CH 100

Chapter 100: Date (3)

The effect of “dating” was amazing. At least for me, it was.

It was a normal walk down the street, but something about it felt so different.

The echo of his footsteps behind my back tickled my ears.

How could we be so different, just walking down the street in plain clothes, not in uniform, on a date?

My heart was fluttering. It was one of those feelings that I’ve come to realize over the course of my time with Zetto.

Zetto has given me so many emotions. Positive emotions like comfort, pleasure, joy, and happiness.

‘It’s all good…’

I didn’t like the way the female cadets on the street were sneaking glances at Zetto.

Maybe that’s why I grabbed Zetto’s hand as he followed me.

I couldn’t let go of his hand because I thought it would be hard to let go so I held on.

“…”

Zetto only tilted his head slightly but he didn’t shake my hand away. And so, hand in hand, I walked down the street with him.

“First…Shall we eat first?”

“Haven’t we already passed by the Herald’s?”

Zetto questioned my words since it was no secret that I loved Herald’s curry. But today was not a date for me. It was a date for Zetto.

“…Not curry today, but this time I wanted to tell you about a good place I know…”

Zetto and I entered a narrow alley since the restaurant was tucked away in an inconspicuous location that could be considered hidden.

“So there’s a restaurant in a place like this.”

“It’s a recent discovery…I personally enjoyed it.”

“Haha, I look forward to it.”

Zetto smiled brightly, and I followed him into the restaurant.

‘He’ll like it, right?’

He would have to like it.

This was a secret restaurant that I and Zetto had discovered together in the previous installment, and I remembered he liked the food here very much.

The restaurant was deserted.

I don’t know why anyone would think to build a restaurant in a place like this, but… It was even better when it was just Zetto and me.

‘It’s all about the mood, the atmosphere.’

I was now “dating” with Blanc’s help, but I was also utilizing the tips I’d seen in 101 Ways to Win a Guy.

Sitting down at a modest corner table, I ordered food for Zetto, who couldn’t read the menu.

There were a lot of unfamiliar dishes in the restaurant and shortly after ordering, a server approached the table and placed glasses with drinks on the table.

“Your drink is here first.”

This particular drink was transparent in color.  It had a very unique characteristic…and Zetto liked it very much.

“You can use this straw here to drink it.”

The staff member smiled and disappeared back into the kitchen.

“…A straw?”

Zetto questioned.

“Oh, this drink is served with something called a straw…You put your mouth on it and suck on it…”

And so I went on to explain what I already knew about straws.

‘…There’s only one straw?’

I wondered what had happened to the two straws I’d been given the last time I was with Zetto.

‘Well, we can share a drink with one.’

I held the straw from the drink up to his mouth.

“You can suck on this one.”

Zetto drinks through the straw. Now it’s time to watch his reaction.

“Uh…?”

Zetto’s mouth opens in a small gape and a chuckle escapes my lips at his cute reaction, the same as in the previous episode.

“Hmph, it’s called ‘cider’… At first I thought it was water, too, but it’s so tangy…!”

“That’s very interesting.”

“Right? How does it taste?”

“It’s very tasty. Mmm…Maybe it’s lemon or lime.”

The corners of Zetto’s mouth turned up in satisfaction and his reaction prompted me to take a sip of my cider.

The straw was moist… I wondered if it was Zetto’s saliva, but it didn’t feel dirty at all.

‘An indirect kiss…’

I’d heard there was such a thing. Still, it wouldn’t break the curse.

The main dish was called “Boneless Chicken,” which was a deep-fried, deboned chicken that was easy to eat. This was another favorite of Zetto’s.

After we finished our meal, my mouth was watering for some vanilla ice cream from a street vendor.

I held onto his hand and we kept walking. There were so many things I wanted to do with Zetto, and the day seemed to fly by.

Our main destination was the place that held all the memories from our previous trip.

We climbed the clock tower together and breathed in the air, and ran around on the roof like little kids without people noticing.

This wasn’t just to reminisce about the previous Zetto. These were memories that only I had, memories that he didn’t have.

It used to be so painful and at first, I couldn’t even look him in the face.

I couldn’t let go of memories that meant nothing and should have been destroyed. They were too precious to me. But it was foolish.

As Blanc had said, love was about being together, like I’m with Zetto right now.

Maybe we could recreate even happier memories than we had before.

Maybe I could start painting again, even if the paper was faded.

That’s what I thought.

The sun had already set, and it was getting dark around us so I took Zetto up a hill outside the academy.

I heard Zetto’s voice as he followed me, holding my hand.

“What are we doing here?”

Zetto was asking me, since I was taking the lead for the day.

‘What do we do?’

I don’t really have a plan since this was another one of those places that held memories for me.

“I don’t want to do anything here, I just……It’s my favorite place.”

I squatted in the hillside field.

The familiar spot had a familiar view. In fact, it had been my favorite spot since before I met Zetto in the previous episode.

It was quiet. There was no sound, except for the breeze in my ears.

In front of me was the Academy, and a panoramic view of the city.

It was a different feeling from the clock tower in the center of the city.

Despite the fact that it had been a long time since I’ve been here, everything felt familiar, except for one thing.

“…It’s nice and quiet.”

Zetto, who had come over and sat down next to me, spoke up.

This was where I’d first met him in the previous round. Or maybe it’s more accurate to say that it was the first time I had ever spoken to him.

At the time, I had spotted him at the entrance ceremony and was intrigued by him.

In a future that no one could change, a variable that appeared out of nowhere.

I was exhausted, but harboring a faint sense of anticipation.

‘I’ve never seen you before…’

I spat out those words to Zetto as we approached the hill. Of course, he couldn’t possibly know what I meant.

‘Today is the entrance ceremony…Aren’t you seeing everything for the first time?’

He tilted his head, and I couldn’t help but laugh at his response.

He approached me so naturally and that was also the reason I didn’t want to come here.

If I didn’t come here, there would be no spontaneous encounter with him.

Was everything with him just a coincidence?

I wanted to make sure.

‘Well, I couldn’t resist and approached him first, but…It was all meaningless now.

‘What matters now is…’

I turned my head and saw Zetto’s face in the moonlight.

What mattered now was that he was here, in this place, next to me.

That was enough.

If the moments I’d shared with him here were so precious, now I could make them even more so.

Zetto had shown me the future, defying fate, so I can only try not to lose him.

As I stare at Zetto’s face without speaking to him, I see his lips again.

‘…It’s too much.’

If I leaned in to kiss him right now, he wouldn’t dodge.

…It just felt right.

The problem was that it was a kiss with a ‘loved one’.

If kissing me didn’t break Zetto’s curse…I wasn’t sure I could handle that so it seemed like a good idea to try when I was absolutely certain that Zetto was in love with me.

I still don’t know when that will be, or how I’m going to find out. I just hoped I wouldn’t be too late.

Because if I was…then all the memories I’d built with him would be gone, just like before.

Of course, before Zetto died, I would visit the Saint…

…Yeah, she’d find his ‘beloved’ and make her kiss him, not me, but that was okay, for now. I still had a chance.

In the first place, there was no guarantee that Zetto would show up in the next regression; he was a variable.

As a precaution, I tried to find out where Zetto had been before coming to the Academy, but he’d said he’d been traveling the continent with his master…It won’t be easy for me to track him down from the safety of the Academy.

Attempting to regress myself only goes so far when Zetto is dead and there’s no way to bring him back.

That was the last resort.

At that moment, as I stared into Zetto’s face, I was making a promise to myself.

-Ping!

A beam of light shot out of the city with a loud crackle.

“Hmm…?”

Zetto, who was quietly standing still, questioned at the sudden sound,

Then the light exploded in midair.

The light was a firecracker.

“Fireworks…”

I muttered, and another firecracker rose up and exploded loudly.

This was a hill with a panoramic view of the city, so I had a very good view as colorful fireworks lit up the night sky.

“…Fireworks.”

Zetto muttered, catching my mumbling.

I was able to capture the sight with my eyes, but he couldn’t. So I tried to ‘show’ him somehow.

“Fireworks go up in the sky, and then they go boom, and they’re so colorful…”

I explain, accompanied by the sound of firecrackers and Zetto smiles slightly as he listens.

As my long-winded explanation of how the fireworks started Zetto stays still and focuses on my voice. In fact, not just now, but for the rest of the day, he was completely focused on me.

I wondered if that was enough.

There was no way he could see them with my explanation, but I hoped it conveyed my feelings.

At a loss for words, I stopped staring at the fireworks and turned to face Zetto and opened my mouth.

“…Anyway, it’s really pretty…”

Zetto’s head was turned toward me, not the sky. I don’t know if it was because he didn’t need to look at the sky, or if he was looking at me simply because I was talking.

“…Yeah.”

I was so close to his face for a moment that I was speechless.

Zetto’s lips opened as he ‘looked’ at me.

“Yeah, you’re really pretty.”