KOF School

Kazuhiro's Day Off

Everyone saw that Kay and Zayn had grown increasingly happier the week after Erin's comeback. It was as if they had this glow in their faces, one that was absent before no matter how happy they were.
And now, Iori watched as Zayn happily sang Last Christmas by Wham, a last minute addition to their list of songs to honour the Christmas season. He sincerely hoped that there would be no other songs to be added since they barely had a little over a month to practice.
Zayn was acing the lyrics since he loved the song from the start and already had the lyrics fully memorised, a fact that Kay was actually unaware of. Iori was actually surprised that he managed to sneak off the English Club meeting just to watch his brother in action. It actually amused the redhead, how surprised did he look of his own brother, and he ended up snickering as he played his bass. He made a beeline for him as soon as they finished the song and called a break.
"Dash, you seriously didn't know your own brother had such a good singing voice?" Iori snorted, resting his elbow on his friend's shoulder. "Darn..."
"He just never sang at home, okay?" Kay said to his defence. "Or maybe he did, just that he blasted loud music to drown it off. Yeah, that must've been his master plan since the first day."
"That's exactly what I did," Zayn smirked, coming over to them with his water bottle. "Because I know that however good my voice sounds, you'll still say I sound like a crow."
Kay pouted at him and reached for his head to ruffle it without warning. Zayn quickly ducked away and hid behind Iori, who stood laughing at them.
"Don't mess my hair now, we're at school!" Zayn pointed out with a frown, peaking at him from behind the redhead. "I spent ages gelling it up to look like this, don't destroy it with that hand of yours."
"Why don't you just get a haircut?" Iori suggested. "It's a little too long, don't you think?"
Zayn gave him a confused look. "What do you mean? I only got a haircut just last week."
Iori was visibly surprised. "But I see no difference."
"See? And you thought I was blind," Kay sighed, shaking his head before turning to Iori. "Iori, he says he got a haircut from when we went to the barber last week, but I think the only thing he got was a massage and shampoo."
"Says who, I asked the barber to cut off a significant amount of my hair, it's a lot shorter than before," Zayn argued back. "Your hair is the only one that looks the same."
"Wait, you got a haircut too?" Iori said in surprise, turning to the older brother. "You look just the same too..."
It was then Kay's turn to argue with Iori about how much hair has been cut off. They only stopped when the Choir conductor, Chizuru, called Zayn to stage again. The teacher looked at Kay in surprise and pointed a hand at him. "Hold up, I didn't know that Kay was in Band too..."
Kay grinned widely and fled, leaving the hall at once. Iori snickered and made his way back to his music stand.

Kazuhiro's birthday was in a few days and keeping the preparations a secret was starting to look more like a chore. It was just so hard to do stuff with Kazuhiro loitering around the house, even walking in on them while they're busy wrapping his gifts or making important arrangements for the party.
"What are you guys doing?" Kazuhiro asked, walking on Iori and Aiko as they sat in the latter's room to wrap the presents.
It was a good thing the two of them managed to hide the presents behind their backs quickly.
"Nothing, just helping Niisan with some... Art project," Aiko beamed. "Anyway, you don't have work today?"
Kazuhiro grinned. "Nope. Apparently, one of the beer taps exploded, flooding the whole pub, so they have to close for the day to clean up. The manager was even weeping when he called to tell me. Well, I don't even care since I don't drink anyway. So no loss for me."
"Oh... okay," Iori nodded but inwardly groaned.
Kazuhiro waved at them. "Aight, bye. Now I wanna go disturb your father."
The siblings heaved a sigh of relief when he walked out. Aiko quickly scrambled up to lock the door behind Kazuhiro, who was surprised to see the door suddenly slamming shut behind him. Aiko heaved a sigh of relief and went back to her brother to continue wrapping the gifts.
"Now I feel bad for Dad," Aiko snorted as she sat down on the red carpeted floor. "I'm just hopping that he isn't doing any of the birthday stuff too."
He so was. Masaomi was in the middle of a phone call with the baker to discuss about the cake.
"Yes, I ordered a strawberry chocolate cake?" Masaomi nodded as he spoke. He frowned slightly when the person at the other end said something that dissatisfied him. "No, no. I meant a chocolate cake with strawberries, not... not the other way around." His eyes widened when he heard the next statement. "What?! Since when did I order a strawberry jam-filled banana cake with chocolate sauce?! No, no. That's completely wrong. I clearly remember saying that I wanted a rich chocolate cake with fresh strawberries and strawberry cream ."
"Strawberry cream?" Masaomi stilled when he heard his brother's voice behind him. "Niisan, what are you talking about?"
Masaomi groaned. "I'll call you back," he told the baker before hanging up and turning to his brother with a grin. "Hiro! Hi!"
"Yeah, hi," Kazuhiro nodded back. "What's with the strawberry cream plot?"
Masaomi desperately tried to think of a way to get out of this situation. Eventually, he got a small idea and decided to just shoot that. "I was just ordering biscuits from my friend. He's umm... he's selling strawberry cream cookies. Yeah. You like those, don't you?"
Kazuhiro frowned for a moment and nodded at the thought of strawberry cream cookies. "That sounds nice. How much did you order?"
"Two jars?"
"Make it three, strawberry cream cookies are amazing. I can pay too."
Masaomi shook his head. "No, it's fine. You don't have to pay. I'll go collect them tomorrow. By the way, aren't you supposed to be at work?"
"Yeah, but the beer tap exploded, so they're closed for cleaning," Kazuhiro shrugged. "So it's my day off today. Woo!"
Kazuhiro grinned and left the room, cheering happily. Masaomi heaved a sighed, shaking his head as he rested his head on his desk with a groan.
It was as if Kazuhiro was spying on them on purpose. Why on earth did that beer tap have to explode now of all times? It was as if the beer tap actually plotted against them just to get Kazuhiro to disturb them during their plans.