Chapter 17: Arc 1, Ch.17: Oh, for the love of-

In the course of the meal, I bit my tongue more than once due to being distracted. It was sore and painful and didn't work well with my hot noodles, but I blinked away my tears quietly. Mizuki absolutely mustn't notice how much his response had riled me up.

Under normal circumstances, I'd have worried about the atmosphere, but Mizuki was completely focused on his food and hardly even looked up, especially not at me, so I kept my head lowered as well to eat.
We didn’t talk at all and just ate quietly, but at least the mood had turned back to normal by the time we finished. That someone else came to pay helped a lot, since the woman from before would have let everything flare up again.

God, that had been awkward. I would never set a foot into here again unless I was certain that she wasn't around.

We still had our drinks on the table and had already paid, so we could spend some more minutes inside the restaurant to finish in peace and then leave immediately. I looked around and outside.
It was getting more and more crowded, the peak time for watching movies was right around now. I usually avoided those - the cinema was too full and you couldn't get any good seats, I preferred going earlier.

"I rarely go to the cinema", Mizuki suddenly commented and I glanced over.
"Why?", I asked after he didn't look like he'd continue. He blinked himself out of a daze, then probably realized he had said the sentence out loud, and explained.

"Not really anyone to go with."

I hesitated, wondering whether I could ask further but then not daring to do it. It was a sensitive topic, after all.

To my surprise, Mizuki continued talking by himself. His voice was quiet and even, just loud enough that I could hear him. 
"Finding friends was always hard for me. I never liked holding my tongue just because it's polite."

"Yeah", I responded, swirling my drink absentmindedly. "You're a very honest person."
"People consider me rude. Is it rude to be honest? Isn't it ruder to act like you have a certain opinion when you don't?"

I let him complain to me because he looked like he needed it.

"People didn't like sticking around me too much when I was younger. Nowadays, it seems it's always with hidden intentions."

I didn't ask him any more about it. His tone suggested that the topic was over, so I changed it.
"And your family? Do they not like movies?"

His eyes moved to the side as he looked as if he was going through his family members.

"My father would", he said after a moment of contemplation. "But that would be too annoying. Mum wouldn't be annoying, but she's not interested. One of my sisters can't stand the crowd and the other..."

His eyes darkened in what I knew was the kind of annoyance some people had towards their siblings that was still showing love.
"No way."

"You've got two sisters then?", I asked. I already knew about the one with social anxiety.
"Hm", he answered, then finished his drink in one gulp.

Alright, conversation finished, I guess.

I finished my own glass. It was kind of sad that I didn't even remember how my food had tasted, considering I had paid for it, but I had gotten something nice in return.
That kind of ambiguous answer was enough to have me jump around under an imaginary rainbow, singing and dancing. You know the Disney movies where all animals start to sing along with the female main character who is swooning over her crush? Yup.

I'd love to take a peek inside Taizou's head. Did he get euphoric over things, too? I don't think I'd ever seen him really happy over something, let alone that state.
...Had I even seen him openly happy about something?

He was quite neutral, most of the time; rather calm. Sure, there were moments where he looked amused or happy, but those weren't too long. That time we had joked around during studying, he even hurried to hide his expression.
Did he think of it as embarrassing?

...All the more reason why I wanted to see it.

We stood up, leaving our glasses behind for the next waiter or waitress to put it away, then checked if we had taken along everything and made our way through the full restaurant.

Some women sent flirty looks towards Mizuki, who pointedly ignored them to my relief.

We stepped outside, under a clear but darkened sky and I took in a breath of fresh air. It still smelled like food everywhere, not as tempting now that I was full, but still a nice scent.

Early night had come, the air had chilled. I could have pulled off a ‘Are you cold?’ line. Underline the ‘could’.
Of course I didn’t, I wasn’t that reckless. It already took me all my focus to walk straight, I wasn’t going to make myself even more unstable.

“It’s getting late”, Mizuki said, the number one sentence to declare that you were ready to go home and I wasn’t going to disagree.

“Yeah, I’ll probably call one of my siblings to fetch me. What about you?”

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He glanced at his phone. “My mother is meeting a friend close-by. She wrote me that she’s finished not too long ago, so I’ll go over to her.” “Alright.”

We coursed to the side of the street to stop for a moment.
“Thanks for inviting me”, Mizuki made sure to tell me again. “...See you.”
“...Yeah, no problem. See ya.”

God, the remnant awkwardness.

I fled the scene while calling home. I knew Haru was waiting and Daichi was probably out, so I called her right away. Since she was on standby at home, she made her way over to me in a rather short amount of time. I hopped into the car and slumped into the seat, exhausted.

“How was it?”, she purred, her coaxing voice full of curiosity.

“I answer you after you answered me”, I grumpily replied, crossing my arms. “What was your theory for the system demanding an event and locking the points?”
“Aw, you didn’t forget about that?”
“Of course not! Now tell me or I’m telling Mum about your doujinshis!”

She shuddered in the driver’s seat. “Please no. I’m telling you, but it’s just a theory.”

“The points are from the side of the target, right? It’s the extent of the target’s feelings for you. So… if the target isn’t sure what they think about you anymore, then maybe nothing can be shown?”

“...What?” I tried to understand her theory.

“In that case, these game events that are special would give the target a push where they have to face their feelings towards you and lean to one status.”

“I’m dumb today. Please assume I have already used up all of my brain capacity and need things in simple words.” The desperation in my words made her roll her eyes.

“You definitely are being stupid. What I’m saying is, I think Taizou wasn’t sure if he thought of you as just a friend, so you needed to start an event. That way he could realize whether he was averse to romantic situations with you or not. You understand?”

I understood her words, but the way they were strung together made no sense at all.

“Have you tried looking at his entry yet?”

I had only given the conversation history a quick look since I didn’t have time, so I hadn’t even glanced at anything else. The menu opened up without me needing to look at it, Mizuki’s entry opening to the right.

The bar had gone back to its normal, unlocked state, but still not normal.

[70-80/100 (Unstable number). A first crush can be quite confusing, especially if it developed fast due to great chemistry. As for how strong it is, even the target doesn’t know. Maybe it’s just temporary confusion?]

[Relationship status changed to: Mutual crush (Unstable)

Hint: While the target is still uncertain about his feelings, the host should be careful in his actions. It is important to show the target that he won’t feel aversion to being close rather than overdoing it and making the target feel uncomfortable.]

…

……

Hey hey hey!!! No way, we’re not cutting this here!!! What the fuck! When did that happen! What’s the meaning of this!

Don’t leave me sitting here like this, ah?!

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