There were stamps, toiletries, small bags in each colour, calendars, notebooks, birthday cards, and millions of types of toys on the colourful shelves. Each one of us was looking for a different item as a souvenir because the local people of Kawaakari believed that the souvenirs could make a ghost leave.
Bomyu gazed at the birthday cards on the shelves: "Where are the snow globes?"
I kept looking around and saw Paikek trying on rabbit-shaped sunglasses. He was checking how cute he looked in them in the mirror.
"They look cute on you." Seanyung laughed while passing by.
On the other hand, Bomyu was still searching around for the snow globes, and then Seanyung called from behind "Hey Bomyu!!"
"Yeah?"
"Didn't you want to buy snow globes?"
"Yeah."
"I found snow globes."
"Where?" Bomyu beamed and bounced towards Seanyung who was standing in front of a shelf full of snow globes in different shapes and colours.
"Whoah!!! Thanks you!" Bomyu chuckled in happiness.
It seemed so hard for him to choose a single globe out of millions of them, so I asked: "Do you need any help with choosing?"
Bomyu looked thoughtful while he grabbed a yellow coloured globe: "I don't know what to do, Karu."
"I think this one is the prettiest." our smarty Seanyung picked up the blue globe with snowflakes on it.
"Right!" I immediately agreed.
"Yeah." Bomyu grabbed it as he asked the cashier in a soft tone "Sorry, how much is this?"
"It's seven pounds and fifty." the cashier replied.
While he was paying the snow globe, I made eye contact with Seanyung.
"I bought a snow globe!!" Bomyu cheered.
"Right. That's great. I bought some bunny toys, and they're cute." Paikek beamed as we left the convenience store.
"What do you think?" he added.
"I love bunny toys." I smiled back at him.
"What about my snow globe?" Bomyu intervened while showing it to everyone.
"It's cute." Seanyung laughed.
"I'm gonna shake it before I go to bed."
"It will be beside my bed, and it will say 'good job today Bomyu!'" Bomyu continued cheerfully.
Finally, we, four boys, headed somewhere away from the stores under the crystal clear blue skies. The weather was always excellent, as the sunlight was beautifully powerful in the city of Kawaakari.
"I love those silent streets." Paikek commented while we walked through the central bus station filled with a lot of speechless people.
Subsequently, we stopped in front of a massive poster on the wall of the station.
Bomyu's mouth dropped, Paikek's eyes widened, and Seanyung took off his headphones, once we saw the poster. But, I... I immediately got stunned when I noticed that it was the picture of the one and only singer of Kawaakari; Sonya Soundstrong! She was my idol, my role model, favourite singer and the person who influenced me all the time.
Sonya Soundstrong had blonde hair, brown eyes and a perfect light brown skin. But these were nothing because her most significant feature was her voice that people say it could break the spells, open the doors, and even revive the dead...
Nevertheless, we had a place to go, so we started walking to the other direction through the crowd.
We crossed the zebra crossing to the other side of the road in between the skyscrapers.
"That's it!" Seanyung pointed to the brown wooden building in front of us. Some parts of it were made of brown bricks which looked like a thousand years old.
"Wow, this place is huge!" Paikek commented as we stepped into the building; it was a magical book shop.
It was Paikek's wish to come here because he wondered which books we would choose, so he chirped; "This is gonna be fun!"
"Hello my boys, I have been waiting for you!" an old lady walked down the staircase in the middle of the book shop. She was wearing a brown dress, and she had two long French braid hair. The wrinkles on her face were extremely noticeable,
"Hello!! I am Paikek the cute one!" Paikek greeted.
"Oh darling, I comprehend who you are!" she smiled as she closed her eyes and continued; "In case you don't remember, my name is Lydia Marleigh. Do you know the rules?"
"Rules?" I was extremely puzzled by the old woman's altitude.
"First you choose one record of your preference, then you pick one out for one of your friends." Seanyung interjected.
"Seanyung, how did you know?" I even got more puzzled.
"Don't stress Karu, Seanyung was the one who supposed to know." The old lady Lydia Marleigh smiled while glancing in my eyes.
"So... One for yourself and one for another boy, am I right?" Bomyu asked to make sure.
"Yeah, two books in total per person." she verified with a cracking voice.
"Sounds like fun!" Paikek chirped as he started to take a tour of the store.
"Mrs Marleigh, do we need to pay any price?" Something felt strange, so I inquired.
The old woman gazed into my eyes with a hopeful smile on her face as she spoke deeply: "You don't need to pay any money."
"Alright, thanks Mrs Marleigh." I thanked and started to check the books around.
At first, a blue book on a dusty shelf took my attention, which was about a Paikek's type of magic. I hesitated, but when I touched the book, I felt it was the right one. One of the books next to it was a yellow book which reflected my type of magic. Wait. I didn't know anything about magic, but that book seemed like it was made for myself.
In the end, we met up next to the staircase to show which books we chose.
"Let's start with the books you picked for yourselves. What did you choose Karu?" the old woman went down the stairs.
"Alright Mrs Marleigh, I picked this yellow book which felt like it was made for myself." I responded hesitatingly.
The old lady nodded as she spoke; "When I first read that book, I was shocked by the fact that there is nothing about magic in it."
"Wow~" the other boys marvelled.
"This is a book by a dead author who wrote about the magic of laughing. And it's a very cute book." Paikek smiled proudly, showing the book he got for himself.
"I got this book." Seanyung showed a purple covered book and added; "It is about the ten ways to prevent mind tricks."
"That's so cool!" Paikek impressed.
"This book looked cool, so I took it." Bomyu was holding an orange book in his arms.
"Great job!" Old lady coughed.
"Now it's time to see what did you get for the others." she giggled loudly.
"Karu loves stars, so I've got a book about stars for him." Bomyu beamed as he passed the book to me.
"You and I have similar tastes, thanks Bomyu." I thanked while I received the book.
"I think Karu likes unique books." Paikek interrupted with a smile on his face.
"Yeah, that's why I got this blue book for you." I gave it to Paikek, and he smiled widely. His smile was a little shy, and it was beautiful to see that I made it happen.
"The book I'm holding is for Seanyung, and it is about making a perfect team." Paikek smiled and gave the book to Seanyung.
"Finally, this book which is about the most potent spells in Kawaakari is for Bomyu. I hope you like it." Seanyung delivered the book to Bomyu's hands.
"Ahhh, thanks a lot." Bomyu blushed with a slight feeling of joy.
We left the book store with transcendent books in our bags. It was around midnight, we didn't notice how the time passed.
We began walking through the bridge of Kawaakari, which had a view of the skyline of the metropolis.
Seanyung put his headphones on listening to one of the songs of Sonya Soundstrong. He kept dancing to the rhythm of the music, forgetting everything for the moment.
"Let's pretend we don't know him." Paikek laughed out loud.
"Oh yeah, he is really into the song." Bomyu bantered as he put his arm around my shoulder.
"Look at us, we're so cute." Paikek bubbled, then four of us laughed together.
As the night grew darker, the four stars in the sky shined the brightest. We watched the skyscrapers and the city lights from the bridge under the moonlight. A melodic guitar played in the background as we kept laughing. Later, a piano followed the guitar melody bringing a non-existent soul-filling song to life. It was called happiness that we had.
Eventually, we went to our apartment and laid in our beds. We turned the lights off, letting the moonlight in from the window. Bomyu put his snow globe next to his bed and shook it before he went to sleep, creating a mini snowstorm in the snow globe.
The night breeze blew into the room as the window was open, swaying the curtains.
I hugged my pillow while I was reminiscing about the five figures that resembled outside the windowpane when I was on the train. Then, the memories we made today came into my mind. It was such a wonderful day. We were together, and we were profoundly happy.
However, we wished that we could know-how.
As the night breeze blew across the room, I closed my eyes. Then the particles in the snow globe stopped moving.