Chapter 9: An Evening of Mixed Emotions

After dinner and a quick shower, I decided to slip into my pajamas for the night; yet I was also too alert to sleep right away. I had splashed a bit of the modified perfume on me, and was currently watching the local nightly news to see if there were any latest reports about my destroyed flat.

"Huh-Choo!"

A familiar sneeze caused me to turn around. DM had entered the sitting room.

"Bless you," I said to him. "I'm sorry if I'm wearing the perfume again. Prof. Squawkencluck told me that this new sample wasn't supposed to affect you too much."

He sniffed and shook his head gently. "No, it's fine. Snf. It smells really nice on you."

His comment made me blush and avert my gaze.

"Er, Penfold went to bed not too long ago," he added while shuffling his feet nervously. "The night's still young. We can stay up and talk."

I smiled. So Mr. Ego's deciding to go slow with me tonight, huh. I patted the seat on my left.

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"H-h! h-h-eh-t'choo!" DM sneezed to the side.

"Bless you," It had been a peaceful 30 minutes so far. To start off our alone time, the White Wonder had let me pick a movie of my choosing while eating popcorn as a snack.

I was very grateful that my DVD collection from my flat was another one of my items that survived. There was a particular animated movie that I had in mind: It was the sequel to All Dogs Go To Heaven, one of my favorites that I loved watching during my past human life's childhood from the real world.

Just like the same version from the past, this movie remained untouched in DM's world. And he didn't object to watching it with me. Unfortunately, as soon as the Irish Setter character, Sasha entered Charlie Barkin's eyes, I suddenly realized the irony of what the story twist of the movie was implying to me…possibly even to my twin bodyguard.

And when good old Charlie wanted to pursue Sasha as a potential mate, I couldn't help but cringe as I heard Danger Mouse chuckle at the scene.

'Maybe this was a mistake,' I thought mentally.

"You know, I can't help but think that the relationship of those two dogs reminds me of another pair of friends," he wondered out loud to me, then wiggled his right eyebrow to indicate his point.

I rolled my eyes. "I know where you're going with this, Danger Mausu," I pronounced the latter half of his name in a Japanese pronunciation in English. "But I can't deny that I actually agree with you on the matter."

As I reached for another handful of popcorn from the bowl between us (I called it "The Neutral Zone"), the shift in my body's position wafted the perfume's scent from my skin and fur closer to Nezu-San's sensitive nose. At this point of our movie runtime, the Police Chase was on. And DM's sniffs were sounding wetter. His breathing hitched again, and he grabbed a handkerchief for the first time since he sat down next to me.

"Hih! H-heh…Aahh-Choo!" He sneezed to his left again, but it did little to smother the noise.

"Bless you. You doing all right there, Nezu-Chan?"

He blew his nose briefly before turning to give me a weak smile. "Snff. Snfle. Y-Yes, thank you."

We resumed our attention back towards the movie. Before long, the love song of Charlie and Sasha had started on the big screen. And the sudden tension between us couldn't have felt more awkward. It was a good thing that my perfume acted like a platonic repellant against DM.

I tried to focus my embarrassed gaze on anywhere but him; yet I instinctively felt that he might have been eyeing me with hidden temptation. The pressure of desiring companionship and the beautiful song playing on the screen was starting to rock the walls in my chest. As the song began to end, salty teardrops escaped from my eyes. I quickly paused the movie when Charlie was racing back to Red's shop.

"Shirakage?" Danger Mouse noticed the uneasiness in my face. "Is there something the matter?"

I tried to wipe the tears from my face and gave him a half composed nod. "No. I'm ok. It's just…family movies with sweet songs during my childhood was one of the best experiences that I've had. Hearing this song again just made me cry with joy, that's all."

He smiled sympathetically at me. "Maybe you just need a moment."

This surprised me. "Wow. You're really on your best behavior tonight, aren't you," I commented bluntly.

"Oi. Stop being so suspicious of me," he retorted defensively. "Is that the real reason why you paused the movie, because you thought I'd make a move on you?"

I pursed my lip and gazed downward in serious thought, feeling ashamed that he might be right about my subconscious instincts. I sighed. "Gomen, Nezu-San."

"Right. That wasn't so hard, was it now?" He lightened up and praised me. "Come on, then. Back to the show."

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Danger Mouse stayed quiet, as I listened to the movie's ending credits and an extended version of the same love song in a peaceful trance. He allowed me to have my moment of serenity and tranquility until the song officially ended. With a pleasant hum of satisfaction, I broke out of my trance and stopped the DVD's running sequence.

As the screen went black and quiet, DM chuckled. "If this is how you get by watching All Dogs Go To Heaven 2, I can only imagine how you'll be when watching An American Tail."

I rolled my eyes at him again. "Nice try. But those cartoon mouse movies doesn't appeal to me the same way as these Don Bluth dog movies do."

His smirk grew wider. "So there are some old cartoon movies from the extinct human race that you don't always fancy so much," he assumed smugly.

"Hey, watch yourself, Romeo Mausu!" I warned irritably. "Don't bring up my fascination for human antiques again, or else I'll stop talking to you."

"Care to bet on that threat?" he challenged with a grin and pulled out a Nintendo Wii U game disc case that made my eyes grow wide with shock and envy.

Here in Danger Mouse's world, the human race had left their marks with the classic Nintendo and other company branded video games of the 1980's and 90's. Fortunately, when the anthropomorphic animals took over, the human creation of Super Mario Brothers characters was one of the few things that the new dominant societies on Earth had adopted and honored to keep and renew its adaptations with each new generation of Nintendo consoles.

It never occurred to me that DM and Penfold owned the latest Nintendo T.V. console in their HQ flat, or played a Wii U edition of Mario Kart 8 as a past time activity.

"Jerkwadd Mausu…!" I growled.

"Eerr! Now, that's not very nice to say," he reprimanded me and frowned. "There's no reason for you to call me names out of pure jealousy."

"Gomen ne," I apologized again with a ticked off expression. "I just got carried away. Plus, I haven't played one of those Mario games since I started taking my college studies more seriously."

DM then sighed dreamily. "Getting you to insult me before remembering your manners is really worth it, so long as I get to know more about you through your explanations."

I clicked my teeth. "Tch. Tough luck, Nezu-Baka. You're gonna need an entire day alone with me to achieve that."

As soon as I scoffed that remark at him, his grin widened with mischief. And I cursed mentally to myself 1000 times over. "Shit, Hell, and Crap."

A/N: I decided not to do a song fic for this chapter because it felt unnecessary to show the lyrics while revealing scenes of one of my favorite movies at the same time.

I also won't post the Mario Kart battle chapter in this story until Saturday or Thursday of this week. I let my friend look over the rough draft for Chapter 10 over the weekend, and he approved of how well I made it seem authentic. I hope anyone who'll find the time to read the upcoming chapter will enjoy it too.

See you soon. Ja ne.