12 How did it end like this?

Arriving in the kitchen together, Saito and Takashi had been talking about questions they needed to ask Honda-san. He greeted them hastily by going to the stairs.

"Haruki-san, wait," Saito-san called, and again Haruki was interrupted in his goal.

Saito came to him, running his hand over his back, carefully pulled a long strand of pink-pastel hair. And looking inquisitively at Haruki with the hair between his forefinger and thumb, he asked,

"Did you find a mermaid, Haruki-san?"

"Hm?! No," he scratched his neck.

Takashi also came to their side and Haruki found himself in a delicate position.

"I'm going to call the others, so I tell the story just once," he wanted to get rid of both of them and go to disturb the massage, but to his frustration, Daisuke was entering the kitchen right now. He didn't get the bust he wanted.

In doing what he had said he would do, he found that Jun was in the locker room taking a shower.

'Hmmm! So suspicious!' it was impossible to avoid a grudge against that bastard baker! 'Who the hell takes a shower after an innocent massage?'

Hinata slept heavily, so Haruki gave up on waking him up.

Back in the kitchen, he told of his meeting with the tester while they were having breakfast. He made sure to be brief so as not to give Jun time to arrive, and have to find out later.

They laughed a lot at what happened, but Saito scratched his head and seemed to be worried.

Daisuke and Haruki took a loaf at the same time. At that moment he realized they had eaten the whole batch. He looked at Daisuke who dropped the last loaf. Haruki also let go, embarrassed.

And as he got up from the table, he saw Jun leaning against the doorway, watching the flock of 'greedy munchers,' merrily devouring his batch of bread.

"I have a question, gentlemen. Did I give anyone permission to touch my bread?" Jun asked in a falsely calm voice.

"Sorry Jun-san, I took the batch, because I thought you made it for breakfast," replied Saito calmly. "Or did you make them just for you?"

"Yes, I made them for everyone to eat…"

"Great, we ate them, and they were delicious. Where did you learn to bake Jun-san?" Saito not only cut Jun's response but also asked a question that to Haruki sounded quite malicious.

"Do you want to know if I'm an ex-con, Saito-san? Jun replied under his breath.

"GAH!" the strange noise of a person choking behind them made everyone turn around immediately. Hinata choked on the bread he snuck up on, and Jun's reply. No one had seen him enter the kitchen.

Experienced adventurer Saito was quick to do Heimlich's maneuver and Hinata spat the huge loaf of bread on the floor.

The senior student looked sadly at the half of bread in his hand, and stuck his teeth in, chewing carefully what was left.

Jun glanced at the empty pans on the table, and left, stomping his feet.

"Well, I think we were really rude not even leaving a loaf of bread for those who baked it, in first place" commented Takashi, scratching the back of his neck in embarrassment.

Saito just shrugged, and left without saying anything.

"Listen, I had an idea to apologize to Jun-san," Daisuke said looking at the three, "A variety show! I'm sure he will accept the apology."

"Um, what happened? Why do I have to apologize?" Hinata didn't know about the events, apparently. He was such an airhead!

Daisuke explained how it all happened, how they ate the whole batch of bread, listening to Haruki's story.

"Yes, I want to apologize," Takashi agreed, "I'm going to ask Saito-san to take part in the variety show as well."

Daisuke looked at Haruki. The singer was still annoyed at the 'massage' thing and didn't want to take part in Daisuke's plans to cheer up Jun, but finally nodded.

"But, what am I going to present? Without music I can't keep tempo," Hinata sulked.

"I play, and you dance," proposed Daisuke.

Haruki went with them to the music room to inspect what they could use for the show.

A while later, when Takashi confirmed that Saito-san would take part, they were all ready to present the reconciliation 'show' to Jun.

And Jun got surprised seeing everyone coming as a group to him, and to receive the collective apology.

Daisuke invited Jun to be their guest to a variety show in his homage, and it got his cheek as red as apples!

Energetic and thrilled, Hinata wanted to be the first. Together with Daisuke, he presented the choreography he had been rehearsing all day. Daisuke played the guitar, and Haruki sang.

"You should think about taking this group seriously, you were great," Jun applauded them.

Takashi went next, who made a dramatic entrance dressed in the curtains and made a traditional onnagata performance, thrilling everyone, and drawing tears from Jun, Daisuke, and Saito.

He was a great interpreter. The traditional kabuki art where a man plays a female character, although improvised, was quite convincing. Even the way he improvised the props showed the artist he was

Saito came for the last performance of the night, and Jun smirked and raised his eyebrows sarcastically when he saw him with the curtain ropes in Saito's hands.

Not that watching an expert on knots was boring, far from it. Only that any performance after Takashi's apotheosis would be an anticlimax.

But Saito wasn't a man to be intimidated and went on with his show. It started with simple knots, scaling so Haruki soon found the moves too complex to follow the execution.

"Well, at this point I need a volunteer to show the practice to these knots. Haruki-san, can you help me?"

Haruki agreed. And Saito encouraged him to parade around himself like the assistants of illusionists do.

"Haruki-san, could we see a little bit of what the 'mermaid' saw in the morning? Could you take off the top of your tracksuit?"

Haruki laughed when he saw Jun's face. 'He still doesn't know what happened earlier. Look at his face.' Amused, he took off his hooded tracksuit top.

His joy was short-lived as Saito-san was leading him to the position the bondage demanded.

Everyone discovered there, gaping, that Saito-san was an expert on Shibari, the artistic sadomasochistic bondage.