Disclaimer: Do not own.
More Azu silliness. (Dammit, I have to stop making all my Azu stories so short. And to use Sakaki and Chiyo more often.) Sort-of sequel to "Extra Terrestrial Speculation.
As always, enjoy!
"Eh?"
Osaka's expression, if it were possible, looked even more bewildered then it usually did. She was staring at her friend and fellow knucklehead, Takino Tomo, with a positively dumbfounded expression.
"Ya thought I was an alien?" Osaka questioned.
She was staring at her other friends, her eyes widening, when they were already quite wide enough to begin with.
"More or less." shrugged Tomo, as if she had nothing to do with the topic, or the conversation that had brought it about. Yomi Mizuhara rolled her eyes.
"But...how can I be an alien?" Osaka protested weakly, looking from Chiyo, Sakaki, Yomi, Kagura and Tomo.
The six of them were walking along the pavement, having just got out of school. It was a hot, sleepy day, and if any of them had been paying attention, they would have heard the loud shrilling of the Cicada's up ahead. Cars rushed past them, plumes of dust rising in their wake on the dry road.
"You can't be," Yomi answered, giving a pointed look in the direction of Kagura and Tomo. "It's just people being stupid."
"Hey, you know unicorns?" Tomo randomly said, looking thoughtfully up at the sky, apparently either ignoring or being genuinely unaware of Yomi's glare. "Remember how they can only be approached by clean maidens or whatever?"
"Pure maidens." corrected Sakaki dreamily, a slightly vague smile slowly unfolding on her face.
She imagined a silvery-white unicorn rearing in a moonlit field, head raised proudly, before racing across the landscape, its hooves pounding on the soft, dewy grass as it galloped towards the slowly rising sun...
"Do you think that's right with aliens too?" Tomo went on, "I mean, nobody's ever seen one for real, right? Maybe that's 'cause they're all not virgins!"
Yomi and Chiyo stared at Tomo. Sakaki blushed slightly.
"What the HELL are you talking about?" barked Yomi. Sakaki sighed blissfully to herself, imagining herself riding a beautiful unicorn...
"Wouldn't it be awesome if you could have a pet unicorn?" Kagura suddenly added, kicking an empty bottle on the pavement across the road, which got promptly smashed by an oncoming car. "You could race with it and stuff!"
"Kagura-san, I don't think that you could keep up with a horse," Chiyo put in, staring up at Kagura, "They can run up to fifty miles an hour..."
"It's a unicorn." corrected Tomo, as if Chiyo was an idiot. "They don't need to run when they can FLY!"
"Unicorns can't fly." Yomi told her.
There was a pause.
"They could if they just took a plane!" argued Tomo, looking annoyed. "Like Unicorn Airlines!"
"Ya can't have a plane fer just unicorns," Osaka put in, placidly, "That's discrimination."
"How would they get on the plane, anyway?" Kagura chipped in, munching a bag of crisps that had apparently appeared out of nowhere, which Yomi was staring at out of the corner of her eye, "Horses can't walk up stairs, right?"
"No, that's cows, Kagura-san." Chiyo piped up, while Yomi rolled her eyes, but they darted swiftly back to the crisps. She had been on a diet for three days now, and she was craving something unhealthy, "It's to do with the balance of the-"
"Well, aliens don't need to get on planes." Tomo interrupted, waving her arms, "They already have spaceships! And I bet they have better food then planes do, because they're all advanced and stuff."
"Oh, obviously." Yomi grumbled under her breath. Her stomach growled and she flushed, but it went completely unnoticed.
"What are spaceships like on the inside?" pondered Kagura, her index finger on her chin. "I mean, they'd probably have computers and stuff, but would they have rooms and things too?"
"Hey, ya know those fire birds?" Osaka suddenly said, who had been quiet for a few minutes, since she had been gazing into space. "What's the plural for 'em? Phoenixes?"
Tomo and Kagura stared at Osaka for a moment, their eyes wide.
"Um…phoenixi...?" mumbled Kagura, counting something on her fingers. What counting had to do with correctly working out a plural was anybody's guess. "Phoenixo?"
"Phoenux?" giggled Tomo. Yomi smacked her lightly on the back of the head with her student folder.
"The plural for them is Phoenix!" cheeped Chiyo, "Like sheep being the plural for a single sheep."
"Well, that explains that then," Tomo suddenly announced in a final sort of way, walking slightly ahead of everyone else, her book bag slung over her shoulder.
"This ought to be good," mumbled Yomi. Sakaki nodded subtly in agreement.
"What now?" Kagura asked, sounding exasperated.
"Well, no wonder Phoenix are extinct!" scoffed Tomo, "If they went and had the same plural sheep do."
"Phoenix aren't extinct, Tomo-chan," Chiyo attempted to explain, "They're mythical."
"So…that makes them endangered?" pondered Kagura, scratching at the side of her head, leaving traces of salt from her crisps in her short brown hair.
"No, Kagura, it means that they don't exist," Yomi said, in the sort of Well duh voice she usually reserved for Tomo or Osaka.
"How do you know they don't exist?" Tomo demanded, pointing a finger at Yomi, nearly jabbing her in the eye, "Have you ever seen one?"
"Um, no?"
"Well, then, how can you possibly know whether they exist or not?" smirked Tomo, misinterpreting Yomi's incredulous silence for one of defeat.
"Tomo-chan, that's not…" began Chiyo, slightly nervously. Yomi shook her head.
"Just…leave it, Chiyo-chan."
There was a little silence, in which Yomi took the opportunity to sneak a headache tablet out of her skirt pocket. After hanging around her idiot friends for extended periods of time usually required some form of medication, which she had learned the hard way.
"Hey, Chiyo-chan…" Osaka said, with a wistful smile, "What's the plural for moose?"
Sakaki tuned out of the conversation at this point, instead directing her attention towards the trees above her bickering companions.
The cicadas were breeding fast.