The last couple of days would come to pass, Akio and Taira were finally getting ready to head back home for the weekend. Taira himself would be collecting his things from his locker while Akio waited on him, looking at all the different students leaving through the front doors.
"I think that's everything!" Taira said, shutting the door and standing up.
"Cool! Let's hurry up and get outta here!" Akio responded as the two would leave out through the doors. "Can't say I haven't been waiting on the weekend to finally get here, finally an excuse to just sit back and not to work and have fun!" He playfully hit Taira on the shoulder.
"Hah, same here!" He said, rubbing his shoulder.
"Hey! Wanna hit up my place to play some games?"
"Sure, I'd have to call my Mom and tell her though."
"We got a phone at home, don't worry about it!"
A couple of other boys would then soon run up behind them, "Hey! You planning some kind of get together without us?!" Mochizuki said, grabbing Akio's shoulder.
Sakamoto was panting, having his hands on his knees. "You need to wait for me... pant Mochizuki..."
"You guys want to tag along? I'm not sure... I don't even know if I'll have enough controllers for everyone." Akio said, folding his arms.
"We're all part of Mr. Hayashi's class, I think it'd be beneficial if we all got together and bonded, would be good for morale y'know?" Mochizuki said, shrugging.
"In that case, shouldn't we bring Shinshi along too?" Sakamoto said.
Taira raised his eyebrow, "I don't think it'd be a great idea to bring a girl to an all guys get together though..."
Sakamoto held his finger up to his face, "Why not? She's part of our class too."
"Well number one, she's already been to my house one time too many. Number two, Mom would get really suspicious if I started bringing girls home, especially with a bunch of guys there too." Akio responded.
"But what does being a girl have to do with it?" Sakamoto held up a look of genuine confusion.
"You grew up sheltered or something?" Akio would ask sarcastically.
"Well-"
Akio held his hand up, "Never mind, listen, you're all free to crash. Just try to be chill and everything around my parents, okay?"
Mochizuki gave a thumbs up, "No problem!"
"I can do that!" Sakamoto said.
"Alright, just follow me then." Akio motioned for everyone to follow him, taking the direct pathway out to where he lived. Mochizuki and Sakamoto would realize they would be walking for longer than they had expected, normally it wouldn't take too long to walk home from school for them. After some time they'd come up to a home that's a good distance away from the middle school, though not too far to be unable to walk there on foot. Akio twisted the doorknob and opened the door, inviting everyone inside. "Mom! I'm home!"
"Welcome back!" His mother, Noa, would say from another room.
"I got some friends over! Hope you don't mind!" Akio said as he shut the door behind him.
"Oh! Really now? Well tell them to make themselves at home! I'll be out in a minute!"
"Man, you got a nice house, Shinohara..." Mochizuki said, taking notice of the nice interior. "It's a lot more... Humble... Than I expected."
"I thought you lived in a big mansion..." Sakamoto said.
Akio responded, leading them to the living room after having them remove their shoes, "Dad told me a mansion would be too much space that'd require too much maintenance, and we'd end up using it less than what'd be worth. Something like that."
"Makes sense, a house of this size is more than enough to sustain just three people. I'd say it's pretty cozy at that." Taira said, making his way to the house phone. Sakamoto would sit with his legs crossed on the floor while Mochizuki sat down on the couch. Akio would begin to hook up the console to the TV, plugging in the power cables and hooking up the HDMI from the console to the TV. His mother would then walk in to greet everyone.
She bowed with a big grin on her face, "Hi everyone! I know Taira... But you two must also be Akio's friends right?"
"I'm Kota Sakamoto...! It's very nice to meet you ma'am!"
"I'm Shintaro Mochizuki! Pleasure to meet you!"
"Ah! Well then Welcome Sakamoto, and welcome Mochizuki! As you may already know I'm Akio's Mother! I'm happy my sweet little honey-bun is making tons of friends already!" She would hug Akio in front of all his friends to his embarrassment.
"Okay Mom—That's enough!" Akio said.
"Oh fine... I guess you're just too cool for someone like me now." She said while she shrugged, shaking her head.
"I get it just... Not in front of my friends, okay...? " He said in a quiet tone.
"Oh alright, if you need anything, just let me know!" She would then leave everyone to their own devices, going back to the room she was in before. As soon as she left and was out of earshot, Sakamoto would quickly scoot over to Akio.
"Shinohara—your mom's really cute..."
This would catch him off guard, "W-What?!"
"I thought you already knew what she looked like?" Mochizuki responded.
Sakamoto turned to Mochizuki, "What do you mean?"
"She's the famous labor pilot Noa Izumi, AKA Mrs. Shinohara."
"Wait..." Sakamoto took a second to think.
"His last name is Shinohara, you're telling me you never put two and two together?"
"I know about Mrs. Shinohara... I just didn't think of her being Shinohara's... Mom..."
"Man you're a little slow sometimes."
"Mrs. Shinohara is really cute..."
"Okay! Enough about my Mom!" Akio said out loud. "Let's hurry up and start playing already."
After the controllers were passed around they'd all begin their session, the game of choice being a co-op platformer game. The game allowed them to interact with each other, leaving there to be some silly hijinks that'd ensue.
"...Hey! Hey! No, put me down!..."
"...If I don't make this jump I'll just bubble myself... ...Okay doesn't matter just pop me and lets go..."
"...Wait for me, wait for me, wait for me...!"
"...You threw that at me on purpose you bastard...!"
"...You greedy—you only need one power up...!"
A little over a half hour would pass while they played, soon after switching over to a racing game instead. Noa would pass by to go to the kitchen, returning to the living room to place down a plate of apple slices. "Don't mind me everyone!"
"Thanks Mom!" Akio said.
"Thank you Mrs. Shinohara!" Everyone else said in unison before they'd all go reaching for slices.
"Not a problem at all! Like I said, if you need anything just ask!" Noa said, making her way back down the hallway.
"So, anyone else curious about that new console Schaft is putting out?" said Taira.
Sakamoto began speaking with his mouth full of apple slices, "I ory eard * gulp* rumors about it online."
"I remember seeing a picture of it, it looked a little funny for a game console." Mochizuki added.
Taira adjusted his glasses, "High chance that's just the dev kit, what they use to test the games out on when the design of it isn't finalized."
"I just wonder what kind of exclusives they plan on having on that thing, since it's Schaft you know it's going to have those eye-catching launch titles."
A thought then crossed Akio's mind, the others bringing up Schaft made him think of that student again. He didn't know if now was the best time to bring it up, but he still desired some kind of closure on the situation. "..So, I guess on the topic of Schaft... What's the deal with that Kawamura kid?"
"Kawamura? The guy in our home room, yeah?" Mochizuki responded.
"Yeah."
"What about him?"
"I tried talking to him, but he just kinda told me to leave him alone."
"Really? That's odd."
"Odd?"
"A little bit, I went to school with him and he was pretty friendly and had his whole friend group too. Other students loved him, teachers loved him, always did his best and all that."
"So why isn't he friendly towards me?"
"I have no idea."
"Could you talk to him about it?"
"Hey man, I only know him, I never was one of his friends."
"Well how come he doesn't like me if we never even interacted? Especially if he supposedly is just this goody two shoes friendly guy? Can't he at least cut someone like me some slack too?"
"I guess it could've been just your vibe."
"My vibe?"
"Maybe the way you act, walk, talk, I dunno. Something about you probably just rubs him the wrong way."
"That sounds stupid, here I am just trying to make friends with him and this is how he treats me? Doesn't sound so friendly to me."
"Hey, I wouldn't worry about that guy anyway, he's not even in our group so it isn't like you'll have to befriend him."
"I still would rather this stuff up y'know? Doesn't feel right to have this bad blood out of nowhere."
"It's a mystery to us all man, not much we can do right now."
"Hmph, sucks I guess."
"Really does—anyways check this."
"Oh come on—I was in first place!"
"Keyword was."
Everyone would keep playing for hours on end, being so immersed in the games that they'd fail to notice the sun had long dipped below the horizon. As the night would befall them, someone else would arrive at the home unexpectedly by the guests. The door opened and a man dawning a dress shirt made his way into the living room, surprised to see the amount of activity taking place there.
"Hey, Noa, since when did we have four kids?!" Asuma said.
"Akio is just having friends over, silly!" Noa would respond from the other room.
"Hi Dad." Akio said, still focusing on the game.
"Hi Mr. Shinohara!" All the other kids would say in unison.
"In that case you all enjoy yourselves, but don't think you can just waltz in here at any time." Asuma responded, undoing his tie.
"They're my friends, Dad! No need to act all tough!"
"I'm just saying that so no one at your school gets the bright idea of making friends with you, only then to use that privilege to snoop around in our home."
"You already know Taira, and I promise you that Mochizuki and Sakamoto are still good people."
Mochizuki gave Sakamoto a look before he'd say anything unwise in front of Akio's father, luckily for him Sakamoto was unconcerned about the current conversation. Asuma passed them all by, heading down the hallway and went to the master bedroom. Noa would already be lying down while watching TV, "Welcome home, how was work?" She said.
"Nothing special, board of directors love to talk your head off, what about you?" He responded, undressing himself to prepare for his bath.
"Everything went along pretty normal today, I guess aside from Ohta getting fired up by one of the recruits. He made the poor guy run several laps around the track with the autobalancer disabled, until the labor itself ran out of power."
"Must have been one of those hot blooded cadets huh?"
"Absolutely, though Kumagami had them both apologize to each other!"
Asuma opened the door to the bathroom of the master bedroom, leaving the door open so he could still talk to Noa. He raised his voice as the sound of running water would fill the room, "Probably for the best, I'd say you should have Ohta go through the new licensing process. Maybe that way he'd learn a thing or two about self control." He joked.
"I'd say the one thing that hasn't changed about him was attitude, he still is really gung-ho and all that. But in terms of impulse control he's gotten a lot better."
"All thanks to Kumagami I bet.."
"I wouldn't give Kumagami all the credit now! I personally can tell you that he's been doing pretty well when it comes to being an instructor. He legitimately does try to make them better labor pilots. If he wasn't, he wouldn't be there working with Kumagami, Haruki, and I."
"Well, at least self control was the one thing he's learned after all this time... Say, you gonna join me?"
"Wouldn't you like that~?" She teased.
"I mean, we always bathe together."
"I was thinking of going on a ride tonight actually, you wanna join me?"
Asuma sank lower in the bath, "No thanks, your riding makes me anxious."
"Hehe, your loss!" There would then be a knock on the door to the master bedroom, Noa answering with a "Come in!"
"Hey is it alright if I have a sleepover?" Akio said, peeking through the crack in the door.
Asuma's voice echoed in the bathroom, "A sleepover?!"
"Everyone's parent's already said it was okay!"
"I don't see why not!" Noa said, putting her hands together.
"Thanks Mom!" Akio said, closing the door and running back to the living room.
Asuma closed his eyes and leaned up against the side of the bath, "Well, tell them to have fun I guess."
"I'm glad you seemed to have loosened up a little."
"Being a big meanie all the time would make me age quicker, better relax when I can."
The four boys would spend the rest of the night in Akio's room, which was just big enough to hold all of them. They'd stay up later than they normally would because of the weekend, Mochizuki telling them a story from an experience he had over the summer.
"So then, when we thought we made it back to the camp's dorm rooms, we figured we'd get caught if we went through the front door."
"Then what?" Sakamoto said.
"I'm getting there... So then we decided to climb through the back window, it was just low enough to where we could climb inside. Each of us dropped inside one by one, but when I got inside, I quickly realized that this wasn't our dorm..." He paused to raise suspense.
Taira leaned in, "It wasn't?"
"I felt something soft under my foot, felt like a piece of clothing. The room was dark so I couldn't make it out, but I bent over and picked up whatever I stepped on. That's when I got a closer look at whatever it was... It was a girl's bra..."
"What?!"
"Holy crap..."
"That's right, we were in the girls dorm, and one of them just so happened to wake up to see a bunch of boys inside. She got scared and woke up the other girls, some screaming upon seeing us. I knew I didn't look like I had the best intentions myself, considering I was holding a bra in my hand, but me and the others didn't plan on sticking around much longer. The light flicked on as we all bolted out, we saw the camp counselor's lights turn on too on our way out. Then it was a mad dash through the forest, running as far away as possible and not let them catch up to us."
"Do you remember what happened afterwards?" Akio asked.
"I think we ended up at another camp nearby, we hid at their mess hall till morning. Then we acted like some of the other camp-goers there, at least until the counselors came to this one while looking for us. We got reamed for it, but it's funny looking back on it."
"Man, you gotta share these stories more often!" Akio said.
"I don't think anything else interesting happened last summer..."
"I think I have one...!" Sakamoto said.
Mochizuki gave him a pat on his back, "Lay it on us!"
"Well, there was this one time-"
"Hello everyone! Sorry to interrupt!" Noa said as she entered Akio's bedroom.
"Oh, hey Mom."
"Hi Mrs. Shinohara!" The other boys said.
She would sit down in the middle of the floor between all the other boys, "So, what are we all talking about tonight?" She said in a playful tone.
"We were talking about how Mochizuki-"
"Nothing special really." Mochizuki cut off Sakamoto before he told Noa his seemingly unbecoming tale. "I don't think it's all that interesting."
She would outstretch her arms, "Come on! You can tell me! I like listening to stories!"
"How about you tell us a story, Mrs. Shinohara?" Taira said.
"Hm... Well... Years and years ago I had a bad toothache, and Asuma teased me over it! Then while I was asleep I woke up with a watch drawn on my wrist with a marker. I got so mad at Asuma thinking it was him, but it turns out it was just the captain! And when the toothache went away, Asuma got tooth pain immediately afterwards!"
While the story was quite interesting, Mochizuki didn't find it as exciting as he thought he would, "Huh..."
"...Do you have another story?" Sakamoto said.
She would place her finger up to her chin, "Hmm... There was also this time where a whale came to Tokyo Bay, and everyone was freaking out over it. It wouldn't leave and we did everything we could to make it go back home, but we realized it was because it didn't want to leave it's child behind."
"Was it a big whale?" Taira asked.
"I don't remember exactly how big it was, it was a long time ago haha..."
"Hm... I guess that's pretty cool." Taira responded.
"Mom, I know you have tons of more interesting stories than that!"
"What do you mean? I think those stories are really interesting!"
"Come on, you're way cooler than you're making yourself out to be!"
"Oh fine, here's another story you might get a kick out of. Around three years ago while I was going out on a drive on my bike, I left it unattended outside of a corner store. When I got ready to leave the thing wouldn't start back up! I had gotten a new one as a replacement, but I also told Asuma about what happened. I think he made an arrangement to get me a brand new bike! It happened around the time our anniversary was coming up, so it was the perfect opportunity!"
"Aww how thoughtful!" Sakamoto said.
Akio raised his eyebrow, "Wait, but you said you already upgraded to a newer one...?"
"You haven't seen it since I always start tending to it and ride it past your bedtime, but this bike is completely different from the one you know about."
"Can we see!?" Mochizuki asked excitedly.
"Yeah, I wanna see your bike!" Sakamoto added.
"Sure! Just follow me!" Noa got up, leading all the kids to the backyard of the home. There was a large shed with a concrete path that led to the back of the garage, Noa used her key to open up the shutters to the building. The lights on the inside would automatically light up one by one as they revealed the dark object in the middle of the shed. It was a sleek white sport bike looking as clean as the day it was made, having the names "ALPHONSE" and "ANDANTE" written on each side. Getting a much closer look at the vehicle, it appeared to have a digital speedometer that displayed both miles and kilometers. "Cool isn't it?" Noa said.
"Shinohara... Your Mom's really cool..." Sakamoto said, marveling at the bike.
"No kidding..." Mochizuki said.
"How come you never told me about this?" Akio said, still amazed by his mother's secret hobby.
"I just never got around to it, sorry Akio..." She said while smiling nervously. "Asuma and I would try to maintain it, but it's mostly been me taking care of it since he's often really busy." She went over to the coat rack and grabbed her jacket and helmet, then made her way over to the bike.
Taira's eyes widened, "You're actually gonna go ride that thing!?"
"Course I am!" She took out her keys before putting it in the ignition, starting up the engine and revving up the bike. "I'll be back soon, so if you need anything just ask your father! Don't stay up too late now kids!" She waved to them as they all stood off to the side. She revved the bike up one more time as both the shutters on the garage would open, allowing her to freely ride through it, the engine roaring as she left through the driveway and down the street.
"You gotta invite us over more often..." Mochizuki said.
"...Yeah..." Akio responded.