Ashy-note This one isn't as hilarious as the first chap, honestly. So feel free to masticate my work; you're very welcome to do such an atrocious thing. After all, I'm very masochistic.
(:
-/-
The Day Before Valentine's
two
Whipped
Natsume flipped his phone shut and sighed, the shadow of a grin lingering on his lips. He flashed his eyes at me and I took a long, miserable swig off the shot glass I held in my shaky hands.
"Koko just called, said he'd be joining us here."
I lifted the glass from my lips in surprise. Koko was just like us, running to the nearest corner pub for comfort when some things aren't right with him and Nonoko—so why would he come running to here on Valentine's afternoon? It was general knowledge that they're one strong couple…
Tch. Yeah, right.
Valentine's.
Huh.
What a load of rubbish.
Complete, utter rubbish.
Day of hearts and love, pssssh.
Love my ass.
I don't believe it. I really cannot believe my situation. It's Valentine's Day and instead of enjoying a nice afternoon in preparation for an even nicer dinner with Hotaru, I'm here with Natsume at Joe's, our local, downing bottles of hard liquor and drowning in misery.
Sometimes being his best friend took away a great deal of my pride and dignity and wife-points…
"How is it that your every problem is mine too?" I asked him in sheer annoyance at my situation; truth be told it was only him who's supposed to be in trouble. How come I had to be involved as well?
Heavens, I didn't burn the fifty-thousand-dollar plates, for crying out loud! The best I could have done was to send little rabbits and dinosaurs and elephants after it!
"It's called transitive property, Ruka," he said, swilling the remaining vodka in his glass and staring at it as if waiting for the liquid to jump into his throat. "Your wife is my wife's best friend, and my wife's best friend's husband is my best friend. So it follows logically that when my wife is mad at me, my best friend's wife, who is the best friend of my wife, would naturally get mad at me as well. It's a species thing, about women, you know."
My head swirled; what the hell did he just say?
Man, the drinks must be getting to me. "Could you simplify that a bit?"
"Too slow, Ruka," he jibed at me. "Jinno's gonna kill you for sure if he were here, you haven't been listening to his lectures."
"Oh, shut up, just tell me." I rolled my eyes, and then I felt my ears pop and my head roll over along with the sudden somersault of my stomach. Oh, yes. Alcohol alert.
Great. So now I'm drunk, at four in the afternoon, on Valentine's day, with my best friend beside me still unaffected by the four or five vodka bottles we'd drowned already.
Sounds a little too familiar, except now we aren't trying anything stupid.
I pointed a finger at him, mumbling drowsily in French—it was how we went along, when we had to crack at each other for the other one's stupidity; we spoke in French. Sometimes Latin. Depends on the mood, really. But as it's a day of love and all that crap (forgive me, I'm just a little bitter from last night) I chose French.
"God, I wonder how I can stand you, stupid, idiotic best friend."
He bit back sharply. "Oh, just shut up, won't you?"
"No. I will not shut up, you dolt."
He rolled his eyes. "You'd make for the perfect housewife. In fact, you'd be a good substitute for Mikan."
"You'd make an even better Hotaru."
"We'd probably get along better than with them, anyway."
"Might as well get married, the two of us."
"Damn right we should."
I snorted; he was out of it again, because on any other day he would never have given assent to the thought of us marrying (and neither would I). "What are you waiting for? Take me away, Prince Charming, let's get married and have pretty little rabbits for children."
He looked disgusted by my words and looked at me like I was a Picasso artwork inside a Da Vinci gallery. "What?" I raised my eyebrows in defiance. "You're exactly like Hotaru, I can already imagine you, just wear blue contacts to make your eyes turn violet, and lose the long hair. You've got earrings, they'll do, and minus the black mailing part, I can just imagine you being my wife."
His eyebrows clearly said 'What the hell, Ruka?' He threw me a nasty comeback. "And I can perfectly imagine you wearing polka-dots or strawberry briefs. Briefs, not boxers. Briefs."
What the heck? "You—you—!"
He snickered; this man is just… grr!
"That was a low blow, Natsume. Below-the-soles-low blow."
"Suit yourself, Bunny boy."
Try me, Hyuuga. "Right back at you, Sore Eyes."
A small silence sprung up between us where we looked at each other, me thinking about the stupid thing I just let slip, him probably processing how to react at those ridiculous slandering words that didn't quite do the job well.
He ended up with a raucous bout of laughter, sending me to the depths of fury and red cheeks and the willingness to crawl into a cave and die.
I'm pathetic.
I kept silent until I saw someone drop beside me and looked to see a defeated Koko who stared at us through weary eyes.
What happened to you?
He muffled his groan and covered his ears. "Shut up, shut up, shut up!"
"Dude, what is your problem?" I asked, wondering at this stupid response to my unspoken question.
"Heavens, stop it! Stop it, stop it, stop it, STOP IT!" His voice grew into a scream and Natsume and I had to jump out of our seats and clamp our hands over his mouth to shut him up. Dragging him outside we heard the barman, our good friend the Scottish ole Joe, explain to the scandalized customers in his best non-Scottish accent the reason for our behavior.
It was accurate enough, but couldn't he have stated it in a less degrading way?
"Don't worry, lads and lassies, those three are just men damned to the depths of whip-hood with them arses ripped off therr backsides by 'em wives."
I swear I'll get him and his Scottish tongue for that, if only I wasn't trying hard to grip a screaming Koko.
We dropped him to the side of the street right outside the bar and he sighed.
Natsume's temper flared. "What the hell happened to you, you dunce?"
"What?" Koko looked around at us innocently; I swear I want to punch him in the face hard. "I just screamed."
"Yeah, you just screamed," I riposted sarcastically. "You just screamed and your voice only reached a distance of—oh, I don't know, maybe a few or more than fifty kilometers in radius? By all means, continue shouting your ass off, see if we care when a policeman ties you up and sends you to the local asylum."
He grimaced at me as Natsume sat down an abandoned old tire and scowled at the mid reader.
"Better that than have a hysterical wife chucking you out the house you bought yourself while brandishing a broomstick and yelling like a banshee," he garbled, looking at the ground irritably.
"Had a bad day with the wife, too, huh?" Natsume said from the side.
"Pretty much."
"Join the club, Koko. We could start a fellowship, here. The Whipped-Man's Society."
"Yeah, definitely whipped," said Koko.
"What's your legal case file?" I asked of the mind reader. He snorted.
"Stealing Sumire's low-fat blueberry cupcakes from the fridge. You know, PMS and all that female rubbish that just twists my brain into thousands of tiny little knots."
I just smirked. "You think you've got it bad?"
"Oh, well, no. Something must have happened for you to admit you're whipped, Natsume. Hah, what's up with you two, then? What feat of Mikan Sakura's and Hotaru Imai's could have driven you to the realms of insanity?"
"Basically everything those two demented women do can drives us to our limits," Natsume said simply.
"Oh, what's the special event, then?"
"Oh, don't ask," I said to my hands, glaring at the crisscrossed lines on my palms. If only I could have read my fortune I would never have come with Natsume yesterday…
Right after we had come out the car with both our wives standing in the doorway looking like hell themselves, I knew it wasn't going to be easy on us, and I left Natsume's cottage home right on time, just as soon as I heard Mikan's steadily amplifying yell. Worried as I was about him, I knew my hell was far worse than his. At least Mikan isn't a world-renowned blackmailer with Satan's genes implanted into her nervous system.
I drove home with my wife exuding this terrible aura of hostility that it only needed a few more provocation for her to finally lose herself and kill me, and trying to be smart for once in my life I didn't do anything else rather than stay quiet.
And I did that, and she did the same, and we practically never talked until today, even when Natsume asked me out for a drink again.
Cold, cold Valentine's…
Koko snorted and looked at Natsume incredulously; evidently he had been reading the fire caster's mind. "What? She refused to kiss you? You tried kissing her while she was flaming mad? Oh, damn, Natsume, not everything can be solved through kissing, you kiss monster…"
Natsume shot him one of the famous death glares of the Black Cat, but Koko being Koko, he ignored it like it was just a fly buzzing around and kept talking insults at the man, whose face grew steadily paler and paler. "You know, you really haven't got this sort of finesse over women, Natsume, it's like you're good at everything and yet with women, you're a good-for-nothing wacko loser."
Uh-oh.
If there's one thing I had learned about Alpha males from National Geographic Channel, it was that you should never, never provoke the ego of the alphas, else you're in for a big fight.
I smelled burning denim and turned to see Koko putting out the fire that had started on his pants, and when the fire had gone out, there was nothing left, except a triumphant Natsume and a me who had to keep shaking to control my laughter from attracting other people to what would probably be the most embarrassing thing that ever happened to a man.
Of course, I failed, and soon I had a dozen or so afternoon drinkers yapping themselves off at poor Koko who had to hide behind a bush to hide his polka-dotted briefs.
"Say, Natsume, what d'you think about marrying Koko instead?"
"Never," he said bluntly, although his lips were already twitching.
The fire caster bit his lip to keep himself from cackling with all the rest, but when Koko replied to his thoughts, he couldn't help it and he burst in a fit of laughter.
"Urusai, Natsume! I did not use steal Sumire's cookies because I thought I was getting fat!"
-/-
After Koko's exhibition, nothing much more eventful happened anymore…
Except that it came to the point that we all had to go home.
This is the part I hate the most.
"Remind me why you had to burn the plates again," I said to my best friend while killing time, sitting on the hood of my car and staring up at the darkening sky, wondering how I landed here in the first place.
"Because I am completely insane and I don't think like I should when I'm around that idiot. Can't help it, I've long since been contaminated by her baka germs," he mumbled quietly from beside me; Koko had left us, taking his car and running back to the city to get a fresh pair of pants. Natsume burned them all completely, saying "Consider it revenge for my little Suki."
I swear I'll never let my son touch Suki until he's of age and Natsume can no longer interfere with their private issues.
"You know you'll have to literally pay for those plates, right? And she wasn't kidding when she said it cost fifty thousand," I said to him, leaning on the windshield and feeling the cold air hit my face. Dollar signs flashed behind my eyelids.
Holy crap, I'm becoming a money-maniac like my wife!
"Right. Fifty thousand's no big deal. I'm more worried about finding replacements for them; it's an original Imai invention, so it won't be easy."
"You're forgetting this is my wife we're talking about, Natsume," I told him, looking at him from my peripheral vision. "Fifty thousand usually stands for five months of company bankruptcy."
For a moment I thought I saw a sliver of fear and shock in his eyes, but he recovered. "She'll get over it."
Yeah. I hope.
"Sorry for this, Ruka," he said from out of the blue, red eyes tacked to the shining moon. "Instead of celebrating with your Hitler girlfriend you're here staying with me and sinking in Valentine's boo-hoo."
I sniffed. "You're acting like we're just acquaintances, you idiot. Of course I'd be here; you said it yourself, it's transitive. Although a little unfortunate sometimes, really."
He let slip a snort of laughter. "All day we'd been acting like cowards too scared to face the wives. Why don't we just go home now?"
"You say that like it's an easy thing."
He raised an eyebrow and looked at me as if challenging my statement. "You're not the one coming home to an impatient blabber mouth who'll just yap at you for the better part of all night about how you left her alone for the entire day."
I laughed sourly. "And you're not the one who is going to face a murderous wife who is the sister of Hitler and the mother of demons herself."
"Figures. No wonder Youichi likes her."
"Yeah."
We both sighed and then Natsume turned to me. "Call me later."
I snickered at his words. "You know, if I were a woman I would have thought you're checking me out," I said, teasingly kicking him and epically failing to do so and ending up falling on my backside in front of my car face down.
His comeback was quick and, as usual, good. Sometimes I wonder why luck and destiny seemed to always side with him. Maybe he's charmed those witches into liking him, too. "And if I were a woman, Ruka, I would have thought you're the lamest man on the planet. Pity, though, you snagged cement for your wife."
I could only smile behind the hidden meaning of those words.
That jerk.
Let's see who gets it worse when we get home.
I got a feeling we both will. But I never really expected how different things were going to be this Valentine's.
-/-
"Where have you been? Never mind, don't answer the question. Don't get out, we're going somewhere."
Sometimes Hotaru freaked me out, the way she always manages to sneak in like that. She's even worse than Natsume, honestly, and I think Natsume was so right when he said Hotaru should have been in Dangerous Abilities. She would have stomped all over Natsume's Number One title quite easily, without even breaking a single little bead of sweat.
I was barely out of my car when I heard her voice through the open window of the passenger's seat and heard the small thump that meant the door was opened. In came my wife, wearing jeans and a loose shirt—one of mine, probably—with her six-month belly sticking out.
I reached out tentatively for the little guy stuck inside his Mama's tummy. Funny, Hotaru didn't do anything in objection to my action. I pushed my luck a little further and placed both hands on the hard balloon of a stomach that was my wife's.
"Hey there, little guy," I said softly to the small mound, rubbing it in the part where I knew the feet to be. "Papa's here. Sorry I've been gone all day, your Uncle Natsume was just being a big scaredy-cat and he had to ask me to come because he was such a coward."
I paused to twine my fingers with Hotaru's, whose hands were also rubbing gently at her tummy. She didn't object, again. "Your poor Mommy had to put up with you alone today. You tell her I'm sorry for me, okay? She wouldn't talk to me properly, you see. And tell her I love her, okay, little guy? Would you do that for Daddy, please?"
A small kick brought an exhilarated smile to my face, and I saw Hotaru smile at the gesture from the kid, too. I drew back, still amazed, and without preamble my wife leaned in to kiss me fiercely, full on the lips, before I even had time to recollect myself from my son's feedback. It's as if he was listening!
My thoughts were rewired from my son to my wife, whose kiss was urgent, full of longing. It was a different person, this girl—no, woman—that I was kissing. She was so, so much more than the sadistic blackmailing woman everyone knew her to be. She was Hotaru Imai, the gentlest lady known to mankind, the smartest woman in the business today.
She becomes the girl I fell in love with, the woman I married… she becomes my wife.
She becomes me, I become her.
After she broke off, though, my head was keeping company an angry red bruise and a small patch of deformed skull, with my wife theatrically blowing imaginary smoke from her portable baka gun.
Sometimes this woman is so impossible.
-/-
This was unexpected.
And scary.
Because when my wife and my best friend's wife connive and we see them smiling side by side looking at us like we're a particularly scrumptious meal for the lions, it never really means anything good.
You see, much as Hotaru was brilliant, Mikan was more… ah…
Vengeful.
"Mikan? Would you mind explaining why we're at the mall, staring at polka-dotted men's briefs?"
Hotaru smiled evilly.
"Damn this isn't good," Natsume said beside me. "Whenever my wife and your wife smile like that, I don't think we'll ever make it out alive."
I had to agree, this isn't funny… "You are absolutely correct."
Just then my phone rang and I excused myself from the mischievous pair and my wary best friend. It was Koko.
And he was laughing. Hard.
"Koko? What's up?"
"Haha! Ruka, let me guess where you and Natsume are, you're at the mall, aren't you? Hahaha—" a huge dramatic pause, before a loud, unctuous, over-the-top "—HAH!"
My brows furrowed and when Natsume approached me, I put Koko on low-volume speakerphones. What the devil is happening?
"Koko, what's going on?" Natsume said.
"Haha! Just a few words, Natsume, my friend, and that is, any minute now you'll seriously be regretting burning my pants this afternoon!"
"Wait, Koko—what?"
"Oh well, revenge is sweet, fellows. Good bye!"
"Wait, Koko—!"
"Yome—"
And then a dead phone line.
When we faced the wives, they were each holding what seemed to be a voice-activated remote control. At the same time, they spoke through the mic these exact same words: "My husband needs to shop for fifty polka-dotted briefs in shades of pink, red, yellow, and neon green."
So now I get what the kiss was for, and without another minutes' worth of hesitation, Natsume and I were suddenly jerked from the navel and we did as we were told.
Sometimes I damn my wife's inventions, because this brain-control thing isn't working to my advantage. At all.
"Happy Valentine's Day, boys," my wife said to us right before they left us in the briefs department laden with colorful polka-dotted underwear.
Thanks for reading, guys! And really, I'm grateful to those who added this to their favorites and all, and I'm so, so sorry for the delay in updates (stupid internet's a little bitter of Valentine's day. Really.)
EDIT, 09 JULY 2012: The original upload of this story was deleted, apparently because of "inappropriate content/summary" and all that, so here I am posting it again, this time hopefully no more violations.
~Ash.
Three months later (just an update)
We later found it that all five women (Nonoko, Anna, Sumire, Hotaru, and Mikan) had already conspired, just before they all got married, to make us shop fifty pieces of embarrassing underwear for every mistake we made.
We men (Yuu, Koko, Mochu, Natsume, and me), on the other hand, had made it a habit to measure who's got the most number of polka-dotted prints.
The number one spot never changed.
It was always Natsume, of course.
"You just fit perfectly together, Natsume, you and Mikan… both polka-dotted. You know."
Koko had never stopped laughing ever since that Valentine's day.