3 The Date (2/2)

Mizuhara pouts cutely and lets Kazuya lead her to the tanks with the fish.

"Since this is your first time, you're lucky to have come here with me."

He naturally gets a bit into her personal space and whispers in her ear, "I'll be gentle."

He pulls back before she's able to react. She blushed at the close contact that left her heart beating faster and was going to scold him.

Sadly for her, it was just not her day. Kazuya, already expecting an outburst, distracted her with fish.

"Look, those are glowlight Tetras, aren't they cute?" He looks back at Chizuru who's not amused.

"All right fine. I'm sorry for getting into your personal space. I'll ask you next time."

"Next time!?"

"Don't sweat the details." His cheeky smile makes Chizuru want to punch him.

They both go around the aquarium for the next hour while Kazuya, instead of telling her about meaningless fish bullshit talks to her while looking at the beautiful fishes.

The aquarium has a pretty romantic environment with all the dimmed lighting and glowing cute fishes. They both just enjoy each other's company while admiring the fish.

"Do you have something you want to do? A dream maybe?" Kazuya asks her since he could tell that she was pretty professional about the date stuff.

He was damn sure that she wasn't planning to be promoted to a real prostitute from a fake one.

"Me? I want to be an actress." Mizuhara's words are naturally flowing and don't have the overenthusiastic tone of her perfect girlfriend persona. She's already forgotten that she's on a rental date and it's as if she's hanging out with Kazuya.

"Really? Shouldn't you be going to film school then?" Kazuya asks her.

"There were some circumstances, so I just take acting classes after college and do the rental thing as practice for my acting."

"Well, good for you. You're following your dreams even after setbacks. Not a lot of people can do that."

"Thank you."

"You can ask me if you ever need my help."

"I don't think I would. I can take care of my dream on my own, thank you very much."

"Oh dear, my heart has been wounded." Kazuya puts his hand over his heart and acts as if she's stabbed him in the chest.

Her deadpan look conveys that she is not amused.

Kazuya's smile is infuriating for Chizuru.

"I wanna punch you in the face."

"You could do that but I'll give you a bad review." Kazuya chuckles as he watches her expression go completely stiff.

Chizuru is startled when she remembers that this is a rental date and realizes that her perfect girlfriend persona was nowhere to be found when hanging out with Kazuya.

"I know that look. You just realized that I saw your real self and now you're thinking of ways to salvage the situation."

"How-"

"Don't worry about your rating. I'll be giving you five stars. Not because of your acting but because I had a genuinely fun time hanging out with you."

"Sigh." Chizuru gives up and decides to go with the flow because at this point there's no reason to start acting again, she might as well have a good time.

After they're done with the aquarium, they walk out of the exit.

"You wanna get something to eat?" Kazuya invites her to get dinner with him.

"Sure Kazuya-kun." Her bright smile made Kazuya's heart skip a beat.

"I know a nice sushi bar nearby, let's go there." They walk to the sushi bar.

"So how was the date today, Mizuhara?" Kazuya is curious about how he did.

"What do you mean?" She tilts her head in mild curiosity.

"I mean that I want feedback from you. You regularly go with people on such dates. How do I compare?"

"Honestly… You're nowhere close to the kind of people that I go out with usually. You're very different. You're much more confident and a natural talker. My other clients on the other hand…" She hesitates because she doesn't want to badmouth her clients.

"…Are desperate, socially inept people who can't maintain eye contact for more than a few seconds?" Kazuya finishes her sentence for her.

"…Yeah, that, I guess. So you've got that in the bag. I don't even know why you booked this date in the first place. You don't seem like you're someone who'd need this stuff."

"Sigh…A sad and horny man makes some weird decisions. I won't say bad decisions because I genuinely had fun today but I'd much rather go out with you on a real date."

Chizuru blushes and dismisses his words all too quickly, "I'm sorry but I'm a professional the terms and conditions of the app are strict that way. I shouldn't meet with clients off the books."

"Damn… a thorough rejection. I'm not surprised I guess. You've got your dreams to bring to reality."

"Thanks for understanding. It was honestly difficult to keep up with acting like the perfect girlfriend with you. I kept getting swept up in your rhythm. Do you have any feedback for me?" She's curious about what kind of feedback he'd give her.

"Well, your perfect girlfriend persona is pretty amazing. Not gonna lie, my heart skipped a few beats when you acted like that. But it does seem a little artificial sometimes."

"What? What do you mean?" Her face has worries marred all over it.

"Don't worry about it. Poor virgins can't notice the nuances, they'll be too busy imagining how cool it would be to be in a relationship with you. Like you seemed a little overenthusiastic about very meaningless things like us both being in college. It's cute but it'd be much better if you tone it down just a bit."

"I get it. Thank you for the advice."

"Anytime, Mizuhara. Let's leave. I'll drop you off at the station. I doubt you'd want random people to know where you live."

"Thanks for understanding." Mizuhara smiles beautifully and holds his hand on her initiative while they walk out of the sushi bar.

They walk in silence to the train station as Kazuya thinks, 'This was fun. I guess I'm should try to find someone to go on a real date with. This feels depressing.'

When they're finally at the station, "Thank you for today! I genuinely enjoyed it."

"I did too, Mizuhara."

"I don't think I'll be seeing you again but if you ever need some advice or comfort feel free to rent me again." Chizuru's beautiful smile coupled with her words makes him realize that she's wearing the mask right now.

He shakes his head with a smile and says, "Later Mizuhara."

He turns around and walks away while waving the back of his hand at her.

'I don't think we'll be seeing each other again.'

He walks with his hands tucked behind his head and goes to the grocery store to get some stuff before going back home.

He spent the entirety of the next day after coming back from the gym on his freelancing account.

He spent a day trying to contact clients and bid for projects but it was bound to take some time, he still didn't get any clients but didn't give up trying. It was only a matter of time before he gets a few projects and some credibility for other clients.

At the end of the day, he got a call from his dad telling him that his grandma collapsed and was rushed to the hospital.

"I'll be right there, d-dad."

He felt weird calling some unknown stranger dad but knew that it would take him some time to completely get used to his new life.

He rushed to the hospital to meet his 'new' grandma.

"You guys keep exaggerating the situation. I just fainted a little. There's no need for everyone in the family to gather up." Like what old people usually do, Nagomi Kinoshita, Kazuya's grandma downplays her situation.

"Well of course we're worried about you. I have to make sure you're taking care of your body." Kazuya's mother, Harumi Kinoshita replies to her mother-in-law.

"She's right, mom. People your age need to care for their bodies. You also have the shop to care for." Kazuo Kinoshita, Kazuya's father, agrees with his wife.

Kazuya's sitting at the side. After greeting his grandma and asking about how she felt, he took a seat at the side while his parents were sitting on the sides of the hospital bed.

He was feeling a little detached from the family drama as he was still not completely up to terms with the existence of his new family.

After spending some time with his family and his mom asking him about his well-being he's left alone with his grandma for a few minutes before he leaves.

"I'm getting up there in age Kazuya. Have you found a girlfriend yet? I don't want to die before meeting your girlfriend."

He smiles a little self-deprecatingly, "I was dating this really cute girl for a while, Mami. I was thinking of bringing her to meet you. But she broke up with me on Friday. So, no go grandma."

Nagomi was excited when he talked about having a girlfriend but her enthusiasm died down with his following words.

"It's fine, Kazuya. You'll find your girl. Just keep it in mind, okay? And don't go around paying girls to do unspeakable things. My Kazuya is not that weak." She may be excited for him to bring home a girl but she was still very understanding.

"Haha, all right grandma. I'll listen to you." He said that while thinking inside, 'Oh you have no idea.'

When he finally left the hospital he decided to look for a game console for his room.

When he went around to buy that stuff he realized that most of the places only had Nintendo consoles.

'Fuck. I'll just look it up online.' He looked online for a place that sold more generic consoles like the Xbox and PlayStation and wasted an hour of his life to travel there only to be rejected with a, 'I'm sorry sir, they are out of stock.'

'Goddammit.' He didn't give up and after spending another hour to go to another place he finally got his hands on a PS5.

"This thing took far more effort than it should've." He says looking at the console in his hands.

When he finally returned home he say that it was already 11 so he just spent an hour setting it up and bought a few games and left them to download overnight. A college student can't exactly afford extremely high-speed wifi.

'It's good that I still remember English, most of my favorite games aren't even translated into Japanese.'

Leaving the console to download he took a nap on the futon.