Romance is an interesting concept in theory. Two people get together because of mutual positive feelings towards one another and make each other’s lives a little better than when they were alone. But for the life of me, I can’t wrap my head around the finer details.

The one thing I’ve learned is you immediately know if you and another person are going to work out romantically. One date is all I need to know if I’ve found that ideal romantic hero that most girls imagine will sweep them off their feet at one point in their lives.

How do I know this?

Well, I have a large sample size that has proven that most of the boys I’ve crossed weren’t compatible with me. Including the one popular socialite I’ve recently had the opportunity of dating.

Wow. When you really think about it, the data is actually a bit depressing. But it’s not as bad as it seems.

I don’t date for the purpose of falling in love. There is a certain question since early middle school that I’ve been trying to answer. And with each date I’ve had, I hopefully get closer to the answer.

What is this question? Well, if you have a minute, I’ll be happy to tell y—

A small shake of my shoulder interrupted my train of thought. I turn my head to find Kyoko looking at me with bright curiosity behind her black eyeshadow in the seat behind mine.

“You seem pretty lost in thought, I take it your date with Jun went well then,” Kyoko asked, her long straight black hair curtaining her face as she leaned forward.

“Well, I’ve learned I don’t like fake guys,” I said with an exhausted wringing of my neck.

“Look, just cause he’s popular doesn’t mean he’s fake.”

“You’re right. He’s fake for an entirely different reason.”

“Do tell. I sense another dark examination of the psyche,” Kyoko said, propping her face up with her hands.

“Maybe it’s nothing, but he seems different from when I first observed him. He clearly enjoys being popular, but something about him seems different when he hangs out with his friends. And when I asked him about it, he was rather short with me.”

I temporarily got distracted by a conversation ahead of me being discussed by two boys.

One was a taller, tan, athletic boy with short cropped brown hair looming over another boy with longer, messier black hair, one of his eyes obscured by the longer left side of his fringe. The boy with black hair sat listlessly in his desk, expending as little energy as possible conversing with his more gregarious friend.

“Hey, Tyrant Prince. Don’t look now, but I think that girl behind you likes you,” the taller boy said.

I tried averting my eyes by instinct, but then relaxed when I realized he was referring to another girl in front of me with chestnut brown hair fashioned into drill-like side-ponytails. She giggled indiscreetly behind them with reddened cheeks. Not very subtle, in my opinion.

“Hayato, I already told you not to call me that. And as I said several times before, I’m not interested,” the black-haired boy said, his head somehow sinking lower into his folded arms.

“Yeah, yeah. I know. Living the single life as an anti-romantic. Whatever that means.”

Romance is something so often that every student my age tries so hard to pursue, but every so often there are those that are content just as themselves, without an other person. I was beginning to reach that point soon, where I was willing to let it all go in general and leave that important childhood question unanswered.

“What do you think is his story, Fumi,” Kyoko called out to me again.

“Hard to say. So far, he just seems like someone with no interest in romance,” I said.

I observed him closer. The lethargic black haired boy found enough energy to sit upright. His friend Hayato had said something that roused a stronger reaction.

“Look, I’m not sure what being an anti-romantic is supposed to accomplish, but you just look like a dead fish to me,” He said, waving his arm at him as if his friend were a despondent pet.

“You should try to conserve energy sometime. For someone who’s accumulated his fair amount of scrapes in practice, it might benefit you.”

“Seems like a boring way to live,” Hayato said, squinting his eyes.

“As a matter of fact, it’s liberating,” the black-haired boy said, exhaling with an exhilarated breath. “The path of romance is taxing. Working for the sake of another person. Getting into fights. All the shouting when neither person gets what they want. Frankly, I don’t understand why anyone would go through the trouble.”

“Wow, Eri really got you good, didn’t she,” Hayato said.

The black haired boy scoffed before retreating into his folded arms as refuge. Hayato returned to his seat a couple of rows away from his friend, shaking his head as he walked away.

So there was someone else who found the process of love exhausting. Witnessing that spectacle of his, I thought about what I really got back from all my research from my previous dates.

“That was Kenta Yamamoto, right,” Kyoko said, speaking into my ear. “I heard he was a member of the varsity basketball team as a freshman, until he got kicked out for a fight with another teammate.”

“Really? Him,” I said, pointing at him indiscreetly until Kyoko moved my index finger.

“I wonder what got into him,” she asked.

When I was a girl, I learned from an older children’s TV show that beyond the typical love you see in modern romances, there was a larger mutually understood love across the universe that anyone could experience. As someone who could never wrap my head around TV romance growing up, the concept remained in my impressionable head for years to come.

And now I feel like I’ve gotten closer to learning one of the secrets of the universe than at any point in my young life.

A hero that now secluded himself from the rest of the world. An ally that tried to help him recover from whatever turmoil that was still ailing him. And a dark past that he still couldn’t quite shake off.

I felt a creative urge to write another Experience Journal. If there was anyone that could finally help me answer what the Universal Definition of Love was, it was Kenta.

But I felt there was still an unresolved matter I still needed to attend to.

“Well, good luck breaking the news to Jun, then,” Kyoko said in a singsong voice.

Oh, that’s right. I had to talk to another date about his shortcomings. I always do my best to be as kind as possible when letting a boy down, but I always inevitably hurt their feelings. I can’t imagine Jun will be any different in this regard.