The Affection Multiplier - Chapter 161: First date with Fujiwara Anzu. (Patreon)

Akiyama-san drove you to the subway station, the place you’re meeting Fujiwara-san, but it seems you got here a bit early. You wait by the entrance, trying to ignore the sounds of cars, people and general city noises while you focus on the book you stole from your sister’s room. It’s a small book that fits in your pocket, going over general hiragana characters, basically the most basic alphabet in this language. You can’t really learn much if you don’t know how to read, right?

After 10 minutes, you see her. She’s wearing a tight but thin black sweater, a brown shawl with a flower patter, and a long skirt matching its color. Her lips are covered by a modest layer of pink lipstick, her hair arranged into a near bun. Around her neck is a very thin golden chain and on her ears are small matching earrings.

…She looks stunning, and what’s more, you didn’t expect her to dress like this for what you first agreed to just be an obligation date.

“Is this too much?” She asks, looking over herself. “I wanted to dress more casually, but my mother insisted..."

Ah. So that’s it.

“I think it’s tasteful.” You smile. “You look amazing.”

“Thank you.” She looks at you up and down and giggles. “I’m glad to see I wasn’t the only one overdressed.”

You’re also wearing some semi-formal clothes. Again, more than is necessary for the situation.

You massage the back of your neck. “…My mother insisted.”

Well, that got her laughing, so it’s a good start.

“So, where are we going?” You ask.

“…don’t laugh, okay? You said I could pick wherever I wanted.”

“I’ll only laugh if it’s funny.” You nod.

“I’m serious! I told you I lived in Sapporo as a kid, right? This is actually just my third time in Tokyo, and… there’s this one place I always wanted to go to.”

“Where’s that?”

“…” She avoid your eyes, looking to the side as she mutter. “Akihabara.”

…

Seriously? Akihabara? The Holy Land? The one place you truly wanted to visit before leaving Japan is the place of your first date with Fujiwara-san?

“…Do you know about that place?” She asks, apparently taking your lack of a reaction for ignorance of the place.

“Only that it’s a place I’ve wanted to visit ever since I heard it existed.” You nod.

You both start walking into the subway station while keeping the conversation going.

“R-Really…!?”

“I thought I had a reputation as a huge nerd in school.” You grin.

“…I guess you do.” She chuckles. “I’d almost forgotten you’re a student at the school I work for.”

Not wanting to focus on that, you change the topic.

“I have a small favor to ask.”

“What is it?” She asks with curiosity.

“I’m trying to learn as much of the language as I can. Do you mind if I ask you questions every once in a while?”

“Not at all!” She smiles brightly. “I don’t know how well I can teach you, but I’ll try!”

“Thank you. Now, where to the Holy Land?”

________________________________________________________________

Back in your home town, when you were in middle school, there was ONE surviving arcade place that had like 5 working game cabinets other than the gambling machines, which were what really kept the place alive. You and your friends would go there every once in a while to play shmups and fighting games.

So it was hard to hide the excitement when Fujiwara-san asked if you wanted to enter one of the many arcades around the extremely colorful area that is Akihabara Station. Seriously, this had to be some kind of lucid dream!

You didn’t know you were up for a rough awakening, though, getting your ass absolutely handed to you in each and every fighting game you both tried.

“…How!?” You have to ask after your fifth loss at King of Fighters 98 against the cute nurse at the cabinet opposite to yours.

The woman just smiles and laughs like she’s having the time of her life. “Want to try again?”

“You’re ON!”

You lose again, but it’s worth it just to see just how much better than you she is. Really, you never thought she would be one to play videogames at all. But man, she is RUTHLESS. Not even holding back against you.

A part of you expected her to be just as good at every other game after seeing her dominate a rhythm game, but she was just OKish at racing games, shooters and the Gundam simulator you wanted to try.

All in all, it was fucking amazing. You didn’t exactly get to talk about anything other than the games, but you seriously had a great time playing with her.

“Do you want to get lunch?” She asks as you exit the nosy arcade.

You look at your phone and notice it’s already 01:30 pm.

“Yeah, I guess we should.” You nod. “Any recommendations?”

“Like I said, I’ve never really been here before, but I’ve heard of a place that serves these REALLY BIG portions of food!” She giggles. “I want to see it!”

“Okay.” You answer, getting caught up in her excitement.

Thanks to your phones, you manage to find the place. It’s thankfully not extremely crowded, but it seems you got lucky, because almost as soon as you found a seat at a table for two, many more people started coming in, even forming a line outside!

You catch Fujiwara-san looking around the place with a frown, so you ask. “What is it?”

“The only thing I’d heard of this place was that it served really big bowls of ramen. But now that I look at it… I’m not sure I like the shop itself.” She says, sounding a little disappointed.

You get what she means, though. The shops is big enough for about 20 customers at a time. However, the walls are full of doodles of anime characters, writings and stuff like that, making the place give off a sort of… dirty and disorganized look, even though it’s actually pretty clean. You see two guys across the store writing on the wall, so it seems that’s just a thing you can do here.

“What do you want to do?” You ask. “Do we leave or do we stay? I’m fine with anything.”

“…” She thinks for a second. “Let’s stay. We’re here already.” She nods to herself.

Fujiwara-san helps you read the menu, and while you’re most definitely still unable to actually understand the language, you think you start recognizing some characters, if only visually. You both still order the big bowl of ramen, however. It’s why you’re here, after all.

While you wait for the food, you take the opportunity to ask your date what’s on your mind.

“By the way, what was that back there?” You ask with an excited smile. “I’ve been playing games for a good part of my life, and though I know I’m not the best at fighting games, I always thought I was decent. You utterly destroyed me there!”

She laughs. “Right. I wanted to thank you for playing with me. Usually when I play with strangers they give up after two or three tries.”

“You play a lot at arcades?” You ask.

“…Used to.” She sighs, her smile turning sad. “You’ve seen how my family is, right? Very traditional and set in its ways. I guess I’m lucky they let me become a nurse at all.” She shakes her head. “Back in high school I… went through a rebellious phase.” She giggles nervously. “I would escape from the house for almost a whole day at times. I bought a very realistic blonde wig, used contacts to change my eye color and dressed in very trendy clothes. I would hang out at the arcade for hours, mostly because that was what my group of friends was doing. I guess I was just a fast learner, because soon I was beating all the locals.”

“That’s a story worth it of competitive players.” You chuckle.

“Isn’t it?” Fujiwara-san laughs with you. “I hadn’t played in years, so playing with you really took me back.”

“You said you were lucky your parents let you become a nurse.” You say, getting a bit more serious. “Were they against it?”

She nods, and you think she’s more upset about it than her face lets on. “Originally, I wanted to be an orthopedic surgeon, but my family opposed. They said that if I wanted to get into medicine, it should be as a nurse.”

“Ah.” You exclaim. So they’re traditionalists to that extreme, huh?

You want to ask more, but you’re interrupted when your food arrives. Man, they’re FAST. Though, from what you’ve heard, they have to be. It seems that places like this are not good for conversation. You just come, eat and leave.

“Oh wow.” You mutter. Fujiwara-san seems equally surprised.

What you have in front of you is a mountain of food, about a whole kilogram or so. In a big bowl, you have 4 slices of braised pork, bamboo shoots, dried seaweed and a soft-boiled egg resting against a mountain of beansprouts. Underneath all that are the noodles and the broth.

…Is it a good idea to make this one your first taste of the mythical Japanese ramen?

“I don’t think I can eat all this.” Fujiwara-san chuckles.

“I just hope I can make it to the noodles.” You nod in agreement.

You don’t talk much as you eat, only commenting and laughing every so often about how crazy this thing is. But hey, it tastes great and you’re not an embarrassment using the chopsticks.

In the end, neither of you could finish the bowl, though you ate a bit more than her.

“I give up!” Fujiwara-san says, leaning back on her chair. “This is too much!”

“Yes, I better stop forcing myself before I develop a deep hatred for noodles.” You agree.

After that meal, you decide to walk around to help the food down. A part of you wants to restart the conversation about her family, but it’s like the moment has passed and it’s hard to bring up. Instead, you two focus on the shops around.

You find a store funnily called Super Potato, and find that it’s kind of fucking amazing. Its many hallways are full of old video game consoles, all in near-perfect condition and wrapped in transparent plastic bags. Not only that, but games for every single one of those consoles are available in their extremely well-preserved original boxes.

“This is so cool!” You beam. Really, you feel like a kid again. Sure, you’re not exactly a full adult, but this place really brings out the kid in you. You’d be embarrassed to show your excitement if not for Fujiwara-san being really interested in all this.

She doesn’t quite share your excitement, but still thinks this is cool.

“You never had a console at home?” You ask her.

“No. That’s partly why I spent so much time at the arcade.” She nods, inspecting a Game Boy Advance. “Did you?”

“I had a Playstation 2, which was a hand-me-down from my brother when he got bored of videogames. After than I just played on PC.” You tell her, eyeing a Playstation 1 and a Nintendo 64 that are not terribly expensive. It seems that those with a few small flaws like scratch marks and so are even cheaper.

“I kind of want to get one of these.” Fujiwara-san says, still holding the GBA. “But if my parents found out, they’d never let me hear the end of it.”

“You can always just hide it and take it back home, right? They don’t need to know your every move.”

“Yeah, but…” She hesitates.

“We’re already here, in a place your family wouldn’t approve of. Might as well go all out. Just do what you want to do.”

…

You’re a huge hypocrite for saying that, aren’t you?

“…” Fujiwara-san silently ponders on your words. She grimaces as she looks at the purple console. You wish you knew what she was thinking. You have an idea, but you wonder how much of that is influenced by your own experiences.

“…I’ll get it.” She nods and smiles at you. “But you have to recommend me some games.”

For the Game Boy Advance? That’s easy.

You also spend a little over half the money you had saved for this trip on both consoles you wanted, plus games. Hey, since the games are in Japanese, you’ll justify it saying it’s practice to learn the language.

After some more time browsing through the shops, you end the date with some ice cream before heading to the station.

“I had a really great time today. Thank you, Walker-san.” She says with an honest, radiant smile.

“I should be thanking you. I’d always wanted to come here, and I loved spending time with you.”

“You mean you enjoyed getting beat up in fighting games?” She giggles.

“Oddly enough, I did.” You laugh.

As you watch her laugh, the words your brother told you, and the words you told Fujiwara-san echo in your head.

‘Just do what you want.’

That’s the question. What are you doing here, dating the woman your father wants you to marry? What do you want to do about the woman in front of you?