Date Her Instead Vol. 1

Chapter Four: Through Watchful Eyes

The rest of the morning went by like usual, with some of Taichi's friends coming to pick him up so they could walk together to school. Once Akio saw his brother off, he grabbed his own things and headed out the door.

About halfway to his destination, Akio heard someone call out his name. "AKIOOOO," it rang through the street. The source of the noise was a boy named Eiji Bando. He was taller than Akio and adding to his height was his spiked crimson hair that required a ridiculous amount of gel and hairspray to maintain. Eiji also kept his shirt untucked and his tie loose, claiming that it gave off a 'cool guy' vibe, but Akio doubted that. Also in an effort to keep up that vibe, he had joined the basketball club last year.

"What's up dude?" Eiji said as his normal greeting. "Not much. Same as usual," Akio said pleasantly. "Man, it seems like your life is suuuper simple. Get this, this morning, my mom yelled at me for not finishing my homework, but I did! Talk about makin' assumptions and all that," he moaned. "Well, she's usually right, isn't she?" Akio jested. "Ah whatever. It all gets done and turned in, so who cares?" he said. "That's only because you copy the answers from either me or Souta-kun," Akio laughed.

The two continued chatting on until they reached the school gate where they ran into the aforementioned Souta, full name Souta Yoshinaga. The last of their trio, the boy was very simplistic in appearance, choosing to wear the most ordinary pair of glasses you can find and keeping his hair at buzzcut-length (though if he did grow it out, it'd be black). The only thing that made him stand out were his grades, to which he always ranked in the top ten. However, it seemed that no matter how hard he tried, there was one person he could never seem to pass. That was Michi Fukuhara.

"Good morning both of you," Souta said. "Morning Souta!" Eiji yelled, offering a fist bump. For as simplistic and practical as Souta was, it wasn't like he was a wet blanket. In fact, he went along with Eiji's actions and ideas more often than not. So of course, Souta returned the gesture.

As the two of them went on with their greetings, Akio realized something. "I guess I was still too early for them," he thought. Really, it had always been this way. Akio was the natural early riser, getting ready and arriving with plenty of time wherever he went. Then there was Haruna, who cut it closer, but was still at least punctual. Lastly, there was Kanako, who by this point had a reputation for being late. "I'll just have to try a little harder tomorrow," Akio surmised.

However, as luck would have it, Haruna showed up just as Akio was changing shoes. Once again though, Kanako wasn't with her. "Minus one to Haruna-chan," Akio commented to himself. He thought about going over to talk to her, but decided against it. "Let's just see how things play out."

Akio's plan for the day was pretty simple, considering there were considerable limitations to what he could do to observe his experiment. Once at school, he decided that he would alter the routes he took going to classes such as P.E. or his music elective. With how different his schedule was from the two girls, all he could really do was hope to see them in the hallway. "Kana-chan and Haruna-chan being in different classes doesn't help either..." he sighed. The three were all in different classes, with Haruna in 2-A, Kanako in 2-B and Akio in 2-C. In the end, aside from lunch, there was never a time when they could naturally be together.

"This almost feels impossible," Akio said aloud. "Huh? Akio, didn't you just say yesterday you thought the test would be easy?" Eiji said, confused by his friend's statement. "Ah, whoops. I wasn't listening," Akio said shyly. "C'mon man! You know how I am with tests! Don't freak me out like that!" Eiji whined. "Sorry, sorry," Akio said with a laugh. "Should we head to class then?" The other two boys nodded in agreement.

The first two sessions went by fairly quickly to Akio, and the third had his history test, which he finished easily. Having the extra time now, he leaned back in his chair and gave more thought to his predicament. "Wait a minute," he had a realization. "Don't Haruna-chan and Kana-chan share an elective after this period?"