It was Tuesday, the day after the date. And I was exhausted, both mentally and physically, my legs that weren't used to running felt the sorest they had ever been, but despite my body taking the brunt of a 10 minute sprint I felt more alive than I had ever been before.
I love her.
When it comes to family love is a given, whether that be your parents or your siblings of which I had none, and of course cousins were always something to account for, I did have a cousin but she and I barely spoke, she was about a year older than me and worked way too hard academically and rarely had any time to see our family. This love was different in every way though, it was the result of 2 years worth of online ups and downs, and when I had learned that she was my friend who I had met just as I was starting school for the first time in my life outside of my home, our relationship changed into something more.
*****
I was walking between periods to my Biology class when I bumped into Him, Hana's cousin. Despite seeing him a month ago he still looked just as intimidating as he was when I first met him, I suppressed a quick yelp as I apologized and passed him when he grabbed my shoulder and pulled me closer to him.
"Hey, Sato."
Shit.
"Y-yes?"
"Apparently my cousin is head over heels for you."
Immediately my tense stature eased, this wasn't about me bumping into him?
"Did she tell you that?"
"No, but she talks about you all the time, me and my family visit her house once every weekend and have dinner together."
"Oh, I see."
"And she told me yesterday over text, that you were both going on a date."
I paused, why was he bringing this up?
Then as if that wasn't confusing enough, he brought his arms to his side and bowed to me.
"I-"
"Thank you Sato, I have never seen her smile so brightly until today."
I was sure that our date had made her happy, but i was surprised to the degree of which, that made even her family take notice.
"Ill see you around, yeah?"
Himura smiled, and patted me on the shoulder before walking away to what I assumed was his next class.
*****
"You realize how scary your cousin can be, right?"
Hana and I decided to change our routine a little, instead of the usual tutoring we decided to chat with each other about whatever our minds could think about.
Hana looked me dead in the eyes, processing the question I had just asked.
"Yes, but that was after the massive growth spurt he had, he was quite short before that."
"Really?"
"Yeah it happened after his 13th birthday, it was like all of a sudden he was taking steroids."
"How tall is he right now?"
"I don't have an exact number but he's about 6'8 right now, and he's still growing."
"Huh."
Hana looked across the classroom, people were talking to each other as usual but something in the air felt off, some students were missing and so was the teacher, they must have gone outside the classroom when I wasn't looking for whatever reason.
"Any idea where they went?"
"Probably festival stuff, he mentioned that yesterday didn't he?"
"Oh yeah."
Hana crossed one of her legs, and held her cheek in her palm.
"So, we should probably start working on that too, right?"
"Where would we even begin?"
"I don't know, maybe we could find somewhere to take a good picture, something like that?"
It was a straightforward option to contribute for sure, it's not like we had many others either considering we both knew almost nothing about the internal mechanics of a camera, or what activity would go well with the photography club.
"Where would we even go?"
"Hmm."
Hana closed her eyes, deep in thought.
"What about the amusement park, you know that one that's in Saitama?"
"There's multiple."
"Whatever, I'm talking about the Seibuen one."
"That one is a water park and amusement park combined."
"Still an amusement park, is it not?"
"Why do you wanna go there, why not go somewhere nearby."
Hana paused, she didn't expect me to ask that question in particular.
"Um."
Her face went flat, and her eyes darted around the room.
"I haven't been to an amusement park before."
I raised by brow, and looked at her funny, everyone at least once in their life has gone to an amusement park
"What."
"I know, I didn't really have time to go because I would move so often."
"Well guess we have to fix that, don't we pizza girl?"
"I don't even cook the pizzas, I just work the register."
"So when do you want to go?"
"Hmmm."
Hana's eyes widened and a slight smile appeared on her face.
"The day after my birthday would be nice."