April Fools Get Smart
A/N: Wolfish Oro does NOT own Rurouni Kenshin, nor any of its characters. This fanfic is AU and set in a college time-frame, modern day, with some OOC, and is a pseudo-sequel to 'Drunk, Dyed, and Clearly Labeled'… Meaning, there will be references to the previous story, you, reader, don't have to have read aforementioned story to understand it… Or so this one thinks…
Two days from April first found Kenshin and Aoshi plotting away as they walked through the streets, oblivious to the odd looks they were getting ("I say we fill their pillows with shaving cream-" "Nah, we should switch their shampoo with soy sauce…" "But that would wash out while their still in the shower." "But they'll smell like soy sauce all day!"), when inspiration stuck in the form of a squirrel…
Literally.
Aoshi had been pulling on his (still green-tinted, damnit!) bangs, as he was wont to do while thinking, when he heard Kenshin 'oro!' and scramble away from the tree the two had been walking next to. Aoshi looked at the redhead oddly, until he felt something pelt him in the back of the head. His hand shot out, and he caught the acorn before it hit the ground behind him. Aoshi looked up in time to see two squirrels chatter irritably and to get hit by another acorn, this time square on the nose, and two more that hit his cheek and forehead. Kenshin grinned at his friend's expression, but it slipped away when he, too, was subject to a barrage of acorns. The two backed farther away from the tree, ducking into the local bakery, and looked at each other.
"I think I have an idea," Kenshin said, "And from the look of it, so do you."
ORO!
Kaoru and Misao eyed Kenshin and Aoshi. This early in the morning… Okay, so it was nearly noon, but hey, they'd just woke up… the two men could be up to nothing but trouble.
Their quandary was whether or not to let the two in; Kaoru and Misao were leaning against the door and bickering quietly over it. Kenshin knocked softly on the door to remind the women that he and Aoshi were, indeed, right outside and could hear every word they said.
"We brought donuts," Aoshi said when the girls started to fight again.
"Food is good. Sugar is better. Donuts are both. Let them in," Misao demanded.
"Go dunk your head in coffee and wake up!" Kaoru hissed. "Last I heard, Aoshi was still mad at you, and Kenshin is acting entirely too innocent-"
"Oro! What do you mean, innocent? I'm always a morning person!" Kenshin's outburst was more than mildly indignant.
"Methinks you protest too much," Kaoru intoned dryly. Misao rolled her eyes and shoved Kaoru away from the door.
"Come in, and bring the food. Now. I'm starving!"
ORO!
'This is entirely too easy,' Kenshin thought. Then he saw the still-brewing coffee and thought, 'ah. That explains it…' Misao had grabbed the bag from his hand as soon as he'd gone through the door, much to his and Aoshi's amusement. Kaoru grumbled, but was weakening, he could tell, at the sight of the donuts sitting harmlessly on the plate Misao put them on. Aoshi leaned against the counter while he watched Misao bounce around, scrambling through cabinets to find coffee mugs, while he, himself, watched Kaoru poke one of the four Boston Crème donuts suspiciously, even as she contemplated the three glazed donuts.
"Ha! Found you, you forking cups!" Misao crowed from across the room, and Kenshin blinked. 'Forking cups…?' Aoshi shook his head and rolled his eyes, and Kaoru just ignored her.
"Kaoru! You haven't eaten any yet, have you? That would be sooo unfair!"
"I didn't, so cool it, weasel girl," Kaoru snapped. Misao stuck her tongue out at her and grabbed two of the crème-filled donuts, shoving one at Kaoru as she skipped away to get coffee. (A/N: Misao's the one skipping away… not Kaoru. Kaoru skipping would be… really weird and out of character…) Kenshin wanted to laugh as he saw the women bite into their donuts at the same time…
ORO!
Kaoru was way more suspicious than Misao, and had been since Aoshi and Kenshin had cornered her and Misao at Megumi's St. Patrick's Day party to 'thank' them. The donuts just seemed a little too normal, but she was hungry and had class in half an hour…
She looked up in time to see the mischievous twinkle in Kenshin's eyes as she bit into the donut before the oddest taste registered. 'Sugar and… mint? Wait a minute!' Kaoru's eyes swung over to the calendar even as she thought this, and she saw a camera flash at her from Aoshi's spot against the counter.
April first. April first. First she swallowed reflexively, and then Kaoru heard Kenshin laughing, heard Misao gag and spit the bite she'd taken out in the sink, and when she looked at Aoshi, patting Misao's back as she coughed up the donut, she could've sworn she'd seen his shoulders shaking with silent laughter.
Kenshin stared at her as she stalked over to him, donut in hand.
"April fools," Kenshin managed to choke out around his laugher, before Kaoru smeared the remains of the tooth-paste filled donut on his face.
A/N: Ah, but you truly think this one would end it here? Oh, no, my friends, there's more in store for Misao and Kaoru … wicked grin
She'd felt mildly better after kicking Kenshin out the door and helping Misao deck Aoshi. So now she was on guard for more practical jokes, sitting next to Sano in World History, listening to Saito-sensei give a lecture about feudal Japan.
Kaoru glanced over at Sano and watched him struggle to calculate some equation or another for his math course. He was obviously having trouble, and Kaoru grinned. She knew just the song for this…
Sano glanced over at her. "Quit humming," he huffed, irritable. "It's annoying, tanuki."
"Why do you think I do it? Anyway, I just have this song stuck in my head; I can't remember the words…"
"It's from that movie you an' the kitsune an' the weasel were watching last week. 'The Wizard of Oz'."
"I know that," Kaoru said, feigning frustration. "But I can't remember the words…"
Sano cursed under his breath. "This is going to be stuck in my head all day now," he said reproachfully. "Anyway, the main words are 'If I only had a brain.'"
"Sorry, you're mumbling, what was that?"
"'If I only had a brain.'"
"You're still mumbling, Sano." Kaoru managed to put just the right amount of exasperation in her tone, and it paid off when Sanosuke roared:
"I SAID, 'If I only had a brain'!"
The class was silent for a moment, startled by this sudden outburst, until Saito-sensei told him coldly, "We've been waiting for you to grow one, Sagara, but it seems we'll be waiting a long time." Then the class, as one, burst into laughter. Kaoru quietly slipped away in the hubbub, lest Sano consider retaliation.
ORO!
Misao was waiting outside the apartment for Kaoru. 'When did I loose my keys…?' Shaking it off, Misao tapped her foot impatient, and leaned against the door. 'She said she was getting back early!' Misao grumped, then brightened as she heard Kaoru race through the halls to skid to a stop before the door and Misao.
"Finally! I lost my key, so I had to wait out here…" Misao trailed off when she saw Kaoru's grin. "Hey, what's with the look? What'd ya do?" Kaoru shook her head.
"Later," was all she'd tell Misao at the moment.
So it was that Misao, dying of curiosity, stepped through the door to her apartment to be attacked by a squirrel. Kaoru gaped as she saw her friend struggle with the ferocious beast, but whirled when she saw another leaping towards her. Misao watched around the puff of fur obscuring her vision as Kaoru caught the outraged squirrel and leaped over the couch to throw it out the window. Misao made a muffle cry for help that came out as "Krru! Hmlf!" The squirrel she'd been struggling to pry off her face was lifted up and away, before it, too, was tossed out of the apartment.
On the table, beside the couch, where once-upon-a-time they'd left the note there, sat a new note, printed in sloppy handwriting on white lined paper. As they would later find out, it read:
Kaoru and Misao:
Revenge is a dish best served cold, as proven with the donuts this morning. It did take us a while to convince the baker to help us out there, and we hope you enjoyed the outcome. We also hope you like our fuzzy friends as much as they liked us when we first met them—we had a hell of a time wrestling them in your apartment, as I'm sure you can imagine. Don't worry, Megumi checked them over for rabies, and they don't bite so much as throw things.
See you later,
Kenshin (and in much neater handwriting) and Aoshi
P.S. (still in Aoshi's much, much more legible script) Misao, I had to borrow your keys, but I was sure to put them in your junk drawer where those furred devils couldn't reach them.
Somewhere across town, Kenshin and Aoshi laughed as they watched the whole ordeal via a webcam that Aoshi had set up. Then they laughed again as Sano stormed in and sulikly told them his story.