"Ye."

Brennan emerged from the bathroom at the head of a column of steam. He had mostly dressed already, wearing dark-colored jeans and a black-and-indigo striped t-shirt that looked slightly snug against his muscular frame. His black hair looked as though it had been towel-dried rather lazily, but his teeth already looked like they'd been brushed obsessively half a dozen times. Brennan liked to try and make his grin glint.

He ambled towards the apartment's kitchen, ruffling Umeko's hair as he walked past her and leaned with his back to the counter beside her hand.

"We'll run out dis morn. I 'ave some shit I wanna get done anyway." Brennan reached around the otaku's cereal bowl and pried the carton out of her hand, finishing the glass-and-a-half or so worth of milk remaining in the container before peering into it with one eye. "Shit. We are lookin' a lil' light."

It wasn't every day you came across a corpse on the ground in the middle of the night.

It also wasn't every day your phone blew up and got you in a hospital.

After being taken to the hospital, Bang was surprised to find that his body had not been blown apart at the face of an explosion. He would've been rather interested in that aspect had it not been for the fact that he also hurt everywhere.

He eventually left with a cast for his left arm. It was weird, considering his right hand had been unable to move and his left hand had at least twitched, yet it turned out that it was his left that had been hurt the most. Aside from that, he had been extremely lucky.

But even he knew luck wouldn't always save people. One bad day could've had him dead.

Staring at the ceiling of his living room, Bang went over his train of thoughts for about the fourth time that day. He could technically make the whole experience a mini novel or something, but that sounded more terrifying than anything, so he decided to just take a break. His friend insisted him on doing so.

Well, perhaps he should hit the groceries some time eventually. If he was going to stay in the house for a bit more, he might as well stock up for it. Cooking was going to be a bit harder, but it wasn't like he cooked some kind of masterpiece every day. Simple stuff would do.

Hazama, Harumi

---

Once again, she was in the undeveloped part of the district. It wasn't a place she went to without reason, and while she was very sure she can outrun most Skillouts, Harumi can't help but still feel rather apprehensive every time she was here.

As expected the same group of Skillouts was still there in the unused warehouse. One of them started before recognizing her as Harumi came closer.

"Oh? Ain't it the little investigator?" A large man pushed himself off a table slightly, enough to get a look at her without leaving his card game. "Need something?"

"I'm scared." She spoke suddenly. "I need something to protect myself with, Gruber."

There must have been a change in her expression as she said that, as the man's expression hardened. Sighing, he stood up, his expression unreadable as he leaned closer to her. "Oh? What happened?"

"I'm afraid of the high levels." Harumi started. "There have been a rise in the case of them bullying lo-"

"I'm not interested in your 'stories'." Gruber cut her short, staring her right in the eye. "Again, what happened? You, of all people, wouldn't resort to this at the mere mention of high levels bullying the weak."

Closing her eyes for a moment, Harumi weighted her options. Without a doubt, telling them what she knew might lead to her story having less impact when rumours inevitably circulate, or worse, stolen from under her nose, but there was no real reason for her to keep it from these guys as well. Rumours coming from Skillouts wouldn't be have much credibility behind them to the average person in Academy City after all. Also, what did he mean by 'you of all people'? She did break into some places and got in trouble for it, and she did try to masquerade as a student in Tokiwadai to flush out that level 5's secrets but she wasn't some sort of delinquent.

"Very well. The truth it is." Harumi met his gaze. "I've witnessed a murder, and I'm afraid they may come after me next."



Harumi walked out of that place, trying hard not to look suspicious, handling her bag like it had a bomb in it. It was fortunate that they only asked her to tell them everything she has on the incident. Perhaps Gruber felt it would threaten the people who did not have powers of their own? No matter his reason, at least her money was safe; she was prepared to spend it all for something to help her defend herself. Harumi suspected the fact she wasn't one of those people with higher levels also played a part.

What she did not expect, however, for them to give her a revolver with the serial numbers filed off, as well as a box of ammo. He did mention that people were still people even with all their abilities, and no one could outrun a bullet. Though when she asked about those few who could render guns useless, he just shrugged and said "Then you're already dead if any people of that caliber targets you."

---

Shion found herself at the hospital, having followed the injured boy as he was transferred there, reading a mostly obscure internet tabloid that she followed for the unintentional comedy of the "journalist." Apparently said "journalist" was better than Shion had thought, since there was already a story about the body she had seen an older boy bring back to the injured boy's location. Perhaps she was there and I just missed her? I doubt it was that other girl...
After the boy was let out she decided to follow him as he went home. It didn't take long until she made it there and began standing outside, waiting for him to eventually come outside.

---

@NarayanK

"Yeah."

She let go of the carton reluctantly, she wasn't keen on sharing her Musashino when they were so low, but she had enough for her cereal. She took a few bites quietly, acknowledging the ruffle by affectionately bumping him with her shoulder. She would've done the same to mess up his hair, but her hands were occupied. Umeko wanted to make sure she had a little food before she really started to engage with her other half. He was already awake, she wasn't yet awake enough to be a smartass.

"We still need to pick up a few components, right? We were interrupted yesterday." A few more bites of cereal. "I'll just need a couple minutes to get dressed."

Yep. A cast wasn't going to stop him from grabbing groceries. It also wasn't going to stop him from wearing a hoodie.

Eventually, after minutes of remaining idle, Bang drank water before putting his cup at the sink. He didn't intend on staying outside too long. Not only was there no reason for him to, but he also decided that staying in his house would be more exciting than getting himself into another accident with a cast on.

Shrugging his free shoulder, he put on his running shoes with his dark blue hoodie. It was different from the one he wore the previous night- the one he wore now had the words "Can't Be Hurt" ironically plastered on his back, with some kind of emblem he didn't think about too deeply when he bought it. If he did take a longer look at it, he'd probably have returned it.

Opening his entrance door, Bang was greeted with his peaceful neighborhood. Everything was familiar, from the neighboring houses, and a distant apartment covered partially by a short wall. There was also this girl, who-

-was everything but familiar.

Blinking, Bang stared at the girl, taking a moment to register who she was.

If he remembered correctly, she was the girl who let him indirectly confirm that he didn't die instantly from the explosion.

He remained still for a few seconds before he suddenly turned back, leaving the door open as he went to his work room. He quickly returned with a phone.

No, it wasn't the one that blew up the previous night. It was his childhood friend's brother's smartphone. She said her brother allowed Bang to use it for a day or two, but considering her aggressive nature, something convinced him that the poor boy had no choice in the matter. Unfortunately, he knew very little of how to operate a smartphone, yet he had no other phone at the moment. He'd purchase a phone eventually.

Without explaining any of the above to the girl in front of him, however, Bang promptly made a small bow to her as he stood by the opened door again. "Hello," he said simply as he decided to explain himself. "I was on my way to buy groceries."

He didn't know who this girl was, but seeing how she stood in front of his house, she undoubtedly had either followed him or just had a tendency to stand in front of doors. He believed the former.

@DarkwolfX37

@GreenGoat@HereComesTheSnow@banjoanjo

Ground Level, Harumi's Apartment Building - District 7

Sitting on a simple trolley pushed against an elevated curb was a nondescript package, a carefully wrapped box made of thick cardboard that spoke nothing of its contents besides a white label upon which the name and address of its intended recipient had been written. It was a delivery to one Harumi Hazama, a resident of the many student dormitories that dotted the landscape of Academy City's School District 7. However, despite having made its way to the general vicinity of its destination, a major obstacle had reared its head right before the finish line, stopping its long journey right in its tracks.

This difficulty was much to the consternation of the individual responsible for the box's dispatch, a small (1.53m in height, 42kg in weight) girl wearing a blue crowned cap that one would usually associate with delivery services. And as the rest of her uniform and the fact that she was attempting to get the heavy package up over the curb and into the apartment building suggested, she was indeed currently working (part-time) for the local post office, doing a round in the neighbourhood to make sure that nobody was missing out on anything they'd ordered off the Internet. Usually her job would've been taken up by a robot, but according to one of her fellow students at least, there was supposedly a rumour going around that delivery drones had been possessed by the Devil and would engage in unwanted amputations, so her employers, being a superstitious and rumour-fearing lot, decided to go for the slower (but safer) alternative of a real human being.

She personally thought that was a rather idiosyncratic reason, especially when throwing some ofuda on the delivery robots should have been enough to get rid of Satanic influences. But this alternative was pretty nice for her; if that was what it took to save her job from automation, then it was definitely something she would tolerate for the time being. However, it was still not very ideal to give demons free rein over company machinery (if they really were plaguing the drones) - expecting them to just disappear was fraught with risk, so she would have to sell more talismans at her other job later.

If a robot was here though, her current problem would have been far more easily conquered. A curb was far from the greatest of obstacles, but it was one that was very capable of stopping her from getting a heavy package to its destination. She had wandered off earlier to find a trolley, but even that had not been enough to convey the sheer mass of the cardboard box over the hurdle it now faced. Her attempts at lifting it up were equally dismal. As much as it hurt to admit, the results of not having regularly visited the gym had manifested themselves already.

As nice it was to soak in the warmth of the ball of nuclear fusion that their little blue planet orbited, spending too long in the daylight meant that those deadly rays of electromagnetic radiation would eventually destroy her cells, and not even the combination of her nice brimmed hat and sunscreen (SPF 50) would protect her for long.

And given that her pay was based on how many deliveries she could make in her shift, the longer she took ...

There was an epiphany.

Pulling out her cellphone, the teenaged girl known only to her compatriots by the moniker of "Hat-chan" began to text two certain classmates of hers. She may have been too weak on her lonesome to handle this terrifying curb, but three heads together could supposedly outsmart Mañjuśrī! By combining the powers of that George fellow and Kara-han, then she would be able to get her job done without any further delay!

@Crimmy@banjoanjo

Shinjiro Karasawa

Bzzz! Bzz!

Bluuuuuuuurgh.

In review, last night was a complete wash. Worst Ramen trip of his goddamn life... Very rarely had one resulted in him nursing an unrepaid concussion. Or, at least, a probable... possible concussion. He had just kind of staggered home instead of doing the smart thing and seeing a doc after getting so caught in a gaffle. Rocky 3's phone exploding was about the last thing he could have expected, and as many a pugilist famously said, "it's the one you don't see that gets you". Like charging a purse snatcher into Tokiwadai— They get so focused on trying to ditch you they have no idea they just screeched past a bunch of posted up Judgement broads. Works every time.

Also on you, with your eye-catchingly royalty-colored hair, but different story. Not the point. The point was, the exploding phone sucked for his cranium.

Bzz!

"You're friggin killin' me, Hat-chan..."

Of course, now he wished nothing more than for his phone to explode because it was sucking too, but a few hundred milligrams of ibuprofen might sort that one out in a much less expensive manner. No two ways about it— he was sore about last night in every conceivable measure. His pride in being a rough and tough bozo with the best of them couldn't be fixed by medicine, but at least his head might...

Probably...

Anyways, head wasn't throbbing, but self-esteem was. He didn't feel like a reliable fella after getting heemed drowsy without even seeing who wanted to take it there. If he ever got to the bottom'a this crap, he was mad ready to take a couple dozen swings at those responsible.

Well, that'll also take getting back on the trail, bruva. Betta look out for an Mick or Beatnik if you can. He thought irately to himself, slipping on his trusty sneakers and ambling off to a very particular waypoint in District 7.

After all, if he wanted reclaim "solid" status, to be real good money, easy start was helping a friend out with a delivery.

You could lift something up with a sore head, right?

"Need a fook of a lot more den dat," Brennan mused thoughtfully as the otaku munched in his ear. While the sounds of people chewing generally made him want to use them as practice dummies for his tracheotomy technique, there was something endearing about his partner's breakfast routine - and her insistence on the same brand of milk. She was spoiled, and she knew she was spoiled, but it was one of her charms. Otherwise he would have already left the apartment to do some things in the city for the morning. Grocery shopping was definitely near the top of the list, as was gathering more equipment for their rocket project. But also...

It was like the cheque, currently folded in half neatly and tucked into his wallet, was its own ballast, a large weight that kept Brennan conscious of it every chance he got. Even he had started to question the wisdom of letting his prey away from the ropes last night, but he'd managed to luck into more potential answers (or at least more questions) than anyone would have been able to glean from that cowardly asshole by leaving him to rot in an Anti-Skill holding room.

Still, it would have been nice if he'd concussed the fucker or something. Made Kawaguchi feel a little better.

"I'll wait three minutes. Whatever's not on by den I'm gonna assume you can live without. Or stay home an' hoof craftin' glue all day, see if I care."

@HereComesTheSnow@GreenGoat

Ground Level, In Front of Harumi's Apartment Building - District 7

When the purple entity known to his only friend by the moniker of "Kara-han" approached the provided meeting point, he would notice that his host, the teenaged girl known only to her compatriots by the moniker of "Hat-chan", was sitting on a curb next to a trolley upon which a heavy-looking package sat. She was lackadaisically stretching her arms out, aimlessly gazing upon the street in wait.

Upon sighting the grapesque appearance of her compatriot, however, her amber eyes seemed to light up under the brim of her delivery hat, and the short teenager bounced up, throwing Kara-han a wave.

"Ovah 'ere, Kara-han!"

"Wha-"

There's no crafting glue, it's cement!

The rest clicked about point five seconds after her indignation, so she wolfed down the rest of her cereal in a couple of bites and drained the bowl of Musashino. Bowl in sink, technically dropped, though it was only a hair short of thrown (it was plastic, wasn't going to hurt it anyway) and the Japanese girl was in motion. Three minutes wasn't a lot of time, not when she hadn't even picked what she was going to wear yet. He might not have literally meant three minutes, but it was just as possible that he was timing her. Could go either way, depending on the day. And as much as the Exia called....

Nope, staying in all day wasn't the plan.

So, bare minimum prep time. Morning in August, it wasn't all the war warm yet. Might want something with sleeves. Her white jacket. Red top? She wore blue yesterday, might as well go red. Not the bright red, that was reserved for Chars. Maybe the Sinanju red, though... That'd work. And the navy skirt. Same boots as yesterday, still scuffed (Damned A-LAW.), would work just fine. So Umeko was changing almost as soon as she reached the room, shedding her make-shift pajamas in favor of the articles she'd carefully selected from her closet. Time was a-ticking, even though she knew she'd hear it if he tried to leave before she was ready. He could be surprisingly sneaky, when he wanted to be, but he couldn't disguise the door's sound. She'd catch up to him if he tried, and she'd be grumpy. He knew better.

Getting dressed took but a minute, and she walked back out of the bedroom smoothing her skirt and slipping on her jacket inside (if narrowly) the three minute deadline. Ha. So there.

"No such luck, Brennan," She intoned, adding what sounded like an extra syllable to the beginning of his name. "Not letting you do the shopping unsupervised. Let's go."

Brennan was standing at the sink, rinsing Umeko's cereal bowl and spoon while his gal was hurrying up her wardrobe. Truthfully, Brennan wouldn't have left without her; any mishap with the groceries would be rightly considered his fault if he did all the shopping solo, and there were parts for their probe design that Umeko would want to have input on. The time limit he had mockingly set was mainly just meant to motivate her after her quick wake up - the Japanese girl was as lazy and lethargic as they came in the mornings - but he enjoyed the thought of her panicking, trying to slap something together before he ducked out of the apartment without her.

She was the best. One of the first words he'd taught her in English was gullible, because he'd told her that it was good fortune. Believe it or not, she'd taken to pronouncing gullible better than Brennan. Although that was probably on purpose.

"Ye, ye, whatever," Brennan demurred, making a show of reluctance about drawing his arm around the girl's shoulders and kissing the top of her head. "Make a list o'brands in yer own head. I see milk, I'm gunna buy me some fookin' milk, Musashino or no. I see chips, I ain't killin' meself over a fookin' name brand."

The two had moved into an apartment together in District 5 in time for their first year of university together, so many of the grocery stores here were more stocked than the convenience-oriented locales that catered to the junior and high school students of District 7. It made grocery shopping a sort of quaint affair, one that Brennan and Umeko had begun to often use as a way for some couples time. The streets were quieter than District 7's, too, so the two students enjoyed the temperate August weather arm in arm for a few minutes once they left their building and started the walk to the grocery store.

"Ooh ye. By the by," Brennan said after a minute, his free hand touching his wallet inside his pocket, "I need to go to de bank dis morn too."

---

Shion was somewhat distracted by her phone when the door she was watching finally opened and the boy she had followed home finally came outside. She couldn't hear him over the music blaring from her earbuds, one of which she removed in preparation for possible conversation, but what he has said wasn't very important to her. Shion quickly pulled up the article she had been reading and presented it to the boy.

"Do you recognize this?" she asked as she held her phone with pictures of a certain deformed body plastered on the screen up so the boy could see. "You were there when this happened, weren't you? Did you get hurt because you saw what happened to it? Did you see how it wound up like that? Do you know who did it? Tell me." All manners left her in her excitement to learn more. A body didn't get the way it was in the pictures naturally and finding out more about it could only lead to interesting things.

---

Bang blinked, making sure that he was seeing things right.

There were various things he remembered experiencing on the night of the incident. First, his phone blew up as soon as he made a phone call to Antiskill. There was also the nerve-wracking encounter with the corpse itself. But the picture reminded him of the girl he had found snapping pictures at the body.

Seeing how the girl in front of him seemed rather curious, however, he put his attention away from the memory. As he thought over how to respond, one of the things she said did catch his attention. There was no way his phone would just blow up for no reason- it had to be someone who did it directly, and he knew that much, despite his lack of self-awareness.

That meant he could probably meet that person- no, that person can meet him again one day. Because there was little guarantee that the person who blew up his phone would just walk up and apologize to him for causing a point-blank explosion with a friendly country dialect.

He kept his calm, however. Panicking may have been invented for these moments, but someone as unarmed as himself needed to have something to rely on.

He wondered if telling her the truth wouldn't hurt or not.

"I think I was hurt by someone responsible for that," Bang admitted bluntly before adding in shortly, "I don't know anything else."

Eyeing the girl somewhat skeptically, Bang asked, "Who are you exactly?"

He had managed to recognize her voice as the person who saved him, but... he had no idea who this really girl was. Not that he imagined he'd be seeing her any longer after she got whatever information she wanted from him, but he still at least wanted to know who saved him. Maybe she was actually related to the person who blew up his phone and pretended to be his savior, only to decide on testing him to see if he'd freely leak out information about the incident before attacking him and sending him into another world-

No.

No.

<sub>No.

@DarkwolfX37</sub>

"I don't care what brand of chips you buy. I do care what brand of milk we buy."

It was a little odd that he wanted to go to the bank. Not extremely, it happened from time to time. But it was Academy City, and most of their banking was done online. If even on a computer, much of it was on their phones. Actual trips to the bank were usually reserved for larger occasions, like renting their apartment. Umeko couldn't think, off the top of her head, of anything that would warrant a visit. Still, it wasn't out of their way. If Brennan said that he needed to go to the bank, to the bank they would go.

And then she'd get to find out why.

Her curiosity could wait. Grocery shopping was first. She squeezed her arm around his waist, bumping him affectionately with her shoulder. Her other hand fished around in her interior jacket pocket, looking for the grocery list. And the parts list. It wasn't a small amount of stuff that they needed to obtain, but that was alright. The errands were nice. Time to hang out, get some things done,and enjoy the weather. Later in the day it would be too hot for her tastes and she would long for the air conditioner, but for now the morning straddled the line nicely between cool and warm.

"Which grocery store are you thinking, Brennan?" Again, the syllable stretched. "The one near my model store, or the one near the store for our rocket parts?"

Hazama, Harumi

---

@Crimmy

A little bit of useless information was all she got out of the gang she met up with, but at least she got what she needed.

New and illegal pistol, but she's hidden cameras on her person before, she could hide the gun extremely well if she needed to.

While she was out of her disguise, holding a small camera(just in case) and thus look her normal not at all suspicious self, a group of people was not what she wanted to meet, especially a group that seemed to be trying to get into her dorm with some sort of package. Harumi knew there was no reason for them to suspect she has a gun, but she was still nervous nonetheless.

"Oh? Is there some trouble here?"

A simple query as she stopped briefly near them, intending to continue and gather her tools for tonight's work.

@Crimmy@GreenGoat

Shinjiro Karasawa

"Yo, Hat-chan."

Through his bruised pride and naturally surly disposition, it wouldn't be remiss for someone unaware of Shinjiro Karasawa to be shocked that he could force out a smile in any context. Certainly, the dude was a rough and tumble type, and he normally spoke in what could kindly be considered an coarse drawl. Not to mention, his purplescent hair and eyes would remind some of the dyed dos of delinquents, which only served to further the image.

But, they would have to be unaware.

For the tiny blonde known only by the eternally-descriptive moniker of "Hat-chan" was a friend. Not only that, but she was a damn good one. Anybody who could somehow exist in near-every place you went as one of their part-time employees would make for good talkin' to, but on top of that, she was also a fellow student— an invaluable classmate, who would always pitch in to have a friend's back.

Always.

His mind flashes to the dead of night, on a quiet high school campus.

———It's a good time to be doing something bad.

The stars are naturally nowhere to be seen, given that this is Academy City, but the Moon still reigns solemnly over that lonely sky, tinged blue with the haze of Science's refusal to sleep.

He is in a bush, and has been for two and a half hours now. He knows not when he intends to leave, but he can feel sleep weighing upon him, and through every nerve that has been devoted to keeping his muscles taut and ready, he redoubles his fight against it.

He can't lose here.

He can't let the perps win.

He has to keep watch.

He has to...

His head droops forward—

And a small elbow clacks into one of his floating ribs and sends a spike of pain and wakeful jolt through his whole frame. That same small blonde urges him to stay awake: Surely, Kara-han, if we wait here long enough, we'll nab the guy who broke into the school and get us that bounty. We can't nod off yet.

The watch continues, as the pair of self-appointed arbiters of justice renew their vigilance with the promised spoils in mind———

...

And back in the present, a thought occurs.

Come to thinkuv it, does she even sleep? I know this girl works nights, too.

"So, you said you got somebody else from class comin'? You sure I can't handle this thing myself? I think I could get my arms around it."

In any case, all those good turns deserved a few in kind, and he'd have honestly felt like less of a man if he just brushed a solid pal off because of one bad night.

The trolley was metal of course, as most are, but in all honesty he was pretty sure that the package itself wouldn't be impossible for one dude. Maybe difficult, but, you know, things worth doing usually were. Hell, maybe if Hat-chan held the thing steady while he pulled it up past the curb on the trolley, they wouldn't even have to deal with the awkwardness that was usually part and parcel (heh) of dealing with big boxes.

"Oh? Is there some trouble here?" a vaguely familiar voice asked. He noticed, but didn't take note— he was far too busy cloying his mind for different methods of solving this issue, and therefore didn't even look up from it.

"Nah, we're just gettin' this package lifted. S'all good." he said with a dismissive wave of the hand, a gesture to echo that nonchalant sentiment.

Besides, run around enough places in Academy City causing getting into messes, and you're bound to hear just about everyone at least once.

@GreenGoat@HereComesTheSnow

Ground Level, In Front of Harumi's Apartment Building - District 7

"George can't make it," replied the teenage girl known only to her compatriots by the moniker of 'Hat-chan' after a quick glance at her smartphone. "So you try liftin' it solo, Kara-han."

The arrival of another teen however, caught the small blonde's attention. Shifting her delivery cap for a moment to protect her better from the glare of the Sun, she waved in greeting to Harumi, a small smile present on her face.

"We're just delivering a package to somebody who lives here," she explained, accent returning to Tokyo standard, with even the slightest hints of her native Kansai disappearing. A small thought seemed to strike her, and her eyes brightened. "Oh, do you live here too? If so, are you familiar with a Miss Hazama?"

"Fook you mean?"

Brennan had turned skeptically to look at Umeko, scowling faintly at the presumption implicit in her questioning. After all the mess that their model shop trip had tossed them into the previous night, and after not even getting the parts for the rocket that they'd originally set out for, the gumption in Kawaguchi's line of questioning was as infuriating as it was obliviously cute.

"You 'ave models at home. We're buildin' a rocket and you're gunna loov it. I'll buy ye a candy bar or summin if ya play nice, yeah?"

The two of them strolled for a couple minutes longer before reaching the grocery store. They would have more luck here than at the hardware store nearby, Brennan knew; District 5 was geared towards older students and more complicated projects like their probe, but their trip to District 15 probably would have been the best place if they wanted to come home with real results. Honestly, he knew that Umeko just didn't want to be without milk.

The European gritted his teeth impatiently and picked up a shopping basket at the door.

Umeko's sheepish smile reflected, at least, the decency to look a little apologetic about having been caught scheming. Not her subtlest scheme, but it had been worth a shot.

Her companion, however, wasn't seeming nearly as cheerful. The Irishman regularly seemed a little grumpy, even when he wasn't, but this wasn't quite that. The fact was becoming readily apparent as they progressed through the store. Their shopping list wasn't extensive, but even a few minutes in the store seemed to set Brennan to watching the exits like a prisoner anticipating an escape attempt. Not that the European would be anywhere near that subtle in a prison break, but time clearly was passing much more slowly for him than for her. So he was relieved, gently but insistently, of the hand basket and Umeko bumped his side lightly with her shoulder.

"Burennan," The Japanese girl began, bumping him one more time to ensure he was meeting her gaze. She smiled a little, when he did. "Relax. It'll take five more minutes. It's summer, we can handle a slower pace. We're already miles ahead of the other projects, right?"

"How about coffee? You like that place near the hardware store, right? We can get coffee after the bank."