That afternoon, while Kiki was tidying up her books in the now-empty classroom, Bara appeared in the doorway, looking like he was in a hurry.
"Ki, I've been looking for you," he said, slightly out of breath. "Why'd you leave the library so fast earlier?"
"It's nothing, I just—" Kiki's reply was cut off in a hurry.
"Ki." Bara interrupted her, his serious tone returning. "I know you're not the kind of person who talks easily about your feelings. But I'm not an idiot who can't tell you've been acting different ever since Sisi showed up." Bara's words were perceptive.
Kiki was startled, but she couldn't deny it anymore.
"I... I...." Kiki took a breath and finally chose to be honest, even though her voice trembled a little. "I don't know if this is something I should say or not. But when Sisi showed up and you two were going to practice alone together, I felt... uncomfortable. And that made me realize maybe my feelings for you have become more than just those of a couple of friends studying together." Kiki finally worked up the courage to confess, then immediately lowered her head.
The empty classroom felt even emptier. The only sound was the ticking of the wall clock.
Bara was silent for a moment, then—for the first time since they'd met—he didn't immediately flash his usual playful grin. He just smiled a small, sincere smile as he stepped closer.
"Good thing you said it first," he said softly. "Because I've been trying to figure out how to say the same thing for a long time."
Bara's words rang clear.
The news that "Kiki and Bara are dating" spread faster than news of a pop quiz question.
"HEY! THE CLASS PRESIDENT HAS A BOYFRIEND!" one of the students yelled when Kiki walked into class the next morning, followed by applause and whistles from the entire room.
Kiki wanted to disappear under her desk. Bara, standing beside her, instead bowed grandly like he'd just won a competition. "Thank you, thank you. No gifts necessary. Your blessing is enough," Bara said with a chuckle.
"BARA," Kiki hissed, pinching his arm.
"Ow, sweetheart," Bara said with a mischievous grin, deliberately calling her that in front of the class to make everyone even more excited.
Della was so happy she actually stood on top of her chair. "FINALLY. I'VE BEEN WAITING SINCE CHAPTER ONE—uh, I mean, since the first week you two became desk mates!" she shouted excitedly.
In the middle of the uproar, Ms. Retno came in and immediately let out a long sigh when she saw her class making as much noise as a marketplace. "What is it now? Why are you all so loud first thing in the morning?" she scolded the entire class.
"Kiki and Bara are dating, Ms. Retno!" they answered in unison.
Ms. Retno merely raised an eyebrow, then said flatly, "Okay. Congratulations. Now open your books to page forty-five," which only made the entire class laugh even louder.
Kiki lowered her head, her face burning red, but she was secretly smiling.
It was complicated, embarrassing, and made her want to hide all day—but for some reason, she didn't mind it at all.
On Saturday afternoon, two hours before her first date—which Bara had officially announced via a short text, "Ki, I'll pick you up at four. Let's go out for a bit"—Kiki was already standing in front of her closet, with piles of clothes scattered across her bed and her panic level at an all-time high.
"DELLA. HELP. EMERGENCY." Kiki video-called her best friend, pointing the camera at a closet that looked more like the aftermath of a shipwreck than a high-school girl's clothing collection.
"Oh my God, Ki, is this a date or are you meeting the president?" Della, on the screen, was casually eating chips in her own bedroom.
"A T-shirt and jeans would be fine," Della suggested casually.
"But this is my FIRST date, Del. I have to look... I don't know, right? Not like I spend all my time studying, but not weird either," Kiki complained in confusion.
"Ki." Della put down her chips and stared seriously into the camera. "You don't even panic this much when you're making a study plan for a test. You like him, he likes you, and he's seen you every day in the same school uniform for the past year. He doesn't need you to show up looking like a magazine model," Della said, advising her.
For some reason, those words calmed Kiki down a little, though she still changed outfits three times before settling on a light-blue plaid shirt and jeans—simple, but neat in her usual style.
Five minutes before four, Kiki saw Bara from her bedroom window, already standing in front of the gate to her house. He was wearing a slightly oversized denim jacket, and his usually messy hair had been combed in a haphazard way that made it obvious he was just as nervous as she was.
Okay, Kiki thought, taking a deep breath before heading downstairs. If he's this nervous too, I shouldn't have to be scared all by myself.
"So where are we going?" Kiki asked once they started walking, nervously shoving both hands into her jacket pockets so he wouldn't see them trembling.
"It's a secret," Bara said with a grin, even though it was obvious he looked a little awkward too. His steps were stiff, nothing like his usual easygoing stride.
The problem was, Kiki—who usually had a plan for everything, from her study schedule to the order in which she revised assignments—genuinely had no idea what to do on a first date.
And, like someone who couldn't break free from old habits, she'd secretly written a small sheet of paper the night before bed, filled with conversation topics. She'd folded it neatly and tucked it into her jacket pocket "just in case things got awkward."
Unfortunately, the paper fell out when Kiki reached into her pocket for a tissue, right in front of Bara's regular chicken-noodle shop—the place he said they were going because "good food doesn't need an expensive setting, Ki."
Bara instinctively picked up the paper to return it, but he got a chance to read it first.
"What's this?" He read it aloud, eyebrows raised in amusement. "Topic one: favorite music. Topic two: dreams for the future. Topic three: funny childhood memories. Topic four, backup: school subjects. Ki, is this a date or a job interview?" Bara asked, sounding slightly baffled as he held back a laugh.
"GIVE IT BACK." Kiki tried to snatch the paper, her face already as red as the chili sauce sold at the shop, but Bara was quicker. He held it high above his head—fortunately, there was a decent height difference between them.
"Seriously? You have a backup topic? You really came prepared, Ki." Bara laughed—not a mocking laugh, but one that made Kiki even more flustered.
"I... I'm not used to this," Kiki finally gave up. She stopped trying to take it back and lowered her head instead, her voice quiet.
"I'm scared it'll be awkward, that we won't have anything to talk about, and then we'll just sit there in silence together like strangers," she said honestly.
Bara stopped laughing and looked at Kiki for a moment. Then his smile softened.
He carefully folded the paper back up and slipped it into his own jacket pocket.
"Can I keep it? As a souvenir," he said, his teasing tone still there but quieter now.
"But for today, let's try not to use the paper. We don't have to schedule anything. We can just talk about whatever pops into our heads, whenever we feel like it. If we end up being quiet, then we can just be quiet. That's okay. Silence isn't always awkward. Sometimes silence is comfortable," Bara added, reassuring her.
The chicken-noodle shop was small, with only five plastic tables and the tempting smell of chicken broth drifting in from a distance.
The woman running the shop, who clearly knew Bara inside and out, called out the moment they walked in.
"Hey, Bara! Bringing a new friend? Usually you're alone or hanging out with the band kids," she said as she stirred noodles in a large pot.
"She's... a classmate, ma'am," Bara answered hurriedly, though his ears were visibly turning red.
"Oh, come on. With a face like that, she's not just a 'classmate,'" the woman said with a laugh, making Kiki and Bara both lower their heads and pretend to be busy choosing a table.
They sat across from each other at a corner table.
Two bowls of chicken noodles with dumplings arrived not long afterward, still steaming.
"Try this," Bara said, offering her a bottle of chili sauce. "It's my favorite sauce here. But be careful—the heat is no joke."
Kiki wasn't actually very good with spicy food, but out of pride—and because she wanted to look "not paranoid" in front of Bara—she poured a fairly generous amount of chili sauce into her bowl.
Five bites later, Kiki's face was bright red, her eyes were watering, and she hurriedly grabbed her iced tea and drank half the glass in one gulp.
"Ki? You okay?" Bara asked in a panic, nearly standing up from his chair.
"H-hot," Kiki gasped, fanning her mouth with one hand while laughing between waves of spice that made her eyes water.
"Why didn't you tell me it was actually this spicy?!" Kiki scolded him, panting from the heat.
"I told you to be careful!" Bara said.
"That wasn't a warning. That was just... just a normal sentence!" she complained again.
Bara had initially panicked, but he eventually started laughing too when he saw normally composed Kiki gasping from the heat and occasionally tossing out protests between sips of iced tea.
"Here, eat some crackers. It'll neutralize the spice," Bara said, offering her a plate of crackers while still chuckling. "Turns out the class president has a weakness after all."
"Shut up." Kiki was still panting, but she laughed too. "This is all because I was too proud."
Once the heat finally subsided, their conversation flowed much more naturally than Kiki had imagined—far removed from the stiff list of topics she'd prepared the night before.
"You know, when I was little, I used to sob watching cartoons. Until I was ten," Bara said, fiddling with his chopsticks. "There was a scene where the character lost their parents. I cried so hard at the movie theater it was humiliating. My mom had to carry me out."
Bara gazed off with a smile as he remembered the incident.
"You were ten?" Kiki couldn't hold back her laughter. "That's way too old to be crying at a movie theater."
"It was really sad! Just watch it yourself," Bara defended himself, even laughing as he remembered the whole thing. "What about you? Do you do anything weird in secret?" Bara asked curiously.
Kiki fell silent for a moment, unsure whether she wanted to tell him, before finally giving in. "I like to sing. In the bathroom. But my pitch is a complete mess—it's nowhere near good," she said.
"SING RIGHT NOW." Bara's eyes immediately lit up, and he leaned forward eagerly.
"NO WAY." Kiki quickly refused, her face turning red again—this time not because of the spice.
"Come on, just a little—" Bara urged, pushing a little.
"NO, BARA, I'M SERIOUS—" Kiki said firmly.
"Fine, then I'll sing first so you won't feel embarrassed," Bara cut in. Without any warning, he started singing some random song in an intentionally over-the-top voice, half-standing from his chair and waving his chopsticks around like a microphone.
The entire little shop immediately erupted—the woman running it even laughed from behind her cart, the two other customers eating at the next table turned to look, and Kiki, who had initially been trying to hold back her embarrassment, finally burst out laughing until her eyes watered again—this time not because of the chili sauce.
"BARA, SIT DOWN! YOU'RE EMBARRASSING ME!" Kiki tugged on Bara's jacket sleeve, but she couldn't stop laughing.
"I told you, I'd sing first so it'd be fair." Bara finally sat back down, grinning with satisfaction as he watched Kiki laugh so hard she had to clutch her stomach.