When training was over, Ojiro got off the ice immediately to avoid Nissho from catching up on him. He finished packing his skates when he heard his phone ping, he quickly took it out of his pocket.

He threw his head back, sighing in frustration, slumping on the rink side's bench when he finally read Louise's reply. A single smiling emoji.

"I waited for a couple of hours for this!" He exclaimed.

"Hmm, yeah, bro, that sucks." Nissho commented beside him, reading the conversation on Ojiro's phone.

"Mou!" He whined. Turning to Nissho, realizing the evil reincarnation was eavesdropping the whole time.

Nissho smiled at him devilishly with the bombastic, criminally offensive side eye. A teasing smile slowly forming his lips.

***

In the end, Ojiro told Nissho everything about how he finally liked someone and decided to ask her out on a date. He didn't have anyone to tell, and no matter how trashy Nissho was, he's the only person he could trust with something as private as this. He thanked God that there's still a little bit of conscience left in this person.

Nissho was actually furious at first when he found out Ojiro took the risk of sending a text message to someone he barely knew.

Louise might have exposed him overnight. Telling everyone on social media how he was trying so hard to get her attention.

Being a fellow skater and a friend, Nissho understood and has the tendency to overthink these things, just like Ojiro used to be so careful and he admitted that he's guilty of being too reckless this time. One look in Louise's smiling photo from Torou-san's shot that he saved in his phone and he forgot who he is.

. He had quite some experience in working with a few gaikokujins, foreigners before that didn't understand how the Japanese valued everything about privacy. He is lucky that Louise is not like them because if not, his name would probably be in the headlines by now.

Ojiro unwrapped the food he bought from a Mexican store near the rink.

"Itadakimasu." He took a bite from the tortilla wrap and shrugged. The taste was alright.

Usually, he has his meals carefully planned for a week by his nutritionist. It was a part of his rigid diet, but skipping once wouldn't be that bad. Besides, the carbs and fats in his food were not as high as he expected.

"Seriously, bro, if you want to impress a Latina, you should take them out for a tequila shot. At least make some effort to make some salsa or learn the skill of flipping a tortilla on a stove perfectly!" Nissho, the self-proclaimed love guru, told him.

Ojiro's quite suspicious of any love advice from him because this jerk of a friend of his was a notorious womanizer. He couldn't count the times he had witnessed a girl slap him for cheating on them at competition's backstage but he's quite desperate.

He'd take any advice he can get.

The Mexican things was saying about tortillas might be true. When Louise followed Ojiro's private SNS account back, he took the chance to stalk her profile to give him an idea of the things that she liked.

Her account was, of course, filled with art, doodles, and sketches. There were only a few pictures of her: One where she's holding a bottle of beer in both hands while making a funny face which she sets as her pfp. An old picture of her family in Mexico.  An angelic picture of her when she was a toddler, which he finds really cute and the rest were pictures of Mexican foods.

Ojiro unconsciously smiled, remembering it.

He had a lot of work left to do, and he still needed to study the changes he wanted to make in his free skating, but he chose to grab his phone to create a video message for Louise.

"Hey, look! I know how to flip a tortilla!" He touched the burning tortilla flour on his stove and quickly took back his hand.

"Ittai! Ouch!!" He exclaimed, shaking his burned finger aggressively. The tortilla burst into flames, which made him shriek like a little girl.

Ojiro managed to switch off the stove and let the smoke out of his apartment, avoiding triggering the sprinklers. Unfortunately, the video was sent to Louise and... she saw it.

He spent the night cooped up in his bed, dying of embarrassment.

"That's easy. Come on, use your influence for once. Talk to her director." He remembered Nissho told him, while winking at him.

He just gave him a side eye that time and answered him, "Eh? Kimoi. Gross."

But now it looks like he had no choice but to finally take that advice.

He reached out to Louise's director, Mr. Kimura and with a little help of the magic of gifts, he the director sends to be the kohai that would join the studio project's event, understanding what Ojiro's really up to.

When he arrived at the event's venue, his heart skipped a beat as he caught a glimpse of Louise. Wearing a formal, long dress, her beauty was impossible not to notice in the room. And when they shook hands, she looked like she was trying so hard to avoid him and not making aneye contact.

I can't blame her after what she witnessed what I did to the tortilla.

Louise turned away immediately, slapping Ojiro's face with a clump of her curly hair.He can't help but inhale so hard, sniffing it like it's going to be his last.

"Smells so...good." He groaned under his breath.

When he opened his eye, the strength that he needed to overcome everything in his life and the power that he needed to ask Louise out burned through his veins.

They finally met in his hotel room, and Louise was suspicious of the situation. Because what creep of a guy would do all these weird things just to make their meeting possible?

Ojiro really can't blame her. He did look like a creep, but he didn't care anymore. He's desperate. He's not going to give up now that Louise is finally in front of him, so when she said that she'll go out with him if he's going to impress her with any acrobatics that he knew, he didn't even think twice. He did this mighty split that tore his pants and the last bit of dignity that he had.

***

Nissho looked like he's about to die of laughter when he heard Ojiro's story of how he finally got Louise to agree to a date with him.

"Are you done? If you're done, you can leave me alone now. I have free skating to practice." Ojiro mumbled, putting on his gloves.

"Who would rip his pants while asking somebody out?" He guffaws.

Ojiro only made a face at his friend as he went on ice, taking off his blade guards. Minoru-san finally let him practice quads. His doctor said his injury was healing.

He felt like he was in his best condition now, so he planned to go all out. And Nissho can laugh at him as much as he wanted; he didn't care.

He had a weekend date with Louise.

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