He sat there for a minute or two in silence, probably expecting everyone to jump out of their hiding places and surprise him.
"Where is everyone?" he repeated.
Then he shrugged. "Well, I'm taking my turn."
MEANWHILE!!!
"Say Hatori, didn't you say that we were leaving soon?" said Ayame randomly.
"WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!" Yuki and Momiji cried like dub Momiji.
"Why are you crying?" asked Ayame.
"Because we want to go home." They said, still in Momiji's dub voice.
"Very well, we SHALL!!" Ayame decided.
"But I'm ILL!!" yelled Shigure.
"So?!" demanded Ayame. "I'LL drive. You can lie in the back."
"But everyone will be sitting in the back." Hatori pointed out. "Remember the car we have?"
Ayame shuddered in remembrance of the horrible bug. "Kureno, what kind of car did you bring?" he asked innocently.
"A van…" said Kureno, looking up from his Akito fondling.
"Oh." Said Ayame. Then he and Hatori exchanged glances. "Well…I'm just going to go downstairs for no reason…"
"I think we ALL will…" Hatori added.
"But not Akito!" yelled the chicken, grabbing Akito's head as tightly as he could.
"Fine, he can stay here." Said Ayame. "We won't miss him."
"Why, are you going somewhere?" asked the Chicken.
"No, of course not!" said Ayame as he hoisted up Kyo, Yuki, Kagura and Momiji over his shoulder and started going downstairs.
"Shigure, come downstairs for a minute." Said Hatori.
"I can't." moaned Shigure.
"Stop overreacting." Said Hatori. "I'm still in pain too but I can still walk."
"Fine…" sniffled Shigure as he got out of bed and groaned with every step as if it was REALLY that painful. About half way down the ladder, Hatori turned around to see that Tohru was still lying there.
"Tohru I uh…need your help with something." He said.
"Okay!" said Tohru as she hopped out of bed and ran over to Hatori. Small children are very resilient and heal quickly.
Then they grabbed Haru on the way to the front door and tip toed away.
But Ayame had to slam the door behind him just so that the chicken could look out the window and see them screeching away instead of later coming to the realization that they were no longer there. And that's exactly what happened.
Ayame was chuckling warmly to himself as he drove at about a trillion miles an hour.
"Ayame, you're over the speed limit just a little bit." Said Hatori.
"How do you know?" Ayame asked. "The speedometer is broken."
"Slow down right now." Hatori commanded.
"Oh…oh very well…" sighed Ayame as he slowed down to a reasonable speed.
It was a reasonably quiet ride until Yuki put on his Sugar Beets and Kidz Bop tape in the tape player. Then they threw Tohru at Yuki so he turned into a rat and then tossed his tapes out the window. Then Yuki cried like dub Momiji and Momiji joined in just because he IS Momiji.
Everyone who was in the least bit sickly (that's everyone except for Kyo, Haru and Ayame) decided that they would take a nap until they got home. And that's what they did.
"Do you know the way home?" Haru asked.
"Yes." Ayame replied.
"I wasn't talking to YOU." Said Haru. "I was talking to Kyo."
"WHY?" asked Ayame AND Kyo.
"Because." Haru answered.
"Because WHY?" asked Ayame. "I'm the one who's driving."
"Yeah." Said Haru. "And my mom says that I'm not supposed to distract people who are driving by asking questions."
"Well that's only because you ask an excessively large amount of questions all the time, Haru." Ayame answered. "And she was probably sick of hearing you."
"I'M sick of hearing you." Said Kyo.
"I'm not." Said Haru.
"That's because you can't hear YOURSELF." Said Kyo as if that was true.
"Yes you can." Said Ayame.
"Yeah but you can't get annoyed by yourself." Kyo corrected himself.
"That's not true." Ayame replied. "You can easily annoy yourself."
"How?" asked Haru.
"Well…if I were you then I would be SO annoyed with myself." Ayame answered.
"Why?" asked Haru.
"Because then I would be you." Ayame said as if that were obvious. "And I wouldn't be ME."
"…Um…" Haru said.
"Why would you want to be YOU?" asked Kyo.
"Is this a trick question?" Ayame said pompously.
"Ayame, what's it like not being a mammal all the time?" Haru asked.
Everyone stopped.
"WHAT?" Ayame said.
"I was going to ask Hatori but he's sleeping…and I'm not supposed to ask people questions while they're sleeping." Haru said.
"I thought you weren't supposed to ask questions while people are driving too." Kyo pointed out.
"My mom says I should just not ask questions." Haru said. "She says I'm annoying."
"Well there you have it." Ayame said. "Even your mom agrees that it would be annoying to be you."
"No, she's says I'm annoying, not that it would be annoying to be me." Haru said.
"It's the same." Ayame said. "I'm sure she MEANT to say that it would be annoying to be you."
"But still…what's it like not being a mammal all the time?" Haru said, changing the subject. "I'm ALWAYS a mammal."
"Me too." Said Kyo.
"SILENCE!!!" yelled Ayame so loudly that it was a surprise that no one woke up. "I'm trying to drive and concentrate!"
"Can I drive?" asked Haru.
"Me too!" Kyo said excitedly.
"OH FINE!" said Ayame as if they had been begging him for hours. He pulled the car over to the side of the road and then he sat in the passenger seat which was empty. Kyo and Haru got into the driver's seat. Actually, Kyo stood up in the seat and Haru got down where the pedals were.
They sat there for a minute.
"Haru, you have to push the pedals." Ayame explained.
"Oh." Said Haru as he pushed down on both of the pedals.
"…No, you have to choose one or the other." Ayame said with a sigh.
"Oh." Said Haru as he pushed the brake.
"Haru, you're such an idiot." Said Ayame. "You have to press the gas pedal. You know, the one you're NOT pushing?"
Haru looked at the one he was not pushing. "Oh." He said, pushing down on the gas pedal as hard as he could. With that, the car sped off and went at about a trillion miles an hour just like it was before.
Of course, the sudden jolt awakened all the sleeping folk. And the ones that didn't wake up from the sudden jolt were awakened by Kyo screaming, "I'M DRIVING!!!!"
"What are you doing?" Hatori said, right at that exact line BEFORE he needed an exclamation point.
"DRIVING!!!" Kyo screamed. Hatori looked at Ayame who was reading his Vogue magazine.
Luckily, at that time, Haru was curious to see what was going on up above so he let go of the pedals and climbed up on the seat.
"What are you doing?!" demanded Kyo. "Get back down there!"
"I wanna see." Said Haru.
"That's enough of this." Said Hatori, grabbing Kyo and Haru and pulling them into the backseat. He then climbed into the front to the driver's seat.
"Hatori, I think you should let THEM drive." Said Ayame. "You crashed; they didn't."
"Ayame, be quiet." Hatori replied.
"I'll drive next!" said Yuki.
"No you won't." Hatori answered.
"That's not fair!" whined all the kids who didn't get to drive.
Luckily since there were two periods of time in which they went at a trillion miles an hour, they were already in front of Tohru's house. Her mother, who was alive, was standing outside on the front lawn obsessively waiting for her to come home.
"Mom!" shrieked Tohru as she jumped out of the car and into her mother's arms.
"Tohru, just be yourself and everyone will love you and love everyone and you will love yourself." Said Tohru's Mom as she carried Tohru back into the house.
All the people in the car paused and waited for something to happen but when nothing did, they shrugged and continued driving until they finally got to the Souma neighborhood. Since the neighborhood was so large. They had to drop off all the kids individually.
First, they decided to drop Momiji off because he was crying like his dub self.
Ayame walked up to the front steps with Momiji since Hatori and Shigure were STILL sick and wanted to stay in the car. He knocked on the door and eventually, the door opened just a little teeny crack and someone peaked at them through the little teeny crack.
"Um…I'm here to drop Momiji off." Ayame said.
"Get away…" said the female inside. "Get away you horrible Jyuunishi freaks of nature!!"
"Hi mom!" said Momiji.
"BE GONE!!!" Momiji's Mom screamed. "WHY DID YOU COME HOME?! I WAS FINALLY HAPPY WITHOUT YOU!!!" Then she slammed the door shut. After a few seconds of standing there in silence, the door opened again only Momiji's DAD was standing there.
"Momiji!" he said happily, bending down and hugging Momiji.
"Hi dad!" said Momiji.
Then Momiji's Dad stood up and faced Ayame. "You'll have to excuse my wife." He said. "She's a bit prejudiced against the Jyuunishi."
"Don't worry, I get it a lot from my OWN mother!" Said Ayame. "You know, we have ways of helping her kind. My friend Hatori in the car…"
"I know." Said Momiji's Dad. "We have an appointment next week."
"Okay then." Said Ayame as he frolicked off back to the car.
Up next was Kagura just because she's kind of faded into the background so she might as well just leave.
Ayame walked Kagura up to HER front steps.
"Mom!" said Kagura.
"Kagura!" said her mom.
Kagura's house was shaped like a spatula. Why? It doesn't matter.
Um…yay…
SO ANYWAY!! Ayame went back to the car.
Next they were going to drop Haru off.
Ayame walked Haru up to HIS front steps.
He rang the doorbell.
Haru's Auntie came to the door and laughed manically. "HAHAHAHA!!" she laughed as she slapped her knee. "It's only natural that the cow would ring his OWN doorbell!" she said. "I mean, he was stupid enough to let the rat ride him to the party so that's all we can really expect from him!!"
Then a swarm of Haru Aunties laughed at him.
"Hey…" said Haru.
"See you later Haru!" said Ayame as he ran off. As they were driving away, they looked behind them to see a giant mushroom cloud where Haru's house used to be. Then they all chuckled at the thought of Black Haru and how they were glad that THEY didn't have to deal with him anymore.
Finally, it was time to drop off Kyo.
They drove to Shishou-Sama's house and…can you guess what Ayame did? He walked Kyo up to the steps and knocked on the door. Shishou-Sama opened the door and there was a light shining behind him and he was smiling and had horseshoe eyes and was sparkling and there was music in the background and all that other kind of Shishou stuff.
"Welcome back…Kyo!" said Shishou-Sama.
"Shishou!" said Kyo, smiling WAY too happily. Then he leapt into Shishou-Sama's arms and latched onto him like a leech just to ruin the moment so it wouldn't be RIGHT out of an episode!!
But then Shishou-Sama punched him to the ground and stood up grinning as if punching a small child should make him grin. "You still have a long way to go before you can latch onto me like that!" he said.
"Someday!" said Kyo. "Someday…I will…become somebody…who will… BE ABLE TO LATCH ONTO YOU!!"
"Let's hope that that day comes when you are still a small child or else that would just be weird." Said Shishou-Sama.
"Well, by that time, I can assume I will have a new goal." Kyo said.
"Can I leave?" asked Ayame who was feeling uncomfortable.
"No. Come in for tea." said Shishou-Sama forcefully.
"I can't." said Ayame.
"Ayame, don't make me get violent." Threatened Shishou-Sama.
"Well, if you insist!" Ayame said as he was about to walk in but Hatori beeped the horn from the car.
"Why didn't you tell me that you were the designated driver?" Shishou-Sama asked. "Go, drive the rest of your friends home."
"I'm actually not driving." Ayame replied. "I'm just walking everybody to their front steps."
"Well…go do that then." Said Shishou-Sama as he slammed the door on Ayame's face.
Ayame shrugged and went back to the car.
"What took so long?" asked Shigure.
"Kazuma wanted me to come in for tea." Ayame answered.
"Oh." Said Shigure. "Well, I want to go home next."
"Fine." Said Hatori as he drove to Shigure's house in the woods that was OUT of the Souma neighborhood. Yes…he lives there. Only with his parents. And…his sister. And his four brothers…and his pet dog, Pochie-San. And his grandmother who has Parkinson's disease. And his cousin who has mad cow disease. AKA Haru who is visiting since his house blew up.
"Would you look at that?" said Shigure. "Haru's at my house!"
"Lucky you." Said Ayame as Shigure got out of the car.
"Haru, what are you doing here?" asked Shigure.
"My house blew up." Haru replied.
"Well how did THAT happen?!" Shigure said as if he didn't know.
"I'm not telling." Haru said.
"Well, whatever you did, don't do it to my house with so many people living in it!" Shigure warned. Then he waved goodbye to Ayame, Hatori and Yuki but then remembered that he was still sick so he quickly ran inside to rest up.
"Hatori, YOU'RE next!" said Ayame.
"Why can't you two be next?" asked Hatori.
"Because I want to keep the car." Ayame said truthfully.
"Well, I don't trust you." Said Hatori. "I'm afraid that maybe you might let Yuki drive."
"I wouldn't do THAT!" said Ayame. "Why would I let YUKI drive?!"
Before he could protest any further, he looked out the window to see that Hatori had already driven to Ayame and Yuki's house.
"Well fine…" said Ayame. "Since we're HERE and all…"
Then he got out of the car and Yuki got out too and just as Hatori was about to drive away, Ayame leapt out in front of the car.
"Aren't you going to walk us to our front steps?!" he demanded.
"I'm sure you'll be fine." Said Hatori. "You walk everyone to the front steps anyway."
"But who will walk YOU to the front steps?" asked Ayame.
"Don't worry." Said Hatori. "I'll be fine."
"All right Hatori but if I find out later that you were kidnapped and molested just because you walked to your house unattended then I'll just say 'I told you so!'"
"Okay…" said Hatori as he swerved around Ayame and then headed to his house.
Ayame and Yuki went to their house and went inside.
"WE'RE HOME!!!" they screamed together.
"NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!" screamed their mom from upstairs.
Back with Hatori, he was driving home. Well…then he got home.
We don't know anything about Hatori's family, only extensively about his love life so we'll just say that he got home, went to his room and enjoyed a good smoke after not smoking for a period of time that will not be specified.
From downstairs, Hatori's mom called, "Hatori!!" she called. "The phone's for you! It's Ayame! He just wants to make sure you got home okay!"
Hatori paused. "Tell him I'm smoking." He said.
END!!