小嫂子的味道

I walked into the hall after wearing some better clothes—as Anya had said—and wrapped a cloak around myself.

There I saw Ellyn and Anya waiting for me. Both of them were not dressed as fashionably as I\'d thought since most of their fashion was covered by the cloaks they wore. Cloaks were necessary after all, it was the winter season.

"Finally done?" Anya asked.

"Yeah, let\'s go," I said.

***

After informing Ainge of our departure, we left our house behind and stepped out on the road.

This road had less traffic because it was one of the larger alleyways and not technically a road. The path was paved with cobblestone and the snowfall from last night was collected on the sides.

We walked on this path for a while before it emerged and connected with the main road. Now, this was what you would like to call a road. The ground was paved with grated sandstone and the road was wide enough for five wagons to move side by side.

There were shops lined up on both sides of the road, they varied from small stalls to full-size shops. Wagons were rolling by from time to time and there were people wandering around as well.

The population was less, of course, due to the winter. But there were still enough to make it feel like a lively marketplace.

Almost all of them wore dark-colored cloaks hence it was difficult to distinguish one from the other. I wore one of the same colors—dark green—as well, however, thankfully Ellyn and Anya were easy to find out; Ellyn with her dark crimson cloak and Anya with ash gray.

We walked side by side and were soon standing at the heart of the market.

"What do we do now?" I asked. It was a genuine question. After all, I didn\'t spend every day shopping. In fact, I can\'t even remember the last time I went out to buy things with the motive of buying things.

"Isn\'t it obvious? We\'re here to buy clothes and some other things. What else we\'ll do," Anya replied.

That was it, right there. She might not realize it but that very thing was my problem. I didn\'t know how to buy clothes, I did not have a preference or fashion sense or anything fancy like that.

"Let\'s start from here then," Ellyn said and pulled us into the nearest shop.

We passed among a cluster of the crowd and stepped inside the shop.

"You shouldn\'t be wandering off on your own like that. You\'re not familiar with the city, you know that?" Anya warned her.

"I know, I know. But I\'m not a little kid—I didn\'t even get lost even as a kid—so you don\'t need to worry. Come on, let\'s see something from here," Ellyn said as she pulled Anya\'s arm and led her toward a specific section of the shop where the clothes were hung on the walls for display.

Since I was left alone with nothing in particular to do, I looked around in the shop in order to find something for me only to realize that they only had girls\' clothes in there.

\'Well, it should\'ve been obvious, shouldn\'t it?

[I agree with you on that. It was really really obvious just from looking at her reaction that she was drawn toward a shop that had clothes for girls. She is a girl, what do you expect?]

\'I know. Just took a while to realize that.\'

[I really can\'t understand you. Sometimes you act all smart and cocky and arrogant and the next moment you\'re choking over simple things. So simple even a kid could guess.]

\'I\'m NOT "arrogant" mind you.\'

[If you think that, then you\'re way too wrong about yourself. You should sit and take some time to think about your own character.]

\'My own character, huh? It\'s certainly not a topic I\'d like to dwell on.\'

[Then I can\'t do anything but correct you whenever you are about to make a bad decision because of your thoughts.]

\'What has gotten into you today? You don\'t normally talk like this.\'

[Now, do I?]

\'Sigh. You\'re still sticking to the fact that I didn\'t tell you the reason why I held back while fighting my dad, aren\'t you?\'

[…]

\'At least try to hide it, if that\'s the route you\'re gonna take.\'

[Tch. How can I not be mad about that, huh? Only some time ago you promised me that you will tell me if there\'s anything troubling you, but now this. How am I supposed to take this?]

\'I didn\'t tell you because it\'s not something that\'s troubling me.\'

[I know that. It\'s something you\'re WORRIED about, right?]

Now, how the hell was she reading my feelings? I didn\'t know that, and it frustrated me.

\'Anyway, I won\'t be telling you anything about it. It is something you should not know. Not now.\'

[…What do you mean by not now?]

\'I can\'t tell you right now, but if you behave yourself, I\'ll tell you everything when the time is right.\'

[And how am I supposed to believe you on that when you just broke your promise?]

\'Technically I haven\'t since I never said \'I promise\' in the first place, but I\'ll that slide. And for the situation at hand, it\'s up to you. Either you believe me or you don\'t. Those are the only two choices you have, and I won\'t be forcing you to choose anyone. So take your good time thinking about it.\'

I blocked Req from my head after that, since I needed to focus on what I was doing right now.

Moving toward where Ellyn and Anya had gone, I saw that they were skimming through the clothes one by one, and rather than picking the best one, they were busy pointing out the cons in each of them.

This was something my eyes could not bear to see. I mean, why even go through such trouble just to buy some clothes?

Whenever I had to buy them—even in my former life—I chose whatever looked like it would cover my body and I was comfortable in it. That\'s all!

Therefore, I moved back to the front of the shop and waited for them to finish their \'selection\'.