Scarlet sighed as she sunk down into a chair. The group was back at the same place that they had been in that morning, though at a different table, the old one had already been taken. They had finally finished with shopping and were stopping to eat, having forgotten to get any breakfast at the center; it had showed when Tekka's stomach had growled suddenly when they were about to leave the town with their supplies.
Over crowding had slowly disappeared. People were already leaving for other towns, other regions, and the crowds were slowly dissipating.
"I don't know why we have to get more food, they've already got enough in their backpacks," Scarlet told Tekka.
Tekka nodded distractedly, she was watching a couple break up, and the girl was currently ordering her groudon to chase her ex-boyfriend, "Yeah, sure."
"And we really need to go soon, or everyone else will already be at the new regions and the old regions will all be full," Scarlet continued to vent.
"Yeah," Tekka turned back to Scarlet, a passing police officer had come to stop the fight, "but this place was never really too full already, I mean you could meet everyone that lives here in about two years, a couple hundred, thousand people from your universe wont do much damage."
"Tekka, there aren't exactly only a few hundred people from where I come from," Scarlet said.
"Thousand? Ten thousand?" Tekka's eyes widened as she said the next word, "Million?"
"More like billion," Scarlet replied.
"We can't have a billion here! The economy would collapse!"
"I don't think it will," Scarlet mused.
"And why do you think that, with all these people eating up our money!"
"Because it's just been crowded, and people are already leaving. They'll spread out eventually, and we'll be fine," Scarlet sighed and rubbed at a spot on her temples where a dull ache was building up, economy, other than politics, was the only thing that gave her an immediate headache.
"Hi," Ava set a tray of food down next to Scarlet, "Had fun saving our table?"
"No," Scarlet replied moodily, while Tekka ventured closer to the food eagerly and sniffed at it.
Bloom made a memorable entrance by coming in humming It's a Small World and making Scarlet groan as her headache worsened.
"Bad day?" Mitsuko asked as she got to the table, dragging along Ralph, she was smiling cheerfully and made Scarlet groan again.
Ralph set another tray down next to Ava's. It wasn't as full as it had been the day before, but it did have the same types of junk food that any doctor would despise. Mitsuko set down another tray next to Ralph's that was an exact double. Ava's tray, Scarlet was happy to see, was filled with orthodox breakfast food.
"Don't you ever worry about indigestion?" Scarlet asked, poking a packet of powdered donuts.
"No, there's always Pepto-Bismol!" Mitsuko said merrily and she dug into the tray as she had the day before. Scarlet was eerily reminded of déjà vu, she hoped that the rest of their time in this foreign world would be different.
After a few minutes of eating or snacking, as was Mitsuko and Tekka's case, Ava stood up abruptly, "I'm late!"
She started stuffing some food into her backpack. She took off in a sort of half-run half-walk into the streets while fumbling to get her backpack on and to pick up Bloom, who she realized soon after she could not carry.
"Bye! I have to go catch a bus in one minute, I lost track of the time. I'll see you later, hopefully soon," Ava waved at them and tried goading Bloom to go faster.
Ava disappeared around the corner and the group sat watching for what seemed like lifetimes.
Scarlet sighed, "She really is gone, isn't she?"
Mitsuko shrugged and went back to nibbling a potato chip heartily. Ralph was checking his watch, "I think we may be late too."
"What do you mean? We're not taking a bus, are we?" Scarlet asked.
"No," Ralph replied, "but we do have to get to the next town before night, unless you really want to sleep in the rain."
Mitsuko grinned, "The rain is nice, why shouldn't we sleep in it?"
"Because the forecast says it's gonna be a tyfoon, that's why," Ralph told her.
"Oh, then we had better eat faster," and to Scarlet's surprise Mitsuko did just that and half the food tray disappeared before their eyes. Mitsuko was already packing leftover food into her backpack while Scarlet was still staring in astonishment.
"How did you do that?" Scarlet asked.
Mitsuko shrugged and forced Scarlet and Ralph out of their seats, "Come on, let's go."
The slightly smaller group got up and left the table, leaving their trays behind. Tekka had to catch up to them in long leaping bounds and scurry up Scarlet's shoulder.
They had to walk through crowds of people trying to get out of town with them, and crowds of people trying to go back into town. A few people had even stopped in the middle of the road to check their maps and were causing eddies and breaks in the stream of people trying to get through. Scarlet was amazed, just yesterday there were less and she could have sworn there weren't as many when they had gotten breakfast.
"Hey, Ralph, don't you think it's strange," she whispered.
"What?" Ralph asked dully, he was busy trying to unfold a map while keeping up with Mitsuko and didn't seem happy about it.
"It's- well, I think more people are coming….I mean, they've been leaving to go to other towns, I know it, but there are more people than yesterday here."
Ralph looked up from his map, surveyed the crowd for a moment without faltering in his long gait, and stopped in his tracks, his eyes widened, "You're right! Mitsuko! Mitsuko!"
Mitsuko stopped and turned around five feet away. She battled with the crowd for a minute and came back to them, "What are you doing? We have to get to the next city, town-whatever it's called."
"But, Mitsuko, look around, there are more people than before! There has to be something wrong here!"
"And what can we do about it? We have to get out of here, then we can talk about this," Mitsuko started trying to drag them back into the current of the crowd, "Let's go!"
Ralph followed reluctantly and Scarlet followed after him, just barely keeping up with them. She was afraid of getting lost in the crowd, and claustrophobia was getting to her as her eyes flickered back and forth between the people closing in on her, she hadn't noticed it being so crowded before.
Tekka yawned, "I can't believe we're finally getting out of here!" the pichu glanced down at her owner, "Can't you go any faster? We're loosing them!"
Tekka was right, by now Ralph and Mitsuko were winking in and out of her line of sight as they went through the crowd. As a rule Mitsuko was better at pushing to the front, and dragging people with her. Mitsuko was also better at loosing people, much to her dismay, and the couple that had been with her in the crowd seconds before were swallowed in and not seen again for a very long time.
Scarlet wavered in the crowd and finally came to a stop. People pushed past her, jostling her and pushing her forward. She resisted all their efforts to move her, and instead they started going around her, with a few careless people bumping into her shoulders.
"I think we're lost," Scarlet said.
Tekka's ear twitched in irritation, "So what? Are you going to just stand there all day or figure out where we are?"
Scarlet didn't hear Tekka, she was already humming a soft melody from Phantom of the Opera, a habit she had picked up and used to relieve stress.
Someone poked her in the shoulder and forced her out of her daze, "Are you moving or not?" It was a voice that was slightly annoyed and one she recognized.
"Ryan!" Scarlet smiled and turned to face him, "I'm so glad you're here!" She hugged him around the neck tightly.
Ryan was startled enough to let her go on hugging him for another minute before he pulled her off. He raised an eyebrow at her, "Is this some way of apologizing for your sentret or something?"
Scarlet frowned, now that someone she knew was there-who really was almost a complete stranger for what she knew about him-her brief joy was almost gone, "I-I'm a little claustrophobic, agoraphobic, whatever it's called, and I'm sorry," she blushed, "Um, is it okay if I stay with you for a while? I got separated from my friends."
Ryan shrugged, "As long as you don't let out that sentret of yours, I guess you can."
A hint of a smile crept up Scarlet's lips, "Thanks," she said and they both started walking through the crowd again.
"Uh, Ralph, I think we lost Scarlet back there," Mitsuko said, looking back over heads in the crowd on her tiptoes without tripping, it was an amazing feat that made Ralph speechless for a moment.
"Yeah….sure," Ralph replied, having no idea of what she had said.
"We'll find her later, she knows where to meet us, right?"
"Um, I don't think she does, we left in a hurry and…" Ralph started to say.
Mitsuko interrupted him, "She'll find us, or we'll find her, eventually," and with that she sped up her pace as she plowed through the crowd.
A/N: I've been busy with vacation and starting high school, sorry. I'll try updating regularly again soon. Hopefully -.-