Date Her Instead Vol. 1

Chapter Four: Through Watchful Eyes

The next morning, Akio woke up five minutes before his alarm. Knowing he wouldn't be needing its services any longer, he shut it off, then sat up and stretched upwards. "It's going to be Day 2 for Kana-chan and Haruna-chan," he thought. "I wonder if it'll go any better than yesterday." Once satisfied by his stretch and the cracking of a few disgruntled bones, Akio got out of bed and began to get ready for school.

His routine was normally pretty easy. Akio kept his room super organized, with everything stored in its proper unit, on a shelf, or a drawer. His floor was spotless and even the top of his desk looked like a model you'd see in a store. It wasn't like Akio was a neat-freak or anything. He just thought that it was nice to have everything where it belonged.

Among all of his orderly stuff was his uniform, hanging perfectly clean and ironed on the wall next to his closet. Grabbing it, he began to change out of his pajamas, which consisted of a pair of long basketball shorts and a loose black t-shirt. Akio's uniform was naturally nearly identical to the girls' in color, but stylistically it was different.

Opposing the girls' sailor uniform of Iwanai Municipal High School were the guys' suits. The hue of blue matched their opposition, but instead of ribbons and skirts, the males of the school wore a white dress t-shirt and light grey dress pants. When winter came around, a blazer was added. To complete the outfit and indicate their year, they wore colored ties, to which Akio's was currently green.

Straightening his look by tucking in his shirt and adjusting his tie, Akio was rather pleased with the way he looked. He wasn't narcissistic, he just enjoyed the look of his uniform. It was actually one of the reasons he chose to go to his local high school instead of moving away.

So, after his brief moment of admiration, Akio grabbed his bag, double checked to make sure he had everything, and then headed out of his room and down the hall into the kitchen to begin making breakfast. This was all part of the regular routine. Both of his parents had work early in the morning, and with his older sister never awake until two minutes before her college classes were set to start and his younger brother not yet at an age capable of making a reasonable breakfast, the job was left to Akio.

As he fried some eggs and prepared the rice, he heard a door open. "Morning onii-chan," a small boy around the age of 9 said. "Ah, good morning!" Akio said with a smile. Taking a seat at the table, the younger brother named Taichi seemed to still be half-asleep. Akio laughed a little at the sight as Taichi nearly tipped out of his chair before suddenly snapping awake.

Mornings were always like this in the Miyashita household. Happily getting ready while enjoying the company of each other. It was very picturesque. However, some part of Akio found it rather... boring? No, that wasn't quite the right word. Or maybe it was. Regardless, he had found a new enjoyment in his social experiment with his childhood friends. Akio wasn't doing this just for kicks, of course, but it definitely added some spice into his life.

"Oh, that reminds me. I should make sure I don't leave too early. I need to see how Haruna-chan and Kana-chan elect to start the day," he thought to himself. Then, "That sounds kind of creepy, doesn't it?" he added. Before he had gone to bed last night, Akio had been thinking of ways he could keep an eye on both Kanako and Haruna. It had to be in a way that wasn't too lazy, but at the same time wasn't to stalker-y. In the end, the best things he could seem to come up with were following them to and from school and altering his routes that he took to get to different classes.

"This certainly won't be easy," he sighed to himself. "What are you talking about onii-chan?" Taichi asked. "Oh, nothing," Akio said slyly. "Here's your food," he said, setting down a plate in front of Taichi. While he ate, Akio began to wash the dishes, returning to his original train of thought of trying to come up with any other ways to keep Kanako and Haruna's end of the deal in check.