Was it? ... He knew he'd heard of the place before. This was bad. Quickly, say something. "—Was that the place?" he managed with a embarrassed half-smile. "That's... That's nice...."

Smooth. Ugh.... He couldn't just deflect this question; it'd make it seem like he really was imitating Shun. "That's their favorite, I suppose. They recommended it when I asked...."

No, that wasn't sufficient, either. He lapsed into silence. Think it through from the beginning. To begin with, this was weird, wasn't it? He hadn't told her anything. He'd sprung this on her out of nowhere. All of the other times they'd gone somewhere together had been casual affairs, or at the very least, not...formal. Ryusei had made it formal, and had changed the way they'd gone about things; naturally, she wanted to know what was going on.

He didn't want to lie. He didn't want her expectations to be...that, either. "I..." He trailed off. "This is nice, too, isn't it?" he tried again. "From time to time. You know how JK gets, with all the teasing...."

Hopefully that would be enough to imply it was a formal date only and nothing more.