THIRTY-FOUR
"Pie? Ooh, can I have some?" Hibiki exclaims the moment she spots the foil-covered tin on Tsubasa's desk.
"Ah, no. There is only the tin left," she apologetically informs her.
Hibiki shrugs. "That's actually a good thing," she admits. "Miku says I need to stop sneaking in sugars and carbs, or else I'll give myself another heart attack." Then, more ruefully, she says, "Personally, I'd say Carol is going to do that for me."
"You should heed your wife." She thanks her starts that Elfnein is a well-behaved child.
"I hope you chose a calmer kid," Hibiki half-jokes, apparently thinking along the same lines.
She chuckles. "However, you brought it upon yourself, Tachibana," she points out.
Hibiki slouches further in her seat, groaning, "And so Miku likes to remind me whenever I complain a lot. She's never going to let that go."
"I should think not," Tsubasa agrees.
"Yours may be planned, but I think my not-so-little surprise was the best decision I could've made, though," Hibiki muses. "You know how… how torn up we were after the—y'know. And, I mean, we were recovering pretty well, but Carol did wonders for Miku. Vice versa, too. It makes me really happy. I just—the only thing is, I wish Carol would bond with me, too, you know?"
She shakes her head slowly. "I'm afraid not. Maria and I both get along well with Elfnein. I am sure, however, that Carol will come around."
"What's Elfnein like, anyway?" Hibiki asks, straightening up.
"A child," she says, even though she knows it is not at all what Hibiki wants to know.
Hibiki pouts at her, insisting, "C'mon, I want to know what my future niece will be like!"
She sighs. "We wish to respect Elfnein's privacy, not unlike how you wish to shelter Carol," she admonishes.
"Oh, yeah, good point." Sheepishly, apologetically, Hibiki shakes her head. "I'm sorry. I won't pry, I promise."
Nodding, she shuffles some papers around her desk until she finds a particular slip of paper. "Now, as to the reason I called you in the first place…." She slides it over.
"What?" Hibiki looks at the paper. "Oh! Maria's birthday. Yeah, Miku and I will totally come—ohhhh," she cuts herself off, looking alarmed. "We haven't gotten a present for her yet. What do you get a thirty-four-year-old woman who pretty much has everything she wants and isn't going through a midlife crisis?"
"Hush, do not go around saying Maria's age," she scolds, entirely serious. The last time Maria felt "old," she spent the whole night trying to reassure Maria that they had many, many years left before they would be considered "old."
a/n: I almost skipped #34 and went to #35, lol. I don't have a ledger for this, nothing except a sticky note that records how often their povs have occured - and that's just tally marks, lol.
Anyway, yeah, more background info. What happened with Miku and Hibiki? Unfortunately the answer to that won't come up for... ages and ages later, whelp. I'm totally down for spoiling it, though; I have like no self-control when it comes to these things :P
Please review!