Chapter 2: Leo - Utensils for amateurs

"When you said 'let's go on a date...' I didn't have this in mind."

"Hmm? Is something the matter, dear?"

"N-no. I'm fine…"

Early evening, Lionheart mansion.

Because such a development normally appears near the end of a romance story, I will have to apologize for getting here too soon, as I've been invited by Leo to go to her home for the evening.

The time was half an hour after school when Leo, the student council president, my senior, and now girlfriend, invited me out on a date to her father's giant mansion 'in the hopes of entertaining the bond we share,' as she so deftly put it.

After I stopped gawking at her castle-sized mansion, Leo guided me into a long room with a dinner table set for at least thirty people. Only two would be attending.

Me, of course. And on the opposite side of the table, Leo.

Leo, the model student herself. With thin, blond hair long enough to reach all the way until her legs. Or her eyes, the same colour as her own cheeks, but somehow deeper. And her amused expression, with a gaze sharper than the knife I was almost cutting myself with—

If you didn't get that last weird comparison, we were having dinner at the moment with western tableware, much to my chagrin.

"H-how does this work? Which fork am I supposed to use?"

There were at least eleven forks and knife sets next to my plate!

"For each course you use the most inner set of cutlery, dear." She said, amused.

"You use a new fork for every course…?"

Our first course was some kind of leaf with a few pomegranates and flower petals over it. I'd have a better time keeping a dry upper lip than to eat this, but my girlfriend was watching, so of course I tried anyway.

"It seems you are not quite adept at western tableware, Riku."

"I-It's that obvious? Hehehe..." I tried to make it seem like I knew what I was doing, but I never had a chance to begin with. "I'm more used to chop sticks than western utensils. You can't eat ramen with a fork, you know?"

"That is not quite true. In Europe, they eat similar dishes. Like Italian spaghetti. And they eat it with a fork. Europeans are more cultured in their taste in general. They eat our Japanese dishes with western tableware as well." Leo deftly played with the spoon in her hand, letting it circle between her fingers. "They use a spoon to drink the broth when eating Japanese ramen. Instead of just chugging down from the bowl like a barbarian."

"Right... Right! Like, totally! Stupid, right? Just... drinking from a bowl. Pah, who would do that?! I certainly wouldn't."

"Struck a chord, did I?" She smiled slyly.

"Yes, my middle name is 'barbarian.'" I confessed.

Leo chuckled. "It's fine, dear. Now you can use this opportunity to learn the finer culinary arts."

"Wow. You can describe something like eating a single leaf as grandiose as that?"

Leo gave a pitying smile. "Riku. The leaf is mere decoration. It's not meant to be eaten."

Decoration?!

What high-end chef can afford to décor his own meal?! There is barely anything else left to eat!

"The real amuse-bouche is the pomegranate seeds on it."

"..."

"Amuus-boog?"

I had been dreading this evening ever since Leo invited me. A first proper date like this should be my opportunity to impress Leo with… Euh… my gentlemanliness? Was that right?

Of course, she is way out of my league, so I've been contemplating my life choices instead. I inwardly slapped my own face, just to make sure I wouldn't get my hopes up too much.

A girl invited me to her house! From what little I've observed, this is what you would call a single father household, and Leo is what you'd call an only child, and the father is what you'd call stuck at work. So we were, of course, alone.

Exempting her enormous mansion staff, but still.

Riku and Leo.

Two teenagers.

Dating.

Boyfriend and girlfriend.

Stuck inside a single room.

Alone.

At her home.

At night.

...

I should do a reality check.

It wasn't like I particularly expected something exciting to happen. So far, we haven't started with any of that cliché romantic stuff. This was only our first date. We haven't had our first kiss yet. I just wanted something nice to take place between us. At the very least, to put my current anxiety about our relationship at ease.

All we have done so far is talk to each other after school, and then say "see you tomorrow" before going home. Isn't that the same relationship guys have with normal female friends? Am I doing something wrong?! Is it already too late? Is my current relation status a lie?!

"Are you alright, dear? You haven't touched your food yet."

"Totally. Couldn't be better at all!"

"Glad to hear it."

"Absolutely!"

"..."

"..."

I felt like a little kid trying to write for the first time again...

"Did you know, Riku?" Leo said after cleaning her face with a napkin. "Pomegranates are symbolic to power and life. The amount of seeds and the red colour are symbols of life and blood. In ancient Greece, they were signs of beauty and eternal life."

"Uh-huh..."

"Fruit in general hold this symbolic comparison to life. But they were mostly used to describe the world's women."

"How's that?"

Leo placed her hands together and smiled softly. "You must've heard of the term pomegranate syndrome, or of a plum body. These are terms created because it was believed that pomegranates and plums could increase a person's aphrodisia. There's also the term for 'cherry' in the female anatomy."

"..."

"..."

What... is this mixed message she just sent me?

Was that an invitation?

Am I supposed to make a move?

Was my girlfriend dalliancing with me?

Hold up, Riku. Think! This could be an important moment for you. The next few syllables coming out of your mouth could dictate the best evening of your life! Reply to her fact with an immediate statement. Assert yourself with the relationship!

This is the day you've been waiting for!

…

"…Okay?"

Regret.

Leo's butlers approached our table to take our plates back to the kitchen.

"Ah, thank you—Our next course is the soup. Oh, a soup is very much comparable to ramen, Riku. The main taste comes from the broth." Leo seamlessly pointed out.

"Hey, I at least know what a soup is!"

She chuckled. "Forgive me. I know that. I was just having fun."

"Are you really expecting that little from me?!"

"Well, Soup isn't very indicative of Japanese culture."

"They sell it in our very own school!"

"You were to say that anything taking place inside our academy is common knowledge?"

"I mean, wouldn't that be a fair take?"

"It might. Then tell me, Riku. What are the duties of the invigilator of our academy?"

"The who?!"

My face fell flat on the table. If my soup had been served by now, my head would have fallen straight into it. Leo simply chuckled at my expense.

"The invigilator is the person who supervises students during an examination, both physical and thesis. They decide the exam policy, difficulty and passing grade."

"You know everything, don't you?"

"Of course not. If I did, I wouldn't be a student."

Right.

Of course she's right.

"The second course is here." She said.

A butler deftly turned on his heals behind me as if he was dancing, to place a plate of soup on the table. It wasn't much. The juice boxes I drink during school break had more substance.

"Don't look so stunned, dear. This is only the second course. We still have to go through the appetiser after this."

"We haven't even gotten to the appetiser yet?" I felt my face tighten.

"We are eating eleven courses today."

"Eleven?! What about a three course meal? I thought that was fancy already!"

Who has the patience to wait eleven times after each plate?

"Normally, on such an occasion, we'd have a twelve course. But I'm not such a fan of the Hors D'oeuvre."

"Yeah. Me neither."

What the hell is a Horse Douver?!

"..."

The soup tasted a little salty. It was thin, probably because it was not supposed to fill you that much. With nine more courses after this, keeping it light seemed logical.

Says I, as if I knew what the heck I was even talking about.

"Our next course will be the appetiser." Leo said after finishing her soup.

"Finally... Something I'm familiar with." I said as the butler grabbed our plates. That course took less than two minutes.

"Yes, I suppose I have thrown you into quite an unfamiliar landscape, haven't I? I admit I was expecting it somewhat. Or, rather, I had been counting on your unaccustomedness."

"You were hoping that I wouldn't have a clue about what I'm doing?" I deadpanned.

"Of course." She answered in the affirmative, as if it was the most normal thing in the world. "I lived like this my entire life; I've grown numb to the uniquity of it. And I never had the necessary combination of good friends and free time to invite anyone with me. Being able to share this with someone for the first time is quite exciting. Hmm, and seeing you fret like that is just too cute to watch."

"Err—Ahem. I see."

If you pinch yourself hard enough, you can stop yourself from blushing!

I was the first person Leo had brought along to her own house? I was touched!

While I was desperately trying to keep my blood from pumping to my face, the smooth moving butler had placed the next plate in front of me. It's...

Um...

"What are these?" I asked, trying to get a new perspective from the meal right in front of my nose.

"Hugo. Tell Riku here what the appetiser is, please?" Leo asked the butler.

"Ma'am. Sir, the current course is a loaf-mushroom from Spain, stuffed with Pecorino Romano, Fresh garlic, and Panko." He said.

"Thank you, Hugo. Well, Riku?"

I stared at my plate.

"..."

"...So, what were these?"

The butler averted his eyes from me, grunting. I bit my lip in self-pity, but I suddenly heard a soft chuckle from across the room.

"Pff- pff- Hehe..."

I looked to the other side of the table to see Leo quietly suppressing a giggle.

*Ahem* "Apologies... L-let's eat, shall we?"

She didn't quite dare to look me in the eye, and I nodded without saying a word.

But I started to feel a little more happy.

…

The mushrooms tasted very strong. Finally, something I could chow on, if only a little.

"I rarely eat food with garlic. It worsens the breath." Leo said.

"Doesn't that mostly depend on the time of day, though?" I said, still with a stuffed mouth. "I mean, if you're just stuck at home with no plans of going out in the evening, who'd care?"

"I see your point, but even at home or in our school dorms, I have to worry about my father."

"Your father?"

"As heir of the family, it is expected that I act as he intends. And so I must retain grace. 'Acting like a local' is what he describes as feeble. And I can't allow myself to falter outside, nor when I'm at home."

"And 'acting like a local' includes having a bad breath?!"

"In his mind, it does."

"Geez... What a pain."

...

Wait, I said that out loud!? Hold on, I didn't—

"Absolutely."

"..."

Eh?

She agreed…

"When I was younger, I often acted more childish than I wish to admit. A little spoiled, even. It earns so much of my father's disgust nowadays that it's quite hard for me to look positively towards that period of my life."

"That's normal, though. You were still a kid back then—Kids fool around." I said.

"You really think that?" Leo smiled genuinely. "Either way, I could still get away with it at the time because of my mother. Without her, my father is much less lenient."

I immediately stopped chowing on my food. From what my memory served me, this was the first time Leo had mentioned her mother.

This is a single-father household—and Leo had nothing to say about her before now.

"So your father changed after your mother left?"

"Precisely." Leo's posture lessened a little. She lazily put her arm under her head as support. "My mother would often defend me for my actions. She had the same thoughts about children as you do. That they're still meant to play."

"And your father? He doesn't?"

"At the time, he might have. But that's irrelevant now. He believes that I'm more than adequate by now to hold up my grace on my own."

Not to speak against her, but amen to that. She held grace and then some. She even looked like a goddess while napping.

"With my father pressuring me to spend more time doing model work, and my shinobi training also taking up most of my life, I've felt less and less like this is the path for me to walk."

"Ah..."

That's some heavy shit. What would you expect me to say to that?

"..."

"Well, of course you'd feel that way." Was what I eventually settled on.

"Hmm?"

"Leo. What would you like to become when you grow older?"

Leo let out a surprised huff. "What I want to become?"

"Yeah. What kind of dream have you always thought about when growing up? If you never wanted to be heir of your father, then you must've had something else in mind, right?"

"T-that's…" she trailed off. "N-no. I have no such thing, really."

I smiled. "Now, even a dumbass like me knows you're lying."

"I can't really say. As a child, I always just said that I was a princess in a castle. Cliché children things such as that. I didn't try to consider the future."

"Leo, that's awful…"

"It's only reasonable." Leo argued. "In exchange for living in a privileged family, I have to adopt a certain lifestyle."

I answered as honest as I could. "That's bogus."

"Ah…" Leo couldn't find a retort against my blunt statement.

"You know I grew up in a low-end town, right? I suppose I should've been clearer about it; It was more like a village than a town. Everyone there knew each other, so we were more like a huge family, really. But despite that, when I said I wanted to become the strongest martial artist in Japan, the first advice I got was to give up. That it would never happen."

"The strongest martial artist?"

"It's a really stupid dream… But there's a reason I keep getting scolded by the teachers for breaking too many of my opponent's bones, y'know. Since there was barely anything to do growing up in a little town like that, me and my friends spend a lot of time wresting with each other. This turned to actual training and sparring later on. It was all I lived for. It was fun… I slowly realized that I wanted to learn every fighting style, if fate would allow it. Later during my journey I discovered the shinobi, and how much of a difference shinobi training and fighting was compared to any normal techniques, so here was where I ended up."

"…"

"Everyone has a passion they want to accomplish. And everyone will find a hundred reasons not to do it. The hardest part usually isn't the goal, but refusing to give up on it. You might say that you have nothing you dream of doing, Leo, but I don't believe you. A good trait you have is that you're a terrible liar. There isn't something that you like doing? A hobby? Or maybe a skill you're good at?"

Leo laughed lamentably. Just hearing it made me feel bad.

"I see what you're trying to say. But I can't really procure a future job in which I nap all the time." She said, trying to shake off the issue with a joke. "I already have a course set before me. My future is to become the heir of the family."

"Not just what your father has decided for you. You could do both. Being an heir doesn't mean it'll control your entire life. There has to be more than that!"

"I… I've wanted to… It's…" Leo cleared her throat. "Well, enough about that. We were here to have dinner."

"Leo..."

"It's fine, Riku." Leo mumbled. "It's fine. Things will change."

Leo sat back up straight, giving me a genuine, soft smile.

"After all, you're here now."

"W-what do you mean by that?" I said, suddenly feeling as if the floor had disappeared from under me.

"What do you mean, 'what do you mean?' Hmm? Aren't you supposed to be my boyfriend? I thought that meant we would spend our time together in the future as well. This isn't just my future we're talking about, is it?"

"Ah... R-right!"

W-wow.

What a turnaround! I got countered, hard.

It wasn't just that she needed to think about her future. I should as well. I'm a part of it now. That's kinda what it means to be dating, huh?

"Shall we keep going, Riku? After this, we'll have the salad. I love the chef's Thai salad with dressing."

Leo had already moved on. The subject had long left this conversation. While I couldn't let go of the nagging feeling the topic left with me, I felt she was just too quick for me to allow further discussion.

It wasn't all bad, though. If she expected me to be a part of the future, then I would have to make sure that her dream was part of it as well.

Right now, was the time for food.

"Yeah... Me too..." I said, as if I knew what the heck I was talking about.