"I'm Ace's secret."

"Just go pick something out," Ace said and turned towards another rack. Thatch couldn't help but notice the blush creeping onto his friend's face. That in itself warranted an explanation, though not as much as the fact Ace apparently had a secret. A big, blond one. Glancing around to make sure his supervisor wasn't in sight, Thatch fished his phone out of his pocket and immediately started typing out a message.

"Does Ace have a boyfriend?"

The brunet knew it was enough to intrigue Izo and sure enough, the reply arrived almost immediately. It wasn't so much an answer as it was another question and Thatch was left with simply observing his freckled friend.

"What do you mean? Do you know something I don't?" Izo had sent him and Thatch didn't really know if he knew anything. Glancing around once again, the brunet lifted his phone and snapped a quick photo of Ace talking to his blond friend without regard to personal space or the fact that they were in public. As he was sending the picture to Izo, he knew that the other would claim it was cute. Confusing, but cute.

The reply came even faster this time, if that was even possible, and consisted of only three words: Be right there.

That wasn't exactly helpful, but they might get to the bottom of this secret together. Returning the phone into his pocket, Thatch walked away from the register and approached his friend. Ace was alone at the moment and the brunet took his chance.

"Can I help you?" he said and Ace looked up, his mouth slightly open as if he were about to say something, but his jaw went slack instead as he got a look at the brunet. Thatch was grinning, the look on Ace's face extremely amusing.

"Thatch…" Ace said, his eyes slightly wide in surprise. "What are you doing here?"

"I work here," the brunet replied, the grin still on his face. "What are you doing here?"

Ace was on the verge of blushing again, Thatch could see it clear as day and it was really strange and intriguing at the same time. Still, the freckled man didn't reply, mostly because their conversation, however short it may be, was interrupted.

"Ace," a deep voice called from one of the dressing rooms. "Help me, I'm stuck," the voice added, sounding just slightly pouty at the end, making Ace freeze in his spot. Thatch's eyebrows rose on their own, a look of utter confusion visible on his face. Ace stammered for a bit before he managed to turn and reply with a coherent sentence.

"Uhm, wait a bit, I'll be right there," he said, immediately turning back to Thatch.

"I…" Ace started, but was once again interrupted as the dressing room opened with a bang, revealing the blond man Thatch had seen with his friend. Except, this time, the blond was half dressed, half tangled in a piece of clothing he couldn't even identify, with a look on his face that spelled despair.

Thatch's face instantly went blank. Maybe this was just some kind of prank and there were hidden cameras because he'd seen enough drama and strange happenings in the mall, but never anything like this. There had to be some connection between his friend and this blond, because he wasn't exactly sure what they had in common.

For one, this guy had gotten himself so tangled in what Thatch could now distinguish as something from the new women's clothing line. Sure, they had a cross dressing friend in common, but never before had the freckled youth ever expressed liking that type of thing and they'd spoken about some pretty insane kinks! Nor had he even mentioned being gay, for that matter.

Then there was the fact the blond had nearly both his legs where one should be and his eyes and face covered in purple fabric, it was a mess. Thatch could only watch and debate about snapping another photo before Ace, who had been staring baffled beside him sprung into action and let the door slam behind him as he rushed to his aid. Of course, the brunet employee could not help himself and edged a bit closer to the door to hear just what was being said inside.

"Ace, your face is red again…" He heard the blond man mutter and something snapped, prompting Thatch to grunt because that wasn't coming out of his employee discount.

"Shut up," Ace hissed at his mystery man, his voice much lower. "This is a woman's outfit what, were you thinking? Stop thinking about Victoria's secret!"
Feeling brave, and since he'd heard some merchandise rip after all, Thatch pressed onto the dressing room door, peeking inside again.
"Oi, Ace, you'll have to…" His voice trailed off, his words escaping him again at an unusual scene.

Ace had gotten up and was standing on the bench available for guests to use, looking down and struggling to get the small opening off of Marco's face. Then, like the timing was absolutely perfect, it came off and revealed the man's face who was very relieved and able to breathe. He smiled so innocently at Thatch.

"Hi, I'm Ace's secret."
Thatch took a quick glance at Ace's expression, reading off his horror and suspecting his thoughts about this whole ordeal being correct then awkwardly chuckled back towards the 'secret' man.
"Not going to be much of a secret if you keep telling people, yeah?" He attempted a somewhat casual conversation.
Ace quickly jumped down and guided him back and out of the dressing room, instructing Marco to wait before closing the door behind him. Then, still wearing the pleading expression of a child caught red handed, he looked up at Thatch and swallowed thickly. He was so screwed, the brunette just knew it.
"Thatch, listen I can explain," he began the perfect first sentence to any explanation. "It's not what it looks like, I swear. This is just my friend, he's uh.. He's from another country so he's not really familiar with how things work so I'm just helping him out and um.."
The employee tuned out his friend a moment, looking back towards the changing room and at the floor where he could see the man's feet shuffling. He didn't sound like he had any kind of accent, but really what did he know about foreigners. Maybe Ace purchased a mail order...husband?
Before he could say much more on the matter again though, his freckled friend rolled his eyes, hearing the sound of a big something falling inside the dressing room and retreated again to assist, sighing on the way. Instead of questioning yet another turn of events, Thatch simply stood and observed as Ace opened the door to the dressing room once again.

"Just a friend?" he heard the blond ask with a slight pout, which was basically the only visible part of his face as there was a shirt stuck on his head yet again. With a firm grip and a quick tug, Ace pulled the shirt down and finally covered the man's torso as he replied.

"Just get dressed, you big baby," he said, picking up the stray items the blond clearly wouldn't need as they were all from the ladies section then storming out. His face was an amusing combination of embarrassed and annoyed, though which of those was to blame for the blush, Thatch would never know.

"Um, where do I put these?" Ace asked, his voice back to the low setting it was before when he tried to explain the situation. Without a word in reply, Thatch took the clothes and put them on a pile behind the register to be folded a bit later then returned to Ace before freckles could escape.

"So, you were saying?" Thatch prompted, already half desperate for an answer, just like he knew Izo would be when he heard about all the things that went down in the short span of twenty minutes.

"I...uh… he's staying over for a bit," Ace said, his eyes unusually shifty as he spoke. "Uh, yeah."

Thatch was anything but convinced, after all, Ace didn't really appear really trustworthy at the moment. Not to mention how his friend had the perfect timing to disrupt whatever questions Thatch might have.

"Why just friends?" the blond asked. "You cared for me for so long, I thought…" he started, prompting another raise of his eyebrows from Thatch while Ace jumped to physically shut the other's mouth with his hand. The silence was heavy and the blond was confused, just as Thatch, though probably for different reasons as Ace looked at the brunet with panic clear on his face. Well, the blond just gave away a bit of new information that Thatch couldn't wait to share with Izo. Surely, the crossdresser would have quite a few theories in mind.

Once Ace seemed convinced the blond wouldn't speak further, Thatch offered his hand in a handshake.

"Thatch," he said as the blond took the offered hand, regarding him with slight confusion.

"Thatch…?" the blond said, furrowing his brow and Thatch could have sworn Ace facepalmed.

"Thatch, this is Marco," Ace finally offered a bit of information about the mysterious blond.

"Why do you keep saying Thatch?" Marco asked, the confusion on his face bordering on painful.