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“Uhoho, the sun’s so bright! Come on everyone, let’s go!” Kokoro exclaimed, practically sprinting off her family’s private jet. An exasperated Misaki stepped out after her, with Kanon, Hagumi, and finally Kaoru following suit as they took in the Hawaiian air.
From what Hagumi remembered of their meeting between thinking of ways to spice up her baseball team’s practices and focusing on her homework, The Suits had arranged for Hello Happy World to take a trip to Hawaii after hearing Kaoru mention the inherent romance of such a tropical location, with the resulting trip to Honolulu morphing into a sort of half-sightseeing, half-inspiration gathering session for them. Adjusting her baseball cap to protect her from the sun, the ginger-haired girl gleefully descended onto the pavement before skipping over to her bandmates.
“How radiant it shines indeed. How fleeting…” Kaoru exclaimed, donning her sun hat as she followed after Hagumi. While the guitarist’s princely aura was masked by the hat and a pair of purple sunglasses, it was not completely unnoticed, evident by the people who immediately glanced at her as soon as her feet hit the pavement.
“I still don’t know what you mean when you say that, but we should probably go over today’s plans first. Has everyone read it over?” Misaki sighed, looking at Kanon and Kokoro in particular. Hagumi found it a bit odd that Mii-kun wasn’t looking at her or Kaoru-kun like she usually did when lecturing them on caution, but she chalked it up to the weather being hotter than normal here.
“Fleeting means exactly what it means, of course!” Kokoro said, practically latching onto HHW’s “manager” as she began pointing at landmarks, “But the plan doesn’t matter, let’s go explore together, Misaki! I want to go here, and here, and here…”
The DJ had little time to respond as she was dragged along for Kokoro’s antics, not even having a chance to protest her fate. An equally shocked Kanon watched the two form a dust cloud in their wake before gasping and running after them, apologizing to Hagumi and Misaki as they were left behind. From what Hagumi heard, she had run off to remind Misaki about something in her bag involving Michelle — which made sense, given the black-haired girl was also the bear’s manager — but that left her and Kaoru to figure out what to do in their absence.
“It seems our compatriots have left us in the wake of their excitement, dear kitten,” Kaoru finally said, turning from the now empty space in the road to look at Hagumi, “now that the plan is in tatters, shall we depart on a quest of our own?”
“Yeah, let’s go!” Hagumi replied, beaming.
After a bit of exploring, the two found themselves stopping by a row of stalls for a quick bite before heading off again. Despite the commotion their fellow band members had made, they had found no trace of them amongst the locations they had visited, ranging from the aquarium to the mysterious amusement park that had sprung up a few days prior to their visit. Regardless, Hagumi had a lot of fun with Kaoru, so she didn’t mind too much. The others would figure things out later, anyway.
What did catch her eye was an odd stall at the end of the pier which asserted itself as a sort of premium souvenir shop based on the bolded English sign above it. Even more interesting was the sign in front of the tent that was advertising some sort of baseball (why this was being sold here of all places was beyond her, however), though due to her (relative) lack of English knowledge, the bassist was unable to tell what exactly it entailed. Upon seeing her companion’s plight, Kaoru quickly walked over to translate for her, though to her surprise, the guitarist’s face quickly blanched in response after reading the gold text near the bottom.
“What is it, Kaoru-kun?” Hagumi asked, quirking an eyebrow.
“Listen, Hagumi,” Kaoru replied, her tone suddenly deadly serious, “How much would you like an infinite supply of baseballs?”
“Hmm… well, I wouldn’t mind it!” Hagumi replied after a bit of thought, “I mean, I could bring them back home to my team, and then we’d never have to worry about baseballs being lost during practice again!”
“Then, I ask you this: how willing are you to be my bride-to-be?”
“Huh? Kaoru-kun, you don’t mean…” Hagumi blushed, almost sinking into her cap. She figured someone would ask her out at some point regardless of gender, but she certainly didn’t expect the Prince of Yotsuba University herself.
“Such is the gambit set upon us, my dear kitten. As Shakespeare said, the hardest choices require the strongest wills,” Kaoru continued, appearing slightly fazed before fixing up her usual persona, “the contest specifically states that only newlyweds can enter this giveaway.”
“This stall sure is odd,” Hagumi noted, resting her chin between her forefinger and thumb as she began to think, “but an infinite amount of baseballs sure is a lot, and if it’s you, Kaoru-kun, then I don’t mind at all!”
“I-is that so?” Kaoru replied, her facade once again smashed to pieces, “Ahem. Then have no fear, dearest Hagumi, for we shall face this together— as newlyweds.”
“As newlyweds!” Hagumi repeated, linking arms with her pretend-wife as she forged into the stall.
The inside of the stall was surprisingly spacious, as if were larger on the inside rather than out. Sat at a desk in front of an obscene amount of boxed baseballs was a suited woman with a clipboard in hand who after seeing the two enter instantly stood up to greet them. If Hagumi didn’t know better, she would have assumed she was one of The Suits, but that clearly couldn’t be the case— after all, they were in Hawaii, and The Suits were situated in Japan!
“Hello! We are wanting to enter a… prize giving!” Hagumi exclaimed cheerfully to the stone faced woman. Kaoru briefly unlinked arms with her bride as she bowed semi-dramatically, pausing to compose herself once more.
“What my wife wishes to say is that we would like to enter the giveaway advertised outside,” she explained in fluent English, “Do you know if it is still running?”
“Ah, please do not feel obligated to speak in English,” the woman replied, her stone-facedness slightly subverted by the raising of her eyebrow, “I can speak in Japanese well enough. Regardless, I’m afraid you have come at an inopportune time.”
“How so?” Kaoru asked, effortlessly switching back to Japanese, “I pray we have not arrived too late to participate. You see, my wife is an avid baseball player, and—”
“It is not that at all, unfortunately,” she interjected, “You see, there is a second part of the contest below the entry requirements. The winner of this competition is chosen based on how many crates of baseballs they can knock over with three baseballs of their own, and the most recent participant knocked over all but one of the thirty we set up. However, if you would still like to try—”
“Say no more, sweet dame,” Kaoru interjected in turn, “when shall I start?”
“I apologize for the exceptionally poor showing on my behalf, dear kitten,” sighed Kaoru, the usually elegant prince utterly deflated of spirit, “It is disgraceful for me to have disgraced my wife as such.”
“Well, I think you did a really good job, Kaoru-kun!” Hagumi replied, letting a small yawn loose as she rested her head against the older girl’s shoulder. Despite being in there for what only seemed to be minutes, the sun had begun to set by the time they exited the tent, and the two had retreated to their hotel room after Kaoru’s humiliating loss to wait for their bandmates.
“Not when one exclaims that they are ‘doing it for you’, only to miss their target entirely,” the guitarist lamented, lifting her hand dramatically to her forehead, “Not after that.”
“Hmm, I suppose, but think of it this way! Even if we didn’t win, I’m sure the person who did will be pretty happy with their baseballs. An infinite supply is a lot of baseballs, after all! And, even then… it was pretty fun being your wife for a day, Kaoru-kun.”
Kaoru’s eyes widened in response to her bandmate’s abrupt confession, only to find that Hagumi had since fallen asleep. Sighing to herself with a smile, she began feeling her eyelids droop as well.
“It was fun for me as well, dear Hagumi.” she whispered.
“Misaki, Misaki, what do you see?” Kokoro probed, attempting to glance over the other girl’s shoulder to peer at the console in front of her.
“Well, they’re sleeping next to each other, so your plan was a success,” the DJ replied, swiping between screens, “I still think what we’re doing is a bit weird. What if they find out we’ve been stringing them along with an incredibly complicated game of matchmaker for the past day, and — even worse — have essentially been spying on them for the last hour?”
“What do you mean, Misaki? As long as they’re together, we’ve done what we need to do, right?” Kokoro said, the wide smile across her face betraying nothing of her intentions at all.
“You know that’s not the entire— well, whatever,” Misaki said, abandoning her argument midway, “Where’s Kanon, anyway? I thought we’d agreed to meet here at— oh. Oh no.”
“Oh, Kanon! Should we wake Kaoru, and Hagumi? Four heads are better than one, after all!” Kokoro offered.
“Nah, let them sleep,” Misaki replied, smiling her signature tired smile, “They’re earned it.”