I didn't tell him what kind of place this would be in order to make him come. "This a something called a 'shopping mall' where people come here to buy things that they need because they don't have something like a tablet from school or the first district." I answered.

Before Luke had the chance to answer, I ran over to look over the map near the door. By chance, we were near the clothing shops for children! I quickly walked toward the nearest shop, as Luke frowned as he suddenly grabbed my hand. "Don't run around everywhere or we'll get separated!"

"It's ok, I'm sure we'll find each other soon after we get separated for a little while. Since it's the weekday, it doesn't look that crowded today." (Rika)

I tried to let go of Luke's hand to run to the nearest shop again but, Luke's grip on my hand was too strong that I couldn't separate from Luke.

"So I think you can let go of my hand now?" (Rika)

Luke didn't loosen his grip as he narrowed his eyes and started frowning again, "From what I read about the third district, I think it's best to stick together for now -"

Before Luke had the chance to finish what he was about to say, I dragged him to the shop and quickly chose an article of clothing to get him to stop talking.

I grabbed a pastel yellow dress that caught my eyes that had yellow ribbons and lace on the front near the collar. "How about this?" I asked.

Before Luke had the chance to open his mouth again, I finally shook Luke's hand off and ran towards the dressing room. "I'm going to get changed so tell me how it looks"

After I stepped out of the dressing room to take a look in the mirror, I saw a cute girl with orange speckled eyes wearing the pastel yellow dress. I suppose I did look cute in this dress, I thought. "What do you think?" I asked Luke looking for a second opinion while posing.

"Pretty ordinary." Luke answered.

Of course, Luke would say that, he was a chibi ikemen that would look good with anything that he wears.

"Then what do you think would match me the best here?" (Rika)

Luke quickly scanned the shop and grabbed some clothing soon after and coordinated 3 outfits within five minutes.

Trying to hide my fl.u.s.tered face, I grabbed the pieces of clothing and got changed in the dressing room. The first outfit I tried on was a white floral dress whose length went to the middle of my thighs above the knee with short sleeves. I also had a soft pink ribbon tied around my collar bone to match the dress. When I looked at myself in the mirror, I had to admit that Luke was better at this than I was.

After trying on the rest of the outfits and showed it Luke, I decided to buy what he coordinated and went to the counter to pay for the clothes. I took out my debit card and tapped against the machine and received my clothes inside the bag in exchange.

I handed my bag to Luke and asked him to hold it while I ran off to the next shop. Luke quickly followed and we eventually got all the shopping for my clothes within an hour.

While Luke was holding all my bags behind me, I spotted a shop with cute shoes. I quickly ran in and tried out my favourite running shoes. At this point of time, I was tired of wearing those formal s.h.i.+ny dress shoes everyday in school starting from kindergarten. I rarely had the chance to wear something like sneakers excluding wearing them for physical education.

While I was debating which running shoes went along with my red hair the most, Luke suggested that I should not only get running shoes, but flats and slippers as well. So when I was trying on the running shoes, I left the others to Luke after letting him know my size.

After buying the shoes and handing another set of bags to Luke, I was feeling tired and looked for a place to sit. We eventually sat down with Luke placing all the bags on the floor looking much more exhausted than I was.

"Do you usually run around to buy these kinds of stuff at these kind of places?" Luke asked while panting.

"No, this is my first time ever since I entered kindergarten. Remember I didn't have the time before to play around? We would be too busy trying to acc.u.mulate more points that we didn't have room to think about other stuff." I said sadly while remembering those horrid memories.

As I was starting to get hungry, I looked around to find a place to eat. This was when I spotted a restaurant that resembled a 'Italian eatery' in my past life. "Anyways, let's enter this restaurant behind us since I'm starting to get hungry now." (Rika)

Luke nodded as he picked up all the bags to follow me into the restaurant tiredly while we were soon led to a table for two.

"Two sets of spaghetti and meatb.a.l.l.s with a salad as a side and two cups of tea flavoured soda" I ordered after glancing at the menu.

The waiter quickly took our order as Luke looked purely fascinated while waiting for the food. "It's quite fascinating how there have actual people making and serving the food."