Chapter Text
"What do you all want for dinner?" Shiho asked.
Honami thought for a second and asked, "Could we just check the fridge? I'm fine with whatever leftovers you have."
The rest of Leo/Need agreed and went to the kitchen to check what was in the fridge.
"There's just miso soup? Why is there so much?" Ichika asked.
Shiho groaned. "It's just my sister again. She brings miso soup in her water bottle to practice with the rest of her group. I think she made it this morning since we have so much in the fridge. Sometimes she makes enough for all of them. It's kinda bad for the family though since we don't eat a lot of it, but whatever makes her happy."
"Well, I already said I'd be okay with eating just leftovers and I like miso soup enough. Anyone else?" Honami asked.
Saki and Shiho each gave each other a look. "No…thanks on the miso soup. I…uh… ate too much miso soup this week," Shiho responded. Saki nodded her head in agreement.
Honami raised her eyebrow, clearly not believing Shiho ate too much miso soup in the week if her sister prepared it that morning. She instead took a shot in the dark on the real reason. "Oh, I thought you grew out of that particular food aversion."
"Food aversion?" Ichika asked as she was getting out a bowl for her and Honami.
Saki looked confused. "Wait, when we played truth or dare when we were younger, you always said that you had no food dislikes! We couldn't ever get you to eat something you didn't like when playing truth or dare."
"Also, you all made fun of me for hating green peas and made me eat them whenever I chose dare!" Ichika chimed in.
The other girls just looked at Ichika. Saki said, "Well, I hate to defend Shiho,"—"hey!"—"but I also love making dares to torture Icchan"—"hey…"
Honami gets another giggle in. "Yeah, Ichika's just a little too easy to bully. She eventually got so scared of choosing dare when it was her turn that she threatened to climb a tree to escape us."
"I-I'm not that bad with green peas," Ichika protested.
Shiho gave a deadpan stare. "When we went to the diner the other day, we ordered sweet snap peas as an appetizer and you looked at us like we just killed your firstborn."
"We had wanted to split the bill evenly," Honami says, shaking her head , "but you refused to pay for the green beans in any way. When the waiter asked if we wanted the bill, you said to split the bill but specifically take off the green beans off your tab."
Saki continued. "But you ended up paying more than the three of us because you felt guilty so you paid for all the other appetizers and sides we got. It was sooo funny, I couldn't stop laughing."
Ichika started pouting. "Hey, I thought we were supposed to be judging Shiho on her picky food habits, not me!"
"Wait, yeah!" Saki responded. "Don't think that you got out of this! Why didn't you tell us! What else have you been hiding? Do you have a secret super villain double life."
Shiho, ever good at shifting attention, looked back at Honami. "I can't believe you betrayed me like this."
Honami laughed. "Did I say something? Whoops. But in my defense, I didn't even say your food aversion was tofu…oh, whoops again."
Shiho gave Honami a snide look. "That was on purpose." Honami just gave a sly smile back. "Yes, I have a food I dislike, and I told Honami—in confidence," she emphasized. "So now that you know, we can continue making something that we can eat for dinner."
"I'd eat the miso soup if Shiho does!" Saki yelled.
Ichika looks contemplative for a moment. "Wait, why does Honami know?"
"As I said again, I told her this in confidence," Shiho glares at Honami, "she was cooking something when we were very young—"
"How young?" Saki asks.
"Thirteen years old."
"That's not even that young! That's just late middle school," Saki buts in.
"Whatever, whatever, it was just one of those things that I said in middle school and—don't get out two more bowls, Saki!"
"Oh you're so scaaared of the tofu, aren't you, Shiho."
"Oh shut up, and give me those bowls already!"
Honami and Ichika just watched from the side as Saki and Shiho squabbled.
"Neither of them wanted to eat the miso soup in the first place," Ichika remarked.
"Nope," Honami replied, shaking her head disapprovingly at their antics, but hiding a fond smile underneath.
"We could just eat without them, but that wouldn't feel right." Ichika thought some more. "We could do that compromise that we learned during history class about something that could stop them from fighting. I think it was called the 'splitting the baby' compromise."
"Oh, I'm surprised you were paying attention," Honami said, watching the miso soup spill out of Saki's bowl after trying to do "here comes the airplane" with the tofu to Shiho and Shiho slapping it out of her hands, leading to more squabbling on whose fault it was and who was going to clean it.
"I can pay attention in class!"
Honami raises her eyebrow. "OK, then how would the compromise help solve the problem."
"I…uh, you cut the baby in half, and you…talk about the economic benefits of eating each half of the baby. And then both parties say that it's wrong to 'eat your young' because uh…something about war being bad…." Ichika trailed off.
If Honami could raise her eyebrows even higher, then she would have. "That's…why…I don't even know where to start. You somehow quoted 'A Modest Proposal,' the Bible, and the music artist Hozier in the same phrase. Even Shiho and Saki are confused."
Ichika turned towards them, realizing that they had stopped arguing just to give her a blank confused stare. "Go back to fighting already. This is making even me feel awkward."
Saki shrugged her shoulders and tried shoving another piece of tofu towards Shiho's mouth. Shiho was unappreciative of these efforts.
"The phrase 'split the baby' refers to a tale where two women claim that a baby is theirs so the king says to split the baby in half to give to each woman. One woman accepts the proposal, but the other protests, saying she'd rather the other woman have the whole baby than to split it in half, making her clearly the mother of the baby. Now the phrase refers to a situation where a solution is so detrimental to both parties that they both must agree to be less extreme in their views to come up with a compromise, but now it's been appropriated—incorrectly—to a situation where a compromise to split is met to make both parties happy."
"Wow, that's really nerdy," Ichika responded, causing Honami mental damage in the process.
"Knowing it's from you somehow hurts more."
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"You're just so innocently honest sometimes."
Ichika pouted. "Next time I'll be purposefully mean, blunt and honest, like Shiho."
A muffled "I heard that," came from Shiho who gave up on wrestling and running away from Saki and opted to cover her mouth with her hands with Saki trying to pry them away from her mouth.
"What do you propose then, Honami?"
"I was thinking we could cook a dish that they'd both hate. I was looking into a Hong Kong style vegetarian tofu rice porridge the other day."
"Oh, their mutual dislike for the food can help them band together and stop fighting."
"Wow, some of the things that come out of your mouth can be really bizarre," Saki called out. Ichika starts pouting
"I thought you'd of all people would be nice to me. You liked my puns in middle school."
"Oh…yeah but like…You couldn't come in a two hour train ride and have me not laugh at your jokes." Ichika pouts even harder, if that was possible, causing Saki to laugh and briefly stop tormenting Shiho to come over to Ichika and pull at her cheeks. "If it makes you feel better, I was never fake laughing. It was more like laughing at how ridiculous you were."
"That explains your relationship with Tsukasa," Shiho deadpans.
"My brother is awesome. Honachan and Icchan agree, right?"
Honami and Ichika averted their gaze away from Saki.
"Fine, be that way. But what Honachan said gave me a good idea."
Ichika and Shiho gave each other a worrying look. "I don't think I like where this is going," Shiho said.
"I don't like good ideas that come from Saki," Ichika added.
"I didn't even say anything yet! We should do a punishment game. We should play a bunch of games together and the ultimate loser will have to eat their least favorite food."
"No," came Shiho's immediate reply.
"Please, pretty please, it's on my list of 200 things to do while I was in the hospital." Saki gave her best puppy eyes to convince Shiho.
Shiho looked away from the puppy eyes knowing she couldn't resist them for long. "You always use that dang list as an excuse for us to do everything."
The thing not mentioned was that the excuse worked the last time Saki asked the group to make a surprise road trip and get stranded in the middle of nowhere, and explore that abandoned amusement park until midnight scaring Saki and Honami in the process, and a countless other number of bad ideas, just like the one that they were about to do.
"List of 200 things?" Honami questioned, "aren't you just making things up as you go then?"
"Well…" Saki started, "I told Shiho that I had found another list from my belongings in the hospital and that I didn't really finish all the 100 things list I wanted to do at the end of our first year because there was actually another list of things that I secretly had but I was too embarrassed to tell everyone and that I could only tell her so that she could help me finish it."
Honami looked incredulously at Shiho. "You believed that. You, of all people?"
"Don't look at me so pitifully. She gave me puppy eyes. Puppy eyes! You would fall for it too."
"I don't think I woul—," Ichika started before Honami covered her mouth with her hand.
"Just let her have this one."
Shiho crossed her arms and sighed. "I feel like I'm being treated like a little kid that's being told Santa isn't real…"
"But Santa is real?" Ichika responded. The band paused for a moment, each one of them debating on whether or not to tell her the truth. They didn't.
"Well, even if it's not on my list, we should do a punishment game. It'll be fun! We can play a couple of different games and each loser of the game has to receive a punishment. And also, for the record, you looked good in the butler suit. I could have made you wear a maid outfit like Honachan and Icchan—who also looked good in the outfit by the way."
Shiho just rolled her eyes with a blush on her cheeks, looking away from Saki. "Don't think flattery will make me agree to eating tofu, even if it's a punishment game."
"It's OK, I don't need to convince you anyways." Shiho jerked her head back to look at Saki. "I just need to convince Honachan or Icchan and you'll join anyways."
"I am not that easy."
"Do you wanna bet?"
"I'll bet with Saki," Ichika said.
"Me too," Honami followed.
"I do not fold that easy," Shiho said under her breath.
"Honachan~, will you join the punishment game with me?" Saki gave her best puppy eyes towards Honami.
Honami, ever the pragmatist, contemplated for a second. "What will you give me if I agree."
"Apple pie"
"Deal."
"You're too easy!" Shiho interjected.
"Icchan, will you also join us in the punishment game?"
Ichika stared into the distance as if she'd seen war—which for her would just mean eating peas after a dare Saki gave her in elementary school—"No thanks."
"Not even for yakisoba pa-"
"No." She kept staring into the distance. "Never again."
"Alright then. Me and Honachan will make the food alone then. Shiho, can you set up the switch and connect it to the TV?"
"I never agreed to this," Shiho grumbled, but she started walking over to the living room anyways to set up the switch.
Just as Shiho was leaving, Ichika snapped out of her daze to call out to her, "Whipped."
Shiho's steps stuttered for a moment and whipped around. "Wh-who taught you to say that?!" She grabbed Ichika by the scruff of her jacket and dragged her with her, the tips of her ears red. Ichika just laughed good naturedly as she was dragged away.
"Well, now it's actually time to cook." Honami took out a pot to start the rice porridge.
Saki looked apprehensive. She really didn't like the smell of porridge or the process of making it. Reminded her of the hospital. "Ah, maybe could I help with something else other than cooking?"
"That's fine. I can just cook the tofu porridge all on my own."
Saki sighed in relief, but as soon as she looked at Honami's face and saw that her eyes she instantly regretted saying that. Her eyes were downturn, not quite sad but a little disappointed.
"Don't make that face. I was kidding. Of course I'll help you make the porridge! If you did it alone, you might make it taste too good anyways. This is meant to be a punishment game after all!" Saki puffed out her chest and did a typical Tsukasa pose to reassure Honami. Everything was better with friends after all, so cooking didn't look so intimidating anymore.
Honami smiled, turning back to take out the rice as well as the tofu to start the porridge.
"Honachan, you have an absolutely killer puppy dog face."
"Puppy dog face?"
"You weren't even doing it on purpose, that's no fair! You're better at it than me! If you used your puppy dog eyes against Shiho, she could never say no to anything. Maybe she'd even let me dress her up in some dresses."
Honami laughed some more. "You'd need to get the entire band to give puppy dog eyes to Shiho to get her to agree to that."
"I don't know if Icchan has puppy dog eyes. She's more like, wet cat on the side of the road kinda energy when she gets pouty."
"It's only made more ironic by the fact that she's our front man. It's a good contrast from how cool she is on stage."
"Gap moe!"
"Saki, I have no clue what you're talking about."
Saki's pout made Honami laugh. Saki was just about to retort back that she didn't understand any of Honami's nerd ramblings about moon cycles—she loves Honami, absolutely so, but she is not strong enough to keep her eyes open after hearing about whatever moon cycle, tide pod, whatever thing that Honami was talking about, unlike Honami who definitely was strong…and muscular, and—
Honami was lifting a bag of rice over her head to pour into the small pot, flexing her muscles. She was wearing a sleeveless top that showed off her biceps and shoulders, a surprising departure from the modest clothes she normally wore. She kept pouring the rice out of the bag but then noticed Saki stopped talking. She looked back to see her just ogling at her.
"Saki, uh could you maybe," Honami thought saying stop looking at her muscles and do something useful would be a bit too mean, "can you get some salt and other spices out."
"Oh, yeah! Yes, yes chef, I'll get them out!" Saki gave Honami a little salute and reached over to the drawers to grab out all the ingredients. Honami just lifted a questioning eyebrow and sighed. Saki came out to give the ingredients then stopped as if she just remembered something. "Wait, I forgot the salt, let me go get that out."
Honami could have sworn she saw the container of salt in Saki's arms from the corner of her eye as she was cutting the vegetables, but she shrugged it off. They added water, lemon grass, ginger, onions, and garlic to the pot to start flavoring and boiling it and started chopping some fried tofu into smaller cubes.
"I wonder what the other two are doing."
In the living room, Ichika and Shiho were setting up the switch.
"Hey Shiho, how what cables do you plug into the switch to connect it to the TV?"
The Switch 2 belonged to Saki who brought it over to Shiho's house to play. They took it out of her bag to set it up. She wasn't even sure if Saki had asked for a Switch 2 anyways, but her family was loaded so it didn't matter either way.
"Normally we would just plug it into the TV with the HDMI cable but most of our cables are in the storage. Let me go get the HDMI cable from the back."
"I'm surprised you didn't buy a Switch 2 as well. You really like Nintendo games."
"I don't need anything as impractical as that. I already have a switch at home anyways."
"Isn't it just because they didn't release the next installment of Animal Crossing on the Switch 2?"
"You…really can be innocently honest sometimes."
Of course Ichika started laughing after that statement. "Well, you have your switch at home as well. Why didn't we just use yours?"
"Saki offered to bring hers so we might as well use it." What Shiho did not mention was the fact that Saki caught her playing Miitopia on her switch, wrestled it out of her hands after she tried to hide it from her, and watched all their miis be lovey dovey and get jealous of one another for being in a weird polycule relationship in game. In her defense, that was completely part of the gameplay and they had started the game together anyways. It was optimal to have all the miis on your party together like that.
Then she found the nintendogs game and found that she had named the three dogs she had after them. Ichika was a black german Shepard, Saki was a golden retriever, and Honami was a brown cocker spaniel. They were recently well cared for. That was harder to explain but she just liked cute animals. This was common knowledge among them, even if she tried to hide it from other people.
Then she played Cult of the Lamb and found that she had named a bear, butterfly, and wolf after Honami, Saki, and Ichika respectively and married them all. By that point, Shiho was just furiously trying to hide her blush and move the Switch away from Saki's hands. Luckily she did not understand the mechanics of any of the games, but she was not about to risk letting Honami and Ichika see that too.
They walked over to Shiho's room to plug in the switch. Ichika saw a guitar in the corner of the room. "Oh, I didn't know that you added a guitar to your room." The guitar in question was Shiho's dad's old model guitar and it was an reddish-orange color. The guitar hadn't been in use in a while since her dad had bought other guitars to use, but it was still working just fine.
"Oh yeah, I added it to my room. Sometimes when you come over, you like playing with the strings of your guitar just to pass time, but you don't bring your guitar all the time since it's kinda heavy. You also mentioned wanting to try out the feel of older guitars, so I asked my dad and he was happy to lend one he wasn't using."
"That's sweet of you. Thank you."
"It's no big deal." Shiho faced away from Ichika to avoid showing her smile and blush.
Ichika stopped admiring the guitar to check out the Switch 2. "Well, let's get to the games on this thing. I don't even think that we've used this at Saki's house."
"It seems like it just has some base games included. Do you know any other games that could be on this, Ichika?"
"Hmm, I remember a YouTuber playing a horror game with animatronics."
"I didn't know you watched those sorts of things. I just assumed you watched Hatsune Miku in your free time."
"The YouTuber has an Utauloid," Ichika responded, not missing a beat. Shiho was unimpressed. "Don't look at me like you're judging me."
"No," Shiho snickered. "I stopped judging you after that one time you dyed your hair teal to match with Miku in elementary school."
"Don't make fun of me!" This only served to make Shiho laugh even harder.
"Ok, I'll stop making fun of you, but only if you help me look up the game you're talking about." Shiho looked up the game and gave a sly smile at Ichika. "Oh, this'll be good."
"This is definitely going to scare both of them."
"Serves them right for making us do a punishment game."
Ichika just shrugged her shoulders. "Eh, I don't really mind tofu or porridge all that much anyways." Ichika thought it about it more and smiled. "But admittedly it's fun to watch Honami and Saki get scared."
They covertly paid for the game with their own money (they wouldn’t be that cruel to make Saki pay) and planned their revenge for later.