Chapter 50
The next morning came, with it being fairly lively. Being eight o'clock, nearly everyone was up. Rachel was in the kitchen cooking the last of what they had in the refrigerator, making a mental note to go shopping with what little money she herself had left. She was cooking the usual breakfast of bacon, eggs, and toast, making slightly more than usual on the account of the two new additions: Clara, the adorable Pikachu Otto had found, and her Nidoran, which she still had yet to name.
Otto was sitting on the floor near the couch with his Pikachu Clara, playing peekaboo with her. His hands would cover over his glasses with her staring at the backs of his hands with focused eyes. She'd slightly lean forward, as if to wonder if her new trainer was still behind his own hands. Every time she did, Otto would throw his hands in the air and surprise her, with little Clara jumping backwards and landing on her butt. She let out a cute little giggle with her red cheeks sparking faintly.
The Nidoran Rachel had obtained was loyally by his trainer's feet while she cooked, looking up at her happily. Like a needy dog, it would paw at her shin and cheerfully look up at her as she grilled on her skillet. Rachel looked down at him, unable to help hold back from smiling back.
"Nini!" it chirped merrily. Rachel poked at the eggs she was frying, glancing down at him just has happy to see his cute little face again.
"I still don't know what to call him." She said aloud, turning over some of the bacon.
"I'm sure you will think of something, mistress." Laurence told her, sitting at the fold out kitchen table with a book in his hands. He'd been reading most of that morning, making himself some tea with the teapot, which was certainly new to him, using one of the other burners on the stove to heat the water while Rachel had been cooking. His eyes were locked onto the pages. "You have an imagination that surpasses most, in my opinion."
"Emie still says Horny is a good name." Emie told her, who was sitting right next to Laurence at the fold out table. Trying to mimic him, she'd gotten herself tea (after nearly burning herself by almost dumping the hot water on her), though wasn't brave enough to sip it until it cooled down. Rachel glanced over to Emie as she sat there at the kitchen table, with the Nidoran still pawing Rachel.
"We've disgusted the before," Rachel tried to explain, reminding herself that Emie had the mindset of a child. "it doesn't sound as cute as you might think."
"What she's trying to say," Shade said from across the room, sprawled out on part of the couch while watching Otto and Clara play. "it sounds like the Nidoran wants to fuck."
Bomber, who was sitting on the floor (in his beast form as usual) with Otto and Clara, looked up at Shade with an uncomfortable expression appearing behind the feathers on his face.
"I think Rachel's explanation would have sufficed." he told her frankly. Shade glanced over at Bomber, laying on the couch with her legs crossed and her arms folded behind her head. She gave him a 'whatever' look with a smirk following.
"Sorta like I bet you're horny all the time." she snickered, trying to get his goat like she had been able to before.
It didn't work.
Bomber stared back at her, unable to pass up the opportunity to get revenge on her for all of the times she'd made him feel uncomfortable.
"I've been waiting for you, dear." he joked, giving her a playful wink. Shade looked at him as if he were serious, with an expression Bomber hadn't actually seen before. She suddenly forced herself to scowl at him, turning over to her face the back of the couch and avoid looking at him. Bomber kept looking at her, seeing her long shirt was slightly bunched up her to her thighs.
"Deciding to tease me with that cute butt of yours?" Bomber said almost sounding serious.
Shade actually acted panicked, reaching behind her and pulling on the back of the shirt. Even if Bomber couldn't really see anything, she acted like she were naked around him. He started laughing hysterically at her.
"It's not like I haven't seen your butt before." he told her still laughing, remembering the day he found her and Emie laying naked on the couch together. Shade felt herself getting embarrassed. Why? She didn't know. She never got embarrassed about that kind of stuff, so why was she now? Shade moved her knees closer to her, moving them under her long shirt with the feeling of needing to hide herself. For the first time in her Haunter life she felt shy.
"Shut up..." she grumbled, making Bomber stop laughing. He realized she wasn't taking any of his joking well at all, now a little guilty.
"I was only kidding, Shade." he reminded her. She didn't budge.
"Whatever..." she mumbled.
Doug was still sleeping, with Darrell having left early that morning to go to 'work.' Nobody had saw him leave, but he left a nice note behind with Laurence being the one to read it when he came home that morning after needing to 'go out' on 'business' again. Matt and Sissy were still asleep also, with nobody besides them knowing anything about what happened last night.
Emie stared at her tea, looking over at Laurence every time he took a sip of his, still reading his book that he held with the other hand. With her finger, she poked it, feeling that the tea was still hot. With some of the tea still on her finger, she stuck it in her mouth and suckled it. All she could really taste was her finger.
"Emie thinks the tea needs sugar..." she told herself, grabbing for the small container that was kept in the center of the table. Pulling it close to her, Emie began to spoon sugar into the cup of tea with large clumps of it falling into it at a time. After the sixth giant spoonful of sugar was dumped in her tea, Laurence glanced over to her with a raised brow, amused by her shenanigans.
"Dear," he said in an enlightened tone. "I believe you have more sugar in that cup now than you do tea."
Emie shoved her finger in the cup, string it with a little of the tea running down the side as it spilled. She stopped with the sight of a large amount of sugar still settled at the bottom of the cup, staring at it her her happy eyes. Emie took a sip, still with the tea being a little hot. With her ears perking up, Emie's upper canine tooth stuck out from behind her lip.
"Tea is yummy!" she exclaimed, though mostly was only tasting the vast sum of sugar she had dumped into it.
"Boo!" Otto laughed, removing his hands from his face again. Clara jumped up, falling backwards. Landing on her rump, she yet out another giggle with her cheeks lighting up. Bomber was watching with a smile, getting a kick out of how cute Clara was. He moved his wing out, patting his large wing on her head with her ears being pushed down.
"You're so adorable." Bomber told Clara as she let out a coo of delight
"Pikaaa..." she responded contently, closing her eyes with a smile. Shade thought Bomber was talking to her still, turning around from where she was laying on the couch, glaring at him.
"I said shut up!" she yelled angrily in his direction. Bomber turned to look at her a little hurt.
"I wasn't talking to you..." he said sounding a little attacked verbally. Shade realized he was talking to Clara, soon blushing from embarrassment that she had yelled so loudly at him. She quickly turned back around, hiding her face from him.
"S-sorry..." she apologized. Bomber stared at her feeling a little melancholic so see Shade so flustered. She'd been acting funny lately ever since he'd turned the tables on her. Couldn't she handle her own kind of jokes? Ever since he'd gave her a kiss she'd been acting different around him.
"Is everything okay?" he asked her, still with Otto playing with Clara. "You've been acting really weird lately."
She didn't say anything nor did she move in response to his question.
At that moment, the door to Matt's room opened with him and Sissy exiting. Her hair was nicely combed down with her yukata on, though had left her bokuto in the room. Matt's hat was still in the room as well along with his jacket, only wearing his white tee shirt and jeans. He walked out with her with his hair slightly messy, glancing at Sissy with a smile. She in return shyly smiled back at him. Sissy still couldn't believe he finally chose her.
Otto looked up at him, doing a double take when he saw how jacked up his face was. Matt had a bruise on the side of his face with a split lip.
"Did Sissy hit you again?..." Otto asked. Everyone finally turned to look at Matt, stopping what they were doing momentarily, seeing Matt's face. When Clara saw it, her ears folded backwards with an almost scared expression on her little face appearing.
"Pikachu?..." she said sounding worried. Matt's brain quickly thought of a lie, hoping to still keep his and Gavin's little night of brawling in the dark.
"Oh this?" Matt said, taking a little more time to stall with Sissy putting her hands close to her sides uncomfortably. Rachel raised her eyebrow at Matt, clearly seeing that he was hiding something.
"Yeah, that." she told him harshly, with Emie staring at Matt with a sad face.
"You look like you got laid out." Bomber told him honestly. "Did you get into a fight?"
Matt started laughing with his brain still forming a brilliant lie.
"I ran into a door, that's all." he told them.
Gee, what a brilliant lie...
Nobody bought it, still with the assumption that Sissy was the one who did it.
"He did." Sissy told everyone. "Matt wasn't paying attention to what he was doing last night and ran right into the Pokemon center door, expecting them to open. They were having a malfunction, not opening properly, with him nailing his face into the side of it."
Everyone blinked, starting to believe their formed lie, still having doubts though. Sissy looked at Matt with a very warm and happy smile.
"Besides," she told everyone, "if I was the one who did that to Matt I'd make sure it'd be a lot worse."
Both her and Matt started laughing with everyone, including Laurence who had momentarily set down his book, giving them a peculiar look. Shade had even turned herself over to stared at his beaten up face, finding it odd how well the two of them were getting along all of a sudden.
"You two seem like you're getting along better." Shade told them. Sissy and Matt laughed to themselves, glancing at one another unsure.
"How should we tell everyone?" Sissy asked. Matt glanced up at Emie, seeing her just as confused as Shade was.
"Delicately." he reminded her. "Do you wanna say it or should I?"
Otto squinted at his friend with little Clara now sitting in his lap. He was playing with her still, holding onto her little paws, pulling them up and down.
"Tell us what?" Otto inquired with Clara now happily laughing as he played with her. Matt and Sissy acted like they didn't hear him, going on about their conversation as to who was going to break the news.
"I don't trust myself to do it." Sissy told him, glancing over at Emie, "I'd probably be unable to hold back rubbing it in..."
Matt sighed, poking Sissy in her side. She laughed sweetly, jolting to the side away from his finger. Both of them laughed once again, now making everyone really starting to wonder.
"What is it that you wish to tell everyone?" Laurence asked, now with him too getting interested in what it might be they had to say. Matt looked at Sissy once again with her doing the same. She suddenly gave him a kiss on the lips, hoping that gesture itself would give a little explanation.
Instead of giving an explanation, it made everyone's jaws drop. Including Emie's.
Emie stood up from the kitchen table, stomping over to Matt as if feeling left out.
"Not fair!" she said sternly. She leaned in to try and kiss him, only to have Matt push her back.
"Emie, wait." he told her with Sissy clearly holding back from getting angry at her. Emie stepped back with a sad look in her eye. She couldn't understand why he didn't want to kiss her. If Sissy could kiss him then it was only fair that she could!
"Emie," Matt told her, with everyone watching in confusion. "I can't kiss you."
"But why?" Emie said sounding a little angry. "Sissy did!"
"That's because we're..." Matt stopped himself for a second, taking a deep breath. "dating."
Everyone was dead silent with frozen looks of surprise slapped on their faces. Emie's eyes grew wider with her mouth hanging open as if she were just told the world had ended. Sissy forced herself to not rub it in. If anything, she was starting to feel sorry for her with tears running down Emie's face. Matt frowned at her as if he had done something wrong.
"Emie, I'm sorry... I didn't mean to hurt you..."
Emie looked down at the floor with tears still running down her face.
"Emie loved Matt..." she told him sounding hurt. "Matt treated Emie better than Mikhail ever did."
The name Mikhail made Bombers eyes widen, remembering the man with the pink boot laces.
"Haven't you missed Mikhail at all?" Bomber remembered the man she called Mikhail (even if it was only a Gastly in disguise) tell her. He had stroked her cheek with Emie starting to shake her head with tears in her eyes.. "Well," he had told her, "I missed you, princess. Not to mention our love..."
"But Emie doesn't really matter to Matt, does Emie?" Emie continued, clenching her teeth. She shot her head up, staring at him completely hurt along with a little angry. "Sissy hurt Matt, called Matt names, and Sissy is mean to everyone! But Matt loves Sissy anyway?! Emie is sorry Emie actually cares about Matt and loves Matt for being nice to Emie, unlike Sissy!"
Emie's head darted over to Shade pointing her finger at her, still crying.
"Shade lied to Emie!" she yelled with a mixture of a sob. "Shade told Emie things would be better, but they only got worse!"
Shade didn't know what to say. Emie turned back to Matt, who saw a side to her he'd never seen before. Emie lowered her head, clenching her hands into fists, crying even more now.
"Emie's entire life has been pain!" she yelled, as if admitting something he had hidden from everyone. "Emie has been treated not right, Emie has been beaten, and Emie has been lonely! Nobody ever cared about Emie until Emie found Matt! Now Matt doesn't care about her! Nobody cares about Emie and nobody ever will!"
Her emotional baggage seemed to just drop, unable to hold back from crying.
"Emie is stupid and not good at anything!" she yelled, still crying. "Emie can't even get people to like Emie!"
She wiped her eyes, leaving everyone speechless. She turned around, painfully making her way over to Laurence, not bothering to look up.
"Emie wants to go now..." she told him still crying, having been promised to be taken to the ninjutsu school after breakfast. Even though they hadn't eaten yet, Laurence felt it was best to do so like she wanted. He got up from the table, and gave his mistress an almost apologetic look. The Nidoran by Rachel's feet hid behind her, afraid of Emie and her yelling. Laurence made his way to the door with Emie following after him. He opened the door for her with Emie exiting with her head lowered. Laurence gave a last look to everyone before leaving, clearly feeling saddened for her.
The door closed with Matt letting out a guilty sigh. Sissy hugged him and nestled her head against his shoulder.
"I'm sorry..." she told him sounding as if it were her fault. Matt didn't say anything, only hugging her back. Everyone was at a loss, looking from the front door, then to Matt and Sissy hugging each other. The sound of Doug exiting his room and dragging his feet didn't faze a single person.
"Is everything okay?..." he yawned, rubbing his tired eyes. "I heard yelling..."
Everyone was too shocked to respond.
