@interrcmpu
Chiaki stood in midst of the shopping mall, staring absentmindedly at her phone while her older brother scanned the gift cards in front of them. Her mother’s birthday was approaching and thus she made plans with her siblings to choose some gifts for her. Of course the youngest, Kouichi, was no where to be found. He didn’t even hit them with a lame excuse, he was rather straightforward when he declined to join them. ‘Everyone can buy material things, but I won’t. No. I’ll gift her my voice and write a song for her.’ That’s what he said. But Kenichi, the oldest of the three, didn’t seem to care much. ‘To each his own.’ He responded. And now Chiaki found herself checking all types of stores together with Kenichi, to hopefully find a gift that would catch their eye. But... they’ve been stuck in the mall for an hour now ever since Ken spotted the cards.
A small sigh left the girl. She didn’t hate hanging out with her brother, in fact she enjoyed his company a lot. However, something was on her mind and she couldn’t shake it off so easily. One part of her wanted to talk about her troubles another wanted to deal with it alone. Her eyes were locked on a single name on her screen and a few messages with checkmarks on them. Yuji... I’m sorry. She managed to exchange numbers with him but she didn’t expect herself to be so poor at chatting. She wanted to get to know him better but she lacked the confidence to reply to his texts. What if she said something wrong? Everything would be for nothing then. However, leaving him on read like this, didn’t seem fair at all. Suddenly, Kenichi called out to her. ‘Chi~ Did you hear what I was saying?’
Her gaze suddenly rose up and met with Kenichi’s brown eyes. The other was grinning at her while waving two gift cards in front of her face. It seemed that he had finally decided on which to pick. They still needed a proper present though. In the end, the two decided to split up and to look around the mall separately. We’ll meet up in two hours... where should I start? The girl walked around, still lost in thought when she let her eyes scout the area. They suddenly came to a halt when she recognized Yuji’s figure in the crowd. Panicking, Chiaki looked around quickly to find a place to hide. But nothing. Plan B. She reached out to grab one of the magazines from the shelf next to her and hid her face. However, the cover of the magazine was unfortunately graced by no other but Yuji himself, which made it easier to notice her.