Maria-sama ga Miteru:Volume27 Chapter4 1

At the Outset of the Date. Part 1

Without going into every little detail, the days passed quickly enough.

It was the Sunday of the week following the treasure hunt. Right on 11am.

Yoshino stepped into the plaza on the first floor of the JR K Station building.

"Ah. Yoshino-san, gokigenyou."

Who knows what time she got there, but Tanuma Chisato-san was already at their appointed meeting place, and when she saw Yoshino she smiled and waved gently.

She was wearing the same coat that she'd had on for her date with Rei-chan last year, but underneath that she was clearly wearing a pair of jeans and sneakers. A huge departure from the red, white and pink fluffy skirt. It seemed obvious, but her style probably reflected her emotional involvement in the date. But then again, Yoshino was wearing something similar, so they were at least equal in that regard.

"… Gokigenyou."

Stifling a yawn, Yoshino started by returning the greeting. Not good. She'd had a little nap in the car, and that seemed to have encouraged her weariness, so try as she might to fight it off it kept assailing her.

"Did you ride here?"

In response to Chisato-san's question, Yoshino shook her head.

"Huh, you caught the bus!?"

The accusatory tone she used was quite offensive.

"I did not. My father drove me here in his car."

Before she knew it, it was past the time when she would have had to leave to make it to their date by bike.

"Well, I guess that can't be helped."

"It's alright for you, Chisato-san. You can get to K Station using your commuter pass. But I walk to school. Telling me to come by bike to save on travel costs, that's not fair."

"I said it can't be helped, didn't I? Stop trying to pick a fight."

"But your tone of voice was annoying. It was my father's car, so that should be fine. In the report, we can just say I rode here if you want."

"What are you going to do about getting home? We're on a really tight budget, you know."

"I'll pay for it myself."

Even Rei-chan, last year she secretly put in some of her own money, so as long as it wasn't written about in the report, it should be fine.

"If you start saying that sort of thing, where will it end?"

Then Chisato-san went on a bit of a rant about how the date would be fun staying within the budget, and that there would be others who would try to copy their date, so they had to keep to the allotted amount.

"Well, it's fine. There should be enough left over for your bus fare home. Let's go. Time's wasting."

In the end, if you're just going to say, "It's fine," then don't bother bringing up the complaint to begin with. Yoshino stuck her tongue out behind Chisato-san's back. Chisato-san didn't notice this, and continued on, almost skipping as she walked ahead.

(Oh geeze.)

If things were like this right at the start, would they really be able to get along for their date?

At the very least, Yoshino thought that nobody would want to copy their date.

The place they headed to first was the cinema. The one building contained lots of movie theaters, and they had a few different movies playing simultaneously.

"Two high-school students."

As Chisato-san held out her hand to pay at the ticket counter, Yoshino firmly grabbed it. As if to say, hey, hold on a minute.

"Owww, that hurts, what are you doing?"

What are you doing? Yoshino thought she should be the one saying that.

"Chisato-san. Why are you taking me to this sickly-sweet romance comedy, and acting as though it's the most natural thing in the world?"

"Why? You like it, right? This sort of thing."

"I like it? This sort of thing?"

Yoshino snarled. She'd only seen the TV commercials for this movie, but it was a drama set in France about a beautiful man and woman and how they meet, break up, cross paths, fall in love, overcome obstacles and flirt.

"Huh? A subscriber to Comsos Publishing hates love stories?"

"That's Rei-chan's preference. Mine's something more like this."

Yoshino pointed at one of the giant posters on the wall. The one on the right-hand edge of the four. A young, clean-shaven samurai stood back-to-back with a grizzled old ronin, both had their katana drawn. Incidentally, the other three posters were for the romance movie that Chisato-san had requested, a horror movie, and a kid's anime.

"Ah, don't tell me you like the blue Cosmos books?"

"… You're way off."

Just to explain:

As everyone knows, Cosmos Publishing was the label used by the Kyuuteisha publishing company for books aimed at teenage girls. Within that, blue was used to designate BL, or boys-love stories. They were called that because the color blue was used for the covers. And, as the name implied, a boys-love story was a love story between two boys – well, it could instead be between a man and a boy, or two men – at any rate, there were plenty of girls who preferred reading about love between two males than between a male and a female.

And that's fine for them, but unfortunately Yoshino wasn't one of them. Since she wasn't particularly happy about letting that misunderstanding continue, Yoshino decided to correct Chisato-san.

"What I like isn't the love between two men, it's swordplay between two men."

"Wha?"

"The Lillian Kawaraban got our surveys mixed up. A couple of issues later they printed a tiny correction notice. Got it? Try to remember. What I mostly read is sword-fighting novels."

"Ohh. I only saw the article about your hobbies in the Lillian Kawaraban. Maybe if they'd printed Rei-sama's photo next to the correction."

Well, that sounds about right, Yoshino agreed.

"But, you know, anyone who even jokingly calls themselves a fan of Rei-chan would surely have noticed that her favorite books are from Cosmos Publishing."

She was often carrying them around, and when they released a new book in her favorite series she'd spend her lunch-time reading it.

"Ahh. I thought she might be reading them to fit in with you, Yoshino-san."

"No. Just no."

"Oh, so what about this. It said that your hobby was knitting, was that actually Rei-sama?"

"That's right."

"Ohh, so that's how it is. The mystery is solved."

Chisato-san smiled gleefully.

"What mystery?"

"Yoshino-san, during last year's treasure hunt, you were desperately flipping through the pages of a sewing book, right? I never understood the significance of that. But now, thanks to this, I feel relieved."

Yoshino didn't really understand what Chisato-san was trying to say, or what she was relieved about.

"Well, in that case, why don't you make me feel relieved too?"

Yoshino leaned in a bit closer and forced a smile.

"Huh?"

"The movie, let's go to the action one. 'Young Samurai vs Ronin: Ball and Tusk.' Sounds good, yeah?"

"Nope. I'd always planned that we'd see this one, 'Paris, Arrondissement 21, Je'taime.' And since the date is my reward, we can go wherever I want."

"That's fine. We're at the place you wanted to go to. I didn't say I objected to the cinema. But you can't just go ahead and decide what movie we're going to see by yourself."

"What are you saying? We met at 11 so that we'd be in time for the 11:30 screening. Of course we're going to see this movie."

"'Young Samurai' starts at 11:15, so we can still make it."

Yoshino said, pointing to the session times listed above the ticket counter.

"Buh-boow. It's already 11:16."

Chisato-san said, looking pointedly at her wristwatch. However, Yoshino wasn't going to give up that easily.

"The previews go for 5 or 10 minutes. If we go now, we'll still get there for the film."

"At any rate, no."

"But I – "

In truth, it wasn't as though Yoshino was so annoyed by love stories that she broke out in a rash. If she watched the movie they were discussing, she'd probably enjoy it, more or less. She was only being so obstinate because it's what her partner wanted to see. The mood was such that if she backed down here, then that would mean she was defeated.

"This is a date. We can't go and see different movies."

"I know that."

But having said that, neither of them were willing to take the high road and watch the other's movie.

It wasn't obvious who moved first, but they both drew their right hand back. Scissors-paper-rock.

Go!

"Ahh!"

So much energy. They both went for rock.

"It's a draw … I guess."

The next time around, they both went for paper.

After that it was rock, paper, paper, scissors. The run of ties made it looks as though they really were well suited to each other.

They were both breathing heavily. Even though it was only scissors-paper-rock, they were both going at it hard, using their entire body, and they were getting tired. While this was going on, the clock ticked over to 11:20. The "Young Samurai" previews would surely be over by now.

"Hey, why don't we get someone else to decide instead?"

Chisato-san offered. If they kept going like this, it would never end. In other words, if they couldn't decide themselves, all they could do was entrust it to someone else.

"Alright, but how?"

"We'll go to the same movie as the next customer."

"But doesn't that put me at a disadvantage, in a number of ways."

By saying that, Yoshino was acknowledging that she was disadvantaged because her movie had already started. She looked around the cinema entrance. Then she spotted a guy running from the train station straight towards them.

"Okay, let's see the same movie as the next person."

A single male wouldn't be going to see 'Paris, Arrondissement 21, Je'taime.' He would definitely choose 'Young Samurai vs Ronin: Ball and Tusk.'

"Okay."

Chisato-san agreed, as the running man looked back over his shoulder.

"Ah."

Damn it, Yoshino thought. A woman was following along behind him. A couple might see 'Paris.' Scratch that. It's probably the more likely choice. 'Je'taime', and all that.

"Looks like victory is mine."

Chisato-san smiled, confident in her success.

"Wait, we don't know that."

Once again, Yoshino stopped Chisato-san as she went to buy the tickets.

"Since they're in such a hurry, they might be going to see 'Young Samurai' after all."

They might be hurrying because the previews were already over. And the guy had gone on ahead to buy the tickets, since he was the faster runner.

"It's simply because they want good seats."

"We don't know that."

The guy was running. The girl was running too. In a way, the scene was more suspenseful than a movie.

"Oddly enough, they might keep running past the cinema."

"Hahaha. In that case, it carries over to the next person."

However, that concern was unnecessary.

The male of the pair that they thought were a couple arrived at the entrance to the cinema, then got his breathing under control as he walked over to the ticket counter.

Well then, which one will it be. Yoshino and Chisato-san nervously awaited the outcome. Well, they didn't really have much time to really take it all in. They followed him, because they had to buy the same tickets.

Without hesitation, he stood in front of one of the ticket windows.

(Huh?)

"Two adults."

The ticket window wasn't for either of the movies that Yoshino and Chisato-san had been expecting.

"Did you get them?"

The pair locked arms, and headed towards the movie theater entrance.

"Please hurry. The movie will start any moment now. Next customer?"

The lady at the ticket counter addressed the two that had been left behind, dumbstruck.

There was no point in complaining. It was a rod that they'd made for their own back.

"Two high-school students."

The tickets that had despairingly been purchased were for:

" … 'The Tale of the Blood-stained Mansion.'"

– As suggested by the title, this was quite obviously a horror film.