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Manepear groaned, long and continuously.
“Stop that! I’ve heard you groaning so much I think I’ll hear it in my sleep.” Kaboodle huffed and straightened up, resting two hands on her hips.
Mane trailed behind her, slow and unwilling, yet still dutifully following behind. “Let me whine dude.”
“Come on, didn't you want to see me with an orange blindfold?” She smirked.
“... Yeah.”
“So!”
“But not at the cost of my dignity?” He reached a hand out to scratch his lion ears, mourning them because soon they would be covered up by… Bunny ears instead.
“It's not that bad, Manepear. Stop exaggerating, Manepear.” They snickered at him, and he glared at them for it.
“Bro, a big bad lion turned into a bunny… How the mighty have fallen… This is not worth it.” He paused his dragging footsteps, and stomped, hard, on the grass of the jungle. “Whatever! Wear your ugly blue blindfold then. I’m not wearing bunny ears bro.”
“You cannot back out now, Manepear! Don't be a little coward, a scaredy cat! Oh wait, you kinda are a scared cat.” She paused to think, entertaining the thought more than Mane would like her too.
“Bro I’m not a scared cat, I’m a scary cat, which means you should be scared of me,” he went along with the stupid name. Why was he doing this again?
“Well, I’m not! And I’ve told you this before. I’m done being scared of you, so you won't be able to intimidate me anymore, okay?” She briskly turned around and started her walk to spawn again.
He groaned again as he picked up his own pace behind Kaboodle. “I would kill you, but I said I wouldn't. That way you’d be properly scared of me.”
“And I said you wouldn't be able to scare me, get that through your thick fur!”
“Thick fur— I do have very nice, fluffy fur.” His tone had a hint of pride to it.
“Do you?” They looked back at him with a raised brow. “How do you have time to take care of it?”
“Kaboodle you don't know my routine, okay? You don't know what I do on the daily. I may spend long hours fluffling out and oiling my fur, and you wouldn't know.”
“Yeah, sure buddy. Your hobby is fighting people. I bet your fur is so dry and matted, I wouldn't be surprised if you had dried specks of blood on it!” She snickered.
He raised his voice with indignation, “Dude, no! Now you’re just straight up slandering me bro.”
“Okay, well, come here then! Let me take a look at it! We’ll see who’s right!” Kaboodle halted her steps, and walked to Mane until she was in front of him, a challenge in her eyes.
“No, why would I let you look at my fur?” He turned away from her, arms crossed and puffing.
“Oh, so the big bad Manepear has dry and matted fur!”
“Dude, that's not it!” He turned around to face her with a frown in his mouth. “You— You’re riling me up on purpose!”
She was. To Mane, his pretty, thick, and healthy fur was one of his pride and joys. He spent hours a week caring for it! He had dedicated brushes and products tailored for it! This was an insult to his pride and handiwork.
“Just let me look at it!” Their hand swung to have a grab at his fur.
“No, you don't!” He swiftly dodged their grabby hands.
“Oh, yes I do!” they sing-songed.
“No, you—” he shouted, until something made him stutter and pause. It was the feeling of something fluffy and solid on top of his head.
He stood still for a second, seeing Kaboodle step away from him with a smug smile on her face. Did… Did that just happen?
Did Kaboodle just sneak bunny ears on him? He raised a hand to feel around, and surely, fluffy and solid and decidedly fake bunny ears were sitting just in front of his own lion ears. It was every bit as annoying for echo location as he thought it was.
“You…”
Then Kaboodle burst out in loud cackles. “Oh god! You look so adorable!”
“Y, You—”
“Wait, I need to remember this forever… I could even send it to Flame.” She never ceased her laughter as she pulled out her communicator and snapped a picture of him.
“No, you don't!” He lunged at her communicator, intending to grab it and delete the picture.
She dodged him, and now the situation was reversed. “La, la, la! I did, and I’m gonna send it to your brother!”
“Kaboodle…” he grumbled, irritated and definitely annoyed. Yet, he didn't feel the urge to bring out his sword. Instead, he used his paws while lunging at her.
Kaboodle was strangely way too good at dodging him. Why now of all times did she have to get better at dodging him? She used to fall at his hands every time. “Oh, oh, and— Ding! There we go!”
“Kaboodle, you’re dead! Dead I say!” He pointed a sharp nailed finger at her, perfectly capable of scratching and leaving scars on skin.
She cackled once more and let down her guard, that's when Mane lunged at her and grabbed her communicator. She yelped, but otherwise didn't fight back. Mane quickly navigated to the gallery, and deleted the picture. Making sure it was also deleted off of the trash bin, so they wouldn't be able to recover it. “It’s done! Nothing you can do about it now Mane! If you want to stop the picture from spreading, you should go to Flame instead.” She giggled, annoyingly happy.
“You’re so annoying bro… Fuck this.” He dropped their communicator on the grassy dirt, and plopped down.
All he could hear was her laughter and her footsteps as she approached him, and sat down next to him. She picked up her communicator and swat dirt and grass blades away. “That's what you get for trying to force me to use your stupid orange blindfold.”
“Well, are you going to? You said you’d do it if I wore bunny ears. Hold up your end of the deal!” He made a last ditch effort, even though he had nothing to bargain anymore.
“Okay!" came the quick response.
Mane’s eyes widened. “Oh. I expected you to put up a fight over it. You gave in so easily.”
They raised a brow, and if their eyes weren't blindfolded, they would probably also move along their brow. She was expressive like that. Something Mane realized through their countless spats. “Well, you did put on the bunny ears. Even if, I was the one who really forced them on you.” Then she paused, and shouted with reinvigorated energy, “but hey! You also tried to force the orange blindfold on me! That's called an eye for an eye!”
“Whatever… Just put on the blindfold, dude. I have to at least get this out of… These shitty bunny ears.” He roughly fumbled with the plastic ears, unexpectedly not that angry about the intrusive foreign object. Just mildly annoyed, which was incredible. When did he become this tolerant about Kaboodle’s schemes?
She chuckled again as she put down an ender chest. Mane thought that her laughter was quickly becoming a safe sound to his ears, instead of a harbinger of peril. She used to sneer at him with that prideful and mocking laughter, or when he was about to get caught in some trap of hers. Her laughter unequivocally associated with danger after months of being on the other end of it.
Don't get him wrong, they still sneered at him and giggled whenever he got scared by a wild creeper. But nowadays, more often that not, she laughed with him.
“... neeeee. Mane? Earth to Mane?” Mane blinked out of his stupor as Kaboodle clapped her hands in front of his face.
“What?”
“You zoomed out on me, buddy.” She looked at him with mild curiosity and concern.
“Oh. I guess I did.”
She huffed. “What do you mean ‘You guess’? You did! Whatever. Take out a spare blindfold.” She pointed at the ender chest and Mane’s eyes followed the trajectory.
He distantly registered that she was no longer wearing the blue blindfold. It had been tucked away somewhere, since Mane couldn't see it in his periphery. Her pink eyes glowed bright, shining with willpower. Kaboodle wasn't lying when she said she was no longer afraid of him, because he couldn't catch a speck of fear in her eyes.
Did he really zone out? So much so he didn't register Kaboodle taking off her blindfold and tucking it away? Mane didn't particularly feel like unpacking the way he let down his guard around Kaboodle, someone who up until a few weeks ago was setting up deadly traps for him.
So instead, he leaned forward and reached out to the chest, prying it open and seeing the familiar assortment of items inside. He took out one of the spare blindfolds he had folded in a corner, and closed the chest before handing it to Kaboodle. “Here. Put it on.”
“Ooooo, kay.” They sounded put off by the strange way he was acting. They shifted back uncomfortably as they tied the blindfold around their eyes, putting distance between them. Wary of a trap. “There. My end of the deal! I put it on, you gonna stop annoying me now?” She blew a stray strand of hair.
“Yeah, I am.” He giggled as he looked over her. “You look good! I told you it’d look good.”
“No, it doesn't Manepear,” she snarled his name with pretend-spite.
“It does. Trust me bro.”
Mane really couldn't tell you then why he reached a hand out to her hair, untucking a few locks and styling them with the blindfold. It was after he was done that he realized how out of place his action was. Clearly, Kaboodle felt the same because she froze in place. And if the blindfold wasn't in the way, he would have been able to see her eyes widen like saucers. The ever smallest hint of panic, because they were alone in the jungle. And for god’s sake, this was Manepear, and for all she talked about not being afraid anymore, ingrained habits were hard to shake off. But then the hand didn't strangle her after getting tired of her antics, and instead gently untucked her hair.
To say they both were a bit dumb founded, would be an understatement.
“... Oh.” Mane broke the silence first.
“Yeah, oh…”
“Uhm, yeah, orange looks good on you.” Kaboodle noted that Mane sounded stiff.
“Yeah… I don't think so.” She tilted her head.
Mane then retracted his hand, but stopped midway. He seemed to be debating to himself for a bit. Whatever was he debating? Kaboodle didn't know. For all that they were good at reading people, they couldn't read minds. She just stood still, waiting for mane to say or do something to break this awkward silence. She was content enough to know that Mane at least wasn't trying to kill her. Probably, anyway.
Then, Kaboodle flinched as the hand that had been floating midair suddenly plopped on top of her head. “Ma, Mane?” They sounded utterly confused.
“Uhm, yeah.” He ruffled their hair with rough motions.
‘Is he doubling down?’ Kaboodle thought with amusement, even if this foreign situation was baffling as hell.
Then, a ding. They both whipped their heads around to the source of the noise, alert; relaxed postures tensing in an instant.
“Oh, that's your communicator.”
“Uh, yeah, it is.”
“Look at it. I didn't know anyone else was awake.”
He obliged. He took it out his pocket and turned it on, reading over the message. And to Kaboodle's amusement, he groaned, lowering his head.
“What? What? Who is it?” Kaboodle lowered her head to line up with his vision.
“... It's Flame.”
Kaboodle processed it for a second, before bursting out in laughter again. This girl… She laughed way too much. “Flame! I— That picture I sent him! He saw it!”
Mane grumbled, “you bet your ass he did.”
The message read as followed: ‘FlameFrags whispered to you: bro why does kaboodle have a picture of you in bunny ears.’
He quickly typed out a response with irk, ‘You whispered to FlameFrags: dont fcking ask me bro’
‘FlameFrags whispered to you: ?????’
Then Mane looked up from his communicator to Kaboodle, who was still laughing their ass off. “You can stop now, bruh.”
“N, No, I can't!” She burst out another cackle.
“I don't even know why you find this funny bruh. You are so unfunny, oh my god.”
Kaboodle wheezed. “I don't know ei, either.” She giggled in between her words. “I, I think it's just the sleep deprived silliness. You know, when you’re so tired you find any dumb shit funny?”
“Bro, I know. But man, how is me in bunny ears even remotely funny.” Mane sighed.
Kaboodle was starting to calm down, little giggles replacing the cacophony of laughter. “It just is! By the way, you have to wear them until I take off your stupid blindfold.”
Mane groaned, again. He burrowed his head in his paws. “Bro, you and your dumb bunny ears.”
“Hey, they’re great! These were custom made by a friend. Respect their handiwork!”
“Well, I didn't expect you to skin rabbits for their fur to make fake bunny ears, so that checks out.”
Kaboodle suddenly stopped her giggling as a full body shudder ran through her. “Dude, do not ever say that again. I would never skin my kin for fake bunny ears!”
“Well, yeah! That's what I’m saying.”
“Well, it's good that you know!” They huffed.
The banter continued until the sun fully went down, when they parted ways. Mane, to go to their base to where Flame was. Kaboodle, to her base where she would prepare for new years.
Kaboodle was walking on her own path towards home, when she felt the need to say something to mane. What it was? She didn't know. She just felt this urge, this feeling in her chest. So she quickly turned around, and shouted in Mane’s direction, “hey, Manepear!”
Mane turned around, a good distance away, but with his hearing he could hear her words just fine. He shouted back, “what?!”
She hesitated, but then grinned. “Merry christmas!”
“Aren't you a little late for christmas?! It's the 26th!”
She cackled for one last time until they met again in a new year. “It's the intentions that matter!”
Kaboodle could subtly make out the silhouette of Mane probably huffing, before turning around once again and picking up his pace home.
As she saw the speck of orange that was Manepear disappear into the distance, she felt fulfilled in a way they hadn't expected when they woke up today to a Manepear hounding her over her blue tinted blindfold.
It was the beginning of a patchy relationship, from enemies to tentative friends. They still had their moments of awkwardness, where none of them was really sure of the other’s intentions or if they meant their banter. But they would work it out, Kaboodle felt it. It wasn't easy to work out months of bloodshed, after all. War was ingrained in the both of them.
Kaboodle wishes she could eventually call Mane a friend, and mean it with her whole heart. The same way she put her trust in ClownPierce. Eventually.