Joking Gone Too Far

Set during the series.

Pai sighed. Taruto and Kisshu were fighting again, and it was very hard to concentrate on the book he was reading. After fifteen minutes of yelling, Pai snapped, stormed out of his lab, and found Kisshu and Taruto in the hallway. "SHUT UP!" he shouted at them.

They ignored him and kept shouting. What are they even fighting about? Pai wondered. Suddenly he noticed something yellow on the table, and went over to find a banana peel- just as Kisshu shouted, "ARE YOU TRYING TO KILL ME!?"

Pai snapped his fingers, and the banana peel vanished. Then he walked over and grabbed Taruto by the collar, then said, "Taruto, would you care to explain why I found a banana peel on the kitchen table? Now we have to clean it."

"I just wanted a snack," Taruto said sulkily. "Pudding said they're healthy."

"Well, they're not healthy for Kisshu," Pai said sternly. "You know perfectly well what happens when Kisshu even comes near bananas. Were you trying to kill him?"

"No…" Taruto sighed.

Pai scowled and said, "Now you get to sterilize the table. And if I ever see another banana on this ship, you may go live with the humans."

"What else are you going to do to me?" Taruto asked.

"Five days confined to the ship," Pai said. "That means no teleporting to Earth, and if I find out you did, I will tell Mew Pudding not to give you candy, as it's obviously hazardous to the rest of us. Now, start your chores."

Taruto scowled and went to get the disinfectant. "Can I go clean the runt's room out of all candy?" Kisshu asked.

"Good idea, I'll help," Pai said.

The two of them teleported to Taruto's room, and immediately realized their mistake. Taruto had obviously been visting Pudding, because not only was there candy and wrappers everywhere, the entire room smelled like overripe fruit. "I hate monkeys…" Kisshu said as he started to turn green. He teleported back to the bathroom in his room, feeling his stomach lurch. He ran over to the toilet and threw up, while thinking, I'm gonna kill Taruto for this.

Pai finished clearing the last of the candy out of Taruto's room, then teleported the lot of it to Café Mew Mew, where he found the blonde guy whose name he couldn't remember sitting in one of the chairs. "What the hell are YOU doing here?" he snarled.

"Tell Mew Pudding to stop giving Taruto candy, or I'll kill her, got it?" Pai said. "Oh, and here's all the candy she gave him last week."

Ryou watched as Pai put a huge bag of candy on the floor, then said, "Remember, if I don't see improvement, Mew Pudding is dead."

"Fine," Ryou said. "I'll have a word with her."

"Good," Pai said, and teleported back to the ship.

He went straight to Kisshu's room, and found Kisshu unconscious. It looked like he was done throwing up, so Pai picked him up and tucked him into his bed, then felt his forehead. Sure enough, Kisshu had a fever. Pai put his hand on Kisshu's chest and healed the fever, then tapped Kisshu's forehead. Kisshu woke up and asked, "Pai?"

"I healed the fever, you just need to rest for the rest of today," Pai said. "How's your stomach?"

"Better, but I don't think I can eat," Kisshu said.

Pai put a hand on Kisshu's chest, and his other on Kisshu's stomach, then said, "Yeah, it's better not to eat till tomorrow. Do you want a bucket in here?"

"Yeah, it's a good idea," Kisshu said.

Pai teleported to the closet, grabbed a bucket, and went back to Kisshu's room. He put it on the side of Kisshu's bed, then said, "Get some rest, I'll take care of things."

"Thanks Pai," Kisshu said as he fell asleep.

Meanwhile, Taruto was plotting Pai's demise. Now what should I do to him? Taruto wondered as he scrubbed the kitchen table. Suddenly an idea occurred to him, and he thought, Pai can't stand anything spicy. Maybe I can find something spicy on Earth. I know I'm supposed to be confined to the ship, but it'll be worth it if I can find something spicy. I'll go ask Pudding.

So after Taruto finished scrubbing the table with disinfectant, he teleported to Earth to find Pudding.

He found her at the playground, and went up to her. Pudding looked at him, then said, "Ryou says Pai's gonna kill Pudding if Pudding gives you candy…."

"I'm not here for candy," Taruto said. "Do you know something spicy that I could give Pai?"

Pudding thought, then said, "Jalapenos!"

"What's that?" Taruto asked.

"Hot peppers," Pudding said. "Pudding has some for tricks, does Taru-Taru want some?"

"Yes please," Taruto said.

"They're at Pudding's house," Pudding said.

Taruto took her hand and teleported to her house. Pudding ran to the kitchen, and came back with four small green things. "Here," she said. "Have fun, Taru-Taru!'"

"Oh, I will," Taruto said. "Thanks Pudding-chan."

Pudding smiled happily as Taruto took the jalapenos and teleported to his room to start planning. As soon as he got there, however, his jaw dropped. ALL the candy was gone. Pai's gonna pay for this, Taruto thought grimly. Maybe Kisshu will help…. Taruto teleported to Kisshu's room, only to find Kisshu apparently sleeping. The sound of teleportation woke him, though, and Kisshu sat up and glared at Taruto. "Uh- what happened?" Taruto asked.

"Your room happened," Kisshu said bitterly. "Pai and I went in there to clean out the candy, and the whole place smelled like overripe bananas. What is your problem? If you had asked me to come to your room before Pai aired it out today, you'd have made me sick again. First you try to kill me with an actual banana, and then your whole room smells like rotten bananas. Why are you here? You better not have more bananas, or I'll kill you when I get better!"

"I just wanted to see if you wanted to help me with my plot for Pai's demise," Taruto said.

"Hell no," Kisshu said. "Get out." He took out one of his swords, and threw it at Taruto, who quickly teleported off to the kitchen. Kisshu sighed, then settled back down and went back to sleep.

Pai came into the kitchen a while after Taruto did, and said, "What are you doing?"

"Look what I found!" Taruto said, holding up a jalapeno. "They're really good, you should try one!"

"And I don't suppose you know what they are?" Pai asked.

"No, but they taste good," Taruto said. "Here, try one." He handed Pai a jalapeno.

Unsuspecting, Pai took a bite- and screamed. "THAT'S HOT!" he screamed. "HOW THE HELL DOES THAT TASTE 'GOOD'!?"

"I didn't try it," Taruto said, snickering as Pai started gulping water. Suddenly they both heard teleportation, and Kisshu appeared. "So, decided to try to kill both of us, huh Taruto?" Kisshu asked.

"I didn't know you were going to my room!" Taruto said defensively.

"But you did know that bananas are not allowed on the ship," Kisshu said. "And now you tried to kill Pai?"

"I just gave him a hot pepper," Taruto said sulkily.

"Which is also not okay, because if Pai eats spicy food, it could cause his throat to close up," Kisshu said. "Are you trying to get hand-delivered to Blondie?"

"Would you really try to kill me?" Taruto asked nervously.

"You've tried to kill both of us in one day, I don't see why not," Kisshu said. He snapped his fingers, and Taruto was suddenly tied up. Taruto snarled, but stopped as Kisshu put a hand on his forehead. "Pai, if we're really leaving Taruto with the humans, you're going to have to teleport him," Kisshu said. "I think I used up too much energy; I'm dizzy."

Before Pai could respond, Kisshu stumbled, then fell as he blacked out. Pai teleported and caught him as Taruto cried out, "Kisshu!"

Pai glared at the younger alien, and said, "What do you care? You're the reason he's like this!"

Taruto's eyes filled with tears, and he broke out of the binding, then teleported. Pai sighed, then put his hand on Kisshu's forehead. Kisshu's fever had come back, and it had gotten worse. Pai picked Kisshu up, then teleported to Kisshu's room, and set Kisshu down on his bed. Kisshu woke up as Pai was tucking him in, and said weakly, "Pai? I don't feel good…."

"Your fever came back," Pai said. "I'll try to heal you, but you need to rest. I know it couldn't be helped, but you really overdid it today. Just relax, I'll heal the fever."

Kisshu settled back, and Pai put a hand on his chest. His hand began to glow, and Kisshu fell back to sleep. A while later, Pai had managed to heal the fever, but he knew Kisshu would need quite a bit of rest to recover this time. He took his hand away, and quietly sat down next to the bed with the book he had left in there earlier.

Meanwhile, in a tree on Earth: I can't believe I did that, Taruto thought. He was crying. What if Kisshu dies? It'll be all my fault. I'm never going to go near a banana again.

In another part of the park: Ichigo, Pudding, and Lettuce were talking. "I can't believe Blondie is so uncooperative," Ichigo said.

"Pudding thinks we were right to quit, na no da," Pudding said.

"I agree," Lettuce said. "Ryou's evil. Otherwise he'd see that trying to form a truce is the best way to go. The battle's not even going anywhere, but all he wants is for us to kill the aliens."

"I couldn't kill Kisshu," Ichigo said. "I know you two feel the same about Pai and Taruto. Maybe we should have told Blondie that if he wants the aliens dead so badly, he can kill them himself. I'd like to see him go down in flames."

"Should we try to find them?" Lettuce asked.

Ichigo thought, but then asked, "Do you guys hear that?"

"What?" Lettuce asked.

"It sounds like someone crying," Ichigo said. "I can hear it from over there, should we go see?"

"I guess," Lettuce said.

Lettuce and Pudding followed Ichigo to a large tree, and they looked up. They were shocked to see Taruto curled up on a branch, crying. "Taru-Taru?" Pudding asked.

Taruto's head shot up. He looked a bit wary, and Ichigo said, "We all quit the Mews today; that's why we're together. Why are you crying?"

"I don't want Kisshu to die…." Taruto moaned.

Ichigo looked scared as Lettuce asked, "Is Kisshu-san sick?"

"Yes! And it's all MY fault!" Taruto wailed.

"Um… how is Kisshu getting sick your fault?" Ichigo asked.

Taruto looked at them, and asked, "Did you really quit the Mews?"

"Yep, and we decided to hand in our pendants so Blondie would stop spying on us," Ichigo said. "Pudding discovered we can transform without them, so we just handed them over.

Taruto sighed, and floated down. Then he said softly, "Kisshu has a very severe allergy, and I was stupid enough to bring what he's allergic to onto our ship. And now he's really sick, and Pai's right; it is all my fault."

"You don't have medicine?" Ichigo asked.

"Pai's a healer, but the one time Kisshu ate one, he spent two days barely conscious with a very high fever," Taruto said. "And Pai couldn't heal him for some reason. He's extremely lucky he didn't die. And now he can't be near them without at the very least throwing up."

Pudding started to ask something, but Ichigo stopped her. "There's someone behind the tree," she said. "I'm guessing it's Ryou." Then she called, "Come out!"

There was a snarl, and Ryou came out from behind the tree. "You just had to ruin it, Ichigo," he said. "I could have found out what Kisshu's weakness is and killed him. But YOU had to interfere."

"You're going down," Ichigo said coldly.

"Not while I have your pendants," Ryou said, smirking.

Ichigo just smirked and yelled, "MEW MEW STRAWBERRY! METAMORPHO-SIS!"

Soon she was fully transformed, and Ryou shouted, "How the HELL did you do that?"

"Pudding discovered we can transform without the pendants," Ichigo said. "So we handed them over so you'd stop spying on us. But now that you're becoming a danger anyways, I suppose you'd be better off dead." Without waiting for a response, she took out her Strawberry Bell, and hit Ryou with so much power he disintegrated.

"There goes that problem," Ichigo said.

"Wow…" Taruto said. Suddenly he looked a bit uncomfortable, and asked, "Um… can you come back with me?"

Ichigo looked at Pudding and Lettuce, then said, "We'd be happy to."

Taruto smiled and teleported them to his room. A minute later, Pai teleported in- and his jaw dropped. "You brought the Mews back here?" he asked Taruto.

"Actually, the three of us quit," Ichigo said. "And we were talking about what to do next when we heard Taruto crying."

"Taruto, why were you crying?" Pai asked.

"I was worried about Kisshu…" Taruto said.

"I don't quite understand why, but Kisshu's sleeping," Pai said. "I got rid of the extremely high fever he had, and he needs to rest for a while, to get his strength back. And he's NOT happy with you, so until he's better, you can't see him. He shouldn't be getting worked up right now."

Taruto sighed, and Pai glared at him briefly before asking Ichigo, "Why did the three of you quit?"

"Blondie was evil," Ichigo said. "We were telling him we thought we should form a truce with you guys, since the battle isn't going anywhere, and he started screaming about how you were all evil monsters and your race deserved to go to hell. Personally, I think Ryou's the only one who deserves to be in hell. And now he IS in hell."

"You killed him?" Pai asked, startled.

"Yup, he was listening to us talk with Taruto, and Taruto was telling us Kisshu had some kind of allergy. Luckily he didn't tell us what the allergy actually is, but now that Ryou's dead, he can't tell anyone anything," Ichigo said.

"And why did you come here?" Pai asked.

"Taruto asked us to come, but we didn't really mind," Ichigo said. "I haven't seen Kisshu recently, so I didn't get the chance to tell him that I broke up with Aoyama for him. And Lettuce wanted to see you, and Pudding wanted to see Taruto."

"Lettuce, you wanted to see me?" Pai asked.

"Yes…." Lettuce said, turning red.

"Why?" Pai asked, looking puzzled.

The others facepalmed as Lettuce became very interested in a spot on the floor. "Honestly, Pai, you are so clueless," Ichigo sighed. "You honestly didn't notice that Lettuce is head over heels in love with you?"

"Ichigo-san!" Lettuce squeaked.

"It's the truth," Ichigo said, smirking.

"Pai feels the same," Taruto said. "You should see his 'Lettuce Wall'. He has this whole wall in his room, and it's covered in- mmph!"

Pai had put his hand over Taruto's mouth, and looked nervous. "Pai, do you have something to say to Lettuce?" Ichigo asked sweetly. "Because if so, I will be happy to drag Pudding and Taruto somewhere else."

"You don't need to," Pai sighed. Then he took his hand off of Taruto's mouth, and took Lettuce's hand, then teleported off.

"He'd better confess," Taruto said.

"Well, if he doesn't, we can start planning how to make him," Pudding said. Taruto perked up and took her hand, then teleported off, leaving Ichigo alone. She sighed.

With Pai and Lettuce: Pai had teleported Lettuce to his lab, and when they landed, he didn't let go of her hand. She was still bright red, and became even more so when Pai said softly, "Lettuce, I love you."

Lettuce looked at him, her blue eyes shining. "Really?" she asked.

"Really," Pai said with a genuine smile.

Lettuce hugged him and said happily, "I love you too, Pai!"

Pai hugged her back, then as she looked at him, kissed her. And she kissed back.

With Ichigo: After the others had all teleported off, Ichigo had decided to start exploring. Soon, however, she was completely lost, and cursing herself. She stopped as she heard a scream from down the hall, which caused her cat ears to pop out. Listening closely, she found the door where the scream had come from. The door was slightly open, so she knocked. There was no response, so despite the fact she knew it probably wasn't good to go into someone else's room, she carefully opened the door, and went in quietly. The first thing she noticed was that it was a bedroom, and it was obviously Kisshu's bedroom, because he was sitting on the bed, his face buried in his hands. He didn't seem to hear her, so she asked softly, "Kisshu?"

His head shot up, and he looked over at her. "I-Ichigo?" he asked.

"Yeah," Ichigo said. "Are you okay? I heard you screaming, and I came to find out why."

"Why are you here?" Kisshu asked.

"Lettuce, Pudding and I quit the Mews after Blondie told us that your entire race should go to hell," Ichigo said. "But luckily, Blondie's currently a pile of ash, so we don't have to worry about that jerk anymore. And after I killed him, the three of us convinced Taruto to teleport us here."

"Taruto's back?" Kisshu asked, sounding wary.

"Yes, but he and Pudding are off planning how to get Pai to confess to Lettuce," Ichigo sighed. "I think Pai already confessed, but they teleported off before I could say that, and then I got lost wandering around, and then came here because I heard you screaming."

"I don't want Taruto to be back," Kisshu said.

"Pai told him he can't see you till you're better," Ichigo said.

"I bet Taruto also told you about my allergy," Kisshu grumbled.

"He said you were allergic to something, not what it was," Ichigo said. "I stopped him from telling us because I heard Ryou nearby, and then I killed Ryou for trying to find out what your allergy is."

Kisshu sighed. "That runt tried to kill me," he said. "And then he tried to kill Pai with some kind of hot peppers. Pai doesn't like spicy food."

"When we found him, he was wailing about how it'd be all his fault if you died," Ichigo commented.

"It would be, but I'm not going to die, I'm just stuck in bed for the next two days," Kisshu said grouchily.

"Do you want me to stay?" Ichigo asked.

"I thought you were with that treehugger," Kisshu said.

"I broke up with him a month ago," Ichigo said. "I realized that the only person I really love is you, Kisshu. But Blondie was spying on me all the time, so I had to fake hating you."

Kisshu looked shocked. "So you do love me?" he asked.

"Yes," Ichigo said with a smile. "But right now I'm worried. Why were you screaming earlier?"

Kisshu looked down, embarrassed, and said, "I have nightmares when I'm sick. I don't know why, and neither does Pai."

"Do you want to talk about it?" Ichigo asked. Kisshu just shook his head. "Would it help if I slept with you?" Ichigo asked.

Kisshu perked up, and Ichigo said, "No weird stuff, just sleeping."

"I'd like that…." Kisshu said, sounding tired again.

Ichigo smiled and took off her shoes. "K, scoot over," she said.

Kisshu obeyed as he laid back, and Ichigo climbed in with him, lying back against the pillows as Kisshu snuggled up to her and fell asleep. She pulled up the blankets, and put an arm over Kisshu as she too fell asleep.

Long one there…. I know I said they'd all be about food, and this was originally going to be about jalapenos, but I got carried away again. Please review!