Most of the time, when it came to going on dates, the activity ended with a warning to not come back to the place, a threatening of arrest or a lawsuit, and the feeling that the night would've been better spent chilling at someone's house with a pizza and maybe a movie playing in the background. There were a couple of times that the ladies had managed to go out together and have nothing extreme happen, but for the most part it was the same story: Himiko would start to get bored of what they were doing, someone would make a smart comment about how dull she was, and Tenko would get into an argument that led to them both being forcibly removed from the premises.
So maybe going to dinner, or going to a theater, or going to the mall, just wasn't going to work out for them, and that was totally manageable. It wasn't like they were living in a small town with very little to do, they had options they could choose between for their future dates, and Tenko had one in specific she'd been saving for when they'd really need it. She'd never been to the place in question before (which meant she hadn't had the chance to get barred from returning), and if she understood it correctly then it was going to be the perfect place for her and Himiko to play around for an evening together.
Their date night started with meeting at a nearby restaurant, one of the few that they'd been to several times together with zero issues, and it was while sitting there, waiting for their food, that Tenko spelled out her plan for how the rest of the night would go. Himiko seemed interested in what she was being told, but then again gauging her interest was difficult because she always had a rather bored look on her face, but the way she said that she was excited warmed Tenko's heart and made her feel like she was making the right choice with this idea. Worst-case scenario, the night would end just like all of their other dates and they'd go home after being banned from yet another establishment, but the best-case scenario was that they'd find somewhere new to share with each other, just like the restaurant they were sitting in.
Tenko could tell that Himiko really was excited to get to the rest of their date, as it was by far the fastest she'd ever seen her eat anything, even if the food wasn't as good as it usually was. "I'm surprised at how quick you chowed that down," she remarked, eyeing Himiko's mostly-empty plate in comparison to her own, which was in a similar state. "Normally I'm left sitting here forever watching you eat, you must be eager to move on or something, huh?"
"I cast a spell to make my food disappear faster, simple magic, honestly." The way Himiko spoke was so nonchalant, as if what she was saying was actually plausible, that it was impossible for Tenko to even try correcting her. That was just one of those endearing things about her that made going on more dates despite failures a foregone conclusion. "Hurry up and pay so we can get going, I've never been more ready to leave in my life!"
"That's the spirit, Himiko! I love the enthusiasm!" It was heart-warming to hear Himiko getting so pumped up for what was to come, but Tenko didn't know if it was going to be worth it in the end. She knew this restaurant was a safe place to start their night, but she didn't know a single thing about what was to follow, if it was going to be worth their time or precious energy. After pulling out her wallet and grabbing the exact same amount she always paid there, them both being highly predictable with their ordering, she set the money down on the table and got up from her seat, offering Himiko a hand to help her to stand as well. Both being young women in a rather shady part of town, it was best to keep a hand on the other whenever they weren't somewhere safe, and so from the moment they left the restaurant's front entrance they were arm-in-arm, Tenko leading the way as Himiko followed her with her small footsteps.
The building they were looking for was a few blocks away, brightly lit with signs advertising what it had inside. It was relatively new, hence why they'd never been there before, but it was the largest arcade center in the area and had posted hours that went much later than any of the smaller arcades in the area, most of which were inside malls that they couldn't go to anymore anyway. They had to get their ages verified to enter, but despite looking younger than they actually were they were both of age to go inside without adult supervision, and once they were through the admission area it was time to look around and see what they were going to do there. There was no point in spending any money on credits for playing games until they knew there were games they would play, and so walking around the crowded gaming floor with their arms still interlaced was their plan of attack.
It was at about the same time that they found the "shoot baskets in a certain amount of time" machines that they were both sold on spending the evening there together, but turning around to go back towards the admission area to buy credits proved to be a big mistake. As they were weaving through the same machines they'd already passed, Tenko could've sworn she could see someone familiar up ahead, someone that they knew from their school days that she hadn't thought about as being a real, living person in a while. "Say, Himiko, do you think this is the kind of place anyone we know would like?" she asked, not wanting to jump to conclusions about who she thought she saw but also not wanting to leave things unspoken. "Because I think I see a familiar, obnoxious, infuriating male that I'd like to avoid if at all possible."
"If you're talking about Kaito, I saw him when we came inside." It was hard to hear Himiko over the noise of everything going on around them, but Tenko was accustomed to having to pick out her soft voice over background sounds. "He's here with Shuichi, I think they're having a boys' night or something. Shuichi seemed to be really focused on winning the most tickets on one machine, it must be an easy game for him."
"Or they're here for the same reason we are, and they're here on a date." Feeling her blood boiling just from talking about a guy, Tenko was doing what she'd been trying not to do and jumping to conclusions anyway, but she was telling herself she was going to be strong and not act on what she'd assumed. "Let's let them do their thing, they're guys, so they aren't worth our precious time, right?"
Himiko took a moment to make her decision, her free hand coming to her face as she gently tapped a finger against her lips in thought. "As long as they don't come to us, we shouldn't go to them. We're here together, they're here together, but we're not all together."
"You're smart as always, Himiko, thank you." Hearing her say those words reaffirmed the fact that she didn't need to jump to conclusions like she was trying to, Tenko set her sights on getting to that front desk and starting their gaming experience, but as fate would have it they were stopped on the way by someone calling out both of their names, the voice being used enough to make her whole body freeze. Despite Himiko trying to ignore it and continue on their way, they were both turned to where their names came from, the tall guy Tenko had seen before waving for them to come to him, and now that they were invited, rejecting the offer wasn't going to happen. "What are you doing here?" she loudly asked upon approach, even with Himiko dragging her feet trying to get her to stop going closer. "Together, I mean, what are you doing here together?"
"I was gonna ask the same of the two of you, actually!" Laughing as he lowered his hand to gesture towards his dark-haired companion who was carefully plotting how he was going to play the game they were standing in front of, Kaito's eyes were focused on Tenko's annoyed face. "But from the looks of it, I must be interrupting something important. You two having a girls' night out? Never took you to be friends like that."
"Yeah, uh, totally that's what we're here doing," Tenko replied, pulling her arm away from Himiko's to make it a little less obvious that there was something more going on between them. If it wasn't clear that they were on a date, she felt zero obligation to make it apparent to this guy, especially as he was clearly there on a date of his own. "And yet you dodged answering what I asked, typical degenerate male behavior but I'll let it slide. It's good to see you out and about being yourselves."
"Ha, never thought I'd agree with you on something like this, but you're right! It's not healthy to not kick back and enjoy some time with a good friend like my sidekick here every once in a while, bet you know that all too well with Himiko being your sidekick, huh?" Kaito was painfully oblivious to the fact that they were on a date, and Tenko wasn't sure how she was supposed to address her potential girlfriend being addressed as her sidekick—or how she should tell him that it wasn't polite to address his possible boyfriend as his own sidekick.
The route she chose was to grab Himiko's arm and give it a firm tug, to try and get a response out of the smaller woman. "Hey, that hurts you know!" she whined, talking about the tug but because Kaito wasn't watching what Tenko had done he thought it was about him calling her a sidekick, and his sheepish apology about the term was innocent enough, except Himiko had no idea why it was being given. "I guess I am kind of Tenko's sidekick, even if I don't do much to show it. You don't have to say sorry for calling me that."
"Don't encourage him continuing calling people sidekicks, can you imagine how horrified his, ahem, friend there must feel every time he gets called it?" Glancing over at Shuichi and how he was still focused on the game he was playing, sitting at a high level without being distracted by what was happening behind him, Tenko felt a bit bad for him for a split second before deciding that she shouldn't waste her energy on it. The last time she'd seen him, he was head-over-heels enamored with a dear friend of hers and she'd heard that they were getting flirty and serious, so to see him on a date with Kaito of all people was not what she'd ever expected. "Anyway, as fun as this is, we're going to play some games for ourselves, please let us do our own thing and we'll let you do yours."
Kaito nodded, also glancing towards Shuichi before turning back to the already-retreating duo he'd called over, finding it surprising that they were quickly leaving. "Enjoy your girls' night out!" he called after them, before addressing his friend with, "I think that went well, except I don't get why Tenko was being so weird about things. There's no shame in spending time out with a friend!"
"They're on a date, that's why she was being weird." Without pulling his attention away from the game Shuichi had correctly read the situation and was coming up with a list of possibilities in his mind. "Not only that, but I think she might have thought we were too."
"Us, on a date? C'mon, she knows that we're…that you…" At a loss for words to explain why that deduction was wrong, Kaito considered chasing them down and setting things straight, but he'd already taken from their time and didn't want to end up paying for taking more. "I know she knows that's not possible, there's no way that we're out here for anything but a night between bros! A night that would have ladies if they'd accepted the invites, can't forget that part."
The game pausing for a moment as it switched levels, Shuichi had just enough time to turn around and say, "Something tells me that one of those invites was going to be rejected no matter what, but go on," before he had to return to focusing on his playing, and therefore going back to what they'd been talking about before. "None of this would have happened if you hadn't tried being friendly to Tenko, of all the people we know."
"There's no chance that she actually thinks we're on a date," Kaito asserted, throwing his fists together in determination. "That would just be the stupidest thing ever, and trust me, I know a thing or two about stupid things!"
The problem was, Tenko was entirely convinced that they'd ended up at the same place for their date as two others also on a date, and she was never one to turn down the opportunity to put a guy in his place. Himiko did convince her to not do anything there at the arcade, saving their date night from any kind of fighting, but the moment they went their separate ways that evening she was calling ladies that she thought were connected to those guys and telling them exactly what she'd seen—or, at least, a highly dramatized version of it, from her perspective. This was part of the story that she didn't tell Himiko (mostly because Himiko was certain that they weren't on a date, her "magic" told her so), and she fully expected to get a thank you or two for calling out such blatant cheating when the truth came out.
That arcade became somewhere that they went for several subsequent dates, even after they officially started dating and were definitely girlfriends. Imagine Tenko's surprise when, one of those dates, they ran into Shuichi once more, playing that same game as before but with a lovely blonde at his side rather than Kaito. He was still paying more attention to what he was playing than anything else, but he did take the time to explain that the last time they'd crossed paths someone must have misinterpreted the situation and the idea that he and Kaito had been there on a date had found its way to the two ladies who were romantically involved with them both, and while one of them had found it laughable, the other had gotten so upset about being replaced in her boyfriend's heart that he hadn't actually seen Kaito since then. "I told you they weren't on a date," Himiko said, her voice as nonchalant as always, "and you went and told Kaede and Maki, didn't you?"
"I would never do anything like that, not even to possibly cheating degenerates," Tenko replied, trying to avoid Kaede's eyes as she knew that she was lying, having spoken to her personally about things. "Come on Himiko, let's go before someone around here tries to accuse us of cheating or something horrible like that."
That arcade was the one place in town they couldn't return to not because of being banned, but because of the fear of having to face Kaito, or perhaps even Maki, and have to talk about what was definitely not a girls' night for one pair and not a date for the other.
A/N: wrote this as a request fill like a week ago, I really love writing Tenko and Kaito, especially as foils for each other's ignorance