Near the end of the break...
Summer's coming to an end and we see Ace in the living room of his house watching T.V. on the couch.
He was the only one at home right now, and he had a lot of time to kill. He skipped out on the summer festival, because he could see everything from the top of his house.
Right as he was about to go to the kitchen to do something, he heard a knock at the door.
"Coming!" he said, walking to the door.
He opened it to see Najimi, Tadano, and Komi at the door.
"About time you three arrived. Come in. I got an apple pie in the oven."
Hearing that, Najimi was the first to go in while being a little quick. Tadano followed after, and Komi was to last to come in.
Ace said as he closed the door, "This meeting better be important, Najimi."
However, the door was pried open when it was almost closed. The person to do so was revealed to be Ren Yamai.
"Komi is over at Ace's house? Impossible..."
"Uh...would you like to come in? I have a pie in the oven."
While Ace was getting the apple pie he made out of the oven, everyone else was in his room.
They're just looking around his room because none of them had seen Ace's bedroom since he moved here.
Komi in particular was looking at some things on his desk.
One of them was the origami Ace I mentioned in the first chapter with three other people:
One was a silver haired, white skinned girl in a silver dress with a gold ribbon around the waist, some blue heels, and on her head was a sticker of a silver crown that was gold at the bottom of it.
One was a grey haired boy who was light skinned and had on black one piece rectangle sunglasses with two white dots showing his eyes, a T-shirt that was half grey and half white, black pants, brown shoes, and there was a metal handle that hung from his sunglasses and around and behind his head. There were also small blots of paint all over him.
And the last one was a blonde, white skinned girl in a yellow dress over a white shirt. She had on some brown flats, white socks, and on her head was a yellow, two pointed paper hat.
Komi would ask about the three later.
"You better not be messing with my Things, Najimi!" Ace suddenly yelled from the kitchen.
The reason the 'T' is capitalized is because there's a bookshelf Ace uses to hold things he uses for his videos. He calls the things...well, Things because they're non-flat, non-paper objects.
A piggy bank, a watering can, a teapot, different pairs of scissors, salt and pepper shakers, an instant camera, a mini vacuum, some balloons, and a megaphone are just a few of the Things on the bookshelf.
And indeed, Najimi was messing with one of them. That Thing happened to be a boombox.
After Ace yelled at her she quickly backed away from the shelf.
A minute later, we see Ace come in with the pie sliced into eighths on a tray. He set the tray down, and went to his closet and came back out with a foldable table. He set it down, went back in, and came back with chairs.
After everything was set, everyone sat down for some pie.
Cooking's classified as an art to some, to you can imagine what everything Ace makes in the kitchen tastes like.
With crumbs on their face, Najimi spoke up.
"I have gathered you all here today to carry out a very important and timely mission. The thing is...
*pulls out notebook*...I haven't even started any of my summer break homework yet."
"Right, I kinda suspected that." Ace, Tadano, and Ren said, not surprised.
"Well, since that's the case," they started, "I demanding you allow me to see all of your homework!"
"Yeah, no chance." "Why are you getting all aggressive?" "This is last year all over again." three replied in the order I called them in. Komi just stared.
"What's the big deal?! The only ones here who can throw rocks at me are those who finished all their homework!"
"You know I can finish anything involving paper quickly."
Komi nodded after Ace to show she did too.
"Of course I finished it all."
"Oh, I'll finish if I pull an all-nighter tonight."
"You Average Joe." Ren said to Tadano. Ace just rolled his eyes with a smile.
"Tadano, I can count on you to never let me down!"
"Najimi, you know you can't copy other people's homework. And before you say anything, (to Komi) Shouko, don't give them your notebook."
"Come on, Ace!"
"So, Tadano and Najimi are doing their homework, what's everyone else doing?"
Komi wrote in her notepad,
I'll just review mine.
"Okay, what about you Ren?"
"Oh, I'll just take this chance (in trance) to sit here and watch Komi."
Ace took this opportunity to clean up the plates and leftover pie. When he came back in the room with some drinks, he set them down on the table before going to his desk.
A minute later, Najimi spoke up, "Summer's about to end already. It went by so fast."
"Yeah, it did./Mhm." Tadano and Ace said.
"And we had a lot of fun, right?"
"I didn't do anything the first week though."
"Same here. Until a day later. You should've come to the water park with us, man. We had a blast." said Ace, "I even saved Shouko from hurting herself when she tripped."
"Oh yeah, after the water gun fight, Yamai and all of them went to shave down that part of the pool deck."
"I...did not see that."
"(normal tone)I have a picture of it on my phone, wanna take a look?" the obsessed girl said.
"I do and don't for some reason.
Hey, that reminds me, Shouko and I met up at the playground and played around. Man, it's still giving me flashbacks."
Komi nodded in confirmation.
...I swear I just saw Ren twitch a bit.
"Oh, Ace, you missed out on going with us to the summer festival. Why's that?"
"I could see everything from the top of my roof and it's not that far from here. I just didn't feel like going."
"Yamai, did you have fun with Komi?" "What?" "You mentioned you were gonna hang out with her." "I- Well, I just..." "Oh, I see. You weren't able to invite her over."
Yamai didn't know what to say next, making Najimi and Ace laugh.
The two stopped when they looked at Komi, who had tears forming in her eyes. This got Tadano's and Yamai's attention as well.
"(worried tone)What's the matter Komi?!" Yamai said.
"Relax people," Ace said, "she's fine. She's just upset that summer's ending."
Komi wrote to confirm,
Ace is right. This is the first time I've ever wished summer break wouldn't end.
Aw, ain't that sweet?
Najimi then started sobbing, getting everyone's attention again.
"Me too! i don't want it to end either! I won't be able to finish my homework!"
"Alright then, let's stop talking and get it done." Tadano said.
She then sobbed even more making Ace roll his eyes.
When it was time for everyone to go, Ace went back into the kitchen to do the dishes.
Halfway done, he heard a knock at the door, and stopped to go see who it was.
To his surprise, it was Komi.
"Hey Shouko, did you forget something?"
She replied with her notepad,
No, not that. I want to hangout with you.
You can tell from Ace's face that he was surprised. Ace mostly came over to her house when they were younger. There was only a few times that she came over to his. This was rare.
A little anxious she then replied without her notepad, "M-May I...c-come in?"
His surprised face turned into his kind smile as he said, "Come on in."