulled to a section of khaki colored pants, a khaki rainbow so to speak considering that there was every shade of khaki that ever existed there. At first I was drawn to the darker brown and green shades. I looked back at Rarity, hoping for praise or encouragement considering the fact that I was actually getting somewhere with what she wanted of me. Instead, she shook her head with disapproval, a slight pout upon her face.
“No?” I asked in confusion.
“No,” she said with a shake of her head, “an incompetent employee must have forgotten to switch these out for the spring and summer. You need to be wearing brighter colors for this time of year.
“Oh, um… so tan and stuff? I don’t really think I-”
“Yes,” she interrupted quickly, pulling me back to the lighter side of the shelves of khaki, “tan, light brown, perhaps a lighter green if you’d like.”
“Alright… wait, these look a little small,” I muttered, pulling a pair of light brown and light green pants from the shelves and putting them in front of my legs. “The length is fine… but…”
“They’re meant to be fitted.”
“Oh, so they’re like skinny jeans?”
“No, chinos.”
“Alright, alright,” I muttered, not necessarily wanting to be roped into buying such tight pants.
“Check their sizes. If it’s your size, they’ll be perfect. Go change into a pair and show me before taking them back off.” Our little shopping venture reminded me of my younger years when my mother would buy my clothes. Just like Rarity, she would pick everything out, make me put whatever clothing article it was on and tell me whether or not she liked it. The only difference was the fact that I wasn’t getting all of my new clothes for free this time.
“Maybe I should just get one pair of these… I don’t want to spend so many bits.”
“Oh, we can worry about that later,” Rarity said with a shrug. “For now let’s focus on making you look good.”
“Um… I don’t know.”
“Yes, that’s what we’re doing. Keep both for now,” she said sternly, wagging her finger in my direction. Darting into the nearest opened changing room, I went about changing into the new pants. I soon realized how oddly snug and tight they really were once I pulled them up to my waist. It certainly wasn’t a struggle like some people portrayed it to be, but they were certainly much tighter than I was used to. I figured I didn’t even need a belt to hold the things up, and they clung to my legs rather uncomfortably.
I stepped out of the room awkwardly, feeling the pants clench slightly around my crotch as I attempted to step. I was sure Rarity could see the uncomfortable look upon my face when she raised an eyebrow at me and smirked. “They look great on you, dear. They show off your legs and hips very well.”
“I don’t know… they don’t feel right, and well, yeah…” I muttered, resisting the urge to pull the material away from my crotch.
“They’re not that tight, really, well, at least not as tight as you think they are. You’ll get used to them after wearing them once or twice. I promise,” she said with a nod and smiled.
“Uh… do they really look good on me though?”
“Of course.”
“Alright… if you say so. I’ll trust your judgement.” Did I really trust her judgement though? Some of the things she wore and made were certainly… modern. The pants weren’t so bad though, nothing too flashy or out of the ordinary. After that, she picked out two button down shirts for me, one with a tribal-esque or perhaps even southwestern looking pattern on it along with a white shirt with small black polka dots. Then she picked out a nice striped cotton t-shirt, a pair of brightly colored slip on shoes, and one pair of fitted shorts that seemed a little too short. I grumbled at the growing pile of clothes in my outstretched arms. It wasn’t necessarily big, but I knew that even just that amount of attire was going to cost me. Clothes were expensive, too expensive.
I walked up to the cashier and gulped nervously as I watched the total rise with the annoying beep of each barcode being scanned. I waited impatiently between those beeps as the clerk removed the security devices from the more expensive button down shirts and folded them neatly before they were pushed into a bag. Finally, she spoke the total aloud, slightly over 100 bits. I felt as if I was going to faint. I could feel the air coursing into my lungs as I sucked in a deep breath and then expelled in shaking horror. This was only the first stop, and I was already about to spend more than I ever wanted to. I watched in astonishment as what first seemed to be Rarity extending her hand in my direction. I quickly discovered that it was instead moving towards the clerk, a piece of gold colored plastic between her fingers. “I’ll be paying today,” she said in a confident tone.
“I… uh, um, what?” I muttered beneath my breath, my eyes still wide and my mouth hanging open. The two seemed to be paying little attention to me as they mingled with delightfully fake small talk. The clerk’s eyes moved to me. She certainly seemed to be wearing her part, her entire outfit looking like what was displayed on the mannequins set up around the store.
“Yeah, your boyfriend’ll definitely look way better in this stuff than he does right now.”
She was quite blunt about her insult, but I was much too embarrassed to care. “Uh, heheh, yeah… such a great girlfriend buying me clothes and all…” I muttered, my eyes darting to the nearest section of clothes as my cheeks lit up. Along with that, I was completely dumbfounded. Why would Rarity ever buy clothes for me? Was I really that desperately in need of new clothes? It certainly wasn’t just a simple act of kindness, or at least 100 bits didn’t seem simple. Maybe her parents were just that rich? She did seem like the type that came from money after all.
“Th-thanks… so much,” I managed to get out as we left the store, the new plastic bag in my hand. “I just, wow, are you sure you don’t want me to give you half back or something?”
“No, darling, not at all. It’s perfectly fine. Consider it a gift.”
“That’s a really expensive gift though. I have to do something to pay you back at least.”
“Well, I’m sure you’ll think of something eventually. No need to worry about it now. Let’s worry about that coffee instead, shall we?”
“Uh, yeah, sure,” I said rather giddily. My evening was turning out much better than expected, and I’ll admit that I was in a fairly ecstatic mood by that point.
After waiting in a small line of those ready to receive their evening fix of caffeine, we approached the small Ponybucks insert, and I gazed up at the wall of pricey espresso based beverages. It seemed as though the label was the most expensive part considering that I knew for a fact that none of the drinks cost as much as they did. All in all, the money would have went to buying clothes anyways, and coffee, even of the Ponybucks variety, was much cheaper than that. I figured I would pay for Rarity’s coffee as well considering what she had just done for me. We both decided on frappes, in part to celebrate the warming weather outside.
“Separate or together?” the college-aged barista said as she pushed up her thick rimmed glasses and gazed down at the cash register.
“Together,” I said with a nod, pulling a small pile of bits out of my pocket.
“That’ll be eight bits,” she said in a dull tone. By the exhausted look in her eyes, it seemed as though she was struggling to reach the end of her shift. I couldn’t believe two frappes were going to cost me eight bits, but it was mainly a thanks for Rarity anyways. I reluctantly placed them into her outstretched palm. “Alright, those’ll be out in a sec.”
“Well, you certainly didn’t have to do that, dear,” Rarity said sweetly as I stepped aside with her to wait. “That was very kind.”
“Hey, it’s the least I can do after you bought me all these clothes,” I said, lifting the bag slightly.
“Well, thank you anyways,” she said over the sound of our drinks being blended, giving me a smile. After receiving them, we found a small table out in the cafeteria. It was somewhat off to the side but facing the flow of shoppers so we could watch them go about their leisure. I looked down at the mound of whipped cream drizzled with syrup atop my drink before taking a sip of the pleasingly sweet but bold treat. For a moment, the two of us were silent as we sipped away at our drinks, watching the flow of shoppers move from store to store. Due to the fact that I had never gotten an answer, the question of why she bought the clothes for me once again came to mind. I had to ask.
“So, Rarity,” I said. Her sapphire blue eyes turned to me, and her perfectly done hair swayed stiffly from the movement.
“Yes?”
“Why exactly did you buy these for me? I, mean, it’s really great and all, thanks again… but why?” I asked, fumbling over my own words.
“Because giving is truly a wonderful thing, even better than receiving if you ask me. By giving you could completely change the course of someone’s day. You could pull them out of a rut. You could make their good day even better. No matter the case, it is always absolutely precious to see the reaction you receive when performing such generous acts… and you know what? Giving is only the beginning of the cycle. If you give, you get. Then you give again, and you get again. If you help someone, they will help you, perhaps when you most need it. It all works out perfectly. Of course on occasion, my generous nature does get abused, but I refuse to let people like that get in the way of things. I will keep being me.”
My jaw was agape by the time Rarity had finished her speech. I struggled to shorten the many things I suddenly wanted to say to her into a single statement or two. It was incredible, really. I had seen Rarity’s generous attitude in action before on occasion, but never enough to give it the thought it deserved. At first glance and sometimes even in her speech and personality, Rarity seemed much more inclined to be the type of girl that cared for herself and only herself. To witness the true Rarity and her thoughts about how she lived life was astonishing. Yes, she did care about herself, but that obsession seemed more than healthy when set beside her strong desire to be so giving to those around her, including those she barely knew. After spending an evening at the mall with her, even about an hour or so in, I already appreciated her much more than I had before. I had wanted the trip to end swiftly at first, but after our little discussion, I didn’t want it to end at all. Oh, and yes, it turned out that shopping for clothes was literally exactly like it used to be when I was young, besides the fact that Rarity certainly wasn’t my mother.
***
Near the end of our shopping escapade, the two of us ended up in a store of higher quality apparel. I wouldn’t necessarily call it high class, but certainly much more expensive than where we had been shopping. I was getting uncomfortable with the idea of Rarity spending even more of her money on me. Along with that, I already had enough clothes from the other stores we had visited. I told her the latter half, but she wanted us to still look around just in case something caught my eye. Something certainly did catch my eye, and it wasn’t clothes. It was her.
I was never that interested in superficial girls, besides their outward appearance, and Rarity was not at all superficial like I had first assumed. Considering the fact that she looked the part, Rarity really was a rarity. She was beautiful and a truly good person. A relationship with her certainly seemed as though it would be a stereotypical one at first glance. I would have to buy her plenty of presents, take her out to expensive restaurants, and treat her as much as I could. Yet, the difference would be that she would do exactly the same for me in return. It would sort of be symbiotic in a way. We would both be spending money on each other, but in reality it would almost be like we were spending it on ourselves. A problem would certainly arise if we were ever to get married though. We would end up spending our shared money on one another rather than separately… but thinking about marriage was quite extreme for only spending one evening with a girl I still didn’t know all that well.
I was shaken from these thoughts when I heard a gasp escape Rarity’s mouth as we passed by the jewelry case next to the cashier. Rarity certainly did love her jewelry, enough to come to a halt so quickly that I nearly crashed into her.
“Oh… it’s magnificent,” she cooed placing her hands on the sparkling glass casing and leaning down for a better look. “Hehehe!” she then giggled in delight. What had caught her eyes was a pair of sapphire earrings at a price of seventy five bits. Of course she would want them. They matched the rest of her diamond-esque apparel along with her eyes almost perfectly. “Ohhh,” she whimpered softly, pouting as she continued to stare. She then pulled her phone from her pocket and began typing something into her browser. After another session of typing she whined again. “I figured as much. I don’t have enough left on my credit ca-har-hard! Hmpf!” She turned away from the case, her fists clenched and her body stiff.
“Uh… hey, it’s okay. Calm down, I’m sure you can get it another time.”
“But what if they’re all gone? It’s not like jewelry like this lasts forever!”
“I’m sure it’ll be here for the next couple of weeks,” I said as comfortingly as I could.
“I can’t take the chance. Either I must buy the earrings now, or I never, ever get to possess such beautiful pieces of art. They are perfect for me, don’t you think?” Her acting was quite overdramatic, but I knew there was some truth behind it. She really did want the earrings. I suddenly felt the weight of the bits in my pocket. Seventy five bits was still less than what she had paid for my new clothes. This seemed to be the perfect time to return the favor.
“How badly do you want those earrings, Rarity?” I questioned, causing her to look up at me from her thoughts.
“Oh, so badly, dear. So badly!”
“Then why don’t you ask to have them taken out of the case?”
“Weren’t you listening? I don’t have the bits!” she paused for a moment and tapped a finger upon her soft lips before gasping. “Unless you mean… you don’t mean…. Do you?”
“I do,” I said proudly, giving her a smug grin. She giggled with joy and wrapped her arms around me in an embrace. I placed my arms around her small frame and held her close as she squeezed my waist.
“What a sweetheart,” she cooed as she pulled away.
“Someone certainly knows how to treat her lady right,” said the clerk behind the counter, dressed in a vest and a well-ironed shirt.
“Uh, um, yeah, I guess I do,” I muttered, slightly taken aback by the statement. Rarity was suddenly hanging onto my side. I’ll admit I was a bit infatuated at that point. It was incredibly nice to have such a beautiful girl hanging onto me. Yet, at the same time, I was already questioning the relationship we would have with one another. The two of us together, it seemed unbelievable, just like what I had with Sunset. It would never work, even if we did somehow manage to get close enough. That didn’t mean I wasn’t going to be her friend though. Perhaps, being optimistic, it somehow could work, but for the time being, I would have to focus on friendship.
Rarity jumped, or better compared to a couple of half-hearted hops as to not ruin her glamorous appearance for the clerk, once I had purchased the earrings. So ecstatic, she even used the shops mirror to take out her previous pair and replace them with the new. “They look lovely,” she said, admiring them and herself in the mirror. Along with that, she took the chance to gussy herself up a bit. “This is the perfect end to our evening.”
“Yeah, I guess you’re right,” I said with a laugh, feeling the corners of my mouth turning up into a smile. “We should really spend some more time together.”
“Oh, yes, I’d love to. It’s nice to have a guy to enjoy all of my rather, well, feminine pass times with.”
“H-hey,” I muttered in embarrassment.
“Oh, please, I was only kidding.”
“Yeah, I know, I know.
“Only under one condition though.”
“Uh, what?”
“You have to be wearing the clothes I’ve bought for you. I simply can’t be seen with someone dressed as unfashionably as you are right now any longer.”
“H-” I paused immediately as she winked.
“Teasing again… well, mostly.” Whether or not she was teasing, I would wear those clothes. Not only was I thankful to have them, but they actually represented something, a friendship between me and Rarity.