The crepe was delicious, but Gotō Hitori couldn't focus on the treat in her hand.
Asakura quickly noticed the girl beside him looking distracted, seemingly pondering something, so he took the initiative to ask: "Hitori, is there anything you want to play?"
Called out suddenly, Gotō Hitori instinctively straightened her back: "N-nothing!"
"Is it that the strawberry cream crepe isn't to your taste?"
Asakura held up his chocolate banana crepe and asked: "Then do you want to swap?"
"No, no need!"
For some reason, the girl looked even more flustered, cold sweat beading on her forehead.
Although he knew the girl wasn't intentionally displaying this kind of non-violent, non-cooperative attitude, Asakura still felt a bit at a loss.
"Is coming out for a date too much of a burden for Hitori?"
He asked with concern.
"No, that's not true…"
Gotō Hitori shook her head vigorously, her side bang bobbing like a cat toy.
"It's okay, don't force yourself—"
Asakura said earnestly, "Next time, I'll just stay at home with Hitori and we can have a study session."
"H-hell?!"
The pink-haired girl was dumbfounded.
"Don't worry, I'll help Hitori raise your deviation value to 70!"
"Beyond the Todai admission line?!"
"Let's start with English first!"
Asakura began to rummage in his pocket.
"W-why are you taking out your phone… Huh? Are we starting now?"
The girl looked a bit flustered.
"How do you read this word?"
He typed a word on his phone.
"Ah ba…"
Gotō Hitori's eyes started to spin.
"It's Abandon."
"Ah, ah ba don…"
"I always feel like the pronunciation is a bit strange... Well, I can understand Japanese-style English. But, Hitori, do you know what it means?"
"I, I choose to give up..."
The girl said self-deprecatingly.
"Correct answer."
"Ehh? Ehh? Ehh...?"
"Next word."
"Do we have to continue?"
Gotō Hitori revealed pitiful, moist eyes, like an abandoned puppy.
"Just kidding."
Asakura put away his phone, looking at the girl with a smile: "Your expression now is much more interesting than your lifeless look just now."
"Is, is it interesting...?"
Gotō Hitori subconsciously rubbed her face, accidentally smearing some cream on it.
Asakura chuckled and took out a tissue to wipe it off for her.
Although he had considered whether to just lick it off, some kind of thing deep in his heart, probably pride or restraint, made him give up on that shrimp-brained behavior.
"Next, Hitori, where do you want to go to play?"
Asakura asked.
Gotō Hitori quickly went over the guide she had read yesterday in her mind, and then said confidently: "Arcade!"
Asakura looked at the girl with some surprise, not expecting that she would want to go to such a place. However, since Gotō Hitori had said so, he naturally had no reason to refuse. So, after finishing the crepe, he took her to the arcade near the station.
After Asakura expertly exchanged for game coins and turned around, he found that the girl was gone.
After searching around the arcade twice, he found Gotō Hitori hiding in the gap between two box-type arcade machines at some point.
"What are you doing?"
Asakura asked, both amused and annoyed.
"I saw a classmate just now..."
Gotō Hitori said timidly: "I feel like standing with me would lower Asakura-kun's reputation, so I couldn't help but..."
"That's not true at all. Rather, as far as I'm concerned, it doesn't matter if my reputation drops."
Asakura didn't care. His reputation had been completely ruined not long after he transmigrated to this world because of the things the system had given him—back then, everyone at Soubu High School knew there was a guy who was already a second-year high school student and still hadn't graduated from his chuunibyou phase.
It's just that recently his grades have always been stable in the top five in the grade, and he is a veritable top student, and there are no strange chuuni remarks in his usual life, which has slightly improved his reputation.
So Asakura forcibly dragged the girl into the box-type arcade machine next to them—considering that the girl would have various debuffs popping up on her head when people looked at her, this kind of arcade machine that could isolate the outside world's line of sight to the greatest extent was obviously the best choice.
Asakura and she were playing a very typical first-person shooter game—the kind where you shoot guns, not the Senran ○ Kagura kind—that supports up to two players using rifle-shaped game peripherals to sweep the enemies on the screen. It's a bit like a high-definition Plus version of Duck Hunt and Blood Beach that Asakura played when he was a kid in his previous life, except that the enemies inside are all zombies.
As the biggest advantage of box-type arcade machines, the surroundings are all screens, full of that immersive feeling.
However, after playing for a while, Asakura looked at Gotō Hitori beside him with a wry smile, not knowing when she had dropped her gun and mixed into the zombie horde...
"I, I got bitten..."
Seeing Asakura looking at her with a strange look, the girl, staggering towards Asakura, stammered to explain: "Doesn't the movie say that if you get bitten, you'll become one of them?"
"It's just a game, there's no need to be so honest about it."
Asakura helplessly supported his forehead: "I can tell that you haven't been to an arcade much."
After all, from the beginning, after firing a magazine, the score was still 0, and she didn't even figure out how to reload before defecting to the enemy. Anyone who has played arcade games... no, even if they have only played game consoles, wouldn't be so bad.
So where did this girl get the confidence to bring him to the arcade?
"Asakura-kun, danger!"
Gotō Hitori suddenly pounced on Asakura.
"Hitori, what are you doing?"
Asakura was startled. At the same time, he felt the girl's breath on his neck, making his neck a little itchy.
At this time, the girl's face was flushed, and she muttered as if she had made some determination: "Ra, rather than letting Asakura be eaten by other zombies... I'd rather..."
"Wh..."
Before Asakura could finish speaking, he felt the girl gently bite his neck.
The warm and moist feeling made his hair stand on end. At the same time, he vaguely felt that the girl's soft limbs, which were almost seamlessly pressed against him, seemed to have become a little hotter.
No, rather than a bite, it felt more like being licked.
"Glug, glug..."
"Don't treat my neck like some weird snack!"
"... (swallowing saliva)"
"Although it's almost time for lunch, can you please not really bite my neck, Hitori?"