Chapter 405.

Chapter 405.

Chapter 405. Visiting a Small City from my Childhood with my Girlfriend. (2/4)

Over the next ten minutes until we arrived and parked up outside the mall I fondly recounted those trips to her. How I’d be dragged around shopping until my feet were sore and I wanted to collapse. Those occasions where I put my foot down and adamantly refused to go all over the city with her so I could stick up inside the hotel room playing video games.

“It sounds like it was fun.”

“Back then it wasn’t fun for me at all. It was hell being dragged around and forced to wait outside changing rooms as she tried on hundreds of garments across multiple stores only to select one or two of them in the end. It made me detest the notion of traveling as that’s what traveling became associated with in my mind.”

While we talked we headed into the mall. It’d been so long that I couldn’t even remember the layout, but as soon as I saw it, those memories came bursting back to the surface. The scenery was somewhat familiar but I could tell there were some differences.

This mall... really hadn’t been maintained very well. There were far fewer people around than in my memories. The place used to be bustling and filled with life despite how small the city was. It used to be more crowded than the largest mall in my city, but now... there was hardly anyone.

When I saw it, something in my chest sank as I stopped in place.

Somehow... it was strangely sad to see how few people there were here now. It was summer, the last week in June, and school was out everywhere now. There should have been plenty of people around. Many would be on vacation. But... it was devoid of life compared to my memories.

I didn’t think it was possible, but this city might be deader than my own. It definitely wasn’t like this the last time I was here with my mother. No, maybe my memories were just distorted because I was a child at the time.

“Ran, what’s wrong? Why’d you stop walking, did you forget something?” Rosa stopped five feet in front of me, turned to face me, and asked when she realized I wasn’t beside her.

“Uh... no, sorry, I didn’t forget anything.”

“Then come on, let’s go~”

She hopped back to my side, grabbed my hand, and ran off as she pulled me along in tow.

The overall building was square but the layout inside was in the shape of a cross with all the stores lined up along the perimeter with a few small booths selling items set up at the center of the main halls. There was only one floor to this mall.

When we came across a store that sold clothes Rosa entered and checked out what they had. She tried some things on but it seemed she wasn’t particularly sold on anything.

After we visited four stores selling clothes Rosa spoke up while inside the change room trying on some clothes, “The stores are pretty empty.”

“Yeah... they used to be a lot busier than this. Things really changed.”

“Are you feeling down about it?”

“A little I guess. Things always look so much better in your childhood memories. It makes me feel like I’m getting old.”

“You’re the same age as me, are you trying to say I’m old?”

“No.”

“Then you’re not old either.”

“Just stay there and hold these for me. I’m just going to keep dragging you in here to get your opinion every time anyway.”

“No way, what if someone thinks we’re doing something weird?”

“There isn’t even anyone around who’d notice. There’s literally one employee working in the store and one other customer who was looking around when we came in. Now, how’s this one?” Rosa turned to me and asked. She was quite quick at changing and was already in her next set.

This set had a thin black lace choker with a long body-length lace ribbon leash attached to it in her hand. There were two thin black frilly lace hand bands, one on each wrist. The wavy lace ruffle-edge black bra and frilly-edged lace tube skirt panties had a very sexy design to them and were made out of soft chiffon.

Lastly, was the leg garter belt down her thighs connecting the two black leg bands adorned with a ribbon bow knot at the front to the panties.

My reaction was the same as before, extremely skeptical, “Well... it’s not as skimpy... but I still say get something more normal than this.”

“You’re so boring. Do I look good in it or not? That’s what I really want to know.”

“You don’t look good in it at all. Same with the last one.”

She scrunched up her brows and frowned.

“What’s that supposed to mean? Is it because I don’t have large enough assets to make it work?”

“No.”

“Then why don’t I look good in it? What’s wrong?”

“Sorry, I may not have been clear enough. What I mean when I say you don’t look good in them is that the clothes look good because you’re the one wearing them. My bad if you misunderstood.”

“I-I see,” She raised her arm and pressed the back of her wrist against her lips to hide them from me while she simultaneously averted her eyes to look into the mirror on her right.

“I’m surprised you can say something as corny as that with a straight face so easily.”

“Corny? Don’t you think sweet is more appropriate?”

“It’s definitely corny.”

She speedily turned her back to me as her hair rose up and lightly whipped across my cheek. She quickly changed into another set.

I was ready to cry. She definitely didn’t take my critique seriously and was messing around.

This time she had a black thong on with the strings tied in ribbons at the sides of her legs. The black bra she had on this time was in the shape of two triangles flat on a surface with points touching at the center. The string was tied in a ribbon at the back.

There were two long black strings that held the bra up which wrapped straight up over her shoulders around the back of her neck. They wrapped around to the front of her chest, hung down in an X, and crossed between her cleavage where a pink silk ribbon tied the two strings together at the cross intersection. The strings continued on and were tied to the skin-hugging black lace hand bands on her wrist. They were attached with another pink silk ribbon.

“I’m done.” I turned to leave.