Chapter 4 A Day in the Park
Maka and Tsubaki showed up at about ten the next morning to help carry things to the park and by the time we got to the meeting place, a square in the area, Crona, Liz, Kid, Patty, Soul and Black Star were already there waiting and helped carry things as we walked to the park until suddenly we heard.
"I should die!"
We turned to see that it was Kid and I was immediately ready to smack him for saying such a thing.
"What is it now Kid?" Liz asked.
"I think I forgot to fold the tip of the toilet paper into a triangle." He said lying facedown on the ground sprawled out.
"What? Again you think this? You always do, you never forget. You didn't last time you were worried about it either!" Liz said while Patty laughed.
"You say that you should die because of that? If I ever hear you say that you should die then I will drop kick you right into the moon's mouth. If you always fold the toilet paper then it will be folded when you go check. We all know it's folded, you're the only one worried about it so get you're ass up out of that asymmetrical sprawled position and let's go." I said.
He noticed how he was sprawled on the ground and said, "Oh no! I don't deserve to take over my father's position! What kind of Grim Reaper am I for my asymmetrical ways! I don't deserve to live!" He said, now standing. I slapped him across the face and he, as well as everyone else stared at me in disbelief.
"Don't say things like that about yourself. You're going to be the best Grim Reaper ever. Don't you dare say that you should die or that you don't deserve to live. Get a hold of yourself, you are perfect the way you are so let's go to the park and not think about imperfection and perfection and just have fun. Worry about that stuff when you get home." I said to him.
"You're right. I'm being stupid. Of course I folded the tip of the toilet paper, how could I have been worried about that. Come let's go.' He said calm now.
Liz had an expression of complete disbelief and asked, "How did you do that?"
"I just told him like it is, guess being forceful helped him think straight." I said with a shrug and we all got moving again.
"Hu." She answered and followed.
We found a good spot to lay out the blankets. Tsubaki and I laid them out because if someone else had, like Nikki, Black Star or Soul, it would have been purposely laid out to freak Kid out. We then started to lay everything out and sat down to eat.
"So are you girls ready to lose?" Black Star asked.
I looked at the other girls and we all had a similar knowing smile and I said, "We're ready to play a good game of basketball."
"Those smiles suggest that they actually know what they're doing." Rai said, even though he wasn't even looking at anyone.
"Yes, you're right. More confidence, even in Maka who doesn't know how to play the game." Kid said and added, "Or does she?"
"Who knows? Let's just have a fun game. Next time we should play kickball." Liz said. Patty giggled and said, "We know!"
"Leave it as a surprise Patty." Liz said to her. She saluted with a smile and said, "Okay!"
We continued to eat and talk, getting to know each other better even though we had plenty throughout the week at lunch or during classes.
"Let's go play some basketball!" Black Star said jumping up and running around.
"But we just ate, we need to wait until our food as settled." Tsubaki said and her point was proven about a minute later when he got a bad cramp from running around so much at once and laid face-down in the grass until the pain subsided.
Soul, Black Star, Nikki, Patty and Tsubaki started to play a card game while Crona, Rai and Liz watched and ate deserts.
"So read any good books lately?" I asked Kid and Maka.
"Actually yes." Maka said.
"What book?" I asked, she read the title but I had never heard of the book nor had Kid so she told us a little bit about it.
"Interesting, where did you get it?" I asked.
"Oh, I don't know, it was a gift from Papa." She answered.
"So he got the present instead of Blair this time?" I asked teasingly. She made a disgusted face and said, "Yeah. That was a really stupid move on his part, sending Blair to get me a present for him."
"Agreed." Kid and I said in unison.
"Have Rai and Nikki met Blair yet?" Kid asked.
"No and I don't plan on letting Nikki meet her if I can help it." I said.
"Why?" He asked.
"He's a little perverted. I don't need Blair to make that worse by coming home with us and attacking him with her boobs." I said. Wednesday was the day I had met Blair. Maka, Kid and I were helping Black Star with a paper that he hadn't even started on for our meisters class when Soul wandered in and sat in a chair. A few minutes later Blair came in and tried to have fun with him and started shoving her boobs in his face. There are some things you can never un-see no matter how much you want to be able to.
"Ah, well that makes sense but knowing her, she'll go out of her way to meet both of them." Maka said.
"Yeah but I can prolong it right? But she does seem like a good friend despite the fact that she's a shameless horny cat." I said.
Maka and Kid both stared at me for being so blunt about my description.
"What? Don't tell me no one else wasn't thinking the same thing. Everyone's thinking it. I'm just saying it." I said shrugging thinking, Yay for Pirates of the Caribbean references, wonder if anyone noticed.
"You're right I suppose, I was thinking something similar, of course not nearly as open and blunt as the way you put it, but something very similar nonetheless." Kid said.
"Yeah." Maka agreed.
"What can I say? I'm blunt, someone has to be the one who says it like it is and says what everyone is thinking." I said shrugging.
"I guess so, no one around really does that, not on a regular basis at least." Maka said.
"Lets go play a game of basketball! Are you girls ready to lose?" Black Star asked.
"Like Liz said, let's just play a fun game and see what happens." I said getting up and we all put everything away, well all of us besides Black Star, Patty and Nikki. It was best that they stay out of the way anyways. If they tried to help, something would be bound to go wrong. Only they could succeed in doing something like get the blankets set on fire without even needing a flame or something like that.
We moved to a court with Soul carrying the ball. Rai stood off to the side to be the referee and we started playing. At first it looked like the boys were going to win until Maka and I started to get the hang of playing again and we caught up. By the end of the game we needed a tiebreaker.
"So another round or should we try something else?" Maka asked.
"I think just Kid and Kaori should participate in the tiebreaker." Nikki said.
"Let's flip a coin." Rai said pulling out a coin.
"It's a normal coin right? Not one of those coins with either heads or tails on both sides right?" Maka asked. He showed us the coin it was a plain coin.
"Call it in the air." He said and flicked it so it flipped up into the air.
"Heads." Kid said.
"Tails." I said at the same time. It landed in Rai's hand and he turned it over and showed us the coin. It was tails, thank God.
"No! The symmetry of my house will be ruined!" Kid said on his hands and knees on the ground.
"Damn. I was hoping we could ditch Kaori in a maze." Nikki said.
"You people are so mean. Poor Kid." I said and sat next to him.
"Seems to me that Kaori likes Kid." I heard Nikki tease. I ignored him and it seemed that Kid didn't even hear, thank God…again.
"It'll be okay Kid." I said.
"No it won't my whole house will be unsymmetrical." He said.
"But it is not right now. I'll help you put it back, if you want the help that is." I said.
"Really?" He asked.
"Yes of course. Personally I think the whole punish the captain thing is stupid so if you would like me to help I would be more than happy to help set your house back in order." I said.
"Thank you, but still my house. Damn it… depressed… die." He said. Even acting crazy about lack of symmetry, Death the Kid was still really cute. I have no shame in thinking so, of course I wouldn't say around certain people, like Rai or Nikki, being boys they probably wouldn't even care.
"But it hasn't happened yet, you're house is still in perfect order like always. Just remember your house is still perfectly symmetrical." I said.
He took a deep breath and said, "You're right. I'm acting like an idiot."
I smiled and said, "Come on let's go swimming."
We got up off the ground and joined the others.
"How did you do that?" Liz asked me.
"How did I do what?" I asked confused.
"You got him to snap out of it just by talking to him. Only Patty's pep talk can get him over it that fast, and he's not even over it then." She said.
"I don't know I guess it's because I offered to help him put his house back in order." I answered as we went to the bathrooms to change and headed over to the river.
Black Star, Soul, Nikki and Rai immediately jumped into the water while Maka, Tsubaki and Crona walked in carefully. Liz laid out on a towel to tan and Patty went into the water after a fish while Kid stood on a rock by the water staring at it with his calculating expression.
"Hey Kid, what's wrong? Do you not like to swim?" I asked him.
"There's mud and sand in the water. And fish." He said.
"So? What's a little bit of mud or sand on your feet? And the fish will leave you alone. That's part of the fun of swimming in a river or lake; you enjoy the nature and have the fun of swimming. It's like going swimming in the ocean. Don't you go to the beach and swim there?" I asked.
"Well yes." He answered.
"River's are cleaner, there's less fish there and the water is always running to things don't gather. You'll be okay." I said.
"You're right, I'm being stupid." He said and slowly walked into the water. I waited until he was in the water and out of the way before grabbing the rope swing next to me and jumped into the water the way the other boys had done. When I came back up I noticed that I had splashed Kid and Tsubaki. Kid just had a blank expression and Tsubaki giggled.
"Come on Liz don't be a loser and just tan the entire time." Rai called to her. She opened one eye in acknowledgement but didn't come into the water. She stayed where she was. He shrugged and said, "Oh well."
"So the next time we come outside together we're playing kickball?" Tsubaki asked as we all walked back home from the park two hours later.
"If everyone else wants to." I answered.
"Play kickball?" Kid asked.
"Yeah, next time we have a get together like this." Maka explained. Crona rubbed his arm nervously and said, "I've never played kickball."
"It's easy. We'll explain it and teach you how to play before we play a game." Rai said to him. Maka was in disbelief and said, "What? No one told me until yesterday how to play basketball!" Nikki pointed at me, his finger so close I had to go cross eyed to keep it in sight and declared, "Ha! I knew it! You weren't touring the city you were practicing basketball!" I slapped his hand away and argued, "So what? It's not fair that one of our players didn't know the game when all of you did!"
"No one specified on weather or not we could or could not practice." Tsubaki said. Black Star looked appalled and asked, "You're taking their side?"
"Of course. I was on their team and you were being unfair last time by throwing Maka to the sharks." She answered with a light shrug.
I started to go to our house but Nikki pulled me back, which confused me, "What are you doing?" I asked
"We are going to carry out Kid's punishment right now. Since you plan to help him you can stay locked out of the house with him." He explained.
Black Star kept Kid from getting to the house first by holding him back at the back of the group while Nikki just pulled me along side them. I let out a sigh and rolled my eyes thinking, Poor Kid.
Me: Okay so I've been reading the manga and noticed that in it Crona is female, not male the way he is in the anime. Obviously I am using the male version, one because I'm used to Crona being male, and two, so far I like Crona slightly better male, so yeah just thought I'd make note of that.