My Virtual Lover

Live 33:The Gamers Shopping Spree

“This is good for you!” her father throws a pink dress toward Jury’s face. “Far better than your gothic dress”.

Her father drags her to the nearest boutique, throwing everything suitable for her. She groans at the weight of the dresses her father throws at her arms, the young woman had to try them all. She tries the dress, whether it’s suitable with her body posture. In the changing room, she poses in front of the mirror.

Her flabby stomach shows in the mirror, she groans thinking about her flabby stomach. Perhaps, she needs to think of a workout schedule to maintain her body posture. Jury just arrived at the boutique and she got dragged a lot by her father, he’s worried about her fashion style.

“You do know how worried I am, it’s a big party! I don’t want to make you look like a rag doll in the middle of the ball!” he grumbles unenthusiastically. “You are my daughter! Therefore, dress appropriately!”.

She sighs as she tries all the dresses he puts on the basket for her, she tries them off lazily. However, she finds a good raven mini skirt dress that attracts her attention. She tries it on, quite surprised to see herself looking elegant in front of the mirror. Black is her favorite color, it could cover the layer of fat on her stomach.

After putting in lots of thought, she decides to ask the shopkeeper to keep it for her. Her father, as usual, was unsatisfied with just one store. He then moves from one boutique to another to see all the available clothes for her to wear. She follows obediently as she sighs along the way, exhausted from the previous stream.

“You look exhausted, did you do your job well?” her father asks her.

“Yes, I did! I’m so exhausted right now” she groans. “Do we have to find the dress now?”.

He nods affirmatively, telling her that it’s not easy to find the right clothes for her since her body is short, breast size is above average. Her father can find her the most suitable clothes for her, but none of the clothes is her type. However, she had to obey her since she had the worst fashion taste.

“Your fashion taste is questionable, I don’t want you to pick your dress,” her father says in high demand. “I don’t want you to-”.

“Shame your reputation, yes I know” she growls.

They move from one place to another, the skies are getting dark before they even know it. Several boutiques they chose to visit but none of them satisfy her father’s taste. She then asks her father if he had enough to visit the boutique since he’s been going in circles around the mall.

“It’s not enough! You need to wear a dazzling beautiful dress for the gala!” he clenches his fist. “I have to find it, otherwise you’ll pick something disastrous”.

“Like what?” she asks him.

“Well, like your graveyard dress” he crosses his arm. “I’m running out of ideas, why don’t you the one who decides what you want to wear, then I’ll judge it”.

Jury then shows the previous raven dress to her father, it’s not a gothic dress that’s for sure. It’s a simple black elegant dress with a zipper in the middle of it. She puts the dress on her from the changing room, she shows her father the dress and he merely nods at her choice. He gives an ‘ok’ nod, but still somewhat disagrees.

He commented it was a nice choice, simplistic but giving the cool vibe. It suits her tomboyish nature. However, he still wants to see if her daughter’s fashion taste is growing better than before. At least he acknowledges the black dress one, he asks if she had another dress that she wants to show to him.

She nods, this time moving from the previous store to another one with a minimalist design. She wears a monochrome dress, like a chessboard pattern on the skirt and a pure black on the top. He gives his ‘no’ almost immediately since her choice pick is always strange. Her choice mostly consists of the color black and white.

“Don’t you have any other choice than black and white?” Julius sighs. “Your color choices terrify me”.

“It’s the easiest color to choose! Come on!” she growls.

She then moves to another clothes store with pastel colors, she picks the blue pastel dress. It’s a blue frilly dress with a white mix into it, just like Alice in Wonderland concept. He nods as he looks at the dress, he gives a thumbs up which means it’s a good dress overall. They exited the clothes store, her father approves of her fashion taste.

“I’m surprised that your taste is getting better, fashion taste I mean” he coughs awkwardly. “Although, slightly questionable with the checkered patterned dress”.

“At least I tried” she rolls her eyes.

He now asks her which dress she wants to wear, he approves the raven one along with the blue pastel one since it’s a nice one. She looks back at the boutique shop, thinking whether she wants the blue one. As she brainstorms for the dress she wants to wear, her cellphone vibrates in her pocket.

Nullworld is contacting him, texting her with the progress of the rebranding. She texts him back that it’s eighty percent done, she will send the final result tomorrow in the morning for him to check. She hopes she gets her dress done since the time on her cellphone screen already shows eight o’clock at the night, exhaustion overwhelmed her mind.

Not wanting to think, she finally chose the dress based on what she liked more.

“I know what I’ll choose” she groans.

“I think I know which one” her father groans as well.

* * *

“A ball? Wait, Gala?” Kevin raises his eyebrows when he heard from his aunt that he had to join their family birthday party.

Their distant cousin will have a birthday party in a city called Surabaya, he was invited to join the ball of course. He wants to say that he’s lazy, but he stays in his uncle’s house which makes him lack the option to refuse the offer. Kevin rolls his eyes, remembering the content of his wardrobe is full of plain casual clothes instead of formal ones.

Rather, he hasn’t bought anything ever since he graduates high school. He’s too shy to ask his aunt to buy him one as if his aunt reads his mind the woman pats his shoulder and nods to him affirmatively.

“Don’t worry, I’ll buy one” she smiles. “Let’s go together with your uncle”.

It was so quick that Kevin can’t process the words his aunt just said to him. The whole family gets dressed, along with Kevin to go to the nearest department store. Everyone is proactive in choosing his shirt, even his niece is also on the charade. They’re all in the Kijang Innova car, his uncle is the one who’s driving.

“I want to pick the best clothes for you!” his niece hugs him. “You’re always nice to me so I’ll pick our wedding clothes!”.

“Excuse me, what?” Kevin raises his eyebrows the moment he hears the word wedding escapes her mouth.

“Sorry about that, my niece just watched a wedding show on the television” his uncle smiles sheepishly.

Kevin’s eyes gazed on the streetlights they passed, it’s been a while since he goes out with the whole family since he’s busy with Holorealm and college. He’s always been the shy one in the family, he lives there because he had to. The glasses weeb doesn’t want to ask for their help, rather he feels like he needs to help then since he’s staying at their house for free.

“Is it alright for me to buy-”.

“You’re our relative! Of course, it’s completely fine!” his aunt pats Kevin’s shoulder. “Especially that you’re so smart, to be able to get in the most prestigious college! You’re brilliant!”.

Kevin thanked her uncomfortably, a part of him wants to scream internally because being praised isn’t exactly his favorite. He fears that his family is expecting too much of him due to his excellent grades when he’s in high school. Now that he attends online class, his head is practically empty.

Nothing enters his mind except for the boring lectures coming from the impatient lecturer. It also makes it hard for him to focus that he can’t see the examples and samples the lecturer wants to say. Offline classes are much better and superior for learning, he somewhat regrets attending college in the middle of a pandemic.

“How’s college?” his uncle asks the quiet weeb. “Have you been doing well so far?”.

“Yes, it’s been good to me” Kevin replies short.

The silence filled the car in tranquility, Kevin doesn’t know what to say anymore; the man merely waits for more questions to be thrown at him.

“Oh, how’s your girlfriend doing Kevin?” his aunt asks the fatality questions right on the bat.