{Jade}._._.the cereal aisle, &c.._._.

[Mei Atsuki]

Walking into the supermarket, Mei saw just how big it really was. She had no idea where to look for anything. Back in Japan, their entire supermarkets took up as much space as the check out lines alone took up here. Maybe they were going to have okonomiyaki sauce after all. She looked around for a direction to start looking for things in. She looked at her list to see what exactly she would need. She had it divided into several parts, depending on what it was for:

Okonomiyaki

• flour
  
• eggs
  
• cabbage
  
• dried seaweed
  
• green onion
  
• beef
  
• pork
  
• chicken
  
• mushrooms
  
• mayonnaise
  
• okonomiyaki sauce

Dango

• sweet rice flour
  
• sugar
  
• sweet bean paste
  
• soy sauce

Miso Soup

• soup stock
  
• miso paste
  
• green onion

Soba

• soba noodles
  
• green onion
  
• wasabi powder
  
• soup stock
  
• soy sauce
  
• ginger

With so many things to buy, she had absolutely no idea where to start. Deciding to start at the left side of the store and go in a circle, she started off in that direction. She wondered what was even in the direction she was going. She supposed that she would find out when she got to the first aisle.

{OOC: yes that list *was* in fact necessary}

[Jade]

((OOC: I'll believe it lol))

Jade came bonding up behind Mei, grinning.

"Kay, I got flour , eggs, and sugar," She said carefully placing the stuff in the basket.

"Let's see, hmmm, I bet the other stuff would be in the Oriental section, which would be right next to the Mexican section, which is right next to the Italian section," She rolled her eyes," Who needs to travel when you can go to market."

Jade was having fun, it had been a long time since she had went shopping and it was nice just to be able to get out an have a good time, with a friends. She sighed happily and skipped around the shopping cart.

"Onward to the Oriental section," She said pointing the way.

[Mei Atsuki]

Mei jumped when Jade spoke. She hadn't expected her to have already gotten some of the things on the list. Hopefully this 'oriental' section would have most of the things from Japan that they needed. There was also lots of meats and vegetables they would need to pick up on their way out. These would probably be after the Japanese foods in the store.

She glanced around as the two of them walked towards the oriental section. Soft drinks to the left, candy to the right. Then they walked past the cereal aisle.

"Oh my god! So much cereal!" Mei could hardly do more than stare. She had never seen this many cereals in her life. A whole aisle full of them. And they all looked so sugary and delicious. She supposed that may have been why they hadn't had them in Japan. "Jade, have you eaten many of these cereals?"

[Jade]

Jade let out a very uncharacteristically girlish giggle and nodded. She was a cereal buff.

"When you can't cook, things like cereal becomes your best friend," She said with a wrinkle of her nose.

"Hmmm," She picked up a box of Capt'n Crunch, Cookie Crisp, and Trix, and shoved them in the shopping cart. They looked very amusing next to the other food that was laying there.

"These are really good if you mix them together," She said, "The coolest part is when Halloween rolls around, then you get Boo Berry, and things of that nature."

She sighed, she couldn't wait till Halloween came around. It would be the first one without Billy, but it would also be the first one with he knew friends. She was grateful that she wouldn't be alone.

[Mei Atsuki]

Watching Jade throw different cereals in the cart, Mei was amazed at the juxtaposition of its contents. It all seemed to fit together, filling the cart with its natural feeling of rightness. And the fact that each of the boxes was family-sized. Unfortunately, they weren't on the list, and the list was what they had come to complete.

"Jade...we should continue on..."Mei said, still made a little nervous by the many cereal boxes surrounding them. She grabbed the cart and pulled it toward the edge of the aisle. She didn't want to think of all the sugar that was around, and she definitely didn't want to think of Halloween. Halloween had been the anniversary of the day she met Misa, and it was going to bring back awfully depressing memories. Halloween had been special once. Now, however, it was just sad. Okonomiyaki was happy, as she was able to remind herself looking at her list.

"We will need to go to the meat section after the oriental section. We need vegetables, too." Busying herself with the list helped calm her down, which was good. Her emotions were getting control of her--so much so that she had to imagine a still lake, and imagine that she was that lake. Something they taught in Japanese temples as a meditation exercise, she had learned to use it to prevent herself from displaying emotions she didn't want others to see. It only worked some of the time, though. Seeing her lake beginning to ripple, she dragged the cart away from the cereal that had brought up Halloween and went in search of the oriental section, hoping Jade would follow her.

[Jade]

Jade paused and nodded, she sensed that her new friend was bothered by something. She walked up beside Mei and paused, contemplating which aisle they needed to go down.

"I think we need to go over three more aisles," She said in a softly unobtrusive tone.

She was certain the Oriental section would have everything they would need. It was huge.

She paused and looked over at Mei.

"You know when I was back...home, we would go to the grocery store and have races with the shopping carts. It was really fun. Two of us would ride in the carts, and get everything while the other ones pushed us." She blinked, my friends and I were weird.

[Mei Atsuki]

Mei giggled softly at the idea of playing with the carts. It seemed so silly, but then, Jade had probably been silly once. The image helped her get her mind off of the upcoming holiday. The image was of a smaller version of Jade, as well as several other kids, pushing each other around in the carts with a guy who worked there chasing after them.

She walked alongside Jade, pushing the cart and counting the aisles. One. That aisle had pickles and mustard and things. It looked like the inside of a McDonald's to Mei. Two. Dried fruits. Dried fruits were for old people. No one else ate dried fruits. Vegetables were dried all the time, especially seaweed. But dried fruits were nasty. Mei blinked and realized she had stopped to glare at the dried fruit. How embarrassing. Here was aisle three. SEAWEED! There was dried seaweed there. Hopefully, there would be okonomiyaki sauce, too.

"Here is seaweed," she pointed out unnecessarily, enjoying the feeling of home she got just looking at the food. Glancing around, she started grabbing random things that were on the list, as well as some random things that weren't simply because she could snack on them later.

She stopped. It was there! Okonomiyaki sauce was there. In this grocery store in a small town. She was shocked. So shocked, in fact, that she stood with her mouth hanging open like an idiot.

{OOC: sorry it took so long. someone ate my muse}

[Jade]

((ooc: That's cool. Bitterness has had my muse pissed off today ><.))

Jade grinned as she watched the look on Mei's face. First the annoyed look at the dried fruit and then the shocked look at the sauce. She smiled at the girl, happiness blooming inside of her like a rare vibrant flower.

"Oh good I thought they might have it," She said smiling happily at Mei.

She walked over and threw a couple of other things into the cart, humming softly as she did. It was odd how little things seemed to have such a big deal. In Jade's train of thought this was probably something she would remember in later years and smile about it. She sighed sadly, and remembered that the future was not set. She might get to smile about this with her new friend or she might not, no one knew for certain.

She remembered the last words Billy had said and suddenly stopped cold. The words had been for her, he had addressed her. Weeks of not knowing anyone or anything then a moment of clarity just before death. She scrubbed at her face and quickly went back to picking out ingredients.

"So what do we have left," She said in an overly bright and chipper voice.

[Mei Atsuki]

Mei noticed that something Jade had been thinking about must have been painful by the look on her face. Hurriedly, she went over the list to answer her friend's question.

"We need flour, sugar, eggs, mayonnaise, cabbage, green onions, mushrooms, beef, pork, and chicken."

She didn't want to comment on Jade's distress because she appeared to be trying desperately to hide it. She tried desperately to come up with another conversation to distract Jade, or a joke. Her joke box appeared to be broken, unfortunately, so, she resorted to small talk.

"So what do you think of the people at the hostel? Should we invite everyone to eat with us, or just a few people?"

[Jade]

((OOC: Sorry about how long it took, midterms just ate my soul and spit it out again ><))

Jade was grateful for her new friend's sensitivity. She didn't really want to talk about Billy's death or even deal with it. She had made through what she had thought the worst parts had been; carrying the body back, the funeral, her friends one by one cutting her out of their lives, and then finally Shae's leaving, but she didn't want to deal with it all; not now, and maybe not ever.

"OK well those items should be very easy to find!" She exclaimed and walked forward with a determination in her step; as if time her boots his the cement floor she was placing her past behind her.

She paused after a moment and sighed," I say let's go ahead and invite everyone. It's more fun if there are a lot of people."

She was partially excited about having a gathering of everyone, but at the same time she was also desperate for the distraction.

[Mei Atsuki]

Mei followed Jade's hurried step down the aisle, glad that her distraction seemed to have helped a bit. She was also excited about having a lot of people, but she didn't know that many of the people at the hostel, and she was afraid that it might be a traumatic event in the making if they forced her to be all open with them. She wasn't sure about some of them; they seemed like they might bite your head off if you said something they didn't like, and she knew that if they wanted her to talk about herself, she most certainly would. She would probably try and make a joke and mess it up. A lot of them would probably be mean and sarcastic and she wouldn't know how to answer their questions because their English would be confusing.

"It will be fun. We will make sure it is fun," she smiled, running to catch up with Jade's quick step.

A counter with a man holding a butcher knife came into view as they rounded a corner. Obviously, this would be where they would get the meats. Mei hadn't yet warned Jade of just how thin the meats would need to be cut. Pondering how to describe it, the image of a fajita came into her mind, and it hit her. Fajita meat would be the easiest way to describe the cut. Thanking every kami out there for what little cultural awareness she had, she walked resolutely next to Jade and pushed their cart toward the meat counter.

[Jade]

Jade looked over at Mei and smiled as the girl came beside her with the cart. She looked very determined in Jade's way of thinking. She thought the girl was very sweet, and she was grateful for the fact that Mei didn't push anything.

She was a bit nervous about having to interact with people, but she figured if they didn't like her, oh well. She had cultivated a thick skin over the years, able to brush almost anyone off. She hitched a sigh, and turned to Mei.

"Alright, so what are we wanting?" She said eying the butcher nervously. Butchers always made her nervous, if nothing else she remembered a story about a local butcher who turned out to be killing people, and hiding the bodies in his meat freezer. She scooted closer to Mei in a protective fashion.

[Mei Atsuki]

Mei watched Jade move closer to her nervously. Looking at the cleaver in the butcher's hand, she understood the feeling. Shivering slightly, she tightened her grip on the cart compulsively.

"We need beef, chicken, and pork. Very thin. Fajita meat at the thickest. I hope he is accurate with that knife," she replied nervously, hyper-aware of the multiple ways that her last statement could be taken under the circumstances. Both girls being quite paranoid, a man with a knife was almost traumatizing.

Nervously, Mei walked up to the counter to request what they wanted. "Excuse me, sir," she said softly, fear making her shrink into herself.

The close she was to him, the bigger he seemed to be. He was probably a foot taller than her, and she wasn't exactly what one would call petite. He reminded her of the ex-convicts she had seen on television as a little girl, and when he spoke, it was with a heavy Liverpool accent. "'Ello. What'd ye like?"

Mei jumped slightly when he spoke, but managed to speak loudly enough to be just barely audible, "Beef, and chicken, and pork. Very thin. Paper thin."

The look on the man's face would have been comical if Mei hadn't been completely terrified. Instead, it seemed almost demonic. She stepped away quickly, making sure there was a large amount of space between her and the man behind the counter. When he turned around and went to the back, she sighed nervously and looked Jade, terror evident in her features.