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Nanami Chiaki is not exactly what you’d call a master of dating. There’s a reason the pile of incomplete games in the back of her closet consists primarily of games like Sakura Taisen and Tokimeki Memorial – and why, after a month of attempting to clear Tsugumi’s Route in Ever17 (instead of getting the same bad end over and over again), she’d caved and looked through an affection point walkthrough.
Suffice it to say, she wouldn’t classify herself as a member of the lovers’ arcana by any means (and on that note, she’s embarrassed to admit how many tries it took her to max even one romantic s. link – too many).
It’s one of the reasons she’s let Hinata-kun dictate the pace of their relationship, more or less – her idea of a romantic evening in is leaning against his shoulder as she battles a particularly difficult boss, while he prefers a little less button mashing and a little more kissing. Which…doesn’t necessarily bother her (he’s not a bad kisser, she quite enjoys it) so much as it’s so different from everything she’s used to.
How do you know when you level up in a relationship? When do you unlock new skills, like kissing and over-the-clothes touching and beyond? Nanami can’t watch experience points go up, can’t level grind to reach a new mode that she desires or use a hint coin to get a clue. She certainly doesn’t want to bad end this relationship by making a move too soon or missing a cue.
It reminds her of why she’d been so hesitant to start relationships in the first place – when you start something, you can’t go back. No save points to reboot from if you make a wrong move and scare them away.
But…then again, the protagonist always has to assert feelings. She’s not the J-RPG protagonist who learns not to be an antisocial loner by falling in love or making friends (she’s pretty sure that role’s already filled by one of their classmates, anyway), but even your stereotypical sim protag has to make his romantic interests known to his chosen girl.
So when all of their friends start marrying off – from Sonia-san and Tanaka-kun’s relatively quick marriage in an attempt to reestablish the throne of Novelisc to the long-overdue wedding that finally made Kuzuryuu-kun and Pekoyama-san’s relationship official in the eyes of the yakuza – she resigns to take this very important step into her own hands. She thinks she’s ready, and she kind of wants to claim their future before it becomes all unwound.
Girls can ask boys to marry them in a number of games, after all – she’s pretty sure it’s somewhere in the romance list between making out and WooHooing.
Of course, she’s not quite one to go for the old-fashioned ring approach – ignoring the drain on her wallet, she’s not quite so sure that Hinata-kun would be thrilled to receive a diamond ring. In fact, he might show off the Chords of Steel he’d trained during Class Trials (she really would never be able to see the lawyer’s hair without imagining Hinata-kun’s ahoge, now).
She needs a new plan, but luckily, video games are more than willing to provide. Hinata-kun had warned her, once, that Harvest Moon wasn’t very realistic (“…Nanami, you do know that seasons aren’t a month long, right?”), but she thought that it probably got a few things right.
There aren’t merchants with conveniently-labeled shops anywhere nearby (she doesn’t understand; does Target sell archery tools? Walmart walls?), so Nanami resorts to the internet for help. Hinata-kun has shown her how to do basic online shopping, so she can buy her video games without having to navigate to the nearest game shop, and she’s pretty sure you can buy anything on the internet.
Finding a blue feather shouldn’t be too difficult.
As it turns out, it’s really not. Blue ostrich feathers (were ostriches really blue? maybe they’re shinies) are apparently pretty common, and she’s able to buy one for relatively cheap.
…Well. Okay. Technically Hinata-kun buys it, since he’s the one who brings in the money (she did try working, once – oddly enough, GameStop didn’t really appreciate their employees falling asleep on the job and drooling all over the counter. Who knew?), but it’s the thought that counts.
She sticks the feather in her rucksack-slash-backpack (okay, so it’s not perfect, but it’s close enough) and waits for the right moment.
For some reason, it’s hard to get a good moment set up – a few times she runs through possible scenarios in her mind, what she could have done had she been able to rewind time four minutes and changed things. He’s unusually jittery, nervous and tense when usually he’s relaxed and willing to even nap with her at times.
She doesn’t know if it’s a bug or what, but even if she doesn’t have the Healing Touch she figures she needs to do something. Take the plunge, and hope that it all works itself out.
So maybe it’s a little blunt to approach him after he’s settled into the apartment after work and thrust the feather in his face, but it seems to work just fine for everyone in Mineral Town and Forget-Me-Not Valley.
Whatever it is, he seems to get the message pretty quickly; his eyes widen at the sight, and he stammers.
“U-Uh. Nanami, is that…?”
His face is red, redder than she’s ever really seen it before. He’s cute like that.
“A-are you….”
She nods, smiling softly. “I want to marry you, Hinata-kun….I think.”
That seems to be enough to break him from his shock; he laughs. “Think, huh? I don’t know if you should be proposing if you just ‘think’…”
Nanami’s used to his teasing by now, so she just puffs out her cheeks angrily (and ignores how that seems to amuse him further).
Once he’s done having fun at her expense, he gives her a serious look (only slightly ruined by the still-present blush).
“You know…I was trying to figure out how to propose, until you beat me to it. Don’t you know that the guy’s supposed to be the one doing it?”
Was it really that important? Then again, if you propose to Marlin with the blue feather he says something kind of similar, doesn’t he…hmm, maybe she should have tried to hint at it. Maybe she could have painted a bunch of apple pictures and hidden “m-a-r-r-y” in them, perhaps that would have gone over better.
Oh, well. She’s pretty sure Hinata-kun’s not saying no if he was planning on proposing himself, so she supposes she doesn’t have to beat herself up over it too much.
It’s not like she’ll have the time, anyway. Planning a wedding only a week away should keep her pretty busy for now.