Surreal World part 4
jobs and such...
Mamoru awoke early, as he was conditioned to. He was alert
immediately, and his ears scanned the activity of the house. Noises from
the kitchen... cooking. The sounds of water surging through the pipes...
someone's using the shower.
Drat.
He was a monring person, which meant that he needed to get the
necessities out of the way immediately, such as a morning shower & shave.
Besides, he had to start work in about an hour. With a sigh, he arose,
fixing his hair as best as he could, and headed for the bathroom.
thirty minutes later...
*WHAM*WHAM*WHAM* "Hey! C'mon! You've been in there forever!"
Mamoru was fairly irritated. Whoever was in there was there ever since he
woke up, probbably a while before that. He'd held off on knocking until
the last possible moment. He would have used the upstairs bathroom, but
unfortunately, he didn't realize one existed until he heard the sound of
more pipes kicking in from the ceiling area.
*WHAM*WHAM* "Hurry up!"
With a mighty gust of wind, the bathroom door opened. Mamoru was
knocked away several steps, as the steam poured out like a fog bank. A
lady with an exotic dark tan and long white hair stepped out, covered only
in a bath towel. Drops of water ran down her hair, her face, the gentle
curve of her neck, those long, long legs. She looked somewhat displeased.
Mamoru hoped that he wasn't staring at her, or at least, that it wasn't
obvious.
With one hand holding the towel up, she used the other to grab him
by the shirt. "Listen," she said quietly, making sure that the cameras
around the house couldn't hear her or see her lips, "just because you're
some rich kid by day and youma fighting crusader by night doesn't mean
that you don't use a little MANNERS when talking to people. Got it?"
He nodded stiffly, eyes wide open.
Satisfied, she walked away, saying with a wink, "and don't stare,
your girlfriend might not like it." That time, she made sure that the
cameras heard it.
As he stood in front of the mirror, brushing his teeth, he
realized something. She knows! She knows that I'm... but HOW?
Writer's note: Is tux-boy at all In Character here?
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=The Surreal World=
Writer: Rod M.
Story Concept: Isabel A. "Izzy-chan"
Advisory Board: Fanfic ML
-M- Productions
PART 4 ROUGH BETA
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CAMERA: Kitchen, early morning. Ranma & Kyosuke are at the kitchen table,
looking through the newspaper. They seem to be bored. By the
stove, Nuku-Nuku is busy cooking breakfast. She lets out an
occasional 'meow'-like sound, and Ranma glances at her nervously.
Washu in her usual, younger form, is observing Nuku's cooking
technique and taking notes.
ATARU: [walking in] 'morning. *yawn*. [sniffs in the air] Hmm, what's
cooking? [he peers over Nuku's shoulder and at the stove.]
NUKU: I'm cooking breakfast! [she gives off a kawaii grin and a blink]
ATARU: Ah, good, good. [he gives off his unique cackle and flexes his
hands]
CAMERA: Ataru reaches with both hands about to glomp Nuku. Ranma and
Kyosuke get up to stop him when suddenly one of Nuku's arms whips
out and whaps Ataru across the room casually.
ATARU: OW!
RANMA: Whoa.
WASHU: Aaaah, nice form. Very nice, very nice. [claps twice]
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Nuku-Nuku blinked. She was somewhat surprised by the rather
violent reaction that just occurred. Inside, she sensed that a program
had just been run that was a part of her frame... 'anti-pervert.exe'. So,
that's what papa-san meant when he said he'd make sure she wouldn't be
troubled by perverts...
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CAMERA: Ranma, Kyosuke, and Ataru are sitting around the breakfast table,
with empty dishes on it. Ataru adjusts an ice pack while the
Ranma looks through the papers with a grim expression. Kyosuke is
watching the mini-tv in the kitchen. Washu is gone, but Nuku is
still there, and munching on some cat heads. Ranma glances at
Nuku nervously while she chews and meowls, then buries his nose
into a section of newspaper.
ATARU: Oy, Saotome, whatcha doin?
RANMA: [frowning] Gotta get a job.
ATARU: Job?
RANMA: They ain't providing free food, y'know.
ATARU: Ah! I forgot! Gimmie one of those pages...
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Ataru looked through the job section of the newspaper with a feeling of
doom. Work? Him? WORK? He hadn't forseen this eventuality. What sort
of job was out there that he would WANT to do? With a scowl, he looked
over the listings.
Construction? Nope.
Waiter? Maybe.
Male strip dancer? Hm.... no no no.
Where, he wondered, were all those great jobs, like manservant to
fabulously wealthy and gorgeous woman, when you needed them?
*
Ranma sighed.
He looked hard for a job in this town, but the requirements for those
jobs were far above and beyond what Ranma had in terms of experience and
education. The few jobs left payed a pitiful amount, except the one
job that actually offered good pay... and didn't seem too hard. He had
experience in it too. He just hoped that nobody he knew would see him.
*
Nuku bicycled her way to work, ignoring the screaming and panic that
her 60 mile an hour drive by bicycle caused amongst the people in the
sidewalks and on the street. People... funny how they panicked so easily.
Her job at the moment was as a waitress at Akie's, a family oriented
diner that was, by coincidence, owned by her 'mama-san'. For a while, she
was left unemployed, as a result of two of her 'friends' playing with the
heavy artillery again, destroying the resteraunt in a blaze of gun and
rocket fire.
But as fate would have it, Akie's was so successfull that it's owner,
Akiko Mishima (mama-san) rebuilt it, and asked her to come back and work
there again.
Today, as she strode into the resteraunt, her senses picked up a
familiar scent. Her manager took her by the shoulder before she could
think about it too much longer.
"Natsume, let me introduce you to our new employee! This is Ranko
Tendo." Before them stood a familiar looking girl with a pig-tail, who
seemed suddenly nervous when she saw Nuku. "Cover her if she needs any
help, okay?" The manager walked off, leaving the two girls alone at the
counter.
"Um... hi," she said nervously.
The look, the way she acted nervous, the scent... it definitely seemed
familiar.
Ranma wasn't feeling too good. Up until now, she'd managed to keep his
little 'secret' a secret. But at the moment, she didn't like the way Nuku
was examining her. Did she know? How could she even suspect?
"Are you..." began Nuku, "a sister of Ranma Saotome?"
"Huh?"
"You look like him and act like him and you smell like him too," she
observed. Ranma blinked at the part about smell.
"Um... I'm a... a... a distant relative."
"Oh. Okay!"
Aside from that one moment, the day went rather smoothly for the two of
them. Ranma couldn't help but notice four individuals, one with glasses,
one big, one skinny, and one short, that looked suspiciously like the
Furinkan High Chem Club, ogling at Nuku-Nuku.
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plot notes: stuck on what exactly to write for Mr. Kasuga...
assistant to a photojournalist, but how to make it
an adventure?
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Writer's notes: yes, I'm stuck. It's an irony. A story I wrote to kill
time while I was stuck on another fic, and now I'm stuck on it as well.
Such is life, ne? Anyways, sorry about the delay, I've got a few other
fanfics brewing as well as this one. I'm also looking for some writers to
lend me a hand with Washu and Kyosuke... hopefully, I'll get inspired or
something and wrap this up soon. Or... maybe not. Who knows.
-Rod M. (rpm)