NEVER Talk To Strangers

~ 22 ~

"So, you ready to get to work sweetheart?" Taro asked energetically, eager to start training Mari. The fighting between him and Budo had calmed down significantly, which was a huge relief to Mari. She didn't like the fighting between her mentors.
"Absolutely!" She grinned and nodded her head. She couldn't wait to start training her powers and learning how to control them. Budo made a small groan, looking at Taro. He wasn't too happy about something right now.
"Does this idiot really have to call you sweetheart?" Budo asked Mari, acting as though Taro wasn't in front of him. It made him uncomfortable since he wanted to be the only one to give her pet names like that.
"Nope!" Taro answered, smirking. "What about Babe?" He looked directly at Budo as he said that, in a way trying to wind him up. Budo glared at him, ready to hurt him. Mari held his hand in an attempt to calm him down.
"I don't think that's what he meant, Taro." She told him, giggling slightly. Budo held on to her hand, calming just a little. Enough to make Mari a little more relaxed.
"She's with me, remember?" Budo told Taro coldly, swinging their hands forward slightly so Taro could clearly see them holding hands. Taro laughed a little.
"How can I forget when you loudly announce it and pound your chest like some gorilla every ten seconds about it?" He asked in a joking manner. He wasn't at all threatened by Budo or his possessiveness over Mari. If it was abusive or out of control, he trusted Mari would get away from Budo and go over to him. "She ain't some car, you don't own her." He reminded Budo pretty bluntly too. He was confident that he could twist Budo's words in an attempt to convince Mari that he was controlling, but whether she would actually fall for it or not was another story.
"Yeah, well, she isn't a dog bone either, so you can stop drooling over her." Budo retorted coldly, still keeping hold of her hand. He was actually kinda proud of himself for having a comeback, but Mari wasn't amused. She just wanted to train.
"You're the one acting like a dog, trying to get into a contest when all I'm interested in is training Mari," Taro said coldly, folding his arms. Mari was certain that wasn't his only motive based on how he was acting and what he said to her.
"Oh yeah? Like I'm the bad guy. You keep hitting on my girl!" Budo snapped defensively. He was so tempted to hit Taro in the face repeatedly but held back because Mari wouldn't like that. She was already pretty annoyed with all the arguing between them.
"Guys!" Mari shouted in absolute frustration, silencing them both. She'd been trying to get their attention, but they'd been so engrossed in their argument that they'd ignored her entirely. Now she had their attention. "Would you two please knock it off? I'd like to start training now." She said, letting go of Budo's hand and folding her arms. She was fed up with it now and wanted them to at least try for her sake to get along.
"Sure thing sweetheart. Whatever you say." Taro said, aiming a smirk Budo's way knowing he wouldn't try and fight him with Mari around. She was already annoyed with them both as it was, and Taro knew Budo didn't want to make it worse with her.
"I'm sorry..." Budo mumbled, being sure Taro couldn't hear him. He wasn't apologising to Taro, he was apologising to Mari for upsetting her. She knew she had to separate them for a while, just to calm them both down for a while so she could train her powers without distraction.
"Budo, maybe you should go back to the house and check on Frank," Mari suggested. She wanted to get him away for a while so she could learn more secrets that Taro would never share with Budo around. She also wanted to make sure her dad was doing okay but didn't want to waste time.
"You want me to leave?" Budo asked, raising his eyebrow suspiciously. He didn't believe that Mari wanted him to just check on her father. She had an ulterior motive, he could tell. She sighed and nodded her head, deciding to just be honest with him.
"I just need to focus right now, and I can't do that with the two of you at each other's throats all the time." She told him. Budo sighed, glancing over at Taro. He despised the idea of leaving her alone with him, but he knew that was what she wanted. He just had to trust her to come back to him when all this was over and done with.
"Okay, if that's what you want." He sighed, gently hugging her. She hugged him back and gently kissed him just to reassure him that she wasn't leaving him. He immediately felt better and hoped Taro had seen that kiss so he would back away.
"I'll see you back at the house later. Don't forget, Frank absolutely cannot know about what I'm doing, okay?" She asked, making sure she kept to the promise she had made to Taro. She couldn't under any circumstances let him know what was happening.
"You got it, but what do you want me to tell him incase he asks?" Budo asked her. He needed to have a good reason incase he was asked about her whereabouts, and he would rather have a good idea so something ridiculous didn't spill out of his mouth.
"I'm sure you can come up with something." She reassured him. She had confidence in him, which gave him confidence in himself. Budo nodded his head and turned his attention to Taro.
"If you try anything with her, so help me-" Budo started to issue his threat about trying to flirt with Mari while he wasn't around before being interrupted.
"Yeah, yeah, I get it. You'll rain terror and destruction all over me. I'm shaking in fear." Taro told him nonchalantly, rolling his eyes. Budo didn't intimidate him even the slightest. He'd met worse people who could actually hurt him.
"Asshole..." Budo muttered, walking away without another word. Mari watched him leave, sighing to herself. She felt kinda bad about sending him away, but she had to. Taro smirked as he too watched Budo walk away, turning back to Mari.
"So, as I was trying to say-" Taro started before Mari suddenly cut him off.
"Give me a minute, please. I just need to chill." She said to him. She could still tell part of her was worked up from the fight between Taro and Budo, and she needed to relax that before she could focus on anything Taro was trying to teach her. 'How am I supposed to focus with all this hostility floating in the air?' She thought to herself, yet again forgetting Taro could read her thoughts.
"You're right. I'm sorry, Mari." He apologised, bowing his head. He felt bad for upsetting her like that and causing her to not be as focused as she should've been. "I can't help it, though. He just rubs me the wrong way." He sighed.
"You'd think a guy as old as you would've learned to get along with people better," Mari told him, a tiny little smirk on her face. Taro rolled his eyes. Interacting with humans was different from interacting with witches, something Mari was obviously unaware of. She'd only had interaction with him and very minor interaction with her mother when she was a baby.
"I get along just fine with our kind, it's just stupid humans that get under my skin," Taro told her, glancing the way Budo left for a moment before looking back at the red-haired girl stood in front of him.
"Well I happen to actually like the humans, remember?" She asked, folding her arms. She didn't like him talking badly about humans, especially since her father and Budo were both humans. She had been raised by a human, although that turned out to be a lie that she would rather forget about. "This isn't really helping me calm at all..." she admitted after a moment, sighing. While she wasn't quite as stressed as she had been when Taro and Budo were fighting, but she wasn't in a position to focus or anything yet.
"I know just the thing," Taro told her confidently, taking hold of her hand. Budo would've flipped out if he had seen it, but he wasn't here right now. Something that pleased Taro quite significantly. He was planning to take her somewhere else on Dr Casey's property, just to change the scenery a little to help her relax. He took her hand and lead her through the forest area with her following him. She could always stop him if she felt uncomfortable.