The next day, I found myself meeting up with Biologist at the mall. She wouldn’t shut up and leave me alone until I agreed. I thought long and hard about not showing, but she’d just come back to my house and drag me out by my ear. So, now I’m here.

She eventually met me at the food court like she said, albeit about ten minutes late. I was halfway through a small plate of nachos. It was lunchtime, and I didn’t want to be grumpier than I already am.

“Hello, Mina. I see you’ve gotten a head start on our mall date.”

I almost choked.

“This isn’t… Just tell me what I’m doing here, please.”

“It’s not like I brought you here to do anything in particular.”

“So I can go home?”

“That’s not what I said. I don’t need you to do anything, but I need you to be here. That’s all.”

“No tricks?”

“None.”

“So I can just hang out here in the food court until you tell me I can go home?”

“Sure, if you really want to.”

Biologist must underestimate my ability to do absolutely nothing for extended periods of time. It might be what I’m best at, actually. Of course, cosmically speaking, everything I do is meaningless. I might as well be doing nothing all the time. (Or would it be doing something none of the time?)

She eventually left me alone to go explore some of the mall. It seems that she’s never been here before, and was slightly overwhelmed by all the colorful capitalist exhibitions on display. I simply sat and kicked my feet under the table while I played with my phone like it was any other day. Really, being here isn’t that bad. I’m not in my PJs, and I can’t watch embarrassing videos in case someone is peeking, but I can manage.

Or at least I could have managed, if I hadn’t spotted the only two people I was trying to avoid. While Biologist and I were on our “lovely mall date”, Bunny and Rose were seemingly on theirs.

My first instinct was to hide, but I’m not badass enough to dive behind a counter or anything like that. Luckily I didn’t have to, as those two passed by the food court without much inspection. I watched them walk down the hall full of people towards the west wing of shops, the same way Biologist went.

Even though I didn’t have to, I went to find her. I had some things I wanted to say.

After a minute or two of searching, I found her in the electronics store. She was staring at a computer mouse, poking it with her finger in an attempt to see if it was actually alive. Admittedly, it was pretty funny, but I was in no mood for that.

“Biologist! You’re an asshole!”

“What? Why?”

“You knew Rose and Bunny were here, didn’t you?”

Her eyes practically became cat eyes as they drifted towards her left.

“N-No, heavens, I hadn’t the slightest idea…”

The suspicious personality of Biologist’s that I met for the first time at my house was coming back out. Just like then, I stayed quiet and allowed her to talk herself into a hole.

“I suppose it’s possible that I could have heard something like this, and simply just internalized the information—totally subconscious. I did not intentionally bring you out here to, perhaps, find out what they’re up to right now. I-I mean, not that I know they’re up to anything—just in case they are! Uh...yeah.”

My face was already in my palms. Rose and Bunny are up to something, huh? I don’t know what they were doing, but I guess now would be the time to do it. I did tell them I wouldn’t be interacting with them for a week. Maybe that was a dumb idea.

“Is that what you wanted me here for? To sneak up on those two?”

“Nononono-no! Absolutely not! I simply wanted you here in case things go wrong, somehow. To be on standby, you know? There won’t be any espionage—”

I interrupted her mid-sentence as I put on the pair of sunglasses I keep in my bag. There absolutely will be espionage, because I don’t plan on waiting around. I’m getting this done now.

After just a few minutes, we followed in the direction I saw our targets walking towards earlier. Using my knowledge of the main suspect’s behavior, it was safe to assume they were going to Momo Imports.

“Momo” was a specialty clothing store full of… the kind of shit Rose wears. Sailor uniforms, exaggerated pink bows, along with hypnotising arrays of various shiny cosplay props. It was also a very large store, considering how niche it is. It’s about the size you’d expect of a building on its own, much less a store in the mall. Many people back at college said it was suspicious how our little town had a needlessly sprawling cosplay store, but I actually think the opposite. It’s the inexplicable—yet harmless—irregularities like this that remind me that life is actually real, not just a predictable simulation.

“Alright Bio, this place is huge, so let’s split up. We’ll meet back up in the manga section in an hour.”

“Why manga?”

“That’s the section people are the least likely to look you in the face.”

It seems Biologist still had a lot to learn about human culture.