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This revolving sushi restaurant was indeed very good.
The interior was clean and tidy, and the sushi selection was rich and complete.
The master chefs at the central counter not only served dishes quickly but also skillfully made sushi while explaining the origin and characteristics of certain types of sushi to customers.
Even if they stood for over half an hour, they wouldn't sit down to rest for a while, let alone drink water.
It must be said that the craftsmanship of these old Japanese masters was truly admirable.
However, a restaurant with good taste, attentive service, and attention to detail like this usually wouldn't be cheap.
The two of them spent a total of over eight thousand points on this meal.
As agreed before, Akira treated the entire meal, so he directly paid for both of them.
"Shimizu-kun, your private points..." Ichinose hesitated, her voice tinged with concern.
Akira naturally understood what she wanted to say and explained, "I joined the boxing club, and the club president gives subsidies. Also, because I'm participating in next weekend's exhibition match, the president has already given me fifty thousand points as a participation fee."
As he spoke, he took out his phone and showed her the chat history.
Ichinose saw the fifty thousand points credited in the record, and a strange sense of indebtedness suddenly welled up in her heart.
These were clearly points he'd earned through hard work boxing, so why were they being spent on a date with her?
Or did he think these points were well spent...
Pushing open the glass doors of the bowling alley, the deafening sound of pins crashing mixed with cheerful music rushed toward them.
The two first went to the front desk to reserve a lane. Since the scoring screen required names, they each gave theirs.
Then they changed into the shoes designated by the venue. After all, the floor was slippery and easy to slide on.
The two walked to their assigned lane. Ichinose first chose a pink lightweight ball, her fingertip circling its surface.
She stood in the approach area, took two practice steps, and turned to Akira, winking. "Watch me!"
Before she'd finished speaking, she'd already glided out with small, quick steps, her arm swinging lightly. The pink ball arced through the air and steadily slammed into the pins. With a "bang," all ten pins fell.
The screen also displayed a large icon of a bowling strike.
"Strike!" She excitedly turned around, about to cheer, but then suddenly remembered something and covered her mouth in embarrassment. "Was that too loud?"
Akira picked up a dark, heavy ball and smiled. "It's fine. It should be loud here."
His approach was steady, and he also made a clean strike.
"Wow, Shimizu-kun is amazing too!" Ichinose clapped her hands.
After several rounds, the two were surprisingly evenly matched.
Although Ichinose didn't have much strength, she could always accurately pick off the remaining pins with precise angles.
Akira, on the other hand, often achieved strikes by relying on his strength and skill, occasionally even intentionally leaving one or two. Sometimes, not winning was another way of winning.
After playing ten simple frames, Akira's score was ultimately slightly higher.
He didn't feel tired himself, even though he always chose the heaviest ball.
But Ichinose was clearly a bit tired, as bowling, though seemingly easy, was actually quite physically demanding.
Akira suggested taking a break, and Ichinose agreed.
The rest sofas were located behind the automatic ball return machine, so the two sat down there.
Ichinose specifically got two mango juices from the front desk. Drinks were included in the package they'd agreed upon earlier.
As if suddenly remembering something, she said, "Shimizu-kun, I heard some news. The first year students might be going on a vacation to a southern island this summer."
"Going on vacation to a southern island?" Akira's interest was immediately piqued upon hearing this.
Why would the school suddenly be so generous to students?
Given this school's style of educating students, would it really let them enjoy a vacation so easily?
Wait, it couldn't be a special exam, could it?
"It seems you thought of it too?" Ichinose looked at his thoughtful expression and nodded with a smile. "The school is most likely using the vacation as an excuse to hold some special exam. This might be the first real confrontation between the four classes."
"Ichinose-san, is it alright for you to tell me this kind of information?"
After all, they belonged to different classes, and strictly speaking, this kind of news was quite important.
If they really went on a "vacation" to a southern island, the school would likely set up assessments around survival. In that case, it'd be very necessary to study survival skills for a deserted island in advance, and people with good physical fitness would naturally have an advantage in such a scenario.
Akira felt that if such an exam were held, it would seem quite advantageous for him in all aspects.
"Of course it's fine." Ichinose shook her head nonchalantly. "You're so good to me, how could I hide something like this from you? This isn't critical information anyway."
"Class B is still over a hundred class points behind Class A! And I must try my best to get as many class points as possible." She thought for a moment, then added with emphasis.
Akira could see that Ichinose was indeed very serious about this matter.
He could look forward to Ichinose's performance in the next exam. In his eyes, her abilities were actually quite outstanding.
She might not have the top-tier intelligence of Sakayanagi, nor the ruthless drive of Ryuuen, but she was always surrounded by many friends, and her network was astonishingly wide. In terms of overall strategic thinking, she was in no way inferior to the leaders of other classes.
Just like last month, even people from the boxing club would actively help her. This was the tangible advantage brought by high popularity and strong charisma.
On the other side, Ichinose suddenly glanced at him a little shyly, hesitating before speaking. "Shimizu-kun, can I spend ten thousand points to ask you a question?"
"Just ask whatever you want directly, no need for points. The information you just gave me was very useful." Akira sensed that she seemed to have other concerns.
Ichinose was startled, and a complex emotion arose in her heart. She felt that throughout this date, Akira had been accommodating her.
"Um... I heard from Hoshinomiya-sensei that you were apparently confessed to, right? But you ended up rejecting the person." She finally asked.
"Yes, that's what happened." Akira nodded.
This was a question Hoshinomiya had personally asked him during the first month.
"Then can I ask for your advice on what to say when rejecting someone?"
"Hmm? Ichinose-san, you don't have experience rejecting people?"
"Um... actually, it's a classmate, and their situation might be a bit special, so I need to carefully consider my words. That's why I thought of asking you!" She explained softly.
'Ah? Could it be Shiranami?'
Akira's mind immediately flashed back to last month's information. The person was a girl, which indeed fit the description of "special situation." He really didn't think that with Ichinose's personality, she would never have been confessed to by a boy. He figured this was probably the first time in her life she'd received a confession from a girl, which was why she was so flustered and didn't know what to do.
"Since you knew in advance that the person was going to confess, did they leave an envelope, ask you to meet on a certain afternoon, or send a text message?" Akira thought for a moment and asked, following the topic.
For high school confessions, it was usually one of these three methods.
"...Um, it was an envelope." Ichinose replied softly.
"In that case, why don't you write them a letter too?" He thought for a while and suggested, "That way, you can consider their feelings, and it's also a subtle rejection. Compared to saying it in person, this method leaves more room, and they can slowly process it when they receive the letter. Besides, I don't think you're very good at rejecting people face-to-face."
After all, rejecting someone in person, no matter how politely, didn't change the essence of the rejection.
If the person really was a girl, she might even cry on the spot.
From his understanding of Ichinose, asking her to reject someone face-to-face would be too difficult for her.
It'd be better to respond to the person's feelings in the same way. It'd be good for both of them.
"...Ah! Respond with an envelope?" Ichinose's eyes instantly lit up, as if she'd found the answer to a difficult problem.
It seemed asking Akira for help this time was indeed the right choice.
The person was indeed a girl, and responding with an envelope would both preserve her dignity and spare Ichinose the agony of a face-to-face rejection.
She suddenly realized that Akira was truly considering things from her perspective. Even though she was the one who had to reject someone, he was so carefully protecting her feelings.
"Shimizu-kun... um... why did you reject that person's confession back then?" This thought suddenly flashed through Ichinose's mind, and the words came out without much thought.
No sooner had she spoken than she instantly regretted it.
Why did she ask such a private question?
With her personality, she shouldn't have asked such an impolite question.
"...Because that classmate confessed to me, but she actually wanted me to protect her, and she also said I wasn't allowed to touch her if we dated." Akira recalled Karuizawa's confession to him back then and explained in a calm tone, "I'm a healthy high school boy, after all. The person wasn't sincere, and I didn't have any good feelings for her at the time, nor did I want to be used as a tool, so I refused."
Of course, those were things of the past.
The current Karuizawa was actually quite good.
Ichinose's hand, holding the mango juice, paused slightly, and a hint of surprise flashed in her eyes.
She hadn't expected Akira to answer her question so straightforwardly, and she could clearly hear that every word he said was true.
She'd thought that rejecting a confession was mostly due to "not feeling it," but she hadn't expected such a reason.
Wanting protection, yet unwilling to have any intimate contact?
Although she'd never dated anyone, she'd heard a lot of gossip from her upperclassman. It was said that couples who just started dating would do "that" almost every day for the first week, and it was very common for boyfriends to have such thoughts.
Her upperclassman had also mentioned that physical compatibility was a very important indicator between couples.
As a girl, she felt that the girl who confessed to Akira was clearly not looking for a boyfriend but a protector.
However, she was also a little surprised.
From Akira's words, he didn't seem as perfect as she'd imagined. He also had curiosity about girls' bodies.
But what was strange was that she didn't dislike this "imperfection" at all.
Instead, she felt that he was more real this way.
Ichinose even suddenly felt a little worried. Would Akira completely lose confidence in dating girls because of that girl, thinking that all girls were like that?
She was even more afraid that this experience would become a shadow in his heart, making him not want a girlfriend in the future.
"I think no matter what her reasons were, what that classmate did was wrong. That kind of thinking itself is problematic." She looked at Akira seriously. "And I believe that the vast majority of girls would not demand that their boyfriends cannot have intimate contact with them, Shimizu-kun. I hope this incident doesn't leave you with any bad lingering feelings."
Ichinose felt that her words just now might've been a bit vague and lacked concrete support.
But if it were her, and she really dated someone she liked, she might be even clingier than usual. Though it was a bit embarrassing to say, she might even actively seek a deeper level of intimacy.
She wasn't the type of girl with traditional views who believed deep intimacy should be saved for marriage.
For her, once she truly fell for someone, she'd be willing to give herself completely. Because the love that surged in that moment was an incredibly precious existence.
After all, in some sense, she'd always longed for someone who understood her and was reliable enough to be by her side.
"Um... this might be a bit sudden." She took a deep breath and added, her tone more serious than before. "But to me, I don't find it strange at all for a boyfriend to want intimate contact with his girlfriend. I think it's very normal."
"Intimate contact is an important way to express affection, and I've heard many upperclassmen complain that their boyfriends haven't touched them recently, making them worry if the other person doesn't like them as much anymore. So, appropriate physical touch is actually a way to deepen a relationship."
Akira blinked, gazing at Ichinose before him. She was incredibly serious, yet discussing intimate contact with a boy she'd only met a few times.
Even though she was talking about things almost from the adult world, he felt no impure thoughts, probably because there was a pure sincerity in her words from beginning to end.
She genuinely cared about him, even willing to frankly express her views on boyfriends and intimate relationships.
Actually, Akira had long since stopped thinking about that matter, but looking at her now, he couldn't help but smile.
"Hmm... I understand. Thank you, Ichinose-san, I'll remember your words. You've really helped me untangle a long-standing knot."
Ichinose felt a little shy again, lowering her eyelashes and gently stirring the mango juice in her glass.
Remember them forever?
Then wouldn't all those incredibly embarrassing words she'd just said be firmly etched in his mind?