Skydeck Vanguard

Chapter 9: Push and Pull

The next morning, I collect my things from Madeline's room, changing back into my armor and dropping off her clothes, and tell Miles and his family my goodbyes for now before I stop by my house, change into more comfortable clothes, grab a bag of coins, and head out into the shopping area to buy Katiana's present.

The shopping area is a long strip of deck on the opposite side of the ship of the dorms and consists of two different boutiques, an electronics shop, a weapons and armor shop, a home and furniture store, and a jewelry store that are all lined up together in a row. I stop by one of the boutiques, which sells more grunge items, including ripped jeans, darker styled items, and lots of different jewelry and collectables. The store itself, which is called Rogue, has lots of different vinyls that make up the back wall behind the store counter where the clerk works near the glass entrance of the store, and there's constantly some form of music playing, typically rock or alternative.

I wander around the store for a bit, trying to think of something Katiana would like. Eventually, I wander over to the jewelry and pick out a set of black, white, and silver bracelets. The black bracelet is rubber and has white cursive scrawl written on it that says "free spirit" written on it, and the white bracelet is metal and has a moon charm, a black cat, and a tree charm hanging from it, and the silver bracelet is glittery and in the form of a bangle. I continue looking around the store and my eyebrows raise in surprise whenever I see Valerian over by the jeans, eyeing a pair of black ripped jeans. Valerian himself is wearing a black v-neck with a red plaid button-up that's hanging open and black jeans with black vans, and his eyebrows raise whenever he spots me from the corner of his eye.

"Well, I didn't expect to see you of all people," Valerian says as he turns to face me and crosses his arms.

"Ditto," I roll my eyes and notice that he also has his ears pierce in the cartilage on both ears, each ear having a small hoop at the top and a silver stud beside the hoop.

"What're you doing here?" Valerian asks.

"I'm picking up presents for Katiana," I explain, "what about you?"

"Veddrian dragged me here because she wanted to pick out a dress," Valerian sighs and looks over towards the dress racks.

I follow Valerian's gaze to see Veddrian standing there, her index finger pressed against her lips in thought and three shopping bags hanging from her left arm.

"It seems like you've been shopping for a while," I say.

"Four hours, to be exact," Valerian sighs, "Veddrian bought some soaps, lotions, body wash, and a hair curler, and a hair straightener from the home store, and she got us both new phones at the electronics store. And we've been here for about an hour."

"Wow," I chuckle and Valerian glares at me.

"It's not funny," he says.

"Whatever you say," I try to hide a smile before my eyes drift to the jeans he was looking at, "you should get those, by the way."

"Hmm?" he glances back at the jeans, "you mean those? I was thinking about it."

"They'll look nice on you," I smile and his eyes widen slightly.

"Yeah," he clears his throat and rocks back and forth on his heels, his hands in his pockets.

"I'm gonna go look at dresses with Veddrian. See you around," I say with a small wave before I head over to his sister.

Once I'm over to the dress rack, Veddrian glances briefly at me before she turns back to looking at dresses, visibly torn between a black summer dress with a silver chain belt and a red and black sweetheart dress, the top being solid red and the bottom being ruffled black and red.