>>5952662You grab your partner's hand and dash towards the entrance. Extremely subtly, of course. All customers and staff members turn away from you once you approach them, looking really scared. Alright, that loud "EEK" you let out earlier was one thing, but they seem legit afraid of you, you wonder why that is... Once outside, you let out a huge sigh and wipe the sweat off of your forehead. You never thought stealing could be so easy and so stressful at the same time!
>"H-How is it sunset already! We went in there in the beginning of the afternoon!">"Heheh, time goes by when you're having fun, Storkie!""Having fun"? All she did was look at clothes! You can do that on the internet, for pete's sake! And it's not like you had any fun, so that logic doesn't even make sense- Ahh, whatever, whatever...
>"Sorry we couldn't do what you wanted today Storkie... I really really thought it was just gonna take an hour! Ugh... I'm so dumb sometimes..."She looks to her side and holds her elbows in her hands. Ugh, you hate when she gets like that. She's supposed to be be the HAPPY one of your duo, damnit!
>"It's... fine, don't worry about it. It's not like we have a time limit or something. We'll do what I wanted to do tomorrow, alright?">"Y-Yeah! Okay...">"Oh, and one more thing-"You reach down towards your plugsuit, and from it you pull out-
>"Lipstick?! How?? We don't have any money-"A nice and shiny, teal lipstick case.
>"Ahh~. Yeah, while you weren't looking I, like, won some weird contest thing they were holding. Apparently whoever won that got some free lipstick or something, no one wanted to buy it I guess. I rolled a 20 with my weird dice power thing, so they just gave it to me, crazy huh?"You hope she doesn't ask for specifics about this very unspecific lie you just made up on the spot. Knowing her, she probably won't.
>"Ah... Hahahah! That's just like you Storkie... Winning something you didn't want..."So she already knew you didn't want it huh? Well, that makes sense. She IS your partner, after all.
>"That's right, so, since *I* don't want it-"You stick your arm out, placing the lipstick on her hand.
>"You can have it... I guess..."She smiles as you fumble your cheesy line up at the very end. You're not very good at this kind of "duo bonding" stuff. Sometimes you wish you were just by yourself in the world, not having to worry about meeting expectations, or spending your precious time and energy caring for other people. However, some other times-
>"Thanks, Storkie..." *hug*It's nice to know that someone spends their precious time and energy caring about you...
........
>"...I-It's sunset, we should probably move out!"Where will you go?
>Back to the tower, a few hours before dinner>Keep walking around town>Go to the factory still, even though it's almost nighttime>Write in