Luca paced back and forth in front of the restaurant, frequently fidgeting with his tie. He also remembered that his glasses happened to conveniently be very slightly off-center, which gave him an excuse to add another item to the list of fidgets, joining the form-fitting snugness of his jacket and every last little uneven edge on his suit. And seeing how he was wearing Deuman fashion, there was a lot of them. He kept pulling and tugging and loosening and tightening and-
Luca exhaled. He had to get through this night. He had fought malfunctioning mechanical sentries, corrupt dragonkin, and even unholy shadowy insects. Yet for some reason, he was never this nervous about doing those deeds. For some reason, dinner with a stranger is a more formidable enemy than that armed battleship he helped to destroy last week. Then again, Luca had never been on a date before. And he normally wouldn’t want to be on a date. Why did he sign up for this? This date would be the end of him! It would be so humiliating and-
Luca caught his breath again. He made a promise and now he had to uphold it. If anything, he had to do his duty. Just loosen the tie a little bit and relax. But not too loose. And now it’s too tight again. Loose again… Just keep it that way. Don’t touch it. Luca closed his eyes and inhaled once more.
“Hey there!”
Luca snapped out of his meditation to find a friend of his approaching: a tall blonde in white named Lizonia.
Luca scratched his head. “Lizzie? …What brings you here?”
“This one guy set me up on a date. He told me to meet him here” said Lizonia.
Luca’s face immediately flushed red upon making the connection. “Wait… Y-You’re my… my blind date?”
“Guess so” Lizonia replied in an almost detached tone. She looked again and Luca and noticed he was still flustered and unmoving. She tried to snap him out of it any way she could. Waving in front of his face, snapping at him, anything that didn’t require touching him. “Yoo-hoo, anyone in there?”
Luca was still… still.
“C’mon, let’s just go inside.” Lizonia pushed the statue into the restaurant, which was a fairly easy task considering how light her date was.
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The restaurant was quite an upscale one. It was a modern restaurant with grayscale geometric motifs. It was a simple yet sophisticated style, making it look expensive without coming off as garish. Luca and Lizonia could swear that they were deliberately seated right in the middle of the restaurant. Well, Luca would be swearing if he was even moving.
Because of Luca’s temporary malfunction, Lizonia decided to start the conversation. “So… What do you do?”
In a split second, Luca popped back into his normal state. “You know what I do, Lizzy” he responded flatly. “You have seen me evaporate Darkers with Ilgrants. Right next to you.”
“Oh yeah! …I knew that” said Lizonia sheepishly. She made haste in re-igniting the conversation (or, rather, getting it started in the first place.) “What do you like to do?”
“I… um… craft things, I guess. Weapons, discs, thingamajigs that don’t actually do anything other than being thingamajigs. They kind of make things look fancier and more cutting-edge, though, so… that’s something.”
“So you don’t go to the mall?” Lizonia asked, wondering in her head if Luca had no life outside of Arks work.
“No… Not really.”
Lizonia was mortified! How could someone not go to the mall! Sure, he looked like the kind of person who wouldn’t, but that is no excuse! This… not mall-going must be stopped!
“By the Light, you don’t know what you’re missing!” Lizonia inhaled, preparing to unload an extensive monologue about the wonders of shopping, the art of shopping, the shopping of shopping, and the other stuff of shopping on Luca. “So, like, the mall is, like, omigosh, the BEST PLACE EVER! It’s where I get like, 20 closets worth of clothes and shoes and stuff! So basically-“
Lizonia’s speech became rambling and incoherent to Luca. Lizonia’s attention span had just left the building.
Their drinks came. Lizonia wasn’t done. “…and they have those floating skirt thingies that you *glug* wear and don’t at the same time, and…”
Their appetizers came. Still not done. “…those Cast salesladies who say they can calculate the best perfume scent for you but can’t even get your size right. I mean seriously, I’m a small! But they still…”
By the time the main course had arrived… Lizonia was still going on about… well… Lizonia stuff. “But this pair of shoes was like, .20% shinier than the other pair. That’s really important…”
Meanwhile, Luca’s mouth seemed to be locked shut, let open only when he needed to feed. His body twitched when he realized something he could say. “Come on, Luca. You can do it. Just say words.”
Luca nearly opened his mouth- ”But not bad words! Don’t say anything bad! She would be insulted! …But wait, saying good words might make you come across as insincere! She’ll think you’re trying to suck up to her! Okay, I’ll just say something that is neutral, neither good nor bad… No, wait! Neutral words are boring! She’ll think you’re boring!”
It seems that Luca did not do a very good job keeping his anxiety a secret, because Lizonia’s lecture came to a halt when she noticed Luca shivering and jittery. She leaned in closer to diagnose Luca. “…Is something wrong?”
“N-N-Nothing! Nothing’s wrong!”
Lizonia analyzed her date very carefully to discern if he was lying. “…Okay!” Lizonia chirped, making her wisdom readily apparent to Luca.
”This is it! Now’s your chance to say something!” “So… Um…” Luca stammered, “…Did you hear about the... new... unobtainium photonic revertatron? It reverses the polarity of photons until they reduce to unstable primal photons. It discombobulates things.” ”Damn!”
Lizonia was dumbfounded. “…What?”
“Wait no, I meant those… um… totally awesome deals on Incendiary Photonic Converters!” Again Luca stumbled in his attempts to relate to Lizonia.
Lizonia was still bewildered.
Was on the verge of just giving up right there. “…Cat ear hats?”
“Nope, not into those.”
The food was delicious when Luca’s head came crashing down onto it.
-------------------------------
The pair finished their meal in complete silence after Luca cleaned off his face. After everything had been cleared from the table, the time came for Luca and Lizonia to judge each other as potential significant others. Will the geek boy win the heart of the beautiful blonde? Or will his hopes come crumbling down before his eyes?
“…”
“……”
“…………”
“…This isn’t gonna work out.”
Lizonia was a bit shocked at first, but she really wasn’t surprised by his decision. “Yeah… I agree” she replied.
“We have absolutely nothing in common” Luca elaborated.
“Totally. Let’s just pay for the food and get out of here.”
“And never speak of this again?”
“Erm… Sure. If you really wanna do it like that, then go ahead.”
Luca could vaguely feel himself mentally stumbling again. He threw himself at the first chance to get out of the restaurant after he covered his portion of the bill. Lizonia followed suit not long after.
One-Shot: A Space Mercenary's Blind Date
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