Okay, I'll admit it: I wasn't really expecting this story to take off as well as it did. Now you've got me into a tight corner, I might as well continue on, what do you guys say?
Ah well. Secretly I get a kick out of taking the piss out of Genos' innocent gullibility. So, onwards and ... em, upwards I guess, into the brought-about-by-popular-demand continuation of... THE TROUBLE WITH GENOS!
It wasn't going very well.
(Y/N) scurried in the door of the apartment block, the paper bag of goceries clutched tightly to her breath was ragged, heart pounding like crazy as shetook the cracked and filthy stairs two at a time. The shopping was precariously held aloft while she impatiently fiddled with the key, dropping it in her haste, muttering profanities as she bent to pick it up. A soft BOOM rocked the building, making the head of cauliflower at the top wobble, roll and -
"Shit!" You dropped the key to catch it, batting it upwards frantically with your hand, somehow managing to get it back into the bag, shove the picked-up key into the keyhole and force your way into the gloomy apartment just before another, stronger shockwave tripped your legs and sent them stumbling. But it was alright now; the food was safe.
"I can put them down here, then I'll unpack them later with Saitama-san once they're finished outside," You muttered to yourself, dropping the bag onto the counter and opening a cupboard, muttering on. "In the meantime, I can make myself a cup of tea, finally. Haven't had one since breakfast."
You smile grimly to yourself before finally allowing yourself to relax. A cocked ear kept a hear-out for the other apartment members, of who there were no signs. The sounds of battle had ceased: All was quiet. They must be finis-
CRASH!
A figure came hurtling through the outside wall, only stopping when they'd slammed into the counter and spilled rubble all over your shopping. You screamed, first in fright, then in indignation as the figure pushed themself up and took a step towards you, afterburners glowing.
"(Y/N)!" Genos' voice ordered, dusting himself off, ignoing the ruined paper spilling its grocery guts under the bricks and concrete which were sloughing off of him like minilanches, not noticing your face turn red with self-righteous rage. "Are you-"
"My shopping!" (Y/N) raged shrilly, vocal cord working again. Genos' olfactory senses picked up the unmistakeable smells of crushed carrots, mangled mangetout and bloody beef steaks, his mechanical eyes noting her body language, pick-up of heart rate and heat signature. She's upset, he noted, all while she was giving him that accusatory look, the one that made him feel uncomfortably aware of his respiratory and cardiac functions increasing in both shame and... He frowned. What was the word that Sensei had used to describe it? Oh yes, that one.
"-Completely crushed it! Genos, I bought that specially and you've just - ohh, I can't even deal with you right now!"
Genos tuned back in again to catch the end of (Y/N)'s rant just as she made a screaming growl, slapping her thigh, turning away and throwing her hands up into the air in that irritated manner which from his past experience (i.e all of one month's worth) was used to convey an overall meaning of "I cannot believe that you could have been so stupid!" in physical terms. He felt hurt that she wans't glad to see him safe and, well, annoyed that she hadn't noticed how he had rushed to her aid after having learned that one of the creatures had escaped their attentions.
"I was asking if you were alright," he responded dully, picking pieces of plaster fom his joints and flicking them away. "One of them escaped our administrations. I was making sure that it had not followed you. I did not mean to crush the vegetables."
"Who crushed what?" Saitama stood in his usual slouch in the doorway, peering in and scratching his nose. His curiosity was cruelly sated when his gaze caught by the corner of a lonely cabbage leaf, poking out from under the rubble that heavily dusted most of the living area. His face changing to one of dismay, he rushed over and started tossing bricks out of the new gap in the wall in an effort to save the food. "Ohh, (Y/N)-san bought groceries? Maybe some are still salvageable..."
"There was beef in there too," she muttered sullenly, crossing her arms and pouting. Genos' synthetic skin couldn't blush, but if it could then he would be a light shade of magenta. So cute... "I was going to cook steak and onions, but it'll all be ruined now because somebody couldn't use the front door..."
"I have already apologised, (Y/N)-san! What more can I do to show you my contrition!?" She flinched back slightly as Genos snapped before the colour flooded back to her cheeks and she averted her gaze. Genos felt ashamed of himself, then gave out for feeling ashamed. I have already apologised. It is she who is in the wrong!
Nonetheless...
"Heey, Genos-kun!" Saitama triumhantly held a completely-unharmed head of cauliflower aloft, grinning. "Ahaa, I know exactly what we can do with this! Cauliflower puffs, here we come!"
The young girl gave a snort of derision, grabbing the unharmed veg from Saitama's hand. "No way Hosé! There's so much more that you can do with it that won't ruin the crunch and will preserve the flavour!" She rushed over to another cupboard, dragged something out and heaved it up onto the uncovered countertop with huff. "I give you the VEGETABLE STEAMER! Spuds go in the bottom, greens in the top. let it boil away and PRESTO!"
She stood back, panting slightly, wiping the hair that had fallen across her face in her exuberance back out of her eyes so that she could smirk at the One Punch Man. "Whaddaya think?"
Saitama stared thoughtfully at the device for a second, scratching his chin. "Hmm... Yeah, I can see where you're going with that, (Y/N). Maybe we can try-"
"I disagree." Suddenly Genos was in front of you and plucking the pilfered produce from your suddenly-nerveless fingers. It was all that you could do to stop yourself from squeaking, heartbeat thumping irrhythmetically through your quaking chest.
He moves so fast!-
Genos didn't look at you; instead he half-turned his body away from you and looked towards a bemused Saitama. "Sensei, if we were to stir-fry this vegetable with some of the other whole ones in that bag, we could save ourselves water and the energy needed to constantly boil it, at the same time making a nourishing and healthy meal to which we could add ramen or udon noodles, thus using up resources close to their best-before date." He delivered all this in a clipped, factual tone, and somehow you knew, you just knew that this was payback for your whingeing. He then turned to finally glance down at you, competition burning in his golden eyes. "This way it will also preserve the flavour and the crunch that you worry so much about."
Ouch. You visibly jerked, anger attempting to rip open every fibre of your challenge-hungry heart. Genos still matched you, glare for glare, and you were about to retort when something in his... his stance, his confident posture, made you bite it back, force you to relax the tensed-up muscles, uncurl the fists, smile sweetly up at him and tap his cheek. "I'll leave you to it then, Masterchef. I yield to your better judgement... for now."
You laughed at his sudden, inelegant jump, heading towards the living area. "Prove that you can hold your word, Wonderbot." You called back over your shoulder. Genos made a shocked "Tch!" noise behind your back as you sat down, pulled your notebook over towards you and began to scribble furiously away in it, oblivious to the stare that should have made you turn around again to face the young cyborg, that should have made you turn around and give him that cheeky, "I-see-what-you-did-there" look that he both admired and disliked.
Scribble-"Genos wanted a confrontational cook-off to occur - possible cause desire to prove himself? Disliked comment on him crushing food. Guilt? Hurt? Why hurt: Mentioned monster still out there - concern for my wellbeing - Me not concerned for his concern - hypothesis about emotions of G. correct?" Scribble, scribble, scribble. "Cook-off could have allowed readministration of hierarchal circles i.e me under him - Protection? Obedience? Poss. Love - look into that later..."
She was really, really making something inside of his metallic flesh burn.
Her insolence! Her competitive attitude! Her - Genos threw the sliced parsnip into the wok and reached for another, sullen. Her ridiculous, childish whining. He couldn't take anymore of this thing inside of his chest: He had to let it out before it exploded.
Genos did it in one of the few ways he knew how: Analysis.
She didn't realise that he had been deeply concerned for her welfare: Point one.
She then went on to criticise his so-called rash actions which had been in defence of said welfare by giving out to him: Point two.
She began muttering about him in Sensei's hearing to spread word of his misdeeds and to possibly emotionally manipulate him: Point three...
Genos glared at the chopping board, reaching for another vegetable.
How could someone even manage to do that to his feelings so easily, let alone have the heart to continue on doing it to them! It wasn't fair. It wasn't fair that she had gone out shopping without telling him or Sensei, it wasn't fair that she rejected his protection, his affection, his-
"Genos-kun? Genos-kun, you're chopping air..." Saitama waved a hand in front of the cyborg's face, looking at him in wide-eyed concern. Genos stopped chopping and bowed his head in acknowledgement, unable to look Saitama in the face. He had disappointed Sensei.
The bald hero gave him a look, glancing over to where Genos' gaze had strayed: The furiously scribbling young teenager on the floor, her back bowed away from them. He made the link, and patted his disconsolate sidekick on the shoulder. "Cheer up, Genos-kun," he half-whispered, cheerfully. "You two'll be friends again by morning, you'll see."
Genos ripped his eyes away from his oblivious object and desperately attempted to focus on the matter at hand: Dinner.
(Y/N) placed her chopsticks neatly by the side of her bowl and smacked her lips, raising her eyes thoughtfully to the ceiling while she chewed. "Hmm," she pondered, finally swallowing the last mouthful before looking slyly over at Genos. "Not bad... for someone who supposedly has no tastebuds," she added, her notebook back in her hand in a flash. She bent her head over it, flicked back several pages and scrawled something in a long way down the page. "Taste... buds," she muttered, leaning back. "Huh, this list grows by the day..."
"What list?" He asked stiffly, stacking up the bowls and chopsticks for later cleaning. The young lady threw a sly glance at him from under her eyelashes. An electric current tingled across his metal skin at it.
"It's my list of your abnormalities. You remember?" She pressed, leaning forward towards him, eyes glittering with mischief. She poked him with the tip of her pen. "When I pretty much ranted at you all day about your hypocritical components? Like how you can feel it if I do this and this or this-" She reached out a hand, trailing her fingers over his bicep, his chin, tapping his nose. It was all that he could do not to close his eyes whilst the inexplicably-heightened sensation burned its way into his very core-
"Genos?" She frowned, a little wrinkle appearing between her eyebrows. "You are feeling alright, aren't you?" He was stiff as a board, his expression fixed, mouth slightly open before he jerked suddenly and rose, busily collecting the plates. "I am perfectly fine, I assure you," he mumbled, whipping around and near-running into the kitchen with them.
You glanced at Saitama, who made a loveheart with his hands and winked. Your eyes widened, and you covered your mouth with both hands for fear that you might scream.
He does like me!-
Saitama then pressed a hasty finger to his lips and jerked his head in Genos' direction before rising himself and stretching. "Ohh, that was a good meal, Genos-kun. But it's getting late. I'll do the dishes, if you like."
"I'm fine, Sensei," Genos' muffled voice called back. Saitama paused, doubtful.
"You sure? Alright then."
"Saitama-san, I'm just, uh, going to get changed," you said, then quickly got your stuff and headed to the bathroom.
Genos took his head out from under the teatowel where he had hidden it in his disgrace to hide his heat signature radiating from his face and sighed. He glanced at the dishes. Once they were done, he could -
"KYYAAAAAHH!"
He'd never moved so fast in the flat in his life. Genos rushed for the bathroom door, blasting it down with a force that was guaranteed to cause the minimal harm to (Y/N) trapped inside, and didn't hesitate.
He moved past the half-naked, terrified girl and grabbed the slimy green tentacled monster that had climbed up the toilet, blew its brains out and flushed the mess away, all within the space of a few seconds. His nostrils flared with rage, glower cold as the very depths of Hell as he glared down the now-clean toilet, closing the lid before turning to pull the shaking girl into his arms and bury his synthetic face into her hair.
"You're safe now. You're safe." He murmured it over and over again, closing his eyes, letting her shivers die away, letting the built-up fear in his stomach drain away. "You're safe, (Y/N)."
She was silent for a while, the heat of her body (Which was scantily-clad in a towel) soak through him. Then:
"Don't even think about moving."
"I'm quite happy where I am," he reassured her, voice somewhat faint. She cleared her throat.
"It's not that... It's just that, when you grabbed me, my towel sort of got pulled down at the front."
His hope for her affection burst like a balloon, Genos deflated somewhat, until she stopped him, quickly adding, "I didn't want to say anything because this was sort of... um, nice... but I..." She looked up at him imploringly. "I really need to pee."
WELL That was a bitch to write at MIDNIGHT BEFORE I GO BACK TO THE HELL OF THE LEAVING VERT EIGHT WEEKENDS UNTIL THE EXAMS BEGIN AND I WON'T BE ABLE TO SLEEP NOW BUT IT'S ALL FOR YOU GUYS AHAHAHAHAA
sorry. I won't be updating until late June (When my exams end) so you'll have to make do with the knowledge that I will probably, hopefully be continuing on with this, leave a yes/no comment as to whether you want more and I accept requests?
ScathachBan out ;)
