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Kouda was nervous. He wasn’t used to going on dates. Especially not with someone he was so close to. He couldn’t help but think of the worse case scenario.
What if the date is a disaster?
What if she ends up not liking me?
She’s gonna hate the date?
If it doesn’t work out, am I gonna lose a friend?
Great, he was sweating now. Not a good thing. Why was it so hot in here? Jeez, it was the middle of the day in Winter & he was feeling like he was in the desert in Summer. He fidgeted with the collar of his yellow t-shirt & waited for Jirou to come out of her room. What was taking her so long? Wait, did he forget to knock? He was such an idiot!
Just as he was about to knock, someone tapped him on the shoulder, making him jolt. He quickly turned around to see Jirou behind him, tapping him with her ear jacks. The girl was wearing a gray tank top & a black leather jacket rolled up to her elbows. She also wore ripped jeans with chains attached to her belt & a dusty old pair of sneakers.
“You seem jumpy,” she commented, laughing a bit.
Kouda nodded, fidgeting with his hands. He didn't talk much. Especially when he was so nervous. Like right now.
Jirou noticed this & grabbed the boy’s hand to ease him. “You don’t have to be so nervous,” she reassured. “Trust me, you’ll be fine. It’s just a date.”
‘Just a date.’ The way Jirou said it was so casual & calm. It made Kouda loosen up a bit. Jirou was always so good at calming him down. Even before he had a crush on her, she was always there to make him feel better. She helped him come out of his shell & feel less shy at first. Platonic feelings started becoming more romantic & well, here they are. About to go on a date together.
The shorter girl linked her arms with her date & walked towards the first floor of the dorms. A few of their classmates made comments, encouraging the boy as he walked by. They all knew as they had helped set Kouda up with Jirou & give him the courage to talk to her. When that didn’t work, they just got Jirou to ask him out instead.
Kouda couldn’t help but tense up, feeling nervous again. His class was cheering him on & it felt like pressure was being put on him. Finally, they made it out of the dorms & towards the city where they were planning their date.
Jirou suggested they’d walk around for a bit while occasionally going into stores to look at stuff & maybe even go to an arcade in the end. They did have quite a bit of time on their hands today, so there was no rush.
“Any place you wanna go first?” Jirou asked.
Kouda shrugged. He was fine with anything, really. He also didn’t plan too far ahead in terms of what they’d be doing & where they’d be going.
‘Wow, I’m an idiot,’ he thought to himself.
He glanced over at Jirou who was looking around their location to see if they can go to any shops.
Her eyes seemed to be fixated on one place in particular. “They have a pet store over there,” she pointed to a small business with small animals such as fish in the front windows. Looking from the outside in, they could see a few birds & reptiles inside.
Kouda thought the place looked nice & smiled, looking eager to go in.
“I’ll take that as a yes,” Jirou chuckled, leading him in.
Inside of the store, the couple could get a better look. One side of the place had lines of different types of pet food. In the back of the shop were more fish lined up in separate tanks. The middle of the room had a large bird cage with separate cages for types of birds. Another small room had a place to look at rodents, & finally, to the left of them were reptiles.
“Wow, this place looks nice,” Jirou said.
Kouda nodded. “Yeah, it’s really pretty in here!” Did he say that too loud? Or too enthusiastically?
Kouda glanced over at an animal sitting in one of the cages. It was a small animal. A light brown with white spots & long, fluffy ears. It had a cottontail & a twitching nose, glancing at the two.
“Aw hey. I think that bunny over there likes us,” Jirou pointed, walking up to it.
The bunny looked at them, scurrying around, nibbling on the wood chips underneath it. Kouda smiled looking at it. “It’s cute,” he stated bluntly.
The small animal stopped what it was doing to stare at them, twitching its nose again. It’s expression made Jirou giggle a bit.
After a while of looking at the animals, Jirou had looked up at a billboard. She then got an idea. Grabbing Kouda’s hand, she led him over to their next destination.
“Have you ever gone to an arcade,” Jirou asked.
Kouda nodded. “Yeah, I used to go here as a kid I think!”
“Sweet! So, you recognize it?”
Kouda nodded.
The two went over to the main register where they got their swiping cards for game play. Jirou offered to pay despite Kouda’s refusal at first. But, she insisted as it was her idea.
“You can get the next one if you want,” she said.
“O-okay...I just don’t want you to spend too much is all,” the boy explained.
“Nah, it’s fine Kouji! It’ll be worth it anyways!”
With that, they got their cards, looking around the place. They had quite a good amount of points, so it looks like it’d be a good while to play!
“Which one do you wanna do first?” Jirou asked.
Kouda looked around for a moment before pointing to an indoor rock climbing apparatus.
“Oooh I like your style!” she said, pointing her earphone jack as a finger gun.
The two walked over to the large wall. It was a long climb up. Kouda wasn’t feeling too sure about this anymore. Just as Jirou was about to hand her card to the person working the rock climb, he stopped her. “M-maybe we should do something else…” he suggested. “I dunno if this is a good idea. I mean, it’s pretty high up!”
Jirou gave a smile. “No worries Kouda! We can always do another thing!” She looked a little bummed out. Kouda could tell. Great, now he felt worse.
He began to backtrack. “U-uh, actually...maybe you could go on...I can just watch.”
Jirou’s eyes seemed to light up a bit when Kouda said that. “Really?”
Kouda nodded.
Jirou handed her card to the employee & got the card swiped. Once she was secured into the equipment, she looked up at the tall wall. Wow. It looked a lot more challenging than she initially thought. She got three tries though. She could do this! She was in a hero school after all! These kinds of games should be a walk in the park for someone like her!
She raised one hand on one of the rocks, stepping on another & lifting herself up. She did the same with her opposite side & continued the motions in a cycle. Meanwhile, Kouda was cheering her on, saying words of encouragement as she was climbing. He was so sweet. She was almost losing focus from how flustered she was getting.
The girl began climbing up again, now realising it was becoming difficult to properly get a grip on anything. The wall was so tall & her palms were starting to sweat, making it somewhat slippery of a grip. Her legs began wobbling followed by her arms, then a few more blisters. She shook her head, trying to not pay attention to any of that, even though it was proving to be a difficult task.
She lifted herself up, now being more than halfway there. Her right leg became a little numb. Kouda was still cheering her on despite this until she finally gave up. She jumped off from the wall, & with the support of the rope, began hopping down the wall until she reached the ground. Wow, that felt like an eternity.
“I probably wasted like thirty minutes climbing that wall or something…” she sighed, rubbing her hands together as she tried to gain some feeling in her fingers back.
“Actually…” Kouda chuckled. “It was more like thirty seconds…”
Jirou’s head shot up, staring at her date. “Seriously?!”
Kouda gave a small nod. “Yeah, but you were doing really good! You almost had it!”
“Thanks for the compliment, but I don’t think I was that close for me to have almost had it,” she said.
Catching a bit of her breath, she looked back up at the wall. She still had two more tries. Plus, she’d probably impress Kouda if she climbed all the way up.
She rubbed her hands together again, before beginning to climb up. Same pattern as always, pushing herself up, & attempting to climb to the top. Suddenly, she began having that same feeling as before, but this time, she was more sweaty. Maybe because she didn’t give her body enough time to process before climbing again, but still.
Nonetheless, Kouda was still cheering her on, giving her butterflies. She sighed, clutching onto the rocks bolted to the wall, & just standing there, taking deep breaths to rest herself a bit & focus on hitting that buzzer.
She climbed up the wall once more, making it much farther than she did last time. She lifted her left hand up & slapped the red buzzer, letting out a loud beeping sound, indicating her victory.
“Ugh finally!” she smiled, hopping her way down to the ground again & getting the restraints off of her.
Walking up to Kouda, she leaned on the gate slightly for balance. Her legs felt like jello. “I feel like my legs are gonna bend like rubber or something,” she chuckled.
“I think you did awesome!” he said. “It looked like fun!”
Jirou shook her head. “I never want to do that again,” she stated.
“Uh, do you mind if I try it this time?” he asked, twiddling with his fingers.
“Totally! Be my guest!” Jirou exclaimed. She felt a sudden burst of energy, now interested to see Kouda climb something so high.
Kouda swiped his card, giving him three turns. He too was strapped in. “This won’t break, will it?” he asked the worker.
“Of course not. These are safe!” they reassured.
Kouda nodded, looking up at the wall. He didn’t even take one step but his legs already were giving out.
“Hey Kouda,” Jirou called.
The boy turned to look at her.
“Focus on the rocks, not the ground!” she advised, giving him a thumbs up & a reassuring look.
Kouda blushed a bit & gave a thumbs up back. He then looked back at the wall.
I can do this! He thought, beginning to climb up the wall.
Just one hand on a rock, then one foot, then one hand…
He repeated the words inside of his head, slowly climbing up the wall. He wanted to look down, but he knew that if he did, things wouldn’t end well for him. He lifted one of his legs up to climb, but it slipped, almost sending him down. Fortunately for him, he didn’t fall. Unfortunately for him, he was now looking down at how high up he was.
“It’s okay Kouda!” Jirou said. “You’re almost there!”
The rock headed boy swallowed a lump in his throat. He took a deep breath & turned his head to face forward. He lifted his arm up &-
BRRRT BRRRT BRRRT
Kouda jumped back at the loud sound he had just heard, climbing down the wall. Well, more like jumping & falling.
It wasn’t until he reached the ground & looked at Jirou that he realized that the sound that was made came from the buzzer he pressed. Meaning…
“I did it…” he grinned, giggling to himself.
Jirou shared the same dumb grin on her face too, rushing over to congratulate him.
“Didn’t know you had the skill in you to climb so fast!” she said, impressed.
Kouda with assistance, unharnessed himself, stretching his arms out in front of him. “I didn’t either!” he chuckled. The two began walking to their next attraction, thanking the employee beforehand.
“Any game you wanna play? I’ve got too many blisters to do anything too physical.” She held her hands up to her face, looking at how red they were.
Kouda nodded, showing his hands too that suffered the same fate. “Same here…” He looked around the place, eyes landing on a simple, old 80s game. Low level graphics, but it also had a nice look to it.
“You wanna try playing that one? It’s just buttons & a joystick, so it shouldn’t hurt too much, right?”
“Sounds like a plan to me! One on one?”
“You’re on!”
The two dashed over to the game, entering in a 1v1 mode.
Both swiped their respective cards & held their hands over the buttons, ready for the fight.
“DAMN IT!” Jirou yelled, taking her palm to her face. “How did you beat me like six times?!” she asked, turning to her date.
Kouda shrugged. “I’m just moving the buttons around like you told me,” he answered.
“You surprise me, y’know that?”
“Is it a good surprise?”
Jirou flashed a smile. “Yes, a very nice surprise!” She then turned to the game. A.K.A, the current bane of her existence.
“Let’s pick a new game before we waste our points on this.”
“Right behind you!” he said, before hearing his stomach rumble. “Uh, maybe we can eat first though?” he grinned nervously.
Jirou’s stomach began rumbling as well. “Yeah, that sounds good.”
This time, Kouda paid for it. The two decided to share a small pizza & each get a soda to drink. Since Kouda was vegetarian, it was a plain cheese one, but Jirou didn’t mind.
The two spent probably half an hour just sitting down, talking, & laughing together. A few times, Jirou laughed so loud that it alerted a few nearby tables, causing Kouda to hide behind his hands in embarrassment from all of the sudden attention.
Overall though, it was a good time!
“I think we have enough time for one more thing!” Jirou said, throwing away her soda.
“What if we try getting a souvenir?” Kouda asked, pointing to a claw machine.
Jirou looked over at the array of stuffed animals. One of them that caught her eye was a cute, rabbit plushie.
“Ohho! Kouji, we should totally get this for Yuwai!"
Kouda looked at the plush. It looked adorable! “Alright! Let’s win it then!” Kouda said.
The two walked up to the game & stared at it. “You can go first,” Jirou offered.
Kouda, deciding to test his luck of games so far, reached over to the joystick, swiping his card, & starting the machine. He moved the claw towards the plushy, & lowered the claw. The grip was loose, allowing the toy to fall down into the pile.
“Dammit…” he mumbled, going to swipe again.
He probably swiped about twenty times before his card was declined for not having enough points to play anymore.
He sighed in defeat. “You can try if you want Jirou. You’ll have better luck than me in it,” he said, rubbing his arm. “I-I mean, that is if you want to even play the game in the first place…”
“I’m winning that toy. That’s a promise,” Jirou stated, swiping her card.
She looked over at the toy. It was sitting on a small pile beside the exit. She just had to move it a little. She moved the claw forward to the plushie, & then latched it on. Slowly, it began to rise up towards the top.
It slipped from the claw’s grasp, causing it to hit the side of the box, falling out of the machine.
“Yes!” she cheered, walking over to pick it up.
“Good job Kyouka!” Kouda said, going over to give her a hug.
Jirou happily accepted the hug, staying like that for a minute or two before they both realized how late it was now.
“We should probably get going’ before Iida yells at us or something,” Jirou suggested, letting go of him.
“Y-yeah, maybe…” Kouda agreed.
With that, the two made their way back to the dorms. It was a bit challenging with both of them a little tired & having to walk all the way to the dorms. But, they made it back, almost half asleep.
When they got there, it seemed as if everyone had gone to bed. The dorm lights were off & no one was in the room.
“Guess we were out longer than I thought,” Jirou commented, handing the carrot plushie to Kouda.
“Yeah,” Kouda agreed, giving her a small smile. “U-uh thanks for the date…it was nice.”
“I had a good time too,” she responded. She gave Kouda’s hand a gentle squeeze & looked up at him. “Any chance we can go on a second date?”
Kouda almost squealed hearing that. He gave some sort of squeak as a response & nodded, not wanting to say or sign anything else in fear of looking like an idiot.
“Great! I’ll look forward to it!” Jirou actually wasn’t expecting an answer from Kouda. Well, she didn’t really know what she was expecting actually. But, it was a nice surprise to see he felt the same way she did!
“M-me too!”