True Intentions

Riding Silver Fang, my majestic metal beast of freedom, with Akari behind me, I felt like a warrior embarking on a perilous journey. The wind was on my side, the road stretched endlessly before me, and Akari—

Would not. Stop. Talking.

Seriously, how much energy does this girl have?!

"And then! Oh my gosh, Shiwei, you won't believe this! I saw this video about a dog that—"

"Akari, for the love of time itself, breathe!"

"Oh! Right! Anyway—"

I sighed, resigning myself to my fate. There was no escaping the never-ending stories of Akari's adventures in the internet rabbit hole. Silver Fang carried us through the city streets, its mighty wheels turning with unwavering determination. The basket at the front rattled slightly, but I ignored it. Nothing could shake my steed's pride!

After what felt like an eternity (but was actually only fifteen minutes), we arrived at the karaoke place. The place looked like it was straight out of a neon dream—except it smelled a little like regret and cheap cologne. Perfect.

Akari bounced happily ahead, and I followed with the heavy burden of a man preparing for war. I had listened to a ton of songs in preparation for this, ready to prove that I was capable of charming a lady through the power of music. Yue had mentioned something about "confidence" and "sincerity" being key, but I was pretty sure she just wanted to see me suffer.

We got our private room, and Akari, with all her boundless enthusiasm, grabbed the mic first.

And oh. My. Time.

It was adorable.

Her voice was sweet, her expression pure joy, and even though she missed a note or two, I was entranced. I felt my soul momentarily leave my body. I had to grip my own thigh to make sure I wasn't under some sort of enchantment.

How can one human being be this cute?

She finished her song with a little bow, grinning ear to ear. "Your turn!"

I blinked. 

Wait... 

Right... 

My turn...

I hesitated, scrolling through the list of songs. Something in Vietnamese? No, that would expose my questionable forged documents. English? Too risky.

What if I picked a classic? Too cliché. What if I went for something impressive and international? Too pretentious.

My brain short-circuited, and before I knew it—

I picked a Japanese song. The song my flirty co-worker, Liza often plays in the Fried Chicken Heaven speaker for some unknown reason.

Inferno by Mrs. GREEN APPLE. 

The title seems similar to where I'm going if I mess this up. I'll put everything on this song. If it fails, it's the smartphone's fault.

As I abandoned everything. My dignity, my common sense, even my carefully constructed backstory. Gone. In the wind.

I hit play, and the intro blasted into the air like a trumpet of destiny. My hands gripped the mic like my life depended on it. My fate was sealed.

I took a deep breath.

And sang.

"Terasu wa yami bokura wa

Arukinarete kita hibi matotta

Yume wa antai na kurashi da ga

Shigeki busoku yue ni daradara

Terasu wa yami bokura no

Arukinareteita michi wa doko da?

Toki wa tama ni shaku da ga

Nukumori ni tsutsumare tada"

I was fully prepared to sound like a goat in distress, like a kettle screaming for help. I braced for Akari's laughter, for the judgment, for my ancestors to weep in the afterlife.

But...

I didn't suck?!

In fact, Akari looked delighted. Her eyes sparkled, her hands clapped, and she was nodding along to the beat.

"Shiwei! You can actually sing?!"

I— I what?! I paused mid-note for a split second to process the shock of hearing her praise. There I was, thinking I was about to be roasted like a marshmallow, and instead, I was getting... validation?

I powered through, adrenaline taking over. The chorus hit, and I went all in, singing with every ounce of energy my body could muster. There was no going back now.

"Homura ga tatsu

Shirube no hou e

Omoidasu wa yasashii merodii"

Something deep in my chest stirred. Was this... was this what it meant to be alive? I could feel the passion of the song, the fire in my soul, the raw energy flowing through me like a phoenix reborn! I didn't even know what I was singing anymore, but it didn't matter.

Akari was vibing, man. I could see it in her face. Her smile, that damn smile, was enough to keep me going. Even when I was probably screeching in parts (honestly, I blacked out, so who knows?), she was still there—cheering me on like I was some kind of karaoke king.

"Eien wa nain da to nain da to iu

Sore mo mata ii ne to waratte miru

Kagayakeba itsuka wa hikari mo taeru

Bokura wa inochi no hi ga kieru sono hi made aruite yuku"

Somewhere in the universe, my last shred of dignity sat up from its grave and whispered, Perhaps I can live again...

I finished the song, and Akari cheered. She actually Cheered!

"That was amazing! Why didn't you tell me you could sing?!"

I cleared my throat, trying to appear cool. "Ah, well, you see... it's just one of my many hidden talents."

Lie. That was a lie. But who cares?! I just gained 1 point in Not Embarrassing Myself in Front of Akari. Plus, I had a new weapon in my arsenal—confidence.

Akari, ever the optimist, gave me a wink. "I knew you had it in you!"

It felt like my soul had ascended to another plane of existence.

And that, my friends, is what we call a Mission Failed Successfully.

And before I could fully recover from my accidental triumph, Akari was already flipping through the tablet like a hyper squirrel with caffeine access. "Okay, okay! Now we do a duet!"

A duet.

I blinked. "Do we have to?"

"Yes! C'mon, it'll be fun!"

"Fun," I repeated, the way one might say "root canal." I had barely survived solo karaoke. Now I had to coordinate with another human?

"I'm picking this one!" she declared, completely ignoring my internal suffering.

I squinted at the screen. "Wait, isn't that the song from Tangled?"

"Yup! 'I See the Light!'"

I stared at her.

I don't see any light here except for her glowing for some reason...

She stared back.

"Akari, that's a full-on romantic duet. Like, floating lanterns and emotional gazes and Disney-level commitment."

"Exactly! And I'm Rapunzel! And you're Flynn! It's perfect!"

"Why do I feel like this is emotional entrapment..."

"Shhhh, it's starting!"

And just like that, the dreamy intro music swelled.

Akari turned to me with those big sparkling eyes and whispered, "Don't mess this up. I want to feel butterflies."

"I feel diarrhea..."

We started singing.

She was hitting her notes with suspicious confidence, eyes sparkling like she was onstage at a Disney World finale. I was desperately trying to keep up, reading the lyrics like I was trying to decode alien text.

But then... she turned to me during the middle part. That infamous part. The one where both characters look into each other's eyes and sing like their lives depend on it.

She sang her line:

"And at last I see the light... And it's like the fog has lifted"

With pure emotion, hands clasped to her chest like she was accepting a Nobel Peace Prize in love.

I blinked. My soul briefly left my body. She wasn't acting like Rapunzel. She was Rapunzel.

My turn came.

I panicked.

But I sang anyway.

"And at last I see the light... And it's like the sky is new"

Voice trembling, but not completely off-key. Something weird happened—I started feeling it too. The melody. The emotion. The fictional boat with lanterns floating around us. I was in too deep.

"And it's warm and real and bright... And the world has somehow shifted"

We sang the last part o f the chorus together,

"All at once, everything looks different... now that I see you..."

The world slowed down. My brain stopped panicking. And for a second, it didn't feel like a karaoke duet. It felt like something else.

Something terrifying.

Feelings.

We ended the song in breathless silence.

Then she laughed. That high-pitched, beautiful laugh that burst out of her like confetti.

"That was the best thing ever!" she wheezed, wiping tears from her eyes.

I exhaled like I had just finished a triathlon. "I think I just unlocked a core memory. Or trauma. Maybe both."

She flopped onto the couch, giggling like crazy. "You seriously have to do more duets with me."

"Only if you promise not to act like you're in a K-drama next time."

"No promises!"

And just like that, I felt it again—this strange, warm feeling in my chest. The kind that made my sarcastic brain short-circuit. Maybe... just maybe, this karaoke night was doing something irreversible to me.

We still had hours left in the room. And honestly?

I wasn't even mad about it.

***

You know what the real miracle of the day was?

It wasn't the fact that I somehow sang a Japanese song well enough to not get laughed out of the room. It wasn't even surviving a dramatic duet that included emotional monologues and possibly awakened long-buried childhood theater trauma.

No.

It was the fact that, after all that chaos, I still had my soul intact and—get this—a shred of dignity still clinging to me like a stubborn hair on a bar of soap.

Okay, maybe that dignity was hanging by a thread. But it was there! Possibly traumatized, a little weepy, maybe questioning its life choices—but still THERE.

I think it's because I sang Inferno like a champ. One good performance somehow compensated for all the off-key nonsense that followed. Like some kind of cosmic karaoke math: one solid S-tier performance equals five F-tier disasters.

We finally left the karaoke place, stepping out into the cool spring air, and I was ready to call it a day. Silver Fang stood tall and proud where I left him, his chrome glistening under the busy city streets like a glorious steed waiting for his rider.

Akari was humming beside me, still bouncing from all the sugar and serotonin she accumulated in that karaoke room. Meanwhile, I was just grateful my vocal cords hadn't filed for retirement.

I hopped onto Silver Fang, and she slid behind me like it was the most natural thing in the world. Like we were some kind of music-themed Bonnie and Clyde, if Bonnie wore too much pink and Clyde had crippling social anxiety.

And off we rode.

Destination: A nearby park. Because apparently, the date isn't over yet.

"Shiwei, turn right here!" Akari shouted over the wind.

"What?!"

"RIGHT!"

"WE'RE GOING RIGHT, SILVER FANG!" I yelled, dramatically yanking the handlebars like I was steering a pirate ship.

We pulled into the park parking lot and got off the bike. I noticed for the first time that Akari had been carrying this... basket. Like, an actual woven picnic basket. The kind you see in cartoons or commercials where everything is sunny and everyone's unreasonably happy.

"You've had that the whole time?" I asked.

"Yup!" she chirped.

"Did you strap it to your back like a koala or—never mind."

She winked, mysterious as ever, and marched forward with the kind of confidence only Akari could have. I followed, curiosity eating me alive from the inside like termites on an anxiety log.

And then we reached it.

A cherry blossom tree in full bloom. Petals drifted lazily in the air like nature's confetti, the ground was dusted pink, and the whole scene looked like it belonged in some poetic anime ending.

Akari spread out a picnic mat with dramatic flair, sat down, opened the basket... and revealed heaven.

Sandwiches. Snacks. Fruit. Some fancy juice boxes that looked too expensive to casually sip from.

I was drooling. Not metaphorically. I had to physically swallow before I embarrassed myself.

"You planned a picnic?" I managed to croak, eyes locked onto the food.

"Mmhmm! I was going to invite you today, actually. But then you asked me about wanting to sing and I thought—well, two birds with one Shiwei!"

"Stone."

"No! Shiwei. Because you're the bird. And the stone. You're both. You're the whole metaphor."

"...I think that means I just hit myself with myself."

She giggled. "Exactly."

I sat down, still trying to make sense of her logic, but honestly too distracted by the fact that she had made all this herself. And not just thrown-together sad lunchbox energy—this was cute bento level quality.

"Akari," I said slowly, "this is dangerously adorable."

"Thank you!"

"No seriously, this level of effort... it's, like, weaponized cuteness. You trying to kill me?"

"Maybe."

Okay. Fine. I'll admit it. I blushed.

Like a full, actual, face-on-fire, can't-make-eye-contact anime protagonist blush.

I turned my head away so she wouldn't see and immediately started blaming the universe in my head.

Why. Why am I blushing like a little girl in a shoujo manga?!

I'm supposed to be a mysterious, vaguely aloof guy with a tragic backstory and a deep voice! Not some tomato-faced dweeb who's too emotionally fragile for sandwiches!

And yet... here I was.

And here she was.

Too cute for her own good. Sitting across from me with a picnic mat under blooming cherry blossoms, offering me a sandwich she made with her own two hands.

"This one has egg salad, but this one's tuna. I didn't know which one you'd like more, so I made both," she said casually, as if she wasn't completely rearranging my DNA with her words.

"...I like both," I mumbled.

"Perfect!"

And then she just... sat back, munching her sandwich and staring up at the sky. Peaceful. Content.

Me?

I was spiraling.

Because maybe... just maybe... I wasn't ready for this level of softness.

I took a bite of the sandwich. It was delicious. Like unfairly good.

And as we sat under the falling petals, our shoes off, our backs against a tree trunk, I felt it again—that dangerous, warm, soft thing in my chest.

Something was changing.

And I had a feeling I was absolutely, utterly doomed.

I sat there, chewing my sandwich like a man on the verge of a breakdown. Because that's what I was, okay? A man on the edge of a cliff, looking down at a sea of emotions that was way too deep and way too dangerous for me to navigate.

But Akari?

She just... sat there. Munching away like some kind of content, peaceful angel sent from a world where chaos doesn't exist. Her gaze was fixed on the sky, not a care in the world, like she was living her best life, while I... was on the verge of self-destructing over a sandwich.

It wasn't fair. Nothing about this was fair.

She was just too... cute.

I tried to focus on the sandwich in my hand. Bite. Chew. Swallow. Easy enough, right?

Except it wasn't. Because the sandwich, while delicious (like, unreasonably delicious), felt like it was going down my throat wrong. Everything was wrong.

I mean, seriously? Look at her.

How was anyone supposed to function around that?

I took another bite, silently praying for my sanity to stay intact. But no, the universe had other plans.

As we sat under the cherry blossoms, the petals falling lazily around us like some poetic metaphor for my rapidly disintegrating sense of self-worth, I felt something stir in me.

It was warm.

It was soft.

And it felt... dangerous.

Like I was on the edge of something I wasn't ready for. Like I had no business feeling this way. But, alas, my feelings were growing like an uncontrollable forest fire, and I was just a man with a sandwich in his hand, trying to pretend everything was normal when I knew—deep down—that nothing was.

I sighed. It was the sigh of a defeated man. A man who had already lost the battle and was too far gone to turn back.

That's it. It's over. I'm doomed.

My mind was running a hundred miles a minute. What am I even doing here? What did I even want from this moment? Why did my heart feel like it was in a vice grip?

I looked at Akari again, and there she was, sitting on the mat, carefree and at peace, completely unaware of the chaos going on in my mind. I would bet my last cent that she didn't even realize that she had reduced me to a pile of mush by just being herself.

She noticed me staring. "What's up?"

I nearly choked on my sandwich.

"I'm fine," I blurted out, but then realized I was still holding my sandwich like it was a life raft. I quickly shoved it in my mouth to avoid saying anything else idiotic.

Akari just smiled and went back to munching, and I was once again left to wallow in my own self-pity.

That's when I saw him.

A man. Walking casually through the park, his hands full of long-stemmed roses.

I froze. My brain short-circuited.

I guess... I guess I need to face judgment, huh?

I muttered under my breath, shaking my head. But it was too late. The wheels had already started turning in my mind.

"Excuse me, Akari, I'll be back in a sec," I said, as if I had any idea what I was doing. I stood up, and without giving her the chance to question me, I walked off toward the rose guy, my mind racing a mile a minute.

What am I even doing? Why am I doing this? Why had I not just stayed home and done literally anything else that wouldn't involve my emotional trainwreck of a brain?

But no. Here I was. And I was going to buy roses. Three of them. Because, apparently, that's what you do when you're an idiot in love. And right now, I'm the said idiot. Apparently

"Three roses, please," I said to the guy, trying my hardest to sound confident. I handed him the money, my heart pounding in my chest like a drumbeat of impending disaster.

The roses were handed to me. They felt... wrong. Like they were mocking me. They weren't even really roses, okay? They were just like... the flower equivalent of a 'here, take this' situation.

I walked back to Akari, the roses clutched awkwardly in my hand.

Okay, Shiwei. You've got this. You've totally got this.

I mumbled to myself, rehearsing what I was going to say.

"I'll be smooth," I muttered under my breath. "I'll be cool. No big deal. It's just Akari. It's just a confession. It's not the end of the world, right? Right?"

But as I approached her, I stopped dead in my tracks.

There she was.

Sitting there, like an angel under the cherry blossoms, with the sun casting the perfect halo around her.

And I was just standing there with three of roses and zero brain cells functioning properly.

Time slowed. No, I swear time actually stopped. Like, I was in the middle of a movie or something, and all I could see was her.

The world was blurry around me. I couldn't hear anything. I couldn't think of anything except how stupid I was for not being able to put two words together right now.

I was staring at her. She was smiling, and for some reason, it felt like we were in the middle of a drama, but I was the side character and she was the star.

I opened my mouth, closed it, and then just blurted out the first thing that came to mind.

And as soon as the words escaped my mouth... I knew, I'm done for...

"I like you..."