(going back a few years to arden and mai being like 8, dont mind!!!)
"Yes!" Mai is on the verge of exploding.
"Oh come on, you've gone out to the spring market before, now is nothing new." Cassidy blankly replies.
"Well, yeah, but this time, normal people are allowed!"
"You're speaking as if you are not a normal person."
"No, no, I'm higher up the social class which makes me not a normal person."
Mai is not wrong. She is the second child of a highly esteemed gentleman known as "the Duke". Nothing else. Just "the Duke". Supposedly, it was because he was a highly respected man that owned multiple high corporations, and people were so awestruck, they nicknamed him.
Cassidy is the oldest of the Duke's children and is given the troublesome responsibility of caring for her three-years-younger sister.
Anyways, the opportunity for Mai to step outside rarely ever shows up, so it wasn't puzzling that young Mai would leap at the chance.
After dressing Mai in clothes that Cassidy prayed would not stain or tear, they set out.
The plaza in which the market took place is a short ride from their manor, so an awkward ride with two guards and two girls thankfully took a few long minutes.
The minute Mai steps out of her car, she's swamped with stares and whispers. Panicked, Mai nervously waves to the crowd. Cassidy notices and hisses at her to close her eyes and grab her hand.
She holds it so long that her hand becomes numb and unaware of her sister's hand slipping away.
"What the hell are you doing?" An annoyed squeaky voice stabs her mind.
"HEY! No saying the double hockey sticks word!" Another voice farther away shouts.
Mai opens her eyes to see a very pissed-off boy staring at her. Like her, he has mismatched eyes, only his were black and blue. His hair was a pale shade of extremely dark mauve, it looked almost brown.
"Oh, yeah, sorry. You couldn't see what mess you made because your gosh darn eyes were shut!"
Now she could see. The boy has red soft-serve ice cream all over his shirt and it's dripping onto his sandals.
"I mean, you could lick it off." Mai nonchalantly answers. She's joking of course, but the kid in front of her doesn't seem like he can take a joke.
"Ugh... Just give me a napkin if you have one." The boy mumbles. "Why the heck are you even here? It's still school hours, and my teacher said we're the only school going here today."
"Wait a minute, even if you're with a group, where is everyone else?" The boy asks. He takes a bite of his ice cream cone which miraculously survived the crash.
"I dunno. I got lost from my group and now I'm here." Mai shrugs.
"Well, I think we should explore because I got lost from my group too, and I don't wanna go with Yoichi here because he's really annoying and he talks too much."
The other kid who earlier spoke bites with venom in his voice. "You're the one talking too much." Angered, he storms away. "I'm going to Alexei!"
"Oops." The boy looks at her. "My name's Arden, what's yours?"
Mai's expression turns slightly sour. "Kind of weird to introduce yourself after that, but my name's Mai."
"Alright. Mai, I think we should stay here because if we move and they move we're gonna be losing each other, and that would be bad, so we'll stay here."
They stay in that same area and gossip until Cassidy finally catches sight of Mai and signals to the guards.
"Yo, there's someone pointing at you." Arden elbows Mai.
"There they are!" Mai gets up and waves to the intimidating trio. She turns to Arden and starts to step back. "Bye-bye, Arden! It was nice meeting you!"
"You too! Maybe we'll meet again!" Arden shouts back.
Mai turns to Cassidy and runs. She turns around, hoping to see Arden again, but he's gone. All she sees is the dark mauve top of his head in a sea of other kids.
