| Psithurisim |

| Chapter 7 |

Souvenir shopping with Mera involves a lot of free samples. She also doesn't seem to understand that you're really only supposed to have one. As she's causing a commotion, I buy myself a turkey sandwich. My hand hovers over a second sandwich as I think of Mera. She's always hungry, and I never really see her buy much food for herself – especially if there's free samples around. Sighing, I decide to just grab another one. A fed Mera is better than a Mera that's starving. Maybe we'll be able to get out of here sooner too!

As Yumehara and Teruhashi are trying to get Mera to stop grabbing more samples, I make my purchase. When I come back, I hear Teruhashi tell Yumehara, "I think I saw Kaido over there, it's ok – Abeno and I will stay here with her."

"No, I'll stay." Yumehara sighs, "and Chiyo's fine. I mean, you know my crush by now, so."

"Oh, Abeno's back," Teruhashi says, "and you can both call me Kokomi. It's only right after you both stood up for me today."

"I um. I know you haven't known me long." I state, looking at my sandwich, "but if you don't mind calling me Haruna. I think it would be nice. Abeno feels a bit stiff."

"Ok! Kokomi, Haruna, how are we going to pull Mera out of here?"

I hold up my extra sandwich, wiggling it, "I have a bit of an idea."

"Hey Mera!" Kokomi gets her attention. Just barely.

"I bought an extra sandwich for you" I barely get the words out of my mouth, before Mera is pawing at the sandwich. I hand it to her, and we get on our way.

Mera and I walk behind the other two girls, munching on our sandwiches. She's able to finish hers much, much quicker than I – and I can't help but feel kind of envious at that.

"Thank you, Ab-"

"Please, Haruna is just fine. We're kind of friends after all aren't we?"

She smiles, "thank you Haruna! You can call me Chisato, if you want to. Now, are we going to get food soon."

"You. You just ate?"

"But I'm hungry again." She complains.

Sighing, I break off a small part of what's left of my sandwich, "here you go, you bottomless pit."

She snatches the sandwich and away it goes. I just shake my head at her antics. We should really look at taking her to a buffet and just turning her loose. Maybe then she'd have a chance at actually feeling full for once.

It isn't long before we meet up with the boys minus Saiki, thankfully, and decide on grabbing desert. We find a cute little sweet shop, and I'm quick to order a strawberry cheesecake and a scoop of ice cream. Everyone else just orders the special, a coffee-flavored thingy. Kind of like a coffee jelly, only there's more to it than that.

"Bud your arm looks cool!"

I blink over at Nendo, "I."

I watch Chiyo kind of just, glare at him. While I'm glad she's willing to glare on my behalf, it really isn't necessary. After all, it's just Nendo. Though he looks scary, I've kind of just understood him as harmless and a bit dense. Unless sports are involved. Then he's insanely terrifying.

"I know it probably hurt a lot. But I'm glad you can show it to us."

I sigh, appreciative of his words, "uh, thanks, Nendo."

"Yeah" Kaido pipes up, "it kind of looks like part of the Scorched cosmetic you unlock after defeating the Ochre Dragon."

I can't help but look down at my arm, "it kind of does, doesn't it?"