Chapter One: The Ranma Plushies NOTES: Double Moonlight Romance is a song in the Sailormoon musicals,
which are real. I've got all the musicals on CD; some of them are really obnoxious. Six is one of the better ones-the Amazon Trio kick ass, and Double Moonlight Romance is the first track on it. As for the plushies; they were basically chosen from whatever anime I like,
therefore decided Sayori should like. NO idea why Ranma was the main one-I thought it kind of appropriate, since Sayori may have been subconsciously based on Azusa...What an utterly disturbing thought.
"Sayori, the plushies aren't going to die of loneliness from you leaving
them for two weeks, and you're bringing enough as it is! I could hardly
get Mida into her seat with all the ones you stuffed in our car"
"But-But-Just one more, Mama, I'll keep it with"
"I think twenty-six, as the count currently stands, is quite sufficient."
Sayori yelped as her mother grabbed her ear, dragging her to the three
cars awaiting to drive them to some obscure American town. "Now get
in one of these mechanical monstrosities"
"Ow, ow, ow, all right! Let go!" She scrambled to the back of the first
vehicle as Ritsuko complied, and plopped angrily down between her
husband, and younger brother, Yoji, who had somehow ended up there,
and had been repeatedly poking Kuwabara just to see what he'd do.
"I don't know what she thinks she's doing, bossing me around. I'm an
adult now!" She scowled, looking behind the seat for her bag, a large
Hello Kitty affair stuffed with plushies (pun intended), and pulled it into
her lap as someone outside slid the can door shut. Several plushies
flew out of the bag while Sayori searched for something. Everyone else
in the van ducked the flying anime characters, excluding the driver,
whose silver-haired, kitsune-eared head was struck by an SD female
Ranma.
"SAYORI"
The kitsune girl winced, turning the gesture into ducking so only the tips
of her silver ears could be seen above the seat in front of them (which
was currently filled by, to Yoji's annoyance, his sister Rami-who
had caught the Ranma when it bounced off of her father's head, and
was now hugging it, Hyoko, Rami's favorite sibling-who was reaching
for a Ryouga plush perched on the car seat squeezed between him
and Rami, in which sat a little girl, no older than a year, with bright wavy
green hair who seemed determined on dissolving the car seat belt with
drool alone.
"Sorry, Papa!" Sayori squeaked, not at all willing to look over the seat
and see the face of her father, undoubtedly scowling at her.
"Youko, you're about to hit the other van, dear"
Sayori chanced a glance up a few seconds later, and let out a breath
after seeing her father had turned his eyes back to the road to avoid a
collision with the van being driven by the King of the Reikai, and
containing the second third of their group.
"That was stupid"
"No one asked your opinion, Yoji," Sayori sniffed in reply.
"Doesn't mean I can't give it," he smirked back.
She stuck her tongue out at him, ignoring his roll of his eyes, and mutter
of "immature". "Shrimp," she retorted, resorting to the time and tried
exchange of completely ridiculous, unoriginal, and overused insults.
"Coward"
"Brat"
"Idiot"
"Stain on the family tree"
"That's low, Niichan"
Sayori looked away from the offender to notice Hyoko was standing on
the seat in front of them, leaning over the back to watch the argument.
"Yeah!" Sayori agreed.
Yoji rolled his eyes again. "Oh, turn on your dumb Sailormoon music
again and leave me alone"
She stuck her tongue out a second time, turning her nose up at him. As
soon as she was sure he had no intention of replying, she glanced down
at the thing she had been throwing plushies around looking for; an
obnoxiously bright pink discman with holographic Sailormoon stickers
all over it. She placed the headphones (a glaringly worse shade of pink,
with matching stickers of Luna stuck to each earpiece) on her head,
pausing for a second in concentration to mentally shape human ears
where the headphones made contact, and remove her kitsune ears,
before pressing play.
Yoji flattened his ears against the disturbingly girly music now issuing at
full blast from the equally girly headset. Sayori didn't seem to notice; she
was now humming along with Usagi's part in Double Moonlight
Romance.
The trip passed for over an hour in blessed silence, aside from Rami
and Hyoko's giggling over an issue of Shougakukan they had filched
from Sayori's bag. Sayori fell asleep less than twenty minutes into the
drive, slumped over to lean on Kuwabara's shoulder, which was quickly
becoming numb.
The memorial soundtrack of the sixth Sailormoon musical continued
despite this, and Yoji and Kuwabara both looked as if they'd like to jump
out of the car and risk their chances on the highway with hundreds of
speeding cars.
After half an hour of the obnoxious psuedo-Broadway music, their driver,
however, had had enough, and unlike the boys in the back seat, was
willing to voice this concern.
"Will someone turn that bloody annoying racket off, already"
Hyoko and Rami winced, glancing at the backmost seat, where Yoji and
Kuwabara were glaring at each other.
"She's your woman, you turn it off," Yoji hissed.
"I'm not that crazy. She won't attack you-You do it"
This went on similarly for several minutes before they both glanced
apprehensively down at the CD player, and decided that something
had to be done. Yoji carefully removed the headphones from Sayori's
ears, while Kuwabara managed to stop the player itself. Although he
and Yoji tried to shove the thing off on each other several times, and
almost dropped it (it was, naturally, a very unmanly thing to be holding a
pink discman with Sailormoon stickers all over it), they somehow
managed to get it back to Sayori's bag. An uneasy silence ensued as
both kept a wary eye on Sayori, who was still, thankfully, asleep.