While the others spoke with the sorority girls, I sat down on the couch next to Helen. At a volume only she could hear, I said, "I know this isn't what you expected, but I'm here for our date. What did you have in mind?"
"It's good to see you," Helen said as her eyes scanned my face. She seemed to glean a concerning amount of information about my thoughts from that one glance. Helen was well-acquainted with my face, and that came with some downsides. "You seem to be doing much better now than you were doing yesterday."
I was in the middle of a mental breakdown last time we spoke, but I couldn't exactly tell her that. "Yeah, I went to, uh, therapy yesterday, and I found it to be very helpful."
"Therapy? Are you okay?" Helen said with concern in her expression.
I hadn't expected that reaction. In my old world, therapy was viewed as a neutral act that nobody put much thought into. Evidently, this world had a very different view on mental health than my old one. Honestly, I should have expected that. The Earth Sphere was much more old fashioned than my own world, even though more than a hundred years had passed. What was the nature of that world? It felt more like a projection of the future from a man in 1979 than an actual model of the 22nd century. If there was a god of this world, his name would be Yoshiyuki Tomino.
"Yeah, I'm fine," I said with the smile of a sane person. "Don't worry about it."
"Oh!" Helen said as if suddenly remembering something. "I bought a gift for you yesterday."
With an excited smile on her face, Helen reached into a nearby drawer and pulled out a buttoned-down Hawaiian shirt. "You can wear this when we go bowling! I have a matching shirt!"
Bowling? How did she know that I loved bowling? In my previous life, I played three games once a week. I certainly didn't play at a professional level, but I would call myself a particularly skilled amateur.
"That sounds great," I said with a genuine smile on my face. At that moment, I had never before felt more affection for Helen.
I took the tacky green shirt from her and carefully put it on. Slowly, I placed my jacket on the ground, taking special care to make sure that the revolver concealed in its pocket remained hidden.
Helen donned an equally-ugly bowling shirt and looked at me with a big smile on her face. I couldn't put my finger on why, but I reached my hands forward and pulled Helen into a hug. With her forehead pressed against my chest, she started laughing at the floral designs surrounding her. I felt like a bit of an idiot, but I started laughing with her. In hindsight, that was the moment I fell in love with Helen Whitesmith. Maybe Aiko was right after all, and I was a romantic fool.
"We used to go bowling, right?" I asked.
"Yeah," Helen said sadly. "Every Saturday whenever you weren't deployed or on base."
"Ahem," Bianca said, clearing her throat behind me.
With some notable irritation, I released Helen, and she took an embarrassed step away from me. Quietly, Helen said, "What is it?"
"Are we going to leave soon?" Bianca asked.
The sorority den mother was coming with us. Oh, what fun. I was sure that I could get Bianca to back off if I were to start a fight, but this particular problem could be dealt with peacefully.
"Uh, yeah, I think," Helen said, looking over to me.
"We'll leave in a minute," I said, walking back to the common room in the front of the sorority house.
Ramos, sitting on a couch with Nora's head leaning against his shoulder, looked over to me and said, "What are you wearing, Captain?"
"It's a bowling shirt," I said, carefully carrying my jacket in the crook of my arm.
"Is that where we're going?" Ramos muttered with a frown. "Do we have to go?"
I looked over to Wei and said, "Hey, do you need Ramos and Stradivari for the paperwork?"
"No," Wei said, riffing his fingers through a notebook. "They were only needed during pilot selection."
Ramos groaned loudly before saying, "Come on, we finished pilot selection three hours ago!"
"You were very useful for moral support," Wei said without looking up.
"In that case," Ramos said, clearing his throat. "Stradivari and I will hold down the fort here while you bravely knock down some pins and do some paperwork."
"The paperwork is important," Wei said.
"You two behave yourselves," I said as Wei, Helen, Bianca, and I walked toward the front door. As I spoke, my eyes were locked on Stradivari. "I don't want you two to create any more trouble for the team. There will be plenty of that when we deploy."
"Roger," Ramos said.
"I'll cause you no problems," Stradivari said with a well-rehearsed smile.
Seeing that smile, I knew I would have to check the newspaper for the next few days to see if any disemboweled corpses were found in an alleyway somewhere.
With Helen and Bianca in my rental car, I drove to a large steel building in the middle of District Seven. It had a large, thirty lane, bowling alley on the third floor. It cost a dollar per person per game, and I paid for Bianca, Helen, and myself with cash. Wei said he would be too busy finalizing the paperwork to bowl, and Renault stayed with the cars once more.
When I started bowling, it quickly became clear that my own muscle memory was working against me. The arms and legs of my new body were a bit longer than my old one, and it was significantly more athletic. My first throw was a gutter ball, but I was able to at least knock a few pins over with my second shot.
"You got it! Good job, Sebastian!" Helen shouted as I returned to my seat. I could see a powerful sense of relief behind her eyes as if she had just realized that the Dogwood she knew was completely gone.
"I just need a few frames to recalibrate after my injury," I said, my eyes moving over to scan Wei.
Helen walked up to the lane and hit the pocket at the perfect angle. Nine pins scattered out of the way, but the ten-pin (the one furthest to the right) remained standing. Without a word, Helen waited for the machine to cycle and hit the last pin perfectly, causing it to fly backward.
"Pretty good, right?" Helen said happily as she took a seat next to me.