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It’s hard for Date, the professional detective, not to notice the attention they’re getting in the tiny cafe. One couple shoots them a furtive glance from across the room and whispers to each other behind their hands. Several other patrons seem determined to look anywhere but in their direction.
Aiba, he thinks, calling his partner to the forefront of his mind. Even though there’s no need to worry about volume, his inner voice comes out as an urgent whisper. Aiba, this was a mistake. Everybody here must think I’m some kind of a creep. What if they recognize Iris?
As if on cue, an image of Iris appears over the vision of his left eye, overlaying on top of the real one sitting before him. The illusion grins and pumps her fists in excitement. “You promised you would take me out on a date and now you have to,” squeals the memory. “A promise is a promise!”
The image blips away, leaving the real Iris sipping on her cappuccino, baby blue eyes wide with curiosity.
A promise is a promise, Aiba echoes. A hint of amusement tints her electronic voice. So far, none of the other customers at this establishment have mentioned that you’re here with A-Set. I’m sure they all think you’re just a regular old pervert.
Date winces at the gibe and grinds his teeth to keep from scowling. Keep that up and I won’t let you watch that new anime with Mizuki tonight, he counters.
A delicate clink of ceramic on ceramic disrupts their banter. With her mug safely deposited back on its saucer, Iris leans forward across their little table to stare directly into her Uncle’s tired eyes. A smile curls at the corners of her soft pink lips.
“Date,” she sings, nudging his foot with her own. “Earth to Date!”
The grizzled man sighs and rubs at his temple. Between the two of them, he’s sure he’ll have a headache later.
A slender finger waggles back and forth in front of his face, chiding him as if he were a small child. “You’re supposed to be on a date with me, not Aiba. Remember?” On the final word, Iris gives his nose a quick boop with her fingertip and giggles. “If I can turn my phone off, you can put up with one measly date, got it?”
It’s hardly the most unfair bargain the detective has ever agreed to, but it irks him nonetheless. He takes a sip of his own cooling coffee and grumbles. “What’s with this ‘Date’ stuff anyways? I thought I was ‘Uncle’ now.”
Iris rests her chin in the crook of her palm and studies her companion’s weary expression. Her mascaraed eyelashes bat in his direction, toeing the line between innocent and flirty.
“I can’t call you Uncle if we’re on a date, silly,” she laughs, reaching forward to place her free hand over his. Her skin is smooth and soft, her dainty palm barely able to cover his own scarred and calloused knuckles. When she shifts, the fairy lights overhead make her eyes glimmer with stars.
The susurrus around them rises. Everyone else is definitely staring now.
Oh hush, pay attention! Give her a compliment.
Date swallows. “So your… hair. It… looks nice like that.”
It’s not unusual for the idol to put on a bit of extra makeup or don a nice outfit for publicity events, but something about what she’s done for their outing seems to scream Iris more than A-Set; her lips are glossy and full, her eyes seem framed by a smoky yet subtle darkness, and even the way her hair has been pulled away from her face lends her features a kind of playful angularity that Date had never quite noticed before. It makes something in his belly flutter to see her as a young adult, still full of life and brightness, but miles away from the little girl who used to play Ratty Cakes for hours on end.
She squeezes Date’s hand, her fingertips stroking against his wrist to coax him out of his train of thought. Her head cocks in contemplation, brilliant eyes scanning over the lines of his aging face. He wonders whether the twelve years he gained when he returned to his real body are obvious.
“Date, you should grow your hair out again.”
Huh?
Instinctively, he withdraws his hand from hers to finger at his bangs. His hair isn’t exactly short as it is, but it’s not as silky smooth as Saito’s was, either.
“Why would you want me to do that?” he asks, injecting a bit of indignation into his tone. The thought of wearing a ponytail again seems a little ridiculous.
Iris twirls a finger through her own hair, as if reflecting his actions back at him. With an understated grace to her movements, she tucks a stray lock behind her ear. “I thought you looked really handsome with long hair,” she shrugs, batting her lashes once more.
Date doesn’t need Aiba’s biometric report to know that his heart jumps a little at the remarkably casual comment. He suddenly feels strangely out of place as Hayato Yagyu—a little too lanky, too scruffy, too worn around the edges. Compared to the vibrant young woman seated before him, he may as well be a mummy.
42 is hardly the end of the world, Aiba argues, but he dismisses her reason with an inward groan and grimaces.
“But that was with an entirely different body,” he protests to his date. The words your brother’s body echo unspoken through his head. “Won’t longer hair just make me look old now that I’m me again?” He tries to imagine his hair reaching his shoulders, but only Saito’s fair mane springs to mind.
Iris’s long legs stretch out underneath the table, recapturing Date’s foot between her own. Polished teeth chew against the plump pink of her lower lip, distracting him from his troubled musing. Without their striking blue backdrop, he might have missed the way Iris’s pupils blow wide and dark as she studies his face.
Reaching out once again to hold his hand, Iris gives a quick wink. “I think you would look pretty sexy, actually,” is her playful response.
Every last patron in the room stares at the bizarre couple: the scraggly middle-aged man and the rosy-haired beauty half his age, both captured by the eyes of the other. The air between them seems electric, their bodies charged like magnets that draw ever-so-slowly closer together over the tiny table for two.
For the first time since they arrived at the cafe, Date doesn’t notice the spectators. The flutter in his belly travels up to his heart, but his gaze remains fixed on his so-called niece. Lost in a sea of twinkling blue, it’s difficult to remember why he was ever worried in the first place.
By the time their second date rolls around, Aiba can already predict that they will once again forget to finish their coffees before they go cold. Luckily, neither Date nor Iris seems to mind.