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Where was the pick for her bass? Shiho tried to recall where she had ended up putting it after her last rehearsal. It wasn’t in her case, so she was most likely to have placed it in her jacket pocket. An amateur mistake, thinking back on it. In any case, right, she remembered the one. She had put it in the laundry basket. The last person to have done the laundry was… oh. Shizuku. They’d had to write the instructions for running the washing machine step by step for her on account of her being so dismally incompetent with any form of technology. So far, she hadn’t blown anything up. Yet.
Making her way over to where the clean clothes were, she sifted through before realising her jacket wasn’t there. Maybe Shizuku had accidentally gotten it mixed in with her clothes? Shiho didn’t really want to rummage through her older sister’s wardrobe, even if she’d gladly say yes if she asked. Unfortunately, she’d left earlier without saying anything to Shiho - a little unusual, since Shizuku always made it a point to tell her whenever she was going out. Hoping that she was just on a leisurely walk somewhere nearby, she pulled out her phone to give her a call. A few rings later and Shizuku had picked up; at least she was able to answer phone calls without any issue.
“Hey sis,” Shiho said.
“Shii-chan!” Shizuku squealed in delight. It always elevated her mood whenever her beloved little sister gave her a call. Although knowing her, it was usually whenever she needed something from her. If it was coming from Shiho, Shizuku was always more than happy to oblige. “What’s up?” she asked.
“Uh, I need your help, can you come here?” Shiho asked.
“Oh, I’m so sorry Shii-chan, I can't, I’m buying clothes,” Shizuku replied. Wait, what? Peeking into Shizuku’s room, Shiho noted that her older sister had at least remembered to bring her disguise. Thank goodness.
“Alright, well then hurry up and get over here,” requested Shiho, a bit of urgency in her voice.
Shizuku looked around her, eventually admitting, “I can’t find them.”
Shiho had heard this line many times time before from her sister but it never failed to exasperate her. “What do you mean you can’t find them?” she prodded, hoping to get even the least helpful of hints.
“I can’t find them,” Shizuku said worriedly, “there’s only soup.” She glanced down the aisle, finding herself surrounded in nothing but rows upon rows of soup cans.
A hint, it was. Helpful, it was not. “What do you mean there’s only soup?” Shiho asked, her irritation slowly growing by the second.
“It means there’s only soup!” Shizuku responded, confused as to both how she was lost in an aisle full of soup products and how Shiho didn’t understand her very basic answer. Surely, if the aisle was full of only soup, it would make sense simply to say there was only soup?
Shiho facepalmed. She knew her sister was bad - no, absolutely terrible - with directions, but how on earth did she get lost in a store of all places? For that matter, what kind of store simultaneously stocked soup and clothes?
“Well then get out of the soup aisle!” she exclaimed.
“Alright, you don’t have to shout at me!” Shizuku said back, clearly a little hurt at her sister’s sudden outburst. She knew she was bad - no, absolutely terrible - with directions, but she was certain she was in the right place. After all, Minori had told her that she’d find what she was looking for "at the soup store." Shizuku would never doubt her. Remembering her friend’s words, she regained her confidence and promptly moved over to the next aisle over only to be met with an alarming discovery.
“There’s more soup!” she proclaimed, her panic setting back in. She didn’t want her sister to yell at her again but she had no idea how else to put it.
Shiho was now very confused. “What do you mean there’s more soup?”
“There’s just more soup!” Shizuku maintained, her eyes darting from soup can to soup can.
A store has absolutely no need for two aisles dedicated completely to soup. If Shiho could talk to the manager, she would spare them no quarter. “Go into the next aisle!” she demanded.
Wordlessly, Shizuku again switched aisles. Her little sister was starting to sound kind of scary. To her dismay, all Shizuku could see and all she could give Shiho upon entering the next aisle was, “There’s still soup!”
This was getting ridiculous. “Where are you right now?!” Shiho yelled, her patience having finally ran out.
Shizuku left the building to look at the storefront. Nervously, she responded, “I’m at Soup!”
Soup had no longer sounded like a word just as much as Shiho no longer had time for this.
“What store are you in?!”
“I’m at the soup store!”
“WHY ARE YOU BUYING CLOTHES AT THE SOUP STORE?!”
“FOR YOU!”
Well that definitely wasn’t the response Shiho was expecting. She could only ask incredulously, “What?” Then her heart sunk; on the other end of the line, she could make out Shizuku sobbing, desperately trying to fight back tears. Ah crap. She didn’t mean to make her cry.
“Minori-chan showed me this really cute hoodie with a Phenny design on it and I wanted to surprise you by getting it for you as a present!” Shizuku explained in between sobs. Oh. Now Shiho felt horrible. Shizuku only wanted to do something nice for her and she had just brought her to tears. Truly, sister of the year material, Shiho was not.
“Oh my God, look, sis, I’m really sorry, okay? I’m begging you, please don’t cry!” Shiho pleaded, her soul leaving her body with every gut-wrenching wail Shizuku made. She was getting concerned that someone might recognise her sister out in public; the humiliation both of them would face would be disastrous. She had to make it up to her somehow. Swallowing her pride, Shiho said the first thing that came to mind, “I will spend the entire day tomorrow with you, doing anything that you want to do. I’m sorry for yelling at you, Shizuku, just please stop crying!”
Upon hearing these words, Shizuku perked up a little. “You… you mean it? Really?” she asked, a glimmer of hope in her voice.
“Yes, I mean it. I promise,” Shiho assured her.
At this, Shizuku started crying even harder. “Oh, Shii-chan! You’re the sweetest little sister anyone could ever ask for! I’m so happy right now! I love you so much!” she proclaimed, her regard for anonymity thrown right out the window.
“Uh, yeah, okay,” Shiho stuttered, very taken aback at her sister’s mood whiplash. At least she was now crying tears of joy, Shiho figured. She sighed and allowed herself to loosen up, permitting the faintest of smiles to creep onto her face. She murmured, “I love you too, sis.”
“What was that? I couldn’t hear you,” Shizuku asked, wiping the tears from her eyes.
“Nothing. I didn’t say anything,” Shiho answered promptly. Despite this somewhat messy conclusion, something was still nagging at her; only one half of this whole debacle was made clear. Returning her attention to Shizuku’s predicament, she questioned, “Wait, you still haven’t told me what drove you to go clothes shopping at the soup store. You said… Minori directed you there?”
Despite it being a phone call, Shizuku nodded her head and asserted, “Yes. She said that she had seen that hoodie “at the soup store.” I was confused too, but I trusted her.”
Minori said that? What kind of wild assertion was that? The aspiring idol wasn’t without sense though, unlike a certain airhead, so there must have been more to the story.
“Do you know approximately where you are?” Shiho asked.
Shizuku looked around before unconfidently stating, “Um… I think I’m near Main Street?”
“…Really?”
“Yes!”
…Okay, she was holding her to that. Swiping to switch over to her GPS, Shiho narrowed down the area of interest to Main Street and typed in “Soup” in the hopes that she would somehow be able to identify which godforsaken store her older sister had waltzed unknowingly into. As she scanned over the results, one particular hit caused her to do a double take. Her jaw dropped. Somewhere a few blocks down was another unassuming little store misleadingly called “SOUP.” Its specialty? Clothing.
Shiho would have words with Minori when next they met.