055. Date (2)
055. Date (2)
We decided to go on a date.
The reason was trivial.
Because she didn't want the first kiss she would remember forever to happen in a musty bachelor's room with a man she didn't even like, merely because she 'had to do it.'
Rinne had asked me to use a date to create enough of a romantic mood that she could genuinely want to kiss me.
Honestly, I didn't really understand her way of thinking.
It was the same kiss with the same person either way.
If anything, I wondered whether getting it over with quickly on the spot would be easier to forget later and less humiliating for Rinne.
But I decided not to press the point.
I thought she needed firsthand dating experience if she was going to learn how to write a proper romance.
So now it was time to discuss where and how to have this date——
"Then, what about heading to Metropolis?"
"Metropolis? What for?"
"Hmm."
There was plenty to do.
Browse some moderately bustling streets.
Stop by a few fancy shops girls might like.
And besides that, eat good food, buy some nice clothes.
......Now that I listed it out, it was exactly the same route I had taken Laika on during our previous date.
Taking two girls on the exact same date route did feel a little deceptive.
But what did it matter? I wasn't dating either of them.
Most importantly, what Rinne needed was the experience of a 'universal date.'
In that sense, I thought this route was a good model of the kind of date an ordinary couple might enjoy.
At least, that was what I thought.
"Rejected!"
Rinne didn't seem to like it.
"What's the problem?"
"It's too safe and ordinary."
......Wasn't safe and ordinary a good thing?
"It's not a matter of good or bad. I don't want to give away my first kiss on a safe, ordinary date like that."
"Aren't you making too big a deal of this?"
"It's a serious matter for me."
Haah.
"Then what kind of date does it have to be?"
"Hmm? Something more romantic, heart-pounding, fluttery, nerve-racking... that kind of thing?"
It was so abstract that I had trouble understanding what she meant.
She probably didn't have any concrete ideas herself.
She was just unconsciously rejecting an ordinary date due to otaku-style fantasies absorbed from light novels and anime.
Wasn't there an otaku-ish date concept that would satisfy Rinne?
The deliberation was brief.
"Ah."
A good idea came to mind.
"How about we just go visit the places from your novel?"
"Places from my novel?"
That's right.
"Doesn't that sound good?"
If they were actually places that appeared in a novel, they would be perfectly suited for a 'date that seems straight out of a novel.'
I had recently researched otaku culture quite a bit to get closer to Rinne, and I had learned that otaku had a culture of so-called 'pilgrimages' to locations associated with works they liked.
In short, it meant traveling around to visit the places that served as the setting for a favorite manga or anime.
My idea was that an otaku like Rinne would be tempted by a date that doubled as one of those pilgrimages.
And indeed she was.
"Well, it might not be bad. A pilgrimage date."
And so, the date concept was decided.
It was decided, but.
Before setting off on this date, there was one thing that absolutely had to be addressed.
"You're not planning to go on the date dressed like that, are you?"
"Huh? Like what?"
Rinne scratched her neck, dissatisfied.
I ignored that and scolded her.
"Look at yourself. Are you in any state to go on a date?"
"What's wrong with how I look?"
What was wrong, indeed.
She looked incredibly slovenly and tacky.
The same stretched-out white T-shirt she always wore, denim shorts that looked no different from panties except for the material, knee socks, and slippers.
Naturally enough, no girl in real life went on a date in such an outfit.
Especially for a first date with a first kiss in mind, it was absolutely out of the question.
"Then how am I supposed to dress?"
"Hmm. It's hard to explain in words."
I decided to take a look at her wardrobe.
"Huh? Says who~? I'm not showing you~"
As usual, Rinne reflexively slipped into her bratty-girl routine.
But there was one fact she was overlooking.
The current Rinne liked me far too much to genuinely look down on me or treat me with contempt.
So if I simply took her hand and gave her a tender look——
"Ugh......! What are you doing? Let go?"
"Please. Show me your wardrobe. I want to see how cute you look."
"Wha, whawhawhawhat...... What are you saying! Some pathetic Commander......! I hate it......!"
While her mouth said that, Rinne was inwardly so happy she was bouncing on her heels.
Eventually, unable to endure the combination of embarrassment and delight, she gave in to my request.
"Follow me for now."
That brought us to the basement.
Ignoring the usual mess, I looked through her wardrobe.
Only then did I realize she had two wardrobes.
In the smaller one on the left, there was nothing but the three sets of slovenly white tees and shorts Rinne always wore.
Conversely, in the large wardrobe next to it——
"Ohh."
There were surprisingly many pretty-looking clothes.
However,
"......Huh?"
The sizes were a bit strange.
How to put it. The chest was too big.
The hips were also nowhere near a size Rinne could wear.
Were they Alicia's clothes?
But the chest was a bit larger than even Alicia's.
Sumire's then?
But there was no way Rinne was keeping Sumire's clothes, and on top of that, the length was too long to be Sumire's.
And now that I looked more closely, the clothes themselves were odd too.
How to put it. They weren't the kind of normal everyday clothes a girl would wear.
For example, the one on the far left looked like something a wizard from a fantasy novel would wear.
The one next to it looked like a Japanese school uniform.
The one next to that...... a bunny girl outfit?
"What is this?"
Who were these for, and what were they for?
Seeing my bafflement, Rinne answered quietly.
"Th, they're cosplay outfits."
......Excuse me?
"Cosplay?"
"Yeah. Dummy."
When I turned around, Rinne was bright red.
I was dumbfounded.
"You have a hobby like that?"
"I, I only collected them......!"
Rinne yelled.
I was at a loss for words.
"Only collected? Why?"
"Actually wearing them outside... that would be way too embarrassing..."
"You couldn't even wear them in the first place. At these sizes."
"You have it backward. Since I was only collecting them, I didn't care about the size."
Rinne grumbled as she said that.
"In the first place, all the popular characters these days are big-breasted......! Because of dirty males like Oppa who only care about chests......!"
Wasn't that a bit rich coming from someone who liked those busty characters enough to collect their costumes?
At any rate, her collection of cosplay outfits was far more extensive than her actual wardrobe. She really was an otaku through and through.
Well, that wasn't what mattered right now.
"So you don't have any clothes that fit you at all?"
For about three seconds, Rinne couldn't answer.
She then aggressively shot back a moment later.
"Wh, what if I do? Planning to dress me up and go on a date?"
"Probably?"
Even a random cosplay outfit would be better than Rinne's current messy look.
And judging by Rinne's reaction, it seemed there were some clothes that fit. If not, she would have declared, 'I don't!'
So I rummaged through the wardrobe a little more and soon found an outfit made noticeably smaller in the chest.
A black Gothic Lolita-style dress.
It was slightly burdensome since it obviously looked like a cosplay outfit, but nevertheless, it was more appropriate for a date than Rinne's current attire.
Most of all——
"This one. It's that outfit Roxy wears, isn't it?"
"......Ugh."
As expected.
This black dress was the outfit of Roxy, the main heroine of Rinne's novel.
I held the outfit out to Rinne and asked.
"Please wear this on our date."
"Wha, what?"
Rinne let out a sigh as if dumbfounded.
It seemed her psychological resistance was high.
It couldn't be helped. The outfit itself wasn't everyday wear, and Rinne would be embarrassed in many ways. The idea of the author herself wearing the outfit of her self-insert character on a date was already a mortifying situation.
Such an extremely embarrassing but extremely pleasant act of deviance; if imitated poorly, her brain would melt.
And just for today, I wanted her brain to melt.
The goal of this date was to make Rinne willingly give away her precious first kiss.
If she got a little out of it and became easier for me to sway, all the better.
Plus, it seemed incredibly fitting for the date concept.
Visiting places Roxy had been while dressed as Roxy. Wasn't that fun?
"B, but still...... if people recognize it or something......."
"Who's going to recognize it? It just looks like a gothic-style dress."
"R, really? You really think they won't recognize it?"
No. They'd recognize it one hundred percent.
This girl was wearing clothes only an anime character would wear.
Even someone who hadn't read a single page of the Beyond the Cradle series—no, even a normal person who'd never encountered a light novel—would think the same thing.
Any man, woman, or child would sense the peculiar dissonance unique to cosplay outfits.
Rinne probably guessed that fact to some extent as well.
She simply wanted me to give her an excuse to wear it.
So she could establish that pleasant justification within herself: 'It turned out like this because of Oppa.'
I decided to indulge her and lied without the slightest hesitation.
"Don't worry. No one will recognize it. If they do, you can just say I forced you to wear it."
Then, without giving her time to think, I delivered the finishing blow.
"Besides, if you go on a date dressed as Roxy, won't it help when you write the final volume's main text later?"
A very practical excuse: for the sake of writing.
Perhaps she had been completely swayed by that.
After hesitating for a long while, Rinne answered quietly.
"Wait outside for a bit. I'll just check if the size fits......."
I did as she asked.
About ten minutes passed.
After Rinne told me I could come back in, I re-entered the basement.
But Rinne wasn't there.
Instead, Roxy herself from the novel had manifested.
"......H, how do I look?"
Hmm.
"I think it's cute."
"D, don't just say empty words......."
"I mean it."
I genuinely thought she looked adorable.
Because it was hard to find anything in the universe as lovely as 'a normally prickly girl who wore an embarrassing outfit for the man she liked.'
Of course, saying that aloud might make Rinne die of embarrassment, so I toned it down.
"It suits you well. You're pretty."
Perhaps pleased by those words.
Rinne cautiously took my hand.
And then she spoke in a very Roxy-like manner.
"It's all to write well....... And anyway, it's because my mind got weird from the narrative granting....... Whatever, it's not my fault."
Everything you say is right.
***
Afterward, we enjoyed a date that also served as a tour of locations from Beyond the Cradle.
Of course, we couldn't visit every place in the story. Since it was a Commander story, many locations were military facilities. We picked the places we most wanted to visit that were actually accessible.
Places we could see within the day, centered on the developing relationship between protagonist Kang Min-hyuk and main heroine Roxy.
—The abandoned building where the protagonist and Roxy met in volume 1
—The alleyway where they confirmed their feelings for each other in volume 4
—The high school building that served as the main setting of Volumes 7 and 8, where the two briefly went undercover as a student and teacher
—The train station where they finally met again in volume 11
......We visited those and several other places.
We did more than just look around.
Since Rinne had even come in cosplay, we reenacted scenes from the novel at each location.
At the abandoned building, for example, we held hands.
In the alleyway, we walked arm in arm.
On the high school grounds, we sat side by side with our shoulders touching.
At the train station, we briefly embraced and felt each other's warmth.
Each time, the emotional walls between us gradually crumbled, and Rinne and I fell into a subtle illusion.
The illusion that perhaps we really did like each other and were actually dating.
By the time that feeling peaked, we had reached a closed amusement park on the outskirts of Metropolis.
It was a location that hadn't appeared in the serialized parts.
That was because it was scheduled to appear in the final volume.
It was the destined place where the protagonist and heroine, having confirmed their feelings for each other, would share a kiss.
So——
"It should be about time, right?"
"......Huh?"
"The kiss, I mean."
I said it awkwardly.
Rinne made a face as if fed up.
"Oppa, do you think a girl would feel like kissing a guy who asks like that?"
"Still, I have to ask."
"That's why your girlfriend ran away in a single day. Pa-thetic."
I thought that was completely unrelated.
"Anyway, are you going to do it or not? If not, you'll have to keep living with that feeling?"
"Ah, just wait a bit. I'll think about it."
Rinne said that and started sinking into thought.
Whether she could kiss me now or not.
A moment later, she quietly delivered her verdict.
"......You may."