Chapter 16: A Date to Die For! (Part 2)

A picnic. Essentially a combination of a romantic dinner and Chou’s love of taking walks in the park. It was a mystery how Chou and Fumihito hadn’t thought of having a picnic before. With the gingham blanket placed and the pic-a-nic basket stocked up with food, the couple were ready for their meal. Since all the best picnic spots were taken, the two had to settle for setting up on a cliff. A bit dangerous, perhaps, if one of them were to fall off, but the view was amazing, especially if it were sunset.

“This takes me back to my scout days,” Fumihito said, “we used to have picnics all the time.”

“Well, I guess your troop was more active than mine,” Chou replied. “We just sat in tents, delivered cookies and got badges for doing the scoutmaster’s chores.”

Fumihito chuckled. “Yeah, we did all that stuff too, of-course. But I never really had any problems with it. I guess that’s because I’m more active than you?”

“I guess so?” Chou said. “You’re just like Hisui, I swear to the gods…” she chuckled.

“Is Hisui single?”

“Why? Are you tired of me already?” Chou asked. On one hand, Chou would feel kinda insulted if Fumihito found her boring; on the other hand, her novel – and her “romance” with Fumihito by extension – was coming to a close anyway. By her estimation, she’d only have to go on one more date with Fumihito after their picnic.

Looking back, she had really enjoyed their time together. For Chou, it was just a chance to hang-out with a close friend and do fun things like watching movies or buying and playing video-games.

“Tired of you?!” Fumihito gasped. “Hahaha! No, of-course not! I could never get tired of you, Chou!” He laughed. “I’m not asking because I want to date her, or anything!”

“Well, that’s good; she’s not into guys anyways.”

“Well, is she dating a girl on an enby, then?”

“Yeah, she has a girlfriend,” Chou replied. “Why do you ask?”

“Well, I was thinking maybe we could go on a double-date sometime?” Fumihito answered.

“I see…” Chou muttered, placing her paw on her chin and rubbing it. “If we do that, we’re not gonna do it outdoors though, got it?”

“That’s fine with me!” Fumihito smiled.

 

Meanwhile, just outside of Chou and Fumihito’s eyesight, a pair of antagonistic ladies were plotting their next scheme.

“There they are,” Raluca grinned, pointing up to the top of the cliff, “What’s the plan, Ms. Derm?”

“It’s simple, we just scare Chou Usagi to death, remember?” Parker responded.

“And how do you propose we do that? We’re in broad daylight in the middle of a public park? It’s hardly the scariest scenario I could think of. Where are the clowns? The snakes? The sharks?”

“Seriously?” Parker grunted. My neighbors are a snake and a shark, and my parents were clowns.”

“That last part explains a lot…”

“EXCUSE ME?!”

“Calm your tusks, Derm. Perhaps I should formulate our order of operations?”

“Knock yourself out, Tepes.”

Raluca flew about in a small arc, akin to how one without wings might pace or swim around in circles when trying to come-up with a plan. The horror author looked around for anything the duo could use to scare the pants (or, more accurately, “checkered skirt”) off of the bunny.

“I’ve got it!” Raluca proclaimed. “We wait until sunset. And then, when Usagi and her sweetheart are watching the romantic transition from day to night, I fly up the cliffside and ‘boo’ them as the darkness sets in!”

“So we let Usagi win her love by daylight, and then we fight her evil by moonlight?” Parker asked.

“I suppose you could phrase it that way,” Raluca said. “Although I don’t think Usagi is really… evil. There’s only one evil girl here, Derm.” The vampire bat winked while pointing triumphantly to her heart.

The elephant shook her head. “Chou Usagi is evil, alright! She’s a boyfriend-stealing succubus!”

“Oh, puh-lease!” Raluca rolled her eyes. “That girl is far from a succubus! She’s sexy by mortal standards, at best! But the one with real demonic charm is I!”

“Fuck-off!” the pachyderm scolded. “You’re as much of a mortal as Usagi, Fumi or even me! Get over yourself!” Parker folded her arms. “…Ok, so while you’re flying up the side of the cliff, I’ll wait here behind this tree. And when Usagi pisses her panties and runs away in terror, she’ll head right this way!” the elephant cackled.

“Ohoho… You sure are… dedicated, Ms. Derm.”

“Why, thank you!” Parker beamed. “Now, get in position! The sun’s gonna set soon!”

 

As the sun vanished behind the clifftop, the rabbit and cavalier King Charles spaniel couldn’t help but to turn their attention to the sunset and anticipate the arrival of the Moon.

“Isn’t it romantic?” Fumihito mused. “Just the two of us, eating chicken and BLT sandwiches, alone on this cliff, watching the sunset…”

“Eh, it’s whatever,” Chou replied. “Can you pass the salt, please?”

“We… didn’t bring salt,” Fumihito said. “…Wait, why are you asking for salt right now, anyway? Don’t you wanna take in the sunset?”

“It’s nice, I guess. But what’s the big deal, again?”

Fumihito chuckled. “You weren’t kidding about not understanding romance, huh? Speaking of which, how is your novel coming along now? Have I been of any help, after all’s said and done?”

“Oh, yeah,” Chou beamed, “in-fact, once this date is over, I think I’ll only need your assistance one more time!”

“…Oh,” Fumihito sighed. “I see. Well, you can’t always count on me.” He sheepishly rubbed the back of his head, his gaze with the sunset breaking for the first time since it had appeared, as he looked dejectedly at the grassy clifftop floor and gingham fabric of the picnic blanket. He didn’t want to sound upset, for fear of coming across as desperate or, worse, as if he wanted to guilt-trip the bunny.

…But, of-course, Chou could tell what he was truly feeling. The atmosphere went dead quiet as Fumihito no longer felt like talking and Chou tried to think of the right thing to say; to reassure her friend that they would still be friends after her manuscript was finished and handed-off to her editor Mister Fox. But there were no “right” words for the rabbit girl to utter. The old saying was true; actions did speak louder than words, sometimes. Chou placed her front paws on the picnic mat and inched closer to her coworker on her hands and knees, stopping mere centimeters away from him, wrapping her right arm around his lower back and resting her head on his side. The two of them were illuminated by the recently-visible Moon as if under a stage’s spotlight.

“Look, Fumihito…” she began, “it’s been super fun. But I already told you that it couldn’t seriously work between us. I’m aroman--”

“BOO!” a mysterious figure (Raluca D. Tepes) said as they leaped in-front of the Moon while wearing a Halloween monster mask, causing Chou to hop up in fright while Fumihito rolled his eyes.

Rather than running away as Parker had predicted, instead Chou simply lost her footing and tumbled down the slope which led from the clifftop to the trees. This turned out to be more advantageous for the elephant anyways, as Chou ended-up face-down and ass-up right beside Parker’s hiding place – a position which made her escape far more difficult.

Raluca touched-down on the cliff’s peak, throwing off her mask and her arms into the air with an evil laugh. “Oh, Usagi, you’re just so pathetic.”

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“CHOU,” Fumihito called out, “ARE YOU OK?!”

“I’m fine,” Chou groaned, spitting grass out of her mouth. “…Wait a minute, I eat grass, why am I spitting this out?”

“Hello, Usagi,” Parker menacingly said, jumping out (or, more accurately, “stepping out”, as elephants cannot jump) from behind the tree and grabbing Chou by the back of her jacket’s collar. “I guess you forgot about your promise to stop dating my future boyfriend?”

“Whatever, I’m gonna call it off after our next date, so can you just let me go, or…?”

“Fat chance, bitch! I warned you that there would be consequences if you continued dating my beloved Fumi! So now…” Parker withdrew a switchblade from her pocket and raised it to Chou’s neck. “It’s time to die.”

Chou held her arms out behind her back and slipped out of her jacket, hopping away from the elephant and backing away slowly. “Are you fucking insane?!” she shrieked as she began running back up the cliff to Fumihito and Raluca.

Parker threw Chou’s jacket to the ground in disgust. “GET BACK HERE!” she yelled, giving chase to the bunny rabbit.

“FUMIHITO!” the lagomorph cried, “YOU GOTTA HELP ME!”

“What’s up?” the dog inquired, unaware of Parker’s presence due to the cover of night.

“Relax, mortal,” Raluca chimed in as Chou reached the top of the hill. “It’s only Nosey Parker, you nincompoop.”

“That’s what I’m afraid of!” Chou called back.

“Why? Are you guys having an argument or something?” Fumihito asked.

“Uh, yeah, something like that…”

“You really thought you could escape?!” Parker snarled, catching-up to Chou and swinging her knife around like an inflatable tube humanoid outside of a sports-car dealership! “Now, hold still!”

Raluca once again threw her head back and laughed maniacally as Chou narrowly avoided Parker’s flurry of slashes, suffering only minimal damage to her clothes and fur, if even that. Fumihito, meanwhile, had a more confused expression. But both of their moods changed completely as Chou let out a scream of pain when Parker’s blade made contact with her flesh and drew blood!

“D-DERM, W-WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU D-DOING?!” Raluca demanded, her vampiric façade completely dropping.

“The plan was to kill Usagi, remember?!”

 

Without exchanging any words, both Fumihito and Raluca ran over to Parker, wresting the blade from her hand and yeeting it off the cliff and into the valley below.

“When you said ‘scare her to death’, I didn’t think you meant it literally!” Raluca scolded. “What the fuck is wrong with you?!”

“Ms. Tepes, do you have Parker secured?” the cavalier King Charles spaniel asked. Raluca nodded. “Alright,” the dog sighed, standing up, dusting off his signature gray suit and straightening his tie which had become messy in the altercation, “can someone tell me what the Hell is going on?”

“That elephant is insane!” Chou yelled. “She wants me out of the picture because she has a crush on you!”

Fumihito’s eyebrows raised in tandem and his tail jutted straight upwards. “But… we’re not really dating,” he bluntly stated.

“LIES!” Parker screamed! “You didn’t just tell me you two were dating! You told everyone in the office!”

“I said that I went on a date with Chou! I didn’t see we were dating!” he fired back. “There’s a difference, y’know?! A slight difference, sure, but a difference nevertheless. You’re an author for the gods’ sakes! You should know this stuff!”

For Chou, Parker and Raluca, seeing Fumihito that angry was genuinely unnerving. He almost never lost his temper.

 

“Look, I WISH I was dating Chou, ok?! I really do! But just liking somebody a whole lot doesn’t mean you’re entitled to them! I will never be your boyfriend, because I do not date women who try to kill my friends! And I will never be Chou’s boyfriend, because I’m not her type!”

…While technically true that Fumihito wasn’t Chou’s type, he was unaware that she didn’t even HAVE a type. But, seeing as Parker and Raluca were just as unaware as he was, and that his heart was definitely in the right place, his words did resonate with them.

“Face the facts, Parker. Love isn’t always fair. This isn’t like one of my romance stories – which, by the way, I based on my ideal relationship with Chou (and not you), so you can go fuck yourself!”

Chou covered her bucktoothed mouth with her hands and blushed at Fumihito’s revelation as to what inspired My Precious Ko.

“If you want someone to like you, you have to treat them with respect, and not as some sort of prize that you have to earn ‘just because’!” the mutt continued. “My next ‘date’ with Chou is going to be my last, but do y’know what?! I’ve accepted that!” he yelled, tears beginning to form in the corners of his eyes. “That doesn’t mean that I’m not going to try my absolute damnedest to win her over at the eleventh-hour; but once that date’s over, it’s over! In that regard, I guess that maybe this is like one of my stories, Parker! It has an end. EVERYTHING has an end. And whether you like that ending or not, you have no excuse to harass or try to kill the author over it!”

Parker’s look of sheer anger and hatred shifted to one of regret and realization.

“Not every relationship has a happy ending, just as not every book does. But, as a wise poet once said, ‘tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.”

 

“Cut the Shakespeare crap, I get it already, alright?” Parker grunted.

“It’s Tennyson, dumbass,” Chou retorted.

“I DON’T GIVE A SHIT!”

Fumihito took a deep breath before offering his paw to Chou. “Let’s go,” he smiled, as Chou took his paw and the two of them disappeared into the darkness.

 

The pachyderm sighed. “Can you let go of me now?” she asked Raluca.

The vampire bat rolled her eyes. “You tried to make me an unwitting accomplice in your little plan. I could have become a murderer!”

“A killer,” Parker corrected. “A murderer, by definition, is someone who’s taken a life intentionally.”

“Well, I guess that does make me a murderer then,” Raluca winked, as she dragged Parker to the cliff’s edge.

“W-What the fuck are you doing?!” the elephant trumpeted. “Y-You’re not gonna--”

“You’re supposed-to be an author, aren’t you,” Raluca deviously smiled, her chuuni vampire shtick returning, “I think you should know a little something about show-don’t-tell…” she winked.

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