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Hot. So very hot. The kitchen was producing so much heat, if you walked outside on a summer day it would feel cold. A huge party was planned at the last minute, and now sweets and sours are being made in the kitchen and stealing the dining room. Nothing could fit anywhere but the sweets and the baker.
The culprit of the mass heat production or the food placed everywhere is one of 3 roommates
Her name is.
“KAWAII-CHAN!” A girl with light blue hair pears around the corner. "COULD YOU PLEASE CUT IT WITH THE SWEETS!"
"Katelyn! Do you think Dante will like these cookies!?" Kawaii-Chan questioned, "I really hope he does! Dante is so CUTE! It would be a shame if he didn't enjoy them." Tears fill her eyes, and she rushes over to Katelyn, shaking her. "KATELYN! WHAT IF DANTE DOESN'T LIKE THEM, AND THEN KAWAII-CHAN WILL BE A FAILURE!"
"Kawaii-Chan, you need to calm down. I bet Dante will like your sweets. You're good at baking. I don't see why he wouldn't."
"Thank you, Katelyn!" She hugs her tightly. "I will give you the BEST cake EVER! I will get back to making everything." Kawaii-chan ran back with stars in her eyes, happily baking more sweets, and getting the ingredients to make Katelyn the best cake she’s ever seen.
“I came here to stop you from making all the sweets!” Katelyn groans, “Okay, Kawaii-Chan I’m going to go to the library, or something, I’ll be back sometime later today. Bye!” Katelyn runs out the door, leaving the house behind her.
“Okay, what do I do now? I haven’t thought this far.” She looks around, “you know what, I’ll just take a drive around, then I can decide what to do.”
Katelyn starts her car, pulls out of the driveway, and heads down to the mall center.
—
The house across from the girls is the reason why Kawaii-Chan is huddled downstairs baking all of those sweets. It was Travis’ birthday! Of course, he did terrible planning and forgot to actually ask the rest of the street, (except for his buddy Brendan.)
Garroth and Laurance huddle over the stove, an uncooked steak sitting there, over seasoned and sad. The two look at each other.
“Laurance, I thought you were a cook.” Garroth sighs, putting his hands on his hips, and heavily exhales.
“I am! Don’t doubt my experience… I'm just not good at steak?” He crosses his arms, staring intently at the seasoning that had been knocked over while the two flailed around the kitchen island.
“I think we need a professional cook. We cannot make the steak for Travis' birthday…” Garroth turns around, with his head down, and sluggishly walks to his room, slamming the door shut.
“GARROTH! I AM A PROFESSIONAL! I TOLD YOU NOT TO DOUBT MY WORK!” Laurance shouts his vision leading back to the mess of an oven. “I’ll fix this, I will get this done with or without Garroth’s help.” Laurance opens up the cabinet under the sink and gets the cleaning supplies. He scrubs the countertop and stovetop till they are pristine. He throws out the steak and rummages through the fridge, looking for extra items he could use to cook. Ending out with the spotless kitchen, and ingredients he gets to work.
—
Katelyn had made it to the mall center, the bustling crowds overwhelming with noise. People rush through the mall trying to get gifts and items for themselves or loved ones. Katelyn joins the crowd and walks to the large Macy's at the end of the mall. She enters the shop and takes the escalator down to the men’s section. She steps forward and sees a girl with black hair and caramel eyes, the girl is running around looking at the different types of shirts, pants, and even necklaces and rings.
“Aphmau!? This is where you’ve been all day?” Katelyn walks up to the girl, furrowing her eyebrow, confused.
“Katelyn! I forgot it was Travis’ birthday, so I left SUPER early this morning to get him a present and I haven’t found anything that would be to his liking!” Aphmau fans her face to stop herself from crying. “I’M A TERRIBLE FRIEND!”
“I think he would think that you even got him a gift is amazing. His standards are really low” Katelyn shrugs, “You shouldn’t worry about it so much.” She walks off, waving to Aphmau.
Katelyn brings herself to the jewelry section, looking for a necklace she knew Travis would love. She roams around the necklaces picking some up, looking for the perfect color and design. She could have gotten something better for Travis if she had more time, while looking around she found her favorite, two rings looped inside on another, made of rose gold. Katelyn had found her gift. She brought the necklace to the checkout, she paid for the necklace, and took the small box it was placed in. “Thank you!” Katelyn exclaimed, leaving the Macys.
She took the escalator up to the mall exit. She walks out of the mall, unlocking her car and jumping in. Katelyn places the box in her passenger seat.
“Travis gave me no time to shop for his present.” She sighs, reaching into her front shorts pocket, fingers roaming around to find her keys. She starts the car with the key, putting the car in reverse to turn out of the parking spot and drive home.
—
“THE AMAZING LAURANCE STRIKES AGAIN!” Laurance claps his hands, wiping his forehead with his arm. “I didn’t need Garroth to make a masterpiece!” He laughs, taking a towel from the sink, and cleaning the powder and salt he spilled on the kitchen island.
“Laurance, what is all the ruckus for?” A dark blue-haired male appears from around the corner.
“SHHHH, Travis cannot know of my masterpiece.”
“Uh, okay?” He shrugs, walking through the kitchen to get a bag of chips from the pantry. “Travis hasn’t been home all day, so why do I have to be quiet?”
“He might be listening in on us! Don’t you know his evil ways, Dante!”
“Dude, you are crazy, there is no way that Travis is spying on us!” Dante exclaimed, “Last time I checked he was at Brendan’s house playing video games.”
“Whatever you say.” Laurance sighs, “Hey, since you are here do you mind helping me set up this chicken?”
Dante huffs and throws his bag of chips on the counter. “Sure, I’ll help.”
The two move the serving platter under the roasted chicken. Laurance wipes under the old plate and places it in the sink. He turns on the water, rinsing his hands with soap and water, Dante walks over and wets his hands, flinging the excess water onto Laurance.
“What the heck, dude.” Laurance laughs.
—
Katelyn parks her car in the garage, turning the key to stop the engine and placing it in her back pocket. She grabs the box from the passenger seat, hops out of the car, and opens up the door from the garage to the main part of the house.
“I’m home!” She closes the door, “Kawaii-Chan? Are you home?” She walks toward the kitchen.
Pink hair engulfed the table. All the sweets had been put in boxes and platters ready to go to the guy’s house. Soft snoring came from her friend passed out on the table.
“I’ll not bother her then.” Katelyn sighs, walking upstairs to her room, fixing her outfit, and adding on her favorite dark blue bracelet.
The door of the house flies open. Aphmau trudges into the living room, placing the two bags on the floor that she got from the mall. She grabs the present she bought for Travis and runs up the stairs.
Aphmau knocks on Katelyn’s door, “Katelyn! I’m home! Can I come in?”
“Aphmau? Uh, sure. Come in.” Katelyn speaks and pulls out her desk chair to sit on.
The knob of the door turns and gets pushed open. “Katelynnnnn! Look what I got!” Aphmau exclaims, she shows a plain white shirt and turns it around. The front of the shirt has a close-up picture of Travis’ face.
“Oh my god. Did you really get that for him?”
“Not only that! I wanted a joke present for him, but I also got him a nice watch! He’s always losing track of time so I thought he’d really enjoy this!”
“Oh, I wish I had thought about that. I only got him this necklace. I hope he will like it.”
“I better get ready for the party soon! Also, have you seen Kawaii-Chan? Since I woke up so early I haven’t seen her at all today.”
“When she heard that it was Travis’ birthday, she panicked and started baking. She made so many sweets. I don’t even know if the whole party will be able to finish all of them.” Katelyn facepalms, “I’ll wake her up later.”
Aphmau leaves to brush her hair, shutting Katelyn’s door behind her. Katelyn spins around in her chair, turning on her computer and entering the password into it.
“What should I do?”
—
“AND IT'S FINISHED!” Laurance exclaims, fixing his brown hair.
“Travis should be back any minute now, so I’m going to clean up my clothes, and maybe you should too.” Dante sighs, walking around the corner to his room.
Laurance looks around at the decorations they did and moves the letter ‘S’ slightly to the left. “I think I’m done here.” He takes off his apron and rushes to his room slamming the door shut.
—
“KATELYN! Are you ready? I want to get there earlier than not.” Aphmau yells from the bottom of the stairs.
“Yeah, I’ll be out in a minute.” Katelyn shuts down her computer and grabs her phone before spinning around in her chair and opening her bedroom door. “Did you wake up Kawaii-Chan? I forgot.” She says as she leaves her bedroom, closing the door behind her.
“Yeah, she’s still waking up, and we still have to move all of these sweets.”
“Are we even going to be able to carry all of that?”
“We can try, and we live so close to them that we can just walk back and get the rest of them.”
Katelyn sighs, grabbing six plastic grocery bags from the pantry, “Two bags each and maybe we don’t have to go for more trips.”
The two girls get to work, moving the big items to the bottom of the bags, then towering the sweets on top of them. The pink-haired girl lifted her head “Is it finally time to go to the guys' house?” Kawaii-Chan asked, getting up from her spot to start to move boxes of cookies and other baked treats over closer to Aphmau and Katelyn.
“Yep! Very soon we will be celebrating Travis' birthday! I cannot wait!” Aphmau exclaimed, looking like she had stars in her eyes “it’s been too long since we celebrated the block!”
“The last one we had was on the 4th of July and some people, cough cough Garroth, cough cough Laurance. So we didn’t even have the full group” Katelyn spoke, finishing up the last bag they had. “I am so glad that we didn’t have to grab more bags because I did NOT want to do another trip.”
“Let’s head over there!” Kawaii-Chan yells, rushing to grab two bags and opening the door before the other two girls could even get their hands on the bags. Katelyn hands Aphmau two bags and takes two herself, leaving right after Kawaii-Chan. The walk is short so Kawaii-Chan was already across the street talking to Dante, and handing him one of the bags. Katelyn slips in, shoving the bags she had across the counter.
“Let me help you with setting these up, Dante!” Kawaii-Chan smiles
“Sure! An extra hand will be much appreciated.”
Aphmau places her bags on the counter “Are we the first ones here?”
“Yeah, but since you guys live across the street from us we were expecting you guys to show up early,” Dante says, continuing to unbox the sweets with Kawaii-Chan.
Aphmau laughs, “Thank you for having us.” She sits on the couch, fumbling with the gift in her pocket.
“Oh, anytime, especially because it’s finally a celebration!” Dante chuckles, placing one of the cookie boxes next to the stove. “LAURANCE! GARROTH! Get out of your damn rooms and come entertain the girls!” He yells, turning back to Kawaii-Chan to catch up on the little things. She giggles and moves more boxes around.
“It’s so boring here. I thought that with all the urgency more people would have been here by now.” Katelyn sighs.
“We are early, I bet people won’t be here until the time of the actual party.” Aphmau laughs.
“Knowing some people on the street, they're going to be here later than Travis.” Garroth rests his arm on the wall, doing a very awkward shrug.
Guess Irene heard because once Garroth had rested his arm. The doorbell went off, “I’ll get it!” Garroth bolts for the door and swings it wide open.
“Hello, Garroth.” A tall woman with bright Orange hair stands outside the door. “Good to see you, again.” She laughs softly, putting her hand slightly over her lips.
“Lucinda! Welcome back to town!” Garroth hugs her. Garroth waves his hand, signaling her to follow him into the house.
Lucinda enters their house, looking around “Oh my IRENE! Hey girl!” She rushes over, sitting next to Aphmau on the couch.
“Oh, Lucinda! Welcome back. I missed you!” Aphmau says and pulls Lucinda into a hug.
“It’s been a crazy vacation for me. I cannot wait to tell you everything” Lucinda speaks, pulling out of the hug.
Another knock, Garroth opens the door again to reveal a man dressed in all black with matching black hair. “ZANE?” Garroth coughed, “I mean. Ahem. Hello baby brother.”
“Zane’s here!?” Laurance walked over to Garroth, looking over and around his shoulder.
“Hello, Garroth. Hello little Laurance.” Zane laughs.
“You are a terrible person, Zane.” Laurance sighs. He turns around, and walks away from Zane, and places himself around the corner from Dante and Kawaii-Chan. Garroth follows him and so does Zane, falling a little bit behind his brother.
“Look who finally decided to show up,” Katelyn mutters.
“Oh, I know you are so happy to see me, Katelyn! Aha!” He laughs loudly, getting Katelyn to turn away from him.
“Hey Kawaii-Chan, are you done placing out all the sweets?” She asks, walking closer to the two.
“Oh yes! Dante really helped! Giving me an extra hand was SUPER nice of him!” Kawaii-Chan blushes.
“Okay, so do you know when Travis is going to get here?” She sighs “I just want to say Happy Birthday to Travis and get outta here.”
“I could ask Dante! I bet that he would-“ she was about to finish as Laurance screams
“GUYS! BRENDAN JUST TEXTED!”
“Oh my goodness!” Garroth yells, rushing under the table.
“Okay, guys! Everyone hide!” Dante announces, getting beneath the counter, pulling Kawaii-Chan down with him
Lucinda and Aphmau hide behind the couch and Katelyn ducks down to the opposite side of the counter from Kawaii-Chan and Dante. Zane walks over to the table Laurance and Garroth are under and drops down to their level to hide.
—
“That was so awesome! I am a sucker for Rom-coms.” Travis laughs, standing up.
Brendan nods his head, furiously. “They are so AMAZING!” Brendan brings out his phone. “We should head over to your house now. I bet the guys miss you so much.”
“Haha! You flatter me, Brendan!”
The two head out of Brendan’s basement and walk out onto the street. It had cooled as the sun slowly fell. Still a summer day, yet so much colder in the evening. Brendan takes the lead and walks over to the guys' house. He knocks three times before ringing the doorbell.
“Huh, that’s weird. Is no one home.” Brendan questions. He puts his hand on the door handle and pushes it down. The door opens with a creak, all of the lights are off in the house. “Travis… Are you sure your house isn’t haunted…”
“I don’t think so. Last time I checked there were no ghosts.” He shrugs
The two cautiously step inside the house. Travis flicks on the lights as he gets closer to the living room.
“HAPPY BIRTHDAY TRAVIS!” Everyone leaps out of their hiding spot. Brendan jumps towards Travis. He puts an arm around his shoulder. “Happy Birthday, Buddy!” He laughs.
Travis gasps, putting his hand to his mouth. “You guys are gonna make me cry!”
“Aw, Travis!” Aphmau giggles.
“Thank you guys for doing all this for me.” Travis wipes his fake tears.
“Of course we would do this for you bro!” Dante wraps his arm around Travis.
“Alright Travis, here’s the big question.” Garroth speaks, taking a dramatic pause every so often. “Do you want to start with Pizza, Cake, or Kawaii-Chan’s treats…”
“Let’s all feast on the cake! Then everyone can eat what they want!” He announces.
Everyone cheers and ushers Travis to come cut the cake. “Guys, we’ve gotta sing!” Garroth yells.
The lights went out, the lit candle on the cake shone bright on the birthday boy's face. Travis smiles as his friends start singing to him.
It’s been a hell of a year, he’s with his friends in their house on a street with some of the best people he has met.
“Happy Birthday to you!” Once they finish the song Travis blows out the candles.
“This has got to be one of the happiest birthdays I’ve spent.” He cries, “Now! Let’s eat!”
He takes the burnt unlit candles from the top of the cake and puts them aside, first cutting himself an equal piece leaving more than enough slices of the cake to his friends.
“Now your older Travis, finally caught up.” Katelyn laughs, stabbing a piece of cake with her fork.
“Hey! I’m only like a year younger than you! It doesn’t mean anything!” He refutes, sighing.
“Haha! I still remember when you were a freshie!”
“You threw a volleyball at my head when I was a freshman!”
“I apologized! It doesn’t count!”
Travis laughs, “It totally counts, Katelyn.”
“No. way.” She rolls her eyes.
“Hey guys! What did I miss!” Brendan walks up to the two of them. His face looks like he got slammed into the birthday cake.
“Bro! What happened to you?”
“What! Garroth told me I got all of the cake off my face!”
Katelyn sighs, “I guess he lied to you.”
“That dude! I was getting all the ladies when Garroth gave me another piece of cake, of course I ate it, but I guess I ate it too messy because I looked in your guys big mirror and I had cake all over my face. Garroth said he cleaned it up! But he lied to me!” Brendan spits.
“Why would Garroth take away your gals!?”
“I dunno bro!”
“You guys are hopeless.” Katelyn mutters, resting her arms on the counter in the kitchen.
“Katelyn, you’ve gotta understand I was surrounded by the cutest girls ever! Aphmau was there, Lucinda, KAWAII-CHAN.”
“I think the cutest girl ever is right here.” Travis winks, he snakes his arm around Katelyn's waist, pulling her closer.
“You’re so lucky I told myself I wouldn’t punch you today.” She grits her teeth.
Travis laughs to himself, “Dude! You get all the babes, I swear!” Brendan exclaimed.
“I’ve got so many to choose, but I only want this fly honey over here.”
“Please do not call me a fly honey.” Katelyn sighs, trying to push Travis away, and ultimately failing.
“Oh Brendan! Come here! I made you a little gift!” Aphmau yells from the couch.
“Sorry I have to leave again, the ladies call!”
He rushes over to the couch, sitting in between Aphmau and Lucinda.
Travis sighs and twirls Katelyn out of his grasp. She stands in front of him, leaning on the counter.
“Katelyn.” He glances at the floor and then looks Katelyn in the eyes. “I am so glad I met you.
Katelyn laughs, “where is this coming from Travis?”
“Well, I’ve never said anything about it before!” He flushes “I just enjoy spending time together.”
Katelyn looks at Travis as if he was speaking a foreign language. “Really?”
“Yeah you and Brendan are my best friends! I really love being with you.”
Katelyns eyebrows furrow, looking disappointed with Travis’ words.
“Your company is mediocre.”
“Hey! You can’t say that to the birthday boy!”
Katelyn laughs and takes two of Kawaii-Chan’s treats, one for her and one for Travis.
“Happy birthday, Stupid.”
“Love you too, Katelyn.”
“Stop winking like that, you look like something got stuck in your eye.”
“Stop insulting me! I’m still the birthday boy y’know!”