Chapter 3

With practice over, Miho and Annelien met back up with Saori, Hanna, and Yukari. "Where's Mako?" Miho asked, looking around hoping to find Mako.

"She already went home," Saori answered.

"Aww man that sucks," Annelien slightly groaned. "I was gonna share of my ideas that could potentially help with her problem."

"Oh you could tell me now and I could text them to her or her grandmother," Saori offered pulling out her phone.

"I would've recommended her to potentially try drinking coffee to help keep her alert and focused, try eating more salty food and maybe try compression stockings to help with her actual blood pressure." Annelien listed out her recommendations.

After Saori sent the texts to Mako and her grandmother, "and sent."

"Commander McNeil," Yukari called, she hadn't gotten a chance to get changed out of her uniform yet; actually it seemed everyone was so eager to start their weekend, none of them changed out of their corps uniforms immediately after being dismissed.

"We're not officially at class or practice right now Yukari, so you can just talk to me casually, it's ok." Miho responded. Despite them still being in uniform, Miho wasn't much of a stickler for formal conduct as long as it didn't put the corps in a bad light with the general public.

"Oh," Yukari seemed to accept Miho's proposition, "well I was wondering if there was something like a tank shop here and if we could go there?" She asked.

"What do you mean by 'tank shop?'" Saori asked, surprised and confused by Yukari's request.

"Oh, well," Yukari began, "back at Oorarai there was a shop that specialized in tank themed merchandise, everything from crew uniforms and tank parts to tank books and small models. It was my absolute favorite place to go and I'd try to go there as much as I could." Yukari explained, each of her words becoming more and more excited than the previous.

"So basically a military memorabilia store." Annelien simplified. "Believe or not, there's actually a place like that here, I'm sure you'll like it." She offered, already Yukari seemed to beam with excitement at the offer.

"Oh please take me there," Yukari asked, almost begging Annelien.

"Sure," Annelien accepted, "want to join us?" She extended her offer to Miho and maybe even Saori and Hana.

Miho nodded, "sure, I've never really heard of a place like that so I'm intrigued to see what it's like." With that Miho followed after Annelien and Yukari, followed soon after by Hana and a still confused Saori.

After walking for what seemed like an hour, the group came to a stop in front of a building the size of a shopping mall. Yukari was taken aback as was everyone else, "so is the store inside here?" She asked, not sure why the kind of store she wanted to visit would be inside of a mall.

"Yeah, you could say that," Annelien answered. "Although, really it's not that the store is 'inside' the mall and more like it is the mall."

After hearing that, Yukari's face lit up like a firework. "Really, that whole building has nothing but tank stuff in it, it's almost like I'm dreaming."

Annelien chuckled at Yukari's fangirling, "well yes there are tank stuff, but it's more like a museum-store complex. It contains equipment for every branch of the military, I even heard they recently added some space satellites and weapons systems too."

"I didn't even know a place like this even existed, let alone could be this big." Saori said, by now she was awestruck rather than confused.

Miho couldn't help but look up at the sky, it looked as if dusk was fast approaching, "you sure you wanna go inside now, it's getting kinda late."

"Yeah it does seem so," Hana confirmed. "But this is the weekend so maybe we all could come back here and explore the inside tomorrow."

"Yeah, that might be a good idea," Yukari seemed to agree along with everyone else. "I don't want my parents to worry about me because I haven't come home yet."

"Yeah, I think we all have that concern," Miho added.

"Then how about this," Saori jumped in. "We all meet up here tomorrow and spend the day walking around and exploring, oh, we could even have a sleep over tomorrow night too." Saori explained.

"The sleepover might not be happening that soon," Hana objected. "First of all, whose house are all of us gonna have the sleepover at and I don't know if any of our families would be okay with such short notice as well."

"There also might be the possibility that some of us might already have plans for the weekend," Miho added. Then, as if on cue, she suddenly remembered something important and pulled out her phone to check her calendar.

"Do you have something already planned for the weekend Miporin?" Saori asked, feeling a bit dejected.

"Maybe," Miho answered while checking her calendar. "I can't remember if it was this weekend or the next." After finding what she was looking for she sighed, "okay, it was for next weekend, don't worry Saori it seems like I don't have any plans for this weekend."

"Sweet, how about you girls, you free this weekend too?" Saori then directed her question over to Hana, Yukari, and Annelien; of which all three of them nodded.

"Don't forget Saori, we also have homework for the weekend, so let's make this girls-day/sleepover take up too much time." Hana pointed out.

Saori seemed taken aback by Hana's remark, "ah um," she struggled to come up with a response. "Oh, we could maybe work together on our homework during the sleepover."

Hana then turned to Miho, "I hope I'm not being too nosy Miho, but would you mind telling us about what you thought you had to do this weekend rather than the next one?" Hana asked as gently as she could, although she knew Miho wasn't very a very private or secretive person, but she was still kinda curious about what could've kept Miho from hanging out with them.

Miho at first didn't know how to respond. While she figured her friends might have been curious, she had expected them to ask either after she confirmed that she wouldn't be occupied for this weekend or tomorrow when they all would meet up again. "Um I say just for now that it is something I can't miss and would have a hard time changing at the last minute, sorry, but I'll try to explain it as best I can tomorrow, hopefully in private." Miho answered, clapping her hands together in an apologetic and pleading stance. "Ah, the sun has almost set, we gotta get going." She pointed out frantically.

"But we haven't decided who's place we're gonna spend our sleepover at," Saori complained.

As if on cue, Miho's phone began ringing, after confirming who it was she answered, "hey mom."

"Hey Miho," her mother replied in kind. "Where are you at dear, it's getting late and aren't you gonna spend the weekend with us?"

"Yeah of course I am," Miho answered, "and I'm currently with my friends right now, we are discussing hanging out tomorrow and having sleepover right afterwards," she explained the current situation over the phone.

"Oh okay, what would you say if you guys had your sleepover here," her mother offered.

Miho was completely taken off guard by that, she hadn't expected her mom to make such an offer almost immediately after hearing about her intended plans, let alone how short notice this whole thing was. "Are you sure, it's literally happening tomorrow night," Miho asked thinking that maybe her mother thought this was gonna happen at a later point in time.

"Yes, it's fine, with you mostly staying in your school dormitory as of late and with your dad and I working on the weekdays, it wouldn't be much hassle to prepare especially if you also pitch in too." She explained, Miho knew that as soon as she got home they'd ask her to touch up on her room to make it more presentable to guests. "And, besides your dad and I would like to meet Saori and Hana in the near future," she added.

"Thank you so much mom," Miho said happily.

"Now you might wanna hurry home now so you can get started preparing right," her mother suggested, before hanging up.

"Great news girls, my mom said we could have our sleepover at my house," Miho reported cheerfully. "Now that problem has answered so let's probably head back home before it gets dark." She quickly added before turning around and taking off running.

"Wait, what about the time that we meet up," Saori called out after Miho.

"I'll text you all later," Miho answered, it was a good idea for them to exchange phone numbers beforehand.

After that, the four other girls began to head back to their own homes at varying degrees of speed.

As Miho ran happily and hurriedly back to her house, she couldn't help be happy with her new school and all the new friends she made thus far.