The Need to Play (Misaka)

[alex]

There was always one good thing about the mall, and that was all the computer stores that sold various games that Alex enjoyed. It was one of the only interactions that the young man could actually say that he enjoyed, but there was those days that they didn't have what he was looking for. Fortunately, this was not one of those days as he had gotten the rpg game that he had been waiting for, which wasn't saying much as he was always waiting on some game to come out.

He was walking passed a clothing store as he read the back of the box of the game that he had just purchased. "Over fifty different characters to play each with their own story arc to play out. This was definitely worth the money that I spent on it." His brother and cousin had told him that it was like burning money, but Alex enjoyed the games too much to consider that they might be right. He didn't see why they were so concerned with what he did anyway.

His focus was completely on the game in his hands, so Alex didn't notice the person that was walking in the opposite direction. It seemed like it was going to be a head on collision if something didn't happen to stop it. Unfortunately, Alex wasn't about to look up any time soon as he had just reached the part about a multiplayer mode, which sounded like a nice way to make 'friends'.

[misaka]

You never know what you have in till it's gone. At least, in the case of money. While Misaka was very careful in her spending habits, there were moments when she had a relapse, causing her to go upon a spending spree without even realizing it. This was one of those cases. With three boxes of shoes and two heavy bags dangling from each of her elbows, the young girl regretted her moment of weakness. She was just thankful that she hadn't been carrying Demi-Veemon with her, otherwise it would be a much more difficult task getting around.

"I should have asked one of the others to come with me. Maybe then I wouldn't have went so crazy...."

With a frown upon her face, she continued making her way through the mall, smiling towards a boy as she passed by. While a few had already offered to give her a hand, she didn't want to trouble a stranger. Besides, if she could buy it, she could very well carry it all the way home. Of course, she hadn't realized that she was on a collision course with another person, bumping direction into them and falling backwards onto the ground.

As her bags laid on both sides of her, and the boxes upon her lap, Misaka rubbed her head with a pain stricken expression before looking up with one eye open. She remained calm, especially since this was more than likely her own fault, looking towards the stranger with a sheepish grin.

"Oh...sorry about that...I should have been watching where I was going..."

[alex]

Wham!

That would have been the sound effect on a cartoon of two people meeting, which would probably have been followed by a bunch of things flying up into the air and then back down on top of two people as that was what had occurred to the person holding the actual boxes. Alex just got knocked to the floor with the game still in his hand, which is what he checked over once he recovered from the initial shock of being bumped aside by someone.

After giving it a good look over, he deemed it okay, and this was the point that he remembered that he had been knocked over by someone who hadn’t been paying attention to where they were going. As soon as he saw who had done, Alex got this feeling in his stomach that he was going to regret not being knocked unconscious by the floor. A girl had bumped into him, and from all the containers and bags that she had around her Alex could see why he had been hit. “Must be pretty hard to walk through a mall while carrying a wall in front of your face.”

From outside of Alex’s mind, that comment could have been construed as being a joke, but he was just making an honest observation about the girl’s actions. His mind finally produced the idea that he should ask her if she was uninjured by the fall that she had just gone through, but he needed to do it in a sympathetic way that would make it sound like he was taking the blame for something that was clearly her fault. “So are you okay? I mean, did you get hurt when I walked into you and caused you to fall down?”

[misaka]

It didn't take long for the girl to hear the sarcasm in his voice, causing her to raise one of her brows as a smirk crossed over her face. He had a point, and she wouldn't argue against Most likely if she hadn't lost her control over her passions, she wouldn't have brought so much to put her in such a position. Still, Misaka had thought she was doing well with balancing all her things. Of course, it was likely that this stranger would disagree.

"Heh...I tried to make it so I had a good view of everything. Though I guess it wasn't good enough huh?"

Giggling lightly as she slowly rose from off the ground, the young teen held her eyes close as she continued to smile while nodding towards the boy when he asked if she was ok. Other than the small scratches from her bags sliding off her arms, Misaka didn't think she'd die. If anything, she would just nurse them later or let them heal on their own.

"I'm ok. Just small scratches. How about you? You didn't hit your head or anything did you?"

Opening her eyes quickly, the girl looked him over with a concerned gaze as she then knelt down to retrieve two of the bags that had fallen to the floor.

[alex]

The girl tried to make the excuse that she thought her items had been positioned so that her field of view was good enough to keep from hitting anything. Obviously, her calculations had been off given what had happened to the two of them, but another comment full of sarcasm might warrant a smack to his face on her part which wasn’t good.

“One can always aim for being perfect, but will always fall short of it.”

It was a simple comment that was meant to be enlightening, but Alex would not be able to know how the girl would respond to it. Every person interpreted things that were said in a different way since each person had his or her own opinion on what things meant. Naturally, he didn’t care what she got out of what he said as he knew what he meant by it which was that nothing can ever be truly flawless as it would mean that it didn’t exist.

“I assure you that I am perfectly fine. It will take more than hitting the floor to cause my body any damage.”

He watched as she retrieved two bags that had fallen, and then he realized that he had done the rudest thing imaginable and needed to correct it. “I must apologize for not doing this sooner as it was very uncalled for on my part.” He took a deep breath and composed himself so that he didn’t look like a total idiot. “Hello. My name is Alex Harrison, and you are?”

[misaka]

It was easy to see the sarcasm in the boy's tone. In fact, it reminded Misaka a lot of her younger sibling, especially when she was moody. Of course, in this case, she couldn't simply flick the boy's forehead to get him to stop. In a sense, the young girl figured she deserved it for being so reckless. So she just grinned sheepishly while laughing lightly.

But when he apologized for forgetting to introduce himself, Misaka found herself rather set back by this. She hadn't expected him to even attempt to state his name, yet he seemed to do so with such an urgency. Then again, she probably would have done it herself if she had she been in his situation.

"Oh? I'm Yamashita Misaka...It's nice to meet you..."

Bowing her head slightly, the girl continued to smile as she then returned to picking up the remaining items upon the ground.

"So...What brings you to the mall Alex?"

[alex]

“It is a pleasure to make your acquaintance, Misaka.”

Well the conversation seemed to be moving away from the topic of why they were talking in the first place and had now moved on to her asking him a very personal question. Actually, it wasn’t that personal since it was such a juvenile thing to be in a mall for in the first place, so Alex had no qualms answering the question.

“I am here purchasing a video game for myself.”

As he said it, Alex help up the case of the game that he had just bought before the two of them had collided like bumper cars. It wasn’t the most impressive thing to be showing someone, but it ha been her question so all he could do was be as courteous about it as possible and showing her what he had got seemed to fall under that category.

“I would ask you why you are here, but it seems rather obvious that you were also picking up a few things. Are all of them clothes?”

[misaka]

After retreiving the last of the boxes from the ground, the girl looked up to see the case of the game before smiling and rising up to a standing position. A video-game. It seemed like something her brother would play, considering how involved different stories through multiple play-through. Renn always seemed to love games like that. While she enjoyed them on occasion, the teen preferred reading a book or doing something outside to remaining indoors. But then again, to his or her their own.

"Looks pretty cool..."

With a smile, the teen managed to balance out the boxes in one arm as she nodded towards Alex as he asked if everything she had brought were all clothing items.

"Sadly yea.....I kinda got carried away. All I originally came in for was a pair of sneakers for gym class...."

Sighing as she shrugged her shoulders, Misaka closed her eyes as a smirk emerged over her face.

"This is what happens when a girl ignores her urges to shop for close to three months....Shopping Spree..."

[alex]

Alex was already regretting showing her the actual game that he had purchased as it wasn’t the most mature thing for someone his age to have, but it was something that he liked. It was something that sort of made him unique from the rest of the people in his class as they were those that played sports or focused on getting into a good college even though it would just be a waste of time for them to do so.

“You might try bringing enough money for the item that you plan on buying. It will directly prevent you from purchasing more than you originally planned.”

Of course, Misaka may enjoy buying tons of things because they looked nice and came in boxes that would obscure her vision until she knocked into someone. Maybe that was how she liked to meet people as it was definitely easy to start a conversation by bumping into someone, but it seemed a little far-fetched in his mind as that would mean she would get hurt a lot. Alex sighed as he realized that he was overthinking things a little too much.

“So how often do you go on shopping sprees?”