Youth Unsupervised

Chapter 22-A New Friend

At the end of the first term, we went out one weekend like we normally did. Only this time, we were expecting an extra guest, the cute girl who invited Hiromasa to the culture club. We'd decided to go to a local revolving sushi bar, and we'd hardly been sitting down at the red vinyl booth for five minutes before Hiromasa started chewing at his fingers.

"Dude, seriously." I grabbed Hiromasa's hands and set them on the table. "Relax."

"How can I relax?" he said, his voice climbing in pitch. "She's going to be sitting right across from me. I've never seen her outside of school." He started to breath heavily. "We've hardly talked about anything but the culture club. What will I say?"

"Nothing if you hyperventilate," I said.

He glared at me. "Not helping."

"Just try to stay calm," I said. "It's all going to be fine."

"Sounds like someone has a crush." Saki made a grab for a plate of tuna sushi that came by on the conveyor belt.

"We're waiting," I said before she could grab it.

She clicked her tongue and planted her elbow on the table. "Well, little miss culture club had better hurry up. I'm hungry." She leaned her face against her hand lazily.

"Her name is Miyasoto Kimiko," I said.

"Yeah, yeah," Saki said. "She had just better hurry up. Otherwise, I'll starve to death and lover boy will have a stroke or something."

Hiromasa groaned and buried his head in his hands. "I didn't even really mean to invite her. She just casually asked me if I was doing anything fun over the weekend and I said sushi bar. So, she goes, 'I love sushi bars', and I invited her without thinking."

Saki sighed. "We've heard the story, like, sixteen times."

"You're forgetting the part where she asked to exchange phone numbers and you started freaking out because you finally realized what was happening," I said. "How many times did you say you dropped your phone? Three?"

He groaned again and leaned his head back against the seat.

"A number is good, though." Saki grinned. "Think of all that late night texting you can do."

His face filled with color and Saki started to laugh. "Maybe you can get pictures too." She laughed harder.

"Will you shut up?" Hiromasa leaned across the table and put his hand over her mouth.

"Um," Miyasoto appeared in front of the table.

Hiromasa jumped and jerked his hand away from Saki's mouth. She laughed even harder.

"Keep it down. You want to stay and eat, don't you?" I whispered harshly at her.

Saki took a few deep breaths to calm herself. "I'm good."

"Sorry I'm late," Miyasoto bowed slightly. "I lost track of time. I'm Miyasoto Kimiko."

"Nagase Kaito," I said.

"Higoshi Saki." Saki gave a wave. "I prefer Saki, though."

Miyasoto nodded and slid into the booth next to Saki. "Nice to meet you all." She looked at Hiromasa in the seat across from her.

I nudged him with my elbow.

"Oh, uh." He rubbed the back of his neck and grinned. "Hi, Miyasoto. It's nice to see you outside of school."

She smiled. "Thanks. You too."

"Can I eat now?" Saki asked.

I sighed. "Really?"