Her Sweetness: … -yawn-


—Hot Man, Hot Dog—

Part Fourteen: Dream Lover Come Rescue Me

"So how many people are attending?"

"Huh?" Joey asked, his eyes weary from looking at all the forms he'd had to fill out. There were close to fifty sheets of information that he alone had to come up with seeing as how Hot Dog had little knowledge of it's parents and Otogi was busy chatting on his cell phone in the next chair.

Charlie reiterated: "How many people will be attending the ceremony? You know that the size of the hall and virtually everything else depends on the size of the party."

Joey thought for a second and then turned to Otogi who continuously gabbed on the phone. "Hey. Hey, Otogi,"

"Yeah, it was so scandalous," the raven-haired boy rolled his eyes into the phone as he switched hands. "I wonder how she's gonna try to cover her butt this time. … No way! Well that's no good, how does she expect to—"

"Otogi!"

"Ugh. Hold on, Sharonda." He turned to the blonde next to him. "What?"

"Can you please get off the phone; I need your help here!"

Otogi stopped for a moment and then narrowed his eyes. "Who am I, Mr. Helps A Lot? I'm trying to have a serious conversation over here."

"That's a lie! Besides, you asked to come here!"

"… Oh, fine. Ruin my fun."

"I will."

"Well I hope you do."

"Well I just did."

"Fine!"

"Fine!"

Suddenly infuriated, Otogi turned back to the cell phone and screamed into it: "Sharonda, I have to go! Bye!" He slammed the lid down and stuffed it into his pocket. "Are you happy now?"

"I'll be happy when you can tell me how many people are coming to the wedding."

A pause. "Um… well, I dunno. Let's see; there's Yami and Yugi, then Malik and Ryou will come if I ask and they'll want to bring their yamis…"

"Wait a minute. Marik and Bakura? I don't think that's such a good idea—"

"And why not? You have to have variety at a party, Joey, that's what spices things up."

"You're enough spice for me, thank you,"

Otogi's green eyes sparkled and he attached himself to Joey. "Aw! That's so sweet of you!"

"…"

After they had gotten the numbers and faces together in their heads, Joey told Charlie that there would probably be anywhere from thirty to forty people but he doubted there would be more. Otogi protested this greatly and said that a wedding should be big and flashy with as many people as possible.

Joey shook his head. "Otogi, we're not doing this to build a reputation, it's just a simple wedding."

"Nothing's simple when I'm involved."

"Yeah, I've noticed." He sighed wearily and turned back to Charlie who had been typing in numbers at his computer.

Charlie adjusted his glasses, pushing them higher upon his nose and then cleared his throat, smiling at the three in front of him. "So, with the number of people coming, I think that Hall Number Three would be your best choice! I am… SO EXCITED! I've never used Hall Number Three before! There's never been a need, you see, because most of the wedding's I've done only had up to two people as guests."

"I can imagine," Joey said, sweatdropping.

Otogi raised his hand. "So what does this Hall Number Three look like? I have to inspect it first. After all, I am Joey's personal—"

"Hey, wait, just what are you about to say?"

"…Why?" Otogi then looked up to Joey, enlarging his eyes. "Don't you trust me?"

"No."

"Come on then!" Charlie urged, getting up from behind his desk and opening the door to exit the Back Room. "You can see it for yourself! Yay! Hall Number Three, Hall Number Three, Hall Number Three, Hall Number Three, Hall Number Three!"

He sang as they walked down the corridors of the SUPER building and finally arrived at the other side, towards the back of the structure with two large double doors in front of them. The number 3 was written in silver on the top and Charlie pulled on one of the door handles opening it for them to enter.

As they crossed the threshold into the vast room, both Joey and Otogi's eyes opened. It was all painted in white with a basic tile flooring and at the head of the room was a platform covered in fluffy blue carpet, holding a podium on top.

"Wow… Well this is really nice, Charlie, but… there's no… stuff." Joey commented, looking at the bareness of the room.

Charlie shrugged. "Hey, this is the first time it's being used."

Joey and Otogi nodded. "Oh."

"So! We'll need, as you said, some 'stuff'." Suddenly a clipboard and pen appeared out of nowhere and landed into Charlie's hands. While he continued to speak, Joey and Otogi looked around to see where it had come from. "The decorations will be whatever colors you and your fiancée choose. EXCEPT GREEN!" His voice boomed and the boys quivered.

"W-Why not green?" Joey asked.

"THAT IS THE COLOR OF REPTILES!"

There was a pause.

Otogi blinked. "I've seen a blue one,"

"GGGGGGGRRRRRRRRAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH!"

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!"

Both Joey and Otogi jumped back about ten feet when Charlie's eyes dilated and he started shaking his fists at them, shouting incoherent things. The large chandelier hanging from the ceiling of the room was swinging from side to side and finally Joey shouted out while Otogi hid behind him.

"Alright, alright! No green! O-Or blue!"

"Okeydokey!" Charlie immediately reverted back to his smiley self. "So tell me your desired color!"

Otogi looked at Joey for a second and the blonde look back, both afraid to say something that even hinted at the word 'reptile'. Otogi slowly got out from behind Joey and cleared his throat. "Well, all things considered, I would say silver and metallic red."

"… What?" Joey raised an eyebrow. "That's ridiculous. Can't you be more practical?"

"Well what would you choose then, Joey?"

"… Um… Probably white and purple,"

Otogi suddenly busted out in laughter. "P-Purple and white? You've gotta be kidding, those colors are so last millennium! Besides, they have nothing to do with the whole wedding theme!"

"White has everything to do with a wedding! It symbolizes virginity and pure love!"

A pause before a wink from Otogi. "Oh, you're no virgin, Joey."

"WILL YOU CUT THAT OUT!"

Charlie looked from one teen to the other. "What's this…?"

"I-It isn't true!" Joey told his wedding planner. "He's just kidding!"

"Oh, Joey!" Otogi shook his head and turned away, feigning hurt. "How cruel! After hours upon hours of passion-filled lovemaking, you try to pretend none of it happened!"

"HUH?"

"What about our child?"

"WHAT CHILD?" Joey screeched, now going blue in the face.

Charlie gasped and his green eyes began to dilate as he looked at Joey's blue face. His breathing became labored. "REP… TTTTTTIIIIIILLLLLLEEEEE!"

"AAAAAHHHHHHH!"

.0.0.

"Oh, okay. Sure I can. Alright, see you there."

Malik replaced the receiver back on the cradle and turned around, resettling himself in the couch on which he and his yami were sitting.

"Who was that?" Marik asked, not really caring but it was a natural reaction after his hikari talked on the phone.

"Um, Otogi. Which reminds me, I'm going to be gone for most of the day tomorrow."

Suddenly he had Marik's full attention. "You're kidding? You can't go away tomorrow!"

"Why not?"

"What about that jazzercise class you signed me up for? Like hell I'm going alone!"

Malik paused, looking up to the ceiling. "Oh yeah… But, you know, maybe I'll be back by then!" He smiled, knowing that he would not be back in time.

Marik groaned. "Well where are you going anyway?"

"To help Otogi and Ryou ready one of Joey's wedding presents."

"… Joey? Wedding?" Those words took a moment to sink in and, finally, Marik started to laugh. "T-To who?"

"From what Otogi told me… to his… wiener."

"…" A bit of silence followed before Marik shook his head. "Heh. And they call you narcissistic."

"Yeah…"

.0.0.

It was a long day but after many trials and tribulations—all, for some reason, involving reptiles—Joey, Hot Dog and Otogi returned to the latter's home for some down time. Seeing as it was already around nine o' clock when they arrived, Joey decided to go to bed a bit early and found a little surprise in his room when he entered.

"Otogi, get out of my bed," Joey grumbled, his left eye twitching.

The raven-haired boy shook his head. "I live here; you can't kick me out."

"B-But I'm going to go to sleep!"

"Oh, really? You gonna sleep standing up or what?" Otogi grinned and then patted the spot in the bed next to him. "Come on," He said teasingly. "You know you wanna…"

"No, I do not wanna!"

Still, Otogi stayed firm. "You know, the longer you argue, the less sleep you're going to get."

"… But—"

"Nope."

"… Ugh! Fine, have it your way!" Joey continued to mutter curses under his breath as he made his way across the cream-colored carpet and slid between the sheets, placing Hot Dog on the pillow next to him. He sighed. "Good-night, Hot Dog,"

"…"

Otogi frowned and cleared his throat.

Joey rolled his eyes. "Good-night, you slut,"

"And a good-night to you, too, my pimp."

"…!"

A while after each of them was fast asleep, in the middle of the night, a single noise in the house was heard. Though not by the three sleeping persons in Joey's room but by the person who had made said noise. He silently swore at himself for being so clumsy and hoped that Joey hadn't heard him.

As it so happens, it was Tristan who was slithering around in the dark house, going up the stairs on his tip-toes and hiding in the shadows whenever he heard a creak or the whistling of the wind in the curtains.

'Now, let's see…' he thought to himself as he reached Joey's bedroom door and gently pushed it open, letting it swing to a halt. After scrutinizing the darkness, trying to adjust his eyes, he finally found a bush of gold, which he recognized as Joey's blonde hair. 'Alright,' he told himself. 'I just sneak in there and get it. Joey's a real heavy sleeper, so it'll be no problem.'

So, abandoning his watch spot at the door, he crawled into the room on all fours and immerged on Hot Dog's side of the bed. He carefully reached his hand up and felt around, getting a bit annoyed because he couldn't reach it. But, finally feeling it in his hand, he yanked on it, ready to fly out of the room and down to the garbage can. He never expected to hear:

"AAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH!"

"AAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH!"

Immediately the lights were flipped on and a bright glow was emitted from the table lamp. Otogi's head popped up and he looked at Joey. "What is it?"

"S-Something's grabbed me!"

"… Huh?"

They both looked at each other and then their eyes descended to Joey's boxer shorts and found that his private property was being grasped by a hand. Their eyes moved to the side, finding a guilty looking Tristan attached to the hand.

"Oh my God! Tristan, you pervert!" Joey shouted, smacking the hand away.

Otogi gasped. "Tristan, I cannot believe this!"

"N-No, wait a minute," Tristan sweatdropped, hiding the offending hand behind his back. "Really, I know this looks bad, but I didn't mean to touch you, Joey!"

Joey tilted his hand, the traces of his disgusted expression still lingering. "Then what were you up to?"

"Uh… I was… um, I was… trying to feel your pulse?"

"…"

"Well I don't believe that for one second!" Otogi turned his head away, his arms folded over his nightgown. "Tristan, you know what you were doing! You're so unfaithful!"

"I wasn't doing anything! And look who's talking! You're sleeping in Joey's bed!"

"Joey and I are very close!"

"We are not," Joey slipped that tidbit of information in before anything else could be said.

Otogi waved the comment away. "Oh, Joey's just shy,"

"No, Joey is not shy!" Joey countered, referring to himself in third-person once again. "Joey is just tired of Otogi thinking that Joey likes him when it is a known fact that Joey is getting married to Otogi! … I mean Hot Dog!"

"HA! You said it! You want to marry me!"

"No I don't, that was a slip of the tongue!"

"Too late! I already accept! I do, I do, I do!" Otogi finished by jumping on top of Joey, resulting in throwing both of them off the bed and onto of Tristan who now had the biggest headache.

.0.0.

The next morning, everyone in Otogi's house was rather tired. None of them had gotten to sleep until around two in the morning and even then, Otogi and Joey's sleep was riddled with disturbing images, wondering what Tristan was doing to Joey. And Joey never did stop complaining about the soreness. Otogi offered a massage, but Joey soundly declined.

Presently, Joey and Hot Dog were in the living room, Hot Dog sitting on a couch cushion beside Joey who was eating a bowl of Cheerios and watching the news.

"No," He said, speaking idly to his fiancée. "I really don't care about world events. I'm just watching to see who won the game last night,"

"…"

"Not really,"

"…"

"… Iraq? What's that?"

"…"

Suddenly, something on the television caught Joey's eye and he turned forward, almost jumping up when he saw his own face in the upper right-hand corner of the screen. He turned up the volume and shouted throughout the house: "Otogi! Tristan! I'm on TV!"

Otogi was the first one to come stampeding down the stairs and Tristan soon followed.

"Hello, and I'm Marsha Mitsubishi with Channel 8 News; all news, all the time. I am currently in Domino's Lower East Side, a common neighborhood with common people… Or so we thought. As it turns out, this district is home to Joey Wheeler, the Hotdog Maniac."

Everyone's eyes went wide.

Marsha continued, walking down a familiar street, the camera following her every move. "It is here that the Hotdog Maniac has taken refuge with local resident Otogi Ryuuji and a frequent visitor, Tristan Taylor. Proof of this abominable obsession with meat byproducts is provided by West Siders who wish to remain anonymous."

Suddenly the screen was taken up by a blackened figure with a deep, obviously computerized, voice.

"Well," it began, "It wasn't more than a week ago that the Hotdog Maniac stepped into my restaurant and demanded that one of my waiters take the order of his hotdog! A hotdog! I tries to get him to reconsider, but he was as mad as a dog! Not only was it a ludicrous request but we lost most of our business as well due to his ranting and raving and… and hotdog-mongering! Now I can't send my daughter to college! Thanks a lot, Joey Wheeler!"

Marsha came back on screen. "A truly heart-wrenching story. And now, the station has just received actual pictures of actually real events actually involving Joey Wheeler and his hotdog. Actually."

A photo popped up of Tristan, Joey and a hotdog walking into a West Side movie theater.

Another of Otogi and Joey walking into a West Side café.

It finally came to the last one, a photograph of Joey and a bandaged piece of meat curled up in bed together.

Marsha appeared once again. "Currently, Joey Wheeler and his hotdog are planning to marry at the SUPER Chapel of Love in the Lower West Side. An update on this story later on. This has been Marsha Mitsubishi. All news, all the time."

Joey turned off the television.

There was a long silence.


TBC…