The date

I found myself walking alone through the old streets near the school, where old traditional houses still painted my view as I walked alongside the sidewalk, cropping up between modern houses that were probably around my age. At the station, I made sure that I was looking for the right train. It being closest to school, you'd imagine that it would be mostly kids boarding it to go home, but it was the other way around. Since that line headed towards a new and growing commercial area, it was mostly locals coming home after a day at work.

I arrived at the next station and got off the train together with a few other students that I'd never seen before. Some were from the same school, but not all. We'd arranged to meet at the station but never specified where exactly, so I decided to take a stroll around. The station itself was old and small, but that also meant that there were some family shops that held a lot of history that I could explore. I walked past a yakisoba shop that no-so-gently reminded me that it had been hours since lunch, and then I saw an old ice cream machine outside with a paper stickied to it that said: "temporarily broken". Good thing, because ending up having ice cream from this machine in the middle of the street instead of a nice place would be a big letdown.

Past that, there was a 100-yen store that was so small that had I brought more money with me, I could afford everything wholesale. I was completely lost in thought, looking at each and every small item, when I heard Sakurai's soft voice coming from behind my right shoulder. She stood a step behind me and to the side, trying to catch a glimpse of what I was investigating, with her bag dangling from her shoulder.

"Hi hi."

"Oh." I said, turning slowly to face her. "I guess we arrived at pretty much the same time."

"Um." She nodded. "Are you..." Sakurai took a closer look at the lined-up goods.

"Just passing time." I guessed what she meant. "Let's go?"

"Um." She nodded again, in exactly the same way.

"I could say I lead the way since I did the research..." I chuckled. "But you did too, so no need."

She laughed at me and started walking, even ending up in front of me until she noticed I lagged behind. Just like the distance I saw on the map, there was a little walking to be done between the station and the shop, but before we noticed we'd already arrived.

It looked like an old repurposed house, with a small wooden fence on the front, but no gate. The outside walls were light in color, with green accents. An A-frame chalkboard greeted us through a short gravel path that led to the door in a straight line. On it, the price of the ice cream was written at the very top, and the other 90% was reserved for the café menu. I could see myself having both right now.

A tiny high-pitched bell rang when we entered, and got greeted by a young woman behind the counter. We sat down by a window facing the side wall, with nothing of interest to look at. With the fancy-looking menu in my hands, I ran my eyes from front to bottom, reading it all carefully while being mindful of the dangers of ordering too much while hungry. I noticed that Sakurai had the menu down on the table and was looking around.

"Did you already choose what you want?"

"Yeah." She then dodged my gaze. "I looked it up online."

I didn't wanna push her shyness, so I held back a chuckle. I decided to go for pistachio, and hers was strawberry. After the waitress took our orders, I figured it would be a good idea to say something to break the ice. I just hope that I wouldn't break the thin ice by walking on it, after this weekend's incident...

"Who would've known that there were cozy little places like this one so close by?"

"I know. And being able to sit down in peace, too. Where I live things are definitely a bit busier around this time of day."

I looked outside, with the street in the corner of my field of view.

"It's surprising that there's barely anyone from my school here."

She looked at my uniform. I guess she had only seen Aoki's female version.

"So..." I continued. "Had anything fun happen after the 10,000 yen superchat?"

She raised a finger to her lips.

"Hmmm... Not like that, I don't think..." She jumped and looked back at me as if a light bulb lit up over her head. "I started playing this visual novel called 'By a Thousand Stars' and it's so good! You know it?"

I shook my head and let her speak. The sudden switch was funny and took me by surprise, and her excitement was cute.

"It's a fantasy story about a cleric in training, and she gets put in charge of being the prince's personal tutor and goes with him on all of his official outings and travels." I rested my chin on my hand, looking directly at her. "At first he doesn't like the idea and is even a bit mean to her, but she keeps being patient, and her sense of humor is really funny. She has the smoothest way of putting him back in his place when he deserves it."

"And they fall in love" I smirked, and in reply, she nodded exactly twice.

"I know what you're thinking. But hear me out!" She took out her phone and kept staring at it. "That's just the setup. The actual story is so much more than this. When you start reading you see that the author knows how to make it interesting!" She handed me her phone open on a web page full of screencaps of the novel. I browsed through, and all of them looked very pretty. The cleric girl was pretty, the guy had a punchable face that I could almost forgive in the frames where he was giving her a warm smile. To be honest, it's hard to say anything about the story by looking at the art, but it looked good regardless.

She looked at me, expectantly.

"This looks pretty good, I gotta say." I gave her phone back. "How many hours do you have on it now?"

She started counting something on her fingers. Two, three, four...

"13 or 14 hours, I don't remember." She saw my puzzled expression looking at her fingers and quickly added: "Four days. Yeah, it's... Kind of a lot, I know."

I laughed and shrugged it off.

"No no, it's great that you're enjoying it as much as you are. For example, the day Aoki and I talked for the first time I was absolutely exhausted from staying up late drawing." She giggled. "We are on the same boat here."

A guy in his 40s came with our orders. My pistachio came in a wide cup, filled up with the light green that reminded me of the paintwork outside. It had finely mashed cookies sprinkled on top of it, with some bite-sized pieces following the outer walls. Hers was a very pink glass, going from pure ice cream at the bottom to fruit bits in the middle, sliced strawberry at the top, and a big whole strawberry sitting atop of the whipped cream mountain. Both looked delicious.

Our conversation was put on hold while we savored the dessert. She started talking first since I was hungry, so it was more of a complete meal.

"The other day you said you liked visual novels too, right?"

Did I? Saying "yes" at face value would've been a lie, but replying "yes" to the fact that I like them, wouldn't.

"I do"

She stopped for a while, humming under her breath. This girl has some heavy machinery working in her brain, first the lamp and now letting out the steam.

"What's your favorite?"

I sniffed this question coming from a light year away, and I did not want to have to deal with it, so I preemptively loaded my spoon full of ice cream and bought myself time. Telling this girl my actual favorite was out of the question, so I needed to go down the list to find the best appropriate favorite that was still technically true.

"Stranded at school" I finally said. I had played that one almost two years ago, and while I remember liking it a lot at the time, there was a possibility that I was simply easier to please.

"That's the... Ten days... weird teacher... Angry class representative?" Her face looked funny while she squeezed the details out of her brain. Yup, it's been a while for all of us, Sakurai. Sorry.

"That one, you got it right. Sorry, I don't keep up nearly enough with all the new releases. My backlog grows faster than I can catch up to it."

The next fifteen or twenty minutes were spent with her helping me "catch up" by info dumping a giant list of visual and physical novels that I should get. I knew I wouldn't remember a thing as soon as we left the place, but it was still entertaining enough to sit there and see this girl across the table go on and on about something she loved. That was when she gave me a closer look at the pins on her bag, and which manga they belonged to. As I was coming to realize, Sakurai is much more of a nerd than I was. She lived and breathed this subculture, and I doubt whatever I could have on my Birdie's feed would be new to her – both good and bad.

I finished my ice cream way before her – I just couldn't help but keep eating as if I was watching an exciting movie. Sakurai was like the main attraction, talking while her ice cream melted. We eventually finished, though, and decided to get going.

I walked outside first and waited for her, unsure which way to go from there. Not because I was lost, but because I didn't think we would just say "bye" and part ways. For one, I'm pretty sure she would ride the same train.

"Do you have time, still?" She glanced at her feet, fidgeting with the gravel.

"Sure." Thanks for saying something first.

"So, we head west." Her voice was firm, and she extended her arm and pointed me in the direction. It was quite amusing, like a kid leading a class on a school trip.

"Yes, sir- Madam!"

She tried pouting, but couldn't hold it, and burst into laughter. I tried to keep up the act.

"Apologies, madam. One, two, one two." And off we marched.