Chapter 100

Chapter 100

Da?te (End)

The effect of the “date” was tremendous.

At least for me, it was.

Even though we were simply walking down a normal street, something felt very different.

Behind me, the sound of his footsteps following mine was tickling my ears.

Could it really feel this different just because we were wearing casual clothes instead of uniforms, and walking down the street under the excuse of a date?

My heart was fluttering.

It was one of the emotions I had come to understand while spending time with Zeto in the previous round.

Zeto had gifted me many emotions.

Comfort, enjoyment, joy, happiness, and other positive feelings.

“It is all good, but...”

I did not like how female students passing by on the street glanced furtively at Zeto.

Perhaps because of that, I unconsciously took Zeto’s hand as he followed behind me.

The hand I had not been able to take because, once I held it, I thought it would be hard to let go.

I held it.

“...”

Zeto merely tilted his head slightly.

He did not shake off my hand.

And so I walked down the street with him, holding his hand.

“First... shall we eat?”

“We already passed Herald’s shop, though?”

At my words, Zeto showed doubt.

He knew that I liked Herald’s curry.

But today was not a date for me.

It was a date for Zeto.

“...Not curry today. This time, I wanted to show you a good place I know...”

Zeto and I entered a narrow alley.

The restaurant was in a location so inconspicuous it could safely be called hidden.

“There was a restaurant in a place like this too.”

“I found it recently... Personally, I enjoyed it.”

“Haha, I will look forward to it.”

Zeto smiled brightly, and I entered the restaurant with him.

“He will like it, right?”

There was no way he would not like it.

This was a secret restaurant I had found together with Zeto in the previous round, and I remembered that Zeto had greatly liked the food here.

The restaurant was utterly quiet, with no customers.

I did not know why they had thought to make a restaurant in a place like this... but because it was just Zeto and me, alone together, it was even better.

“Mood, atmosphere is important, she said.”

Right now, I was on a “date” with help from Blanc, but I was also making good use of information I had seen in “101 Ways to Capture a Man.”

Sitting at a suitably secluded table, I ordered food in place of Zeto, who could not read the menu.

The restaurant had many unfamiliar dishes.

Not long after the order ended, a restaurant employee approached the table and set down glasses containing drinks.

“Your drinks have come out first.”

Especially this transparent-colored drink.

It was a drink with very unique characteristics... and Zeto liked it a great deal.

“You may drink it using this straw here.”

The employee, after a kind explanation, smiled and soon disappeared back into the kitchen.

“...Straw?”

Zeto showed doubt.

“Ah, this drink is drunk using something called a straw... You put your mouth here and suck...”

And so, I was explaining the straw, which I already knew about.

“...There is only one straw?”

I was sure that last time, when I came with Zeto, they had given us two. What had happened?

“Well, we can share one.”

I brought the straw in the drink glass to Zeto’s lips.

“You drink it through this.”

—Slurp.

Zeto drank through the straw.

Now I only had to watch his reaction.

“Uh...?”

Zeto’s mouth opened slightly.

At his cute reaction, exactly the same as in the previous round, laughter slipped out.

“Huhu, fascinating, isn’t it? It is called ‘cider’... At first, I thought it was water too. But it fizzes...!”

“It is very fascinating.”

“Right? How is the taste?”

“It is extremely delicious. Mm... perhaps they put lemon or lime in it.”

Zeto seemed satisfied, and the corners of his lips rose high.

At his reaction, I also took a sip of the cider.

The straw was damp... I wondered if it was Zeto’s saliva, but it did not feel dirty at all.

“An indirect kiss...”

I had heard such a thing existed.

No matter what, surely the curse would not lift from something like this.

The main dish was something called “boneless chicken,” an easy-to-eat food made by frying chicken meat with the bones removed.

Zeto liked this as well.

After finishing our pleasant meal, we bought vanilla ice cream sold on the street as a palate cleanser.

I kept walking while holding his hand.

There were so many things I wanted to do with Zeto, but the day felt as if it were passing quickly.

The places I mainly headed toward were ones filled with many memories from the previous round’s Zeto.

We climbed the clock tower together and took deep breaths of air, and we even ran across rooftops like children while hiding from people.

This was not merely to remember the Zeto of the previous round or recall old memories.

They were memories and recollections that only I possessed, and that Zeto did not.

Before, that had been terribly painful.

It hurt, and it was agonizing.

At first, I had even found it difficult to face Zeto.

I had been foolish.

I had been unable to let go of memories that had no meaning and should have crumbled away.

They were too precious to me.

But that was a foolish thing.

Just as Blanc said, what mattered in love was being “together.”

So, together with Zeto, like now.

Perhaps I could simply create memories far happier than those from that time.

Even if the drawing paper had faded, perhaps I could simply draw on it once more.

That was the thought I had.

Before I knew it, the sun had set, and around the time the surroundings began gradually darkening...

I took Zeto to a hill on the outskirts of the academy.

Then Zeto’s voice came from behind me as he followed while holding my hand.

“What do we do here?”

Since, for today at least, I had been leading everything, Zeto asked me.

“What shall we do?”

I had not really decided anything like that.

This place too was one filled with memories of Zeto.

But after this round began, I had avoided it.

I had not come here even once.

“We do nothing here. It is just... my favorite place.”

I crouched down in the field on the hill.

A familiar spot, a familiar view.

In truth, it was a place I had liked even before meeting Zeto in the previous round.

It was quiet.

Aside from the wind brushing past my ears, no sound could be heard.

Before my eyes was the view of the academy, of the city.

It felt different from the clock tower at the center of the city.

Though I had come here after so long, everything felt familiar. But if there was one thing different...

“...It is quiet and nice.”

Zeto, who had come and sat beside me, said quietly.

Zeto.

This was the place where I had first met Zeto in the previous round.

No, perhaps it would be more accurate to say it was the place where I first spoke with him.

At that time, I had discovered Zeto at the entrance ceremony and grown interested in him.

A future that would not change no matter what, and a variable that had suddenly appeared.

I had been exhausted to the bone, but I had held a faint expectation.

“A face I have not seen before...”

I had said that to Zeto when he approached the hill.

Of course, there was no way Zeto could have known what those words meant.

“Today is the entrance ceremony... Is there anyone who is not a face you are seeing for the first time?”

When he tilted his head and answered me that way, I had ended up laughing softly.

That was how he naturally approached me.

It was also the reason I had not wanted to come here.

If I did not come here, would there be no natural meeting with him?

Had everything with him been nothing more than coincidence?

I had wanted to confirm that.

“Well, I could not hold back and approached him first...”

Now, all of it was meaningless talk.

“What matters now...”

I turned my head and took in the sight of Zeto illuminated by moonlight.

What mattered now was that Zeto was here in this place, beside me.

That was enough.

If the moments I had shared with him here were so precious, then now I could make moments far more precious than those.

Zeto had shown me.

The future. What it meant to defy fixed fate.

And so I would also try not to lose him.

While staring steadily at Zeto’s face without exchanging any conversation with him, his lips once again entered my eyes.

“...It would be impossible, right.”

If I moved my face in to kiss him right now, it felt as though Zeto would not avoid me.

...That was simply how I felt.

The problem was that it had to be a kiss with “the one he loves.”

If, even after kissing me, Zeto’s curse did not lift... I had no confidence I could endure that.

So when it was certain.

When it was utterly certain that Zeto loved me, it seemed better to try then.

“Though I still do not know when that will be, or how I should find out.”

I only hoped it would not be too late.

If it were too late... like before, all the memories I had built up with him would turn to foam and vanish.

Of course, before Zeto died, I would seek out the Saintess, or Zeto’s lo...

...Right, I would find the person Zeto “loved,” even if it was not me, and make him kiss them. But it was still fine for now.

“For now,” I still had a chance.

To begin with, there was no guarantee that Zeto would appear in the next regression either. He was, after all, only a “variable.”

As a precaution, I had tried to find out where Zeto had been before coming to the academy, but he had said he had traveled the continent with his master... so it would not be easy for me, safe inside the academy, to find him.

Trying to regress on my own would only happen when Zeto died, and there was no visible way to save him.

At the very, very end.

It was at the very moment I was staring holes through Zeto’s face and making that resolution inside.

—Piiiiing!

A beam of light shot up from the city with a loud sound.

“Mm...?”

At the sudden sound, Zeto, who had been quietly staring into space, showed doubt.

Then the light flying into the air burst.

—Bang!

The identity of the light was fireworks.

“Fireworks...”

Following my murmur, another firework shot up and burst loudly.

Since we happened to be on a hill where the city view was visible, it could be seen very well.

Colorful flames embroidered the night sky.

It was brilliant and beautiful.

“...Fireworks, is it.”

Zeto, catching my murmur, echoed it.

I could take this sight into my eyes, but Zeto could not.

So I tried somehow to “show” him.

“Flames rise into the sky and burst with a bang! The colors are all bright and varied...”

Along with the sound of fireworks, my explanation continued.

Zeto, listening to the explanation, wore a faint smile.

And so began my lengthy explanation of the fireworks.

He quietly focused on my voice.

In truth, not only now, but for this entire day, he had been focusing entirely on me.

Would this be enough?

There was no way he could see it through an explanation like this, but I hoped at least my heart had reached him.

With nothing more I could explain, I stopped looking at the night sky where fireworks burst, turned my head toward Zeto, and opened my mouth.

“...Anyway, they really are beautiful...”

Zeto’s head was turned not toward the sky, but toward me.

Perhaps it was because he had no need to look at the sky, or perhaps it was simply because I was speaking and so he was looking at me.

“...you know.”

Because I had suddenly grown very close to his face, my words caught in my throat.

Soon, the lips of Zeto, who was “looking” at me, opened.

“You are right. It really is beautiful.”