Thursday, December 15, 2005

   When Chibis Attack! Part 23
Previous prevarications are here.

Part 23: In Which Shocking Escalates


The door is safely closed.

Turn, and yank completely blissful Kougaiji out of my sweater. Good thing that I always wear a shirt underneath; bad thing that I still have a house-full of little lunatics. Speaking of which:





Gojyo and Sanzo are peering around the corner in that peculiar one-head-above-the-other way that makes you wonder how the bodies behind the wall are arranged.

"What?" Glare at them. Try to put Kougaiji down. Cannot put Kougaiji down. He's once again wuvingly attached, and now extremely staticky. Note to self: Poly-cotton shirt, wool sweater and chibi-fluff creates massive electro-static buildup. I doubt that any of that power could be harvested for anything useful. Producing anything useful would be patently anti-chibi.

"Nothing," chorus the two Unattached Trouble Generators. They wander off in separate directions, whistling different tunes, one of which is 'It's a Small World'.

Suspicious. Yet cute.





"I'm done with the pastry, you can turn the heat on again." Hakkai appears in the hallway, white with flour from head to toe.

The monochrome nature of this chibi distracts me from the suspiciousness of the others. My brain momentarily out-of-order, my body goes ahead on its own and holds Kougaiji out above Hakkai. Particles of flour fountain upward onto the Staticky Clinger.

"Well, isn't that fascinating..." Hakkai muses, shaking his clothes and watching the flour rise up. "How would you like to help me clean up the kitchen, Kougaiji?"

"I'm busy." Vital matters of state, no doubt.

"I'll give you a cookie."




Random blue sparks shoot out as Kougaiji's little, round feet hit the floor. Watching him follow Hakkai out into the kitchen, I can't help wondering if this counts as a Power Up.



First Things First: Heat!

... then possibly more booze.







Time flies when you're having fun.

It also flies when your perceptions of reality are a little hazy. Or, maybe it's not flying, maybe you just think it flew because you can't remember how long it really took.

All the same, it seems like moments after I return to avoiding work that Gojyo and Goku start tearing apart my Youkai-Hakkai ravaged chair in search of the spare change within. They fight over the coins they find, then they fight with the coins, flinging them at each other with stinging speed.

One missed shot nearly hits the back of my head. I am aware of this only because the heat of Kougaiji's hook-shot fireball from around the kitchen corner slightly singes my hair after it melts the coin in mid-flight.

I hate the smell of my hair burning. That's just one more reason why I prefer to drink alone.

"Aw, man! That was a quarter!"





The kitchen, unlike my hair, smells delightful. It's the kind of smell that draws you in; as if your nose has told your eyes they've got to see this, so let's bag the brain and drag it in there.

Ostensibly, I go to refill my glass.




Open Fridge, Glass in Hand.

"It's nearly ready, so don't spoil your appetite." Hakkai has the oven door open, a little welding mask covering his face. He hauls on a rope, and incomprehensible wires, pulleys and winches sway the puff pastry out onto a waiting rack.

Some kind of savory pie? Pie for dinner, not just dessert?

Fill glass... halfway. Conserve taste buds for pie.

It's not like I can't come back for more. After all, the bottle's still too heavy for Gojyo to pour.



Small, desperately hungry hands efficiently set the table. Proficient mouths consume inhuman quantities of food. Inquisitive minds ask, "What's for desert?"

And get wapped on the head with a brand new paper fan.

"Nothing if you knock me again, goddamn monkey!"




It's not pie. You see, we had pie for dinner: tasty, filling, savory pie. We can't have pie for dessert as well; there's some kind of cosmic rule about that. No, dessert is some kind of crumble. Maybe even better than pie, if that's feasible. I shall need a larger sample to do further studies on.

Disproportionately fat stomachs protrude from already round chibi waistlines. I wonder about chibi cholesterol and how the Heimlich Maneuver is done on something so small.

Thankfully, such expertise is not necessary. These are experienced eaters; professional, almost. I suppose it's a matter of knowing how to pack it.

Or... maybe it goes to that place they pull things out of? Where it turns into other things. Things like flowers...

Those chrysanthemums are holding up beautifully, especially since Goku discovered that they weren't edible.




"Another piece?"

Desperately try to convince my stomach of the benefits of more. Stomach counters with an ugly picture of Death from Dessert Overdose. Self-control is reluctantly enforced.

"Couldn't eat another bite, thank you. I could sleep right here..."

"Oh, you're very welcome." Hakkai hands the remaining slice to Goku, who celebrates his gluttonous victory then digs in. "I suppose we should find a way to amuse ourselves quietly, if you're tired." Hakkai says this so ordinarily, when it can really be only slightly easier than performing brain surgery with ones tongue while humming 'Louie Louie'.



"We could play cards. It's been a while since Hakkai took all our money." Gojyo sounds surprisingly happy about this. Hakkai does seem to use that money to finance his cookie baking activities, so I suppose it's not all bad for the losers. "Pack of cards anywhere?" Apparently this prop is essential enough to make it impossible to pull it from behind ones back. Or it could be that they just like making me hunt for stuff. Either way...

"Y..." My mind involuntarily flashes back to my last occasion of forced child-minding at the bidding of distant, yet fertile, kin. Thanks to the dear hellspawn's paper eating/flushing/otherwise-abusing habits, my deck has 27 cards. No sixes. None at all.

"No. Sorry." Sorry I ever let the little buggers through the door. Or their parents, for that matter.



Contemplative, even ruminant, looks surround my table. "Mahjong tiles would be right out then, I suppose." Hakkai ventures with hardly a glimmer of hope.

The heavens alone know what they would have done to my house with plastic or porcelain in their juvenile armory. "Uh, no."



The air above the table takes on an odd, sparkly aura. My prescient brain suggests running, but my over-fed stomach overrides this command by sitting heavily above my... center of gravity.

The Lightning of Cute strikes Goku.

"You could read us a story!"



Everyone stares at him, then quickly looks away to gaze uncomfortably at the ceiling, walls, crumbs, etc. Except for Permanently Cutified Kougaiji who just picks his incongruously pointy teeth as if this made perfect Chibi Sense.

"Um... yes. I suppose she could..." Hakkai eventually breaks the fidgety silence.

"Maybe..." Gojyo mumbles, examining his fork.

"That's a little... out of character, isn't it?" My nervous laugh sounds painful even to me, as I try to weasel out of public speaking like... a weasel... in a weasel trap.



"Well, Sanzo does read his Sutra quite often." Hakkai reasons.

"To kill stuff, yes." I try to discount this evidence. I mean, does that really count as entertainment? Should it?

"And the paper. Sometimes we get a piece of it once Sanzo's done with it. It's got... pictures. And personal ads." Gojyo rationalizes, qualifies and distracts.

"It'll be great!" Goku has now fully earthed the chibi-lightning, attaining to unheard of sparkliness. "We can all sit on the couch, and you can read to us. Maybe even mrrfghh!"

Gojyo tries to save Goku from his own cuteness by stuffing him into an empty pot and putting the lid on it.

"Don't mention cuddles! Don't even think about cuddles!"




My eye twitches. "Excuse me." Must get to fridge. More rum. Now.

There is a rumbling from Extra-Happy-Buddha-Shaped Sanzo. He had been quietly contemplating the true meaning of dessert, but now he brings forth a comment on the current situation.

"I get to pick the book."

As sparkly and blurry eyes all focus, or attempt to focus, on the unexpected monking, Goku's voice echoes from inside the pot: "It'll be great!"



There's no helping it. I'm going to need a full glass. And maybe refills.



Youkai-Hakkai ravaged the chair in Chapter 11. Yea, verily, it was cute, but he didn't have a pattern of hearts and stars all over him instead of leaves as Kanan the Mischievous Goat suggested. That would have been very cute indeed.

The flowers arrived here.

I'm using more continuity lately. That's because I've got a plot all ready to go, and I don't want to spring that kind of mental exercise on you without a run-up.


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