Fists and Lipsticks 2: The Silver Crescent

CHAPTER 49: Foxed

CHAPTER 49: FOXED

Only a foxcan outfox a fox.

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"Ayanami-san, I will offer to you even my magnificent body! Just help my future wife break free from the shackles that took away her Chinese human rights!" Suzuki Akio continued to plead miserably, kneeling on the marble floor next to Ayanami Fuuko's coffee table, his arms held up in praying position as if he were worshiping a Buddha shrine. He volunteered to stir her coffee in her behalf. He wiped away the littlest spills of her drink on the table. He fanned her whenever he would see sweat forming on her forehead. Fuuko almost made him French-kiss her boots if not for Hidemi's forceful tugging. Many times had Hidemi attempted to pull him away to save not only Akio but also himself from embarrassment, but he was too persistent that he would just come running back to the same spot to kneel and beg desperately. The fact that ninety-nine percent of his Concorde customers that day were all looking towards their direction in incredulity did not help either.

"You'll offer to me your body even if I eat humans? Puahahahaha," Fuuko seemed to be more amused than embarrassed by Akio's eccentricity. "And why would I? Even if I offer you my help, you wouldn't accept it anyway, right?"

"Come on, I was just kidding when I said that. Look, I'm sorry! Let's… forget the past and be super friends!"

"Super friends?" Fuuko flashed a 'WTF-are-you-saying-?-are-you-even-from-Earth?' expression.

"Super friends help each other in times of need, just like I am super friends with Yamada-sama, see?" Akio flashed a look resembling 'Puss in Boots' from the movie Shrek as he turned to face Hidemi. "Yamada Hidemi-sama, you truly are my super friend and Master! You took me as your loyal apprentice to teach me how to be a responsible man to face this big, big world!"

"Okay, I'm ready to shrink to a size of a coffee bean right now…" Hidemi frowned, volunteering to replace his employee behind the cash register and took the customers' orders in his behalf just so that he could do something productive other than sharing Akio's mortifying spotlight.

"Oh please Ayanami-san! Help me and my future wife! Please save the future of my nine Chinese kids!"

Fuuko placed down her cup of cappuccino on the table and looked at Akio with her eyebrows raised mischievously. "I said I think I can help her remove the shackles, but I didn't say that I will."

"Why not?"

"Because I'm a very busy person. I hate wasting my time on useless things, especially those that do not concern me," Fuuko replied superciliously. "Unless…"

"Unless?"

Fuuko smiled hintingly, "Unless I am compensated handsomely."

"Well," Akio shrugged. “I am handsome.”

Fuuko frowned, "I wanted something normal."

"But… how much do you want?" Akio finally answered sensibly.

"Fifteen million yen."

"FIFTEEN MILLION YEN? ARE YOU NUTS?"

"No," Fuuko replied with dispassion.

"But where am I going to get fifteen million yen?" Akio exclaimed.

"I don't know. Maybe you can work… really hard," Fuuko pointed towards Hidemi, who was busy serving a newly-made macchiato to a customer. "Or you can ask your 'super friend' over there."