One more step
There's some incredibly famous and nationally known stores that does business at our school. Even though basically all of the customers here are just students, they still sell items for everyday use and electronic appliances. They're making a pretty mountains of cash too, in the form of private points of course.
"Let's see, I'm sure they have a something similar to what you're looking for.... Come on let's go ahead and take a closer look!"
While Kushida pulls Sakura along for the ride, Soranyan walks closely behind them as Ray-chan, me and Ayanokouji just stay behind like total losers. I wonder how many times Kushida has been here to know where the cameras are separated from literally everything else.
Sakura is pretty keen on buying a new camera. From the looks of things she's probably had that old pink one for awhile, maybe even to all the before she attended school here. If she wants to take pictures I'm sure the resolution of the photos she takes will be much better with a newer one.
"Is she gonna be a photographer or something when she grows up? The pictures she takes are wonderful."
"That isn't necessarily a bad thing, isn't it?" Ayanokouji replies to me as Ray-chan scans through the earphone section.
"Not at all, it's a good hobby to have after all. Photographing basically forces you to constantly go outside to take random pictures, she could take in some fresh air in the meantime too. At least she doesn't has to stay cooped up at home all the time."
I'm not sure if it's the case with all women but Soranyan can be a lazy sloth sometimes. Meanwhile Ray-chan has energy to power the entirety of Las Vegas, her liveliness seriously knows no bounds.
"I'll go check on the girls."
"Hmm? Sure, I'll be fine here with Ray-chan!"
With that Ayanokouji nods and heads further into the store to look for the three other girls in our group. He's left me with a crazy stalker ninja chick I've known my whole life, the situation could have been far worse honestly.
Me and Ray-chan have been shipped multiple times back in middle school. We were known as 'The Two Asshats' because of how much of a two-person pranking party. You could not believe what we discovered fireworks do inside a balloon filled with helium!
Nonetheless something strange always happens when I'm with Ray-chan alone. Despite her tomboyish personality and the fact she doesn't care when she stuffs my head into her breasts, she can still very much act like a girl when it comes to something she's interested in.
"Should you really be drinking a bottle of coca cola inside a place like this? What if it spills onto the electronics..."
"Hmm? It's fine isn't it? The price should equal to the amount I have to pay when I damage it, besides all of this? I can tell most of them are way, waaaaaay cheaper than the price they show! These eyes, dem no lies!"
I swear to God this woman speaks the language of an ancient civilization or something. Is this what students my age say and do nowadays? I saw some weird ass wizard cosplayer on TV, he was talking about strange ass shit so I gradually forgot about half of the things he said when the words of 'Time to strip!' came out of his mouth. Men are courageous these days, I admire it!
"Holy shit you're right." Seeing I had nothing else to do I went over to her to observe the prices of the electronics. Wow she really wasn't kidding, this MP3 player should be cheaper than 10,000 points right? Only the most recent ones are probably worth that much, at the very least maybe 4,000?
There's a lot of shops in this mall so I doubt they'd be able to recon the entire mall. Furthermore this shop looks relatively new too, it was likely renovated just a year ago.
"Hey Daichin? Have you been treating Masaki with care?"
"What's with this question? Of course I have, I basically owe her my life since she's saved me on multiple occasions and it's only because of her that most of my plans could ever work. Add on the fact that she basically works as my wallet when I'm low on points, what kind of maniac wouldn't repay someone like that?"
I may consider myself as a puppet master but that doesn't mean everyone around me is a puppet or a chess piece. They're my comrades and that goes for Masaki too, I treat them with the utmost care.
Besides knowing Ray-chan would probably stop being lazy and go after my head, she's also one of the only people I know who could take me in a one on one fight given if she's taken a bottle of coke before hand. A bottle of coca cola before anything for her is like supercharging a car, essentially she turns into some sort of hulk.
Anyway, now straying away from that subject. I wonder what's taking them so long, I highly doubt anything happened since Soranyan and Ayanokouji are with Kushida and Sakura but I'm starting to worry.
"Eh, fuck it. It can't hurt to go look for them, I'm starting to get bored anyway." I take hold of Ray-chan by her collar and begin to pull her with me in the direction I saw the others went in.
"Hyaah~ You can't be so rough with your partners Daichin~ you'll end up destroying them with that big, hard spinosaurus of yours~ woof, woof ,woof!"
"Try acting like an actual girl and I might consider it! Why are you barking like some chihuahua anyway?! Was that even a chihuahua?!" Frankly it sounded like some a hybrid between a golden retriever and a dying duck. Not cute, but her face makes it so.
I'm not even gonna question why she called my little Daisuke a spinosaurus. How does she even know my dick size? The only person who's seen it is Soranyan, she may have leaked information but no use accusing her now when she's helping Sakura with her social anxiety.
"The manufacturer warranty explicitly shows where the item was sold and the date of purchase. Also, I doubt there’d be any legal problems with me putting my information down. It should be perfectly fine if the user’s name is different than the purchaser’s."
"Hmm?" I look around the corner and spy Ayanokouji signing something.
He's at the repair counter at the back? That's strange, I thought Sakura wanted to replace her old camera... there's nothing particularly wrong with her current one but as someone who loves taking photos, I'd think she wanted a new one to enhance the resolution.
This must have came up suddenly since I never knew about it. Kushida and Soranyan seem to be going along with whatever idea shift Sakura had, but shouldn't she be the one signing if she's the purchaser of her camera? Also this confirms that she bought it probably at the start of school, doesn't look like an expensive brand so she must have saved tons of money.
It's possible she tripped and suddenly broke her camera, I did hear a thud earlier but just assumed it was a random student falling over.
"Welp, no one's gonna get hurt if you go over right? Go get 'em tiger!"
"Yeah!" I march over due to Ray-chan's charisma, I should have sent his coming. She has enough charisma to turn a fucking dog horny.
"Yo what's up! Daichin dragged me over out of my own will!"
"Oh? Ah! Kurenai-san, Sugihara-kun!"
Kushida seems surprised that I've arrived dragging Ray-chan behind my back. Nevermind the people who I've came here with, my attention is now drawn to the guy who's at the counter.
He seemed to be really excited when talking to Sakura, even I heard him from the other side of the store.
The clerk looks like a certified otaku, judging by how passionate he is about a wide range of subjects, from idol elections to idol magazines. The part that really triggers me is how everything he talked about that I heard was about something about idols, on top of that he has this dirty man look....
I can see it, I don't need any opinions on this piece of shit. I don't like him.
"Nevermind that Ayanokouji. We're leaving to find another place."
"Eh? But I already signed i-"
"The guy can just keep it for now if we ever come back. Sakura, if your camera needs repairing there's another shop just a few metres ahead. We can repair it there instead of here." A few people here had noticeable reactions such as Sakura, Kushida, and of course the clerk himself.
Hell he looks slightly angry, that reaction of his only fuels my suspicion. If I walk out the others should follow, they'll know something is up the moment I'm about to leave without a word.
Thus I begin to walk out of the shop to head towards the one I saw earlier.
"What was that about Sugihara-kun?! We could have repaired Sakura-san's camera there!"
"Listen and seriously take my word for it. That dude was bad news, not his looks but the way he was constantly staring at Sakura during our little exchange. Those eyes of his too, eyes of a freaking degenerate..... Perverted folk like him make me want to barf my guts out." I sound irritated. It was likely because I encountered a similar guy who was after Masaki, this situation reminded me of that in a way.
I've been acting calm and collected, even a little comedic, this entire time but the way he acted towards a friend of mine...it makes me sick.
"Ayanokouji, you did a good job stalling for me. In fact I'd say if it weren't for you Sakura would have been in a red zone."
"Eh? W-what do you mean...?"
"I don't have much evidence to back up my claim but...if you ever run into any trouble, be sure to call any one of us here quickly. If you ever sense a stalker following you, call us and we'll be right at your location as quickly as possible. I promise." I toss her a piece of paper containing my contact info. She barely catches and scans it's contents with a blush before nodding at me.
I dunno if she will ever try to memorize that but chances are she will. She might keep it on her person at all times too, that was the effect I had only people back in middle school and I'm guessing Sakura will be just like.
"Hey Ayanobro! Catch this!"
"Ayanobro-? Huh?" I throw over something else at him before pulling Ray-chan up so she could walk herself.
Ray-chan stares at my empty hand, she must have seen what I threw at Ayanokouji earlier and he seemed to understand what it was as well.
I show the both of them my smartphone and show them my balance, Soranyan also got a look at it while Kushida and Sakura didn't since they're walking in front of us. Two of them are shocked, Ayanokouji is the exact same as usual. They're shocked that my point count has lowered, oh to have the freedom to not carry money... it's surprisingly easy to make up strategies on the spot!