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Seunggil Lee had three good reasons to be in Bangkok, Thailand. Firstly, he deserved a vacation after his honestly stellar performance at the 2018 PyeongChang Winter Olympics. Secondly, his newly acquired friend Phichit Chulanont had invited him to the city. Thirdly, the best selling feature of the entire city was the cafe that let you hang out and pet Huskies. Phichit had sent a link with his suggestion of the city and Seunggil had immediately agreed to visit. He also liked spending time with Phichit, of course. He didn’t have a lot of close friends besides his sister. JJ was also his friend and Seunggil had visited him before, but the Canadian was busy planning his wedding with Isabella as well as assisting his parents on training his younger siblings. Seunggil didn’t wish to interfere.
So here Seunggil was, standing alone in the airport. He flew in a few hours earlier than he told Phichit, mostly so he could go to the Husky cafe once by himself before going there later in the week with his friend. Seunggil really liked Huskies, he couldn’t help it. He got a ride to his hotel and dropped his luggage off before making his way to the fated cafe. He was especially excited and didn’t notice the group of people clearly visible through the window. He, however, was noticed by them, and whispers tore through the mass of skirts and dresses. Seunggil was quickly seated and he ordered as fast as possible to get the DOGS, those heavenly animals. He missed his own Princess already. He looked up from the decorated menu when he heard the distinct click of wide heels.
“Seunggil?” A gorgeous Thai stood a few feet from his table in a poofy patterned dress. It was mainly yellow, with white and gold trims. The images around the bottom hem showed pancakes and various pancake/breakfast-related items. A lace blouse underneath the dress accented the detailed bodice. Red striped tights and a red bow on their black hair coordinated perfectly with the red of the print. Their shoes were intricate and gold. Bright red lipstick framed a familiar smile and, upon further inspection of the person’s face, Seunggil found that it was Phichit inside the frills and wig.
“Phichit?” He moved to stand up and Phichit waved a hand to keep him down. The dolled-up Thai gave the Korean a quick half hug before sitting across from him at the two person table. “What are you up to here?”
“I had a lunch meetup.” He stated, messing with the edge of his dress.
“That’s a really pretty dress. I’ve never seen anything like it.” Seunggil studied the top of the piece, the only part visible at the moment. Phichit grinned again, relaxing slightly.
“Thank you! It’s a print called Honey Cake by Angelic Pretty. The others were saying that if we were having a coord contest at this meet, I would have won.” He turned to give a smile to another table and Seunggil mirrored the action to find more people in lovely outfits.
“Wow.” He muttered.
“You’ve probably given the best reaction to my hobby, Seunggil, and I wasn’t even prepared for you to find out.”
“Do people usually have a problem with your outfits?” The Korean refocused on his friend, concerned.
“Yuuri introduced me, since he had friends in J-Fashions and the like. GuangHong was..scared? At first. But now he’s a lolita too, at conventions or when we can go to meets together. Leo got the wrong impression when I was explaining it, because the word ‘lolita’ has some other meaning from a sex book or something. Chris also knew that term, but he saw a few controversial prints and got worried.”
“I’ve never seen you post about this before. You look so nice, I don’t see why you don’t.” Seunggil looked over at a dog to refrain from making eye contact while complimenting his friend. He did look very nice - he usually did. Phichit chuckled.
“Thank you, Seunggil. Brolitas are less common around here and crossdressing,” he makes air quotes, “isn’t always appropriate, especially with a public figure as myself. I’m already pushing a lot of boundaries with my normal fashions. This is completely out of those boundaries.”
“If it makes you happy, I don’t see why it should bother them.” Seunggil thanked the waiter when his food arrived and he happily greeted the husky that approached him. “How do you keep it hidden, though? The other people in your group must know your identity.”
“Funny thing there, actually. I go by สวยงาม in my comm and I have a private lolita account for coordinate and meet pictures where I usually obscure my face. It did take you a moment to recognize me, no? I’m a familiar face to you, unlike to most of these people. They’ve only seen me in wigs and full makeup. If they have suspicions, they don’t bring them up. Plus, I use female pronouns in my group too.”
“Do you have an excuse for talking to me now? If they know who I am, they’ll definitely have suspicions.”
“Oh, we all saw you. I was kind of talking about you a lot today… I’m a big fanboy of skating, even as a skater myself, so I can play off that obsession really well with my comm. I told them that I was chatty with you online, said GuangHong was a mutual friend - he’s more open about his cute hobbies online and we technically did meet at conventions before. I said you were visiting Phichit and we were gonna meet up when you two weren’t busy and they were going down a wild rabbit hole of theories when we saw you.” Phichit smiled more and laughed again, a little nervously.
“What kind of wild rabbit hole?” Seunggil was very happy with his current company - cute boy and cute dogs (another had joined the first).
“Um…” Phichit shifted his hair to the other shoulder and tapped the table. “Like, theories about our relationship, if we were more than just friends or something.” His voice was low and cautious, timid. He wasn’t entirely sure how Seunggil classified their friendship or which way he swang.
“What did you tell them?” The Korean looked up at his friend, his eyes full of curiosity but also hope. Phichit stared at him for a moment.
“I...I told them…” He adjusted a ring on his finger. “I said I shipped it,” he whispered.
“Mmm.” Seunggil nodded, petting the dogs and smiling softly. There was a long pause as Phichit watched his friend and crush calculate and react. “I ship it too.”
“Excuse me?!” Phichit somehow strangled his voice down from a shout and gaped at his companion. They made eye contact and they both understood in that moment what was happening. “Okay. Okay. Maybe we should continue this conversation away from the prying eyes and ears of my comm. I’ll say goodbye, you finish your food and say farewell to the doggos.” Seunggil nodded. Gosh, he had a lot more to look forward to with this trip now.