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tampered2007-06-25 08:43 pm
hail-nicotine.livejournal.com) wrote in tampered2007-06-25 08:43 pm
LOG; completed
When; June 25
Rating; PG-13
Characters; Naoto [![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
naoto_two] & Badou [hail_nicotine]
Summary; Naoto & Badou admire the snow and do things with it. *_* aka FIGHT. AN EPIC BATTLE COMMENCED.
Log; For once, Naoto was able to put the techniques she'd learned at an earlier time to a use other than combat. The entire City was blanketed by several feet of snow that would have made travel difficult, but a quick geppou brought her to Badou's apartment with much trouble. She stared for a moment at the blocked main doorway, then, deciding that plan of action would be futile, turned instead to his window. She jumped up and perched precariously on the sill.
Naoto shifted the box of hot chocolate mix to one hand and knocked on the glass with the other. "Badou-kun," she called. "I'm here with the cocoa."
Internet, frogs and dirty underwear.
A normal summer for Badou, excluding the fact that the weather had gone batshit insane. It was friggin’ June and snowing. What the hell, Mother Nature? Though knowing the City, it was most likely a curse, because hello, snow in June?! Badou was used to weird weather due to the sudden weather changes back home, but this took the metaphorical cake.
Snow. In June. He couldn’t stress enough how stupid it was.
Snow in June meant sitting on his ass all day (as if he did anything else), watching TV and sleeping. Oh, and walking around in his boxers through an insanely warm apartment.
So naturally, Badou almost managed to swallow his cigarette when he turned around to see what kind retarded bird was tapping on his window. The retarded bird, however, was a good friend and an all too familiar figure hunched on his windowsill. Couldn’t she just have taken the good old-fashioned door?!
Badou mouthed "What the fuck!" silently at Naoto and stumbled into his bedroom to put some damn clothes on.
She rolled her eyes at him as he disappeared into his bedroom. How typical of him to be walking around in only his underwear in the middle of the day. She'd have been more embarrassed, but little fazed her anymore, even a man stripped down to his boxers. …Perhaps that wasn't proper?
Either way, that meant having to wait until the man was finished dressing. That meant having to perch precariously on the windowsill for another few minutes until he let her in. Couldn't he have gone to change after opening the window for her? Tsk.
Naoto looked over her shoulder at the white expanse. Shivering, she pulled the scarf tighter around her neck, then peered back into the apartment. What was taking Badou so long?
Socks socks socks where where those— oh wait right there. They were unwashed and dirty but who really cared about that these days. At least he had washed his hair, damn it. On his quest through the bedroom, he collected a shirt and pants, putting them on while tripping over various pieces of furniture.
This promised to be a very interesting day.
With a grumble, Badou literally rolled back into the living room and proceeded to open the window—pulling Naoto inside and immediately closing the thing again behind her back, before turning around to glare at her while pulling at his shirt.
"I hate you so much that I put my shirt on inside-out."
Finally, some warmth. Taking a "walk" through the snow was one thing, but sitting for long minutes in the chill was absolutely intolerable. But knowing her friend, he would have turned the heat up to its maximum capacity.
"Take it off and put it back on correctly, then," Naoto replied simply, not even batting an eye at the oddity of the situation. She proceeded straight for the corner of the apartment that passed for a kitchen. She couldn't remember how many times she'd been in Badou's home before, and though it was a sharp contrast to the well-kept apartment she lived in, she knew her way around well enough. After a quick rummage through his dishwasher—not clean, she noted for later—and cupboard, she pulled out two mugs.
The woman then reached for the handle of his refrigerator, but paused. Who knew what dangerous things were in there. "Do you have milk?" she asked, glancing back at him from over her shoulder.
"I knew that," Badou scowled, taking the piece of cloth off and pulling it right with a frown. Without looking up, he heard Naoto move things in the kitchen and he really, really hoped that she wouldn't find the yoghurt from three weeks ago. Because he was fairly sure that even she couldn't contain the horror of a mini-civilization in a bowl of deceased yoghurt.
...Wait, milk? He did have that, right? Badou made a sound of confirmation as his head and arms were stuck in the knot he once called "a shirt". Struggling, he managed get up and bring out a "Help me out here, damn it," before bumping his elbow against the wall, followed by a muffled curse.
Sighing—because really, had she expected much else from him?—Naoto left the kitchen and moved to help Badou with his clothing. What had he been trying to do, anyway, put it on through the sleeve?
"You've twisted the end," she said, tone slightly irritated, as she grabbed hold of one end of his shirt. "This isn't going to work. Take it off again."
Without waiting for him to comply, she pulled it off his arms and head, then straightened the material out.
"Yes, mother."
Badou waited patiently (like a good son?!) until Naoto was done, and then snatched the thing out of her hands before pulling it over his head. ...The backside was on the front. He shrugged and grabbed Naoto by her shoulders, turning her around and gently leading her towards the kitchen.
"And now, you can be my wife again. Make me my damn cocoa," he said in a raspy voice, followed by a cough. "Shit, I need my cigarettes."
He let go of her, dropped to the ground and crawled towards the couch to see if there were any spare cigs left. Who knew where those buggers had ended up after a long night of watching some comedy channel?
"Yes, sir."
She rolled her eyes at him before turning back to the obstacle that was the refrigerator. Jaw set, she opened the cavern for foodstuffs and tried to ignore everything inside except for the carton of milk. Milk, milk… Where did Badou keep his—
…There was no milk.
Sighing again, Naoto shut the refrigerator and turned instead to the sink. Water would have to do for now, and at least it was clean. She made a mental note to put the dishes in the sink into the washer before she left.
With both mugs filled with water and heating in the microwave, she walked over to where Badou was hunting for cigarettes. She suppressed a look of exasperation and asked, "Why don't you just open a new, fresh pack?"
With nothing more than his butt poking out from under the couch, Badou couldn't say much more than: "Shut up, I'm trying to help the environment with th—" His sentence was rudely interrupted by his own squeak of joy upon finding a brand new beautiful cigarette. In his reverie, he bumped his head rather fiercely but nothing really mattered anymore aside from that beautiful, slim, white thing of pleasure.
Badou managed to pull himself back and in a blink of an eye he was standing again, his hair filled with balls of white, fluffy dust and searching for a lighter in his pockets. Why yes, he did have a lighter in every pair of pants, thank you very much.
"So what was the window stunt for?" he asked after lighting his cigarette with a satisfied sigh, blowing out smoke in circles while gazing at the woman in front of him.
There were limits to what Naoto could accept with a placid face, and this certainly lay beyond those limits. She was half tempted to cover her eyes with her face and hope to God this wasn't really happening, but…
"I can't get through the front door," she replied, reaching through the smoke to pick the dust bunnies from Badou's hair. "The snow is too deep, you could drown in it."
The microwave beeped then, and she moved away to attend to the cocoa. The mugs were too hot for bare hands, so with a towel she carefully moved them to the counter and emptied the powder onto the steaming water. The clink of the spoon as she stirred was the only sound for a while.
"You should go and take a look," she added as an afterthought, holding Badou's mug out for him to take. "It's beautiful out."
...She really did act like his mother, picking the dirt from his hair. How sad. No, actually, how fitting.
"Oh, but that totally explains how you managed to jump three floors up," he replied sarcastically, not really understanding how the hell she had done that, but since she had been here far longer than him… Maybe she knew some crazy-ass magic shit. Such as the runes thing.
He waited until she was standing in front of him again and blew some smoke in her face, grinning, while taking the mug with a "Thank you very much.". While he waited for the beverage to cool down a bit, he looked through the window and raised an eyebrow at the weather outside.
"Beautiful meaning cold in this context, obviously. Like hell I'm going outside in these circum—" Wait. Something nice just hit him in the face. An evil plan, scheme, plot, whatever you want to call it. Good times ahead.
"Actually, on a second thought, yeah, I do want to see it."
Naoto quirked an eyebrow at him, waving the smoke away with one hand, her own mug of cocoa in the other.
"You don't appreciate the weather," she remarked between sips of cocoa, but she stood beside him anyway. She rather liked the wintertime, especially right after a snowfall when the surface was still unmarred.
"Then I suggest you either finish that drink or put a lid on it so you can bring it down with you." She had her hand on the windowpane.
Badou stared at his mug for a moment, almost as if he were contemplating something gravely interesting—and oh, he was—before shrugging and pressing the mug against his cheek.
"Of course I don't appreciate this weather. It turns my toes black," he said casually, before retracting his mug with a hiss. Damn thing was still too hot. Too hot, too cold… he hated extreme temperatures with a passion.
"Well then, Wonder Woman, you can jump out of the window and kill yourself while I"—he glided towards the door theatrically and picked up his jacket plus scarf along the way—"will just do it the non-modern way. See you outside."
"See you then. If you can't open the main door, I won't say I told you so."
If she was going to jump out the window, she'd have to do it slowly so as not to spill the cocoa, and neither of her abilities allowed that. So Naoto went back into the kitchen and found an empty cereal box, tore a square piece off, and used that as a lid for her mug. She opened the window and stepped out into the air. Mere seconds later, she was perched on the banister outside of the apartment building's main door, fanning her drink with the cardboard piece to cool it faster.
Naoto took another sip, her eyes on the door, waiting.
...Well, shit.
Badou kicked the main door for a good minute before stopping and thinking what the hell he was actually doing. So, a quick run back to his apartment made him gain two very~ nice~ things. His guns.
Gunshots filled the hall as Badou pretty much destroyed the door with a completely calm face, kicking the remains in front of him to grant himself total access to the…
Shitload of snow. Holy shit. Avalanche. Badou was glad that he had caught his mug just right on time (even though he burned his hands) or else he would've fallen flat on his face with cocoa spilling all over the place. Even though he was used to doing embarrassing things.
After a lot of struggling and something-that-once-resembled-a-door kicking, he managed to take three whole steps outside. Suffice to say, he was unbelievably proud of himself.
Naoto certainly hadn't been expecting gunshots. She'd forgotten all about her cocoa as she stared, wide-eyed, at the bullet holes multiplying all across the surface of the door. They crumpled under the force of one solid kick, but said boot quickly disappeared as the knee-high snow tumbled into the hallway. Badou eventually emerged from the wreckage, mug in his hands—very red now, the woman noted—with a look of triumph on his face.
"That's certainly one way to take care of a door," she replied matter-of-factly, only then remembering her own drink and taking another sip. She slid off the banister, and half of her legs disappeared in the snow, but she didn't seem to notice. Instead, she tilted her head at her friend, gaze focused on his hands. "Are you all right?"
"Nnngg ya dnnt lkkk itt?"
Oh yeah, now he had fallen flat on his face, for some shady reason. Great move. Face in the snow meant non-articulate sentences and apparently… twitching hands? Wait, oh shit, that fucking mug—
Badou put the thing down in the snow, carefully even, and raised his head rather suddenly, staring at Naoto in complete, annoyed shock. "Of course I'm alright. I'm doing just fine. There's snow in my clothes, my hands hurt like hell, my butt itches and my cigarette is gone. Best day of my life. No, I'm not cranky, why do you ask?"
The man rose up as "safe" as he could and wiped his sleeves on Naoto, not caring about her reaction at all. He... jiggled around for a moment to get the snow out of weird places and picked up his mug again with a sour face, obviously ignoring the woman in front of him and staring at the street, mumbling incoherent things that resembled non-existent curse words.
Naoto couldn't help but laugh, but she stifled it quickly and managed to return to a placid expression.
"Keep that up," she said quietly, taking one of his hands and inspecting the palm, frowning at the burn, "and you'll turn into Heine. And you don't want that."
Shivering, she turned away slightly and sat down right on the snow, sinking a little, but it was compact enough to support her lack of weight. One hand tightened the scarf around her neck.
"See? It's not so bad out here. It makes you appreciate the cocoa more." Naoto supposed it was a good idea to keep her tone cheerful. Badou's sour mood was not something she wanted to reflect in her own voice.
Badou pulled his hand away as quickly as he could, a gesture that seemed hostile if interpreted wrongly, so he covered it up with a smile and smooth words. "You, good madam, have a point."
Truth was, he wasn't going to let her see his scar.
He quickly dropped the subject "Heine"—last thing he wanted to talk about at that moment—by whistling shortly and starting to walk down the small stairs with his mug raised high above his head. So he hated the snow. That didn't keep him from inspecting this annoying but also interesting phenomenon of getting snow into your underwear by just walking. Grand.
...Besides, he still needed to try out his master plan. So he walked on, just a few meters, and "accidentally" dropped his cocoa. With a faked frown he dived into the snow to retrieve the mug, completely disappearing in the thick layer of snow.
He was invisible. Where's your damn magic now, he thought with some amusement.
Naoto rolled his eyes again as he fell into the snow. What was he doing this time?
Probably slipped, she mused, finishing her drink with one last gulp. He'll get up soon.
So she waited. ...And waited. The mug was growing cold in her hands, and Badou still wasn't getting up from where he'd fallen. It was ridiculous, really. A slip in snow so deep wasn't going to hurt anybody.
"Badou-kun, you can stop pretending now," the woman called out, putting her mug aside and stuffing her hands in her jacket pockets. A silence followed, eerie and impregnable, a silence unlike that of late nights or early mornings. In the vastness of the City, nothing moved.
Naoto's brow furrowed slightly. "Badou-kun?" No answer. This wasn't right.
Carefully, slowly, she rose and trudged through the snow towards the place where he'd fallen.
She encountered the mug first, its contents spilled, and then she came upon his shivering body facedown in the snow. Kneeling beside him, she prodded him gently with a hand.
"Badou-kun?"
…Maybe it wasn't such a good idea. Badou felt like he was dying ten times over and he could almost feel his toes turn black. Oh God. The price he had to pay for a good laugh, the distances he walked for a chuckle; he knew that he was going to die an eleventh time sooner or—stop, rewind. He wasn't going to turn into an emo bastard like Heine.
...Still, this all hurt. Very much so.
But Naoto's reaction was already pretty damn funny so eh, black toes be damned. Stifling his chuckles, he started to collect snow as silently as possible, for he really didn't want to ruin his own fun. He grinned at her "Badou-kun?" but kept extremely quiet as he heard her approach his little… personal space. Even as she was poking him, he didn't move but waited for the right moment to strike.
Which was... right now. With a battlecry, he grabbed all the snow he had collected, sat up in a flash and dumped the huge load in her face with a cackle, mentally feeling like a 6-year old.
Yeah, this was fun after all.
Naoto blinked. Oh God, it was cold and she was soaked with snow. She turned her head slightly to stare at Badou for a moment. "Shocked" wasn't the right word. "Dumbstruck" was more like. The snow was seeping through gaps in her scarf and into her gloves and—
That bastard just kept grinning.
The woman wiped the snow from her eyes to reveal a face clouded with mock fury. Her other hand scooped up a ball of the nearest snow and flung it back at the incorrigible redhead sitting in front of her with all of her might.
"Not fair!" she roared, dropping back to the ground for more ammunition.
He had hit the bullseye, judging from her amazing expression. Badou even started to laugh as a snowball hit him right in the face, because man, this was even better than he had expected!
"You obviously do not know who you are dealing with, heathen scum!" he yelled happily. He started grabbing random chunks of snow with an almost insane giggle and deposited it on every inch of Naoto that he could see. With a high-pitched shout, he tried to evade her attacks by rolling around, yet that strategy failed horribly. Oh well, he was already soaked anyway.
"And dear, all is fair in love and war!"
It seemed Badou was more skilled at snowball fighting because she was getting more soaked by the minute. Huffing indignantly, she struggled to her feet to storm over to him, but she lost her balance and collapsed in a heap in the snow.
Pushing herself to her hands and knees—not that it helped much in snow that deep—she shoved her hair from her eyes and grabbed another fistful of snow.
"Love and war indeed!" she shouted back, hurling the handful at him. She was shivering so hard, and her scarf was thoroughly dampened, but it didn't matter. No, not when there was prey to be captured.
Naoto concentrated on a soru and flickered out of sight, reappearing immediately in front of the giddy man. She scooped up as much snow as possible and, smiling widely, dumped it onto his head.
Badou couldn't help but laugh uncontrollably at Naoto's futile attempts to best him, but his laughter was interrupted by a sneeze of his own and the realization that she had suddenly disappeared.
Wait, where did she g—oh jesus fu—
And with that, Badou felt the snow creeping its way down his back. Defeated by a gloomy woman. Really, what a failure.
He raised his arms up in the air and sneezed again; damn snow really did get everywhere. "Okay, you win, sheesh," he yelled while protecting his face with his arms. Another sneeze.
Badou was 100% sure that he looked like a complete idiot.
The difficult victory and the mere idea of having a snowball fight with Badou caused quiet laughter to peal from Naoto's lips. She sat back onto the snow, her butt probably frozen over by now but it really didn't matter, still giggling as she brushed clumps of white flakes from her hair.
"I don't know who I'm dealing with, huh?" she said finally. Her ears and cheeks and nose hurt, they were probably thoroughly red, but she couldn't help but smile. She hadn't had that much fun in a long time.
Badou grinned.
And he grinned some more.
And then, suddenly, there was snow in his hands.
"No. You don't know who you're dealing with, love." With that, he whacked her in the face once again.
She stared at him through the fresh layer of snow on her face. How dare he!
"You...you...!" Naoto's face contorted into another of mock rage. She forgot how to speak then and instead lunged straight for him with the full intent of knocking him into the ground. Served him right, anyway.
"Bastard!" was her battle cry, even though she couldn't contain the seriousness in her face and a crooked sort of grin broke through.
"Me, me, m— oh shit."
That was something Badou hadn't anticipated, unfortunately. He couldn't help but being knocked over, falling back into the snow again with a grinning Naoto on top of him. Uh, what. Worst case scenario.
He crossed his arms to resemble an X and laughed nervously. "Pass."
Instantly, her grin vanished, and she swatted him as she fell to sit beside him on the snow.
"Is your head always in the gutter?" she growled, only then acknowledging just how cold it was. She unwrapped her scarf and shook it out. Not that it helped much; chunks of snow still clung to the thread and wouldn't let go.
Grimacing slightly, she tied the scarf around her neck again and looked back at the redhead, but said nothing.
She swatted him again for good measure. Seriously. That had been the last thing on her mind.
Ouch.
Badou grabbed his head and frowned at her, not really knowing what he deserved that for.
"Woman, my whole body is usually in the gutter. This City changed that, though," he replied dryly, still rubbing his head. Pf, like he'd think such things around her. You could say a lot of things about him, but he wasn't going to be flat-out perverted around friends. Because that was just… no, ew.
"Did you really need to hit me twice?!"
"Yes," Naoto stated matter-of-factly. "And you forget that I lived in the gutter back home, too."
Finally standing, she brushed the snow off her clothes and started to head back to the apartment building, but stopped quickly. She turned back around and held her hand out to help him up.
"Come on, we're going to need more hot cocoa. Maybe if you have it, I can make some soup."
"So don't be a hypocrite and tell me stuff like that," he said casually, spitting out some sand that had been lumped in with the snow. He shook his head violently to get all the snow out of his hair, but ah, it would melt anyway once he'd be inside again.
...And haha, soup. He probably didn't have any, but maybe if they searched the cupboards... They would probably find a literal can of worms. Badou grinned.
"Yes, ma'am."
He sat up and grabbed her hand.
Rating; PG-13
Characters; Naoto [
naoto_two] & Badou [hail_nicotine]Summary; Naoto & Badou admire the snow and do things with it. *_* aka FIGHT. AN EPIC BATTLE COMMENCED.
Log; For once, Naoto was able to put the techniques she'd learned at an earlier time to a use other than combat. The entire City was blanketed by several feet of snow that would have made travel difficult, but a quick geppou brought her to Badou's apartment with much trouble. She stared for a moment at the blocked main doorway, then, deciding that plan of action would be futile, turned instead to his window. She jumped up and perched precariously on the sill.
Naoto shifted the box of hot chocolate mix to one hand and knocked on the glass with the other. "Badou-kun," she called. "I'm here with the cocoa."
Internet, frogs and dirty underwear.
A normal summer for Badou, excluding the fact that the weather had gone batshit insane. It was friggin’ June and snowing. What the hell, Mother Nature? Though knowing the City, it was most likely a curse, because hello, snow in June?! Badou was used to weird weather due to the sudden weather changes back home, but this took the metaphorical cake.
Snow. In June. He couldn’t stress enough how stupid it was.
Snow in June meant sitting on his ass all day (as if he did anything else), watching TV and sleeping. Oh, and walking around in his boxers through an insanely warm apartment.
So naturally, Badou almost managed to swallow his cigarette when he turned around to see what kind retarded bird was tapping on his window. The retarded bird, however, was a good friend and an all too familiar figure hunched on his windowsill. Couldn’t she just have taken the good old-fashioned door?!
Badou mouthed "What the fuck!" silently at Naoto and stumbled into his bedroom to put some damn clothes on.
She rolled her eyes at him as he disappeared into his bedroom. How typical of him to be walking around in only his underwear in the middle of the day. She'd have been more embarrassed, but little fazed her anymore, even a man stripped down to his boxers. …Perhaps that wasn't proper?
Either way, that meant having to wait until the man was finished dressing. That meant having to perch precariously on the windowsill for another few minutes until he let her in. Couldn't he have gone to change after opening the window for her? Tsk.
Naoto looked over her shoulder at the white expanse. Shivering, she pulled the scarf tighter around her neck, then peered back into the apartment. What was taking Badou so long?
Socks socks socks where where those— oh wait right there. They were unwashed and dirty but who really cared about that these days. At least he had washed his hair, damn it. On his quest through the bedroom, he collected a shirt and pants, putting them on while tripping over various pieces of furniture.
This promised to be a very interesting day.
With a grumble, Badou literally rolled back into the living room and proceeded to open the window—pulling Naoto inside and immediately closing the thing again behind her back, before turning around to glare at her while pulling at his shirt.
"I hate you so much that I put my shirt on inside-out."
Finally, some warmth. Taking a "walk" through the snow was one thing, but sitting for long minutes in the chill was absolutely intolerable. But knowing her friend, he would have turned the heat up to its maximum capacity.
"Take it off and put it back on correctly, then," Naoto replied simply, not even batting an eye at the oddity of the situation. She proceeded straight for the corner of the apartment that passed for a kitchen. She couldn't remember how many times she'd been in Badou's home before, and though it was a sharp contrast to the well-kept apartment she lived in, she knew her way around well enough. After a quick rummage through his dishwasher—not clean, she noted for later—and cupboard, she pulled out two mugs.
The woman then reached for the handle of his refrigerator, but paused. Who knew what dangerous things were in there. "Do you have milk?" she asked, glancing back at him from over her shoulder.
"I knew that," Badou scowled, taking the piece of cloth off and pulling it right with a frown. Without looking up, he heard Naoto move things in the kitchen and he really, really hoped that she wouldn't find the yoghurt from three weeks ago. Because he was fairly sure that even she couldn't contain the horror of a mini-civilization in a bowl of deceased yoghurt.
...Wait, milk? He did have that, right? Badou made a sound of confirmation as his head and arms were stuck in the knot he once called "a shirt". Struggling, he managed get up and bring out a "Help me out here, damn it," before bumping his elbow against the wall, followed by a muffled curse.
Sighing—because really, had she expected much else from him?—Naoto left the kitchen and moved to help Badou with his clothing. What had he been trying to do, anyway, put it on through the sleeve?
"You've twisted the end," she said, tone slightly irritated, as she grabbed hold of one end of his shirt. "This isn't going to work. Take it off again."
Without waiting for him to comply, she pulled it off his arms and head, then straightened the material out.
"Yes, mother."
Badou waited patiently (like a good son?!) until Naoto was done, and then snatched the thing out of her hands before pulling it over his head. ...The backside was on the front. He shrugged and grabbed Naoto by her shoulders, turning her around and gently leading her towards the kitchen.
"And now, you can be my wife again. Make me my damn cocoa," he said in a raspy voice, followed by a cough. "Shit, I need my cigarettes."
He let go of her, dropped to the ground and crawled towards the couch to see if there were any spare cigs left. Who knew where those buggers had ended up after a long night of watching some comedy channel?
"Yes, sir."
She rolled her eyes at him before turning back to the obstacle that was the refrigerator. Jaw set, she opened the cavern for foodstuffs and tried to ignore everything inside except for the carton of milk. Milk, milk… Where did Badou keep his—
…There was no milk.
Sighing again, Naoto shut the refrigerator and turned instead to the sink. Water would have to do for now, and at least it was clean. She made a mental note to put the dishes in the sink into the washer before she left.
With both mugs filled with water and heating in the microwave, she walked over to where Badou was hunting for cigarettes. She suppressed a look of exasperation and asked, "Why don't you just open a new, fresh pack?"
With nothing more than his butt poking out from under the couch, Badou couldn't say much more than: "Shut up, I'm trying to help the environment with th—" His sentence was rudely interrupted by his own squeak of joy upon finding a brand new beautiful cigarette. In his reverie, he bumped his head rather fiercely but nothing really mattered anymore aside from that beautiful, slim, white thing of pleasure.
Badou managed to pull himself back and in a blink of an eye he was standing again, his hair filled with balls of white, fluffy dust and searching for a lighter in his pockets. Why yes, he did have a lighter in every pair of pants, thank you very much.
"So what was the window stunt for?" he asked after lighting his cigarette with a satisfied sigh, blowing out smoke in circles while gazing at the woman in front of him.
There were limits to what Naoto could accept with a placid face, and this certainly lay beyond those limits. She was half tempted to cover her eyes with her face and hope to God this wasn't really happening, but…
"I can't get through the front door," she replied, reaching through the smoke to pick the dust bunnies from Badou's hair. "The snow is too deep, you could drown in it."
The microwave beeped then, and she moved away to attend to the cocoa. The mugs were too hot for bare hands, so with a towel she carefully moved them to the counter and emptied the powder onto the steaming water. The clink of the spoon as she stirred was the only sound for a while.
"You should go and take a look," she added as an afterthought, holding Badou's mug out for him to take. "It's beautiful out."
...She really did act like his mother, picking the dirt from his hair. How sad. No, actually, how fitting.
"Oh, but that totally explains how you managed to jump three floors up," he replied sarcastically, not really understanding how the hell she had done that, but since she had been here far longer than him… Maybe she knew some crazy-ass magic shit. Such as the runes thing.
He waited until she was standing in front of him again and blew some smoke in her face, grinning, while taking the mug with a "Thank you very much.". While he waited for the beverage to cool down a bit, he looked through the window and raised an eyebrow at the weather outside.
"Beautiful meaning cold in this context, obviously. Like hell I'm going outside in these circum—" Wait. Something nice just hit him in the face. An evil plan, scheme, plot, whatever you want to call it. Good times ahead.
"Actually, on a second thought, yeah, I do want to see it."
Naoto quirked an eyebrow at him, waving the smoke away with one hand, her own mug of cocoa in the other.
"You don't appreciate the weather," she remarked between sips of cocoa, but she stood beside him anyway. She rather liked the wintertime, especially right after a snowfall when the surface was still unmarred.
"Then I suggest you either finish that drink or put a lid on it so you can bring it down with you." She had her hand on the windowpane.
Badou stared at his mug for a moment, almost as if he were contemplating something gravely interesting—and oh, he was—before shrugging and pressing the mug against his cheek.
"Of course I don't appreciate this weather. It turns my toes black," he said casually, before retracting his mug with a hiss. Damn thing was still too hot. Too hot, too cold… he hated extreme temperatures with a passion.
"Well then, Wonder Woman, you can jump out of the window and kill yourself while I"—he glided towards the door theatrically and picked up his jacket plus scarf along the way—"will just do it the non-modern way. See you outside."
"See you then. If you can't open the main door, I won't say I told you so."
If she was going to jump out the window, she'd have to do it slowly so as not to spill the cocoa, and neither of her abilities allowed that. So Naoto went back into the kitchen and found an empty cereal box, tore a square piece off, and used that as a lid for her mug. She opened the window and stepped out into the air. Mere seconds later, she was perched on the banister outside of the apartment building's main door, fanning her drink with the cardboard piece to cool it faster.
Naoto took another sip, her eyes on the door, waiting.
...Well, shit.
Badou kicked the main door for a good minute before stopping and thinking what the hell he was actually doing. So, a quick run back to his apartment made him gain two very~ nice~ things. His guns.
Gunshots filled the hall as Badou pretty much destroyed the door with a completely calm face, kicking the remains in front of him to grant himself total access to the…
Shitload of snow. Holy shit. Avalanche. Badou was glad that he had caught his mug just right on time (even though he burned his hands) or else he would've fallen flat on his face with cocoa spilling all over the place. Even though he was used to doing embarrassing things.
After a lot of struggling and something-that-once-resembled-a-door kicking, he managed to take three whole steps outside. Suffice to say, he was unbelievably proud of himself.
Naoto certainly hadn't been expecting gunshots. She'd forgotten all about her cocoa as she stared, wide-eyed, at the bullet holes multiplying all across the surface of the door. They crumpled under the force of one solid kick, but said boot quickly disappeared as the knee-high snow tumbled into the hallway. Badou eventually emerged from the wreckage, mug in his hands—very red now, the woman noted—with a look of triumph on his face.
"That's certainly one way to take care of a door," she replied matter-of-factly, only then remembering her own drink and taking another sip. She slid off the banister, and half of her legs disappeared in the snow, but she didn't seem to notice. Instead, she tilted her head at her friend, gaze focused on his hands. "Are you all right?"
"Nnngg ya dnnt lkkk itt?"
Oh yeah, now he had fallen flat on his face, for some shady reason. Great move. Face in the snow meant non-articulate sentences and apparently… twitching hands? Wait, oh shit, that fucking mug—
Badou put the thing down in the snow, carefully even, and raised his head rather suddenly, staring at Naoto in complete, annoyed shock. "Of course I'm alright. I'm doing just fine. There's snow in my clothes, my hands hurt like hell, my butt itches and my cigarette is gone. Best day of my life. No, I'm not cranky, why do you ask?"
The man rose up as "safe" as he could and wiped his sleeves on Naoto, not caring about her reaction at all. He... jiggled around for a moment to get the snow out of weird places and picked up his mug again with a sour face, obviously ignoring the woman in front of him and staring at the street, mumbling incoherent things that resembled non-existent curse words.
Naoto couldn't help but laugh, but she stifled it quickly and managed to return to a placid expression.
"Keep that up," she said quietly, taking one of his hands and inspecting the palm, frowning at the burn, "and you'll turn into Heine. And you don't want that."
Shivering, she turned away slightly and sat down right on the snow, sinking a little, but it was compact enough to support her lack of weight. One hand tightened the scarf around her neck.
"See? It's not so bad out here. It makes you appreciate the cocoa more." Naoto supposed it was a good idea to keep her tone cheerful. Badou's sour mood was not something she wanted to reflect in her own voice.
Badou pulled his hand away as quickly as he could, a gesture that seemed hostile if interpreted wrongly, so he covered it up with a smile and smooth words. "You, good madam, have a point."
Truth was, he wasn't going to let her see his scar.
He quickly dropped the subject "Heine"—last thing he wanted to talk about at that moment—by whistling shortly and starting to walk down the small stairs with his mug raised high above his head. So he hated the snow. That didn't keep him from inspecting this annoying but also interesting phenomenon of getting snow into your underwear by just walking. Grand.
...Besides, he still needed to try out his master plan. So he walked on, just a few meters, and "accidentally" dropped his cocoa. With a faked frown he dived into the snow to retrieve the mug, completely disappearing in the thick layer of snow.
He was invisible. Where's your damn magic now, he thought with some amusement.
Naoto rolled his eyes again as he fell into the snow. What was he doing this time?
Probably slipped, she mused, finishing her drink with one last gulp. He'll get up soon.
So she waited. ...And waited. The mug was growing cold in her hands, and Badou still wasn't getting up from where he'd fallen. It was ridiculous, really. A slip in snow so deep wasn't going to hurt anybody.
"Badou-kun, you can stop pretending now," the woman called out, putting her mug aside and stuffing her hands in her jacket pockets. A silence followed, eerie and impregnable, a silence unlike that of late nights or early mornings. In the vastness of the City, nothing moved.
Naoto's brow furrowed slightly. "Badou-kun?" No answer. This wasn't right.
Carefully, slowly, she rose and trudged through the snow towards the place where he'd fallen.
She encountered the mug first, its contents spilled, and then she came upon his shivering body facedown in the snow. Kneeling beside him, she prodded him gently with a hand.
"Badou-kun?"
…Maybe it wasn't such a good idea. Badou felt like he was dying ten times over and he could almost feel his toes turn black. Oh God. The price he had to pay for a good laugh, the distances he walked for a chuckle; he knew that he was going to die an eleventh time sooner or—stop, rewind. He wasn't going to turn into an emo bastard like Heine.
...Still, this all hurt. Very much so.
But Naoto's reaction was already pretty damn funny so eh, black toes be damned. Stifling his chuckles, he started to collect snow as silently as possible, for he really didn't want to ruin his own fun. He grinned at her "Badou-kun?" but kept extremely quiet as he heard her approach his little… personal space. Even as she was poking him, he didn't move but waited for the right moment to strike.
Which was... right now. With a battlecry, he grabbed all the snow he had collected, sat up in a flash and dumped the huge load in her face with a cackle, mentally feeling like a 6-year old.
Yeah, this was fun after all.
Naoto blinked. Oh God, it was cold and she was soaked with snow. She turned her head slightly to stare at Badou for a moment. "Shocked" wasn't the right word. "Dumbstruck" was more like. The snow was seeping through gaps in her scarf and into her gloves and—
That bastard just kept grinning.
The woman wiped the snow from her eyes to reveal a face clouded with mock fury. Her other hand scooped up a ball of the nearest snow and flung it back at the incorrigible redhead sitting in front of her with all of her might.
"Not fair!" she roared, dropping back to the ground for more ammunition.
He had hit the bullseye, judging from her amazing expression. Badou even started to laugh as a snowball hit him right in the face, because man, this was even better than he had expected!
"You obviously do not know who you are dealing with, heathen scum!" he yelled happily. He started grabbing random chunks of snow with an almost insane giggle and deposited it on every inch of Naoto that he could see. With a high-pitched shout, he tried to evade her attacks by rolling around, yet that strategy failed horribly. Oh well, he was already soaked anyway.
"And dear, all is fair in love and war!"
It seemed Badou was more skilled at snowball fighting because she was getting more soaked by the minute. Huffing indignantly, she struggled to her feet to storm over to him, but she lost her balance and collapsed in a heap in the snow.
Pushing herself to her hands and knees—not that it helped much in snow that deep—she shoved her hair from her eyes and grabbed another fistful of snow.
"Love and war indeed!" she shouted back, hurling the handful at him. She was shivering so hard, and her scarf was thoroughly dampened, but it didn't matter. No, not when there was prey to be captured.
Naoto concentrated on a soru and flickered out of sight, reappearing immediately in front of the giddy man. She scooped up as much snow as possible and, smiling widely, dumped it onto his head.
Badou couldn't help but laugh uncontrollably at Naoto's futile attempts to best him, but his laughter was interrupted by a sneeze of his own and the realization that she had suddenly disappeared.
Wait, where did she g—oh jesus fu—
And with that, Badou felt the snow creeping its way down his back. Defeated by a gloomy woman. Really, what a failure.
He raised his arms up in the air and sneezed again; damn snow really did get everywhere. "Okay, you win, sheesh," he yelled while protecting his face with his arms. Another sneeze.
Badou was 100% sure that he looked like a complete idiot.
The difficult victory and the mere idea of having a snowball fight with Badou caused quiet laughter to peal from Naoto's lips. She sat back onto the snow, her butt probably frozen over by now but it really didn't matter, still giggling as she brushed clumps of white flakes from her hair.
"I don't know who I'm dealing with, huh?" she said finally. Her ears and cheeks and nose hurt, they were probably thoroughly red, but she couldn't help but smile. She hadn't had that much fun in a long time.
Badou grinned.
And he grinned some more.
And then, suddenly, there was snow in his hands.
"No. You don't know who you're dealing with, love." With that, he whacked her in the face once again.
She stared at him through the fresh layer of snow on her face. How dare he!
"You...you...!" Naoto's face contorted into another of mock rage. She forgot how to speak then and instead lunged straight for him with the full intent of knocking him into the ground. Served him right, anyway.
"Bastard!" was her battle cry, even though she couldn't contain the seriousness in her face and a crooked sort of grin broke through.
"Me, me, m— oh shit."
That was something Badou hadn't anticipated, unfortunately. He couldn't help but being knocked over, falling back into the snow again with a grinning Naoto on top of him. Uh, what. Worst case scenario.
He crossed his arms to resemble an X and laughed nervously. "Pass."
Instantly, her grin vanished, and she swatted him as she fell to sit beside him on the snow.
"Is your head always in the gutter?" she growled, only then acknowledging just how cold it was. She unwrapped her scarf and shook it out. Not that it helped much; chunks of snow still clung to the thread and wouldn't let go.
Grimacing slightly, she tied the scarf around her neck again and looked back at the redhead, but said nothing.
She swatted him again for good measure. Seriously. That had been the last thing on her mind.
Ouch.
Badou grabbed his head and frowned at her, not really knowing what he deserved that for.
"Woman, my whole body is usually in the gutter. This City changed that, though," he replied dryly, still rubbing his head. Pf, like he'd think such things around her. You could say a lot of things about him, but he wasn't going to be flat-out perverted around friends. Because that was just… no, ew.
"Did you really need to hit me twice?!"
"Yes," Naoto stated matter-of-factly. "And you forget that I lived in the gutter back home, too."
Finally standing, she brushed the snow off her clothes and started to head back to the apartment building, but stopped quickly. She turned back around and held her hand out to help him up.
"Come on, we're going to need more hot cocoa. Maybe if you have it, I can make some soup."
"So don't be a hypocrite and tell me stuff like that," he said casually, spitting out some sand that had been lumped in with the snow. He shook his head violently to get all the snow out of his hair, but ah, it would melt anyway once he'd be inside again.
...And haha, soup. He probably didn't have any, but maybe if they searched the cupboards... They would probably find a literal can of worms. Badou grinned.
"Yes, ma'am."
He sat up and grabbed her hand.