Chapter 6- That's Just the Way We Roll

A bit after three P.M. on a Wednesday afternoon, a young orange haired girl bounded in for her afternoon shift. "Konnichiwa, Ryou!"

"It's very rude to use someone's name without an honorific," the young prodigy said dryly.

Hazelnut cocked an eyebrow. "Sorry about that, Ryou-tan."

He scowled. "At least use something appropriate."

"Ry-chan?"

"No."

"Ryou-pii?"

"If you've come here just to annoy me; you may as well leave."

"Fine, Shirogane-sama," she said, needlessly emphasizing the last two syllables. Sighing huffily, she threw herself in a chair and halfheartedly began to file some paperwork.

They sat in silence for a few minutes.

"Alright, Ryou, what is it?"

"What's what?"

"There's obviously something. I've been working here for nearly three months now, and I can read you like a book."

"It's nothing," he said insistently.

She stood up, walked over to his desk, and forced him to look at her. "Tell me. You shouldn't keep things bottled up inside. It does strange things to you."

She paused, and off-key strains of "I'm a Little Teapot" could be heard coming from the back room.

"I'd hate to see you end up like him."

Ryou got a strange look on his face, and Hazelnut wondered if he was about to smile. Then he sobered.

"I told you it was nothing."

"If you don't tell me, I'll shave Akasaka-san bald."

He stared her down calmly. "You wouldn't even make it back there."

Hazelnut bristled. "You think I'm afraid of Akasaka-san!? Like I'd be scared of a guy who's bedridden from a haircut."

Ryou looked over her shoulder. "Finally out of bed, Keiichiro?"

The fearless gangster gave a start and nearly fell over.

She slowly turned around, every muscle in her body tensed for a fight.

No Akasaka-san.

She swore loudly, making sure Ryou knew exactly what she thought of him at that moment.

Ryou just shrugged. "You're being unproductive right now, you know. Remember who pays you."

"I'll show you unproductive," she said in a low growl.

Ryou glanced behind her again. "Oh, good morning, Keiichiro."

Hazelnut snorted. "I may be an idiot sometimes, but I'm not that stupid."

An older voice sent chills down Hazelnut's spine. "You're making a horrendous amount of noise down here, Ryou."

The fearless gangster did fall over this time. "A-A-Akasaka-san! Are you feeling better?"

The de-ponytailed man, clad in a robe and bunny slippers, didn't seem to notice her, even as she was frantically scrambling away. "Could you try to keep it down a little, Ryou? I'm not feeling so well. I'm sorry; I won't be able to take you to MegaTokyo Wonderland today."

The boy jerked. "Oh, no, it'll be fine, you need your rest."

"Thanks." He began to shuffle off. "Oh, and Ryou?"

"Yes, Keiichiro?"

"If that orange haired girl shows up today, tell her she has three weeks left."

Hazelnut's knees buckled as her mortal enemy strode back down the hall.

"Three weeks…" she repeated weakly.

Ryou laughed. "Who's not afraid of Keiichiro?"

She recovered instantly and stared haughtily up at him. "At least I'm not the one sulking because Akasaka-san is too mentally unstable to take me to MegaTokyo Wonderland."

He turned surly in an instant. "Hmmph. Doesn't really matter to me. It's not like I really wanted to go."

"Ahh, that's too bad, I don't know what I'll do with these tickets then."

Ryou immediately straightened up. "You have tickets?"

"Nope." She grinned widely. "But it doesn't matter, right? You don't want to go."

He scowled. "It's biogeneticist day, alright? It only comes once a year. Happy?"

"If it means so much to you, I know how we can get in. Probably legally too. Come on!"

Ryou didn't have a choice. Hazelnut bodily yanked him out of his chair and out of the front door.

"You realize it's across town."

"Yep."

"And you're not getting paid for this."

"Just shut up, will you? I'm trying to be nice!"

And surprisingly, Ryou did.

Hazelnut wheeled an ancient but well taken care of motorcycle out from the side yard.

"Let me introduce you to my baby."

The first question out of Ryou's mouth was "Did you steal that?"

The girl frowned at him. "No. Stealing motorbikes is like stealing children. My uncle fixed this one up for me."

Ryou stared at the machine as though it were a poisonous snake. "Is this how you get here everyday?"

The ex-gangster laughed and tossed him a helmet. "You need to get out of that basement more often."

He was still apprehensive. "Is this even legal?"

She ignored his question. "If you open your mouth any wider a frog will jump in. Are you coming or not?"

Ryou was going to say, "Not." He really was. But he found himself jumping on the back of this motorbike with a gangster who'd only been reformed for what, three months now?

The wind whipped playfully around them as they sped down the street, weaving in and out of traffic.

"Great, isn't it?" Hazelnut called.

"Yeah. I guess." Although Ryou hadn't admitted it to himself yet, something inside him knew that, sometimes, it was good for him to be dragged out of the basement.

SuperMegaTokyo WonderSpecial # 1

"So, at the very beginning of this story, wasn't there a green haired chick also?"

Ichigo nodded. "Yeah, that was Lettuce."

"Whatever happened to her?" Hazelnut asked.

"Well, you see, since Lettuce's personality doesn't allow her to stand out very much, fanfiction writers usually end up leaving her out of the story."

Hazelnut shook her head. "How unprofessional."

Ichigo shrugged and changed the subject. "Have you ever heard of Wolverine?"

"Isn't that an Australian animal?"

"No, no, the X-Man. The one with the six inch claws coming out of his knuckles?"

"Hey, that sounds awfully familiar…"

Before Hazelnut's cognitive process could finish, the author came bounding out of the shadows, screaming, "NOOOOOOOOOO!"

The two girls stared at the pale form in front of them.

"Who are you?" Hazelnut demanded.

The author stood up to her full height, which was still a head shorter than Hazelnut, considering she wasn't of anime proportions.

"I am your creator."

The ex-gangster burst out laughing. "Yeah right. Some geeky wannabe writer who's winded just from running out of the plot hole that's twenty feet away is really the creator of this story?"

The author glowered. "If you're mean to me, I'll give you a horrific, painful death at the end of the fanfiction."

"Empty threats, chibi-chan."

Casting her character a withering look, the author took out a notebook, flipped to a certain page, and scrawled "Then Masha began to tap dance," at the bottom.

A few moments later, the fluffy pink robot hovered into their airspace, tap dancing his little heart out.

It is a truly mind boggling spectacle to watch a puffball with no arms and no legs tap dance.

While more minor characters assembled to behold the bizarre scene, the author, quietly slipping back into the plot hole, congratulated herself on a satisfactory distraction.

All the honorifics Hazelnut uses are incredibly childish and mocking, except for –sama, of course. (I learned them from Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicles!)

A big thank you to anyone who's still reading this. (I'm trying to see about throwing a parade in your honor.) I hope to finish by the end of Christmas vacation. Or I just might make the next chapter the last one.

Chapter title shamelessly borrowed from the Jonas Brothers.

As an instant reward for those of you who are still here, here's how to say "penguin" in seven different languages.

Pingüino (Spanish)

Manchot (French)

Maschile (Italian)

Pinguim (Portuguese)

Pingvin (Hungarian)

Mannlich (German)

Penguin (English!)

Don't you feel infinitely smarter now?