Clouds of Mint Cotton Candy

For a Change of Pace

"I'm tired of the same cafe-and-park date."

Sayo blurted all of the sudden in her phone conversation with Aya when her girlfriend asked her on a date with Aya proposing the same, repetitive idea of date location, "they're all indifferent to me. Can we just go somewhere else?" Frankly speaking, Sayo is not a good spontaneous planner either, but Sayo had guessed that Aya might know a thing or two about a unique date spot, since Aya constantly updating her SNS in various location possible, even at her "work".

"Uh," the clueless Aya scratched her head, as her hand rustling on the papers piling on her desk, "aha! Here, here. A park!"

"Again?"

"No! It's different this time!"

"Huh?"

"It's a nature park!"

Sayo finally agreed to the idea, since she felt something is needed for a change. And of course, the idea of nature park is all new to her. "Tell me what's there." Sayo asked from the end of the call line, while Aya skimmed through the brochure paper. "Let's see here.. Strawberry-picking spot, horse-riding arena, archery lane.. hey! You can teach me about archery here! Fufu~"

Sayo did not even think to teach her about it in the first place, but a date like this? She is down with it. "Sure. I don't mind. How about tomorrow, 9 AM, at the station?" Aya made a small "hmm" noises and followed by her agreement. "Sure!"

――――――――――――――――――

The next day, Sayo was the first one to arrive― and will always be ―and the thing left to do is to wait for Aya, as usual.

"Sayo-chan!" The familiar voice rang in Sayo's ears, before she turns her head to the side and greeted with a bright smile of Aya in probably the cutest dress ever, which leaves her blank of words. "M.. Maruyama-san.. Good morning." Sayo tried to initiate a conversation with a simple greeting, and while it may sounds awkward even they are dating already, Sayo is still kind of awkward around Aya. Is it because of the idol vibe she constantly radiates, too bright for her to handle? Maybe. Sayo might voice out her thoughts about her being so dazzling, but that is a very blatant gay move for her and Sayo might fail to play it cool.

"Sayo-chan? Sayo-chan..? Saaayooo-chaaan? Where we'll be going again?" Aya called onto Sayo to snap her out of her silence, and finally she spoke up.

"O-Oh, the nature park. Right. We need to take a train here. Two hours of journey at least."

"Then what are you waiting for? Let's go!"

Sayo nodded and led Aya to into the train after buying their tickets before hand, they chatted along the way on how the nature park might look, with Aya spoiling some of the inside of the said place and Sayo listening intently. "It's a very nice place for something new," Sayo thought, and after the two hours of idle chatting and Aya fall asleep on Sayo's shoulder for the half an hour rest, they finally arrived.

"Maruyama-san.. wake up, we're arrived here already." Sayo softly spoke to wake the sleeping beauty, the pinkette soon rose from her position and stretching her arms, letting out the cutest yawn probably known to Sayo. "Huh.. That was fast. Alright then.." They got up from their seat and walked a few minutes to a gate which looked like a huge garden, as if almost like a dreamland.

"Ahh.. How beautiful! I've been here for a while but not enough time to navigate the inside.."

"This place looks great. Shall we go now?"

"Mhm!"

Aya suddenly took Sayo by the hand, walking together after the staff on the welcoming gate handed them a guide map. "Let's see," Aya's gaze wandered to the strawberry-picking venue and her finger tapped on the said location on the map, "...here! Let's go here!" Aya dragged Sayo along to her desired place, eager to see what the place holds for her. Once they're there, Aya was talking to the staff and asking for the directions to appropiately pick a strawberry, and Sayo was there also to listen but she was focused onto Aya for most of the time.