April 3rd, Umi's birthday.
The morning sun shone through the curtain. It was the first time in a while that the weather was this clear since it had been cloudy the last few days.
In this kind of weather, you don't need more than two layers of clothing during the day.
It was also a perfect time for a party.
"…Okay, all set…"
The first thing I did when I woke up was checking my shoulder bag. There was a neat looking box inside of it with a small birthday card attached.
I thought long and hard on what to write on the card last night and decided to go with 'Thank you for everything, Umi'. I originally wanted to write 'I love you' or something similar, but thinking that the card would be read by everyone who attended the party, I decided against it.
As I was double-checking everything, Umi suddenly gave me a call.
{Morning, Maki! I sent you a map, so don't get lost~}
"I won't. I mean, her house is close to school."
{Yeah, well, now you know why even though she's a lazyass, she was never late. Back in middle school we had to take the train and because of her, I was late more times than I could count with both hands.}
"I'm sorry to hear that."
{Well, at least things are better now…}
The party will be held at Amami-san's house. Apparently it was a tradition for them to celebrate Umi's birthday at her house because it was more 'suitable' to hold a party. This came to me as a surprise because I thought that the party would be held at Umi's place.
This would be my first time visiting Amami-san's house.
"By the way, Umi, have you notified Amami-san's family that I'll attend the party?…"
{Yeah, Yuu told her mom about you. It would be the first time that she'll bring a boy home, but don't worry, her mom is much more gentle and kind than mine, so— Wait, Mom? Where did you come from? No, I was kidding–}
You brought that upon yourself, Umi.
Anyway, Amami-san's mom was Amami Eri. She was a retired model and used to frequently appear on the local TV programs. Now, she was a normal housewife.
Since I would be visiting her house, naturally I had to greet her.
{Hello? Maki-kun? This is Sora speaking, sorry to disturb your conversation. I just wanted to say that I'll be looking forward to meeting you again later. Well, I have to teach this girl some manners first…}
"…Um, Sora-san? I think Umi is just too embarrassed to praise you. That's why she said that… I think you're a wonderful person, Sora-san."
{My, thank you. Maki-kun you're the only one who said that to me, you know? Both Umi and Riku are always so mean to me.}
I could hear Umi's SoS faintly, but there was nothing I could do about it except to appease Sora-san's wrath a little. After that was done, I hung up.
There was nothing I could do, so I'll just spoil her later to make it up to her.
At noon, I stopped by Umi's house and was welcomed by her barrage of complaints. Once she was satisfied, we went to Amami-san's home.
Apparently, there would be five people attending the party.
They were Umi and I as her escort, Nitta-san, Nitori-san and Houjou-san. Umi hasn't told me anything about their relationship in detail, but it seemed like things were going well between her and her two friends now. (T/N: Idk why the author didn't list Yuu too)
Well, that was good and all, but looking at the attendees, you could see that the male to female ratio is quite skewed.
The ratio was one boy to five girls (+ Amami-san's mom). Well, I came here because I was Umi's boyfriend, so I had a proper excuse, but I couldn't help but feel awkward about it. Nitori-san and Houjou-san were proper rich young ladies. Their presence gave me so much pressure that I couldn't even muster up the courage to talk to Umi, lest I mess up and embarrass Umi in front of them.
Originally, we tried to invite Nozomu, but he had to go to another prefecture for a joint practice today, so he couldn't come even if he wanted to. Hence, I became the sole male in this party.
Nozomu looked really disappointed about missing this, I hoped that this wouldn't affect his practice.
"Maki…"
"Mm?"
"Your present is in that bag, right?"
"Mhm, it's there… I don't know if you'll like it or not, but I put a lot of thought into it…"
"I see… I'm looking forward to it."
Umi and I were walking side by side while holding each other's hands firmly. She had been unusually clingy along the way, her PDA had been so excessive that I felt embarrassed by it, but since it was her birthday, I decided to accept everything.
Actually, that was just an excuse. I just wanted to see her smile.
Originally, it took only ten minutes to go to Amami-san's house from Umi's, but we tried to savor our time walking together and ended up taking twice the time. Nevertheless, we arrived just in time.
"Uh, Umi?"
"Mm?"
"Am I seeing things, or is Amami-san's house kinda big?"
"Really? I mean, it's one and a half times bigger than mine, but isn't a house this big, normal?"
Along the way, Umi told me that aside from her mom's past occupation, the Amamis were a normal, ordinary family.
So, using Umi's house as a basis, I imagined that Amami-san's house would be probably a little bigger than hers, yet…
Yes, the house itself was only slightly larger than Umi's, but it was sitting on a massive plot of land. The garden was spacious and reminded me of a fancy rich family's house from Europe.
Well, if I were only to look at the house, yeah, it would be a stretch to call it a rich family's house, but a garden this big should cost a lot of money to maintain, wouldn't it?
That aside, I guess I could see where Umi's judgment of 'normal' came from.
"Bark!"
"Uwah! A-A dog?!"
I spaced out while looking at Amami-san's house and failed to notice that a dog crept up on me.
It was a golden retriever, its bark made me yelp, but it didn't seem to be agitated because of it. On the contrary, it seemed to be wagging its tail happily.
"Ah, hello, Rocky~ Come here~"
Umi approached it and stroked its head. The dog seemed satisfied with the petting before it turned to me and sniffed me.
"Um… Do you want me to pet you?"
"Bark!"
"Uwah!"
That bark surprised me. It wasn't a violent bark, but I still felt kinda intimidated. I could tell that it was a friendly dog though.
…I could tell, but…
"U-Umi… I…"
"Hm? What's wrong, Maki?"
"…I'm kinda… Bad with dogs…"
Back when I was a kid, I went to my grandparents' house and was chased by a huge dog. I fell because of that and injured myself. That incident left me a little traumatized.
It wasn't like I couldn't handle dogs at all. I could still handle small dogs, but the larger the dog was, the more afraid I became.
I haven't even set foot inside the house yet, but I already felt like going home.
"Ah, Rocky, bad! Sorry, Maki-kun, this dog is friendly but it can't control itself. I told you to not jump at people like that, right, Rocky?"
"I-It's fine… Anyway, Amami-san, I'll be intruding today…"
"Make yourself at home! You two should come inside quickly, everyone else is already here!"
Amami-san greeted us with her usual angelic smile and led us inside.