I have a date...? I have a date!

“I Still can’t believe we pulled it off,” I said as we all sat in class having lunch together the following day.

“I still can’t believe Sentaro can cook that good. I miss that dorayaki, I’m tired of having convenience store soba for lunch” Aiko groaned as she begrudgingly took another bunch of cheap noodles into her mouth.

“Hey! I just got a text back from Mika! She said nobody else at the expo seemed as promising as me and they’d like to offer me the apprenticeship, I can’t wait to go home and tell mom I’m going to college!” Sen excitedly held up his phone and showed us both the message, both Aiko and I leaning in close to read it, our faces hovering close enough to each other that I could feel the warmth radiating from her cheek.

“Congratulations man, I’m so happy for you, this is the kind of opportunity I don’t think you could have even dreamed up for yourself!” I grabbed a piece of onigiri from my plate and took a bite as I spoke.

“Yeah, maybe you’ll open your own restaurant right here in Yokosuka after you graduate! That’d be awesome!” Aiko and I were both excited for him, Sentaro on the other hand had suddenly become a bit gloomy.

“What’s wrong, I thought you’d be happy about news like that?” I couldn’t tell what Sen was thinking, all I knew is that whatever it was it had bothered him enough he hadn’t touched his lunch yet.

“I am happy…its just. That means right after graduation I’ll be moving to Hamamatsu… I mean I knew from the start we’d all probably be going our own ways in a sense… I just didn’t think it would happen this fast… I thought we’d at least have the summer together.” Sen looked across the classroom, staring out the windows as if he had suddenly drifted somewhere far, far away.

“I guess we never have as much time as we think we do to do all the things we want…” Aiko said, sounding even glummer than Sentaro now. I was beginning to feel like I was the only one not in on a big secret, and I didn’t like it.

“What are you guys so upset about? We still have time left and we only have three things left to do off our list…let’s see” I began to count them off holding my fingers. ‘There’s the rematch fight between Sen and me… then there’s the trip to Tokyo sky tree at night…and last but not least, Kagoshima!” I was so excited just thinking about it all, but nobody else seemed to have the same energy.

“What the hell is going on? Since when am I the one with the most energy in our group? This all just feels backward…” Aiko and Sen both went quiet, poking their lunches with their chopsticks. Finally, Aiko decided to break the cycle of me talking to myself.

“He’s right, we made a pact and we’re sticking to it. Why don’t we do the Sky Tree this weekend?” Aiko said, still sounding a little off for some reason.

“This weekend? I can’t…” Sen said, typing rapidly on his phone.

“What?! Why the hell not…what could be more important than the promise we made?” I glared at him, glancing down at his fingers tapping away. “Wait a minute…you have a date, don’t you?” I’d only seen that stupid embarrassed look on Sen’s face once before, and it was when he first saw Mika.

“Yeah haha…you caught me, Mika said her dad really wants to meet me and invited me to come down to Hamamatsu this weekend to see the campus…” A shy little smile peeked its way across Sen’s face as he mention Mika.

“But we’re running out of time here, Sen…if we don’t go this weekend we might not get another chance before the school year is over…” I did the math, and we officially had just under a month before the graduation festival.

“Why don’t you two go without me? I mean I know we’re supposed to be doing everything as a group…but I really want to have this date with Mika, and maybe this would be a good opportunity for you two to …ya know have a date too?” Sen hesitated to say this… I never actually told him I don’t think Aiko heard me say ‘I love you that night at the parade…

I looked over at Aiko…

She looked over at me…

We both immediately turned away from each other, red as dorayaki filling.

“Ha, that…that would be something, wouldn’t Aiko, just you and I going to Tokyo but on a date instead of just as friends….” I was so nervous I couldn’t bear to look over at her, I clenched my teeth and awaited my inevitable rejection.

“Okay, tomorrow night. Pick me up at my place at… let's say 7:30?”

“Wait, seriously? You mean you want to go on a date….with me?” I couldn’t believe my ears. She actually said yes. I have a date, I actually have a date

“Yes, Ren. I’d like to go on a date with you. I want to see Tokyo from the top of sky tree with you and just you, before…” The bell for the end of the lunch period went off, startling my already shocked system so much that I jumped a bit.

“Before what?” I called out to Aiko as she returned to her own desk across the room. I looked to Sen. “Before what?” I repeated, hoping he might have the answer. He shrugged, returning to his desk as well, leaving me there alone. “Before what?...”

The following night as I stood outside Aiko’s apartment, I felt like for the first time I didn’t feel an underlying sense of disgust with myself. I felt full, and I felt happy. The only thought racing through my head is how beautiful Aiko would look when she walked out those doors.

“Hey, you ready to check one more thing off of our list?” She said as he walked through the doors in front of me, looking a bit different than I’d expected. She didn’t have all her piercings in and seemed to have very little makeup on if any at all. I didn’t mind, she still was the prettiest thing I’d ever seen, it just seemed a bit bizarre to see her without those things unless we were in school.

“I’ve never been more ready for anything in my life” I smiled at her, and I felt a bit relieved when she let out a laugh.

“You doofus, let’s go see Tokyo…”