208 Finish Line

Time slipped by in a hurry and following a period of me trying out different lingerie, clothing, and accessories, it all ended. It was quite embarrassing to try out these new clothing items, but I guess since Elise is relatively a stranger to me, it's better than having to wear all of this in front of the girls. With the money that I had converted from SP, I spent without any worries. However, I did try and contain how much I spent as I did not want Elise to be surprised by how much money an ordinary high school girl like me would have. Even with me trying to limit my spendings, I still spent a pretty large amount of money for today: near 10000 Vil.

The bags started piling up, and things became very heavy as I tried to carry them by myself. Elise had purchased not nearly as much as I did, and she offered to help me carry some of the items I had purchased. I declined her offer as I did not want to cause any unnecessary burden to befall her and she accepted my excuse with a chuckle. However, she did leave me to my devices, allowing me to carry the merchandise that I had purchased. Occasionally, she would look over and ask me with a concerned look on her face.

When we exited the mall, the sun was setting, and in this twilight hour of the day, the city was still busy, bustling with activity. The ambiance noise was populated by the sound of footsteps, sounds of chatter among the crowd, and sounds of the traffic as the automobiles drove by, stopping at the lights and going when they turn green. The bright city lights illuminated this scene. The streetlights hanging over the roads shined on the marked roads, the streetlights on the wide city sidewalk showed to the pedestrian where they are going along with the lights spilling out from the windows of storefronts, and the lights from the buildings lighted up the skyline. It was quite a beautiful sight to behold.

"Let me walk you home," Elise said to me. "You're carrying an awful lot of stuff for a lone girl to bring home on your own. There's a possibility that you might be targetted by criminals to be robbed."

"It's fine," I said to her. "I don't live in Nocsinis, so it'll be a long way home for me. I was thinking of getting a taxi home."

"It's still not as safe as having someone with you," she insisted. "What district do you live in?"

"Lumina," I answered Elise, touched by her concerned countenance.

"Really?" Her face lit up. "I live in that district to so it'll be on my way home as well. It shouldn't be that much of a detour."

"I guess you're right," I nodded and smiled. "Then let's go together."

After calling a taxi with the app on our phone, we waited on the side of the street near the curb, waiting for our car to show up. I checked my phone to monitor the status of the car, and on the map displayed, it was easy to tell that the taxi car was quickly approaching our location. Like the app had predicted, the taxi car arrived in 45 seconds. The driver, a man in his late forties, saw the many bags in our hands, immediately opened the trunk and got out from the car to help us put the bags away in the back.

I'm not the one that usually the type of people that judge others based off of appearance, but for some reason, the way this man looked at me made me quite uneasy. It felt almost as if...he was checking me out. His eyes lingered a bit too long on my legs and my waist... It was a rather uncomfortable feeling, and when I boarded the car, I avoided sitting in the center of the back seats and sat behind the driver so that he would not be able to cast his gaze in my direction.

The taxi car started driving, moving at a slow speed due to traffic, but once it entered the highways and started in the direction of Lumina, the speed of the vehicle increased. The skyscrapers viewed from this elevated highway was a rather spectacular sight, especially in the night. When the car started going across the Helliger, it was even more so with the wide river reflecting the skyline on either bank of it.

As I enjoyed the view, I was quite cautious that the driver wasn't enjoying another type of view, and that is my body. Occasionally, I would glance over at the rearview mirror to see if the driver was, in fact, looking at the road and not at us in the back seats. On the occasions I did check, he was paying attention to the road. And in the end, it would appear that my worries were a bit unjustified as we arrived at our destination without any issues.

The driver helped us retrieve our belongings from the car trunk, and after we made sure we have everything, the car drove off, leaving Elise and me standing before the building that I resided in near the river banks of the Helliger River. Cold wind blew in from the mouth of the river near the harbor, moving our hair as it blew by us. It was a chilling feeling, but the view definitely made up for it.

On the occasions that I would come home at nighttime, I would always take a second to admire this beautiful view of the highrise building that I resided in with its decorative exterior lights with the Helliger River and the reflection of Nocsinis skyline in the background. Even I marveled at this view, so let alone Elise.

"Wow," she whispered. "Your house is in a really good location. What a view!"

"Thanks," I chuckled in response.

"It must be so nice to be able to have such a great view from your window," she commented. "It must be nice to enjoy the cool nighttime wind by the river during the summer."

What she said sort of reflected what I would occasionally do during the summertime. Even though it was rather hot, the riverbanks are always rather cool due to the wind that blew in from the mouth of the river. Therefore, I would sometimes just come down to the ground floor, walk over to the guard rails by the river and simply lean on it while listening to music in my earbuds. Just imagine it. After a long, miserable day in hot weather that makes you lazy, just coming down to a beautiful riverbank and enjoying some cool breezes...that's like heaven.

"I think I can make my way up to my own floor just fine," I turned and said to Elise.

"Okay," Elise nodded. "Hey, lets exchange phone numbers."

"Sure," I said, reaching into my purse and grabbing my phone.

"There," she said after entering in my number into her contacts list. "This way, we can talk to each other whenever we want."

"Yeah," I smiled and nodded.

"I can't believe going out shopping on a Saturday would net me a new friend," she laughed and shook her head.

"I have to thank you for choosing to do that," I chuckled. "Or else I would've been in great danger. Once again, thank you."

"No worries," Elise smiled. "Well, I better head home now. Talk to you later." She turned and waved at me as she started walking off with her bags.

"Do you need a taxi?" I asked her.

"I'm taking the train," she looked over her shoulder and smiled. "Don't worry, I know my way around Lumina."

"Alright then," I sighed.

"Goodnight, Alvelyn," she waved to me once again. "Talk to you later."

"Goodnight to you too," I waved after her. "Text me when you get home."

I watched as she vanished in the distance after rounding a corner to head in the direction of Lumina Station. In my mind, I was feeling rather jocose, happy that I made a new friend. Elise seems like a great person, someone that I can talk to without any worries. In fact, when I'm around her, I don't feel as restrained. It's kinda sad that once I turn back into a boy, we won't have any more contact, but it is what it is. Hopefully, God and those angels can take care of the memories of everyone like they've always done in the past.

I picked up the plastic bags by their handle off of the ground and made my way over to the front entrance of my building. After passing the security gates and unlocking the door, I entered and rode the elevators up to my floor. It wasn't a long wait and lucky for me, the elevators were empty. Once on my floor, I got off and made my way over to the door leading into my house, opposite of the one that led into the Edel sisters' home.

I wonder what's Muria and Mura doing? I thought as I unlocked the door to my own home and entered.

"Your back," Loriana looked over from the living room couch and greeted me.

"Yeah," I responded, inhaling and exhaling deeply as I place every bag on the ground. It really is difficult carrying all this stuff for the entire day. I guess this is why girls often take their boyfriends to go shopping with them.

"You bought a lot of stuff," Loriana got up from the couch and walked over. "You need help carrying them to your room."

"That would be great," I said as I placed both hands on my waist and straightened my back, leaning back a bit to stretch out my spine.

The soft and faint humming of the air conditioner continued in the background, but my mind had trained itself to tune out that noise and ignore it in its entirety. Instead, what was louder was the sound of our footsteps as we carried my newly purchased belongings over to my bedroom as Alvelyn.

"I can put everything away myself," I said to Loriana and thanked her for her help.

"Dinner will be ready in a bit," she said to me as she walked out. "You can go take a bath if you want in the meantime."

"Got it," I smiled and nodded.

I first started removing all the items that I had purchased from the plastic bags, separating them into their own categories. I took out the extra clothes hanger that I bought to hang up or fold the clothing that I had purchased today. It was quite a lot of clothes and it took me quite some time to finish hanging everything in the wardrobe cabinet and putting away all the folded T-shirts, I was still happy to see that the empty wardrobe is now filled. It actually looks like a normal girl's wardrobe now. After I finished putting away my clothes, I pulled open the lingerie drawer at the bottom of the wardrobe. There, I neatly lined up the bra that I had purchased to efficiently store them, and in the same drawer next to it, I kept the panties. I also made sure to make it so that the lingerie from the same set was stored in the same order as each other. Then, in a separate drawer, I placed the jewelry box into for the cheaper accessories. As for the more expensive ones, I kept them in the special case that they were stored in the same drawer as well. Finally, it was all the makeup materials that I still don't know the names to. Those, I placed in the small, carefully concealed drawers of my dressing table.

When I finally finished putting everything away, I stood up and stretched my arms and back, feeling a great desire to relieve myself from the frustrating process of putting everything away. I let out a yawn out of fatigue, and I decided that I would go and take a relaxing bath to reward myself with. With that, there concluded my first Saturday as a girl.