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1. Don't date someone who's similar to you.
Tani arrives on the first day of middle school with an outdated bowl haircut, and you sorta admire how he acts like it doesn’t bother him. Even though the other first years tease him, even though he gets picked last in PE class. In contrast, you’ve made a name for yourself as the guy who everyone can be friends with. It’s easy to get along with others and to say things that they want to hear. It’s harder to stand out and be different.
Maybe that’s why you start talking to Tani.
He likes the colour of your pencil case and says he wished he had that many keychains hanging from his school bag. He offers to teach you how to play Go. Two of you spend lunch hour playing a few rounds while deciding what school clubs you’ll sign up for. You thought you were being ambitious, signing up for two clubs: student council and handicrafts club. Tani says he wants to sign up for three: student council, handicrafts club, and Go.
You date Tani because the both of you are so alike. You both like trying new things. You both laugh at lame jokes, and say things just to be nice even when you don’t mean it. Both really competitive and selfish. And self-centred.
Tani doesn’t react when you tell him that you don’t want to hang out together anymore. He says the two of you can be rivals instead. You sorta admire how he acts like it doesn’t bother him.
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2. Don’t date someone who expects too much.
In second year, you meet Yamauchi in remedial class. You wonder what one of the top students in Math is doing here on a perfect summer day. Tanaka sensei announces that he does not have the time, nor the patience, to tutor all twelve of you. Yamauchi volunteers—yes, willingly volunteers —to come back to school during summer break to help take a couple of students off Tanaka sensei’s list. You happen to be one of them.
You don’t understand why someone would spend their sacred holiday time on something as unexciting as this. It makes you wonder if he's boring or if he's special. After class, you ask him out for lunch. The following week, it's dinner. The next, there's the promise of a movie, but only if you can solve for the value of x.
You date Yamauchi because he cares about a lot of things, fiercely. His family, his grades, the students in Kaburaya Middle School, so much that he'd sacrifice his summer to help a stranger. So much that he gets upset when you lose focus solving advanced math problems and when you can't grasp concepts even after he's spent the past half hour explaining them.
He doesn't give himself a break. He doesn't give you a break. He expects you to be better. You're not. The way you break-up with him is with a short text, and weeks of avoiding him in the hallway when school finally starts.
Because he still cares about you, he never gives up calling you for remedial classes. And you never give up trying to skip them.
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3. Don’t date someone just because you think they’re cute.
Houtarou Oreki, despite all appearances, is pretty cute under that mess of hair. You’ve known him since first year, but it’s only now, sitting across the desk from him that you can get a good look at the colour of his eyes. He's the only third year who doesn't expect anything of you when you're together. After the responsibilities of student council and thrill of handicrafts club, afternoons with Houtarou are blissfully pointless. With graduation looming near, he’s the only classmate who isn’t obsessed with chasing that one life goal or having a glorious high school debut.
Houtarou couldn’t care less about stuff like that. He has no expectations for himself, and being with him makes it easier for you to lower your own expectations. It’s comfortable and freeing. You could stay like this for a while, with just the two of you. And so after school one day, when everyone else has gone home, you ask him if he’s ever thought about dating.
“Is that a joke or is that a serious question?” Houtarou asks. He’s learned not to take you too seriously, which you appreciate.
You say, of course you’re serious. Hasn’t he dated anyone before?
“Nope,” he answers in that familiar, nonchalant way of his. Others find this behaviour unfriendly. You find it intriguing. Maybe someday in the future you’ll be able to figure him out.
What about Asami Toba? You remind him about the girl he’d been willing to go out of his way to help.
Houtarou gives you a quiet look that tells you he’d rather not talk about it, and that there’s nothing you could ever do to pry it out of him. Perhaps Houtarou regrets doing what he did. You, on the other hand, had enjoyed yourself. You don’t feel bad about it. And hey, he’d been the one to come up with the idea.
Nevermind that then. You poke his arm and ask him about dating again.
“With you?”
You nod, puffing out your chest.
“Not interested.”
You conclude that he’s no fun. And as if to prove this point, he remains unphased and asks if you want to walk home together since it’s getting late.
You try to date Houtarou, but maybe it’s better that you’re friends.
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4.
You don’t remember when you first met Mayaka. You remember her being in your class, but every time you talk to her, you feel like you’re meeting her again. You’ve met the shy Mayaka, the angry Mayaka, the Mayaka who stayed up late to read manga, the Mayaka who would rather be disliked than dishonest. The Mayaka who calls you ‘Fuku-chan’ because she wants to make a point, and then it sticks. They all blur together and suddenly it feels like she’s always been around.
Like you, Mayaka wants to be special. Like you, she acknowledges that she’ll never be good enough. But while you’ve made peace with this knowledge, Mayaka refuses to. She expects herself to be better. Her expectations are grand and magnificent and beautiful, and she doesn’t know how to match up to them. Still, she continues drawing in secret, late into weekend nights. You convince yourself that you don’t understand why she’d put herself through it all, and yet—you can’t take your eyes off her when she’s like this. You sit at the back of class and flip through the thin stack of drafts she’s willing to show you. When you’re done, you tell her you want to read more. You don’t say just to be nice. You mean it.
You learn the hard way that Mayaka hates being called cute. You try to think of an appropriate substitute as she talks about her favourite manga and doesn’t bother to fill you in on the plot, as she snaps playfully at Houtarou when he gets on her nerves, as she rolls her eyes and tries to hide how happy she is when she’s with you.
More than cute, she is someone you can’t help but smile at whenever you see her. You search for her on the morning walk to school, in the lunch crowd, at the library. The moment you realise this habit is this is the moment you realise that you have a problem on your hands.
By then, it’s too late. It’s already Valentine’s Day and it’s cold outside on the school grounds. A pack of store-bought chocolate is in the firm grip of her hands, and you need to think fast to save yourself. To save her.
“Fuku-chan.” She wants to make her point.
But you can’t date Mayaka.
You like her too much.