Chapter 6

Another fine day was about to come to an end at Mineral Town, and Mitchel decided to spend the remaining hours having fun with reputed hottie Karen; however, the meaning of the word "fun" for Karen usually involved chugging wine, so the eccentric farmer was dragged out of the Supermarket and towards the Inn so she could challenge Duke for yet another battle of drinking supremacy.

"Here we go again..." Mitchel thoughtas Karen proceeded to yank him towards her haven of bliss.

"Do you really insist on doing this week after week? Even you have some sort of limit, and you'll probably die before a hangover. I mean, I enjoy a cup of wine every once in awhile, too. Maybe that's why we're friends today, but chug-fests make me nervous. I can barely go over two glasses, myself." Mitchel complained.

"No way! It's always guaranteed free wine for me! I'm not going to pass up such a sweet deal, especially when it means sticking it to Old man Duke! And you know how satisfying both pleasures are for me!" Karen exclaimed.

"Is it comparable to the joy I have when I hold a feathery chicken in my grasp?" Mitchel asked.

"It's better than that.." Karen smirked.

When the childhood friends finally reached the Inn, what they saw wasn't quite typical Wednesday Night for them. What they saw was Duke, pre-passed out to Karen's dismay, and certain red-head drunk with tears.

"A...A...A...ANN!" Mitchel shouted in fury.

"YEAH! WHAT THE HECK, GIRL? I'M SUPPOSED TO BE THE ONE OUT-DRINKING DUKE TODAY!" Karen added, which triggered a blank stare from Mitchel.

"Hmph, that's funny. I didn't even knew Ann could out drink Duke in the first place. I've never seen her drink before" Karen pondered.

Despite her watery eyes, Ann turned around and gazed at Mitchel in drunken fury.

"YOU CHIKHEEN LAVIN' BASDEERD... Ann cried at the top of her lungs. "CLIFF ISN TALKIN TAH MEH... HE WUZ SOMEUN SPECHUL TAH ME... SOOMUN AH MAGHT EVEN LUBBED... BUT NOOOOOOO... HEZ AVODIN MAH... HE LEFT MEH AAAAAAHHHHHL ALONNE! DIS IS AAAAHL URL FAULLLT!" AH KNOW ID IZZZ!"

Mitch slaped his head. Apparently, he learned to comprehend drunken speech with the time he spent with Karen.

"SHOVE IT!" he shouted. "HOW MANY TIMES DO YOU HAVE TO BLAME FOR ALL THIS CRAP? MAYBE HE ISN'T TALKING TO YOU BECAUSE YOU'RE ACTING LIKE A PUSHY BITCH! EVER THOUGHT ABOUT THAT?"

Ann looked like she was on the verge of sobering up from Mitchel's insult, until she downed another bottle of wine, which caused her face to turn a deeper shade of red.

"DONNN... EVAH... K-KAHL MEH A BIDSHT... YAH LITTLE DERANGED KREP!" she yelled. "YAH TAKE THAD BAHK!"

With those words proclaimed, Ann leapt up from her chair and charged towards Mitchel with a fist ready.

"GAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!"

In a matter of moments, Mitchel was caught in a flury of fists. The young chicken farmer was forced to dodge devastating blow after blow. One missed blow even forced a dent into the wall. Another forced a fist-shaped hole. After a few more desperate punches, Drunken Ann halted her assault and gave off labored, drunken breaths.

Karen simply watched by in amazement with the punching and dodging action that played out before her.

"Wow... Mitch is fighting a drunk person...

Drunken Ann then raised her angry fist at Mitchel once again.

"URRRR TAKIN' EBERTHING AWAH FROM MEH... WHY WON' CLIFF TALK TAH ME? WHY IS POPURAH SPENDIN' MORE THAM WID YOU?" she slurred. "AND NAH DAD THINGS AH'M UR LAVER OR SOMETHIN! YAH MADE DAD SIQ IN DA HED OR SOMETHIN!"

Mitchel blinked. "Wait... even Doug thinks I like Ann? I was wondering why he was still nice to me since we yell at each other a lot. What the hell is wrong with these people?" he thought to himself.

"GIHV CLIFF BAK TAH MEH! AND LEAVE POPUREH ALONE!" she shouted before before rushing towards Mitchel again. This time, she launched a surprise haymaker as she aimed straight at Mitchel's face. Unfortunately for her, the attentive chicken farmer saw it coming and moved neatly out of the way, leaving the drunken female fighter open to attack.

"Okay, I had enough of it! I'm retaliating!" Mitchel thought as he clenched his own fist. "This isn't an excuse for her to go off the handle after harassing me everyday!"

With Ann's back turned, Mitchel was about to deliver a knockout blow when a streak of pink and red intervened.

"POPURI?" Mitchel and Karen exclaimed at the same time.

Ann turned around due to the yelling. She then started cracking up as she saw the pink-haired girl's back faced towards her.

"AHAHAHAHA! IZ A SILLY PINK BUSH! WHEEEEEEE!" she yelled shamelessly before falling to her knees.

Both Mitchel and Popuri blinked at the tipsy girl before turning their attentions toward each other.

"Please don't do this, anymore! Why do you two have to keeping fighting like this? Don't you see how pointless it is? You're disrupting the peace around here for nothing!" Popuri said desperately.

Mitchel shrugged. "Don't look at me. She's the one who's been pestering me. I even resorting to ignoring her for a time, but damn it, she always finds some way to push the envelope for my sake."

"Still, it's your responsibility, too! Maybe you could try harder to avoid this! Maybe you could try to apologize as well, but you can't just blame it all on Ann! I honestly think you two could get along much better than this. You two are my friends, so I believe... maybe it's possible you two could see in each other the good things, like I can..."

The sober chicken farmer took a good look into Popuri's eyes, and felt a slight change in his pulse. "This is the mature woman acting out again." he thought with an inner smile.

"Mitchel... why... do you not like Ann, anyway?" Popuri asked. "I asked her the same thing, and all she told me was that you were creepy..."

Mitchel groaned. "If you say I shouldn't blame it on the way she treats me, then I guess... I just don't like her." he answered. "Some people just don't mesh well together due to personality, and I guess that unwritten rule applies to Ann and I."

Popuri sighed. "I'm... sorry... I just don't know how things can work out like that..." she confessed.

"That's because she's pure of heart, it seems." Mitchel thought to himself. "I used to be able to think that way, too... there were some people close to me in the city that fought constantly, and I was confused how they could hate each other like that... and then I start getting ridiculed in the city for the way I am... especially by my family. Come to think of it, I think Ann reminds me a little of my sister. Man, I always hated how she blamed me for everything and treated me like crap!"

"It's... because you're so kindhearted" he said understandingly, "you can't stand a conflict like ours, especially when it's between two of your friends, huh?"

"Yeah..." she answered wistfully.

"I see..." Mitchel uttered softly.

"But... that won't change your mind, will it?"

The raven-haired chicken boy folded his arms and gazed at the ceiling thoughtfully. He then focused his look down at the pink-haired peacemaker before him.

"To be honest, I can't guarantee you things will get better between the two of us, but I guess I could try to make some amends. I mean, I know why it is she's being a b... er, big problem lately, so I could help out with that." Mitchel noted.

Popuri lowered her head slightly. "I'... sorry to hear the bad news, but I'm grateful for how honest you've been with me. I trust your word."

She then turned her head to tell her red-haired friend the good news. "You hear that, Ann? Mitchel will try to be more considerate towards you from now on, and---"

But poor, tipsy Ann finally passed out from intoxication.

"Uh, never mind..."

She then turned to face Mitchel once again.

"I'm sorry to see that she couldn't hear what you had to say..." Popuri said with disappointment.

"It's alright. I doubt she'd believe me in her paranoid state, anyway." Mitchel groaned.

Popuri then clasped her hands around Mitchel's.

"Still, could you please try to avoid another fight like this? I don't want to violence between you two..." she asked sincerely.

The pink-haired girl's grasp was tight enough to ensnare the young man's hands, but gentle enough to keep her from hurting him.

Mitchel paused for a moment while thinking about a proper response.

"Sure... I wasn't trying to escalate things to this level, anyway. She just sorta went after me like a drunken boxer..." Mitchel answered.

"...I'll... forgive you this one time, but I don't want it to happen again, understand?" Popuri stated sternly.

"Yeah.. I understand..." Mitchel answered in slight hesitation.

Popuri then launched herself into Mitchel's reflexive embrace.

"Thank goodness... I was worried... someone would get hurt..." she said with tears in her eyes.

At this point, Mitchel's face turned tomato red.

"Ah...er... how did it get to this?" he thought to himself.

While Karen watched this touching scene to keep her mind preoccupied from its sober state, an ominous shadow crept silently behind Mitchel with a fist raised above its head. It seemed to possess violent intent towards this hugging pair.

"Excuse me." Mitchel said as she gently released his hold on Popuri and performed a swift back fist on the assailant.

The figure then let out a familiar moan as it collapsed on the floor. Mitchel, Popuri, and Karen then turned to see the mysterious assaliant. It turned out to be Ann.

Mitchel let out a bashful laugh. "Hey, that doesn't count! She tried to get me from behind! She was playing dirty and I was merely trying to defend myself!" he explained.

As Popuri stared at the unconscious body in disbelief, Karen applauded the whole scene she witnessed.

"Great fight!" Karen cheered. "I didn't know you had it in you, Mitch!"

Mitchel turned to face Karen and made a bashful gesture of gratitude.

"I wonder how long she'll be able to keep herself entertained without alcohol?" he wondered.

Omake: Just Wanted to be Friends

Ever since the incident at the Inn, Ann and Mitchel have been trying their hardest to befriend the depressed Cliff and hope to cheer him up. However, wherever they cross paths with the brown-haired vagabond, he always rejects their gestures of friendship and walks away in despair. Both considered asking each other the cause of Cliff's problems, believing one another to be the cause of his problems, however, they still despised each other, so that option was immediately cut from both of their minds. Instead, they decided one more option: do invite the poor guy to a day of fun.

Unfortunately, that ended up being a flop as well, since both of them planned their days of fun on the exact same day, at the exact same time, but at different locations. Even worse is that Cliff somehow mistook these invitations as date notes meant to be exchanged between the two archenemies, but he couldn't find the "courage" to set the two of them up, so he instead went back to return the notes to their original senders.

"I'm sorry, I just can't..." he said to both Mitchel and Ann for each respective visit.

Both rejected parties growled in frustration and had their own conclusions in mind:

"That creep is making Cliff too miserable to let him have any fun, isn't he?" Ann thought.

"I bet that psychotic red-head convinced Cliff I'm some dangerous spaz..." Mitchel thought.