Basically, this guy is pretty timid. Around people he’s close to he talks a lot of trash and acts arrogant, but in reality he’s shy and kind of a wimp. In his class, he’s always loitering by himself with nothing to do. However, when I go to the neighboring class to visit him he’s like, “Wh-What are you doing here, you bastard?” and runs up to me with a big smile. I mean, he’s cute.
“...Anyway, what are you gonna do, Momo?” Ura asked, having regained his composure and returning to his seat.
“Are you going to date that girl?”
“No, you’re getting ahead of yourself. We’ve only just exchanged contact info.”
“So, what are you going to do?”
“Dude... that’s what I’m asking you for advice about.”
Thanks to good fortune, I was able to get her contact info. However... with no experience in romance, I had no idea what I should do next. Should I contact her as soon as possible? Should I wait for her to contact me?
“I see. In that case, let me give you a piece of advice—you’re asking the wrong guy.”
“I know that.”
Just like me... no, even more so than me, his social life is dead. There’s no way he knows anything about the strategies or subtleties of romance. After all, all of his romantic experiences are two-dimensional.
“For that type of advice, go ask Kana.”
“Yeah, I thought the same, but... if I asked him for help, he’d probably give me advice that’s too high-level, you know?”
“You’re right. He’d probably say something like ‘What? How about just contacting her?’”
“So, before that, I figured I’d get you to listen to me since you’re low-level.”
“Oh, I get it... Wait, who are you calling low-level?!” said Ura lightly, playing the straight man before his face became pensive.
“Well, I don’t really get it, but wouldn’t it be best to wait? You did save her, and she did say that she wants to thank you, right? In that case, she’ll definitely get in touch with you when the time is right for her.”
“That’s true, but isn’t it more manly to get in touch with her first? I was thinking that maybe it’d be a good idea to at least send a greeting first.”
“Okay, why don’t you?”
“B-But... becoming too greedy is no good either. I definitely don’t want to use the fact that I saved her from a train molester to try something like taking the lead.”
“...God, you’re tiresome. So this is the creature known as a virgin,” he said like he despised me.
Dude, you’re a virgin too... On the Christmas of our second or third year of middle school, I remember we got all excited forming that dumb “Virgins for Life Alliance.”
“Momo, you’re getting way too worked up from just exchanging names on Line. As we speak, that woman is probably already over it. She’s probably thinking to herself, ‘Geez, I said I was gonna thank that guy just to be nice, but it’s such a hassle. I’m just gonna ignore him.’”
At that very moment, my smartphone, which I had placed on the desk, vibrated to let me know I got a message on Line. I quickly snatched my phone off the table. It displayed the sender of the message as... Orihara Hime.
“Good afternoon. I’m sorry to disturb you during lunchtime,” the message began, in a manner surprisingly stiff for a high schooler. She politely repeated her gratitude from that morning then got to the point of the message.
“I’d like to thank you for this morning, so, if it isn’t any trouble, may I meet you tomorrow after school?”
While reading that sentence, I probably had the goofiest look on my face. And Ura, with a sour look on his face, clicked his tongue and said “Drop dead.”
We agreed to meet up at the plaza in front of the station building the next day. Not wanting to be late, I showed up thirty minutes early. I watched the passersby coming and going along the dusk-soaked street as I awaited her arrival.
It was pathetic how nervous I was. I compulsively checked my phone, time and time again. I even used the glass door in the station building entrance as a mirror to fix myself up and straighten my hair which, dammit, I just couldn’t seem to get right. I knew I should have gone to a hair salon.
After twenty-five minutes—five minutes before our actual meeting time—Orihara-san showed up, and just like yesterday, she was wearing her Tourin school blazer. She jogged over as soon as she saw me.
“Sorry, Momota-kun. Did I keep you waiting?”
“N-No, I got here just now.”
I went with the standard line for this situation. Truth is, I was waiting a long time. I arrived thirty minutes early, and before then I went to the bookstore and video game store to kill time. When you’re like me and you don’t have any clubs to go to after school, meeting up at 5:30 p.m. is an awkward limbo: it’s too soon to stop at home first, but it’s still a long time to wait after classes. Naturally, I ended up just loitering around the station in the meantime.
“Sorry for calling you here at such a weird time. Today I had a... student council meeting and some stuff to do.”
“That’s okay. Please don’t worry about it.”
“Okay.”
The conversation died right there, and I cursed my lack of communication skills. I couldn’t think of a single smart thing to say. After a short silence where we both searched for a topic of conversation, Orihara-san laughed awkwardly.
“Haha... I’m kind of nervous.”
“Me too.”
“We just met yesterday.”
“Yeah.”
“For realz!”
“...What?”
I found myself staring in surprise at Orihara-san, who was giving me a great big thumbs up.
“Huh? Did I do it wrong? Don’t high school girls say ‘for realz’ these days? You attach ‘for realz’ to something and that establishes communication... right? Or was it ‘for realsies’?”
Orihara-san’s face turned bright red as she became bewildered. It was like the punchline to her number one joke didn’t land and she was being overwhelmed by shame.
“‘For realz’? Well, there’re certainly people who say that, but not anyone I know...”
I don’t have a lot of cheerful friends, so I don’t really use it. Honestly, I didn’t know what it meant. Seriously, what does ‘for realz’ mean?
“Hey, just forget I said that. That didn’t count! None of it counted!” yelled Orihara-san with a bright red face. She then moved the conversation away from her slip up by letting out a cough.
“Okay, let’s go somewhere else,” she announced.
Orihara-san led me on a walk a few minutes away from the station until we arrived at a playground by an underpass with no signs of life. It was a lonely looking playground with just a bench and a sandbox. I heard that my high school tennis club comes here to use the wall for practice, but no one was around this late in the day, when the sun was well on its way down. Orihara-san tucked in her skirt and sat down on the bench, illuminated by the faint light of the street. After thinking hard about how close I should sit to her, I decided to leave enough space for one more person to fit between us and sat down.
“Once again, thank you so much for what you did yesterday.”
She adjusted her seating posture and continued:
“So, to thank you...”
Orihara-san took out a cutely designed lunch box from the tote bag she was carrying.
“I... I made you a box lunch.”
“A box lunch?”
“Are you maybe not hungry? If you can’t eat, I’ll eat it myself, so please don’t force yourself...”
“No, I’m really, really happy! I was actually just thinking about how hungry I am!”