I talked up a storm as I looked at my own cup of bubble tea, but I came to my senses with a start. When I looked up at last, I saw Shirakawa-san with her mouth agape.
“Ah...” came out of my mouth.
Now I’ve done it. Damn... This went beyond “too creepy.” She must’ve been recoiling so hard that she would practically be on the other side of the planet by now...
As I stood there turning pale with such thoughts running through my head, Shirakawa-san smiled in a way that looked forced.
“W-Wow, Ryuto. You like bubble tea that much?”
“Huh? Y-Yeah... Ah, no.” It wasn’t worth lying about, so I decided to reply honestly. “I heard you like bubble tea...so I did my research for today. There are way too many bubble tea cafés in this area, and I wanted to take you somewhere you’d like...”
“What? So...you did it for me?”
I swore I noticed her eyes sparkle for a moment there.
“Y-Yeah... But I guess I went overboard...”
“You really did!”
I flinched at her words, but when I looked at her face, she was smiling.
“That’s hilarious, though. I mean, you’re an actual bubble tea critic now! Would someone normally go that far?” She laughed as she looked between the map and my face.
“S-Still, it’s not like I went to all of the marked cafés,” I countered. “I relied on reviews and blog posts for some of them, you know?”
“That doesn’t change the fact it’s a lot of work, right? You didn’t have to go that far,” she said, traces of a smile still on her face.
I smiled too. “Y-Yeah, I think so too. Although...” What had motivated me to go to such lengths was something more pure. “I wanted to come to like at least one of the things that you like.”
Even if I went a little too far, I added inwardly, casting my eyes down as I reflected on my actions.
After some time passed without Shirakawa-san reacting in any way, I looked up again. My next thought was, Oh, crap.
She stood there and stared at me, frozen. With her mouth slightly agape, her face said she was dumbfounded in shock, or maybe simply surprised, depending on how you wanted to interpret it.
Now what...? Maybe she’s creeped out by my cringey line that made it all too obvious I’m a virgin. Was what I said really so heavy...? Should I pass it off as a joke, even now that some time has passed?
As I nervously looked at her with these thoughts coursing through my head, Shirakawa-san’s expression finally changed. Her cheeks flushed, and her lips curled up into a smile.
“Huh...?” I uttered in reaction.
My words hadn’t creeped her out?
As my internal turmoil continued, Shirakawa-san spoke bashfully with a happy expression on her face. “For real? That’s...the first time someone’s said something like that to me.”
At this moment, Shirakawa-san looked so pure and sweet that it didn’t match her loud, fashionable appearance.
“Thank you, Ryuto,” she whispered.
The sight of her reaction made my heart swell, ridding it of my worries.
Shirakawa-san gave me her best smile. “I feel like today’s bubble tea was the best I’ve ever had!”
After that, we went around Harajuku’s bubble tea cafés in succession. Shirakawa-san proved to be truly insatiable when it came to bubble tea and fully downed her cup at every single café we went to.
“Hey, Ryuto, you’re not gonna have more?” she asked me.
“I had a cup at the last place, so...”
“But this one’s great too, you know?”
“My stomach is all sloshy already...”
I wondered how she was fine drinking so much despite wearing a tight dress. She’d had so much bubble tea already, so where had all the water from it gone?
“Hm... Oh well. Here, have a sip of mine,” said Shirakawa-san, holding out her plastic cup to me.
The straw sticking out of her drink had red lip gloss with fine sparkles on it. My heartbeat shot up at the unexpected opportunity for an indirect kiss.
“You don’t want it? Are you that full?” she asked, since I was frozen up.
“N-No... I-I’ll take a sip. Thanks,” I said, hurriedly taking the cup and bringing my mouth to the straw.
“How is it? Isn’t cheese foam and rock salt just crazy good? They’re really the best toppings!”
“Y-Yeah, you’re right,” I replied after a pause.
Honestly, I couldn’t really tell the taste due to how fast my heart was pounding. Shirakawa-san took the cup back from me and started sipping on the straw again.
Wow, a mutual indirect kiss...
Then again, I was probably the only one thinking that way. Maybe Shirakawa-san unconsciously did this even with her male friends. But just as the thought of it made me a little dejected...
Shirakawa-san looked at me and smirked. “We just had an indirect kiss.”
“What...? What?!”
How dirty of you to bring that up after a delay, Shirakawa-san!
“Wow, look at you, Ryuto! You’re red as a tomato!” she added, teasing me with a grin as I suddenly got embarrassed.
Perhaps the pairing of a plain guy and a true gyaru straight out of a fashion magazine looked mismatched to the people around us, but at this moment, I was incredibly happy to spend time with Shirakawa-san.
***
Before I knew it, we’d ended up skipping both lunch and snacks, hitting bubble tea café after café. We visited six of them in all. And to my surprise, Shirakawa-san had ordered a bubble tea for herself at each one—and had drunk every last drop.
“Man, I’m so bubble-full now! Thanks, Ryuto!” she exclaimed.
“You’re done with bubble tea now?” I asked.
“Yeah, after this much. I’ve never been so satisfied before!” Her pleased smile served as proof of her words.
By now, it was nearly six in the evening. Naturally, buying bubble tea hadn’t been without its difficulties, and we’d had to line up for it at every café—and at some for longer than at others. We’d even had to walk close to Shibuya at one point, so it all seemed to have taken quite a long time.
“Well, then...” I began.
Just like on our previous date, I’d decided beforehand that we’d go home before it got too late. We were both still high school students and minors, and I thought of this as one way of treasuring Shirakawa-san.
Regrets continued to gnaw at me. To be honest, I want to have sex, though... Man, I should’ve done it back then in her room...
Still, this was Shirakawa-san’s birthday, and I wanted her to do only things she liked. First, I’d treat her to bubble tea...
“Ah!” I exclaimed, recalling something.
“What’s wrong, Ryuto?” asked Shirakawa-san.
I silently thought for a while, remembering that I’d yet to buy her a present.
“You should ask Runa on your date what she wants for her present. People have different tastes in accessories and stuff like that, so even between girls, it’s hard to pick something someone else will like. That is, unless you have a ton of confidence in your taste.”
I didn’t have any, of course, which was why I’d planned to follow Yamana-san’s advice and have Shirakawa-san choose her own gift. And I’d intended to let her have her fill of bubble tea first...but I’d never expected we’d be going around bubble tea cafés until such a late hour.
And that wasn’t the end of it. As I opened my wallet in Shirakawa-san’s blind spot to check how much money I had left, I saw just barely over a thousand yen.
“No way...” I said.
I’d left home with ten thousand, so how had things ended up like this...? Bubble tea was way too expensive.
“Um... Shirakawa-san,” I timidly began. “I’m sorry... I wanted to let you choose your birthday present, but I only have a thousand yen left. If there’s anything you want that I can buy with that...”
I knew it wouldn’t make me look good, but I was honest anyway.
“Huh?” Shirakawa-san opened her eyes wide in apparent surprise. “But you already gave me a present. You treated me to bubble tea.”
“No, I mean, I wanted to give you something lasting as well...”
“Then how about this? This is what I want.”
With that, Shirakawa-san took the paper from my hands—my homemade bubble tea map, which we’d used the whole day as we walked around.
“This is amazing. There’s no other map like this in the entire world. All the bubble tea I had today was super tasty. And it was all thanks to your research,” continued Shirakawa-san with a happy smile, looking at the folded map. “Nobody’s ever done something like this for me before, so...I want this map as a keepsake. Isn’t it basically a proof of your love, showing how far you went for me?”
Her words moved me deeply. “Shirakawa-san...”
“I’ll take good care of this map, so maybe we can go on another bubble tea date sometime?” she asked with upturned eyes.
I gave a deep nod. “Of course... Oh, but I’ll update it when the time comes. There might be new cafés by then,” I happily replied, prompting a laugh from Shirakawa-san.
“Thanks, Ryuto.” She directed a dazzling smile at me. “This was the best seventeenth birthday I could’ve ever had!”
***
With that, the birthday date came to a successful end.
When Monday came, my head was even more full of Shirakawa-san than usual. I recalled her ecstatic smile as she’d said, “It’s great!” after sipping on bubble tea, her slightly bashful smile, and all the other expressions she’d shown only to me...
She smelled so nice too. It was that same smell as in her room... Ah, I really should’ve done it with her back then...
At some point while I was absentmindedly thinking things over, class had ended and break time had started. I’ve gotta stop daydreaming so much. I’ve never gone this far before. But as I fretted over the subject all by myself, sitting at my desk...
“Hey, Kashima-kun,” came a voice from a seat beside me.
Turning to the source of it, I saw Kurose-san looking my way. Both of her hands were tucked under her chin, which made the too-long sleeves of the cardigan she had on top of her summer uniform stand out in an aggressively cute way. Perhaps it was because she was so tiny.
“What?” I asked.
Kurose-san gave me a knowing smile. “Who’s your girlfriend?” she asked. “I’m really curious. Could you tell me?”
“Oh...”
That topic again. I’d never told her because the teacher had come back just as I was about to say it last time.
“To tell the truth...” I began—but then suddenly recalled the LINE chat Shirakawa-san had shown me and went silent.
Yuna: Nicole was on a date in McDonalds with some plain guy from our class lol
Akari: For real? Lmao
It seemed those girls had found it funny that a guy like me was getting along with a good-looking girl. That meant that if people found out... If it became clear that Shirakawa-san and I were dating, they’d laugh at her. That was harder for me to bear than people telling me I was a poor match for her.
“I really can’t tell you after all. Sorry,” I finally said, and got up from my seat.
If I didn’t want everyone to know something, I shouldn’t tell Kurose-san either. I couldn’t cause trouble for Shirakawa-san for the sake of showing off. That was my reasoning.
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