Our Dating Story: The Experienced You and The Inexperienced Me - Volume 1 - Chapter 2.1

Chapter 2

Since yesterday, it had felt like I was living in a dream.

Still, no matter how much I pinched my cheek, I wouldn’t wake up, and I even remembered having a real dream the night before. In that dream, I’d watched Shirakawa-san from afar...and since I’d woken up from that, this must’ve been reality.

Hard as it was to believe...I was going out with Shirakawa-san.

My heart raced as I went to school thinking about this development, and the second day of our...relationship had begun.

As I got to school and headed to class, Icchi was standing in the hallway in front of my classroom. He came rushing over once saw me.

“Heeeeeeeeeey!” He firmly grabbed my shoulders and looked at me with bloodshot eyes. “What the hell, dude?! What happened after that, huh?! How was I even supposed to sleep after I messaged you on LINE and all I got back was ‘stuff happened’?!”

“R-Right... Sorry. Um... I went there... To Shirakawa-san’s house.”

“HER HOOOUUUSE?!”

Icchi shouted with enough energy that you might’ve forgotten his gloomy nature. He looked so pale you’d think he might faint.

Then, I heard a deep voice from behind me. “Did you do her?”

As I turned around, I saw Nisshi standing there with a deadpan expression on his face.

“Whoa, you startled me,” I said.

“Spit it out. I’m asking if you did her or not,” continued Nisshi in a relentless voice. It felt like an interrogation. “Did you?”

“Answer us, and tell the truth!” added Icchi, drawing closer with an intense look. His fingers, large as caterpillars, dug into my shoulders—it actually hurt.

“I didn’t,” I finally replied.

“Why?!” exclaimed both of my friends at the same time before they started rapid-firing questions at me.

“Was her family home?!”

“No...” I said.

“Was it surprisingly tough to get her into bed?!”

“No, she seemed totally willing...”

As I gave my replies, the two bared their fangs at me with demonic faces.

“Then why?!” asked both of them in unison.

“W-Well, I needed to prepare...” I stammered.

“Dude, this is why I keep telling you even a gloomy guy like you should have at least one condom on him! Any gentleman would!” shouted Icchi, his massive body shaking as he did.

Our arriving classmates gave us strange looks as they entered the classroom.

“That’s not the kind of preparation I’m talking about,” I said. “I mean the mental kind...”

“The mental kind?!”

“Are you a maiden or something?!”

“How can a guy as unpopular as you decide to ignore such a rare chance?! One you might never get again?!”

Under the two’s persistent questioning, I shrank against the wall in the hallway. I already had my regrets over the fact I hadn’t had sex with Shirakawa-san, so having these two blame me certainly didn’t help.

“But like... You know. We’ll be going out from now on, so won’t I get more opportunities like that...?” I asked meekly.

Their expressions instantly turned grave.

“Kasshi...”

“Don’t tell me you actually expect to go out with her?”

“Huh?” I uttered in confusion, but they continued to look at me like I was some kind of pitiful creature.

“This is Shirakawa Runa we’re talking about. The girl at the very top of the school hierarchy. She’s obviously just playing around to make fun of a gloomy guy like you. A slut like her who’s been with lots of guys was about to choose you for a one-night stand on some kinda whim yesterday, and you got it into your head you were her boyfriend now and turned her down?”

“Huh? Whaaaaat?!” I yelled, bewildered.

Nisshi shook his head in disappointment. “Oh well. Let him dream some more, Icchi.”

“Yeah. I’m sure he’ll have to face reality right away.”

Giving me pitying looks, this pair with strikingly different builds walked away down the hallway, arms on each other’s shoulders.

I stood there, speechless.

Huh? I-Is that how it is? But wait, she’s not making fun of me, right? We’re going...out...right?

My friends’ sudden words were making me anxious. It was then that I felt my smartphone vibrate in my pocket.

“Hm?”

As I took it out, my eyes fell on a LINE pop-up. It was from Shirakawa-san.

☆ Luna ☆: I slept in... Sob sob... (´；ω；`)

Seeing it reaffirmed the idea that what had happened the day before had been no dream or fantasy. She wouldn’t have texted me like that if we weren’t dating, and we couldn’t have exchanged our contact info in the first place had that been the case. And if she was just looking to tease me a little to enjoy how a gloomy guy would react, I couldn’t imagine she would go this far. It was way too much effort.

These thoughts helped me set my mind at ease. She’d texted me several times after dinner the previous night—as she was about to go to bed—after I’d gone home.

Ryuto: If you hurry and bike to the station, you can still make it to the first period. Don’t give up!

I could only reply with boring texts like that, but she’d send an immediate reply every time. Like now, as my smartphone vibrated again.

☆ Luna ☆: Y so srs, sob sob... (´；ω；`) I’ll try... (´；ω；`)

“‘Y so srs’...”

I’m sorry that I can only say boring things.

But I just really couldn’t give her anything but serious replies. If I tried to crack her up and my joke bombed, I’d never be able to tell jokes again.

I thought of writing her another reply, but she was probably busy getting ready. Instead, I sent her a sticker that said “You can do it!” and put my smartphone away. My phone vibrated again the next moment, and the chat had a sticker with a panicking rabbit that wasn’t very cute.

“Oh, I need to hurry up and get ready for class.” With an involuntary chuckle, I put my smartphone away for good this time.

Shirakawa-san arrived at school close to the end of the first period. As always, the curls in her hair and the shine of her lips were spot-on—it was just like her not to sacrifice the time she spent grooming herself.

Seeing her looking so lovely, I recalled the dreamlike time I’d spent with her the previous day. The regret over not having had sex with her gnawed at me again.

Then, once it was break time, Shirakawa-san suddenly approached my seat.

“Morning!”

“M-Morning,” I said.

Minding who might be looking, I couldn’t keep from checking my surroundings like I was involved in something shady.

“You’re pretty late,” I added right away, hoping to bring our conversation to a close sooner.

“Yeah... I overslept.”

“Something happen? Did you go to bed late?”

As I tried to rush through our conversation, a meek look came over Shirakawa-san’s face. “I was thinking about you, and I kinda couldn’t sleep.”

“Huh?” My heart began to flutter, and I even forgot to keep checking my surroundings. I could only gaze at her.

“I’ve never had a boyfriend like you, so it’s kinda strange.”

“Oh... Really...?”

Sad as it was to admit, I thought of myself as a pretty generic, gloomy guy... Even so, I supposed it was safe to say Shirakawa-san had never had someone like me around her before.

“Ruuunaaa!” suddenly called out a fashionable girl from the back of the classroom.

She was a legit gyaru who stood out quite a bit even among the good-looking girls, and was also the one Shirakawa-san got along with the best.

Feeling like she’d thrown me a sharp glance, I kept silent and ducked my head, trying to fade into the background.

“Hmm?” Shirakawa-san didn’t seem to notice anything out of the ordinary. “Laters,” she quietly said to me as she walked away.

After that, Shirakawa-san kept coming over to talk to me every break. While I was happy about it, I couldn’t help thinking about all the eyes on us, and especially those of that super gyaru who seemed to be staring daggers at me.

After glare after glare, I couldn’t deal with it anymore. “Um, Shirakawa-san,” I said in a low voice, “you haven’t told anyone we’re going out, right?”

“Huh?”

Her eyes seemed to be saying, “Why are you asking me something like that?”

“I’ve told my best friend Nicole,” she said.

I was dumbfounded. I wasn’t totally certain, but I was pretty sure that super gyaru girl’s name was Yamana Nicole. She’d been hanging out with Shirakawa-san a lot ever since we were freshmen.

“Why? Was that bad? You haven’t even told your good friends about us?” Shirakawa-san asked innocently.

“Well... Two of my friends know.”

“See?” she said.

Instantly finding myself at a disadvantage, I realized I couldn’t say anything to her—it wasn’t like I’d asked her to keep it a secret either. Icchi and Nisshi were the ones who’d created the opportunity for me to go out with Shirakawa-san to begin with, though it wasn’t as though it had been me who’d told them we were now going out. Oh well.

“It’s just, when we talk to each other, we kinda stand out, you know...?” I said, glancing around me.

Between classes, the room would be busy. Everyone would be having their own conversations, and we could use that situation to cover our conversation. However, if a girl like Shirakawa-san kept talking to a gloomy guy like me multiple times in a day, the “Shirakawa-san watchers” (I was sure there were some since I had been one myself) would definitely find it strange.

“So...you don’t want me to talk to you much at school, and you want me to keep our relationship a secret?” she quietly asked.

I awkwardly nodded. “Hm... Uhh, yeah, that’s right. That would help, I guess...”

You might be asking whether a guy like me was even in a position to make such a request, but it was beyond my position to even be going out with her in the first place.

“Okay,” she said after a moment’s pause. She seemed reluctant. “Sooo, when can I talk to you?”

“Huh?” I was taken aback by the unexpected question. “W-Well, we could see each other on the weekend or something?”

Was it too forward of me to suddenly ask that? There was another me that lectured me inside my mind. Who do you think you are, trying to have Shirakawa-san all to yourself on a weekend? A gloomy guy like you? However, that had been the only thing I could come up with on the spot.

“So like...a date?” she asked.

“Bhuh?!”

Shirakawa-san had unexpectedly gone back to speaking at a regular volume as she asked her question, causing me to reply in a weird voice. Fortunately, our previous class had been held in the science room and not many students had come back here to our regular classroom yet—there weren’t any classmates nearby who could be listening in on us.

“Y-Yeah... That’s right.” My heart raced at the word “date,” and I couldn’t keep my eyes from wandering around restlessly. “If that won’t work, though, it’s perfectly fine...” I added.

Actually, I might not have been fit to be Shirakawa-san’s boyfriend, but even so, it would’ve been pretty shocking if she rejected my invitation.

“Not at all. Sure thing,” she immediately replied. “I have plans on Sunday, but I’m free on Saturday. Where we going?”

At that point, the first bell rang.

“L-Later, then...” I said and moved away from her. As I prepared my textbooks and other stuff for class at my desk, my heart still pounded. Eventually, I somewhat came back to reality and unconsciously muttered, “Wait...Saturday? That’s tomorrow.”

My first date was, unbelievably, just one day away—and I hadn’t planned anything. Had I forgotten I was going out with Shirakawa-san?!

***

I couldn’t focus on my classes after that. Still, no matter how much thought I gave to the subject, an unpopular, gloomy guy like me couldn’t possibly come up with a brilliant date plan that would satisfy Shirakawa-san. I hid my phone in my desk and snuck peeks at it here and there, doing searches online for date spots. Unfortunately, the top results only showed everyday suggestions.

As I kept at it, I started to feel sick with worry, so I decided to temporarily forget about the date.

When classes were over for the day, Shirakawa-san was cheerfully talking to her best friend Nicole as usual, so I left the classroom together with Icchi, my manner somewhat fidgety.

After I got home and rested for a bit in my room, I took my smartphone in hand and thought about watching KEN’s new videos or something, but...

A LINE notification from Shirakawa-san had just come in.

“Huh?!”

It wasn’t a message, but an incoming call. A video call, at that.

After checking that there was nothing behind me that I wouldn’t want people to see, I sat in the seiza position on my bed and pressed the answer button.

“Uhh... Whoa!” I exclaimed. “H-Hello?!”

Shirakawa-san appeared on the screen. “Yay, it’s Ryuto!” she said, waving at me with a happy look on her face.

As I looked behind her, it appeared that she was in her room too. That meant she must’ve gone home shortly after I had.

“Wh-What’s up?” I asked.

Her appearance startled me—she was wearing a fluffy pink hoodie (amply unzipped, and sure enough, giving a view of her cleavage), which seemed to be what she wore for comfort at home.

Shirakawa-san pouted a little. “Just wanted to talk about our date tomorrow. You invited me yourself! Don’t tell me you forgot.”

“Ah... The d—”

Date. No matter how many times I heard the word, it didn’t lose its impact. Wait, did that count as me inviting her...? I’m kinda grateful for that, if so.

“Yeah, our date!” said Shirakawa-san. “Where we going?”

“Uhh...” The results of my online search in class came to mind first. “Since it’s our first d-date...maybe we could watch a movie...?”

“Hmm?” she asked, slowly tilting her cute face to the side. “You sure that’s what you want? Is there a movie you wanna see or something? Are you into movies?”

“Oh, uh, no...”

I only went to the cinema once a year, and I didn’t have a good idea of what movies were currently playing.

“What do you want to do together?” asked Shirakawa-san. “Why’d you invite me on a date?”

It felt like her eyes were drawing me in. Flustered by the fact, I replied, “Because I...want to get to know you better.”

“What do you want to know about me?” she asked, shifting her position. She pressed her chest together with her arms even further, deepening her cleavage and making me gulp. “It’s okay. I’ll do whatever you want to do together, you know?”

Shirakawa-san had a gentle look on her face, and her divine smile practically said that she would immediately grant the wish any man craved. However, if I’d had it in me to say, “Okay, let’s go to a hotel, then!” here, I wouldn’t have been so gloomy for the past sixteen years!

Besides, I genuinely wanted to carefully nurture my relationship with her. I would wait until she said she wanted to do it with me. And I... I wouldn’t waver on that point.

Her appealing to my lust like that did make me lose a bit of confidence in the matter, though. I was just glad Shirakawa-san wasn’t right in front of me at the moment.

Finding myself at a loss for words, I decided to shoot the question back to her. “What about you?” I asked. “What do you like to do on your days off?”

“Huh...?” She looked a little amazed at my question. “Me? Why?”

“I was just wondering how you like to spend your time,” I said.

“Hmm... Let’s see...” A mildly cheerful smile appeared on her face as she looked diagonally upward. “I like clothes, so of course I go shopping! And I also like to try out makeup, go to lovely cafés...”

“Okay, why don’t we do those things?”

“What...?” Shirakawa-san went wide-eyed in apparent surprise. “You want to do what I want to do...?”

“Yeah. There isn’t really anything I want to do out in the city...so I figure I might as well go along with you, if you have something in mind.”

Spending time with Shirakawa-san was by itself a major event in my life. Trying to think of what I wanted to do on top of that? I had a hard time coming up with anything.

Shirakawa-san blinked at me for a moment, then smiled a little. “You know, Ryuto, you really are kinda weird. That’s the first time I had a boyfriend say something like that to me.”

At that moment, I became convinced: Shirakawa-san wasn’t some wanton slut. She always went along with what her boyfriends wanted to do, and because she’d gone too far in doing so until this point, she had ended up as just a convenient woman for them rather than a girlfriend. Those boyfriends had lost interest in her and moved on to other girls. She was simply an unfortunate beauty.

“I gotta say, you’re definitely kinda weird...” she continued, muttering softly.

As I watched her, I told myself I was different from her exes.

After that, we quickly agreed where and when to meet, and then it was time to hang up.

“A’ight, see you tomorrow!” exclaimed Shirakawa-san.

“Yeah, see you tomorrow.”

When her face vanished from the screen, I was part relieved and part reluctant. Then, the feeling that overcame me was...

“HOLY CRAAAP!!!”

I just had a video call with such a cute girl! And better-freaking-yet, she’s my girlfriend!

“NO FREAKING WAY!!!”

Since this was my room, I rolled around on my bed as much as I wanted. I could’ve just about died from excitement.

“Ahh, Shirakawa-san...”

She looked amazing in her hoodie too: cute and a little sexy. Nobody at school knew what she looked like when she was in her room.

Her room... It smelled so nice.

Recalling the time I had visited her house and the arousal I had felt back then, I was beset by regret again.

“Why didn’t I do it back then...?”

Now that things had come to this, perhaps she’d never casually invite me to her room again. Still, I didn’t want to be like her ex-boyfriends...though that would be pretty difficult, given they were surely handsome, sunny types.

“Okay, enough of this!” I told myself at last.

As these thoughts ran around my head in circles, the evening turned into night.

***

The first girl I’d properly fallen in love with in my life had been a feminine beauty with long black hair. She had been the one I’d confessed to in my first year of middle school, and was the source of my trauma.

Originally, that kind of girl had been my type. Even in anime and games, I absolutely preferred pure girls over sexy ones. That was why it felt a little strange to be walking around with a flamboyant kind of beauty who was the direct opposite. And she was even my...girlfriend on top of that.

Thinking about this, I couldn’t stop being nervous at my lack of experience.

What if someone were to see us? There was a part of me that maybe wanted that to happen, but I was scared of people talking me down, saying things like “Why a gloomy guy like him...?”

It was our Saturday date. Thoughts like that kept popping into my head as I walked around with Shirakawa-san, and my heart was pounding for various reasons.

“OMG! Isn’t this sooooo cute?!” she would exclaim every so often.

We were in one of the malls inside Shinjuku Station and on a floor filled with fashionable shops. I watched the excited Shirakawa-san browse here and there.

“This is so super cute!!! It’s way too cute for real! This is totally the sort of thing I’d buy in a few different colors!”

Frankly, I couldn’t tell what was so good about the things she praised so highly. There were tops with wide-open backs that I had no idea how someone would even put on, and then there was that bold, red lipstick she’d looked at too. Shirakawa-san picked up thing after thing and got excited about every one, but all of them were beyond my comprehension.

Another thing that I couldn’t understand was Shirakawa-san’s getup today. It sure was something.

She wore a white top that exposed her shoulders, a tight black miniskirt that seemed to be made of something leatherlike, and black sandals with a rather high heel—and on top of that, she had a bag with what looked like a snakeskin pattern.

She was a gyaru, all right. It was presumptuous of a generic high schooler like me to even walk beside her. Nobody would dare say she was anything less than a splendid fashionista—and she really was so, so cute.

I even overheard two girls exchanging whispers as they looked at Shirakawa-san. They looked like they were probably university students.

“Oh hey, isn’t that girl super cute?”

“Is she some model? I don’t know much about gyaru fashion, so I can’t really tell...”

I knew it—Shirakawa-san’s cute enough to stand out even here in the middle of the city.

With that in mind, the fact I walked with such a girl as her boyfriend was awe-inspiring, but it also made me happy and made my heart beat faster.

Ah, I really should’ve had sex with her... No, no, I’m different from her exes. Those two thoughts kept coming back to me, clashing over and over.

Meanwhile, Shirakawa-san was beside me, absorbed in the merch.

“Oh, damn! This is super cute! I dig it!”

Though she’d kept reusing almost completely the same vocabulary for a while now, her excitement seemed to be genuine. Her large, seemingly un-Japanese eyes with their distinct double eyelids sparkled, while her eyelashes, extra thick with mascara today, trembled in her joy. I found those glossy lips of hers stimulating too, imagining the sound they might make if I were to touch them.

Have I actually been into gyaru all along...? No, it’s just Shirakawa-san being cute. And while I wasn’t drawn to gyaru makeup or fashion in the slightest, they really suited her, so I thought that was why I was able to accept those parts of her looks.

I thought about all this as I spent about two hours watching her browse, looking at clothes and makeup. After that, we went to an Instagrammable café. As Shirakawa-san enjoyed a drink with so many toppings that it looked more like a parfait, she asked me a question.

“Hey, Ryuto...” she began, her tone noticeably lower than earlier when she was in a constant state of excitement. “Are you okay? Isn’t this kind of date pretty boring for you?”

“It’s not, really.”

While I meant what I said, Shirakawa-san knitted her brown, parallel eyebrows. “That’s a lie. You didn’t look at the stuff in the stores at all, did you?”

“Wh-What?” I stammered. “Well, uhh, what can I say...?”

She was right about that. How were shops full of trendy women’s clothes supposed to pique a guy’s interest? And it would be one thing if we’d been looking at unisex clothes, but everything had been completely oriented toward gyaru. I couldn’t keep up appearances here.

“Still,” I continued after a brief silence, “it wasn’t boring.” A moment later, I nervously added the truth, despite worrying she might be creeped out. “Because I...could watch you.”

Shirakawa-san looked surprised at my reply. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Huh?!” I was a little flustered, not expecting her to dig so deeply. “I mean, uh... I was just seeing what kinda clothes you like, and thinking how cute you look when you’re happy... Wow, sorry, that must be creepy of me...”

I shifted into self-disparagement, unable to put up with myself anymore.

However, Shirakawa-san shook her head with a serious look on her face. “Watching me shopping...was fun for you?” she asked.

I nodded. “Watching you have fun... I don’t know, it kinda made it fun for me too.”

Shirakawa-san went silent, appearing to be taken aback. As I watched her, wondering if I’d said something bad, her cheeks took on a pink shade.

“What the hell...?” she finally said. “That’s kinda embarrassing.”

This time it was my turn to go silent. H-How cute! Shirakawa-san, of all people, is blushing?

“You really are kinda weird,” she added. Her bashful smile was innocent and lovely, like that of a little girl.

Oh boy. I loved Shirakawa-san. I mean, I’d always admired her, but ever since I’d started going out with her, I’d been falling deeper and deeper in love.

At that point, her smartphone vibrated on the table.

“Oh, it’s from Nicole,” said Shirakawa-san, seeing the previously dark screen light up. It had numerous message notifications. “Gimme a minute,” she told me, taking the smartphone in hand and beginning to swipe at it in silence—probably typing a reply.

Left with nothing to do, I looked around the café to pass the time. Shirakawa-san had taken me to a terrace café with a beach-resort theme. The aisles were like beachside wood decks, and there were even zones covered with white sand. It was the kind of café obviously meant for sunny types, where a gloomy guy like me could surely never have set foot alone.

I worried about whether someone like me should even be in such a place. Unable to relax, I returned my gaze to Shirakawa-san in front of me.

No matter what angle I looked at her from, she was really adorable. It had really sunk in after I’d been walking around with her today.

And as for me? People might’ve thought I was an idiot, or a dork, no matter what angle they looked at me from. I could only hope that they weren’t thinking such things...

It was a little unsettling.

Oh well, not like there was any point in dwelling on it further. It was an immutable fact that I wasn’t some handsome guy who was a good match for Shirakawa-san, so I needed to at least keep it together on the inside... Not that I was sure I could do that.

Shirakawa-san was still typing away on her smartphone. She seemed really close with this Nicole. I always found it too much of a bother to type out messages, so I rarely talked to Icchi or Nisshi over LINE. Even when I did, we’d only send each other a message or two.