A/N:Here we are with another short fic. One more of these to go before the rest are freshly written and not a year old! :D Enjoy.
Disclaimer: I do not own Noblesse - this is written solely for entertainment purposes with no copyright infringement intended.
"Master, there is tea still remaining in the teapot should you like anymore while I'm out," Frankenstein said as he opened the front door to his home, wallet slipped into his back pocket. "I'm only going out for groceries, so I shouldn't be too long."
"Alright," Rai replied. He stared into the teacup he was holding gently - it was practically full, and he never drank too quickly anyways, so he figured he may not need to refill it while Frankenstein was gone. While he had been staring, the door clicked into place as it closed. Frankenstein had just left.
Rai thought about carrying on how he usually did when Frankenstein was elsewhere, which just meant he would sit in his spot on the couch while sipping at his tea occasionally. He was prepared to do that, until something on the coffee table in front of him caught his eye. It was the phone Frankenstein had given to him so long ago. Why was it there? That's not normally where he kept it.Then he remembered Shinwoo had come over just yesterday and said he was going to put what he called "apps" on Rai's phone. Rai didn't know what those were, but he did know that Shinwoo certainly hadn't put his phone back in its proper place.
He tried to ignore the only imperfection on the table, the phone, while he continued to drink his tea. This only worked for less than 5 minutes before the phone's screen suddenly lit up and began ringing rather loudly. Setting his teacup and saucer down on the coffee table, he leaned forward and examined the screen. Displayed on it was picture of Shinwoo, a set of numbers, and two buttons: a green one, and a red one. In all honesty, this looked way more complicated to Rai than what he normally saw on his phone, that is, whenever he bothered to touch it... which wound up being never.
So he hadn't used this phone in a while, and now, as it continued ringing, Rai was thoroughly puzzled with it. His bewilderment ceased however once the phone stopped ringing a few seconds later. He thought he could finally calm down and continue with his wonderful solitude, but now the screen had switched to something he had at least seen before: the home menu.
Not that it helped. It was now scattered with small boxes, each with their own icon and name, all of them things Rai had never seen before until now. Were these... apps? Even if he discovered what they were, that led him no closer to finding out what to do with them or the phone.
At first he vowed not to touch the phone because of this, but eventually gave in to the bright LCD screen and picked the phone up to examine it again. His index finger hovered over the surface as he read each icon, squinting from both the brightness, and the tiny text. All of them had such odd names, like "Candy Crusher", "2048", "Clash of Clans"... it confused Rai even more since they seemed to have no meaning. He finally settled on pressing one, "Fruit Ninja", with his index finger, and he was now waiting at a screen whose only words were "Loading". Suddenly music was blaring from the device and he nearly dropped it, only to stare at the new menu that had arrived which gave him several options. In the corner it said he was supposed to slice fruit to begin. The pieces of fruit he supposed he had to slice were each a different option he could select. Why must I be cutting fruit? He asked himself, but finally decided to slice the watermelon that said "New game". From there, he was given more to select, and this time he chose Zen mode, since he figured if would do this - whatever it was - he would rather do it peacefully, or so he thought. Fruit began to fly in the sreen, and there was a timer in the corner that read 1 minute, 30 seconds. If this was anything like before, where he was told to slice fruit, he tried to do it again. It seemed easy before, but now his aiming was rather poor. Rai's brows furrowed inwards as he grew more and more insistent to at least get one fruit sliced.
There was hardly anything peaceful about it, he soon realized, and as much as he grew more and more bewildered, he also grew weary with his vain attempts. Because of this Rai had given up Zen mode since he couldn't slice anything to save his life, so he wound up back at the main menu of Fruit Ninja and tried what was called Arcade mode, whatever that was supposed to mean.
When the game started, he began to think that it was the exact same thing as before, only with a timer of one minute instead. He still sucked at it, and in the end he wound up quitting (again) and trying out the only mode left: Classic.
His bad slice-aiming led to him failing within the first 10 seconds of the game's start. He was faced with a dreadful "Game Over" screen.
Not again. He was all too familiar with Game Over screens from when he had been on a computer playing with Shinwoo and the other highschoolers, dying way too quickly for comfort.
He set the phone down on the coffee table, the disgrace called Fruit Ninja still on its "Game Over" screen. Just what was that, anyways? The only time Rai thought slicing fruit was necessary was when someone was making a dish that required it. But in a...game? No, rather, in a phone? Rai swore he never understood technology more loosely than he did this particular device that just lay on the coffee table, silently taunting him with the Game Over screen. It almost made him want to... try again. Well, he denied this thought for some time, and instead went to sipping his tea since it had been a while. It was cold, but it honestly wasn't as cold as how that game was treating him.
Eventually, after sparing several glances at it, he picked up his phone again and tried out Classic mode one more time, in hopes he wouldn't fail at some poor representation of slicing fruit.
Several times, he still failed within the first 10 seconds. And it continued like this for perhaps 5 minutes, and by his final attempt, he had only managed to last for 15 seconds.
He heard the door unlock and then open a crack.
"Master?" It was Frankenstein's voice, even though all Rai could currently see was two bags of groceries holding numerous items. Soon Frankenstein was able to open the door more and actually step into his home, closing the door with his foot. Peeking over the bags, he saw Rai holding a phone. "Oh... did Shinwoo leave your phone out? I told him not to... I suppose the boy will need scolding."
Rai glanced at the "Game Over" screen he was already so accustomed to, then back at Frankenstein, who had begun to move towards the kitchen to set the grocery bags down. "Frankenstein..."
"Yes?" Frankenstein called, quickly approaching the living room after putting his bags on the kitchen counter.
Rai showed him the phone screen. "I seemed to have died by slicing fruit..."
Frankenstein's face fell when he read the only two words that were on the phone. He wasn't entirely sure what to tell his master exactly, so he merely reached for the phone to exit out of Fruit Ninja and turn the phone off. "I'm sorry to hear that, Master... but I wouldn't take it seriously in all honesty."
Rai looked at his phone again, its screen now black. He realized he preferred it that way, after enduring such fruit-cutting hardships. "Ah... thank you for making it go away, Frankenstein," he said as he set the phone down, now reaching for his teacup to drink what little remained inside it.
"My pleasure, Master. I can't have you just go and die like that, otherwise we would be separated again... this time permanently."
Although an awkwardness settled between them after that was said, Rai could tell there was supposed to be some feeling of affection behind Frankenstein's words that made him smile faintly into his teacup.
