Hi. Just wanted to let you guys know I’m still here and I am keeping my promise of finishing this. If you’re wondering where I’ve been, I was at school and figuring out the rest of this story. If you think that I’m lying, it took me a collective 23 hours to name one character. Anyway, I’m probably boring you, so here’s chapter two. (Sorry, I’m a bit rusty now.)

And oh yeah, I fixed some of the descriptions. The girl’s hair is longer now—shoulder-length—but other than that, everything else is the same.

“Man…” sighed a teenager, rubbing the back of his neck in agitation as he walked the busy city streets.

‘It’s been a week since I saw that girl and I haven’t gotten any sleep since.’

He stifled a yawn.

It wasn’t like he didn’t try. That girl just kept showing up in his dreams and wouldn’t leave him alone. Honestly, how do you deal with a girl like that? She was frank and arrogant and she was only fifteen! A fifteen-yr-old shouldn’t have been that crass and arrogant…or cute.

“Gah! Get out of my head!”

Suddenly feeling eyes staring at him, he realized he had said that out loud and after laughing nervously, the crowd deemed him a harmless weirdo and left him alone.

“What am I doing? Get it together, Daichi! You’re in the city now, not the country. Focus!” he whispered to himself. Sighing, he raked his hand through his hair.

“I’m pathetic,” he said to himself with a frown before slapping his cheeks. He had to pull it together. He couldn’t let this get to him. Fight it, Daichi, he told himself, feeling his confidence swell. Drawing himself back to full-height, he set forth to start his city life anew when he spotted a familiar head of hair.

“Hey!”

“Huh?”

“Let go of me, you freak!” a girl screamed at the guy holding her wrist. Daichi blinked and quickly let go, bowing his head.

“Ah, sorry,” he apologized “I’m Imahara Daichi.” Seeing the confused expression on her face, he realized he better explain.

“I met you on the train last week. You said I was staring at you,” he admitted quietly, a blush lightly covering his cheeks. “If you don’t mind, I want to take you to a café—to talk! Just talk!” he reassured.

Realizing he was acting stupid again, he screwed his eyes shut and waited. In his mind, he wondered why he had done all those things like shout in the middle of a street and run up to a girl he didn’t know and ask her out to a café, and silently prayed that she wouldn’t beat him up in the middle of a busy sidewalk.

“…Okay.”

At her simple answer, his head perked up instantly. He couldn’t believe it. She said yes! She said yes! But, of course, his intelligent reply was a blank-faced, “Come again?”

Chatter echoed in the small street café. The building itself was very spacious, but the attention and interaction between patron and waitress made the atmosphere comfortable and cozier. And as customers gave their orders to waitresses in maid costumes, they all stole glances at the boy and girl sitting by the window.

Daichi was many things. He was a teenager at 19 years old—nineteen long years of being on Earth and drudging through life and its chores and oddities. He had seen many things in his lifetime, but even he couldn’t help but stare at the girl before him as she shoveled the chocolate ganache in her mouth. Including this plate, the count was three slices of cake, two cream puffs (each the size of his palm), and a cup of tea for them both.

“So what did you want to talk about?” she asked, as if oblivious to Daichi’s awed stare as she began breaking down a slice of strawberry shortcake. The count went up to four.

At her question, Daichi opened his mouth to talk before he froze. He had no idea what he wanted to talk about.

Feeling the urge to just crawl into a hole and die, he tiredly raised his head to see her almost done with the shortcake slice.

“You really eat at lot,” he noted, no longer in his slumped position. She glanced up at him and swallowed her cake before replying.

“I’m a growing teenager. Do you have a problem with that?” she asked pointing her fork at him. There was an underlying edge to her tone and he was sure if he didn’t step lightly, that fork would end up somewhere it wasn’t supposed to be. Daichi shook his head in alarm.

“No. It’s just…I never would’ve guessed since you’re so thin,” he murmured with an awkward smile.

She glared. “Are you saying that only fat people are allowed to eat so much?”

“What? No!” he shouted. He didn’t think so—couldn’t think so since he was the same. Back home, he was the biggest eater in the house. His mother would constantly berate him for trying to eat her out of house and home. It was just that she was the first girl he’d ever seen eat that much without getting sick.

“It’s just—I just—it was supposed to be a compliment! And—and—God, why am I so bad at talking to girls?” he groaned burying his face into his hands.

That was another thing about Daichi. He was already an awkward child, but around girls, he didn’t know what to do or when to shut up. He knew the old saying ‘Men are from Mars and women are from Venus,’ but he was probably the only person who believed men and women were from entirely different galaxies.

Unbeknownst to him, the girl had stopped eating to look up at him. Her fork was placed by her plate; her mouth paused as she studied the awkward teen gripping his hair in distress before her when her watch suddenly went off.

“Crap! I’m late!”

Daichi lifted his head. “For what?”

“For work,” she hurriedly explained as she grabbed her bag and began to pack.

“Where do you work?”

“Oh, I work at a ramen shop,” she stated absentmindedly as she zipped her bag closed and began running to the door. Halfway there, she turned and ran back to the table.

“Thank you for the food,” she said bowing her head before dashing out the café, leaving Daichi to sit with a stunned gaze.

“…Did that really happen?” he asked himself dazedly before letting his gaze trail to the plates stacked on the table top. It had been real. She had been real.

Excitement brimmed in his body, coursing through his veins. He had done it. He had talked to her! Sure, they didn’t talk much, but he knew more about her now. She remembered who he was and she had a job at a ramen shop.

“Yahoo!” he shouted, jumping up from his seat, causing the people around him to start. The table jolted up with his shout and he quickly placed his hands to correct the problem, the table and plates landing with a loud clatter, when he spotted something in her chair.

“What’s this?” he asked, rounding the table and ignoring the hushed whispers around him to pick up the small navy wallet. A small insignia stood on the leather front and curious, he opened it up.

Hirose Setsuna, freshman. M High School.

Scrawled below it was the school’s address and it clicked in his mind that this was her school I.D.

He glanced at the clock. The school would be long closed by now and there was probably no one to pick up the phone even if he called, but he still had to give it back to her.

Staring long and hard at the small card in his hand, he was struck with an idea. He could return it to her tomorrow at her school!

Pocketing the wallet, he mentally patted himself on the back for such a good job. And just when he was about to leave…

“Excuse me sir, you forgot your bill,” a maid said handing him the slip of paper. Looking at all the zeroes, Daichi’s eyes bulged.

‘There goes all my manga money,’ he thought sadly.