NOVEL SIMPLE Chapter 36: In the mall
The air conditioning in the mall was literally and figuratively a breath of fresh air that I welcomed with open arms. It wasn't as different as I remembered the mall near us, or at least that's what I saw at first glance. There were artificial plants, lights, escalators, and so on. And like any mall on a weekend, it was quite crowded.
Different types of people were walking around with their family, partners, or friends, as you would expect in a mall, but one noticeable difference was that as I looked around, the looks were usually returned by women, some sending me a coy smile, some predatory, and even going so far as to send me a wink. I thanked the school for getting me used to this kind of attention, or at least making me endure it with the little time I had yesterday, but there was another difference that was... just paralyzing.
Animal ears. A pair of girls climbing the escalator to the second level had pointed ears on top of their heads, a tail swaying slightly behind them, showing that this wasn't some kind of cosplay.
I had seen them on TV and on my cell phone, but the fact that there were other races had not been so relevant to me until this moment, when I looked up and saw clearly these girls who could only have come from some pervert's fetish dream; ears wiggling vividly as they talked, black gothic-style clothing, and a miniskirt that, due to the angle from which I was viewing them, showed their underwear - sheer white panties - clinging to both cheeks.
Combined with these factors, I had no choice but to stare, even though I could feel Lineth's confused gaze to my right. And even if I wanted to react, my mind would simply reach the point where, without internal interruption, I would be trapped in a cycle of marveling at the sight of individuals of other races and marveling at the girls' lack of modesty.
Still, my mind, which always had to go off on tangents, couldn't help but wonder why there weren't more people of other races at the mall or even at school, and the answer came pretty quickly. Probably because of racism. After all, humans were still looked down upon by some of the other races, and the human country was small and didn't really have that many attractions besides the humans themselves.
And now that I think about it... Would I be more attractive to girls of other races, since my race is practically a minority? Would I be some kind of exotic candy, an SSR card? There were elves or something, right? Why didn't they show up in so many places? Wh-
“What are you watching, Alex?” Kevin's sudden voice snapped me out of my thoughts, I looked at the black haired boy who had interrupted my mental tirade and watched as his eyes went to the escalator where the girls had disappeared some time ago. "Anything interesting there?”
"Nothing at all." I said, taking one last look at the escalator before turning to Kevin with a smile.
"So, what are you doing? We'll leave you behind."
"My bad."
Kevin shook his head with a smile and motioned for me to follow him, Peyton waved to me in the distance and the group of boys fluttered straight to another clothing store as Kevin, Lineth and I caught up with them. The store didn't look that fancy or expensive, but rather had various designs from different franchises and various stuffed animals of some characters I obviously didn't recognize. However, I forced myself to follow them since I didn't know where to go, and Lineth, like a duckling following its mother, obediently walked behind me. For some reason, I had the feeling that she was watching my ass, which was still strange.
Still, I was somewhat grateful that Lineth's figure shielded me from the stares, because while the positive attention was somewhat refreshing, I knew I would tire of it and my sociability meter would explode if I had the pressure of all those horny stares on me all the time.
"Look, Alex!" Kevin, the usually quiet boy, jumped up to me with a stuffed wolf toy. "Look! Isn't it cute?"
I nodded. "Yeah."
Kevin pouted. "Cheer up Alex, you've barely smiled since we left."
"Does it seem like that? I'm sorry." When I got another deeper pout from Kevin, I let out a sigh and forced a small smile. "Better?"
Kevin brought the wolf toy up to my nose and made a growling noise before quickly pushing it away and smiling brightly. "That's a start."
At that moment, Lineth came up to me with the face of a person with a question, but before she could do anything, Peyton, who was looking at some t-shirts with what could only be Japanese writing on them, came up to me with an excited look in his eyes.
"Alex, they got it!"
As Peyton pulled me to a secluded spot, I looked around. "They got what?"
Peyton gasped and put his hand to his chest as if he was faking a heart attack. "The limited edition shirt of Attack My On The Heart, of course!"
I looked back at a clearly displeased Lineth, who was reluctantly looking at some shirts, and just sighed as Peyton showed me what we had both apparently been looking for for a long time.
(***)
I put my cell phone away after answering some worried messages from my sisters and mother in our family group. They weren't really worried, but they demanded that I check the messages more often when I told them I was busy shopping with the boys.
It wasn't an exaggeration to say that my group of friends was a bunch of grasshoppers, snatching up everything in sight in the window displays to go straight to the dressing room and try it on. I wasn't quite sure, but I think we had spent two hours in each store and we were still on the first floor! We hadn't gone up to the second floor, which made me sad for several reasons, but the first was that I wanted to see where those two wolf girls from earlier were.
I let out a sigh as I looked around the bench where I was sitting, waiting for the group of guys and Lineth to come out of the fourth clothing store. Next to me was a small shopping bag in which I had bought the limited edition shirt Peyton had shown me, and although social pressure had proven to be a strong adversary forcing me to buy more, I stood my ground and said I was saving up for something. Which saved me from carrying a lot of annoying shopping bags. In the end, I had no choice but to pull out my phone again and keep checking my messages because there was nothing else interesting to do.
"H-hello, I, uh."
I looked up from my phone at the female voice calling me.
"Lineth," I nodded at the girl. "Did you get bored being a doll to dress up?" I joked lightly.
"Yeah..." She revealed, looking at the bench I was sitting on as if asking for permission, and when I moved slightly to give her space, she quickly sat down, a little too close for my liking. "Uh, well, thanks. I was kind of tired." She let out a nervous laugh.
"Yeah, me too."
There was a moment of silence before Lineth seemed to find the courage to speak again. "What you said before... it's true... I, n-not a lesbian." She said, finally whispering.
"It's good to be honest, but you're in trouble, you'll probably have to keep pretending until we graduate, or get enlightened by going to a church or something, because if they find out you were lying, you could get severe punishments." I said as I watched Lineth's already pale face turn even paler.
She swallowed. "Y-you're not going to tell them, are you?"
"No, I wouldn't feel right doing that, but don't even think about taking advantage of any of them, do you understand?" I threatened, using a tone that I hoped sounded harsh.
Lineth waved her hands in front of me. "No, no, no, that was never my intention!"
I nodded, looking sideways at her. "Why did you even get into this? Some stupid dare?"
"Ah-" Lineth blushed. "I... I thought I'd get kisses and stuff if they pretended I was just another friend." Seeing my expression, Lineth shrank back in her seat. "You guys... no kissing? No erotic slumber party where you run around the house looking for underwear?"
I looked at her with a blank expression for a second before, unable to resist, I let out a big laugh that turned into a laughter that made Lineth look like she wanted to hide her head in a hole.
"Sorry, sorry." I snorted, catching my breath after the laughter stopped. "It's just... sorry, there's no excuse, it's too stupid. You watch too many movies."
Lineth pouted slightly. "A simple no would have sufficed."
"I'm sorry, it was wrong of me to laugh, but you also have to admit that what you did was pretty stupid."
"Yeah..." She ducked her head. "So I should keep pretending?"
"Yes. If you want to live socially, you have to keep doing it. "
"Will I stay a virgin until I graduate?"
"Probably."
Lineth put her head in her hands and I couldn't help but laugh again.
