Ai No Kusabi Alternative Ending

Chapter 16

(ﾉ◕ヮ◕)ﾉ*:･ﾟ✧

"Eat your food, pet." Riki sighed as he stopped pushing the greens on his plate around and, stabbed them all with his fork, and consumed the rest of his food in one bite.

"What's bothering you?"

"Nothing, besides this whole place."

"Riki, why must you start this now?" Riki shook his head and stayed silent. Iason could not understand why his pet was acting this way at dinner. If nothing was bothering him, why was he pouting? They were having such a nice conversation, with Riki finally telling him about his day. Perhaps it had to do something with the way the other pets treat him. Anyone would be understandably upset if every time they ventured out, they were gawked and laughed at. Or, even worse, mockingly impersonated.

"I dunno. I just feel a little... suffocated."

"Explain."

"How am I supposed to explain that?"

"Why do you feel suffocated? The air circulation has no issues."

"You wouldn't understand."

"How would you like it if the exact people who hated you are now trying to befriend you? I don't know. I'm really trying not to be an asshole, but everything is so fake here."

"Hm, would you like it if we took a day off to go somewhere?"

"Like?"

"The pet soiree Aisha invited us to for tomorrow night." Before Riki could protest, Iason continued, "You need not participate. Just behave and enjoy the night."

"A...alright, I guess. You're not going to feed me anything funny right?"

"No. You respond so eagerly without drugs." Riki stared at his plate and refrained from retorted. Stupid blondie, making his face feel hot all of a sudden.

It was February 12th. Maybe they could do something different for Valentine's Day? Riki scowled at the response he would receive if he brought it up. Iason would probably just brush him off or something. It was said to be an old Earthly custom between lovers. Guy would always cook something special on that night, or they would go out for a drink without the rest of the gang; just the two of them spending time talking about their dreams of making it big one day.

"Hey. You're still awake right?" Riki whispered as he lay in bed later that night.

"Hey has a name."

"Fine. Are you awake, o' glorious leader?" Riki sneered and Iason's hand found a butt cheek to pinch.

"Ow. Fuck off."

"Did we not just do that? I assume you must not have had enough." Iason curled his arm around the waist of his pet, but the latter squirmed out of his hold and rolled further toward the opposite side of the bed.

"Iason." Iason scooted over to join his pet beneath the colder bed sheets, and Riki sighed, "Has the bitch called you yet?"

"You really should not refer to Jupiter that way. And no, she has yet to contact me." Iason's voice drifted off as he was left deep in thought. We've been back for about a week now. It is strange that Jupiter has made no movements or signs for me to contact her either.

"What if she's waiting up there for you in the Chamber of Doom?" Riki mused.

"I'll check tomorrow morning." His master added, "However, I did want to talk to you about something in advance, before the pet soiree."

Riki stayed silent, and Iason continued, "I will not tolerate violent behavior at Aisha's event. I know you can play nice; you've done it before. You are free to stay by my side or talk to the other pets, but you will not get into a fight. You know what I expect, Riki." Riki remained silent for a minute.

"You really ruin the fucking mood, you know that?"

"I suppose it was necessary."

Riki snorted, "You sound more and more like Raoul everyday." Iason replied by wrapping his arms around his pet, and drifting into a dreamless sleep. 

***

Raoul arrived home to an empty living room, an empty bedroom, and a kitchen empty of furniture. He had sold his last furniture years ago, and refused to purchase another. Furniture were there to take care of pets, and after Mimea, the number of his pets dwindled until he sold his last one and never purchased another.

Not owning pets is not entirely true for Raoul. He owned quite a few experimental pets still in genetic development, but they were all kept in his lab. His home, however, was generally devoid of life. He spent a vast majority of his time at the lab, including many nights there. Even when the other elites needed to find him, they checked his lab before his home. Having pets meant attending soirees, and he would rather waste as little of his evenings on socializing as possible. Being a social butterfly like Gideon or having to organize all the events like Aisha was something horrible and unimaginable to Raoul. He would rather mind wipe himself a thousand times over.

But this night, he returned home from his lab feeling slightly irked. Research had been put off for the last week because of Iason's huge accident which left Raoul to delegate in his place for a few days. He even went as far as to accept Aisha's invitation to the latest soiree, which of course, he regretted doing as soon as Iason was back in commission. Instead of cancelling and making Aisha angry, the next best thing he could do was force Iason to go. It was, in a way, his payback for nearly dying at Dana Bahn. 

Raoul sat in the only couch in his living room. There were neither paintings to grace his empty white walls nor decorative furniture to receive guests. It wasn't as if he was intellectually incapable of figuring out what should go in a room, but rather because he was at home so rarely that it was reasonably more beneficial for him to spend time analyzing more important things, such as genetic development.

Recently, through numerous failures in the newer pet breeds, Raoul had been stressing out over his monthly productivity. His brethren in Eos Tower, all of Tanagura, and every planet in their galaxy that imports Amoian manufactured pets would be disappointed if this season's pets were not more beautiful than the last. In terms of healthcare and medicine, Raoul has been nothing but perfect in setting the highest example. Although he is still the leading scientist in biotechnology, last month brought in a wave of pets that look a bit too much like Riki for comfort. The dark hair and eyes has really resonated with the crowd, and another manufacturer took to mass producing this new fashion of pets. Raoul shook his head, almost wishing he could hate Iason for making his life so difficult sometimes.

The more he thought about it, the more frustrated he became. The work this month was proceeding so slowly that if there were any more delays or errors he would need another pair of hands to log observations, set up, and clean up experiments. He might as well start looking for a lower-ranking elite with good qualifications, as no matter how much he thought about it, the puzzle of the new breeds failing to take intelligent life forms seemed impossible to solve. He decided to bring it up at the pet soiree tomorrow in case anybody else attending knew a qualified scientist as an associate that may be willing to work under Raoul for a time.