Our Dating Story: The Experienced You and The Inexperienced Me - Volume 7 - Chapter 4.1

Chapter 4

July arrived, and so did my university exams. As always, some of them were challenging and others less so, but I felt like I’d done well enough in all of them.

Once a university student finished their exams, summer break began. Mine had already started, but I had to pay a visit to the student affairs office and had arranged to meet up with a friend on the way.

I found Nisshi at the ticket gates at the station closest to my school.

“Hey, Nisshi,” I said.

“’Sup. It’s been a while.”

We hadn’t seen each other since the thing with Icchi and Chamotaro-san, so it had been approximately four months since we’d last hung out.

“How are things with Yamana-san?” I asked.

“All right, I guess.”

We walked side by side to the university, talking on the way.

Sekiya-san had gone to Hokkaido for school, and he and Yamana-san had broken up. Immediately after that, she had started dating Nisshi. He’d told me about it over LINE before, so this was my first time hearing it directly from his mouth.

“Do you see each other often?” I asked.

“Yeah; not much has changed on that front. Even before we got together, we’d go out to eat once or twice a week.”

“Really?”

His attitude was somewhat surprising. Nisshi’d had a one-sided crush on Yamana-san since high school, so I’d assumed he’d be more excited now that his feelings had been returned.

Then again, he was a bit of a show-off, so maybe he was just hiding his excitement from me.

“Hasn’t Shirakawa-san told you about us?” he asked.

“Huh? Well...” I thought back on my recent conversations with Runa. “I don’t think she really mentioned it...”

“Seriously?” Nisshi looked surprised. “So Nicole doesn’t even talk about me to Shirakawa-san...?”

“Nah, there’s no way she doesn’t.” I laughed it off.

While the two of them didn’t talk on the phone practically every night like they’d done in high school, they were still best friends.

“I haven’t gotten to see Runa much since getting into university, and when we do see each other, there’s so much to talk about that she probably just forgets to bring it up. Just like how I’ve been forgetting to ask her about it,” I said.

“Well, I guess that’s fair. You probably don’t have time to talk about other people. Glad to hear you two are still going strong,” he said. There was a hint of jealousy in his voice—it made me nervous.

“But, like, it’s only been, what, three months since you started dating Yamana-san in April? Aren’t you two in the most fun part of it now?”

I’d never dated anyone other than Runa, so I couldn’t know for sure, but it felt like I’d heard something of that sort before.

“Well, I guess it’s fun for me. I’ve always loved her and all,” Nisshi replied, but he sounded in low spirits.

No matter how I looked at it, he didn’t seem to be just putting on airs here. But somehow, I couldn’t ask him about it, so I decided to change the subject for the time being.

“By the way, how’s your job? You still work at the same place?” I asked.

“Yeah, sure do.”

Nisshi had been working in the kitchen of a family restaurant since his first year in university. He didn’t work many shifts—only three a week—but I was impressed by how long he’d stuck with it.

“It’s easy for me since I’m in the kitchen and don’t have to deal with any customers. I just take a plate with a salad out of the fridge, unwrap it, dress it a bit, and that’s it.”

“That honestly sounds pretty dystopian...”

“That’s why it takes so little time,” he said.

“Guess you guys work hard to keep the prices from rising.”

“What about you? You still got that job at the cram school?” he asked me.

“Just on Saturdays. My main job now is at Iidabashi Publishing, in the editing department.”

“Oh yeah, you did mention that. And Kurose-san works there too, right?”

As we chatted, we reached the campus of Houo University.

After the four of us—meaning Nisshi, Runa, Yamana-san, and I—had gone for a drive in February, Nisshi and I had been staying in touch more. I’d wanted to see him in person sooner, in part to ask about his relationship with Yamana-san, but our schedules had never quite aligned due to school and work.

That mismatch in timing had gone on until today when we were both done with classes and exams. I happened to have time to see him before my shift at the editing department. I’d offered to go meet him after finishing my business at my school, but Nisshi had said he wanted to see Houo, so we’d agreed to have lunch there.

“Wow, this place is huge,” he said in surprise upon seeing a building that had come into view right after we’d passed through the school’s main gate. “This one looks pretty new.”

“Yeah. Though there’s also a lot of old ones in the back.”

“Huh. I guess you wouldn’t normally go see colleges and universities other than your own.”

“It’s the same for me. You should show me around Seimei University sometime.”

“Sure, no problem. I don’t really make the most of its facilities, though.”

We continued chatting as we entered the campus.

“There’s three cafeterias here. Which one do you want to go to?”

“Three?! Wow... Which one do you recommend?”

“Well...”

The one I often went to with Kujibayashi-kun was the kind of place you’d expect sporty people to go to, so it might not have been the best idea to show it to Nisshi. He’d definitely come here looking to see something with a strong “Houo” feel to it. The dining hall below it was an ordinary consumers’ co-op you could find anywhere. Which left...

“I know which one you’ll like,” I said.

“All right, lead the way.”

Thus, Nisshi and I went to a cafeteria I’d only ever visited a couple of times.

That cafeteria was located on the fourth floor of the building in front of the main gate. The area was still new and had a clean feel to it, so it was popular with girls. At the same time, that made it hard for total introverts with barely any friends, like me, to approach it.

Unlike Kujibayashi-kun, whose outfits were about as crazy as what Icchi often wore, Nisshi dressed pretty fashionably these days. It felt like I was bringing an extroverted friend along with me, which let me carry myself with more confidence than usual.

The cafeteria’s glass walls provided excellent natural light inside. Stepping into the cafeteria, we sat at a table as far away from other people as possible.

Nisshi had ordered a lunch set and sat down with his tray. “All these Houo folks sure look smart,” he said while looking around.

As exams were coming to an end, there weren’t as many people here as you’d normally see at lunch. There were still some students studying alone here and there—they must’ve still had more tests to take. There were also many more girls around than guys on the whole.

“Gotta say, though, it’s hard to relax in a place like this,” said Nisshi.

“Do you want to watch something from KEN?”

That’d been what we’d often done on lunch breaks back in high school.

Nisshi looked shocked by my suggestion. “Dude, don’t even bring that up! You realize that once you go to college, you can only watch KEN secretly in private, right?! Especially if we’re talking about a cafeteria full of girls! I better not hear you mention him again today!”

“What?!”

Is it really that bad?

I was curious about Nisshi’s opinion of watching KEN these days, but perhaps not knowing about that was already a sign that I’d left the front ranks of his fans. It was really sad to think about.

Either way, my idea of watching videos had been shot down, so we simply made small talk over lunch.

“By the way, what about Icchi?” I asked. “I haven’t seen him much among active Kids recently. Have you stayed in touch?”

“Nah. No, wait, I did call him once.”

“Hm?”

“It was to tell him that I started dating Nicole,” Nisshi said. “Apparently Tanikita-san was there, though, and that’s how he already knew about us. They kept giggling the whole time and it pissed me off, so I hung up right away.”

“I see...”

I felt like I hadn’t gotten in touch with Icchi even once since the thing with Chamotaro-san.

“I wonder what he’s up to these days...” Nisshi said.

“I hope he’s doing well.”

“I’m sure he is. We’re good enough friends that I’m sure I’ll get invited to his funeral if he dies.”

I laughed at his dark joke and continued eating my meal. I was having pork and mustard spinach pasta today.

“You know...” Nisshi began, carrying a bite of omurice with demi-glace on it to his mouth, “Tanikita-san is cute, but she’s a pain to deal with. She’s totally the type to dominate her boyfriend.”

“Well, there are people who’d be happy with that. That probably includes Icchi,” I replied.

“Are you talking about their bedroom life?”

The sudden dirty joke shook me up. “What?! N-No...!”

“What about you, anyway?”

“Huh? What are you talking about, exactly...? Our power dynamic?”

Nisshi smiled in a meaningful way. “That and the other thing, I guess.” Then, he shot me a grin.

“You know it’s daytime, right...?”

I’d yet to tell Nisshi that Runa and I hadn’t had sex yet, so this topic was somewhat awkward.

“What about you and Yamana-san?” I asked. “If you want to know my situation, tell me yours first.”

Nisshi looked visibly perturbed by my counterattack. “There’s nothing to tell, really.”

“Huh...?”

He didn’t look me in the eye and faced the window instead. He had the same strange look on his face that had appeared whenever the subject of him and Yamana-san had come up, starting with our conversation in front of the station earlier.

Are things not going well between them? It’s only been three months.

Just as I thought that...

“I’m not sure she even sees me as a guy,” Nisshi said all of a sudden, hanging his head. “I didn’t think our relationship would see this little development in three months.”

So they haven’t done the kinds of things that couples do?

I myself was still a virgin after four years of dating, and I thought it was okay so long as the parties involved didn’t have a problem with it. I could tell from the look on Nisshi’s face that he wasn’t satisfied with his current situation, however.

“Have you...done nothing at all?” I asked delicately.

Nisshi glanced at me. “We hold hands. But that’s it,” he said, sounding disgruntled.

“I see...”

“Even when we walk around Odaiba at night, things don’t feel any different from when we go on dates in the daytime.”

“Right...”

I wasn’t good at that sort of thing myself—it felt like I always let Runa take the lead. Frustratingly, I couldn’t give him any advice here.

“The mood just never becomes how it should be, even though I’m doing my best... It’s like she’s not letting it change...”

Perhaps he didn’t actually want to say this to anyone, not even to me.

Nisshi continued to look irritated. “Like, we’ll hold hands, and she’ll talk about how my hand is smaller than hers and generally tease me like that.”

“Huh...”

All I could do was give one-word replies to show that I was listening.

I recalled how Sekiya-san had looked while holding a cup at that ramen place. Sure enough, he was tall and had big, masculine hands. I seemed to remember that although they were slender, they were also brawny and sinewy—probably because he’d played ping-pong back in the day.