"Mooorning, guys!"

Our little group, composed of my girlfriends and Snowy, came to a stop when a familiar voice called out to us. Glancing over, for a moment I was afraid I was going to be tackled, but the energetic Celestial somehow managed to stop on a dime right in front of us. It actually took me a second longer than usual to recognize her, and not just because she was wearing our school's winter uniform.

By the way, we were all wearing those right now, and while the boys' uniform looked the same, except with a longer jacket and thicker materials, the girls switched to a longer skirt, black leggings, and boots. Speaking of which, why didn't the boy's uniform include boots? Was it some kind of egalitarian ploy enforcing that at least one part of everyone's legs had to be cold? Because I personally would've been perfectly fine with letting girls wear pants if I could put on a pair of warm boots in exchange…

But let's put the egalitarian conspiracy on hold for a moment and focus on Angie, and why she looked different. First and foremost, she currently had a cute, fluffy beret on her head, which certainly wasn't part of the uniform code. I quickly concluded that they should though, and made a mental note about getting one for everyone the next time I take Snowy shopping, but that was beside the point. Back to the girl in front of me: under said beret, she also had her hair in a loose braid ending in an implausibly large red ribbon. That was certainly a new look for her. She also might've had some makeup on her face, though I wasn't entirely sure about that bit.

"Morning, Angie," I greeted her back, and she gave me a wide grin in return.

"Glad to see you're up and running already!"

She tried to pat me on the shoulder, but then she realized that my arms were, as usual, reserved by my girlfriends, so in the end she turned the gesture into thumbs up.

"I actually entertained the idea of staying home on a sick leave, but…" I began, only for Judy to finish my sentence for me.

"But we are going to have career guidance this week, and missing it would be bad."

"What she said," I granted with a shrug, eliciting a giggle from both Angie and the princess. "So, where's Josh? Did he sleep in?"

"We aren't joined at the hip, you know?" Angie grumbled for a second, only to let a chuckle a beat later and add, "Nah, he just had to run some errands. He should catch up to us soon-ish."

"In that case, we might as well move along," I proposed, and the hyper Celestial immediately fell in line beside Snowy.

"I like your new hairstyle," my sister noted, earning yet another toothy smile in return.

"I know, right? We had a sleep-over last night, and Ammy made it for me!"

That stray comment immediately had my interest tickled. While I admittedly didn't check on them that often, I was pretty sure that I didn't see Amelia anywhere near their neighborhood through Far Sight.

"The class rep slept at your place?"

"Yeah," Angie confirmed. "She came over after dark because there was some kind of big party at their house, and her grandpa sent her over so that she wouldn't be bothered by the noise or the guests or something. I didn't really get it, but we haven't had a sleepover in ages, so it was still awesome! We ate Josh's emergency cookies, we watched that new kaijuu movie I talked about last week, and we checked out all the board-games we got from Ammy's gramps!"

"You had a sleepover with Josh?" my dear assistant inquired with a critical look in her eyes, but our Celestial friend immediately (and suspiciously vehemently) denied it.

"What? No! Don't be silly! He just stayed over until we went to bed, that's all!" After declaring so, Angie cleared her throat and quickly changed the subject. "But speaking of which, we totally have to try out one of the board games next time we all get together! It's this game where you have these character sheets, and you level up, and you roll your dice to see if you manage to attack something or climb a wall and stuff, and there's even one player who plays as the evil wizard whose job is to play as the monsters and set down traps and plan all kinds of nefarious schemes behind this really cool folding screen!"

"Sooo… It's like a tabletop RPG, but it's a board game."

Hearing my reductionist guess made Angie pause in her high-spirited tracks, and after a long moment of consideration, she gave me a huge nod.

"Yeah, kind of like that, and it's really cool, and we should really, really try it! Ah, and if we do, I already called dibs on being the evil wizard!"

A lite-version of a tabletop game DM'd by Angie of all people? That… actually sounded decently entertaining, especially with enough junk food and soft drinks involved.

"Consider me convinced. Let's backtrack a little though; you said the class rep slept over at your place, so why isn't she here with you?"

"She's with Josh. He's running those errands for her."

I let out a small 'Oh,' in response and left it at that, and with the well of that topic seemingly drying up, Angie turned to my sister, and the two of them quickly got enveloped into their own little world as they discussed various girly things, such as Angie's makeup or how Snowy should also try changing her hairstyle.

As for my girlfriends, they remained silent as they continued to hold onto me, leaving me a lot of time to observe my surroundings. First and foremost, the air was quite chilly, though I didn't feel it too much since I was warmed by two sides at once. The placeholders lingering on the streets, on the other hand, were apparently feeling it, as a lot of them looked borderline frozen as they monotonously walked along. Well, most of them, at the very least.

The wage-slave types, the office ladies, and the other assorted placeholders going to their work all seemed to be a little under-dressed for the weather, but on the other hand, I could see a couple of students from our school who were also happily wearing our winter uniform. That said, the division wasn't so clear-cut, as I could see a couple of adult placeholders who were also dressed with enough layers to make an onion proud, so maybe the way they clothed themselves also depended on their 'development level'?

This naturally only made me once again question the priorities of this 'Simulacrum' thing we apparently lived in. On a side-note, Judy looked into the word, and it had to do with some French philosopher and hyper-reality and some action movies about being plugged into machines or whatnot, but long story short, she decided that we should use it instead of 'the world' in the future for the sake of clarity, and I was fine with it. Elly got lost at the hyper-reality part of the explanation, but I'm sure she was in agreement too.

Anyhow, while I was considering these things, I noticed the familiar sound of a moped closing in on us, and in a couple of seconds, Josh's ride caught up with us as he honked the horn, as if we could even miss his arrival if we tried. He was also in his winter uniform, plus safety helmet, and behind him, the class rep was holding onto him for dear life, her arms clenched around his waist like vices, though he didn't seem to mind.

"Hi, guys!" my friend greeted us with a grin before looking over his shoulder and adding, "See, I told you we would catch up with them in no time."

It seemed like Ammy only just realized that they came to a stop, and after glancing around like a rabbit in the fox-pen before immediately letting him go and jumping off the seat.

"I'm never riding with you again!" she declared with an angry huff, following which she straightened her clothes and greeted us with a modest, "Good morning."

While we returned the greetings, Angie let out a small chuckle and exclaimed, "Oh, come on, Ammy! It surely wasn't that bad! I love riding shotgun with Josh!"

"You can only ride shotgun in a car," Judy pointed out but got dismissed with a nonchalant 'Semantics!' from her.

In the meantime, the class rep tweaked her glasses a little and responded with, "Of course you enjoyed it! He's a menace on the road, and you are just the type who would get a kick out of that!"

"In my defense, I usually don't ride that recklessly," Josh noted a little sheepishly as he removed his helmet, revealing his bed-hair for all to see. Or in this case, was it helmet-hair? "I only ran that curb because we had to catch up to them."

"Now, now, buddy. Don't be modest," Angie teased him a bit. "I'm sure you enjoyed those bumps as well."

"Well, I didn't not enjoy them, but…"

I let the childhood friends and their thinly veiled innuendos well enough alone and focused on the slightly disheveled class rep instead.

"I've heard you had a sleepover because your gramps had a party. What's that about?"

My direct question earned me a displeased grimace and a sharp, "Wouldn't you know that better than me?"

"Hey, I can't be everywhere at once."

"But you could if you had an army of ninjas," my draconic girlfriend whispered to me, so I did the only reasonable thing and tickled her side with extreme prejudice.

"Will you stop bringing that up already?"

"Never!" she yelled out defiantly between two giggles, much to the class rep's confusion.

"What is that about?"

"It's a long story, kind of irrelevant," I responded after one last assault on my girlfriend's vulnerable side. "So, why was there a party at your house?"

Ammy glanced around for a moment, and once she was sure there were no rogue elements who could overhear us, she leaned closer and told me, "Grandfather arranged it for the investigators from the Assembly. arch-mage Saahira herself came over as the leader of the group, so he told me to stay at a friend's place until the investigation blows over."

"Does that mean you're going to stay over tonight too?" the energetic Celestial suddenly elbowed her way into the conversation, forcing the class rep to let out an ambivalent grunt.

"I don't know yet, I have to speak with grandfather again first."

"You're free to stay at our place any time!" Angie offered right away. "We still have half a box of cookies left!"

"I don't know what those two things have to do with each other," Josh grumbled while pushing his moped beside us. "Also, those are my cookies you're talking about. I've been keeping them sealed for an emergency for weeks."

"Silly Josh, those have already been communalized! Those are our cookies now! Didn't you already agree last night?"

"You didn't give me much of a choice in the matter…"

"No take-backsies!" Angie declared with an impish grin, eliciting a long groan from my friend that said he knew he shouldn't have even tried to argue, but then he glanced at me next.

"Hey, Leo? Since you are filthy rich and all, can you maybe help out a guy whose supplies are being pilfered by a one-woman communist regime?"

"The revolution will not be vilified, but it will gladly take any additional snacks the bourgeois might want to provide!" Angie added on, and I couldn't help but shake my head.

"Behave yourself, and we can talk about it."

"Sir, yes sir!" the hyper Celestial exclaimed with a mock salute, making her childhood friend promptly roll his eyes.

"And that's how the Angie regime has fallen and became yet another tale of capitalist money corrupting everything. Oh the humanity."

"Oh the humanity indeed," Angie agreed, and the two of them proceeded to continue espousing their historically questionable allegories as they fell back to the end of our procession. In the meantime, Ammy took Angie's place next to my sister, and after looking our group over, she addressed me to get my attention.

"Say, Leo? Did you leave the little girl at your house, or at the base?"

"You mean Ichiko? Nah, she's in Judy's shadow at the moment."

Ammy looked a tad flabbergasted for a moment, but before she could ask for clarification, a small head rose out of the ground near our feet and she was greeted by a loud, "Good morning, Ammy-san!"

"W-What is that?!"

The class rep recoiled back in surprise, while the childhood friend duo let out gasps of amazement at the same time. As for me, I simply raised a leg, and threatened to stomp on her head instead.

"I told you not to come out while we're in the open. What are you going to do if Judy's shadow gets erased by a headlight and you get bisected?"

Hearing my words made the little miko shudder for a second before she immediately disappeared out of sight with a mousy 'Sorry!', leaving the members of the group who hadn't already experienced this spectacle completely stunned.

It was Amelia who first managed to break out of her stupor and, after some hesitation, she pointed at the spot where the little girl's head used to be just a second ago and asked, "Did… she just merge into the ground?"

"Into Judy's shadow, but yes. It's a ninja thing."

"I presume you are going to explain this in detail."

"Sure, but later," I answered while using my chin to point (since my hands were still occupied) towards the gates at the top of the hill.

"Lunch break?" she asked.

"Lunch break," I answered.

And with that, this particular conversation was concluded without any fanfare. That said, we naturally didn't stay quiet for long.

"Hey, Josh. I just thought of something," Angie spoke up, drawing our attention to her. "I thought you couldn't leave your bike on school grounds. What are you going to do with it?"

"Oh, that?" my friend responded without the slightest shred of worry. "We are kinda-sorta friends with Pascal now, right? I'm sure he'll let me take it inside if I tell him this was an emergency."

"I'm not so sure about that," Ammy commented in a quiet voice, but he willfully ignored her and redoubled his efforts to push his ride up the hill.

"Come on guys, it's going to be fine. Let's hurry up or we're going to be late!"

"Late from what? Career-consultation?" I grumbled, and Judy gave me a stern look for my trouble.

"Yes, Chief. It's important."

"Maybe, but is it important for me in particular?" I asked back. "I mean, I don't think I need any counseling to become a philanthropist millionaire record magnate."

"Not all of us are as rich as you are, Chief," she countered in her monotoniest monotone, but I already had my answer ready.

"Are you sure? Let's count: I have a lot of money, so as long as I don't blow it all, I don't have to worry about getting a nine-to-five job. Elly is even richer than me, and she's going to inherit her family's business, so she's also out. You are going to marry into the family, so you can either help manage the company or do whatever else you fancy. Snowy is also part of the family, so the same applies to her. Ammy lives in a mansion too, and her grandpa practically owns the island, so I don't think she has anything to worry about. As for Angie and Josh…" I paused here for a long moment, and then concluded with, "Well, I'm already sending foreign aid to fuel her regime, so Angie's going to be fine."

"I'll be the la Presidenta of my own island republic, except we are going to have cookie-plantations for days!" the subject of my comment declared without missing a beat, drawing out an exasperated sigh from my dear assistant in the process.

"What about me then?" Josh cut in, and I didn't even need to think to tell him:

"Ask Angie if she needs a right-hand man to oppress the disenfranchised cookie-plantation workers?" He didn't really appreciate my answer, so in the end I decided to be more serious. "Listen, Josh. You really don't have to worry about a thing. Considering it's you we are talking about here, I can guarantee that the world is going to end up revolving around you in one way or another no matter what you'd choose to do."

"You think so?" His response, joined by his display of virtuoso eyebrow-raisology, felt a little uncertain at first, but when I didn't add anything else, he continued with a sheepish, "Well, thanks, dude."

"That wasn't a compliment, but a warning," I amended, but by then we already reached the top of the hill, and my friend dashed ahead to talk to a certain Armband Guy by the school gates. And just like that, another ordinary school day began in our beloved Blue Cherry High.

Also, just for the record, I wash my hands of any responsibility for Angie actually writing 'dictator of a banana-republic' on her career counseling pamphlet.