Gosunkugi closed his eyes and took several deep breaths in an effort to calm his nerves. It didn’t exactly work. This was it—today, he was going to talk to Akane, to test the waters to see if she might want to spend time with him at some form of social activity (Gosunkugi didn’t dare think of it as a “date”—that would have had him so frazzled that he’d probably faint if Akane so much as looked at him). In truth, he probably wouldn’t even be trying this at all if it weren’t for what Max had said at their last session….
Things had been going along relatively smoothly; Gosunkugi had been progressing fairly well— his “punishment” for the whole “Bob” incident ended up being dramatically higher expectations, and as he found out, when Max expected a lot from you, he would get a lot from you. Fortunately, the boy seemed up to the task, enough so that his instructor felt comfortable enough to engage him in small talk amidst the lulls in his tutoring. “So, Gos, have you asked that girl out yet?”
“Um… no…”
At this answer, Max’s demeanor abruptly shifted from “easygoing” to “aggravated.” “What?”
“Um, I haven’t really talked to her yet…”
“And pray tell, why would that be?”
“Uh, well, I just get a little nervous…”
“Nervous?! You summoned a demon to get rid of the moron who’s bugging her! How can you possibly be nervous?”
“Well, you see, it’s just that… well, what if she doesn’t like me—”
“Oh, no. You are not going to back out of this because you’ve got rejection issues. That stunt you pulled has caused me no end of problems, and the fact that I couldn’t be here to deal with them gave me what might have been the biggest migraine I’ve ever had in my life—and I’m a lot older than I look!
“I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again, you are damn lucky that your plan managed to work out exactly the way you wanted, with almost no adverse consequences. Something like that only comes along once in a blue moon, and there’s no way in hell that I’m going to let you just waste this opportunity.”
“But… can’t I just… learn something to make her more likely to accept?”
“What did she tell you the last time you asked her out on a date?”
“Um, I’ve never really talked to her—”
“Then how do you know you need to use magic to get her to go out with you?”
“I guess I don’t…”
“Of course you don’t know, because you’ve never tried! Kid, when it comes to interpersonal relationships, you never, ever use magic unless it’s as a last resort—the conventional ways are almost always better.”
“But… wouldn’t magic be easier?”
Max slapped his forehead at this—he thought the boy knew better. “The so-called ‘easy’ way has a lot of drawbacks, Gosunkugi. Spells and charms that are ‘easy’ to cast are almost always easy to dispel, but true emotion is one of the most difficult things in the world for magic to overcome—at least on a long-term basis.”
“Huh?”
“Look at it this way, you could charm this girl to make her think that she’s fallen in love with you, but if that charm is ever broken, do you think she’d stick around?”
“Uh…”
“Of course not! No girl wants to be around a guy after she finds out he’s used the magical equivalent of Rohypnol on her. On the other hand, if you put time and effort into cultivating an actual relationship with her, that’s more likely to stand the test of time—unless of course, all you want is to get into her panties….”
“No!”
“Well, then I’d suggest that you try it the old-fashioned way first—if that doesn’t work, then, and only then, will we look into the potential use of magic.”
Thus it was that Gosunkugi found himself in an isolated corner of a park, watching his dream girl go through some of her kata.
“Um, e-excuse me?”
Akane, still in her full “martial artist” mindset, treated this sudden intrusion as she would any threat: she let loose a shout as one of her fists went hurtling toward the petrified teenager. Fortunately she brought her fist to a stop—millimeters away from the tip of Gosunkugi’s nose.
“Whoa, sorry about that—you startled me a bit, I guess.” She brought her fist away from the boy, who was now whimpering in an unintelligible, high-pitched squeal.
Eventually, his voice returned to its normal range. “Um, m-maybe this is a bad time…”
“No, no! It’s quite alright… really, I’m the one who should be sorry… my name’s Akane Tendo, by the way.”
“I know; I’m, uh, in your class at Furinkan. Hikaru Gosunkugi.”
“Oh yeah… I thought you looked familiar. Sorry I didn’t recognize you right away—you usually don’t speak up in class. So, what can I do for you?”
This was it. The big moment. Please, please, please don’t let me screw up. “Um, well, I, uh, know that you’ve, uh, had some problems with, you know, uh, Kuno and how he, uh…”
“Scares away anyone who he thinks might even be considering the possibility of dating me?”
“Yeah. Well, I, um… I was wondering… you know, since he’s, uh, uh…”
“Stuck in a hospital bed for the foreseeable future thanks to the most wonderful demon in the universe?”
In the back of his mind, Gosunkugi was a little perturbed that Bob was getting all the credit—sure, he did most of the work, but the youma wouldn’t have even been around if it weren’t for him. But there were more important matters at hand, so he pushed this aside. “Yeah, well, since he won’t be around, I was, um…”
“Yes?”
“I was wondering if you would go out with me sometime like maybe to a movie or something if you don’t that’s okay I can’t really expect you to do something like that with someone you barely even know I’m sorry I bothered you please don’t hurt me?” The boy turned and started walking away.
“Hold it!”
“Huh?”
“Where are you going?”
“Well… I… uh…”
“I barely even heard what you were saying; you were talking so fast. Why don’t you try again?”
“Oh… um… okay.” Gosunkugi took a deep breath. “Would you be interested in maybe going out sometime?” He bit his lip as he waited for a response.
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(Posted Sun, 26 Mar 2006 06:10)
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