Mission 46: Turkey
"This is a disaster!" Elena glared at Reno, the one she blamed for the so called disaster.
"What's wrong?" The redhead innocently asked, this time truly unaware of what he had done wrong.
"The decorations are all crooked and uneven, this has to be perfect!" Elena stressed, "Tseng entrusted us with the very-"
"Annoying," Reno cut in.
"Important," Elena emphasized, "task of decorating Healin Lodge while he's busy guarding the president at headquarters. This place has to be perfect, or Rufus won't approve of it and he won't give us the day off on Thanks Giving and... and..." she blushed.
"And you overheard Tseng saying that he wanted to ask you out for Thanks Giving if we got the day off," Reno finished.
Elena blushed more and shook her head, "I don't know what you're talking about. I'm just doing my job!"
"Right... But do you really think Rufus is going to give us the day off?" The main door was opened behind Reno, but he ignored it. "Rufus has a huge ego; he thinks Thanks Giving is all about thanking him. He won't even let us leave early, and he'll probably expect presents." Reno paused, finally taking note of Elena's signals, "what?" He turned around and realized that the one who had arrived was not Rude with the groceries as he had originally thought, it was Rufus and Tseng.
"Big ego?" Rufus glared, taking a few threatening steps into his home. "You should be grateful I haven't fired you!"
A mere few seconds later, Rude arrived with the groceries. The quiet Turk immediately heard the argument. He couldn't leave Reno alone for a little while because the redhead always got into trouble. "They were out of turkeys," Rude announced, shifting Rufus' attention from Reno to himself.
"We need one!" Rufus insisted; then once again glared at Reno, he wanted the ungrateful Turk out of Healin Lodge. "Reno, go out and buy a turkey."
"Fine, fine, I was bored of being here anyway," Reno extended his hand to receive the credit card from Rude, but Rufus snatched it away and instead gave him some gil. "I can't trust you with the card. This is enough gil to buy one turkey, I don't care how far you have to go to find it, make sure you don't come back without a bird!"
"Got it!" Reno did a silly salute and left Healin Lodge. The way Rufus phrased his request could only bring trouble.
As Reno left, Elena asked, "do you like the decorations?"
Rufus looked around nonchalantly. There were pictures of turkeys and autumn leaves all over, but no new pictures of him. "They're okay," he sounded uninterested.
"Ingrate," Elena muttered.
"Did you say something?" Rufus asked.
Elena forced herself to smile, "nothing."
Time passed and a few hours later, Reno returned. There were no turkeys to be found in the new city of Midgar or the neighboring towns, but he didn't come back empty handed. "I'm back!"
"Where's the turkey?" Tseng asked, seeing that Reno wasn't carrying any grocery bags. "Don't tell me you bought a live turkey? Reno, I told you not to do that again after what happened last year!"
"I couldn't find a turkey, but Rufus said not to come back without a bird, so I bought a chocobo. I got it for a good price too, but don't tell Rufus I'm keeping the change," Reno smiled proudly, but Tseng was not convinced.
"Rufus wanted a turkey," the leader reminded, "you know how stubborn he is, a chocobo won't do... But I guess we have no choice. Maybe Elena can disguise the flavor with the condiments and Rufus will believe it's a really big turkey," it seemed farfetched, but it was the only choice they had left. "Where is the chocobo?"
"It was following me a minute ago..." Reno looked down the stairs that led to Healin Lodge. "There it is! Come on chocobo, there are cookies up here!" The fat chocobo, warked and tried to push itself up the stairs.
"A live chocobo? We don't have the time to turn it into something edible. Besides, there is no way Rufus would eat that chocobo, it has too much fat." Reno signaled to the unsuspecting Tseng, but the leader disregarded it as random Reno silliness and continued talking, while Reno uselessly flailed around. "You know how Rufus is a complete narcissist, he'll worry about gaining weight, then he'll blame it on us because chocobo meat not only has more fat then turkey meat, but how healthy the meat is, is proportional to how fit the chocobo is."
"Narcissist!?" Rufus yelled; he had been standing right behind Tseng the entire time. "So I'm an egotistical, ungrateful, narcissist?! Nice to know what you really think," Rufus pouted and went to lock himself in his room.
Rude only shook his head in silence, and they dared to wonder why he always got the biggest Christmas bonus. Sometimes silence is best.
End of Mission 46
Disclaimer, I don't own Final Fantasy VII.