Date Her Instead Vol. 4

Chapter Six: Future Plans

A couple of days later, the second-year students of Iwanai Municipal High School were met with a time-honored tradition. "Okay everyone, listen up," the teacher called out. "It's time to fill out your career sheets." As expected, an audible groan rose up from the classroom. "Remember, it's not like what you write is set in stone, but you should give some serious thought to your answers." With that, the sheets were distributed, leaving the students of the classroom to think about what it was they wanted to do.

Naturally, some wrote down answers immediately. There were plenty of students planning on going to college, so that was their first thing to write down. However, college wasn't necessarily a guarantee for some, so that left filling out the remaining two slots. Plenty of people got hung up on what to write second, but Kanako fell into the camp of still being stuck on the first.

"What do I want to do...?" she wondered. It wasn't as if she had never thought about the future, but when faced with giving a real answer, it felt hard to decide. "Should I say I want to be a chef?" Kanako thought. Honestly, it was something she had been leaning toward, but she wasn't sure if putting that down as her first choice would be satisfactory for her teacher. So instead, Kanako went with writing down the name of a college she had thought about going to that had a good culinary program. As for the last two spots, she just wrote down two more college choices.

Once that was done, Kanako glanced to her left. Not too far from her sat Michi, who seemed to be staring off into the window. "I bet Mi-chan will get into a top university..." she thought. Being one of the smartest students in her year, Kanako knew Michi probably had her pick of universities. Before, she had even said that was part of what she wanted to do. "If I get a degree from a great school, who wouldn't want to hire me?" Michi had said. Although, despite her confidence in her grades, Kanako remembered Michi seeming unsure about what she wanted to do either. But, unlike Kanako, it seemed to be more of a conflict between what she wanted and what her parents wanted rather than simply not knowing.

Of course, even if Kanako wanted to know what exactly it was Michi had written, it wasn't like she could just go up and ask her. Their last argument had been the final straw for Kanako, who refused to say anything more to Michi unless she truly apologized for the things she had said and the way she had acted. Unfortunately, that did little to soothe the pain in Kanako's heart. She wanted her friend to apologize, not out of malice, but simply because she wanted to be real friends again. All Kanako wanted was to be able to talk to Michi like she used to.

Thinking on it, Kanako couldn't help but draw similarities to how she had felt when she and Haruna had been fighting. This time though was different in at least the sense that Kanako actually knew what the problem was. Michi kept thinking and saying that Kanako was picking Haruna over her. Kanako didn't really see it that way (and she didn't get it either), but she knew that Michi did for some reason. Ultimately, it had been barrage of insults after tirade that had pushed Kanako to the edge with the girl she had called her best friend. It had gotten to be too much, as they just kept having the same arguments over and over.

It all begged the question of why was it that Michi kept going around in circles? "Maybe... she just doesn't like change," Kanako concluded. She remembered a conversation the two of them had had at Mayu's house. When the topic of change had come up, Michi had seemed very averse to it, not understanding why anything had to change. Admittedly, Kanako felt similarly, but she also knew that it was impossible for things to remain how they were. And if she hadn't before, she certainly did now. Kanako had wanted Haruna back as a friend so things between them could've gone back to how they were. Instead, she had received a confession from that very girl.

But, even though that was definitely a change, it was one Kanako wasn't opposed to. She didn't quite understand why, but it almost felt like her heart welcomed it. In opposition to that, her heart had turned its back on Akio, the boy she had loved for so long. While that wasn't a change Kanako had ever wanted, she couldn't deny that a part of her felt better for it. It was like she could really see everyone around her for the first time in a while. After having at least half her mind on Akio for so many years, it was almost refreshing for that not to be the case now.