As promised, the update!
This one ended up longer than I thought it would! 8k words 
I knew what I wanted to cover in this chapter, and by the time I got to it all, it took more time and words than I anticipated 
The artwork for this chapter is commissioned from galia-and-kitty on Deviantart. I absolutely love the way this picture came out, and was the push I needed to make sure the chapter was finished! Had a lot of projects the last few weeks. Hope it's worth the wait!
Comments and feedback appreciated!
Act 2: Countdown
Scene 5: Manly Fishbowl Rocks
“Oh my God,” Chisato says, closing her eyes in appreciation as happiness washes over her face. “I've been looking forward to this all week.” She hungrily goes back to attacking her chocolate ice cream cone. The other girls and myself share in her enthusiasm as we all enjoy our frozen treats.
“That good, huh?” I ask, amused.
“Fantastic. I never get to eat ice cream unless we come to the city. The Aura Mart doesn't sell anything like this that I can eat.”
“Doesn't the cafeteria have food you can have?”
“Of course they do,” Chisato chides. “But most of it tastes like cardboard. Nothing sweet, nothing spicy, nothing good.”
I can't say she's wrong. It would make sense though, given how varied the students at Yamaku are. You wouldn't want to trigger a condition someone has, so the food has to be tailored so it's safe for nearly everyone. When you think about how the food tastes there, it's easy to understand why countries used to go to war over things like salt and pepper.
“Your taste buds must be completely destroyed,” Saki says. “That's still as bad as it was the last time you made me try it.”
Chisato had grabbed a few sample spoons and graciously allowed us to try a taste of her ice cream. Noriko simply raised an eyebrow. Saki took a taste and remained impassive for about two seconds before her face scrunched up in disgust. To me, the flavor wasn't as pronounced as I would have expected and there was definitely a chemical aftertaste...but it wasn't the culinary disaster Saki led me to believe it was.
“Maybe I'm just more sensitive because you keep pouring sugar down your throat,” Chisato fires back before taking another bite.
“I make no apologies,” Saki replies with mock indignation.
Noriko laughs. “The strawberry is good. What kind did you two get?”
“Vanilla,” I answer. “You're right, this is pretty good.”
“Just vanilla?” Saki scolds. “How pedestrian.”
“I happen to like vanilla, thank you very much.” I say, matching her tone. To prove my point, I take two more quick bites, and then abruptly stop when I feel a slight twinge of pain starting behind my eyes. I squeeze them shut and pinch the bridge of my nose. “Ah, damnit...”
“Serves you right,” Saki says teasingly, but with a hint of concern. “You okay?”
“Yeah,” I groan, blinking hard as the feeling passes. “Haven't had brain freeze in a while.” I look at Saki's cone, which is much further along in being consumed than the rest of ours are. “How do you not get one?”
“More practice,” she grins.
We all find seats on a pair of benches outside the ice cream shop, and take a few minutes to relax. We're in a plaza in the heart of downtown, with the city very much alive. The sounds of a bustling metropolis surround us. I hear cars driving, people walking and chatting, even the subtle shifting in the wind as it caresses the buildings around us.
Even the smell is different. It's not one I would want to be around all the time, but it's a nice contrast to both Yamaku and the hospital. All of it combines into a subliminal feeling that the world around you is alive.
“Noriko!” Saki asks suddenly, shaking me out of my thoughts. “I have to know where you got that dress.”
Noriko seems preoccupied with finishing her ice cream, intent on not letting any of the sticky liquid run down her cone and onto her hands. “Oh,” she says, a bit startled. “I got it from a shop a few blocks from here. Plus Two.”
“Really? We were just there last week, and I didn't see that anywhere.”
“It was from their spring lineup last year,” her friend clarifies. “It was on clearance and I didn't have a chance to wear it earlier. Sorry...”
“Damn,” Saki says. “I really wanted a yellow one.”
Chisato speaks up. “Maybe they'll bring it back if it was popular. You know how they change out things every year.”
“I guess...” Saki huffs, still holding on to her dejected tone as tightly as her cone.
Part of me doesn't want to finish my ice cream, because that means it's time to go shopping. I'm already dreading the hit my wallet is going to take today, and I would like to postpone it as long as possible. I look down at my hand to find it empty, except the paper wrapper that encircled the bottom of the cone. I look around me to find that everyone else is in the same boat or very close to it.
Chisato bounds to her feet, stretching, completely recharged. “Where do you want to go first?” she asks all of us. I stand as well, throwing my trash into a bin right beside the benches.
Noriko gets up a little more reservedly, brushing off the back of her dress and smoothing it out. “We could head back to Plus Two and see if they have something like this for Saki.”
Saki's mood seems to become more positive as she juggles her cane and purse into comfortable positions. She reaches both of her hands out towards me; one empty, one holding her cane.
“Hey Hisao, can I borrow you for a second?”
I smile inwardly at the reference to how she rescued me from the middle of the student council's fury and offer my hands to her. She grabs onto them tightly and uses them to haul herself up, flashing me a brief smile of appreciation.
“Alright!” Saki says. “Even if they don't have it, they should have some other neat things, right?”
I do not belong here.
That is the one thought that is pounding through my head in time with the pounding of my heart. I reach up to pull on my collar, which feels uncomfortably tight.
I mean, physically, there's nothing that says otherwise. There's no signs keeping me out. There's no barriers to entry. It's entirely open to the public. But the first glance that the salespeople give me, combined with the décor of the store which I can't make sense of, all give me that impression. This was cemented the first time I glanced at a price tag hanging from what I thought was just a simple dress shirt. I stared at it, thinking they had misplaced the decimal.
I was wrong.
All four of us are technically inside the clothing store Plus Two that Noriko mentioned, although I wouldn't say all four of us are together. All the girls split up the second we strolled in the door, and I'm kindof wandering in the area where that happened, unsure of what to do. I can hear the other three piping up loud enough to be heard occasionally, but I can't see them through the dense maze of clothes oppressing me from all sides.
Mannequins and display racks surround me, full of trendy clothes for both men and women. I look at the ensemble that one of the male mannequins is wearing, and I can't help it; the outfit just looks silly. A plaid beret, a blood red dress-style shirt with a black scarf, and jeans that are...
Wait, these are mens jeans? No. Someone must have put on a pair from the womens section. There's no way a man could wear anything that tight without some serious consequences.
Well...at least it doesn't cost anything to look, right? I look at the price out of curiosity and my eyes widen.
I used to do my own clothes shopping back home for anything that wasn't required for school, and I swear I could afford an entire wardrobe for the price of this one “outfit.”
I shake my head in wonderment, and make eye contact with a man across the store from me. Through his glasses, I can see the look in his eyes. He's no more comfortable here than I am. He tilts his head in the direction of Saki's excited voice, asking an unspoken question. I dip my head in a nod, and give an exasperated sigh. He responds to my gesture with a small, sad smile, shifting his eyes to a woman a short ways away from him digging through the racks with a focused intensity.
For this one moment, we are inexorably linked as kindred spirits, he and I.
“Hisao?” I hear Saki ask. “Where are you?”
“Over here,” I reply, and make my way deeper into the store trying to find her.
“Where's 'here'?” she says, a bit louder.
“I'm right he-oof,” I manage to get out, as we both turn around opposite sides of the same rack and bump into each other. I'm barely knocked off balance, but I'm instantly reminded of Saki's cane and balance issues. “You okay?”
“Yeah, I'm fine,” she answers, reaching up to brush her hair out of her eyes. Her other arm, which is holding her cane, has a few garments over it. “Can you help me with something really quick?”
I'm instantly put on guard by that question. There's about a fifty-fifty chance of “something really quick” meaning just that or something that will take all day and involve pain. Given our circumstances at the moment, I'm hoping it's the former.
“Sure,” I say, hesitantly.
“I can't choose between these two outfits,” she says, holding them out for me to inspect them, but I can't get a clear view of them draped over her arm. “Noriko likes one, Chisato likes the other. Can you be our tiebreaker?”
“Okay,” I agree dumbly. Warning bells are going off in my head.
I follow Saki to the back of the store where the other two girls are already seated on low padded benches in front of the dressing booths, talking among themselves. I take a seat next to Noriko as Saki disappears into one of the booths, closing the door.
(continued...)
. Already anticipating the drama 
