Group date

It was very rare for Mai to let her hair down. Before she had discovered all this future mumbo jumbo her head had always been buried in books, studying to please her mother. However, after learning how bleak her future looked, studying felt a bit pointless.

It might have been different if Future Mai had turned out to be a lawyer, a doctor or one of those professions normal parents wanted for their kids. As a mostly introverted type person she would normally just use this as an excuse not to go out in the first place.

Ultimately, Mai wasn't sure why she accepted. Perhaps she wanted to forget about all that problematic stuff, or maybe Shirley had some type of influence on her. Could it be she had been jealous seeing her hang out with Vicky, so now she wanted to spend some time together?

'I just can't seem to say no to that girl.' Mai thought, as she was busy picking out an outfit for tonight. As usual this turned out to be a struggle, one no amount of studying seemed to be able to help her fix. All the fashion sense in their family seems to have assembled in her little sister...

'Should I just call that little brat for advice again? No, I'll only give her a bigger headache.' Mai decided against it, as she pulled out a pair of black dark jeans and a black top.

'When you don't know what to wear, go with black! According to Cindy, one can't go wrong with black, it's slimming, and one doesn't stand out. It should be enough to allow me to just stay in the corner of the room being invisible.'

Nevertheless, she went out trying to stay positive. It was common for the human mind to think negative things, so she was trying to push them out of her head while heading to the meet up destination.

Of course, her mind started to start about a few things, what she ought to be doing once tonight was over.

'When I get back, I'll use my tears again to head back to the Future World. I just hope Future Mai has left me the PIN for the tablet, so I can finally meet up with the detective and get some answers about Chris' past, maybe even find out more about his and my life together.' Mai thought.

Eventually, Mai arrived at the high street. It was a single street filled with shops, bakeries and other sweet little cute things during the day. Simple Village wasn't big, this was in fact the only street in the whole place that was like this, and at night time, there would be a couple of bars that were open.

Although it was hard to call them bars per se, as they were more like giant coffee shops that would just turn on a few lights here and there, it was nevertheless a popular place for the teens and tweens to enjoy a nice dinner and chat together.

As she approached one end of the street, she could already see four dressed up girls waiting for her. Shirley was happily waving away to Mai, while the other three seemed to be ignoring her. Surprisingly, Vicky wasn't surrounded by her usual cronies.

The one on her right had short light brown hair, and the figure of an athlete. Her name was Scarlett and she was quite popular among the boys and girls. She was the leader of the volleyball club and she enjoyed a reputation of being kind to others. Even though she was the clear ace of the club, she never acted superior to the others.

The best thing of all, was she didn't seem to take crap from boys or girls. In fact, if Mai ever wanted to change herself, then Scarlett would have been the person she wanted to be.

'I didn't even know Vicky knew her.' Mai was surprised. Given their personalities she would have thought they would be unable to stand each other. Then again, perhaps that showed how much she actually knew about Vicky.

As for the girl to Vicky's left, Mai didn't know her. She seemed familiar, so chances were she should be in one of the other classes.

Shirley was the only one to meet Mai in the middle and she greeted her with a big old hug.

"Did you see what I did? I asked Vicky if I could invite a few other people, so it wouldn't just be her friends, that way we all can get to know each other." Shirley proudly exclaimed.

So it seemed that Shirley was actually the one who had invited them, but Mai was still confused how Shirley even got to know them. Then again with her attitude it wouldn't be too surprising if today had been the first time she had talked with them, somehow convincing them to appear as well.

After everyone quickly introduced themselves they were finally ready to head in.

"Alright, it looks like the boys are already in there. We will go inside and introduce ourselves by giving out our names and some of our names, before they will do the same. If someone strikes your fancy just sit down opposite their seat." Vicky explained the 'strategy' for the meeting. "If two girls happen to be interested in the same guy, then whoever has been single the longest gets to have first pick, okay?"

Everyone nodded, and then they all started to walk into the place.

'Wait, whoever has been single the longest? I've never even had a boyfriend! Chris was my first love and the only one I ever confessed to!' Mai wanted to shout out but soon realised how embarrassing that would be.

The shop was dimly lit, and there seemed to be a lot of people from school already inside sitting on giant bean bags, drinking coffee, listening to music or playing cards. As for them, they had booked a table at the very back of the room.

'I wonder if Chris will be here?' Mai thought, but then she realised that most of the girls probably would have fought over the seat opposite him if that was the case. However, on the off chance that he was... Wouldn't that mean Mai got to enjoy an entire date with him? After all, she had never been with anyone before!

'Maybe this is how the two of us meet up!' Mai excitedly thought, but as she turned the corner and saw the boys she was a bit disappointed not to see Chris there.

"Hey, how come there's only four of you?" Shirley asked.

"Oh, the guy just went to the toilet. He'll be back in a second, unless he's taking a big stinker." One of the boys answered as a joke.

The girls looked at each, and none of their faces looked to have been entertained by that crude remark. The boy's left neighbour stepped on his friend's foot, while the other poked him in the ribs for saying such a thing.

However, the girls weren't looking at each other due to the joke he had made, but with one guy missing, their plan was ruined. Still, things seemed to be fine, as each of the girls naturally sat in their assigned seats, and in the end, Mai was left sitting opposite no one.

'It could never be Chris, he would never agree to such a thing in the first place!'

"Sorry, I'm late." A familiar voice apologised, and as Mai turned around, she could see Simon, having just brushed his blonde hair back.

"Mai!"