Now it was time for Raymond to do his part of the project and ask Miss Interpretation some questions. This was an easy task as Miss Interpretation had given Raymond a handful of mysteries for him to try and solve.
Raymond asked, “So what were you planning on doing this Friday evening? Was it something important? And if so why?”
I can’t wait to hear what kind of shenanigans a pretty girl like her is up to on Friday nights. I wonder if she’ll admit to doing some unholy lewd things!
“Well you see, I was preparing to go to my typical Friday evening church services with my mother.”
I didn’t expect her to say something holy instead.
Miss Interpretation continued to talk, “Sorry that I used the word ‘appointment’ earlier. I don’t like talking about my commitment to my local church because in this day and age it’s seems like an embarrassing thing to talk about. But I guess that since we’re doing our project now I’ll spill the beans. And I think my church services are pretty important. I think this because In addition to building my relationship with God and my local christian community, I’m a member of my church’s gospel choir. The gospel choir is something special to me because it’s where I get a lot of practice for my favorite hobby: singing. It’s something I’ve been practicing since I was a child.”
Wow, she’s committed herself to a productive hobby AND she’s pretty. She looks like a much better human being than I am.
Raymond felt like their conversation was something akin to a Pokemon battle.
Miss Interpretation used sing. It was super effective!
It made Raymond question his self-worth!
Raymond wanted to ask more questions in order to come off as the nice guy he knew he was. He prepared himself to pull off some smooth moves.
Raymond asked, “So how exactly do you sing? Like, what makes singing different from regular talking to you? And how exactly do you get good at it?”
“I’ll try to answer this in the quickest and easiest to understand way as possible. For starters, when you are listening to a song, do you ever feel as if the song’s rhythm is flowing through you?”
Time for a smooth move.
“I don’t know. Do you ever flow through the song’s rhythm?”
An awkward silence filled the air.
Dammit, I thought that was the second coolest thing I've ever said.
Miss Interpretation responded, “Ummm…. sure. But ok, after you’ve felt the song's rhythm flowing through you, you want to sync your body’s ‘energy’ or ‘aura’ with that rhythm. Once that’s happened you can feel a great energy flowing through your body. Then you unleash that energy’s great power through your voice, and the next thing you know you have a song. That’s what singing is to me and that’s what I try to imagine when I’m trying to sing well."
Now time to be the nicest man she’s ever met.
“Awww. I bet since you’re so good at singing, that when you were a child practicing, you unleashed so much power with your singing that it caused the 1989 great San Francisco earthquake, shattering glass, toppling buildings, and chewing up pavement in its wake."
Ha, I bet cupid just shot an arrow into you thanks to that one.
Another awkward silence filled the air.
AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH.
Oh Fuck.
Raymond used compliment. It failed!
Raymond panicked and said, “Hey, don’t take that as an insult. That earthquake did a million dollars worth of improvements anyway........ And ummm….”
“I get what you’re saying Raymond.”
Miss Interpretation had a look of disappointment on her face.
Raymond felt that he needed to get away from this topic and ask another question to avoid embarrassing himself even more.
“So, what music genres are you into?”
Miss Interpretation then told Raymond the several different music genres that she listens to, all of which sounded either vaguely familiar or were completely unknown to him. Raymond wasn’t big into mainstream American music, so most of what Miss Interpretation said was foreign to him.
Miss Interpretation then asked, “So, what music genres are you into?”
“I uh- don’t really have a favorite genre. If you’re interested into what kind of music I’m into, just tell me some music artists that you listen to and I’ll tell you if I enjoy listening to them.”
Raymond decided not to go with his original plan of saying he liked Beethoven so that he could execute a new step of his plan. That step was to tell Miss Interpretation that he enjoys the same music she listens to. Raymond believed that if he did this she would think he had good taste in music, and thus would be more attractive to her.
Step 6: Be Her Yes Man and She’ll Be Your Yes Woman
Miss Interpretation asked, “So do you enjoy listening to the Beatles?”
“Certainly.”
“Do you like listening to Beyonce?”
“Like? I love listening to Beyonce.”
“Do you love listening to Nickelback?”
“I’d marry them if I could.”
“Oh? That’s a surprise. Those guys are popular for being terrible and I’m not a fan of them to be honest. I only occasionally listen to them because they’re popular and I want to hear what all the commotion is about. What is it about them that makes them great in your opinion?”
Raymond wanted to jump ten feet out of his seat.
“Oh my god, I misheard you. I don’t like Nickelback at all!”
“Did I just hear you use the lord’s name in vain?”
Raymond wanted to jump so high out of his seat that he would end up going beyond the stratosphere.
"I'm so sorry. That was an honest to god mistake."
"You just did it again."
"Oh, I'm so sorry that I said tha-"
Miss Interpretation interrupted, “I’m just pulling your leg. Ostracizing others for that kind of stuff is silly. Ha ha ha.”
“Oh I see. Heh heh heh.”
It looked as if Miss Interpretation had gone on the offensive and tried to interject some humor into their conversation. Raymond loved the fact that he had helped make a girl laugh, but he wanted to be the dominant one in the comedy game here. However, Raymond felt that his best possible next move would be to give up on the comedy game, and to try to figure out Miss Interpretation’s name. And Raymond quickly thought up a way to find out her name without her knowing he didn’t already know it.
“Singers use stage names all the time. So that makes me curious: when you sing do you go by your regular name or some kind of stage name?”
“When I sing I tell people to refer to me with the same nickname I already tell everyone to refer to me as. So I basically just go by my regular name.”
Raymond thought up a way to successfully interrogate Miss Interpretation.
“Oh, so your name Am… *Cough* b... *Cough* … is just a nickname? If so why did you decide to change it?”
Raymond had remembered parts of Miss Interpretation's name, which allowed him to say parts of her name in-between his pretend coughs.
“Ummmmm.. yea. My real name is Amberley, but Amberley is a bit if a mouthful, so I’ve always told people to refer to me as Amber for short.”
My interrogation was a success!
And her name is Amber. what a pretty name!
Raymond felt like a detective who investigates into the mysterious lives of the opposite sex. He called himself: Sexlock Holmes.
After nearly three weeks Raymond had finally figured out his crush's name. Yes, it took Raymond nearly THREE WEEKS to figure out his crush's name. Raymond wanted to believe this wasn’t so bad considering that the most profitable animated film to come out of the country of Japan was all about figuring out someone’s name, but regardless of his self-comforting tactics Raymond still felt bad.
Or at least he did until he remembered how much of a nice guy he was. Now that Raymond’s confidence had been brought up and he had figured out his crush's name, things were going smoothly for him.
Amber went on to say, “And by the way, It’s terribly sad to hear what happened to your dog.”
And now things weren’t going so smoothly.
Oh god, I forgot about that.
This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.
Amber used the past. It was super awkward!
Raymond was taken aback and his heart rate shot up again. He knew that talking about this subject was sure to depress Amber and lead to a pretty depressing date that had no chance of wooing her over. He could make up another lie and say that the dog lived, but then he would have no excuse as to why he waited outside for so long and Amber would probably suspect him for having made up the whole dog story in the first place.
Amber went on to say, “Though I am curious. How did your dog look like? Do you have any pictures of him of your phone?”
It looked as if the Terminator was about to terminate him.
Luckily however, Raymond had a trick up his sleeve.
Before his little date Raymond had saved a bunch of pictures of a certain cute dog breed on his phone. He did this because he planned to tell Amber that the results he got from the vet were positive and he would present her with some pictures of his cute dog and that would undoubtedly put some butterflies in her stomach.
Now the circumstances were different, but Raymond was still certain that the next step of his plan would work.
Step 7: Girls Love Looking at Pics of Cute Dogs (Yes, No Even Remotely Witty Title This Time)
Raymond unlocked his phone, opened up his pictures, and said, “Here are some pictures of my dog.”
He handed his phone over to Amber.
Amber began flipping through his pictures, but as she did, Raymond noticed something very odd. In-Between the pictures of his pretend dog there were pictures of memes. This caused Raymond to remember that while looking for pictures of cute dogs he procrastinated and did his usual routine of going on internet image boards and saving pictures that he liked, and he even took some pictures himself.
Raymond became very scared.
He knew that he had some pretty rotten stuff on his phone and if Amber saw it, it would be game over for him. Fortunately the memes that Amber was looking at were pretty tame, but Raymond felt like his phone was a ticking time bomb that could go off at any moment. Raymond was too shy to speak up and take his phone away from Amber, especially because he felt that if he did Amber would get suspicious that he was trying to hide something lewd . Raymond watched as Amber flipped through his pictures. His heart jumped every time she swiped her finger.
Amber swiped her finger.
It was a meme.
It was tame.
Amber swiped her finger.
It was a picture of a dog.
It was cute.
Amber swiped her finger.
It was a picture of doge.
It was stupid.
Amber swiped her finger.
It was a picture of a dog.
It was cute.
After a couple more swipes, Raymond knew that Amber had gone through all of the photos of his pretend dog. Raymond gave a sigh of relief. Raymond then decided to tell Amber to give him back his phone. But before Raymond could speak up, Amber swiped her finger across his phone and another picture appeared.
It was a picture that showed Megumin from Konosuba, drenched. Her wet dress tightly hugged her supple body, and her skirt was drawn even shorter than it usually was, putting emphasis on her tender thighs. While this picture wasn’t inherently sexual, it was clear that it was made with the male eye in mind.
Amber had a problematic look on her face and Raymond’s heart nearly bursted out of his chest.
Raymond said, “H-hey, y-you see that? That’s from a collection of drawings I have from a famous Japanese artist named Kurosawa Hideaki Komiyama. He does a lot of sophisticated art focusing on the beauty of nature, culture, and humanity. Here let me show you.”
Raymond snatched his phone from Amber’s hands. Over the years Raymond had collected a small amount of pictures of high-end Japanese art on his phone and now it was time for his collection to pay off.
Raymond showed Amber paintings of Japanese shrine gardens, the roaring sea of Japan, and paintings of Shinto gods and goddesses. The gods and goddesses were drawn in an art style that was a mix between feudal Japan and Anime style art. The art style looked just close enough to the art style of that Megumin drawing that if you squinted your eyes hard enough you might have been able to believe that they were drawn by the same person.
After looking at the pictures Amber said, “Oh, those do look pretty neat.”
“Yea, I know right.”
Phew, thank Christ that’s over. If she had found those pictures of my Fidget Spinner collection I would have been screwed.
Amber went on to say, “But going back to your dog. It’s such a shame that cute little thing just went over to the other side. I feel so sorry for you.”
Amber tilted her head down and had a frown on her face.
Raymond quickly tried to change the conversation into a positive direction.
“Well, truth be told, he lived to the age of fourteen, which is like ninety-eight in dog years. And those ninety-eight years were filled with fun and joy. I took him on walks, fed him tasty treats, and we would run around in a field near my house. That dog was a little warrior that faced life head on and was able to bring back bliss from it. He fought the good fight, and at the end of the day, that’s what life’s all about. But now it’s time for that little warrior to take a nice long nap.”
If I were to go back in time and tell my thirteen-year-old self that one day he would give a motivational speech about an imaginary dead dog to possibly the hottest girl at his school, he’d tell me that I’m a dirty liar.
Amber’s frown turned upside down as if she was moved in some way by Raymond’s speech.
And if I told my thirteen-year-old self that I made a girl smile he’d tell me that I needed to be put into a mental institution immediately.
However Raymond knew that he couldn’t keep this whole motivational speech gig of his up for very long and needed to change the topic of their conversation to something less gloomy. So Raymond decided to talk about the Antifa riots instead.
Raymond nervously said, “B-by the way, do you know a whole lot about those Antifa guys that are causing quite a ruckus?”
“Uh- no I don’t know much about them.”
“Well, you see…”
From an outsider's perspective Raymond looked like a dunce, which he probably was, but the Antifa riots were the only interesting topic that Raymond had a lot of knowledge of, and talking about them was the only thing he could think of in his nervous state. Of course, talking about such a dark topic was risky, but from the looks of things Raymond's risk paid off big time. Shortly after Raymond began talking to Amber she seemed to be quite interested in the topic and the two of them had a conversation about Antifa and their riots for several minutes.
Raymond talked about how silly he found Antifa to be, considering that they were a bunch of anti-fascists who in their pursuit of making a fascist-free and peaceful world, ended up disturbing the peace and became fascists themselves.
After a couple minutes of talking Amber said, “I find it so strange that people who are trying to make the world a safer and better place to live in would be so violent. Who knew anti-violence advocates could be so violent?”
“Well, they did only say they were advocating.”
Then Amber tilted her head down, put her hand over her mouth, and started laughing.
Raymond was…. Raymond was actually doing it. Seemingly for the first time in his life he was making a girl his age happy to be around him to the point where she needed to put her hand over her mouth to contain her laughter. He was taken aback by this. So much so that a rush of adrenaline went down his body and when the adrenaline made its way to his legs, they started to twitch. And something else began to twitch too.
Raymond used hard-on. It was super stiffening!
***
After their Antifa conversation, Raymond and Amber both tried to finish up their project and after about twenty minutes of work: they finished their project. They both gave a sigh of relief.
With their project done Amber said, “Well, it looks like it’s my time to go.”
It looked like it their little “date” was coming to a peaceful end. An end so peaceful that Raymond’s plan of wooing over Amber seemed like a dud. However, little did Amber know that Raymond was about to bust out his secret weapon. His final attack.
Step 8: To Win Her Over: Transform and Unleash Your Final Attack!!!
I’m sorry Amber. Before now all you’ve seen is nice guy Raymond. But now… now nice guy Raymond is dead and supreme nice guy Raymond has come to take his place. In just a few moments you will be shot with my final attack. And when that happens, you’ll fall for me and you’ll just have to sit and watch as I make your life better! I bet at one point you thought I was just any ol’ chucklefuck, but you were wrong. Once you see this attack you’ll see me as the apex predator of the male sex and the nicest guy on the planet! In reality I’m Batman, you’re Robin. I’m the cat, you’re the mouse. I’m Rick, you’re Morty. I’m Wreck-it, you’re Ralph. And now I’ll unleash my final attack! I call it: Supreme Nice Guy: Thot Hunter 9001!
Supreme Nice Guy: Thot Hunter 9001! GO!!!
Raymond said, “I had a really wonderful time working with you today.”
Checkmate, bitch!
Now you’re mine!
“Yea I had a pretty good time as well.”
Then Amber slowly got up and headed towards the glass exit doors of the cafeteria.
Raymond panicked and time seemed to slow down.
Oh my god. Oh my god. Oh my god. How did that not work? Why don’t you love me? Why can’t you even tell me that you want to be friends with me? Do you think I’m some kind of lowly beta male scum? Well, you know what? You’re a dirty whore! And an ugly bitch!
….......
No no no! I can’t think that! Amber is a sweet and nice girl. And I can’t waste my time just standing here. If I let her leave. If I let her walk right out those doors, I might never have a chance like this again and she’ll never love me. I just need to stay positive and think up another step of my plan. Ha, I got it!
Step 9: When all else fails: Panic!
No no no I can’t do that! Oh, I know! I’ll ask her to be friends!
Raymond inched closer to Amber who was halfway to the cafeteria exit, but after only a few steps his legs froze. He was too scared to ask her anything.
There has to be something I can do. Oh, I know. I wrote down all of my steps on some pieces of paper that are currently located somewhere in my backpack. Maybe there will be something written there that I can impress her with and she’ll decide to at least be friends with me.
Raymond didn't know where the papers he wanted were located in his backpack, so he quickly went through his backpack, pulling papers out from every pocket. Raymond kept pulling out stack after stack of papers and after pulling out one set of papers, he felt something cold and gooey cover his hands. It was the It’s-It he had bought at the start of his date. He had torn the top of its wrapper off previously and now the melted It’s-It was making a gooey mess all over his papers and on the floor. However, Raymond didn’t want a mere mess stop him. After some more digging around, Raymond found the sheets of paper he wrote his steps on. After putting his papers on his table, Raymond decided to grab them, so he could pick them up and bring them closer to his face and have an easier time reading off them. But when he went in to grab his papers, he used so much force that he accidently blew the papers to the other side of his table. Raymond ran to the other side of his table to retrieve his papers, but as he did he slipped on the gooey mess the It's-It created, and was sent crashing down to the floor.
Right after Raymond crashed on the floor, he saw Amber, who at this point had just passed the glass exit doors of the cafeteria.
She heard Raymond's fall, turned around, and gave Raymond a fleeting glance.
She saw Raymond on the ground, looking completely uninjured from his fall on the soft cafeteria floor, but he looked like a complete mess with the melted gooey white cream of the It’s-It splattered all over his cringed face and sweatshirt. Honestly it looked like somone had just came all over him.
After glancing at Raymond in his messy state, Amber cracked a cute adorable smile, turned back around, and walked off into the distance.
And when Raymond saw this, he no longer wanted to be a normie. He wanted to die. Why? Because the smile Amber gave was a mocking smile. It was the kind of smile a mother gives to her baby after she sees it shit itself for the fifty-sixth time. She was laughing at him. She was looking down on him.
Raymond got up and looked around the cafeteria to see what all the other customers were doing. Aside from a few idle glances, everyone just had their heads down and were minding their own business. But Raymond knew what they were all thinking. They too were mocking him. All of them. Raymond was sure they were all thinking things like, “Hey, I bet that guy just screwed up his chance to get a girl to screw him.”, “LMAO I bet that guy is a total virgin loser”, and “I bet that guy imagines girls sucking off 6’4” chad thundercock when they don’t come to his meetups on time.”
Raymond was terrified.
He really did end up having a honeymoon with hilarity.
Raymond took his eyes off the surrounding people and looked up at the ceiling and saw all the individual lights that hung up there. They were laughing at him. It was clear that he was in a den of amusement. Raymond wanted to run out of the cafeteria, but he froze when he saw a face in the amused crowd get up, and start walking towards him. Raymond quickly deduced that this face was not an amused face, but rather an odd peculiar face that looked as if it wanted nothing more than to sweep him out of this den of madness and bring order to his chaos. However the peculiarity of the face was nothing compared to the peculiarity of what the face soon uttered,
"Hi Raymond. Long time, no see. Do you still remember me? Also you look to be just as sweet as I remember you being. I think this because you currently seem to be of the Jungian 'It's-It' archetype."