Chapter 42: Flandre Scarlet and Suika Arrive at the Battlefield.
....
Having zero prior experience with dating sims, Nana naturally scored the single ending in the game. She stared blankly at the screen playing the ending credits, taking a long moment before slamming her hand onto the desk in absolute disbelief.
"No way! Why?! I clearly made sure to care about every single girl, so why is it a single ending?!"
"Pfft~ Looks like you still need to practice a lot, Nana."
A riled-up Nana couldn't handle the mockery coming from her younger sister and restarted a second playthrough without a second thought.
"This time I'm definitely going to conquer that tsundere character!"
The twin sisters spent the entire night playing straight through, leading them to crash and sleep deeply in their beds the next morning. When Lala came over to call them down for breakfast, she couldn't wake them up at all.
"What do you want to eat for lunch today? Sanae and I are heading out to buy groceries."
"Seafood clam soup!"
"Braised beef brisket with potatoes, stir-fried tomatoes with eggs, curry, and smoked salmon!"
"Alright, I've got it all down."
As soon as Kihara and Sanae left together, Anna Yanami suddenly remembered that she shouldn't have let the two of them go off alone. But even if she headed out right now, there was no way she could catch up to them, leaving her with no choice but to turn her grief into an appetite, clearing out the snacks on the table like a passing squall.
"Anna, if you eat this much... won't your weight become a problem?"
A bolt of lightning seemed to crash down from the sky right above her head. Anna turned completely into a stone statue, freezing in place as even the mochi in her hand dropped onto her lap without her noticing.
Yes, a little over ten days after failing to fit into her skirt, the binge-eating sea otter Old Eight finally remembered her urgent need to lose weight, plunging herself into a whirlpool of depression from which she couldn't pull herself out.
...
Not long after leaving the house, Sanae naturally sidled up close to Kihara, slipping her small hand into his warm palm.
"Going shopping with a major celebrity—we aren't going to get swarmed by your rabid fans, are we?"
"Don't worry, I'm wearing these." He pointed to his plain-glass frames.
His handsome face, which usually drew attention no matter where he went, instantly transformed into an ordinary, run-of-the-mill passerby the moment he put on the glasses. His attention-drawing score dropped even lower than Sanae walking right beside him.
"Hmm... are there any extra pairs of glasses? I want a pair too." Sanae wasn't particularly fond of being stared at by strangers.
Since this was her first date in life, she wanted to spend as much time as possible quietly enjoying it with Kihara, rather than wasting it on potential street pick-ups.
"Since we're out on a date anyway, let's stop by an optical shop first and buy you a pair."
"Mmhmm."
Because there was no need to measure eye prescriptions, buying the glasses took next to no time. Barely three minutes later, Sanae walked out of the shop wearing a pair of ordinary, unprescribed black frames.
With the glasses on, the probability of drawing unwanted attention dropped dramatically. The magical effect left her marveling repeatedly. "So that setup where superheroes put on glasses and nobody recognizes them is actually real in actual life!"
"How does life feel over here to you?"
"Hmm..." Sanae gently tapped her delicate chin with her finger, pondering deeply before offering her reply. "The living standards and entertainment are much better than in Gensokyo, but... after living over there for so long, you inevitably feel like things here are a bit too restless and hurried."
Kihara nodded in agreement. "We are living in a fast-paced era, after all. Feeling restless is completely normal. After experiencing the conveniences brought by technology, would you support me in promoting technology inside Gensokyo?"
"Promoting it?" She smiled softly, bumping her shoulder playfully against his. "Instead of asking me, you'd have much better luck asking Yukari Yakumo."
"Her stance is pretty ambiguous. I figured that as long as the vast majority of factions agree, she won't actively oppose it."
"Then you'd better work hard. If today's date doesn't satisfy me, I'm not going to agree to it~"
"Suddenly feeling like this is a huge hassle. Should we just buy the groceries and head back?"
Sanae instantly switched to a puffed-up, angry pout. "How can you be so impatient? I'm a girl, you know!"
"Normally, if you weren't my girlfriend, I wouldn't invest this much patience."
"Meaning that if I want you to be patient, I have to become your girlfriend first?"
"Spot on!"
Kihara's smug expression looked immensely punchable. Sanae could finally empathize with how Anna felt earlier when her burger was stolen; the urge to beat him up swelled uncontrollably inside her.
His unseriousness, however, didn't last too long. After all, once a traditional, wife-material girl like Sanae genuinely lost her temper, it wouldn't be easy to smooth things over.
With that thought in mind, Kihara promptly pulled a pre-planned schedule out of his pocket, patting his chest with confidence. "I planned it all out ages ago! This morning we'll hit these three hobby shops, then buy groceries and head home. I'll whip up a delicious lunch, and in the afternoon we'll hit the media store to grab Gundam movies and anime on disc!"
"Now that is something that wakes me up!"
Her eyes sparkling, Sanae checked the address of the first hobby shop on the itinerary and immediately dragged him along using her phone's navigation map.
As it turned out, the single most important rule for keeping a girl happy on a date was locking onto her exact points of interest.
By the end of the day's date, Sanae had smiled so much her mouth ached.
This didn't mean she was like Reimu, instantly cheered up just by someone spending money on her; rather, it was the genuine thoughtfulness of someone paying close attention to her hobbies and planning everything out carefully that truly warmed her heart.
No girl could ever resist the feeling of being tightly treasured in the heart of the person she liked.
If they didn't need to head back to cook dinner, Sanae might have seriously dragged Kihara straight to a love hotel. Unlike average girls who might feel timid or anxious about such things, she wasn't shy at all.
"What a pity. If Anna weren't coming over to scavenge meals every single day, we probably could have stayed out overnight."
As she said that, Sanae lightly scratched the center of Kihara's palm with her fingernail and blinked, clearly trying to tease him.
"It's fine. We'll have plenty of chances at home. Just leave the door unlocked for me tonight."
"Huh? R-Really? Starting tonight?"
Having zero actual driving experience under her belt, Sanae was naturally no match for an old veteran like Kihara. A single simple sentence made her face flush bright red. Nervous anticipation she hadn't expected washed over her, and she stared down shyly at the toes of her shoes.
Just as he wanted to open his mouth to tease her further, a sweet, sugary cry of "Big Brother!" echoed from behind. Immediately afterward, two small bodies slammed directly into his waist, nearly knocking him flat on his face.
"Ouch! My back..."
Sanae blinked in sheer astonishment.
"Suika and Flandre? Why on earth did you two show up here?"
"Hehehe, I caught the big brother scent and led Suika all the way here straight from his front door!" Flandre lifted her little chin proudly, then scrambled up his front like a little monkey, hanging directly off him.
"Big Brother, Fran came to see you!"
"Fran is the best!"
"Heehee~"
Ibuki Suika didn't speak a word; she simply tugged quietly at the corner of Kihara's shirt, accepting his head-pats and praises with her eyes squinted in blissful enjoyment.
With two sudden lightbulbs materializing out of nowhere, the two of them had no choice but to cut their date short, herding the pair back home.
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Thank you for reading.