Chapter 143: Chapter 142: Festival

[Sunday, September 8th]

I wake up to Eir’s insistently repeating, “Sora, Chinatsu, it’s time to get up. Breakfast will be ready soon and your parents want you to speak to you.”

Groggily, I sit up, yawn and respond, “Alright, Eir. I got it. Thank you. Tell them we’ll be down soon.”

Flopping back down for a moment, I groan and try to remember what time we actually laid down to sleep. I think it was around 5:30 or so. Glancing at the clock, I see that it’s just after 8:00, which only makes me groan again.

Sitting back up, I wake everyone and tell them, “Come on, ladies. We need to get dressed because breakfast will be ready soon.”

Ako sleepily mutters, “Don wan breakfas. Tired...”

Kimi shakes her hard and says, “Get up, Ako! We’re all still sleepy, but we can sleep more tonight.”

Groaning, she sits up and stretches. We dress, then quickly throw our hair into ponytails and head downstairs for breakfast.

After we exchange “Good morning’s” with everyone, we sit down, fix a plate for ourselves and begin to eat. A few minutes later, Mama says, “Girls, we are all going to the Chofu Fireworks Festival this evening, so be sure to wear something comfortable.”

Chinatsu asks what I’m sure we all want to know. “Family only, or?”

Dad chuckles. “Of course, you can bring your friends and boyfriends if you like.”

Once we finish eating, we call or text our respective boyfriends. Even Ako and Kimi text Koraro and Seiji to invite them. I text Ryu while Chinatsu texts our friends. Ryu responds almost immediately saying yes. The rest of their responses slowly filter in, but they all say yes as well. Since they agreed, we invite them over to spend the day with us and tell them to bring their swimsuits and something comfortable to wear for the festival. Unanimously, the answer is we’ll be there as soon as we can. Although I’d love to know when did Mayu and Keiko get boyfriends? They never said anything until now when they asked if they could bring them along. Chinatsu tells them of course.

Before we go back upstairs, I ask everyone, “What does everyone think about swimming for the day?”

Everyone answers with some version of yes, except for Kimi and Ako who say nothing and look a little down.

As everyone heads upstairs to get ready, I catch Ako and Kimi to ask, “What’s wrong? Don’t you like to swim?”

Ako nods. “We love to swim, but that isn’t the problem. We don’t have anything to wear.”

I glance at Chinatsu, who giggles, which makes me smile.

“Come with us, we have something for you.”

Leading them upstairs to our room, we have them take a seat on the love seat. I’m sure you remember us taking them shopping yesterday. Well, what I didn’t say then is that Chinatsu and I kind of snuck over and bought them a couple of bikinis and a cover up each.

Chinatsu walks into her closet and comes back out with two colorful boxes elegantly tied closed with yellow and blue ribbons and the other with yellow and white ribbons. Yes, rather blatant aren’t we? Yellow to symbolize friendship, and the other ribbons are so we know whose present is which. We’re so cheesy at times.

Their eyes widen as she hands each of them a box. Ako asks, “What’s this?”

She smiles and says, “Go ahead, open them and you’ll see.”

They quickly open them and Ako looks back up with a confused expression. “How? When?”

Her smile gets even bigger when she replies, “Yesterday when you two were trying on several outfits, we snuck off and got these for you. We assumed that if your father wouldn’t buy you nice clothes, he wouldn’t buy these either.”

What we bought them are brazilian bikinis. Tan through, of course. All four of them a slightly more modest cut of the string halter top with the low rise bottoms. Bright yellow and topaz for Ako, and cobalt blue and ruby red for Kimi. They’ll definitely make an impression on Seiji and Kotaro in them.

Ako and Kimi are smiling at them as they look them over. Kimi looks up at us and says, “Thank you for these and you’re right, father wouldn’t have bought these for us. He might even flip out.”

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I roll my eyes. “I’ve already seen his attitude about women. It’s like he’s been transplanted here from the Meiji era. If he gives you any grief over the clothes, call us.” They both look a little confused. “You had to see how deferential he was when he found out who we were.” They nod. “Then call us and I’ll explain things to him. Listen, he wants you to be friends with us, remember he said so. He knows that it makes good sense for you to be close to us, so I have my doubts that he’ll say much, if anything.”

Kimi merely nods again and says, “Okay, we can do that,” but Ako still looks a little perplexed as she asks, “Why would he want us to be friends? I don’t get it.”

“It’s rather simple. Our family is friends with many of the prominent people in business and finance. That would mean you’d get to know them as well. Remember what I said, it’s not necessarily what you know, but who you know? Knowledge and experience can take you far in life, but knowing the right people along with those can take you much farther.”

They both nod and Ako says, “That makes sense.”

“Now that that’s settled, Chinatsu and I have to braid and put up our hair or it will be an utter mess when swimming.” That brings something else to mind. “Eir?”

“Yes, Sora.”

“Please inform security that our boyfriends and friends will be coming over and they are to allow them through.” I give her a list of their names.

“Certainly Sora. Security has been informed.”

“Thank you, Eir.”

About an hour later, we’re out back sunning ourselves on the pool deck.

Okay, I realize I should probably describe all this. As you exit the house, you walk out onto a covered 4 x10 meter stone patio with a full outdoor kitchen on the left side.

Extending beyond that is a grotto type pool and it’s simply gorgeous. It’s built of all natural stone with three very tall waterfalls in the deep end with two water slides between them. Behind the center waterfall in a lounge made to resemble a cave. It has a full wet bar and seating area inside. Also there are a few small alcoves hidden here and there amongst the landscaping. You’ll never even know they are there until you happen upon one of them. The rounded L-shaped lagoon pool itself is simply huge. I say that because the deep end is easily 45 square meters and 5 meters deep, which leads into the shallow end that’s around 40 square meters itself and tapers off to 1 meter deep with a wading pool connected to it on the right side. On the left is an inground hot tub. The surrounding deck is made of the same natural stone that the pool is and extends 3 meters from the edge of the pool. One of the neatest features included is the lighting. You can choose from 16 different colors, or let the computer control the lighting to coincide with whatever music is playing.

First to arrive are Kei, Jim and Hiroaki. Waving at the three of us as they pass by, they head for their girlfriends. After they hug and kiss them, they get drinks and come back to sit down with us.

Then Keiko and Mayu arrive with who I assume to be their boyfriends. Coming over, Keiko says, “Thanks for inviting us.” She gestures to the boy beside her. “This is my boyfriend, Yuta Morito.”

Chinatsu tells them, “Welcome. I’m Chinatsu,” she gestures to me, “this is my sister, Sora,” then she gestures to Ryu, “and I’m sure you know you know our fiancé, Ryu.”

He replies. “I do. Nice to see you again, Ryu.”
Mayu cuts in and says, “I’d like to introduce my boyfriend, Kouki Arima. He prefers Kou though.”

I smile and reply, “Nice to meet you. Welcome to our home.”

The arrival of everyone else interrupts, especially when Ami and Aoi come running over and Aoi gushes, “Oh my God, girls! This place is amazing!”

Chinatsu and I giggle, and she tells them, “You haven’t even seen it all yet. We’ll give you a tour later.”

“What we saw of the first floor as your maid brought us is amazing enough. I can’t wait to see the rest.” She gestures to the pool area. “I love this though.”

“We do too. Get something to drink and let's have fun.”

Kotaro and Seiji come over at a more sedate pace, but their eyes light up when they see Ako and Kimi. Kotaro nudges Seiji with his elbow and murmurs, “Wow.” Seiji merely nods in agreement and then they greet everyone.

Suffice it to say that we swim, sun ourselves, eat lunch, which is simply delicious even if it's only finger food, and generally have a great time. I will say that it would be nice Ami and Aoi had boyfriends to help occupy their time. What I mean is they are both very cute and have great personalities, so there’s really no reason I can see they don’t. Well, other than I suppose they don’t want them at the moment or maybe haven’t found the right ones yet.

About 5:30, Amane comes out to tell us we need to clean up for dinner. So, we collect our things and head upstairs with everyone to shower and dress. After dinner, we load up for the two hour drive to Chofu.

I won’t go into any detail of the rest of the evening, but everyone really enjoyed themselves at the fireworks festival. We drop everyone off on our way home, except for Ako and Kimi who are spending the night, which again ends up as a slumber party. It’s not all that surprising considering the fact that their father never let them attend any.

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