She likes video games, so I guessed that's what we were going to be doing for the whole duration of her visit, I prepared a large array of snacks neatly laid out on my coffee table, and I had bought some more soda from yesterday for the express purpose of having something for Yamada to drink if she got thirsty, I took my time taking off my lounge wear and decided to put on something somewhat acceptable, I put on a pair of black sweatpants and a T-shirt with a Metrellica logo on it, It wasn't too appeasing but it got the job done I suppose.
I felt a buzz from my pocket, Yamada most likely just texted me.
Yamada Hana : [Yo.]
Sato Masaichi : [Good morning.]
Yamada Hana : [I stayed up last night.]
Sato Masaichi : [So that's why you woke up right now, at 10:30.]
Yamada Hana : [Quite presumptuous to assume the first thing I did after waking up was text you.]
Yamada Hana : [Ok maybe I did but still, However I can go to sleep and wake up whenever I want.]
I chuckled, I don't know why, maybe it was out of pure nervousness of her visiting me, or just life in general.
Sato Masaichi : [Did you talk to your parents about you visiting me?]
Yamada Hana : [Yeah, they were ok with me visiting you, they even are forcing me to bring a gift over so, stay tuned for that.]
Sato Masaichi : [Aight, see you soon.]
Yamada Hana : [Ciao.]
After she sent that message I put my phone back in my pocket. I needed to do some things before she arrived, such as cleaning the house.
I took a broom from my broom closet and got to work sweeping.
*****
I was lying on my couch taking a nap, after sweeping I decided I had enough time to make lunch. Waffles and strawberries are a killer combo, so that's what I decided to make, while I was in the middle of eating said meal I heard a knock at the door, I looked up from my meal and at the front door in disbelief, I could of sworn it wasn't the time she said she was going to arrive at, I took out my phone and my suspicion was correct, it was only 11:09.
I walked to the front door and opened it to be greeted by Yamada beaming with a wide grin, she was wearing a blue t-shirt with the logo of the Hanshin tigers on it, with a black zip up hoodie that was open revealing said t-shirt, and she had a black skirt on, and a leather satchel of which the strap was hoisted onto her shoulder, she hadn't gone all out but at least she went through the effort of not looking horrible.
Just like me.
"Good day, Sato."
I crossed my arms and sighed, she was too early for my comfort. I thought maybe I should try something to get her back considering she decided to barge into my home last time, and that she was here earlier than the agreed upon time, and so I decided to speak English to her.
(POST EDIT: This is set in Japan, English speaking will be signified with '"example'", Thank you.)
'"Good afternoon, Yamada."'
"Eh?"
I smiled, she looked absolutely confused and at a loss for words as to how to respond to that.
'"I said, good afternoon.'"
"I don't understand you, please cut it out."
'"Aw but it's fun seeing you like this, utterly oblivious as to how to react to anything I'm doing, it's very therapeutic."
Speaking English online tends to keep your skills sharp, honestly without video games I would have never practiced it, and eventually just have forgotten how to use the language altogether.
"Ugh whatever, can I come in?"
I decided that was enough screwing around, any further and I would be pushing it.
"Yeah sure, come on in."
I stepped out of the way of the doorway and allowed her to pass, she quickly bolted in and shut the door behind her, and turned around to face me.
"I smell something, what is it?"
"Waffles, and no you can't have any, they are for me."
"Wow how rude, to treat your guest like that."
"Take it up with HR, anyways you said you brought something?"
"Yeah It's in my bag, I'll give you it when I'm about to leave."
I pointed towards the couch the game console was set up, plugged into the tv, while yamada walked to the couch as I instructed her to I walked over to the fridge and produced the 2 bottles of soda I had gotten the other day, I set the bottles on the coffee table and quickly finished my lunch while Yamada messed around on her phone, after which I proceeded to sit on the couch just to her left.
"So, what are we going to be playing Sato?"
"We are going to be playing Zo, it's a pvp streetfighter type game, it old but its in quite good condition, and was really cheap considering how much games for this old console usually go for"
"Oh yeah, alright lets play!"
Yamada proceeded to grab a Controller from the coffee table and handed it to me, I took it and she then went back to grab her own before we started.
"Get ready, you're going to get destroyed Sato!"
She had spirit I will give her that.
It almost reminds me of Yammy.
*****
3-2, I had barely won against Yamada who despite playing for the first time kept me on my toes and forced me to pull some pretty cheap tricks against her, this lead to some questionable enraged squeals from Yamada, she tried everything in her power to stop her defeat, even taking off her glasses which she said was "blurring her vision", of course it was a close game and it was extremely fun, somehow throughout that whole 5 minute game Yamada had drank her whole bottle of soda but she had barely even touched any of the snacks on the table.
I was taking her bottle to the trash when she called out to me.
"Hey Sato?"
I turned around to see her facing me, her knees on the sofa, resting her head in between the cousins, her arms resting flat on the back of the sofa, she took her hoodie off as she was getting too hot due to how hard she was trying to beat me.
"I know you heard that I told my cousin that we were friends, but are we?"
Considering we have known each other for about 3 days and she was visiting my house I would say we are friends, however I wouldn't consider us too close.
"Well…"
I thought about it, we are similar in a lot of ways but also extremely different, I was much more relaxed while she seemed to be a high energy person, friends outside of the online space was something I never really had during middle school because I learned from home, going high school and just school in general was nerve wracking, and so was this, for some reason I was so nervous to answer her and my face was showing it.
I pursed my lips, before hesitantly responding to her question.
"I don't know."
"You don't know? You're kind of giving off "not at all" vibes with that answer."
She just couldn't take that for an answer, of course why not.
"Ok if it comes down to a yes or no answer, yes, we are."
"O-oh."
Yamada's face quickly turned scarlet as she covered her face with one of the pillows on the side of the couch after which Yamada quickly bolted out of my view behind the couch cousins.
"You good?"
Silence from her, I waited for her to answer me before I shrugged and threw her bottle in the trash, honestly I didn't understand why she was feeling so embarrassed about me saying we were friends, especially considering she said we were friends in the first place, but that's just girl logic for you I suppose.
*****
Me and Yamada were sitting at my dining table reading an old manga I found boxed up under my bed, we were both utterly bored out of our minds, we had done everything we could have thought of, we gamed, I cooked us dinner, and then we gamed even more, we had utterly exhausted ourselves for the whole afternoon, and it was now 7:30 pm.
"I think you should head home, Yamada."
"Agreed, my moms probably expecting me to come back home soon, thanks for letting me hang out with you and play on your console, it was super fun."
"No problem."
We both stood up and I walked to the hallway and opened the door for her to exit, she quickly grabbed her satchel and hoodie, before standing in front of me, and unzipping her satchel.
"Eh, what is it?"
"The gift."
"Oh right, yeah."
"Don't open it until I leave ok?"
"Ok?"
*****
It had been 30 minutes since Yamada gave me the bag, It was on my bed and still unopened it had a layer of tape keeping it closed.
"Might as well."
I proceeded to slowly peel off the tape keeping the giftbag closed, before tearing it off the purple paper wrapping of the bag, I quickly opened the bag and found what looked to be a note taped to a family sized piece of chocolate, I quickly took the note off and read it.
'Hey Sato, thanks for taking the time to spend time with me and such, I really appreciate that you had that talk with me after my work day was almost done, you really took away a lot of my stress with that, and also thank you for making me breakfast yesterday, I hope we see each other more often in the future!' - Yamada Hana
Huh, it was really neat of her to give me a note of all things, instead of telling me this in person, but also…
"Isn't this my favorite brand of chocolate?"