“It’s weird,” I tell the woman standing in front of me, “seeing you dressed like this.”

“Dressed like what?” She asks, teasingly, and I laugh.

One way to describe Thalia Nathania’s style? (Even when I don’t know the first thing about fashion at all.) She’s always very formal. Most of the time she’s cladded in a jumpsuit or a suit jacket or a sleek black dress that looks expensive. Her Chanel and Dior bag always in her arm like a prized possession. This time, she’s only in a T-Shirt — a Katamandara Foundation tee that retails at Rp 150k — and a pair of ripped shorts that make her look like a tourist. Her sunglasses are still on her head and I’d be lying if I said she doesn’t look beautiful. Because she does. She always does.

“Like a commoner,” I reply.

She punches my arm jokingly while laughing, the sound making my chest a little warm, “Asal banget! Gue juga bisa kali keliatan santai.”

“Tapi jarang.”

“Lo juga jarang ya engga pake kemeja!” She is correct. If she wears jumpsuits all the time, I’m very comfortable with the idea of wearing button-ups all the time. It’s practical. If you want to look formal, button it up to your neck. If you want to look a little informal, open up the buttons and use a T-Shirt underneath, makes you look casual.

“That’s true.” I say back.

The festival is filled to the brim with a lot of tourists — most of them come to our booths to pet the Golden Retriever we call Ollie and the corgi that we call Liz (after Queen Elizabeth, I’m sorry). Their charms work wonders on our sales because we have almost sold out all of the merchandises that we’ve brought today. A lot of them have also told us that they’ll come visit the shelter to find if there’s a stray that they can take home. This definitely puts a smile on my face — as well as Daniel’s, who has been beaming in radiance since we first got here. He stands a few feet away from me, talking to Andin who’s ecstatic during her first Katamandara Foundation event.

I introduced Thalia as my friend to her and she seemed shocked when they met. Daniel finally told me it’s because Andin practically look up to her, she’d interviewed her before and wanted to make her a KOL for her company’s makeup brand but never had the guts to ask her. I told him that I’ll try slipping it into our casual conversation. (At this, Daniel laughed because he thought I sounded so much like a boyfriend but I ignored his comment.)

“Most of the population of Bali is here,” Thalia states as she looks around, “a few of my old friends, Sabrina’s friends as well. Then that means we’ll have to look like a couple.”

Sometimes I forget that the only reason Thalia and I are that close is because we’re supposed to convince my ex-girlfriend — who’s getting married in a month to the man she cheated on me with — that I’ve moved on from her. As we become friends and started to see each other without a clear motive other than wanting to talk and share about our day, the line between reality and acting has become so blurred. I don’t know where our friendship ends and our (fake) relationship starts. It’s getting more and more dubious by the day.

I look at her face and nod, “Okay.”

Without a warning, she links her arm with mine and I can feel my cheeks heating up from the skin-to-skin contact. We’re close, our sides practically glued to one another and her arm in mine. We get a few looks from the people around us, double-takes to see if they actually saw what they saw. When their eyes settle on our interlocked arms, they finally look away. I don’t know if their interest in us came from me or from Thalia — I’ll just assume it’s from her.

“Why a foundation?” She asks as she steers us into the middle of the festival, gaining attention from a lot more people around us.

“Karena Daniel mau dan gue juga mau terus Han dan Gazi juga mau, we wanted to do something big. Give something back. Thus, a foundation.” I explain to her — I don’t know if she’s truly interested or if she just wants to fill the silence in our walk. “Lo kenapa milih HR?”

“I’m controlling, bossy and I want to know a lot about people’s lives. Thus, HR.” She answers calmly, her eyes trained to the grass beneath our feet. “Why don’t you make something that’s not-for-profit?”

“An act of rebellion against my father, remember?”

Thalia chuckles and nods, “Yes, I do.”

Her arm is still in mine as we visit other booths in the area. A few who sells jewelries that catches Thalia’s eyes but she tells me she’s not buying anything in full support of our booth. I tell her it’s not a competition and she scoffs as-a-matter-of-factly as she says that everything is a competition nowadays. Now, that’s a mindset that’ll be hard to keep up with. Then we look at a woman with tarot cards, a booth that promotes traditional Balinese alcohol and then some expensive jewelry that I know Thalia’s very interested in buying but she refuses to.