"We could make the s'mores, but we don't have a fire to cook the marshmallows or melt the chocolate," said Muraki.
"That's true… it's times like this I wish I were allowed up into the Castle of Illusion," said Touga, jerking his thumb up, "because with the size of that, there's got to be a couple fireplaces somewhere."
"We could eat the ingredients raw…" Muraki suggested.
"No way. This sort of stuff only tastes good when melted. Except for the crackers of course," said Touga.
"We could eat the crackers."
"Crackers aren't very romantic food."
"Neither are marshmallows."
"They can be if you know how to use them…" Touga gave an evil smirk.
Muraki raised a questioning eyebrow. "Oh, really?"
Touga nodded. After a few minutes of silence, he sighed and shrugged.
"Maybe we should go back down to the forest. Grab some firewood, steal the girls' lighter, and find a clearing," Touga suggested.
"I suppose that's all right. It'll be more fun that sitting up here with raw materials. Though, it will be kind of disappointing to leave this…" said Muraki, raising a hand towards the castle above.
Touga put a hand on Muraki's, and said, "Don't worry. We'll come back another time." Touga gave Muraki a soft kiss on the lips and stood, ready to go.
And Muraki seemed fairly happy with that.
******
They had just descended the escalator when they heard the screams.
"EEEEEK!! GET THEM AWAY! GET THEM AWAY! YEEEEAAAH!"
Touga looked around for a moment, confused. Muraki turned to him and raised one eyebrow questioningly. Touga motioned for him to come closer and whispered, "That sounded like Nanami… and some kind of wild animal." Muraki went ahead and headed for the clearing, looking behind and gesturing for Touga to follow.
"Take a look at that!"
Touga walked over to the doctor's side and peeked
through the bushes. It was Nanami all right, and she appeared to be being
attacked by…rabid squirrels?
It seemed too absurd to be true. Nanami was screeching and tossing
squirrels left and right, rolling around on the grass as the fuzzy rodents
jumped on her and squealed.
"This would be entertaining if it weren't so disturbing," Touga muttered. They watched again for a minute before he shrugged and said, "Well, as long as she's busy, shall we go find that lighter and get some sticks?"
******
Rob and Bob sat still in bed and listened.
"Do you think it worked?" asked Rob, looking towards the tube.
"I think I can hear something…"
Sure enough, they could both hear muffled screaming through the tube. Bob grinned at Rob and they high-fived, then settled back and felt proud of their work.
"We should do this more often…"
******
Nanami was still fighting the squirrels as Muraki and Touga sneaked across the clearing. All was going well until Nanami caught sight of her brother and started screaming again.
"TOUGA! Oh thank God! Come save me from the squirrels!"
Touga looked at Nanami, then at Muraki, then at Nanami again. After a moment of deliberating he called, "HANG ON NANAMI! I'll come save you! I just need to find… uh… a weapon! Yeah, a weapon!"
"HURRY UUUUP!" screamed his sister from under the mass of squirrels. Muraki and Touga swiftly sneaked around to the fire pit and grabbed the lighter and a bunch of sticks. Muraki looked at Touga and then back at the girl covered in squirrels.
"Are you really going to save her?"
"Ehhhh… nah. Let's just hightail it outta here."
They ran across the campsite and back towards the woods, passing Nanami on the way. She looked happy, then her smile sank as the pair ran right past her. Without even offering her any help! At first she simply sat there. Maybe they would come back?
When they disappeared into the woods, she started to panic.
"Touga?… Mr. person who was with Touga?…"
Silence, except for chittering teeth.
"You can't leave me!" She started to whine. "Don't leave me here! Not with… THE SQUIRRELS!! AAAAAAAAAAA!"
******
It didn't take long for Touga and Muraki to find a nicely-sized clearing that was also quite far away from Nanami's screams. Touga set down the load of sticks in the middle of the clearing and began arranging them.
"Pass me the lighter Muraki."
Muraki tossed Touga the lighter, who flicked it and set fire to neat pile of wood. In a few minutes, the fire was going steadily, and the two men were starting to open the bags of s'more stuff.
"Touga?" asked Muraki, who was opening the bag of marshmallows.
"What?"
Muraki pulled a handful of marshmallows out of the bag. "You said a little while back that marshmallows can be romantic food if you know how to use them."
Touga grinned and put a hand under his chin. "I do recall saying something along those lines, yes."
"I was just wondering… would you care to show me what you meant?"
Touga grinned and he reached for some marshmallows himself. He picked up a good sized stick, and stuffed five marshmallows on the end.
"First, we need to melt them," said Touga, holding the marsh-ka-bob over the flames.
Muraki was confused. "Melt? You mean roast, don't you?"
"No, I mean melt. That's what happens to them if you leave them over the fire too long. Oh sure, the outside is charred to a crisp, but the inside is what we're after. The inside of these light, fluffy treats will turn into a gooey, white paste." explained Touga.
Muraki was still puzzled, but nodded as Touga continued.
"Do you happen to have a container or a bowl handy, by any chance?" asked Touga.
"All that the girls had was this package of paper plates," said Muraki, holding up the plates for Touga to see.
Touga looked at the package, and nodded a little. "They will do, I guess." He handed the bag of marshmallows back to Muraki with one hand, still holding his marsh-ka-bob over the fire with the other hand. "You take some marshmallows, and we'll have more of the stuff faster. If they catch on fire, don't worry about it. That'll make them better. I'd say to leave them hanging over the fire for about, oh, ten or fifteen minutes."
Muraki nodded, taking some marshmallows and making his own marsh-ka-bob to hold over the fire.
******
Fifteen minutes later…
******
Touga pulled his blackened marshmallows out of the campfire and blew out the small flames on them. Muraki did likewise.
"These may be a little hot, but a little pain now equals a lot of pleasure later," said Touga, doing his best not to wince as he touched the charred skin of a marshmallow, and pulled it open. White ooze dribbled out from inside, and Muraki pulled out a paper plate to catch the ooze before it fell on the ground. Touga did this to his other four marshmallows, and Muraki's. All the marshmallow filling was enough to fill the plate.
"Now what?" asked Muraki, staring at the goo they had created.
Touga grinned again. "Now we add the chocolate."
"The chocolate?"
"Yes, the chocolate. Set the marshmallow guts next to the fire so that they don't harden, while I get to work on melting the chocolate."
"Melt the CHOCOLATE?! We need that solid chocolate for the s'mores!"
"For the s'mores I have in mind, you need to melt the chocolate."
Muraki sweatdropped, and set the white goo next to the fire.
Somehow (after many failed attempts) Touga managed to get five pieces of the chocolate on the stick where the marshmallows had been, and Touga told Muraki to do the same. It didn't take as long for the chocolate to melt as the marshmallows, and Touga practically fell over trying to grab a plate to catch the chocolate ooze. Again, Touga and Muraki's combined chocolate filled up the plate. Touga set the plate of brown goo next to the plate of white goo, then turned back to Muraki.
"It's almost time for the romantic part," said Touga, pulling Muraki close.
"I still don't quite understand why we needed to melt the stuff. Don't tell me we need to melt the crackers too!"
"Oh, no. The crackers just need to be crushed."
"Crushed?"
"You'll see what I mean when we're done. Right now, I need you to take off your clothes. Or at least your coat and shirt."
"Why do you need me to do that?"
Touga let go of Muraki and began opening his own jacket. "It's essential for what we're going to do."
Suddenly, something clicked in Muraki's brain. He grinned wide, and pulled off his coat and shirt. "I think I've figured out where you're going with this…"
"And you still want to do it?"
"I do. Oh, I do."
******
Nanami's cronies crept back into the clearing slooowly, peeking over some bushes and calling out softly to Nanami.
"N…Nanami-sama? We're sorry we ran away… Are you…?"
Aiko gasped as she spotted Nanami in the middle of the clearing, covered in squirrels. The little chattering creatures skittered off quickly and the girls gasped as they watched Nanami sit up, covered in squirrel bites and scratches from little claws. She slowly turned around and stared at her runaway cronies. The girls froze in horror.
"Girls… I need to talk with you…" Nanami said, motioning them forward.
******
Touga chuckled as he grabbed the plates of chocolate and marshmallow. Muraki sat next to the fire and grinned, waiting for what Touga had in store. Touga dipped his hand into the chocolate and smiled at Muraki.
"Now, we start to have fun…"
He slathered the chocolate across Muraki's chest, humming to himself as he did. Muraki was slightly shocked by the feeling of the warm, sticky stuff oozing over him, but then he started to enjoy it.
"See, this is the kind of s'more I was talking about," he said cheerfully. "Everyone knows the best kind is the human kind."
Muraki nodded and purred deep in his throat. Touga took that as an agreement and started to rub in the chocolate with a huge smile on his face.
"Now, shall we try some of that marshmallow?…"
******
The three girls with Nanami crashed through the underbrush, screaming.
"WE'RE SORRY NANAMI-SAMA! REEEEALLY!"
"Oh YEAH?! Show me how sorry you are… quit running
like a bunch of cowards!"
The girls squealed and apologized as they attempted
to outrun Nanami, but the squirrel-bitten young woman wouldn't have any
of it.
"I'll feed all three of you to the SQUIRRELS!"
"UWAAAAAHHHH!" they cried, and went even faster, fear nipping at their heels.
******
"Bob?" asked Rob, jumping out of bed, alert.
"Yeah?"
"Did you hear more screaming…?"
"Stop doing that, Rob!!" Bob muttered, and promptly
snapped, "Now shut up and get back into bed!"