"Excuse me...are you Ouro Kronii?"you nervously say, dabbing your sweaty forehead with your stained handkerchief, you were supposed to meet up with a girl in the local Denny's. This one looked like the type.
She was sequestered away in one the the booth tables, wearing her high school uniform, you had half a mind to walk away but you already spent the money, might as well go all the way. So you took a deep breath and dipped your toe in the water, step after step until you were standing over her like a creep.
She had two smartphones on the table: The first phone was encased in blue casing with gold highlights, on it's screen was a long feed of social media, filled with selfies and inane posts by bored and hyper socialized teenagers. The other phone looked cheaper, it's screen had a familiar app layout that belonged to a popular compensated dating site.
This girl was smart, separating business form her personal life, you could already tell she was gonna make it farther than others her age.
She notices you, her azure eyes - apparently natural and not lenses- scanning you from top to bottom, she looked unimpressed, as if she was saying in her head ' yeah he fits the type'.
She turns to the side, crossing her long and slender legs. Her school skirt shortened to a scandalous degree and leaving a small precious area of bare flesh between them and the rest of her black stockings clad legs.
She picks up her business phone, being careful as she swiped away with fingers that ended in long blue colored talons. Her beautiful but disinterested face framed by lovely short black-blue hair, her jaws moving as she chewed on gum like a goat on chud.
"Alright ojisan," what? ojisan? You're only in your late 20's, "here's the timer, you only have four hours. lets go," she's quick and dirty, directly down to business. She stands up and slings her school bag over her shoulder, blowing out an air sac as she waited for you to make a move.
Fuck you didn't really think ahead this far, you don't even remember what compelled you to get a compensated girlfriend in the first place. God this was embarrassing, but shit you're already knees deep in the pool, you'd cite sunk cost fallacy if you weren't already way past that at this point.
"Where do you want to go?" you say casually, and yet that was enough to confuse her as she tilts her head, giving you a nice look at her petite and pale neck. "Jeez, are you a giga-virgin or something? You're supposed to have planned this out already," she sighs in exasperation, rubbing her forehead at your social ineptitude.
"Let's be honest, you'd probably hate any choice I made, let's not waste both of our times and just go where you wanna go," she blinks at your rational and measured response, yeah you sucked at talking to woman, but you weren't THAT incompetent when it came to communicating, you were stably employed after all.
"Alright then!" she beams at you a smile, you weren't sure if it was sincere or practiced through a dozen of dates.
To be honest the last thing you expected was for the both of you to spend time in a library of all places, but here you were, you sitting beside Kronii as she scanned over her class notes, painfully fudging up a mathematical equation you could do in your sleep.
"Here, this is what you have to do, a is the variable you have to find. If you're confused then move all of them to a single side of the equation," you unknowingly lay your hand over hers, guiding her pen as you simplified the algebraic problem.
"You're pretty good at this, you a teacher?" she says with a small measure of respect, it seems you impressed her, "I work for an engineering firm, so math like this is easy," you avoided sounding egotistical about it, being good at math was the only thing you could reliably brag about.
"Does it earn a lot of money? "she follows your instructions, quickly overcoming the problem and finally achieving some measure of understanding.
"Yeah, especially what I do, working for a private firm lets you get a lot of benefits," you say a little glum, this entire date was now completely off the rails.
Kronii just looks down at the book, completely lost in her thoughts, unconsciously twirling a strand of her hair.
"I wish I had money," you could tell instantly from the tone of her voice that she wasn't being coy now, this was her true feelings bleeding out.
"Is that why you're doing this?" she stares at you, at first with a fierce gaze, as if ready to roar at you if it appeared you were going to accuse her of being some kind of whore, but your face was far from that. You were genuinely curious, and your facial expression free of anything indicative of scorn or pity.
She sighs, then rests her face on the book, looking back upwards at you. She's deep in thought, trying to think of an articulate way of putting her mind to words. "I come from a...family, yeah, a poor kind of messed up family. A family I'd like to get away from as soon as possible," you could feel the fatigue in her voice, this wasn't something that could be faked.
"The thing is, you need money , to be independent and stuff. You need a job, so you study. Which sucks if you're an idiot like me. So I thought, 'hey, what's the quickest way to earn a buck? Lonely old men!'," you're not sure how to feel about that, she spoke with light hearted mockery, but there was a distinct melancholic undertone to her voice.
"I can help you," you had no idea what moved you to say that. She blinks rapidly trying to process what you've said, maybe she had misheard you.
"Studying isn't an issue, you're smart, not trying to flatter you. You're definitely smarter than most girls your age. The biggest issue for you would be connections, depending on what you study and what kind of degree you plan to get in University I just might be able to help," you explain, rubbing your chin, calculating every possible scenario.
It took you a while to refocus on her, finally seeing her blue eyes tearing up a little.
Oh shit.
"H-Hold up," you panic a little, taking out the grimy handkerchief in your jacket pocket handing it to her, she takes it unheeding of the filth, wiping away her tears.
"I-I....thank you...I-I mean it....t-this was supposed to be a date but..." just as she said that, her business phone vibrates, a notification that the date was now officially over. She proceeded to ignore it.
"Uh, this is awkward, don't worry I'll pay you back, I pride myself on customer ser-" you wave her off, smiling awkwardly as she tried to regain her bearings.
"No no, keep it, you earned it. I paid money to have someone to talk to, and that's what happened," your words only touched her deeper.
"You're too nice, I don't know what to say," you're outside of the library, it's evening now, way beyond the supposed ending time of the date.
"No problem, just relax a bit, I had fun, really. You don't need to refund the money," the rational part of your brain felt like this girl was manipulating you, but to be honest you doubted that and even if that were the case you didn't mind. It feel too good to be appreciated whether faked or sincere.
You exchanged contact info, a very strict breach of conduct when it came to compensated dating. Whenever she needed help with school work you offered to help her.
"Oh yeah and my hanker-" you're about to take the dirty thing out of her hands when she moves it away, holding it close to her face, hiding her mouth.
Was she smiling?
"I'm taking this hostage," she says, "I have to no reason to believe your honeyed words Mr Anon, for all I know you're taking advantage of a young innocent school girl," she's teasing you.
You blush a little.
"Until you hold up your part of the deal, I'm keeping this, you'll only see this returned when I graduate. See you!" she immediately speeds away in the opposite direction, leaving you to stand there flabbergasted. Not only were you significantly poorer, you were now missing a handkerchief.
bzzzz
You retrieve your buzzing phone from your pocket.
Ouro Kronii - 4 seconds ago
"Thank you anon, I'm looking forward to meet up with you later, with a discount! XP"
You can't help but smile staring at the text and the emoticon at the end, the events of the day replaying in your head.
It ended better than you expected. Time to head back home. You're gonna have to review everything you learned in high school. You've become a tutor now.