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Kalani was no stranger to the concept of 'pop-up' stores, knowing all about the Halloween one that showed up every year, after all, that she sometimes browsed to see if there was anything that suited her interests (there never was). However, and while she wasn't generally one to cast doubt on such things, she did find it somewhat suspicious for such a place to pop up so close to home. Still, Lani went inside anyway, perhaps if only to sate her curiosity, and when offered a free sample of the 'frosty frappes' they were serving, took one, though she didn't drink it right away.

Or at all, really. Rather than immediately toss it into the trash, though, Lani had an idea, and took the drink home with her. It was a short walk, so she had absolutely no problem with saving the drink for when she got home. Of course, she wasn't going to be the one drinking it... at least not if her plan worked.

Having Runelucia around had its upsides and downsides, the best being the free homework help (or rather, having Rune do all her homework for her), and the worst being, well... everything else, practically. Rune's sense of morality and doing the right thing got in the way often enough to where it was annoying, and then there was the whole... idol obsession thing. Honestly, Lani could do without being woken up from her midday naps because of Rune's recording idol songs to upload to the internet, but such was life, perhaps, and at least the little Mauvian was naive enough to outwit most of the time.

In any case, one of the other advantages of having Rune around was using her as a personal taste tester, for when she felt the food she was being served was dubious at best, or for when she just didn’t like what on her plate. It was possible that someone, somewhere, might have called this cruel, but it wasn’t like she was forcing Rune into trying her food, now was she?

Her mom was working again, so Kalani didn’t need to keep her voice down… which also probably meant Rune was singing karaoke again. Sigh.

Climbing the steps to her room, Lani opened her bedroom door, figuring she’d find the Mauvian here, since that was where her laptop and mic were. “Ruuuuune,” she called out, in that tone of voice she used when she wanted something from the cat, “I need you to do a favor for me.”

(Technically, she always needed Rune to do a favor or two or three, but details.)

"I want you to try something for me, see how it tastes," Lani told Rune, avoiding outright asking her to 'test for poison', though it was probably easy enough to defer from her words. Lani always tended to say one thing but mean another, after all.

"There's this new restaurant that popped up close to home," she explained, holding out the drink to the small cat, "They've got this new drink they're giving out samples for? 'Frosty frappe', they were calling it? Anyway, I figured I'd get your opinion on whether they were any good or not before trying them for myself."

It was such a needlessly elaborate excuse for getting Rune to taste-test a free sample for her, but Kalani was counting on it being enough to dupe her into trying it.

The sudden singsonginess was a little weird, but whatever, Rune was a weird cat sometimes. Kalani shrugged, and allowed the cat to have the rest of the drink; assuming it wasn't some kind of slow-acting poison, maybe she'd go back and buy herself one.

"Glad you like it," she finally said, though it wasn't clear as to if she really meant that or not.

For what was supposed to have been an innocent free sample of a new drink, Rune was being unusually... musical, to say the least, and Lani eyed the now empty cup suspiciously. Had the drink been spiked with something after all, or was Rune just being her usual weird self?

Whatever it was, Lani hoped that it was just temporary, because if not, she was about to have a lot of regrets.

"... Maybe tomorrow," she said, moving to sit on her bed, "I've been outside enough for one day."

There was a hard limit as to how much time she was willing to spend outdoors, after all.

"What do you mean, why?" Kalani demanded, not wholly unconvinced Rune was trying to pull a fast one on her, "Are you trying to tell me you're not doing this on purpose?"

It was starting to look like both a good and bad thing that she had given the drink to Rune to sample.

Now what, indeed? Rune's normal behavior was annoying enough at times. Add to that uncontrollable singing, and Kalani was going to be in sore need of some of those noise-cancelling headphones, or maybe just plain earplugs.

Or maybe just lock Rune up somewhere soundproof, but oh, then she'd have to do her homework herself, so that was a bad idea.

"I don't know, but try to keep the noise level down," she muttered, wondering if maybe her mom kept earplugs somewhere.

If Kalani were, perhaps, a more motivated person, she might have gone back to the restaurant here and now to demand an explanation as to what they put in their drinks. As it were, she was pretty certain she would be laughed out of the store if she said that their drinks made her cat start singing.

Watching Rune burrow under the comforter, Kalani sighed; she had planned on laying down for a few hours, but she was pretty certain if she tried to sleep now she'd end up with nightmares of singing cat idols or something to that effect. "For both of our sakes, it better not be lasting permanently," she finally said.

Once again, Kalani wondered what she valued more, the free homework help or her own sanity.

Self-care was important, after all, or at least that the excuse she always gave for why she never really did anything productive ever. It wasn't exactly... the correct usage of the term, but such was the nature of Kalani. Somewhere in her room, Kalani knew she had a cat carrier stowed away, something she had picked up for cheap at a local thrift store for the purposes of pretending to her mother that Rune was a normal cat that she was dedicated towards taking care of. If she really wanted to, there was the option of dropping Rune off at the house of that girl that the Mauvian had been chatting with online, seeing as they seemed to share similar interests... but Lani suspected it would only encourage even more singing. There was also the option of crashing at a friend's place for the night, but said friend also lived with a Mauvian, and she wasn't certain she could handle two singing cats.

That left only really one option. Gathering a few things, Kalani decided she was going to simply have to take over the guest room for the time being. It wasn't like it was being used at the moment, so she wasn't imposing on anything, Her mom probably wouldn't say anything, but Lani could come up with an excuse if needed...

"Don't go anywhere while you're like that," was her final warning, and that was that, before she left for another part of the house.

(Distantly, Kalani wondered if maybe she could sue the restaurant, assuming she even had a case, Could she claim emotional damage? Psychological trauma...?)