“Nice weather today, huh?”

After yesterday’s whole mess, I was still a little worn out when I got a message from Xie Yuning early in the morning.

As if she had to really stress how good the weather was, she even added a little sun emoji at the end.

“Seems nice enough.”

Sunlight was already pouring through the window onto my face.

Yeah, no doubt it was a beautiful day.

But so what if the weather was good?

“Right? The weather’s really nice, isn’t it?”

“Yeah, it’s really nice.”

“So, what do you usually do when the weather’s nice?”

What do you usually do when the weather’s nice?

My mind went completely blank.

Maybe my brain just wasn’t awake yet.

I couldn’t for the life of me think of what you were supposed to do on a good-weather day.

“?”

“Today the sun’s shining and the air’s extra fresh.”

“Uh, yeah, it is.”

“Sun shining bright~ air all fresh~ such a great~ day~”

“I know, I know, today’s weather is really nice.”

“With the weather this good, what~ should~ we~ go~ do~?”

I was still totally lost, but Yuning was already sounding impatient.

“If you’re gonna ask me like that…” I fell into a short daze. “Exercise.”

I typed out the word and sent it.

“Your~ brain really is made of dead wood.”

“Why am I getting scolded for no reason?”

“Hmph, this lady knew it. You’re totally trying to ask this lady out on a date. So dishonest.”

“I… I’m not. You’re the one who suddenly brought up the weather.”

“Meet at the bus stop at nine. If you’re late, don’t blame this lady for being rude.”

She spammed a few angry emojis. I wanted to argue, but no matter what I sent, Yuning didn’t reply.

Too overbearing.

There was nothing I could do but go.

On the way out, Zhiye even asked where I was going.

I clumsily made up some excuse about wanting to walk around outside and that I didn’t need her to come with me.

It took a ton of effort, but Zhiye finally let me go out alone.

When I reached the bus stop, I saw a beautiful girl with long blonde hair in a JK uniform sitting on the bench.

“You’re slow.”

I hadn’t even figured out who she was yet when she spoke up first.

Facing me head-on like that, the beautiful girl made me freeze for a moment.

“Getting a reaction to this lady’s body already?” she said, her tone slightly mocking.

“Wh-what?”

“I knew it. You might look all honest and proper, but you’re totally a perv.”

“Don’t just randomly slap a nickname like that on me.”

That woke me up on the spot.

Even if I’d zoned out a second ago, I never hesitated when it came to defending myself against slander.

“Did this lady say anything wrong?”

“Of course you did.”

“This lady thinks she’s completely right.”

“Then you’ve gotta show some proof.”

“Based on the way you were staring lecherously at this lady just now.”

“I-I wasn’t!”

“Hmph… slipped up, didn’t you?”

“I did not!”

Just then, the bus pulled in.

Yuning grabbed my hand and, ignoring my protests, dragged me onto the bus.

Once we got on, we found seats. After confirming no one else was boarding, the bus slowly started to pick up speed.

“You can let go of my hand now.”

“Oh…”

“You grabbed this lady’s hand without her permission…”

“I—” I hurriedly pulled my hand away.

“Hmph…” Yuning turned her gaze to the window, while everyone else on the bus was giving me these teasing looks.

That awkwardness stuck with me until we got off. Only then did I feel a little better.

“You were the one who held my hand just now.”

“If you wanna hold this lady’s hand, don’t make up so many excuses.”

“I never said I wanted to—” I was getting a bit annoyed, but before I even finished the sentence, Yuning grabbed my hand again.

“Alright, this lady will reluctantly hold your hand.”

In reality, it was Yuning who took the initiative.

She didn’t let me resist at all and dragged me straight toward the shopping district.

On the lively commercial street, we drew a lot of looks.

“Wow, she’s so pretty.”

“Yeah, yeah, she looks amazing, like a doll.”

“It’s just, the guy next to her looks way too average.”

“They totally don’t match.”

Listening to everyone around us chatter, I felt like some invisible knife was stabbing into my heart over and over.

“This place looks good,” Yuning said, totally unbothered. Her heart was really huge.

Of course, all the bad comments were aimed at me, so I suddenly just felt kind of pathetic.

“Hello, what would you like to drink?” the waiter asked as soon as we sat down.

“Get this lady a strawberry sundae.”

“Alright. And for you, sir?”

“Just an orange juice.”

“Okay, please wait a moment.”

After the waiter left, Yuning spoke. “This place seems pretty nice.”

Because of what happened earlier, I hadn’t paid attention to the interior at all when we walked in.

I glanced around.

“It is pretty nice.”

The gentle sound of violin in the background made it easy to calm down.

“Rare for you to agree with this lady.”

Yuning shot me a look of approval, but that didn’t cheer me up.

I was still sulking from what people said earlier.

Maybe she noticed.

Once the strawberry sundae arrived, Yuning scooped up a spoonful and held it to my lips.

“Ah~”

“Xie Yuning, you’re…”

“This lady is letting you have the first bite.”

“But I’m not really into sweet stuff—”

“Shut your mouth and just eat.”

Seeing how forceful she was being, I decided to just try it.

“So sweet!”

The cloying sweetness hit me all at once, and I almost couldn’t handle it.

But since Yuning meant well, I made sure not to show any disgust on my face.

I took a sip of orange juice to wash it down. Compared to the sundae, the juice’s sweetness was at least manageable.

Yuning clearly loved this kind of dessert.

She just kept shoveling spoonful after spoonful into her mouth.

Wait a minute. I used that spoon earlier.

That realization made me a bit panicked, but Yuning didn’t care at all.

I decided not to mention it and just kept my mouth shut.

“So good. Strawberry sundaes are truly heaven’s gift,” Yuning said with a satisfied expression.

She really looked like she’d just tasted the best thing in the world.

Way too dramatic. To me, that sugary stuff was anything but good.

But Yuning was absolutely loving it.

“Maybe I should get one to go for later,” she mused as we were leaving.

Aren’t you worried your blood will just turn into liquid sugar? I couldn’t help thinking that.

“Better have Mora buy a few more for this lady.”

“A few?”

I was shocked inside.

Judging from the way she said “Mora,” I figured that was her maid.

Rich girls really are different. If they wanna eat something, they just buy as much as they want.

“What are you thinking about? Don’t tell me it’s something dirty again!”

Yuning narrowed her eyes at me.

“I’m not that kind of person.”

“Whether you are or not isn’t decided by what you say.”

“But I really wasn’t thinking anything.”

“Even if you were…” Yuning’s voice suddenly dropped.

“Did you say something?”

“Mind~ your own business!”

“How is this my fault again…”

Out of nowhere she was mad at me.

Her mood swings were giving me a headache.

Why did I agree to come out with her again?

“Anyway, don’t just stand there like an idiot. Time to go to our next spot.”

“So where now?”

“Over there…”

“That’s…” I followed the direction she pointed.

“The arcade.”

“Oh, that… let’s go then.”

“Wait—”

Before I could finish, Yuning dragged me inside.

A sea of machines in bright flashing colors filled the place, and there were quite a lot of people around.

Yuning went to the counter and bought a pile of token-like coins.

They felt kind of familiar, but I wasn’t used to them. It sort of felt like my first time here.

We started with a shooting game—the kind where you use a fake gun to shoot kind of creepy moving monsters.

“Your reactions are so slow.”

“The enemies are too fast. I can’t hit them at all.”

“You’re so dumb…”

“That’s not my fault.”

We kept getting mercilessly stomped by the boss.

“Game Over” flashed again and again, a countdown ticking down each time.

“This time you’d better work with this lady properly.”

“I’ll do my best.”

I really wasn’t cut out for shooting games, but Yuning was stubborn as hell.

“Shoot the boss’s weak point.”

“Got it.”

I squeezed out every bit of focus I had, aiming only at the boss’s weak spot.

Finally, we managed to beat it.

“See? We beat it.”

Seeing the “Stage Clear” screen, Yuning smiled.

“But it was really hard,” I said, feeling worn out.

“For a guy, your stamina’s pretty pathetic, you know.”

She laid into me again.

“We spent over an hour just on this game and died to the boss so many times. How could I not be tired?”

It wasn’t just physical exhaustion, it was mental.

Getting crushed over and over made me want to quit entirely.

“This is only the second stage.”

“Yeah, and the first one was practically a freebie.”

“For a shooting game, this one’s on the easy side.”

“We replayed stage two so many times…”

Easy? This had to be some kind of hell trial.

We’d already fed it a mountain of tokens.

“No matter how hard it is, this lady still cleared it, didn’t she?”

When she said “cleared,” she really meant brute-forced it with sheer number of continues.

“Let’s go play something else. Look at that one.”

I pointed at a dance machine.

“Dance games are this lady’s specialty.”

“Then let’s try the dance machine. No one’s on it right now anyway.”

“Since you’re so eager to watch this lady dance, this lady will grant your wish.”

“O-okay.”

I finally managed to talk Yuning into switching to the dance machine.

Honestly, she was just as bad at the shooting game as I was.

She kept blaming me, but she could barely hit anything herself.

If we kept going to stage three, we wouldn’t just run out of tokens; we’d probably waste the entire day on that one game.

And me, I seriously couldn’t play that shooter anymore.

For some reason, Yuning didn’t seem tired at all.

“We’re running low on tokens. Time to restock.”

Yuning handed me a large bill.

“How many are you buying?”

“All of it, of course.”

“All of it…”

Rich and reckless, huh.

I shook my head and went to the counter to trade the entire bill for tokens.

“So slow.”

“Buying this many tokens— they’re so heavy I can barely carry them.”

“Didn’t think your stamina was this bad.”

While she was talking, Yuning picked up a few tokens and fed them into the dance machine.

As the game started, upbeat music burst out of the speakers.

“Time to show you how amazing this lady is.”

Like a performer about to step onto the stage, Yuning readied herself.