"Ah? No-no, my body is fine," Hinata's voice clearly carried panic.
Aoba also realized that this date probably was not as simple as he had imagined.
Yakumo and Hinata might very well have come prepared.
"Hinata..."
"Alright! Alright! What's the point of talking so much?", Before Aoba's words even came out, Yakumo directly cut him off.
Then she pulled him up and started walking in one direction.
"There's still some distance from here to the cinema. If we delay any longer, the movie is going to start."
"Yakumo is right!", Hinata hurriedly nodded over and over, pushing Aoba forward from behind.
Aoba felt a bit speechless, but since the two of them did not want to say anything, he did not keep asking.
If he dug too deep, it would make the surprise they had carefully prepared lose its meaning.
———
It was still morning, just a little while after breakfast time.
The cinema did not have many people at this hour.
It also did not have the usual lively feeling.
But when the three of them arrived at the cinema, Aoba learned a new piece of news from the two girls.
"You even booked out the entire theater," Aoba was a bit surprised.
"Of course, we don't want unrelated people disturbing us on such an important date."
Yakumo said as if it was only natural.
Though in truth, she did not actually care much about this sort of thing.
The key was that she was worried Hinata would not be able to relax, so she booked every ticket for that whole showing.
Just booking a hall. For the heiress of the Hyuga clan and the heiress of the Kurama clan, this was nothing.
Aoba blinked. It looked like the surprise the two girls had prepared for him was inside the cinema.
After all, when they came to watch a movie together before, there had been no such thing as booking the whole place.
"Hm? Isn't this a movie from last month? How can there be no tickets?", Just as they stepped into the cinema, a familiar mature-sounding woman's voice rang out.
All three of them curiously looked toward the source of the voice, and saw Kurenai in her classic red-and-white outfit, confirming something with the cinema's front desk.
The ticket seller had a troubled look on her face and bowed apologetically to Kurenai, "I'm really sorry, miss, the tickets for this showing were all bought out yesterday by two other customers."
"This is a movie from last month, and it's even a morning showing. There are actually people booking out the entire hall?"
'Could it be they like this movie so much that they are deliberately supporting the box office?'
Kurenai could not quite understand how rich people thought.
But she herself actually was not that interested in movies. It was just that her mood had been a mess lately.
Ever since that incident a little while ago, she had practically been haunted by "nightmares" every day.
As soon as she closed her eyes, she would see a hateful face, and once she fell asleep, someone would break into her dreams.
Even though the quality of her sleep was pretty good, the rest of the time she just could not calm down at all.
Even drinking had started to feel boring.
So she simply chose a quiet time to come out and watch a movie to try and improve her mood.
She just had not expected that a movie that was already about to be taken off the schedule would still be booked out by someone.
She could not help complaining to herself that maybe she had been set up by a certain someone.
"Right, it was that guest who booked the hall."
At this time, the ticket seller's voice sounded again.
Kurenai also lifted her head and looked in the direction the ticket seller's gaze was pointing.
She froze on the spot.
"Aoba?"
"Kurenai-nee/Sensei?"
———
"Actually… it's not like I especially wanted to watch this movie," Inside the slightly dim cinema, Kurenai felt like she could not relax anywhere in her whole body. She was already regretting going out today.
She had originally wanted to just leave, but Yakumo was simply too enthusiastic, and she could not get the words of refusal out of her mouth at all.
"It's fine, Kurenai sensei, you're already here. It's no big deal if we watch together."
Yakumo looked completely at ease, then turned to Hinata, "Hinata, what do you think?"
Hinata was slightly stunned, but still nodded.
Since Yakumo had said so, no matter how shy she felt, there was no way she could say something like asking Kurenai to leave.
She could only pray Yakumo's genjutsu would not fail.
"Um, if I'm here, won't I be getting in the way of your date? You specifically booked the hall because you didn't want other people to disturb you, right?"
Kurenai glanced at Aoba, then quickly shifted her gaze away.
The shadow from her dreams suddenly appearing right in front of her made her so uneasy that she accidentally revealed a flaw in front of her students.
"It's fine, it's fine, Kurenai-sensei, it's not like you're an outsider. How are you disturbing us?"
Yakumo's face was covered with a smile, but inside she was already starting to feel a bit suspicious.
Kurenai's attitude toward Aoba was just too obvious.
Leaving aside that they had not said a single word to each other since just now, the most important thing was that Kurenai kept stealing glances at Aoba and blushing.
There was definitely something there.
"Yakumo is right…"
"In that case, I'll just sit on the other side. You can pretend I'm not here."
Aoba had actually wanted to say a couple of things, but Kurenai directly cut him off, blocking his words, and walked toward a corner far away from them.
"...", Watching Kurenai's flustered back, Aoba also felt a bit helpless. It seemed the shock that day had been a bit too much.
They could not even have a normal conversation anymore.
"Aoba, did something happen between you and Kurenai-sensei recently?", Yakumo asked curiously.
"Recently, a while ago Kurenai-nee got drunk, and I cooked her a meal. Other than that, nothing," Aoba told the truth.
"Just cooked a meal?", Yakumo raised an eyebrow.
"It really was just cooking a meal," Aoba's gaze was frank.
Seeing that he did not look like he was lying, Yakumo did not keep pressing.
"The movie is about to start. We should find our seats too."
Hinata reminded them at this moment.
"Yeah."
Aoba had originally planned to sit in the middle seats, but Yakumo pulled him to the last row in the corner.
Hinata did not object either.
""
They had clearly booked out the whole theater, but were still sitting in the last-row corner. Were they really here to watch the movie?
Aoba could not help thinking of his experience with Koyuki at the cinema back then.
With Yakumo, it would not be strange no matter where she did that kind of thing.
But Hinata…
'Could it be that Yakumo is using genjutsu to control her?'
The three of them sat down holding hands, and the movie started very soon.
Hinata seemed to be watching the movie with full concentration.
Aoba's eyes were also on the screen, but the corner of his eye kept watching Hinata.
It was a date for the three of them after all. If Hinata really was being controlled by Yakumo, there was no way he could just sit there and do nothing.
What he did not see was that Yakumo was currently resting her chin on her hand, watching Aoba and Hinata. On her delicate, pretty face, there was a hint of a mischievous expression, the corners of her mouth hooked in a wicked smile.
Today she was just the supporting character in charge of laying the groundwork.
Hinata was the real heroine.
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