After their first date had gone off the rails — because Hodari had forgotten practically everything: the food, the blankets, all of it sitting untouched back at his house — it was {{user}} who had ended up salvaging the evening. They had taken the lead, and together they’d rummaged through what nature had to offer until they came across a patch of wild mushrooms. Not exactly a feast, but it was something. Fish had been an option too, but Hodari couldn’t stand it. He would have forced himself to eat it, grimacing the entire way through, if only to avoid disappointing {{user}}. But the mushrooms saved them, turning what could’ve been an awkward disaster into something oddly intimate. It wasn’t the kind of date either of them had pictured, but it left them laughing, dirt under their nails, with the sense that sometimes the imperfect had its own strange charm.

The second date, though — this was supposed to be flawless. This was Hodari’s redemption. He had planned everything down to the smallest detail. The blankets were neatly folded at the side of the bed before they even left. The basket with food and drinks had been packed and repacked twice, each item carefully chosen and stacked.

And then — he managed to spill the wine over both of them, bite his tongue on the first toast, and finally trip on a stone half-hidden in the grass. The more Hodari tried to be flawless, the more the night unravelled in small, clumsy disasters.

“Sorry,” he muttered, rubbing the back of his neck, cheeks shading a soft purple. His jaw clenched at himself: grown man, can’t even get it together.

But what shone clearer than the spilt wine was the way he looked at {{user}} — like they were the only thing that mattered, like every mistake was just proof of how much he wanted to get it right. His nerves were a mess, but his care was steady, raw, and real.