Sotoka was the first one to let one of her ideas reach out her mouth.

“We should head for some clothes!”

Of course, since buying clothes is not my priority on this trip, I intervened, giving her another and more interesting option.

“No, no. I need to go and check out some new books, you know?”

That's right, even if there's a bookstore in our town, the amount and variety they have can not be compared to all the stores you’ll be able to find in the city. Luckily, everytime I ask the clerk if she can order a specific book for me, she does me that favor. However, I need to know what kind of books are out there in order to know what to order, so taking a look at the bookstores around is an obligatory part of this trip.

However, even if Sotoka is always by my side, she is not interested in books at all, so she gave me another idea.

“Then, we can stop on our way there and buy some fruit juices!”

“Food, really? I thought you said that dessert was for later…”

“Don't be dumb, Eriko. Juice is not a dessert. Fufufu~”

“Geez…”

I couldn't figure out how to answer such nonsense so I ended up just letting out a sigh.

That is how, just like that, merely chit chatting, we started aimlessly walking through the city.

Well, it wasn't fully aimless, because it was clear that in one way or another, Sotoka was leading the way towards the shopping district.

When we finally arrived at what obviously was our final destination, I couldn't stay silent anymore, but at the same time, I wasn't fully able to complete the sentence that I wanted to say.

“This is…”

“Oh, did you notice it?”

“There's no way I wouldn't notice…”

In fact, at this point there's no room for doubts about what her plan was, after all, it was the first activity that she proposed.

Right in front of us, there was a gigantic building the size of an entire square. Its walls were made of glass and a huge mechanical door wide open welcomed everyone who was walking on the streets.

A huge sign with the name “Mallmax” was the icing on the cake, bearing out that this was nothing but a shopping mall and making clear that Sotoka just wanted to walkme around trying out different kinds of clothes and outfits.

Well, I'm not fully against that idea because usually my Mom is the one that buys me the clothes, so having a chance to pick them on my own sounds a little bit interesting. However, I'm scared of the ones that she’ll pick for me to try on.

“Are we really going to do this…?”

“Why wouldn't we? I mean, we are able to try a lot of different styles in this place. That's totally the opposite of what we do in our town!”

“I know, but… Jeez, okay, but we need to save money for the food and some books too!”

“All right, all right! Fufufu~”

We went inside the building and somehow it looked even bigger now that we were inside. There were a lot of mechanical stairs that connected the different floors, and even an elevator that was really helpful if you were carrying a lot of stuff (which is probably what is going to be our case).

Of course, there were different kinds of stores and not just the ones that are specialized in selling clothes. Makeup, toys, household utensils, among others. There were even stores selling different kinds of food! Maybe that's why she proposed to get something to drink? Now that I pay a little bit more attention, there's even some bookstores around.

This is my first time in this kind of building, so I was really dazzled due to the glittering and fanciness of the place. Each store, and somehow, even the people that were walking from one store to another, looked as if they had their own essence and personality.

Sotoka was in the same mood, shocked by the amazingness of the place we’ve just walked in. In fact, I could swear that I saw her eyes sparkling as she had an expression of excitement drawn on her face.

Subtlety, she said something unbelievable and really dangerous.

“Let's go, Eriko! Let's go and look for some cute underwear!”

“W-What?!”

Before I could react and do something about it, she grabbed my hand and started aimlessly running around searching for a lingerie store

When she finally saw one, without taking any second to doubt about what was coming next, she squeezed my wrist even harder and rushed inside the store.