Ryunosuke Alone
So, there Ryunosuke stood with a small piece of chocolate in her mouth for the first time in her life. She chewed it once. Chewed it twice. Twitched in a manner that Ran found strikingly familiar and curiously attractive. Then she swallowed, whirled around and punched a dent into the wall which was swiftly repaired by Mendo’s ever-ready and highly paid manservants.
“That son of a bitch,” Ryu growled. “Depriving me of this for all my life! This might be the worst thing he’s ever done! I’ll break every bone in his stupid, lying body!”
“There, there,” Ran said, patting her date on the back. She felt the muscles in “his” back through “his” shirt and suddenly felt a little weak at the knees. “That’s no way to talk.”
“It ain’t?”
“No!” Ran shook her head, and then a devious grin took over her face as if it were an invading force. “First of all, you seal him in a vat. Then you fill it with chocolate while threatening to drown him in it. A little at a time. He’ll try to eat his way out at first, but eventually you add so much that he can’t eat any more. Then! Once you’ve reached that point, that’s when you let him out and break every bone in his body, while he’s sick from overeating!”
“That bastard has it coming! And worse!”
And all the while, Lum and Ataru were sitting at a table with their hands under their chins, grinning like they were watching a show. Which, in a sense, they were. Mendo was still wailing away about the dark, cramped space he’d landed in, so he was adding about as much to the proceedings as he might otherwise: Distracting noise that the others were avoiding paying any more heed than absolutely necessary.
“Ah!” Ran cooed. “But why dwell on such horrible, wicked thoughts when we should enjoy the freedom you have now? He’s not around, is he? Now you can enjoy yourself a little!”
“I guess. Did you have something in mind?”
“Well…” Ran said, coyly twirling her finger around on Ryu’s arm. “I might be able to think of a few things…”
“This is so hot,” Ataru whispered. He and Lum were sharing a drink, with a big straw each. Funny thing. It wasn’t the sort of thing he’d ever do normally but right now he was just a little bit… distracted.
“Shh!” Lum replied. Now, one might think she was doing that deliberately to trick Ataru into going out with her on a proper date. Not so much really. At least, not deliberately. Perhaps an unconscious action on her part? “I don’t want to miss anything. It’ll be so much fun teasing her later on, and she’s giving me such wonderful material.”
Of course, Ataru was also getting plenty of - ahem - material for later use. Probably best not to dwell on that thought too long. Especially since -
“I see the light!”
That was the moment Mendo managed to find his way out of his most recently discovered dark, cramped place and immediately set about getting all the attention back on himself and how awesome he thought he was, and perhaps more importantly, how important everyone else thought he was. Then again how could the opinions of mere poor peons ever compare to one of his wealth and influence? Try not to follow his thought process too closely, as that’s a good way to make your brain resemble a pretzel.
“I must insist on showing you lovely ladies around this restaurant,” Mendo said, somehow managing to hold onto all three of their hands at once while the girls he’d brought along as an entourage excitedly cooed behind him. “And I suppose Moroboshi as well, if only so that he realises his place in this world.”
“… Is this the sorta thing that normally happens on a date?” Ryu whispered to Ran.
“Only if you’re friends with one of those two,” Ran replied. “I suppose we should go along with it. He’s the sort that won’t shut up until you do.” Though, it must be mentioned that she did consider draining Mendo. Since that would have involved kissing him while on a date with another boy - pardon me, ‘boy’ - she elected against that particular plan in favour of the slightly more painful option. At least Lum would be made to suffer as well!
… The hell was she still smiling about?!
Infuriated at Lum’s seeming amusement about this date, Ran took a firm hold of Ryu’s arm and stuck her tongue out at that detestable Oni and her lewd fiance. Okay. So maybe this date was turning out not precisely as planned, a trifle more chaotic than intended, but she had a backup plan! All she needed was a little bit of a distraction, and then she would -
“… Is that a boat?”
“Quite so!” Mendo enthusiastically replied. “I requested my builders to redesign the kitchen based on an American movie I recently happened to see.”
“Oh,” Ryu said, pulling into the boat. “Uh, that’s a little weird… But whatever. What movie was it?”
Before Mendo could answer, everyone had already seated in the boat and it began to drift off down an inexplicable river into a somehow even more inexplicable tunnel. Ran clutched a little bit tighter to Ryu’s arm, pretending to be afraid of the dark. Of course, it would take a hell of a lot more than that to scare -
<i>“There’s no Earthly way of knowing… Which direction we are going…”</i>
“Eek!” one of Mendo’s entourage cried. “I’m scared of the dark!”
“Me too!” another wailed.
“Nothing to concern yourself with, ladies!” Mendo said. It was one of his odder traits. So long as there were girls around to see him, and he knew they could see him, his ego managed to completely block out the min-numbing terror a situation like this put him in. The fact that he requested the tunnel in the first place could be attributed to deep-rooted denial that he even had such a fear in the first place. “So long as I am here, there is absolutely nothing to be - It’s dark! I’m scared! - Ah, my dear beauty! It does my heart good to see your eyes, rather than covering them with your hands.”
A scant two minutes later, and Ran should be able to take a little solace in the smile being wiped from Lum’s face. If not for the fact that she was equally drained of colour. Light! Never before had she been so glad to see a little light! Ran leaped from the boat, safety precautions be damned, and kissed the floor of the most impractical kitchen she had ever seen or imagined, never mind set foot inside.
Still. Even for someone that had grown up travelling between planets as a matter of course, this was a pretty impressive spectacle. Especially considering the time constraints.
“Someone’s overcompensating…” Ataru whistled.
“A trifle, considering the wealth of the Mendo family!” Mendo said, walking forward rather more stifly than usual, and relying rather more on the quartet of unnamed girls for support than he might normally make use of. You can imagine it well enough, I’m sure. The supposedly tough man pretending to console the “weak and frightened” woman, when the truth is he’s the one seeking comfort? Not that the girls seemed to mind. “Though I suppose it would be impressive to those of less wealth and prestige…”
“Feh,” Ryu rolled her eyes. “Rich bastards really know how to waste their dough.”
“On the contrary!” Mendo said, life returning to him in an instant. “As you can see over here, our dough-making process is really quite efficient. See over here…?”
If Ran had to compliment that boy on anything, it was being able to hold attention. She slipped back just a little bit discreetly, because she’d noticed something fun. Namely. A tray carrying food over to the boat destined to journey through hell. Four dishes in all. A curry so spicy her eyes were watering from looking at it, a plate full of oysters, a dainty little salad with a cute umbrella on top and… Raw steak. Her target. The employee turned his back for a moment to switch the boat into reverse, and for just those few seconds she had her opportunity. Ran was no fool. She knew that things tended to take an unexpected turn when Ataru and Lum were involved, so she’d set about making sure she had a solid backup plan. And during those couple of seconds she was liberally spraying it all over Ryu’s steak while nobody else was watching.
A job well done. She honestly felt like patting herself on the back for that one. She’d considered everything in that. The table number on the tray matched theirs, she hadn’t spilled even the slightest trace on any of the other dishes, nobody had seen her…
By the time this night was done, Ryunosuke would be putty in her hands. Just see if “he” wasn’t!
- Ataru and/or Lum noticed Ran’s little ploy. Decide to have a little fun with her.
- Nobody noticed. Ran watches with bated breath as Ryu eats a bite of steak.
- Mendo has yet more to show them.
- Something else
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