The bright lights of the mall hurt my eyes. There were so many cute little shops, just like the mall at home. When I spotted the escalator, I instantly wanted to ride it like how I did with my father when I was little. I miss being a little girl, asking Daddy random questions. 

Emu was acting like she'd never been there before. "Oooh! Look at all of the wonderhoy stuff for sale everywhere!" She was jumping up and down like a hyper child who had eaten too much candy. 

WIth every step Tsukasa took, he seemed to be posing. "HA HA HA!" His stupid and loud laugh echoed throughout the whole mall. 

Nene was failing to manage Emu, who was trying to run everywhere at once. "Emu! Slow down..." She panted, chasing close after her. 

I stared at the escalator, I was gonna ride it. "Ruuuii! I wanna ride the escalator. Can we please ride the escalator?" I whined, as if I was that same sweet little girl I was before. 

Rui chuckled at my request. "Of course." Holding my hand, we walked to the escalator. 

I recklessly jumped on, nearly falling over. "Woah!" I gripped tighter onto Rui's hand so I wouldn't fall. 

"Be careful, Setsuko." Rui said as he watched me stumble. 

I regained my balance and looked down at all of the people. Specifically Tsukasa and Honoka. Emu and Nene were nowhere to be found. I swear, she wasn't even looking where she was going, just following Tsukasa. "Hey look at that, Honoka is in love with Tsukasa!" I snickered. 

Rui turned to look at the two of them down below. "Oh my... interesting." 

We reached the second floor, and then rode the escalator right back down. 

There was an evil little smirk on my face, I had an idea. "Hey, Noka... I know you love Tsukasa!" I called to my sister in a teasing manner as I ran to her with incredible speed. 

"What?!" Honoka's face had turned completely pink and I could see her mind go blank. "I don't love Tsukasa! I... I hate Tsukasa!" She blurted without thought. 

"何？ ！ ！ ?私のこと好きじゃないの...？" Tsukasa stuttered in confusion. "You hate me?!! I thought you were a fan of mine..." He said while he tried to figure things out in his little brain. 

I laughed at Honoka. "You don't hate Tsukasa! You're always talking about how amazing he is, you even come to me in the middle of the night while I'm trying to sleep saying about how he's your super twinkly star." Each and every thing I was saying was very true. 

Honoka looked like she wanted to run and hide. "I.." She stopped and stood there in silence, staring into my soul. 

I was starting to feel bad for her. "I'm sorry, It was just a joke..." I mumbled as I stared back at Honoka. 

"It's fine..." My sister turned her head from me. Even though she had said it was fine, deep down inside I felt that it wasn't. 

Rui looked around for a moment or two. "Where are Emu and Nene?" He questioned, still scanning the area for them. 

"They must have gotten lost, why don't we go look for them?" I suggested, thinking I was using my big brain. 

We set out on the jouney to find Emu and Nene. Though we got separated, because I thought Rui was leading the way, and Honoka thought Tsukasa was leading the way.

I finally realized Honoka and Tsukasa were long gone. "Where did Honoka and Tsukasa go?!" I panicked, now Rui and I didn't know where everybody else was and we were all spread out. 

"I'm not sure..." Rui seemed a bit confused too. 

Anxiety began to bubble up inside me. "What are we going to do?! How much money do we have combined for food? Surely it won't last long." I started hyperventilating. "We'll have to live in the mall! We'd better find shelter and start a family... the fate of humanity depends on us alone!" I screamed. 

The other people at the mall were making weird faces at us.

Rui put his finger to my lips. He looked shocked, and slightly scared. "Start a family? Are you sure? We won't have to live in the mall, Setsuko." 

"I said we had to start a family?!! I don't know anymore, I'm not thinking straight." I was being absolutely ridiculous, my overreacting was getting a little out of hand. 

Once I was breathing normally again, we went to go look for Tsukasa and Honoka. 

Meanwhile, Honoka had noticed Rui and I weren't there. "We're lost?! Oh..." She fell silent for a while. "At least I have my guiding twinkly star, Tsukasa Tenma." At last, she was showing her silly side. 

Tsukasa laughed in delight. "Yes, I am the brightest of stars!" He stood posing, then paused. "Didn't you say you hated me?" He asked Honoka, a puzzled expression on his face. 

Honoka stood staring at him in silence for a long time. "Um..." She was blushing, and it appeared she froze up.

"It's okay to be in denial, it's only natural to love me!" Tsukasa proceeded in his posing. Obviously, he was thinking of the wrong kind of love. 

After somewhere around thirty minutes of Rui and I running around trying to find Tsukasa, Emu, Nene, and Honoka, I realized we could do the big brain thing and just call their phones. So we did that, and we met back at the entrance of the mall. 

"Noka!" I squealed when I saw her, hugging her tight. 

After that, we ended up actually shopping. Emu kept putting really expensive dresses up to me, trying to see how I'd look in them. 

"How about this one? It's pretty!" Emu said as she showed me a little white dress. It had lace, a big bow on the back, and balloon sleeves. I had assumed it was stupidly expensive, just like everything else she had showed me. 

I sighed in frustration. "You keep picking the most expensive dresses!" 

Emu bounced up and down. "It's not expensive! Go try it on!" She pulled me into the fitting room and ran out so I could change. 

Now I felt like I had to try it on, so I did. When I had the dress on, I awkwardly walked out, standing there like I wanted nothing to do with what was going on. 

Rui cheerfully clapped for me, he looked so happy. "You look so cute in that dress, Emu was right! あなたはとても可愛くて美しいです..." He said, a big smile on his face. 

Everybody kept saying I should get it, they basically forced me to buy it. Then Emu, Honoka, Nene, and I bought a bunch of cute hairclips and ribbons for our hair. For whatever strange reason Rui bought a pack of balloons. 

"Setsuko... what's your favorite animal?" Rui asked while he giggled like the weirdo he was.

I thought for a moment. "Foxes. I've always liked them, ever since I was in like first grade." I replied. 

Rui did a nod and then blew up one of the balloons from the pack he bought. He made me a cute little balloon fox. 

I gently took the balloon fox from his hands. "Aww! I didn't know you could make balloon animals!" I gushed as I examined it, impressed at this skill I didn't know he had. 

Eventually we all parted ways and went home. While Honoka and I were walking home, minding out own business I noticed a young man about to jump out of a window. He was quite handsome, his hair was black and he looked a lot like my father. 

"WAIT!!--" I screamed as I jumped and put my hands up for him to notice me. 

The man did not care, he simply put his middle finger up for me to see and said. "See this? I don't give a ****, silly little girl." He then agressively jumped out of his window. 

"NOOO!!!" I screamed in desperation as I covered my eyes, I didn't know him but I sure as heck didn't want to see him die either. Then I thought maybe I could do something to stop him from falling to his death. Without thinking things through, I ran up to where he was going to fall, I don't even know what I was trying to do. 

Honoka reached her hand out to grab me, it felt like everything was in slow motion. "Setsuko!--" 

THUD. The rude young man fell right onto my fragile little body.