This doesn't look like planning a date to me (Cecil)

"No...it's...not strange." He sighs contentedly. "I couldn't tell you what it is, though."
He shifted uncomfortably as the anxiety started to rise again, terrible truths bubbling up to scorn and deride him for having these thoughts. For considering these things, for trying to deny them for his wants. He couldn't deny them just because he didn't like them. He was suddenly looking a lot less peaceful.
"...k-karaoke. Yes. Karaoke works? Not clubs. Not...not the bathhouse yet either." He swallows. "...are you...sure, you're, ay, uh...alright with that? Me?" His grip loosens and tightens, unsure whether to hold on tight or separate and retreat. "I don't want to think this is a bad idea. I want to think this is something you shouldn't do. But I just can't...not."

Nadia squeezed Cecil's hand, feeling his own grip faltering. Karaoke was exciting. New experiences were the point, and now that she knew where they were going, that should be enough, right? but right now, she cared just the tiniest bit more about his current misgivings. She wanted to sooth the feathers she'd ruffled by simply taking an interest in him in the first place, in any capacity. "Karaoke. we'll do that, then. It will be a wonderful time. Just the two of us. We'll get one of those little rooms so no one else can hear...And Cecil..."

She reached up with her free hand and forced him to look at her eyes as she said "I've been alright with you since the beginning. You're the only one who's not alright with you."

For a moment, their eyes met. Then, he glanced away, shaking his head. "Even with what everyone else says? The things I've heard? That I'm suicidal, I'm crazy, that I do insane and awful things? That I blow things up and burn things? I...I'm not even sure what else has been said..." He groans. "Even before that stupid incident with the alcoholic tea, people figured I was going to snap and try to gun people down at any moment..."

"There are...lots, and lots, of people who aren't alright with me..."

"I...don't even know why they believed these things. Said them."

Nadia didn't skip a beat, pulling Cecil's eyes to meet hers. "What do you think they say about the girl who draws dead animals in class?" She smiled, "If they haven't tried to get to know you, then it doesn't count. It's just words. Some humans will say all manner of thing to make their own lives appear to have more value. The easiest way to do that is to devalue someone else." Nadia didn't listen to rumors, but she still heard them from time to time. She hadn't overheard anything about Cecil yet, but things about yourself were always easier to hear. Especially when they were meant to be heard.

"I think this whole thing will be easier for you, if you just allow yourself one person, maybe two. The rest of the world can think what they want, but me and Tomomi at the very least, we believe you're a good person. Let yourself believe that, atleast."

"But - but they-!" He wanted to say it was different. That they didn't believe she was going to kill someone at any moment.
But he couldn't really. Because they might.
Rumours were awful things. They didn't make sense sometimes, but they were still believed, and easily struck home.

"...you two would definitely get along...you've got those same habits when it comes to change my mind on these things." He sighs. "I really don't know what either of you see in me."

Nadia laughed a little and shook her head. He really did have a response for everything. He had self-loathing down to a science. It was almost impressive, if it wasn't so infuriating. Still, Nadia liked a challenge. And Cecil was always a challenge. "Compared to those rumors, I'd say we see the truth. Or at the very least, a more reliable version of it." She shrugged, still holding onto that hand. It was getting clammy, but she didn't care. The fact that he had held onto it for so long was an important thing for him, she recognized, and she'd let him hold it for as long as he wanted to. "And we do get along." She finished, casually.

"That still doesn't tell me what you..." He pauses. "What do you mean, you get along?" He chuckles nervously as his eyes flit about. "You two haven't been drawn together by some supernatural force to conspire behind my back, have you?"

Nadia's face went blank as he mentioned them conspiring against him. "Yes. This date is a secret ploy to get you to join a self-help group." She said with a straight face, then shook her head, smiling. "No, Cecil. I...actually sort of went looking for him. Someone who meant that much to you...was worth knowing."

She waited a moment before continuing, giving his hand another squeeze. "And, if you want to know what I see in you...I see..." She paused, thinking of the best way to describe it. "A new moon. Rare, and dark and beautiful, even if no one can see it. I see...Someone who knows my lonliness in ways I'll never have to explain." She squeezed his hand and brought their joined fingers up between them. "And at the moment, I see this."

Cecil snickers. Alright, that was a stupid thing to say. It develops into a small smile though as she gives her explanation, and he finds himself nodding. "I'm...not sure I'd put it like that, but...yeah. He is."

Then...she says more. She answers the other question he'd asked. It still doesn't tell him much specific...he's still mostly as in the dark as before. But the poetic imagery captures his attention, as do the words that tell him a little more about where this bond came from.
The mild awe is utterly blown away as she calls attention to their hands again and he's rendered a blushing fool as he looks away.
"Only because you held it up like that...how does that explain what you see anyway?"

Nadia giggled a little bit, lowering their hands. "How does anyone explain what they see? Colors, shapes, distances? Those weren't the things you were asking about. It's not that easy to describe what you see in people. If you think you can do better, then what do you see in me?" She asked, not really hinging on the question like he seemed to be. This would buy her some time to figure out how to more straightforwardly answer his question though.

With a deep breath, Cecil stares Nadia down, raising one finger. "I..." He freezes. "I, uh-" His face contorts. "I, ay, uh, ah, erm, agjk, ugh-urk-"
His hand drops.
"I meant the hands! Not everything! Just - just the hands!"
THIS WAS HARD.
"I - making me start from the top isn't fair just for that!"
He might have started to perform an action resembling a pout.

Oh, this part was fun.
"But, I started from the top. I even compared you to the moon~" She swooned in a self mocking sway, knocking back against the locker with a subtle swish of fabric and small clank. At his pout, she started laughing. "Its okay. I hardly exist in this world, anyway. I imagine it's pretty hard to see anything in me." She replied flatly, it wasn't delivered with sadness, but as a simple statement of fact. She leaned forward a little bit more. "I'm a blank canvas, but feel free to paint something if you like."

Cecil scowls. He holds up their hands, hers now firmly grasped in his. "If you didn't really exist, I couldn't do this." He pulls her in by their joined hands, wrapping his other arm around her. "Or this, for that matter." He should be embarrassed by this. He could do that later. He looses his grip from her hand and slides his other arm around her. "Yup. Feels pretty real to me."

"For that matter-" He squeezes tight, determined to make his point. "Blank canvases don't have interests like art, music, and bathhouses. Blank canvases don't take an interest in everything from visiting mixed baths to the mortality of things. They don't talk, they don't try to get to know the people close to the people they care about - they don't care about people, they don't try to get those people they care about to see themselves as they see them, they don't see things of people at all, and they certainly don't kiss them and set up dates with them because they LIKE what they see for some crazy reason!"

He blinks and devolves into another mad blush.
"...and they don't get people so worked up about proving them wrong about this stuff they do something utterly stupid that I can't fathom the reason for doing like this at this point."

Nadia was taken off guard as Cecil brought her in close. She was not expecting Cecil to say anything to debuff her comment, in fact she had mostly said it to let him off the hook. But instead his arms were around her, and she was looking up at him with big, confused eyes and blushing across her entire face. To steady herself from being pulled in, her hands were now resting on his chest. Is this what he felt like when she took him completely by surprise?

Despite her shock, she heard every word. And all of those words hit home. She didn't even really mind being a blank canvas, but the fact that he was trying so hard to prove her wrong made her feel...made her feel...?

Her head fell forward, slumped against his chest in an attempt to hide her blush, and here eyes which were dangerously close to crying for some reason. Her hands gripped loosely at his shirt. "This isn't stupid." She finally said, "If this is stupid, then you should act stupid more often."

Cecil sputtered wildly for what felt like a minute and was more like ten seconds when he heard those words. It took a while for him to recoup from what was already a crushing blow to his mental coherency - one that he'd been responsible for initiating, no less.
Goddammit that blushing face did not help.
"...I don't know what to do now. I'm not even sure I'll be conscious in the next few minutes. This is...so, so embarrassing..." He chuckles awkwardly. "Problems allowing yourself intimacy with a human being? Why not drag them into a hug and go on a huge speech that leaves both of you blushing messes? Great idea! That won't make my brain leak out through my ears!"