Capítulo 35: All Right! Fine! I Will Take You! – Chapter 33 – Haruno Doesn’t Go on Dates 1
I'm in a small Italian restaurant, out of the way so it offers some privacy from people walking by, yet with a friendly atmosphere that makes guests feel welcome even if most tables are currently empty. The waitress uniform is a simple, orange-checkered dress with a frilly white apron that won't make anyone but the most hardcore (and creepiest) of waitress otakus give them a second thought. It looks, at first blush, like the perfect spot to have a first lunch date in.
It also has the advantage of being the kind of place mother would decry as un-Japanese and unworthy of the Yukinoshita patronage.
"So, the most expensive item on the menu is this 'sirloin steak?'" Iroha asks our waitress from the other end of the table, the poor woman's service-friendly smile already straining.
"Yes, dear customer, although, if I could suggest—"
"No wagyu meat?" the little terror cuts her off.
"I'm afraid we don't carry such a… delicacy. As I've already explained."
"It's a pity. She's paying, you know?" she continues as she points at me, either blissfully unaware of the older woman's fraying temper or brave enough not to care about getting some liberal amounts of spit on her meal.
"Yes. I'm aware, dear customer. I'm also aware that you've been… ruminating over this for a while, so maybe you want me to come back later and take your order…?"
"Oh, no need! I'll have a Caesar's salad and the sirloin steak with Roquefort sauce, thank you very much. Also, how about a glass of red wi—"
"Absolutely not," the waitress tells an Iroha who's now pulling a disturbingly effective wounded puppy look, given she's been objectively a pain in our collective behinds for the past few minutes. So much so that now the waitress looks contrite. "How about some Podo Bongbong? It has actual, whole grapes on it," she offers in a conciliatory manner that suggests all spit-related vengeance is now forgotten.
"Oh! That sounds very nice, thank you," Iroha replies in a friendly, endearing manner that has the other woman blushing.
… I feel like I should be taking notes.
With no more food-related shenanigans, she departs, and I'm left alone with the younger girl who turns to me with the kind of smile that would make a shark break into a cold sweat until the paternity test results came back.
"So. Alone, at last," she says.
I blink at her.
"We've come here alone. We were alone the entire way here. We would've been alone sooner if you didn't insist on making that woman wish she'd never gotten into the service industry," I point out in what I feel even Yukino would think is a reasonable tone.
At least, the currently mellowing Yukino. I owe Yui whatever it is a therapist earns in a decade.
"Details, details. So… How's your first date going so far?" she has the nerve to ask me.
"Bold of you to assume—"
"Your first kiss was Shizuka, your second Hachiman. This is your first date unless you count your outings with Shizuka. Which you shouldn't, given she thought she was going out with a friend."
"For someone who pushed Hachiman to include me in whatever it is you call this—"
"Polycule."
"Not harem?"
"Not if everything goes according to plan," she replies with a smug grin as she leans back on her black metal chair, the round marble table between us hiding the nervous bounce of her leg from me, even if I can see how the movement makes her hair sway from side to side.
I narrow my eyes.
"You're scared of me," I finally tell her.
Her grin remains. Oh, not bad. Usually, people react far more obviously after being put on the spot.
"Of course I am," she answers with a cheerful tone.
I cock my head and pause the conversation as the waitress comes back with her Korean grape something and [my] glass of claret. It's not a vintage I know, but really, a generic Bordeaux should be good enough for a light lunch.
And, as the older woman departs with obvious relief at not getting entangled in whatever this is, I take the glass and swirl it to see the purplish tone is precisely as it should be, with no signs of sediment marring the—
"Do you know about wines?" she asks with at least polite interest.
I arch an eyebrow and look at her, the slender stem of the cup held between the tip of my fingers.
"Isn't this where you make a crack about me obviously knowing about everything?" I answer.
She smirks. Her leg's still bouncing.
"My father knew about wines."
My eyebrow comes back up. This may be… interesting.
"And yes, I know how your mind works because you and Hachiman are both far too obvious about that, Haruno. So you've now filed away that I talked about my father in the past, but there's no obvious grief on my tone, so you're thinking I was either orphaned long ago or—"
"He divorced your mother. It was shortly before you entered high school, and you had to go through some light bullying—a bit of ostracization and abandonment by former friends, I think—before leaving middle school behind, which accounts for your obvious focus on socialization and your eagerness to jump into what you perceive as an extended family. You're an only child, and you always resented your parents for not having a younger sibling, but now you feel guilty about it because you think your parents' problems should've been obvious to you long before the divorce, and you often wonder how much your mother—"
She grabs my hand over the table, her soft, warm skin contrasting with the cold marble below.
"Yes," she just says.
I don't move my hand away.
"So you understand why I'm giving you so much grief, don't you?" she says after a moment to gather herself.
I close my eyes and take a deep breath as I rest the cup back down on the marble with a soft, clacking noise.
"Do you really want me to answer?" I tell her.
Her hand clenches around mine before relaxing and just laying on top of it.
"Yes," she says in what I know would have been a whisper if I was Hachiman.
I look at her eyes. They are a particular shade of light honey, the kind of eyes that don't look as pretty at first glance but that you keep seeing more and more hidden facets of the longer you stare at them. They are the kind of eyes I may have been jealous of at another time, another place.
"You want to protect them. You want me in there, at Shizu's side, because you feel I'm a wound she should have a chance to heal over. You want me by Hachiman's side because you think he and I share something we may help each other with. But you want them to be safe, and you know I could hurt them… deeper the closer I am to them."
Her thumb is drawing small circles on the soft flesh between my own thumb and the back of my hand.
"And why do I want you by my side?" she asks, the luminous honey never leaving my own lonely lavender.
The flower of purity and serenity. What a joke.
"I just told you—"
"No. You told me why I want you in our group, why I want to keep an eye on you. You haven't told me why I want you with me. Why I've taken you on a date before you're allowed to go on the next one with Hachiman."
The waitress makes a strangled sound as her cheeks go entirely red, and she hurriedly leaves Iroha's salad and my own tortellini with cheese sauce before rushing toward the counter.
And then she starts gossiping with the bartender in scandalized delight.
I suppress a smile at that and then turn my full attention to the younger girl in front of me.
"It can't be because of my social graces," I finally tell her with an affected, rueful smile.
She grins at me, and I notice her leg's no longer bouncing.
Oh, apparently, this is just going according to her plan.
How very… [interesting].
"Well, for starters, you're hot," she tells me.
I, again, raise an eyebrow at her. It looks like they'll get a workout by the time lunch's over.
"Flattery will get you everywhere," I drone out.
"Gods, I hope so," she answers, licking her lips.
"… Are you being serious?"
Her hand tightens around mine before resuming the soft circles that I can't help but feel soothing.
None of us are touching our food.
"Yes. You are [hot], Haruno. I couldn't be more serious about that."
"I'm aware. What I mean is if you're serious about this being the entire reason you want me, as you put it, 'by your side.'"
She briefly bites her lower lip, fast enough I don't catch if it's because of nerves or excitement.
She looks at me looking, and she flashes me a grin that tells me it was likely neither: she was baiting me.
So I lick my lips with a very pointed tongue that draws her own eyes down, and then I grin at her before I even acknowledge I'm finding the game… interesting.
"Of course it isn't. I wouldn't even think about getting in bed with you if it wasn't for some very special circumstances," she says airily with a mild eye roll.
"You know how to make a girl feel appreciated."
"No, I don't. I know how to make Hachiman and Shizuka flustered, I know how to be cunning and foxy in a way they find as endearing as frustrating, I know how to… well, play your cards right, and you may find out. But what I don't know is how to seduce anyone. I've never done it before."
I, again, raise an eyebrow at the claim.
I need to dust off my old repertoire. Hachiman has gotten me out of practice with my masks.
"I'm being serious, Haruno; I haven't got a clue. I just know I love him and let myself act accordingly."
"You love 'him.'"
She closes her eyes, her thumb stopping for a moment.
"Yes. And I like Shizu, and love her in another way, and I think I'm falling for her. But it's not the same, not really. And I don't know if that's because we need more time or because you can't love more than one person the same way, or because you can, but you don't always do. Because it would break my heart if Shizu went away, but if Hachi did… I… I would…"
I see the pain in her eyes. The thing lurking behind the mask of the foxy junior, and I recognize a shape I never want to see in others. Or in my mirror.
So I lie my left hand on top of hers, my warmth, the little I can spare of it, surrounding her for a brief, silent moment.
"So. I'm hot," I finally tell her.
She snorts. It's a cute sound.
That I'm sure she has practiced and rehearsed with her phone's recording app.
"Of course you are. I only learned I liked girls that way recently, but if I hadn't? You walking into the room with that smirk of yours would've been enough of a wake-up call."
"I assume you'll be in charge of teaching Hachiman how flattery works?"
"Gods, no; he's dangerous enough already."
I giggle, and she joins me.
"But seriously, of course you're hot. Of course I'm attracted to you. Of course I'd be up to experiment with the attractive, mysterious older girl who gives off a broken bird vibe that makes me want to cuddle in front of a fireplace. You're like a Byronic hero in need of rescue and loving—"
"You do realize 'Byronic hero' is far from flattering, don't you?" I interject before she can keep throwing disorienting words at me.
"You do realize I'm a mess of hormones going through the fastest sexual awakening a girl my age could experience, don't you?" she easily retorts.
"… I refuse to wear Gothic clothes."
"Yeah, you do [now]."
Aaaand now I'm blushing.
Damn it, what have you been teaching this girl, Hachiman? I swear, if she even begins to drop her tone by even an octave…
"But… That's just the start," she says as she drops not the tone but the volume, and I lean forward in spite of myself, something in me eager to hear the following words. "Because physical attraction is… that: a start. A given. Something I think I need before anything else can develop. But after that… You're enough like Hachiman that I know there's something in you I'll learn to love. And that may not be enough, may be just a charm point that never leads to anything else, but… but if you're with us, if you're to be with the woman you've been in love with since you first learned what the word means…" her voice cracks.
And I don't interrupt because there's a burning lump in my throat no words could go through.
"If you're to be her girlfriend… I don't want to lose them, Haruno. Not so soon after having found them. And I know it's not healthy to think abut it like this, I know nothing I've read tells me I should do it, but I… I don't want to be selfish. I want to let you be as happy as I know you don't think you deserve. And if the price of that is…" she looks up from our joined hands, a forced, cheeky smile on her lips that, after a moment of effort, reaches her eyes, "if the price of that is hot make-outs with the girl with legs for days, well, I guess I'll have to make that terrible, demanding sacrifice."
Her smile remains longer than is natural, her eyes almost daring me to question it.
I lift my hand from hers, and something flashes through luminous honey that, once again, reminds me of a shape I sometimes try not to see in the mirror.
And then, with that very same hand that has sparked the moment of pain and loss in a girl too desperate to love and be loved, I reach up to her nape and pull her to me over a table wide enough it forces me to lean forward and meet her halfway.
Our lips meet. Briefly, tenderly, not a hint of heated lust or passionate romance in the act, just…
Warmth
The same kind of warmth of a thumb gently rubbing soothing circles over the flesh between my own thumb and the back of my hand.
"You're my third kiss," I whisper with lidded eyes.
Her own eyes close for a brief moment before they open back up and match her cunning smirk as they cheekily narrow at me.
"I know," she answers.
And I laugh.
Yes. I think I should be taking notes.
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This work is a repost of my second oldest fic on QQ (https://forum.questionablequesting.com/threads/all-right-fine-ill-take-you-oregairu.15676/), where it can be found up to date except for the latest two chapters that are currently only available on on Patreon (https://www.patreon.com/Agrippa?fan_landing=true)—as an added perk, both those sites have italicized and bolded text. I'll be posting the chapters here twice weekly, on Wednesday and Friday, until we're caught up. Unless something drastic happens, it will be updated at a daily rate until it catches up to the currently written 84 chapters (or my brain is consumed by the overwhelming amounts of snark, whichever happens first).
Speaking of Italics, this story's original format relied on conveying Brain-chan's intrusions into Hachiman's inner monologue through the use of italics. I'm using square brackets ([]) to portray that same effect, but the work is more than 300k words at the moment, so I have to resort to the use of macros to make that light edit and the process may not be perfect. My apologies in advance
Also, I'd like to thank my credited supporters on Patreon: aj0413, Niklarus, Tinkerware, Varosch, and Xalgeon. If you feel like maybe giving me a hand and help me keep writing snarky, maladjusted teenagers and their cake buffets, consider joining them or buying one of my books on https://www.amazon.com/stores/Terry-Lavere/author/B0BL7LSX2S. Thank you for reading!
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