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Saturdays were really the only days both Date and Hitomi had off, usually. Unless Hitomi was swarmed with grading papers, or Date was currently on the case, it really was the best time of the week for some… friendly dinners. Sure, Date could call it that. After all, he always brought Mizuki along, and it usually ended with the girls having a sleepover, so really, it was just a friendly visit.
Yes.
No, Date.
Aiba, please. Let me lie to myself.
Date placed the last of the now-clean plates onto the drying rack. Behind him, Hitomi shuffled about the kitchen, pulling out popcorn from the microwave. The pleasant scent filled the space between them. Date was acutely aware this was Hitomi’s way of bribing him into watching a horror movie. Worse still, he knew it was going to work.
Hitomi set the bowl on the small table and got comfortable on the couch as Date weighed his options. Obviously, retreat was not an option. Mizuki has already barricaded herself with Iris in the former’s room. You could hear various sudden yells while they were gaming, most likely. He will have to have another talk with her about swearing…
Oh, as if that’s not your fault. I don’t swear nearly as much! When was the last time you heard me swear. When you stubbed your toe on the coffee table last Sunday on 10:23 AM. I- okay, but that’s understandable.
“Are you coming?” Hitomi asked, slightly amused. Shit, he must’ve zoned out arguing with Aiba again. You just swore. You just shoul- this is pointless. Fine, you win. Date sighed, feeling a small smile find its way onto his face as he settled down next to Hitomi. Close, but keeping a respectful distance. Just like, in any case. In the tiniest case.
Date. I wish to leave to go gaming with Iris and Mizuki.
At least you have the decency to ask first… this must’ve been broadcast to Hitomi’s Aiba-hearing earpiece, as she politely turned her head away. Date guessed that watching an eyeball jump out of someone’s sockets was normal to him and him only. Exactly that happened a moment later, and Aiba waddled away. He heard some quiet knocking, then the sound of the door opening behind them. Hitomi’s earpiece was on the table by now. Oh. So they were truly left alone. Maybe it’s. For the better. Purely considering the movie they were about to watch, of course.
“You know, I was really excited about the premiere of this part. The previous one felt a bit… poorly edited, to me. Maybe this one will be better,” Hitomi spoke. She reached for the remote and pressed play. Ooookay Date. This is your moment. Don’t fuck it up. In order to give himself a little more courage, he reached for the popcorn. Only for Hitomi to do the same. Their hands touched. Mentally, Date felt like a stupid high-schooler. But pulling his hand away would be- weird, maybe? So he just. Grabbed some popcorn, then retreated. Brushing against Hitomi’s hand all this time. God.
The movie began with some dark scene. Typical so far. This will be fine. He just needs to keep his wits about him. And you know what would be a good way to do that? Some good old physical proximity. Yes. Genius. Now, onto the execution of this brilliant idea… Date shifted a little, moving ever so slightly towards Hitomi. She didn’t seem to notice. Date shifted a bit closer still. This time, he caught her looking to her side slightly. He froze in place. Hitomi looked away. Phew, danger is over, now… it’s her turn to shuffle closer.
Huh.
Oh, well. If two can play this game, why wouldn’t they?
It’s almost like an unspoken game of red light green light. Moving towards each other at the slowest pace possible, and only when you thought the other wasn’t looking. This was effectively eating up all of Date’s attention, so he did not have to focus on the movie. Thanks to this cooperation, they managed to shorten the distance between themselves by… maybe ten centimeters. Yeah.
Something on the screen rapidly moved and Date felt himself jump. Next to him, Hitomi giggled. Date was about to try to come up with a good excuse as to why that just happened but. Hitomi reached out and pulled him closer. Well, more like pulled herself closer to him, since he’s heavier than her, but the sentiment remained.
Now, their sides were touching. Something from the movie yelled, and Date almost fell off the couch. Thankfully, Hitomi’s arm embracing him stopped him from embarrassing himself further.
—
It’s a big day.
Aiba thinks he says that way too often. “Says” anyway, as he usually just thinks it. Whenever he gets to close a case, or bother Shizue into giving him just a little bit of a bonus, or Iris invites him over, he thinks “it’s a big day” with a mental smug smile.
He wasn’t smiling right now. It still was a big day.
“Hey, Mizuki? Mind coming here for a moment?” he called out finally, lifting his head from the papers scattered across the low table. Most of the relevant columns have been already filled with his handwriting.
“I can hear you just fine,” Mizuki grumbled out from her bench press. She hated it when he disturbed her training. She almost threw a weight at him once. He kind of wished she’d do that right now. But, maybe sensing something more serious coming up, Mizuki sat up on the bench. “Whatever. What is it? This better not be about something stupid!”
Date’s first thought was to tell her this was about the ramen leftovers she ate yesterday.
“...look, I know all this is… tough. Like, really tough.” Mizuki shot him a glare here. Deserved, he supposed. “If you’d rather stay with some relative, or even Hitomi, all that can be aran-”
“I already paid rent for the next month,” she huffed out. “I’m staying here.”
…fair enough. Date did smile at the comment. Mizuki just looked away.
In a situation like this, Aiba would say something like “Date, you should tell her you want to adopt her outright.”. And he’d comment, “Aiba ever the helpful, huh?”. But she was gone. So he has to form these thoughts himself. He cleared his throat.
“And- I’m glad you’re staying. I want you to know that.”
Mizuki spared him a glance for a moment, before looking away again. That’s fine, big emotional confessions didn’t suit either of them very well. Still, one more matter remained…
“But if you want to keep your family name, that’s more than fine, I’m not going to-”
Without a warning, Mizuki was up on her feet and then made her way to the coffee table. She basically ripped the pen out of his hand, and briefly scanned the paper laying before him. She bent down and in her own handwriting she wrote something down into one of the empty boxes.
Date could tell what it was immediately.
“Mizuki Date”.
Officially an adoptive child of one Kaname Date. He could feel his throat closing up. His voice would probably crack if he said anything. Mizuki put the pen down and stood motionless, looking at what she just wrote down on her own adoption papers.
In a different time, she’d tell him that it had to be him and the adoption would’ve happened weeks earlier. But in this time, Date, in his own old body, was not told that. He was told though that Mizuki wanted to be named Date.
He pulled her in for a hug. She didn’t resist for about five seconds.
—
“I’m terribly sorry,” the waiter apologetically muttered out for the fourth time right now. Date’s been keeping count. “But we really don’t have a reservation for the name Date nor Sagan…”
Date was about to ask them to check one more goddamn time because he surely called, he has set reminders upon reminders to call and stuck sticky notes to half his desk and a lot more stuff. It was physically impossible he didn’t make the reservation.
“That’s troubling,” Hitomi said in her usual, calm voice, successfully stopping Date’s plan of pestering this poor waiter to death. “And there are no free tables?”
“No ma’am,” the waiter replied. “All our tables are occupied or reserved at the moment.”
Bullshit. How likely is that. Unlikely, that’s how. Date couldn’t exactly run the calculations in his head but he could tell that a chance of this happening on the very day he asks Hitomi out is so small that this should NOT be happening!
“I see. What a pity,” Hitomi continued. She tugged at Date’s arm. “Let’s go, then. Maybe we’ll find somewhere else to eat.”
“But-” Date was not allowed to argue as she tugged harder. He gave one last suspicious look to the waiter before following her. He waited until they were out of earshot to resume his complaining. “I swear, I could swear on my own life, I called them and told them the time and everything, they had reserved that table. I asked twice.”
“I suppose if you did that, you’d be dead,” Hitomi just replied.
What a woman. What a woman.
“I- okay, apparently yes.” She won this one by a long shot. He sighed, rubbing his face. “I’m really sorry this didn’t work out.” A fuck-up this major on their first- well not first first, but first-since-he-became-Date date, wasquite humiliating.
“It's nothing, I promise you,” she reassured him again. Maybe she was just fine with going to some dingy place instead and making conversation there. Maybe.
By now, they have found themselves in a park. IThe park wasn’t large by any means, but it was the shortest way to the other place Date knew that wasn’t kind of shady and could have empty tables. It was a clean place, with some benches alongside the dimly lit paths and a small fountain in the middle. Pretty charming. He examined the fountain as they were passing by, finding nothing exceptional about it.
“Wait a moment,” Hitomi though apparently did find something interesting about it. She approached it, so he followed, of course. She stopped at its edge and gently dipped her hand into the water. It was probably cold. Then, she moved on to making small waves with her hand. Then-
Then, Date felt the actually cold water connect with his face. He let out a surprised noise, something between a shriek and a yell.
“Hey, what was that about?!” he muttered out. He tried to use his jacket to wipe his face but before he could do that, he was struck with water again, rendering the jacket wet as well.
And, okay. If a fight is what Hitomi wants, then a fight she’ll get! Date reached into the fountain and splashed a whole lot of water right back at Hitomi, who backed away with a surprised yell. Right after that, though, there was some brief spark in her eye. That sort of playful mischief from her always made Date’s heart skip a beat. That skipped beat created an opening for Hitomi, which she used to drench him further. With his shirt starting to cling to him, Date broke into a run, and Hitomi began running around the fountain. She was not fast enough, and didn’t avoid the next big splash attack. She didn’t stop running and put the distance of the entire fountain between themselves. For a moment, their eyes crossed like two swords locked in a duel…
Before Date noticed two people passing them right by and giving them very, very strange looks. Oh. Eheh. Whoops? Hitomi must’ve noticed him staring at something behind her, as she turned to check herself. Upon noticing the other people, she just smiled apologetically at them. The people began walking away faster.
Date’s and Hitomi’s eyes crossed again. They lasted about five seconds before laughing again.
“Now we have to go home and change,” Date laughed out, walking over to Hitomi, who somehow was much more soaked than him. He guessed it’s thanks to his large hands. Heh.
“Good thing I have some leftovers at home still,” she replied, still a little breathless from the brief fight. Her entire face scrunched up for a moment before she sneezed loudly.
“Just don’t get a cold now because of that stunt,” his voice was half-amused, half-worried.
“Oh, don’t worry about me. I’d worry about you!”
“About me? Pfft, come on! I have an immune system ready to survive bullets in my body.”
Hitomi, thankfully, did not comment about immune systems having nothing to do with that. She just took Date’s arm and began walking in the direction of where he parked his car.
(Date did get sick afterwards. Hitomi brought him some soup to help cheer him up, which did significantly decrease the time he spent sick. At least in his opinion. Mizuki just thought he was being a wuss.)
—
“So you’re basically super secret government tech created to spy on all of us?” Iris said, brimming with pure excitement, as she held up Aiba’s hamster form close to her face.
“I wouldn’t say I was created to spy on all of you- just one miserable guy, really.”
“Hey, I can hear you just fine!” and Date took that very personally.
He still was getting used to non-ABIS people knowing about Aiba. It was weird enough when people responded to what he thought was said in his head only, weirder still when they talked to his eyeball assistant in a very physical sense. Overall, he wasn’t complaining, of course, but sometimes it did mean he was just bullied twice as much.
“That’s so cool!” Iris at least was unphased with Aiba’s comments towards him. A small win. “Imagine how many people would watch my videos if I showed you on stream…”
“That’s highly illegal,” Date interjected, only to be shot down by Aiba immediately.
“Not illegal per se, but unwelcomed by ABIS. I am supposed to be fairly secret, after all.”
Iris lowered her head, pouting.
“What’s the point of having super cool eye implants if you can’t even show them to the world…”
“Technically-” Date began.
And Aiba finished, “I’m not an implant, but a prosthetic.”
“Details!” And just like that, Iris closed the discussion.
Alright, yeah, they were arguing about semantics by now. But the details are important! Obviously, the details are what made or broke the case. You don’t have to explain that to me, explain that to her!
“Actually, Iris, I may have a plan.” At that Iris perked up, pulling Aiba uncomfortably close to her face. Date was glad he was not getting any optical output from her.
“What plan!!”
“Settle down. I may be able to make a virtual avatar, and can no doubt participate in online games by connecting with them directly.”
Iris fell quiet for a moment. Then, she nodded her head slowly.
“Like a V-Tuber… Ai-Tuber…”
None of those words meant anything to Date. Sometimes he felt so old here. Aiba slowly nodded back.
“Wait, won’t you get banned for cheating? You have impossibly good reaction tim-”
Both Aiba and Iris groaned in unison, now burdened with yet another problem before Iris could show off her coolest AI-buddy on stream.
—
In the Sagan residence, suddenly the door to Iris’s bedroom is slammed open with much more force than a kid Mizuki’s age should be able to create.
“Hey, Date! Tell her about all those kinds of blood splatters, Iris won’t believe me when I explain them to her!” Mizuki yelled, running into the main room. Iris followed right after her.
“It just makes no sense! Why would slower drops of blood make bigger stains than faster one-”
Both girls stopped dead in their tracks. A movie was still playing on the TV screen but it was really easily apparent nobody was watching it, as despite the pretty scary-looking monster on the screen, neither of the adults made any sounds or moves. Mizuki pressed a finger to her lips and began sneaking closer. Iris immediately made a beeline for the couch. Mizuki, angrily gesturing at her to stay quiet, caught up to her in no time.
There, on the couch, Hitomi and Date were soundly sleeping. Hitomi was comfortably nested against Date’s chest, and he in turn had his arm wrapped around her, leaning his head against her. All and all, it was just about one of the cutest things Iris has seen, and one of the sappiest things Mizuki has seen.
Iris just giggled at Mizuki’s eyeroll. She reached for the remote and turned off the TV. Then, both girls retreated back to the room they stormed out of.
“But I’m telling you, I’m right!” Mizuki hissed out as they were closing the door behind them. “Date’s been showing me all those bloodstain patterns!”
“Because you pestered him.”
“Well- yes, but that’s way cooler than all the other investigation stuff he says I have to memorize!”
The door shut, and so Hitomi and Date were left to peacefully nap the evening away.