A manufactured reality
Chapter 10: Adjustments
A clock rung for 3 pm. The blank ceiling stared back with closed eyes as glanced to my right to find a girl clutching my arm as though it were to disappear, and cradling her left cheek into my shoulder. I sat back.
"Wow." I gently mumbled to myself. Right now, I could stay in this moment forever.
I listened to the soft breaths of my recent accomplice who still wore her rather grim looking shirt and short, red shorts. They were deep and relaxed and almost thoughtful. She had seemed to have let her hair loose again as it covered beneath the covers. Her eyes were shut, so I was sadly not able to be trapped within a gaze of jewelled green.
The light from the outside world crawled in, failing to break through the darkened curtains I had pulled across to let us sleep a twelve hour period of being awake away.
Her breath stuttered, and at last her eyes opened.
The shadows in the whole room almost seemed to shy away from the brilliant beacon of light that just filled the room as she yawned adorably and stretched her arms out.
"Hi."
"Hi."
We both gazed into the eyes of each other, our bodies mere inches away from each other.
"We gotta get up. You need a change of clothing..." I calmly said, wishing quite literally anything different than to get up.
"I don't think I should go out in public in these though..." she replied, glancing down towards the faintly familiar clothes she was wearing. They had reminded me of the sad demise of t5r4jou9i8 and the rope that tied around her neck. Best...best not to mention that to her.
"You can borrow something from here if you find anything you fancy in the wardrobe." She instantly threw the covers over, dashed out into the cold darkness and, with a creak, opened the wardrobe. She hung for a second before picking out a rather big black jumper and a set of blue jeans.
"Hey, don't look! I don't trust you that much yet hehe~" I turned around and stared at the shadows on the other side of the bedroom, careful not to glance over and embarrass her. Instead I reached over, grabbed my weathered watch and turned on the lamp.
A rustle of clothing continued before M0nika finally shouted...
"Donḕ̷͈͖̻͉̜̱̲͛̅͊ͅ!"
I turned around to see she had changed into rather suiting, but oversized clothing. Still, she needed her own clothes if she planned to stay. Not that I had any objections to that...
We have a rather interesting mall nearby, it is very confusing to go around, full of one-way elevators and windy pathways through. Like an overly complicated highway intersection. So you could imagine her face when she glanced upwards towards the bustling crowds, bombardment of lights and the lines of shops marked with "SALE" or "NEW". Adding to the experience was the smells, the sounds, the touches. You could tell when she had discovered something new because 1). She stopped 2). Her eyes lit up with an unseen glow of amazement.
This led to rather problematic elevator rides at times...
Even the "clacking" of heels on the rather loud floor took the exploring girl by shock as we headed through another winding ramp that almost wrapped itself around the elevator. We were heading for the shop level.
We had spent about thirty minutes glancing around when she finally saw it. I suddenly was plunged into darkness by two hands.
"H-hey!" I heard a short giggle before being led to a couch and pushed on.
The next thing I knew as I recovered was the gentle click of a changing room lock. So I patiently waited for the girl to unlock the door and show me the clothes she had chosen. The lock clicked again.
"Wow..."