Duran-kun and Kiyo-chan's Omake Theater!
(featuring the Tokiha-Minagi family pets)
Natsuki Kuga was not by any stretch of the imagination a mall rat. Her opinion of shopping, unless it was for lingerie, bike parts, or video games, was to get in, select, pay, and get out. She found Nao's rather casual attitude towards property rights positively tempting sometimes, not because of the money but just because skipping the "stop at the counter and pay" step meant one less thing to do at the store.
For all her distaste, though, she couldn't just fob off all the shopping on Shizuru, and so one Saturday afternoon she found herself somewhere between the food court and the Lotions'N'Notions. Her inner debate over whether to buy Shizuru a tin of lavender bath salts (and risk being teased all evening about thinking of Shizuru's skin, Shizuru's scent, Shizuru naked in the tub, and similar matters) or to buy herself a soft pretzel with mustard and an Orange Julius (and risk indigestion) was broken off when she saw a cluster of her friends, acquaintances, and weird quasi-mythological critters heading for the beauty salon.
"Hey, Natsuki!" Mai called, waving, so Natsuki wandered over.
"Hey, Mai, everybody. What's up?"
"Shiho's getting a haircut."
"Good call—hey, whoa! Oi, what happened to you?"
Natsuki's surprise came because Shiho had turned slightly, and Yatagarusu (who was sitting her shoulder, camouflaging the damage) moved away from the redhead's hair, showing that not only was Shiho's right front sausage-curl gone, but the stump was a charred black mess.
"Oniichan saved my life!" Shiho squealed, hugging Tate's arm and rubbing against him. Far from looking like a conquering hero, Tate glanced away, refusing to meet Natsuki's gaze.
"Okay, Mai, I've got to hear this," Natsuki decided. If nothing else, it would be nice to hear about someone else being the butt of the universe's sense of humor.
Kagutsuchi mewled and pointed a wing at the sign showing the salon's closing time.
"Nice try," Mai told him. Clearly someone was in the doghouse. Or phoenix-dragon-thingy-house, as appropriate. His head and tail sagged.
"Shiho invited us to a party!" Mikoto said brightly.
"My grandfather was having a barbecue, and asked if I wanted to invite some of my friends over," Shiho clarified. "So I thought of oniichan and Mai and Mikoto."
Natsuki wasn't sure that "the people that I got into a shooting war with over a boy" was a good synonym for "friends," but at least Shiho was trying to mend fences. And given that Natsuki was now dating Shizuru after all they'd been through, she certainly wasn't one to argue against forgiveness.
"And of course, since she was inviting Mikoto, she had to invite me, too," Reito Kanzaki spoke up. He was smiling slightly, no doubt fully aware that Shiho's primary reason for inviting him was not for Mikoto's sake but to provide a second boy to keep Mai occupied away from Tate. Since Reito fully agreed with the idea, Natsuki knew he'd have been all too happy to play along. "Then, since she was inviting siblings, that made her think of Takumi, and since he was coming, that meant inviting Akira as well."
"And we brought Kagutsuchi, Miroku, and Gennai along so Yatagarusu would have somebody to play with," Takumi explained. He was holding Akira's hand, which had the ninja girl wearing a blushing-yet-happy expression Natsuki knew well from personal experience.
"Well, anyway, that made for a total of eight people with Shiho and her grandfather," Mai explained, "plus four CHILDs, and they only had enough food on hand for about half that. I felt kind of bad, honestly, but it seemed like her grandfather was actually really happy about it."
Probably glad to see that Shiho had that many friends willing to come, Natsuki decided.
"Anyway, he went off to the store for food, and Reito suggested that one of us should go along and help. Shiho's grandfather agreed, and dragged off Tate since he was basically a family member."
Reito, Natsuki observed, was the only person she'd met besides Shizuru who could smirk with just his eyes.
"So while we were waiting, someone turned on the baseball game, and we watched that for a while."
"It was Akira," Takumi supplied.
"So after Shiho's grandfather and Tate got back with the food, we went out to the yard, and while the guys were getting the grill going, Kagutsuchi and Miroku decided that they liked the baseball game so much they'd hit a few balls themselves."
Miroku waved his club.
"Wait, how does that work?" Natsuki asked. "Miroku's the only one with arms."
"Kagutsuchi would breathe fireballs and Miroku would hit them, smashing them into sparks. The temple walk was all stone, so it wasn't dangerous...until somebody decided that he was tired of pitching batting practice and wanted to strike people out instead!"
"I guess when the pitch is fire breath it's easy to slip in a spitball?"
Everyone groaned at that, even the frog. Mai patted her friend on the shoulder.
"There were good things about when you were the ice princess with no sense of humor. Anyway, yes, Miroku swung and missed, and since they didn't have a backstop, the fireball kept on going and hit Shiho in the side of the head, setting her hair on fire!"
"And Tate put the fire out?"
"No, Reito did. He grabbed up the fire extinguisher and had the fire out before anything but hair got burnt. He was actually pretty cool!" Mai looked back up at the smirking wonder, impressed.
"But Shiho said that Tate saved her."
"He did!" Shiho insisted. "It's because of oniichan that Grandpa keeps a fire extinguisher around whenever we barbecue!"
"I was only ten!" Tate protested. "Anybody can have an accident with the lighter fluid at that age!"