Only One Month

 “I said no, Boruto. You ever heard that word before?” Sarada turns a page of her textbook over, not looking up to the boy in front of her. He taps his empty paper cup on the desk they’re sitting at. Boruto clicks his tongue and rests his cheek on his right hand, elbow on the table, blue eyes resting on her.

“You haven’t even considered it, you know?”

“I don’t have to.” She turns another page over. “It’s ridiculous and we both know it.” He rolls his eyes and tilts his head to the other side, watches her read the textbook, as if the words were more interesting than him.

“I am not going to go out with you. I am not.” When he doesn’t say anything, Sarada finally jerks her head up and stares at him. “Are you deaf,” she asks. “Or did I stutter?”

“No, no. I heard you. I just chose to have a little bit of amnesia right then and there.” She purses her lips and doesn’t say anything, but before she can drop her eyes back onto her book, he speaks up again.

“Come on, Sarada, give me a chance,” he whispers now with a lower voice and pleading eyes. This change in tone and expression on his face makes her go still. “One chance. Only one.” Her face doesn’t change, but on the inside she is listening to him. He doesn’t use this kind of voice often with anyone at all. She’s only heard it once before, when Boruto begged her not to rat him out to his parents because he had cheated during an exam. This is the Boruto who lets his façade drop and show his true emotions and vulnerability.

“Why are you so desperate to go out with me anyway,” she retorts. Boruto looks taken aback at first, then turns his eyes on his hands on the table.

With a quiet, soft voice he says, “You know why. You know the reason. You’ve always known, you just never really cared for it.” That much is true, Sarada has to admit. In front of her, Boruto looks small even though he is physically bigger than her.

“You make me sound heartless, Boruto.”

“Oh, no, you’re not. You’re just…a  bit distant maybe.” The softness in his voice is now gone, back is his bravado. She recognizes this as his normal self, the mask he shows everyone around him because it’s easy. Not many people ever see his other sides. Being childhood friends though, Sarada knows him better than most people do. It’s not that he is a cold person and wants to appear distant and cold all the time, but he doesn’t like showing how desperate he may be for certain things to happen. Being vulnerable does not come easy to Boruto.

Sarada recalls the first time ever that he asked her out. They were both thirteen, young and inexperienced when he clumsily leaned over to her and asked her if she wanted to go have dinner with him. That the corners of his mouth were red from the tomato sauce he had with his pasta for lunch took away from seriousness of his proposal. Since it had been the first time, Sarada had been dumbfounded, embarrassed even, but she hadn’t taken it seriously one bit. Back then, Boruto liked to flirt with all the girls, she wasn’t special.

But it didn’t stay with one proposal. Over the years, Boruto had managed to ask her out over and over again. As they grew older, the boy had matured and so did his behavior. When he’d asked her to prom, he’d blushed a deep red, scratching the back of his head and avoiding her eyes. It was that moment Sarada knew her childhood friend would like to be more than just that.

She hadn’t had it in her heart to tell him outright that she didn’t return his feelings. All too well did she know he may not remain her friend if she did so. People were like that. So she had made a mental note to try and spend less time with him. Perhaps distance would make Boruto change his mind and the two of them could go back to being friends without any awkward romance in the picture.
That plan did not work for more than a week. He called her, demanding to know why’d she suddenly ghosted him.

You asked me to prom and I rejected you, she said.

Yeah, I remember. So?, he’d ask.

I was trying to give you distance to recollect yourself, Sarada would add carefully. She was always careful not to insinuate Boruto was hurt or vulnerable. Nothing could make him close up faster than this.

You’ve rejected me so many times before, he’d say, and I’ve never had to recollect myself. What do you think was different this time?

Everything, Sarada would think but not speak out loud.

This instance of an honest display of vulnerability did not return until now.

Sarada watches her friend over the rims of her glasses, her eyes shrewd but not cold. Over the years, he’d grown from a handsome boy into a charming young man, just like she had turned into a young woman, too. His face always gets him into the good graces of the women around him, regularly dating other classmates for a few weeks at a time. Nothing serious, ever, and people assume he has commitment issues.

Sarada doesn’t think he has commitment issues, but she cannot refute other people’s opinions openly. It’d give too much of Boruto away and she has no right to do that.

It’s her assumption that Boruto just may get tired of her after a few weeks and that he had shown his softer self to her just moments prior that make her decide what to answer him.

“I’ll think about it.”

Boruto’s face lights up as if sunlight just hit his face.
“Are you for real? You’ll think about it?” The surprise in his voice could have been shameful if he wouldn’t look so happy.

“I can’t believe I am saying this, Boruto,” Sarada says as she packs her textbooks together – she needed to get to her next class – “But yes, I am going to think about it.” He jumps up from his chair, the empty coffee cup forgotten on the wooden table.

“What do I have to do to convince you,” he asks her, “I don’t want to fuck my chance up.” Sarada smiles at his eager nature to hide the twinge of pain. She doesn’t return his feelings and leading him on is a terrible idea, but maybe he’d lose interest in her like this.

“Pick me up at 8 tonight. We’ll go for dinner at a place of my choosing.”

“You won’t regret it,” he tells her, beaming before leaving the study room with a giant smile on his face.

Yeah, I really doubt that, Sarada thinks to herself as she collects her things.

Boruto tugs at the collar of his shirt as he waits for Sarada to come down to meet him. He took a shower as soon as he came home to prepare for the date, even washed between his toes to make sure he’d smell as pleasant as he could. Hopefully his aftershave isn’t unappealing to her. He can’t recall her ever saying anything about it, regardless if he wore it with her around or not. Boruto vaguely recalls one of his exes telling him that he was smelling nice, but Sarada isn’t an ex.

The door opens and Sarada steps out, wearing a deep red coat over a black satin dress. Lovely, Boruto thinks. Black always makes a stark contrast to her skin, but the red lets the color of her skin stand out, a pale rose color. She isn’t suntanned like him. One of the many ways in which they are different.

“Hey,” she greets him with a smile. Her lips are coated in something shimmering, lip gloss maybe? “Hey,” he answers and holds the door of his car open for her. If she’s wearing lip gloss tonight it means she doesn’t plan to kiss him. No girl would put on lip gloss if she was planning to kiss her date.

Boruto’s stomach feels heavy as he slides into the car on the other side behind the steering wheel. It’s only a date, just like he asked her in the study room, so of course she wouldn’t want to kiss him. He tried to talk himself out of any expectations at home as he got ready, but he is disappointed nonetheless. He thinks about other guys Sarada may have gone out with and if she kissed them on the first date. Is he really so undesirable that even a kiss would be too much for her?

“You smell really nice,” Sarada says as he backs the car onto the street and starts driving. “Did you put the aftershave on for me?” Her voice is quiet, but heat crawls up Boruto’s neck anyway.

“I’ve worn it before. You know, when we’d hang out,” he answers her, then swallows even though his mouth is dry.

“Oh, so it’s nothing special?”

“N-No, that’s not what I meant. It’s just that I’ve worn it before around you, ya know? So I didn’t think you’d notice since you’ve never noticed before.”

“I have noticed it, though. I just never commented on it because I thought you just came back from a date with a girlfriend.” She flashes him a smile. “You should wear aftershave like this more often. You really do smell nice.”

His heart skips a beat at that.

“Hey, turn on the stereo. I want to know what kind of music you listen to in here.”

The rest of the ride Sarada doesn’t compliment him again, not on his appearance, his smell or anything else really. The only thing coming close to a compliment was when she said his CD collection was decent.
She gives him instruction on where to drive and soon Boruto understands she plans to go to a place with Japanese and Korean food. The restaurant is new in town, Boruto hasn’t had an opportunity to visit it yet.

He wonders if Sarada went there alone or with her friends. A date perhaps?

A waitress with dark hair and red lipstick guides them to a table for two in the back, all complete with a candle in the middle. It makes his hands sweaty, knowing they are essentially having dinner over candlelight. This is serious shit and if he fucks up, he won’t get a second chance. That was the deal. God, he wants this to work out.

They open their menus to take a look, but he can hardly concentrate on what’s written inside. Sarada’s face is lit up by the candle light, her smooth skin glowing, her face framed by dark hair. She looks up, catching him staring at her and before she can say anything about it, he starts talking about the menu.

“I think I am going to get a steak with potatoes and a red wine sauce. You?”

“Uh, I think I’ll have the Alfredo pasta. You know I love pasta.”

Boruto grins at her, remembering a vivid part of their childhood. “Yeah, I do remember! Back then you ate the pasta with ketchup most of the time.”

“I had an exquisite taste and you know it,” she retorts before sticking out her tongue.

“Yeah, I know you did. Still do.” His throat feels dry and he took a small sip of his water, clearing his throat with it.

“So how is this going to work,” she asks Boruto as she closes her menu. When he only furrows his eyebrows in confusion she continues, “With you and me, I mean. This dating thing. You said you wanted one chance, right?”

He nods, puts down the menu and folds his hands and leaning his face on them. Sarada used to sit like this in class, he remembers.

“Yeah, one chance is all I asked for.”

“So if I am miserable by the end of the night, that was that?”

“If…if you want that, yeah, I’d accept your decision. I don’t want to force you into anything. You should enjoy yourself if you can.”

When Sarada’s eyes grow shrewd, he tacks on. “If you don’t mind, I’d like to suggest something though.

“You see, one date is not a lot. The first date is normally a bit stiff and weird. Even if you know each other well. I think it’d be better if we’d prolong the dating timespan. I’d say, mh, a month. A month sounds good.”

“Boruto,” Sarada exclaimed with a shocked expression. “One month is more than just one chance. That’s, like, at least ten. Depending on how often we go out.”

Judging by the sound of that…, Boruto thought and his heartbeat speeds up. This sounds like she’s almost partial to his idea.

“If you are okay with all of this, if you want to give me this benefit of a doubt for a month, we could date for this one month and then – if you decide you don’t like me and dating me is a waste of your time – then you can dump me.”

Well, doesn’t this shut her up. She looks almost baffled. This is a first, as far as Boruto is concerned.

“This is the one chance I’d like to get. I mean, if you don’t want to, we don’t have to. We’ll go back to being friends and I promise you, hearts crossed and all that, ya know, I will never bring this topic up again.” He leans back in expectation, hands shaking so badly he hides them under the table. He does not want her to see how badly this affects him, how much this all means to him.
He’s well aware she knows about his feelings, obviously, but he is unsure she knows how deep they go. She’s only ever seen the surface, his emotions are like an iceberg.

“If I don’t want to anymore, I can dump you?”

“Yes, but I’d like to have the entire month to prove myself, please.”

“What about PDA? I am not going to tell everyone I am dating you if there’s a chance I’m going to just dump you in the end. And no sex either.”

This turn of the conversation successfully chokes him and he coughs to hide his blush. Boruto holds up his hands to show her he does not intent to fight her on this rule.

“No sex. I never would have expected that, would never disrespect you like this, no, no. Though…” As his voice trails off, she raises an eyebrow at him and immediately he knows he’s on thin ice. Tread carefully.

“I would like to hold your hand. And…if you don’t think it’s creepy, I would like to kiss you at some point.” The longer he goes on talking, the softer his voice gets and he has to catch himself at the end there, clearing his throat. He didn’t want to open himself to her so quickly during the first date, because what if she is just going to dump him?

God, please Sarada, don’t dump me. Please don’t dump me.

“Well,” she begins again, “What are we going to tell other people?”

“Do we need to tell them anything?”

“Ah, point proven. We won’t say anything then.”

“So, you’re…accepting it?”

Sarada flashes him a big, bright smile that makes her eyes turn into crescent moons. Heat hits Boruto’s cheek like a flame.

“Yes, I’m accepting it!”