Suddenly, Saturday…
"Oh, Rin. There you are."
"Sorry I'm late." I can't believe this. I ask someone else out and then arrive late. What even is that?
"That's okay. I thought ahead. After all, Sato is no short ride. We'll be right on time for opening at this rate."
"You plan too much. It's kind of creepy."
"You say it like it's a bad thing."
"It's not normal for people to be so organised! That said…" That's part of why I fell in love with you in the first place. I can't let myself say that. This date is goodbye.
"Come on. We can't be late." He grabs me by the wrist and I nearly blush. But without too much pulling my legs start moving too and he lets go because he doesn't need to lead me about like I'm on a leash.
"So where exactly are we going?"
"It's a surprise. I thought that was the deal."
"Yeah, but it's date day now. Surely you can spoil the surprise with all of two minutes to go."
"No need. It's right there." He points more or less straight ahead and following the line of his finger, I see a huge amusement park.
"Really? I expected something a little less cliché."
"Wait for it." He keeps walking and I keep following, waiting for some demon clown or something to pop out with a sign saying 'Surprise!' What am I waiting for, exactly?
Oh. That. We get to the gate and I see how many rides there are in the park. And every single one of them is some kind of waterslide. Or more generally water-themed. You get the idea. I don't really know why, but that makes it a lot better. I've never seem so much water in the one place. I laugh to myself. I sound like Haru right now.
"Haruka-senpai would love this place."
"Too right he would. At least now I know why you asked to bring my swimsuit and a towel."
"Do you have sunscreen as well? We can't let you get burnt."
"You probably brought a spare bottle anyway, didn't you?"
He pulls one out of his bag. "Too right."
"Just as well." I open my bag and display the contents. Swimsuit, towel, but no sunscreen in sight.
He sighs. "You can so irresponsible."
"What's a little sunburn?"
"In a pool full of chlorine, it can be screaming pain."
"You think so?"
"I have sensitive skin, I guess."
"Well, what are we waiting for?"
"Good question." And with that, we're away. He really did plan ahead. We have a locker for our clothes and other stuff that we don't want water-damaged. So we undress quickly, both brimming with excitement to get our day under way. "How do you undress so quickly?"
"Practice."
"That comes out quite dubious."
"It really does, doesn't it? Only for swimming, I swear."
"Does it matter to me if it was for something else?" The words fall into my side like so many little swords. It doesn't, does it?
So now we're both in our swimsuits, and I allow myself to be selfish. I stare him up and down, just letting myself enjoy the view. It isn't exactly right, but this is the last chance I get to look at him like that. I walk up behind him and wrap my arms about him while we're still in private. "Where do you want to start?"
"Why don't we start in the wade pool to warm up a little?" I can feel his muscles tense, like he wants to push me off him.
"Sounds like a plan." I let him go, even though I don't want to, and lead the way there. "Thanks for indulging me." I make sure not to even look at him. I can't afford to look weak.
"It's only fair. I dangled a carrot in front of your face, gave it to you and then wrenched it away as rudely as I could. You deserve a few bites for the trouble."
"I think you let that metaphor go too far."
He shies away a little. "Sorry." His blush marks our arrival at the wade pool. "Let's get in." He runs in ahead of me but the water scarcely come up to his waist. No complaints here. I charge in after him and playfully tackle him, knocking us both into the water and wetting us from head to toe.
"What are you scared of? It's only a wade pool." He catches his glasses before they float too far away.
"I'm not scared. I just want to take it slow." He attempts to dry the lenses his hands and pushes them back over his eyes.
I splash him, as much on impulse as anything, but careful not to get near his eyes again. "This too slow for you?"
He looks down, and seems to be planning his revenge. "No. It's just the right pace." He swings his whole arm across the water and sends a small-to-moderately-sized tsunami (scaled to the size of the pool) straight at me. I'm caught off-guard and I breathe a little bit of it in. I cough for a few seconds, and then it's broken up, and I'm fine again. We look at each other.
"Truce?"
"Truce." We both start laughing hysterically. As we run out of the pool and find a map, planning our way around the park. "If we follow it this way around, there's a fairly natural circle."
"Yeah, Rei, but that leaves all the exciting rides till last. We've already taken a warm-up. Let's hit the big things now."
"Okay then." I can't help but think he's just playing along with me to make me happy. "Just let me go back to locker and put my glasses away. They won't stay on too long, and I can't let them go flying everywhere." He runs away and leaves me at the map. I study the rides and try to figure out which we should do first. There's this gigantic slingshot thing that throws you through this sideways waterfall. That looks pretty cool. Or there are more traditional waterslides that just sort of throw you along like a log in a rip. And then there's this huge thing that kind of looks like the drain of a sink, but sideways. From what I can gather, you hop on this little clover-shaped boat thing and you basically go down it like water goes down a drain, except instead of doing a full circle, you just to two half-circles in opposite directions. That seems at lot safer, actually. Doing a full circle when you're not even strapped to anything would be terrifying.
"Have you made a decision?"
"There are a lot of good options."
"We should play it smart. This park has a system where instead of actually standing in the line, you can sort of book a session on a ride beforehand. So we should go to the most popular ride, book a session and then go to some of the less popular ones first."
"You've really planned this out, haven't you?"
"I couldn't let a date go to waste." I smile at myself. That's a kind sort of thing to say. He went to all this trouble for me, and me alone. It's not even for himself.
"Well then, let's go book in at that thing." I point to the waterfall-slingshot ride. I'm sure it has a name, but waterfall-slingshot actually describes what it is, so I'm going with that. "Then we can go and ride those couple of water slides." I point to this one particular slide that's about twenty stories tall and as straight as I am. Seriously, could they possibly fit more turns in that thing?
"Let's go then." The attendant at the waterfall-slingshot ride gives us these little plastic bracelet-things (like the kind you get at hospitals) with a little barcode on them that we scan when we come back in forty minutes for our booked session. Making our way over to the water slide, we're caught in line for about twenty minutes, and I keep trying to strike up casual conversation but it just isn't working for me. So instead I just kind of let myself observe Rei. I can't really look at him with any sort of want after today, because after today he's taken. I have to indulge while I can.
We get to the front of the line. "Okay, sirs, climb in." They have this sort of two-person inflatable raft. One person sits in one side, someone else in the other, and you kind of fold your legs together. Then there are these handles you hold onto really tight, and you lean away from one another. Rei and I fight our way in, our legs arguing to find a space where it's not too intimate. Without much warning, they push us down the slide. By a measure of misfortune, I wound up going down backwards, so I can't even see what's ahead. We follow every one of thousands of curves in the slide, each time coming just close enough to overshooting the edge to be exhilarating while not actually threatening to throw us ten stories down to a concrete landing pad. The sheer force of the ride throws our legs around a little and they end up in an intimate position anyway, both our legs splayed open, my left leg lying along the inside of his right leg and his left tracing the inside of my right. We each scream a little, not from fright, but because every time we go around a corner, the boat-raft-tube thing turns around. One time I go up backwards, the next time he goes up backwards, and it kind of feels like you leave your stomach at the top of the turn. It's more of an excited, look-how-much-fun-I'm-having scream. And in all of three minutes, we've reached to bottom of the slide.
"That was way more fun than I was expecting." I still feel a little light-headed, actually.
"Are you glad I chose this spot for our date?"
"Very."
"I'm happy to hear it." I can't stop myself from smiling. You know, just because we can't come here as a couple again, doesn't mean we can't come here as friends. Rei's a great guy. That's why I fell in love with him in the first place. If he's taken, that shouldn't stop us from being friends. So now I guess I can just enjoy today.
"How are you going without your glasses?"
"I can't read much, but I don't really need to, so that's okay."
"How bad is your vision, exactly?"
He point to a toilet block about 50 metres away. "Can you read the sign on that building?"
I lean forward a little and strain my eyes. "It just says toilet, doesn't it?"
"I don't know. I can't even see that there's text printed on the sign. The words are just blurred by all the wood around it."
"So, pretty bad?"
"Bad enough that I need glasses to read a book. As in, if I sit at a desk and open a book on the desk, I need my glasses to see it clearly."
"I thought my eyes were going."
"They could be. Third year students typically start to become slightly short-sighted because of the extensive periods of time spent studying, either at books or on computers."
"I should probably get them checked, then."
"My optometrist always said to never ignore any change in vision. But, if you don't need them to see for everyday things, it's probably not essential to get glasses." Our conversation carries us along and we get to that big drain-shaped ride. I'm interested to see how this one works. The line's not very long, so we're only around for a few minutes before we're standing ready to go. We pack ourselves into another blow-up raft, not even bothering to try and preserve propriety. We just put our legs where they ended up in the last ride. It feels like it should be awkward, or arousing, or something. But it just feels kind of normal. I'm glad I can say that.
Again with the no warning. The attendant just pushes us nonchalantly into the ride, like it's the most natural thing in the world. It's basically the same as the waterslide, except instead of just flipping back and forth on the corners, we're constantly rotating while we slide up the sides of the funnel until we stick off horizontal, come back down and repeat the motion on the other side. I imagine this is what it would feel like to be sucked down a drain with the whole whirlpool-action thing. That's probably the point in the ride, but at the minute I'm enjoying myself. I feel my body scream in excitement without my permission, and hear Rei's follow suit. This ride doesn't last as long. In about thirty seconds, we've come out to this little pool that the ride drains into.
"I'm a little disappointed. I wanted that to keep going!" I take few steps forward, jumping with excess exhilaration.
"I feel a little dizzy, actually. We spun too much for my taste."
"Spinning's good fun, though." At this point, we have about five minutes until slingshot-waterfall time. "Come on, our appointment at the slingshot is coming up." Now I grab him by the wrist and start running. I'm enjoying today too much to take it slow.
Our little hospital bracelets give us a straight shot into the little ball that is actually this ride. There's a six-by-six square of seats in the centre, where I assume everyone is meant to sit. Getting closer, I can see there are two little chambers on either side, each with two seats in them. They must be designed for couples. "Do you mind if we hop in one of those things, Rei?" I point to the little couple section on the right.
"I can't see what you're pointing at clearly."
I laugh loudly at the sheer awkwardness of the situation. I just tried to make some sort of half-bred move on this guy, and his short-sightedness puts a stop to it just like that. "Sorry, I forgot. There are these little rooms for two on the sides. Can we hop in one of those?"
"I guess this is a date, isn't it? Let's do it."
I get all shy the way I do when I want to be honest about my feelings. "Thanks for doing this for me."
Rei turns around and looks me straight in the eyes, a smile taking up most his face. "Don't think twice about it! I'm having a good time, too, you know." And then he grabs me by the wrist (we're doing a lot of wrist-grabbing today, I've noticed) and drags me alone the rest of the line, waving for the attendant's attention. "Excuse me! How do we get into the chambers on the side?"
"Just go in the normal way and there's a ladder up there." The attendant smiles at us, and I feel like he just might be judging us. I'm guessing it's not too often that two guys ask to go into one of those together. But we have, so we do, climbing up this shaky steel ladder to an open door on the side of the cage. Rei goes in first and takes the seat furthest from the door. I go to sit down next to him when I realise the door isn't going to close itself, so I pull it shut behind me. It locks into place automatically, and then Rei and I go about figuring out these clasps that are meant to hold us onto the seats.
"I hope this ride doesn't shoot too violently. These seatbelt-type things'll burn against bare skin."
"Mate, you're sitting in a giant slingshot. What do you think it's going to do, flick us? Of course it'll shoot violently! You just have to pull the restraints tight so they can't move too much." One of the ride technicians indicates to us that's exactly what we're supposed to do, and we pull tight on the straps until our torsos couldn't move for all the tea in China. With the freedom in our arms, I manage to take a hold of Rei's hand. "Not going to lie, I'm freaking out a little."
"I think that's the entire point." He returns my grip, but I can't tell if it's out of fear, excitement or respect.
I finally have a good view of what exactly it is this ride does. It's a vertical slingshot, so the ball-shaped cage we're in gets shot skyward. It's only attached at two points, at the sides, so the two couples chambers and the two anchors form a rough square. So that means not only will we fly up vertically, but we'll also spin around a lot. That explains all the restraints. The anchors seem fairly elastic, so we'll probably go once at full height, and then twice more at lower heights. And to top it all off, they've somehow invented a sideways waterfall, so clear in the path of our shot is a clear wall of water. So we'll shoot through that, come back through it on the way down, bounce back up through it, come back down through it again and bounce back up again and settle at the bottom where we are now. That's intense. "This is going to be absolutely petrifying, but so much fun."
"I agree." We redouble our grips on each other's hands and the operator checks everyone's restraints.
And again with the no warning. Except this time it's really frightening because we're suddenly going at several dozen (if not hundred) kilometres per hour, spinning madly, and absolutely screaming our lungs out. All in good fun, of course. We get hurled through the waterfall and the cold water just sprays gently over us – the cage broke the surface tension. Just as well – we probably would have been seriously injured otherwise. The cage stands still for a moment at the top of its trajectory, and there's this stunning view over the rest of the town. Of course, it also burns your eyes because you look straight into the sun, but I actually feel pretty bad that Rei can't see it too. That pretty much sums up the date, on the whole. Here's me having a great time at Rei's expense. I feel guilty, but I leave the feeling behind when the anchors wrench us back down. We shoot through the waterfall again and I instinctively squeeze Rei's hand even tighter. We shoot back up and just sort of continue screaming. I decide to stop thinking until this ride is over. A sheet of water, great fun, a great date. My gut wrenches back to earth as the ride screeches to a stop at the bottom of the second bounce. I'm disappointed. I wanted three.
"I never want to do that again, but at the same time, I would do it again right now."
"It's certainly a fascinating use of elastic energy against sheer mechanical propulsion. I should like to examine it more formally."
"While screaming your lungs out and having great fun, I assume?"
"It helps." We kind of laugh at each other until my stomach rumbles and breaks the magic moment.
"Does this mean it's time for lunch?"
"It is around midday. When did you have breakfast?"
"About 8."
"Given the energy we've expended in being scared witless all morning, theory would dictate you should need some food by now. I also ate around 8, so I'm starting to get hungry, too."
"Well, then, lunch is on me."
"Rin…"
"Don't "Rin" me. You paid for the tickets and organised all of this. At least let me buy you friggin' lunch. How much did this cost, anyway?"
"That's a secret."
"You do know I could just go and look it up when I get home."
"Yes, but you can never tell your date how much you've spent on them. It ruins the mystery."
"Okay then, fine. But I'm still buying lunch."
"If you insist." So we go back the locker and I consider towelling myself down, but then I decide that would be pretty dumb, because I would then proceed to get wet again and have to dry myself at the end of the day with a wet towel. Nothing worse. Rei grabs his glasses and I grab my wallet and flick through it, trying to find enough money to make up two meals. If I can bring exact change, then we won't have to come back.
"What's on the menu, Rei?"
He's looking at the map on the locker room wall, laying out our options. "Well, I'll hazard a guess we can't go to any of the proper restaurant style places without shirts."
"Fair point. So, burgers it is?"
"We can at least make a proper meal out of it. At this place here, they do a wide variety of seafood."
"That sounds like fun. What have they got?"
"All your typical deep-fried fish and calamari and prawns and whatnot, some proper grilled fish fillets, and a few different kinds of seafood soup."
"Let's go there." I'm sold. I love seafood. I check the pricings, and I spot a particularly interesting deal. "How's this sound? Feast for two: two fried shrimp, six fish cocktails, a fillet of grilled whiting each, eight pieces of salt and pepper squid, topped off with a serve of fries and a drink apiece."
"Definitely good value."
"Too right it is." I ferret about in my wallet and find the exact amount of yen. 2980. That's quite convenient, actually. "Off we march!"
Within about two minutes, we've reached this little seafood shack. It doesn't seem terribly popular, although that's probably something to do with the fact that not the entire menu is deep fried. And it's not exactly popular Japanese fare – aside from the soups, it's actually pretty Western. But then again, so is a massive mechanised water park, so who's judging? There's literally no wait, so we just walk straight up to the counter. I order, largely because I'm holding the money. "A feast for two, thanks."
"What drinks would you like with that?" The girl behind the counter seems way too young to be working. She couldn't possibly be older than thirteen. Maybe some people just look young. She's not having any trouble being hormonal. She's staring at both of us, examining us. I think.
"Good question. Rei, what do you want?" I hear the girl smother a snigger when she hears Rei's name, and she's definitely stopped examining us. Apparently a guy can't have a girly name in her world. I guess it's a little weird for a guy to be called Rei. She probably guessed it was some kind of pet name.
"I'll have whatever you have, Rin." Again, the girl covers her mouth, making a desperate effort to not be obviously insulting. She does alright for herself.
"Let's just go with two bottles of water. You can never go wrong there." The girl nods and retreats into the fridge, letting a brief laugh escape before she comes back with two bottles of water.
"We'll bring your food to you when it's ready." I take the bottles out of her hands and wonder how the hell she touched these things. They're almost completely frozen, and it burns my hand just to touch them. So I rush to the nearest table and put them down.
"Don't touch those just yet. They're really friggin' cold!" I lay my hands flat against the black plastic table to try and restore some heat to them. It works.
"Thanks for the tip." Rei laughs it out, naturally, comfortably. I start laughing along, and we just sort of keep going that way for a few minutes. God, today's been fun.
The food arrives in no time flat, because there is literally no one else here. It's kind of nice, having the area to ourselves. It really makes it feel like a date. But for now, food. "There's more here than I thought."
"Oh well. Growing boys, right?"
"I'm eighteen. I don't think that counts anymore."
"Most males don't finish growing completely until about age 20. Even then, they generally still have some leftover hormones and whatnot that boost digestive activity."
"Why the hell do you know that?"
"I know lots of things."
"I gathered as much." I pick up my little disposable fork and dislodge a small mound of chips onto my little disposal plate, taking a two pieces of squid and a fish cocktail with it as much by accident as design. "What are you waiting for? Dig in!"
"Okay." He shyly picks at the edges of the mountain of food we ordered.
"Actually go at it, Rei. You can eat. No way can I get through this by myself."
He blushes a little and smiles at me. "Okay." He starts pulling out his first round of food with a little more commitment, and I feel better. I've contributed something to today.
Today was over far too fast. I really enjoyed every second of it. I hope Rin feels the same way, too. This might have been just a formality, but I owed him this for being irresponsible with my decision. I couldn't stay with for him for even a little while, so a date was the least I could do. Besides, it's good practice.
That sounds abusive. When I say that, I feel like I just used Rin like a stepping stone. But that's not what I mean by it. I enjoyed my time with Rin, and did my best to make sure he enjoyed it, too. Even if it was only a week. But now I know, I'm excited to start my relationship proper with Nagisa. There are so many thrilling things that I think are waiting for me. Before I realise it, Rin and I have arrived at the train station. It's 3pm on a Saturday, so it's fairly crowded. "See you at school, Rin." I extend my hand.
He grabs it, but instead of shaking like I thought, he pulls me in tight and wraps his arms around me. "Thanks for putting up with my selfishness."
"Think nothing of it. I had fun, too." We live in opposite directions, so we have to catch different trains. I go to walk to my platform.
"Wait a sec, Rei." I turn around, just teetering on the edge of earshot. "Can I be selfish just one more time?"
"That depends on want you want."
"Just once, even if it's only short. I'll understand if you want to say no." He fidgets, like he can't quite figure out what he wants to say. "Just once, can we kiss?"
I'm glad he asked my permission, because I don't know immediately what the right response is. My brain says yes, just do it, then he'll be satiated and you won't have to be guilty. But my instincts say no, no, you can't do it, it's not right to kiss someone you don't love. Well, it's not that I don't love Rin. Just not like that. There are different kinds of love, I've decided. The way I love Rin is the way you love a brother. The way I love Gou is the way you love a sister. The way I love Nagisa is the way you love with everything you have. There lies my dilemma. Brotherly love doesn't tend to involve kissing. Loving with everything does. And there's something I just can't reconcile there.
"I'm sorry, Rin. That's something I just can't do." He goes to tell me that it's all okay, he'll be fine, but I don't let him. I haven't finished yet. "If the circumstances were even a little bit different, I might be able to. But this is my first kiss. I can't throw it around like it means nothing, because once it's gone, I'll never get it back. And…" It's my turn to fidget. "I'm sorry. My first kiss belongs to him."
"To him, you say?" I clap my hands over my mouth as I realise I let it slip. "Nice to know I don't have to go on the defensive over Gou." He claps me on the shoulder as he walks away to his platform. "I hope you two are happy together." He waves to me, even though he's facing away. "See you at school."
I just can't tell what he meant by that. I hope you two are happy together. Was that an "I'm fine", an "I'm hurt but I'll get over it" or an "I'm secretly going to stew in my anger for all eternity" wrapped behind those words? I don't know, but I trust Rin enough to believe it's one of the first two. I tried not to be harsh. He was just asking for too much. I'd be willing to do just about anything up to that, but a kiss was just too much. I walk to my platform, hoping I haven't accidentally set our relationship rotting forever.