Just One Night (Issei Matsukawa)

Not A Date

"Remind me why I'm doing this again?" Hanamaki complained as he picked up another box.

I had to resist the urge to laugh. "Because you want to get laid tonight and your girlfriend is still pissed off about you and Matsukawa going out without telling her about it," I pointed out, packing some other things into an empty box.

With Hanamaki moving in with Sayo, Matsukawa was left alone in his apartment. As nice as it would have been to live alone, it just wasn't possible for him to afford the place on his own. Neither of us were particularly fond of the idea of moving in with someone we barely knew, but he was desperate to not live with his friend Oikawa and I needed someplace a little bigger.

So here we were, packing up my things and moving them. We'd taken care of Hanamaki's things last weekend, but until today, we hadn't had a chance to move mine yet.

"It's not like I actually did anything... I even stayed at her place that night."

Sayo had been quite upset with him about that night that he and Matsukawa had gone out. Apparently, Hanamaki had never told her anything about it, other than the fact that he'd had a couple drinks with his best friend. He'd stayed at her place that night but hadn't told her the full story of why he'd all of a sudden want to stay the night.

"Yes, but it's the fact that you didn't tell her that's what happened."

"That actually matters?"

"To women? Of course."

"Hey, not all of us are like that," I pointed out, slightly offended to have been placed into that category. Just because a majority of women cared about little things like that, it didn't mean all of us did.

Matsukawa, however, did not look like he believed me. "Oh really?"

"Yeah. I happen to not care so much about that sort of thing." Packing the last few things into the final box, I passed it off to my new roommate. "Unlucky for men though, I don't date."

My new roommate raised an eyebrow. "So I suppose that means that you aren't expecting me to propose to you since you're having my kid?"

"I'm seriously hoping that you never propose to me."

"I feel like I should be insulted by that."

Several hours later, everything was finally unpacked. It honestly didn't look that different than it had before, Hanamaki's former room being the exception. The only real difference was that now it had a more "couple's apartment" feel to it than the "college boys' apartment" one that it used to have.

Realizing that gave me a very uneasy feeling. It took some time to convince myself that those things that happen in movies and in stories, don't happen in reality. Just because we were two single people living in the same apartment and having a baby together did not mean that we'd end up falling hopelessly in love and living happily ever after. Things like that didn't happen outside of fiction.

Tired from all the moving, I didn't feel like making anything for dinner. And if that look on Matsukawa's face was any indication, then he certainly didn't feel like it either. After a quick, thirty-second conversation, we went out to get something to eat.

We ended up choosing a fast food place; cheap and quick, perfect for a pair of college students. Since this was two roommates getting to know each other and not a date, we paid for our own food. Some people thought that was odd and gave us funny looks, but I just ignored them. It's not like we were together or anything, so it didn't matter.

As we ate, we talked a bit. Starting off on how Matsukawa knew Hanamaki and I knew Sayo, we quickly found ourselves getting along quite well. Matsukawa even gained the courage to poke fun at the way I ate, which normally would have irritated me, but I was in too good of a mood to really care.