Reaching for the Stars

Chapter 19: Intercultural Festival

This chapter may or may not be based on personal experiences... maybe...

Some of you may notice Andy talks a bit differently in this chapter. This is how he's supposed to talk and I've corrected his dialogues in the previous chapters.

Also I updated the story summary. Is it better or worse? Let me know what you think!

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Tom exited the restrooms with his new costume. It wasn't his usual one; he would only wear this one on special occasions. He looked down; if he dared say so, he looked... well...

"Badass costume, Tom." Theodore said to him.

The wolf inspected his costume. "Do I look like I'm exposing too much?"

The otter put his hand around the wolf's neck. "Nah, not really. If you have a body like James or Max then yeah you're exposing too much."

Because it was the Intercultural Festival and each booth attendant had to wear their traditional clothing, Tom had to wear traditional Dayak clothes. He borrowed the costume, but damn wasn't it exposing too much in his opinion. He only wore a black unbuttoned waistcoat with intricate colourful motifs, a wooden hand-carved necklace with numerous parts, and his pants looked like... well on the outside he wore short black sarong full of motifs. And there were many, many bird feathers on his head and wrists.

Actually, there was a flower necklace he had to wear, but he discarded it. Also, there was a dagger too but unfortunately he couldn't carry a real one around. Good thing this one was just a wooden replica.

He felt somewhat worried, going almost topless and exposing his light-grey furred chest and stomach like this. Even the absence of sleeves made him feel worried. He was a bit afraid that people would notice the uneven fur on some spots, the results of last week's encounter with those mafia members. He got some cuts, but good thing the scars were healed now, only the fur had not fully regrown yet. He just hoped people wouldn't notice them.

Actually, he wasn't sure what tribe did he belong to. He had always known that he was of Indonesian descent but that was it. That was disconcerting; it was like an identity crisis for him since there were more than 300 tribes there.

When he arrived at his booth, his friends wooed him, especially Lucy. He just threw them his committee costume, making them laugh. James teased him some more about having been spending time in the gym until he kicked the tiger and told him to get to work.

"Cool costume, loup."

Tom turned around. There was Martin in traditional French clothing. Martin's clothes were unique, though, as with every traditional clothes here. The red fox looked like he was from some French countryside, enjoying life to the fullest. The costume was festive, spacious yet dignified. Probably it was still connected to traditional Roman clothing of Latin countries since he remembered Spain had a similar clothing language.

A quick peek to the Spanish booth confirmed his thought.

"Heh, yours is cool too." He said and went inside the French booth where Martin was. "But it looks somewhat uncomfortable, though."

"Nah, it's actually more comfortable than it looks." Martin said, picking one of the baguette pieces and ate it.

Tom chuckled. "Why are you eating that? It's for the visitors."

"I'm the one who brought this here." Mart took another.

The wolf shrugged and took one. "I'm going to check the other booths, 'kay?"