Duran-kun and Kiyo-chan's Omake Theater
(featuring the Sugiura and Yuuki family pets)
~X X X~
A/N: For the curious, this story takes place during Mai and Natsuki's second year of high school, about a year before the most recent chapters. Hooray for achronic order!
~X X X~
"Now that," Nao declared, setting down her chopsticks, "was what I call a good dinner."
Natsuki glanced at her oddly.
"It was just take-out Chinese, and not even from the best restaurant in town."
"That's right," Mai chimed in. "Takumi tells me that you and Shizuru order from where he works every two or three weeks."
"I thought it was good," Yukino said. "What about you, Mikoto?"
The black-haired girl shrugged.
"Predictable response in three…two…one…" Nao murmured.
"Mai's food is lots better."
"Nailed it."
"Don't be smug," Natsuki told her. "Four-year-old children could have seen that coming."
"Well, with your level of smarts, you'd know what matches that standard."
"You two are so cute together," Mai giggled.
"Gah! Don't say that!" Natsuki and Nao chorused.
The refusal of the two friends to admit their friendship was interrupted when a creature with the upper body of a woman, the body of a spider the size of a dinner plate, and the tail of a scorpion jumped up on the table and rapidly scuttled across, dodging plates and food containers. The reason for the drider's hasty retreat was shown when an even odder creature leapt up on the table after her, this one mostly lion, but with a spike on its nose, a mane that molded into a whiplike stinger, and a back end that seemed more like a chariot than an actual creature.
The drider snatched up a chopstick and aimed it like a lance to meet the chimera's charge. Her foe, unimpressed, just bit off the end.
"Julia, stop teasing Gakuten O. Midori's paying for the food, remember?" Nao chided her pet.
Gakuten O's stinger whipped out and knocked the chopstick out of Julia's hold (spider legs not having the strongest grip). It went spinning away and knocked over a soy sauce bottle, the spill heading straight towards Nao.
"Gah! That nearly ended up in my lap!" she yelped.
"Gakuten O is a champion of justice! Righteousness fills his body, delivering vengeance unto the wicked!" Midori crowed from the head of the table while Nao frantically righted the bottle and mopped at the advancing spill with her napkin.
"I wouldn't laugh too much, sensei," Nao pointed out. "If any of this ends up staining the rug, Youko will take it out on you no matter who actually spilled it."
Midori stopped cackling. Her old college friend had allowed her to move in as her roommate, but could be…intemperate…when Midori's antics led to assorted destruction. Particularly when those antics were carried out without the influence of alcohol, such as at this Second Annual HiME Sentai Anniversary Party and Excuse to Try Midori's New Karaoke Machine. (Youko, it will be noted, had too much experience in seeking forgiveness for the aftereffects of too much booze to hold that against anyone.)
"Be nice, Nao. Like you just said, Midori is the one paying for the food, after all," Mai chided.
"Oh, now I get it," Natsuki said. "That's why you enjoyed the meal so much."
"Hell, yeah. Free food always tastes better than anything you pay for yourself."
"Next time you drop in to visit Mikoto just at dinnertime, you're going to have to chip in for noodles."
"Ah, well, a year is a pretty good run for one scam."
Julia and Gakuten O had gotten down from the table by then, and Midori took the opportunity to upend the take-out bag onto the empty space.
"Enough of that! It's time to see what our future holds for us!"
"F-fortune cookies?" Natsuki stammered.
"What's with you? You look like you just saw a ghost."
Natsuki's eyes flicked nervously around the room, as if she was expecting an ambush of some kind. She even started to duck down and glance under the table before catching herself and straightening up.
"I…I've just had some bad experiences with fortune cookies, okay?"
"What, are you expecting little elves to jump out of them and attack?"
"It's just that the fortunes keep coming true, but in…difficult ways."
"Yeahhh, I think maybe we need to talk to Fujino about not letting you run around off your leash."
Natsuki did not react to Nao's latest gibe by snapping some insult back at her, but rather blushed, and not just a regular blush, but a caught-hitchhiking-in-a-bikini kind of blush.
"I…think maybe we shouldn't press Natsuki for details," Yukino said. "Some parts of a girl's life ought to remain private."
Nao raised an eyebrow in the spectacled brunette's direction, mostly wondering how she had been the one to immediately figure out what had Natsuki all embarrassed. "Whatever. I guess I have the guts to face the big, bad cookie." She snatched one off the table, tore open the plastic wrapper, and broke the cookie apart. "'When spider webs unite,'" she read, "'they can tie up a lion.'"
"That seems thematically appropriate for you, Nao," Yukino said.
"Yeah, and I—"
She was interrupted by a sudden roar. Once again, Julia leapt up on the table, sprinting across it at full steam, not even bothering to dodge obstacles this time. The reason for it was obvious in an instant: Gakuten O followed her up, wheels spinning as he roared along, scattering plates and boxes and crushing at least one cookie underfoot. Long strands of broken web clung stickily to him all over, trailing out behind him like streamers as he ran.
Nao watched the pets roar across the table, down the other side, and head for the interior of the house, then tossed her fortune back down.
"See what I mean?" she said to Natsuki. "I told you that you were just being weird. These things are nonsense."