Game Day (Part 1)

Makoto looked at himself in the mirror. Hair combed? Check. Shirt ironed? Check. Perfume on? Check. Pant zipper? Whoops… alright, there we go. Drip on an unfathomable scale? Hell freakin’ check.

Makoto sighed, giving up on trying to hype himself up. D-day was here and it was sooner than he would’ve liked it to be. It'd been three days since he was paired up with Uyeno, and they had agreed to meet at Itchyroku cafe near campus (setup via a brief college email chain since he didn't have her number). This was going to be a drag, but all he had to do was get through the study “date” successfully and a rosy college life free of pests awaited him.

Well at least he had the teleport ability to travel to the spot instantly. Haha I’m so funny, he thought with a dead face, stuffed between the biceps of two burly gentlemen on the very crowded train to the destination.

***

Makoto peered through the tinted windows of the cafe. A couple of high school girls indulging in fresh gossip and tea, a middle aged man typing away furiously on his laptop, an old geezer talking with a younger woman, the two burly men from earlier feeding each other bites of a delectable looking parfait … ah, there she was. It seemed that Uyeno was already seated, in the process of taking out some folders presumably.

Makoto took a deep breath. This was it. There was nothing to fear. He was armed with game theory analysis, simulation training, and plans engineered with the consultation of his friends (mainly Akashi and Nishinoya) along with some cutting edge research into the psyche of the female specimen from online message forums and other websites.

He executed and debugged the schemes in his head one last time and took a deep breath in. Manifest. His sister had informed him, when he had mocked her spiritual beliefs after last time’s debacle, that he had forgotten to make the tantric sign of universal energy, which was apparently vital to the cosmic process. Silly him! With the sign now made this time, he confidently pushed open the door to the cafe, as the bell attached to it chimed in merrily.

Romantic alpha chad mode: activated.

The first hurdle was to greet Uyeno. A good impression here could go a long way for the rest of their session, allowing him to complete the checklist in no time. With a calculated swagger that would have any girl's heart throbbing, he pulled up to Uyeno's table and flicked his right hand into the peace formation.

“Yo,” he announced in a deep, sexy voice.

Uyeno took a brief glance at his direction and went back to poring over her notes.

I-Impossible! She gave him as much acknowledgment as a worm?! Any other girl would've been flustered beyond repair or would've greeted him back with flirty enthusiasm. 

But it's still fine, he thought internally with a smirk, for he had prepared for this version of her.

As he took a seat opposite to her, he couldn’t help but notice that she looked good even in a simple flowery summer shirt and jeans. Despite himself, Makoto had to admit that she’d definitely had a glow up since they were in high school. She was wearing the same glasses he had seen on the train, and her hair seemed a bit curlier…

He also couldn’t help but notice the booth behind Uyeno, which featured four highly suspicious looking individuals. All were clad in overcoats, black glasses, oddly large mustaches, and seemed to be highly engrossed in their newspapers. It looked like the wingman squad captain and his three first year recruits had already set up base to listen in.

“Let’s start with problem one,” said Uyeno.

Now, normally he would've been more than happy to oblige and finish the assignment as fast as humanly possible, but Makoto was a man on a mission. He needed to show the Wingman Squad what he was capable of.

“Woah woah, we’re jumping already into the assignment?" Makoto complained. "Where’s my ‘what’s good, my main man Makoto’?”.

Uyeno clicked her tongue. “Listen. I don’t want to spend any more time on this than is absolutely necessary. Let’s finish this and get on with our days.”

“Ehh,” lamented Makoto. “What you got going on for the rest of the day?”

“I'm hanging out with Nunya.”

“Who’s Nunya?"

“Nunya business.”

And there ended the tale of Makoto Katayama, who stood up and left the cafe, never to be seen again.

For half a minute that is, until he realized he was not a samurai from the days of yonder and returned back to his seat.

A waitress came over to their table and handed Makoto what looked like a balm. Makoto looked at her questioningly.

“For your burn, sir,” she said with a smile.

***

Ok, it seemed she despised him more than he remembered. It’d make things harder, but Makoto smirked internally, for he was a man who went above and beyond in his preparation.

“Wait, before we begin I have a small item for you.” He took out a small pink box and slid it over to her. It was time to execute plan Alpha.

She looked at him, eyes narrowed, before sliding the box to herself carefully. She opened it gingerly and peered inside to find a strawberry cupcake.

It was a well known fact that girls loved their food, especially their sweets, and even Uyeno was no exception to that rule. Surely she'll open up to him now.

“I was at a bakery with a friend just now, and thought of getting you something,” said Makoto trying to sound as sincere as possible.

Uyeno looked back at him unimpressed. “Is this laced? Poisoned?”

“How rude! It’s out of respect for our friendship in the past,” he replied. “Also felt like getting in my good Samaritan deed for the day.”

“Huh. I’m good, but thanks.”

“No, no, take it,” he insisted. “I know girls your age care about their looks and weight and whatever else for those facetokgram posts, but a little cupcake won’t do you any harm. Plus the sugar rush will help you power through the problem set.”

Her eyes narrowed even more. “We’re literally the same age. You just want me to do the entire assignment myself, don’t you?” she accused.

“No, no, I don’t,” denied Makoto. “Like I said, I just felt like it. We haven’t talked in a while, ya know?”

“I wonder why,” she said, rolling her eyes. “But ok, fine, I’ll take your cupcake. And I tentatively appreciate the gesture. How much was it? I’ll pay you back.”

“No, no, it’s okay,” Makoto said, flailing his hands. “It’s on me.”

She squinted so hard that Makoto feared her eyes would collapse into a black hole.

“You definitely want something from me, don’t you?”

Well, she wasn’t wrong. He just needed her to, you know, laugh, ask a question for him, some other stuff, and even get a hug at the end. Seemed like this was going to be harder than the romcom visual nov– uh, simulations he had trained over the past couple days.

“I do not carry any ill will. I just wanted to, you know, have a conversation with you,” said Makoto, full of ill will. “You know, just like the good old days.”

Good old days his ass. All this acting nonsense and she still hadn’t given in. He needed to talk to her about something for 1 minute.

“Thanks but no thanks. Let’s just finish this Econ pset.”

A sign slid up smoothly from the booth behind Uyeno. Looks like his first piece of assistance had arrived.

Make a subtle comment about her appearance, like the glasses.

Prior to this, Makoto had negotiated with Ebi. Since his friends were going to listen in anyway, why not receive help from them? They could catch his mistakes, or think of ideas for him in the heat of the moment . Ebi had agreed to this proposal, since it would be good wingman training for his first years. It's not like Ebi himself was going to help Makoto directly anyway.

But back to the sign. With Uyeno's suspicion raised, he needed a different point of attack, and this suggestion was perfect. 

“Uh, by the way,” said Makoto, looking back down from the sign. “Why the glasses, Shizuka? I thought you were a contacts girl now?”

She visibly backed up a bit, taken by surprise. To be fair, they hadn’t called each other by their names in a long time.

“I-I couldn’t find my contacts,” she responded, momentarily flustered a bit, but recovering within the blink of an eye.

“Honestly, I think glasses make you look cuter anyway,” Makoto blurted out. Come on, blush like a normal girl! His next words might very well be gawrsh and a-hyuck, with all these goofy-ass lines he was spouting.

Instead, she returned a glare that could boil water. “Huh? What does that mean?”

Makoto smiled inwardly and adjusted his imaginary glasses so they caught the glare of the sunlight. He had prepared a trap precisely in case she responded like that, and she was about to fall right in.

“Ha ha, you're turning red,” he lied boldy.

Caught! You have no other option but to actually turn red in embarrassment, bahahaha!

“No, I’m not. And at this rate, I’m going to report you for sexual harrassment.”

B-Bakana!? Perhaps the archives were incomplete?! A girl accused of blushing will surely blush! That was a line whose theory had been meticulously calculated and the delivery honed to perfection, to the point where any girl would be induced into blushing and anime voice acting companies into waging nuclear wars against each other to hire him. Instead, he was about to take a trip to the nearest police station and watch the latest episode of Saturday Night with Jimmy Felon.

“Err, I didn’t mean it like that,” said Makoto, trying to defuse the situation, waving his hand around erratically. “I just meant, well, it fits your style better since you're more of a studious girl, that’s all.”

She kept staring daggers at him. “What’s wrong with you today?”

“More like what’s wrong with you,” he bounced back confidently. “You aren’t going to get any boyfriends with that kind of attitude.”

She opened her mouth in disgust. “Like you’re the one to talk. Come lecture me about that stuff once you get an ounce of action, buddy.”

Oof, it was getting hot. Makoto looked for the nearest fire exits as he applied the balm. Seemed like he was going to need to call a timeout already given the way things were spiraling out of control… and the meeting had barely even begun.

“Oh that reminds me, I need to use the bathroom,” he laughed awkwardly, placing his right hand on the back of his head. He stood up in one suave motion and headed towards the bathroom located at back of the building. On cue, Nishinoya, Akashi, Orochi, and Ebi all rose and followed him in.

Wait, what reminded him again?, thought Uyeno, as she turned around to see four guys walking into the bathroom right after him, her eyes widening a bit.

***

A moment of silence befell after the bathroom door came to a complete close, the group seemingly giving their condolences to his stellar performance so far.

“Bro, I don’t think you’ve checked off a single thing yet,” remarked Orochi, breaking the silence while mulling over a copy of the checklist in his hand.

“Thank you for the insight, Captain Obvious. And who in the hell’s idea was it to bring her a cupcake?” exclaimed Makoto, grabbing Orochi’s x-pencil out of thin air and snapping it in half. Orochi opened and shut his mouth like a goldfish. “It’s completely backfiring! We’re not through the first quarter of the match yet!”

Akashi raised his hand shamefully. “I-I was the one to suggest it in the group chat. But there’s that saying, that the way to a woman’s heart is through her mouth. Surely most females would've responded with, ‘OMG you got me cupcake, thanks onii chan! I daaaaisuki! Here’s my number: xxx-x69-x420. Call me! Wink. Wink.’ And that would’ve checked off like half the items!”

Makoto pinched his forehead, shaking his head in disapproval, mostly at himself for following their advice for this meeting. Even the scam bots had more realistic things to say.

A toilet flush could be heard as a withered old man came out of the stall. Shoot, they’d forgotten to check the stall before talking – as if the situation Makoto was in couldn’t get any worse.

The old fart looked at the boys. “It’s ‘a way to a man’s heart is through his stomach',” he said with a raspy voice while heading to the sink. “At least, that’s what it was when I heard it many moons ago, when I was but a wee little lad running through the streets. Although it seems these days that the way to a man’s heart is a little further south…”

Ayo, chill there pensioner, thought Makoto.

“My future disciple, you can’t just thrust things upon females,” chided Ebi, ignoring the old man’s comment. “You gotta ease into it. Do a couple problems on the assignment first, and sneak in a joke as the opportunity presents itself. After a bit, you’ll both start to get fatigued, she’ll lower her guard, and then that’s when you strike.”

Huh, for as fraudulent as the club he led seemed to be, the captain sure was giving legit advice.

“Thanks for the tips capt – hey, wait a second!” said Makoto, now his turn to narrow his eyes. “Why are you coaching me up?”

“Cause the way things are now, you’ll be joining our club in no time regardless,” Ebi grinned.

“Yea,” smirked Orochi. “Not only that, but she's roasting the crap out of you.”

“Don't mind them, Makoto,” jumped in Nishinoya, patting him on the back. “You may have dug a hole for yourself just now, but we’re here to help our fellow nakama get back out. For your success is our success.”

Where would he be without his friends, thought Makoto as his tears formed a puddle beneath him.

“Arigatou minna,” Makoto said as he wiped the tears off. “Let’s do this. Worse comes to worst, there’s always plan Beta.”

The old geezer winked at Makoto before leaving the bathroom. “You got this, young one. Go get the girl of your dreams!”

Makoto sighed as he left the bathroom. Oh well, anything to get out of this accursed club.

He sat back down with Uyeno, who looked at him oddly.

“Listen,” she started saying sincerely. “I want you to know that, despite our differences, I support whatever lifestyle you choose to lead.”

“Huh?” What was she talking about?

“Anyway, let’s start the assignment,” she said.

A sign popped up from the booth behind her. He was getting assistance already? Seemed Nishinoya was holding it.

Pretend you don’t have your pset sheet.

Huh? What purpose did that serve?

“And you're dozing off already?” said Uyeno almost immediately.

Oops, he stared up too long. “Oh nothing. Let me find my sheet,” he mumbled as he rummaged through his backpack.

A couple seconds of filibuster later and he came back empty handed. “Dagnabbit, seems I’ve left my econ folder at home.”

She looked up and stared at him, before resigning with a sigh. “No worries. We only have to submit one copy anyway. Here, you can look at mine.”

And that’s when Makoto became aware of the plan's brilliance.

He slid in onto Uyeno’s side, and sat close to her. She placed the assignment document between them so that they could both see.

He could hear her every breath and smell her perfume. He hadn’t been this close to her physically since they hung out as kids eons ago.

“I wished for us to stay together, forever!”

On the first day of college, that dream he had in econ class, the one that had been the precursor to all these subsequent events with the Wingman Squad… Did that truly actually happen, or was it all just a dream?