An Audience with the Council.

We got to the dressing room and Tsuji dragged all the attention to us.

"Gentleman. Please attend to my amends, my master needs your aid with utmost priority."

"What did you say?" Asked one guy. I should have thanked him for that because I also didn't understand what he just said.

"He needs some help right now, so listen please."

They all sat down and Tsuji explained the situation:

"Basically he's going on a date with his girlfriend, however he needs some help so the date turned out to be good for both of them. Any ideas?"

Thank God he gave the simplified version first, so everybody understood the situation from the get go and now all that's left was to listen to their ideas and plan my date with Agatta.

Or so I was hoping. But in reality nobody was suggesting anything. They all looked at each other waiting for someone to finally say something. But that moment never came.

"Any ideas would be good guys." I said, trying to break the silence. "I really don't want anything too special. It's enough for me if you tell me what you do with your girlfriends."

But the silence remained. I thought that maybe they were all still mad at me for some reason, but then I started to wonder if they were just too embarrassed to say what they do and that's why they weren't talking about it. But since the silence was still the only constant in the room a third possibility came to my mind, and this one was the only one I speak out to them:

"How many of you have girlfriends? Can you raise your hand?"

And my suspicions were confirmed. No one, absolutely no one raised their hand after I asked them if they had a girlfriend.

"Wait a minute? Are you serious?" I asked. "How come none of you are currently dating someone? I thought all men from sports clubs were highly likely to get girlfriends."

"That's just a stereotype dude." Answer someone.

"Yeah, there is no guarantee of that." Replied someone else.

"I guess you are right, but… I don't know, it's still… kind of weird. I mean, you are all good looking." I said.

Having said that some made an 'Aw' noise, others thanked me and some even blushed. All that just allowed me to know two things for sure: one, this club is definitely weird, and two, men do not get enough compliments, so we take the ones we get to heart.

Then the teacher came into the dressing room.

"Guys, it's almost time to start practice, so you should get ready ASAP."

"Sensei, good timing. We need your help." Said Tsuji.

"What is it?"

"Impo wants to plan a date with his girlfriend, but since none of us have one we can't give him any good advice as to how to do so."

"I see…" Said the teacher, to be honest, he also looked perplexed at the fact that no other man in the swimming club was in a relationship. "And how exactly do you want me to help?"

"Well, you surely must have had several dates in the past. So you should know a lot about it!"

We all fixed our looks on him waiting for an answer, but the only answer we got was the following:

“I have never dated anyone in my life. Is that what you wanted to hear?”

That’s exactly the opposite of what we, or at last I wanted to hear.

Some of the members of our club went to his side and tried to cheer him up. Meanwhile I was still wondering what I was going to do with my date. Not only was it most certainly deemed to be a failure, but the aftermath of it was what scared me the most, after all, I was almost sure that with so much failure after failure Agatta was growing tired of me.

Suddenly I felt an arm on my shoulder, it was giving me hope, hope that seemed all lost in that situation.

“Don’t worry. We’ll figure something out.” Told me the club captain, who was the one holding my shoulder.

"The thing is…" Interrupted another one. "We don't know what girls like, nowadays they just think so differently from us, so that doesn't help us."

"I get that!" Replied another guy. "In my class there are some girls that are just into pervy stuff."

I don't know the man who said that, but I think he is talking about Sume and her friends. And yeah, I get what he's saying.

"Yeah, there are many like that." Said another guy. "Pervy stuff is everything they think about nowadays. I wonder what happened to the good old romance, the one you see in manga and anime."

The guy talking let out a single tear from his eye, then, among cheers and people saying 'I know, right?', the room was filled with noise once again. A little curious detail about the guy who was just talking is that he is big, massively big, and his voice is deep and intimidating, so to me it came as a surprise to hear him speak about love like that.

"I would love to have a family, to have children, and to live forever in love with a girl." He continued. "To laugh, to cry, to feel anger, to feel joy, and at the dawn of our lives sit on the beach of our memories, on the sand of our memories and contemplate in the sea of the future what is for our children and grandchildren to come. And hugging each other we'll say: 'We lived well.' Because we'll know that through good and bad, through health and sickness, through all, we lived together, and we loved each other until death tore us apart!"

The entire room was filled with cheers, even I couldn't help but join in. He has a way with his words, and the scenario he just described was just perfect.

"We will help you." Said a guy next to me as he grabbed my shoulder to show his support. "Because there is more in there than just you. I think that if we help you out, then that will help us to find that happiness as well."

“Yes, we need to learn more about those lovematters ourselves!” Exclaimed our teacher.

“But how do dates work? I mean, what are you supposed to do at those times?” Asked the captain.

“Master, what were your plans?” Interrogated me Tsuji.

“Well… I didn’t have any plan, that’s why I looked for your help.”

“But why did you ask your lady out in the first place? What were your intentions on that invitation?”

That’s a question that I myself had no answer for.

Why did I ask Agatta out on a date?

What was I expecting to happen?

Was it just because I wanted to ‘do something that couples do’ or is it something else?

“I think that all I want is for us to have a good time, do something that we don’t usually do. But I’m not sure why…”

“Well… some people say that you need to do something refreshing from time to time to keep your relationship interesting.” Said one of the guys. “So maybe you are subconsciously trying that in order to keep your relationship in the best possible terms. After all, what you two just went through was kind of rough for your relationship.”

I never saw myself getting a full psychological exam from a guy who was wearing only a swimsuit and nothing else. But that was precisely what just happened here.. And I believe what he is saying is right, that might be the reason why I’m doing this.

“I think that is probably right. Maybe that’s what I’m really trying to do.”

“Then we cannot fail!” Said another guy. “We must ensure your date to be the best date of all time!”

“YEAH!” Yelled the entire room.

“But then again, what do people do on dates?” Asked one guy.

“My parents go to the movies.” Answered another.

Many of the guys seemed to not have an interest in that sort of stuff, so most of them kept silent after he suggested that.

“Someone in my classroom said he took his girlfriend to ride bikes together in middle school.”

The room was filled with a chatter of how good that was, most of us really liked that idea.

“No, wait. Forget I said that, they broke up almost immediately after that.” He continued.

Now we were wondering why did they break after doing something so fun. It didn’t make any sense at all. Thankfully the teacher brought us back to the subject we were reunited for.

“Then what are you going to do Okichi-kun?”

“Mhm, I really don’t know, I guess the easier thing to do is to go to the movies, but once there I don’t know what are you supposed to do…”

“I get it!” Yelled someone at the back of the room. “I know exactly what we need to do!”

“What is it?” I asked.

“We just need to know what people do on dates right? So we just need to watch them and learn from what they do!”

You mean spy them?

“That is a great idea!” Replied Tsuji.

No it’s not!

“But we will need to cover more than just a couple or two, and in many places, so that way we can have more information about it.” Replied another guy.

What is wrong with you people?

“When is your date with your girlfriend?”The captain asked me.

I don’t want to answer. But now I’m deep in the mud, so there is no way out.

“We didn’t agree to a date…”

“That’s perfect. How about you do it on sunday? So we can do our research on saturday?”

“Great plan!” Intervened someone else.

“YEAH!” Yelled the room once again.

“Then, everyone, we will organize ourselves, and everybody who is free on saturday please help us with this project. Remember, it’s not only for us, there might be something that you can gain as well!”

And saying this the room was filled with cheers and it was all once again set in stone without me having a say in the matter.

I think next year I’ll search for another club to join. This one is a madhouse of half-naked men.