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The time was… late. Incredibly late. The time where you’d look at the clock and start to think ‘it’s this late ALREADY?!’. Unfortunately for one particular idol, she happened to be awake at this time. It wasn’t by choice! She was just having a really nice dream! Her favorite Airi-chan was cuddling her, holding her tight, her pursed lips slowly inching toward Shizuku’s own-
The actual Shizuku, currently sitting at her futon’s edge reminiscing on just why she happened to wake up, felt her face flare up in a way that ensured she wouldn’t be sleeping anytime soon. Weird, how she still got like this even when the two are actually in a relationship. Hesitating due to a fear of the truth of the clock, she got up and picked up her phone, fumbling with the power button to turn the device on.
Burning into her eyes in bright white text, emblazoned in front of a group photo of More More Jump! after the visit to the penguin cafe were the numbers 3:06. As in, it was three in the morning, and Shizuku had to wake up for school rather soon.
That was… an issue. A massive issue, one that was dawning more and more on the sleep deprived idol; she already went to sleep rather late, struggling for far longer than necessary on a pesky math worksheet that she only solved upon guiltily calling Airi for an hour. It was doubtful Shizuku managed to fall asleep before midnight.
She yawned loudly and ungracefully, roughly rubbing her eyes with a closed hand. And yet, she still felt restless; that dream truly had an effect on her, huh? Unfortunately, she couldn’t dwell on it; sleep threatened to entirely take over her very self during class if she didn’t fix this right now.
Shizuku trudged out of her room, each slap on the wooden floor of her house feeling like a cymbal crash that could wake up her family at any slight increase in volume. She should have absolutely put slippers on… the chill of the bare surface exacerbated her sleep issues, each second spent feeling it waking up her body more and more. Troubling.
Stepping into the kitchen, Shizuku realized with a start that she wasn’t quite sure why she wandered into here. Why was this her first thought when she just wants to sleep?
Suddenly, the freeze of the floor reminded her. That’s right! A nice glass of warm milk!
With a newfound spring in her step and a quiet hum, the idol pulled a glass out of the cabinet, the milk being taken out of the fridge shortly after. With a steady, careful precision, she filled roughly half of the glass with the drink, screwing the cap back on and putting the carton away.
Now… the difficult part. Aqua eyes narrowed, Shizuku stared down her current nemesis, the biggest obstacle to her refreshing beverage.
The microwave.
Shizuku has a history with those contraptions. One riddled with incidents, accidents, mishappens, and everything in between. They seem even worse for her poor technological compatibility than anything else she’s thus far tried to operate. Sure, yes, her phone may shut off on its own or call any one of her contacts without her permission, her mere presence may make the feedback of her unit’s streams oddly grainy, she may have even caused one of Leo/need’s amps to malfunction when she needed to deliver something to her sister…
But the microwave? It hates her. Plain and simple.
Shizuku isn’t one to express feelings of hatred. But this device? The wretched and rigid block of heating tech? Painted a similar red to that of Shizuku’s own blood?
She would daresay it is almost as heinous a being as her ex-unitmates in Cheerful*Days. At the very least, whatever Shizuku feels about the technology is on par with Airi’s quote on quote ‘not suitable for streams’ opinions on Alisa.
She shook her head, erasing all thoughts of them away from her mind. They’re not relevant now, and they never will be. Shizuku took her glass of milk, her stare boring a metaphorical hole into the microwave, hopeful it would magically open up for her and she wouldn’t need to touch it more than necessary.
The door remained closed. Shizuku heaved a shaky sigh and swung it open herself.
WAM! The microwave’s door swung open at faster a speed than expected, banging into the wall it was placed far too close to. Shizuku audibly gasped, her very hand that had pried it open clapping over her mouth in shock.
She stood dead still for a full minute. Nobody in the house seemed to have stirred from that; the idol breathed a massive sigh of relief.
That accomplished, she slid the glass into the microwave. She very gently, slowly, painstakingly pushed the door back closed, wiping off imaginary sweat from her forehead when the deed was done. Unfortunately, next on her to-do list was typing in how many seconds it would be heated. She was always poor at this; nevermind her clumsy typos, she rarely ever set it the proper time. Too short, and nothing is done; too long, and whatever she wants to be heated is far too hot and irreparably so; it’s always a lose-lose situation for her. It’s stressful, if she’s being completely honest.
Still, she must do what must be done. With hesitation, she typed in what she hoped was at least a harmless number; 10 seconds. Managing to not make a mistake as she pressed the ‘Bake’ button, she sighed in relief. She did it. An accident-less trip to the kitchen! A more subtle than usual smile grew on Shizuku’s face; silly as it was, this was a genuine accomplishment for her. She thought of that one time Airi was nearly brought to tears over her successful phone screenshot. A small, nigh pointless thing, yet seeing Airi so happy made her think of it as one of her greatest accomplishments. Nearly forgetting her reasoning for being here, Shizuku lightly giggled, as-
BEEEEEEEEEP.
Her eyes widened in horror.
She forgot. The most important part of all. Upon reaching 0 on the timer, microwaves-
BEEEEEEEEEP.
-beep at an insufferable volume! Sheer terror outlining her features, Shizuku bounded forward, hand rapidly jutting across the surface of buttons, looking for-
BEEEEEEEEEP.
For! For! The Stop button! THE STOP BUTTON! THE-
BEEEE-
She found it. The beeping stopped, Shizuku’s heart rate reached its peak, slumping to the floor in defeat as she held a shaky hand over her chest. She feels like an absolute fool for forgetting to stop the microwave before it reached the end! She can only pray nobody was woken up by her blunder, so that she can take her hopefully warmed milk, drink it, and go back to sleep for what few hours she can muster.
Shortly after falling to the floor, a confused voice spoke up, groggy yet clear.
“... Onee-chan?”
Her hopes were dashed as fast as they were formed.
The younger of the Hinomoris stepped into the kitchen, bunny slippers silently sliding across the floor. Shiho observed her surroundings, looking at the currently occupied microwave in front of a defeated Shizuku. She moved forward to open it, seeing a warmed glass of milk resting inside. Shizuku, through bleary vision, could see the cogs turn in her sister’s head.
“Were you unable to sleep or something? You always did try to sneak off at night when we were younger, and always end up waking us up.” Shiho spoke oddly fondly, as if she was bringing up not something she’d rather forget but something she was glad to never forget.
Shizuku found the strength to get back on her feet, looking thoroughly defeated as she stood up. “Y-Yes… I remembered that warm milk always helped me go back to sleep, so I…” She didn’t voice the rest, uncharacteristic shame lining her voice. “I’m so sorry, Shii-chan, I tried my best to be quiet, but-”
She didn’t continue this either, wistfully sighing. With an aura of guilt following her, she took her glass out of the microwave, ready to raise it to her lips.
“Hey, it’s fine, it happens.” Shiho nonchalantly shrugged in response, before stifling a yawn. “Well, you did wake me up, but I’m not too mad about it. Any other day, sure, but there was a homework assignment I needed to do before heading to school anyway.”
Momentarily, Shizuku forgot about her guilt. “... Homework? Were you busy last night, Shii-chan?”
“Busy with Saki’s sudden compulsion to tell me all about racing horses from Wikipedia? Absolutely. Did you know that Silence Suzuka broke his leg and died mid race? And then, the next year, when the same person who jockeyed Silence Suzuka was jockeying Special Week at the same race, they won and the guy claimed Silence Suzuka’s spirit was empowering them?”
Shizuku blinked. “No, I didn’t! I don’t know much about racing horses.”
“Neither did I until last night.”
Shizuku giggled, before sighing deeply. “Anyway, Shii-chan… you should go do that. I don’t want to bother you more than I have…”
Shiho in response gave her a look. She wasn’t certain what it meant. “... Yeah yeah, sure.” She paused for a moment as she turned around, back very slightly hunching over as if she hesitated on saying something. “... Good luck going back to sleep, Onee-chan.”
Somehow, that boosted Shizuku’s spirit considerably. “Th-Thank you! And good luck with your homework, Shii-chan!”
The other Hinomori simply raised a hand in response, before heading off to her own room.
Shizuku then, finally, slowly drank her perfectly warmed glass of milk. Washing the glass and putting it away, the idol crawled back into her futon, feeling content. As content as she can feel at 3 AM, anyway.
Thankfully for her, the warm milk worked like a charm; she slept like a baby for those few hours she had left.
---
“And then it turned out Shii-chan had to wake up early to do homework anyway! I was so lucky…”
It was lunchtime, Shizuku’s acquired sleep had saved her that day. She dreads to think of what would have happened if she fell asleep during math…
“... Geez. Even when you don’t mean to, you're in Shiho-chan’s way.” Airi rolled her eyes, picking at her food. “So you woke your sister up with a microwave?”
Shizuku withdrew, still feeling rather guilty over the night’s events. She pouted, chopsticks held downward. “Y-You don’t need to word it like that, Airi-chan…!” She took a rather sad bite. “I wish I wasn’t like that…”
The sight made Airi’s heart ache. She played it off as casually as arguably possible. “Eh, it’s no biggie, really. Nothing a little teamwork can’t fix, right?”
Shizuku tilted her head.
“Well…” Airi sheepishly scratched her cheek, chopsticks temporarily forgotten. “Lord knows I probably won’t let you into the kitchen by yourself. I wouldn’t necessarily mind if you needed to, like, wake me up in the middle of the night or something.”
Shizuku blinked, mind passing over all but one detail in whatever Airi had said. “We’re gonna live together, Airi-chan?”
Time appeared to stop for the pink idol, the redness on her face being the only thing that was moving. And it was moving at unheard of speeds.
“Why, I’d love that!” Though red threatened to swallow her face whole as well, Shizuku’s hands gleefully clasped together, a bright smile growing on her face. “I mean, Haruka-chan and Shii-chan already compare us to a married couple! No reason why we can’t prove them right!”
“Th-That’s… but…” Airi’s arm moved like a mechanical limb, inching forward with her pointer finger aimed straight at Shizuku. She appeared unable to process whatever she had let slip out. Shizuku, meanwhile, found it fitting to lean over, kissing Airi on the forehead; a sort of counterattack for what Airi did in her dream.
She smirked, an oddly smug look on Shizuku’s face.
“I’d love nothing more than for us to use our microwave together, Airi-chan.”
And not once did either idol think of how
silly
that sentence sounded.