The city was enveloped in a warm, glowing orange, the sun slowly disappearing underneath the far off horizon. The evening was calm and peaceful, seemingly perfect to the two high school girls.
Nozomi let out a loud sigh as she stretched her arms in the air above her head.
"We sure worked hard today, Elichi." She commented as soon as she finished with her stretching.
"Yeah. I'm glad we were able to get that all that paperwork done. It'll give us less to worry about tomorrow."
"And more time for us." Nozomi said with a teasing smirk, intertwining her fingers with Eli's. She could just barely hold in her laughter as Eli's face flushed scarlet red, understanding Nozomi's implication.
"What are you thinking about, Elichi?" Nozomi chuckled, placing her free hand over her mouth in a mock fashion. "So dirty."
At this comment, Eli lost it.
"N-Nozomi!" She shouted at her, mainly from embarrassment.
"Just kidding~" She responded playfully. Eli pouted at her, her cheeks puffing, which caused Nozomi to giggle. "Anyways, since we worked so hard, how about we treat ourselves. Want to go get some parfaits?"
"Let's." Eli replied, now back to her usual, dignified self. The two continued to walk off the Otonokizaka campus and towards their routine cafe.
They continued to walk through the city, finally reaching the crosswalk by the cafe. Nozomi ran ahead, and pushed the button for the signal. She turned around at Eli and smiled.
She watched as Eli looked towards her left, and then back at her, eyes wide with what seemed was fear.
"Nozomi! Come here!" Eli screamed. In all the years they've known each other, Nozomi had never heard Eli sound terrified to this intensity. Eli's fear of the dark couldn't even compare to the fear that Nozomi saw and heard now. This left her confused. Instead of doing as Eli said, she looked at what she seemed to be so afraid of.
All she heard were the car brakes squealing, and then heard nothing. She felt nothing. She saw nothing.
