Who can you see? [w/Hideo]

Going to the mall was always a complicated experience for Hideo.

Every day he was brought there, he'd always find something new to be amazed by.  There was such a wide variety of stores here that he'd get to visit that it was always like a new little venture.  Game stores, book stores, candy stores, candle stores, clothes stores, shoe stores - anything he could think of, was probably somewhere in the mall.  And him being brought here usually meant he was gonna got something good.

But the place also made him somewhat uneasy.  There were always so many people here that it got pretty crowded at times.  The noise made it hard for him to tell where people were, so he couldn't risk poking around without risking touching someone and causing an awkward situation.  Paired with how infrequently he came here, it made it very hard to make a mental map of the area.  So rather than let him look around on his own, he'd always have to be guided around by someone.

But hey, at least he got to spend some time with the younger of his two older sisters, Shiina.

It had been her idea to go to the mall today, and she insisted that he come along.  Where were they going?  She was actually very tight-lipped about which store they were going to, just giving him a cryptic "you'll like it".

And yet, she brought him to a Cafe first.  He'd actually eaten here the last few times the two of them came to this place.  But this time, he was told that she had to "get something ready for you", and just handed him some money and said to wait there until she was back.  He couldn't tell how much she gave him, but he trusted that it'd be enough, though her dodginess was getting pretty suspicious.

But the first issue arose when he went to the front desk to ask for a spot: apparently, they were pretty busy, something he could get from all the chatter.  They did have space, but apparently, he'd have to share a table with someone else.  While he was fine with it, and confirmed as much, it made him wonder who he'd get seated with.

The attendant led him by hand - she seemed to be aware he couldn't see - over to where the table was.  "Excuse me, miss?" the attendant began, with a gentle voice, "We don't have any empty tables at the moment, so would you mind if he shared a table with you?"

So, he'd be sharing a table with a girl.  A teenager, no doubt - these cafes were supposed to be filled with teens, right?  Well, he hoped she wouldn't mind him being there.  With one hand still held by the attendant, he awkwardly tried to wave with his red-tipped cane still in his hand, hoping to make at least a decent first impression.

He hoped he wasn't making her feel forced into this...

Hideo smiled, stifling a giggle when he heard the girl's voice.  He'd expected to be seated with a teenage girl, kinda like the one that escorted him to this table, not someone just a few years older than he was.  It'd probably make things much less awkward too - he didn't want to make someone feel like they were babysitting him.  And he'd feel a bit more comfortable talking to someone around his own age.

He moved to take his seat.  A quick check revealed the chair was just as high as it was last time he was here, as was the table.  A little inconvenient, but he'd dealt with it before.  He folded up his cane, placing it at the back of his chair.  Fortunately, the chairs had bars that he could step onto to help him reach his seat - a necessity because when he finally had his butt planted on the chair, he realized his feet weren't touching the ground.

He moved his cane onto his lap, intent on making sure it stayed there.  If this thing fell off his chair, he was in trouble.

With that ordeal out of the way, the girl across from his introduced herself.  Oh, right!  He'd forgotten to introduce himself.  "Akimi Midoria...that's a nice name!  My name's Hideo Kino.  It's nice to meet you!"  He waved to her from across the table, forgoing a handshake.  He doubted his hand would reach hers anyways - these tables were big.

Hideo heard his menu touch the table before the attendant told him it was there.  The menu was mostly white, save for a label on the front that said "For those with visual difficulties.", and at first glance, the menu was otherwise featureless.  However, in place of text, there were bumps, each in little sections of 2x3 boxes.  While they would seem erratic to anyone looking at them, each pattern held a meaning: each one was a single hiragana sound, which Hideo could read just by feeling over them with a finger.

He read over the menu quickly, though was baffled by what he could possibly go with.  There were a number of options he was tempted to go with, and a few of them he'd never tried before.  Maybe the girl he was seated with could help him.  "Any suggestions, Akimi?" he asked.  "I don't really go here often, and a lot of the stuff here sounds good!"

He'd gone with her first name and avoided calling her "miss", assuming she really was close to the same age as him.  Kids didn't call each other "miss" or "mister", after all.

Oh, so it was her first time here.  Well, that was fine.  He even half-wished that he'd been the first one here, so he could help her decide on something.

When the attendant returned to take his order - without Akimi's order just yet, though she'd promise it'd come soon - Hideo placed an order of his own: a ham & cheese omelette sandwich with some hot cocoa.  It had just sounded so good, and he had the complete freedom to choose what he wanted.

Now with his menu taken, it was just a matter of talking until their food got here.  He'd hate to sit here in an awkward silence.

And it would seem his table-mate would be the first to start, catching Hideo by surprise.  "Really?  Then how old are you?"  He'd had her pegged around eleven or twelve based on her voice, but if she was older than that, then he still couldn't have been that far off.  Fourteen?  He couldn't imagine she was in high school yet, unless she just got in.

And then he frowned when she said she didn't have an interesting story.  With all the people he'd talked to, he learned that nobody had a life that was completely uninteresting.  Especially if she really was older than she sounded.

"That's not true!" he protested.  "Everyone's got an interesting story to tell.  Why not share yours with me?"  He actually was genuinely interested in learning why she sounded younger than she really was, and maybe her talking about it would make her more comfortable.

If anything, chances were her story would be much more interesting than his.

He wanted to get her talking so she'd feel more comfortable with an unexpected guest, and sure enough, he managed to get her talking.

And wow, did she start off strong.  "Eighteen?  Really?"  Here he was, thinking she hadn't even reached high school, and yet there she was, at that age when people were about to go to college.  Though he didn't dare state his prediction: his sisters made it very clear to him that he shouldn't ask or say what he thinks a girl's age is.

After that, she talked about how she spent so much time sick and receiving hospital care.  He hadn't been to a hospital in a long time - not since his parents first found out he was blind.

Unfortunately, once she started delving into the scientific details, she lost him.  Although he kept nodding as if he understood her, he was desperately clinging onto bits and pieces.  She was certainly using scientific terms appropriate for her age.  It took him a moment before he could put enough together to form some kind of response.  "So...wait.  If you won't get any older, and your body's DNA isn't getting any shorter...does that mean you're immortal?  Like, you won't be any different even when you're sixty or eighty or a hundred?"

The idea of that seemed really far-fetched, but then again, science was advancing pretty quickly.  For all he knew immortality actually was a thing that people could get just from medical trials, though if it was the same kind of thing like what happened to Akimi, he'd maybe want to wait until he was older to get it.

He could smell the muffin placed in front of the girl, and the smell was strong enough that he didn't even notice the tea right beside it.  If he had to guess, that muffin was chocolate chip...one of the options he was tempted into getting when first reading over the menu.

It just made him relish his own meal even further - and the attendant told him it'd be coming soon.

"I think the only lie you've told me was that your story wasn't interesting.  You're definitely the first person I've met that's had stuff like that happen to them.  Please, continue."

She really liked to talk about herself, it seemed.  Maybe it was a bunch of stuff she'd wanted to talk to other people about, but never got the chance to say, or maybe she did and nobody would believe her.  He knew most people wouldn't believe him if claimed he'd done half the stuff she did by her (actual) age, even if he could see, so maybe she was a lot more comfortable talking about it with him.

Seemed he made the right choice to encourage her to talk.  And it helped that he was genuinely interested in learning more about her.

As she went on, the attendant came back, this time with Hideo's order.  She made sure to let him know his food had arrived by outright telling him, though he knew the moment the scent of the hot cocoa hit his nose.  He was gonna give that a little bit of time to cool down, but what he wouldn't hesitate to start chowing down on was the omelette sandwich, which had a lovely combination of ham and cheese on nice, fluffy bread.

Yeah, he didn't regret this choice either.

But before he took another bite, he took a moment as Akimi spoke about how she was an author.  A bit disappointing that she wasn't actually immortal, but it still sounded like she'd be young a lot longer than he would be.  "Doesn't seem fair that someone else has to get all the credit for your work," he said, finishing up his first bite and swallowing.  "You're doing all of the work, so you should get all the credit for it."  He was familiar with the whole idea behind a ghost-writer, but it seemed like the guy was more interested in making food than making stories.

He took a moment to think about it all, before he giggled.  "Man, I don't think even half of that'll happen by the time I'm your age.  My life's boring compared to yours."

Probably the only strange thing going on in his life was that there was a spider living in his house that talked to him.  And that didn't seem as weird as what she'd been through in her life.