Was that…?

Was that really her?

Seulgi couldn’t believe what she saw. Were her eyes playing tricks on her? Was it all a dream?

She grabbed her right cheek with her thumb and index finger, making sure she got a good amount of it, and pinched herself. Hard.

Yep. It hurt. She wasn’t dreaming. It was reality.

There she was: the girl who captured her heart years ago. She’d recognize that high side ponytail anywhere. Seulgi never imagined that she would see her there at the park of all places, but there was no mistaking it. It really was her, standing under a tree with a slightly annoyed expression that made Seulgi’s heart pound.

Misty.

(Or rather, a cosplayer that purposely made herself look like Misty.)

Instead of having Misty's iconic fiery orange hair, the girl had dark brown hair but she wore Misty's signature look: a side ponytail on the upper top part of her head. It wasn't spiky as the gym leader's (because people in real life didn't naturally have exaggerated, unnaturally colored, spiky hair) and was significantly longer, but she made it work.

She had a small, petite frame and wore the classic yellow tank top with red suspenders that connected to her ripped jean shorts; exactly like Misty. Seulgi even saw the girl wearing red shoes with a gold lightning strike in the middle—another characteristic of the classic Misty look.

Such dedication. Wow. She really went all out.

Seulgi never considered herself to be a cosplay expert, but she definitely appreciated the attention to detail that girl put into her outfit. It didn’t hurt that the cosplayer herself was cute too.

As a child, Seulgi loved Pokémon and collected the trading cards, played the video games, watched the anime; if it was Pokémon related, Seulgi did it.

Although Seulgi liked the serie's main character, Ash Ketchum, she secretly liked his female traveling companion, Misty, more. A lot more. The spunky orange-haired Cerulean City gym leader was smart, tough, could hold her own in battles, and always saved Ash whenever he got himself into trouble. Misty wasn't the typical damsel in distress character that cartoons always seemed to have; the type that always had to be saved by other people and cried whenever she encountered trouble. No. Misty could hold her own against the toughest of trainers and was a fierce fighter despite only having water type Pokémon.

Seulgi would never admit it out loud to anyone, but she had a crush on the gym leader when she was younger. She didn't even how someone could have a crush on a fictional character. How did that even happen? Seulgi didn't know, but she did know that she loved Misty, so seeing Misty in real life made her pause in awe.

Obviously it wasn't really Misty (because she was an anime character and anime characters didn’t exist in real life no matter how hard some people wished it was true), but the girl cosplaying Misty was unbelievably gorgeous.

Seulgi could feel her poor little gay heart swell with happiness. There was something satisfying about seeing her favorite character from childhood come to life.

But Misty wasn't alone.

Next to her was a slightly shorter girl who wore the weirdest, yet coolest, glasses Seulgi ever saw in her life. The frame was that of a Squirtle’s face that extended upwards and covered the top part of the girl's face; from the bridge of her nose all the way up to the top of her forehead. Thegirl was wearing her hair down and ran past her shoulders. She sported a light yellow short sleeved shirt with some dark blue shorts and had a backpack that looked like a Squirtle shell on her back. Underneath the shell was a cute, little blue curled up tail that was one of the many distinguishing characteristics of the famous water Pokémon.

“IT’S A FREAKING SQUIRTLE! I CAN’T BELIEV—” the shorter girl exclaimed as she jumped around, her cute curled up tail bobbing up and down in the process. It almost looked like the tail was moving on its own, like it was a real tail attached to her, and flapped around much like a dog would do when it was excited.

“Yeri! Stop yelling!” the Misty cosplayer chastised as she slapped the shorter girl’s arm. The Squirtle, who was named Yeri apparently, yelped in pain. She rubbed her sore arm and pouted for a few moments before that pout transformed into a devious smile; a smile that reminded Seulgi of a certain blonde devil she knew too well.

Yeri whistled innocently as she casually walked behind Misty, who was busy paying attention to what was going on her own cell phone. Her grin spread wider as she opened her hand, glanced at Misty’s then looked back at her hand again before suddenly raising it and delivering a swift smack.

It wasn’t a soft smack either from what Seulgi heard. That had to hurt.

“Ow!” the Misty cosplayer groaned as she rubbed her poor which probably stung with pain from the force Yeri hit it with.

Seulgi’s eyes automatically fixated themselves on the cosplayer’s rear end. She had a pretty cute that looked nice and soft in those jean shorts. 

I wish I was that hand.

As soon as the thought passed through Seulgi’s mind, she paused and reflected. Maybe Wendy was right. Maybe she was thirsty.

She needed to calm down. She lightly slapped her cheeks, attempting to get rid of the thirst before continuing to observe the two cosplayers.

“That’s what you get for hitting a poor cute little Pokémon like me,” the younger cosplayer laughed before running around Misty and slapping her again a few more times. She stuck her tongue out and patted her own , taunting the other girl, actions that clearly challenged her to try to get revenge.

“Catch me if you can~!” taunted Yeri she wiggled her at the other girl.

The Misty cosplayer huffed as she tried to hit the slapper’s own for revenge but failed. Yeri stepped out of the way at the right moment, causing the other girl to stumble forward a bit, but not fall completely as she managed to catch herself in time.

“You’re lucky I don’t want to mess up my outfit otherwise…!”

“Whatever Irene. Just admit that you can’t catch up to my speed. I’m faster than Sonic yo!”

Seulgi’s ears perked at the mention of that cute girl’s name. She made sure to store that little piece of information in the “Cute Cosplayer” folder in her brain. It might be useful later.

So her name is Irene. Interesting…

“Sonic isn’t even a Pokémon.”

Yeri did a dramatic hair flip. “Yeah well he’s blue and I’m blue. That’s all that matters. By the way…did you know there’s a Squirtle here?!”

Irene rolled her eyes, looking hot while doing so. “Yes. You only screamed it out like ten times for the world to hear.”

All Yeri did in response to the eyeroll was shrug while giving a crooked smile.

"I can't help that I get so excited when I see a fellow Squirtle. Besides aren't you going to catch it?" questioned Yeri as she tapped on her phone, still playing the game.

“I already got a Squirtle. I chose it as my starter Pokémon when we first started playing earlier anyways so I don’t need another one.”

"So? That doesn't mean you can't catch another one. If you get enough candies, you can evolve it into a Blastoise!"

Irene’s face scrunched up as if she chomped on a lemon and shook her head, side ponytail shaking with her.

"But I don't want a Blastoise.”

Seulgi saw the human Squirtle gasp dramatically as she placed her hand over . Her eyes probably widened in surprise too, but Seulgi wasn’t sure because of how big the Squirtle sunglasses were and how she couldn't see the girl's eyes from where she was standing.

“What is this blasphemy?!”

“I'm just saying: Squirtle is cuter.”

Yeri pointed an accusatory finger at Irene and stomped on the ground, clearly displeased with what she heard. "You're supposed to like all water type Pokémon! You're Misty!"

“Just because I’m cosplaying Misty doesn’t mean I’m actually Misty you know. I have my preferences.”

“It’s called ‘being in character!’”

The cosplayers continued bickering about water Pokémon, but Seulgi was distracted by something, or rather, someone else.

Seulgi couldn't take her eyes off Misty­—Irene. She was breathtaking. Was it because she was naturally beautiful? Or was it because Irene just so happened to be cosplaying her favorite character? Seulgi wasn’t sure, but she did know one thing: she was grateful girls existed.

The Pokémon trainer forced herself to tear her eyes away from Irene because staring was rude, and she didn't want to seem like a creep. She looked down at her phone, fighting with all her might against the urge to look up again and admire the beauty a ways from her, and forcing herself to focus on what was on her phone screen.

All she saw was her avatar standing around in the park in the game. Alone. Not too far from her was a Pidgey and an Ekans, but she caught enough of those already so she ignored them. She wanted to use her precious Pokéballs to capture a Pokémon that was more worthy. But there was one problem....

Squirtle was nowhere to be seen.

Where's Squirtle?

She tapped on random spots on the map, but there was no sign of the turtle. It didn’t appear on her screen even though she wasn’t that far from where it popped up according to Yeri's yelling. Maybe she was too far away and that's why it didn't show up on her screen?

Seulgi guessed that in order for it to appear, she had to get closer to where the cosplayers were standing. It made sense. When she was walking around with Wendy earlier (before the blonde loudly announced to the world that she needed to pee), Seulgi noticed that they always encountered the same Pokémon. The same thing should happen with the Squirtle unless life decided that Seulgi wasn’t worthy of encountering the adorable water Pokémon for some reason.

All she needed to do was test this theory out by walking forward and getting closer to where Irene was.

The situation was a win-win. Not only would she get a chance to catch the Squirtle, she would also have a perfect opportunity to get herself better acquainted with the gorgeous cosplayer. Seulgi just needed to walk towards Irene and engage in conversation. She should be able to something as simple as that right? It wasn't like Seulgi didn't have any experience interacting with others. She did it all her life. 

But right when Seulgi was going to take a step forward, her body froze. Fear and self doubt gnawed at her insides.

What if she said something stupid and made herself look like a fool? Pretty girls always made Seulgi's brain go stupid. She wasn’t sure if this happened to everyone, or if she just had a particularly strong weakness for beautiful women, but the girl had her fair share of embarrassing herself in front of those she found attractive.

Like when she was younger….

Seulgi bit the inside of her cheek as her grip around her phone tightened. The thought of heading back to the bathroom passed through her mind. She could easily avoid potentially embarrassing herself by just turning back, wait for Wendy to finish doing whatever she was doing, and play the game for a while before going home.

That was the "safe plan." A plan that ensured that she wouldn't humiliate herself any more than she already did that day.

But…what if she never saw that Misty cosplayer again?

That didn’t feel right.

No. You came this far already. Just go for it.

Today was a day of change. She was going to turn a new leaf and be more courageous. Seulgi successfully came out to her best friend. It wasn’t planned and happened earlier than she expected, but it happened. And she lived. If she could survive that, she could survive anything.

Seulgi wasn’t going to just let this chance pass her by. What if something good came out of it? She knew that if she didn’t take advantage of this opportunity, she would regret it. There was no guarantee that she’d ever see Irene again; she could be visiting from out of town or just be passing through for all Seulgi knew.

She wanted to at least compliment Irene’s outfit and maybe get a picture with her if she was lucky. Cosplayers liked taking pictures, right? As long as she asked for permission to take her picture nicely and didn’t come off as being creepy or weird, everything should be fine.

The bear took a deep breath and gathered up all the courage that was left inside her. If she could handle almost dying from fright when Wendy popped out of her closet unexpectedly and venturing into the deep, dark depths of the men’s bathroom to save said best friend, she could do something as simple as talking to this girl.

This would be a piece of cake in comparison.

Get it together. Don’t act awkward because Irene is attractive as hell. Like ridiculously attractive. Seriously how do people like that exist?!

With her phone in hand and the best friendly smile she could make (that she hoped didn’t make her look creepy or constipated), she confidently walked towards them, phone in hand. All she had to do was breathe and put one foot in front of the other. Maybe think of something cool to say to give a good first impression.

Everything was going well. She was getting closer to them with each step and she felt good. Plus, in her own humble opinion, her legs looked great in the shorts she decided to wear earlier so Seulgi gave herself a mental pat on the back. She just needed to act confident.

Seulgi channeled her inner Ash Ketchum and walked like she owned the place.

You got this Seulgi. Be confident like Ash.

It worked. She felt good, like she could take on the world.  Maybe she was overthinking everything. Maybe things would actually go well this time around.

But life had other plans for her.

While trying to think of something cool to say, Seulgi felt her foot dip into an unexpected hole in the ground that she, for some reason, didn’t see earlier and unexpectedly booked a one-way ticket to Floor-ida.

She fell flat on her face, phone flying out of her hand like it was on its own journey for freedom, and landed a few feet away from her. Normally she would've been yelling that she dropped her phone (especially from a hard fall like that) but that was the last thing on her mind.

Seulgi was more focused on the fact that she fell right in front of the two cosplayers.

Right in front of Irene.

The poor bear (whose face was full of grass and dirt which probably had a lot of germs in it) was mortified.

Welp there goes that plan.

She roughly shut her eyes and pushed her face deeper into the grass, hiding in shame. Seulgi cursed her rotten luck and wished with all her might to just disappear from existence. Not permanently of course (she wanted to do a lot of things in life like eat food from all over the world, go to a Pokémon Center, pet a lion), but long enough that she’d be able to escape that horribly embarrassing moment.

Seulgi waited to hear them laugh at her fail and mentally prepared herself for it, but she didn’t hear anything. Not even a little giggle. All she heard was a gasp and the sounds of shoes on grass running towards her before stopping right in front of her (from what she guessed based on what her ears heard.)

Maybe Wendy was finally done using the bathroom, saw that Seulgi fell and was going to about it. It wouldn’t be a surprise if she did. She would’ve preferred that happening over making herself look stupid in front of a cute girl.

At least, that’s what Seulgi thought until felt a warm hand touch her shoulder and heard a soft voice, laced with concern ask, “Are you okay?”

She hesitantly opened one eye and slowly cocked her head up to see what kind soul went through the trouble of checking on her well-being. When she saw who it was, her breath hitched. It was none other than Irene herself. Seulgi thought she looked good from a distance, but the girl looked even mesmerizing up close with her milky skin, those gorgeous chocolate eyes, those legs that Seulgi just wanted to hug…

Okay. Calm down. Don’t freak out. You got this. Just think of something cool to say.

“Yep. I was just trying to catch some Digletts. No biggie,” is what ended up coming out of . As soon as the words passed through her lips, Seulgi felt like smacking herself. Out of all the sentences she could have possibly said, that was the sentence that her brain put together in the span of one second.

Really Seulgi? That’s all you could come up with? Smooth. Real creative.

Irene’s look of concern turned into a dazzling smile that Seulgi thought was too bright for her mortal eyes to witness and giggled.

It was the cutest laugh Seulgi had ever heard in her life.

Irene bent down and extended her hand to Seulgi. "Here."

Seulgi just stared at the pretty hand for a moment before realizing that Irene wasn't randomly stretching her arm out and was offering to help Seulgi get up from off the grass like any good person would if they saw someone fall on the ground.

“Thanks,” Seulgi said as she took the hand and lifted herself off the ground with Irene's help. She tried her best not too rely too much on Irene's strength for help getting up. She didn't want to accidentally make the other girl fall and hurt herself.

Irene's hand was soft and warm but that was not the place, nor the time, to be relishing in that experience. Irene shifted her attention from Seulgi and looked around, scanning the area around them. It looked like she was was searching for something, but Seulgi didn't know what. That is, until the cosplayer murmured a faint "There it is" and walked towards a bright orange rectangular object lying a few feet away from them on the grass. It was an object that Seulgi recognized immediately. 

It was her phone which stood out like a sore thumb against the green grass with it's bright orange protective case.  Irene bent over, picked it up, and, after wiping off some dirt and grass that got on it from its flight, walked back to Seulgi.

The cosplayer held it out in front of Seulgi while smiling. “I believe this belongs to you.”

"T-thanks." Seulgi said as took the phone from Irene and inspected it to see if it suffered any damage during its earlier flight. Other than some dirt that got on the case, her phone was fine.

She didn’t even want to imagine what would’ve happened if her phone was . Just thinking about it made her wallet hurt. She didn't want to shell out any money for a new phone. Phones were already expensive enough as it is; she wasn't prepared to buy a new phone anytime soon.

Seulgi used her free hand to brush off some dirt that got on her shirt, knees, and legs while to think of something else to say to keep the conversation going instead of dying off. But the million-dollar question was: what should she talk about?

Thank Irene again? No. She already did enough of that already.  

Talk about the weather? No. That was reserved for when you literally couldn’t think of anything else to talk about. She wanted to put in more effort.

Maybe ask Irene if she had a boyfriend? No. That’d probably seem like she was coming on too strong. She didn’t want to potentially scare the other girl away and ruin her chance to get to know the other girl better.

While Seulgi was trying to think of a suitable conversation topic, her eyes landed on Yeri who took off her glasses and was looking at her curiously. Or maybe she was looking at Irene? They were right next to each other so Seulgi couldn’t tell for sure.

Her eyes landed on Yeri’s obnoxiously cute Squirtle glasses in her hand and a lightbulb immediately went off in Seulgi’s head. She knew exactly what to say. just needed to cooperate.

“I knew there was a Squirtle nearby, but I didn’t think I’d see a real one.”

Irene giggled. Seulgi thought it was the most adorable giggle she ever heard in her life.

“Trust me. You wouldn’t want to catch this one. She’s a real handful,” teased Irene as she walked up to Yeri and nudged the smaller girl with her elbow, who scoffed in response and immediately put her glasses back on. "I'm Irene by the way. And this troublesome Squirtle here is my little sister, Yeri."

“Excuse me, I think you meant to say ‘awesome’ because that’s what I am. Awesome. I’m the awesomest Squirtle ever,” the Squirtle boasted as she puffed her chest in pride and pointed to herself with her thumb.

Seulgi couldn’t help but think that’d be something Wendy would say.

“I'm Seulgi. Nice to meet you guys. Thanks for saving my life by the way, Irene."

"That's what I do. Save lives. It's part of my character," Irene responded with a wink that punched Seulgi straight in the heart and made her want to scream. But she couldn't scream out of nowhere like that because that would be weird. She tucked it deep inside her heart and made a note to scream about it later at home.

"Awesome cosplays by the way. Did you guys make them?" Seulgi wasn’t an expert on cosplaying or anything, but even a total newbie like her could tell that whoever made their cosplays had some serious talent.   

Irene shyly raised her hand. “I did actually.”

Seulgi was dumbfounded. She couldn’t believe her ears. The quality of the cosplays were near store—no—better than store-level. Did Irene really possess such a gift?

“You made all of that?! Whoa!”

“She makes stuff way better than the overpriced crap they sell in stores. And online too,” Yeri boasted as she nodded her head in approval all while smiling in the process. She turned around and pointed to herself, showing off the back side of her cosplay. “She also made my Squirtle shell and tail!”.

Seulgi was impressed. Not everyone could work magic with a sewing machine. She didn’t even want to think about what would happen if she ever attempted to sew. The last time she sewed was in the third grade when she had to make a handkerchief for an assignment and almost poked her eye out with the needle. She’d probably break the sewing machine just by looking at it if she attempted sewing again as an adult; maybe even get herself hospitalized.

“It wasn’t that hard,” Irene said shyly as she scratched her cheek in embarrassment. “Anyone could do it if they tried hard enough.”

That was an understatement of the century.

The Squirtle cosplayer shook her head and stepped in, “Unnie is just being modest. She’s a whiz at putting cosplays together. I tell her she should make money and sell them, but she doesn’t listen to me.”

“Because I’d probably get sued for copyright infringement or something.”

Yeri waved her hand dismissively. “Those big companies don’t need to know a thing if we keep things hush-hush.”

Seulgi only talked for the cosplayers for a few moments and she already had a feeling that Yeri and Wendy would get along.

“Anyways unnie did you catch the Squirtle yet?” Yeri asked as she pointed to her own cell phone.

“Oh, my phone died so no.”

“What! I thought it was fully charged!”

"Yeri we've been outside for a while and, if you haven't noticed already, the game is a total battery drainer."

"If you had an android phone like me, you'd still be playing," Yeri teased while sticking out her tongue. She turned towards Seulgi. "What about you? Uh..."

“Seulgi.”

“Yeah. Seulgi. Did you catch it?"

Truth be told, Seulgi got too caught up in admiring Irene's beauty and trying not to make herself look stupid in front of her that she forgot that she was playing the game in the first place. But she couldn’t just say “Sorry I didn’t bother trying because I was too busy checking Irene out because she is so beautiful” even if it was the truth.

So she decided to actually try so that she wouldn’t lie. She didn’t like lying.

The Squirtle swiftly dodged every Pokéball Seulgi threw at it. The water Pokémon even smacked the Pokéball back at her with its tail. She even tried to bribe it with berries (Pokémon loved berries), but the Squirtle still wouldn't cooperate.

This Squirtle was a tough nut to crack.

"No, it's being uncooperative. I swear I used like five Pokéballs already."

"That's because we're hard to tame," bragged Yeri as she showed her phone to prove that she caught it. "I caught mine easily because we have a special kind of connection. You humans wouldn’t be able to understand."

Irene laughed as she rolled her eyes at the younger girl’s antics and looked Seulgi squarely in the eye, smiling.

She really is super pretty. Ah~

What did Seulgi do in her past life to be so blessed? Save a country? Whatever she did, she was very thankful to her past self for doing whatever they did for giving her a chance to be in the presence of such a beautiful girl.

Seulgi felt like screaming when she saw Irene walk closer to her and stood on the side of her. They were standing shoulder to shoulder and she could feel Irene's bare arm touch hers as the other girl leaned closer, apparently trying to get a better view of what