Hover Bike
Ai and Mina witness a most bizarre sight while eating lunch at the Mexican Hotdog joint.
"And then I said, 'Oh please, Gatito is so not your style.'" Ai said casually as she jabbed a few more lettuce leaves with her plastic fork. Across the table from her was Mina, who was trying not to laugh with a mouthful of her strawberry crepe lest she wanted to choke.
The two middle schools students decided to spend their afternoon in the Mexican Hotdog joint like they usually did to talk about the latest trends, Makoto's work, The Prince's bog entries, the price of new threads and so on. Ai looked out the window and sighed. To her, it was just like every other school day; A perfectly ordinary end of the day. Same streets, same crowds, same noises, same buildings zigzagging across the sky, same bicycles hovering around the-
Ai blinked. Then blinked again, just to make sure her eyes weren't playing tricks on her.
The bike just outside the window was lying on the ground, slightly battered around the edges, but still in decent condition. And it was most certainly not hovering.
'I could have sworn that bike was… Nah, I must have been imagining it.' She thought, returning her back to Mina as she rambled on about the latest threads she brought from D+B in 104 on the weekend.
Meanwhile, just outside the hotdog joint but on a completely different plane of existence, two teens were going over a handful of pins. One was a boy with orange spiky hair, decked head to toe in blue and white threads and large headphones sitting atop his head and the other, a girl with magenta hair, holding a plush cat in one arm and wearing custom threads. Both seemed to be quite frustrated over something the other was saying or doing, but the crowds passing through Spain Hill couldn't see or hear the pair squabbling.
"Of all days why today? You had a whole week to try out that pin!" The boy almost yelled.
"I told you I didn't know I had a psychokinesis pin! I thought the only one the Reapers gave me was the pyrokinesis." The girl retorted, looking as is she was going to throttle the boy.
"Do you even know how to use it?"
The girl gave the boy a sly smirk and he almost regretted asking that last question.
"That's why I have you here with me."
Back inside, both girls broke out in a fit of laughter at the retellings of an event that happened just a few days ago at Molco by Mina.
"The look on his face was priceless! Oh my god, you won't believe what Eri said next."
"Well that's what he gets for trying to sell a knock off to a fashion expert."
"I know, right!"
Mina and Ai settled down pretty quickly when they realized that some of the other customers were looking in their direction but they couldn't quite stifle all their giggles. Ai stuffed the last of her salad in her mouth while Mina took a sip of her cola, both of them looking out the window. And they both saw the most bizarre thing ever.
They looked at each other, then to their food, then back to each other before returning their attention to the happenings beyond the window. A bike was still hovering up and down the street, doing a variety of tricks and flips all by itself. Not too far from it was an assortment of shop signs, fluro orange witch cones and metal stands, all of which seemed to be repeating the movements of the bicycle.
Then all of a sudden, they dropped to the ground, lying there unmoving.
"You saw that too, right Mina?" Ai asked with a slight tone of fear in her voice. Mina, temporarily forgetting how to speak, merely nodded.
"So we'll agree that we're not crazy then?"
The stunned black haired girl nodded again, returning her gaze to the lone strawberry left on the crepe wrapper.
"I won't tell anyone what we saw if you don't."
"Agreed."
Outside, Neku pocketed all the pins, not caring if he had to suffer a beating for the act from Shiki. It probably would have been better than making the two schoolgirls inside believe that Spain Hill was haunted by a poltergeist. The area being swarmed with Noise was scary enough.
"I told you this wasn't a good day to test that pin."