Disclaimer: Isn’t there a law against owning people? Well, it appears I follow it. >_<
Puff: Gackt!!! I found a locksmith and didn’t eat him. Don’t worry, sweetheart, you’ll be out in no time!
Gackt: Great. *sighs softly*
Locksmith: *fiddles with the lock* There, it’s unlocked. Can I go?
Puff: *smiles deviously and hands over a map* That’s the route you should follow.
Locksmith: Okay, thanks. *wanders off*
Gackt: *opens door* Where did you send him?
Puff: The kitchen. ^_^
Playing House
Chapter Twenty
“Somehow, it’s just not as funny as it was last night,” Mana said in a slightly sad tone, walking back into the bedroom with two glasses of water, “Today, it’s just disgusting. Things have started to dry and a lot of the mess looked rather crispy. I’m very lucky that I didn’t step in something.” He handed one of the glasses to Gackt, who was sitting on the edge of the bed while watching Mana pace back and forth for the few seconds before he sat down next to his friend.
“The servants should have already been here about half an hour ago, so they should be getting here any minute and then they’ll clean everything up,” Gackt said calmly, sipping at the cool water, “Besides, it can’t really be that bad. They started to clean the mess up as soon as they were dry.” Mana sighed and glanced down absentmindedly at his black platform shoes to make sure they were still spotless. He shook his head slightly, flicking a blue-black curl over his shoulder when it slipped out of place.
“I don’t think they got very far. The kitchen looks the same as it did yesterday and most of the stains look like they’ve set into the carpet permanently. We’ll have to call somebody to fix that,” Mana muttered, growing rather annoyed as the minutes ticked by, “I think we should reprimand them when they get here. They’re late and they let things go too far yesterday.” The guitarist stared at his hands, turning them carefully and slowly in the light so the silk lace gloves would shimmer. Gackt thought for a moment and slowly nodded his head in agreement, knowing that things could get out of hand in the future if they let this incident slip by unpunished.
“How do you think we should punish them?” Gackt asked darkly, thinking about all the different ways they could scare the trio into perfect behavior, “Personally, I think we should come up with a whole list of things that we could do to them. We could just scold them afterwards and tell them how lucky they are that we decided to be forgiving.” Mana laughed softly and smiled, instantly deciding that Gackt’s way would be the most entertaining.
“That’s fine,” Mana said brightly, his entire demeanor reversing as he realized how much fun he and Gackt were going to have while they mentally tortured their servants, “Should we start the list now and try to memorize it? Or do you think it would be better if we just made stuff up on the spot?” The vocalist shrugged, not really caring either way. Mana glared playfully, walking off to search for the notepad and pen he knew he had left somewhere in the room.
His search was cut short less than a minute later by the sound of the front door slamming. Two voices were immediately screaming back and forth, while a third was serenely attempting to mediate the argument. Mana looked over at Gackt, who walked over and simply grabbed the guitarist’s wrist to pull him along on the way downstairs. By the time they reached their servants fresh blood was about to be spilled.
“Should we just let them continue?” Mana asked dryly in Japanese, speaking directly into Gackt’s ear, “It’s not like they could do any more damage to the carpet and this could prove to be rather entertaining. I think that Allison will win, if she chooses to join in soon.” He smirked and gestured amusedly at the overly calm chef as the vocalist rolled his cerulean eyes.
“This will be equally amusing, but without the risk of getting blood splattered on our clothes,” Gackt said cheerfully, switching to English before he put an edge of anger to his voice, “What is going on here? Do you think we pay you to stand around and yell at one another when there is work to be done?” The trio jumped in unison, each very surprised by the seemingly sudden appearance of their employers. Not one of them had noticed the musicians quietly approach a few minutes beforehand and each was trying to figure out how long they had actually been watching the dispute.
“No, Gackt, we know you don’t pay us to fight,” Allison said quickly, looking rather ashamed even though she had been trying to alleviate the shouting, “I apologize for myself and my co-workers. We behaved improperly and inexcusably. I believe I speak for the three of us when I say that we’re prepared to accept whatever punishment you see fit.” The other two, whom she had just spoken for, looked utterly horrified at her words. Their faces were tomato red with embarrassment and their eyes were bubbling with pure fear. Mana and Gackt glanced over at one another, silently debating what they should do.
“You three need to get to work,” Mana stated with an icy layer to his voice, sapphire eyes blank lest he let the servants notice his amusement, “While you do that, Gackt and I will think of suitable chastisement. For today’s incident and yesterday’s lack of responsibility and judgment.” The three servants’ eyes widened even further with dread, though Adam looked slightly confused.
“What do you mean, ‘yesterday’s lack of responsibility and judgment’?” Adam asked, sounding slightly sarcastic in his repetition of Mana’s well-worded phrase, “I thought that we handled those little brats rather well, for what they were doing. If you’re going to get mad at anyone, get mad at those children.” The butler had planned on continuing, having paused to take a deep breath, but was stopped by Britney’s fingernails digging into his wrist angrily. He whimpered in pain as the two women dragged him into the kitchen, each with a death grip on the man.
“That was rather daring of him,” Gackt said quietly, listening to the maid and the chef verbally berate their co-worker in dangerously clipped tones. Mana laughed, smiling softly at the vocalist.
“Not daring, Gackt, just stupid. He isn’t the brightest person in the world and I don’t think he quite knew that he could have gotten himself into even more trouble,” Mana stated, smirking when Britney promised bodily harm if Adam didn’t watch what he said, “They can be so dense when they fight; I don’t think they realize that we can hear them out here.”
“Shall we go start listing things that we could do to them for their punishment?” Gackt asked brightly, brushing a lock of auburn hair away from his face before extending his hand to the guitarist, “We can probably distract them when they get around to trying to work.” Mana gracefully captured Gackt’s offered hand and they languidly strolled to the doorway that led into the kitchen. This time Allison had been alert, kicking both of her friends sharply in their shins when the pair of attractive musicians came into her view.
“We were just deciding where to start,” Allison explained nervously, noting the devious light that shone from both pairs of sky blue eyes that were fixed onto her, “And who should do what. It’s really difficult to divide the work up evenly when there’s this much to be cleaned.” She smiled, in what she hoped was an overly friendly way, and waved her hands vaguely around the room. Britney and Adam, surprisingly enough, picked up the cue instantly, both grinning like fools and nodding their heads so rapidly it seemed like they’d fall off.
“Of course, but it really seems like a waste of time. Time that could be better spent making our house look like it’s fit to be lived in,” Mana said forebodingly, his gaze making the servants recall all the questions on their applications, “We wouldn’t want to have to do something drastic to you three to get things done around here.” He smiled enigmatically for a split second before his dark blue lips fell back into place.
“You’re quite right!” Britney exclaimed, her brown orbs painted with terror as she scrambled to find the cleaning supplies, “No need to waste time. We can organize the tasks when we get to details.” She flung a mop at Adam, which hit him squarely in the rib cage, and a large brush at Allison. For herself, she had an oversized sponge.
The maid darted around, her sheer worry over what her employers might do to her fueling her more than her actual energy reserves, gathering buckets that were to be filled with soapy water and bottles of dangerous chemical. Allison quickly followed suit, grabbing the bottles from Britney and pouring them over large surfaces to let them soak through. Adam was the last to start moving, lazily pushing his mop around on a wet patch of the food-covered floor.
“Now this is good. Mana and I will be back in about twenty minutes to check in on you,” Gackt said coolly, glaring at the slow moving butler before switching to Japanese and turning to face his friend, “We can use that time to come up with a few things to scare them.” They secluded themselves in the living room, shutting the doors to make the servants anxious and to hide their laughter.
Exactly twenty minutes later, they emerged and made a beeline for the kitchen, each nearly bursting at the seams with threats to tease their employees with. When they looked in through the doorway, the pair was absolutely stunned. In the time they had been plotting mean things, their servants had gotten a remarkable amount of work done.
“We can’t really be harsh with them now,” Mana said softly in Japanese, his sapphire eyes twinkling with a bit of awe, “They’ve done too much so quickly…” Gackt nodded slowly, leaning further into the room to make sure that the disgusting mess just hadn’t been pushed into a corner where it would be difficult to see.
“Look at it this way, the three of them are already terrified of us,” Gackt stated, grinning at the guitarist, “And we can save our very creative threats for another day when we may need them.” He toyed with a dark curl of Mana’s long hair, winding it nonchalantly around his fingers but still being careful enough not to muss the strands.
“Not bad,” Mana said loudly, getting the trio’s attention to himself for a moment, “We’ll leave you to your work. Come and get us when you’ve finished, so we can inspect everything.” The lovely guitarist meticulously watched his tone of voice so that the servants wouldn’t notice much of his approval and let themselves get lazy before the kitchen was properly cleaned. He and Gackt wandered off in search of tasks to kill a bit of time, leaving the very nervous servants to enjoy a few moments of relief.
“For little while there, I thought they were really going to kill us,” Britney muttered softly, violently attacking a cabinet door with her sponge, “They both seem like they would be quite capable of murder, if it came down to it.” She pushed her damp hair away from her eyes as she reached for a new cleaning solution, hopefully one that could easily remove the unknown sticky mass that was stuck to the surface in front of her.
“I know,” Adam said in agreement, finally starting to work hard to clean up the kitchen, “Mana looked dangerous; still perfectly gorgeous but terrifying at the same time. I wonder how she would have punished me. Who knows, it may not have been bad.” He stopped speaking when both Allison and Britney gave him glares of death that contained promises of severe pain if he didn’t shut his mouth that instant.
“Personally, I think it would have been both physically and mentally painful,” Allison said seriously, shuddering slightly as her mind began to wander, “Let’s get this finished so we don’t run the risk of upsetting them again. With the amount of money that they pay us to take care of their house, we’re lucky they aren’t making us clean up with our tongues.” At her words, a pair of musicians, who had been hiding in the shadows in the hallway just outside the kitchen, added a new threat to their list and stifled their giggles.
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