A/N: Thank you! Thank you for all the reviews!!! Oh and special thanks to foxhana for telling me about the error in chapter 4. Thankies!
"Take your seats kids!" Ms. Tanada beamed at her students. "First off I want to congratulate all of you for submitting such wonderful reports. You must have really gone to great lengths to do your researches. I hope you will continue to do so until your final report."
She clapped her hands like an overexcited child as some students hooted at her words.
"So, let me give you your next topic. This time I want you to scout around for the pieces of furniture the you want to put into your houses."
— 0 —
"Oi, Rukawa, hurry up!" Hanamichi hollered as he skipped towards the entrance of the central mall in Kanagawa, his backpack swinging perilously from his arm. He cheerfully looked around the complex like a child on his first outing and he immediately zoomed towards a nearby sweets shop.
Kaede sauntered after his partner and found him pressing his face on the large glass container while all the people inside stared at him like he was crazy (which of course he was—a little).
"Idiot, we're not here to eat," Kaede said coldly, although there was an unusual twitching vein on his lips.
Hanamichi unstuck his face from the glass.
"But we're going to walk a lot so I need to eat something!" he protested.
Kaede rolled his eyes.
"Whatever," he said before going out.
Hanamichi whooped, badgered the sales lady to give him a bag of candies for free, and walked out laughing his signature laugh. He found Kaede snoozing while leaning against a shop window. The redhead munched his snack as he contemplated how to wake the fox up. He settled on dangling a piece of candy in front of the other boy's nose. Kaede's nose twitched before his eyes opened and he glared at the laughing redhead.
A mini-fight ensued. Mini meaning they managed not to fully damage the area. After catching their breaths they went on to find a furniture shop. Since, Hanamichi rarely went there and Kaede only went to the sports shops, the two hunted down the mall directory first. They managed to tour the whole of the ground floor before finding the small, highly confusing map.
Hanamichi's eyes were already crisscrossing before Kaede had pity on him and pointed out the section where the stores selling furniture was.
"I knew where it was! I didn't need your help!" Hanamichi protested.
Kaede just grunted and went for the escalators, the redhead still shouting at him. He stepped on the escalator but didn't know that Hanamichi had not followed him. It was only when he realized that it had become relatively quiet that he looked back and found the redhead staring at the escalator steps and not moving an inch thereby blocking the way. Out of curiosity, Kaede walked back down the up escalator.
"Idiot, what are you staring at?" he asked once he reached the bottom.
Hanamichi glared at him.
"Don't bother me, I'm doing a very important experiment."
Kaede's brow curved up.
"What idiocy is this stupid guy doing again," he thought.
Curious but trying to hide it, Kaede stood beside Hanamichi. He was about to give Hanamichi a piece of his mind when someone behind them exclaimed, "What the heck is going on here!"
The voice was followed by other protests.
"Yeah, what's the hold up?"
"Hey, others need to use the escalator too!"
Kaede glared at them. Feeling a bit belligerent, he stood shoulder to shoulder with Hanamichi blocking the way even more. He inwardly smirked at the frustrated voices.
"Ho!" Hanamichi exclaimed. "Here it comes!"
Kaede looked at where the other boy was staring and saw a pink wad on one of the steps. He glanced at Hanamichi and saw the other boy nodding and checking his watch.
"Hn…so it takes about one minute for the whole thing to come back…yes! Another important piece of information has once again been added to the genius' mind," Hanamichi said sagely.
Kaede bopped Hanamichi's head as he stepped on the escalator.
"Moron."
"What did you say Rukawa?"
Hanamichi hurled curses at him and all the other people grumbled at them as the group finally managed to use the escalator.
Kaede casually got off the top step but Hanamichi had been too busy cursing him. The redhead missed the last step, stumbled forward, and forced Kaede to also lose his balance. They grunted as they fell on the floor while the people behind them stumbled at their fallen bodies. It took a while for everyone to right themselves up, Hanamichi loudly grumbling all the way.
The two then proceeded to the escalators leading to the third floor. Before they could reach it, though, they experienced one of the horrors of going to the mall—a stampede of fanatic girls. Apparently there was an autograph signing by a famous j-pop group. The two were caught and crushed underneath a lot of high-heeled shoes.
After the horrifying mob had passed and the twitching teens were able to get up, the two quickly rushed up to the third floor before anything more happened. Once there they took some minutes to catch their breaths and calm their hearts.
"Those crazy girls…" Hanamichi wheezed.
It was proof of how terrifying the stampede had been that he didn't try to act tough and actually let Kaede see that he had been rattled.
They went on to the nearest store afterwards.
Once inside, Kaede's eyes rested on the various beds. There they were. Comfortable, huge, made just for—
The boy never finished his thought as he curled up on one of the king size beds and instantly fell asleep.
Hanamichi ignored his partner and gaily walked around the shop completely ignoring the high-strung store personnel following him.
"Uhm…excuse me sir…sir…your friend is sleeping on one of our displays—"
Hanamichi whirled and glared at the girl.
"Who said he's my friend?" he hissed.
"We-we-well you two came to-toge-together," the girl stammered.
"That proves nothing," Hanamichi said loftily.
He went around the shop, touching highly breakable objects and scaring the living hell out of all people inside. His eyes finally rested on a simple chair. Bending a little, he read the description. He immediately straightened and glared at the girl beside him.
"Oi, are you running some sort of scam here?" he hissed.
"N-n-no…?" the girl answered uncertainly.
"Then why does this say that this chair is made out of walnut? How can you make a large chair out of those small walnut shells, huh? Huh? Tell me?"
The girl meeped and ran away. The redhead was left alone to peer curiously at all the items. He would occasionally pull out a notebook from his backpack and jot something down.
Finally—to the relief of all inside—he walked up to his already-drooling partner.
"Oi, Rukawa, get up already!" he yelled. "We're done here."
Kaede grumbled and opened his eyes to see a store personnel hovering near where he lay.
"Uh…sir, I'm afraid you'll have to pay for drooling on the pillow…uh sir…" the guy said.
His eyes narrowed as he stood up and he swung his fist at the unsuspecting guy. He then looked around to find Hanamichi strolling out to the next store. He shrugged and followed. No one dared to ask for payment or go after them.
They had the similar experiences at the other stores until they reached Hi-Class (So Classy You Won't Be Able to Afford our Items Unless You're a Billionaire) Furnitures. There they met the sales clerk from hell who glared at Hanamichi and flirted extensively with Kaede. She was miffed when the boy just sat on a couch and proceeded to sleep. She decided to vent her frustration on the redhead.
"You can't afford that even if you worked everyday of your life, little boy," she uttered.
Hanamichi whirled and faced her nose to nose.
"What did you say, you ugly pimply woman?!" he gritted out.
"Ugly? Why you bastard. Get out of my store! Out!" the woman screeched.
"Hmp! I'm going. You're store doesn't have anything that I would put in my apartment anyway," Hanamichi shouted back before dragging the still sleeping Kaede.
The raven-haired boy woke up to find a fuming redhead who was furiously licking an ice cream while mumbling curses.
"Where are we?" he asked as he straightened up on his chair.
"We're far away from that stupid woman!" Hanamichi answered.
Kaede stared at Hanamichi. The other boy seemed more upset than angry.
"Thinks she's so hot working for a stupid expensive store. Hmp! Doesn't even care if people can't afford…always thinking rich people deserve special attention…"
Kaede shrugged and tried to get comfortable on the plastic chair.
"Wake me up when you're done with that," he said before closing his eyes.
"Oi! Oi! We're supposed to be doing this together y'know! You've done nothing but sleep in every store! Oi! Oi!
Kaede chose to ignore the voice and proceeded to sleep. He was roughly awakened a few minutes later.
"Hey, c'mon!" Hanamichi said poking Kaede's arm. "Let's get outta here. I don't think we'll be able to find anything more."
Kaede grunted and followed Hanamichi to the exit. They were walking towards the train station when Hanamichi suddenly stopped in front of a small store.
"Hey fox look! This store has a sale and they have some really cool stuff!"
"Idiot! We're not here to buy anything. We only need to look." Kaede said.
"You're the idiot! We have a budget remember? If we get sale stuff we'll be able to adjust our budget and maybe get a better grade. Right?"
Kaede stared at Hanamichi dumbfounded. He resisted the urge to say, "Who are you and what have you done to the real Hanamichi?" and just followed the redhead inside.
Once there he inwardly acknowledged Hanamichi's idea as a good one. The pieces of furniture inside where like the ones he had seen in the other stores but they seemed to have lower prices. He couldn't be sure since he really hadn't been paying attention. It was a quiet shop with only a few people inside too. Plus there wasn't any annoying store personnel hovering near them. It would have been an ideal shop if they had really been buying anything.
He looked for the redhead and found him bending over a drawer. Thinking that the other boy knew what he was doing, Kaede opted to settle down on the sofa behind him and get some shuteye. He really didn't care what went inside the apartment so long as they could be used.
He gasped slightly when he felt the sofa underneath him. He looked at it more closely. It was navy blue with three pillows. It didn't look any different from the ordinary sofas but it was soft and there was a homely feel to it that Kaede liked.
"Oi, Rukawa, I'm finished here," Hanamichi said as he suddenly appeared, looming over Kaede.
"I want this," Kaede said patting the furniture underneath him.
"What? Didn't you say that we weren't buying anything?" Hanamichi queried.
"I meant I want it for the house," Kaede clarified as he stood up.
"Eh? But we already have a sofa," Hanamichi said. "And why do you want this? It doesn't look like anything special."
Kaede shrugged.
"I like it. It's—I like it," he answered.
"Can I help you young ones with anything?"
The two turned to find a small elderly lady smiling up at them.
"No, grandma," Hanamichi answered.
"We were just looking around—it's for our project," Kaede clarified.
Hanamichi frowned at the unusually soft tone of Kaede's voice. He also seemed to be smiling at the old lady. Well his lips were twitching upwards.
"Oh, well then I hope you find something useful in our shop. Just holler if you need anything."
The two nodded. The lady beamed at them before shuffling off to the counter.
Kaede looked at her retreating back then to the sofa then to Hanamichi.
"We're getting the sofa," he said before going out.
"Hey, how come you get to decide all of a sudden what to put in the apartment," Hanamichi yelled as he followed the other boy out. "I'm the one who's been working all day for this!"
"We're getting it," Kaede stubbornly replied.
The two bickered all the way back to their neighborhood.
"Okay! We're getting that damn sofa!" Hanamichi finally said when they were about to part ways. "But we're also getting that chair made from those little walnut shells!"
-TBC-
A/N:
1. I have had an epiphany. Reviews are very important for writers. It's like food. ^___^
2. The first phase of Playing House is about to end and everything's getting to be more interesting, ne?
3. Thanks to Crescent Quetzalcoatl and frozenfemale who reviewed my fic, Mother and Child. I really appreciate your reviews.