Chapter 107: Chapter 106: Girls’ Day

As soon as we get home I ask Honoka, “Please, tell Mama that we’re going over to Ryu’s for a little while and that we’ll be back before 2:00.”

She nods and says, “Alright. Ryu, I honestly wasn’t too sure about today, but thank you. Jim’s a very nice boy and I had a lot of fun.”

Sofi nods in agreement and says, “I did too. Thank you.”

“You’re both very welcome. I’d hoped this would go well for you two today. Jim and Kei are great guys from good families, so I thought for sure it would go well.”

Honoka looks at me and asks, “May I?”

I smile at her and nod. Sliding forward, she leans in to kiss his cheek for a moment and quietly says, “You did very well. Thank you again.”

Getting out, Honoka and Sofi head inside our house while the three of us head over to Ryu’s. At the front door, I palm the lock and Ryu opens the door, ushering us inside ahead of him. We announce ourselves as we take off our shoes.

We get two steps into the hallway when Ryo comes down the stairs, glares at us, and snaps at Chinatsu, “Mom told me you’re dating Ryu now! What the fuck?!”

Ryu tenses and his expression darkens. I tighten my hold on his hand and smile at him reassuringly and quietly murmur, “Chinatsu can handle herself, so let her deal with him.”

Chinatsu indignantly replies, “So what of it? How is it any of your business who I date?”

“You’re my girlfriend!”

Chinatsu barks out a short laugh, then replies “Oh, you’re funny! I remember breaking up with you when you wouldn’t work with me on our relationship. You made that decision. It’s too much trouble to try to be with me because I expected you to act like a decent person, and actually pay attention to me and mind your manners. That was all, nothing more and nothing less. You made it perfectly clear that your games were more important than me. The whole time we were talking you kept looking over at your gaming console. Whatever though, it’s over, said, and done. You have nothing to do with me anymore.”

He looks at me glaring and states, “You bitch! This was your idea wasn’t it?”

The loud smack from Chinatsu slapping him echoes in the hallway as she yells at him, “Don’t you ever talk to my sister that way!”

I can tell Ryu is about to step in, so clamp down on Ryu’s hand to tell him to stop and shrug as I tell him, “So what if it was? Like Chinatsu said, you have nothing to do with her anymore. You had your chance. Two, actually, and you blew them. Now you have to live with your decisions. Chinatsu’s happy with Ryu and he treats her the way she deserves to be. She was always going to be second to whatever you wanted to do. I warned you the day of the dance and you didn’t listen. I tried to help you fix things with her and you blew her off because it was too much trouble.”

He glares at Ryu and says, “I can’t believe you’d stab me in the back like this!”

Chinatsu states, “I think we are done here. Ryu didn’t stab you in the back you idiot.” She sighs and continues, “This isn’t going to change anything. You still don’t think any different than before. Listen to yourself, it’s all me, me, me. Go back and play your little games, I can’t even stand to look at you right now.” She looks up at Ryu and says, “Mi Amor, let’s go to your room. We’d like to make out for a while before we have to go home.”

Ryo has a perplexed expression as he asks, “Mi Amor? What does that mean?”

Chinatsu rolls her eyes and tells him, “Not that it’s any of your business, but it means ‘my love’ in Spanish. If you’ll excuse us.”

She steps around him and starts leading the way up the stairs. Halfway up, Ryo says, “Don’t even think we are done with this!”

Ryu looks at him to say, “Oh, yes, we are. You didn’t want any responsibility for Chinatsu. You got what you wanted. Leave my girlfriends alone. If not, I’ll kick your ass as many times as necessary to get it through that thick skull of yours. Is that understood?”

Without waiting for an answer, he turns back around and we make our way up the stairs. Dropping by the bathroom, we get some washcloths and then lock ourselves in his room. Chinatsu and I undress Ryu, and then we help each other undress too.

　◇ ◆ ◇ ◆ ◇ ◆ ◇

[July 21, Sunday]

A knock on our door wakes me. I sit up while blearily rubbing the sleep from my eyes as I say, “Yes?”

Chiaki says, “Sora, breakfast will be ready shortly. You two need to get dressed and come downstairs.”

“Alright, we’ll be down shortly.” I glance at the clock to see it’s already 7:30. I hear her knock on Sofi’s door and tell her the same thing. A few moments later, she knocks on Honoka’s door to tell her too. I guess we all slept in. It was kind of late when we got back so it’s not all that surprising.

Shaking Chinatsu awake, I tell her, “Come on, breakfast will be ready in a few minutes.”

Sitting up, she yawns and stretches and then tells me, “Good morning My Love.”

Smiling at her, I reply, “Good morning.”

Leaning in, she gives me a quick kiss, after which I stand and offer my hand to her. She takes it, stands and gives me a hug. “Mmm~ Much better now. I love the way you feel against me.”

“Well, we were born to be together.”

“Mhmm. That we were.”

“Come on, let’s get dressed and go eat.”

I feel her nod and she moves away to throw on her panties and nightgown. After I put mine on, we make our way down to the dining room. We tell everyone “Good morning,” seat ourselves and a few moments later, Honoka and Sofi come in, say “Good morning” and take their seats as well.

We serve ourselves and begin eating. A few minutes later, Mama says, “As soon as you girls are bathed and dressed, we’ll be leaving.” We nod. “I told you girls the other day it might take quite a while to find the right yukata for each of you. Girls, I know you prefer shorter dresses, so I have to ask, do you want a traditional yukata or a yukata dress?”

Setting my fork down, I say, “I’d like a yukata dress.”

Chinatsu nods and says, “Me too.”

Honoka says, “Hmm… I think I’ll go with Sora on a yukata dress.”

Sofi chimes in with, “I think I’ll look better in a yukata dress too.”

Mama nods. “Alright. That settles that, but you girls do realize we go to parties that will require you to wear a formal kimono, right?”

We shake our head and Mama says, “We do. Thankfully, they are few and far between, but they do happen.”

Honoka asks, “So should we get both?”

“It probably wouldn’t hurt, but we can wait if you want.”

Chinatsu asks, “Mom, do we have to wear geta with them? I hate those things.”

She shakes her head. “No, we can get you girls zori if you’d prefer. I like them better myself, but you’ll still have to wear tabi with them.”

Chinatsu shrugs. “I don’t have a problem with wearing tabi with zori, but geta are annoying.” The rest of us nod in agreement

I’ve never worn either of them, but wearing something that clacks loudly every time I take a step isn’t something I believe I’d like too much. In fact, this will be my first yukata as if I should really have to tell you that. I know the difference and truthfully the zori look a lot more fashionable and comfortable than the wooden geta.

For those of you who might not know, geta are sandals made from a flat piece of wood on top of two slats that raise it off of the ground. Zori are usually made of straw, but can be made of wood or other material and are normally worn for more formal occasions. Tabi are the socks you wear with either of them to keep them from hurting you.

“Alright. That makes it a little easier shopping since I know what you girls want. By the way, we’ll be going to Sakeya Kimono. I’ve never had a problem finding silk yukatas or kimonos there since they have a huge selection.”

Picking up my fork, I finish my breakfast. After we clean up. We head upstairs to get a change of clothes. Once we have them, we head downstairs to run the bath and shower. Honoka and Sofi join us a few moments later. We shower, bath, dress, and fix our hair. Upstairs, I call Maki to tell her to come over because we’ll be ready to leave in a short time. After putting on our makeup, I pick out one of the chokers I received and put it on. This is part of a set of half carat oval amethyst studs in a platinum setting and a platinum choker with a three carat oval amethyst surrounded by diamonds. Looking at myself in the mirror, I think, ‘This looks even better than I thought it would when I chose it.’

As I’m getting up, the intercom chimes. Turning to Chinatsu, I offer my hand, which she takes, and I lead her out the door. Collecting Honoka and Sofi, we head downstairs. When Mama-Maki sees us, she tells us, “Hi girls.” We tell her, “Hi,” and after we slip on our shoes, we give her a hug.

Mama leads the way out to the SUV and we all load in. Of course, we have extra security again. It’s hard not to see the extra car behind us. As an aside, you might have noticed I said SUV and not car. It isn’t a mistake. The SUV we picked out was delivered this morning. Yeah! More room! I know Dad was happy to hear I picked it out especially when he found out who built it. According to Dad, you could hit this with a 120mm armor piercing round and it would barely dent it.

Truthfully, I wish Ryu, Kei and Jim could have come with us today, but that would ruin the plan to surprise them with how we look. Oh, that reminds me. “Honoka, Sofi, do you want Kei and Jim to wear yukatas at the festival?”

Sofi grins and chirps, “I’d love to see him in one.”

Honoka shrugs and says, “I hadn’t thought about it, but it’s a good idea.”

“Then you might want to tell them they need to get one if they don’t already have one.”

They both nod and say, “Okay.” They take out their phones and text Kei and Jim. A few minutes later Sofi gets a reply.

Sofi look up at me to say, “Kei says he has several, so it’s not a problem.” She looks at Mama. “Mom, he wants to know the base color I’ll be wearing.”

“The base color for you is going to be red. Honoka’s is going to be dark blue. Chinatsu and Sora’s will be purple. We’ll see what color your obi’s will be when we find the yukata for each of you.”

Sofi sends him a text as I say, “Mama, I was thinking we could wear our chokers on the date and our obi’s could match them. Or, is that bad?”

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“Hmm… That would work well, but with Honoka’s choker we can choose any color and it’ll be alright.”

Honoka’s phone chimes, she looks at it and replies to the text. Looking up she says, “That was Jim, he wanted to know the same thing Kei did. I told him mine would be dark blue.”

Her phone chimes again, she reads it. She smiles as she tells us, “He said he would get a yukata to match me.”

A few moments later, we arrive at Sakeya Kimono. When we get out of the car, three men and four women get out of the car that has been following us. The women follow us staying within a few meters of us and the men spread out around us further away.

Sighing and shaking my head, I think, ‘I wish this wasn’t necessary.’

Chinatsu slips her hands around my waist from behind and whispers, “Ignore them and let’s have fun. We need to find our yukatas and show our future Mother-in-Law a good time. Concentrate on that My Love.”

I pat her hands and give her a small smile over my shoulder. “Thank you.”

Gently rubbing my stomach, she replies, “Anytime. Sora, you need to stop getting hung up on the small things like this. We have to be protected, you already know that and it’s not going to go away anytime soon, if ever.”

“I know, but it doesn’t mean I have to like it. Honoka and Sofi, I don’t mind. After all, they are family, but all of this? It isn’t right that it has to be done. I want nothing more than to lead a normal life, but that doesn’t even remotely seem possible.”

“Sora, let it go. Today isn’t the day you have to think about this. Take a breath and calm down. Like I said, we have other things to do today, so let’s focus on them.”

Taking a deep breath and blowing it out, I tell her, “Alright. Let’s do this.”

She gives me a tight squeeze for a moment and releases me. I walk over to where Mama is looking through yukata dresses in… Honoka’s size. As she delves through the racks, she intermittently pulls one down to hold it up to her. So far, all she has done is shake her head and put them back up.

Chinatsu and I move over beside Maki and strike up a conversation while Mom’s doing this. “Mama-Maki, how did your date go Saturday?”

Her smile lights up the shop as she tells us, “Wonderful. By the way, the moment I opened the door, he complimented me on my dress and couldn’t take his eyes off of me all night,” which makes Chinatsu and I smile.

“Good. I’d hoped that would be the case. I told you Mama-Maki, you’re a very pretty lady.”

“Mhmm. Thank you. Well, he took me to a small dance club where we danced and drank.” She giggles. “It’s been a long time since I drank and I got a bit more than tipsy. We had something to eat, which helped, and we continued to dance and drink, albeit at a slower pace for me. I had a lot of fun and he kissed me goodnight at the door.”

“I’m so happy for you. Are you going out with him again?”

She nods. “He asked me if I wanted to do something this weekend.”

“Awesome! Umm… You do remember there’s the mandatory party Friday, right?”

She nods and says, “Mhmm. I wish I could bring the boys too.”

“Ryo can’t go. He’s massively mad at us right now and he’d probably tell everyone about me simply to spite me and cause problems. You ought to have heard him when we came over after our date Saturday.”

“I heard nothing about this. What happened?”

Right then, I hear Mama tell Honoka, “This one will do nicely.” Looking over, I see it’s a silk, dark blue with sky blue orchid print yukata dress. I think it’ll look really cute on her.

Returning my attention to Maki, I say, “Umm… Well, when we walked in he came storming down the stairs and started yelling. He demanded to know why Chinatsu was dating Ryu. Chinatsu basically told him ‘So what?’ and asked how it was any of his business. He tried telling her she was his girlfriend. She told him no, she broke up with him because it was too much trouble for him to work with her on their relationship. He then called me a bitch and asked me if her being Ryu’s girlfriend was my idea. Chinatsu slapped him and told him not to talk to me that way. I had to stop Ryu from stepping in right then. I told him so what if it was? That he had nothing to do with her anymore and he had his chance with her, two actually, and that she would have always been second to whatever he wanted. Ryo then accused Ryu of stabbing him in the back and Chinatsu stepped in to say we’re done here, told him that arguing wouldn’t change anything and to look at himself because he hadn’t changed at all because it’s all me, me, me from him. Ryu told him to leave us alone and stay away from us or he’d kick his butt ‘till he did. Then we went up to Ryu’s room and locked ourselves in.”

She sighs and wearily says, “I’ve said it before, Ryo is too much like his father. I’ll talk to him again.”

“Mama-Maki, that isn’t why I told you about this. We’re not worried about him, so don’t bother. He’ll eventually grow up, I hope. The only person he’s hurting is himself. I told you just in case he starts a fight with Ryu over it so you’d know why it happened.”

She shakes her head and says, “I doubt he would do that. He knows Ryu is far stronger and would simply wipe the floor with him if that ever happened. Ryo might be impulsive, but he isn’t stupid.”

“Mhmm, you’re probably right. Anyway, are you going to the festival too?”

“I’m not going to crash your date.”

“You’re welcome to come with us, but if you aren’t comfortable with it, you could always have Kinji take you separately from us. I think it’d be a fun date for you.”

“I’ll talk to him, but I imagine he’ll say yes. I haven’t been to one in probably ten years, so you’re right, it might be a lot of fun. Especially with someone who isn’t constantly saying let’s go so we can beat the traffic. I suppose I ought to get a yukata then.”

I nod enthusiastically and say, “Yes you should. Pick out whatever you want, I’ll buy it for you and you can pay me back whenever.”

She smiles at me. “Thank you Sora. I appreciate that. These aren’t cheap. Alright, I’ll be back in a little while.”

She’s not kidding. Traditional silk yukatas here start at ¥50,000 and some cost over ¥500,000. Traditional silk kimonos are even more expensive than that. The silk yukata dresses we are getting start at ¥45,000 and go up from there. The one Mama got Honoka is ¥177,000. You can get them in cotton, but here all they deal in is silk and satin.

In the interim, Mama waves us over since she apparently found Sofi’s yukata. It’s a silk, red one with a white plum blossom print.

“Come on, it’s your turn, you two.” Mama spends the next half hour digging through the racks, pulling them off, holding them up to us and shaking her head. Another twenty minutes of this and she pulls a violet yukata dress with a pink cherry blossom print off the rack and holds it up to us.

Nodding, she says, “This is the one.” She turns back around and pulls another exactly like it off the rack.

“Mama, I’m not complaining or anything, but why are you buying us matching yukatas?”

She turns around to look at me and says, “I thought you two would enjoy it, plus you are dating the same person, so why not match?”

I look at Chinatsu, who grins at me, nods and says, “I like the idea. I get to match with my girlfriend and we both get to look good for Ryu.”

I shrug, and say, “I’m good with it too. I was merely curious and wondered what you thought about it.”

Mama says, “Alright girls, lets go get your obi’s.” Leading the way over to the proper section, Mama stops at the white obis. Finding what she wanted she hands it to Honoka. Next she goes over to the yellow ones, picks out a bright yellow one and hands it to Sofi. After that she walks over to the green ones. As she looks for what she’s after, Maki comes back to us with a traditional silk yukata in pink with a white lily print, a white obi and a pair of wedge zori. Mama finally picks up an emerald green obi, hands it to me and heads over to where the red obis are. A few minutes later she hands Chinatsu a dark red obi.

She looks at us girls, “I know you girls aren’t too thrilled with the idea of wearing zori. A lot of girls these days don’t wear geta or zori, especially with yukata dresses. They wear stockings and sandals. We can go the traditional route or you can do that, it’s up to you.”

I immediately say, “Stockings and sandals,” and Chinatsu nods in agreement.

We look at Honoka and Sofi, who nod as well.

Mama says, “Alright, stockings and sandals it is. Let’s go check out and head for the mall and we’ll get them.”

I glance at my watch because I’m starting to get hungry. Already 1:40, my how time flies. Taking a step over to Maki I ask, “Is that everything you want?”

She smiles and says, “This is more than enough.”

I smile back, “Okay, let’s go pay for them.”

We reach the check out as the clerk tells Mama, “The total is ¥373,294.” Mama hands her card over, the clerk runs it, hands it back with the slip. Mama signs, hands it back and slips her card back in her wallet. We take our bags and Maki lays hers up there. The clerk scans everything and tells her, “The total is ¥67,992.” I hand her my card, the clerk runs it, hands it back with the slip. I sign, hand it back and replace my card back in my wallet.

At the SUV, we load everything in the back and climb inside to make the trip to the mall. “I’ll make some recommendations, but what you buy to wear will be up to you from here. Open-toe sandals look good with yukata dresses and try to stay below a 7.5 centimeter heel. You’ll spend a lot of time on your feet that evening, so block heels are best and shorter is better.”

At the mall, Mama follows us in as far as the food court where she and Chiaki sit down. One of the men moves off to the side and sits down as well. She tells us, “We’ll meet you girls here when you have what you want.”

We proceed to spend about two hours finding what we want. Sofi chooses some sliver, t-strap 5 centimeter kitten heel sandals. Honoka has a hard time finding something she likes, but finally settles on some white, ankle strap 5 centimeter heel sandals. Chinatsu and I decide to go with cross strap sandals with 5 centimeter kitten heels. Dark red for Chinatsu and emerald green for me. After paying for everything, we head down to meet Mama. Once we meet up with her, we head out to the SUV, place everything in the back and load up to go back home.

Thankfully, this didn’t take as long as I feared it would. This means Chinatsu and I can spend quite a bit of time with Ryu this evening. Hmm… A good idea occurs to me.

Leaning over, I quietly ask Maki, “How would you like to have us help you make dinner?”

She smiles and replies, “I’d love it.”

I look at Mama, who says, “I heard, you two go ahead just be home by 11:00.”

Smiling brilliantly, Chinatsu and I say, “Thank you!”

Mama simply smiles and shakes her head.

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