One of Raijin's many, MANY duties as the homemaker ("HOUSEWIFE," Fujin
called him, amusing herself greatly) of Lunatic Pandora was taking out the
trash. Although the garbagemen of Esthar nearly ended up striking because
of it - after all, Tears Point was quite out of their way, requiring its
own route and all - they still came out to Lunatic Pandora every week.
Needless to say they were not appreciative of tardiness, and on the fateful
morning that begins our tale, Raijin had to shuffle about insanely if he
wanted to get the garbage out in time.
"Where's the trash, ya know?"
Fujin and Seifer sat on the couch, he barking into her headset telephone and she jamming on keys on his laptop. An old black-and-white movie blared on the TV, but neither one of them paid any attention to it, nor Raijin, for that matter.
"Hey!" He snapped his fingers in front of Seifer's nose, because he knew if he had done it to Fujin she would have hurt him. "Yo, Seif'!"
Seifer frowned. "I'm workin' here. Shoo."
"Where'd ya put the trash?"
"I dunno. Fujin, where'd you put the trash?" But Fujin ignored him, mesmirized by whatever it was that she saw on the screen. He had to punch her in the arm to get her attention. "FUJIN!"
She quickly flipped the laptop shut and explained, "NOTHING!"
"Tell Raijin where you put the trash."
She blinked. "OH, THERE." And she pointed to a rather large plastic bag with an uncanny resemblence to Raijin's pants propped up against the #2 elevator.
Raijin lugged it over his back like a pack mule. "Oof, ya know? What do you got in here, a body?"
Fujin and Seifer glanced at each other, and both burst into laughter. Raijin eagarly left.
"Hey, Fuuuuuuujin," Seifer cooed, "Whatcha doin' on the computer?"
"NOTHING."
"Nothing, huh?"
"AFFIRMATIVE."
"Then... why'd you hide it from me?"
"WHAT!?" she feigned shock. "OFFENDED."
"Then... you wouldn't mind showing me now?" He reached for the machine, and she protectively clutched it to her chest.
"NEGATIVE! UM... MEANING... E-MAIL! PERSONAL!"
"Who you writin' to?"
"RAIJIN," she replied quickly. Sometimes it's easy when you have only two friends.
"Yeah? You sendin' him looooooooooooove letters?" He smirked.
"NEGATIVE!" she snapped, resisting the urge to kick him.
"Are you two talkin' behind my back?"
"No..." she whimpered.
"Then you wouldn't mind showing me, right?" he asked slyly. "'Cause... we're all friends here, right?"
"Affirmative," she sighed. And she handed him the laptop - but not before a last-minute stroke of brilliance; she closed Netscape. "OOPS! BROWSER, CLOSED! DARN!"
"That's okay. I was just screwin' with you, anyway. It's no big deal," he said, smiling at her. And she smiled back, one of the rare, genuine smiles Fujin saved just for Seifer Almasy (or Raijin if she was beating up on him). "Besides," he continued, "I can just check the History."
"NO!" Fujin shouted. She tried to snatch it out of his hands, but he was too fast. "NO!" she repeated, leaping onto his back and trying to smack it away.
But of course, as the only man alive capable of doing Zantetsuken Reverse, Seifer had excellent balance and coordination, and managed to pull up the last page that she was at. "What do we have here, huh? 'The Disciplinary Room: Balamb Garden Networks the largest collection of Squall x Sei-'" He stopped reading and started screaming. "WHAT THE HELL IS THIS??"
"...WHAT?" Fujin asked innocently as she slowly moved out of his immediate killing range.
"AUUUUGGGHHHH!!" Seifer yelled upon reaching a more... 'interesting' section of the page. "FUJIN!!"
"SHOCKED! APPALED!" she lied, still backing away. "MAINTAINER, FLAMING!"
"That's a good idea," Seifer said. "I'm going to give this pervert a piece of my mind..."
"UNNECESSARY!" she insisted, grabbing the computer away from him.
But it was already too late. "Would you care to explain this?"
"UM... OTHER FUJIN?" she suggested, hopefully.
"THERE ARE NO OTHER FUJINS!" he bellowed, exchanging his computer for Hyperion. "And in a minute... there ain't gonna be ANY!"
Fujin decided now would be a good time to run for her life, and she dashed to the #3 elevator... smashing headfirst into Raijin. With his bulky frame, she might as well have run right into the wall. She landed on her back, and Seifer was right on top of the situation, with his gunblade aimed at her chest. "Any last words?"
She nodded, and pointed to a puzzled Raijin. "-He- was the one who drew the pictures!"
Friends Like You
"I brought in the mail, ya know?" Raijin said as Fujin gingerly applied the last of the bandages. He handed over her letters, and Seifer's too, as he decided it would be best to avoid him for a while. "And ya know what? I got some mail today, too!"
"NICE..."Her tone indicated she really couldn't care less about the subject, but it insanely changed to sympathetic when she said, "PAIN?"
"I'm okay, ya know? I guess I had it coming..."
"FAULT, MINE. REAL NAMES," she admitted. "HANDLE NOW. VALVALIS, KAINAZZO. OKAY?"
"Which one am I?"
She ignored him. "ICE PACK?"
"No. I told ya I'm all right, ya know... don't ya wanna hear about my mail?"
"NEGATIVE."
He ignored her. "I finally got that laser-tag set I sent away for, ya know! Ya wanna play later? When I'm not so... mortally wounded?"
"SURE. FINE. WHATEVER."
***
It was not long before Raijin felt well enough to force his laser-tag vest over his balloon-like torso and skip out to play with his friends. He looked absolutely ridiculous; Fujin and Seifer poked fun at him for a good long time before returning to phoning and e-mailing, respectively.
"Ya guys wanna play with me? Nice new laser tag stuff, ya know?"
"I'm busy right now," Seifer said, not even lifting his eyes away from the screen. "Delicate... plumbing situation. But I'm sure she'll play with you, won'tcha Fujin?"
"BUSY," she said. "CHECKBOOK, BALANCING."
"Can't you do that some other time?" queried an irritable Seifer. "Isn't our posse more important than your checkbook?"
"YOURS."
He coughed. "Carry on." And then glanced up at Raijin. "I'm sorry. We're kinda busy right now. We'll play with you some other time, okay?"
"PROMISE."
Raijin crossed his arms and pouted. "You're all so busy anymore. It's like I'm not even here. I'm bored outta my skull, ya know?"
"TV, WATCH," Fujin suggested, although with the implication that he'd have to watch her show, as she had no intent of giving up the remote after finally prying it away from Seifer.
"TV sucks," he grumbled, flopping onto the floor like a stubborn child. "It's not fair, ya know? I slave away in the kitchen all day and I try to keep the place nice and clean for you guys but nobody ever notices, ya know? And all I ask is ya pull yourselves away from your stupid business to hang out with me every once in a while, ya know? But apparantly it's too much for ya, ya know!"
Fujin and Seifer looked at each other, and then at their friend.
"Nice work, Raijin."
"JOB, SUFFICIENT."
And they returned to what they had been doing.
"That's not what I meant!" Raijin yelled.
"IRRITATING. SHOO."
"Go play with your GF or something."
"Don't wanna," he said, sulking. And then he grinned. "I know! I'll help ya out, ya know! I'll help ya with your buisnesses and stuff!"
"You... want... to help..." Seifer said nervously. It was not exactly a welcomed suggestion. They cared for Raijin, they really did, but Seifer wouldn't think of trusting him with his plumbing mafia, nor would Fujin with the delicate art that is telemarketing.
It was she who came up with a solution. "COFFEE."
"Oo! I want some Coke with Jack Daniels in it.. no, wait, flip that."
"T-that's not what I meant, ya know!" Raijin yelped. "Forget I said anything, ya know!"
Fujin, sure as always sure to get Seifer's approval before making any major decisions, asked, "PIZZA?"
"We can't order pizza anymore," Seifer grunted. "Look at this." He ripped through a newspaper that had been sitting on the floor, yanking out a Pizza De Esthar advertisement and handing it to her.
"30 MINUTES, FREE," she paraphrased out loud, "UNLESS PANDORA. GREEDY BASTARDS!" They had been living off free pizza since they moved there.
"They didn't really call us greedy bastards, did they?" Raijin asked, grabbing the ad. "Oh, I guess they did, ya know?"
"Looks like you're gonna have to drive into Esthar now," Seifer said, shrugging.
"But...! That's like way far away from here, ya know?" Raijin protested. "Howsabout I just whip up some mac'n'cheese, huh?"
"PIZZA!" Fujin demanded.
"No, wait," Seifer said. "That's a good idea." Raijin beamed. "It'll give us something to eat while he's gone."
He headed to the kitchen, grumbling, "Cook us dinner, Cinderella. Unclog the sink, Cinderella. Wash my underwear, Cinderella..." He returned five minutes later with a pot full of Kraft EZ Mac (like they would really know the difference) and headed toward the door. "Okay, I'm going out now, ya know!" he announced.
No one protested.
"I'm going to Esthar, ya know! I might not be back for a few days!"
No one protested.
"I'm gonna go jump off a building! Goodbye cruel world, ya know!"
"SEE YA," Fujin mumbled, so he sighed and headed to Tears Point, where the car they had borrowed from Garden was still parked.
It was a good 5 hour trip from there to Esthar, so Raijin decided as long as he was in town he'd stay there for a while. It would be a good chance to see people who didn't like to beat the crap out of him and maybe go shopping! Raijin assumed the lack of his presence would make no difference. They probably wouldn't even notice he was gone, ya know? So when he returned home two days later, he was shocked to see just how wrong that happened to be.
"Where the hell have you been?" was the first thing Seifer said to Raijin who stepped out of the #3 elevator carrying so much junk that he couldn't even see. "And why aren't you washing my socks?"
"Socks?" Raijin replied, puzzled.
"I have no socks!"
Raijin started setting his purchases onto the floor and digging through them for his friends' gifts. "That can't be right. I washed 'em before I left, ya know? Did you check your sock drawer?"
"Yes, I checked my sock drawer," Seifer replied snidely. "What kinda moron you think I am? I know where my own friggin' socks are! They just ain't there! And another thing! You're supposed to be cleaning! The place is a STY!"
Raijing chuckled. "I wasn't gone all that long, ya know? I'm sure it's not so..." but he trailed off upon actually looking at the room. It was a sty. The couch has been overturned, magazines and food containers strewn everywhere, and the whole place looked both burnt and soaking wet, as if it had been set on fire and then quickly put out.
And so came Raijin's turn to hysteria. "WHAT HAPPENED HERE!? I WAS ONLY GONE FOR TWO DAYS, YA KNOW!?!"
Seifer snickered. "Why don't you ask Fujin? It's all HER fault."
Fujin had been sitting on a relatively clean patch of floor, staring at the miraculously untouched TV. "FAULT, HIS!" she screamed.
"Liar! It is so your fault!" Seifer accused. "I'm not the one who burned a hole in my trenchcoat!"
"TRENCHCOATS, DOZENS," she replied apathetically, further aggravating him by waving her hand Rinoa-style.
"But that was my FAVORITE one!" he retorted.
"What happened?" Raijin inquired, irritated and whiny, and determined NOT to clean up the mess no matter what.
"SITTING," Fujin bagan her story, "WORKING..."
The world's greatest telemarketer lounged on the couch, watching Three's Company, a Budweiser in one hand and a cigar in the other. Her phone book lay on the armrest by her feet, but she did not reach for it. As the incredibly talented, intelligent, and amibitious woman Fujin was, she had no need for it. She hit her Speed Dial #7, adjusted her headset telephone, and waited.
She got a machine. "RAGE!"
"BOOYAKA!" came the message. "I am like, so totally not here right now!" Fujin frowned. It was Firday night, after all... but no, somebody was there all right. Telemarketers' intuition. "So if you leave your name and number after the beep, that would be way cool!"
BEEP!
"PICK UP," Fujin orderd. "KNOW THERE." She paused. "SQUALL, HOSPITAL. DYING. KIDNEY, NEEDED." Nothing. This would be tricky... "This is WEST, Radio Esthar! You have ten seconds to pick up the phone and answer a trivia question to win one gillion gil!"
The phone was quickly answered. "Esthar Death Star, Darth Loire speaking..."
Fujin grinned. "GT&T. INTERESTED?"
"What does this have to do with anything?" Seifer interested. "Cut to the part where you're setting my clothes on fire!"
"DIDN'T!" she snapped. Besides, she really wanted to brag about how she sold the President of Esthar 5,000 Galbadian phone cards.
Seifer rolled his eyes and turned to Raijin. "Let me tell you what happened..."
While Fujin was making her harassing phone calls, she smoked her cigar, carelessly flicking ashes everywhere just like she always does. Then she dropped it, PROBABLY accidentally, onto a beautiful trenchcoat which had a perfectly good reason for being on the floor. Of course, she had no remorse for this. It was only Seifer's. Seifer, the man who took care of her, who'd saved her life more times than he could count, and who was so kind as to let her into his home and - (he cut this speech short because someone decided to apply her steel-toed boots to his shin).
Anyway, once Seifer found out he went looking for Fujin. It was not so much that he cared about the coat, a mere material posession, but the health and well-being of his friend was very important to him. So he knocked on her bedroom door.
She stomped out, slammed it, and yelled, "NOTHING!" presumably hiding something, AGAIN.
"Fujin," Seifer said gently, "my dearest companion and second-in-command whom I trust and respect... have you been smoking again?"
"NEGATIVE. SCREW OFF."
"You were smoking in there right now, weren't you?"
"SO?"
"Listen," he said politely, "I'm asking as a friend that you stop with the cigars. If not for your own sake then for Raijin's, because you're having a bad influ--"
"WAIT!" Fujin interrupted. "NOT, HAPPENED!"
"Yes it is."
"LIES!"
"Then why don't YOU tell what happened?"
"AFFIMATIVE!"
Fujin had been sitting completely innocently in her room, not doing anything the least bit malicious or evil or illegal at all, when Seifer came pounding on her door, raving like a madman. Against her better judgement, she stepped out to see what was up. "HELLO."
"You moron!" Seifer shouted. "You goddamn moron! There's a goddamn hole in my goddamn trenchoat!" He shoved the 'goddamn' garment into her face, pointing to a burn hole maybe the size of a dime. "And I'm jumping to the conclusion that YOU did it even through I'M the one with pyrokinesis!"
"REPLACE," Fujin offered, although it was by no means an admission of guilt. She merely knew that it would be easier than arguing with him, and decided to be the bigger person.
"That's not good enough!" Seifer began to rant. "I'm in a bad mood and want to be a big jerk!"
Fujin didn't see what the big deal was. It was a ratty old trenchcoat anyway, one that managed to get more and more gray every time she saw it. So even if she had burned it, which she hadn't, she would have been doing him a favor, if it would get him to wear a new one...
"I've had about enough of your trenchcoat bashing!" Seifer interrupted. Then he turned to Raijin. "That's when I told her she couldn't have any more cigars."
"CIGAR, WANT. CIGAR, HAVE!" Fujin rehashed the exact same argument they had already had. "BOSS, NOT!"
"You're livin' under MY roof, Fujin!" he yelled. "MY flying fortress of death, MY rules!"
"Then what happened?" Raijin prompted, knowing they could go off on that tangent all day if he didn't. His friends glared at each other before Seifer took his turn at speaking. "I decided Fujin was going to quit smoking whether she liked it or not..."
Seifer took the box of cigars into the living room, deflecting Fujin's blows every step of the way. "For your own good," he said, "I'm gong to get rid of these." He took them to an empty spot where he could saftely burn them, not noticing Fujin had disappeared until...
"SMASH!" she screamed, holding up his laptop. "WARNING!"
"What the heck are you doing with my computer?"
"CIGAR, BURN... LAPTOP, SMASH!"
Seifer gasped, shocked. Here he was trying to help Fujin curb her crippling, carcinogenic addiction, and she was threatening him! "You wouldn't," he said, underestimating her sheer heartlessness.
"TRY." Sure she was bluffing, Seifer flicked his wrist and the box combusted. Fujin let out a little cry and swung his laptop into the wall. And when that did insufficient damage, she threw it to the ground and jumped on it.
"Fujin! How could you!?"
"BITCH," she corrected.
"What?"
"CALLED, BITCH."
He crossed his arms and said, as if offended that she would suggest such a thing, "I have never called you a bitch!"
"LIES! 'PMS-Y CYCLOPS BITCH'," she quoted, mocking his voice remarkably, disturbingly well.
"I wasn't calling you a bitch. I was merely pointing out that other people called you a bitch."
"Can I take a guess at this?" Raijin said impatiently. "Ya," Seifer, "Decided to break somethin' of hers, ya know? And the ya," Fujin, "broke somethin' of his again. And so... ya just ran around breakin' each other's stuff?"
"AFFIRMATIVE," Fujin said, the world's smallest bit of repsect appearing in her voice for his intuition.
"Pretty much, yeah. Although I think we broke some of your stuff, too."
Raijin chose not to hear that. "It still don't explain this, though, ya know? How'd everything get all burned up?"
"Fujin here went too far."
"ME? MR. TV-SMASH!"
With that comment, the battle flare up all over again, and Raijin had to physically seperate them before it came to blows. "Stop that, ya know? Just tell me what happened, one at a time, ya know?"
"AFTER YOU," Fujin snarled.
"Like I said, Fujin went too far..."
Fujin suddenly stopped what she was doing and looked at him with this insane glint in her eye. She set down the CDs she had been scratching and calmly walked up to him. She smiled, made like she was going to hug him. Which she did, but he didn't hug back. Not that he should have, considering that she only wanted to take his gunblade. She gave it back. But not before jamming the barrel and ripping the leather grips on the handle!
That was when Seifer flipped out. He smacked her. Not all that hard. And the blow knocked her up against the wall. Which she made all too big a deal of. He picked up the gunblade and headed for the TV. Weilding Hyperion by the blade like a baseball bat, he positioned himself to do the unthinkable...
It was temporary insanity!
"I'll do it," he threatened. "So help me, I will SMASH this TV!"
"SEIFER, NO!" she pleaded for mercy, sanity, decency, anything! "PLEASE!"
"No way! Gotta run to the finish line! Do the Dew! Who's da man!? Where's the Beef!? You can't go far without going a little farthur! Wassup!? For all 2000 untouchable parts! Just do it! Make 7-Up Yours! Never say die, never surrender!"
"I don't even know that many slogans!" Seifer protested.
It was one of his all-out psychoctic episodes. Some of which can be quite cute and endearing. He was so distracting that neither one of them noticed that the cigar box had managed to set the couch on fire... Which set the rest of the room on fire. Seifer was the first to see it and they had to work together to put it out before it reached the TV.
"And that's what happened."
"AFFIRMATIVE."
Raijin started to laugh. "Wow," he said. "You two fight like an old married couple, ya know?" They say that retrospect is 20/20, and at that moment Raijin decided that perhaps that may not have been the smartest thing in the world to point out, seeing as it caused their bloodthirst to instantly avert from each other to him and all.
Luckily, he managed to pull out of this one. "H-hey," he stammered, backing away. "I got ya some presents while I was gone, ya know? I'll go get it now. I know you guys'll just love him, ya know!"
Fujin shot Seifer a worried glance. "HIM...?"
"I don't want to know."
While Raijin was gone, they managed to open their packages. "EYESHADOW," Fujin said irritably. "LIPSTICK. NAIL POLISH. RAIJIN, MORON. HURT."
"Chill, Fuj'. You can't blame 'im for trying," Seifer said, grinning, and she whacked him in the arm (not nearly as hard as she would have whacked Raijin,of course).
"WHAT, GET?"
"Gunbalde polish," Seifer replied sourly. "You're paying to fix Hyperion , woman. I want it upgraded, too, like Squall's only not so... neon-aqua and gay."
"...WHATEVER."
"I mean it!"
That was when their friend returned, lugging a large pet carrier under his arm.
"That better not be what I think it is," Seifer said, instinctively reaching for a weapon that was no longer there.
"Relax," Raijin assauged. "It ain't a dog. I know how you're afrai--"
"I AM NOT AFRAID I MERELY DON'T LIKE THEM I SO COULDN'T BE ANY LESS AFRAID SO WHY DON'T YOU JUST SHUT THE HELL UP BEFORE I KICK YOUR BIG STUPID PANSY ASS ALL THE WAY BACK TO GARDEN!!"
"Okay, geez, bite my head off, ya know?" He unlated the door to the carrier, and the tiniest, sickliest little moomba wou'd ever see in your life peeked its head out.
"What is -that- supposed to be?"
"He's a moomba, ya know? I named 'im Bruiser, ya know? Raijin reached to pick up the animal, and it scurried back into its cage.
Seifer guffawed. "That is only the most pathetic dog I have ever seen in my life!"
"He's not a dog and he's not pathetic! He's just... nervous, ya know?" Raijin squatted and attempted to coax it out , but it cowered even more.
"STUPID!" Fujin shouted, booting him out of the way. "SCARING!"
"Oh, yeah, ya know, like ya could do any better."
"WATCH. LEARN." She crouched in front of the frightened animal, holding out her hand. Cautiously, Bruiser creeped out of hiding. It sniffed her hand, and then licked it. Fujin snatched it behind the ear, and it let out a squeak-toy moomba yip of pleasure. "SEE?"
"I could do that, ya know?" Raijin grumbled.
Bruiser squeaked again; then it pounced. With amazing momentum for such a small animal, it knocked Fujin to her back and started slobbering on her face.
Fujin smaked it away and scrambled to her feet. She stumbled forward as if dizzy and disoriented, and had to steady herself on Raijin's arm to keep from falling back down. Tears streamed down her face, and it was all Seifer needed. He punted Bruiser like a football, and would have gone to finish it off had Raijin not grabbed his arm.
"SEIFER! NO! Whet're ya doin'?"
"That thing of yours hurt Fujin!" Seifer bellowed. "I'm gonna KILL it!"
"Don't! Please! Bruiser didn't mean it, ya know? And... and she'll be all right, ya know? Fujie's just fine, ya know?"
"AAAAAACHOO!" Fujin burst into uncontrollable sneezing, doubling over.
"Ya all right?"
The moomba also showed its concern, dashing to her side and nuzzling her foot with its muzzle. "AWAY!" she shreiked, backing up into the wall. "SEIFER! HELP!"
Raijin scooped up his pet and clutched it to his chest before Seifer could get a chance. "Gawd, Fujin. I can't imagine a tough girl such as yourself so afraid of my little moomba, ya know? You're worse than Seifer, ya know?"
"NOT AFRAID!" she screamed, wiping her face with the back of her hand. "ALLERGIC!" And she sneezed again.
"It has to go, Raijin. Look at her.!"
"B-but...! It's not fair, ya know? Can't she just get an allergy shot or something?"
"Why should she have to do that?" Seifer snapped. "What the hell are you doin' buyin' a pet without our consent, anyway?"
"I was lonely, ya know?" he whimpered. "'Cause... ya guys don't like me anymore, ya know?"
Fujin grimaced, and then motioned to the moomba. "SET DOWN. TALK?" She said in her sweetest voice.
"Okay. Go and, ya know, play, Bruiser." So Raijin let the moomba go. It ran past Seifer's feet and he jumped away, forcing him to pretend that he was just casually walking around.
Once Fujin was sure that he animal was far enough away, she stepped up to her friend. "UNTRUE," she said, touching him on the shoulder. "BECAUSE... " All of a sudden, her friendly pat turned into a vice-like grip on his neck. She yanked him down to her eye level and shouted, "I NEVER LIKED YOU IN THE FIRST PLACE!"
"F-Fujin," he rasped. "You're kinda.. chokin' me..."
"Then 'ya know' how -I- feel." She sneezed. "Look, Raijin. I don't give a flying @*$& if you're lonely, and I couldn't care less if you're bored. If you want something to do you can clean up this mess, or get off your lazy ass and get a job, like Seifer and I. But I will listen to NO more of your bitching and moaning, and I am NOT going to put up with that stupid moomba! Listen, and listen good, 'cause I'm going to make it so simple even you can understand: get rid of it, or wake up dead tomorrow. Understood?"
He nodded.
"GOOD." She let him go. "SHOPPING NOW. STUFF, REPLACE." And then, ever so much more sweetly, "SEIFER, TOO?"
Seifer would not have consented, but he did not believe she would get the gunblade fixed right, and definately didn't want to stay and watch Raijin clean the dump up. "Yeah, let me get my coat."
***
"Fujin?" Seifer rapped on her door. He hadn't seen her all morning, and was slightly worried. She never slept in after he did. In fact, most of the time she woke him up, and sometimes when he woke himself up she'd just be sitting there in his room, staring at him.
Although he tried not to think too deeply about that.
"Fujin? You awake?"
"GO AWAY," came a faint, miserable reply.
"What's wrong?" he demanded, now a lot more concerned. "You sound like you're crying in there!"
"GO," she repeated. "LEAVE ALONE."
"I want to know what's wrong and I want to know right now!" He tried the doorknob, surprised to find it unlocked - Fujin was fanatical about her privacy.
Fujin still lay in bed. She sat up but buried her face in her handsand shrunk away from him. "SICK. UGLY. ASHAMED. LEAVE."
Seifer never did follow orders very well. He sat down next to her on the bed. "Come on, Fujin, you're not..." she lowered her hands, revealing large red splotches all over her white face. Her eye was bloodshot and her nose was running and her lips were dry and cracked and bleeding. "...ugly."
"DYING."
"Aww, Fuj', honey, y'ain't dying..." he hugged her around the shoulders. "You're just very, very, very, very, very sick."
"I'm... I'm not gonna make it, Seifer."
"Yes you are. Raijin promised he'd get rid of the stupid dog."
"You can have all my stuff..."
"We'll just put in s'more windows, air the place out..."
"...I want an expensive funeral.."
"...get you some Allegra, and inhaler.."
"...don't let Raijin plan it, please.."
"...get some of that hypoallergenic plastic, drape it over... everything.."
"...and before I go, I have some confessions I have to make.."
"...you're NOT going to die.."
"I'm the one who took all your socks."
"...well, maybe you're going to die.."
"And it was me who used one of your coats to wax the car, not Raijin."
"...probably you're going to die."
"I'm still maintaining the yaoi site and it's up to 1,000 hits a day now."
"... definately you're going to die."
"... and there's one more thing. It's important." She grabbed his hand. "It's time that ya know..."
"You're talking like Raijin."
"...the truth, Seifer, about how I feel.."
He frowned. Deathbed confessions never were much fun. "Uh-huh."
"...about you, Seifer.."
"So spit it out," he ordered impatiently. For Hyne's sake, she was dying, it wasn't as if she had all damned day!
"I..."
"Yes?"
"I..."
"WHAT?"
"I actually do think of you as possessive, selfish, and anal. So does Raijin." She lay back, feeling much better to have said it.
"WHAT!?" Seifer started to stomp out of the room. "I'm gonna kill 'im."
"But we love you anway!" she yelled after him. "HEY! Wh-what about me? Don't you want to kill me?"
"You're dying." He shruged. "Thanks for savin' me the trouble. You've always been a good friend."
***
Seifer was sitting innocently enough in the living room when he next saw her again. Fujin pranced in, laughing manically, and singing, "I'm high as a kite and I just mi~ight stop to check you out!"
"Hello, Fujin," he said, raising an eyebrow to her bizarre behavoir. "Good to see you up and around."
"Well I's good t'be up an' 'round!" she slurred happily, skipping over to him. "Even when I gotta be seen by a big jerk like you!" He frowned,and she giggled, beating him on the chest with her palm. "Nooooo, I's just kiddin'. You're all right." And with that, she sat on his lap and gave him an unnecessarily passionate kiss. Then she hopped away, saying, "You're a good man, Sephiroth," before dancing off.
Raijin walked in, and Seifer shot him a confusedly angry look.
"I liker 'er better this way, ya nkow?" he said nervously.
"What did you do to Fujin?"
Raijin put on his best puppy dog eyes. "What makes ya think -I- was the one who doped her up?
Seifer frowned. "What in Hyne's name did you give her?"
"Jus' some stuff for her allergies, ya know?" he whimpered.
"What stuff?"
"Valium."
"How the @($* is Valium supposed to help her allergies?"
Raijin shrugged. "Well she SEEMS to feel beter, ya know?"
Seifer watched a "la la la"ing Fujin prance around the room. "Are you sure it was just Valium, and not, like, acid? Where'd you get a prescription for Valium, anyway?"
"Well, gee... " Raijin said, "I THINK it was Valium. Or maybe it was Lithium...? I can never get all those 'iums' right, ya know?"
Seifer took a deeeeeep breath. "I'm going to ask you again," he said as patiently as he could pull off, "What did you give my second-in-command?"
"Ginkoba."
"Ginkoba. You gave her Ginkoba."
"Yes."
It was all Seifer could take. He clenched his fists and started beating Raijin around the head. "THAT'S NOT EVEN AN 'IUM', DIPSHIT!"
"Maybe it was petroleum!" Raijin squeaked, blocking his face.
"PETROLEUM!?" Seifer shrieked. "THAT AIN'T EVEN A @%*#ING..." He took a few seconds to calm down before asking, "You have no idea what you gave her, do you?"
Raijin shook his head, ashamed.
"Great. This is just great."
"Well... uh... I still have some, ya know!" Raijin explaimed, hoping to be helpful. He pulled an empty orange prescription bottle out of his pocket and handed it to Seifer.
"Chewable, ice-cream flavored Prozac?"
"Yeah! I knew that, ya know? She took the whole bottle 'n' everything. I was like, yay, I'm doin' a real good thing for m'friend, ya know?"
"That doesn't explain THAT, though," Seifer said, motioning to Fujin, who was now napping peacfully on the couch.
"Wow. Maybe it was the bottle of Everclear she washed it down with, ya know?"
Seifer threw his hands out in frustration.
"Yeah, that's probably it, ya know?"
"Well YOU'RE the one who's going to have to deal with her when she's hung over," Seifer said, "because I'm not going to be here."
"Why not? Ya afraid of little ol' Fujin?" Raijin grinned impishly.
"No, I am NOT afraid of little ol' Fujin," Seifer echoed. "Seifer Almasy fears nothing. I'm staying here. I'm going to watch her kick your ass."
So they watched TV until Fujin came to again, Seifer ready with an ice pack and some aspirin and a little hair of the dog so that her agression would be pointed in the right direction, namely Raijin's.
He needn't have bothered. She was already quite unhappy with the big oaf. "RAGE! RAIJIN, HERE! KICK!"
Seifer glanced at Raijin, who was cowering across the room. "You heard the Commander. Get over here."
He sighed and walked over, receiving with dignity the shin-pain he knew so very well.
"IMBECILE."
"Well like... at least ya don't have to worry about your allergies anymore, ya know?"
"DOG, GONE?" Fujin asked, a bit of the fury ebbing out of her voice.
"Oh, you betcha, ya know? There aren't any dogs here, ya know? he answered honestly. Of course, at that very moment, his moomba happened to spring through the room. "BRUISER! Get back in the closet before they see ya, ya know!?"
Seifer sighed. "Even if we hadn't seen it, which we did, didn't you consider your yelling at it would give it away?"
"Expecting logic from Raijin makes you as dumb as he is," Fujin spat, stomping up to a frightening Raijin, that endearing glint of death shining in her eye. "And YOU said you would get rid of it!"
"I couldn't find a good home for him, ya know?" Raijin whimpered. "The guy wanted to skin 'im and eat 'im, ya know?"
"What makes you think -I- won't skin him and eat him!?" she screeched.
"Well... ya'd probably break out in hiv-- I mean, more hives if ya did that, ya know?"
Fujin flushed red with anger. "OUT."
"What?"
"OUT," she repeated, gesturing toward the door. "OUT, OUT, OUT!"
He backed slowly away. "O-okay, I'll... just... go away for now, ya know?"
"NOT NOW! FOREVER!" she screamed. "ANIMAL, TAKE! LEAVE! RETURN, NEVER!"
"Now now, Fujin," Seifer chided, "in all fariness, you are being a bit hard on-"
"RAGE!" Kick.
Seifer hopped away on one foot. "How the ~*@& do you put up with this every day, Raijin?"
"OUT!" she continued. "GET STUFF! GET DOG! GET OUT!" Then she stormed over to Seifer. "YOU! HELP, PACK! MAKE, LEAVE."
"This is my house, Fujin, and I'm not kicking Raijin out just because you s--"
"RAGE!" With that, she booted Seifer in the other shin, and clomped back to her room, slamming the door behind her.
"Ya can come stay with me, if ya want," Raijin offered. Seifer just frowned.
***
"You're not being kicked out," Seifer assured as he helped Raijin carry some boxes to the elevator. "You're just... falling out. Till Fujin is feeling a little less bloodthirsty, okay? For your own saftety."
"Why don't ya kick Fujin out?" Raijin wanted to know.
"Fujin... is kind of like Godzilla," Seifer explained. "If you let her loose on Tokyo right now, she'll knock down all the buildings. But by the time we get to the cartoon series, she'll be protecting New York from giant mutant bugs, and such..."
"...ya watch too much TV, Seifer."
"Shut up."
***
Seifer went straight to bed after helping Raijin move all his heavy, worthless crap, heart set on a good night's sleep. He should have known better.
"WAKE!"
"Wha..?" although his vision had not yet adjusted to the light, he could make out a very angry-looking eye and an equally angry path staring down at him. "Fuj'? Wha's goin' on? It isn't noon yet..."
"LAZY!" she yelled. "UP!"
"Don't want to. Had to move Raijin's stuff out."
"TOUGH. UP."
"Tired. Sleep."
"MOCKERY? RAGE!"
For a short moment, she disappeared from his line of vision, and he assumed she had left. That is, until a flying blur of black rubber that constituted the bottom of her boot bashed into his face.
"Uwaa! We're under attack!" Seifer rolled out of bed, clumsily groping around the floor for Hyperion.
"IDIOT. RAIJIN, HOUSEWARMING."
"He's not living in a house," Seifer gumbled as he crawled back into bed. "He's living in a tent outside Tears Point."
"SEIFER..." She sighed. "Raijin, missed," she added quietly.
"Your idea, Fu', not mine."
"He shouldn't have gotten that dog."
"I know."
"He should've gotten rid of it."
"I know."
"Kicking him out... was fair."
"I know."
"But..." she shamefully lowered her eye as it started to glaze over. "I miss him, Seifer. I can't even remember a time he wasn't here for me. He's my best friend and I booted him into the street..."
"It's hardly the street. More like the wildnerness," Seifer corrected.
She snorted. "Get up. We're going to see him."
"You can if you want to. I'm sleeping."
"And lose face? Negative. You're going to force me to go."
"That doesn't make sense. If you want him back just say so. God, it's only Raijin."
She crossed her arms stubbornly. "Never."
"Then don't, but either way let me sleep!"
"NEGATIVE. UP!" she barked. Seifer only groaned in response, yanking his pillow over his head. "Seifer Almasy if you do not help me get Raijin back we're not getting Raijin back!"
"Pity," he grunted. "I'll miss you. Goodnight."
"And then YOU will be my scratching post!"
"Oh, I'm soooooooooo scared," Seifer said, but he practically jumped out of bed...
THE END.
"Where's the trash, ya know?"
Fujin and Seifer sat on the couch, he barking into her headset telephone and she jamming on keys on his laptop. An old black-and-white movie blared on the TV, but neither one of them paid any attention to it, nor Raijin, for that matter.
"Hey!" He snapped his fingers in front of Seifer's nose, because he knew if he had done it to Fujin she would have hurt him. "Yo, Seif'!"
Seifer frowned. "I'm workin' here. Shoo."
"Where'd ya put the trash?"
"I dunno. Fujin, where'd you put the trash?" But Fujin ignored him, mesmirized by whatever it was that she saw on the screen. He had to punch her in the arm to get her attention. "FUJIN!"
She quickly flipped the laptop shut and explained, "NOTHING!"
"Tell Raijin where you put the trash."
She blinked. "OH, THERE." And she pointed to a rather large plastic bag with an uncanny resemblence to Raijin's pants propped up against the #2 elevator.
Raijin lugged it over his back like a pack mule. "Oof, ya know? What do you got in here, a body?"
Fujin and Seifer glanced at each other, and both burst into laughter. Raijin eagarly left.
"Hey, Fuuuuuuujin," Seifer cooed, "Whatcha doin' on the computer?"
"NOTHING."
"Nothing, huh?"
"AFFIRMATIVE."
"Then... why'd you hide it from me?"
"WHAT!?" she feigned shock. "OFFENDED."
"Then... you wouldn't mind showing me now?" He reached for the machine, and she protectively clutched it to her chest.
"NEGATIVE! UM... MEANING... E-MAIL! PERSONAL!"
"Who you writin' to?"
"RAIJIN," she replied quickly. Sometimes it's easy when you have only two friends.
"Yeah? You sendin' him looooooooooooove letters?" He smirked.
"NEGATIVE!" she snapped, resisting the urge to kick him.
"Are you two talkin' behind my back?"
"No..." she whimpered.
"Then you wouldn't mind showing me, right?" he asked slyly. "'Cause... we're all friends here, right?"
"Affirmative," she sighed. And she handed him the laptop - but not before a last-minute stroke of brilliance; she closed Netscape. "OOPS! BROWSER, CLOSED! DARN!"
"That's okay. I was just screwin' with you, anyway. It's no big deal," he said, smiling at her. And she smiled back, one of the rare, genuine smiles Fujin saved just for Seifer Almasy (or Raijin if she was beating up on him). "Besides," he continued, "I can just check the History."
"NO!" Fujin shouted. She tried to snatch it out of his hands, but he was too fast. "NO!" she repeated, leaping onto his back and trying to smack it away.
But of course, as the only man alive capable of doing Zantetsuken Reverse, Seifer had excellent balance and coordination, and managed to pull up the last page that she was at. "What do we have here, huh? 'The Disciplinary Room: Balamb Garden Networks the largest collection of Squall x Sei-'" He stopped reading and started screaming. "WHAT THE HELL IS THIS??"
"...WHAT?" Fujin asked innocently as she slowly moved out of his immediate killing range.
"AUUUUGGGHHHH!!" Seifer yelled upon reaching a more... 'interesting' section of the page. "FUJIN!!"
"SHOCKED! APPALED!" she lied, still backing away. "MAINTAINER, FLAMING!"
"That's a good idea," Seifer said. "I'm going to give this pervert a piece of my mind..."
"UNNECESSARY!" she insisted, grabbing the computer away from him.
But it was already too late. "Would you care to explain this?"
"UM... OTHER FUJIN?" she suggested, hopefully.
"THERE ARE NO OTHER FUJINS!" he bellowed, exchanging his computer for Hyperion. "And in a minute... there ain't gonna be ANY!"
Fujin decided now would be a good time to run for her life, and she dashed to the #3 elevator... smashing headfirst into Raijin. With his bulky frame, she might as well have run right into the wall. She landed on her back, and Seifer was right on top of the situation, with his gunblade aimed at her chest. "Any last words?"
She nodded, and pointed to a puzzled Raijin. "-He- was the one who drew the pictures!"
Friends Like You
"I brought in the mail, ya know?" Raijin said as Fujin gingerly applied the last of the bandages. He handed over her letters, and Seifer's too, as he decided it would be best to avoid him for a while. "And ya know what? I got some mail today, too!"
"NICE..."Her tone indicated she really couldn't care less about the subject, but it insanely changed to sympathetic when she said, "PAIN?"
"I'm okay, ya know? I guess I had it coming..."
"FAULT, MINE. REAL NAMES," she admitted. "HANDLE NOW. VALVALIS, KAINAZZO. OKAY?"
"Which one am I?"
She ignored him. "ICE PACK?"
"No. I told ya I'm all right, ya know... don't ya wanna hear about my mail?"
"NEGATIVE."
He ignored her. "I finally got that laser-tag set I sent away for, ya know! Ya wanna play later? When I'm not so... mortally wounded?"
"SURE. FINE. WHATEVER."
***
It was not long before Raijin felt well enough to force his laser-tag vest over his balloon-like torso and skip out to play with his friends. He looked absolutely ridiculous; Fujin and Seifer poked fun at him for a good long time before returning to phoning and e-mailing, respectively.
"Ya guys wanna play with me? Nice new laser tag stuff, ya know?"
"I'm busy right now," Seifer said, not even lifting his eyes away from the screen. "Delicate... plumbing situation. But I'm sure she'll play with you, won'tcha Fujin?"
"BUSY," she said. "CHECKBOOK, BALANCING."
"Can't you do that some other time?" queried an irritable Seifer. "Isn't our posse more important than your checkbook?"
"YOURS."
He coughed. "Carry on." And then glanced up at Raijin. "I'm sorry. We're kinda busy right now. We'll play with you some other time, okay?"
"PROMISE."
Raijin crossed his arms and pouted. "You're all so busy anymore. It's like I'm not even here. I'm bored outta my skull, ya know?"
"TV, WATCH," Fujin suggested, although with the implication that he'd have to watch her show, as she had no intent of giving up the remote after finally prying it away from Seifer.
"TV sucks," he grumbled, flopping onto the floor like a stubborn child. "It's not fair, ya know? I slave away in the kitchen all day and I try to keep the place nice and clean for you guys but nobody ever notices, ya know? And all I ask is ya pull yourselves away from your stupid business to hang out with me every once in a while, ya know? But apparantly it's too much for ya, ya know!"
Fujin and Seifer looked at each other, and then at their friend.
"Nice work, Raijin."
"JOB, SUFFICIENT."
And they returned to what they had been doing.
"That's not what I meant!" Raijin yelled.
"IRRITATING. SHOO."
"Go play with your GF or something."
"Don't wanna," he said, sulking. And then he grinned. "I know! I'll help ya out, ya know! I'll help ya with your buisnesses and stuff!"
"You... want... to help..." Seifer said nervously. It was not exactly a welcomed suggestion. They cared for Raijin, they really did, but Seifer wouldn't think of trusting him with his plumbing mafia, nor would Fujin with the delicate art that is telemarketing.
It was she who came up with a solution. "COFFEE."
"Oo! I want some Coke with Jack Daniels in it.. no, wait, flip that."
"T-that's not what I meant, ya know!" Raijin yelped. "Forget I said anything, ya know!"
Fujin, sure as always sure to get Seifer's approval before making any major decisions, asked, "PIZZA?"
"We can't order pizza anymore," Seifer grunted. "Look at this." He ripped through a newspaper that had been sitting on the floor, yanking out a Pizza De Esthar advertisement and handing it to her.
"30 MINUTES, FREE," she paraphrased out loud, "UNLESS PANDORA. GREEDY BASTARDS!" They had been living off free pizza since they moved there.
"They didn't really call us greedy bastards, did they?" Raijin asked, grabbing the ad. "Oh, I guess they did, ya know?"
"Looks like you're gonna have to drive into Esthar now," Seifer said, shrugging.
"But...! That's like way far away from here, ya know?" Raijin protested. "Howsabout I just whip up some mac'n'cheese, huh?"
"PIZZA!" Fujin demanded.
"No, wait," Seifer said. "That's a good idea." Raijin beamed. "It'll give us something to eat while he's gone."
He headed to the kitchen, grumbling, "Cook us dinner, Cinderella. Unclog the sink, Cinderella. Wash my underwear, Cinderella..." He returned five minutes later with a pot full of Kraft EZ Mac (like they would really know the difference) and headed toward the door. "Okay, I'm going out now, ya know!" he announced.
No one protested.
"I'm going to Esthar, ya know! I might not be back for a few days!"
No one protested.
"I'm gonna go jump off a building! Goodbye cruel world, ya know!"
"SEE YA," Fujin mumbled, so he sighed and headed to Tears Point, where the car they had borrowed from Garden was still parked.
It was a good 5 hour trip from there to Esthar, so Raijin decided as long as he was in town he'd stay there for a while. It would be a good chance to see people who didn't like to beat the crap out of him and maybe go shopping! Raijin assumed the lack of his presence would make no difference. They probably wouldn't even notice he was gone, ya know? So when he returned home two days later, he was shocked to see just how wrong that happened to be.
"Where the hell have you been?" was the first thing Seifer said to Raijin who stepped out of the #3 elevator carrying so much junk that he couldn't even see. "And why aren't you washing my socks?"
"Socks?" Raijin replied, puzzled.
"I have no socks!"
Raijin started setting his purchases onto the floor and digging through them for his friends' gifts. "That can't be right. I washed 'em before I left, ya know? Did you check your sock drawer?"
"Yes, I checked my sock drawer," Seifer replied snidely. "What kinda moron you think I am? I know where my own friggin' socks are! They just ain't there! And another thing! You're supposed to be cleaning! The place is a STY!"
Raijing chuckled. "I wasn't gone all that long, ya know? I'm sure it's not so..." but he trailed off upon actually looking at the room. It was a sty. The couch has been overturned, magazines and food containers strewn everywhere, and the whole place looked both burnt and soaking wet, as if it had been set on fire and then quickly put out.
And so came Raijin's turn to hysteria. "WHAT HAPPENED HERE!? I WAS ONLY GONE FOR TWO DAYS, YA KNOW!?!"
Seifer snickered. "Why don't you ask Fujin? It's all HER fault."
Fujin had been sitting on a relatively clean patch of floor, staring at the miraculously untouched TV. "FAULT, HIS!" she screamed.
"Liar! It is so your fault!" Seifer accused. "I'm not the one who burned a hole in my trenchcoat!"
"TRENCHCOATS, DOZENS," she replied apathetically, further aggravating him by waving her hand Rinoa-style.
"But that was my FAVORITE one!" he retorted.
"What happened?" Raijin inquired, irritated and whiny, and determined NOT to clean up the mess no matter what.
"SITTING," Fujin bagan her story, "WORKING..."
The world's greatest telemarketer lounged on the couch, watching Three's Company, a Budweiser in one hand and a cigar in the other. Her phone book lay on the armrest by her feet, but she did not reach for it. As the incredibly talented, intelligent, and amibitious woman Fujin was, she had no need for it. She hit her Speed Dial #7, adjusted her headset telephone, and waited.
She got a machine. "RAGE!"
"BOOYAKA!" came the message. "I am like, so totally not here right now!" Fujin frowned. It was Firday night, after all... but no, somebody was there all right. Telemarketers' intuition. "So if you leave your name and number after the beep, that would be way cool!"
BEEP!
"PICK UP," Fujin orderd. "KNOW THERE." She paused. "SQUALL, HOSPITAL. DYING. KIDNEY, NEEDED." Nothing. This would be tricky... "This is WEST, Radio Esthar! You have ten seconds to pick up the phone and answer a trivia question to win one gillion gil!"
The phone was quickly answered. "Esthar Death Star, Darth Loire speaking..."
Fujin grinned. "GT&T. INTERESTED?"
"What does this have to do with anything?" Seifer interested. "Cut to the part where you're setting my clothes on fire!"
"DIDN'T!" she snapped. Besides, she really wanted to brag about how she sold the President of Esthar 5,000 Galbadian phone cards.
Seifer rolled his eyes and turned to Raijin. "Let me tell you what happened..."
While Fujin was making her harassing phone calls, she smoked her cigar, carelessly flicking ashes everywhere just like she always does. Then she dropped it, PROBABLY accidentally, onto a beautiful trenchcoat which had a perfectly good reason for being on the floor. Of course, she had no remorse for this. It was only Seifer's. Seifer, the man who took care of her, who'd saved her life more times than he could count, and who was so kind as to let her into his home and - (he cut this speech short because someone decided to apply her steel-toed boots to his shin).
Anyway, once Seifer found out he went looking for Fujin. It was not so much that he cared about the coat, a mere material posession, but the health and well-being of his friend was very important to him. So he knocked on her bedroom door.
She stomped out, slammed it, and yelled, "NOTHING!" presumably hiding something, AGAIN.
"Fujin," Seifer said gently, "my dearest companion and second-in-command whom I trust and respect... have you been smoking again?"
"NEGATIVE. SCREW OFF."
"You were smoking in there right now, weren't you?"
"SO?"
"Listen," he said politely, "I'm asking as a friend that you stop with the cigars. If not for your own sake then for Raijin's, because you're having a bad influ--"
"WAIT!" Fujin interrupted. "NOT, HAPPENED!"
"Yes it is."
"LIES!"
"Then why don't YOU tell what happened?"
"AFFIMATIVE!"
Fujin had been sitting completely innocently in her room, not doing anything the least bit malicious or evil or illegal at all, when Seifer came pounding on her door, raving like a madman. Against her better judgement, she stepped out to see what was up. "HELLO."
"You moron!" Seifer shouted. "You goddamn moron! There's a goddamn hole in my goddamn trenchoat!" He shoved the 'goddamn' garment into her face, pointing to a burn hole maybe the size of a dime. "And I'm jumping to the conclusion that YOU did it even through I'M the one with pyrokinesis!"
"REPLACE," Fujin offered, although it was by no means an admission of guilt. She merely knew that it would be easier than arguing with him, and decided to be the bigger person.
"That's not good enough!" Seifer began to rant. "I'm in a bad mood and want to be a big jerk!"
Fujin didn't see what the big deal was. It was a ratty old trenchcoat anyway, one that managed to get more and more gray every time she saw it. So even if she had burned it, which she hadn't, she would have been doing him a favor, if it would get him to wear a new one...
"I've had about enough of your trenchcoat bashing!" Seifer interrupted. Then he turned to Raijin. "That's when I told her she couldn't have any more cigars."
"CIGAR, WANT. CIGAR, HAVE!" Fujin rehashed the exact same argument they had already had. "BOSS, NOT!"
"You're livin' under MY roof, Fujin!" he yelled. "MY flying fortress of death, MY rules!"
"Then what happened?" Raijin prompted, knowing they could go off on that tangent all day if he didn't. His friends glared at each other before Seifer took his turn at speaking. "I decided Fujin was going to quit smoking whether she liked it or not..."
Seifer took the box of cigars into the living room, deflecting Fujin's blows every step of the way. "For your own good," he said, "I'm gong to get rid of these." He took them to an empty spot where he could saftely burn them, not noticing Fujin had disappeared until...
"SMASH!" she screamed, holding up his laptop. "WARNING!"
"What the heck are you doing with my computer?"
"CIGAR, BURN... LAPTOP, SMASH!"
Seifer gasped, shocked. Here he was trying to help Fujin curb her crippling, carcinogenic addiction, and she was threatening him! "You wouldn't," he said, underestimating her sheer heartlessness.
"TRY." Sure she was bluffing, Seifer flicked his wrist and the box combusted. Fujin let out a little cry and swung his laptop into the wall. And when that did insufficient damage, she threw it to the ground and jumped on it.
"Fujin! How could you!?"
"BITCH," she corrected.
"What?"
"CALLED, BITCH."
He crossed his arms and said, as if offended that she would suggest such a thing, "I have never called you a bitch!"
"LIES! 'PMS-Y CYCLOPS BITCH'," she quoted, mocking his voice remarkably, disturbingly well.
"I wasn't calling you a bitch. I was merely pointing out that other people called you a bitch."
"Can I take a guess at this?" Raijin said impatiently. "Ya," Seifer, "Decided to break somethin' of hers, ya know? And the ya," Fujin, "broke somethin' of his again. And so... ya just ran around breakin' each other's stuff?"
"AFFIRMATIVE," Fujin said, the world's smallest bit of repsect appearing in her voice for his intuition.
"Pretty much, yeah. Although I think we broke some of your stuff, too."
Raijin chose not to hear that. "It still don't explain this, though, ya know? How'd everything get all burned up?"
"Fujin here went too far."
"ME? MR. TV-SMASH!"
With that comment, the battle flare up all over again, and Raijin had to physically seperate them before it came to blows. "Stop that, ya know? Just tell me what happened, one at a time, ya know?"
"AFTER YOU," Fujin snarled.
"Like I said, Fujin went too far..."
Fujin suddenly stopped what she was doing and looked at him with this insane glint in her eye. She set down the CDs she had been scratching and calmly walked up to him. She smiled, made like she was going to hug him. Which she did, but he didn't hug back. Not that he should have, considering that she only wanted to take his gunblade. She gave it back. But not before jamming the barrel and ripping the leather grips on the handle!
That was when Seifer flipped out. He smacked her. Not all that hard. And the blow knocked her up against the wall. Which she made all too big a deal of. He picked up the gunblade and headed for the TV. Weilding Hyperion by the blade like a baseball bat, he positioned himself to do the unthinkable...
It was temporary insanity!
"I'll do it," he threatened. "So help me, I will SMASH this TV!"
"SEIFER, NO!" she pleaded for mercy, sanity, decency, anything! "PLEASE!"
"No way! Gotta run to the finish line! Do the Dew! Who's da man!? Where's the Beef!? You can't go far without going a little farthur! Wassup!? For all 2000 untouchable parts! Just do it! Make 7-Up Yours! Never say die, never surrender!"
"I don't even know that many slogans!" Seifer protested.
It was one of his all-out psychoctic episodes. Some of which can be quite cute and endearing. He was so distracting that neither one of them noticed that the cigar box had managed to set the couch on fire... Which set the rest of the room on fire. Seifer was the first to see it and they had to work together to put it out before it reached the TV.
"And that's what happened."
"AFFIRMATIVE."
Raijin started to laugh. "Wow," he said. "You two fight like an old married couple, ya know?" They say that retrospect is 20/20, and at that moment Raijin decided that perhaps that may not have been the smartest thing in the world to point out, seeing as it caused their bloodthirst to instantly avert from each other to him and all.
Luckily, he managed to pull out of this one. "H-hey," he stammered, backing away. "I got ya some presents while I was gone, ya know? I'll go get it now. I know you guys'll just love him, ya know!"
Fujin shot Seifer a worried glance. "HIM...?"
"I don't want to know."
While Raijin was gone, they managed to open their packages. "EYESHADOW," Fujin said irritably. "LIPSTICK. NAIL POLISH. RAIJIN, MORON. HURT."
"Chill, Fuj'. You can't blame 'im for trying," Seifer said, grinning, and she whacked him in the arm (not nearly as hard as she would have whacked Raijin,of course).
"WHAT, GET?"
"Gunbalde polish," Seifer replied sourly. "You're paying to fix Hyperion , woman. I want it upgraded, too, like Squall's only not so... neon-aqua and gay."
"...WHATEVER."
"I mean it!"
That was when their friend returned, lugging a large pet carrier under his arm.
"That better not be what I think it is," Seifer said, instinctively reaching for a weapon that was no longer there.
"Relax," Raijin assauged. "It ain't a dog. I know how you're afrai--"
"I AM NOT AFRAID I MERELY DON'T LIKE THEM I SO COULDN'T BE ANY LESS AFRAID SO WHY DON'T YOU JUST SHUT THE HELL UP BEFORE I KICK YOUR BIG STUPID PANSY ASS ALL THE WAY BACK TO GARDEN!!"
"Okay, geez, bite my head off, ya know?" He unlated the door to the carrier, and the tiniest, sickliest little moomba wou'd ever see in your life peeked its head out.
"What is -that- supposed to be?"
"He's a moomba, ya know? I named 'im Bruiser, ya know? Raijin reached to pick up the animal, and it scurried back into its cage.
Seifer guffawed. "That is only the most pathetic dog I have ever seen in my life!"
"He's not a dog and he's not pathetic! He's just... nervous, ya know?" Raijin squatted and attempted to coax it out , but it cowered even more.
"STUPID!" Fujin shouted, booting him out of the way. "SCARING!"
"Oh, yeah, ya know, like ya could do any better."
"WATCH. LEARN." She crouched in front of the frightened animal, holding out her hand. Cautiously, Bruiser creeped out of hiding. It sniffed her hand, and then licked it. Fujin snatched it behind the ear, and it let out a squeak-toy moomba yip of pleasure. "SEE?"
"I could do that, ya know?" Raijin grumbled.
Bruiser squeaked again; then it pounced. With amazing momentum for such a small animal, it knocked Fujin to her back and started slobbering on her face.
Fujin smaked it away and scrambled to her feet. She stumbled forward as if dizzy and disoriented, and had to steady herself on Raijin's arm to keep from falling back down. Tears streamed down her face, and it was all Seifer needed. He punted Bruiser like a football, and would have gone to finish it off had Raijin not grabbed his arm.
"SEIFER! NO! Whet're ya doin'?"
"That thing of yours hurt Fujin!" Seifer bellowed. "I'm gonna KILL it!"
"Don't! Please! Bruiser didn't mean it, ya know? And... and she'll be all right, ya know? Fujie's just fine, ya know?"
"AAAAAACHOO!" Fujin burst into uncontrollable sneezing, doubling over.
"Ya all right?"
The moomba also showed its concern, dashing to her side and nuzzling her foot with its muzzle. "AWAY!" she shreiked, backing up into the wall. "SEIFER! HELP!"
Raijin scooped up his pet and clutched it to his chest before Seifer could get a chance. "Gawd, Fujin. I can't imagine a tough girl such as yourself so afraid of my little moomba, ya know? You're worse than Seifer, ya know?"
"NOT AFRAID!" she screamed, wiping her face with the back of her hand. "ALLERGIC!" And she sneezed again.
"It has to go, Raijin. Look at her.!"
"B-but...! It's not fair, ya know? Can't she just get an allergy shot or something?"
"Why should she have to do that?" Seifer snapped. "What the hell are you doin' buyin' a pet without our consent, anyway?"
"I was lonely, ya know?" he whimpered. "'Cause... ya guys don't like me anymore, ya know?"
Fujin grimaced, and then motioned to the moomba. "SET DOWN. TALK?" She said in her sweetest voice.
"Okay. Go and, ya know, play, Bruiser." So Raijin let the moomba go. It ran past Seifer's feet and he jumped away, forcing him to pretend that he was just casually walking around.
Once Fujin was sure that he animal was far enough away, she stepped up to her friend. "UNTRUE," she said, touching him on the shoulder. "BECAUSE... " All of a sudden, her friendly pat turned into a vice-like grip on his neck. She yanked him down to her eye level and shouted, "I NEVER LIKED YOU IN THE FIRST PLACE!"
"F-Fujin," he rasped. "You're kinda.. chokin' me..."
"Then 'ya know' how -I- feel." She sneezed. "Look, Raijin. I don't give a flying @*$& if you're lonely, and I couldn't care less if you're bored. If you want something to do you can clean up this mess, or get off your lazy ass and get a job, like Seifer and I. But I will listen to NO more of your bitching and moaning, and I am NOT going to put up with that stupid moomba! Listen, and listen good, 'cause I'm going to make it so simple even you can understand: get rid of it, or wake up dead tomorrow. Understood?"
He nodded.
"GOOD." She let him go. "SHOPPING NOW. STUFF, REPLACE." And then, ever so much more sweetly, "SEIFER, TOO?"
Seifer would not have consented, but he did not believe she would get the gunblade fixed right, and definately didn't want to stay and watch Raijin clean the dump up. "Yeah, let me get my coat."
***
"Fujin?" Seifer rapped on her door. He hadn't seen her all morning, and was slightly worried. She never slept in after he did. In fact, most of the time she woke him up, and sometimes when he woke himself up she'd just be sitting there in his room, staring at him.
Although he tried not to think too deeply about that.
"Fujin? You awake?"
"GO AWAY," came a faint, miserable reply.
"What's wrong?" he demanded, now a lot more concerned. "You sound like you're crying in there!"
"GO," she repeated. "LEAVE ALONE."
"I want to know what's wrong and I want to know right now!" He tried the doorknob, surprised to find it unlocked - Fujin was fanatical about her privacy.
Fujin still lay in bed. She sat up but buried her face in her handsand shrunk away from him. "SICK. UGLY. ASHAMED. LEAVE."
Seifer never did follow orders very well. He sat down next to her on the bed. "Come on, Fujin, you're not..." she lowered her hands, revealing large red splotches all over her white face. Her eye was bloodshot and her nose was running and her lips were dry and cracked and bleeding. "...ugly."
"DYING."
"Aww, Fuj', honey, y'ain't dying..." he hugged her around the shoulders. "You're just very, very, very, very, very sick."
"I'm... I'm not gonna make it, Seifer."
"Yes you are. Raijin promised he'd get rid of the stupid dog."
"You can have all my stuff..."
"We'll just put in s'more windows, air the place out..."
"...I want an expensive funeral.."
"...get you some Allegra, and inhaler.."
"...don't let Raijin plan it, please.."
"...get some of that hypoallergenic plastic, drape it over... everything.."
"...and before I go, I have some confessions I have to make.."
"...you're NOT going to die.."
"I'm the one who took all your socks."
"...well, maybe you're going to die.."
"And it was me who used one of your coats to wax the car, not Raijin."
"...probably you're going to die."
"I'm still maintaining the yaoi site and it's up to 1,000 hits a day now."
"... definately you're going to die."
"... and there's one more thing. It's important." She grabbed his hand. "It's time that ya know..."
"You're talking like Raijin."
"...the truth, Seifer, about how I feel.."
He frowned. Deathbed confessions never were much fun. "Uh-huh."
"...about you, Seifer.."
"So spit it out," he ordered impatiently. For Hyne's sake, she was dying, it wasn't as if she had all damned day!
"I..."
"Yes?"
"I..."
"WHAT?"
"I actually do think of you as possessive, selfish, and anal. So does Raijin." She lay back, feeling much better to have said it.
"WHAT!?" Seifer started to stomp out of the room. "I'm gonna kill 'im."
"But we love you anway!" she yelled after him. "HEY! Wh-what about me? Don't you want to kill me?"
"You're dying." He shruged. "Thanks for savin' me the trouble. You've always been a good friend."
***
Seifer was sitting innocently enough in the living room when he next saw her again. Fujin pranced in, laughing manically, and singing, "I'm high as a kite and I just mi~ight stop to check you out!"
"Hello, Fujin," he said, raising an eyebrow to her bizarre behavoir. "Good to see you up and around."
"Well I's good t'be up an' 'round!" she slurred happily, skipping over to him. "Even when I gotta be seen by a big jerk like you!" He frowned,and she giggled, beating him on the chest with her palm. "Nooooo, I's just kiddin'. You're all right." And with that, she sat on his lap and gave him an unnecessarily passionate kiss. Then she hopped away, saying, "You're a good man, Sephiroth," before dancing off.
Raijin walked in, and Seifer shot him a confusedly angry look.
"I liker 'er better this way, ya nkow?" he said nervously.
"What did you do to Fujin?"
Raijin put on his best puppy dog eyes. "What makes ya think -I- was the one who doped her up?
Seifer frowned. "What in Hyne's name did you give her?"
"Jus' some stuff for her allergies, ya know?" he whimpered.
"What stuff?"
"Valium."
"How the @($* is Valium supposed to help her allergies?"
Raijin shrugged. "Well she SEEMS to feel beter, ya know?"
Seifer watched a "la la la"ing Fujin prance around the room. "Are you sure it was just Valium, and not, like, acid? Where'd you get a prescription for Valium, anyway?"
"Well, gee... " Raijin said, "I THINK it was Valium. Or maybe it was Lithium...? I can never get all those 'iums' right, ya know?"
Seifer took a deeeeeep breath. "I'm going to ask you again," he said as patiently as he could pull off, "What did you give my second-in-command?"
"Ginkoba."
"Ginkoba. You gave her Ginkoba."
"Yes."
It was all Seifer could take. He clenched his fists and started beating Raijin around the head. "THAT'S NOT EVEN AN 'IUM', DIPSHIT!"
"Maybe it was petroleum!" Raijin squeaked, blocking his face.
"PETROLEUM!?" Seifer shrieked. "THAT AIN'T EVEN A @%*#ING..." He took a few seconds to calm down before asking, "You have no idea what you gave her, do you?"
Raijin shook his head, ashamed.
"Great. This is just great."
"Well... uh... I still have some, ya know!" Raijin explaimed, hoping to be helpful. He pulled an empty orange prescription bottle out of his pocket and handed it to Seifer.
"Chewable, ice-cream flavored Prozac?"
"Yeah! I knew that, ya know? She took the whole bottle 'n' everything. I was like, yay, I'm doin' a real good thing for m'friend, ya know?"
"That doesn't explain THAT, though," Seifer said, motioning to Fujin, who was now napping peacfully on the couch.
"Wow. Maybe it was the bottle of Everclear she washed it down with, ya know?"
Seifer threw his hands out in frustration.
"Yeah, that's probably it, ya know?"
"Well YOU'RE the one who's going to have to deal with her when she's hung over," Seifer said, "because I'm not going to be here."
"Why not? Ya afraid of little ol' Fujin?" Raijin grinned impishly.
"No, I am NOT afraid of little ol' Fujin," Seifer echoed. "Seifer Almasy fears nothing. I'm staying here. I'm going to watch her kick your ass."
So they watched TV until Fujin came to again, Seifer ready with an ice pack and some aspirin and a little hair of the dog so that her agression would be pointed in the right direction, namely Raijin's.
He needn't have bothered. She was already quite unhappy with the big oaf. "RAGE! RAIJIN, HERE! KICK!"
Seifer glanced at Raijin, who was cowering across the room. "You heard the Commander. Get over here."
He sighed and walked over, receiving with dignity the shin-pain he knew so very well.
"IMBECILE."
"Well like... at least ya don't have to worry about your allergies anymore, ya know?"
"DOG, GONE?" Fujin asked, a bit of the fury ebbing out of her voice.
"Oh, you betcha, ya know? There aren't any dogs here, ya know? he answered honestly. Of course, at that very moment, his moomba happened to spring through the room. "BRUISER! Get back in the closet before they see ya, ya know!?"
Seifer sighed. "Even if we hadn't seen it, which we did, didn't you consider your yelling at it would give it away?"
"Expecting logic from Raijin makes you as dumb as he is," Fujin spat, stomping up to a frightening Raijin, that endearing glint of death shining in her eye. "And YOU said you would get rid of it!"
"I couldn't find a good home for him, ya know?" Raijin whimpered. "The guy wanted to skin 'im and eat 'im, ya know?"
"What makes you think -I- won't skin him and eat him!?" she screeched.
"Well... ya'd probably break out in hiv-- I mean, more hives if ya did that, ya know?"
Fujin flushed red with anger. "OUT."
"What?"
"OUT," she repeated, gesturing toward the door. "OUT, OUT, OUT!"
He backed slowly away. "O-okay, I'll... just... go away for now, ya know?"
"NOT NOW! FOREVER!" she screamed. "ANIMAL, TAKE! LEAVE! RETURN, NEVER!"
"Now now, Fujin," Seifer chided, "in all fariness, you are being a bit hard on-"
"RAGE!" Kick.
Seifer hopped away on one foot. "How the ~*@& do you put up with this every day, Raijin?"
"OUT!" she continued. "GET STUFF! GET DOG! GET OUT!" Then she stormed over to Seifer. "YOU! HELP, PACK! MAKE, LEAVE."
"This is my house, Fujin, and I'm not kicking Raijin out just because you s--"
"RAGE!" With that, she booted Seifer in the other shin, and clomped back to her room, slamming the door behind her.
"Ya can come stay with me, if ya want," Raijin offered. Seifer just frowned.
***
"You're not being kicked out," Seifer assured as he helped Raijin carry some boxes to the elevator. "You're just... falling out. Till Fujin is feeling a little less bloodthirsty, okay? For your own saftety."
"Why don't ya kick Fujin out?" Raijin wanted to know.
"Fujin... is kind of like Godzilla," Seifer explained. "If you let her loose on Tokyo right now, she'll knock down all the buildings. But by the time we get to the cartoon series, she'll be protecting New York from giant mutant bugs, and such..."
"...ya watch too much TV, Seifer."
"Shut up."
***
Seifer went straight to bed after helping Raijin move all his heavy, worthless crap, heart set on a good night's sleep. He should have known better.
"WAKE!"
"Wha..?" although his vision had not yet adjusted to the light, he could make out a very angry-looking eye and an equally angry path staring down at him. "Fuj'? Wha's goin' on? It isn't noon yet..."
"LAZY!" she yelled. "UP!"
"Don't want to. Had to move Raijin's stuff out."
"TOUGH. UP."
"Tired. Sleep."
"MOCKERY? RAGE!"
For a short moment, she disappeared from his line of vision, and he assumed she had left. That is, until a flying blur of black rubber that constituted the bottom of her boot bashed into his face.
"Uwaa! We're under attack!" Seifer rolled out of bed, clumsily groping around the floor for Hyperion.
"IDIOT. RAIJIN, HOUSEWARMING."
"He's not living in a house," Seifer gumbled as he crawled back into bed. "He's living in a tent outside Tears Point."
"SEIFER..." She sighed. "Raijin, missed," she added quietly.
"Your idea, Fu', not mine."
"He shouldn't have gotten that dog."
"I know."
"He should've gotten rid of it."
"I know."
"Kicking him out... was fair."
"I know."
"But..." she shamefully lowered her eye as it started to glaze over. "I miss him, Seifer. I can't even remember a time he wasn't here for me. He's my best friend and I booted him into the street..."
"It's hardly the street. More like the wildnerness," Seifer corrected.
She snorted. "Get up. We're going to see him."
"You can if you want to. I'm sleeping."
"And lose face? Negative. You're going to force me to go."
"That doesn't make sense. If you want him back just say so. God, it's only Raijin."
She crossed her arms stubbornly. "Never."
"Then don't, but either way let me sleep!"
"NEGATIVE. UP!" she barked. Seifer only groaned in response, yanking his pillow over his head. "Seifer Almasy if you do not help me get Raijin back we're not getting Raijin back!"
"Pity," he grunted. "I'll miss you. Goodnight."
"And then YOU will be my scratching post!"
"Oh, I'm soooooooooo scared," Seifer said, but he practically jumped out of bed...
THE END.