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Chapter 7

 

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Translator: mii

Editor: Ryunakama

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At last, that kouhai finally reached her evil hands into my peaceful holidays.

No… It’s not even「at last」. It has only been a week or so. She is really good at shortening the distance with others.

Although I defended my morning desperately, I still had to go out in the afternoon.

As for where we’ll meet, she sent me LINE messages yesterday, after school was over. She told me to go to my usual nearest station, and the meeting point will be at the terminal station located in the opposite direction to the school on two o’clock. She even reminded me by saying「Please definitely come!」.

I went to that district often, since it is the closest among many bookstores. I don’t really have any resistance to go there itself.

Speaking of which, the promise is「to answer a question」anyway, so it’s not like I have to go or whatnot. So if I go, it will be with my own free will.

…If that kouhai already factored in that far, she definitely planned to make fun of me from the beginning, right?

Uwahh, I don’t want to go.

But, even if I go or not, both of the options will end up being a problem too.

I’m scared of her LINE, and also meeting her after the weekend ends at our usual commuting time. And then, I’m also automatically scared meeting her when I’m going home.

That’s why it will be hell even if I go, and it will even be hell if I don’t go. The hell is fixed already.

…I don’t have a lot of homework this week, and I’ll just browse the internet or play games even if I’m home anyway.

Oh well, let’s just go.

I took out my adequate jeans and shirt, changed my clothes, and left home.

Actually, I also wondered what kouhai-chan wanted to do with a male she knows almost nothing about…

＊　＊　＊

1:50 PM. I arrived ten minutes before the meeting time with senpai.

I thought that it would be better for me to come earlier since I aimed to run across him, and yet…

It seemed like he was even earlier than me. Isn’t it a little off? Actually, for him to come in the first place was strange already, but I’m glad that he really came.

「Good afternoon, senpai.」

「You have the wrong person……」

Senpai who seemed puzzled while looking at me suddenly stiffened for a while.

「Eh, is this real? Kouhai-chan? Who are you?」

「I’m really Kouhai-chan, you know.」

I just let my usually tied up hair down, but it seemed like it looks quite different from senpai’s reaction.

「Now, let’s start our『date』.」

I wonder if the reason senpai distorted his face was because of my way of talking, or because he tried to suppress his excitement. Anyway, I started walking to our destination after that.

＃　＃　＃

I was surprised.

Her impression really changed so much. Girls are truly scary. Even if she only put her hair down and changed her uniform to plain clothes (clothes like a white dress is definitely to kill people like me), she became a completely different person.

When I looked at her closely, I felt that the color of her lips was lighter than usual.

「You could also look like that, eh.」

I spilled my thoughts towards the back of the figure who was walking to who-knows-where.

「Well, I’m a girl after all.」

Turning her head to me while walking ahead, she continued.

「Am I cute?」

Rather than cute, she gave more of the impression like「ephemeral」. Yeah, that’s just right to describe her now.

However, since this is not「today’s question」, there’s no need for me to answer it seriously.

「Yes, yes. Cute, very cute.」

If I answered her like this with monotonously, this problem would settle peacefully.

「You don’t say it with any feelings at all……」

When we were having a meaningless conversation like this, I gradually started to know kouhai-chan’s destination. It was not a sophisticated home-ground.

「A cinema?」

Isn’t this the glorious first rank of「Don’t go here! The ranking spot for your first date」I saw on the internet?

「Yes.」

Kouhai-chan stopped at the line of movie posters that was currently being screened.

She turned around towards me this time, turning her arms slyly.

「Now then, senpai. This is『today’s question』. Which one of these movies do you want to see the most?」

Even though the movie’s advertisement was slammed here and there, but it took more than a thousand yen to watch only one movie, and it would need some resolution to watch them.

It was also bad that people used to need to go to the cinema to watch movies. In conclusion, TSUTAYA [1. Video rental shop in Japan.] is amazing.

Hmm…

There were various posters lined up in front of us. Starting from live filming to anime, which some of them I saw the trailer before on TV commercials, and some of them from my Twitter timeline.

Speaking of which, I wonder if that movie with「Narou」wave is still playing [2. ‘Narou’ wave means Japanese WN wave, when one movie/anime/manga is so similar to JP web novel plot, like transmigration, OP MC, etc. The movie referred here should be ‘Yesterday (2019)’, read more here: https://otapol.com/2019/05/post-65218.html/amp]… Ah, there it is. There’s also the movie featuring the same person who sings『Sand Planet』[3. This should refer to Fireworks, which MC will say at the next passage. The singer is Kenshi Yonezu, my bae♥ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AS4q9yaWJkI]. I also like war movies, but let’s skip that for today.

「Maybe『Fireworks』, or『I Want To Eat Your Pancreas』… [1. Fireworks (打ち上げ花火、下から見るか? 横から見るか?) and I Want To Eat Your Pancreas (君の膵臓をたべたい) are both very famous anime romance movie. I personally cried after reading the Pancreas light novel, it is really good~]」

「Oh my, do you have that kind of interest, senpai? You don’t have to be considerate of my interest, okay?」

「I just want to watch them for the story.」

Since I believe that I won’t be able to experience it myself, at least let me immerse myself in the fictional world.

「By the way, I asked you which『one』do you like the most.」

「Whichever is okay.」

「Then, let’s watch the one with the closest screening time.」

Looking at the surface beside us, it seemed like『Fireworks』will start sooner. We went to the elevator and rushed to the floor with screens.

「Do you know anything about this movie? I don’t know anything about this one at all myself,.」

「The picture is there. SHAFT.」

「Shaft what? A stick?」

「No, not stick. It’s the name of an animation company.」

「Hee……」

While showing off my little bits of knowledge that would make me get laughed at if my conversation partner is someone who has high passion in the subject, we reached the ticket counter.

「Two high school student tickets for the next『Fireworks』, please.」

「Certainly. Please show me your student ID card. Where would your seats be?」

When I chose the seats, I realized something important.

This is the first time for me to watch a movie together with a girl. I suddenly become somewhat tense now.

In addition, I heard that generally in a「date」, the man will be the one who usually pays.

Nowadays, males and females don’t have difference in terms of income (as long as one isn’t a part-timer with high school status, their lifeline will be on their pocket money. That means even now gender doesn’t matter), and even though I think that we should split the cost, I also have the view that「Since girls spend their money on fashion, a man should be able to treat her that much too」or something like that, so I don’t know what to do now.

Since I don’t know, what should I do?

I should just ask her then.

「Hey, this is『today’s question』for you.」

「Yes?」

「……Do you want me to treat you?」

Uh, I’m definitely the worst. Even a hundred years of passion will cool off with me.

「Because this is『today’s question』, I’ll answer it honestly. Of course I would appreciate it if you can treat me since I can save some money too. But since there’s no obligation that says that senpai has to treat me, I don’t really mind.」

Kouhai-chan is the one who invited me after all. It’s also true that there’s no obligation for me to treat her.

But then, I think I should be「treating」someone when there is something special happening.

「Then, I’ll pay it all.」

There was something special after all.

She took me out at the weekend where I will usually spend it lazing around at home. Well, even just that is already worth as much as movie tickets in my opinion. Yup.

Hearing our strange conversation, the young lady in the cinema counter gave us a puzzled look.

＊　＊　＊

The movie ended in around a hundred minutes.

So it was something about a loop, huh. I felt that most of the people might not come to watch this without knowing about that.

It was a very confusing movie, and the scene interpretation itself seemed to be quite divided.

During the screen time, I didn’t do anything particularly special with senpai.

Senpai will surely be the type that「plasters his eyes to the screen」, and above all, I don’t want to bother our surroundings.

「How was it?」

「It was kind of confusing…… I don’t know…」

The movie is certainly not a bittersweet movie that couples will watch.

Even as a study, we will need to watch it over and over again to understand the meaning. There’s not much that we can talk about right now.

When I glanced at the clock on my smartphone, we already passed the snack time, but it was still too early to have an evening meal.

「Senpai. What will we do after this?」

「Even if you ask me that we can just breakup now, yeah? I want to read the movie theories quickly.」

It seems like he was the type of person that doesn’t want other people to disturb him very much.

Since I have already used my『question』for today, there’s no necessity for me to force him to stay with me until he starts to hate me.

「That might be alright too. Then, let’s breakup here today. Senpai, thank you very much for paying for my movie ticket.」

＃　＃　＃

I was surprised again.

No, I really wanted to read about the theories, but I never thought that she would just let me do as I want that easily.

Seriously.

Today, I kept getting a lot of surprises from kouhai-chan.

Anyway, I was going to do my homework tomorrow, since I thought that I would be detained until night today. Now, I ended up having free time.

After going to the bookstore, let’s just go home.

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The things I knew about my senpai⑦

It seems like he is also quite interested in romance movies..

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