"Mother fucker, your ass will be on fire...!"
"I don't care! She broke my heart! She can have my ass too...!"
Near a tiny street food mart that looked like it hadn't seen a health inspector since the last millennium, two boys sat at a table loaded with a gastronomic explosion of spicy chaos.
One of them was eating like a vacuum cleaner on overdrive, as if he'd been marooned on a desert island with nothing but his hunger for company.
The other young man sat opposite, watching his friend's culinary self-destruction with a mixture of pity and disbelief.
The table was a battlefield of street foods that could double as firecrackers. Flaming hot bacon, Carolina Reaper noodles—these weren't just any spicy noodles; they were the kind that made dragons weep. And to wash down this inferno, a large glass of pepper smoothie sat like a dare.
Another plate held burritos stuffed with sriracha-infused meat and two ominous chunks of ghost pepper, glaring up as if warning, "Abandon hope, all ye who eat here."
The table was a volcano ready to erupt with jalapeno peppers, Tabasco sauce, and every variety of pepper known to mankind. And to add a delightful twist of danger, the food mart's hygiene was as questionable as a three-dollar bill.
So why was Kris, the human vacuum cleaner, inhaling food like there was no tomorrow? Well, his 'girlfriend' of two months had been playing hopscotch with his heart, cheating on him with his best friend, the same best friend he'd known since they were knee-high to a grasshopper.
Kris hoped to drown his sorrow in a lava flow of spicy food, hoping the fiery inferno on his tongue could extinguish the raging firestorm in his chest.
His friend watched helplessly as Kris attacked a burrito filled with ghost pepper like it was the source of all his woes.
Seeing Kris bite off a chunk of the burrito, then suckling on its contents before crunching down and devouring the pepper chunk, his friend could only ask with sadness.
"Kris...did you really see them together like that?"
Kris, the so-called fatty, nodded while shoveling another burrito into his mouth without pausing to taste it. It was spicy, it was hot, but not nearly hot enough to burn away the betrayal he felt.
He wished for more peppers in this meal, wishing they could scorch his memories into oblivion. However, the heat was no match for the pain gnawing at his heart; it was not working.
"Those two fuckers...," Kris mumbled through a mouthful of half-chewed pepper, grease, and rice, spraying bits of his food back onto his plate like a spicy confetti cannon. "I saw them holding hands near the bridge... nom~ nom~ How can they... slurp~"
"Man, you gotta stop eating like this," Axel said, watching Kris with a mix of horror and concern. "Your health is already on a first-name basis with the Grim Reaper. Eating this much is gonna kill you before the hot food does."
Axel reached out and tried to wrest the burrito from Kris's chubby hands.
"Hey!" Kris growled around a mouthful of fried jalapeno. "Don't you fuckin' dare!"
Axel was taken aback by Kris's choice of words but replied calmly, knowing his friend needed consolation, not confrontation.
"I'll pay for you. I'll even get you the chili dog with a ghost pepper, so please, man, stop."
Axel's hopes, however, were about as effective as a paper umbrella in a hurricane. Kris snatched his burrito back and crammed the rest of it into his mouth, barely chewing before washing it down with his pepper-infused smoothie.
In a final attempt to redirect his friend's misery, Axel decided to make Kris question the truth of what he had seen.
"Dude, you said they held hands, right? That too near the damn bridge. What if they held hands because the bridge was under construction and they didn't want to risk falling?"
Axel's words seemed to work as Kris suddenly stopped eating midway. A large burger hung limply in the air as he paused and froze, staring at Axel while processing his words. Grease and sauces dripped down his fingers, his double chin, and his plump lips.
"You may...gulp~ rwrite...Maibe I shaw it wrroma angle?" Kris mumbled, and Axel sighed in relief before handing his friend a bunch of napkins to clean off the sauce.
However, before Axel's hopes could fully take root, Kris banged on the table and stood up abruptly.
"Come on, I want to hear it from her mouth!"
"Wha...?" Axel questioned, not understanding Kris's garbled words.
His voice was muffled by the layers of sauce and his own fat rolls hanging around his double chins and under his jawline.
Kris suddenly reached out and grabbed Axel's shirt, transforming his expensive designer wear into a Jackson Pollock painting of red hot sauce.
Axel didn't need to look down to know his shirt had gone from runway to ruin. He simply closed his eyes and took a deep breath, bidding a silent farewell to the shirt he had paid nearly eight hundred bucks to import.
"I want to confront her and that bastard... come on, buddy!"
Kris demanded, dragging a protesting Axel behind him like a human tow truck, using sheer stubbornness and spice-fueled strength.
"I'm telling you, man, at least go to the toilet. Take a dump and wash yourself. You've eaten too much spice, and by the time we get to her place, you'll be shitting your pants!"
Axel pleaded, his voice a mix of desperation and resignation. But Kris, the human bulldozer, paid no heed to his friend's voice of reason.
Axel only closed his eyes, bracing himself for the inevitable showdown—a shit show of epic proportions, where tempers would run hotter than the ghost peppers Kris had just devoured.
A few minutes later, Axel was pinching his nose, desperately trying to block out all the air in the world from assaulting his sense of smell. He found himself perched precariously on the back of a bicycle, praying to every deity he could think of to teleport them to the girl's house immediately.
Why? Because the man pedaling the bicycle was none other than Kris, exerting all his power on Axel's brand-new $2000 bike.
That wasn't the real issue, though. The problem was that every time Kris pedaled, his hefty backside came dangerously close to Axel's face.
Kris's pants were loose, hanging low enough to reveal a distressing amount of butt crack with each pedal stroke. Axel was forced to endure this horrifying proximity, with Kris's rear end practically at eye level, offering a view that Axel wished he could scrub from his memory forever.
To make matters worse, the mountain of spicy food Kris had devoured earlier was starting to wreak havoc on his digestive system.
Each pedal brought a new wave of aromatic assault, making Axel's situation go from bad to worse.
He clung to the bike, eyes squeezed shut, silently praying for a miracle to end this two-wheeled torment.
"Frttt~"
Axel heard Kris release the foulest gases right from the depths of his soul, through his ass crack and into Axel's unfortunate vicinity. The noxious fumes sent chills down Axel's spine and made him want to hurl his dinner right there on the back of the bike.
He wished he hadn't picked up Kris's phone call earlier, when Kris had cried about how his 'girlfriend' broke his heart and cheated on him.
If Axel had just ignored the call and not been the good friend he was trying to be, he'd be home right now, soaking in his warm Jacuzzi, pondering which hot chick to call.
Instead, he was stuck on this hellish journey to the girl's house, desperately hoping he wouldn't—
"Frtttt~ prrrr~"
"Sorry about that. Hope it's not smelly. He he he... frttt~ prrrrrrr~" Kris giggled, oblivious to Axel's torment.
"Nwo froblam, brend. Id's berbectly breadable brair, bro," Axel replied with thick sarcasm, forced to respond to Kris after inhaling his friend's toxic fumes.
Thankfully, Axel could hold his breath like a champion. But even his lungs had their limits, and he prayed for this torturous ride to end before he succumbed to the olfactory onslaught.
After a grueling thirty minutes of what felt like an eternity in the seventh circle of hell, Kris finally paused his pedaling and leaned forward to apply the brakes.
This nearly caused Axel to face-plant into the abyss of Kris's infamous rear end, which had the power to insta-kill with its toxic fumes. Kris, oblivious to his friend's plight, didn't even check on Axel or kick the stand open.
He simply jumped off the bicycle, leaving poor Axel to crash to the ground, still pinching his nose with both hands in a desperate attempt to survive.
"Mother fucker..." Crash! "Fuck!"
Kris, on the other hand, couldn't have cared less whether Axel survived the landing. He was already storming up the stairs, driven by a cocktail of anger and vengeance that left no room for concern about his friend's well-being.
The fatty was a man on a mission, with a single-minded focus that made him oblivious to everything else.
He reached the door and raised his hand to knock but hesitated at the last minute. It was already evening, and the last thing he wanted was to appear deranged in front of her parents.
So, he stood there for a moment, panting and fuming, trying to gather his thoughts and calm his explosive temper before deciding his next move.
But if someone had two eyes and they saw Kris right now, they would describe him as a train wreck on roller skates because a massive bulge was protruding from his pants. No, it's not a large, enthusiastic boner but Kris, the human marshmallow, had unloaded a monumental dump, and all that remained was the shape in his pants while the contents had oozed out, forming the unfortunate bulge.
The human avalanche was so wrapped up in confronting his girlfriend that he didn't even notice the stink cloud emanating from his pants.
Meanwhile, Axel had to fight back the urge to revisit his lunch. He dusted off his clothes, lifted his bicycle, and put it on its stand. He was relieved it was finally over. Or so he hoped...
His wish was about as likely as a snowball surviving in a pizza oven.
Right at that moment, he felt someone tapping on his shoulder with what felt like a twig, but Axel knew better. He knew the twig was none other than his friend's sausage-like fingers.
'You gotta be shitting me.'
Axel slowly turned around and saw Kris grinning at him like a toddler who'd discovered the joy of finger-painting with condiments.
Kris had mustard, tomato sauce, and what looked like a food court explosion smeared across his face and shirt. His belly jutted out like he was about to give birth to a litter of kittens.
"What... now?"
"I don't want her parents to know she cheated on me. I have to confront her alone, and I think it's best if I speak to her... prrr~~"
Kris scratched the back of his head and smiled with the innocence of a puppy that just chewed up your favorite shoes.
"I know a way inside... and I need your help."
Axel took a deep breath and closed his eyes. He had hoped this wasn't the case, but it seemed the day wasn't over at all.
"Anything... for you, my friend. Anything."
'The shit show has only just begun. Damn it.'
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Welcome to another gem from this venerable and highly talented author in the art of Dual Cultivation. I hope you had as much fun reading this as I had writing it. Stick around and enjoy even more!
By the way, feel free to leave your brain at the door. You won't need it for the upcoming journey!