บท 5: Coincidence

Kazuya happily walked with a skip in his step after successfully asking out this unearthly beauty on a date.

After the day was over he met up with Kibe and Kuri before going home and changing up to go to the dojo.

He came home tired, spent an hour sending requests and bids for projects on the freelance site, made himself dinner, and played some god of war before falling asleep.

The next day he was getting ready for college, he'd already been to the gym and had just taken a shower.

When he walked out of his apartment he heard the clicking of another door and looked to his right to see his neighbor leaving her apartment.

Lo and behold, it was Chizuru 'Mizuhara' Ichinose. In her usual dorky low-profile getup, with her book bag slung over her shoulder.

They both looked at each other in stunned silence.

'This has got to be some kind of fate bullshit, no?' Kazuya didn't believe in this many coincidences happening with the same person.

'Unbelievable.' Chizuru couldn't believe her current situation and panicked.

With a deadpan face, she ran back into her apartment and slammed the door shut.

Kazuya was left blinking his eyes in sheer confusion at her reaction.

'Don't you talk or something when you run into someone you already know living beside you? Who the hell just runs away like that.'

"Chizuru…san. Are you okay?" Kazuya knocked on her door and asked her

'I don't think I'll ever get used to honorifics.'

"I'm fine, you should just go." Her voice was a little muffled through the door.

"All right, I guess, have fun." He walked away from her door and left for college.

Chizuru was sitting on the floor with her back to the door and hugging her legs.

"Why is it that I see him everywhere I go?"

Finally working up her courage she got up and walked out the door.

Looking at the empty hall in front of her apartment door, she felt a little disappointed that he didn't wait for her.

'What are you thinking? You're the one who slammed the door in his face.' She shook her head.

She hyped herself up by clapping her cheeks and walked to the college.

…

After college Kazuya returned home only to run into Chizuru who was also walking into her apartment.

He wasn't planning on greeting her after how she slammed the door to his face in the morning but she's the one who called him out.

"Hey, Kazuya…"

"Hm… What's up Chizuru...san?" He forgot the honorific again.

"About this morning…"

He patiently waits for her to finish.

"I'm sorry for slamming the door to your face so rudely."

Her genuine apology completely surprises Kazuya. He was expecting a wholely different reaction from her.

"…Don't worry about it. I know how you're sensitive about your job stuff and everything. Seeing me everywhere must've freaked you out. It's not a problem."

"I'm glad you understand."

"Though it's freaky, huh? The number of coincidences that we've got. What're the odds of the girl I rented to my girlfriend going to the same college as me and even living right beside my apartment."

"I know right? Especially because my grandma is the one who got me to live here. She said that it's close enough to the college and a nice place."

"Wait a minute… Your name is Chizuru Ichinose, right?"

"Is your grandmother's name Sayuri Ichinose?"

"Are you stalking me? Because it damn well seems like it." She gets a wary look on her face and starts stepping back.

He smiles amusedly, "Yeah, I've been stalking you ever since you started college. I even know the color of your underwear right now."

That look of pure disgust and horror on Chizuru's face made Kazuya laugh out loud.

"Hahaha~" He holds his stomach and spends a good few seconds laughing.

"What the hell is so funny."

"Haah… You should've seen the look on your face. Stalker, my ass. My grandmother Nagomi is friends with your grandmother. She's the one who got me this apartment with a good rent rate."

"Sigh… So that's what happened. I should've known."

"Well, their tactic seems to have worked. I did end up asking you out on a date."

She tucks some of her stray hair behind her ear and says while looking down, "I got to agree on that."

"Well, I have to go somewhere so I'll meet you later."

"Sure. See you later." She turns around and walks into her apartment.

Kazuya follows his usual routine of going to the martial arts Dojo and today he finally got the skill.

[Martial Arts detected.]

[Skill Mixed Martial Arts LVL 1 has been generated]

'Oh cool. It's like what happened with my other programming skill that's at level 24. This honestly makes learning things so much easier. With each level increase, it's as if more information is fed to my brain, making me much better at the skills than I would be by training normally.'

The next day when he walked out of his apartment he didn't see Chizuru again.

'I guess she's already left for college. It'd be too late if she decided to leave even after me. Talk about being socially inept. This perfect girlfriend herself isn't very experienced with relationships. On the surface, she seems perfect but when you look deeper, it's like she's never had any relationship in her life.'

"Repressed feelings, huh?" He'd realized that Chizuru Ichinose herself was someone who needed to be taken on a date, as a customer that is.

She'd never opened herself up to anyone and that had made her close herself off. Every time she felt vulnerable she'd run away since that seemed to be the best solution for her.

He put his hands behind his head while walking and said to himself, "Well, she's got a colorful personality at least. I won't be bored if I spend my time with her. Her being the best eye candy of all eye candies makes it all the better."

Reaching college, after a few of his classes, he noticed Chizuru, in her dork getup, talking with a few of her friends.

Deciding to respect her wishes of not talking in college he turns away from her and works on his own thing. He'd been paying extra attention to the business administration stuff and knew that it was going to be very helpful for him.

He'd been utilizing most of his time in college to understand the syllabus and course materials since he wanted to get a skill in Business Administration.

The existence of that skill would make his college studies much easier and he could start working on some side projects during college too.

Although it was proving to be difficult since he was completely unfamiliar with even basic information about the course.

When he was done with college and his weekday MMA classes he went back to his apartment and texted Chizuru.

He asked her what kinds of movies she liked watching.

-Why would you ask that?- Chizuru while lying on her bed in her sleepwear and her feet waving in the air texted him.

-Don't wanna take you to a movie that you wouldn't like.-

-Anything would work for me. Really.- She subconsciously has a smile on her face when she wrote the message.

Kazuya applied a different tactic to get her to talk. He was sure that she was a movie nerd and once she started talking about what she loved, she wouldn't stop.

-What do you think about thriller movies?-

-Oh! I absolutely love them…-

He was right about his conjecture. She had an opinion about every single genre of movie. She'd researched all kinds of different acting styles and all kinds of different movies.

Although Kazuya didn't spend too much time watching movies he was familiar with enough of them to keep up a conversation with her, although she was the one who did most of the talking.

Chizuru enthusiastically chatted with him till it was one in the night about the things she cared about related to cinemas. And she didn't seem to be done.

The only reason she stopped texting him was that she'd realized that it was too late.

Kazuya kept a mental note of most of these things since he was going to pick a movie based on her preferences that he would also enjoy watching.

The only reason that she stayed up late with him to talk about these things was that he knew how to keep the conversation going and how to keep it interesting.

Although Chizuru was the one with more information and more interest in the topic, Kazuya knew how to get that information out of her.

He'd kept her engaged in the conversation with a few well-timed jokes and some of his views while talking to her. This is very important when it comes to late-night conversations.

Even a slight lull in the conversation could lead to the end of that conversation.

The next day he noticed that Chizuru kept some extra distance from him. Even if they ended up making eye contact from far away, she'd turn around and all but run away. It amused him how she could have so many different things going for her.

On one hand, she was able to chat non-stop for hours about movies, and on the other, she could be embarrassed by talking about her interests to the point of running away from him after that.

The rest of the week went by similarly. He kept up his routine of going to the gym in the morning, then he went to college where Chizuru would proceed to completely ignore his existence as if he was a plague, even though they were talking each night.

After college, he went to his MMA coach. During the week of regular training, his skill increased to level 3.

After returning from there, he worked for a while on his freelancing. He'd finally gotten his first client on Friday. He was planning on finishing up the client's work on Sunday.

Then, after dinner, he'd spend some time playing games while also chatting with Chizuru.

Meanwhile, Chizuru was getting mixed signals from him. On one hand, his texts were very engaging, and seemed as if he was very interested in talking with her.

On the other hand, they were constantly delayed since he was focusing on his game and was talking to her between rounds.

Finally, the week was over it was Saturday. It was time for his real date with the girl he was kinda sorta interested in.