...dooooes Haru take his hand if he. Kind of. Leaves it there. Within reach. Maybe palm up. While the traffic light's red. Like right there. You know. Next to Haru. Where he could take it. If he wanted.

Yeah, he puts his hand on top of Yutaka's once it's clear he does not need it for driving right then.

Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee he is such a simp but that's okay he is practising radical acceptance on the simping he is all in on the simp fuck it we ball he is HOLDING THE BOY'S HAND and this is making him just as excited as kissing the boy was, all aboard the Yutaka train to Swan Masaharu station, Simpsville.

Oh the light's green again. Damnit. Okay no more holding the boy's hand until the next red light.

Giggle.

And here's the cute cosy little hole-in-the-wall restaurant from last time! This time he will walk in holding Haru's hand because c.f. simp.

Haru's a little nervous about non-invisibly walking into a restaurant holding a boy's hand but he will do it anyway. "Ooh, noodles."

They are MAGICAL BOYS if someone decides to take issue with them holding hands in public Yutaka can PUNCH THEM right in the FACE. He has taken boys to this restaurant before, though, and he knows no one is openly homophobic in it (and actually he thinks the owner himself might be gay, but he isn't totally sure), and they will get nice food and a nice datelike atmosphere. "Noodles!" he agrees.

The waiter, having noticed them walking in holding hands, will also bring a lighter to light up a li'l candle in the center of their table. It is not, exactly, "a candlelit dinner", but it is dinner, and it is candlelit.

Oh no that's too cute. Haru's giggling nervously the whole time but he picks up the menu one handed so he can keep holding Yutaka's hand.

Yutaka meanwhile is just grinning like an idiot. "Let me know if it's too much," he says, squeezing Haru's hands. "And also if you'd like suggestions from the menu."

"Yeah, what do you recommend from here?"

"This one here," the one with udon and tuna and no daikon.

"Looks good." He will order that.

And Yutaka will get the tofu one again, then be extremely distracted by how handsome Haru is and how much he wants to kiss Haru. But, well, at least he can hold Haru's hand and draw circles on Haru's skin with his thumb, that's good, too.

Haru keeps giggling, and shivering happily, and smiling at Yutaka. It's hard to think of anything suitable for saying out loud. Like, probably people will just think we're talking about a video game, but what if someone wants to know what game?

"You are so cute," he marvels. That's a thing I can say out loud. But if anyone asks, we can just say it's an indie game a friend of ours developed?

And it's still in beta or something, sure. "So I don't know how much overkill we did, and probably for ideal efficiency long term we want to do only enough overkill to cover for the possibility that we've underestimated something, but if they vary a lot in size we can't necessarily just try reducing the ammunition count by fifteen percent each time."

"They do vary a lot in size, I think. And I think they also, like—I'd be surprised if size were even the biggest factor? There might be one the size of a dog that's like super tough or something."

"Yeah, maybe, but like, Yamanaka-san said they come in kinds, but even the same kind we got today might vary in size."

"Yeah, true. Also something I was thinking was that we might want to try to take some of them on entirely outside time stop, maybe just the familiars at first, so that we can develop the, like, reflexes and stuff? It's comfortable to stop time but I worry we might get too lazy if we rely on it too much?"

"Yeah, if nothing else I should be able to operate without you in case I run into a witch and it needs killing right away and I can't just wait for you."

"Yeah. And I can always be insurance." Handsqueeze.

"Yeah, if I disappear probably rewind to my last known, uh, existence."

"...God, don't make me think about that, we just started going out," he says, shivering a bit. "Gonna start pinging you for existence every hour, in your head."

"I need to sleep!"