Author's Notes: Um, yeah. This is a companion one-shot to my story "Ave Maria," and won't make much sense unless you've read that. The rest of the story isn't comedic, so I couldn't add this in there without breaking the mood. This explains why Sora doesn't pick up the phone when a client calls. The joke is from Dragonball Z/4chan. Enjoy. Don't kill me.

Sora picked up the phone lazily and waited for the person on the other end to speak.

It took about ten seconds before a timid voice came on the other end. "Hello?"

"State your business," Sora replied. He'd never taken one of these calls before, but Cloud wasn't in. How hard could it be?

"Um, yeah. There's this guy. I…um…you know."

"Name."

"Huh?"

Sora sighed in contempt. "The name. Of the person. You want dead, remember? That's why you're calling?"

"Oh! Oh, right, yes. I just, uh…heh, it really puts it all in perspective once you say it out loud, huh?"

"Hmm, quite," Sora said curtly.

"I mean, it's kind of odd, you know? I mean, I don't even really know the guy. I just…well, you know, some people are just annoying, you know?"

Sora arched an eyebrow and slapped his forehead to make sure he was properly awake and hearing correctly. "I'm sorry, what?"

"His name is, uh…" there was a pause and the sound of a piece of paper being smoothed out was audible. "Walter Lovecraft. Yeah." There was another pause. "W-A-L-T-"

"I get it," Sora stopped the client before he could embarrass himself further, if possible. "And what will you be paying?"

"Paying?"

"Why, yes," Sora said, barely keeping his irritation in check. "One does generally pay for services rendered."

"Oh, well, I don't think he's really protected or anything. I guess about…five hundred?"

"Five hundred thousand?" Sora tried to keep the astonishment from his voice. Five hundred thousand dollars for a low-security target was one hell of a deal.

"What? No! Five hundred," the client soon shattered Sora's beautiful dream, and only cold, dead silence reigned.

"Five hundred," he repeated direly.

"Um, but now that you mention it, that does sound kind of low, doesn't it?" The person tried to laugh to lighten the mood. Sora's left eye twitched. "How about…well, what's the standard fee?"

"Oh, about fifteen thousand for minimal security."

"That…seems kind of high. I mean, bullets aren't that expensive, are they?"

"You do realize," Sora said, his right eye twitching now, "that you are paying for murder? It is not cheap."

"Well…perhaps we can bargain? I can do over nine thousand."

"Over nine thousand?" Sora repeated incredulously. "What the hell does that mean?"

"I mean I can pay you over nine thousand."

"Lovely. How much over nine thousand?"

"Um, I'm not sure. But it will be over."

Cloud took that moment to walk in the door. He saw Sora with a furious grimace on his face and the phone in his left hand. "Hey, Sora. What's up? What's the client say about the fee?" knowing that a call from that phone meant a job.

Sora whirled to face him, glared bloody daggers at him, and said, "It's over-" he crushed the phone with his hands and screamed- "-NINE THOUSAAAAAAND!!!!"

They stood there looking at each other for a while, Sora with electronic parts in his hand, Cloud with groceries.

"Maybe," Cloud said finally, "I should answer the phone from now on."