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“I still don’t understand why you want to do this,” Chiharu said. “You don’t even eat ice cream.”
“Do you want it or not?” Makina snapped.
“Yeah, yeah. You don’t have to always take things so personally, y'know. I was just asking a question.”
Makina rolled her digital eyes, a movement she'd modded herself for situations like this. It was late at night, probably way too late to get ice cream. She knew Chiharu was right, and this was a stupid idea. She would have done it earlier, but they’d both gotten distracted. Whatever. This was better anyway. Not a lot of idiots to bother them.
It was nice at night. Peaceful, the streets lit by the neon lights of the few bars and nightclubs that were open. Maybe she should have taken Chiharu to one of those instead. She liked clubbing, but she was a mess when she was drunk. Makina didn’t feel like dragging her back to their apartment or getting arrested for beating some shithead who decided to bother her. Instead, she took her to the park. Parks had ice cream, right?
“It’s cold,” Chiharu grumbled. “Why couldn’t we just take the car?”
“Here, have my jacket,” Makina said without thinking.
“Aw, thanks, Makina,” she said. “That’s really sweet.”
Makina was so glad she didn’t have to worry about blushing.
“Just try to give it back this time.”
“Yeah, that’s not gonna happen.”
“Were you even cold?”
Chiharu grinned, wrapping herself in her purple and white letterman jacket, and a smug look on her face. Makina had that thing since high school. This should be infuriating. It was infuriating.
But damn if she wasn’t cute.
Makina let out a forced scoff, turning her back on the alien girl. That’s when she saw the small ice cream stand, right on the edge of the park. A bored human woman was standing by it, scrolling on her phone, but the lights indicated it was open. Bingo.
“Come on, I found the ice cream place,” she told Chiharu.
“Ooh, that looks great! I could really use some ice cream now that I think about it. This was a great idea, Makina.”
“So much for being cold.”
“You brought your wallet, right? Because I, uh…forgot.”
“Of course you did,” Makina said. “No worries, my treat.”
“Great.”
Chiharu bounded over to the stand.
“I’ll have a triple cone with sprinkles, black, pink, and one red. And my friend here will have a silver.”
The woman looked up from her phone. She had a bright green Mohawk and a blank look on her face.
“Huh? Oh yeah,” she said. “You know your friend is a cyborg, right? Can she eat—“
“Wow, the bigotry,” Chiharu scoffed. “Well, I just wanted a nice date in the park—“
“What?” Makina panicked.
“And we have to deal with this,” Chiharu continued. “Don’t assume what she can or can’t do. Just because she’s a cyborg—“
“Yeah, you’re not getting a discount for this,” the woman said. “I’ll get what you order if you get off my back.”
“Thank you,” Chiharu said. “The nerve of some people, right, Makina?”
“This is a date?” Makina asked.
It was like someone had shut her down. She could barely think, which was crazy. Cyborgs weren’t supposed to have this problem. Emotions were not supposed to overrun them.
But then, she’d always been defective on that front.
“Duh,” Chiharu said. “This is like a girls night, right? Just us? Friends.”
Friends. Right. Fuck, she was stupid.
“Oh, yeah.”
“Wait, did you mean the other kind of date?”
“No!”
“You totally did, didn’t you? Oh my god, you like me.”
“Here’s your ice cream,” the woman said. “That’ll be fifty digits.”
“No, I don’t,” Makina said.
“You totally do! Oh my god, all those times you took me out to eat or to drive, were those dates?”
“No!”
“So which one of you is paying?”
“I can’t believe I didn’t notice. We’re roommates for crying out loud.”
“I told you, it’s not like that. You’re just being weird and reading into things.”
“This is starting to drip and get gross. Could you guys just take the damn things?”
“Wait, is that why you’ve always been super protective of me?”
“I’m not super protective of you.”
“Sounds like you’re in denial,” the woman said. “I’m going to eat these myself, by the way, if you don’t take them.”
Chiharu snatched both cones from her hand.
“She’s paying,” she said, before starting over to a bench.
Makina handed over the money and ran after her. This was the worst possible situation. Because as much as she wanted to deny it, Chiharu had hit the nail on the head. She was in love with her. She’d been in love with that idiot since they were kids.
She also would rather be vaporized than admit it.
Chirharu was sitting on the park bench, swinging her legs and eating both cones at once. The artificial tree that was next to the bench was covered in colorful glass baubles filled with electric lights. They made a rainbow of color illuminate the alien girl’s pink skin. Her expression was serious. Makina wasn’t actually sure if she’d ever seen Chirharu serious before.
Fuck.
“Are you mad at me?” Makina asked.
Chirharu shook her head, handing a cone out to Makina.
“Can you just hold this? My hands are getting sore.”
Makina sat down on the bench next to her, slouching. She took the cone.
“You’re so greedy,” she said. “You could have just ordered two cones for yourself, you know?”
“What, and make that lady think I was some kind of fatso? No chance.”
“You care too much about what others think about you.”
“Why didn’t you just tell me?”
“Tell you what,” Makina said, deciding to play dumb.
“Oh come on,” she groaned. “That you liked me. Obviously.”
“Who said I liked you?”
Chiharu rolled her eyes, taking another bite of ice cream. Weren’t you supposed to lick the stuff? Ugh, she was going to make herself sick.
“I guess it’s a shame you don’t like me then,” she said. “Because I would’ve totally jumped at a chance to date someone like you.”
Makina almost blue-screened.
“Wait, really?”
“Yeah,” Chiharu said. “You’re really cool. And you pay for my stuff.”
“That’s why you want to date me? What are you, a gold digger?”
“That was a joke. We’re both broke, remember?” Chiharu said.
“I guess so—“
“Hey, do you want to make out or not?”
Oh, shit, this was going fast. Like super, super fast. She hadn’t planned for anything. What was she even supposed to do? How did that work with flesh-things? She didn’t remember how they kissed or anything at all.
But Chiharu must have decided that she was hopeless and didn’t wish any longer for an answer. In a moment her lips were pressed against Makina’s screen.
It was happening. They were kissing.
Kinda.
“Ow!”
Chirharu pulled away.
“You shocked me.”
“Just a little bit,” Makina said. “I thought we were making out.”
“So you shocked me?”
“It’s an electric signal!”
“It hurt. Is that what cyborgs do?”
“You know what,” Makina said, getting up. “This was stupid. It’s not going to work out between us.”
The cone fell to the pavement.
“Hey,” Chiharu said. “We’ve been friends most of our lives. You’ve always been there for me. And even if that caused me problems sometimes, it meant a lot to me. I’ve always loved you, okay? I just didn’t realize what kind of love it was until you said it yourself.”
For a second it was quiet. Makina thought she could hear her fans working to cool down her overheated body.
“Really?”
“Really,” Chiharu said. “Come on, let’s go back to the apartment and figure out how this works, okay? I’m sure we can figure out something. I'll read a manual or something."
Makina let herself smile. Inside she felt like throwing a party. She hadn’t expected this, getting everything she had ever wanted in the span of five minutes. It felt almost weird, being this blissfully happy. Chiharu and her were what? A couple now? Girlfriends?
She hugged her, pulling so tight that Chiharu let out a soft squeak before returning it. That sent the second cone to the ground, but neither of them really cared.
“I love you,” Makina admitted.
It was suddenly very easy now. Chiharu gave that crooked grin of hers.
“I love you too.”
“We, uh, wasted that ice cream, huh?”
“Eh,” Chiharu said. “We got our money’s worth out of it.”
They definitely did.
Together, they went back to their apartment. Maybe Makina couldn’t really feel Chiharu’s hand in her own, but the heat signals it was sending were enough to make her feel like a stupid schoolgirl. She never wanted to fall in love with her best friend, and she had never imagined her best friend would fall in love with her. And yet, here they were.
If this was their first date, it was fucking amazing.