Miku sighed. She was washing dishes after dinner with Hibiki as usual, her girlfriend patiently waiting with a big dumb grin on her face. Miku made curry again for the third time this week. Hibiki would lovingly devour anything that Miku made her, but Miku wanted to go beyond that. She wanted to truly impress and amaze her lover each night with delicious foods. Once the dishes were done, she put a smile on her face and returned to Hibiki so the pair could go through their nightly routines together. They did their homework, brushed their teeth, took a bath, and through all of it Miku couldn't get the thought of wanting to do more out of her head, wanting to do something special. As the two settled into bed together after finishing their bath and getting dressed for bed, Hibiki took note of her partner’s troubled expression.

“Miku? Is something wrong?”

She jumped slightly, not wanting to worry Hibiki. “No, no I’m fine. Just… thinking.”

Hibiki pulled Miku in closer to her, nuzzling into her shoulder. “Whatever it is, I’m sure it’ll be fine. You’re my sunshine after all.”

Miku wordlessly returned Hibiki’s gesture, hugging her girlfriend tighter while running a hand through her brown hair as the two drift off to sleep.

Hibiki is the first to notice their friends as the pair walk through the gates leading into their school. Following their usual routine, Hibiki jumps out to Chris excitedly in an attempt to hug her and is met with firm resistance in the form of a blow to the head. Miku, Kirika, and Shirabe stand to the side giggling at the interaction as all five of them group together to talk with each other before they need to scuttle about to get to their classrooms.

“When will you learn to stop trying to hug me like that?!” Chris said angrily.

“But you're so cute it's impossible to resist!” Hibiki exclaimed with a smile on her face.

The first period bell rings before Chris can say anything more, prompting her to simply pout as the group splits while Chris heads in one direction and the rest of them go another way. The remaining group of four head down the hallway leading to their classes. Kirika and Hibiki pull ahead, talking and laughing about things that the other two girls can’t quite make out.

Miku quietly grabs Shirabe’s attention with a question. “Hey, Shirabe, you used to do a lot of cooking before you started attending Lydian with us, right?”

“Ah, yeah. I still do a lot of cooking for Kiri in the dorms, too.” Shirabe confirmed.

“Do you think you could teach me how to be a better cook?” Miku asked. “I really want to be able to do something nice for Hibiki but I’m stuck making the same things repeatedly. Hibiki doesn’t really seem to mind but...” Miku’s voice trails off towards the end, the same troubled expression cropping up on her face again.

Shirabe begins to respond, but is quickly cut off as Kirika bounds toward the two of them. “An aquarium! There's an aquarium opening!”

Shirabe stares confusedly at Kirika until Miku speaks up. “Oh! I was talking to Hibiki about the new aquarium yesterday. I thought it would be nice to go on a date there.”

Kirika eagerly grabs Shirabe's hand, speaking a bit too loudly for where they were. “Let's go on a date too! It's been so long since we've been able to go anywhere!”

Shirabe softens her expression to a smile in response. “Yeah! That sounds like fun.”

Hibiki speaks as she walks back to rejoin the group. “We can all go together! It'll be a double date!”

Miku replies cheerfully. “Should we all go on Sunday then? We can all have fun together.”

The group all agrees, excited at the idea before Hibiki notices the time and they all rush to their classrooms. The rest of the day goes by peacefully. Hibiki gets scolded for not finishing her homework, Miku sighs and resigns herself to help her partner get work done during lunch, Kirika spaces out during class, and Shirabe makes sure that her girlfriend knows what the homework actually is. By the end of it all, the four girls are exhausted from the sheer nothingness of the day. Back in the dorms, Hibiki and Miku take a moment to relax and unwind. Miku cuddles into Hibiki's lap as Hibiki plays some game, her arms wrapped around Miku's form while holding a controller.

By dinner time Miku had gotten up to go cook while Hibiki struggled to wrestle with the words in her textbook. The same familiar feeling from before crept up on Miku as she prepared a dinner of chicken cutlets for themselves. It wasn't something she had made previously that week, but she made the same dish twice in the previous week and she couldn't shake the feeling of wanting to outdo herself. As she brought the chicken over to her girlfriend, Miku psyched herself up for the date coming up that weekend.

“I'm definitely going to find some time to talk to Shirabe alone on Sunday.” She thought to herself. “And I'll make sure to surprise Hibiki the next day with something I've never made before too!”

As the food is set down on the table, Hibiki carelessly tosses her textbook to the side, her face lighting up in excitement. “Thank you, Miku!” She garbles out, rice already being shoveled into her mouth.

“You shouldn't speak with your mouth full like that!” Miku chided, a measure of playfulness in her voice.

Hibiki apologized, her mouth still full, before they went about their dinner talking about the day and their plans for the date. Once they were done with dinner, Miku began to clean up and they went about their nightly routines as usual. After getting dressed for bed and settling into the top bunk together, the couple slowly drifted to sleep, Hibiki's muscled arm draped over Miku.

By the time Sunday arrived, Kirika and Shirabe were standing outside the entrance to the aquarium, waiting patiently for their friends to show up. They agreed on meeting up early in the day, but it had already been fifteen minutes since the time they planned on. The aquarium just opened recently, so crowds of families and couples still swarmed the place, taking the day as an opportunity to relax and have fun. Eventually Kirika spotted Miku within the crowds, holding onto a hand that presumably belonged to Hibiki. Most of the people in the crowd stop dead in their tracks as Kirika lets out a loud shout to get the attention of her friends.

“Miku! Hibiki!”

Miku and the now visible Hibiki startle at the noise before looking in the direction it came from, easily spotting their friends in the stopped crowd. They quickly make their way over to an excited waving Kirika and a visibly embarrassed Shirabe attached to her hand.

“Kiri, not so loud! We're in public.” Shirabe begs her girlfriend to be a bit less enthusiastic with whispered words.

Once Hibiki and Miku reach their friends, Hibiki lets out a nervous laugh before speaking. “Sorry we got here so late, I overslept a bit...”

“Trying to wake her up in the morning is harder than getting a backstage pass to one of Tsubasa's concerts.“ Miku says with a pout.

Overcoming her previous embarrassment, Shirabe counters the statement quickly. “I don't think that's the best analogy for us in particular.”

The group laughs at the observation before quickly making their way to the entrance of the building. Once inside the aquarium proper, Kirika and Hibiki look around in amazement at the different attractions the place has to offer while Shirabe and Miku smile on at their girlfriends' apparent sense of childlike wonder.

After a while, Shirabe asks the group. “So, where shall we start?”

Kirika and Hibiki respond in unison, each looking in a different direction. “Let's start there!” Kirika points toward a coastal wildlife attraction while Hibiki looks to an exhibit on sharks.

“Well it'd be a bit hard to do two things at once... how about we start with the one Kirika wants to go to?” Miku replied.

Hibiki responds cheerfully, seemingly okay with anything. “That sounds good to me!”

“Should we head over there then?” Shirabe agrees, setting the group in motion.

As the two couples head over to their first stop hand in hand, Hibiki gives Kirika a quizzical look. “Hey Kirika, why'd you wanna do this one first?”

“I think octopuses are neat!” Kirika exclaims. “They're super smart and the sign listing all the different attractions said that this place has an octopus tank!”

Hibiki gets inexplicably fired up hearing Kirika talk about octopuses. “Ooh?! How smart are they? Can they do tricks?”

“Yeah! And if they're not contained properly they'll break out of their tanks looking for food!”

Kirika begins spouting out fact after fact about octopuses, Hibiki getting more and more into it by the minute. Shirabe giggles at the exchange between Hibiki and Kirika having heard it all before. Miku listened in on the conversation between the two girls, curious about octopuses herself as well. The small group quickly arrives at their destination, a large door opposite the aquarium entrance itself, adorned with pictures of beaches and coastal fish. The girls let go of each others' hands as they look around for where to start. Beyond the door to the exhibit was a lobby leading to smaller sections partitioned within the exhibit. The doors to each individual section had a small plaque next to them explaining what each specific section contained. It didn't take long for Kirika to home in on the section containing a variety of tanks housing wildlife that could be found in or near coastal waters.

“It's this way! Let's go!” Kirika urged the group on in the direction of the tanks, rushing off ahead of everyone else with Hibiki close behind.

“Ah, wait a minute!” Miku tries to call out and stop the duo from getting too far by themselves, but by the time the words have left her mouth the two are already past the door.

“They really are pretty similar.” Shirabe observes as the girls pull away from the group. “But that sort of eagerness is part of what I love about Kiri.”

“Yeah, even if it's a bit of a problem sometimes, Hibiki's obsession with helping others just makes me love her even more.” Miku agrees as the two girls start to track down their partners.

Once they're in the section with all the fish tanks, it doesn't take long to spot Hibiki and Kirika near the octopus tank. The overeager duo are enthralled by the animal on the other side of the glass, making excited sounds any time the creature moves.

“And even how easily excited she gets has its own sort of charm.” Miku adds on to her earlier statement as all four girls rejoin.

Kirika's eyes beam with excitement as she points at the circular window looking into the tank. “Shirabe, look! I've never seen one in real life before!”

Shirabe stares at the window, confused by the apparently empty fish tank. “Kiri... there's nothing there.”

Kirika points to the bottom of the tank, getting a bit too excited. “No, look! It's camouflaging itself in with the floor, wait until it moves again!” A large pile of sand and dust sits at the bottom, Shirabe and Miku leaning in to take a better look.

After a bit, the pile stirs as the animal darts out from cover. Miku startles enough that she takes a step back and begins to fall over, the strong arm of her girlfriend catching her before she can make it to the floor.

“Whoa! Be careful Miku!” Hibiki yelps as she catches her partner swiftly.

Miku locks eyes with Hibiki, giving nothing but a pleasant smile for a few moments before deciding to speak. “Thanks Hibiki, that really surprised me. It just looked like a bunch of dust to me!”

Kirika turns to an apparently unaffected Shirabe, pouting. “Why didn't you get surprised? I wanna be able to catch you too!”

Shirabe stares at Kirika for just a moment before turning around and intentionally falling back toward her girlfriend. Kirika leaps to catch her as well, the two locking eyes the same way Hibiki and Miku did. Instead of any words, the two merely exchange smiles and giggles before everyone is back standing upright and laughing at the whole spectacle.

“What if she didn't catch you? That could've been dangerous, Shirabe!” Hibiki voices concerns she doesn't quite believe herself, holding back another laugh.

Shirabe smiles, clinging to Kirika's arm. “I knew she would though. After all, she is my Kiri.”

Everyone lets out another round of giggles as the group begins to walk around and look at the other fish tanks. Next to each tank is a plaque explaining what's inside, each one going completely ignored by Hibiki as she and Miku quickly go from window to window marveling at the multicolored clouds of fish and coral. Kirika and Shirabe on the other hand read each plaque carefully, trying to spot all the different kinds of animals on display before moving on to the next.

“When did you become so interested in stuff like this, Kiri?” Shirabe asks, paying more attention to her girlfriend than anything else.

“Well we used to eat so much fish that once we started going to school I thought I'd want to know more about them. It doesn't feel right eating something you don't know anything about!” Kirika gives out a slightly nervous response, her voice becoming oddly confident toward the end.

Shirabe looked at her girlfriend intently before replying. “That's true I guess, but we don't eat nearly as much of it anymore.”

Kirika stammers out her reply, somehow still managing her usual overconfident way of speaking. “Still! We've eaten so much that we have to make up for it!”

Quickly realizing her partner's habit of making up excuses to hide any shame, Shirabe decides not to push the issue and simply sidles up to Kirika, pressing their sides together. Kirika returns the gesture by reaching out and wrapping an arm around Shirabe, pulling her in closer while giving a light affectionate squeeze.

As the two move on to look at another window, Hibiki and Miku return to them, Hibiki speaking out. “All of the fish here are so pretty! It's like an underwater rainbow!”

Miku chimes in, her girlfriend's enthusiasm brightening her smile. “We're done looking at all the different tanks, so we'll follow you around until it's time to move on.”

“We were almost finished ourselves, so we can hurry up if you don't wanna wait too much.” Shirabe calmly replies, looking to her distracted partner.

“Look! A crab!” Kirika cries out, not even noticing the fact that the other two girls have shown back up.

Hibiki moves up to where Kirika is, just as amazed at the creature as the other girl. “It's so fast!”

“When did you get here?!” Kirika yelps out in surprise at Hibiki's sudden presence, stumbling backwards a bit.

“Kiri...” Shirabe simply calls out her girlfriend's name, a slight look of worry on her face due to her partner's lack of awareness.

Hibiki and Miku let out a slight giggle once everyone is gathered back up, the girls moving on to look at the remaining few displays. Once Kirika and Shirabe are done the group looks at the rest of the exhibit, which mostly consists of information about coral reefs and pollution. About halfway through, Hibiki's attention span is exhausted as she starts ignoring the words written on the displays in favor of the few visuals of beaches and water scattered about. After the group reaches the end of the attraction, Hibiki lets out a loud yawn.

“That was neat! I kinda wanna go to a beach now.”

“You weren't even paying attention to half of it!” Miku replied with a pout.

Hibiki laughed nervously as Kirika spoke up. “It's true though! Going through that really makes me want to go to the beach.”

“Maybe we can do that another time. I don't think any of us brought swimsuits today.” Shirabe commented, pointing out the obvious flaw in the plan.

Hibiki and Kirika let out a dejected sigh as Miku speaks up cheerfully. “Should we move on to the sharks, then?”

The two previously disappointed girls light up, Hibiki speaking out eagerly. “Yeah! Let's go look at that now!”

Hibiki darts forward out of the exhibit, stopping short a few feet past the door. The other three girls move up to approach her as Miku speaks.

“Do you know where you're going?”

“Not at all!” Hibiki lets out an unnecessarily confident statement, relying on her girlfriend for direction.

Miku sighs, smiling immediately afterward before replying to her partner's exclamation. “Here, it's this way. Follow me.”

The four girls depart for their next destination, Miku at the lead with Hibiki close behind her. Shirabe and Kirika are just a bit behind Hibiki, walking side by side with their hands joined. The sharks were only a short walk away, not allowing for much discussion during the trip. As the group passed through into the exhibit area itself, Hibiki and Kirika's eyes light up upon seeing the very first thing on display. A shallow, open topped tank with baby sharks swimming around for people to pet was off to the side of the room, with two employees standing by to make sure no one was harming the animals. Kirika and Hibiki almost immediately walk up to the tank, eager to pet the sharks as one of the employees tells them how to do so properly.

Shirabe and Miku are left behind again, smiling at their impulsive girlfriends as Miku starts speaking to Shirabe. “I guess they really can't help themselves when they see something they think is interesting.”

Shirabe agrees, keeping a close eye on Kirika to make sure she doesn't cause a scene. “When Kiri sees something new she always gets straight to looking at what it is.”

“Speaking of new things, now seems like a good time to talk about cooking.” Miku reminds Shirabe of their conversation earlier that week, taking the opportunity to talk to her while the other two girls are distracted.

“You're probably right. Kiri will be preoccupied with the sharks for at least a short while. Is there anything in particular you wanted to know about?” Shirabe replies, unsure of where exactly to start.

Miku thinks for a moment before responding. “Well... a lot of the times I cook, it feels like so much goes to waste because I don't need to use up all of the ingredients I buy just for two people.”

“Oh, for stuff like that I usually plan an entire week's worth of meals at a time, and buy all the ingredients in one trip. The last day of the week I usually just take whatever we have left and make something out of it.” Shirabe answered, seeming to be too excited to talk about cooking despite her usual quiet nature.

A troubled look crops up on Miku's face “That sounds difficult... I go off of recipes for most of what I make and it's hard to find overlap for ingredients.”

“Recipes are a good starting point, but once you have an idea of how certain foods go with one another you should start trying to experiment with what you have!” Shirabe continues to become more excited with each statement, Miku growing slightly scared at the sudden change in demeanor.

Before Miku can respond, a large splash interrupts her as she and Shirabe turn their gazes toward the source of the sound. Hibiki was leaning over the edge of the pool a bit too far and ended up falling in completely. The baby animals fled from Hibiki as Miku sighed.

“Even if we don't have swimsuits, I did expect something like this to happen.”

Hibiki let out a nervous laugh before apologizing while Miku pulled an extra set of clothes out of her bag. The girls all head over to a bathroom so Hibiki can get changed, gathering a few weird looks along the way. Once Hibiki has changed into dry clothes and emerged from the bathroom stall she was using, she immediately jumps to hug her girlfriend.

“Thank you Miku! I knew I could count on you.”

“The only reason I had extra clothes for you is because you do things like this so often!” Miku chided before returning her partner's hug.

“Let's get back to looking at the sharks now!”

Kirika's voice was filled with impatience, prompting the group to move on. Past the baby sharks, there was an enormous display with adult sharks swimming around. Once the girls reached the display, Kirika and Hibiki became mesmerized by the sharks inside the tank, each picking one and watching intently as their chosen shark makes circles around their container. While Hibiki and Kirika are busy watching sharks, Miku and Shirabe busy themselves with watching their girlfriends.

“You know, even though she does stuff like earlier, it only makes me love her that much more.” Miku talks to Shirabe in a hushed tone.

Shirabe replies, not taking her eyes off of Kirika. “Kiri too. She gets excited about the smallest things and runs off without thinking constantly. She's always so eager to help people too...”

“Yeah! And even when Hibiki's mind wanders and she stops paying attention in class or something, somehow it just makes her even more cute.” Miku agrees, her own mind wandering to thoughts of Hibiki.

As Miku spaces out thinking about her girlfriend, Hibiki walks up to her and puts a hand on her shoulder. Miku nearly jumps through the roof at the unexpected sensation before turning her attention from the Hibiki in her mind to the Hibiki in front of her.

“Miku, I'm hungry.” Hibiki complained to her partner, her stomach making audible groans.

Pulled back into reality, Miku notices that she's getting hungry too. “Now seems like a good time to eat anyway! Let's all go find somewhere to eat.”

“There's a food court upstairs we could go to, or if we wanted we could go somwh–“ Shirabe begins talking about the group's options for food but is quickly cut off by the three other girls all responding at once.

“Let's go somewhere else.”

The group takes a moment to process that they all said the same thing at the same time before they all laugh at the incident.

Once they were done laughing, Miku calmly commented. “The food in places like this is never that great.”

“Let's go to Flower!” Kirika yells out her first choice excitedly.

“That sounds good! Their new location is really close by.” Hibiki agrees, Shirabe and Miku happy to just go wherever their girlfriends want to go anyway.

Once everyone was in agreement, Miku spoke up. “Should we go now or stay here for a little longer?”

Looking around, there wasn't much more to the shark exhibit that the group hadn't already looked at. The petting zoo and main display that Hibiki and Kirika had already looked at were the main features here, with the rest of the attraction consisting of random shark facts scattered around the room.

“I think we're mostly done here.” Hibiki replied, her stomach growling louder with each second.

Excited to get moving, Kirika adds on to Hibiki's comment. “Yeah! Let's go eat.”

As the girls all agree on a plan of action, they begin heading toward the exit. Kirika and Hibiki have a small conversation about the sharks on the way out, but Hibiki's lack of an attention span leads the discussion quickly to an end as neither girl actually knows anything about the creatures. Once out of the building, the group takes a while to adjust from the dark blue hue of the aquarium's insides to the bright sunlight back out on the street.

“I'm going blind!” Kirika cries out as her eyes adjust to the sunlight of the outside world, the girl haphazardly trying to move about before she can actually see.

Kirika quickly bumps into Miku and loses her footing, prompting the older girl to steady her. “You shouldn't move around like that if you can't see where you're going!” Miku playfully teases at the blinded girl, Hibiki and Shirabe both laughing along.

“It's really dark in there, huh?” Hibiki comments on the situation as the group finally readjusts to sunlight. “It feels like a lot more time passed, but it's still just the middle of the day!”

Once everyone can see again, the girls start walking toward Flower's new location, talking to each other along the way. After noticing that Hibiki would get distracted every time the group passed by someone walking a dog, Kirika decided to bring it up, asking Hibiki about her favorite breeds. As Kirika, Hibiki, and Miku all get into a big conversation about dogs, Shirabe separates herself from the discussion a bit, happy to just listen in without participating.

After a few more minutes of walking, the group finally arrives at their destination, filing in through the door. Once they've all seated themselves at the counter and ordered their food, they delve back into conversation, but with a different topic this time.

“What was your favorite thing at the aquarium?” Miku directs her question toward Kirika.

Kirika replies, paying an equal amount of attention to both Miku and the food being tossed on the griddle behind the counter. “Hibiki falling into the shark tank!”

Miku and Shirabe giggle as Hibiki speaks up. “That doesn't count! It was an accident!”

“Seeing you lying there in the pool was pretty funny though!” Miku responds, teasing her girlfriend as their food starts hitting the counter.

“It was funny. I liked looking at the different fish at the first exhibit.” Shirabe calmly added on to Miku's comment as all of the girls start into the plates in front of them.

Hibiki goes next, splitting her attention between the conversation and her food. “I really liked looking at the sharks! The way they circled the tank was like something out of a movie.”

“Don't speak with your mouth full!” Miku chided her partner playfully before sharing her own favorite part of the aquarium. “Hibiki falling into the shark tank was also my favorite part, even if I do have extra laundry to do now.”

All of the girls laugh together, continuing their conversation between bites of food. Once the group finished their meals and left the restaurant, they started back toward the school and their dorms. The walk back was quiet as each of the girls basked in a feeling of satisfaction following a date at the aquarium and a full stomach. As they walked, both pairs of girlfriends went hand in hand, occasionally giving each other loving glances the whole way home. Once they reached the dorms, they each said their goodbyes to each other and headed for their respective rooms.

Back in the dorms, Hibiki sprawls herself out on their couch, exhausted. “Today was really fun! It was nice getting to hang out with Kirika and Shirabe like that.”

“Yeah, it was!” Miku replies to her partner before grabbing the pair's homework and bringing it over to the couch. “The day's not over yet though, we still have homework to do before tomorrow.”

“Fine.” Hibiki drags her one word response out, groggily lifting herself from the couch before settling down at the table opposite of Miku.

The two go about doing their work together, Miku helping Hibiki with a problem every so often, until a loud groan can be heard from the latter's stomach.

Miku jokingly responds to the growl of her girlfriend's stomach. “Oh? Is that so? I suppose now would be a good time to take a break anyway.”

“Miku...” Hibiki nervously laughs at her partner's joke, having gone through the same actions plenty of times before.

“Well then, what would you like me to make tonight?” Miku talks to Hibiki directly this time, determined to make use of Shirabe's advice earlier.

“I want curry!” Hibiki yelled out her answer, a big dumb grin spread across her face.

Miku got up and headed over to the kitchen as she replied to Hibiki. “Curry it is!”

As Miku started preparing the meal, she began to think to herself. “More curry... I guess this is a good enough start as long as I just make the best curry that Hibiki's ever had!”

After a while of Miku standing over a stove top with Hibiki playing some games while she waited, Miku proudly declared that their meal was ready. Setting the table for two, she invited Hibiki over to join her. Once the two were settled in their seats and began digging in to the meal Miku made, Hibiki's face lit up.

“This is the best curry you've ever made!” Hibiki exclaimed, hungrily devouring the food in front of her.

Miku replied, her face beaming at her partner's response. “I got some tips from Shirabe earlier today so I tried doing a bunch of new things with it! I want to be able to make lots of different kinds of foods for you, so if there's something you want to try eating then mention it and I'll try to make it!”

As the two finished their meal, both looked incredibly happy about the situation. Miku finally got to improve her cooking skills and Hibiki got to eat even more delicious foods. Once Miku was done cleaning the dishes, she returned to Hibiki beaming as the two once more went about with their nightly routines.