My new Neighbor's an Idol!?

Soft

"Looks like there's a ton of things to do here tonight." Ishi commented as they worked their way through the sea of people. It seemed as though their entire town was here, which wasn't a surprise considering the event. A chance to have some fun with friends and family was always welcomed, but only recently did the boy realize that fact.

"Right." Youna replied. She was too busy glancing back and forth over at him, then towards all the stands to pay attention to what he was actually saying. The girl was nervous with all this power over him now. This boy really wanted her to make the choice over how their night went. Even though it was never stated to be so, she was going into this current bit of time like it was a real date. After all, she was a girl spending time alone with a boy in public. How couldn't she view it as anything such?

But if this going to be a date, then she would have to take it seriously. If anything she picked out was boring to him, then he would get irritated with her. At the same time, a date also meant people would do... Some romantic things like holding hands and kissing. Perhaps the latter was too much for her heart to bear, but the former was certainly doable. Now all she needed was a good time to do it so as not to arouse suspicion.

For the record, she had no plans of confessing to him on this night. The first reason being that the only time she had ever attempted to confess to someone in her life went absolutely horrendous. The second reason was she certainly wasn't ready at this pace to let her feelings be known to him.

"Watch out for the pole."

"Huh?" Suddenly, Youna's face met with the lamppost set up to provide visibility for the venue. She had been so lost in thought, that the girl failed to pay attention to her surroundings. "Tsk, owie."

"Are you all right?" He asked her, getting a closer look at her nose to make sure it wasn't broken. Of course, that also meant getting well into her private space, which caused her much worry that he might see her growing red cheeks.

"I-I'm fine." She quickly turned her head to hide away and assured him that things were well with her.

"Really, I just thought maybe you were spacing out." He responded. "We've walked past most of the stands and you haven't picked anything out yet."

"What?" She looked back to where they were walking. He wasn't lying, they were nearly at the end of the line here. "Eh!? Oh, sorry I was just thinking what would be a good game to play." Quickly, she needed an excuse to avoid more embarrassment from this blunder. "I... Wanted to play this game right here." She pointed over to one of the stands. Whatever it was, she had no clue, but anything would be good for now.

"Okay." Ishi accepted her answer and they walked over to the stand. It was a game where contestants took rings and tried to toss them onto some bottles as targets. A simple, but very challenging game.

Of course, if Ryugi was here, then they'd clean out the entire prize pool. However, this was Ishi and Youna playing the game together, so a lot of failure was to be expected from a pair that didn't do these games very often, if at all.

"These things look like they're barely bigger than the bottles." Ishi complained. Even with his comment, the boy wasn't even certain if that statement was true. From all the misses, it was possible that this game was impossible and their tools were too small. "How are we supposed to win this?"

His complaints about the game weren't lost on Youna. She felt bad that he seemed to be having a bad time. In her mind, the relationship points she was earning were begining to erode from him. If this kept up, then it wouldn't be long before he was so turned off of her that they wouldn't even continue being friends.