"Oh, I can't wait, I can't wait, I can't wait!" the small round man said as he skipped on top of various pieces of furniture.
Blueno raised an eyebrow at him. Fukurou's antics were nothing new, but his enthusiasm about whatever piece of gossip he'd come across seemed greater than normal.
Spotting Blueno, Fukurou honed in on him got right into his face, babbling and asking questions. "Have you seen her yet?" he said. "I just got back from an assignment, chapapa, so I haven't had a chance but I'm told she's really interesting-looking, and Marie in the kitchens said that she ate two whole chickens for a snack so she's got to be impressive looking..."
He went on like this for a few minutes, and Blueno did his best to ignore him, but in the end curiosity trumped irritation and he asked, "Have I seen who, exactly?"
Fukurou looked at him like he'd grown an extra head. "You mean you haven't heard?" he asked, and when Blueno shook his head he sighed deeply, pinching the bridge of his nose in a see-what-I-have-to-put-up-with expression. "Jyabura brought his girlfriend to the Tower last night."
Blueno had a very simple question in response to that. "Jyabura has a girlfriend?" Somehow the thought was faintly unsettling.
Fukurou's expression fell even farther. "I told everyone about this a month ago, chapapa," he said, the pain evident in his voice. "He met her at a gym on some tiny island he was on for a mission. But he doesn't talk about her much, and if they're exchanging letters he isn't throwing them out because I've checked his garbage and there's nothing in it about her, so I haven't been able to find out about her..."
Blueno nodded absently. Met her in a gym. Well, that made a little more sense, then. Still bizarre, but the world was no longer quite thrown off its axis.
The door creaked open, and Fukurou vanished, off to some obscure corner of the room where he wouldn't be seen. Jyabura stepped through the door, hands in his pockets, and behind him came the largest woman Blueno had ever seen in his life.
Jyabura was not a small man, but this woman easily dwarfed him. And not only was she tall enough that she needed to duck to get through the door, she was also incredibly muscular, with twice the bulk of Jyabura's impressive frame. Blueno nodded politely at them as they entered.
"Morning," Jyabura said as an acknowledgment, and walked right on through. The woman, though, stopped in front of him and extended a hand.
"You're one of Jyabura's co-workers, right?" She asked. "You're probably Blueno. Jyabura just won't shut up about your hair."
"That is correct," Blueno rumbled. Privately, he suspected that what Jyabura said about his hair was less than complimentary. He took her hand in a firm handshake. "You are his significant other, correct? May I have your name?"
The musclebound woman nodded quickly. "You can just call me Miss Monday," she said.
Jyabura interrupted from the other side of the room. "Come on, hurry up!" he called. "If we don't get down there soon, all the good punching bags will be taken."
Miss Monday nodded at him, and then turned back to Blueno. "I'll see you around," she said, and then walked off after her lover. Blueno could not quite escape the impression that the ground shook with every step she took.
"Interesting," Blueno commented before returning to his paper. "You can come down now," he called out. Fukurou fell from his perch on the ceiling and slammed face-first into the ground.