Ardentshipping (Honda Hiroto/Kawai Shizuka)

. . .

"Are you having fun?"

"Y-yeah!"

Shizuka leaned over to try and see Honda's face, because he wasn't looking at her. She clasped her hands behind her back and leaned a little farther, but Honda kept looking up. She wasn't sure if she wanted to smile or sigh. Hehad been the one to ask her out today—albeit with a lot of stuttering and wringing of hands. And he seemed to be having trouble even talking to her.

Shizuka glanced around, taking in the rest of the carnival. They had only done a few rides, and Honda had barely managed to get out two full words to her in that time. And she had been kind of looking forward to this...

"Oh! Honda-kun!" she said, grabbing his arm. "Look! There's a shooting range game!"

Honda flushed a deep red as Shizuka slid her arm around his and pulled him towards it, but he let her take him over.

"Katsuya said you were really good at this!" she said. "He told me about Death-T!"

"W-what? Really?" he said.

"Yeah!" Shizuka said. Maybe this was a conversation she could get him to talk to her about. He had never been this flustered around her before. Was it because now it was a legitimate date? "He said you used to do...what are they called? Bay-bay guns?"

"Bebe guns," Honda said. "They're not real guns, they just have like, little balls in them that you shoot cans with and stuff."

"Can you show me?" Shizuka said. "Let's play a round of this!"

"O-okay," Honda said.

The worker smiled at them as they reached the counter, and Honda dug into his pocket for his wallet to pay her for a round. Shizuka stuck out her tongue in concentration as she picked up the little toy rifle, putting her finger around the trigger. Oh! Maybe she could get him to talk to her about this.

"How do you hold it?" she said.

"You're pretty close, actually," Honda said. "Here, let me show you."

His voice was getting a little less stuttering, and he actually looked interested now. Finally! He reached around her arms to help her set it up right, showing her how to aim it.

"Is there a particular prize you want to aim for?" he said.

"Um," Shizuka said. She hadn't thought about it—she had just wanted to put Honda at more ease so that they could both have fun. She glanced over the prizes really fast. "That's probably a hard one, but that big rabbit plush is cute!"

"Okay," Honda said. "Now see, the trick with these games is that it's hard to knock the prizes off—you have to know the right places to hit. So aim right...here."

He moved her hands so that they were lifted up towards a certain spot on the rabbit. He held on to her, and she smiled—he was getting into it, he hadn't even noticed that he was touching her.

"Okay, shoot," he said.

Shizuka bit her lip and pulled the trigger. The cork shot out and hit the large rabbit right in the side of the arm.

"Okay, the mark on this one is a little off," Honda said. "So you have to compensate. Move yourself a little here...try shooting again."

Shizuka stuck out her tongue, focused in on what Honda was pointing at, and...

Pop! The cork hit the rabbit square on the nose—and somehow, it was enough to knock it back just enough to slip off the shelf. Shizuka felt herself light up, dropping the gun and flapping her hands.

"Oh my god! I hit it!"

"Nice shot!" Honda said.

"It was because you helped," Shizuka said. "Thank you, Honda-kun!"

Honda flushed a bright red and stammered out a mumbled 'you're welcome' as the lady at the desk passed Shizuka the rabbit. Shizuka hugged it to her chest—it was soft and very huggable. She briefly pressed her face into it.

Then she popped up, and reached to grab Honda's hand.

"Let's go on the Ferris Wheel next!" she said. "And you should help me come up with a name for the rabbit!"

This time, Honda didn't fluster when she grabbed his hand. All right—progress!

. . .

A/N: Tbh I'm not a huge fan of this ship, especially not in endgame, but I think it can be real cute sometimes :) Next is Archaicshipping (Atem x Set x TKB).