1SuperSailorCharon: So this is a little one-shot I came up with last night…oddly enough while drunk! So, I'm taking a break from He's a Lady to work on this one. I'd like to thank those who are reading He's a Lady. This one shot and my other Kill La Kill story are in no way connected, and I do not own Kill La Kill. Enjoy!
With a little finagling from her younger sister and from Mako Mankanshoku, Satsuki Kiryuuin reluctantly agreed to host a party in her home to celebrate the defeat of Ragyo as well as the upcoming graduation.
It was a little after ten on the night of the party, and despite it being a small gathering consisting of Satsuki, Gamagori, Jakuzure, Sanageyama, Inumuta, Ryuko, Mako, and Iori, the party was already in full swing. The small group hung out in the parlor socializing, drinking, and having a good time. Ryuko managed to smuggle in lots and lots of booze and several of the partygoers were already drunk.
"Man, my big sis sure knows how to throw a party!" Ryuko bragged, taking a swig form a sake bottle.
"Don't hog the whole thing, delinquent!" Nonon whined, snatching the sake bottle from Ryuko.
"Who bought this sake again?" Ryuko asked, grabbing the bottle back.
"You didn't buy it!" The tiny pink-haired girl reminded her. "You just happened to convince that pervy teacher to buy it for you!"
"Yeah, but I gave him the money so he could go to the liquor store and buy it for me!" Ryuko shot back.
"Matoi, correct me if I'm wrong, but that wasn't the only bottle of sake you brought with you," Iori affirmed.
"You're right," Ryuko said reluctantly, letting Nonon polish off the rest of the sake. "Besides, sake isn't the only thing I brought with me tonight!" Ryuko reached into her black bag and pulled out a bottle of vodka.
"I can't take all the credit for this party," Satsuki said demurely while she sipped her tea. She sat in a big plush chair in the parlor with her tea tray on the small table next to it. Soroi had just brewed a fresh pot of tea for her per her request. "Ryuko and Mankanshoku did insist that we all needed a night to enjoy each other's company and have a little fun."
"No offense, Sis, but what kind of person just sits around drinking tea at a party like this?" Ryuko asked.
"IT'S LADY SATSUKI'S PARTY AND SHE'LL DRINK TEA IF SHE WANTS TO!" Gamagori roared. Even though he'd already had quite a lot of booze that night, his massive size ensured that the alcohol had little effect on him. Initially, he refused to drink, and was extremely exasperated that Ryuko was enabling underage drinking. However, Satsuki encouraged him to lighten up and let the others have their fun.
"I simply choose not to partake in the consumption of alcohol," Satsuki replied flatly. "But if you choose to do so, I have no desire to stop you."
"I would also like to add that Lady Satsuki isn't the only one who chose not to drink tonight," Inumuta chimed in. He spent most of the evening standing in a corner with his eyes locked on his Smartphone in an attempt to avoid socializing with the other partygoers. He'd come to a point where he didn't mind spending time in larger groups of people. Just a few nights ago he went out to dinner with the others. Still, making conversation was not something he was used to.
Inumuta was right. A few of the partygoers were already quite drunk, but some of them managed to stay sober. Inumuta just didn't care for the taste of alcohol and didn't see much of a point in being drunk. Iori felt the same way, so he too remained sober for the whole night.
Mako was the only other completely sober one at the party. Over at the buffet table, she stuffed her face with her mother's homemade mystery croquettes. While Satsuki assured Mako that the party would be catered and therefore wouldn't need to bring anything, Mako begged her mother to make some yummy croquettes to take to the party.
"How long did you intend for this party to last, anyway?" Inumuta asked Satsuki.
"I was hoping it wouldn't last all night, but if some people are too intoxicated to drive home, then there's nothing I can really do about that," Satsuki replied diplomatically.
"Wasn't Gamagori supposed to be the designated driver?" Iori asked.
"I was. But my car is still being repaired so I have no car to drive," Gamagori explained, a vein threatening to burst in his forehead when he recalled the memory of his car's destruction by the auto shop club.
"You can't tell me what to do!" Nonon shouted randomly at no one in particular. She moved over to the buffet and started yelling the same thing at Mako. The small brunette swallowed a mouthful of croquette and just stared at the pink-haired girl with a look of wide-eyed innocence.
"I never did tell you what to do, Jakuzure!" Mako corrected with a big smile on her face, completely oblivious to the fact that Nonon clearly drank too much. "Would you like to have some croquettes?
"You can't tell me what to do!" Nonon repeated. "That's Lady Nonon to you!"
"Is she gonna be okay?" Ryuko asked. "She's the smallest one here, and she drank a crap ton of sake."
"Not to mention that, to my knowledge, she isn't used to drinking alcohol and therefore her tolerance won't be very high," Satsuki pointed out.
"Interesting. Jakuzure is still as volatile as ever while intoxicated, only her venomous remarks are much sloppier and more haphazard," Inumuta noted. "I should file that away for future reference."
Nonon trudged and swayed over to Sanageyama where she proceeded to pick a fight with him.
"Shaddup you stupid monkey!" Nonon slurred before taking a drunken swing at Uzu and missing horribly.
"Oh God, you're so drunk, Jakuzure!" Sanageyama laughed while he took another swig of sake. "This is just priceless!"
"Kiss my ass!" Nonon spat before turning around. She rolled down her shorts and her panties, exposing her bare butt.
"Hey look! There's a full moon tonight! Oh man! This is GREAT!" Sanageyama howled, banging his fists on a nearby table.
"What full moon?" Mako asked, walking over to where Ryuko, Inumuta, Iori, and Satsuki. She had a croquette in her hand and took a big bite. "When we came to this party, the moon was a waxing crescent! Everybody knows that the moon can't go from crescent to full in one night! Why is Sanageyama talking about a full moon while Jakuzure is clearly running around with her pants down?"
"You really don't understand the meaning of idioms, do you?" Inumuta asked Mako.
"JAKUZURE!" Gamagori bellowed. "SHOW SOME DECENCY AS A LADY AND PULL YOUR SHORTS BACK UP!"
"Bite me, ya good for nothin' toad!" Nonon spat.
Satsuki got up from her chair and walked over to Nonon.
"Pull your shorts back up, Nonon. You're embarrassing yourself," Satsuki said calmly. The pink-haired girl's eyes were glazed over and a drunken smile crept up on her mouth.
"Anything you say, Satsuki," Nonon complied. She pulled her shorts and her panties back up.
"You need to get some rest," Satsuki told her, putting her hands on the small girl's shoulders and looking her firmly in the eyes. "You can sleep in one of the spare bedrooms tonight and spend the night here."
"Nonsense!" Nonon laughed. "I'm fine! I'm just havin' a good time! What's wrong with that?"
"Nonon, you've had too much to drink and you need to sleep it off," Satsuki said sternly. "You can either stay here and sleep in the spare bedroom or I can have someone escort you home. I will not have you making a fool of yourself like this."
"But…but…but…we haven't even done the karaoke competition yet!" Nonon protested, her pink eyes watering.
"Oh! There's a karaoke competition now? I didn't know that!" Mako said, giddy with glee and excitement. "Ryuko! We should sing a duet together!"
"THERE IS NO KARAOKE COMPETITION!" Ira shouted. "NO ONE BROUGHT A KARAOKE MACHINE!"
"Sure, there's no karaoke competition, but we could always play The White Death," Sanageyama suggested. "Ryuko, do you still have that vodka bottle?"
"Yeah, sure," Ryuko said, handing him the vodka bottle. "How do we play?"
Sanageyama proceeded to explain the rules of the game to the others who wanted to partake. Nonon wanted to play, too, but Satsuki wasn't having it.
"Absolutely not! You've already had too much to drink and you don't need anymore!" Satsuki chastised.
"I was actually going to go home for the night," Inumuta announced. "If Jakuzure would like me to walk with her to ensure she gets home safely, I can escort her."
"Oh wow! The dog actually gives a flying fuck about someone other than himself! That's a first!" Sanageyama shouted from the circle of people playing The White Death. He went ignored.
"Fuck that noise! I'm not going home with the dog!" Nonon protested, swaying a little bit as the result of her brain being bathed in a sea of liquor. "You can't tell me what to do!"
"Nonon, you need to go home and rest," Satsuki insisted. "I would walk with you myself, but I need to ensure that no one else at this party drinks themselves into a coma." Of course, that was probably going to happen soon, because in the middle of The White Death game, Ryuko bolted from off the floor and ran down the hall where audible retching sounds could be heard.
Nonon didn't fight anymore. She followed Inumuta out the front door and down the road.
"I understand you're intoxicated, but try to keep up with me," Inumuta told her. Normally when they walked together, three or four of her short, staccato steps amounted to one of his slightly longer strides. Tonight, Nonon swayed and tottered dizzily along the sidewalks, hardly able to keep up with Inumuta. Nonon said nothing, much to his surprise. The snake was simply too drunk to have any venom left in her. The only sound out of her that he heard was the sound of her retching violently on the sidewalk. He averted his eyes uncomfortably while the contents of the girl's stomach rapidly emptied.
"Okay, you're definitely not going home tonight," Inumuta said firmly. Jakuzure look up at him with watery eyes and wiped the bile off her lips with the back of her hand. "I'm taking you back home with me. My place is a lot closer than yours, and so you're going to stay with me tonight and get some sleep."
"I vomited in my hair," Nonon murmured. "Does my hair smell bad?"
"How could you possibly vomit in your hair when you constantly have it hidden under your hat?" Inumuta asked her. For once, Nonon didn't have a readied comeback.
He wasn't normally one to be overly concerned with the well-being his companions, but Houka sincerely felt terrible for Nonon. He wasn't sure how much further she could walk, but with him being as weak and scrawny as he was, there was no way he'd be able to carry her back, even though she wasn't a big girl at all.
"Can you go much further?" Houka asked her. "My apartment is only a block away."
Nonon didn't answer him.
Inumuta sighed and reluctantly took Nonon by the hand which hadn't been covered in bile.
"Just follow me. You'll be able to sleep soon," he assured her, not knowing what else to say. How the hell did an agreement to walk her home turn into something so awkward?
Ten minutes later, Houka and Nonon were back at his apartment, a cozy little one-bedroom space on the top floor of the building. The instant Nonon made it through the threshold she made a clumsy beeline for the bathroom and stumbled in before puking her brains out some more in the toilet. She didn't even bother shutting the door. The sound of her heaving her guts out was making Houka a little nauseous himself. He walked away to the kitchen and poured a glass of water.
A moment later, Nonon heaved herself up off the floor and scrubbed the residual vomit off her hands. She grabbed a handful of tissues from the box on the bathroom counter, wiping the runny makeup off her face and blowing her nose. Houka stopped in front of the bathroom and handed her the glass of water.
"If you don't hydrate yourself, you're going to wake up with a nasty hangover," Houka informed her. Nonon took the water and chugged it down without any retorts.
"You can have my bed," Houka offered. He didn't normally sleep in his room anyway, unless he was sick. Usually he just passed out on the couch with his laptop at some ungodly hour.
"Houka," Nonon uttered sickly, "how drunk am I?"
"Drunk enough to act so out of character that you hardly spoke at all on the way over here," he replied stoically. "And you called me by my name just now rather than resorting to some silly nickname, so you're most definitely intoxicated."
"Oh, fuck you," Nonon replied, stumbling over her words a little. Houka smirked beneath the collar of his jacket. As drunk as she was, it was a comfort for him to know that the fight hadn't totally left her.
Nonon trudged dizzily into Houka's room and took off her skull beanie. She shook out her pink hair and flopped on the bed. Houka couldn't help but notice that Nonon was somewhat adorable with her disheveled pink hair and glossy eyes. Sprawled on the bed, she looked like a small child. A heavy stillness measured only in heartbeats settled between them.
"Well," Inumuta said in an attempt to break the awkward silence. "I'm going to be on the couch if you need anything." He still had some data on the Nudist Beach casualties to sort through, and he planned on spending the rest of the night working.
"Wait!" Nonon blurted out. "Stay with me until I fall asleep?"
Okay. Now he was certain that Nonon was drunk. He found it unfathomable that Nonon could be even remotely capable of being this needy. But he agreed anyway if it would get her to settle down and go to sleep. He climbed onto the bed and sat next to the small girl.
"I think everybody hates me," Nonon mumbled.
Houka smirked. Nonon had better be prepared to never, ever live this night down. But instead, he just said, "Everybody doesn't hate you. There's simply no evidence that would suggest that."
"No, I'm pretty sure everybody hates me. Satsuki definitely hates me," Nonon argued.
"Why would you say something like that? After all, she's known you since kindergarten," Inumuta reminded her. "Look, you're intoxicated, so you're clearly not thinking straight," Inumuta rationalized. "So please just get some sleep. I promise you that you'll feel a lot better in the morning."
"No," Nonon insisted emphatically. "Satsuki hates me. I shoulda protected her or done something when Ragyo was abusing her."
Inumuta sighed. He only knew a little bit about the horrors that Satsuki had endured growing up under Ragyo's reign of terror.
"You couldn't have done anything to save her. You were but a child yourself. What could you have possibly done?" Houka asked, wondering why he was taking the time to reason with a drunk person.
"I don't know," Nonon said, her voice shaking. "I just wish I could've been there more for her. She needed a friend, and I've been one of her best friends for years. I couldn't do anything to help her, but I could've maybe at least listened, you know?"
"Yes, but this is Satsuki we're talking about. She wouldn't have told anyone about what Ragyo was doing to her. I think she knew that no one could protect her, and so she must've felt it was her responsibility to protect herself. That's not your burden to shoulder. It's all over now, though. You don't have to think about it anymore," Houka assured her. He still couldn't figure out for the life of himself why he was trying to rationalize with a drunken Nonon. After all, it was possible that she wouldn't even remember this conversation in the morning and she probably wouldn't remember how she ended up in his apartment.
"Yeah, well, Satsuki has to think about it all the time!" Nonon cried. "It doesn't matter that Ragyo is dead! Satsuki still has to deal with it and she shouldn't have to! She doesn't deserve it! She never fucking did!" She looked up at Houka. Tears spilled from her eyes and gasping sobs escaped from her lips. Houka didn't know what to do now. As someone who was so emotionally stunted and out of touch with his own feelings, seeing Nonon like this frightened him. He'd known Nonon for several years and this was the only time he had ever seen her cry.
"I'm used to having people give me stuff and do stuff for me, but people don't actually like me," she murmured through sobs. "Satsuki probably thinks I'm a shitty friend, and you, Ira, and Uzu all think I'm a huge bitch who can't keep her mouth shut."
"Now, now. Don't cry," he said quietly. He really did want more than anything for her to stop crying, because this was getting way too awkward for him. Nonon's head was pressed up against his chest, and he was shocked and intrigued to find himself instinctively wrap his arms around her. "Please don't cry. You're intoxicated and getting upset much more easily. Just breathe."
"No, no I'm not," Nonon insisted, sobs continuing to bubble out of her. "I fucking suck as a person," Nonon wept. "Everyone hates me and thinks I'm a huge selfish bitch!"
"Take a deep breath," Houka told her. "If the rest of us hated you, would we have invited you to come with us to the party tonight? Satsuki made it clear she wanted you to come to the party, so she doesn't hate you either. If I hated you that much, would I have tried to save you all the way from Osaka when you encountered trouble in Kyoto? If I hated you that much, would I have offered to not only escort you home, but to allow you to stay with me in mine until you sober up?"
"No," Nonon muttered tearfully. She didn't have enough fight in her left to argue with him.
"Stop your tears," he whispered. He found with time the awkwardness of this situation slowly wore off, and he found himself more comfortable holding Nonon in his arms in an act of consolation.
Nonon wept a little more until her sobs became quieter and quieter sleep finally claimed her. Houka looked down at the sleeping Nonon, so peaceful and calm. Her breath, which was once hitched and choppy from crying, was now smooth and a little shallow.
Relieved that Nonon had finally fallen asleep, Houka made a note of it to himself to enter in an important bit of data when he could finally access his laptop:
Nonon Jakuzure gets extremely emotional if she has consumed too much alcohol, and she may also succumb to intense bouts of self-pity.
Taking off his glasses and reaching over to set them on the nightstand, the fog of sleep eventually shrouded Houka, too. He never once left Nonon's side that night.