No sign of his two companions were apparent as the troubled doctor weaved his way around little clusters of people scattered hither and thither. He let his mind wander a bit as he stared straight ahead, a few miscellaneous people looking at him as he passed by stealthily.
Off in the distance he would see the children's section looming ominously, almost as if it were taunting him. He knew that, if anywhere, that is where he would find his two companions, as much as he hated to admit it. Hatori was not very thrilled at all about the idea of wading through children to find them.
The deeply stressed doctor decided that, much as he wanted to escape, it wouldn't come very soon. He took his sights off of his ultimate destination and veered off to the left, unsure of where his path would lead him. Hatori's eyebrow quirked up as he saw Louis darting past an isle as if Satan himself were biting at his heels, the boy's face wrought with determination and that same inner-torment.
He continued walking along the front of the large store in the opposite direction of the children's section, keeping relatively close to the cashiers' checkout isles. Up ahead, his eye caught a glimpse of something that hadn't occurred to him until that moment. A rather heavy wisp of smoke worked its way up towards the above iron rafters. The source of the smoke could not be seen from where he stood, but he didn't need to see its source.
He knew that smoke.
Hatori continued coolly until he reached the source of the smoke. A lone adult man leaned against a rack of Tupperware bowls; his golden-yellow hair gleaming in a slightly unnatural manner. As the doctor approached, the blonde glanced up from apparent concentration on the tobacco stick in his mouth just long enough to acknowledge Hatori's approach, and looked back down with a nearly silent humph.
Hatori nodded at the man and continued past him a ways, until he found the cigarette checkout lane. Ah, sweet victory.
The doctor pulled a worn leather wallet out of his pocket, pulling from it a few bills, paid the middle-aged woman guarding the cases of cancerous cigarettes, and headed back towards the blonde man with his newly acquired stress-relief.
The mysterious blonde lifted his head again and looked slightly more than uninterested. Hatori pulled a cigarette from the new pack and slipped it between his lips, giving the other one of those masculine "looks". It was the look that involved no actual movement, but could say a million different things. The other look involved inclining the chin slightly in a "come hither" manner, which could also mean hello or a plethora of many other things. This particular look, without the chin wave, happened to mean, "Have a light?"
The blonde huffed slightly and dug around in his pocket for the lighter he'd used only a few minute previous. Hatori noticed a small photo-sticker stuck to the side of the silver lighter; a young man with unruly pink hair occupied the photo along with the blonde who now held the lighter. An odd match, Hatori thought in the back of his mind.
A split second later, Hatori forgot all about the sticker.
Exquisite smoke filled his lungs as he took a deep drag off of the cigarette. The smoke momentarily took his mind off of the stress, which he knew awaited him in the next while.
Hatori sighed, nodded thanks to the blonde man, and continued on his way, a weak trail of gray smoke following him.
"Now, if I were an idiot... where would I be?" he muttered quietly to himself as he walked slowly towards the rear of the department store. Idiot was, of course, Shigure and Ayame.
Eventually Hatori found himself in the fabric department located at the rear of the building, figuring that as a likely point for at least one of his companions. His eyes scanned the rows of colorful fabric, carefully picking among the knots of old women in search of a mop of long platinum hair. At one point his eyes stopped on a group of teenaged girls, some of whom were giving him odd looks, but did not think too much of it at that moment.
Seeing nothing of which he desired, he decided the next most likely spot he might find the others would have to be the women's clothing department. Come on, this is Ayame we're talking about here. Why /wouldn't/ he take an opportunity to look at clothes?