Chapter 59. Planning a... Date? (1/2)

The following day, it was a Sunday. I had the entire day off.

As soon as I opened my eyes in the morning, the first words I heard were, “Let’s go out on a date today.”

Yes, my girlfriend demanded we go on a date. There was no room for me to refuse, was what her overly serious eyes told me. She would not take no for an answer today.

We’d been in a relationship for so long, but up until now, we hadn’t really gone on a single date. We were quite intimate and close, yet not a single record of a first date in public existed between us.

Being spontaneously asked out of nowhere to take her on a date, I was lost. I’d been on one date in my life and it was a double date I’d been forced to go on with Alicia. I had no idea what I was supposed to do.

Would she be satisfied with something simple like going to a restaurant and then seeing a movie together? But… that was so bland and boring. What the hell did I do on that double date again? I figured I could use that as a reference.

Sadly, I remembered nothing from it except for the cafe when I met up with Alicia, the horror movie where she was glued to me the entire time, and when I visited her home after the double date was over.

I’d just been that uninterested in the whole double date aspect and I was simultaneously keeping a constant watch out for people that might know me despite the disguise I had.

I mulled over it for quite some time before I decided to do one of the few things I knew how to do. Research. I turned to the honorable master of all worldly matters, Honorable Master Internet, for date ideas that wouldn’t cost much.

Reading through a list of 100 cute date ideas I felt like I was going to be sick. What was with this list? Almost all of them sounded god awful. And the ones that weren’t so bad were just the usual boring shit that I didn’t have much interest in.

The most notable were: 

Try a new restaurant. Been there, done that.

Go on a picnic. Not going to happen in winter, next.

Take a hike. No, you take a hike! Same as the last, not happening.

Hit the beach. Are you just trying to piss me off? Am I being mocked by this shitty list for living in one of the coldest cities on the planet?

Go skiing. Hell naw. That sounds boring as hell.

Play a board game. Am I a joke to you?

Throw a casino night. I may be an adult at heart, but I’m still a kid in body. Stop screwing with me you shitty unhelpful list.

Build a campfire. I’m done. I’m so done right now. 

Have a spa night. Who hurt you, list? Why do you insist on hurting my eyes with these god-awful ideas?

Go grocery shopping together. No.

Learn a new skill. Are you trying to get me killed with these suggestions?it’s our first date. The first freaking one damn it!

Play hide and seek. I could already imagine her dead eyes if I suggested this.

Take a… dance… class? AHHHHH! Don’t you dare dig up my traumas!

Visit a zoo or aquarium. They’re closed with how cold it is. I wouldn’t be surprised if the animals are dead. Those poor things.

Do karaoke. Do I look like I can sing?

Go bowling. Not interested. Takes too much energy to throw a stupid heavy ball at a bunch of pins.

A movie? No shit, I never would have thought of that. Thank you for the absolutely most generic goddamn date in the world. Oh, whatever would I do without your shitty suggestions, List?

Challenge them at an arcade? Oh! … that one doesn’t sound too bad actually. Finally, one that wasn’t god-awful. I could actually use this one.

Read romance novels together. Hmm… honestly, as an author myself, the idea sort of appealed to me in a way. Though… it sounds kind of lame if it was just that though, especially if we did it here. I don’t think she’d be fully satisfied with only this. 

Maybe… a public library? But it would be unsatisfying if we just read books that we had to return. In that case, what if we went to a bookstore first? If we found something we liked that we could purchase and keep as a memento of the date, wouldn’t that be nice? We could then go to the library and read them together there.

Purchasing physical books honestly wasn’t my thing, but that didn’t mean I’d never thought about it before. That was because I ate them up and spat them out. They never had much sentimental value to me as once I finished one I’d quickly move onto the next and forget about the last one I read.

But if these books had sentimental value, being from my first date with her, I’d probably care about them much more. 

After much thought, I determined the direction I’d take for this date. First was the arcade for earlier in the day. Next would be a book store where we could peruse at our leisure to find something we were both interested in reading. Then finally we could head to the library for some peaceful alone time as we read the books we selected.

Sitting next to her, we’d both hold the book together and read it at the same time. We could talk about and discuss what’s happening and whatnot as well. I’d match her speed of reading to ensure we weren’t constantly waiting on each other.

As an author myself, I was confident that I wouldn’t be slower at reading than her. Wait a minute… I’d forgotten one important factor in all of this. Did this girlfriend of mine even read books?

Ah. What if she was like me when I was her age? I hated reading books with a passion. They put me to sleep. I avoided reading books like the plague. I went all the way until about… I think, 2nd or 3rd year in university before I read my first novel.

With that realization, I snapped back to reality and looked up at the girl seated beside me on the couch.

When she noticed that my eyes weren’t glued to my phone anymore, she asked, “Have you thought of a plan for our date?”

“Uh… yeah… I have, actually.”

“Oh, then let me hear it. What will we be doing on our date today?”

“Well… before that, I have a question.”

“What is it?”

“Do you read books?” As soon as she heard that she frowned.

“Do I really look like the type of girl who spends her time reading?”

“Well… not really, but… didn’t you say you wanted to become a teacher in the future?”

“Yes, I did. What about it?”

“Well, do you really want to be a teacher who tells her students that she’s never properly read a single book in her life?”

“Ah… that’s a bit… when you put it like that… wouldn’t that be embarrassing? But I could just lie and say I have, right?”

“What if they ask you what books you’ve read and they try to use that to hold a conversation with you?”

“Uh… can’t I just make something up?”

“What if they search the title of the book up and discover you lied and they realize in that manner their teacher has never read a single book? Wouldn’t that be even more embarrassing?”

“Ugh… so… since you’re asking me all this, do you plan to force me to read books for our date?”

“Well, it’s a bit different than that.”

“What’s the plan then?”

“Well, the first part of our date early in the day would be us going to an arcade.”

“Oh! Yeah, yeah! Let’s do that, that sounds like fun! Then? What comes after that?”

“Well… we’ll probably be tired, so how about a Chinese restaurant I know? They have the best fried rice and cantonese style chow mein in the city. Despite the food being so good, it isn’t that popular or busy due to the location. It’s hard to come across this restaurant unless you’re specifically looking for it, I doubt you’ve been to it before.”

“Is their food better than mine? If not then I should just cook something up myself and bring it along.”

“You’ll be in for a surprise. Yours is definitely really good, but theirs is nothing you can laugh off. It still blows my mind how few people know about this place. You might even learn a thing or two from it.” Honestly, it wasn’t until university I discovered this god-like restaurant by chance. Their prices were cheap and their food was amazing. Though they had few customers at the time, they made up for it with the ones they had constantly coming back for more who ordered large quantities of their food.

I’d already confirmed before one time when I went to the university when skipping class that the food was good even now. I just couldn’t afford to spend too much money to frequent the place so I stuck with the cheapest solution of frozen TV dinners every day.

Rosa looked very interested and eager when she heard my high praise of the restaurant. She did enjoy cooking after all. If she was told about such a place, it was obvious she’d want to try it.

“Please continue, what’s next?”

“After that… I’d like to go to a bookstore.”

“A bookstore?” Rosa questioned quizzically.

“Uh… the thing is, I actually enjoy reading quite a bit as a hobby.”

“What! Why haven’t I ever seen you reading a book then?”

“Well… I typically only read novels online. I've never been the type to spend money on physical books.” I felt a bit awkward confessing to this hobby of mine as it was very closely tied to my secret life as an author.

“Seriously?”

“Yes, seriously.”

“Uh… do you like girls who read?”

“It’s not something I particularly care about, but I just thought it might be nice to read something side by side, together with my girlfriend… from the same book that we’d share. Reading can be a lot of fun, you know. And... the source material in written form typically far surpasses its adaptations. I never truly understood in the beginning when I was only seeing the adaptations of the source material, just how wide the gap truly was in most cases.”

“But you’d like me more if I did read?” She seemed to especially latch onto that aspect.

“I’d like you just the same regardless, but it would make me a little happy… I guess.”

“Then… I’ll give it a try.”

When she said that, I felt a strange sense of happiness, a lot more than I’d expected.

“So after we’ve purchased the books, I was thinking we could head over to a library and read there rather than coming back to your place right away.”

“A library… aren’t they super boring though?”

“It’s about the atmosphere. Think about it, being alone together in that sort of atmosphere…”

She closed her eyes and tried to imagine the scene of the two of us holding the book together quietly chatting with each other every now and then while we read.

Her eyes shot open and she nodded, “Yeah. Yeah! It actually doesn’t sound too bad. Not bad! But wait, will they even be open? It’s a Sunday, right? And even if they were open wouldn’t they close by the time we finished everything else?”

Ah. She was right. I facepalmed for a moment when I realized the big flaw in that plan.

If that was the case, we’d have to go somewhere else. Preferably I’d like somewhere we could stay late. But… I really did want the library for the atmosphere it provided.

If only I were a librarian or had connections to one who could pull some strings for me. Why do I lack such social skills? Why!