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“Miu-chan. Miu-chaaaaaan. Miu-chan, do you even hear me? Miu-chan, I’m wasting away out here and you’re not even looking at me… Clearly you must’ve gone deaf, or maybe you just hate me and want to see me suffer…”
Miu lets out a frustrated growl, finally lifting her head from under the bed. She hooked up a contraption when they first bought this bedframe six months ago so that she could adjust the height of the bed whenever she wants, but recently it’s been malfunctioning in the middle of the night, sending the bed shooting to the floor and waking up everyone trying to sleep. Not amazing. Should be an easy enough fix, but it’s harder when you have your shit-stain of a boyfriend whining in your ear.
“What do you want from me, jackass?”
Kokichi rocks on his feet, preening despite Miu’s jab. “Are you done yet?”
“Do I look done?” Miu asks, gesturing around her with the wrench in her hand. “I swear to god, if that’s all you wanted to ask—”
“Because we were supposed to start getting ready for our date like threeeeee hours ago.” Kokichi folds his arms and pouts, and Miu blinks. It takes her a moment to remember—she’s a bit tired—but after a moment it does occur to her that they’d planned a date for today. It’d even been on her mind this morning as she was setting out to take care of the bed, but she hadn’t thought it would take that long.
“Shit, seriously? My bad, I can—”
“Three hours is an exaggeration,” Kiibo interjects, sticking his head in from the hallway. He’s tying a scarf around his neck, though he arguably doesn’t need it, levelling a displeased look in Kokichi’s direction. “We agreed to start getting ready around fifteen minutes ago. I told him not to go get you so you would have a chance to get that work done, because I know it has been bothering you.”
Kokichi tucks his arms behind his neck with a lopsided grin. “And I decided to disregard Kiibo’s instruction! This isn’t the robot apocalypse, it’s not like I have to take orders from that guy.”
“I would ask you to heed my advice out of love for me, rather than fear for your life.”
“Beggars can’t be choosers, RoboCop.”
“I’ll have you know that that movie—”
Snickering, Miu lifts both hands and pats the air in a placating gesture. “A’ight, a’ight. I get the picture. Either way, this ain’t anything that can’t wait until later, so I can get ready now.” She puts her wrench aside and gets to her feet, stretching a bit. It wasn’t any dirty work, but Miu figures she should still probably change. She steps up to the closet to poke around for an outfit. “Can I get any idea of where we’re going so I know what to wear?”
Kiibo opens his mouth, but Kokichi beats him to it: “I reserved us seats in a super fancy upscale restaurant! Black tie only! Better dress to impress, Miu-chan!”
Squinting over her shoulder, Miu tries to gauge Kokichi’s seriousness, but of course that’s impossible to do at a glance. Letting out a huff of air through her teeth, Miu turns back to the closet and selects a part of long cargo pants, as well as one of her prettier crop tops. Clearly, Kokichi wouldn’t book them seats at a restaurant like that for no reason (unless it was to mess with her, but Miu doubts he would’ve made those plans that far in advance) but she still wants to look good, even if it’s not red carpet good.
Oh, who is she kidding. Miu always looks red carpet good. She cackles a bit to herself as she stomps into the bathroom, but quickly transitions into changing once the door is closed. Wouldn’t want to leave her boyfriends waiting any longer than they already have been.
The destination Kokichi selected, it turns out, is not a restaurant at all. He drives them somewhat further than they usually go for their dates, which almost makes Miu sweat thinking she’d chosen the wrong outfit, but when Kokichi pulls off the highway, he drives them to a joke store.
“You’re joking,” Miu scoffs as Kokichi kills the engine.
“That’s the idea of this place, yeah,” Kokichi agrees, before shooting Miu a devilish grin. Miu rolls her eyes, reaching over to fuck up his hair before she gets out of the car, leaving him squawking in protest behind her. Kiibo is laughing slightly as he falls into step at Miu’s side, looking up at the building.
“At the very least, it’s a new store,” Kiibo muses, eyeing a poster by the entrance that lists their grand opening date—only three days prior. These date plans have been in place long enough that Miu wonders if Kokichi might have scheduled the outing specifically to get her and Kiibo to check out the shop with him. A part of her hopes that wasn’t it—she’d like to think Kokichi knows he could ask her to go to a prank store any time and she’d go, albeit with some complaining—but it would be a little bit funny if that was it. Talk about an overplanner.
Miu elbows Kiibo lightly, more for her own sake than his, in the interest of not digging her elbow into metal. “How fucking different can it be? No matter what Kichi’s just gonna take us to find the horse heads.”
“I have a reputation to maintain, Miu,” Kokichi huffs as he pops in between her and Kiibo. His arms sling around them, and Miu rolls her eyes, but nonetheless rests a hand against his shoulder. “Even if I didn’t like the horse heads anymore, it wouldn’t be a proper trip if I didn’t take my soulmates over to see them!”
“I think the trip would be fine, honestly,” Miu says dryly.
Kiibo, on the other hand, seems genuinely flattered by the use of the word soulmate. “A joke store is much more your domain than mine, Kokichi,” he says sincerely. “So I will follow your lead.”
Ugh. Look at this dude, making Miu look like a bad girlfriend! “I-I mean, if you wanna see the shitty horse heads then it’s whatever, I’ll go—not like I got anything else I wanna see at a prank store.”
Her stammering gets her a tongue-in-teeth grin from Kokichi for her troubles, but as handsome as it is it does still bring a dark blush onto her face. Miu clears her throat and tries to come up with some kind of rebuttal (even though Kokichi didn’t even say anything) but is thankfully spared from having to do so by entering the store.
It’s largely the same as every other prank store Miu has ever been in before, from the shitty lighting to the shelves of dumb gags and fake body parts right down to the smell of plastic lingering in the air. She’s never been a fan of these spots—put her in a hardware store and she’s right at home but Miu finds rubber chicken squeaks pretty fucking grating—but the way that Kokichi seems to buzz with excitement does make her sort of happy. Happy enough at least to withhold any commentary as Kokichi grabs both of their wrists and drags them further into the store.
True to form, he does make a beeline right for the animal heads. Miu thinks there had been something to it earlier when Kokichi was talking about his reputation. They have at least six of these already sitting back home, but Kokichi still picks one off the shelf and turns around with his eyes wide and lower lip jutted out.
“No,” Miu says automatically. “They’re cluttering up the damn house.”
“Like you care about clutter,” Kokichi scoffs. “Come on, use some of your eyedrop patent money on me! What’s the point of a big busted sugar mommy if you won’t buy me shit?”
Miu flushes. “Th-The big bust?! What the fuck else?”
“If it will keep you both from discussing such topics in public,” Kiibo rasps out, “I will pay for the horse head. But Kokichi, Miu is right that you’re amassing quite the… collection.”
Kokichi gleefully deposits the horse head into Kiibo’s arms before he turns to flee. “Not my fault my own lovers don’t have an eye for art, Kiiboy!”
Eyes narrowed, Miu scrutinises one of the horse heads still hung up, as if she might be able to bleed the artistic value from it with her gaze alone. There’s really not that much to see, though. It’s a rubber horse head. Kokichi likes throwing them on and running around the house at odd hours to startle Miu while she’s burning the candle from both ends. That part is annoying, but it is a little nice when Kokichi takes the head off and Miu gets to smooth the static out of his hair.
“Miu?” Kiibo sounds aghast. “Should I… give you both some privacy?” He gestures towards Miu and the horse head, and Miu abruptly realises she’s blushing. While making intent eye contact with black rubber horse eyes.
“N-No! God!” Miu flips on her heel and starts stomping further into the shop. “Why would you even fucking ask that, Kiibo?” She falters momentarily before continuing, “Don’t answer that!”
Kiibo indeed does not answer it. Probably for the better, because even if Kiibo had tried to sugar coat it for her, Miu is sure she would have had a heart attack. She rounds one of the displays and nearly runs into Kokichi, who is standing suspiciously still in the middle of the aisle with his hands clasped behind his back.
When they make eye contact, Kokichi smiles. “Hey babe.”
“I—” Miu’s voice comes out a little strangled. It used to drive her crazy when Kokichi would call her that—and it still does, sometimes, that’s her secret—but nowadays she knows he only brings out the nickname when he’s about to mess with her. “Not a chance, asshole.”
Kokichi deflates. “So I was right that nobody in my own household loves me… What a tragic life I lead…” He shuffles past Miu, sniffling, only to perk right back up when he comes face to face with Kiibo. “Oh, hello, my beloved Kiibo-chan!”
Bringing out a beloved means Kokichi is really planning something awful, but even after all these years, Kiibo still softens at the sight of Kokichi’s smile. “Hello, Kokichi. Did you find something fun?”
“Gimme your hand,” Kokichi responds, putting a hand out. As Kiibo shuffles the horse head in his arms to do as instructed, Miu lets out a groan.
“Kiibo, don’t, he’s probably got a fucking buzzer in his—”
Kokichi takes Kiibo’s hand and pulls him in close. Not only does Kiibo not react to any shocks, but Kokichi darts onto his toes and presses their lips together, right there in the middle of the aisle. Miu’s voice dies mid-sentence and her face flushes what must be an alarming shade of red as she watches them. A moment later, Kokichi pulls back, snickering and turning back to face Miu. His eyes are glittering.
Kiibo, for his part, looks a little woozy. “That was nice.”
“It was, wasn’t it?” Kokichi laughs, and has the audacity to sound jovial about it. “Too bad I didn’t get to kiss Miu-chan too… She did say not a chance, and as I am such a respectful and attentive boyfriend I would never want to violate a loud and clear signal from her…”
Miu surges forward with her teeth grit, seizing two fistfuls of his scarf and yanking Kokichi up to face her. For a moment she’s not sure if she’s going to bonk their heads together or go for the kiss, but the sight of his violet eyes so close wins her over. It helps that his lips are soft, too. They taste a little like cotton candy.
When Miu pulls back, Kokichi’s gone silent, his eyes slightly wide. It’s the most shock Miu will ever get out of him, so she savours the moment while it lasts, sort of just drinking in that look right up until Kokichi takes her hand in his, then presses a hand-buzzer into her palm.
“Hey!” It doesn’t really hurt, it’s just a buzz, but it’s still surprising. Miu jerks her arm away. “You asshole!”
“I switched hands,” Kokichi offers. “Plus, I would never do that to Kiiboy, you know?”
“We both know that isn’t true,” Kiibo says, far too warmly to be genuinely miffed about it. “I will indulge you with the horse head, but I won’t buy you a hand-buzzer, I hope you know that.”
Kokichi deflates, looking so genuinely crushed for a moment that Miu has to turn away, no matter how good she is at spotting his lies now. Shaking her head, Miu walks over to Kiibo and quickly ducks down to kiss him on the lips.
Kiibo makes a surprised mmf into her mouth.
“W-What prompted that?” Kiibo stutters, one of his hands lifting to cup the side of her neck. Always so gentle. Miu leans slightly into the touch, then pulls back, because if someone caught her acting lovey dovey with her boyfriend in a public place she would probably erupt into flame.
Then she shrugs, looking down and smoothing out the creases in her shirt. “Wanted to even it out.”
The awkward admission at least gets a smile out of Kiibo, and they exchange a soft look right up until Kokichi bursts in between them with little tentacle finger puppets on all ten of his fingers. Miu shrieks when one of them gets too close to her face, and Kiibo loudly insists that Kokichi put them back because they are not buying those ugly little things.
(They do buy them though. Those and the hand-buzzer. When it comes down to it, Miu and Kiibo are just horribly down bad for the little shit.)