Work Text:
Zuke has known Mayday for a good few years now and those years have taught him some important things about his band mate and best friend.
“Zuuuuuke.”
For example, one of those things was to never ever trust what happens when May made that expression with that tone of voice.
“Yeeees?” Zuke cautiously asked as he lowered his magazine
Having successfully gotten his attention, May plopped down on the couch next to Zuke.
“So I was wondering something. Ever since that last encounter with your brother...”
“Okay?”
“What was up with the zonkey recording?”
Immediately Zuke covered his face with the magazine and groaned.
After talking things out with West, he was willing to let his brother have that stupid recording be a dumb inside joke between the two of them. But May? Absolutely not!
“Oh come on, Zuke, I just wanna know. You know unlike your brother, I can actually keep a secret! Pleeeeease?”
“Why do you want to know so bad?”
“Cause it's gonna bug me if I never find out!”
At least she's honest… and it's not like it's this deep shameful secret, just something embarrassing from his childhood. Besides, knowing the context doesn’t really make things worse so…
“Alright, the short story is “I was ten and I lost a bet.””
“And the long story?”
Zuke sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose before continuing.
“So when I was like four or five, I was super into zonkeys. I thought they were the coolest animal ever since they were a mix of two different animals.
“Zonkeys.”
“This coming from the grown woman who was upset over the unicorn at the Natura district being a guy in a costume.”
“Hey! At least unicorns have cool horns. Zonkeys are just weird looking donkeys with stripes.”
Zuke couldn't help but laugh at May's reaction to his teasing.
“Yeah well I was a kid living in a little sleepy kampung, it didn't take much to impress me. But I kind of got over it when I was older. Unfortunately no one told one of my aunts who made me a zonkey costume years later.”
“Oh… oh no…”
“Yeah you can tell where this is going.”
“So what was the bet?”
“Honestly I don't even remember what it was. I just remember that the loser had to wear the costume and do a song and dance. And yeah that loser ended up being me.”
Mayday stared at Zuke briefly before bursting into a fit of giggles.
“Wow, you must have been preeetty confident to take on whatever bet you did.”
“Nah, I think I just really wanted to embarrass West. Didn't help that he was just hitting his growth spurt at the time so the thought of him trying to fit into the costume was hilarious to me”
At that, May laughed harder. When she finally stopped, she smiled at Zuke and it was at this point that Zuke noticed that May… apparently moved closer when he was telling the story. She was practically sitting in his lap now.
“Is it terrible of me to think how cute you probably looked in that costume?”
“C-cute?”
May proceeded to squish Zuke’s cheeks, “Little Zukie the zonkey.~”
Under normal circumstances, Zuke would have already gently pushed May off and got off the couch but something about their position and May calling him cute just froze him in place.
Thankfully like a scaly little angel saving him from… whatever this moment was, Ellie let out a hungry chirp echoing from downstairs.
“Uh heh, I think it's your turn to feed Ellie this time.” Zuke said
“Yeah, yeah.”
May stood up and turned towards Zuke.
“Hey, after I feed Ellie, let’s get some dinner at the Hideaway. I’ll share one of my dumb childhood stories since you told me yours. Sound good?”
“Yeah, sounds good. I’ll get ready in a minute.”
With that, May finally made her way to the stairs, shouting to Ellie that “mommy was coming with num nums.” Once Zuke was sure that May was out of eye and ear shot, he grabbed a pillow from the couch and screamed into it.
He could still feel the warmth on his face from where May touched him.