Chapter 157 - Damn You Raccoon! (2)

Nero sat at his desk, calmly typing away something on the computer. The only noise in the room was the sound of his keyboard.

He stopped typing and took a sip of coffee from his mug.

Despite it being Christmas, he wasn’t taking the day off completely. Though he was home, there were still some documents that needed his attention. So, he just wanted to work on them a little before taking a break for the rest of the day.

Now, was he a workaholic? A little. But, could you really call it work when it’s something you enjoy?

Yes. At least, if Stella were here to answer, that’s what she’d say.

After setting down his mug, he continued to type away until his alarm went off.

11:55.

Seeing that, he stretched, yawned, and saved the document before turning off his computer.

Getting up, he left his home office room and headed to the living room. His wife and daughter were playing together on the rug. The TV was playing some kids cartoon that he didn’t recognize.

His wife immediately spotted him and smiled,

“Honey, you’re done with work?” She asked.

“Yeah,” Nero replied, “I was just cleaning a few documents.”

“Daddy!” His daughter said cheerfully, running up to him.

Nero smiled as he crouched down, put his hands under her armpits and lifted her up,

“How are you doing, my little princess?” He said, spinning in place.

“Hahaha!” His daughter laughed, enjoying the airplane ride.

After a moment, Nero stopped the airplane ride and just held her in his arms and turned to his wife,

“When do we want to open the presents?” He asked.

“I think around six would be good?” She replied.

“Daddy! Presents! Open presents!” His daughter said.

“We’re gonna open them later, sweetie.” Nero calmly said, “There’s lots of fun stuff today.”

“Okayyy!” His daughter said.

Nero gently set his daughter down and took a seat on the couch.

Just then, his alarm went off again.

11:59.

“What’s that?” His wife asked.

“Oh, do you remember that Raccoon person I was telling you about?”

“The gremlin?”

“Yeah, her.” Nero nodded, “She’s releasing her bouncy potions at twelve, but there’s a limited stock, so, I’m trying to get one in time.”

“Raccoon! Raccoon!” His daughter repeated, “Bouncy! Bouncy!”

“That’s right.” Nero smiled, “She’s the one who went bouncy bouncy.”

Nero had showed his daughter the videos Raccoon had posted. And, it may have been a bad decision in hindsight. She absolutely loved Raccoon. Especially that bouncy potion she was marketing.

His daughter really wanted to play with the potion. And, when she had seen the cliffhanger of the bouncy ball, she cried because the video cut off.

It took a while of explaining that there was no second part to that video.

“Princess, can you give me some luck?” He asked.

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His daughter sat on his lap and rubbed her hands together before placing them on Nero’s shoulder,

“Luck! Luck!”

“Haha, thank you.”

“Is it going to be that competitive?” His wife asked.

“Without a doubt.” Nero nodded, “Ten seconds, I’m going to focus.”

[Raccoon has listed 5,102 Bouncy Bouncy Potions]

And with luck, he actually managed to purchase a bottle.

And it wasn’t just one, somehow, he had gotten his hands on three whole bottles! They appeared on the couch beside him.

Unfortunately, he couldn’t buy any more as every other listing he clicked on had already been purchased.

“Daddy! Daddy! Potions!” His daughter said cheerfully, picking up a bottle, “Look! There’s a raccoon on the side of it!”

“That’s right.” Nero nodded, picking up another bottle, “And this one has a mouse on it. See?”

“Mouse! Raccoon! Hahaha!” She laughed.

“So, there’s two different designs, huh.” Nero commented. He hadn’t gotten the rare bottle, but, he did get the two other designs.

“Daddy! Open!” She urged.

“So, that’s the famous bouncy potion I hear all about?” His wife asked, grabbing a bottle to inspect it.

“It’s definitely caused quite a stir.” Nero said, “Could you bring me a paper and pencil, please?” He asked.

His wife nodded and brought him them.

“What did you need them for?”

“I’m going to write down the description for our daughter to read.” He said before starting to jot it down.

“Daddy! Open the potion!” His daughter said.

“Just one second, princess. I’ll open it in a moment.”

When it was all copied to the paper, he handed it to his daughter,

“Could you read this for daddy?” Nero asked.

“Okayyy!” His daughter nodded, “A…potion! Creee….Cree…”

“Created.”

“Created! By a…”

“Genius.”

“Genius! Alchemist!”

Slowly, his daughter continued to read with the help of her parents before she finally got to the end of the first seconds.

“B-Bouncy! Bouncy! It says bouncy bouncy!” She cheerfully said.

“That’s right!” Nero softly clapped, “Congratulations. Now, why don’t we play with the potion?” He picked up a bottle and uncapped it.

“Yay!”

“Remember, you can’t drink it, okay?”

“Okayyy!”

“What do you want to make bouncy first?” Nero asked.

“Um…” His daughter thought about it for a long moment, “Floor!” She said, “I want to bounce!”

“Got it.” He handed the bottle to his daughter, “Just pour it on the floor, and then it’ll become bouncy.”

Immediately, she turned the bottle upside down and watched in awe as the liquid emptied out of the bottle and onto the floor.

“I hope this doesn’t give her bad habits of pouring water onto the floor.” His wife commented quietly.

After the bottle was empty, Nero gently took the bottle back and placed it next to him.

“Okay, do you want to bounce?”

“Bounce!” She repeated, hopping onto the floor. But, instead of landing, she was back in the air as if she had jumped on a trampoline, “Woah!!” She said.

Nero watched carefully to make sure she didn’t leave the spot that was bouncy and hit the floor hard.

And just before five minutes had passed, Nero caught her and set her down gently.

His daughter looked at him with a look of betrayal,

“I want to bounce!” She said.

“It’s been five minutes, princess. It stops being bouncy after five minutes.”

With a glare, his daughter crouched down and touched the spot she was bouncing on just moments ago. That glare turned to widened eyes as it was no longer bouncy.

“It’s not bouncy!” She said.

“Because there’s a time limit.” Nero explained.

“Another! Pour another! I want to bounce!”

“Instead of that, how about we see what happens to the bouncy ball?” He asked.

His daughter’s eyes lit up like stars,

“Bouncy ball! Bouncy ball!” She repeated.

“Okay, honey can you-” Before Nero could finish his sentence, his wife had handed him a bouncy ball.

“I’m curious too.” She said.

Nero chuckled before uncapping a bottle and handing it to his daughter.

“Okay, now, just like before, you need to pour the potion onto the ball.” He explained.

His daughter nodded, holding a bottle in one hand and the ball in the other. She tilted the bottle, pouring the liquid all over the ball until the bottle was empty.

“Perfect, now you just-” Before Nero could finish his sentence, his daughter had thrown the ball.

“Go!” She shouted.

The ball bounced off the ground and sprung to the ceiling. And it only got more chaotic from there.

“What the!?” His wife said.

“I’ll get it!” Nero reached out to catch the ball but it bounced off of his palm, causing it to slam straight into a vase.

The vase fell to the ground and shattered before the ball started hitting and knocking over everything that was light enough and not bolted in.

Every attempt Nero made to catch the ball was met with failure.

“Hahaha!” His daughter laughed, “Bouncy! Bouncy! Bounce!”

And five minutes later, the chaos came to an end as the ball slowly rolled on the ground.

Nero and his wife stared at the mess and destruction in silence.

The only noise in the room was the sound of his daughter laughing and clapping her hands.

“Again! Again! Bouncy!”

“…Damn you Raccoon.” Nero quietly muttered.

…

Colby heard a knock at the door and when he went to check it, he found a package sitting in front of it.

“This must be…” He mumbled to himself as he headed inside and to his bedroom with the box.

Opening it, inside the cardboard box was another box wrapped in wrapping paper.

On the present was a label that read ‘To Colby, From Stella’. And there was a small drawing of a raccoon next to her name.

Colby smiled before opening the box. Inside, there were three things. One of them was a potion—it must’ve been the bouncy potion Stella had said she sent, another was a small bouncy ball, and the last was a piece of paper.

The paper was actually a letter. He noted that Stella’s handwriting had gotten better from the mess it used to be. Before, it was all crooked letters and nearly incognizable text. Now, they were smaller and cuter letters that actually looked nice and readable.

He read the letter out loud,

“Dear Colby, merry Christmas. Thank you for being my friend and someone I can rely on in tough times. I’ll never forget that time you passed out drunk…” He stopped reading before skipping a few lines to continue, “In any case, you’re one of my closest friends. If you ever need anything, don’t hesitate to call. Love, Stella.”

And at the bottom was a signature.

‘Raccoon, the Cutest Little Bomber 0˶ᵕ˶0♡’

“…Did she just give me an autograph? Where’s Flame Queen’s autograph…” Colby said before starting to chuckle, he expected nothing less.

Carefully setting the letter aside, he picked up the bouncy potion and inspected it.

“So, this is a potion made by the famous alchemist, huh.” He mumbled to himself. It looked similar to potions he had seen at the store, though, those ones were probably lower quality than this one.

In fact, those ones didn’t even had a design on the bottle. But, the one Stella had sent did. It was a cute design of a raccoon and mouse sitting by the campfire. If nothing else, he was definitely keeping this bottle.

He uncapped the bottle and took a good whiff of the liquid. Despite Stella telling him that it wasn’t meant to be drank, he kind of wanted to. But, he also didn’t want to get poisoned or something, so, he decided against it.

The first thing he tested was pouring a little bit of it onto his TV remote. He really couldn’t understand how the liquid got absorbed into the remote. Usually, that’d just break the thing!

“So…I just toss it on the ground and it should be bouncy now, right?” He questioned to himself.

Gently, he tossed the remote onto the floor and it turned out that’s exactly how it works. The remote didn’t bounce back to him, but, it did bounce as if it was a bouncy ball. He caught the remote before bouncing it again.

“Huh, this is neat.” He said.

But, after some time passed and he tossed it on the floor again, instead of bouncing back up to him, it just slammed against the floor. The batteries flew out of the back and rolled somewhere underneath his bed.

“…Right, time limit of five minutes based on how much I use. I forgot.” He said before the corners of his lips curled up, “Pfft, alright, now, let’s test the bouncy ball.”

He didn’t want to use all of the potion immediately, so, he only poured about a forth of the liquid onto the ball.

After setting the bottle down, he tossed the ball just as he did the remote and…

…

Colby looked at his messy room blankly. So much stuff had fallen over.

“…Stella.” He said to himself, “I’m flicking her forehead next time I see her…”