Chapter 21: Day at the Mall
After exiting the subway from where my train had dropped me to I was greeted by a deep blue summer sky. It was the afternoon and the sun was shining hot over the mall. I continued my walk towards it until I spotted Houki standing near the entrance dressed in a maroon shirt and black skirt.
"Houki!" I called out.
She turned around and when she spotted me she smiled and waved. As I walked towards her I noticed her smile fading being replaced by a look of sadness and pondering.
"Wow I thought I was late but I guess we're the only ones that have arrived,"
To this Houki simply nodded.
"Are you ok Houki?" I asked, startling her.
"Oh, yeah, yes," she replied.
"Is something bothering you?"
"Well I,"
"Sorry I'm late, how's it going!"
I turned back to see Rin walking towards us. She was wearing a pink tank top and a black skirt.
"Good, how about you?" I replied.
"Ah you know, working at my folks restaurant as usual," replied Rin.
"Charlotte and Laura haven't arrived yet?"
"No, I guess they are running a bit late?" I said.
"Well I guess we have to wait a bit for them," replied Rin.
"Do you know if Cecilia is coming?" I asked.
At this Rin sighed.
"I haven't heard from her since summer started. When I tried to call her it would go straight to voicemail,"
"I guess she's busy," I suggested.
"Probably but still, I am a little worried for her. She looked very frustrated ever since the mission and was never in a mood to talk. think she might be angry at herself for getting defeated by the terrorist,"
"Yeah, I remember after you two lost against Bodewig she was very down for a while so I think it's that," I said.
"Man that whole situation was a mess,"
After I said this I noticed Houki looking down towards the ground, her eyelids so down they were almost closed.
"Hey look, it's them!" exclaimed Rin.
I turned around to see both Charlotte and Laura rushing towards us. Charlotte was wearing a yellow sundress while Laura was wearing a grey blouse with grey shorts.
"Sorry we're late," said Charlotte through her panting.
"We had a little trouble along the way," said Laura.
"What happened?" I asked.
"Laura got into a fight on the train so we were kicked out and had to wait for the bus," said Charlotte.
"It was just self defense," replied Laura.
"I already told you, she wasn't trying to attack you, just wanted you to sign her petition," said Charlotte.
"Better to be safe," said Laura.
"Anyways, can we go into the mall now?" asked Rin.
"Yes, let's go," said Charlotte.
We then entered the mall and entered a clothing store so that Charlotte could help Laura pick out clothes. Charlotte was getting very excited, piling several outfits onto her shoulder while a flustered Laura tagged behind her.
"I think this one could work," said Charlotte.
"I-,"
"oh this one too, oh definitely this one!"
Charlotte was moving from one clothes rack to another with Laura failing to get a word in. By the time she was finished, she had piled up about a dozen outfits for Laura to try. We then watched as Laura cycled through all of them, dresses, skirts and crop tops of all colours. Charlotte would gush over each and every one of them with Laura very visibly embarrassed.
"Ok I think that was the last one," said Charlotte.
Laura let out a sigh of relief.
"So which one did you like the most?" asked Charlotte.
Laura thought for a moment.
"I'm not sure, what do you think?"
"I can't choose for you," said Charlotte.
"You have to choose one yourself,"
Laura looked at the pile of outfits, then back at Charlotte, then at us and then back at the outfits.
"I think, this one," she said, grabbing one of the outfits.
It was a black dress with a frilly skirt.
"Hmm, why do you like that one?" asked Charlotte.
"I like the colour," replied Laura.
"Well black does go good with your hair," said Charlotte.
"Well that's great, that's a start. We can now look at other similar outfits for you to try on," said Charlotte.
Laura's face looked startled at the prospect of having to try on more outfits.
"This might take a while so you guys can go if you need to do any other shopping," said Charlotte.
"Well I do need new shoes," said Rin.
"I'm in the mood for some ice cream," I said.
"What about you Houki?" I turned towards her.
"Oh, uh, I don't know, I don't really need anything," she said, her eyes darting down.
"Do you want to go get ice cream?" I asked.
"Sure," she replied.
Me and Houki then headed to an ice cream kiosk with her choosing a strawberry ice cream and I choosing a vanilla one. After getting our ice creams we then went and sat down at a bench outside to eat. For a bit a minute we just sat in silence, eating our ice cream with Houki staring off towards the ground.
"Wow it's hot today," I said, hoping to break the silence.
Houki just replied with a nod.
"Your ice cream is melting so you should probably eat it quicker,"
No reply.
"You know Houki, I can tell something is troubling you," at this Houki's eye lit up slightly.
"It's your expression, I remember it from when you were young. You constantly look like you are thinking about something. You know you can talk to me, only if you want to of course,"
"Ichika, I'm sorry," said Houki.
"For what?"
"When we were fighting the Silver Gospel it went for the boat and I didn't try to stop it,"
"Oh that,"
Houki's eyes looked dull and were glued to the floor.
"Listen, it's ok,"
"It's not ok, they could have died because of me! You could have died!"
Houki's hands began to shake.
"I don't deserve the Akatsubaki,"
"Houki, listen, you made a mistake but that's ok, it happens. I've made many mistakes, we almost lost the battle against the Valkyrie Trace System because of my mistake,"
"It's not the same," replied Houki, her voice sounding hollow.
"Your mistake was accidental, mine was a decision that I made. You didn't have full control over your mistake but I did,"
I looked at Houki who appeared almost lifeless. I knew the guilt she was feeling, I was all too familiar with it. The guilt of endangering or costing other people greatly, especially those you loved. Only for her it had to be even stronger, more piercing than I had ever felt.
"I know that you feel guilty, I have felt guilty too about my actions. But you just have to keep moving forwards. Become a better person and to learn from that mistake,"
"I guess so," replied Houki although her voice still sounded hollow.
Just then I heard my phone ring. Taking it out I saw that it was Charlotte ringing.
"Hello," I answered.
"Hey, we finished picking out clothes for Laura. There is an IS shop nearby so we are thinking of checking it out,"
"Sounds good," I replied.
"Great, it's next to the food court. We'll see you there," and with that Charlotte hung up the phone. I turned to Houki.
"We're going to check out an IS store. Do you want to come?"
"Sure," she replied, almost indifferent.
We then headed towards the second floor, Houki maintaining her troubled expression. I could tell Houki was still upset but there wasn't much I could do other than hope that she would work through it eventually.
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Three weeks before the end of the summer holidays for the IS academy Chifuyu and Maya were in the academy, in one of the staff offices going over the paperwork in preparation for the start of the next semester.
"We're going to need to prepare the staff dorms for the new security personnel and finish applying the new security system. God this is such a hassle," commented Chifuyu.
"Yes it does seem that the government is taking extensive measures," said Maya.
"It makes sense. After all those incidents that took place at the academy not to mention, the whole hassle with the mission to suppress the rogue IS units and Ichika almost getting captured. It would crazy if they didn't take such measures,"
Maya simply nodded.
"Chifuyu," Maya turned towards her colleague.
"Do you think it was the right call not to tell the students about Phantom Task?"
Chifuyu turned towards Maya.
"Yes, these are matters for us adults and the government also agreed, deciding to keep the name of the organization quiet from the public so what's the big deal?"
"Don't you think they would want to know who it was they fought? Especially Ichika who was almost captured,"
"Ichika does not need to know about this," said Chifuyu, her voice more stern.
"This whole situation is already very muddy as is and the last thing I need is for him to get involved, at least more involved than he already is,"
"I see," said Maya.
"But won't it be difficult to protect him from all this chaos. Especially since we haven't found out who the spy is or even how many there are"
"That's why we need to find them before they bring chaos to the IS academy,"
"But how? We don't have no support from the government and we also have to keep their existence a secret from them,"
"We'll discuss it with Ms Shira when school starts, I'm sure she'll have some sort of plan. For now we need to be careful and not give anyone from the government any suspicions,"
"I understand," replied Maya and they both returned to their task of preparing for the next semester of the IS academy.
Author Note: Hello and thank you again for reading another chapter of my fic. This one is also short, just trying to set up Houki's character and the school's conflict for the upcoming arc. I don't want to say too much about them since I don't want to spoil them. I know it may be a bit of a slow start and maybe to you even boring but it's important for the character dynamics and also it's just to give the characters some time to hangout and interact which is also important. As of next chapter they will be back at the IS academy so stay tuned for that and as always this is TheGreySirpent signing off!