You Were Experienced, I Was Not: Our Dating Story 1st Date (Light Novel)

Shirakawa-san stared at me, her eyebrows knit. Then, as she glanced at the note in her hand, her frown only deepened.

Once again I realized how beautiful she was. Given her gyaru-like appearance, she was probably wearing makeup, but those charming shadows beneath her eyes and the lines going from her nose to her chin couldn't be faked with cosmetics.

Since I'd completely screwed up my confession, I felt like I couldn't bring any more shame to myself than I already had. Somehow, that gave me enough composure to look at her without worry. I stood there, anticipating my upcoming rejection.

"You have lilacs for me?" she asked me with a stern look on her face.

"What?"

I don't remember bringing lilacs... And then it hit me-she had taken my disgraceful confession as something else.

"No, I mean... I...like you..."

That time, I managed to say it properly, though haltingly. Perhaps it was easier now since I'd already failed. I didn't have anything to lose anymore.

At that, Shirakawa-san opened her eyes wide.

"Oh... That's what you meant," she said after a moment's pause.

Shirakawa-san looked away from me, seeming troubled. She was probably wondering how to reject a guy she didn't know at all.

"Why?" she then asked.

That question of hers must've come from her concern for me-something to soften the blow for what was to come.

"Huh...?"

"Why d'you like me?"

I hadn't expected her to ask something like that, so I had to think about it quickly. What does she mean "why"? Isn't that obvious?

"Because you're...cute..." I replied, letting my voice trail off. I was afraid it would waver again.

Still... It didn't matter how many mistakes I made here-she'd only reject me this once. Thinking of it that way made this situation a little easier for me.

Shirakawa-san remained silent for a moment, blinking at me. Her cheeks turned slightly pink, and she cast her eyes downward in apparent embarrassment.

"Huh..." she said at last.

That utterance seemed to be her way of masking her awkwardness. But when she looked at me again, she said something crazy.

"So, you wanna go out with me? I don't have anyone right now."

At first, I couldn't understand what I'd just heard.

"Wanna," "go," "out"? "Don't," "have," "anyone"? Go out? That kind of going out? With Shirakawa-san? Who? She can't possibly be talking about me...right?!

"Whaaat?!" I shrieked.

It felt like my knees might give out. I initially thought she was making fun of me, but that would've been way too terrible for her to do.

"Hey, whatcha getting all surprised about?" she asked. "You're the one who confessed to me!"

Seeing me freak out like that, Shirakawa-san laughed. Was she being serious? Or was she just enjoying my reactions? I couldn't understand what she was thinking.

"So, what's it gonna be?" she then asked, putting on a serious look and taking a step toward me. "We gonna go out or what?"

Shirakawa-san looked at me again with those upturned eyes. It was so incredibly cute that I felt like my heart would stop.

How had it come to this? I hadn't expected things to go this way at all. I couldn't understand why, but I was about to get absurdly lucky. As a quiet, gloomy guy with no redeeming qualities, and whose only hobby was watching a gaming YouTuber, I didn't have the nerve to easily pass up this stroke of fortune.

Maybe she was teasing me. Or maybe it was all a dream. But it only made my answer even more clear.

"Yes..." I said, my face burning up.

"A'ight, then!" she replied with a satisfied smile.

It was adorable. But her cuteness wasn't limited to her smile, of course. Having Shirakawa-san so close to me like this, and smiling at me, I had to wonder if I was playing some kind of VR game. If this was a dream, I never wanted to wake up from it.

"Okay then. Let's go home together!" proposed Shirakawa-san. "I told my friends I had stuff to do, so we said our goodbyes already."

With that, the two of us started walking toward the school's back gate. As we crossed the parking lot, I spotted Icchi and Nisshi crouching behind a car and looking like speechless, frozen corpses. Apparently this wasn't some prank they'd set up for me.

***

What is this...? What's going on?! This isn't a dream, right?! I really am walking side by side with Shirakawa-san... Right?! How did things come to this? Was she serious about us going out?!

As my heart raced, I stayed silent. My legs moved on their own.

Shirakawa-san, meanwhile, was staring at the note I'd left in her shoe cubby. "How d'you read the kanji in your name?" she asked. "Kuwashima?"

"K-Kashima. Kashima Ryuto."

"Ryuto, eh? What a cool name!"

Shirakawa-san's eyes sparkled as she smiled. My pulse had been on the rise for some time now, and that smile and the word "cool" accelerated it even further.

Calm down, Ryuto. Calm down.

I couldn't properly talk to her if I was too ecstatic. She was totally going to dump me right away. I could practically see her saying "I was kidding. Did you really think I'd go out with you?" and laughing at me in just a few minutes' time.

That was what I told myself, trying to regain some presence of mind.

"Hey, Ryuto," began Shirakawa-san innocently. "Have we ever talked before?"

"Huh?! Umm... Uhh..."

For a moment, I considered telling her about that time I'd lent her my pencil, but that had been too trivial. I was worried she might be creeped out by the fact I viewed such an event as us talking.

"No, not really..." I said.

"Hmm, I see."

I had a question of my own that just wouldn't leave my mind.

"So, uh, Shirakawa-san... Why did you...offer to go out with me?"

After telling myself all those things to try to calm down, I really couldn't believe what was happening. Despite my rapid pulse, I could totally see our "going out" simply being us leaving the school grounds for the day. In fact, that possibility felt the most likely.

To be honest, I had a previous traumatic experience with a love confession.

When I'd been in my first year of middle school, an extremely cute girl had sat beside me in class. She'd talk to me with a smile time and time again, touch me often, and when I let her copy my homework, would blush and whisper things like "I think I like sweet guys like you."

Despite being the same gloomy guy I am now, I had still gotten ahead of myself. I had become convinced it hadn't been just my imagination, and she actually had a thing for me. In the end, I had mustered up a lifetime's worth of courage and confessed to her.

To my amazement, she'd completely shot me down. "I do think of you as a good friend, Kashima-kun..." Her troubled face as she muttered those words was still burned into my retinas.

That overwhelmingly bitter experience had taught me something: girls, especially cute and popular girls, were not to be trusted.

In the first place, the fact they were popular made all the guys think "Even I might stand a chance." Basically, these girls led you on, and if you assumed you were special to them, you'd end up getting hurt.

It hadn't taken me much thought to realize there'd be no reason whatsoever that a cute, popular girl would come to like a generic, gloomy guy like me. That was why I'd been able to confess to Shirakawa-san. I'd been a hundred percent convinced I'd be getting rejected, so I hadn't spared a single thought for a different outcome and what could follow.

That was why my current situation felt like I was on the receiving end of a prank. It was hard to accept.

"Huh...?" Shirakawa-san stared back at me in confusion. "You're asking how I got the idea?"

"I mean, I'm sure you're not in love with me, and you probably didn't know me until today..."

We were in the same class, and she hadn't even known how to read the kanji in my name.

Her reply was rather surprising: "Well, can't I get to know you now and come to love you?"

"Huh?"

Looking her way, I noticed her tilting her head. She watched me with upturned eyes.

"Like, even you don't know me well, right?"

I froze at her unexpected statement.

"We haven't even talked, yeah?" she continued. "You like my looks, right?"

I had nothing to say back to that-what I'd said earlier had already answered her question. When she'd asked me why I liked her, I'd told her it was because she was cute.

I liked her looks. It was true.

Still, I'd been watching her from afar ever since I was a freshman. I'd always thought she was so cute and admired her a lot. I'd always thought I loved her, but now, when she brought up the subject, I realized I barely knew anything...