Chapter 269. The Planetarium, Operation Hook Up: Prelude to the Show. (3/6)
“Do I look like a dog to you?”
“You look pretty hot if you ask me. This look makes your gloomy expression work. I actually wouldn’t mind being seen together in public with you when you’re looking like this.”
“Well I do mind, this is pure humiliation for me.”
“Well too bad, you’re the one who suggested this.”
There was no pill for regret, I couldn’t agree more with that sentiment right now.
“So what do we do now?” Izora asked when we got back to the table in the main hall and sat down.
“We wait for your class to get here obviously. What else would we do?”
“We could look around the museum.”
“No way, we’d have to spend more money to get in. The ticket I bought for us is only good for the planetarium show.”
“But that’s so boring.”
“Too bad. Besides, the exhibits are pretty boring anyway. There’s some stupid old wood ship, a historic recreation of an old street from the 1900s during some major labor strike, some old native tents, an arctic exhibit, grasslands exhibit, earth history exhibit, wildlife exhibit, and a few more. Anyway, none of it is interesting in the slightest.”
“There aren’t any dinosaur fossils or anything?”
“I think there were one or two small ones.”
“What? No big ones?”
“Look, the museum exhibit area above us is pretty bland, the only thing this place has going for it is that it has the only planetarium in the city. It tries to artificially recreate scenes in nature and history with a bunch of shitty exhibits no one cares about or has any attachment to, but it just feels lifeless and boring.”
“How this place is still functioning is a mystery to me. There definitely aren’t enough people coming for the museum itself. I’m sure if you removed the people who visited the museum as an afterthought of the planetarium and the students forced to as part of school field trips, they’d have next to no visitors. They definitely don’t make enough to keep this place running through ticket sales for admission alone. If they didn’t receive funding from the government and charitable donations, this place would be a sinking ship.”
“Haaaaah, the state of the tourism industry in this city is really a joke. The prospects of doing business here are crappy too because of the high taxes.”
“You sound like a bitter old man.”
“I am a bitter old man at heart.”
“Please act the part of a spunky teenage goth guy better. You’re killing the image in my head.”
“What? If you ask me, I thought I was doing pretty well. Fuck the establishment, right? Isn’t that the sort of punk mindset?”
“I mean… I guess… but it just doesn’t feel right.”
“How exactly?”
“You’ve got to be more… like… wild.”
“Wild? How exactly?”
“Uh… for example, put your hands up a bit.”
“Like this?” I raised them straight up in the air over my head.
“No! Not over your head, you idiot. Elbows down but fist up with the back of your hand facing away from you.”
“Okay…” I did as she said.
“Now stick your middle fingers out to flip me off.”
“Right…”
“And stick your tongue out.”
“Stick… my tongue out.”
“Yeah.”
“Can I not? Flipping someone off is fine and all… but sticking my tongue out while looking like this is a bit beyond my level of tolerance.”
“Just do it.”
Resigned, I did as she requested. The second I stuck my tongue out, she raised her phone up and snapped a picture.
“Yeah, yeah. This is it. You look much better like this.” She nodded to herself contentedly.
“Delete that.”
“No way. It’s pretty good. Besides, no one would even recognize you if they saw it.”
“I would recognize it.”
“So what if you recognize it?”
“I’m sure my skin would crawl whenever I see myself in that picture making such a gesture.” My hand shot out to try and snatch the phone out of her hand.
“Too bad, I’m not deleting it.” She stood up and tucked her phone away under her tube top inside an inner pocket.
The two of us fought over her phone to delete the picture she took for the next hour.
“You won’t be able to get my phone now.”
“Oh? You think I care? Did you forget that I’m playing the part of your boyfriend today?”
“You… wouldn’t dare.”
“Do you remember what happened last time you said that?” When I stood up from my seat and stretched my arm out, she took a step back away from me.
“Are you crazy? Were you seriously trying to get it here?”
“Of course. You didn’t have my permission to take that picture. I’ll do what I have to, to delete it.”
I stepped forward and tried to grab her arm, but she dodged to the side.
“Hey, come on now. It’s just a picture. What are you getting so serious for?” Strangely enough, she had a smile on her face and appeared amused by my negative reaction.
“We can do this the easy way, or the hard way.”
“Heheh, I’ll choose the hard way then.” I tried to catch her as she turned around and made a run for it but her wrist slipped through my fingers.
“If you can catch me before my class arrives, I’ll delete it. If you can’t, I won’t delete it.” As she fled she said that while laughing to herself happily.
I ran after her as she exited the building. On her tail, as she ran up the stairs, she rounded the corner to the right and ran up the wheelchair ramp at the side. When she rounded the bend in the opposite direction, to the floor above ground level, I followed her up. When I was about to close the distance, she let out a cheerful laugh as she climbed up over the ledge and jumped back down to the ground. She slid a bit down the snowy ramp when she landed.
I stared at her, troubled as I hesitated whether to follow by jumping down or rounding the corner and descending down the stairs. I mean, the ground was pretty icy, I didn’t want to slip and injure myself.
“Be careful you idiot. You could hurt yourself.”
She turned to me and asked cockily, “Too afraid to jump when it’s riskier?”
“Yeah, it’s different on a flat surface compared to an inclined one.”
I ran around the corner and descended down the stairs. She’d darted right past me and ran up the right set of stairs to the level above ground again.
As I climbed the stairs she stopped at the center point between the two sets of stairs. I thought I’d be able to catch her when I made it to the top, but my eyes shot open when she jumped over the metal railing.
I looked over the edge and saw her grinning up at me.
“You were too slow~” she teased as she ran back inside and broke my line of sight.
I ran back down the stairs and entered the building again. I didn’t see her in the main hall when I got inside. She’d disappeared.
I checked my right down the small corridor with the elevator but didn’t see her there. Had she taken the elevator? No, that was unlikely. Unless it had already been open she wouldn’t have had enough time to get onto it.
There wasn’t enough time for her to make it further down the main hall to hide behind the box office counter either. The only place she had enough time to get to was the coatroom.
As such, I turned to my left and headed into the coatroom.
She was definitely hidden among the coats kept within the long open rectangular box-shaped constructs. They were yellow on the exterior but had black interiors which she could blend in with the clothes she had on.
It had suddenly turned into a game of hide-and-seek.
The coatroom was quite large. Aside from where you could store your coats away, there were also lockers at the back where you could keep any valuables you didn’t feel comfortable leaving out in the open with your coat.
In terms of size, it stretched about half the length of the main hall. And was about seventy or eight feet wide. There looked to be a second entrance to the coatroom closest to the side near the center of the main hallway.
Toward the back, by the lockers, there was a men’s and women’s washroom in addition to a multi-purpose handicap one for both men and women between the gender-segregated washrooms.
No, where could she be hiding? If I tried searching blindly, there was a possibility she’d slip out one of the two exits and my search would be in vain.
The smart thing to do would be to camp the entrance until she gives in. However, I had to catch her before her class showed up otherwise she wouldn’t delete the picture. It probably wouldn’t be very long before they got here too. I’d come an hour earlier than they were supposed to arrive...
Chapter 269. The Planetarium, Operation Hook Up: Prelude to the Show. (3/6)
“Do I look like a dog to you?”
“You look pretty hot if you ask me. This look makes your gloomy expression work. I actually wouldn’t mind being seen together in public with you when you’re looking like this.”
“Well I do mind, this is pure humiliation for me.”
“Well too bad, you’re the one who suggested this.”
There was no pill for regret, I couldn’t agree more with that sentiment right now.
“So what do we do now?” Izora asked when we got back to the table in the main hall and sat down.
“We wait for your class to get here obviously. What else would we do?”
“We could look around the museum.”
“No way, we’d have to spend more money to get in. The ticket I bought for us is only good for the planetarium show.”
“But that’s so boring.”
“Too bad. Besides, the exhibits are pretty boring anyway. There’s some stupid old wood ship, a historic recreation of an old street from the 1900s during some major labor strike, some old native tents, an arctic exhibit, grasslands exhibit, earth history exhibit, wildlife exhibit, and a few more. Anyway, none of it is interesting in the slightest.”
“There aren’t any dinosaur fossils or anything?”
“I think there were one or two small ones.”
“What? No big ones?”
“Look, the museum exhibit area above us is pretty bland, the only thing this place has going for it is that it has the only planetarium in the city. It tries to artificially recreate scenes in nature and history with a bunch of shitty exhibits no one cares about or has any attachment to, but it just feels lifeless and boring.”
“How this place is still functioning is a mystery to me. There definitely aren’t enough people coming for the museum itself. I’m sure if you removed the people who visited the museum as an afterthought of the planetarium and the students forced to as part of school field trips, they’d have next to no visitors. They definitely don’t make enough to keep this place running through ticket sales for admission alone. If they didn’t receive funding from the government and charitable donations, this place would be a sinking ship.”
“Haaaaah, the state of the tourism industry in this city is really a joke. The prospects of doing business here are crappy too because of the high taxes.”
“You sound like a bitter old man.”
“I am a bitter old man at heart.”
“Please act the part of a spunky teenage goth guy better. You’re killing the image in my head.”
“What? If you ask me, I thought I was doing pretty well. Fuck the establishment, right? Isn’t that the sort of punk mindset?”
“I mean… I guess… but it just doesn’t feel right.”
“How exactly?”
“You’ve got to be more… like… wild.”
“Wild? How exactly?”
“Uh… for example, put your hands up a bit.”
“Like this?” I raised them straight up in the air over my head.
“No! Not over your head, you idiot. Elbows down but fist up with the back of your hand facing away from you.”
“Okay…” I did as she said.
“Now stick your middle fingers out to flip me off.”
“Right…”
“And stick your tongue out.”
“Stick… my tongue out.”
“Yeah.”
“Can I not? Flipping someone off is fine and all… but sticking my tongue out while looking like this is a bit beyond my level of tolerance.”
“Just do it.”
Resigned, I did as she requested. The second I stuck my tongue out, she raised her phone up and snapped a picture.
“Yeah, yeah. This is it. You look much better like this.” She nodded to herself contentedly.
“Delete that.”
“No way. It’s pretty good. Besides, no one would even recognize you if they saw it.”
“I would recognize it.”
“So what if you recognize it?”
“I’m sure my skin would crawl whenever I see myself in that picture making such a gesture.” My hand shot out to try and snatch the phone out of her hand.
“Too bad, I’m not deleting it.” She stood up and tucked her phone away under her tube top inside an inner pocket.
The two of us fought over her phone to delete the picture she took for the next hour.
“You won’t be able to get my phone now.”
“Oh? You think I care? Did you forget that I’m playing the part of your boyfriend today?”
“You… wouldn’t dare.”
“Do you remember what happened last time you said that?” When I stood up from my seat and stretched my arm out, she took a step back away from me.
“Are you crazy? Were you seriously trying to get it here?”
“Of course. You didn’t have my permission to take that picture. I’ll do what I have to, to delete it.”
I stepped forward and tried to grab her arm, but she dodged to the side.
“Hey, come on now. It’s just a picture. What are you getting so serious for?” Strangely enough, she had a smile on her face and appeared amused by my negative reaction.
“We can do this the easy way, or the hard way.”
“Heheh, I’ll choose the hard way then.” I tried to catch her as she turned around and made a run for it but her wrist slipped through my fingers.
“If you can catch me before my class arrives, I’ll delete it. If you can’t, I won’t delete it.” As she fled she said that while laughing to herself happily.
I ran after her as she exited the building. On her tail, as she ran up the stairs, she rounded the corner to the right and ran up the wheelchair ramp at the side. When she rounded the bend in the opposite direction, to the floor above ground level, I followed her up. When I was about to close the distance, she let out a cheerful laugh as she climbed up over the ledge and jumped back down to the ground. She slid a bit down the snowy ramp when she landed.
I stared at her, troubled as I hesitated whether to follow by jumping down or rounding the corner and descending down the stairs. I mean, the ground was pretty icy, I didn’t want to slip and injure myself.
“Be careful you idiot. You could hurt yourself.”
She turned to me and asked cockily, “Too afraid to jump when it’s riskier?”
“Yeah, it’s different on a flat surface compared to an inclined one.”
I ran around the corner and descended down the stairs. She’d darted right past me and ran up the right set of stairs to the level above ground again.
As I climbed the stairs she stopped at the center point between the two sets of stairs. I thought I’d be able to catch her when I made it to the top, but my eyes shot open when she jumped over the metal railing.
I looked over the edge and saw her grinning up at me.
“You were too slow~” she teased as she ran back inside and broke my line of sight.
I ran back down the stairs and entered the building again. I didn’t see her in the main hall when I got inside. She’d disappeared.
I checked my right down the small corridor with the elevator but didn’t see her there. Had she taken the elevator? No, that was unlikely. Unless it had already been open she wouldn’t have had enough time to get onto it.
There wasn’t enough time for her to make it further down the main hall to hide behind the box office counter either. The only place she had enough time to get to was the coatroom.
As such, I turned to my left and headed into the coatroom.
She was definitely hidden among the coats kept within the long open rectangular box-shaped constructs. They were yellow on the exterior but had black interiors which she could blend in with the clothes she had on.
It had suddenly turned into a game of hide-and-seek.
The coatroom was quite large. Aside from where you could store your coats away, there were also lockers at the back where you could keep any valuables you didn’t feel comfortable leaving out in the open with your coat.
In terms of size, it stretched about half the length of the main hall. And was about seventy or eight feet wide. There looked to be a second entrance to the coatroom closest to the side near the center of the main hallway.
Toward the back, by the lockers, there was a men’s and women’s washroom in addition to a multi-purpose handicap one for both men and women between the gender-segregated washrooms.
No, where could she be hiding? If I tried searching blindly, there was a possibility she’d slip out one of the two exits and my search would be in vain.
The smart thing to do would be to camp the entrance until she gives in. However, I had to catch her before her class showed up otherwise she wouldn’t delete the picture. It probably wouldn’t be very long before they got here too. I’d come an hour earlier than they were supposed to arrive...
