One step forward, two steps back

Part 6 Recover and regret

The credits were now rolling and Nishikata had only just gotten back to his seat and was staring at the screen in disappointment. "I ... missed the ending."

"It's okay." Takagi replied as she rubbed her hand again. "That just means that we'll have to come back."

Takagi expected Nishikata to look embarrassed, but the look of shame on his face was still very much the only thing present. "I'm ... sorry for almost crushing your hand."

"It's fine, I don't think anything's broken so there's no need to worry." She pushed herself to her feet and turned to Nishikata. "So, shall we go before Sumire and Cozzy find out that we set them up?"

"Yeah, good idea." 'Damn it, how could this happen?' Nishikata thought to himself. 'I completely forgot that I was holding Takagi's hand and I accidentally crushed it, how could I be so damn careless?'

They made their way out of the theater and waited at the exit for their friends. "So." Nishikata began. "What'd I miss?"

"Mostly, them making up and kissing." Takagi answered.

"Then I missed the climax, damn."

"Well, like I said, we'll just have to come back and see it again." Nishikata blushed slightly and Takagi smiled. 'At least we didn't fall that far behind.'

They turned back to the door just as their friends were exiting the theater. "Guys!" Cozzy exclaimed. "Where did you disappear to?"

"Apparently Nishikata got us seats in the G row instead of the C row." Takagi explained.

"Hey, I didn't notice it when I hit it, and the G kinda looks like a C so it was easy to not notice at first." There was an awkward silence. Everyone knew the truth, that Nishikata separated them on purpose, but no one knew that everyone else also knew the truth, except Nishikata.

"So." Cozzy began. "We should-"

"Probably get going?" Sumire replied. "Yeah, we can't stay here for too long, or we could get in trouble."

They all began walking without so much as a word, with Nishikata lagging behind everyone else. 'I really need to watch it, I could have broken her hand.' He glanced down at his hand and sighed. 'And here I was working on my grip strength just to look cool, that was a dumb idea.'

"Hey." Cozzy whispered as he tapped him on the shoulder. "I owe you, big time."

"Huh? Oh, right, yeah, no sweat, what are friends for?"

"Thanks dude."

Further to the front of the pack, Sumire and Takagi were having a somewhat similar conversation. "That was intentional, wasn't it?"

"Yeah, Nishikata wanted to help."

"You sure he didn't do it because he wanted to sit with you?" She asked with a knowing smile.

Takagi held her right hand which was still sore. "That was probably an added bonus for him, and me as well honestly."

"So tell me." She leaned closer. "Did you guys ... you know?"

Takagi shook her head. "Nishikata actually had to take a bathroom break right before the ending, so he wasn't there when ... the kissing happened."

"Well, that's no good."

"It's fine, really, what kind of wing girl would I be if I got together with my crush when the purpose of this double date is to get you closer to yours?"

"Now I feel sorry, you two should have had your first kiss by now."

'You have no idea.' "It'll happen when he's ready."