Chapter 81: Gaming

“Looks like there’s a ton of things to do here tonight.” Ishi commented as they worked their way through the sea of people. It seemed as though their entire town was here, which wasn’t a surprise considering the event. A chance to have some fun with friends and family was always welcomed, but only recently did the boy realize that fact.

“Right.” Youna replied. She was too busy glancing back and forth over at him, then towards all the stands to pay attention to what he was actually saying. The girl was nervous with all this power over him now. This boy really wanted her to make the choice over how their night went. Even though it was never stated to be so, she was going into this current bit of time like it was a real date. After all, she was a girl spending time alone with a boy in public. How couldn’t she view it as anything such?

But if this going to be a date, then she would have to take it seriously. If anything she picked out was boring to him, then he would get irritated with her. At the same time, a date also meant people would do… Some romantic things like holding hands and kissing. Perhaps the latter was too much for her heart to bear, but the former was certainly doable. Now all she needed was a good time to do it so as not to arouse suspicion.

For the record, she had no plans of confessing to him on this night. The first reason being that the only time she had ever attempted to confess to someone in her life went absolutely horrendous. The second reason was she certainly wasn’t ready at this pace to let her feelings be known to him.

“Watch out for the pole.”

“Huh?” Suddenly, Youna’s face met with the lamppost set up to provide visibility for the venue. She had been so lost in thought, that the girl failed to pay attention to her surroundings. “Tsk, owie.”

“Are you all right?” He asked her, getting a closer look at her nose to make sure it wasn’t broken. Of course, that also meant getting well into her private space, which caused her much worry that he might see her growing red cheeks.

“I-I’m fine.” She quickly turned her head to hide away and assured him that things were well with her.

“Really, I just thought maybe you were spacing out.” He responded. “We’ve walked past most of the stands and you haven’t picked anything out yet.”

“What?” She looked back to where they were walking. He wasn’t lying, they were nearly at the end of the line here. “Eh!? Oh, sorry I was just thinking what would be a good game to play.” Quickly, she needed an excuse to avoid more embarrassment from this blunder. “I… Wanted to play this game right here.” She pointed over to one of the stands. Whatever it was, she had no clue, but anything would be good for now.

“Okay.” Ishi accepted her answer and they walked over to the stand. It was a game where contestants took rings and tried to toss them onto some bottles as targets. A simple, but very challenging game.

Of course, if Ryugi was here, then they’d clean out the entire prize pool. However, this was Ishi and Youna playing the game together, so a lot of failure was to be expected from a pair that didn’t do these games very often, if at all.

“These things look like they’re barely bigger than the bottles.” Ishi complained. Even with his comment, the boy wasn’t even certain if that statement was true. From all the misses, it was possible that this game was impossible and their tools were too small. “How are we supposed to win this?”

His complaints about the game weren’t lost on Youna. She felt bad that he seemed to be having a bad time. In her mind, the relationship points she was earning were begining to erode from him. If this kept up, then it wouldn’t be long before he was so turned off of her that they wouldn’t even continue being friends.

To outsiders, she seemed to be treating this as a game. Though to be fair to the young girl, her only experience with romance was with those otome games that were popular in her demographic.

“I’m sure if we tried our best, we can win this.” Even she didn’t believe herself as he missed another target.

“Ah, I need to think about it.” The boy closed his eyes to focus on his thoughts. There had to be a rhyme or reason to winning. “If Ryugi was here, then she’s be done by now.” A shame that her friends took her away. He wondered where she was right now.

“Right, she’s pretty good at these things.” Youna responded dejectedly. Now he was talking about another girl. She really was burning her points like they were nothing here. Meanwhile, he was busy trying to figure out what a gyaru would think when confronted with this game. What was it that she did during the darts games?

Since he wasn’t paying attention to his surroundings, Youna took note of the major opportunity that she had with his hand resting on the counter. She could sneak in there and slip her fingers under his. But that would be too obvious, surely he would know what was going on and confront her on the matter. Still, a light touch on top couldn’t hurt.

Slowly, she reached over to his with the person running the stand saying nothing about it. They simply assumed the pair were a couple and she was being a bit shy about making a move. However, right before she was able to execute her plan, he suddenly moved his hand to grab onto the ring and threw it. She was terrified by his movement and recoiled away from him, nearly tripping up from her long yukata.

“Got it.” He proudly proclaimed as the ring hooked onto its target. “That was really stupid though. It was a silly idea, but he remembered that she closed her eyes before throwing the darts. So that was the thing he ripped off from her.

“Congrats.” The stand owner felt bad for Youna, but gave Ishi the prized toy bear for winning the game.

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“Thanks.” Ishi bowed his head down in respect, then promptly handed her the stuffed animal. “I don’t really need it, so you can have it.”

“Th-thank you.” Somehow, despite being the one unaware that this was being viewed as a date, Ishi was doing a good job at playing the romantic game. Even if he would say that this was only because he had no used for the prize.

Off they went to the next location, wherever that would be. However, there were now a lot more people in this crowd than on their way here. Equipped with the over sized bear made things more difficult for Youna to watch her surroundings.

In fact, with all these people, she was beginning to lose track of where she and Ishi were. “Ish-Ishi!” Now the girl was in a panic as she felt no room with all these people around. “Where are you?”

“I’m right here.” His voice answered her question as his hand also took hers. Youna felt his touch once more as his fingers wrapped around her hand. “I guess we’ll just have to be more careful not to get separated. There were no plans of him releasing his grip from her, which drew zero complaints.

Now she really got to live her dream as he walked besides her, hand holding tightly. It was just like that day when they were little children and he recused her from being lost. Seemed that things hadn’t changed all that much for them even after all these years.

This was a moment she wished would last forever.

“We’ve got limited editions right here!” However, her dream was slightly cracked upon hearing a man calling out to sell his wares. What was on offer was of the wildly popular franchise, Palmons. A video game franchise that she grew up with as a child, and still played to this very day. Not that anyone was aware of that fact, since she told everyone the same things as they told her. That she stopped after the first generation because she got too old.

If anyone were to figure out the truth, she was scared that everyone would make fun of her for liking something for kids. The one she was most worried about learning was ishi, since he always seemed so serious and probably never liked the games in the first place. “There’s even a special light-up elecmeow we’ve got in store, only a couple dozen left.”

That was something she had been waiting for ages now. That was her favorite Palmon, and an opportunity like this was definitely never going to come again in her life.

“Ow.” Said Ishi. He noticed her grip tightening around his hand, which was causing some discomfort. Youna hadn’t noticed how her inner strife was beginning to reveal itself to the outer world. “What’s wrong? My hand isn’t hurting from the bite anymore, but you’re holding it a bit tight.”

When he was talking to her, the boy finally noticed the man who was selling the popular toys. “Oh, I didn’t realize that they got Palmon figurines here.”

“Ishi…” She spoke up in a manner as if she wasn’t actually addressing him. “I’m sorry.” With that, she let go of his hand and walked over to the stand. Despite all the fears of how he’d react, she knew that they were no way she could walk away from the offer of a lifetime.

And so she paid and got the light-up elecmeow. “Ah…” She covered her face in disappointment as the toy laid upon her free hand. “I look so stupid right now.” She prepared herself to have to explain such an embarrassing detail of her life to him.

“I’ll take another one.” That was his voice, but the words were a surprise to her as she saw Ishi pointing out another one of the elecmeows.

“Yo-you’re buying one too?”

“Of course, this is one of Koto’s favorites.” He answered. His cousin was a massive fan of the franchise, even if some thought he was too old for it. “And I’ll take a burnbird too.”

“I see, he must really like the games.” Youna said as Ishi put the two figurines into a bag.

“Well, the other one’s for me.” Her jaw dropped upon him revealing that revelation. No one would ever have any clue that he was still a fan of the franchise. The truth was that he played it a lot with Koto when they had free time at home. Their duo was a force to be reckoned with during double battles in online play. “Now, let’s get back on track.”

Ishi extended a hand for her to grab once again. Youna breathed a sigh of relief that she didn’t have to feel bad about her hobby as she was able to take his hand with a lot more confidence. It seemed that as she spent more time with him, the more the girl came out of her shell.

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