DATE A LIVE: Prelude

Chapter VII: In a New World

"True, she could use a cold drink," agreed Shinji.

The two of them went in together, greeting the cashier. The store was quite small, but the girl was nonetheless amazed at all the different items it had. For the majority of their visit, she was basically leading Shinji around.

"Look! Ice-cream! It looks tasty..." said the girl, almost fawning over them.

"Which flavour do you like?" asked Shinji.

"Hmm... Vanilla!" responded the girl.

"That's a funny coincidence, I like vanilla ice-cream too. And so does Mana, actually."

"Let's take three of them, then!" said the girl.

"We can get two, but the third one would melt before we could give it to my sister."

"It needs to be kept frozen?"

"If you intend to give it to someone else later, then yeah."

"I'll try my best to keep it frozen then!" said Mana, as if facing a challenge. Shinji was about to explain how that would be impossible to accomplish, but he decided to let the girl find out that some things just aren't meant to be.

"All right, we'll buy three ice-creams. I got the rest of groceries, so let's go pay."

"Pay?" halted the girl in curiousness.

"Yeah, we must pay for what we take. Don't worry, I'll pay."

"Okay," responded the girl with an understanding smile.

The two of them proceeded to check out for the items, with Shinji covering the bill. Upon leaving the story, she delved into her ice-cream, with Shinji taking it slow. As he expected, the girl didn't seem too comfortable.

"Ouch—It's so cold..."

"You shouldn't bite it or eat it so fast. Let it melt a bit first."

"Okay, will do!"

Following Shinji's instructions, the girl enjoyed her ice-cream while holding Mana's in her other hand. Shinji was already expecting it to melt any moment, but it wasn't melting. He waited longer, but it still wouldn't melt. Finally, he just had to ask.

"Um, do you see Mana's ice-cream?"

"Yeah! I'm still holding onto it, don't worry."

"That's not the issue, but how is it not melting?"

"I told you I'd keep it from melting, didn't I?" said the girl while smiling at Shinji. 

He was confused about how to laws of nature allowed something like that but decided to let it go. Eventually, they made it home. The girl went ahead to give Mana her ice-cream, with Shinji following her. Mana was still in her room on her computer.

"Mana! We got you ice-cream!"

The words seemed to interest Mana enough to distract her from whatever she was doing, turning over to the girl. When she saw the vanilla ice-cream, she was surprised the same way Shinji was.