"Goin' to a mooo-vie! Goin' to a mooo-vie! Goin' to a..."
"For the love of God, would you shut up?!? And stop skipping! You... look... GAY!"
"AND what is that s'posed to mean?"
Sage snickered. "Ya know, it takes one to know one."
Both Kento and Sai's heads whipped in his direction. "Shut up!" Then, they peered at each other out of the corner of their eyes, and immediately started staring at their shoes.
"Um, what are we going to see, anyway?" Rowin asked, thoughtfully. "You just smacked me awake and went 'Get dressed, we're leaving in two minutes.' RUDE of you, too, KENTO!"
"I had a bucket of ice water just waiting for that good-morning splash I love so much," Kento said, dolefully. "You were too easy this morning."
"Afternoon."
"Whatever."
"Have we actually decided what to go see?" Ryo asked.
"Nope. If I remember correctly, Sai was pacing about, gettin' all stir-crazy and finally yelled, 'let me OUT of here!' and ran for the door," Mia replied.
Sai shrugged. "It was all YOUR fault, Ryo."
"What'd I do?"
"You and that damn paddle-ball thing." Sai shuddered. "I'm going to have nightmares for a week of you just sitting there, concentrating like mad, bouncing it around, goin' 'seventeen, eighteen, ninte- damn. One, two, three, f-"
"We get it, Sai," Sage said, slightly annoyed.
"So, you see our situation," Kento finished.
Rowin nodded. "Typical, typical, typical."
"So, where ARE we going?"
"MOVIES!" Sai cried. "We're going to a DARK place where Ryo couldn't even play with the paddle-ball thing if he TRIED!"
"Okay, sorry!" Ryo huffed. "I'll hide it when we get home."
"Good." The group had stopped in the middle of the town square and each person was looking around aimlessly at the theaters and advertisments.
Mia rolled her eyes. "Okay, let's choose something to go see. I personally cheer for the Martha Stewart's Good Living movie at the Aladdin!"
"No!" everyone cried, vehemently.
"Why not?" Mia scowled. "That's a GOOD thing!"
"It's NOT a good thing," Rowin protested. "I can't believe they even made THAT into a movie. It's gotta be hell-in-a-handbasket!"
"Ooh, I almost forgot about the handbasket segment," Mia said, happily. "She makes the CUTEST little handbasket out of a handful of yard clippings and a piece of used dental floss!"
"Oh, joy," Kento said, quite sarcastically. "A handbasket! Do they provide cyanide at the door for the poor guys who get dragged in by their over-enthusiastic female friends?"
"Why, I--- NO!" Mia pouted. "Uncultured swine."
"Ooh, THERE'S an idea!" Kento proclaimed, thrilled. "Let's go see The Giant Killer Piglets Take Over Ireland! I've heard so many good things about that."
"From who?"
"Um... you know. Lotsa people!" Kento scowled at Sage. "It's a QUALITY film."
"I happen to like Ireland," Rowin said, "and I have no desire to see it taken over by a bunch of poorly-made paiper-mache piglets."
"Wiener," Kento muttered. "There are a number of... of... interesting plot twists and lots of clever dialogue."
"Oh, sure." Ryo struck a cheesy frightened pose and wailed, with a Irish brogue. "It's the giant piglets! We must flee the city." He then struck a placed one hand backwards against his forehead in a half-swoon, adopting a high-pitched squeal. "Save me, Manly Hero!" He then struck a muscle-guy pose, with an imaginary gigantic flame-thrower-gun thing. He dropped the squeal for an Arnold Schwartzenegger voice. "Hey, piggies. Oink on this!" He then resumed a normal walking posture. "What a crock."
Kento looked at him suspiciously. "Have you seen it already?"
"What? NO!" Ryo laughed. "You mean it's actually LIKE that?"
"You HAVE to have seen it. You even knew the hero's name!"
"It's ACTUALLY Manly Hero? Oh my GOD! And I did NOT already see it!"
As Ryo and Kento continued to bicker over whether Ryo had actually seen the film already, the other four turned to each other and began to debate some more. "I heard they came out with an eighth Free Willy!" Sai said, hopefully.
He was met only with blank stares.
"You mean that idiot whale got caught AGAIN?!" Rowin asked, snickering.
"GOD! Why hasn't it died yet?" Sage wondered.
"Martha Stewart doesn't like whales," Mia objected. "They're last season."
"What happens to the big dumb mammal this time?"
"Not fish, MAM- oh." Sai blushed. "Sorry, force of habit."
"Unlike Kento, we acknowledge the fact that whales AND dolphins are in fact mammals," said Rowin, consolingly.
"Yeah, really," Sage chimed in. "They give birth to live young, they feed them milk, we know the whole schpeil by now."
"Wow." Sai smiled, blithely. "You guys are great."
"And since we're so great, you'll understand our not wanting to see Free Willy 8."
"But the plot is so... heart-rending," Sai declared. "This time, a bunch of nuns-gone-bad go out and pluck him out of the water. Then, a giant tidal wave sweeps up and carries their bus, which is a replica of the Partridge Family bus, and hurls everyone back into the ocean at the last possible second! Curse those corrupted holy women."
"So where does the cute little whale-friendly kid come in?" Mia queried.
Sai gave her a withering glare. "Didn't you see Free Willy 6?" Getting no response, he rolled his eyes and explained, "In that, the cute little kid became Triton, King of the Sea because of his infinite kindness to the sea animals! DUHHHHHHH!"
"Just for that, we're not going," said Mia, sharply. Sai was downcast.
"Well, I think we should go to the Air and Space Museum and watch one of those kickass IMAX things instead," Rowin put out, jubilantly. "This week, it's about aerospace medicine!"
"What?" Kento and Ryo had signed a verbal peace treaty, if you will, and were now paying attention again. Kento had a quizzical look on his face. "Aero-what WHAT?"
"Aerospace medicine!" Rowin was thrilled to be in his element and began explaining. "See, it's a branch of preventive medicine concerning stresses on the body during flight! This includes thing like... oh, high speed visual impairment, high speed blackout, headaches, lack of oxygen causing muscle weakness or brain damage from hypoxia, aeroembolism or 'the bends', jet lag due to time zone changes and, of course, airsickness!" Rowin beamed.
"Wait a sec, back it up a little," said Sai, suspiciously.
"Um... aeroembolism, hypoxia, jetlag, airsickness...."
"There it was!" he cried, accusingly. "EEW! You want to go see a movie about puking?"
"NO! About AEROMEDICINE!"
"AIRSICKNESS EQUALS SPEWING!"
"Yeah, but it's not the FOCUS of the thing!"
"That's gross! Who wants to watch a bunch of people blow chunks in 3-D?"
"Me, that's who!" Then Rowin realized just how icky that sounded. "EW, wait...."
"EEEWWW!" Sai screeched. "Get away from me, you... you vomit-fetish person!"
"I don't have a vomit fetish! That's just plain disgusting!"
"Um, guys?" Ryo looked slightly green.
"Stuff it, Ryo!" they both yelled. "This doesn't concern you!"
"You want to see people *ahem* refund lunch on a sixty-foot screen, count me OUT!"
"I have no desire to see people barfing! I want to see the aeroembolism segment!"
"Why? Ohhhhhhh, you're lying. You want to see-"
"So what do YOU want to see, Ryo?" Sage asked, turning away from the too-visual regurgitation discussion.
"I was thinking about seeing The Last Kiss," Ryo said, with a fleeting glance at Mia.
"Oh, a romantic comedy! I'm going to cry," sighed Mia. "That's so sweet, Ryo."
"I know," said Ryo, glancing her way again.
"You dog," Kento chided, jabbing him in the ribs. "You're just trying to score."
"Am not!" said Ryo, defensively. "I just want to... to...."
"Get in touch with your feminine side?" Mia suggested.
"Exactly."
"I think he's more interested in getting in touch with her feminine side," Sage said.
"Mmmmmm-hmm. I hearrrrrrrd that!" said Kento, in traditional hootchie-mama style. "Like Ryo'd go to see a chick movie without trying to get some. Sure."
"As if!" Mia cried, not noticing that Ryo's eyes fell at that comment. "Like there's any way in the world? I like Ryo as a friend, Ryo likes me as a friend."
"Of course," said Kento. As soon as Mia turned her back, they started jabbing each other in the ribs and wiggling their eyebrows like a couple of freaks with mental disabilities.
"So what do YOU want to see?" Ryo asked Sage, testily.
"Hmm... that's a toughie." Insert wicked smile here. "I would have to be going for-"
"Oh no," Kento sighed.
"-Taffy and Michelle's Sorority Go To The Beach... TWO!" Sage was jovial. "A cast of eighty-four gorgeous hunnies just WAITING for me to come watch them!"
"You are so hopeless," Mia sighed.
"That's what many people find so disarming about me," Sage replied, with a little grin.
"We are NOT going to see that piece of hormone-dripping TRASH!" Mia yelled.
"But last month, you went to that artsy film festival," Sage shot back.
"SO? That was art! This is disgusting."
"There were eight counts of full-frontal nudity in that!"
"The people were literally in Hell! They were being stabbed by a bunch of flying sharp things or something!"
"While being NEKKED!"
"No, you horny little chipmunk! I refuse to waste my money to go and see that awful display of bad taste! I want to see MARTHA STEWART!"
"Talk about BAD TASTE!" Sage shot back.
"WHAT?!?!?!"
Kento was getting bored. "C'mon, Ryo, admit it. You saw Killer Piglets already, right?"
"NO, I did NOT!!!!!"
(Note: The three arguments: Ryo/Kento, Sage/Mia, and Rowin/Sai. They alternate. Figure it out, my darlings!)
"Bad taste?!?!? Martha Stewart is NOT bad taste! She's KNOWN for her GOOD taste!"
"HER? Have you seen the way she dresses? Oh, sure, Martha's up-to-date."
"I could understand if it was a documentary on, oh say... salmon, but BARFING?"
"It's NOT about barfing! They probably won't even SHOW that!"
"You totally saw Killer Piglets and don't say that you haven't."
"I do not, HAVE never, WILL never have ANY interest in seeing a bunch of piglets run around after men in kilts."
"Well, she's more... proper than your little group of half-nude bimbos ANY DAY!"
"But who's more interesting, Martha or... Taffy?"
"A-HA! YOU KNEW THEY WORE KILTS!"
"Oh, sure, say that now. The second we enter the theater, some usher's gonna hand us a huge empty pail labeled 'Barf Bucket' and tell us 'watch your heads when the chunks start flyin'!' They're probably going to test some anti-spew drug on us!"
"It's a CHEESY movie set in IRELAND! Of course they're going to go with every possible stereotype!"
"Not true! I heard there was a perfectly attractive woman with GLASSES in that! If she had been stereotyped, she would have either been glass-free or homely as a dog."
"Martha Stewart! What are Taffy and Michelle going to DO at the beach, anyway?"
Sage got a faraway look in his eye. "Oh, probably play some volleyball... spiking the ball like their lives depended on it... maybe spray some whipped cream at each other...."
"EW! Now who's being disgusting? Barf Bucket, indeed. YOU want to go see that dumb whale get caught again."
"And I bet she whipped off those glasses after one scene! And in that scene, she was using some big machine-computer thing, right? And I bet she sleeps with the hero, RIGHT?"
"I KNEW IT! YOU SAW IT! HOW ELSE COULD YOU HAVE KNOWN ABOUT THE SUPERCOMPUTER! Besides, if we don't go see The Giant Killer Piglets Take Over Ireland, what ARE we going to see?" Kento snickered. "Not your little chick movie."
"Sage, you're drooling."
He wasn't paying attention. "Whipped cream... sand castles... I'm coming, Taffy!"
"You're GROSS, you PERVERT!" Mia slapped him, bringing him back to the real world.
"Yeah! So? There's a plot, it's a nice story, THE WHOLE FAMILY CAN ENJOY IT! Unlike YOUR little ooh-let's-learn-in-the-weekend CRAPASS movie!"
"What's wrong with The Last Kiss? It isn't REALLY a chick movie."
"Like hell it ain't! You're just going to try to grope Mia the whole time. The rest of us'll have to endure you two giggling and getting cuddly and we'll only have each other. I am NOT cuddling with Sai. I'd rather go see that crappy aerospace medicine thing than cuddle with Sai. And what if Mia doesn't want to go? You'll end up watching some sugary thing ALONE!"
"Huh? Oh, hi, Mia. Gee, I was just having the nicest dream." Mia slapped him again. "Wha- oh." He stood his ground. "Well, I'm going to see Taffy and Michelle's Sorority Go To the Beach, with or with-OUT you!"
"FINE! I'm going to see Good Living: The Movie WITH OR WITHOUT YOU!"
"She wants to go, I can SEE IT in her EYES!!! I'M going to see my goddamn cuddly chick movie WITH or WITHOUT YOU!"
"Well, I'M going to see Giant Killer Piglets, WITH OR WITHOUT YOU!"
"Well, Mr. Salmon-Lover, you can just GO see that stupid-ass MAMMAL movie! I'm going to see my kick-ass 3-D IMAX aerospace documentary, WITH OR WITHOUT YOU!"
"Fine then! I'M going to see FREE WILLY 8 with or without YOU!"
"FINE!" Ryo scowled at Kento.
"GREAT!" Kento scowled at Ryo.
"SPLENDID!" Mia scowled at Sage.
"SPECTACULAR!" Sage scowled at Mia.
"WONDERFUL!" Rowin scowled at Sai.
"SUPERB!" Sai scowled at Rowin.
(Normal time! Fighting is aaaaaaaall done. Peace, my children.)
They all looked at each other wrathfully for a moment and in a sudden burst of motion, each turned on their heel and stalked off in a separate direction, ranting and raving, some silently amd some quite out loud.
"Try and tell ME this isn't entertaining," said Rowin, jogging down the street towards the nearby Air and Space Museum. "Aerospace medicine RULES!"
"I'm going to have my OWN tub of popcorn and enjoy every bite while watching a very misunderstood movie," Kento grumbled to himself as he entered a building with a bright sign proclaiming 'THE GIANT KILLER PIGLETS TAKE OVER IRELAND.'
"Willy's gonna make it again, and this time, the villains are REALLY gonna pay," Sai mumbled as he stood in the line of screaming little kids in front of the Acapulco for Free Willy 8.
"Taffy, Taffy, Taffy, you naughty little thing," Sage sighed to himself as he waited in the soda line. "I'm not gonna sit in the front row THIS time! I've learned my lesson about that."
"Come on, Mia, you're gonna love this!" Ryo flew along, dragging her by the hand along behind him. I'm gonna score, I'm gonna score, the cheerful voices sang in his head, like a mantra. Barely pausing to buy the tickets, a single soda with two straws, and a little box of popcorn (just right for brushing hands against each other in), he flew into the dark theater and flung himself into a seat. He had his eyes nervously riveted on the screen as he felt pressure drop onto the chair next to him. A very light pressure. What a dainty girl she is! How lovely. Suddenly, he heard her beginning to cry next to him. "Mia, it hasn't even started yet!" The sniffling continued and so he said, quite gallantly in his opinion, "Daddy'll make it better, Mia, darling."
He swivelled to look at her, ready and lips puckered, but his jaw dropped in a horrified gape when he saw the little girl he'd accidentally snagged back at the town square. Her wide eyes were filled with tears as she half-whispered, "Mommy?"
"YOU BRUTE!" A purse whapped him upside the head. "YOU CAD!" The angry woman grabbed the little girl by the hand. "Come on, Susie. GOOD PEOPLE don't associate with KIDNAPPING PEDOPHILES!!!!!!"
"Oh, come on, that's a little harsh!" Ryo yelled after her. He was quickly shooshed from another angry lady in front of him, who also whapped him with her purse. He remained silent after that, only half paying attention to the gooshy movie. Mia, thou hast forsaken me.
"Ooh, goody!" Mia settled into her seat at the Aladdin. "I didn't miss anything!"
"And that's a good thing!" the lady sitting next to her quipped, jubilantly.
"It is, sister, it truly is...." Mia smiled at her fellow Stewart worshipper and turned her full attention to the impossibly-cheery face on the screen demonstrating how to make a land mine using half of a potato and three toothpicks.
"She's just like MacGuyver," a dreamy voice came from behind Mia. She barely noticed.
*Two-and-a-half hours later...*
Sai caught Kento's figure walking around in the town square. He went and tapped him on the shoulder. Sai noticed when he turned that Kento was covered head to toe with gooey candy and soda, not to mention a few bruises. "Jeez, what happened to you?" Sai asked, slightly shocked at his appearance.
Kento was miffed. "A riot broke out."
"Why?"
"In the middle of this really great bacon scene, some guy leaps up and yells, 'Hey! Kilts are Scottish! Not Irish!' Then somebody from the other side of the theater goes 'Who the hell cares? Scottish, Irish... they all get eaten by the piglets in the end.' I guess that first guy must have been Irish or something, cuz he got really insulted and threw his soda at the second guy. From there, everyone started throwing stuff and clubbing each other with the free Giant Killer Piglet dolls they gave out at the door."
"And you participated in this?" He bit back a laugh.
"Naturally!" Kento tossed Sai a something saturated with root beer. "Here, have a piglet."
Sai batted it away in disgust. "That's disgusting! It's filthy!"
"Hey, no problem." Kento held up a huge plastic bag full of Giant Killer Piglet dolls. "There're plenty more where he came from. I collected them while I was crawling around on the floor trying to get out."
"Let's go find the others," Sai said, trying to take Kento's mind off of his bagful of sopping wet 'n' sticky stuffed animals.
"Okay," he said, agreeably. They started walking around, looking for more people.
"Hey, did you guys hear about what happened to Sage?" asked Ryo, coming up behind them suddenly.
"No. Why, is he okay?" Sai got worried very quickly.
"Yeah, he'll be fine. Look over there." They looked in the direction Ryo was pointing and saw an ambulance in front of the theater Sage had so eagerly dashed into. A stretcher was being wheeled out and upon closer inspection, Sage was revealed to be strapped to it, blood running from his nose and babbling incoherently.
"Oh my GOD! SAGE IS HAVING A SEIZURE!" Sai cried.
"Not likely," said Ryo, grinning. "Apparently, the second Taffy came onto the screen in her tight little swimsuit, Sage had a breakdown. The guy sitting next to him said that all of a sudden, his nose started bleeding and he went into shock. Only after they dragged him out of his chair and into the lobby, he started gibbering about God-knows-what. Guess he couldn't take so much skin."
"That's hilarious!" Kento burst into laughter. "But, jeez, man, what happened to you?"
"What do you mean?" Ryo asked, tensely, turning his right cheek away from them.
"You've got a huge red purse mark on your face!" Sai realized. "What did you DO?"
"NOTHING!!!!"
A purse suddenly came out of nowhere and smacked Ryo on the back of the head, causing him to fall forward, revealing the stout, angry woman toting the little girl. "That's what you get, you troublemaker! Never EVER try to get romantic with my little Susie again."
"GO, RYO!" Kento yelled. "But... who's Susie?"
"This is Susie," said the woman, dangerously, shoving her little girl forward. Kento curled a lip in disgust. The girl was looking around vacantly, with one finger up her nose. "Come now, Susie, stop that. Let's leave the PEDOPHILE and be on our way."
"You tried to score with a FOUR YEAR OLD?" Kento hissed, once the lady was out of earshot. "I'm never speaking to you again. You're GROSS!"
"I thought she was Mia," Ryo groaned from the pavement.
"A likely story." Sai started to kick Ryo in the ribs, but thought the better of it.
Suddenly a very green-faced Rowin shot by, a hand held over his mouth. He stuck his head into a nearby trachcan and began... well, coughing up the remains of his popcorn, actually.
"What's wrong with him?" Kento wondered aloud.
Mia came up then. "Sai was right. The focus of the film did lie on airsickness."
"Toldja so," Sai yelled at Rowin's bent over form.
"Here, Rowin, honey!" Mia was in ultimate Martha Stewart mode. "Take this!" Rowin's hand came tentatively out and Mia dropped a little caplet into it. He managed to stuff it down his own throat between gags. Immediately, he felt better.
Rowin stood up straight, not feeling sick in the least. He stretched happily and remarked, "That was great! I'm completely healed! What was that, anyway, Mia?"
"I made it myself!" she beamed. "Entirely out of coffee grounds and cigarette butts. The plastic outside was from a cute little flea collar I found!"
Rowin looked at her in unabashed horror. "I just swallowed... coffee grounds and cigarette butts wrapped in a flea collar?"
"Yup!" She beamed again. "Works like a charm, doesn't it?"
Rowin promptly turned back and stuck his head into the trashcan again. "Oh, the poor dear. Do you need another one, Rowin?" Mia asked, rummaging in her purse. A frantic flailing of his hand in her general direction told her, 'no, thank you! I'm just fine, thanks.'
"Just hold his hair back for him, Mia," Sai said, wincing.
"Okee-dokee!" She did so, patting him on the back. "You'll be juuuuuuuust fine, Rowin dear! This is a good thing!"
"Shut up!" he managed to croak.
"Where's Sage?" she asked, distracted. They explained. "Oh no! Poor thing. I should make him one of those cute handbaskets I saw."
"Yes," Kento said, going along with her. "Yes, you should do that right away."
"So can we go, once he's done?"
"Of course!" Mia beamed. "That would be a good thing."
Ryo was looking in Mia's direction pouting. Thou hast forsaken me, thou hast forsaken me, THOU HAST FORSAKEN ME, MIA!!!!!!!!!! Sighing pathetically, Ryo sat on a bench, pulled his paddle-ball thingie out of his pocket and began to play with it. "One, two, three, four, fi- dammit. One, tw-"
Sai snatched it away from him. "Don't you even START!" He snapped it in half.
"I can fix that with a little olive oil! Then it'll smell like a pizza! Or I can try to make it smell like a banana nut muffin!" Mia called.
"Here, Ryo, have a Piglet. It'll make you feel better." The chocolate-covered drippy cold thing that landed in Ryo's lap completely failed to make him feel better. Just a little squishier.
"Come on Rowin, you're all better!" Mia dragged him limply towards home. "Ryo, come on!" she called over her shoulder. "When we get home, I'll-"
Give me a backrub? he thought hopefully.
"-make you a sandwich entirely out of things that start with the letter P!"
Damn.
"Ryo, you're never going to score," laughed Sai as he ran off.
"NEITHER ARE YOU!" Kento yelled, chasing Sai.
"YOU'RE NEVER GOING TO EVEN MAKE EYE CONTACT!" Sai retorted.
"AU CONTRAIRE!"
Their voices faded in the distance as Ryo continued to sit on the bench and mope. After a few hours, he noticed that he was starting to get cold. Just as he was about to get up and go home, another figure thudded down beside him. He lethargically turned his head to see Sage grinning broadly at him, bloodstains down the front of his shirt and hospital I.D. bracelet around his wrist.
"Have fun?" Ryo asked, not really caring.
"Ryo, you look like you need a pick-me-up," Sage said, in glee. "Come with me. I never got to see the end of this and it's more fun with two."
Wordlessly, Ryo complied, following Sage through the open doors of a theater, the marquee above blazoning a title: TAFFY AND MICHELLE'S SORORITY GO TO THE BEACH 2.
"What's this about, anyway?" Ryo asked as they waited in the ticket line.
"Who knows?" Sage sighed. "Who CARES? This is the kind of deep, meaningful movie that doesn't have the need of a plot."
"Oh. Okay," Ryo replied. "But I like plots!"
"Trust me, man. You'll be in heaven. You'll hate plots after this."
"Really?"
"Really."
"Cool." They lasped into silence.
~*Epilogue*~
*ring ring*
"Hello, Koji residence!"
"Hi, this is the city hospital."
"Oh, my! What's wrong?"
"You housing two guys named Sage and Ryo?"
"Well... yes, actually."
"Well, they were brought in at about eight-thirty. Their noses were bleeding profusely and there were in considerable shock. Do you-"
Mia's tone turned authoritative. "Were they in a movie theater?"
"Why, yes."
"Was it Taffy and Michelle's Sorority Go To The Beach 2?"
"Yes, but-"
"Thank you." Mia hung up without another word.
"Was that Ryo?" Sai asked, nervously.
"It was the hospital," said Mia, snippily. Sai gasped, but she held up her hand. "Sage took him in to see Taffy and Michelle."
"Oh." Sai lost interest in worrying and sat back in his chair. Mia sat down and began leafing through a magazine. After a few minutes, Sai looked up at her again, expectantly.
"Well?" She looked up. "Aren't you going to pick them up?"
"No. They will be spending the next evening in the smelly, icky city hospital."
"What would Martha Stewart say?" Sai joked.
"They covered that in the movie," said Mia, turning her attention back to the magazine. "She said that stewing was a good thing."
"Oh." Sai shrugged. "Okay." He turned his attention to the TV and silence reigned for the rest of the night, except at three AM, when Rowin awoke from a nightmare and rushed into the bathroom, green once more, a hand over his mouth.
The End.