Souji blinked a few times when he looked at Rise, underneath the coat she was wearing an orange blouse with yellow flower markings on it with khaki shorts. He noticed that her stomach was pooching slightly underneath the blouse, but it was barely noticeable Souji tilted his head slightly wondering if Rise was just trying to make her disguise work really well...
Rise blushed as Souji looked at her, turning her head away, "Is... Is it really that noticeable?"
- Is what noticable?
- That gut on you? Yeah.
- That's a cute outfit.
Souji quickly chose the third option that popped up in his head rather quickly, making Rise jump slightly in surprise, "... Are you just trying to be nice?"
Souji just said that he didn't know what he was supposed to be looking at, which made Rise's face turn red, "You don't have to play dumb about it, I've got a gut here."
To illustrate her point, Rise moved her arms over her stomach, her face getting redder by the second. Souji knew what was going on here, and he had seen how girls often stressed over their figures, and to be a pop idol it would’ve been a lot worse. It was obvious that Rise was embarrassed by the small stomach she had, and not wanting to make the situation worse, Souji tried to change the subject…
“Huh?” Rise muttered blinking a few times at the question that Souji just asked. “What’s Inaba like? Well, I haven’t really been there since I was a little kid, so I don’t really remember much about the town…”
This was it, his one chance to get rid of the awkwardness of the conversation, Souji was about to say something… Until his phone began ringing, playing a weird song that Souji had found on the internet before he left. Jumping with a little surprise, Souji began to look for the phone desperately trying to find the phone.
All the while, Rise just smiled as the cool and calm Souji freaked out at the sound of the embarrassing song. With a quick beep, Souji silenced the cell phone with a loud sigh of relief, only to realize that some giggling replaced the embarrassing song. “W-Was that the theme song to Phoenix Ranger Featherman R?”
Souji turned his head to the side, trying to cover up his blush, which just made Rise snicker a little bit more at him. That’s when an exclamation point appeared over Souji’s head as he turned back to Rise, asking how she knew where the song came from. Which immediately made Rise’s face red as she waved her hands in front of her face, “I… Um, well, you see, I just… Made a lucky guess?”
That’s when Souji snickered slightly, making Rise’s face a little bit redder, until finally they both just laughed at each other. After a few minutes of laughing, both Souji and Rise slowly began to stop.
Souji thanked that his cell phone played music… And that theme song was just one of the songs that he received every other week.
The two continued their small talk conversation, Souji keeping the conversation from turning back to the small stomach Rise had.
------------------------------------------------------
“… And so, they wanted to me to be in some miko role,” Rise wrapped up her story. “It was really weird though…”
Just as Souji was about to say something, the intercom on the Train came to life, announcing that the train would be arriving in Inaba within the next five minutes. “Aw…” Rise moaned as she fitted her overcoat back on. “And it was just getting good… So… Sempai…”
Souji was a little surprised that he was getting called that, but he didn’t really mind it so he allowed her to continue. “C… Could I get your phone number? Well, I was thinking that since you haven’t been to Yasobina before and I hardly remember anything, m-maybe we could walk around town sometime?”
Souji smiled brightly as he agreed and lifted up his cell phone to give Rise his number, “Thanks! And I’ll give you mine as well, just don’t sell it to the paparazzi later!”
That made them both share another laugh as the train began to slow down...