Disclaimer: I do not own anything.
Credit to my sister for editing and for helping me figure out a summary. Also for the picture, that I took from her comic. It has nothing to do with the story. Don't let it lie. There is no Angol Mois doll. Sorry. I just needed a picture.
My sister didn't like the title, "Heartbeat lies" I just word mangled. Too bad for her. The title is here now. I can not change it.
Also credit to her for making TEC, and abbreviating what I had originally. Smart move, sis. Thank you.
Last we see of the platoon for a while. I've since realized that I don't think I mentioned Dororo at all in this chapter or the last one. My bad. But...Also kind of realistic?
"LADY MOIS!" Keroro screamed in the doorway of the Hinata House. Angol Mois and Kululu's bags were packed and ready to set off to go to the space train. Keroro was still dealing with the hard loss of the person who helped him the most with his chores, and actually doing any activity that adults required to function.
"UNCLE!" Mois screamed like she was in a soap opera. They were right in front of each other, yet they still out-stretched their arms as if waiting to slowly fly into each other like the ending of some rom-com.
"Lady Mois!" Keroro screamed again.
"Uncle!"
"Guys, you've been screaming each other's names for the last ten minutes," Giroro pointed out. "Shouldn't you be heading to the train already?" Even he was getting impatient for Mois to be gone.
Tamama was just storming around in the back of the house, blowing holes into all the walls. Boy, Natsumi would be in for a surprise when she came back.
"Just a few more moments. I still have to complete my heartfelt good-byes," Keroro insisted. "Someone might film it passing by and then I could be a famous movie actor!" His eyes sparkled.
Kululu just rolled his eyes. He had long since tuned the two of them out. Honestly he liked mentally putting words to their lip movements instead of listening to the two words that they were repeating over and over again.
This is not going to be fun. I mean, I expected her to have a long good-bye with the Captain and all, but seriously, ten minutes? They haven't even reached the good-bye part yet! Kululu tried to keep himself patient. They were in no rush to miss the train. He had told Keroro and Mois specifically that the train was leaving two hours before it was planned to leave because of their tendency for long good-byes.
"You have an anti-barrier on! Nobody's going to film you!" Giroro hit Keroro gently on the head.
"Awww..." Keroro frowned. He then turned to Angol Mois to scream at her again.
Kululu just yawned. "You'll see her in a month! She'll be fine. It's not like I'm going to murder her or anything."
"But...But what if the time with Kululu will make you mutate into him?" Keroro shivered. "You'll come back with spiral glasses! Just you wait!"
Mois shook her head. She didn't like pointing out things that Keroro said were wrong, but she felt the need to. "I... I don't think that's how it works. I mean, spending a huge amount of time with someone doesn't really like make you into them."
"Ku! She's right. I mean, she's nothing like you, after all," said Kululu. "She gets the job done. Well mostly, she still kind of haves a planet to destroy."
Mois shot Kululu a glare.
He let out a small nervous laugh. Why was it that only her scolding glares could make this weird shiver up his spine or even a nervous fluttery feeling in the pit of his stomach? Glares were supposed to be a good thing!
Ah. It's because despite that it's in a negative context, it's still her. And she's still looking at me. He shielded his eyes and nervously looked away from her eye contact. Her eyes were too much for him.
She smiled and turned back to Keroro to continue their sappy exchange.
"I don't know what I'll do without you, lady Mois." Keroro cried dramatically onto his arm.
"Maybe take some responsibility and actually do things?" Giroro wished.
"Ku. Not even the apocalypse could make that happen and you know it, Giroro," Kululu pointed out.
Giroro cried now too.
"We'll be fine, Uncle," Mois told him, finally closing the one-foot gap between them and and patting him on the head. "Separation will make our hearts long for each other even more."
Kululu fake-gagged to Giroro in the background. Giroro laughed.
When Mois and Keroro glanced at them, they pretended to be impatient with them again.
"I... I lost you?" Keroro admitted, confused. "Anyway... Um good-bye?" He didn't really completely get the what Mois was going for. His heart wasn't really longing for her at all.
Mois felt the romantic atmosphere between them vanish. "Good-bye, my dearest Uncle."
"Good-bye, Lady Mois. I hope you come home soon," Keroro told her. "Lady Mois!"
"Uncle!" She started shouting again. Keroro flew into her arms and they hugged and screamed at each other.
"We have to go!" Kululu yelled to Mois. If this kept up, they'd be here all day. He was not going to be dragged down into their sappy soap-opera.
Mois made a disappointed little pout and slowly brought Keroro onto the ground. "One more good-bye?" she pleaded, looking at Kululu.
"One will turn into one hundred." He pointed at her. "And you've now successfully said good-bye for at least a half an hour!"
"Oh no! We're late!" Mois realized, unaware that they were an hour and an a half early. Kululu held his laughter back, hoping not to clue her off to his lies.
Grabbing her suitcase, she looked back at Keroro one more time.
"NO!" Both Giroro and Kululu yelled. Giroro pulled Keroro away from the doorstep before they could start calling to each other again.
By the time they got to the station, Keroro's and Mois's good-byes had lasted an hour.
"Two tickets for the planet that TEC is being held on." Kululu handed the tickets to the ticket holder. After punching the tickets, the person let Mois and Kululu on, taking their suitcases.
"It's amazing that we made it onto another train even though we were late, isn't it?" Mois asked, sitting down in a seat next to Kululu. She was unaware that it was their original train that she was on.
"Actually I lied to you about the deport time. I expected that you'd be late with your good-byes to the Captain, so I told you a false time. So we're on our original train and an hour early. Ku, ku, ku."
She looked shocked for a moment. Kululu wondered absent-mindedly if she'd be mad at him for conning her. She was coming along with him so he could con other people after all, not her. She was the only person who was in on this charade.
"Smart," she finally spoke. Kululu looked shocked for a moment at her good attitude.
Should have expected she'd see the good in it, he realized. She hadn't even forgiven him. She held no ill-will whatsoever toward his actions.
"You know me so well! I'm glad you were able to overcome my faults!" she said. Kululu sunk into his chair. He couldn't even make a fault line joke out of this, although he knew she'd appreciate it. She was just being so sweet and so proud of him for knowing her well. "I'm glad to have a friend to help me with my problems like you."
He just covered his face and diverted his eyes to the window. He pretended he was reading a flier about resort planets. Anything to keep her from talking to him about how proud and happy she was to have him as a friend.
That was way too nice, too sweet... Those words would most definitely kill him!
The train finally started departing. "It'll be about eighteen hours before the space port at TEC," the loudspeakers spoke up.
Angol Mois sighed. "You know, it would have been faster if I flew there," she said to Kululu. "I could have gotten there in mere seconds!" She leaned her head on her arm. At least she could catch up on some much-needed sleep.
Kululu shook his head. "I can't breath in space, unlike you. So it wasn't an option."
Mois glanced at him, but she knew he was right. She wasn't complaining about the extra sleep, though.
Kululu was silent for a few minutes as an awkward silence filled the air. The train started moving, flying into the sky, following its own invisible tracks.
"Ummm... Want the window seat?" he asked, trying to make awkward small talk as they sat on the train. He wasn't sure what he was supposed to talk to her about. Or were they just supposed to be silent for a good long while? Silence was fine with him, personally.
It was odd, being with Mois for such a long, extended period of time without computers in front of them. How was he supposed to distract her to not look at him?
"Why?" Mois asked. "You already have it."
"It's closer to the wall. You could lean on it to sleep better," he said.
Mois smiled. "All right! I'll take it," she agreed, thanking him as they quickly switched seats.
But as that conversation topic disappeared, they were left to the awkward silence again.
He just sort of sat there rigidly for ten hours, ten hours that she managed to sleep away rather easily. When she awoke, yawning, he tried to avoid glancing at her.
"Do... Do you know what you signed up for?" Kululu finally asked, bringing up a subject that had plagued his mind since they had departed for the train station. "I mean do you understand the connotations of being my pretend girlfriend and all the things you'll have to pretend to do?"
"Like?" Mois asked for an example, curious as to what he was bothered about.
"Talking about the Captain. You won't be able to do that. Bringing him up will definitely tip someone off about us faking this whole thing. I know you're in love with him or something stupid like that, but that good-bye you had with him is literally going to be the last Keroro thing you'll be able to do this month." Kululu crossed his arms. He honestly didn't think Mois had it in her to not mention Keroro for an entire month. Heck, a day was pushing it!
Mois frowned. "I can do it! I agreed to this after all! You have to have faith in me," she pouted.
Kululu turned away. He rarely had faith in things that weren't scientifically proven. Heck, the last thing he had ever had faith in was that he'd be in an amazing platoon under Sergeant Keroro and easily invade Pekopon. And he had seen where that went.
Logic was telling him that not mentioning Keroro at all would be impossible for Mois. But the strange thing was, he wanted to have faith in her. Just the way she pouted and begged and looked at him forced him to have faith in her against his will.
It was like poison.
"Fine! I believe you!" Kululu threw up his hands in defeat, as she continued looking at him. She made a joyful squeal of success that made Kululu feel whatever was the opposite of wanting to gag. Whatever it was that sound sounded way too cute to be humanly possible.
"It's just... to make this work out, I really need you to pretend to act like you're not in love with the Captain. That you're madly in love with me. Like I'm the best thing ever. Not him," he said. It would be the first and last time actually that Mois would probably act like Kululu was better than Keroro to her.
Well. That's a grim thought. He didn't need Mois's affection. Heck, he didn't want Angol Mois's affection. All right, maybe he wanted it a tiny little bit in some dark cavern of his black heart, but that small part was in jail. Or at least he was trying to arrest it.
He didn't need to be enjoying this for any reason except ego boosting.
"I can do it," Mois insisted. "Trust me."
"Ku, ku, ku. Good, because I will fire you from being my pretend girlfriend if you can't."
"Whaaat?" she asked, shocked.
"I was joking. You really think I could find a replacement that fast? Ku, ku, ku."
She frowned. "That's the problem with firing me? That you couldn't find a replacement? Not that that would be ditching me?"
"I'm not going to fire you. I was joking. Ku. I can't fire you since you're not working for me. You're doing a favor for me," he assured her. She fell for pranks way too easily. He was glad she was in on this charade and he had told her they were faking it or she probably would have fallen for it, too. She was rather gullible, after all.
"Oh." Mois composed herself from the teasing. She fell for his jokes way too easily. "But I can do this. Don't worry about me! I'll be a great fake girlfriend!" she said.
Kululu nodded. "You'd be a great real girlfriend." He paused for a second realizing that had come out wrong. He waved his hands in the air, trying not to blush. Blushing for him looked way more unnatural than, say, someone like Giroro blushing, who already had a red skin tone. "Not to mean mine! I just mean you just seem like it - you know. Supportive, sweet, reading unrealistic romance books all day. You'd probably be great at it. A natural."
Mois smiled. "Thanks." Kululu was so kind, even though he didn't really think of himself as such.
Kululu quickly quieted down now that he had addressed his key issue of not talking about Keroro. He tried to recover from that back-tracking.
"Would you like something to drink?" Some sort of tray stewardess approached them with a trolley of drinks.
"Just some water, please," Mois asked. Kululu looked at the trolley. No curry. He frowned.
"Water," he agreed, disappointed at the lack of curry. The lady handed them their water and moved on.
He took a sip, and the air was filled with silence again. Eventually, to fill his boredom his eyes drifted towards Mois, specifically her hand on the arm of her seat.
Her fingers were long, much longer than his, but that was normal for the difference in their species. Her skin was fair, now that she was back in her Angolian form, since she was in space. He briefly thought about how weird it was that instead of taking off her floating clothing and changing them, she merely changed her entire appearance to fit in with the Pekoponians. It wasn't like she had rather alien features, and her unnaturally colored hair didn't really stick out any more than Natsumi's. But each to their own.
Her fingernails were short, well-trimmed so she could hold onto her spear firmly. Her hands were unmarred and just rather smooth-looking, although her fingers looked fast and flexible from what he knew of her typing habits.
He hoped she didn't notice him staring at her hands so incredibly much. I'm... I'm going to have to hold her hand during this trip, aren't I? he realized as he looked at it. He wasn't talking about metaphorical hand-holding through their charade, either. He was talking about the very physical kind.
It hadn't occurred to him since he didn't think about it much, but people who were in love and in a committed relationship probably did a lot more than just proclaiming it. They had a sort of chemistry about them, and included in that chemistry was a lot of casual touching. A certain closeness that he himself didn't share with Mois.
And that closeness included holding hands sometimes. Something that sounded much too innocent of an activity for him to ever consider doing in his lifetime. But he realized he would have to do it.
He looked at her hand again, trying to imagine his tiny little fingers clasping around it, her hand happily welcoming his hand and helping his fingers find a more comfortable location for both their hands to rest.
His heart starting beating at an increased pace. If he was inexperienced with Mois, he would have assumed he was having a heart attack, but he knew that his heart rate accelerating was something she normally inflicted on him. His current hypothesis was that it was some sort of pheromone that he was allergic too. But he didn't have enough time to consider those things.
"Kululu..." He imagined Mois's voice in his head. Her face, her body, everything about her, pretending to be his girlfriend so he could successful prepare himself for what he was about to get into. "I love you!" the fake Angol Mois in his head giggled innocently before brushing a hand against the back of his neck, inching it toward his shoulder...
He sputtered, spitting out some of his drink back into the cup.
"You okay?" Mois asked, glancing at him. "You're... You're steaming..." Literal steam was coming from his head and he seemed completely red.
"I'm fine." He put the cup down. That was enough fantasies for that day. He had to steady himself. That isn't reality, he reminded himself, banishing the image of such a loving Mois from his head. He didn't know if he was shaking from fear or embarrassment. With Mois, those two usually meshed.
Kululu glanced over at her. It was time to get his head out of what might happen, and focus on what was actually going to happen this month. "About our charade..." He tried to play it cool and pretend that he hadn't been literally steaming a moment ago.
"Yeah?" she asked.
"To be completely upfront, I'm not the most experienced person on how to have a date, or make this look like we're naturally dating," he confessed.
I know, Mois thought to herself. She didn't tell him that, thinking it would have been rather rude. Although Kululu might have taken the opportunity for the snark, she wouldn't.
"So how about we start planning how we act? What sort of rules we'll follow and what things we'll have to do." He got out a pencil and paper. "First rule... no staring," he wrote down.
"I... um... don't think that will help the situation, Kululu," Mois pointed out. "Couples stare at each other lovingly all the time."
"Damn." He erased it. He looked at the now blank paper, trying to think strategically on what sort of actions besides pretending to be in love with each other that they would have to take.
Mois put her hand on the paper, blocking it from Kululu's view as he scribbled chicken-scratch all over it. "Don't worry about it. It'll be fine!" she tried to reassure him. He was trying to be smart about the situation, but there was just no way to think strategically about it. "It'll become easier the more we do it. You could say, practice makes perfect!"
Kululu frowned. But they hadn't practiced at all yet!
"I... I guess you're right. Logically, practice will help more than just talking about it," he agreed. Mois smiled and relaxed into her seat again.
His eyes moved back to her hand that was very close to his. If practice did make perfect, that would mean that he'd have to practice holding her hand, to make it look like they were more of a couple.
Kululu gulped. He had to reach for that hand. Just to grab it!
Closing his eyes and wincing, he finally gathered the courage to go for it. To start practicing. He reached over, trying to imagine that it was attached to something that wasn't Mois. Maybe a slab of meat. That would do better.
He grabbed her hand and wrapped his tiny fingers around it.
Mois jolted. "EEP!" She instinctively slapped his hand away, then pressed herself up against the wall away from him, her eyes wide in surprise. Her face was incredibly red as Kululu rubbed his hand.
Slowly, she realized what was going on.
"O-oh... uhh... Y-you... Um... You... Y-you just held my hand," she just sort of stuttered out. She brought her hand closer to her eyes, avoiding his eye contact.
"Tried to," he corrected. "Forgot about how incredibly tough your reflexes were." Geez, she hasn't freaked out like that since Easter Island, when she threw me to the ground. "Can I try again? You did say practice makes perfect, after all. And I assume holding hands is something we'll have to do a lot of."
Mois's face turned red. Kululu tried not to grin as he absorbed her embarrassment. It wasn't very beneficial to their plans, but if there was one thing he liked, it was other people suffering. And it sure made him feel a whole lot better from his embarrassment, if it turned out she was somehow more embarrassed about holding his hand than he was. It gave him a great confidence boost.
Who knew she'd be the one to suck at this? he realized, even though he really shouldn't have been happy about a thing like this. It could potentially give them away as not really being a couple.
Mois finally nodded, rigidly taking herself off the wall and getting back into her seat. She seemed to be squirming a bit, though.
He noticed goosebumps all along her arm. She's nervous!
He finally worked up the courage to try again, reaching for her hand and grabbing it. Mois looked at it as his hand squeezed onto hers, trying not to shake it off. Her hand was twitching a lot, though, as Kululu tried to make holding her hand more comfortable for her. Changing squeezing to just light holding.
He glanced up at her face to see for once that she wasn't staring at him. She was staring out the window to conceal how completely red she was. She looked completely embarrassed.
Her hand finally squirmed out of his. It was twitching way too much to comfortably hold his hand.
"S-sorry..." She rubbed her hand, her voice barely a whisper.
"I... I didn't expect you to be so embarrassed about it." Kululu's voice was in awe.
It was a treat to see her act like, well... how he normally acted around her. It seemed he wasn't the only one who would have trouble with this acting thing.
"We can work our way up to it. We still have six hours till we reach our destination, after all," he assured.
Mois nodded, unable to even give an excuse to why she was so embarrassed. She just was. She didn't know wh,y but that sort of physical contact with Kululu just sort of set her skin all tingly. It made her extremely embarrassed.
She hoped her inability to hold his hand wouldn't give them away or anything.
He tried several more times in the next few hours, but each time, she would either instinctively slap his hand away or freak out.
It was amusing enough that he didn't complain about it. How he had wished he had found Mois's weakness of hand-holding long ago!
He tried poking her, to work on that casual touching, but that seemed to have similar effects of a quick jolt and surprise from her.
Touching her in general... anywhere, actually... seemed to set off her reflexes, and her surprise and embarrassment.
This might be fun, but it really won't help our act at all, he realized. It was going to be a hassle. But he had to help Mois through her fear of this.
It was nice, seeing her avoiding his eye contact and blushing so cutely, but it really wouldn't make them look like they were together.
"Let's try going slow... instead of just jumping into it," he suggested. "We really need to work on this, after all."
"I'm sorry I'm so bad at it," she apologized. "I... I had no idea I'd be so... so... so this! at holding your hand." She couldn't even say "embarrassed," she was just so frazzled. Actually, it was more like she didn't want to say embarrassed.
"It's all right," he soothed. After all, how many times had he freaked out over just a glance from her? And she barely ever teased him.
He put out his hand in front of her, palm up. "You try. Maybe it'll be easier for you if you initiate it," he suggested. Sure, it wouldn't be any easier on him, but perhaps he could play it cool easier than her. He hoped he could, at least.
She nervously looked down at him and his face. He seemed calm. She gave him her hand, covering her face with her other hand.
Her palm was now on his palm. At least that was farther than they had previously gotten.
He clasped her hand, wrapping his fingers around it. "Imagine I'm helping you up or something. You need me for leverage cuz you skinned your knee or something dumb like that." He didn't know how to be supportive and helpful. But he tried to walk her through it, anyway.
"You're shorter than me. I wouldn't need you for leverage," said Mois. Kululu sighed. That analogy had gone nowhere. At least she was talking, though.
He moved her hand slowly toward the arm of her chair, trying to relax her rigid arm. "You don't have to keep your arm so tensed up," he said.
Mois made a small murmur and tried to relax it and sit back in her seat. Her hand was tensing up again into a tight fist. Kululu tried rubbing at her thumb for a moment to relax it. From the small amount of romantic movies that she had forced him to see, he had seen some couples do that.
It just seemed to make her face redder. He stopped.
"You..." He sighed. He knew what he had to do to calm her down. "You can look at me. Try to focus on your weird staring thing and eye contact, and... and you move your hand how it makes you more comfortable. I'll follow your lead," he promised her.
"R-really?" Mois stuttered. She knew how hard it was for Kululu to actually let her stare at him. She finally pried her other hand off her face and tried to look him in the eyes. Her blush had not faded.
Slowly after a few minutes of just silent staring and breathing, Mois's blush slowly started fading, as Kululu became more and more tense and embarrassed. He tried his hardest not to blush. She will not transfer her embarrassment to me! he vowed.
Curiously, Mois entwined their fingers, trying to move slow and actually working at the subject of holding his hand.
This just caused Kululu's heart to pound harder. His eyes snapped down to his hand, then back at her face. He could feel his body shaking. He could feel the heat rise to his face.
"It's all right." She could feel him tense up too now. "If you feel like stopping, we can." She wanted to be just as supportive about his embarrassment as he had been to her.
I can't give up now... We have to be able to do this! If we never hold hands it will definitely look suspicious to them, Kululu told himself. He nervously shook his head. He didn't even want to speak. If he said anything, it would probably be just something hugely nervous that made no sense.
Mois smiled as she pulled her hand closer to Kululu. Their fingers fully entwined, palm against palm and them just looking at each other.
She looked at him for a full minute, their hands pressed up against each other's, before Kululu was at his limit and accidentally rubbed his thumb sweetly against Mois's index finger. Embarrassed by his own actions, he pulled away at the same time she pulled away embarrassed at holding his hand for so long.
They both turned away from each other to shield their own mutual blush.
That... That was terrifying... Kululu thought to himself. It had been more than two minutes of her staring at him, holding hands... And at the end of it, his body had accidentally initiated having even more contact than just simple, rigid hand-holding. Now he was trying to catch his breath from his utter terror.
I was fine with it? For two minutes? I... held his hand, Mois was thinking. She had done it. She had been calm about it until the very end, until she had realized what kind of trance she had been in. Then she had freaked out. She was just glad that he had freaked out as well, and that at least their terror was mutual.
"I... I think we did okay," Kululu spoke timidly, unaware that they were pathetic at holding hands. Two minutes was a new record in their six hours of practicing, after all.
"Y-yeah..." Mois continued avoiding eye contact. "W-we worked really hard at that, so I'm sure it'll pay off!" She tried not to look at him, or her hand.
Kululu looked at her hand, though. I can't believe her hand and my hand... We... We held hands... For like two minutes! He was more of internally freaking out. As soon as he was alone away from her, he was going to die. "Got to go, restroom," he lied. He was going to go die right now.
She let him go and he did fall onto the floor away from her range of sight and die.
"Are you okay, mister?" the trolley lady asked. He didn't even go to the bathroom. He was just in another hallway of a train car.
"Just let me relax," he begged. "I've been through an intense, strenuous event."
The lady politely stepped over him.
He had finally recovered from his embarrassment and returned to her. The train stopped.
"TEC Port!" the speaker announced.
"We're here," Kululu told her, standing next to her seat. Mois stood up.
"Should... Should we try once more before we show ourselves?" he asked. They needed to get this down for good measure. He felt like they were so close to it, too. He didn't look at her, though.
"Sure." She nodded, reaching out her hand. He reached his hand up to her. He drew in his breath...
They didn't reach.
Kululu frowned. "We... We forgot about height differences, didn't we?" he said. As a couple, they wouldn't need to hold hands all the time, since that would be uncomfortable for Mois, forcing her to slouch a lot.
"Yep," Mois said in a high-pitch, very hollow voice. Her mind was screaming at all the practice gone to waste. Both their faces were pale.
"It... It won't look odd at all if we don't hold hands. Because we physically can't." It hurt so much to realize that that much practice and effort had gone to waste.
The true jerk till the end was height difference, not Kululu.
He felt like an idiot for even trying.
Trying to make things fluffier than I usually write them.
Please review!
Constructive criticism always appreciated.
