Chapter 3: The Date (WTF is this place?!)

Just as Fou had planned, everyone showed up at the apartment. Bak didn't even give Lenalee a second look, to everyone's surprise. Kanda still sat and watched Bak's every move, though.

"Now, we're all here to help you, since it looks like you're going on a double date," Lenalee said.

Bak's face got all pink. "EH? Date? But Fou said that Allen said--"

"BAKA-BAK! You already know that Tyki and Rabi are together, and them AND Allen inviting only YOU to hang out with them? Put two and two together!"

"I don't have time, I have work and I'm always tired afterwards," Bak replied.

"That's no excuse!"

"Easy for you to say since you're a champion boxer!"

"You guys, please stop arguing. Stress is bad for your face," Arystar said. He was a male model after all, so he would know.

"Yes, right then," Bak said, then cleared his throat. And that is when he finally got it. CLICK! "HOLY SHIT, IT IS A DATE! WH-WH-WHAT SHOULD I DO, WHAT SHOULD I WEAR! WH-WHAT SHOULD I SAY?! GYAAAH! HELP ME OUT!"

"You're going to a restaurant called The Magickal Lair. It's a wonderful place. Arystar and I dine there quite frequently," Miranda said. She was always a bit uneasy when they went there, though (she's afraid of the dark), but she wasn't going to let Bak get frightened off since he might have a chance at happiness.

"Now, then. Miranda and I had several ideas in mind for what you could wear, considering that it's a theme restaurant. Don't worry about the cost, we'll take care of it, because we're doing this for you, okay?" Lenalee said with a smile.

"Thank you, everyone," Bak said, smiling at everyone.

Unfortunately, Kanda misunderstood... and tried to attack Bak... but Fou smacked him in the nose with the back of her fist. He was fortunate that she wasn't meaning to break his nose or it definitely would have been.

"Kanda, Bak is over Lenalee. I witnessed it for myself. Now would you PLEASE not overreact again?" Fou said in a stern manner.

All Kanda said in response, as he tried to stop his nosebleed was, "Che."

Fou threw a towel at Kanda for his nosebleed and they continued discussing their ideas to make over Bak for his date on Sunday night.

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MEANWHILE, at Tyki and Rabi's place, they are helping Allen out. Komui is there for some weird reason, and he dragged a reluctant Reever along with him.

"We've got all sorts of stuff that you could wear to the restaurant," Tyki said.

"What am I here for?" Reever asked.

"Tyki-san, I'm a MAN," Allen responded.

"But you wore that really cute number the other day at work!"

"THAT WAS A DIFFERENT SITUATION, AND I DIDN'T WANT TO BE FIRED!"

"Seriously, Komui, why did you drag me here?"

Komui kept drinking his coffee, ignoring Reever like everyone else.

"But you'd look really cute in any one of these outfits!" Rabi said.

"Did you wear these, Rabi?" Allen asked.

Rabi shifted around in his seat. "Erm... well, once..."

"And that's why there's so many of them," Tyki added.

"Ewww, you probably never washed them, did you?!"

"WE DID! Now come on, you want to look cute for Bak, don't you?"

Allen's face turned R-E-D. "I want to look dignified, not cute!"

"Bak and Allen? When did this happen? Where the hell have I been?" Reever asked.

"Heh-heh, Allen, your face is redder than my hair!" Rabi said.

"All right, all right, we'll make you look dignified, Allen-chan," Tyki said.

"AND STOP CALLING ME THAT!"

"Ah, I see. Our dear Allen-hime-sama wants only his precious Bak-oji-sama to call him that, ne?" Rabi said.

"DON'T CALL ME THAT, EITHER! AND I'M NOT LETTING BAK CALL ME THAT!"

"GODDAMMIT, KOMUI! WHY THE HELL ARE WE EVEN HERE FOR WHEN WE AREN'T DOING ANYTHING?!"

Komui kept ignoring him and drinking his coffee even though Reever was now grabbing him by the collar and shaking him.

"Reever, you're making me spill my coffee..."

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The day of the date finally arrived.

Bak left the apartment and made his journey on foot because he figured he'd ruin his nice new outfit if he tried riding on his bike, not to mention it would look rather tacky of him to be arriving on that piece of shit.

He wore a flowing, blue-grey coat that had a black ribbon tied in a bow around the collar and had white edging on it. Underneath, he wore a black, Chinese-style shirt with silver edging on it, and black, Chinese style pants and he wore black slipper-like shoes on his feet. He still wore his beret (or big, weird hair scrunchie or whatever the hell that thing is...), though.

As he walked past the Chinese restaurant he worked at, his boss came outside, giving him a look of disgust.

"What?"

"I didn't know you were a fag!"

"That's just rude-- Does this mean that I'm fired?" Bak asked with hope glimmering in his eyes.

"No! You're our best delivery boy! I guess it has to do with you being able to handle having the bike up your ass!"

"That's just biased!"

"I'm not biased because I still pay you! Now get the hell outta here and don't come back 'til time to work, fag!

"Don't call me that!" Bak said as he ran away crying.

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Bak felt uneasy walking down the alley. It did not look like the kind of place for a restaurant at all. Then, Rabi came out from behind a black door from one of the buildings. He wore a 19th-century aristocrat kind of suit with a frilly shirt underneath the jacket, and a top hat with white rabbit ears sticking out from it.

"Yo. I came to show you the way. You look nice!" Rabi said as he wrapped his arm around Bak's.

"Um, thanks," he said. Then he muttered to himself in his head, "Nice A.D.D."

They both entered the building and went straight down a flight of stairs, which brought them right into the restaurant. It was dimly lit, and there were candles on each table. The place was adorned in red drapery, and the backs of the chairs appeared to look like coffins decorated with magick symbols.

"This way," Rabi said as he led Bak along, to a more secluded table in the restaurant.

And there he was. Allen stood up from his chair, along with Tyki, who sat across from him at their table wearing a similar outfit to Rabi's excluding the frilliness and the rabbit ears. Allen wore a skin tight, sleeveless black shirt underneath a loose, translucent white coat, black fingerless gloves that came up to the middle of his upper arms, black, loose slacks that draped about his legs, and sandals.

Both of them blushed a little the moment they made eye contact.

"H-hi, Allen."

"Hello, Bak-san," Allen greeted him with a sweet smile.

And then they just stood there like that, staring at each other. It even kind of looked like they were glowing and surrounded by sparkling flowers.

Rabi leaned towards Tyki and whispered, "Ty-chan, do you--"

"Yes, I see the flowers... and the light... it's so PINK," Tyki whispered back.

"Well, shall we sit down, then?" Tyki suggested to the two soon-to-be lovebirds.

"Sure..."

"Yeah..."

The four of them sat down at a circular table. It was, going clockwise, Bak, Allen, Tyki, and Rabi.

As they ate, Rabi was the one doing most of the talking.

"So, Bak, we've been friends for a few years, but I keep forgetting to ask you a question," Rabi suddenly threw into the middle of his complaints about his boss at the bookstore, the Panda-jiji.

"What's that?" Bak asked.

"Is that thing on your beret a tassel or is it a ponytail, like the beret is actually a big, weird scrunchie thingy?"

". . . I would've thought that you would've figured that out by now."

"No, I haven't."

Bak went back to eating.

"Well, I guess that we'll never know the truth about Fusa-atama-kun (Tassel-head-kun) unless Allen sleeps wi--MMPH!" Rabi was about to say before Tyki slapped his hand on his mouth and Bak spat out part of his drink.

"WHAT?" both Bak and Allen said, their faces turning a nearly-fluorescent pink color.

"MMMN?? Mmhm hmm mn hm mhmm!"

"No, Usagi-chan. If you literally or metaphorically throw Allen at Bak, they will just run away from each other," Tyki whispered to him.

"Excuse me, please!" Bak said as he made a beeline for the bathroom.

Bak locked himself in the bathroom stall, pulled two tampons out of a pocket inside his coat, and shoved them up his nose for his nosebleed.

"Gah! I barely made it..." he muttered out loud to himself.

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"Yes, I would like a Long Island Iced Tea," Allen said to the waiter.

"Oh noes," Rabi said, and tried not to giggle. He KNEW what Allen was ordering, but he didn't think Allen knew that that wasn't just some ordinary tea. It's a mixture of vodka, tequila, gin and rum, along with lemon juice or cola.

"Rabi? What is it?"

"Oh, I'm just trying not to sneeze."

"Oh. It looks like it worked then, whatever you did."

"Yeah," Rabi said with a grin. Poor Allen is so gullible!

"It looks like this friendly little outing is about to get even more entertaining," Tyki thought to himself.

"Sorry about that, everyone," Bak said as he returned to the table, looking perfectly fine... because he checked to make sure he was about 300 times before he came out of the bathroom.

"Hm, this tea is REALLY good..." Allen mutters.

Rabi starts having a giggling fit.

"Usagi-chan, shut up, just shut up!" Tyki whispers to him.

"What's wrong with you two?" Bak asked.

"Nothing!" they both said as the smiled innocently, halos glowing over their heads, being held up there by the horns.

Later, after they finished eating, Allen began acting strangely...

"Heyyyy, Rabi, I think you were rightabout that-that-that... that thing you wanned meh to... I dunno," Allen slurred.

"Allen, are you all right??" Bak asked, getting very worried. Knowing Tyki and Rabi, they might have drugged Allen's drink as a joke, but he had no proof of THAT. All he knew was that Rabi was trying to stifle the giggles and Tyki was telling him to shut up.

"Which thing, Allen?" Rabi asked.

"Um... I can' remember what you called it... It started with a "kuh" sound..."

"What, do you mean a kiss?" Tyki asked.

"K-k-k-k-kiss?!" Bak started to break out in hives and turned blood red in the face, so he ran back to the bathroom again, screaming, "GAAAH! DON'T LOOK! I'LL BE BACK!"

Rabi laughed at him. "He's easily provoked, isn't he?"

"Rabiiiii, what was that thingy called againnnn?"

"Oh, Allen, it was called a corset."

"Ah, corssssssssset!" Allen said, then passed out sitting at the table.

"Check, please!" both Tyki and Rabi said simultaneously.

Even later...

Bak came out of the bathroom to see that Allen passed out, and Tyki and Rabi were nowhere to be seen. They left a note, though.

Bak-chan,

We had to leave because of an emergency. We leave Allen in your care. Just take him back to your place if you want to. wink

Love, Ty-chan and Usagi-chan

P.S. Don't worry, we paid for the food. .

He didn't have any choice but to take Allen back to his apartment. He didn't really remember where Allen's place was, and he couldn't very well ask Allen to tell him right now anyway. He picked up Allen from the chair and carried him piggy-back style.

He made it through the alley and part of the way home safely, but he still had yet to sneak past the restaurant he worked for. He cautiously tiptoed past, as silently as he could... but he bumped into that GODDAMN trash can! "Damn you for existing, you m-effing trashcan!!" Bak thought-screamed at the trash can. He was fortunate he didn't knock it all the way down, but that wasn't fortunate enough. His boss came out to see what the ruckus was about.

"I thought you were gay! It looks like you've got a girlfriend there... or is it a REALLY good drag queen?"

Bak made a quick, silent prayer in his head that Allen would stay unconscious long enough for them to get the fuck away from his homophobic boss.

"Shut up! I'm not working right now! I'll come back tomorrow to work! Then you can yell at me!" Bak yelled, then stormed off, though not very well since he was carrying a drunk Allen on his back.

His boss was surprised for a couple seconds, then said aloud to himself, "Well, he finally got some backbone!"

Bak finally made it to the apartment to find that Fou wasn't there. She also left a note for Bak.

Baka-Bak,

I figured that if things went well, you might bring Allen back here wink , so I went to hang out with my lady friends.

Fou the Magnificent

"Does everyone expect us-- NO, don't think of such things! You are a gentleman, Bak-sama!" Bak thought, then shook his head to clear the clutter of thoughts inside his brain, like clearing an etch-a-sketch.

He carried Allen to his room and put him down on his bed, pulled off his sandals, gloves, and coat and put a blanket over him and put a wet washcloth on his forehead. He knew just about how bad the hangover was going to be tomorrow.

He didn't know what else to do. The one he liked was right here, in his apartment (well, more like Fou's apartment, but whatever), vulnerable... SMASH! Bak rammed his head into the wall to keep his mind from falling into the proverbial gutter again.

"Well, sweet dreams, Allen-chan," he said, giving Allen a kiss on the forehead. He then got a blanket for himself and went to sleep on the floor, but not before watching Allen in his slumber for a while.

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X3 AWWZ! HE KISSED-ED ALLEN-CHAN AND CALLED HIM ALLEN-CHAN! 3

ZOMG AGAIN! I know things were fast at first and now they're crawling... I don't have an excuse for that... o.o"

Wellz, Bak grew a bit of backbone, but he's still working at the restaurant... BAKA-BAK! You have to feel sorry for him... and his problem with falling in and out of the mental gutter. Hehe. I lurves spazzes/drama queens. Poor Allen... at least his captor has self-control... o.o"

And here, I present to you a blooper from the dinner scene!

"Is that thing on your beret a tassel or is it a ponytail, like the beret is actually a big, weird scrunchie thingy?"

"I honestly don't know. It is even a mystery to me," Bak replied calmly.

"You don't know?!" Tyki, Rabi, and Allen said.

"Nope, and I shower TWICE daily," Bak said before sipping his tea.

All three of them stared at Bak in shock and disbelief.

ANYWAYZ, let's see what happens next, shall we?!