The Quintessential Quintuplets, Eternal Hearts

Chapter Forty-Five, the Day of Two

-Rokuro-

The final event, the school's Sunrise Festival, was coming up. Rokuro was excited, but also nervous, he was still having problems figuring out how he felt. He had begun to rely more on spending time with the girls to determine how he felt while considering it on his own, but he hadn't reached any definitive answers yet.

"How am I gonna go about this? I don't have much more time with them.." Rokuro muttered as he laid on the couch. He wanted to go out and do something with one of the girls, but he didn't know what, Itsuki was gone for the day, Ichika was at work, Yotsuba was in her room doing something, Miku was practicing her cooking, and he didn't know where Nino was.

"I may just go bother Futaro..." He muttered to himself, standing up and stretching.

"Kazuhiro, what would go well with tempura?" Miku asked from the kitchen.

"Dashi, tsuyu, or shredded daikon radish and ginger." He replied simply.

"Thank you, also, do you know where Nino is?" She asked.

"No clue, probably with friends or something." He responded.

"She went out shopping!" He heard above him, he looked up and saw Yotsuba leaning over the rail, smiling at him.

"Do you know where she went?" He asked.

"I think she said something about Aeon shopping mall or something.." She replied, Rokuro let out a long groan and sighed.

"Great..this is gonna be a search. I'm gonna go find her, if we're not home by the time it starts getting dark, go ahead and eat without us, and Miku-rin, you cook dinner this time, I have faith in you." Rokuro said with a smile.

"I'll do my best." She replied with a pump of her fist in the air. He nodded happily and got dressed, leaving the apartment and walking down the street, he made the thirty minute jog to the mall before slowing his pace as he entered.

"Where to start..? I assume she'd be in someplace with clothes.." He muttered to himself, suddenly he saw a tuft of pink hair walking out of a clothing store and sure enough, it was Nino. He smiled to himself at how predictable she was and walked over to her while she wasn't looking, lightly karate chopping her on the head.

"What are you doing?" He asked, she jumped and spun around on a dime to look at him, her expression relaxing a bit as she saw it was him.

"Kazuhiro-kun! You can't do that, I almost smacked you!" She exclaimed, slugging him in the shoulder.

"Ow." He said plainly, surprised by how her hits hurt, they weren't anything comparable to Yotsuba's hits, but she was heavy handed, and that made her hits sting quite a bit.

"Anyways, what are you doing here?" She asked.

"Miku-rin wanted to know where you were, and I wanted to get out of the house anyway, so I thought I'd tag along with you. We never did get to go shopping together when you left." He answered, her eyes widened and he swore he saw her eyes glitter with excitement, immediately she grabbed his hand and pulled him along. He didn't fight it, she must've been looking forward to this for a while.

"I haven't gotten my one-on-one time with you yet. You went to work with Ichika, helped Miku with cooking, and spent time with both Yotsuba and Itsuki, but haven't spent any time with me. We're spending the whole day together, got it?" She declared, his face flushed red and he nodded with a smile, they walked around the mall for a bit, going in and out of different stores, eventually they stopped at a small restaurant to eat.

"I've found no clothes I really like.." Nino muttered, looking down dejectedly.

"Well maybe you're looking too hard for the perfect thing to wear, you don't need something super intricate to wear." Rokuro offered, Nino sighed and nodded slowly, looking away.