What a beautiful Sunday it was. Four lit club members, new and old, made their way to Aeon Mall Toyokawa.
I stood in the main hall, staring up at the massive interior. That hall ran the entire length and was layered into three different floors, shops lining both sides the whole way down. It was a whole shopping district condensed into one ginormous building. I’d never been to a place like this before, and it was admittedly a lot to take in.
Komari gaped at the vast, empty space. “H-holy crap.”
Yeah. Holy crap. The catchphrase of all humankind rendered speechless. I couldn’t help but gape with her.
Yanami scoffed. “Stand back, kids, and follow my lead. Ain’t my first rodeo, so I’ll show you guys how it’s done.”
“Will you?” I asked. Mostly innocently.
She glared. “Oh. My bad. Never mind, everyone, the guy who can’t read and nearly put us on the Iida Line thinks I don’t know what I’m talking about.”
It wasn’t my fault the Iida and Meitetsu trains were right next to each other!
“I want to see how it’s done!” Shiratama-san interjected. She wore a floral, two-tone dress.
Yanami nodded, appeased. “At least one of us has some sense. Know what step one to any mall visit is?”
“No, ma’am!”
“I’ll tell you,” the great mall meister blustered. “It’s sit down and chill.”
“Already?” I couldn’t help but doubt.
She shook her head in disappointment. “Look at this place, Nukumizu-kun. How long do you think it takes to get from one end to the other? A long time. By the time you’ve finished your first lap, you’ve already forgotten the first half. And that’s how you get stuck going in circles.”
“That’s bad how? Sounds like fun.”
“If you’re short-sighted, maybe. Listen, in that first half, you’ve probably already snacked on something yummy. But what if there’s something even better in the second half? Your wallet has a limit. Your tummy has a limit. It’s an endurance run. You sit down and think first so you can plan a route.”
Her wallet had a limit. Her stomach? Not so much. Speaking from experience, of course.
“Okay, so where do we go?” I asked.
“They’ve got drinks and candy over that way. Come along, gang.”
Yanami led us into foreign lands of fast food and cafés. Of lemonades and ice cream. Of cream puffs and chocolates. And her eyes glimmered with desire. The war had begun.
✦ ✦ ✦
I found a table off to the side of all the food places, sat, and immediately melted into the chair. “How can ordering a drink be so exhausting?”
It’d turned into this whole, convoluted thing that I didn’t care to get into the details of. Long story short, I should not have stuck with Yanami. Komari had been smarter. The fact that even Shiratama-san had dipped, completely unprompted, clearly meant she’d sensed the danger too.
I sipped on my iced hojicha.
“Hey, nice spot. Totally empty.”
“Guess who stood and waited for it to be.”
“Want a gold star? You’re so cool and awesome.” Yanami set her green-colored drink on the table. Little pieces of warabimochi littered the bottom with a thick layer of matcha paste on top. Crowning the whole arrangement was a helping of matcha soft serve.
“That thing sure is elaborate.”
“Mm-hmm. It’s called a ‘Matcha Warabimochi Cream Smoothie.’ On a diet, so I’m stickin’ with the drink.” I saw a few bits of the sweet, chewy mochi shoot up through the thick straw.
“Drinks have calories. And that one looks like it has a lot.”
“Okay, but this is Nishio matcha. And it’s a smoothie.”
“Okay.”
Slurp. Up went the mochi.
“Wait,” I said. “Not okay.”
Yanami smirked at me. “Do you even know what diet means, Nukumizu-kun?”
“Other than ‘something you do to lose weight’?”
“So small-minded. I’m always thinkin’ big picture stuff. We’re all on a diet, don’t you see? A diet’s just the stuff you eat. You can’t define that with numbers. Who cares if they’re big or small? It’s not worth the emotional roller coaster. I’m bigger than that now.”
“So you gave up.”
“Says who?!”
Sore loser.
“A diet is usually either good or bad. You’re supposed to watch what you eat, Yanami-san.”
“You and your boxes. Always trying to shove stuff inside ’em. I’m thinking higher concept here.”
“Okay.”
Aaand tuning out. This was brain poison.
“It all boils down to mental framing. Recent research shows that wanting to lose weight can actually nullify calories. Now, enter my mind palace. Matcha. Smoothie. Healthy-sounding stuff, right? I don’t believe this will make me gain weight, thus it will not.”
Didn’t know power scaling had invaded diet theory.
“Sounds like you need some salad senbei.”
“Now you’re getting it.” She siphoned some of the soft serve next.
On an unrelated note, the “salad” part of “salad senbei” came from salad oil specifically.
I’d had just about enough of diet dogma and was ready for someone else to tag in, so I scanned around for Komari or Shiratama-san. I actually found them relatively quickly. A surge of customers had come in, and they were stuck in the whirlpool.
No one send Komari to Tokyo either. But I knew that already.
“So sorry about that!” said Shiratama-san, joined by Komari, after being rescued yet again by Yanami. They each had matcha soft serve. Shiratama-san’s came with shiratama toppings. Whether this was purposeful or not was beyond me. “We ended up copying you two, but then it took so long to decide, and there was this crowd and, well, you saw what happened.”
She sat across from me with that cutesy grin I was starting to get used to. Komari sat next to her.
I spread a map out on the table. “Okay. What next?”
Yanami studied it closely. “I saw a place selling fruit sandwiches. But it could be fun to find the best ramen in the food court. Then again, I could really go for some teppan spaghetti from Ciao. But it is almost lunchtime.”
“Literally everything you just listed is lunch.”
Komari, already in tune-out mode, just nodded along. Shiratama-san smiled, unsure whether to laugh or take her seriously. Unfortunately, Yanami was incredibly serious about this. Now it was up to me to defuse the situation.
I finished my tea. “How about we just do some window shopping and see what we come across? You know, for inspiration. We can chat. Brainstorm?”
We were, nominally at least, here on club business after all. To get to know each other. Break the ice. Mostly for the benefit of the senior members.
Yanami nodded smugly. “I’ve got just the place. There’s a butcher shop that has the most awesome spread of meats you’ve ever seen.”
She, uh, had the spirit? Kind of.
Shiratama-san put her hands together. “Does anybody mind if we do a little clothes shopping? Your blouse is so pretty, Yanami-senpai, you absolutely must pick an outfit for me!”
“Oh. For real? Well, yeah, I might’ve wanted to show off a little. So glad one of us has the decency to notice.” She gave me a look for some reason. Different reaction to Komari’s but just as effective.
I wasn’t about to look this gift horse in the mouth. I stood. “Off we go!”
Komari gave me the stink eye. “C-can I finish eating?”
“Yeah, I’m not very good at eating and walking,” said Shiratama-san.
Right. Of course. I sat my butt back down.