Having successfully entered the theater, Miyokichi and I proceeded to seats in the middle of the theater, which was hardly what you’d call spacious. It was mostly empty, with only a scattering of other moviegoers; perhaps attendance was poor.
As for what kind of film it was—turned out it was a gory splatter-fest horror flick. To be honest, it’s not really my favorite genre, but on that particular day I couldn’t very well not go along with her wishes. Still, it didn’t really suit her demure appearance. She must have really wanted to see this film.
During the film, she became a genuine cinema fan, eyes riveted to the screen, but she occasionally flinched and turned away in response to the startling moments you see in every horror film. Once she even grabbed my arm, which calmed me down—I don’t know why.
Other than that, though, she drank the film in, every bit as focused on it as I’m sure the director would have hoped. If you want to know my impressions of the film, all I can say is that it seemed like a pretty standard B-movie. I didn’t feel particularly disappointed by it, nor particularly enriched. I didn’t have any memory of reading any advance reviews either. There must’ve been hardly any publicity.
I wondered why she’d picked this film.
When I asked, she answered, “It has my favorite actor in it,” a little embarrassed.
The curtain lowered before the end credits had finished scrolling, and we left the theater.
It was afternoon. Were we going to get lunch somewhere? Was it time to go home? My musing was interrupted by her reserved, quiet voice.
“There’s a shop I’d like to go to, if you don’t mind. Is it all right?”
I looked to see that she was holding her city guidebook open; one of the page’s corners was circled with a red pen. It was a shop that we could walk to from where we were.
I thought about it for a second. “Of course, it’s fine,” I answered, and we walked along the route described by the simple map. She walked diagonally behind me, quiet as ever. We must have had some sort of conversation, but I don’t remember what it was.
After walking for a while, we came to our destination—a cozy little café. It was stylish outside and in, the kind of place it would take enormous guts for a guy to enter on his own, lest he feel deeply out of place. I couldn’t help but stop short in front of the café, but Miyokichi’s worried look was all it took to get me to push open the door like I belonged there.
As I expected, nearly all of the customers within the café were female. It was quite pleasant. There were a handful of couples, which somehow came as a relief.
The waitress led us to our table with a friendly smile, brought us ice water with a friendly smile, and even took our order with a friendly smile.
After taking thirty seconds or so to scrutinize the menu, I ordered some Neapolitan ice cream and an iced coffee, and Miyokichi got the house special cake set. She seemed to have known what she was going to order ahead of time, and from the ten varieties of cake samples the waitress brought over, she chose the Mont Blanc without any hesitation.
“You’re okay with just the cake set?” I think I asked. “You won’t be hungry?”
“No, I’ll be fine.” She straightened and put her hands on her knees, face a bit nervous. “I’m not a big eater.”
It was a strange answer. She suddenly looked down, perhaps because I was gazing intently at her. I hurried to explain myself, only getting her to smile again after some effort. Now that I think about it, the embarrassing things I said are enough to make me break into a sweat. Stuff like how I thought she was perfectly lovely as she was, and… uh, yeah, I think that’s all I’m going to write about that. But the truth was Miyokichi was a pretty girl—pretty enough that probably half of the boys in her class had crushes on her.
Once the food arrived, she took about thirty minutes to finish her Darjeeling tea and Mont Blanc cake. I finished first, and I had enough time left over that I’d been able to drink the water into which the ice of my iced coffee had melted.
I was getting pretty bored, but she didn’t seem to have noticed, and I talked about random things with her, nodding or shaking my head as appropriate. Now that I think about it, I probably didn’t have to make so much of an effort, but I was just a bundle of consideration back then. And I was pretty nervous too.
I would’ve been happy to pay the café tab. But she would have none of it, and she insisted on paying her own share. “I was the one who asked you out today,” she said.
Having settled the bill, we walked back out into the sunlight. Where would she want to go after seeing a horror film and eating at a cute café? Or would it be time to go home?
She was quiet for a while as we walked. Then, finally—
“There is one last place I’d like to go.”
She explained, in her small voice, that she wanted to come to my home.
So it was that I brought her back to my house, where my little sister seemed to be waiting for us, and the three of us all played games together.