This chapter ended up being super long so I split it into two. Here's birthday arc part 3. Enjoy if you can.
Wednesday. June 15. Day Jun's Birthday
5:16PM
The three stood before a four story building. The upper floors looked completely average but the ground floor was a bakery built to look like it was medieval, with a facade of worn wooden walls and stone support pillars.
Azusa had to admit, it looked really good — as if it were ripped straight out of a fantasy adventure movie. It was just that it looked completely at odds with the modern Japanese house aesthetic of rest of the neighborhood. The building was even at odds with its own aesthetic since only the first floor was made to look medieval.
And apparently, it was Jun's house?
Somehow, Azusa was not at all surprised to find out that Jun's family owned a bakery.
It was unexpected, of course. Like, why would Azusa ever think to expect it? Jun never mentioned that she came from a family of bakers and never had a reason to — Azusa and Ui never asked and it never came up in conversation.
Thinking on it, though, she realized it did kind of make sense. Jun had always had a fixation with pastries and a penchant for the dramatic. It had to have come from somewhere. That her family owned a bakery that looked like it was from a completely different time period and country was a rather neat and tidy explanation for it.
"You coming in or should I leave you a few more minutes to look at the display pastries?"
Azusa blinked, realizing that she had gotten distracted while standing in front of the display window showing a shelf full of bread. That had to have been at least the fifth time that day — way too frequent for Azusa's liking.
"R-right. Sorry."
Jun waved a dismissive hand. "S'okay, Azusa. Sometimes, I fall into a daze while staring at the display pastries too." She looked down and cupped her chin. "Actually, now that I think about it, that hasn't happened since I graduated middle school..."
Azusa smiled wryly. "If that was an attempt to make me feel better, you failed."
Jun smirked, shooting Azusa two finger guns. "You're smiling though. I didn't completely fail."
"Why, Jun, this is a smile of ever increasing annoyance," Azusa said in the most polite voice she could muster.
Jun frowned and stepped back at that. "You're not really annoyed are you...?"
Azusa chuckled. "No, Jun. I'm not really annoyed. Relax."
"You really do worry too much, Jun," Ui added. "You're fine."
Jun pouted. She crossed her arms and dramatically turned a nose. "I can't help it, alright?" She then added in a grumble, "And you two don't need to make fun of me."
Ui patted Jun's cheek playfully. "We do it only because your reactions are cute." Jun didn't reply but her face seemed to redden slightly.
The door to the bakery opened and a head peeked outside. "I hate to interrupt you love birds but you should really get inside." It was a man with short brown hair tied down with a bandana. He turned to Jun. "You're late. Mom's been waiting for you."
"Whoops?" Jun said innocently as she scratched her head and tried not to meet anyone's eyes. "H-hey there... dear old brother of mine..."
The man — Jun's brother, apparently — rolled his eyes and stepped out to grab hold of Jun's shoulder. "Just get in here." He pulled Jun into the bakery and smiled to Azusa and Ui. "I'm Atsushi Suzuki. Pleasure to meet you both. Come on inside. Our mom's expecting you" He left the door open as he dragged Jun inside.
Azusa didn't know whether to be concerned or amused. "What a strange way to be introduced to someone," she muttered, shifting her weight.
Ui tilted her head. "Better or worse than your introduction to the light music club three years ago?"
Azusa flashed back to the week before the freshmen orientation show wherein she encountered her future clubmates and senpai acting weird and playing their instruments poorly.
"You know what, Ui? Better. Absolutely better."
Both of them shared a chuckle and followed Jun and Atsushi into building, their path leading to the set of stairs behind the counter at very back of the shop area. They didn't get much time to examine the shop area of the bakery but she could see the shelves were filled with bread and the distinct aroma in the air of flour, eggs, sugar, and breadcrumbs left both Azusa and Ui feeling mildly peckish.
Eventually, they arrived at the actual living area of the Suzuki residence and found that it was surprisingly small. Majority of the floor space was dedicated to a kitchen table that was a little bit too big for the number of people who lived in the house and they didn't even have a proper living room. They just had a few cushions on a carpeted floor with a TV placed in a convenient spot that could be viewed from both the cushions and the table in the kitchen.
It wasn't to say it was small. It was just smaller than Ui's.
Then Azusa found herself staring, fascinated to an unsettling degree, at what she would describe to be a woman who looked just like Jun Suzuki except slightly taller with longer hair and sharper eyes. What made it even more unsettling was the fact that the actual Jun Suzuki was standing right next to the woman, gesturing dramatically towards her as if showing her off.
"Behold, the glory that is my mother," Jun announced to Azusa and Ui. Both of them sweatdropped at this.
The woman stepped forward. "Hello. I'm Mamiko Suzuki. It's a pleasure to meet you both."
"G-good evening," Azusa greeted. She then bowed stiffly. "Thank you for having us." Ui also bowed.
"My, my, how polite. Jun, be a dear and help them get settled. I'll call you down once dinner is ready. Maybe I'll have Atsushi bring you some snacks in a bit."
Jun tilted her head curiously. "Snacks? Isn't that gonna ruin our appetite?"
Mamiko smiled, raising an eyebrow. "Do you not want snacks?"
Jun shrugged. "Can't argue with that. C'mon, guys." She once again began leading the two up more flights of stairs.
Azusa hesitated in following, her gaze lingering on Mamiko who had returned working on dinner. She was moving in and around the kitchen with the same practiced grace Azusa had seen in people like Ui, Sumire, and Mugi. It was so odd to think that the woman was Jun's mother. She seemed so different from energetic and somewhat scatterbrained bassist.
Azusa shook her head and hurried up the steps to catch up. There'd time enough for those thoughts later.
Jun's home, Ui quickly realized, did not have a lot of floor space — not in the same way that Azusa's house or Ui's own house did at least. Each individual room had plenty of space, of course. The total space of the rooms on any given floor, however, was much smaller.
The reason Ui ended up thinking this was because of how the hallways leading to Jun's room were cramped in a way that forced Ui to walk behind Jun. There wasn't space to comfortably walk side-by-side.
Thankfully, it didn't take all that long to arrive at Jun's room. It was just up two flights of stairs and a few paces down a hallway.
"Oi, Azusa, hurry it up," Jun said with a cheeky grin.
Across the hall was Azusa who had just finished climbing the stairs. She glared at Jun as she approached. "Give me a break. Your stairs are steep and I have shorter legs than you two."
Jun waved a dismissive hand. "Hey, no worries. We're not going anywhere."
"I don't know why but I'm kinda excited to see what your room is like," Ui found herself saying.
Jun averted her eyes and scratched her head. "Eh... Don't expect anything special. Didn't really tidy up my room or anything. Figured you guys'd be fine with it."
Azusa crossed her arms in thought. "Well, considering how you treat our rooms, I don't really see how your own could be all that bad."
Jun smiled wryly. "Oh, you say that now but when you actually see it? I'm not too sure." She put her hand on the door handle and slid it open a sliver. "Don't say I didn't warn you."
When the door opened completely, Ui stepped back in shock.
It wasn't so much the the room was appalling disorganized — just a few pieces of unused clothing hanging off of furniture, two books that had stayed from the shelves, and a bed whose sheets were still wrinkly despite an obvious attempt at smoothing it out. All things considered, it was relatively clean, if in-need of some improvements.
What really got to Ui was the aura of the room. It was like a wave of stimulation had slammed into her and assaulted her senses — she wasn't sure which senses but was willing to say it was probably all of them. From the shade of green of the walls to the mingling scent of chocolate and sweat — it was just so completely, concentratedly, overwhelmingly Jun that she couldn't help but be taken aback.
Next to her, Azusa also looked visibly shaken by the door opening.
"Right, c'mon in," Jun said, gesturing dramatically to her room. "I welcome you both to my humble abode."
The two set their bags down with Jun's on the table in the corner and took a seat on the bed — a bed that was so soft and fluffy that they sank a full twenty centimeters into the mattress.
"Now I know why Jun seems to move so much in her sleep," Azusa muttered. "It's like this bed's trying to eat me alive."
Ui managed a smile and nodded in agreement.
Ui found that it was difficult to concentrate. Every breath she took was shaky and sent her heart aflutter. It was somewhat dizzying, to be honest. She was thankful that she was sitting down.
"You guys brought a change of clothes, right?" Jun asked, snapping Ui out of her daze. She picked up the dark grey t-shirt hanging off of her desk chair. "If not, I've got plenty of spare pajamas. I'm just not sure if they'd fit you, Ui. We could always try though."
Ui blinked as she tried to parsed those words, her pulse quickening upon doing so — which was a little concerning since thought of wearing Jun's clothes didn't normally cause her heart rate to jump up like it did.
"Y-yes, I, uh... I have a change of clothes. I was thinking of waiting on changing until after I take a bath, though."
Azusa also chimed in. "I'll be sticking to my uniform for now too."
Jun shrugged and began unbuttoning her shirt. "Well, you guys do your thing. Like my mom said, she'll call us down once dinner is ready."
Ui felt her body tense up and no doubt Azusa felt it too.
"Ui, what going on?" Azusa whispered in concern.
"I'm just a little antsy. I don't know why but being in this room is making me all excited."
Azusa pursed her lips. "You feel it too, huh? This must be how Jun felt when we first started sleeping over at my house."
Ui remembered Jun acting all clingy and touchy-feely on the first night they slept at Azusa's house. Thanks to Yui's daily desire for hugs, both Ui and Azusa were used to dealing with touchy-feely girls so they weren't really bothered by it. Jun was generally not that touchy feely, though. They didn't think much of it at the time. Thinking now about how being in Jun's room made Ui feel, however, it suddenly made sense why Jun was acting different.
Ui felt her face heat up. "You think she'd mind if I act that way with her now?"
Azusa flashed a small smile. "I don't know if she'd mind but I doubt she'll dislike it."
"Would you mind?"
"I... I guess not?"
Ui nodded. "Right..."
She jolted to her feet, startling both Azusa and Jun, the former of whom was pushed off balance due to Ui's weight no longer being on the bed, and the latter of whom had just finished switching out her skirt for some shorts.
"Ui, what's wro-?"
Jun did not get a chance to finish her sentence as Ui pulled her into an alarmingly passionate kiss.
That was not what Ui planned to do...
End of Chapter
Well, that was a thing. Beta-read by Asianpotter1 (PUM). Hope you all enjoyed it so far. Final part should be out within a week.