As soon as I finished Concept I was like "Well the next story I write should be one of the fics that I already have planned out and I wrote the summary for a long time ago and was on the backburner like concept. It might be fun to limit myself to my old chapter summaries and ideas and it would feel nice getting those projects finished. Also it could be easy to do with school going on."
Anyway that story that I chose was some sort of elemental gods au/kind of greek inspired because I'm really into greek mythology. I had been afraid of writing it before but then I was like "I'm going to do it."
I wrote three chapters (which I haven't published yet I thought I'd finish the whole story before publishing but if you want to see it now tell me to publish it now) and then I got to the chapter with Koyuki. Oh boy Koyuki. That poor girl. I love her but I just can not write her. So instead of writing Koyuki I procrastinated, planned out a whole new story somehow and then started writing that.
The first chapter was so long I had to split it in two.
I'm glad I'm writing this story though. I really love fluff fics, absolutely adore them, but I'm also pretty bad at them. They are not my strong suit. I'd like to get better with them through practice and there aren't enough fluff fics for kurumois (heck there's not really enough long fluff fics in the sgt frog fandom but I am primarily a kurumois writer so if you want your other ships I'd suggest going to other authors who are good at that.), so I'm writing another fluff fic for kurumois.
That way I can have all my shippy goodness in a huge fic and then go to more plot heavy fics or aus. Or more likely I'll just write another dumb fluff fic.
Anyway this chapter is the first part of the first chapter. It's now just one chapter. I'll try to add in the other characters here and there but it's going to be primarily kurumois.
Angol Mois twirled a pen with her fingers. It was no lucifer spear to twirl, but it was something. Her life had certainly moved in a direction that she hadn't expected, moving away from using her free time to destroy civilizations and instead working on long documents.
You could say, paper pusher? She thought to herself. Not that she would ever complain to anyone's face about her work. She herself had been the one to volunteer for it after all. She didn't feel, or more accurately didn't like to think that she had been pressured into anything.
Uncle just needs all the help he can get. His invasion is going so poorly after all. I just want to do my best and support him. Mois reminded herself.
She turned back to the paperwork in front of her. She had laid it all about so she could properly look at it, putting the piece she was currently working on, on a clipboard to make things easier. She was very thankful that there was a room in the base that was specifically for work. It wasn't like anyone besides her or Kululu ever used it since it was pretty much where the tech team did their operations, but it had plenty of technology and plenty of pens for when she needed them to do regular and old paperwork.
Okay….Gotta get back to this paperwork. There sure is a lot of it. It was like any normal day of work, with Angol Mois doing her absolute best to try to contribute to an invasion that she had no part in it. You could say, happiness for the one you love? If her Uncle wanted the invasion to happen she'd support it.
She just wanted Keroro to be happy, and she wanted to support him in the things he did.
"Saddled with more paperwork, huh? Ku, ku, ku. You know it's not very helpful to me when you take on a bucket load of more work that's not even part of your duties." Kululu was mostly staying to his own side of the computers, trying to focus on his own work in front of him, but he definitely had a way with words to point out that Mois really didn't need to be doing so much paperwork.
Angol Mois glanced at her...co-worker? Tech partner? Buddy in the tech team? Friend? She knew what she wanted him to be labeled as but she wasn't exactly sure how he usually thought of them. He certainly has a way with...trying to get me focused back on the work I'm supposed to be doing. Well technically Mois didn't really need to be doing any work, she wasn't getting paid for this, but she had officially been assigned to the tech team.
Kululu probably felt like she was shirking her duties for Keroro's paperwork, and because Keroro gave them the work of two people (because they were in fact two people) when Mois took on extra work and couldn't finish her usual tasks, Kululu usually had to finish them since this was his actual job. Mois knew he wasn't trying to be rude or anything, he was just trying to get her attention back on the task at hand, running numbers on the latest finances of the invasion scheme.
She gave him a reassuring smile. "Don't worry! I'll get on it right after this paperwork. I promise you won't have to do my job and your job just because I volunteered to do more. You could say, unfair to you?"
Kululu shied away from her smile and ducked back towards his computer. "I...I wasn't worried about that. At this point I'm way used to doing part of your work too when you fall asleep on the job." Kululu defended. "I just mean Keroro should really be doing as much work as we are. You need to stop babying him and over-working yourself."
"I'm not babying him! I volunteered to edit his paperwork for headquarters!" Mois defended, putting on some more edits to the paperwork that Keroro had handed her.
Kululu raised a brow. "And….Are these so called edits just writing his paperwork from scratch? Ku, ku, ku." Kululu called her out.
Mois grew silent. "N-no..." She tried to lie. I don't want Kululu to feel like he has to bad-mouth my dear Uncle because he didn't do the work he was assigned. "He...Handed me some chicken scratch." She tried to use an excuse.
"….Was it just a doodle of a gundam model?" Kululu had seen this all before. His voice seemed to be on the verge of laughing at Mois finding herself in the same situation as the last week and the week before then and so forth.
Mois sighed in disappointment. She couldn't lie any longer. "Well yeah...But I remember what Uncle lectured on in the invasion meeting and our plan! I just need to write it in intelligent words-"
"A hard task considering he didn't lecture very intelligently." Kululu cut her off.
Mois's cheeks grew hot in shame for her Uncle's sake. "I really believe in this invasion plan this time! I'm sure it'll be the one to work! After all these other times this is the one that's going to invade Pekopon. ...At least that's what Uncle says!" She defended.
Kululu tried not to laugh. "Pfft. Yeah right. Just keep believing that. Someone's got to in this platoon." He went back to writing up numbers and calculations, opposed to teasing Mois.
She made her own decisions and there was no use barking up that tree on trying to get her to stop helping Keroro. So he let her continue her work, like any other normal day.
Mois worked on the paperwork for a bit until she was satisfied. She tried not to hum to herself too much. You just get in a groove with this sort of stuff. It's so normal...So brainless. It was just standard sort of things. And doing paperwork was something Mois found she was fairly good at after so much time with Keroro.
"All right. I think I'm done." Mois smiled. "Would you like to look over it?" She offered Kululu, "You know to make sure it doesn't have any mistakes before Uncle sends it to headquarters under his name."
"Sure since I'm actually supposed to be the one editing." Kululu agreed. "But captain doesn't want me to edit because he knows I'll tear him apart and won't do it all from scratch like you do. Ku, ku, ku." Kululu frowned. "...You really shouldn't be doing all of this for him."
"But Uncle's paperwork piles up so much! Me just doing one eensy document probably makes his life so much easier. And he's always so thankful." Mois tried to reason.
Kululu sighed. "It starts out as one small document and then it gets to you doing the whole stack. If you give an inch-
"You could say, they'll take a foot?"
"Mile. Mile, Mois." Kululu corrected. Still he stuck his hand out waiting for her to hand him the paperwork.
Mois gave him a grateful look as she handed the stabled paperwork over to him. As she was handing the paperwork her hand met his fingers for a brief moment, just brushing up against them. Nothing huge or anything important and something Angol Mois wouldn't have even noticed if Kululu didn't react.
However Kululu did react, he literally jolted as if a bolt of electricity had been sent up his body, and he pulled his hand away as quick as possible as if he had been hit in the stomach. He pulled his hand away so fast that Mois was afraid he might rip the paper. The swooshing sound of the paper did not mask the loud squeaking noise he made in surprise from the barely skin to skin contact that was not a big deal in any way.
Mois pulled away her hand slowly and looked at him skeptically for a moment, slowly moving her eyes down to the finger that brushed up against his index finger. Did...I hurt him? Her nails didn't look too long. Really she wasn't sure at all what the big deal was.
Kululu just stared for a moment like he hadn't made such a loud squeaking noise of surprise. He swiveled back to his desk, avoiding her eye contact. "W-what? I'm reading the document okay! I don't know what you're looking at!" He tried to desperately pretend nothing had happened and he hadn't visibly freaked out.
Mois turned back to her own computer, but her attention did not turn to it. That was odd….Not altogether unexpected though. Kululu did weird things like that all the time, or reacted in all sorts of huge ways.
She wanted to ask him more about it at times or ask him if he was okay, but she felt like talking about the issue might make him feel worse. He looked like he was pretty embarrassed about how freaked out he was, although he also looked like he was trying to pretend that he wasn't even thinking about it. By how much he was shivering that was evident to be a lie though.
Any normal person, seeing Kululu shiver so much, would laugh at the biggest jerk that they knew and the most egotistical person and 'jerk for the sake of jerk' act in such an embarrassing manner. They would make fun of him and tease him and find that karma was finally coming to him.
Mois was not a normal person though. Instead she chose to ignore things and let Kululu be, not wanting to make fun of him in the slightest.
Kululu's always a little weird around me. Squeaking from accidentally touching is nothing really unexpected or odd. Mois tried to reason to herself. It's nothing to really think about or worry over. He's not hurt or anything. He's just being cute. She nodded to herself and went back to her work.
It was none of her concern. It was over and just Kululu being Kululu.
Work continued as normal and eventually Mois glanced over to Kululu again as he scrutinized over her document that he was editing.
"Are things going well? I hope I didn't make too many mistakes…." Mois asked.
"You made some basic mistakes here and there, but that's not your fault. You know very little about keron's military structure and you're not supposed to. You didn't go through the training our platoon did." Kululu admitted. "I can correct them though."
"Thanks!" She smiled. "You're the best, Kululu!" She added, smiling once more and looking at him like he really was the best.
Kululu shivered yet again, his hands trembling on his keyboard because he seemed to be multi-tasking.
Crash! She could hear him keyboard smash for a second, probably putting a jumble of letters and numbers that didn't belong on the screen there.
That's not good...Mois frowned. I couldn't have possibly had anything to do with that though. All I did was smile! She reminded herself.
"God darn it. Now I have to correct this entire string of code." She could hear Kululu say under his breath.
Mois instantly became worried for her partner. I don't want him to become over-loaded with work. Just like he didn't want her to be over-worked she didn't really want him to be either. She worried for him.
So Mois did the worst possible thing she could have done given the circumstance- try to help. She rolled her chair over to Kululu's side to look over his shoulder at the mistakes he had made on his computer screen.
"I can correct the code if you finish editing." Mois offered.
"W-wha?" Before Kululu could tell her why that was a very, very bad idea, Mois leaned directly over him. Her body seemed to drape over his, her breathing right over his shoulder, her hands moving towards the keyboard that Kululu's hand was still on.
Kululu froze for just under a few seconds focusing on Mois's breathing pattern and trying to keep his flight or fight instinct under control, he couldn't feel her against his back but he could feel her against his shoulder. She was just so close to him.
"Wow, you did this much in this little time? You're really impressive Kulu-" She couldn't even finish her sentence before Kululu had decided what part of his instinct to follow.
It was flight. "AHHHHH!" He just screamed and threw up all the papers in complete and utter terror from having Mois so close to him, having her glance at him, having her face inches away from him and being able to just feel her breath, from just the proximity of Mois.
He tried desperately to hide from the terrifying person behind him. Unfortunately most of Kululu's brain power had shut off from just utter terror and his life flashing behind his eyes so he tried to hide under his keyboard. This managed to get him to press a few keys on the keyboard.
A message flashed briefly on the computer: "Do you wish to delete all work and files associated with this file? Warning: Files are non-recoverable with this shortcut!"
Before Mois could warn him Kululu had already accidentally pressed the yes option just desperately trying to hide from Mois. "G-get away from me! Y-you can't make me pure! I'll do whatever you want! P-please...Just stop being so close!"
Mois very quickly and silently moved away from him as Kululu progressively ducked under his desk for one of the biggest freak out sessions she had seen yes.
She didn't check under the desk for several minutes as he tried to steady his breathing and trembling.
...I should have been thinking more about his fear. I didn't realize...I'm not even really sure what I did. I mean I wasn't even looking at him that much. I was trying to just work over him...Was he really that scared of her that not even eye contact terrified him but touch did too?
She looked at the computer screen of his deleted work sadly, since Kululu hadn't yet realized about the deletion. I wonder if he'll be mad at me. He did seem like the type to blame others, and Mois had terrified him. Honestly she was blaming herself too.
I…I didn't realize how bad it really was...I thought he was just being normal. Cute even. But she had always known that Kululu could be sent into full scale freak out sessions. She just didn't know they were so destructive.
Was he getting worse? He might have been. Perhaps it was because they worked together. Maybe she just didn't notice the steady progressiveness of how he had become more and more frightened because it was a slow progress.
He must be stressed...If it was this bad….He must be stressed about his fear. And knowing he deleted a document will just make him more stressed. She felt so bad. She didn't want Kululu to be stressed because of her even if his fear was a little weird about how she was going to make him 'pure'.
She went back to her seat and her desk.
Kululu came out of his hiding spot and brushed himself off from the dust and wires. He sighed for a second and looked around as if wondering if Mois had seen him scream and freak out.
"I-I'm s-so...So sorry...I forgot..." Mois finally said, "And your file-" She tried not to have her lip tremble. She didn't want to make herself into the person feeling sad when Kululu was bound to be feeling worse.
Kululu glanced at her and then glanced at the computer, realizing his work had been deleted. "Oh that? No big deal. I can make another one. I've deleted plenty of files accidentally because of you before. Destroyed inventions too. Honestly since it only costs my time it's way better than equipment being destroyed." He shrugged.
...You have? Mois wanted to ask. Okay his fear was way worse than she had first thought. She had really been under-estimating it. Playing it off as something harmless. But it was not harmless in the least bit.
"I'm sorry for frightening you-" Mois tried to apologize.
"Stop talking about it." Kululu tried to deny that it had even happened and he had freaked out. He sat down again and went to his computer. "It's really to be expected by now. It was just an ORDINARY little thing. It happens all the time, it's really no big deal. I'm just terrified of you is all. It's just ordinary and average and you being terrifying. So...Don't be so physically close, mmkay?" Kululu requested.
Mois felt reassured that he was talking about it so calmly. She wondered if he was doing so to play it cool after such a dramatic freak out session or to make her feel better. Still there was something weird about the way he said ordinary and terrifying, like there was a meaning about them that she wasn't quite understanding or picking up. Is there some sub-text I'm supposed to know? They were the only two people in the room so he had to be talking to her if he was trying to mean something else. It wasn't like he was talking to himself after all.
Kululu always was good with being his average calm, egotistical and composed self around me but still totally frightened of me at other moments. Mois reminded herself. She didn't know why he was trying to be so calm now but she appreciated it.
She nodded. "I'll try not to!"
"There is no try. Only do. No more of...whatever that was while I'm working, okay?" Kululu requested. He then thought for a moment and a smirk appeared on his face.
Uh-oh. I know that expression. That's the expression of 'things have gone badly for me but I'm going to turn them around and tease you like the jerk that I am'. Kululu was very good at what he did- teasing others.
"That of course is unless you were doing that as an excuse to get close to me. Why, Mois, I had no idea you wanted to be so close. I would appreciate a heads up next time if you just wanted to flirt with me or something. Ku, ku, ku." Kululu teased.
"...Kululu does teasing me really benefit you in anyway?" Mois sighed. "If by the off chance I said that was what I was doing I'm sure you'd just explode."
"No, I wouldn't." Kululu crossed his arms and denied. "That's not the type of person I am. I'm not like that." He continued to deny. "I was just joking anyway. Don't take what I just said too seriously." He quickly added, not wanting to agree to the logic in Mois's argument. "It's just that when you act so close and touchy with me and so affectionate, it kinda sends the wrong message. Like...That you want to be close and touchy with me." Kululu shuddered.
I wasn't being that affectionate. I was just trying to help. Mois didn't point that out though. Instead she responded to Kululu's misinterpretation. She didn't pick up on the shudder. "Well of course I want to be close to you, Kululu!" She said honestly and perkily. "I want to touch you and be close to you. You're my friend."
Kululu's glasses cracked almost immediately at her extremely honest answer. His arms flailed a little bit, as if trying to grab the edge of his chair to ground himself. Unfortunately he knocked his mug of tea on the desk instead and the tea spilled all over the remains of the computer.
Almost immediately the computer started fizzing and short-circuiting. Sparks of electricity flew everywhere else.
He….He just freaked out and destroyed something else….Didn't he? Mois asked herself. Now she was really worried. Just declarations of friendship could send him into a panic? Poor Kululu.
Kululu was shaking and not paying attention to the short-circuiting computer.
"Kululu the computer-" Mois tried to get his attention.
Kululu looked over. His spirals on his glasses seemed to widen and he switched out his broken glasses for new ones. "CRAP! This is bad!" He said to himself and very quickly started removing the parts of hardware that had been soaked with tea so they didn't corrupt the rest of the equipment.
"I can help-" Mois tried to offer quickly getting up as Kululu moved very quickly to try to fix things seemingly in a panic.
"Don't get any closer. I don't really need you scaring me right now. You're kind of a distraction. Listen, I really got to focus on this. You can help after I'm sure it won't corrupt anything else." Kululu didn't even turn his gaze towards her.
A...A distraction? But...I'm part of the tech team too. I'm competent. Mois told herself. She had to remind herself Kululu wasn't trying to be insulting he just meant she was a distraction to him.
She backed off for a few minutes and let Kululu work.
Mois turned her back to him and covered her eyes trying to do her best to not distract Kululu anymore. She could hear him working on the various repairs to his computer, pretty hurriedly as well as uttering a slew of curses. She honestly felt very bad for him even if he had caused the problem himself from his own panic.
"Thank god I have a good back up system." Kululu decided.
She twiddled her fingers, but eventually just couldn't stand still and not be helpful. She was Angol Mois! And she wasn't here to just waste her time. I want to help. She decided.
She could do something simple. Something that kept her away from the machines, she decided. Something that would make it so Kululu was sure to not freak out because it was harmless.
She got a wet washcloth for him. "Here." She gestured. "To cool you down." She tried to hand it off to him, giving another glimmering smile.
Kululu looked at her for a brief moment as she approached him. His face turned pale when she smiled and he started sweating yet again.
"S-s-stop...S-s-stop l-l-looking at me...S-stop being so innocent and kind to me!" Kululu begged.
Before Mois could protest or tell him it was all right, he had already ducked under the table again to hide from her. She wasn't even sure if he was doing it on purpose, it seemed to be a gut reflex to just hide from her gaze.
Unfortunately the wires and back-up devices were under the desk. In his desperate attempt to flee he managed to break them too.
Kululu managed to realize this pretty fast. "Dammit. It happened again." He reluctantly crawled out of his hide hole, deeply ashamed of how much stuff he had wrecked. He just looked at the broken computer and technology and sighed.
"I...I can help clean up-" Mois offered, not sure exactly what she could do about this or turn it around.
"I think you've helped just about enough." Kululu said distastefully. "It would be best if you left so I could survey damages and switch this broken stuff out with actual working stuff." He frowned at her. "Quick! Get out of here! Before you do another one of those terrifying cute and innocent smiles that send me into a panic!"
Mois gave a small little nod. She just felt bad for all the damage and terror that had been spread.
She quietly picked up the remains of Keroro's documents that weren't tea stained and left.
As she walked away from the base, she tried to collect her thoughts, she was almost completely silent and she realized that the heaviness in her heart wasn't in anyway for herself. She wasn't mad at Kululu for sending her away, or breaking so much stuff over a little thing.
No, the heaviness in her heart was for who she considered the real victim in all of this- Kululu. She was really worried for him.
I...Is it normal for someone to be that scared of someone just staring at them? I mean...I guess I could understand it if he was afraid of everybody, it would be like some sort of social fear. But it's just me. She had never prided herself on being the best with keronian psychology though. Perhaps it was normal on their planet. Some things about Keroro had always confused her and she was sure it was just because she didn't understand his species and how his mind worked, or why his first instinct for invasion plans were so weird...But what was weird to her must have been normal to him, right?
She worried for Kululu though even if it was normal, his actions. They seemed like full blown panic attacks. And his fear was growing more and more severe. It was no longer something that seemed kind of sweet, or like a good idea to even look at as a benefit in some situations, like to get him to stop being such a jerk to others. No, Kululu's fear was extremely serious.
It's...It's not the first time he's destroyed a whole bunch of things in his desperate plight to get away from me...But I guess I was never very good at giving up on things. I'm always kind of stubborn and don't really get things until they're repeated over and over again. I guess now was the time that I really realized how extreme Kululu's fear was, to make him jolt from just our fingers brushing, or send him desperately running from me looking at him and offering him some kindness. She worried for him so much. She didn't want him to be breaking things to get away from her. He must have been feeling miserable right now.
I've...I've been trying to make things better for him though! I don't know what's so scary about my eyes but I've been trying to smile more around him. You could say, a smile brings everybody closer? Mois decided.
Apparently that wasn't the case for Kululu. Smiles seemed to just scare him more. He had everything reversed. Maybe it was because he smiled around people to try to creep people out. Maybe he thought Mois was trying to threaten him by smiling. Mois really didn't know.
Still...Things have been getting more and more intense...I feel like either I'm noticing his fear more, or it's growing worse and he can't hide it as much. What's...What's setting him off about me? Mois didn't want to be a walking trigger.
She put her hand against the wall to steady herself. She didn't want to scare Kululu. But what could she do about this situation?
Now she felt sadness. Someone I want to not fear me is terrified of me. You could say, a modern day tragedy? Karma was a jerk to the lord of terror.
And she really didn't know what to do.
Keroro tapped his foot on the ground looking at Angol Mois and Kululu. Neither of them had anything to give him.
"Well? You're supposed to be the two responsible ones of this platoon. Where's the invasion stuff? Where's my work?" Keroro scolded.
"Hey-" Giroro tried to say in the background taking offense that Kululu was more responsible than him.
"Okay, Mois's the most responsible in this platoon. Everybody happy now?" Keroro corrected.
Giroro grully nodded and then thought for a moment. That still wasn't any better!
"I'm never happy when there's compliments about that woman!" Tamama jumped up. Keroro ignored him still awaiting his explanation.
"There were some explosions in the base. A lot of equipment was damaged and we were unable to finish any work because of that." Kululu said simply, although he still looked pretty unhappy about the damaged stuff.
Mois suspected he wasn't angry enough to take his bitter attitude out on anyone else because the computers in the base were property of the Keron army, verses being just his. They'd have to pay for repairs, not him.
"Explosions?" Keroro asked looking very worried. "What happened? Equipment broke-? What?"
Mois hurriedly glanced at Kululu and before he could say anything she piped up. "I was being clumsy!" She quickly lied. "I was twirling around my lucifer spear to play with it-" She wanted to make this convincing.
She had to help Kululu somehow. This was partially her fault after all. It's...It's going to be embarrassing for him if they find out that he freaked out over my eyes again. They'll all tease him and he'll feel even worse. I've got to keep the truth from them even if it damages my pride a little bit. I'm sure Uncle will forgive me for breaking things. She thought to herself.
"That makes sense. That woman is a clumsy oaf. She probably tripped on her big dumb feet." Tamama didn't even need the story to be believable.
Kululu glanced suspiciously at Mois, knowing full well she was lying.
Mois smiled in relief. They seem to be taking things well.
The only one who didn't look happy with her story was Kululu. He was giving his classic irritated look of 'I don't want to owe anyone any favors'. "Mois didn't break things. Don't scold her too harshly, captain. She's totally lying."
"W-what-?" Keroro looked at Angol Mois, hurt that she would lie to him. "You didn't break things? But you break so many things! It made so much sense. Wait...Did you guys just break expensive computers to get out of work."
"N-no! Kululu's the one who's l-lying-" Mois said hurriedly. But they were all gazing at her suspiciously now. Kululu...Just let me help you, okay? Why'd you have to call out the lies in my story?
"I broke the equipment." Kululu shrugged honestly. "She's just trying to be a goody-two shoes and take the blame. And I hate goody-two shoes. Ku, ku, ku. So now I've gotta come clean about my crimes. Woe is me."
"You broke expense tech?" Giroro asked and grabbed him by his chest scruff. "What the heck? Did you want to cause the keron military thousands!?"
"Ku, ku, ku. Just felt like dousing my keyboard in hot tea. Had that hankering to blow some crap up. I'm sure some of you understand." Kululu tried to reason.
Giroro looked at the ground. Mois and Tamama nodded.
Dororo was the only one who was listening and watching very carefully. "...It wasn't that was it? It was an accident." He deciphered. "Giroro, put him down." He requested and sighed. "I can read the air in this situation."
"Yeah and it smells. Ku, ku, ku. Oh wait that's Giroro's breath!" Kululu mocked.
Giroro dropped him. "Somehow reading the air doesn't make Kululu innocent, Dororo-"
"Observing people's body languages and facial cues does though." Dororo defended. "And I bet I know exactly what happened. I'm guessing it was another of those Mois stares at you situations and in your attempt to flee her you destroyed several valuable pieces of equipment?" Dororo guessed exactly what had happened.
Mois gasped. How had Dororo known? It couldn't be that he was spying. I mean he is a little weird. He does do that...She didn't know. But she knew Kululu would instantly deny those claims that he had freaked out as Dororo had said.
Kululu didn't want to have any weaknesses.
"Yeah. In hindsight it was pretty funny. Mois kept making the situation worse and worse by trying to be more and more innocent to fix things and then it would start the whole stupid cycle again. Ku, ku, ku. But I can't afford to lose my precious evil and jerkiness. Just one minute too long of that god awful disgustingly pure stare is too much." Kululu shuddered. "But there you have it, the truth of the whole bizarre situation."
Keroro just glared at Kululu. Being scared didn't make the situation any better! He started scolding Kululu immensely.
Despite all of Mois's pleas to go easy on Kululu, neither Keroro, nor Giroro who joined in, relented.
Luckily Kululu lived off being scolded so he was all right with the situation but Mois still felt immense pity for him.
As Mois eventually went to the table to finish up things on Keroro's paperwork as Keroro continued yelling, her mind drifted back to Kululu. She really did wonder if Kululu ever thought about things related to her besides his fear.
He makes it seem like that's the only thing he feels for me. Terror. I'm just a joke of a fear to him. But he's got to think other things about me, right? Like about how well we work together. He can act completely fine and normal with me before freaking out after all. He'll even help me with my work and give me advice. She knew her and Kululu had other things connecting them besides his fear. She just needed to remind Kululu that she wasn't just terrifying, there were other things he liked about her like how well they worked together.
Perhaps then Kululu would start feeling better.
When Keroro and Giroro were finally done yelling at Kululu, Mois approached him as got up to leave. She was ready to remind him how great they worked as a team.
She caught him just as he walked through the doorway. "Hey, Kululu...I was thinking maybe we should get a head start on fixing things and the next bit of work since things went so badly last time? You could say, fast hare wins the race?"
Kululu rubbed his head not even bothering to correct her. Still he did have a lot of work he wasn't looking forward to so he listened. "And how do you suggest that?"
"I thought we could go out to alien street. You know, just the two of us, we could like shop for parts for the broken computer to repair. It would be really fun and you're really good at explaining computer parts and looking through things and I thought it could be like...a break from work and work at the same time?" Mois suggested.
If they were talking about something technology based, she knew they could work well together. They were the tech team after all.
Kululu looked at Mois for a moment, he smiled for a brief moment as if thinking about looking through a bunch of computer parts, probably discounted because Mois was rather good at negotiating discounts. His mouth opened and Mois could almost hear what he was about to say "Yeah, that would be fun."
Yes! He's going to agree! He's actually going to agree! Mois felt so joyful, like jumping up and down and squealing in utter success. She smiled at Kululu and looked at him as if her entire heart was open up and just utterly enamored with the idea of him accepting her invitation. Like she honestly wanted his company and all of her attention was focused on him.
Kululu's mouth hung open for a little while longer as she looked at him. He then laid down on the floor and curled up into a ball.
"Kululu?" Mois asked. The look as if he was about to accept and thought the idea sounded fun was gone. Now there was only a look of utter despair and doom.
Kululu curled up into a tighter ball.
"I..I would be real happy...No, honored in fact if you spent the rest of the day with me. I really enjoy your company. But...If you're sick or something or can't make it, that's okay too-" Mois tried not to pressure him.
Kululu groaned on the floor. The groan sounded like dying animal noises. He buried his face firmer into the dirty floor.
"...Kululu?" Mois wondered if he had stopped paying attention to her and why he was lying down.
"Can't. Nope. Nope. Not at all. Got something today. Don't know what but I definitely do. Don't question it. I'm dead aren't I? Have I died? Am I alive right now? I just don't know?" Kululu really sounded like he had both given up, and was still on the verge of despair. Mois thought he just sounded over-dramatic.
"Oh...W-well...That's okay." Mois decided to give the Kululu laying on the floor space and walk away.
He didn't even seem to notice that she left. He had fully fainted by this point. He really was just gone. Too much staring for Kululu.
And Mois continued to feel bad.
She was beginning to realize that his fear was even worse than she had previously thought. It prevented him from daily activities like shopping for computer supplies. It prevented him from doing things that he looked like he had wanted to do.
I….I...I don't like it really either. It hurt her too. Not her feelings, but it prevented them from developing a stronger bond. Deepening their friendship if they had one. She really wanted to form a friendship with Kululu and have that sort of relationship but with his current level of fear she seriously doubted that was possible.
More importantly though, it's hurting Kululu. As Kululu's self-proclaimed friend she cared about his feelings. And she knew his fear was hurting him. It's obviously draining his energy. He looks like he has very little energy after an incident like he's been revisiting the moment of fear and hasn't been able to rest. He keeps thinking about me and how frightening I am. Sometimes I ask him about the dark circles around his glasses and he says he hasn't been sleeping well because of nightmares. I assume those are also involving me….
Draining someone's energy to that extent was seriously, seriously bad. It's been wrecking with his work, his hobbies too when I mess with those and come in when he's working on a project or being a jerk. It's really really serious.
I need to treat it as something serious. A phobia. A real life issue. It's not a joke or funny. Mois decided. This was very extreme. Kululu's reactions were intensely extreme.
She needed advice on how to help. So she went to the person who she thought could understand fear the most.
"Uncle, you always give such good advice. You're so wise-" Mois started out.
Keroro was building a gundam model. He smiled. "Why thank you, Mois. Couldn't have stated it better myself."
"And so I had some questions for you, as someone who understands fear the best out of everybody I know," Mois addressed.
"Wait...Why do I know about fear the best?" Keroro asked.
"Why because you understand what it's like to be afraid!" Mois tried to explain. "You're afraid of everything, Uncle, failure, the invasion, doing work, abstract fears, real fears like giant monsters. You're the most afraid person I know, so I knew you would give the best advice!" Mois chattered.
Keroro frowned. ...Mois doesn't realize that she's insulting me does she?
"I mean...I'm not exactly sure what you don't fear." Mois finally said, "You're just so good at this subject and so understanding about it, I can list more of your fears if you want-"
"There's no need for that, please don't." Keroro quickly shook his hands. "Just...Get onto your question. Are you afraid of something and need someone to comfort you? Someone obviously brave and courageous and NOT AFRAID like me?" Keroro tried to boast.
Mois shook her head. "I wanted to know how to treat fear. I want to learn how to be nice about someone's fear and helpful instead of making a phobia worse. I want to treat a phobia seriously instead of being an accidental jerk and perpetrator." Mois explained.
Keroro thought for a second. "I don't know why you'd want to do that. Phobias aren't really that big of a deal. And it's awfully fun to poke at them. Like Giroro's got this thing against sea cucumbers and ghosts and it's absolutely hilarious to prank him!" Keroro laughed.
"Uncle. I want to know what the right thing to do is. You could say, treat others how you want to be treated?" Mois pleaded. "You should know this since you're afraid of so much. Aren't people understanding of you?"
Keroro frowned again still unsure if Mois was just ignorant to how insulting she was or trying to be mean.
"I'm not really afraid of things. I'm brave." Keroro denied. "I mean I'm the great Sergeant Keroro, aren't I?"
"Oh yes! Yes you are!" Mois clapped. "And you're my beloved Uncle! You are the greatest." She didn't know if that made him brave though but she'd take Keroro's word. "...So you've got no advice because you can't understand?"
"Well...I could try to help. Since I am compassionate to those who are afraid. I guess you just try to talk to them about their fear? Tell them you'll protect them from it and all? That sort of stuff. Easy to guess stuff, you know! Why are you asking me, shouldn't you know this?" Keroro asked suddenly confused. Mois was very compassionate usually.
Mois nodded taking notes. She looked up, not hearing the last sentence and seeing a flaw in the offering to protect someone. "But...But Uncle...What if the person you know that you're trying to help is afraid of you?"
At that Keroro got silent. Because he suddenly realized exactly who she was talking about and seeking advice for.
"Mois...So you can understand this better, I'll use an idiom." He put his hands on her hands so she was looking at him.
Her heart skipped a beat. Uncle's talking to me! Looking at me! Talking to him like an equal and getting advice brought us closer. She fully believed she had been treating Keroro like an equal instead of just an obsession.
"You're barking up the wrong tree." Keroro said firmly. "What you're looking for isn't going to happen. It's a dead end. You out of everyone can't help Kululu at all. You should give up."
Mois suddenly felt her happiness falter. Her rising hopes were gone. Instead they were replaced with despair at the thought of giving up.
Keroro was always so wise and correct. And she worried that this time he might be correct again and helping was a lost cause. It would injure more than it would help.
Mois was lost. She felt helpless. Pulling away she wondered if it was true that there was really nothing she could do.
She didn't know, but she feared the possibility was there.
So the first chapter ended up being mostly from Angol Mois's perspective. The second chapter will have more of the other characters and the set up and Kululu.
Someday I dream of having a slow burn kurumois story in the fandom. I don't think I could write it or pull it off. Maybe somehow this will be slow enough because I do enjoy slow burns, but like...I don't think so. I'm not exactly sure if this would count?
Kululu's fear is always something I like playing with. This story is 'if Mois took Kululu's fear way too seriously' when in actuality it is not that serious.
Please review.