-+- Standard Disclaimer -+-
The characters depicted in this story are not mine. Sue me and you get nada, cuz that's how much I own. Blah.
-+- End of Disclaimer -+-
Unlikely Companions
A fiction novella by Dave Zhang (dzhang@its.caltech.edu). Comments and criticisms welcomed. Copyright 2003.
"This text is spoken." 'This text is thought.'
Chapter 2: My Sassy Sailor Scout
"So let's hear it. What did you guys do?" asked a mildly irritated Yuu. "That's the least you could do considering I spent the last of my money and all of today's earnings bailing you guys out."
Ranma pointed vindictively at Miroku. "Hey! Don't look at me! I didn't do nothing. It's all Mr. Medieval Monk's fault. I get back and find him starting a fire on the sidewalk, preparing to cook some guy's pet dog that he killed with that holy staff of his."
Miroku tittered sheepishly. "Hehe. Back where I came from, anything that isn't human, and isn't penned up is fair game. Was just going to surprise you guys with a good meal, that's all."
At the mention of food, all four companions' stomachs chose that moment to simultaneously growl.
"Aw, nuts! I'm so hungry. Man, Kasumi's cooking or Ucchan's okonomiyaki would sure hit the spot right now."
Cherry agreed. "We are very unlucky. And hungry."
After a moment's consideration, Cherry asked, "What about the temple where we first appeared? Miroku and I are priests, they should welcome us and give us a meal and a night's lodging."
"Ah..." said Ranma. "I kinda thought the head priest was you and kicked him and... Wait! That's it! Ranma kicked him, but Ran-Ko didn't!" Ranma joyous ran to the nearest puddle and shoved his face in it, converting into a girl.
Hunger was instantly forgotten for Miroku as he appeared an instant later by Ranma-chan, feeling her up.
"Mi...ro...ku!!!"
The group headed to the Hino temple after Miroku recovered from his head concussions. Miroku being Miroku, he recovered in two and a half minutes.
Grandpa Hino welcomed the travellers, though he did feel a bit uneasy about Ranma. Some of his residual Shinto priest skills tipped off his subconscious that Ranma-chan was the same as the boy who kicked him halfway across town earlier, but this was quickly forgotten in light of Ranma-chan's looks.
"Ah, it is good to meet my fellow priests. You are indeed welcome to stay for the night, as are your friends. I will have my grand-daughter prepare food for you immediately," said Hino to Miroku and Cherry as they bowed to each other. Hino was all the while staring at Ranma-chan. Miroku, for his part, did not notice since his eyes were on the same. Cherry muttered under his breath, "They are both very unlucky."
"Now, where is that girl Rei? She should have been back hours ago!"
"Ah, don't worry about it," said Ranma-chan. "Just point me to the kitchen and I'll cook us up a meal."
Grandpa Hino pointed, and then he and Miroku blindly followed Ranma-chan there.
Moments later, he and Miroku were forcibly ejected from the kitchen, courtesy of the Ranko Backhand.
"My," said Grandpa Hino as he picked himself up from the ground. "She reminds me a lot of the teenage boy who kicked me into Hardcore Studios earlier today."
Ranma-chan and Miroku both blanched.
***
Rei, for her part, was currently busy battling the latest Negaverse creation, El Quehal.
Rei jumped, barely dodging the monster's dreaded Ethyl Attack. She landed on her feet, but the effects of the battle were gnawing and her, and he quickly lost her balance and landed on her rear.
Ami, in her Sailor Mercury form, casted a Aqua Shine Illusion. Moments later, the entire street was enclosed in an ethereal bubble. Too bad she pointed the wrong way, and hit a completely deserted street, instead of the one with El Quehal in it.
El Quehal, a monstrous entity of sloshing liquid with gigantic bottles for arms, was winning the battle. His attacks were too powerful, and rendered the Scouts completely confused. Now, all he needed to do was get rid of them.
At that point, Tuxedo Mask appeared, and threw a steel rose at El Quehal--only to have the rose pass straight through the liquid monster. It did, however, catch the monsters attention, and it retaliated with a Hydroxy Splash, which hit Tuxedo Mask straight in the face.
"Hey... that tastes pretty good," commented Mamoru, licking his lips as he fell from the building he was standing on. "Tequila Sunrise, right?"
His curiosity was sated when his consciousness was abruptly ended by impact with the ground.
Usagi realized her friends were being hurt, and gather all of her remaining willpower to open her eyes again. Grabbing her rod, she screamed out, "Moon princess halation!"
Her target promptly dropped to the ground. Unfortunately, in her drunken stupor Usagi had targetted Makoto.
El Quehal laughed heartily at his opponent's foolishness. "THIS IS TOO EASY!" He quickly hit Usagi with another powerful Hydroxy Splash, which pushed an even more drunken Usagi into the wall.
"NOW, TO TAKE THAT LITTLE TOY OF YOURS!" boomed El Quehal's deranged voice as he approached the Moon Princess. Usagi, now on the verge of passing out, idly flailed her arms about, moaning, "Oh mom, let me sleep some more."
Fortunately for her and the Sailor Scouts, she was still holding her cutie moon rod as she did so, and so she inadvertently hit one of El Quehal's bottle arms, breaking it.
"NO!!!!" screamed out El Quehal as his life-blood... er, alcohol... was quickly drained out the glass opening and hosed onto the streets.
In another minute, all that remained from the battle scene were two broken beer bottles, a street flooded in booze, one knocked out Makoto, and four very drunk Inner Senshi.
"Eh..." said the newspaper camera-man to his assistant. "Let's not post this story tomorrow, OK?"
***
After eating a hearty meal prepared by Ranma-chan (Yuu had to admit that she was a much better cook than he expected), Yuu sat around the temple and traded life stories with his fellow travellers before they all agreed to get some rest before continuing their adventure tomorrow.
Yuu, however, could not sleep. Maybe it was the fact that he wouldn't be able to see Miki again in who knows how long. Maybe he was still traumatized by the fact that Miki is his sister. Maybe it was the fact that his companions' stories weirded him out a bit. Maybe it was the fact that the head priest's grand-daughter was still missing. Maybe it was a combination of all of the above. But more likely, it was because Ranma's damn snoring kept him up. Miroku and Cherry didn't seem to notice, but to Yuu it was unbearable. He got up, and trekked to the lawn, intent on sleeping under the stars, but then once he was up he couldn't sleep again.
Yuu checked his wallet. 130 yen left. Very close to nothing, but it should be enough for a round-trip fare on a subway. Maybe he'll explore this new world he was thrusted in, and maybe admire the architecture or something.
**
Yuu was decently happy. Having toured the strange city, he decided it was close enough to normal that he just might be able to do all right in it. Architecture was pretty similar too. Maybe if he was stuck here his whole life, he could still be an architect. Maybe... if he continued thinking only about architecture, he could eventually one day learn to forget Miki.
Yuu was on the subway train on his return trip as he deliberated for the seventeenth time, the ramifications of living in a world without his step-sister girlfriend.
'No, this doesn't do. I have to try to forget! Thinking of her will only cause more pain.' Yuu's eyes scanned the subway train, hoping for something amusing to latch his active mind onto. He settled on watching a very drunk girl in a school uniform. She tottered back and forth, keeping upright only by her arm that grasped the rail bars.
At that moment, a new flood of passengers got onto the train. An old man took his place to stand beside the drunk girl.
"Hey." The drunk girl addressed a teenage boy sitting beside her. The boy was reading a manga, and did not realize she was talking to him.
"Hey!" That got his attention. He looked up at the girl inquisitively, wondering what the drunk girl wanted.
"Get up!" The boy sported a confused look at this request, before smiling good-naturedly and returning to his manga.
"GET UP!" yelled the girl as she fiercely smacked him on the head. "Don't you have respect for your elders? Offer your seat to this old man, NOW!"
The boy decided the luxury of sitting wasn't worth the pain of additional attacks by the girl, so he complied. The old man offered his thanks to the drunk girl before taking the vacated seat. The girl smiled at the man before closing her eyes and returning to swaying on the railing.
"" Yuu continued to watch the girl in disgusted fascination. Her hiccuping accelerated, and Yuu could tell she was going to be displaying her lunch soon.
'Yep. There it went.' The girl puked all over the old man's head. The old man removed his hairpiece, very agitated, wondering how he was possibly to clean it, when the girl puked again onto his bald head.
It was all Yuu could do to not break out laughing. The girl looked around, and seeing Yuu, reached forward for him, saying "Mamo-chan..." before collapsing into subconsciousness.
"You!"
"Uh, me?" said Yuu.
"Do something about this!" demanded the irate old man gesturing to his soiled hairpiece and head.
"Ha," Yuu chuckled, "I'm sorry, there's been a mistake."
"Clean it! Now!"
Yuu shrugged. Oh well. He removed the sweater he was wearing, and wiped the old man's head with it, spill some of the girl's lunch onto the old man's lap. He then wiped the toupee with another portion of his sweater, before finally putting it back onto the old man.
"Argh!" shouted the old man in frustration. "Go take care of your girlfriend!"
"Oh, she's not my..."
"She called you Mamo-chan before she passed out! Don't deny it! Go take care of her you useless boy!"
Yuu sighed as he dragged the slumbering form of the girl out of the subway train.
'Well, there's no way I'm going to try to explain this to my companions, or the priest. Better head off somewhere else.'
At that moment, the girl woke up briefly to puke on Yuu before passing out again. Yuu sighed again. He quickly ruffled through the girl's purse, and found a decent stash of money. 'Ah, good. I can just drop her off at a motel or something then.'
Deciding he was soiled enough as it was already, Yuu gathered the girl onto his back, and carried her to the nearest motel.
After paying for a room, he dragged her up four flights of stairs to the room on the fifth floor, and dumped her onto the bed.
'Well then, I should leave now.'
The girl's cell phone rang. Yuu, not really thinking, picked it up and answered.
"Hello?"
"Ah, her? She's sleeping right next to me."
"We're in the Fuji Love Motel on Sixth Street. Say, who are..."
The phone line clicked, and the dial tone quickly followed. The woman on the other side had hung up.
Yuu shrugged. Weird.
Yuu felt and smelled very bad right now with the girl's gastric juices all over him, and decided he would take a shower before leaving.
In the middle of his shower, he heard someone knocking on the door. Since he was in the middle of the shower, he decided to ignore it. The knocking became louder and more frequent. Finally Yuu decided he'd finish his shower later. Quickly draping himself in a towel, he opened the door to three female police officers.
One quickly noticed the drunk girl on the bed, and Yuu's less-than-formal attire, and said, "Freeze! Hands in the air!"
Yuu quickly complied, and noticed immediately after that with nothing to support his towel, it had dropped to the floor, leaving him and his little friend in plain view of the female officer. He quickly moved his hands to cover his nether regions.
For which he got tear-gassed.
***
"Oh, come on, officers. This is all one big misunderstanding," pleaded Yuu.
"Yeah, yeah, that's what they all say." The officer led Yuu around the corner to his cell.
Yuu took one look at his cell-mates and started pleading harder. "Oh please, anywhere but there! Come on, I'm innocent here! Don't do this to me!"
The officer unceremoniously threw him into the cell before locking it and leaving.
"Ah..." Yuu found himself face-to-face with six men in their twenties, all sporting black eyes or bleeding knuckles or bandaged wounds. Yuu decided he would have to study martial arts with Ranma ASAP.
"So you say you're innocent, eh?" The leader cracked his knuckles. "You hinting we're not!?"
***
Around noon the next day, the police officers released a very bruised and battered Yuu from his cell. Yuu sighed as he was leaving the police station. Spotting a jar of gum, he reached in a took one. It hurt his mouth to chew. Damn, and all because of some drunk girl.
He stopped walking suddenly in surprise. The drunk girl was now in front of him, very sober.
"You're the guy that was with me last night?"
"Ye..." Yuu did not have a chance to go any farther before he was slapped fiercely by the girl.
"Why did you hit me? I didn't do anything to you."
"And who's to say you wouldn't have if the police didn't show up when they did!?" She breathed in and out several times, recollecting herself. "Fine. Follow me. You can tell me about what happened last night."
Yuu smiled. "All right. Friends?" He extended his hand forming half a handshake.
She eyed him uneasily. 'Well, he doesn't seem ill-intentioned.' She finally also extended hers to complete the handshake. She shook hands with him, and then retracted her own.
It was then she noticed a weird feeling on her right palm. Bringing it up to her face, she noticed a blob of something on it. It took her a second before she realized it for what it was... used gum. "You!!!"
"Baka!" shouted Yuu merrily as he pinched her nose, before he took off running.
***
Rei and Yuu sat down at their table in the restaurant, with Yuu sporting one more bruise than he had that morning. The waiter walked by and asked them what they would like to drink.
"Hot tea for me, please," said Yuu.
Rei shot him a dirty look. "Don't drink that! Drink Coke." She looked at the waiter. "A Coke for me." She then looked over to Yuu, daring him to disagree, "and a Coke for him too."
Not that Rei really had any aversion to tea, or any special favoritism towards Coke, but she was still upset at Yuu for sticking used gum into her hand, despite that she gave him a good punch to the solar plexus in return. She was determined to make this meal with Yuu as uncomfortable for Yuu as possible.
Yuu smiled, "All right, a Coke for me too then."
"I want fugu. You can order anything you want as long as it doesn't have asparagus on it."
"The Honshu Burger please."
The waiter nodded, and headed off to fill their orders.
"So tell me. What happened last night? Don't you dare lie, or there's more where that haymaker came from!"
"The truth was amusing enough; don't think I'll have to embellish it," said Yuu with a laugh. He then proceeded to tell the events of the last night in complete accuracy.
'Ah, right. That stupid El Quehal monster made us drunk. Hm, that reminds me, I should check up on how the others are doing.'
Rei suddenly got up and left for the ladies' room, to talk to her friends via her communicator. Rei didn't bother to leave an apology or excuse to Yuu, who was in mid-sentence.
"Ah, Rei, it's a good thing we found you. We were starting to get worried after my mother called your cell phone and some strange guy picked up." said her blue-haired friend Ami.
"Ah, it's ok. It was just some prankster who got a hold of my cell. I gave a good piece of my mind already though. How's everyone else?"
"We're all doing fine, except Makoto who's still a bit hurt from Usagi's attack. She's be fine in a couple... oh no! Monster attack!"
Rei didn't have to be told twice. She bolted out the restroom and out of the restaurant, towards the coordinates displayed on her communicator.
Yuu, watched, stunned and concerned at what could have possibly caused Rei to become so agitated. At that point, the waiter walked by to Yuu's table, delivering their drinks, the expensive blowfish dish, and his burger. And Yuu remembered that he *still* didn't have any money.
"Um," said Yuu a bit sheepishly. "I happen to be a bit short on funds, and it seems my companion had a sudden emergency..."
***
Rei met the other Senshi at the noted location and transformed into Sailor Mars. And then they battled against El Quehal 2, the same liquidy monster, except with steel bottles for arms this time. Again, the battle waged for hours, until all the Senshi plus Tuxedo Mask became completely intoxicated, and were about to lose the battle, when Usagi accidentally bumped into a fire hydrant as she wandered about aimlessly. With her Sailor-boosted strength, she destroyed the fire hydrant, and thus El Quehal 2 was defeated by dilution. Then Senshi de-transformed and parted ways.
Rei was trying to stumble to the subway station as she literally ran into Yuu, who finally finished his eight hours of dishwashing to pay for the meal.
Yuu, for his part, was about to head off into the horizon running away from this bearer of bad luck when he heard "Chad..." and the sound of Rei collapsing to the floor.
Yuu sighed. Sometimes he really hated being a good guy.
***
Rei woke up the next day in Room 503 of the Fuji Love Motel. The previous day she had awoken in the the emergency room of the local hospital.
'Well, I'm not profusely bleeding, so it looks like whoever found me yesterday was a gentleman. Peh, much better than the guy two nights ago, at least.' Rei still didn't really buy Yuu's story. The version the police gave her left her with too much doubt of Yuu's intentions.
She noticed a letter on the desk beside her, and began reading it.
"Hello Rei,"
'How does this person know my name?' Rei wondered. She kept reading.
"I learned from the previous day's lesson, so I left before answering your cell. The police station is a fine establishment but I have no desire to visit it again so soon. And oh yeah, next time you decide to order something really expensive without paying for it, let the other guy know, OK? On the desk is your blowfish dish, which I worked 5 hours washing dishes to pay off."
'Hmph! So it was that guy, Yuu, again.' A trace of guilt filled Rei though. She *had* intended on extorting a free blowfish meal, but she didn't expect Yuu to have to wash dishes for it.
"Take care, don't drink so much next time, and I really hope I don't see you again. --Yuu"
Rei sighed with a feeling of sadness, as she realized Yuu's earlier story was probably completely truthful. 'Yeah, I have actually been pretty much a bad luck charm to him. If I ever see him again I should apologize to him.'
Rei turned to the boxed meal, and opened it. It was in fact the blowfish dish as Yuu stated in the letter, with a side of rice. Rei tore into it. It was cold, but it was still fugu, and fugu could never taste bad to Rei. After chomping down half of the fish filet, Rice dug into the rice, until she noticed a crispy thin thing in her rice, something that tasted like...
"Paper?" Rei wondered aloud. She gently took out the strip of paper. Despite the fact that she had chewed most of the paper to shreds already, she could easily make out the two kanji words on the strip.
Baka!
Rei pounded the table in anger and swore obscenities not befitting of a Sailor Scout, before giggling a bit, and returning to her meal. Now she *really* wanted to find this Yuu again.
--End Chapter 2--
// In case anyone couldn't figure it out, this chapter was based heavily on My Sassy Girl. After all, Rei is a close to a Mustard Girl as anyone can get, and only someone like Yuu could fill the role of Kyun-woo. // I thought this was the best place to rip Yuu out of his story. Much as he loved Miki, it was obvious he was *very* uncomfortable dating his sister. Ripping him at that point, of course, enables him to pursue his new Mustard Girl. Not that I don't like Miki. Miki's is one of my fave female characters, right up there with Asuka and Huang Rong. But I decided this would be an all-guy expedition. Maybe I'll write a female version at some point as well.