Aoi Blind Date
Alex grinned as he strolled down the main hallway. One of his non-Aoi House friends had set him up with a blind date that Saturday night...and he said she was a really hot girl!
"Yeah, man, I met this girl a couple months ago at the bookstore...totally cute. I'd date her, ya know, but I got Wendy. After a bit of convincing, if you know what I mean, I got her to go out with you, though." Ed smirked as he relayed his good news during one winter lunchtime. "I figure you'll need all the dating help you can get, since you're living with those 'yowwie-freaks.'"
The college freshman smoothed his slightly scruffy brown hair back as he neared his psychology lecture hall, a tad worried. He hoped that when his friend told him that the girl agreed to go out with him after 'a bit of convincing,' that the other testosterone-driven male hadn't done, or said, anything that would cause...awkwardness at his date.
After all, Alex hadn't been out on a real date since he arrived at Mooreland State University. The catastrophe with Carlo didn't count. In fact, Alex hoped he would one day be hit on the head with a large, blunt object, and acquire selective amnesia so as to forget about that night.
"But hey," he muttered as he sat down, waiting for the lecture to start. "At least I got a real date tonight."
The said college freshman guy sighed, waiting outside the bookstore at the mall. It had taken forever to convince Elle to let him leave.
"What?" She shrieked, her face turning a violent shade of vermillion. "How can you pick THIS night to skip? We're having a marathon of Gravitation tonight, and we're already missing one member! YOU ARE STAYING!"
Alex sighed again as he wondered why in the name of Neon Genesis Evangelion he had promised Elle he'd watch full-fledged yaoi (picked straight from Morgan's little Yaoi Picker of Ultimate Doom) with her the next free Saturday night he had...
Of course, he was banking on the fact that he might have a girlfriend, who would minimize the number of free Saturday nights he had.
"Because procrastination is the key to success in college," he muttered, grinning to himself.
"What d'ja say?"
He almost jumped as he heard the peppy voice from behind. He whirled around, with such a speed that his rather bland tan jacket almost fell off, only to come face-to-face with a pigtailed red head he knew all too well.
Alex blinked, a bit surprised. "M-morgan?"
She giggled, jumping up and down. "Yes! Hiyas, Yaoi Pet! What're yas doin' here? Come to pick up a buncha manga? Hey hey! Ya know, I thought I saw Carlo doin' some manga shelving, so if ya wanna see him-"
"No!" Alex shouted, a bit too loud that he meant to. He laughed nervously at the strange looks he received from the passers-by, but then focused his attention back on Morgan. "Morgan," he hissed, "what are you doing here?"
Morgan giggled again. "I came because my friend said that his friend would bring me candy!"
Alex paused. "...Huh?"
"I came because my friend said that his friend-"
"Yeah, yeah, yeah, I heard that already. But...uh...what's your friend's name?" He asked, a little warily.
"His name is Ed! Which is really cool, since he has a girlfriend named Wendy, which sounds like Winry, and-"
"Oh...my..." Alex groaned, rubbing his forehead. "Ed set me up with you for a blind date?" I guess it's okay that his "convincing" was just telling her that I'd bring candy, he thought, slightly relieved. But still…ugh…Morgan must have been that other missing member. Arrgh, why didn't I realize this sooner?
Morgan pouted cutely, glaring a bit at Alex. "You say that like it's some sorta bad thing...but any-nya, he just said you'd gimme candy then hang out with me. So...gimme some candy!"
"But Morgan, this-"
"Candy!"
"-was supposed-"
"Candy!"
"-to be my-"
"Candy!"
"-first chance at a-"
"Candy!"
"-real date and-"
"GIMME SOME CANDY! ONEGAAAAAI!"
By then, Alex and Morgan had attracted a fair-sized group of onlookers, curious to see what the argument was about. Morgan remained happily oblivious to this, but Alex began to notice that even a band of little old ladies were whispering to each other over their walkers and turning up their hearing aids to get a better sense of the conflict.
"Uh...sure, Morgan," he responded finally in a loud voice, so as to alert the onlookers that they were, in fact, agreeing on something and (hopefully) going away. "Let's go to the candy store and get some candy."
"Waiiiii! Okies! Let's go! Wheeee!" Morgan laughed, grabbing Alex's hand and dragging him at full speed over to the cute, pink-stucco storefront that advertised lollipops, gumdrops, and all manner of edible things made with the lovely compound that is sucrose. All of it stood under a huge banner that read, in swirly pink lettering, "Candy Candy Land!"
Precisely forty-two seconds later, Morgan pranced out of said Candy Candy Land with her arms full of cavity-inducing confections. Alex, looking not quite as happy, exited the store counting his precious green, wrinkled bills inside his beat-up black leather wallet.
"How can you spend so much money in one shop in so little time?" He groaned, reaching a sad verdict on his monetary situation. "Plus, why'd you have to use my money?"
"Mngph!" The young woman replied simply, her mouth stuffed to the point of almost-not-closing. Finally, she swallowed, bestowing upon her the ability to speak coherently. "You're wallet was easier to reach."
"Easier to-but I was way behind you! You're wallet was on you, making it, oh, I dunno, five feet closer?" Alex shouted, making a face.
The green-eyed insane girl shrugged, popping a chocolate into her mouth. "My wallet's back at Aoi House. So yours was a whole lot closer."
Alex just shook his head. "I'm so killing Ed for setting us up on this-"
"HEY LOOKIES!" Alex looked up to see that Morgan had dropped half of her precious candy to point at a new store. "Lookies! Alex, look! Lookylookylooky!"
"What now..." he moaned, walking up to the store to get rid of the window glare. "A pet food shop? Sorry, but Sandy already got more food for Ecchiboo a couple days ago when you restocked on stuff for your sea monkeys."
"Nuuuu! The poster! Read the poster!"
"What poster?"
"That one! See? SEE?"
"Uh...'One day sale! Up to fifty percent on all eel food'? Morgan, we don't have an eel."
"Nonono! The one over here!"
"'Adoption fair'...oh no..." he sighed unhappily. "Morgan, don't you know the dangers of one of these things?"
"Nu-uh! LETSU GOOO!" She shrieked stuffing the remaining candy into her mouth, dissolving and swallowing the sugar in record time, grasping Alex's hands in her own sticky ones, and dashing inside.
Immediately the fetid aroma coming from the ocean fish cat food overwhelmed them, but that didn't stop Morgan. She dragged Alex past the squeaky toys, birdcages, and doggy beds, right to the back of the store.
In front of them, set nicely out on a large table, were a few large cages with small bundles of bouncy fur inside. A few children were cooing at the small mammals, their parents watching with expressions that read both "aww, so cute" and "I really hope they don't ask me to buy one" simultaneously. Two middle-aged women hovered around the table, answering questions and attempting to adopt off the orphaned pets to good homes.
"Squee!" Morgan shrieked, shoving aside a small eight-year-old boy to get a better look at the cages. "Kittens, nya! Nyaa nya! Nyanyanya!"
Apologizing to the minute crowd, Alex gently maneuvered his way over to Morgan. "Hey, don't be so mean to the little-"
"Can I hold this one?" She inquired rather pushily (yet oh-so-happily) to one of the shelter representatives. "I wanna hold this one! She's so cute!"
"Er...well, of course, dear, if you don't drop her..." The woman smiled nervously as she unlocked the cage and took out its single occupant-a small, black, furry, big-eyed kitten. She neatly passed her on to Morgan, eyeing the college-aged girl with the intensity of a hawk.
"Aww! Kawaii!" Morgan cried, hugging the kitten. "She's sooo cute! Waai!" She paused; making incoherent sounds to further convey the level of cuteness the kitten had reached. "She's like Ichigo as a kitty! Whee! I'm callin' her Ichigo, then!"
Her other "pet" blinked. "Morgan, when you name something..."
"You get attached to it," the shelter woman finished warmly. "Are you thinking of adopting her? Her two brothers were adopted together earlier today, and she is quite a lovely girl. Almost two months old, litter box-trained, well-behaved..." She turned to Alex. "Your little sister is responsible, right?"
"L-little sister?" He coughed, staring at the almost-grey haired woman like she popped out Chii-esque robotic ears. "Nonono, you have it all wrong! She's really older than me! And besides," he glared at Morgan as he continued, "we can't get a cat, and I'm broke as it is. Besides, they eat mice, and hamsters are like mice, so she'd probably eat Ecchiboo!"
The young redhead paused, her face serious for a moment. She stroked Ichigo's soft little head, thinking hard. "Yeah...that would be bad. No Ecchiboo means no more EcchiCam...hmm..." Then she brightened. "Oh well, if we got Ichigo, and Ecchiboo got killed off, I could prob'ly get Oniisan to make the camera fit a kitty's head! So then...we'd just have to use the IchiCam!" Laughing maniacally as Alex proceeded to slam his head against a rack of cat litter (luckily, it was all clean and inside rather large and heavy boxes), she continued to weight the prospects of an IchiCam (hey, she wouldn't go crazy over panties, and nobody'd expect it!) over an EcchiCam (but we'd have to resize it...plus, she wouldn't be able to go in small places or follow panty scents...).
Finally, she relinquished poor Ichigo with a manga-like teary face, and left the store with a heavy heart (and a relieved Alex).
They strolled around the mall for a bit, the two of them quiet. Passing such stores as Hot Topic and Victoria's Secret without much acknowledgment (though Alex did blush a bit as they walked by the latter), they made their way around the fake potted plants and benches towards the other end of the enclosed shopper's paradise.
Figuring there wasn't much else to do on his "hot date," Alex headed for the exit.
Then he realized the green-eyed "girl of his dreams" was no longer following him.
He glanced around the shops, trying to seek out the hyperactive eighteen-year-old amongst the other teenagers and young adults, savoring their night off. Finally, he caught a glimpse of two red pigtails inside a music store (it wasn't that hard, since really, who else wears pigtails and acts like Misha in an American college other than an anime freak?).
"Morgan, come on! I'm not buying you any CDs!" He yelled, jogging around a group of high school-age girls, giggling at the relatively attractive college guy coming in such close quarters with them. "Hey!"
He slid through the door and down a few aisles of CD racks, displaying varieties of music ranging from hip-hop to jazz to the growing-in-popularity J-Pop. This was, in fact, close to where he found her-on the border of the J-Pop section with the much larger American pop section.
So much on the border, in fact, that it was hard for him to tell if the single she was in the process of sampling belonged to one genre or the other.
She stood there, nodding her head and tapping her pink-shoe-covered feet, humming along to the music. Luckily, the older girl in the pink dress looked hardly out of place in the music store, so for once, Alex felt like no eyes were on them.
"Hey," he greeted as he awkwardly stepped in between her and a rather large otaku-type (quite like Sandy) in the process of losing his grip on reality while listening to the newest Hamasaki Ayumi single to hit the States. "What are you listening to?"
"Blue Bird," the young man replied dreamily.
"Not you!" Alex cried, glaring at him. Whipping his head over to Morgan, he attempted to make his request a bit more specific. "Morgan, what are you listening to?"
She shrugged. "I dunnos...it's kinda weird. It's a cool song, I guess, but...like...it uses Japanese. But it's not from Japan."
Alex raised an eyebrow, "Oookay...hey, they have it sung by two artists..." Seeing that the MP3 sample of the "Gal Version" was free (Morgan was making a spazzy attempt at dancing to "Guy Version"), he slipped on some earphones, and pressed play.
A piano started up, and a woman's smooth voice began to sing. "Itsumo futaride, always in my heart. Aitai na, I'll be missin' you, whenever we're apart..."
Soon enough, the song lapsed into a more hyper, pop style, and Alex found himself nodding along to the beat.
Then Morgan began to shriek in a horribly tune-less voice along with her song, which happened to be at a completely different part than Alex's.
This caused Alex to realize that not only was his listening experience ruined for the time being, but also people were staring. Again.
"Mooorgan," he pleaded, smiling nervously at the new crowd of onlookers. "Please stop siiinging."
She paused, and then looked at Alex. "Waittasec. Did they just say "Aoi House"?"
"Huh?"
"I thought somebody in the song just said "Aoi House"...OHMYGOSHTHEYDIDITAGAIN!" Focusing on her song, pressing the earphones close to her ears, she furrowed her brow. "Blah blah blah, aishiteru, I love you...lalalala...Aoi House! They said it! They said it! Suuu...I gotta tell Elle! We're famous, nya!" She jumped up and down, throwing her arms and the remainder of candy that stuck to her three-quarter-length shirt into the air.
Alex laughed. "Yeah right. I think you just heard it wrong."
"Nuuu! They said it, Yaoi Pet! They did! Theydidtheydidtheydid!"
"Whatever." He grinned putting down the headphones. "We should probably go. Maybe if I watch a couple of those nauseating Gravity-whatever episodes, I won't have to do that whole Yowwie Picker thing-"
"The Yaoi Picker?" Morgan cried. "You wanna do the Yaoi Picker? Really? Wheeee!" She grabbed his hand, once again, and began to sprint outside. "If we catch the next bus, we could make it back in time to watch a whole disk's worth of yaoi! Thankies, Yaoi Pet!"
"No! Wait, Morgan! That's not what I meant! It was a deal with-oh forget it," Alex murmured. Morgan had become dead the world, singing once again, only this time about the Yaoi Picker.
What a great way to end my "first real date," Alex thought, resting his cheek on his right palm in a dejected manner as the two rode home on the moderately empty bus. Morgan had claimed the window seat, and still sang about her darling Yaoi Picker in the same manner that Yotsuba would serenade about ramen.
Neither noticed that they still held hands.
In fact, it wasn't until Maria blushed and asked why when they arrived home that they did. This caused both other parties to blush (some more than others), and one to run to the bathroom with the excuse that she had to feed her sea monkeys, while Alex simply stood there.
What a strange...date.
Disclaimer: Aoi House does not belong to me, it belongs to Adam Arnold, Shiei, and Seven Seas Entertainment And, oh boy, lessee…FullMetal Alchemist belongs to Hiromu Arakawa, Gravitation belongs to Maki Murakami ; Neon Genesis Evangelion belongs Yoshiyuki Sadamoto; Tokyo Mew Mew belongs to Mia Ikumi, Reiko Yoshida, and Kodansha; Chobits belongs to CLAMP; Hot Topic and Victoria's Secret belong to…whoever owns them; Pita-Ten belongs to Koge-Donbo; Hamasaki Ayumi belongs to…er, herself; the song "Blue Bird" belongs to Hamasaki Ayumi and Avex; the song "Itsumo Futaride" belongs to Seven Seas Entertainment (and…Tin Tin and the J-Brothers?); and Yotsuba&! belongs to Kiyohiko Azuma. I…think that's it…
Author's Notes: Wow. I just randomly wrote this in one sitting when I was rereading volume one of Aoi House…I hope you like it! I wish there was more Aoi House fanfiction out there, but oh well. Please leave a review…I hope I got Morgan and Alex's characters right! Please tell me, so that I may get better. Heh.