The Midnight Hat Shop

Kasumi didn't do anything the rest of the hang-out time. Well, she did, but it was stuff like playing video games, which according to my mom isn't anything. They played for a good amount of time. Kasumi finally got used to the controls of the game, but she still didn't know what to think when it came to the believability of the game. Since she has killed demons in real life, she knew that everything about the game was unrealistic. For example, the game had plenty of low hp, easy-to-kill, fodder demons that ran at the player in a straight line. An easy-to-kill demon was an oxymoron in real life. Every demon is big and dangerous. They can take many direct hits without dying. The demons in the game sometimes had these hard-to-kill demons, but in reality, they didn't act like real demons either. The game demons tanked damage without even flinching. Real demons responded to every bump and hit.

She shut her mouth as hard as she could. She didn't want to keep interrupting Megumi's fun by telling her that the game is unrealistic. She told herself that there must be a reason that the game was like this. Escapism could be one of them, but she thought it would still be fun if she could take on a more dynamic demon. That isn't against the rules of escapism, right?

What are the rules of escapism, anyway?

I don't know.

Anyway, Megumi had to eventually leave, and all of the girls went home. The lemons went grocery shopping and they ate dinner at home. Then they went to sleep. And that was the end of day 2 of high school, right?

Wrong.

You see, while the lemons did go to sleep, Kasumi woke up in the middle of the night. Now, usually, you just go back to sleep, but Kasumi got up anyway.

Kasumi got out of her futon and quietly walked to the kitchen, where she opened the fridge and looked at it. She recounted her time at the grocery store. It was surprisingly calm for a group of people like them. The cash register person didn't do anything. They didn't fight for any flash sales that occurred. They just grabbed the food and left. There wasn't anything weird. It was quite boring, to be honest. Just groceries.

She went back into the living room. Yuri and Risa were sleeping peacefully. They didn't have a care in the world. There wasn't any conflict. Just sleep. They didn't even look weird while sleeping. They didn't look cute or funny. Just two girls in their futons. Asleep.

Kasumi found herself unable to describe a lot of what's going on. The floor was clean. The wall was intact. The door was locked well. The ceiling was stable. She couldn't find anything wrong with the place. Every danger detector she developed in her magical girl tenure was off. Nothing was in danger. No one will have to rush themselves to get up. There won't be any demons in this house tonight.

She decided to put on her shoes and go outside. She hasn't really seen the outside that much. I mean, she was there, but she hasn't gotten to the point where she could really take in the life of the neighborhood.

The outside was cold. The only lights were the street lights. You could only hear the ambient noise of the night. She walked on the street. She looked at the other houses. They were standard. Just a bunch of somewhat traditional Japanese houses. They looked safe. Mostly harmless.

She continued walking until she left the neighborhood and entered the local stores area. This is where the grocery store was, and you could find your average bakery and florist shop.

However, there was one shop she didn't recognize, and it was the only one with the lights on. The Midnight Hat Shop. What a strange name. She approached the shop with great care. She was about to pass it until the automatic doors opened up. The woman in the store made eye contact with her. It would be rude to not come in now.

"Hello," Kasumi said.

"Welcome to the Midnight Hat Shop," the tall blonde woman said, "How are you doing?"

"Fine, thank you. I just haven't noticed this shop until right now."

"That's fine. We did only open recently."

"Is it only open at midnight?"

"No, that's just the name. We are open at midnight, however. Should I tell you what this shop is about?"

"Sure."

"Well, as you can tell, we sell hats, but we also have a little cafe where we sell coffee and whatnot. The types of hats are varied. We have fedoras, cowboy hats, party hats, and hats from all of your favorite anime and TV shows. We have a hat that looks like Woku's hair from Wragon Ball Z. We also have the Witch hats from Wittle Witch Wacademia. If you can name it, we probably have it."

"Wow, how did you get the rights for all of this?"

"We didn't."

"That's copyright infringement!"

"You're copyright infringement." The woman karate chopped the top of Kasumi's head.

"Nyaa!" Kasumi yelped.

"Anyway, we have anything you could want. Why don't you look around?"

Kasumi looked at the hats. While she could admit that some of them were quite dapper, most of them seemed to be novelty hats or just plain silly. For example, they seemed to have a hat for cheddar, provolone, and pepper jack cheese. She wasn't that interested in hats, to be honest.

"Sorry, but I don't think that I like any of these hats,"

"Do you mind if I suggested a hat for you?"

"I guess."

The woman picked up a silly-looking pink alien hat that had three eyes on it. It had ear-flaps like a traditional Peruvian Chullo hat. Of course, the alien part wasn't part of the tradition or the pink part. Either way, the woman put it on Kasumi's head.

"I think it fits you," she said.

"I don't know."

"It'll grow on you. You know what. This is on the house. That hat is like 200 yen anyway, and I think there was a fourth eye, but it fell out."

"Okay, thanks," said Kasumi, whose feet were already pointing at the exit

"Thanks for visiting!"

"Thanks, bye."

Kasumi left and went back home with a cool hat.