Date Her Instead Vol. 1

Chapter Eight: It's Raining

"Maybe it's just for show."

Kanako knew she shouldn't get too optimistic about it. After all, it was still Haruna, the girl that she grew up with that seemed to hate her with an unreasonable amount of passion. More than likely, it was just so she could look good in front of Akio. Of course, that also gave Kanako a chance to do the same. It was an opportunity to prove to Akio that she was girlfriend material!

Regardless of motives, a date, real or not, was still a date. With that thought on her mind, Kanako began to dig through all of her clothes, trying to find the perfect outfit combination. It wasn't until Saturday night that she finally figured it out.

"Yeah, this is it. This is what I'll wear!"

*****

Sunday morning finally arrived, and Haruna's alarm went off as scheduled. However, it was nearly instantaneously shut off, as the girl herself had barely slept and was already awake. For most girls, lack of sleep before a first date could be contributed to nerves, but that wasn't the case for Haruna. For her, it was five days-worth of dread and annoyance at herself piled up over this get-together.

"Just remember, this is so you can keep your chances with Miyashita-kun alive!" she kept telling herself as she got ready. Not being too particular about her appearance in general, Haruna chose to wear a simple t-shirt and jeans, then threw a jacket on over top. It was true it was near the end of April, but there was still a chill in the air being so far north compared to the rest of Japan.

Satisfied enough with her look, Haruna went to leave the house, but was stopped by her mother. "Where are you going?" she asked curiously. "Um, out... with friends..." Haruna lied miserably. She had never been good at coming up with excuses for herself. However, her mom didn't question it and simply told her to have a good time.

The first step of the plan was getting to the movie theater. Officially, there actually wasn't any such place in Iwanai. It was a small town after all. Despite that though, there was a well-known bit of information amongst the residents: every weekend, the community center would split the building in thirds and set up three screens for showings. The movies they had were all ones from the rental place down the road, so very few of the showings were ever any notable features, but people still came out nonetheless.

The set up ran from 10 a.m. until 11 p.m., Saturday-Sunday, and there were three screens, which were divided into three categories. The first was children's movies, or more accurately, any film rated PG or under. After that was the second screen, which moved up to PG-13. That one tended to show action movies or sci-fi. On the last screen, the movies could range anywhere from PG-13 to R. The schedule for that one was divided into two parts. In the beginning, it was nothing but romances. Then, in the evenings, it was all horror.

Haruna was thankful that all the horror films were at night. Even if she couldn't see them, just hearing them was enough to make her squirm. That was actually one of the few things the two girls had in common, as Kanako also wasn't a huge fan of scary movies. Although, Haruna did remember one time that they watched one together, and while she shook with fear, Kanako simply sat there on the couch munching on her popcorn. "Damn her..." Haruna thought at the memory.

While she wondered what movies would be available to choose from, Haruna realized she had arrived. The building she was standing in front of was pretty sizeable, as it used to be an elementary school. The outside was worn down from the harsh winters of Hokkaido and just weather in general, but it still stood firm, faded brick walls and all.

Checking her phone for the time, Haruna saw it read 10:45 a.m. "Great, I'm 15 minutes early..." Haruna said to herself. "Guess I'll just wait on the steps." Moving that way, Haruna trounced down the first of two stairs and took a seat. Going back to her thoughts, Haruna wondered about several random things as she killed time. However, it wasn't long before she heard a set of footsteps approaching. Standing up and turning to face the building, Haruna was met with a very unexpected sight.