Vanessa raised an eyebrow as she stared at Mikhail who was incredibly nervous. "So let me get this straight. You want to go out on a date with me?"

"Yeah..." Mikhail fidgeted uneasily. "If you want to."

Vanessa blinked and for a moment, Mikhail nearly believed that this was a really bad idea and he shouldn't have asked her in the first place when she suddenly burst out laughing. Mikhail sighed and turned around. "I shouldn't have asked then."

"What?" Vanessa's laughter subsided and she quickly grabbed his arm. "I wasn't laughing at your invitation, I was laughing because you look so cute when you are flustered."

Mikhail felt the heat rushing up his face and quickly looked away. "W-well? Do you want to go out or not?"

Vanessa smiled and shook her head. "All I can say is, what took you so long?"

XXXXX

The date went smoothly in Mikhail's opinion. They had hung out at the Swallow Café undisturbed, thanks to Yuno's intervention that drew any attention at them away. After that, they had walked around town for half an hour or so and at the end of it, he brought her to Gulf Peak to watch the sunset. They simply sat there until Vanessa broke the silence.

"Thanks for asking me out, Mikhail." She told him. "I had a lot of fun and, I'm hoping to do this more often with you." She said the last part sheepishly.

"It's my pleasure." Mikhail ducked his head in embarrassment. He cleared his throat and turned away. "If you want, we can do this again on this Saturday. I heard that they are having a festival with fireworks in town. Tome-san was encouraging us to go for it so..."

"That sounds good." Vanessa smiled and pecked Mikhail's cheek.

Mikhail blushed but smiled back and wrapped his arm around Vanessa's shoulder. "So...are we official?"

"Totally."