You live and learn

I'll have to take back a lot of things that I said earlier. And I sincerely hope this apology reaches the right people and that they accept it. Take what back? The whole not wanting Aoki to come over. As it turns out it was exceptionally fun. Which also brings me to the conclusion that I have bad memory at best, and I'm incorrigibly stupid at worst. Because I think I already came to the same conclusion on three different occasions: Aoki is a great girl and I have nothing bad to say about her. I could be snarky and say "yet", but even this joke that only exists inside my head still feels bad to think out loud. And as for the other people involved (namely my family), it was very chill, too. I may or may not end up having been caught laughing breathlessly in some photo.

I noticed how late it was getting when I saw it was completely dark outside. The time flew with how much we were having. My parents were around for a while after dinner, but ultimately left us three alone in the house. Souma got a phone call from his older brother telling him to go home, and Aoki was waiting for her mom to come to pick her up. I don't mind staying up late locked up in my room in front of the computer, but something about not doing that meant that I started feeling a bit tired. Aoki didn't seem to, though. She was still full of energy. Does she ever run out of it?

"We should do this more often!" She was peeking through the window, looking for her mom's car.

"Yeah, why not..." I put down my phone, thinking she was going to make a conversation.

"My parents don't know you or Souma, so we could schedule something at my house, how does that sound?"

"Oh, that sounds like a good idea. And then I'll have to wonder what stories your parents will end up hearing of me. And whether it'll be Souma or if you already told them a bunch." The street outside lit up, revealing that a car was approaching.

"Nice one. But no, I don't go around gossiping to my parents, come on." She turned to look at me over her shoulder. "But I will gossip with Kaede, though. And as far as I can tell, she tells me plenty, too. Great girl, she is." She chuckled and turned back.

"Riiight..." This girl goes from wholesome to suspicious like no one else. "Aoki, have you ever taken acting lessons?"

"That's... an interesting question..." She laughed at the seemingly random question. "No, never, why do you ask?"

"Oh, don't worry about it." Ok, so that's a natural skill, then.

The car finally stopped by the sidewalk, near the front door, and Aoki had already gotten up and headed outside. She opened the door and stopped to look at me. Oh, yeah, I totally forgot! I'm supposed to see her off. So I went outside with her, and her mom lowered the window. She looks a little like her mom, but nothing out of the ordinary. What struck me, though, is that I can also see a hint of Sakurai on the mom's face. So, unless I'm imagining things, she's the Sakurai side of the family. After a couple of minutes, I was back inside, completely alone. That's usually my default state, but now after all that, it felt a bit unsettling.

I took my phone with me to the couch and started browsing Birdie when I saw a few random posts from Momo-chan. It was all stream-related, nothing personal or anything like that, but that's when I remembered that she had been radio silent the whole day. Is it because she's still streaming until late? Nope.

I really didn't have to force myself to send her anything. Something was sure to come up naturally, eventually. But I wanted to. And since I'm committing, I might as well be cheeky.

"The dinner was a touchdown. Complete success. Now your cousin is back with her family (which includes you, by the way). I could sit here and talk about it a whole lot, but from what she said, that's you girls' conversation to have"

I occupied myself with some other things while I waited for her response until I realized that it had been almost a full hour. My parents were already home going on about their evening when I decided to check on her again, to find that her message arrived a few minutes ago, and it was on the shorter side. It was just a "that looks like a fun day". Sakurai sounds really out of it today. I had no idea what she did, but she was either very busy or very tired, so I decided it was best to just leave her alone.

My mom was in the kitchen, so between me not having much else to do and her looking bored, I leaned against the counter with a big glass of water in my hand.

"Crazy day, huh?" I could've started that one a bit better.

"From me almost going clinically crazy earlier to crazy good."

"Yep." I said, drawing it out.

"Now I can see why Souma likes that Yuina girl so much. She's so likable." She stopped and covered her mouth with her hand. "And her sense of style matches well how pretty she is."

"Mom, come on... Not you too..."

"Listen." She laughed. "That's just my intuition telling me that it's a good idea. Competition between the two friends, huh? That's a classic."

I understood where she was going with it and shook my head.

"Souma literally said the same thing while we were playing. I'm not into her, she's just a friend. But he is, though. So I'll let him have his shot with that one."

I saw the screen of my phone flashing on the dining table and immediately went to check it.

"Alright, alright..." She didn't sound very convinced at all.

It was Aoki. I showed my mom the screen with the chat open. She couldn't read it at that distance, but I hoped she could tell it was a chat window.

"Speaking of the devil..."

She raised her eyebrows, in a silent "ooh".

Yuina Aoki: "Did I already thank you for inviting me?"

Haruto Sasaki: "Yeah you did."

Yuina Aoki: "Oh. Yeah."

We both had the same idea and sent a laughing sticker at the same time. After that, I waited for what she wanted to say.

Yuina Aoki: "Talked to Kaede yet?"

Haruto Sasaki: "Kinda... I think she's busy with something so I didn't wanna be a bother."

Yuina Aoki: "About that..."

Haruto Sasaki: Hm? I waited.

Yuina Aoki: "She looked 'busy' to me too, but I give her 24 hours to come and admit that she's upset that she wasn't invited."

Haruto Sasaki: What, really? A last-minute dinner with the people that live nearby (Aoki pending) upset her? We met once in person...

Haruto Sasaki: "I'm confused"

Yuina Aoki: "You invited me, but not her. She's jealous of me."

Were that to happen to me, it wouldn't be a big deal. But when I read Aoki's message, the entire situation started unraveling like a loose thread in my mind and I started feeling a bit fuzzy inside. She was jealous of her cousin because I invited her to my house? Aoki and I hung out for hours without her, and she wanted to be here having this fun, too.

Haruto Sasaki: "Alrighty, I got you. (I hope)."

And that was the end of the conversation. My choices were either to wait a couple of days, which could backfire spectacularly if she's expecting me to talk to her, or I could conjure up the courage and talk her out of it. Because, frankly, apologizing felt a bit too excessive for that.

When it comes to maneuvering through these complicated life things, I've never been an expert. I never had the friends around me to push me forward. So now, at my age, I still need to get kicked around and learn the hard way.

So I needed an expert opinion on the matter. I (awkwardly) managed to give my mom some context and ask for her opinion, to which she chuckled and started rambling about her own nostalgia for being young and going to school. While it was a little weird to imagine my responsible and adult mom being a careless teenager doing god knows what, I decided to entertain her thoughts until we came back to my question. She guessed that I wanted to be practical and told me to simply apologize and invite her for something else, but I rejected it. So she then suggested skipping the apology but still inviting Sakurai for something. "Go have some ice cream together, or something"

"Ice cream, hmm..." My eyes wandered away from my mom and to the ceiling. I found myself not thinking about it in terms of an apology, and instead, just I thought it sounded fun. Yeah, I guess we could meet in person sometime. Coming to think of it, the first time we went out was pretty hectic – emotionally, that is –, and then we only talked online. I do spend most of my time online to the point where a text chat doesn't feel out of place, but... We do live close, after all, and had fun together. It only felt natural at that moment.

The arcade for the next weekend still stood, so maybe going out after school would feel like too much, too rushed, for her. "It's fiiine" I thought to myself, brushing it off.

But I decided to do what I do best and draw something to accompany the invitation. I thanked my mom, who laughed as if she could see the machinations shaping up inside my head.