Our Dating Story: The Experienced You and The Inexperienced Me - Volume 5 - Chapter 2.3

Runa leaned against me for the rest of the movie.

During the last scene, when the main couple shared a loving kiss, I grew conscious of Runa and adjusted my position slightly. She lifted her head from my shoulder and looked at me. Her eyes trembled with apparent expectation.

No way... Can I kiss her? Sure, it’s dark here, but someone could see us...

With my heart beating loudly, I brought my face close to hers, when...

DAAAAA!

A tune blared through the hall, making me freeze. It seemed that the movie had just ended and it was time for the end credits to roll.

Looking over at Runa, I saw her make a surprised face too. When our eyes met, she gave me an awkward smile.

We hadn’t managed to kiss, but oddly enough, Runa’s smile left me feeling fulfilled and warm on the inside.

After leaving the theater, we strolled around the shopping mall and decided to have dinner at a food court on the first floor. Eating at a table on a wooden deck under an atrium that extended to the third floor felt just a bit special.

There was a wide choice of food available from udon to ramen to hamburgers... Runa and I both went for hamburg steak, which came with rice and soup. But as we enjoyed our slightly extravagant dinner together...

“Huh...? Shirakawa-san?!”

A woman had called out to Runa and approached our table.

“Ah, good evening!” replied Runa, hurriedly putting her fork down.

At first, I assumed this was someone from our school, but when I looked at the woman, I realized I didn’t know her. She looked a bit older than us and she didn’t seem to be a former classmate of Runa’s from middle school or something like that. She was your typical contemporary, fashionable young woman, so I could see her being either a student or a working adult.

“Are you on a date with your boyfriend?” she asked.

“Ah, yeah...”

She clapped her hands excitedly. “He does look sweet!”

I’d stopped eating and could only sit still.

“You were in today, right? Haven’t you been there all week? And you’ve only just started. That’s admirable, seriously.”

“Oh, uh, well...” Runa looked at me in panic.

Seeing her expression, I understood what this was about. This woman must’ve been someone, probably a coworker, from Champs de Fleurs—the cake shop where Runa worked.

It appeared they were close enough that Runa had told her that she had a boyfriend, but not that she had been keeping her job a secret in order to surprise me.

“Ah, sorry to barge in on your date, you two. Are you coming tomorrow?”

“No, I can’t this week...”

“Oh, right, you have that school trip, don’t you? Okay, see you the week after that, then!”

Seeming to have picked up on Runa’s lack of enthusiasm for this conversation, the woman quickly left.

Taking peeks at me, Runa looked uncomfortable. I could tell she was anxiously thinking about what to say.

“Who was that?” I asked. While I pretty much already knew, it probably would’ve been unnatural if I didn’t seem curious.

“Um, well...” Runa averted her eyes, looking stumped. “I-I dunno...”

I couldn’t stop myself from making a strong retort. “You don’t know?!”

I know Runa is bad at lying, but come on!

They’d had a normal conversation and the woman had definitely called her “Shirakawa-san.” Actually, since we were on a date at a shopping mall that was within walking distance of where she worked, she could’ve easily imagined this happening yet she hadn’t come up with an explanation in advance. It was very much like her.

“Did she take you for someone else? Well, strange coincidences happen,” I said to help her out, feeling pity for her.

Looking relieved, Runa nodded. “Y-Yeah, that’s right. I wonder what that was about.”

Seeing that she still looked awkward, I took something out of my backpack in an attempt to change the topic.

“Here,” I said. “This is your White Day present.”

It was a small bouquet. I’d had it somewhat shoved into my backpack since I felt awkward about anyone seeing it, so it had gotten slightly smushed. I’d asked a staff member at the flower shop to make it for me after I’d shown them a picture of Runa, so the flowers must’ve been chosen in good taste.

Of course, it had been the first time in my life that I’d bought flowers all by myself, so the experience had felt extremely awkward.

“Flowers...” Runa uttered, gazing at the bouquet.

Then, something occurred to me.

“Oh, sorry, should I have gone with sweets, after all?” I asked, flustered. “I brought chocolate too, just in case...”

Then, I took out a glossy brown paper bag with chocolate inside. I’d gotten it at the chocolate place where we’d had chocolate drinks together on Valentine’s Day.

“Oh, thanks... I love their chocolate!” Runa opened her eyes wide and clapped her hands. What seemed to have captivated her, however, was the bouquet. “I think this is my first time getting flowers from a boy,” she said quietly, gazing at the bouquet of light-blue, yellow, and violet blossoms.

“R-Really...? That’s unexpected... I wonder why.”

I could easily imagine extroverted, handsome guys giving flowers to their girlfriends. I’d been certain that Runa was used to getting them.

“I dunno. Maybe it just doesn’t suit my look? Gyaru and bouquets don’t really go well together,” she replied after some thought. “Flowers have this prim and proper image, no? They’d kinda suit someone like Maria better... I remember back in primary school, when it was our birthday, I was kinda jelly when I saw her come home with a flower that she got from a boy. He had picked it from the roadside...” She’d kept her eyes down while she told that story, but then she looked at the bouquet in her hands and smiled. “Why did you go for flowers, Ryuto?”

“Oh, uh...” Her smile and her gaze made me stagger a bit. “Well, remember how you went home with that bottle of Oronamin C the other day? If you were going to put flowers in it, I figured you might like putting flowers around the house... Ah, I mean I’m sure this bouquet wouldn’t fit into a bottle, but you could take one flower out and put it in...”

For some reason, Runa ducked her head. She had turned beet red.

“Runa...?”

As I called out to her, wondering what this was about, she raised her face.

“I-It’s nothing... Thanks. I’ll put these in...” she said, her voice trailing off, then leaned in closer to the bouquet. “They smell nice... I’m so happy...”

As Runa looked relieved, an innocent expression appeared on her face, much like a little girl’s.

When I saw this, I realized something—Runa herself was like a bouquet.

Some flowers drew the eye with their vibrant colors, while others, such as the pure-white baby’s breath, were sweet and ephemeral. All of these qualities came together and made Runa as attractive as she was.

Every element of this flower arrangement played a role in making Runa shine.

Such were my thoughts upon seeing Runa happily smiling with the bouquet in her hands.

***

By the time we had finished our lunch and left the mall, night had completely settled in.

We took a train from Station K to Station A. While I walked Runa home, I thought back to what had happened at the theater.

“What did you think of the movie?” I asked.

“Hm? It was fun,” replied Runa with a smile.

We’d talked about it right after seeing it too, and she’d said it had been fun and that she was glad things had ended happily for the couple on-screen, but it didn’t look to me like she’d had much attachment to the film either.

“Why did you want to go see a movie?”

Runa tilted her head. “Well... It’s embarrassing, but I wanted to be close to you.”

“Huh?”

“Remember how when we started going out and talked about going on our first date, you brought up going to see a movie? I didn’t really get it and wondered if you were into movies or if there was some particular one you wanted to see...” Runa slightly narrowed her eyes nostalgically. “But I think now I know what that was about. You wanted to be right next to your loved one... But then your heart pounds and you feel awkward, so you can’t look them in the eye... But you still want to be close to them, so you think watching a movie together might be a good idea. I’m sure it was like that for you too. Right...?”

“Y-Yeah...” I nodded timidly.

Now that she’d mentioned it, that might’ve been the case, but it was more like I’d simply given a generic suggestion for a first date.

“It’s been a while since I felt you so close to me... You were so warm, and my heart wouldn’t stop pounding.”

Her words startled me, bringing me back to when our eyes had met during the movie.

There were only a few dozen meters between us and her house. We relied on the streetlights as we walked down the road lined with detached wooden houses—a setting that had already become so familiar to me.

The distance between us was roughly twenty centimeters. Up until this point, I hadn’t been able to bring myself to touch her, afraid of being rejected...

Making up my mind, I softly reached out for her fair hand. But at the same time...

To my surprise, Runa took my hand of her own accord. Although “hand” might’ve been an overstatement—it was just my pinkie, to be precise.

Holding my pinkie finger, she kept her head down and seemed to be enduring a wave of embarrassment.

It felt like her finger could snap if I were to put too much strength into mine. Controlling the way my hand was swinging the best I could so it would match her rhythm, I focused all of my senses on the warmth on my smallest finger.

She was right next to me, yet I could only touch her pinkie.

But as frustrating as that was...

For the first time in a good while, I was holding hands with Runa again as we walked together. The thought of it moved me.

I wished the road would never end.