Chapter 10: It's All Right, It's Okay

"Ah victory," sighed Chiaki as he enjoyed a box of fresh sushi from Genta's cart, "It tastes wonderful." He smiled at Kotoha who was busy eating a batch of curry rice from Genta that he made from time to time. When she wasn't looking, he snuck a morsel off of her spoon and ate it.

"Hey! Chiaki!" she cried out in surprise as she caught the spiky-haired boy in the act, "You should have asked!" Chiaki shrugged as he chewed the morsel and leaned back casually in his seat. Meanwhile, Genta was observing Takeru hovering over Adele's shoulder as she typed away rapidly on a computer. He couldn't help but snicker slightly since Takeru didn't understand modern technology aside from the Shodophone.

"What is this?" Takeru asked her confusedly. He didn't know what to make of the strange device with its large screen and square buttons at the bottom portion of the device.

Adele gave him an amused expression as she looked up from logging onto the Internet. Was he serious?

"It's called a laptop computer," she told him with a touch of amusement in her voice, "It is a portable version of the personal computer. What? You haven't seen one of these, have you?" Takeru shook his head no as he sat down beside her. He pointed his finger at the screen that she pulled up and stared puzzled at it.

"This is the Internet," Adele patiently told him, "I'm right now on a social networking site called FaceBook. This is where you can keep up connections with old and new friends. See, here's my page." She pulled it up and a screen showing a professional-looking picture taken of Adele showed up on the right hand side of the screen. Several commented scrolled down in the center, many from people Takeru had never seen.

"That is a nice picture of you," he softly commented. Adele smiled slightly as she thanked him for the compliment.

"This is my photo from my Photography class that I had to take," she told him as she checked out the comments left for her on the page, "We were studying the art of self photography which is quite hard to do." Chiaki leaned back from his seat and began watching the scene.

"Hey! Adele when you have time, add me okay?" asked Chiaki through a mouthful of food, "I think Genta's got a profile too yeah?" Genta confirmed Chiaki's statement and Adele began typing in Chiaki's name to search for him in the FaceBook profile database.

"Found you Chiaki," she called out as she added him as a friend, "Then I just need to find Genta." Takeru stared at the screen and jabbed a finger at the Add as a Friend button.

"So what is this?" he asked her curiously.

"In order to interact with friends you know in real life," Adele began, "You need to find them on FaceBook and click the option to Add as a Friend. They need to accept your invitation to become friends in order for you to see their information and profile." Chiaki sniggered and decided to throw some humor into the mix. Takeru was going to get upset with him but it would certainly be a hoot to watch.

"Hey! Look up Takeru," Chiaki called out to her, "I set up a profile for Tono-sama." Adele did as she was told and Takeru blinked in surprise at Chiaki. Chiaki smiled innocently as Adele came across the page he had set up for Takeru as a partial joke.

"Uh is this it?" Adele asked as she clicked on the picture of Takeru posed like a china cat figure. Takeru leaned in and quickly became upset. Chiaki howled in laughter and Genta tried to hide his laughter at the humorous profile picture up on the fake account Chiaki had made for Takeru. Kotoha came over and brightened as she saw the funny image. Takeru meanwhile, had risen to his feet and began chasing down Chiaki to hit him.

Jii walked out at that very moment and paused to avoid the chase that his lord was having with Chiaki. Probably something not good at all since his lord rarely did such an act. He joined Adele seated at her laptop and peered over at the screen.

"I take it that this is why Tono is very unhappy with Chiaki?" he asked Adele knowingly.

"Apparently he set up a fake FaceBook account as Takeru and put this funny image up of him as his profile picture," Adele confirmed. She turned her head to see Jii trying to hold in his laughter at the sight of the picture and the numerous amount of female "friends" that had requested and had been accepted as Takeru's friends.

"My my Tono," he called out to his lord, "You are quite the ladies man online, now aren't you?" Takeru rushed back over to Adele's computer as she had brought up his friends list which consisted of all attractive, heavily made-up gyaru-style girls. Chiaki glanced over at the screen and chuckled lightly.

"Oh yeah," Chiaki remembered all of a sudden, "These girls liked your profile picture and I added them as friends." Takeru's anger burst to the surface and he resumed the chase once more.

"I guess its just another normal day here at the Shiba household," sighed Adele as she changed her status online.

Meanwhile, Caden was back in the kitchen with Mako, trying to help her improve her cooking again. She didn't mess up the peanut butter and jelly sandwich deal so now he decided to start with something a bit more complex but still, something that was impossible to mess up.

"You think they're ready?" Mako asked curiously as she watched the cookies sit in the oven. Caden checked the timer and nodded as he pulled out an oven mitt. He opened the oven door and removed the tray from the shelf inside.

"I'd give them about 7 minutes to cool before eating them," he suggested as he closed the oven door. He sighed as he removed the mitt and hoped for the best. She didn't mess up the pb&j but he hoped that he didn't make this too hard for her. Besides, who could mess up a perfectly good chocolate chip cookie?

"You all right there?" Mako asked him as she placed her hand on his shoulder, "I know it was kind of a tough situation you were in after finding out the shocking news." Caden smiled a little and nodded.

"Don't worry about it," he confirmed, "I'm going to be just fine actually. Besides, I have you all here to back me up." He drummed his fingers on the counter and thought of something that had been bugging him.

"Do you think that we actually destroyed her for good?" asked Caden all of a sudden, "I heard about Juzo from Takeru but I know he took a longer time to destroy for good." Mako nodded confidently as she studied the tray of cookies.

"You made it pretty clear that you had gotten over her and her attitude," Mako slowly reasoned, "And Jii actually came across a passage that said that she was weaker than the other two Gedous we've encountered. She was very sick in her young adulthood so it worked in her benefit to charm strong men to tend to her." Caden sighed in relief at her words and Ryunosuke happened to walk by the kitchen at that time.

"Ryu-san," Caden called out to him, "I owe you a thank you for everything you said earlier. It really brought me back to normal and made me realize that I owe Adele so much time that I lost thanks to Kari." Ryunosuke modestly accepted the thanks as he stepped into the kitchen.

"I was glad to help," Ryunosuke replied as he made his way over to the group. He noticed the tray of cookies and sniffed the air. "Those look good."

"They aren't cool yet," Caden warned him as Ryunosuke's hand hovered over the tray, "I'd say about 2 more minutes and we're good." Ryunosuke sighed impatiently and he nervously looked over at Mako. He didn't get to try her sandwich that she made with Caden but according to the kuroko, it looked edible and actually wasn't a total disaster. Mako grew impatient and picked a cookie near the edge of the tray to try.

"Hot!" she whimpered as she fanned her mouth after taking too big of a bite. Caden panicked and grabbed a glass and the carton of milk quickly. He poured a small amount out and handed it immediately to Mako as she continued to fan her mouth. She accepted the glass and took a long drink. Ryunosuke grimaced and felt afraid to even try the cookies after what she did back there. Mako moved the glass away and sighed.

"Still a bit hot to eat," she announced to the two, "But they are very good other than that." Ryunosuke nervously grabbed a cookie and broke it in two to make it cool faster. Caden took a cookie too and blew on the cookie before biting into it.

"Yeah these turned out well," he remarked brightly, "Good job again Mako. Maybe we'll have Adele teach you the art of hot sandwiches next since its the next step up?" Mako nodded happily, proud of her efforts and Ryunosuke decided to give in and take a taste. Warm, melty chocolate chips swirled with soft cookie batter blended in his mouth and he smiled. Mako finally got it right. He stuck his head out of the door and ran to go tell the others.

"Minna-san! Come taste these cookies that Mako and Caden made!" he called out to the group. Kotoha came running and Genta followed behind her. Chiaki and Takeru were still chasing each other and Adele shook her head at the pair. Ryunosuke blinked at the sight and joined Adele.

"What is wrong with Tono?" he asked her, "This is so unlike him! Wait, is it something stupid I did?" Adele shook her head no and pulled up the fake profile of Takeru Shiba that Chiaki had made for FaceBook.

"Chiaki made this fake profile of Takeru a while ago," Adele explained as she showed Ryunosuke, "And he added some very, ahem, lovely Japanese ladies that he thought Takeru would like to be friends with." Ryunosuke's brow furrowed and he began chasing after Chiaki for his stupidity.

Adele rolled her eyes at the trio and Caden joined her.

"Still acting like idiots?" he asked her as he handed her a cookie.

"Yes indeed," she confirmed as she bit into the warm cookie.