The Most Insecure of Girls

Standing around outside a certain classroom five minutes after class ended, Aito once again found himself staring down at his phone, this time with not just a single conversation to read but a grand total of four. Enough to keep him busy for the additional five minutes he'd have to wait, if he hadn't already read and replied to all of them long beforehand.

He’d probably be unable to focus on reading anything anyway, the cause of it all relating back to the object, person, natural phenomenon, or whatever else you would like to call her present somewhere approximately two to five metres in the direction directly behind Aito's back with only a single thin wall to keep them apart. A girl by the name of Morishita Yuki, whom Aito at this point feared might be quite the eccentric.

Precisely five minutes later, a steady stream of people emerged from the classroom door one by one, a few of them sparing Aito a passing glance. Only after over a dozen others had come and gone, he saw her. Coming around the corner, her eyes met with Aito’s.  The person he'd been waiting for, black hair flowing over halfway down her back and a quiet confidence in her eyes.

The perfect moment to give answers to the doubts burning within Aito since the previous evening. Full of confidence, or at least making sure any potential lack of it would not show in his gait, he approached her at a rapid pace. She had only managed to take two steps outside the classroom doorway at the point where they crossed paths.

Aito saw it fit to make his move at this point in time. He faced Morishita, who stood closer to the nearby wall of the two, and stretched out one of his arms.

The result: Aito with his arm outstretched and his hand resting on the wall behind the girl he’d be trying to court, positioned just above her shoulder. His gaze looking up at her — Aito’s ideal version of this situation would have had him looking down at his soon-to-be date instead of being forced to crane his neck, but he did not have the means to remedy said dilemma, save for maybe wearing stilts but no one except an absolute buffoon would wear stilts to a date purely because of insecurity in his height or lack thereof(setting aside the fact that Aito himself already was quite tall compared to what most would consider an average height), and Aito, in his own opinion, remained quite unbuffoon-ish-y aside from some recent brief lapses in judgement.

Morishita startled at the gesture, but soon relaxed after hearing Aito’s words.

"Even I know this probably isn't the best way to start a conversation, but I need to know. How the hell did you know my exact schedule?"

“It’s your wallpaper, isn't it? I saw it when I gave you my number.”

“You remember that?”

“It sounds a lot like you’re implying I shouldn’t have.”

“Nothing of the sort!”

“Ah, no, sorry, I didn’t mean to make it sound like you were being mean or anything! It’s just… Can I ask you a question in return?”

“Go ahead.”

“Why the weird pose?”

“My previous date made me feel a bit insecure, so I wanted to seem more confident and this was the first thing I could think of. I also thought starting out our date in an interesting way would make me look more interesting, but after actually trying it mostly just feels a bit silly, doesn’t it? I can stop if you want me to.”

“I’m not sure this is the best way to go about things, but I can relate to feeling insecure. So if standing like that makes you feel better, I don’t mind… too much?”

“Are you sure?

“You’re not touching me and I can clearly see you. So, it’s fine.”

“If you say it’s fine, I’ll take your word for it.”

“So, this date we’re hopefully going to go on very soon. Do you happen to have a plan for it?”

Showing surprisingly few signs of visible discomfort, Morishita chose to steer the conversation in a different direction.

“I have some ideas. But Morishita, I think there are two main issues we need to sort out for this date of ours to be successful. One, what kind of place do you want to go to? And two, what kind of stuff do you like to do?“

“That’s quite considerate of you.”

“I know, right?”

“But unfortunately, I don’t have anywhere in particular I would like to go or anything in particular I would like to do. What I would like to do, however, is to add a third item to your list of issues that need figuring out.”

While groaning on the inside at the indecisiveness of his companion and the fact that it ruined his plan of choosing an activity based on what she liked to make up for Aito’s own shortcomings, he chose to accept the request.

“Sure. Anything to make you like me better.”

“Thank you, I appreciate the honesty. Sorry if this is a bit weird to ask, but would you mind calling me Yuki instead of Morishita?

“Sure, but why?”

“I think things may get very confusing fairly soon if you call me by my last name. Besides, everyone will think we’re closer to each other, and you want that, don’t you?”

“True. I will both gratefully and gracefully choose to accept your request.”

“Glad that’s settled. You get to call me Yuki, and I will call you Aito too! Isn’t that great? How about a thank you? You can give me that, right?”

“T-thank, Yuki.”

Looking down in embarrassment, Aito felt his face turn a mild shade of red.

“I think you mean thanks. With the s at the end.”

“I do, yes. But I hardly think that’s the most important thing to consider at the moment. You said you didn’t have any particular thoughts on what you would like to do for our date. If you can come up with anything on your own, why don’t we work together to figure out where to go?”

“You’ll help me think about it, or something like that?”

“That’s the idea.”

“Alright, give it a try. Tell me if you come up with anything good. I’ll wait right here.”

“You do realise that you have to help out too, right?”

“If I already tried to think about it and couldn’t come up with anything, what’s the point of having my help?”

“Surely there must be some aspects of the different places that you’ve been and the different things you’ve done throughout your life that you find appealing?

“Not really?”

“Or at least things you like ever so slightly less or more than others?”

“Not that I can think of.”

“Come on, there has to be something.”

“Sorry, I can’t think of anything.”

One one hand, Aito felt confident there had to be something she wanted. If there, taking the line of logic Yuki was following to an extreme, hadn’t been any sort of personal preference involved in any aspect of her life, what would have been the point of any of the actions she took? The point of, say, agreeing to go on a date with Aito?

On the other hand, he’d just messed up a previous date and only salvaged it through accepting sheer craziness, and this seemed like nothing in the face of that.

“Don’t worry about it. I’m sure we can figure something out. Like I said, together.”

Aito grabbed and lightly squeezed her hand in an most assuredly assuring manner. Yuki flinched, retracted her hand, and pulled away from him, leading Aito to in turn flinch at the unexpected indirect action of rejection. This seemed like a good time for an apology.

“Sorry, I wasn’t expecting you to react like that.”

Seemingly oblivious to the obvious flaws in Aito’s apology, Yuki shrugged and brushed the matter aside.

“It’s fine. I’m probably the weirder one of the two of us anyway.”

“Yuki, setting aside who of the two of us is weirder, I can assure you that there are a lot of people much, much weirder than you’ll ever know in this world. That’s why I will help you. So tell me if you have any sort of preferences in regards to… anything at all.”

“How are those things connected?”

“They’re not, but saying it that way sounded better.”

"If you’re that insistent on wanting to help me, I should probably try to make things a bit easier for you, shouldn’t I? Seeing you struggle would probably also be fun, but, anyway, ignoring that, I guess there are some things that I don’t necessarily dislike, but do find very mildly annoying at certain times or if I’m in the right or wrong sort of mood.”

“Would any of these very mild annoyances happen to apply to places you can go?”

“Maybe a few of them.”

“Alright, then simply tell me the features a place that’s the opposite of all these things you find mildly annoying would have, and we’ll start from there.”

“Somewhere without a lot of people around. Somewhere quiet. Somewhere not too big and not too hot or cold. Somewhere without any spiral staircases on the way there."

Mentally putting all the pieces of Yuki’s preferences together, Aito wracked his brain for a place that could fit all of these criteria.

"...the library?"

"What kind of person goes on a date in the library?"

"A person like you, apparently."

“That sounds surprisingly rude.”

"Sorry, I'm still a bit on edge after my last date. Being with you is a lot less exciting in comparison."

“I am a bit boring, that’s true.”

"In this case less excitement is a good thing. Trust me. Or next thing you know your home planet will get invaded by giant kittens. And that’s why I like boring."

"What?"

"Yeah, that's my point."

“...”

“You’re supposed to laugh.”

“That was a joke?”

“My attempt at one, anyway. Turns out it can’t have been very good.”

“Don’t worry, Aito, I probably just don’t have a sense of humor. At least you’ve seen why letting me decide things isn’t a good idea now.”

“Nonsense. I’m sure the library will make for a perfect date spot. To the library we go!”