I keep forgetting this is chapter 9, not 8 XD Living in the past, self!
This chapter starts of on a rather, uhh, interesting note XD Nothing terribly adult so I don't see the need to up the rating. I might down the road, though.
Shang Xiang grinned wildly, shutting the door behind her, settling a predatory expression on Tong—who grinned back and grabbed her waist, crushing her lips in a hot, steamy, sexual-tension-releasing kiss.
Shang Xiang grabbed the back of his head, her fingers twisting through his hair—of course, being Shang Xiang, she wasn't happy just kissing, and neither was Tong, for the most part—she pushed him backwards onto his bed and fell on top of him on all fours, straddling his hips as she sat up and pulled her top off.
Tong grinned, those magnificent boobs of hers coming into view, and winced horribly as she ripped his shirt right over his own head—but whatever~ he waited impatiently for her to squirm out of her shorts, wiggled his hips cooperatively to help her get his own pants off, and—ngghhhhh.
Shang Xiang was moaning, bucking her hips and grinning down at him as she did; Tong was mostly "sdfjshjfhsjkdhskjhdakjhdkhaj" about the whole matter, really—
"Tong," Shang Xiang said, between loud gasps—"remember when you just turned nine and I pushed you off the slide at the park?
"Huh?" Tong managed, confused—"yeah, I guess?"
"Just making sure~" said Shang Xiang, sweetly—"what about that time Quan hit you with that paintball gun and you chased him down the block?"
"Yeah—sure?" Tong was confused—"any reason you're, uh, dredging up old memories while we're having sex?" Come to think of it, he was speaking rather coherently for a guy in the middle of—
"Oh, you know~" said Shang Xiang, smiling, "this is what best friends do, right? I mean, I'm not your girlfriend, and as far as you're concerned, I never will be~"
"I never said that—" Tong protested—"hey, what happened to the sex, why do we have clothes on again!"
"Because you're dreaming," said Shang Xiang, loudly, and holy shit she sounded like Ning wtf—"WAKE UP, YOU DUMB FUCKTARD, YOU'RE DREAMING!"
—and Tong promptly rolled off the couch, hitting the coffee table with a thud and flailing about, blearily—"unnghhghh!" he managed.
"Oh, about time you woke up," said Ning, sitting back on the couch and reaching for the remote, "you, uh, doing anything interesting there?"
"Shaddap," Tong grumbled, embarrassed and sitting up on the couch, very aware of his obvious erection and making a face—"mind your own business!"
"When I hear it, it becomes my business," Ning answered, looking thoroughly disgusted about the whole ordeal. "Whoever it is, wrap it before you tap it, man, I don't need fifteen little Tonglets running about—"
"Shaddap!" Tong grumbled, again, "and I don't have the E.D problems here, that's you—"
"Uh huh," said Ning, "oi, while you're up, get me a beer, wouldya? I'd like to pretend this past five minutes didn't exist."
"I'm not up!" said Tong, and looked down at his lap—"you don't count!" He scowled and stretched his arms. "I'm confused," he admitted.
Ning groaned. "Tong, s'not that hard, go stand in the shower and think about—"
"NOT ABOUT THAT," Tong squawked—"in the shower!"
Ning shrugged, eying him strangely. "I get it everywhere."
Tong did a mental Hallelujah dance that the new dorms they were staying in had separate bathrooms—"not about that!"
Ning set the remote down. Time to be a 'good friend', or whatever. "A'ight, fine. About what?"
"Half of me wants to bone Shang Xiang and the other half of me is all "DO NOT WANT SHE'S MY BEST FRIEND," Tong grumbled.
"Go with the second instinct," said Ning immediately.
Tong's eyes got huge—"What? Why? Give me a reason here!" (Yes, Tong was that desperate.)
"Because you two end up screwin', it's gonna end in two ways—one, you'll be all giggly and happy and shit forever and I'm gonna have to put up with it. Or, two, you two'll get sick of each other, decide to be 'just friends', then you're gonna be awkward and fidgety and uncomfortable and shit and I'll be stuck in the middle of it. Either way, my life sucks. So there you go." Ning reached back for the remote. God damn but he should have his own advice column!
Tong rolled his eyes—"okay," he said, scowling, "then answer this question, dipshit, what do I do about how weird I'm acting around her now!"
"Get laid?" Ning offered
"I just did! Okuni! Last night!"
Ning made a disgusted face—"go take a shower!"
"If that ain't the pot calling the kettle black—"
"She's all Keiji-ified, ew," said Ning, making a face—"she rape you again?"
"No," said Tong, "it was mildly consensual this time, made for a refreshing change of pace—stop looking so delighted in my misery!"
"Hey, you laughed when I told you how I woke up this morning," Ning said defensively.
"Because it was funny, mild disturbing mental images aside." Tong shook his head. "So that's your advice? Find some other girl and have sex with her until I forget about Shang Xiang?"
"I guess," said Ning, "hey, I don't get paid to give advice, don't expect me to put the effort in to make it good!"
"I'm just saying," said Tong, "for you, it's actually pretty good advice—selfish and self-serving, of course, but still. You saying something intelligent is like—I dunno, a flamingo on the moon."
"Well pack up your space shuttle, Neil Armstrong, flamingos are goin' to the moon!" said Ning, grinning—his grin fell. "I have no idea what that fuckin' meant."
"There's the Ning I know," said Tong brightly. "And here I was about to accuse you of being an imposter."
"Hey, shaddap, you—you know, that's not a bad idea," Ning said suddenly.
"What, the going to the moon thing?" Tong asked blankly. "Ning, people already went to the moon—I know you're vehemently against anything educational living in your brain but I learned that off of Pokémon, Pewter City Museum, the guy on the second floor—"
"No, you stupid—no! Advice column! The paper does one! Or—or I could do it on the radio!"
"There's this thing called sarcasm I do quite frequently, you might want to get acquainted with it—"
"Would you shut that hole under your nose! I'm thinkin' here!"
Tong groaned.
"And that's how I spent my evening," Da concluded, "how about you, what did you end up doing last night?" She and her roommate were in the cafeteria for dinner, exchanging horror stories of the party last night over crappily-catered college cafeteria cuisine (alliteration is your friend, after all)
"I wish I remembered!" complained Shang Xiang, "seriously, I got nothing! All I know is I woke up this morning in Tong's bed, in Tong's clothes, and Ce hauled me out of Tong's bed yelling something about us having sex—which according to Tong we didn't," she added hastily, seeing Da's raised eyebrows.
"Are you sure you didn't?" asked Da.
"Of course I'm sure," said Shang Xiang, setting her jaw, "Tong says we didn't, and I got no reason to believe otherwise! He wouldn't lie to me!"
Da rolled her eyes. "Whatever you say," she said, shaking her head.
"Right," said Shang Xiang, "and that is what I say—and besides, you're the one who drugged my brother and Ning!"
"Oh, whatever!" said Da, "that's hardly a big deal!"
"Da, they think they had sex," said Shang Xiang pointedly. "They were almost crying this morning. It was both amusing and creepy."
Da's face flickered briefly with evil—"oh, really?" she asked sweetly.
"…why am I totally not wanting to know what you're thinking?" Shang Xiang asked dully.
"Because I wouldn't tell you even if you wanted to know?" Da prompted.
"Right." Shang Xiang decided not to ask any further questions to ensure she would receive no answers, and poked at her spaghetti, making a face of horror as she unearthed a large, talon-looking thing—"ew! I hate this school!"
"," said Kanetsugu Naoe in about two seconds.
It was a beautiful Monday morning; and Kanetsugu was stuck out here collecting petition signatures (and picking up girls). Sometimes life left you that hundred-dollar-bill on the dresser when you wake up, but that's only because it fucked you so severely the night before. Kanetsugu wasn't too sure of the relevance of that statement, but it sounded cool.
Oichi Oda blinked a few times—"uhhh?" she asked, tilting her head, "um, what is it, exactly?"
Her boyfriend Nagamasa Azai nodded, also looking confused—"a petition?"
"It's a petition," Kanetsugu clarified, dully, "um—look, some guys around my dorm made up some nonsense about me being a 'racist'—some insolent future criminal began calling me "K-K-Kanetsugu", which is both awkward to say in common conversation and just plain untrue! I'm Japanese! The KKK didn't like Japanese people either, particularly with the era of bad feelings from World War II!"
Kanetsugu, of course, was full of it, considering the KKK was around long before WWII came around, but the narration will stop history buff-ing at you, before this story becomes educational. Ew.
Nagamasa and Oichi exchanged looks. Kanetsugu's apparel of choice was a tall, white hooded hat, a long-sleeved white shirt, and loose white pants.
"Why would they say that!" asked Nagamasa, looking outraged, "people these days!"
"Honestly, just because you have a color scheme!" complained Oichi, gesturing to her offensively pink outfit, "just because white makes your gorgeous hazel eyes stand out more so than any other color, you're branded a racist? Give me that petition!"
"Thank you!" said Kanetsugu brightly, "I mean, c'mon, I'm in the honor society, I invented my own love and honor society—I read to the deaf and teach the blind to paint in my spare time! If the good Lord were to fly down in his fiery chariot looking for one mortal to crown as God-of-Earth, he would choose me!"
"I'm sure he would," Oichi drooled, mostly focused on how Kanetsugu's biceps were very obviously showing through his white shirt.
Nagamasa frowned—dammit, pretty blonde boy senses tingling, girlfriend was not satisfied—"I'll sign too," he decided, "only because faith and honor shall lead the way!... whatever that means," he added, noticing Oichi giving him a look—"there you are, Nagamasa Aza—Oichi, why did you sign your phone number?"
"I did?" Oichi asked, her cheeks as pink as her—everything, "oh, my—uhh—"
"I got it already," Kanetsugu winked. Oichi nodded and winked back. Nagamasa, dumb as a post (but a post with lots of faith and honor), just blinked in confusion.
"I'm off to collect more signatures!" said Kanetsugu, "for love, honor, and not getting my ass evicted!" He took off, not before giving Oichi's butt an appreciative pat.
Oichi flushed, smiling. Nagamasa looked at her face and groaned.
"I'm just a man!" he wailed.
"Hardly!" shouted Ning, who happened to be walking by.
"Mornin', Ginchiyo," said Tong, shoving his lunch in his locker and stripping off his top shirt.
"Ngh," answered Ginchiyo.
"What's got your panties in a twist?" Tong asked, stretching his arms.
"Nothing of your concern," Ginchiyo answered severely, "mind your own business!"
"You are my business, boss," Tong pointed out, "whenever you're in a pissy mood, I only get a five minute break instead of a ten!"
"That's because that stupid Ina girl insisted on getting her job back, and she's a better lifeguard than you," answered Ginchiyo.
"That doesn't explain why I get a short break," Tong complained. "This is like reverse glass ceiling tactics, isn't it? You're trying to suppress me so I can't be my awesome manly self!"
"No, it's because I don't like you," Ginchiyo replied smugly, tacking up the break/lunch schedules for the day up on the corkboard in the employee closet/locker room.
"At least we can be honest with each other~" Tong called, and Ginchiyo shut the locker room door behind her.
"That's two people I know who need to get laid," he commented, and shrugged his shoulders again, rolling them back. Ahhh, the plight of the lifeguard~
He left out the back door and headed for his usual seat up in the lifeguard tower. He'd only get to lifeguard for a few more days, sadly; October was coming to a close, and the pool at AA closed from November to March (which was a dumb idea, they lived in Florida, but then again Tong didn't much fancy the idea of being outside shirtless in the 60-degree-weather)
"Excuse me, Mr. Lifeguard, my son is bleeding, can you direct me to the First Aid?"
"Huh? Oh, sure—right over there," Tong said, pointing. The lady beamed at him and hauled her bleeding son off.
Wait, what the fuck? Did I just provide quality service! Tong blinked a few times—good lord but he was off his A-game!
Ina was already down below, being annoying and a good employee as always—arrrrrghh—he set his sights down to the pool, deciding saving someone's life would put him in better spirits. Or something. As long as whatever creepy demon was possessing him decided to GTFO.
Also—WTF SHANG XIANG WAS DROWNING! A girl with short brown hair and a nice rack were flailing around in the water—"SHIT!" Tong grumbled, jumping out of the tower, "hang on Shang Xiang—or whoever you are!" He dove, surfaced, and swam over—"hey, you're not—NENE!"
"Oh, Tong!" said Nene Sadatoshi brightly, "I'm not drowning, I'm okay—I just don't know how to swim, you see!"
"You don't know how to swim and you're in a swimming pool?" Tong asked, trying not to laugh—"well, c'mon, let's get you outta here—"
"You're a lifeguard now?" Nene asked brightly, taking Tong's offered hand and letting him pull her out of the pool, "I must say, I'm impressed! Dedicating your free time to saving the lives of others?"
"Eh, it pays," said Tong, grinning—"so, uh, how've you been, Nene?" Most people didn't get along all that well with their ex(es), but unlike Ning, Tong didn't like to burn his bridges.
Nene beamed—"oh, you know, been there, done that," she said dismissively, "I'm in line to become a R.A. next year, I'm so excited~ disciplining these bratty children, you know…"
Tong laughed. Nene was only about a year older than he was, not even, but she, uh, had this habit of calling everyone her 'children'. Yeah. Well, whatever.
"Hey, tell you what," Tong said, having a sudden idea, "I'm about to go on break—want to get something to eat and catch up?"
Nene smiled brightly—wow, she still had that million-watt smile too—"sounds wonderful!" she said—"are you sure you can leave?"
"Sure!" said Tong, shrugging, "s'not like they're gonna throw me overboard, or anything~ c'mon, Desert Grill's still servin' this time of day!" He pushed Nene along, ignoring Ina's flailing.
"YOU ARE MOST CERTAINLY NOT ON BREAK," Ina squawked, "GET BACK HERE LING TONG I AM NOT COVERING FOR YOU!"
Ning grinned, leading the two blondes inside his dorm—Chelsie and Chelsea, he loved it when girls had the same name so he didn't have to remember them—and squawked in outrage. Not only was Tong being disgusting—kissing some short-haired chick on the couch with the whole world watching, FUCKING EXHIBITIONIST—but—
"WHAT THE FUCK," he said, loudly, "SHANG XIANG!"
"Who?" asked Chelsie and Chelsea in unison. Ning ignored them.
Tong surfaced—"huh? Oh—Ning, yo—you remember Nene, right?"
"Hi!" said Nene brightly.
"Oh, okay, just makin' sure you weren't ignorin' my genius advice and suckin' face with Shang Xiang there," said Ning cheerfully, "after you, ladies~ no, actually, I go before you—" And he took off for his room, Chelsie and Chelsea following.
Tong blinked a few times, shrugged, and went back at it, catching Nene's lips in another kiss. Ahhh, having a girlfriend was nice~
Dr. Zhuge was having a field day today. Not only did he get to fail everyone—everyone!—on a special two-question pop quiz (was Yu crying? Ha, and again, ha), his lovely wife had the idea of a special group project. Worth half of the student's final grade. And he got to pick the partners.
Dr. Zhuge was the kind of man who paid attention to his students. Not that their inane little lives and problems interested him—well, they did in a schadenfreude sense—but he was always looking for a way to make their lives worse.
Top Chef season finale Wednesday night? Term paper due. Big football game on Saturday? Test on Monday. And so on.
Needless to say, it made education quite—not fun, per se, but tolerable. Tolerable until he could get his tenure and then they'd never be able to get rid of him! Yay!
Oh dear, he was beginning to sound a bit like that psychotic in the engineering department, Sima Yi. He'd have to tone down the psychotic genius act a bit.
Scheming of ways to torture their students, particularly their mutual students, was almost foreplay for Dr. Zhuge and his wife Dr. Huang; and they'd had some pretty damn good sex last night, so his genius mind was brimming with ideas. Ah, knowledge~
"Good morning, class," he greeted, ignoring the dull chorus of "ngghh" that followed. "Laptops closed, coffee cups on the floor, if you don't mind…" He waited for the little idiots to settle down and cleared his throat. "As you know, we're nearing the end of the semester."
"It's October," said some smart-aleck.
Dr. Zhuge glared at him, and continued. "So I've decided, since the majority of you choose to spend your time in this classroom texting, or not paying attention—it is my job as a teacher to ensure you can properly interact with people you are confined to, in a classroom or a work environment."
"So like a Saw movie?" Toshiie Maeda guessed. "We all gotta work together or we're all gonna die?"
"Precisely," said Dr. Zhuge, and when everyone gasped in terror, sighed. "Minus the killing part, of course!"
"Wait, what? Why do we have to interact with people in our class?" asked Tong, making a face.
"Yeah, I don't want to make new friends! I barely like the ones I have!" Yu grumbled—"I sense a trap."
"Mr. Zhou, you would do well to stop being so suspicious of everything I do, and instead devote that energy to studying," said Dr. Zhuge, raising an eyebrow in Yu's direction—"after all, only me, you and the floorboards know you got a 72% on the last exam—oh, dear, did I just announce your score out loud?"
Yu trembled in rage. Tong patted his back.
"Anyway, as I was saying, before Mr. Zhou decided to bombard us with his groundless conspiracy theories… you will all be divided into groups of two to work on a report. The report must be no less than 10,000 words."
The class squawked in outrage. Dr. Zhuge scowled. "Calm yourselves! 10,000 is not a lot of words—how many words do you text a day!"
"Not that many!" shouted some nameless kid (he had a name, but he wasn't a main character and he would never be one, so the narration does not care).
Dr. Zhuge chose to ignore that. "I will be choosing your partners… and your project can cover whatever you'd like in the context of Chemistry, it's not like I'm actually going to read them—I mean—" He began passing out project outlines, all the while pairing people off.
The narration doesn't care enough to list the pairs of people nobody cares about; Yu got paired with Toshiie (which was more a curse than a blessing, Toshiie was not the most intelligent member of the class), while Tong was paired with…
"Okuni," said Dr. Zhuge, and Tong did a facepalm.
He barely had enough time to facepalm, as Okuni zoomed up in her wheely-chair and attached herself to his arm—"thank you, Dr. Zhuge~" she cooed, "Tong and I'll come up with something wonderful, you can be assured~"
"HEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEELP," Tong mouthed at Yu.
"I saw that," said Okuni, frowning, "Tong, do you take me for some kind of preying mantis!"
"Not quite," said Tong shortly, tugging his arm free. "Let's just get this over with…"
"I thought this was some sort of sexual education class," Okuni pouted, sighing, "my relationship with Keiji left a lot to be desired, you see, Chemistry class would have suited us quite well…"
"Right," sighed Tong, "um—so, uh—"
"I know, I know, you're trying to overcome your awkward lust for me, or at least until we can get into a private setting," said Okuni, patting his hand, "it's all right, dear, really~ no one is judging you, although the erection is quite embarrassing, you see~"
In the defense of Tong's penis, it was a limp noodle right now, so Tong (as usual) had no idea what people snorted on Okuni's home world. Instead he cleared his throat loudly and shuffled through his papers to find the project outline—"so, uh—we might as well pick some project, or whatever…"
"Oh, not here, silly, everyone'll hear our ideas!" said Okuni, "why don't you drop by my modest little home later, and we can iron out all the details?"
Tong sighed—being a "pretty boy", as his father so aptly described, he had learned some 'Rape Avoidance' techniques. The first was 'How to Avoid Being Raped', and an example was staring at him right in the face.
Still—
No, dammit, Tong, Nene! Nene, Nene, Nene, Nene!
Hell the only reason he was even dating Nene again was to try and keep his horrible lustful thoughts away from his best friend (then again, Nene didn't give him any, so that wasn't much of a—argghhh dammit Tong!)—god, he was turning into a real dick. When did he turn into Ning?
"Tong?" asked Okuni, "my apartment, tomorrow afternoon?"
"Sure, whatever," said Tong, sighing, "but if you try anything, I'm—"
"I won't try anything," Okuni promised, "that you see coming. I MEAN WHAT~"
Tong narrowed his eyes at her.
This was kind of a short chapter, but I'd rather update a bunch of times with shorter chapters rather than, like, one big one every two weeks or so.
Is it the standard thing to put dreams in italics, or something? Same with flashbacks? I've done so before, but I usually don't like doing that since it kind of kills the whole 'dreaming' suspense (or whatever suspense there is, I guess).
This way works fine, the first time through you don't know if it's a dream or not, so yay. :D
