Friday, October 7, 2005

   Night of the Living Chibis
CB is back from vacation. But whilst sojourning in a foreign clime, stuff happened. Hence, this is a one-shot spin-off of When Chibis Attack!, found here. Enjoy!


The snoring comes in gasps and mutters from the other room.

"How the hell can you sleep with that racket?"

This mutter comes from the end of the bed. The chibis are 'helping' one another climb out of my suitcase and on to the foot of the bed. Most of the 'helping' seems to involve the stomping of fingers.

"Earplugs. I'll put them in after I finish this Sudoku." I return my eyes to the number puzzle in my hand, actively ignoring my well-travelled hallucinations.

"Bloody loud. The pictures are shaking." Gojyo is trying to muffle the reverberations by pulling the panties on his head down over his ears. His antennae, protruding from the leg-holes, twitch in time to the snores.

"Feel bad for my mother, since she's stuck in the same room. She's probably dreaming of bear attacks."




There is a moment of silence in sympathy for my mother, sharing the next room with my Grandmother. An elderly, yet vigorous woman, Gran's sinuses have a seldom-encountered power. Their acoustics are second to none. My mother inherited but a minor fraction of their power, while I am a throwback to the male line, inheriting nothing but a headache and buzzing ears. Needless to say, we all live alone.

I thought Mum was hitting the wine a little hard tonight...

Mind drifts to the bottle of rum... 6000 miles away.




The rattling silence is broken by Sanzo. "I'll take those earplugs if you're not using them."

"You should try panties! Works waaaay better." Gojyo grins down from his new hammock of carefully strung brassieres, several pairs of underwear on his head.






The bizarreness of this comment temporarily overrides the otherwise inevitable beating Gojyo is looking forward to.

"Um... does that really block the sound?" Hakkai asks, stuffing cotton balls in his own ears.

"Nope!" Gojyo declares cheerfully. "But it makes staying awake a helluva lot more fun."





The beating ensues.





I can't figure out where the nine is supposed to go. Did I screw up somewhere? I think I have an extra six, but I might have just been writing upside down somehow. These damn number puzzles can drive you mad...



Glance at Goku, still fast asleep, chewing on my sweater. The pom-pom of his nightcap dangles over the side of my suitcase, and swings gently in time to the shaking snores.

I wonder which puzzle did it? Or did I start doing them after I went mad? Cause and effect can be a deceptive thing.

Oh well. However it went, it's rather a moot point by now, isn't it?




"It's like a goddamn train wreck!" Sanzo mutters, tucked into a dolls bed from which the ornamental teddy bear has been unceremoniously evicted. My ear plugs (wrapped in plastic to prevent cootie transfer) are in his ears.

"Really? Maybe the earplugs are trapping the sound in your head so that it echoes." I muse aloud, as loud as I like, confident that I am unlikely to be heard over the venerable train wrecker in the next room.

"What?" Sanzo takes out the earplugs, the better to glare at me. I seize the moment to grab them and stuff them into my own ears.




I'm sure he's yelling something profane at the top of his lungs, though still unhearable over Gran's healthy snore. I praise the inventor of industrial-grade earplugs, as I can't hear his histrionics, and the snore is now as gentle as the rolling of the sea.

Turn off the light.

My jet lagged head hit the pillow. I feel a slight tug at my hair, and tilt my head to catch Kougaiji tucking himself in to said hair.

Lip-reading skills are completely unnecessary to decipher the "I WUV you!" that precedes his good-night hug.





I suppose this clinches it. No matter how far I run, I can't get away from the chibis.

I smile in the darkness, oddly reassured.

Oddly at home, 6000 miles away.
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