[Discontinued] Mao Mao x Spy! Reader: Spying for the Enemy, Flying with my Crush

Chapter 3: You Were Warned

The next day, you woke up on a couch. A somewhat familiar couch. "Mmm," you sighed. "It's good to be back."

Mao Mao was next to you, drinking...something out of a can. "You wake up late."

"No," you started, "you wake up early. It's perfectly normal to wake up at an hour or so to noon. It's a great time to wake up, even if you fell asleep only three or less hours beforehand. It's just such a fitting time to awaken!"

"For someone who complains about me being identical to English teacher, you sure gave an essay response befitting of a twelfth-grade teacher."

"I'm sorry, who just used a higher-level word in their single sentence?" The feline looked away from you and groaned. In your best Cockney accent, you concluded, "Exactly, professor."

Mao Mao looked at you and grumbled, "You're impossible, you know that?" Despite his most recent statement, he was grinning, even chuckling, though it was only a little.

"What are you drinking?" you asked, suddenly interested in his choice of beverage. You sat up to look at the can...and hit the can out of the sheriff's hands and onto your face. He laughed hard at that, and kept laughing until you used his cloak as a means to wipe off your face and get that horrible taste out of your mouth. "Wh-what?! Was that alcohol?"

"No! 'Course not, I'm a hero, and I must always be on call." You raised an eyebrow, and he raised one back. You raised the other and he confessed, "Alcohol substitute."

'Why?!'

"Why?"

"Because beer's nasty, red wine isn't very easy to find, brandy and rum are nasty, and moonshine is ironically the darker side of alcohol. Besides, it's bad for you, and I'm on call for hero duty at anytime."

"Speaking of hero duty, where are the other two?"

The sheriff put his hands behind his head and kicked back a little with a smile on his face. A smile that seemed a little...grisly. "Oh, I sent them on an impossible task." Noticing the look of slight concern on your face, he quickly added, "In the village. They'll be gone for a little while."

"What was the task?"

"They must taste every pie possible to taste and tell me which is the best flavor."

"Dude. Not cool."

His arms moved into the classic "What do you mean by that?" position. "What—I saved this house for the two of us! Be a little more grateful!"

"That's a lot of sugar build-up. I'm not sure where the nearest dentist is, and I'm sure you don't want Adorabat hyped up on sugar. I've only seen her for less than five minutes, and I could feel the excitement rolling off of her." Mao Mao sighed, stood up from the couch, and walked over to a chest. He took off his cape and tossed it at you. "Hey!"

"What can I say? You rubbed your saliva all over it, along with Hoaxcohol. Keep that if you want to, though you may want to wash it before use." He knelt and opened the chest.

While he searched for a new cape, you smiled and started rocking your head left and right. Kicking your legs, you hummed a small, quirky tune. "You know what I just realized, Mao Mao?"

"Hmm?"

"You're drinking alcohol substitute before drinking the actual thing. Why are you even drinking Hoaxcohol in the first place?"

"Because all the popular heroes have their own beverage line!" pouted the sheriff.

You stood up from the couch and started pacing. "Being popular is not caused by product lines. It's caused by the actions of the subject considered to be popular. Popularity can be divided into different types, such as famous and infamous. One gets you popular because of the good you do while the other nets you popularity because of the crimes you perform. While product lines can boost popularity, one cannot get product lines without a base popularity."