Hello, good readers! This is another installment of insanity for your enjoyment, though it probably entertains me a lot more. I hope this one is to everyone's liking! I warn you: it is eccentric.
Disclaimer: I do not own Bakugan, nor Lipton, and I don't own Randumdprod. If you don't know them, I suggest you check them out!
Blame It
Cream, Coffee, Good Morning...
The dojo's tiled roof glistened in the early morning sunlight. Dew had collected on the deciduous trees littering the landscape. Other than a few birdcalls, the vicinity was silent. The scene is placid.
But wait.
Something breaks the calm of the picture, slicing through the icy stillness with deadly precision.
A blur of green rushes along the path, leaving clouds of dust in his wake. His momentum is unstoppable, his energy infinite, and his concentration unbreakable by anything...
...except the occasional ninja-rolling Dan.
The green shape crashes ungracefully to the ground, the red-clad Brawler getting to his feet. Steps quickly approached, and an aging warrior stumbled–quite literally–onto the scene. His confused gaze shifted between his grandson and his obnoxious friend, not quite understanding what they were doing on the path.
"Grandpa!" Dan cheered, grinning from ear to ear, clutching a package to his chest. "I was just showing Shun here some of my moves."
The aforementioned boy, disgruntled and dusty, set himself upright and glared at Dan. It was a natural reaction to most everything that the boy did. "Dan, what are you doing here? At six in the morning? On a Saturday?"
He shrugged, throwing his arm around Grandpa's shoulders and shifting the parcel to his other arm. "Well, good morning to you, too. How about we go back to the dojo and talk about this?"
He began to lead the old man back the way he'd come, and Shun trailed behind them in resignation. He could only wonder what Dan had in mind this time.
Grandpa opened the front door of the dojo, and Dan ran in, straight toward the kitchen, evading traps out of sheer luck.
"I brought you guys coffee," Dan announced cheerfully, tearing open his bundle and revealing a plastic container. The aroma of ground coffee wafted over to the young ninja standing in the doorway, and his nose wrinkled at its potency. The sun's rays were barely beginning to creep over the horizon, and Shun took it as a bad sign that Dan was here so early.
"Why are you here?" he asked pointedly, coming around to the Pyrus Brawler who was busy sniffing the coffee, while his friend held his nose.
"Can't I just drop by to visit my best friend and my grandpa?" Dan retorted indignantly, pausing to examine some coffee beans in his palm.
"You're not my grandson." Grandpa deadpanned.
Dan's shocked expression seemed almost genuine. "Grandpa, how could you betray me?! After all the trouble I went through to bring you coffee, you do this to me? You're just like my parents."
"They finally abandoned you?" Shun guessed cynically.
He shrugged, forgetting his rage altogether in favor of looking for the coffee machine. "Something like that."
The trio didn't say anything, waiting for Dan to volunteer more information. He didn't. Instead, he poured water into the coffee maker he'd dug out from behind the toaster.
"Okay, so they didn't really abandon me," he admitted after some time. "My mom and dad went to a pudding convention, so they told me to find someone I could stay with for a few days. I figured that since you are my best friend Shun, and since you enjoy my company so much, that you wouldn't mind keeping me here."
Grandpa's bushy eyebrows disappeared into his hairline. One angsty teenage boy was hard enough to deal with, but two? An attentive grandparent could only do so much, especially when he didn't even know who the other boy was.
Shun's throat felt dry. "How long?" he croaked.
"Eh, no more than two weeks."
He sank to the floor. Two weeks with Dan. It couldn't get much worse than this. As soon as he thought this, however, he retracted his mental statement, merely because whenever someone said that, things tended to get worse.
At that moment, Dan turned to look at him with an expression of concern. "Are you okay, Shun? You're looking a little pale. Coffee?" Dan asked, holding out the container of ground caffeine.
"No thanks."
"Coffee?"
"I'm fine."
"Coffee?"
"It's cool, man."
"Coffee?"
Shun sighed. "Sure."
"Regular?"
"Decaf."
"Regular?"
"Decaf."
"Regular?"
"Fine, I'll have regular."
Dan chuckled lightheartedly. "Well, Gramps, looks like Shun like regular!" Grandpa eyed him warily, already disliking the visit. Ninjas didn't drink coffee. They drank herbal tea. This...this stranger was poisoning his grandson. It didn't stop there, though, because Dan proceeded to pull out another item from his ever-expanding package.
"Here's some cream, if you don't want to drink your coffee black," he offered, setting the item down on the floor next to Shun and handing him a full mug. It was hazelnut-flavored, according to the bottle.
"I don't think so," Shun stated simply, getting up and leaving the mug and creamer behind. "I hope you have a good morning, but I refuse to drink that."
He had nothing else to say to Dan, and he made his way out of the room, leaving his Grandpa behind to deal with the terror. Dan slowly faced his adoptive grandparent.
"Do you want coffee?"
Gramps stared for a second before zooming out of the room, and catching Dan's last words shouted at him. "You don't have to use the cream!"
Little did they realize that they'd just posed a challenge for Dan, and as most everyone knew, challenges were his obsession. He would never stop, and this time he would do whatever it took to convert Shun and his grandpa into coffee-drinking maniacs.
Or something along those lines.
---
The first opportunity to strike arose not ten minutes later.
"The economy's not good. Japan has a ten percent unemployment rate," Grandpa noted to himself while reading the newspaper and scratching his chin thoughtfully.
Dan appeared at his side in an instant. "You know why that is? It's because they don't drink coffee."
Gramps raised an eyebrow and turned back to his paper.
---
Shun hung up the phone, placing it on a nearby table with a sigh. "I just denied Julie another loan. Again."
"Perk up, champ," Dan consoled, patting him on the shoulder. "If you drank coffee, she wouldn't be asking you for money."
---
"I don't have any poison darts," Grandpa lamented in his weapon room.
"It's because you don't drink coffee," Dan informed him, eyeing the katanas.
---
"Herbal tea prices are so high!" Shun groaned.
"You know what? You should drink coffee." Dan replied. "It's cheaper."
---
"I can't find my shurikens." Grandpa rummaged through the living room, shoving furniture out of his way.
"Grandpa, drink coffee! Drink coffee!"
---
"Baron just bought a house!" Shun exclaimed in astonishment, reading from an e-mail he'd sent.
"He drinks coffee!"
---
Grandpa sipped his glass of milk, spitting it out immediately. "Ugh, this milk is bad!"
"This cream isn't bad." Dan proceeded to pour the cream into his cup.
---
"I gained three pounds?!"
Dan looked down at the scale Shun was standing on. "Drink coffee and lose weight."
---
Grandpa opened a cupboard, expecting to find a package of tea. "We're all out of instant Lipton!"
"Drink coffee!"
---
"How many times do I have to deny someone's friend request before they get the message?" Shun asked himself in annoyance.
"Shun, I'm sure that they'd find you less attractive if you drank coffee."
---
"Ah, my butt itches!"
"The lack of coffee strikes again, Grandpa!"
---
"My girlfriend broke up with me...over an e-mail," Shun moaned.
Dan nodded at his side. "It's probably because you don't drink coffee."
Glare.
---
"I just misspelled 'indefinitely'," Gramps pointed out.
"Coffee."
---
"Where are the kunais?" Shun shouted.
"Drink coffee," Dan answered lazily.
"Well, throw them over here."
....
"Ow."
---
"I have to wait forty-five minutes for my denture cream?!"
"Drink some coffee in the meantime."
---
"My grandpa just got hit by a car!" Shun shouted.
"It's because he...doesn't drink coffee?"
---
He proved his point about the benefits of coffee, and Grandpa became a believer, although Shun still despised the dark liquid and its creamy additive. All in all, for Dan, it was a good morning, and he couldn't be more happy for choosing to stay with Shun.
Feel free to drop me a line and review!
Oh, and check out "Last Drop (the Starbucks song)" on Youtube. It's a good song!
Cocoacharm15