Date Her Instead Vol. 2

Chapter Thirteen: One Last Summer Sha-Bang!

"I'm baaaaack Hokkaido! Did'ja miss me?"

"Come on lady, move it."

This was the scene that unfolded when Chiyo Wakabayashi stepped off the plane upon her arrival home. Well, almost home. Currently she was at the Sapporo Okadama Airport, coming back from Tokyo. Being the city Chiyo was originally from, she went there nearly every chance she had. Iwanai wasn't exactly a hub city, and considering the Internet could only do so much, Chiyo made it a point to frequently the country's capital so she could find out about the latest trends. Although, even with doing that research, Chiyo's tastes still tended to remain a little on the odd side.

The other reason she'd travel to Tokyo was to see family, but this time around it really only consisted of visiting her grandmother. Chiyo's mother made a few appearances at the family home, but she still had plenty of work to do, and Chiyo's father was currently on a business trip overseas. Her sister had stay home back in Iwanai to work on a summer project.

But now, Chiyo was back for what remained of the summer. She was excited and curious too, as she hadn't heard much from any of her friends about what they had gotten up to. She had tried texting Michi a couple of times, but Chiyo received a scorching reply back, followed by the cold shoulder. It didn't bother her though. The way she saw it, Michi was being chipped away at little by little. Maybe.

It wasn't long of a wait until Chiyo's sister arrived to take her home. Naturally, the gal had come back with more stuff than she had left with, so it was a bit of a challenge to fit it all into an already packed car. Most of Chiyo's sister's stuff from college was still in the back seat and trunk, but eventually the two girls managed to squeeze everything inside before getting back in the car themselves.

While they drove back to Iwanai, the sisters made conversation. The sister asked Chiyo about how things were in Tokyo, and in turn Chiyo asked about how her project was going. Apparently it was going poorly. Some of the data that had been collected had corrupted, so her sister nearly had to start over. Luckily there was enough saved by the other group members she was working with that they could salvage it, but it was clear to Chiyo that the whole ordeal had been frustrating. "I'm glad I don't have to worry... about... that..."

Chiyo was just about to pride herself on not being burdened with summer homework when she realized she had completely forgotten to do that exact thing. "Oh maaan," Chiyo moaned to herself. It seemed to go unnoticed by her sister, and so the drive continued with Chiyo now feeling dread instead of joy.

Once they were back, Chiyo quickly unloaded her things and set to work on the homework she had. There was now just around a week left of summer break, and Chiyo wanted to be able to spend her remaining time with her friends worry-free. Getting all of her homework done in one day also wasn't impossible. It wasn't as if Chiyo was dumb. In fact, a lot of her grades were decent. It was just that, being who she was, she had the problem of forgetting to do things, so that was what often got Chiyo in trouble. But, if she put her mind to it, she knew she could get it all done.

Finally, hours later, Chiyo had done it. All the pages were filled with answers. Tossing her pencil onto her desk, Chiyo laid down on the floor in a very relaxed position. "Now I can actually enjoy myself," she said out loud, grabbing her phone to contact people. She wanted to see if anyone would be available to hang out, but as she was about to start asking around, a thought occurred to her. "I wonder if Haru-chi and Kana-chan have made any progress?" Chiyo asked no one in particular. While in Tokyo, she hadn't really given it much thought, but that was also partly because Chiyo had figured that with it being summer and the fact they were next door neighbors, there was no way that those two girls wouldn't at least get somewhere.