The sudden quiet was the scariest part. Yukio froze; Matsushita froze too. In that instant, they oddly shared the same thought—what on earth is she talking about?
Yukio was simply baffled; he had no idea what Matsushita meant. Matsushita, startled and shy, thought, What am I even saying? How did this turn into a date? Weren't you resolved to tell the truth, girl?
Then she let herself relax just a little. Wanting to go on a date with Yukio… that counted as speaking honestly, didn't it? She never imagined that a simple "I like you" could be so hard to utter, so difficult to get past her lips.
Before that overwhelming shyness, a girl's words rarely match her heart. Even someone like Matsushita—well-bred, groomed by years of elite education—couldn't escape that fate.
Yukio slowly pieced it together. It seemed that back at the Palette, Matsushita had mentioned that having him help Class D safely get through the voting exam did nothing for him and was unfair to him—so she was willing to make it up to him with a date.
But hadn't he explained afterward that protection points could now be traded? He'd thought that would dispel her misunderstanding. Turns out, it wasn't a misunderstanding at all—it was what Matsushita truly wanted.
So does that mean…? His gaze toward Matsushita grew complicated.
Matsushita kept steadying herself inside. The initial panic gradually settled, and she put back on the poise of a refined young lady. "What I mean is—if Yukio-kun feels that merely transferring the protection points still isn't enough, then we can… we can…"
"I get it." Feeling that if he let her go on, she'd die of embarrassment, Yukio cut in. His expression turned playfully intrigued as he looked at her, finding it all rather amusing. "But I have one condition."
"Since the date was your idea, I'll leave the entire plan to you. No problem, right?" Yukio suddenly wanted to know Matsushita better.
Letting her arrange it would easily reveal her tastes—and deepen his understanding of her.
"No problem." Matsushita agreed at once. She'd thought he might demand something serious; merely handling the itinerary suited her perfectly. "Then please do me the honor, Yukio-kun—have a cup of coffee with me."
Yukio nodded inwardly. At least that preference matched his own.
But Matsushita didn't take him to the well-known Palette café. Instead, she brought him to another small, cartoon-themed coffee shop.
The walls were covered with cartoons and sketches. Each table had a sketchpad with pencils and crayons. After ordering two coffees, Matsushita hugged a sketchbook to her chest and picked it up. "I found this treasure of a shop by accident."
"I usually only come by myself. This is my first time with someone else."
Yukio's eyes showed understanding. "Because you can draw here for free?"
"Mhm!" Perhaps because she was in a familiar place, Matsushita relaxed a great deal and no longer seemed so tightly wound. "My friends don't like it, so I can only come alone."
"If Yukio-kun is interested, you can draw too. How about… we sketch each other?" Soon, she tossed out a novel date suggestion.
A "mutual sketch" date—aside from art students, almost no one would think of that.
Yukio found it refreshing, but he knew his limits. "I'll pass. I've had some training—my eye for appreciating music and art isn't bad—but when it comes to actually drawing, I'm… lacking."
Matsushita didn't look disappointed. If anything, she seemed a little nervous and a little thrilled. Holding the sketchbook openly, she could now—righteously and without restraint—gaze at him to her heart's content. "Then… I'll draw a portrait of Yukio-kun."
So he simply watched Matsushita, making small talk now and then, unexpectedly enjoying this quiet, artsy date atmosphere.
She felt the same. Warm, honeyed light fell from the ceiling, dense and seamless. Even the snow-white drawing paper seemed tinted with a pale, timeworn yellow.
If the paper was like that, how much more so the person?
The warm light lay over Yukio like a glaze. His eyes were bright as starshine, as if reflecting the sheen of coffee—luminous yet deep—like the slow eddy of a stirred cup, gently drawing her gaze and heart inward.
When his brow arched, he looked like a born rake, a man carrying a unique, wry defiance toward the world—not exactly "proper," and all the more attractive for it.
Her pencil had long been moving—his eyes, his clothes, his shoulders. She drew them once, frowned, erased, and drew them a second time.
The café's warm light, the muffled tide of footsteps outside, the idle conversation between Yukio and Matsushita—together they wrapped the two of them in an easy, comfortable mood.
Half an hour later—sketches are quick, after all—Yukio received his portrait. On the paper, a boy in ANHS's uniform sat straight and tall, noble and striking.
His gaze toward the viewer brimmed with playfulness and tease; around the eyes you could even see the traces of multiple erasures and corrections—clear proof of her effort.
"Impressive." Yukio offered his praise. He'd met plenty with solid art foundations and had appreciated more than his share of famous paintings, but somehow this sketch by Matsushita pleased him most. "Can I keep it?"
A weight lifted from Matsushita's heart. She grabbed her coffee—already cold—and took several big gulps. "As long as Yukio-kun likes it~"
She smiled brilliantly, as if his liking the piece was the highest possible praise for her art. If the joy in a girl's heart could be sketched, an entire book might not hold it all.
It was getting late, though. Even if Matsushita had more planned, it wouldn't be convenient to continue. They left the little shop and walked back beneath the streetlamps, unhurried, along empty paths toward the dorms.
Nearing the dorms, Matsushita clearly wasn't satisfied with ending the date there and made a small suggestion. "Yukio-kun, to finish our date… I'll dance a piece for you."
She'd once felt that all those lessons her parents enrolled her in—meant to cultivate grace and posture—were of little practical use. But when the rare chance to draw upon them came, she felt lucky to have learned them after all.
Show yourself fully, then? Yukio nodded his assent.
Under the streetlights, Matsushita's graceful figure moved lightly beneath night and starlight, like Chang'e descending in gauzy moonlight.
Every glance, every smile, every step was elegant. She seemed a moonlit sprite, each movement as if dancing above the surface of Yukio's heart-lake.
"How was it?" Even in the turn of winter to spring, dancing without music had left her with a light sheen of sweat, yet she asked for his impression at once.
A line of old verse sprang to Yukio's mind. "轻罗小扇白兰花,纤腰玉带舞天纱." (A light gauze fan like white orchids; a slender waist and jade-bright sash set the heavenly silks dancing.)
"?" Matsushita didn't understand Chinese, but from his expression and tone, she couldn't help smiling too.
This date, it seemed, had turned out unexpectedly successful—and complete.
...
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