Welcome to Gaia! ::

"I can't believe you did that!"

"Hey, I can' believe YOU did tha', yo!"

Cocoa glared at the small boy inside of the cup, his brown eyes only showing rage. He'd spent two hours on that game, and the only reason he'd lost was because David had decided to scream 'BOOYA' right into his ear at the most crucial moment. All that money... WASTED.

"Well, if SOMEBODY hadn't been screaming in my ear the whole time, I WOULDN'T HAVE LOST," the fox child growled through his teeth, pushing open the door and stepping outside.

"Well, SOMEBODY should o' picked a bett'r game ta play!" the drink sassed back, shifting in his cup in an attempt to get at least a little more comfortable. The little blue boy was much bigger than he originally was, half of his bottle needing to be cut off just so he could still fit in it. Sitting where he was, his knees stuck up out of the blue liquid he soaked in, and he didn't even have anything to fully rest his back against. Stupid growth... Although, it did WONDERS for his jumpshots. "There was a hoops game RIGHT NEXT TA YA."

"Hmph... Well, I didn't wanna play that o--" Cocoa started, but stopped as he heard his name. Turning to look at the man in question, his ears perked up as he brought a finger to his lips as he thought, trying to figure out who he was.

Seeing the drink in his hand, however, seemed to trigger something. This was that guy from before! The first time he'd gone to the cafe!

"Hi Mr. Jack!" he said with a smile, his tail swishing a little bit behind him. "I haven't seen you in a really long time."

David, however, was more fixated on the girl in the cup. Running blue fingers through his two-toned hair, he opened his mouth to say something, but was quickly interrupted by a large brown hand wrapping itself around his head. The drinkable quickly began to panic, muffled swears filling the air as he flailed his arms and legs about. His hands clawed at the mighty fingers, but the fox just wouldn't let go quite yet.

"Is that your cup? She turned out so cute!"

Cocoa couldn't help but chuckle a little bit at being called 'mister'. No one had ever called him anything like that before, mostly only being called by name or 'kid'. He wasn't sure if he liked it or not.

"Please call me Cocoa," he requested, before turning his attention back to the man. "And I think... 'some' would be an understatement. We had to cut about half of his bottle off just so he could fit in it properly... I guess it's a good thing it got wider when he grew, otherwise he might not be able to sit."

David was weakly smacking the brown fingers around his face now, his knees drooped down against the sides of his bottle. It looked as if the boy was having trouble breathing now. Finally, the fox child released him upon Evie's request, the blue boy gasping for air.

"YA BETTA BE GLAD I'M SHORT OTHERWISE YA'D BE IN A WORLD O' HURT RIGHT NOW, PORKY," he growled, standing up in his liquid for affect. He looked tall for a drinkable.

"Porky?" Cocoa echoed for a moment, quirking a brow. "Can't you come up with something better?"

"I'll make a better one up when I da--" started to snap back, but was cut off by being flicked in the forehead.

"Watch your mouth, there's a LADY present," the fox warned, his eyes lulling half closed. "You better behave, too. I only let you go because she wanted to talk to you."

"HMPH. Darn tootin'." Without another word to his caretaker, the blue boy turned to the stunning young girl before him. "I don' believe we met before, sugar."

"Ah great, here we go..."

"You look like ya dropped down right from tha heavens, bringin' light ta this gloomy world. Angel, it's a honor ta meet ya."

Cocoa rolled his brown eyes with a heavy sigh. "Translation, he thinks you're cute, too. I don't think he remembers seeing her before she arrived."

David stuck his tongue out at his friend. "WHAT'D I TELL YA 'BOUT INTERUPTIN'?! As I was SAYIN'... The name's David, but people call me D-Dawg."

"Actually, they call you Davey."

"COCOA!"

"He's my home biscuit ski--" David started, but again was interrupted.

"Oh yeah, this one's REAL grown up," Cocoa laughed, grabbing his stomach so that he wouldn't double over from the hilarity. "He can't even talk like a normal human being without some pink stuff inducing it!"

The drinkable puffed up his chest, as if that would make the tiny boy any more intimidating to his friend. He had a look on his face that almost clearly read "oh no you di'n't" on it.

"I can be smart!" he argued, huffing as he placed his hands on his hips. "I gots skills, too!"

"Uh-huh, you can't even defend yourself properly," the fox snickered, his pointed ears flicking a little bit. "And I know what you mean, Mr. Jack. David's kinda the same way... real buddy buddy with the guys, and... Well, he lays it on pretty thick with the girls."

David didn't hear that part of the comment. He cleared his throat, returning to his more "charming" demeanor, and turned back to look at the orangey girl.

"Girl, you don' need a grown up name ta be grown up," he went on to say, leaning forward in his own cup in an attempt to get a little closer to her. "Yer a vision o' beauty, an' look plenty grown up ta me! I mean, ya even got a... a..."

The blue child blinked his orange eyes for a moment, trying to think of the word. That red thing wrapped around her body... it was like...

"...a dress! Yeah, tha's what I was thinkin' o'. Ya got a pretty dress! I haven' seen no one else with dresses before." He held his hand out in an attempt to reach hers, but was too far away. Well, there went that moment. "It certainly is quite a pleasure ta meet ya, Miss Evie."

Upon coming closer and the hand reaching out toward him, David could feel his cheeks warm up as he carefully took her hand in his and planted a very soft kiss on the back of her fingers. Hey, he saw it in a movie once.

Perhaps he was a little softer than he really let on.

At the comment of the headband, and then the ponytail, something just seemed to click. She was already geared for playing games! Kareme and Ren seemed to wear their hair down, but Evie's hair was tied up all neatly. Granted, she was just talking about having a dress, but... but who said someone couldn't play in a dress?

"Duuuuude, we could so play basketball!" the blue drinkable blurted out almost too excitedly, a bit of a starry-eyed look overtaking his orange eyes. "Ya look jus' like those girls tha' play on TV!"

And she did, too. Only much prettier, cuter, and more elegant looking. At least, she didn't SEEM like the cheerleader type... He grew distracted by the question.

"Hm? Oh, totally!" David said proudly, standing his full height and puffing out his chest. "I got tall!"

"Hmph... but you're all lanky," Cocoa teased, lifting a brown finger to poke at his friend's stomach. "You definitely didn't grow into your bones quite yet."

"HEY!" The small boy hunkered down into his cup a little bit, rather embarressed. "I'mma tone up, yo! You jus' watch me!"

The fox child chuckled, knowing full well that he'd eventually put on the weight he needed. It was just fun picking on him now after all the trouble David had put him through. Looking up at Jack, his ears perked up a little bit at the mention of the pink stuff.

"Yeah, Davey was going on about some mist when we were at the party, and for a while afterward he'd gone through some really weird changes," he explained, recalling the severe emotional disorders, the clouding liquid, and then the aching joints. "I don't know if the pink stuff was what made him grow or not, but I think I can safely say that it must have caused some sort of puberty to happen. He seemed to go through a few of the same things I did a while ago... Moody, achy... Well, you know how it works."

It had just then occured to him that he didn't recall seeing Jack at the party, but he just mentioned being there. Had Evie arrived by then?

"Say... She said she grew too, right? Did she also get some pink stuff on her?"

"Huh... I guess it WAS the pink stuff, then," Cocoa concluded, deciding that that information was all he needed. Idly, he wondered about the other three drinks David had met, trying to imagine what they might look like grown.

At the last comment, he couldn't help but smirk. "Ha ha, I guess she musta gone through a very short 'cootie' phase..."

David looked toward the ground for a moment a bit sadly. Football was probably one of the few sports he really wanted to be able to pla--...wait. A net?

"Do ya mean soccer?" he asked with a quirked brow, turning his gaze back up to her.

"I think over in Europe they call soccer "football", David," the fox boy chimed in, trying to make sure the drinkable wouldn't say anything stupid. "It's the same game, just a different name for other areas."

"Ah! Gotcha! Yeah, maybe tha'll be fun ta learn sometime... Cocoa plays! But I like... um... tha otha kinda football better. Pro'lly 'cause I can play it while stuck in here... Basketball is fun, though! Ya bounce a ball 'round and shoot 'em though hoops ta get points! 's my favorite game, yo!"

David thought for a moment, wondering how he'd be able to go about teaching her. He normally just used Cocoa to shoot hoops at, but he was afraid that two kids throwing things at him might be too much... And Jack didn't look like the sort that wanted anything thrown at him.

"Dude!" He got an idea. "Can ya get one o' those cups from in there? An' one o' those balls from tha' machine thing?"

"What do you say?" Cocoa sighed, fishing a hand into his pockets to see if he had any change left.

"Please?"

Cocoa looked around for a moment, spotting a wooden bench near by. Stepping over to it, he carefully set David down on one of the boards, making sure the cup wasn't going to tip over before looking back to Jack.

"Can you watch him for a minute? I'll be back in a jiff," he asked before bolting into the arcade, his ears folding down flat against his head in an attempt to block out all of the loud noise.

The small boy blushed slightly with a nervous laugh at the compliments, rubbing the back of his neck a little bit. David had to think about it for a moment, tapping a finger on his chin as he thought. He knew the guy looked familiar, and Cocoa knew who he was... This was the sports man, right? The whole mentioning of Evie as a cup, however, really tipped him off.

"Ooooh! Yeah, I remember!" he said a bit proudly. It felt so long ago! "I met you, and Kareme, an'... Well, I was so exited 'cause it was my firs' time meetin' anybody like me!"

He frowned slightly at Evie saying she was nothing, though.

"Aw, ya weren' NOTHIN'. I guess ya could say I knew ya since you were..." the drinkable started, then pointed down to the rim of her cup, "thiiiiis big! And o' COURSE I'mma teach you basketball! Everyone has ta know how ta play!"

Cocoa practically flew out of the arcade with a cup in hand, quickly ducking behind the bench and cowering behind the back of it. Just as he'd hid, two much older and rather angry looking boys stormed out of the same door, seeming looking for some "short dog-eared brat that would be dead when they found him". They split off in two directions quick enough, out to make their search.

David recognized them as the jerks that were waiting to play the game Cocoa had been earlier. He tensed up a bit, gripping at the rim of his cup tightly as he glared at one of their backs, wondering what might have happened to cause Cocoa to flee like that. If only he were bigger...

"Are they gone?" the fox whimpered, his ears still flat against his head and his bushy tail curled around his legs. He peeked over the edge, looking around a bit warily.

Cocoa breathed a sigh of relief as he drapped his upper body over the back of the bench, thankful for Jack helping him hide. He didn't really want to think about what might have actually happened had the boys found him, and he was sure they'd get their just 'desserts' from the other members of his family, but the fox boy was seriously afraid of physical violence. Which is odd, coming from a kid who loved to play soccer and very much enjoyed physical sports. Perhaps it was the mere fine line between violence and play that made it okay.

"Someone bumped into me, which made me bump into them," he explained with a nervous laugh. "I mean, I can't blame them for getting mad... David messed me up at the final boss in the game I was playing, and they'd been giving me crap about 'taking too long to play' 'cause I was doing so well, so I felt it was kinda only fair. Only... it wasn't exactly my fault, so I appologized, but they decided to blame me anyway for their failure."

The child rubbed at the back of his neck, frowning slightly at the face Evie was making. "Oh, I'm fine... They can't catch me! I'm a fox! I'm quick, sly, clever as they come. So don't make that face, okay? You'll make me sad, and I'm sure David would worry too."

The little drinkable, however, was still glaring off in the distance. He was on edge... No one threatens his best friend and gets away with it.

"They didn' hurt ya or nothin', did they, bro?" he asked a bit sternly, as if he were making sure Cocoa wasn't hiding anything.

The child swished his tail a little bit. "You should know by now that I would NEVER lie to you, D-man. I have more respect for you than that."

David loosened up a little bit. "If they eva show their faces aroun' here again, I'mma give 'em some'in' ta scream 'bout, ya know what I'm sayin'?! I'mma give 'em a run fo' their money! A good ol' one!" He jabbed his fist left. "Two!" Jabbed right. "That'll teach 'em ta mess with MAH homie!"

Cocoa chuckled to himself, setting the cup he had in his hands on the bench seat. He hoped that would distract the little ones enough to forget about the incident, so they would cheer up again. David's talking big was a good start, and now it was Evie's turn.

"Did... Did you ever get into fights when you were a kid, Mr. Jack?" he asked the man more quietly as he thought, idly worrying about how things would be in the future. For some reason, this was making him think twice about attending public schools.