Nightly Activities

He hadn't known what brought him to this failing mall, but he knew within moments of arriving that the decision was a mistake. There were hardly enough stores throughout the mall to catch ones interest, and of those that remained, their stock was dwindling. It was not as though there were such an influx of customers that the stores could not keep up, but rather there was no real need to restock on a regular basis. Even as the numbers thinned, the amount of sales lost by their supply chain was nothing compared to the money that would have been wasted to constantly truck new goods to this soon to close location.

So why had Kei wandered her? Well, the short of it was that he had been trying to familiarize himself with the city as much as possible. He had no idea what the mall would offer when he had originally seen it, and he had no real way of knowing that it would be in such dire straights. He had come to explore, and after only a few moments he had realized his mistake. Still, that was not to say he was in a rush to leave. It was a cool experience to an extent, to see a place that likely once offered so much vibrance in this state of decay. He had strolled through the conglomerate of stores for a short while, finally coming around a corner to catch an act of vandalism in mid-swing.

The angle was odd, but Kei was given enough time to watch from his strange angle to tell that she had no spray cans on her. Her fingers seemed to be dragging along the walls, producing paint as she went. Now he could not tell if that was the case for sure, the distance between them being sizable enough that sound would not properly travel between them easily. Still, it didn't look as though she was reaching back to steadily resupply herself with paint, nor did she appear to be holding a brush. It was a strange sight indeed.

As she turned and exited the store, she did not even spare a thought for anyone being around her. Her vision did not sweep the halls, instead turning away from Kei and looking towards a large mounted clock in the middle of the mall. Stepping away from the corner in which he stood, the distance between them having dwindled to some ten odd meters, Kei spoke up. She would not have heard his quiet footsteps, not unless she had some sort of advanced hearing. Therefore, his voice would likely catch her off guard.

"Oi, do you have permission to be doing that?" His hands were loosely in his pockets, though not so deep that they would be difficult to retrieve. He'd be easily able to retract them from their spots and put himself in a position to defend himself if she turned out to be wild, and on that same note, he would not be so dedicated to finish what he was saying that he could not stop his sentence short in order to defend himself. Still, he was hoping it wouldn't come to that.

"Excuse me? What do you mean?"

Her words were of denial, without actually addressing the situation at hand. Kei had been asking her about the paint she had been leaving on the site of the nearly dead mall would likely catch no eyes, nor draw any attention. It was not due to her necessarily doing a poor job, nor was one able to say that she lacked talent. The issue here was that the mall was preparing to go under, and while the life that the school may have been capable of breathing back into the city could potentially revive the mall in the future, it was currently on its last leg. In truth, her crime was petty at best. There would have been no guards here, no store owners running up to reprimand her, and no real consequences to her actions even if she had been caught by a person of authority. Even Kei, despite having caught her in the act and called out to her, had been perfectly prepared to leave it at just that. While he was going to school to be a hero, it wasn't as though he was going to enforce the law. He was going to enact justice, to keep villains at bay and to be the counterpart that was necessary. Anyone with a bit of understanding of the law could vouch for the fact that the letter of the law was not always justice. He had absolutely no problem pretending he never saw anything, and perhaps sharing a few pleasantries with the girl before him.

That was, of course, if she had been honest. There was something about lying, even when that lie was simply playing dumb as she was doing now, that rose someones suspicion. Kei, who had assumed that this girl was just a hooligan expressing themselves on an otherwise blank canvas, now thought otherwise. This wasn't to say that he had jumped through the hoops to decide she was some evil criminal syndicate leader who needed to be stopped. No, his assumption was much more benign than that. His conclusion was that she was not only aware that what she was doing was illegal, but now she thought that she could have fun by running him around in circles. He wasn't going to allow that to happen.

His hands had come from his pockets, resting idly now at his sides. The motion was fluid, natural, happening as he changed his stance to his back leg and tilted his head. His face took on a look that practically screamed "Really?" before he sighed. The girl, still ten meters or so away, had gained Kei's suspicion. "The paint that you just left all over that old store. Just because the mall is struggling doesn't mean it's dead quite yet, you know." Again he spoke, though not so committed to those words that a physical reaction could not come if given the reason. His own well being always came first, after all.