The Day of Humor
The quartet arrived at Rei's safely, and slept soundly. Kenshin, Inuyasha, Rei, and Yuzumi had woken up and were enjoying a nice breakfast and discussing the night's events. Sakura was still asleep and no one felt that it was worth it to wake her up. "So, how much longer until your sisters are supposed to have that invention ready?" Rei asked after Yuzumi finished relating their night's experiences.
"Tomorrow some time." Yuzumi replied with a sigh.
"Think you can mange until then?" Rei asked.
"I don't know. The Zoamel Gustav cult thing should be taken care of for now, but I can't be sure."
"You know, you guys should go to one of those secluded campsite/picnic areas in the mountains. It's an hour or two's drive, but you should be safe from any avid fans." Rei suggested. Sakura walked into the kitchen then and sat down. "Ohaiyo[1], Sakura."
"Nng, huh?" Sakura sleepily replied.
"She's the worst morning person I've ever seen." Rei commented.
"Yeah, just don't try to wake her up. She goes nuts." Yuzumi said.
"I'll remember that. Do you want breakfast, Sakura?" Rei asked.
"Huh? Oh, uh no." Sakura replied.
"Breakfast is the most important meal of the day." Rei philosophically stated.
"I hate morning people." Sakura growled.
"Dude, its past ten o'clock." Yuzumi declared.
"It's before noon right? That makes it morning." Sakura shrugged.
"Rei had an idea…." Yuzumi began.
"Good for her." Sakura growled.
"Anyway," Yuzumi said forcefully, "Rei thought we should go to a campsite thing in the mountains."
"Sounds good to me, but Rei should come to."
"What? Hey this isn't my gig." Rei argued.
"It was your suggestion." Sakura countered.
"Uh…excuse me I hate to interrupt, but I was wondering about the campsite. Why would we need to camp out?" Kenshin asked.
"We don't need to camp out. It would just be relaxing." Sakura tried to explain.
"Relaxing?" Inuyasha sarcastically asked with one eyebrow raised. "I've never found camping to be relaxing."
"There aren't any demons here Inuyasha, so we don't have to worry about being attacked. Plus where we would be going, there wouldn't be many people so we won't have fans bothering us." Yuzumi informed Inuyasha. Inuyasha didn't believe this for a minute, but he couldn't think of anything to say that would combat what Yuzumi had told him. As far as he was concerned, the girl Martina was a dark priestess that served some horrible demon. Why else would she act like such an idiot? Kenshin had decided that given the amount of unusual technology and stuff in this world camping might just be relaxing. Sleeping in Sakura's tank wasn't all that uncomfortable, and he felt that's what they'd be sleeping in again.
"Camping isn't a bad idea. We can all load in the Tank and have a nice barbeque. And, since Rei so kindly suggested it, she can come along too." Sakura said with a smile.
"Alright I'll go, but on one condition." Rei countered.
"And what's that?" Yuzumi asked.
"We are only allowed to listen to X music and can only discus X or shonen-ai[2] related stuff." Rei said.
"No way! I will not participate in anything that has to do with shonen-ai, and I don't know much about X. Sakura, she is not coming." Yuzumi disgustedly shuddered.
"Actually Yuzumi, she's coming. And, we'll adhere to her conditions." Sakura said with a pointed look at Yuzumi.
Kenshin and Inuyasha looked at each other. They hadn't figured out what 'X' was yet, but they could figure out the indications of shonen-ai and decided to not engage in a conversation about such things. They also began to wonder about Rei.
"Of course you don't mind. You're a shonen-ai fan and a slight X fan." Yuzumi said with a hint of frustration.
"She's coming, end of discussion. If you don't like what we talk about then you don't have to listen or participate." Sakura said with a hint of steal in her voice. Yuzumi decided to give up for now. She could always talk to Kenshin or Inuyasha. She was sure they wouldn't want anything to do with a shonen-ai discussion.
"Well, since you are going to meet my conditions, I'll go." Rei complied. Kenshin and Inuyasha weren't sure what to think of the situation.
"Okay, let's load up in The Tank." Sakura announced as she began to head out the door.
"Hey I haven't finished breakfast yet!" Yuzumi complained.
"To bad, let's go." Sakura unsympathetically ordered.
"Dammit. She can be a bitch in the morning." Yuzumi growled under her breath.
"When does the morningness wear off?" Rei inquisitively asked.
"About noon. She can be reasonable then." Yuzumi sighed.
Kenshin, Inuyasha, Rei, and Yuzumi followed Sakura out to the Tank and the headed out.
An hour later they were driving through the forested mountain roads. The drive was quite pretty and Sakura seemed to loose her 'morningness'. They listened to the X CDs in conssesion and everyone was enjoying themselves. They also discovered another feature of Sakura's Tank. Even though there were five people in the front of The Tank, there seemed to be plenty of room and no one was squished. Once they were in the mountains, it wasn't too long before they discovered a campsite to their liking.
"Alright everyone out of The Tank." Sakura cheerfully said.
Everyone got out and Sakura popped open the back of The Tank. "Is there a grill handy?" She asked.
"Yeah, over there." Yuzumi pointed.
"Good then I don't have to dig out the one in here." Sakura announced. Everyone looked at each other, then into the back of the Tank. Sakura had lifted up the bottom of the truck bed and underneath was a huge compartment filled with various camping equipment. "Here start carrying this stuff over to the picnic table." Sakura ordered as she began unloading.
In thirty minutes the group had everything one could want for a picnic. They had a volley ball net set up, Frisbees, water balloons, and food. "Hey let's start grilling some hamburgers." Yuzumi excitedly suggested.
"Alright, I'll help." Sakura volunteered, "Since you are a horrible cook." She added with a smirk.
"Shut up, just shut up." Yuzumi growled.
"Count me out. I don't like grilling stuff." Rei complacently declined. And instead, picked up a Frisbee. "Inuyasha, fetch." She said as she threw it. Surprisingly enough Inuyasha chased it and caught it. He also brought it back. Rei threw it again and again he caught it and brought it back.
"That's sad." Sakura said.
"Yeah, but he is a dog." Yuzumi comforted. She and Sakura put coals in the grill and light them. They waited for the coals to start and placed some hamburger patties on the grill. The only problem with this occurred when as Yuzumi put the paper wrapped patty on the grill, she caught the paper on fire.
"Ahhh. The paper's on fire." She noted.
"Uhhh. You might want to put that out before…." Sakura started when the grill suddenly flared up.
Rei and Kenshin were taking turns throwing the Frisbee for Inuyasha, who couldn't understand why he found this game so amusing, when they heard a large roaring sound coming from the direction of the grill. The three of them stopped what they were doing, Inuyasha still had the Frisbee in his mouth, and looked over at Sakura and Yuzumi. What they saw almost made them laugh. A slightly charred Sakura and more so charred Yuzumi saying that they had everything under control and that the burgers would be done soon.
"Uh…" Kenshin began, but Rei shook her head.
"Don't ask. It's best not to." Rei advised both Kenshin and Inuyasha.
Yuzumi and Sakura managed to get the lunch ready without further trouble. They had potato salad, various chips with dip, hamburgers, cheeseburgers, pickles, goldfish, and deviled eggs. They were happily enjoying their meal when they heard some yappy dog barking. At first, the group ignored it, but when some nearby shrubs started shaking and Inuyasha said that he could smell a bear, the group took interest in the situation. The sight that came out of the bushes was actually rather amusing. A six inch high, Chuaua was chasing a bear cub that was at least seven times the dog's size. The little cub was running for its life, and the little dog was right on it's tail. The dog and bear were about half way across the gang's camping area when, the Chuaua stopped and looked at them. It sniffed at the air for a second, then began to growl.
The dog began to bark and charged at the Sakura and co. The bear cub, seeing its chance, ran up a tree and hid. "I wonder if the thing wants table scraps." Rei, calmly guessed.
"Uhhh, I don't think that's what it wants. If it wanted table scraps, then it would be wagging its tail and looking cute. The stupid thing looks more like it's trying to attack us." Sakura second-guessed.
"Hey Inuyasha, you're a dog demon right?" Yuzumi asked. "So, why don't you take care of this?"
Inuyasha looked at her for a second, then shrugged his shoulders. It was only a dog so he wouldn't have any trouble removing it from the campsite. He got up and walked toward the dog. The little chuaua, thinking it was the biggest dog in the world, ran straight for Inuyasha and grabbed onto his leg, and wouldn't let go. "Oi, get off me you stupid thing!" Inuyasha shouted as he began to shake his leg to kick the dog off. The dog, however, wouldn't let go.
After a few minutes Inuyasha began to tire of trying to nicely get the dog off. "Keh, enough of this." He said as he began to draw the Tetsaiga. The rest of the group thought about stopping him, but the sight of Inuyasha having to draw his ace in the hole to get a 6-inch dog off him was rather funny. Inuyasha swung the Tetsaiga at the dog and the dog let go.
Since he was trying to avoid cutting his own leg off, Inuyasha hadn't gotten a very good aim at the chuaua. This time he swung the Tetsaiga to try killing the dog, but the dog had other ideas. It jumped up and caught hold of the Tetsaiga in mid swing. But, since the Tetsaiga had nothing for the dog to grip, and since Inuyasha was swinging the sword so hard, the little dog ended up loosing his grip and flying several feet in the air. No one saw where the dog landed; they did hear it bark and run off.
"Keh." Inuyasha said.
"Well that was amusing." Rei smiled.
Inuyasha turned to head back to the table, but as he was ready to take a step forward, he saw another little dog in his way. This was another chuaua, but where the other one had been male, this one was female. It was sitting on the ground and looking at Inuyasha with those cut puppy eyes that all dogs have the ability to make. The little thing was also making a cute squeaking noise.
"Oh how cute. It looks like Inuyasha has picked up a new fan girl." Rei giggled. Kenshin and Yuzumi couldn't help but giggle as well, and after a few minutes, the three of them broke out into full laughter. Sakura couldn't decide whether to laugh, cry, or get mad at the little dog. Inuyasha just glared at all of them, looked at the little dog, and pointed in the direction it had come from, "Get out of here". The little dog made another pathetic whine. "Go on, go away!" Inuyasha sternly shouted at the dog. The poor thing tucked her tail beneath her and ran off whining pathetically.
"Oh, the poor thing. Inuyasha, I think you broke the little dog's heart." Rei sadly shook her head. Inuyasha just glared at her and Yuzumi continued laughing. Kenshin had gotten control of his laughter and was feeling a bit sorry for the dog. Sakura still wasn't sure how she should react. She kinda felt sorry for the dog, but then again Inuyasha did have Kagome.
Lunch resumed, and they finished the clean up without any more disturbances. Yuzumi, Sakura, Kenshin, and Inuyasha had decided to take a walk and Rei insisted that she would stay and watch the campsite. So, the four of them took off into the surrounding forest, which didn't really impress either Kenshin or Inuyasha because the forests where Yuzumi and Sakura live aren't really what one would call a forest, and Rei raided Sakura's Tank to find a DVD player. Rei finally found the DVD player and pulled out the X DVDs that she'd smuggled into the Tank. She sat on the picnic bench and contentedly began to watch her DVDs.
Sakura and co were busy walking along one of the trails and discussing the local wild life. Kenshin was pointing out all of the plants that he didn't recognize, and kept asking the names of them. Neither Sakura nor Yuzumi could tell him many of the names since neither of them were that interested in plants. Inuyasha, being true to his doggy self, was sniffing just about everything in site. Yuzumi kept making whispered cracks to Yuzumi about Inuyasha and how she wouldn't be surprised if he suddenly began to 'mark his territory'. Sakura would just smack her when she said this. Several minutes later, they decided to head back to the camp. They felt bad about leaving Rei alone too long, well everyone except Sakura. She knew that Rei would have hunted down the DVD player, and that Rei had probably stashed some X stuff in the Tank.
When they got back to the campsite, they found Rei contentedly reading, well looking at, a Be-Boy[3] magazine. "Oi, Rei, you might want to put that away now. I know Yuzumi would flip if she saw the contents, and I don't think Inuyasha-sama or Kenshin would appreciate it either." Sakura whispered to Rei.
"Hmmm, I guess your right, I'll put it away." Rei agreed as she put the magazine in the Tank. There was still an hour before Yuzumi and Sakura would have to leave to get to Mel's, so everyone decided to play volleyball. Rei figured the best way to team up would be girls against guys. Since Inuyasha was half demon and Kenshin was an ex-hitokirri, she figured it would be fairer to pair the two of them together. With this settled, they decided that ladies could go first, and guys could choose sides.
Sakura explained to the guys that the way you played volleyball was by using your hands to hit the ball over the net and try to keep your opponents from hitting it back to you. Sakura and Yuzumi did a little demonstration for them, and got the game underway. The game was going pretty well until Yuzumi distracted Inuyasha and Inuyasha got hit in the head with the ball. After that, he hit the ball just a little too hard and sent it flying. He hit it hard enough that no one could find it, and thus ended the game.
Sakura looked at a clock and said, "Well we needed to end the game anyway. Yuzumi and I have to get to Mel's so Yuzumi can start training for a job. We'll take you back home and head to work."
"Okay, but what are you going to do about the guys?" Rei asked.
"There's a room where I work that we could keep them in." Sakura answered.
"Oh, okay, let's go then." Rei said as Sakura packed everything up.
They dropped off Rei, and headed to Mel's Coffee and Smoothie Bar.
[1] Good morning
[2] 'Shonen' means 'boy' and 'ai' means 'love'. Shonen-ai is used to refer to a romantic story between two guys. Gravitation and FAKE are two examples of this.
[3] Be-Boy is a yaoi magazine in Japan.
Author's Note: Sorry for the resllllly long wait, but I've had to deal with work and school, so I've been very busy. I took my finals and have close to a month before my next term, so I'll be able to work on this some more. I'll update at least once every week. Twice if I can get the time around my work schedule. Hope you enjoyed this chapter and there's some more funny stuff to come in the next one. ;)