It was hard for Kazuya to get her comfortable enough to remove her mask again but he was successful by the time they reached the restaurant.

“Milady.” Kazuya offers his arm to her in a bent shape.

Chizuru giggles a little at his display but locks her arm with his nonetheless.

They weren’t going to go to a very fancy restaurant but it was a good place nonetheless. Neither of them was dressed to go to a fancy restaurant.

Sitting at the table, they ordered their food. 

“Why did you take me on this date?” Chizuru is curious about Kazuya’s motivations to ask her out. He wasn’t head over heels for her so she was curious.

“The truth?” He pauses for her reply.

She nods at him and tells him to continue.

“You’re a bombshell. I have never seen someone as beautiful as you. I was smitten with you the moment I laid my eyes on you.” He says with a completely straight face while looking into her eyes.

“I asked for the truth.” Her face is expressionless even though her blush has increased.

“…Fine. You seemed like an interesting personality. I’m attracted to troublesome girls. Consider it my preference. Seeing you going around with so many different masks, I got curious about which one’s the real you. Plus the bombshell part is completely true. Who wouldn’t want to be with you?”

“That seemed… surprisingly truthful. I appreciate your interest in me but I’m honestly not in a place to start-“ She understood his motivations but still wanted to clarify things with him.

“Woah there… Chizuru…san, I didn’t ask you to be my girlfriend. At least not yet. I just asked you out on a date. You don’t need to reject a guy who hasn’t even asked you out.”

“No, I understand but I thought that-“

“You don’t need to clarify anything. I just asked you out for the sake of asking you out. There’s no deeper meaning to it. So, let’s forget about that stuff and enjoy our date.”

He raised the wine glass in his hand that was filled with wine in classic DeCaprio style and gestured to Chizuru to raise hers as well.

“That sounds like a wonderful idea,” She raises her glass and clinks it with Kazuya’s raised glass.

They both take a sip of the wine together.

Finally, when the food is here Kazuya noticed that Chizuru asked for extra chopsticks. 

He didn’t ask her why but while eating her meal she offered him some food using the spare chopsticks and he realized her ploy.

“Try this, it’s very good.”

‘This perfect girlfriend likes to cover all avenues, eh?’

He gladly eats what she offered to him and when she turns back down to eat he does the same for her.

“Here,” The natural way that Kazuya offers her the food makes her not notice anything out of ordinary and she takes a bite out of his chopsticks.

While chewing the food, she freezes for an instant.

‘He gave me the food with his used chopsticks… Damn it.’

At this point, she’s gotten used to Kazuya one-upping her so she thinks, ‘Fuck it.’ and focuses back on her food.

Kazuya notices a healthy blush on her face and inwardly cheers in victory while eating another bite.

Kazuya decides to make some small talk related to college to gauge her reaction.

Though he realized that she was uncomfortable talking about anything related to the college so he changed the topic.

She completely kept her college life separate from her dating stuff. Even the personality she showed in those places was completely different. So it made sense that she wouldn’t want to talk about college on a date.

“You told me that you go to acting classes after college. What do they teach you there?”

“Each day they have these role-playing sessions that have each of the members acting out certain roles. Most of it is improv but there’s a specific…”

If it was one thing that Kazuya realized, it was that she was unbelievably enthusiastic about her acting career.

“Acting has been your childhood dream, hasn’t it?” Kazuya pointed out when he saw the childlike wonder that she showed while talking about her dream.

People only show this expression when they are chasing after a dream with the purest intentions. There’s no money, no benefit involved in this dream. It’s a pure dream and that’s beautiful.

“How did you know?” Chizuru is shocked that Kazuya can tell that about her. At this point, she understands that he isn’t free enough to meaninglessly stalk her.

“Just a hunch.” He gives her a cheeky smile.

“All right… Keep your secrets. Don’t you have a dream? Something you want to pursue to the ends of the earth.” She’s curious about Kazuya.

At this point, there’s no artificial feeling to their conversation like when he’s with the perfect girlfriend Chizuru.

“My dream, huh…” Kazuya thinks about his previous life and how he’d had everything. He’d accomplished so much before it all came crashing down months before his death.

“I guess it’s to take over the world.”

“Tell me seriously.”

“I’m serious. I even have a daily planner that says, ‘My planner for world domination.’” He smirks annoyingly.

Chizuru is silent, telling him that she wants an actual answer.

“Haha. Fine, you win. I don’t have any concrete dreams. I want to become an entrepreneur. Start my own company, and experience what it’s like to have hundreds of people working for me.”

“You don’t want to get rich?”

“Oh don’t get me wrong. Money is a big motivator, but at some point, it becomes no more than a way to keep score. After I make enough money I want to move on to bigger and better things.”

“That sounds like fun.”

“Who knows, I might even get into the film industry. Become a director.” He gives her a suggestive smirk.

“Sure. Mr. Director, don’t forget me when you make it big?”

“How could I forget you? I promise that if and that’s a big if, I end up becoming a movie director, You’ll be my first choice for the female lead. What do you say?”

 “I’ll hold you to that.” She smiles at him.

When they’re finally done with the dinner they leave the restaurant after Kazuya gave a big tip to the waiter. 

He also inwardly thanked that waiter ‘cause he helped him out with this troublesome girl a few times.

They walk back to their apartment complex in silence while enjoying the view of the night sky. They’d had some wine so Chizuru was a little tipsy but nothing much.

“I had fun tonight.” Chizuru was rubbing her arms since the wind was a little chilly.

“Me too.” He took off his blazer and put it over her shoulders.

“I hope that you can take your masks off sometimes. That perfect girlfriend one and that nerdy student one, both. I can tell you that I certainly had much more fun talking to the real you than some acting personality that you conjured up.”

“That’s the entire reason that I do the whole rental girlfriend thing. It helps me practice acting as a different person.” She defends her career choices while naturally pulling the blazer over herself.

She smelled Kazuya’s scent from the blazer and blushed a little.

“All right. I won’t tell you what to do.” He raises his hands a little and backs off with a wary look on his face as if Chizuru would eat him up.

She giggles cutely and stretches her hand, “Don’t worry. I don’t bite.”

Unknowing about the lie that he’s been told, Kazuya grabs her hand and walks as she intertwines her fingers with his. 

He didn’t know this yet but she bites, hard.

“We’re here,” Kazuya said with a bit of a reluctant tone.

“Yeah,” Chizuru’s tone is also similar to his.

When Kazuya realizes this, he said, “Wanna walk around the block for a while longer?”

She smiles a little, “Sounds like a plan.”

With the intimate atmosphere right now, Kazuya decides to make a little move. He puts his arm around her shoulder and brings her closer to him.

Chizuru stiffens up a little at his move but accepts it nonetheless.

‘It’s chilly anyway. It’s warm close to him.’ She convinces herself.

They spend another hour walking around the block, enjoying each other’s company.

They’re standing together in front of their apartment stairs.

“So… I guess this is it.”

“I enjoyed our time today. Really” Chizuru says with heartfelt words.

“We could do this again you know.”

She tucked a stray lock of her hair behind her ear, “I don’t know. I’m so busy with college, my acting classes, the rental thing…”

“It’s your call. If you ever feel stressed out or something and need someone to talk to, I’m just a door away.”

“I’ll keep it in mind.”

There’s a lull at this point and Chizuru understands what it’s for but she’s not ready to do anything with Kazuya.

Thinking about the effort he put in for the date and how much she enjoyed herself today she tucks both her hair behind her ears and turns to the side.

Kazuya feels a light tap on his cheek as if a feather touched him and then… nothing.

Chizuru had completely run away in embarrassment at her action. He saw a white and pink blur covered by his navy blue blazer running up the stairs and to her apartment.

He just admired her waving hair as she ran into her apartment and closed the door.

“This girl is the queen of mixed signals.” He touches his cheek and feels a little wetness there.

‘Thankfully she wasn’t wearing any lipstick other than some gloss.’ He chuckled at the thought.

He walks back into his apartment and spends the rest of the time playing video games.