KOF School

Cakes and Dates

"I can't believe that Yagami actually ditched us," Kay complained for the hundredth time since they started their shopping trip. "That's so mean of him, we were only planning to cheer him up, but he ended up bailing us instead. Kyo too."
"Well, on the bright side, we can shop with more privacy," Krizalid enthusiastically said, walking alongside his brothers. "We get to discuss properly, get to shop properly, take our own sweet time, stop for as much snacks as we can, do stupid things that might be embarrassing."
"And then get weird looks by the passers-by," Zayn added to his list, also with the same energy. "Then laugh loudly in public. But then we do it all again without care."
"Correct!" Krizalid grinned. He put an arm around Kay's shoulders and pulled him close. "See, we get to enjoy more without your friends here. And I bet they're enjoying with their families too."
Kay sighed. "I guess you're right."
"I know I am," Krizalid said. "Anyway, this is hard. Why don't we just shop online?"
"Because chances are our friends will rip a package open as soon as it lands in our home," Kay sighed, pulling away from his older brother. "Tell me you won't do that."
"Well, yeah, the thing is gonna come in my name since you guys don't have an account yet," Krizalid argued. "Also, yeah. Seirah is pretty nosy. Too nosy for her own good."
"She sees something arrive in her brothers' name, she opens it up," Zayn sighed. "I once ordered something under my name with Kriz's account and it was open when I got back from school. It's a good thing it wasn't a gift for her or anything."
Kay nodded slowly. "Yeah, I remember that. It was that book, wasn't it?"
Zayn nodded affirmation. "Yes, it was."
"Yeah, so online shopping is a bad idea when it comes to gifts," Krizalid added. "So what should we buy?"
"Should we just go to Beauty and Bath Works and get some perfume and stuff from there?" Kay suggested. "It's easy, and I heard there's a sale going on."
"How you heard about it, I don't know," Krizalid remarked. "Also, I don't think it's a very good idea since we only went shopping there recently, all of us."
"Yeah, all of us are stocked up," Zayn groaned. "Any other suggestions?"
"Maybe we just get some food," Kay suggested. "Maybe we can all chip in for an cake or something."
Zayn gasped. "An ice cream cake from Basket Robbers!"
"That's an idea, but I'm pretty sure that your girlfriends would eat it up by themselves," Krizalid pointed out. "But I like this idea about food."
"How about this," Kay came up with another plan, stopping in the middle and obstructing the path of others. "We just go get some groceries and... and make the cake ourselves?"
"Great idea," Krizalid nodded approvingly. "But I thought you don't like cake."
"Yeah, Dash, you hate cake!" Zayn added.
Kay groaned. "I don't like sweet things, but I'm okay with cake. How about this. We make a citrusy cake with grapes and cream? The sourness of the citrus should cancel out the cream, right?"
Krizalid frowned thoughtfully, nodding slowly. "And this cream... can it be buttercream?"
"Sure, knock yourself out," Kay shrugged. "But yeah, wanna go get the ingredients?"
Zayn shook his head. "Dash, there's still weeks for Valentine's Day, and isn't it too early to get them?"
"Yeah, like what's the point of the surprise when cake ingredients is just gonna be sitting on the shelf for that long?" Krizalid added.
Kay sighed. "Okay, fine. So what do we do now that we're here?"
"Maybe we can go to Holmes and get some stuff," Krizalid said.
"Or maybe we can raid the bookshop," Zayn added. "I heard there's a new self-service shop that sells books for cheap in the ground floor."
"Self-service? As in unmanned?" Kay said in surprise. "Wouldn't people be freely shoplifting like that?"
Zayn shrugged. "Who knows? Maybe they have cameras or something. But whatever, let's go check it out!"

The brothers snuck back home and made a beeline straight for the kitchen after hiding everything in their room. They spotted their parents cooking something, preparing dinner, but their sister was nowhere to be seen.
"Where's Seirah?" Krizalid asked, seating himself at the kitchen table.
"She's out on a date," Maxima informed as he sliced a carrot. "But she'll be back before dinner, she said.
"She's... out on a date?" Zayn said, turning to his brothers in surprise. "When did this happen?!"
Kay shrugged. "Who's the dude?"
"One of your teachers," Erin said. "He actually came to pick her up, but you guys missed him."
The younger brothers exchanged horrified looks before turning back to their parents.
"Uh... who?" Kay asked.
"Another PE teacher named Ralf," Erin said. "Seems like a nice guy, quite built too."
Immediately, the brothers got an image of Hulk in their minds.
"Does he by any chance go around wearing a... bandana around his head?" Krizalid asked.
"You know him?" Zayn asked, surprised.
Krizalid nodded. "Yeah, I think he was my teacher back when I was in my senior year. Ralf Jones. He was a new teacher back then."
"Yeah, that's him," Maxima said. "Wore a bandana when he came in."
"Dudes with bandanas don't sound like good news..." Kay frowned. "He picked the best time to fish her out too, while her brothers aren't home."
"Come on, he's not so bad," Krizalid chuckled. "He was actually one of the nicer teachers, despite giving us military-grade coaching. But he went easy on most of us, especially if anyone had trouble or had fallen down."
Kay relaxed a little. Even Seirah sounded more brutal than that guy.
"Okay. But I wanna be here the next time he comes," Kay said.
Zayn nudged him. "Maybe we should ambush him when he comes to drop Seirah off later."
Kay nodded in agreement. "Good idea."
"Maybe we should go down and wait," Krizalid suggested. "That way, we can easily ambush him."
Zayn nodded and got up, grabbing his phone and running out of the kitchen. He eventually returned when Erin called him back to sample a piece of the sausages that was going into the spaghetti. All three of them had a morsel and then set off to the parking lot in the basement to see what Seirah's date looked like.

Seirah returned to the apartment complex on Ralf's bike and got off.
Ralf frowned when he spotted something that seemed sinister.
"Is something wrong?" Seirah asked, taking her helmet off.
Ralf nodded towards the side. "Those guys... do they live here?"
Seirah turned to see and rolled her eyes upon seeing her brothers lined up and coming towards them. She turned back to Ralf and sighed. "Ralf, those are my brothers."
"Your brothers?" Ralf said, surprised. He squinted slightly and saw some resemblance. "Oh yeah, I can see that. What's up?"
Seirah placed her hands on her waist and waited for the three to reach them.
"I take it you're Ralf?" Kay cracked his knuckles.
"Mr Jones, how are you?" Krizalid greeted, a little more amiably.
Ralf pointed at him in surprise. "Wait, you used to be my student, right?"
Krizalid nodded, smiling. "Yep. You taught me PE in my final year."
Seirah turned to her date in surprise. "Wow, really?"
Ralf nodded. "Yeah. Just a year or two before you came in."
"Three," Seirah chuckled. She turned to her brothers, the younger ones practically glaring at Ralf.
"You took her out just as we were out," Zayn said, smirking sinisterly. "What perfect timing."
"Yeah, rather unfortunate," Ralf said, a little creeped out. "I was looking forward to meet the three of you."
"Oh, I see," Kay nodded, also grinning sinisterly. "Maybe you should come over some time. We would like to cook you."
"Cook for you," Seirah quickly added, jumping in. "Isn't that right, Dash?"
"Right-o," Kay grinned strangely.
Seirah groaned inwardly. "I think you should go. It's getting late, isn't it?"
Ralf nodded. "Yeah." He turned to the brothers. "I'll come over someday, boys. Don't cook me, because I'll be cooking something for you guys before that."
With that, he gave them a light-hearted wave and rode off. Seirah angrily turned to her brothers.
"Yeah, let's go back upstairs," Krizalid smirked. "You coming, Seirah?"
Seirah stomped off ahead of them.