>"Peter. I want you to go out with me.”
>Huh?
>Go out?
>Michelle… with who?
>Me?
>“Eh?”
>“…It’s just that, not being able to go out for food at night’s been a problem. I want dinner… but there’s no kitchen here, so I have to go buy something. But when I tried to go alone, they got mad at me, said it was dangerous.”
>“So… I want you to come with me when I go out at night.”
>“Ah. Yeah.”
>Yeah… I kinda figured it’d be something like that.
>Of course.
>We’ve only known each other for, what, a week?
>We barely know anything about each other.
>Though… I guess, maybe I’m still kind of happy.
>“…Is that okay? Thanks.”
>Wait—did I just agree without thinking?
>Well… not like I mind, but…
>But still…
>“You sure? I don’t think I’m all that reliable.”
>When I said that, self-deprecating as usual, Michelle just blinked at me.
>Like she had no idea what I was talking about.
>“Peter, earlier today… when Flash was picking on me at school. You helped me.”
>“Ah… well… I didn’t really manage to help, though.”
>Her eyebrows lowered slightly, and the corners of her mouth lifted… just a little.
>Michelle smiled. Barely.
>“But to me, Peter, you’re a hero. You helped me. So there’s no way you’re unreliable.”
>She… wasn’t looking at Spider-Man.
>She was relying on me—Peter Parker.
>That’s… never happened before.
>“…Or do you not really want to be around me, Peter?”
>“N-No, it’s not like that.”
>“Not like that?”
>“…I mean, I don’t.”
>“Good.”
>Michelle stood up and placed her hand on the door.
>“Then… see you tomorrow. At school.”
>“Ah… yeah. See you tomorrow…”
>The door shut with a soft thud.
>And I collapsed onto my bed.
>I couldn’t think straight anymore. Everything was just… too much.
In any novel but Asian ones, this exchange would have been understood as the girl aggressively courting the boy she likes. Fuck, this cultural contradiction between the setting and the narrative drives me up a wall.