Here it is! The long-awaited fifth Tales of Mia! You know, I kinda feel bad for the guys in this one... :) Anyhoo, as long as you're paying attention to me right now, lemme just say, when you're done reading this, go read The Challenge. It's on the second or third page, it's by us, and it's the first of the Carry-Over series. Enjoy all!
The Tales of Mia or: "I... Just... Live Here."
The Loooong Night
(3 p.m. - Saturday)
Riiiiinnngg.
Ryo picked up the phone. "Moshi, moshi?... Oh, hi Mia... What?... Where?... Alright... Well, when are you coming home?... Huh, not till tomorrow, okay... Don't worry... Don't worry... We'll be fine... Okay, okay, your house will be fine... Mia, don't be such a worry-wort... I know... I know... We'll stay out of trouble, I promise... Yeah, right... Yep, see ya tomorrow... Bye!" Ryo hung up the phone.
"Woo hoo!" Ryo leapt in the air. "Yes, yes, yes! Hey guys! Guess what?!..."
(midnight)
"Well, this sucks," Ryo said. He was lying on the couch, legs draped over the arm.
"No kidding," Jay'a said. "I thought we were gonna do something cool." She was sitting on the other end of Ryo's couch playing with his hair with her feet.
"What, playing with my hair isn't cool enough for you?"
"Ha. Funny."
"Ow!" Sage rubbed his shoulder where Rowen's dozing head had smacked him again. He poked his blue-haired friend. "Hey Ro, wake up."
"Mmm."
"Go to bed. Either that or get the heck off me." He shoved Rowen to the other side of the couch.
"Oww." Rowen yawned. "'Kay. Goin'." He got up and proceeded to half sleep walk up the stairs.
"Where's Shiane?" Sage asked.
"I think she's in the kitchen," Kento said. "Here she comes."
Shiane came into the room with two mugs in her hands. She handed one to Jay'a and whispered to her, then took her own mug and claimed Rowen's vacated seat. Jay'a took a sip from her mug. "Whoo!" she yelped, rubbing at her nose.
"What did you do?" Kento asked.
"The fizz went up my nose!" she whined.
"What are you drinking anyway?" Cye asked.
"Oh this?" Jay'a said, still rubbing her nose. "It's um..." Shiane coughed slightly. "Seltzer! Yeah, ya know, the raspberry kind. And the fizz from the seltzer, this raspberry seltzer, went straight up my nose." She shook her head. "Not fun." She tried vainly to hide a smile, but ended up grinning. Shiane burst out laughing.
Cye rolled his eyes. "Whatever." He yawned and stood up. "I'm going to bed guys. See ya tomorrow."
"Hey wait, I'm coming up with you. See ya later guys." Kento waved as he followed Cye up the stairs.
Now only Sage, Ryo, Shiane, and Jay'a were left.
"Ryo, your party's a flop," Sage said.
"But it was such a good idea," Ryo whined. "Ya know, with Mia not home and everything..."
Suddenly Jay'a and Shiane burst out laughing. "I don't see what's so funny about it," Ryo pouted.
"Yeah, what is so funny?" Sage asked them. But they ignored him and continued to laugh only stopping for a couple of seconds at a time.
"I don't think they're laughing at you," Sage said. "I think they're having one of their little telepathic conversations just to exclude us." Sage got up and pulled Ryo off the couch. "Come on. We might as well go to bed."
"Oh alright," Ryo said. "Hopefully they'll go to bed soon too." Ryo and Sage disappeared up the stairs.
I thought they'd never leave! Shiane thought to Jay'a, still laughing.
You are such a genius! Jay'a thought back. Mountain Dew and Pepsi! Oh Yeah!
"So what do we do now?" Shiane asked.
"Oh, it is most definitely Raid-the-Fridge time."
"Onward to the kitchen!" Shiane cried.
"And neither wind nor rain –"
"- nor little Ronin boys –"
"- shall stand in our way!"
"Onward!" they chorused.
(an hour later...)
"What the heck are you two still doing up?" a sleepy-eyed Ryo asked, poking his head into the kitchen.
"Oh, hi Ryo!" Jay'a said brightly, bouncing in her chair. "We're just getting a snack! Want some?"
"Guys, go to bed."
"But we're not tired!" Shiane said, also bouncing in her chair. She took another sip from her mug.
Ryo frowned. "What are you drinking?"
"Um... raspberry seltzer?" she said hopefully and Jay'a cracked up.
Ryo had a sinking feeling that it wasn't seltzer at all, but he was too tired to argue so he let it go. "Whatever. Just go to bed, okay?" he said, leaving.
"'Kay!" they called after him. Eventually, they thought to each other.
(later...)
"Hey Jay! Didjya find it?" Shiane yelled.
"Nope! Not here! Any luck on your end?" Jay'a called back.
"Nope! What now?"
"I thought I told you two to go to bed!"
"I KNOW you did Ryo," Jay'a said, bouncing up to him, "but –"
"- but we can't find our room!" Shiane finished.
Ryo rubbed his forehead. Pepsi and Mountain Dew, he thought. Had to be. "Your room," he said slowly, "is UPSTAIRS."
Both girls simultaneously stopped bouncing and let their jaws drop and their eyes get wide. They looked at each other, back to Ryo, and back to each other. "Ohhh Yeahhh!!!" they cried, almost sing-songily and collapsed into a fit of giggles.
Ryo sighed and trudged back up the stairs to his own room.
(still later...)
"Dude, I can't believe how much cool stuff is up here!" Jay'a said.
Shiane pawed through a box of junk. "I know! I wonder what Mia used all this weird junk for?" She held up some strangely shaped coils and peered at them. "Of course, it probably isn't Mia's stuff at all. It was probably her grandfather's stuff."
"Good call, my hyper friend. Good call."
"What are you two doing NOW?!"
"But Ryo, you said –"
"- our room was upstairs!"
Ryo smacked himself in the forehead. "Not in the ATTIC!"
"Ohhh Yeahhh!!!"
"Now go downstairs and GO. TO. BED."
(yet later...)
"Okay!" Jay'a said putting on her best pouty face. "Ryo is definitely losing it."
"Yeah," Shiane said with a pouty face to match. "Our room is most definitely NOT downstairs."
"You'd think he'd know this house by - Hiya Ryo!"
"Why are you back downstairs?" he almost growled.
"But Ryo," Shiane said, "you SAID it was –"
"- and we've looked everywhere –"
"- Twice! –"
"- and it just isn't here!"
"Your room," he said, "is on the SECOND floor. With the rest of us!"
Long Pause.
"Ohhh Yeahhh!!!"
(only slightly later...)
Jay'a clapped her hands. "Alright! Second floor, right, got it!"
Shiane studied the line of doors before her. "But which one do ya s'pose it is?" she asked.
Jay'a fell silent for a moment. "Aw dude, I didn't even think of that." She giggled. "So what do we do now?"
Shiane grinned. "On three. Ready? One, two, three."
"RYO!!!"
"Go to bed!" he yelled back from his room.
"But where is it?"
Silence.
"Hm," Shiane said. "We'll just have to try every door till we find it."
"Good call."
They threw open the first door on their left. "What are you doing?" Sage groaned.
"Sage!" Shiane cried. "We can't find our room –"
"- so will you make a light for us?"
"You know it doesn't work that way," Sage said from under his covers.
"Oh. Then can we stay in here?" Shiane asked hopefully.
"No! Go to bed already."
"Well fine. Be that way," Shiane pouted. They started to walk out.
Wait a sec, Sage thought. I just told my girlfriend she couldn't sleep in my room... "Shiane! Wait!"
"Too late! Buh-bye now!" The door slammed shut.
Thud. Thud. Thud. Thud.
"Hey Sage?" a barely awake Rowen asked. "What's that noise?"
"Me. Hitting. My head. On the. Wall."
"Oh. Okay. G'night."
Out in the hallway, Jay'a and Shiane bounded down the hall to the next door and threw it open. "It's, it's, it's... Kento and Cye's room! Yea!"
"Dude, check it out, they not yelling at us."
"They're prob'ly just ignoring us."
"Yeah. Too bad your boyfriend isn't that smart."
"I know! I can't believe he kicked us out!"
"Yeah, but he's sorry he did now, though."
"No kidding. Well, on to the next room!"
"On to the next room!!"
They skipped down the hall and flung the door open. "Hiya Ryo!"
"Do you have any idea what time it is?!"
"Nope!"
"No idea!"
"Go to bed, damn it!"
"But we can't find our room."
"You're Jedi! Sense it, or use your lightsabers as flashlights, or something! I don't care! Just go to bed!"
They blinked. "Ohhh Yeahhh!!! What a great idea!" They flung the door shut and disappeared, only to reappear a moment later.
They ignighted the lightsabers and the hum pierced through the silent night. They grinned at each other. "Next room!"
"Next room!" Jay'a reached for the doorknob, but Shiane stopped her.
"Wait, wait, wait. This is Mia's room."
"Oh, hey, yeah, good call," Jay'a said, pulling her hand away.
Another door slammed. They turned around to find Ryo standing in the hallway. "You can tell that's Mia's room, but you can't find your own damn room?!"
"But it's Mia's room!"
"She isn't even here!" he cried.
"Yeah but... it's MIA'S room!"
"GO. TO. BED!!!" Ryo retreated into his room, the girls sticking their tongues out at his back.
Jay'a sighed and turned, her lightsaber accidentally knocking into Shiane's. Their faces brightened. "We should practice!" they cried. "En garde!" A mock duel started outside Ryo's door and continued for a good five minutes until...
"WHAT! ARE! YOU! DOING?!"
"We're practicing," Jay'a said matter-of-factly.
"It's nearly four in the morning! Practice later! Bed now!" Slam!
"Aw man. So what do we do now?"
"Keep lookin' I guess. Onward!"
They crept passed Mia's room and flung open the next door. Shiane flipped on the light. They breathed in breaths of wonder. "We found it," Shiane whispered.
"It's the Great Valley!" Jay'a said, cracking up.
"That was a good movie! 'Cept the sequals were really dumb and retarded."
"Yeah, singing dinosaurs just don't do it for me. Hey, we should tell the guys we found it."
"Good call."
They stuck their heads out in the hallway. "Hey guys! We found it!"
"GOOD!!" five voices yelled back in unison.
(3 p.m. - Sunday)
Mia walked into the house, a duffle bag slung over her shoulder. The house was still here, so that was a good sign. She walked upstairs to put her bag away, but stopped outside Ryo's door. "What the hell..." She eyed the burn and slash marks all over the door. "What happened here?" She threw her bag in her room and headed downstairs to the kitchen.
She stepped into the kitchen. On one side of the table was a sleepier than normal Rowen, a more lethargic than normal Cye, and a less hungry than usual Kento. On the other side sat Sage, who had a large purple bruise on his forehead, and Ryo, who had large dark circles under his eyes. "What...?" she started to ask, when a noise from upstairs cut her off.
A perkier than normal Jay'a and Shiane came bounding into the kitchen. "Hi guys! Hi Mia!"
"We're goin' out," Shiane said. "See ya later!" and they bounded out the door.
Mia eyed them as they left then turned back to the guys, who all gave her pitiful looks. Mia held up her hands. "I... just... live here."
*************************
Shiane here! Like Jay'a said, I hope ya'll enjoyed it! We've been kinda busy lately – we've been working on our new website. There's not much now but when it's finished we hope you'll visit! Jay'a's also working on her own on a Ronin origins story. Parts 1-5 should be posted soon so be sure to keep an eye out for it!