Greedy Chapter 4

# Chapter Four - "Winner Winner Chicken Dinner"

    "Mhmm."

    "Incomparable!"

    "Mhmm."

    "And those stomach muscles! Like a French sculpture!"

    "Mmmhmm!"

    "Pfft! They weren't that nice!"

    "How can you say that?! They were like… like…" I quickly glanced around the restaurant to try and find something that made sense. Aha! "A half dozen drumsticks! Yume, tell Akira I'm right."

    Yume finished chewing her bite of a thigh and smirked, adding only the same thing she'd been saying since the chicken arrived at our table. *"Mmmhm."*

    "I'm just sayin', mine are at least as toned, and that's a lot harder for girls in the first place. Here, look…"

    "Non! Akira! Not at the table!"

    My best friend turned slightly pinkish halfway through attempting to untuck her shirt and made a silly face. "Ah! Right! Uh, sorry."

    "No worries." I chuckled a little, ohoho. "Besides, we have all seen your abs. Many, many times." So, so many times…

    "Mhmm…"

    "No, but seriously, come on. Just feel 'em! Rinko, tell 'em they're being crazy."

    Akira grabbed the hand of the girl to her right and pressed it to her stomach. I could tell by her lips clenching together a little that she was doing the thing where she tenses up to make her muscles feel firmer. Hmph. Cheating. Rinko looked très amazed anyway.

    "Wow… Junko, you've gotta feel! Akira's stomach is crazy toned." Rinko reached to her right in turn, but Junko nimbly dodged her attempts to catch her hand.

    "I believe you. We've all seen Akira's stomach a bunch of times…"

    Akira laughed loudly at that. "Awell, when you've got it, flaunt it, right? That's what being an idol is all about!"

    I looked down, first at my plate and then at my stomach. Have I "got it"? Looking at the three pieces of chicken, I wondered if maybe I had too much "it". Rinko was thinking the same thing, I bet, because she was poking at her own stomach aggressively and trying to get Junko to feel it to weigh in. But then I looked at the two girls on either side of me who were splitting an entire family-sized bucket of chicken between them, and I stopped worrying. Yume's eating at least *five* pieces and she doesn't even *have* a stomach. In that case…

    "Mademoiselles, I have had an epiphany. I think we should order some biscuits."

    "Ayeah! And extra gravy!"

    "Mhmm!" Yume bit into her second drumstick, which dripped some of said gravy onto her plate.

    "I'll get them! I want a choco pie."

    "Get me one too!"

    "Et moi, s'il vous plait!"

    "Mhmm!"

    "Junko, want one too?"

    "I don't think so. Thank you though, Rinko."

    "Okay. Be right back!" Nobody steal my chicken while I'm gone! That means you, chicken-snatcher!"

    Rinko got up and quickly walked to the counter to place our order for a second course. Junko looked glum. In fact, she's been that way all afternoon…

    "Junko, what's wrong?" I set down my drumstick, careful to shift my plate to my left, away from Akira's snatchy hands. "Are you mad that we wanted to skip practice? Don't you like the chicken? We were très hungry, and you can't work out on an empty stomach…" Junko looked surprised by the question, and she finished taking a demure little bite out of a breast.

    "The chicken is really good." She smiled weakly. "And I'm not mad about practice, though we're going to have to work extra hard the rest of the week."

    "We will. Idol's honor." I raised my right hand and folded my thumb over my pinkie, just like Mademoiselle Dam-Bi had taught me.

    "Mhmm. Idol's honor." Yume made the same hand motion, though it turned out a little different because she was holding her drumstick. Though for Yume, swearing on her chicken is probably a ***much*** bigger deal, so she's probably super serious about it. "Are you upset because Natsuki carried Rinko onstage instead of you? He made it sound like you're really close."

    "Ahah yeah, or are you upset because ***Natsuki*** carried Rinko onstage instead of you?"

    "Akira, that's the same thing…"

    "Hah! Nooo it isn't. Right, Junko? It's a ***very*** different thing." Junko turned the same pink color as her hair from the top of her forehead all the way to the bottom of her neckline. Even her hands were a little rosé looking. What does Akira mean by…

    Oh!

    Très interesting!

    Does Mademoiselle Junko like Mademoiselle Rinko?

    Like *that?*

    Ohoho! Très adorable.

    "It's nothing. Natsuki and I aren't close. This was only the second time we've even met. I think he just enjoys teasing me."

    "Ahh! That means he likes you! Boys always do that when they like you! Do you think he wants to be your boyfriend? He's très cute! Er! But Mademoiselle Rinko is also très- Ow!" Yume stomped on my left foot under the table.

    Que?

    But Akira just said…

    And nobody squished her toes!

    "Maybe he's just using you to get to Rinko. He did go for her when he had his pick." Yume sighed into her chicken. "They ignored both of us, didn't they? I wish he'd picked me instead of Rinko too, if that makes you feel a little better. I wouldn't have minded that *at all.*"

    "Do you want *me* to pick you up? I mean, he's not even that strong. *I've* carried Rinko like that before. She barely weighs more than you, and you weigh nuthin'. I bet I could carry you all the way back to the dorm! Right to our bunk beds! Jogging the entire time!"

    "Um, thank you? But no thank you. It's actually super annoying. I hate being so tiny."

    "Yeah but it makes it super easy to throw you around and stuff. It's fun!"

    "You finding it fun is why it's so annoying…"

    "Ahem! Non. That is not what we were talking about. Akira, you are très strong. Yume, I'm sorry, but you are très petite. Junko, I have deduced your problem. Why do you not simply tell Mademoiselle Rinko that-"

    "Dessert time!" Rinko returned to the table with a large tray heaping with steaming biscuits and several small, rectangular paper packages full of chocolate pies. Immediately Junko looked down at her plate fixatedly, as though signaling that the previous conversation was completed and must not be brought up in Mademoiselle Rinko's presence.

    I never even got to tell her my idea!

    "Rinko, question for you! Who was stronger, me or that lunkhead idol during rehearsal?"

    "Huh? Eimi's not a *lunkhead*…"

    "Not Eimi! I know I'm **way** stronger than Eimi! Even Junko's stronger than Eimi and I watched her have trouble opening her soda. I mean that Natsuki guy!"

    "Ohhh…!" Mademoiselle Rinko stuck out her tongue and stared at the ceiling, thinking très hard. "Probably him. His muscles were *really* hard, and even though yours look like muscles you're still really soft even though you're *super* strong."

    "Awut! No way!" Akira was so shocked she tore her biscuit in half, dropping a bunch of crumbs into the gravy. "Hmph!" She shoved half of it into her mouth and gobbled it up. She calls it "carb-loading." Rinko looked confused.

    "I thought it was a compliment…"

    "Guys! Guysguysguys!" Suddenly, Yume started muttering more than *mhmm* through her daydreams and excitedly bounced up and down in her chair. "I got it!"

    Everyone looked at her confused. What is it Yume got? Her first ounce of stomach fat? The Japanese fried chicken eating record? The I MY ME award for most miniscule idol?

    *Hah!*

*I am très hilarious, non?*

    "The spokesman job! I just got an email from Lina! I'm their final choice! They're going to bring me out to the location soon to do the shoot!"

    "Magnifique!" "That's awesome!" "Congratulations!"

    "Ayeah! I bet all the boys will want to pick you up now, hotshot!"

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