The beach is pretty deserted with the color of the sky fading from orange to dark. They’re both barefoot and walk through the beach hand-in-hand.

“Hey, come on. I have an idea.” Kazuya doesn’t let her reply as he pulls her toward the edge of the beach.

They stand there as they enjoy the view with the waves of the water drenching their feet.

“It’s almost… soothing.” Chizuru comments.

“I know.”

They walk at the edge of the beach for about half an hour before they turn back to go to the hotel. The orange color of the sky has turned dark with the moonlight shining on the beach.

“Here wear this.” Kazuya doesn’t wait for her to say anything and puts the jacket that he was carrying onto her shoulders and closes it halfway up right below her breasts, brushing against them before removing his hand.

“…My hands are stuck.” She looks at him deadpan ignoring his attempt at taking advantage of her.

“What? Scared that I’ll take advantage?” He moves ever so slightly closer to her.

She snorts, “Yeah right.”

Chizuru starts fumbling around a little in the jacket after letting go of Kazuya’s hand and pulls out her hands from the sleeves.

“Flexible.” He comments from the side as he brings his arm around her waist and pulls her closer while he keeps walking.

‘I should’ve held her like this before giving her the jacket.’ He feels immense regret inwardly.

Chizuru doesn’t react as she doesn’t even feel that this kind of physical contact is that big of a deal with Kazuya anymore.

Although she’s never let a client get closer to her, other than her holding their hand, Kazuya is already someone different in her mind from a client.

When they see the hotel Kazuya stops walking.

Chizuru turns to look at him. “What is it?”

He doesn’t answer her but turns to face her.

Chizuru realizes what he’s about to do but doesn’t feel averse to the thought of a kiss with him.

She freezes up like a deer in headlights while Kazuya grabs both of her hands and gets closer to her.

He pulls her arms around his back while grabbing her waist with his.

He starts to move in closer to her face slowly until he can feel her hot breaths on his face.

She can feel his breath mixing with hers and feels strange goosebumps within her. Her heart is racing as she doesn’t know what to do.

His lips are close enough to brush against her lips. He’s going agonizingly slow so that she doesn’t feel that it was abrupt or forced.

He looks into her eyes for the last time before closing them and tilting his head and moving in for the kiss.

The feeling of her lips that he was expecting never came. Instead, he felt his lips brushing against the soft skin of her cheek.

 He opened his eyes to see Chizuru with a completely red face looking at the sea on the horizon. The moonlight shines brightly on her face.

‘Damn this Tsundere.’ 

He’d read a few mangas recently to see how the plot of these fictional worlds went and maybe glean some information from them but all he understood were these terms that categorized different character types.

“I should go.” Chizuru pulls away from him and runs off back to the hotel.

‘How long until she realizes that she’s left all her stuff, including her room keycard in my room?’

He laughs inwardly as he also makes his way back to the hotel, not planning to waste his time here. A sick girl was waiting for him.

‘I want this rental girlfriend app to make a provision to send the rental girlfriend to your house in a box. All wrapped up like a present. Completely mine to deal with as I please. Maybe there’s such an app on the dark web…’ The guy has weirdly horrifying thoughts while he walks back to the hotel and goes to the lift for his room.

As he takes a turn in the corridor, he sees Chizuru sitting on the ground, hugging her knees with her chin resting on them.

Hearing the sound of his footsteps she turns to him, “Took you long enough.”

‘How is that my fault.’ He complains mentally.

“You didn’t have to run like that you know. I don’t mind you turning away. I understand that I was the one who put in a spot.”

“Whatever. It’s been a long day. I want to go back to my room to rest up.”

Kazuya smiles at her and opens the door to his room.

He extends a hand to Chizuru to help her up but she pushes it away and gets up on her own.

‘How stubborn is this girl?’ He questions mentally and walks into the room with Chizuru walking behind him.

“Hey, how do you feel about being called iron-lady Mizuhara?” Kazuya questions her while thinking about how she’s too stubborn.

“Call me that again and forget that you ever had a shot with me.” She comments without thinking before stiffening and going to the bathroom to change.

‘At least she’s not anti-sexual. I have a shot with her. Good to know.’

At this point, he decides that his day’s finished and brings out his laptop while putting his phone on silent.

He takes a seat on the bed and opens the project that he was working on and decides to get it over with.

While he was typing away Chizuru comes out of the bathroom with her braids back up while wearing her shirt back up with her denim shorts.

“You brought your laptop to a college trip.”

“I’ve been working on a little project and was planning to get it done over the weekend before the beach plans sprung up. I’d already committed to the project so this was the only option.”

“…I see” Chizuru is curious about what he’s doing but doesn’t want to pry into his business too much since she doesn’t want to bother him. She’d certainly be bothered if someone kept asking her about her rental thing.

“Well, I’ll be leaving…” Chizuru wasn’t sure what she was expecting from Kazuya but she ended up trailing off with her words.

“All right.” He puts his laptop to the side and gets off the bed.

He walks to her and takes her bag from her while grabbing the keycard to his room.

“Come on.” Seeing Chizuru standing there he urged her.

“Sorry.” She said as he grabbed her hand and started walking after he closed the door to his room.

“What’s your room number?”

“Why do you ask?” She looks at him defensively.

“Geez girl, I’m not going to break into your room in the middle of the night. You were waiting for me to take you to your room and now I’m doing it. What do you want from me?”

He didn’t realize it but he was a bit irritable due to having to stop working and also having been blue-balled for the entire day.

Chizuru hears his tone and feels that he’s annoyed due to her presence so she pulls her hand away from him.
“I’ll go to my room myself. You don’t have to bother yourself.”

‘What the hell? Then why did she act like she wanted me to take her?’ He doesn’t think much about it and just keeps following her.

“Why are you following me?”

“I want to stare at your ass.” He thoughtlessly answers.

“You can just go back to your room.” She turns around and looks at him.

“I want to take you to your room though.”

“Do you? Really?”

He smiles and answers, “Why would I not? I spent the day taking care of you. You think I’d get annoyed by the act of taking you to your room.”

She realizes that he’d indeed spent so much time taking care of her and is silent for a few seconds.

“718.” She doesn’t know what to say other than tell him her room number.

“See that was easy, wasn’t it? Also, you’re two rooms away from Kibe. If he tries to talk to you don’t let him.” He gives her a serious look.

“Hehe. It’s fine I’m bunking with my friend.”

“I expected as much.”

“Why did you take a separate room though? It would’ve been cheaper to just bunk with someone, no?”

“If I did that how would I feel comfortable leaving you in my room, asleep and defenseless.”

“And the real reason?” She crosses her arms.

“That is the real reason.”

She keeps staring at him.

“…Money isn’t that big of a deal for me. I put my comfort above money.” Kazuya shrugs his shoulders as if he’s some rich family’s scion.

If Chizuru had seen the state of his cheaply furnished apartment she’d laugh in his face.

He can’t be blamed for this mindset though. He was used to living extravagantly in his old life. Very different from an average college student.

He was a very good programmer and was very good in many fields. He’d easily get projects done within a weekend that would pay him tens of thousands of dollars.

His scholarship was enough that he never had to take any student loans which only made him more extravagant.

“Sounds nice…” Chizuru trails off with her words as they arrive in front of her room and she opens the door.

“Be ready for the ferry tomorrow. It’s at noon. I want you ready and in your natural clothes. I don’t want you to look like your nerdy self and neither do I want you to look like the perfect girlfriend. I want Chizuru Ichinose. Will you do that for me?” His earnest look and expression stunned her for a few seconds before she smiled beautifully.

“Sure, Kazuya.” She got on her tiptoes and gave him a little kiss on the cheek, “This is your reward for taking care of me for the whole day.”

With that, she abruptly closed the door in his face.

Kazuya is left stunned before he chuckles, “God, she’s cute.” 

He walked back to his room with his hands behind his head, ready to get back to work.