cornflakes are good

Part Eight

Warning: This part mentions romance and I don't know how to write that and so it'll suck, a lot. You've been warned. *reaches for doorknob but can't reach because of shortness* 

Warning: This part mentions violence and probable murder.

[Meanwhile at the cute little high school]

Rat was unaware of Karen's kidnapping that night. She didn't want to tell him in case he handled the situation incorrectly. All Karen could do was act like nothing happened and hope that her army of managers took care of DUCK.

It was lunchtime, and Karen and Rat were eating #couplegoals ice cream together and planning their wedding. They already decided it would be a private little wedding a month from now. It didn't need to be fancy. Simplicity was good enough for them. 

They didn't talk about their wedding as happily as they wanted to since Emily was sitting at the table right across from them, tapping furiously away on a laptop. 

"Hmmm," Rat mumbled. "I wonder where Senpie and Sophia are."

Karen looked at Rat and shrugged. "Senpie probably skipped school because he was a coward."

"How about Sophia?"

"I don't know. Maybe someone got her to the hospital."

"That makes so much sense. You're so smart, Karen."

"I know. I mean. Thank you, Rat. You're smart too." 

"What's Emily doing on that suspicious laptop of hers?" Rat asked his fiancée.

Karen was looking at Emily's laptop the whole time and was wondering the same thing as well. She couldn't see a thing that Emily was typing because her big head blocked the whole screen. It was suspicious. Karen suspected that she was sending information to her magic ninja league. 

It turned out that Emily wasn't doing that. Instead she was surfing the dark web shop. Her eyes widened at one product in store. She clicked the product and read the description. She frowned. This was bad. Emily went back to the main dark web shop. "That darn duck. . . How dare he sell me on the dark web!" she whisper-yelled in frustration. "I'll show him. . ."

Emily tapped furiously on her laptop. She clicked the "sell" button and created her product. She got a PNG image of a yellow duckling and uploaded it to the "product image" space. The file loaded. Luckily the image looked exactly like DUCK, although, it wasn't that hard to find it. She wrote in the "name of product" space "delicious oversized duck for free." Then she wrote in the description, "oversized duck for free! DM me for more information or set up a time. ideal meeting place would be Najimi Park! <3" Then she clicked the "save" button and leaned back in her seat. Almost instantly, a DM from a customer showed up on her screen requesting that they meet right now for the duck. Emily then told DUCK over DMs that she was located at Najimi Park. Sooner or later, DUCK would come running for Emily and the customer would come running for DUCK.

[Ten minutes later, at Najimi Park]

The customer was already there the moment Emily told him they could meet. When he saw DUCK fluttering around, waiting for Emily, he pulled out a knife and fork.

"Where is she?" DUCK asked himself. "These are the exact coordinates. . . AHHH!!"

A fork was jabbed into DUCK's back. He swiveled around and smacked the customer across the face and attempted to fly away, but the customer nabbed him and held him against him like a football. DUCK pushed himself out of the customer's grasp and replaced the space where he just was with a plush duck, but that didn't fool the customer. He was about to swallow DUCK when Zenpi came along and tackled him. Zenpi swiftly stabbed the customer in the back. He grabbed DUCK's feathered hand and frolicked away from Najimi Park.

"She set me up! I should've known!" DUCK yelled with frustration.

"It's okay, DUCK, darling," Zenpi said lovingly. "All that matters now is that you're safe."

DUCK sighed. It was no use getting worked up over something that already happened. "Senpie, can we go to the store and get grapes?"

"Of course, DUCK," Zenpi replied. 

Together they bounced over to the nearby grape market. DUCK and Zenpi knew that this store sold the best and freshest grapes in the whole city. Zenpi looked at DUCK with a loving look.

"Wait here, sweetheart," Zenpi told DUCK, "while I get your grapes."

"Okay, Senpie," DUCK said and smiled. Zenpi walked into the grape market. DUCK decided to sit down at a small bench by the market. From there he could see people happily shopping for grapes and eating them, savoring the juicy and exquisite flavor. 

Then a strange skeleton man walked over to the market. DUCK was confused by his presence, but was also amazed by it. . . The skeleton was so. . . beautiful. . . DUCK blushed nervously and watched the skeleton man some more. Something about the skeleton man made DUCK oddly attracted to him. 

He decided he couldn't wait another moment. He stood up and ran over to the skeleton man. "Hello, I'm DUCK."

"Hi. I'm Spookman," said the skeleton man.

Without any hesitation, DUCK grabbed Spookman and kissed him. Then he said, "I love you, Spookman."

Spookman's nonexistent eyes lit up. "I love you too, DUCK."

"We have to keep this a secret, though," DUCK said to Spookman. "My boyfriend, Senpie, can't find out. . ." He kissed Spookman again.

"Okay, DUCK," Spookman replied.

DUCK turned around. To his dismay, Zenpi was walking outside the market with bags of green grapes and grape gum in his hands. DUCK pushed Spookman away and ran over to Zenpi. Spookman decided to run away as well, forgetting about his craving for grape juice. He turned to look at DUCK one more time and then disappeared into the city.

"I have your favorite grape gum flavor. . .," Zenpi told DUCK, unaware that DUCK had just been cheating on him. "Purple Burst Gum!" He waved a bag of the purple grape gum in front of DUCK.

"Oh-em-gee," DUCK said, "that is amazing! Ty bby!" DUCK hugged Zenpi and then looked back at the crowd in search of Spookman, but he was nowhere to be seen. . .