Daily
by Lethe Seraph
Entry Eight: Litchi
--
5.7.04
I remember, as a child in Thailand, Mom would tell us to eat litchis ("They're fruit! Good for you!") every few days. She's an adamant believer in the 'daily-fruits-and-vegetables-do-a-healthy-person-make' regime. (I still ended up getting pneumonia for two weeks in fifth grade. When I got back, the teacher hardly remembered my name.) I always found litchis to be rather odd, both in texture and taste, but they were quite sweet. They were better than other things, anyway – papaya was one of my main loathes back then. As a matter of fact, I still don't like papaya. It makes me gag.
While I'm still on the topic of fruit, I remember seeing a sign in a hotel in Thailand: one of the red circles with a slash through it – but what it was slashing through was a fruit. I asked Mom, and she said that the fruit called 'durian' was banned in that hotel. Apparently, while they taste good (or so she says), their smell is pungent and unbearable to others, like that of rotting flesh.
My sister loves litchi candies and gummies. I must admit, they're tasty …
--
litchi : (n.) 1 : the oval fruit of a tree of the soapberry family having a hard scaly outer covering, small hard seed, and edible flesh that surrounds the seed and is firm, sweetish, and black when dried – called also litchi nut2 : a tree bearing litchis
-
"I'm trying to figure out a good metaphor for you."
"Hm?"
"Or, at least, I think that's the word." Jonouchi leaned back in his chair. Class was but a few minutes from ending, and the teacher had given up on them. Honda was watching Yugi duel Anzu; Jou had figured that he already knew how it would turn out and had become bored.
"What brings this up?" said Kaiba. Apparently, he was as bored as Jonouchi was; normally, he would have come up with a much more biting reply and then proceeded to either ignore Jou or comment on how he should have been born a canine.
"'Cause I had nothing better to do," said Jou with a shrug. "So I was thinking-"
"Of course," said Kaiba, a sarcastic edge in his voice. "While you're 'thinking', get your chair back on the ground. It's safer."
"Oh, how sweet. You care." Jou grinned and tipped his chair back further, making Kaiba glare at him.
Kaiba grabbed his shoulders and shoved him to the floor, resulting in a loud thump that didn't attract the attention of the other students at all.
Jeez.
"Heyy!" said Jou. The lightning bolts were almost visible as they zipped between the eyes of the nemeses.
"What were you saying?" said Kaiba calmly, infuriating Jou yet further.
…What had he been saying?
Oh, right. Metaphor.
"Well, at first I thought of the obvious stuff, like ice. You're all cold and crap. But then I thought, you don't melt. At all. So, you can't be ice."
Kaiba raised an eyebrow, but was silent. Jou took this to mean that he should continue.
"I thought, well, maybe you're like the ocean. Because of your eyes… all blue, you know? It's cold, and when you jump in you usually scream-"
A definite raised eyebrow there.
"But when you get used to it it's okay. …But you're not okay. So it couldn't be that, either."
How much higher could the eyebrow go?
"Then I started thinking about animals. The first one that I thought of was a seahorse, and I remembered hearing that the guy seahorses carry the kids around in a pouch or something – like you and Mokuba – so it seemed okay. But seahorses are cute, and you aren't. Not really."
Oh, now Kaiba was twitching. He was still silent, though, so Jou plunged deeper.
"Maybe you were a wild cat, I thought. Like a jaguar or something. You pounce on your prey, and your teeth are all sharp and stuff … and then they're a gory mess. And you stalk around in the shadows. It sounded about right, for a while."
"What was wrong with that, then?"
"Well, if you were a lion, you'd be in a pride, and you don't seem like that kind of guy."
"There are other large cats, you know," said Kaiba almost amusedly.
"…I just didn't like the idea, all right? You know, the old cat-and-dog thing. Then I'd be a dog for sure."
Yugi was grinning as Anzu slapped a hand to her forehead. It looked like only a matter of time before she lost.
"Go on," said Kaiba.
He was actually interested?
Jou continued, warming up to the subject.
"Maybe you were a thing, I thought," said Jou. "Like … a diamond. You can cut through anything, and you stand out … but then I realized that that would mean that you were transparent, and you aren't."
Jou was leaning back in his chair again. Kaiba hadn't seemed to notice yet.
"So what else was there? I kept on thinking about it, and then it came to me – food! Maybe you were a food."
With a grin, Jonouchi leaned back just a bit further.
"What kind of food, though?" Jou continued. "Definitely not a cake or pie. Maybe a lemon, I thought. They're hidden inside of their peel, never showing their real selves, but when you finally get through them they taste really sour."
"Was that it, then?"
"Nah. You can make lemonade out of lemons."
"Ah."
"So then I kept on thinking about fruit. You're definitely not a banana – they're too soft and sweet, and they go bad too quickly. You can crush them really easily, right?"
Kaiba nodded slightly.
"What about a bunch of sour grapes? Not really, because – like the banana – they're easily crushed. Not to mention they're in groups. So I kept on thinking," said Jonouchi.
"You were thinking a great deal about me," commented Kaiba.
"Yeah, whatever. Maybe a cherry, I thought. But they're like grapes, and then there's that whole thing with the stem, and I didn't think that was a very good metaphor for you."
"…Right."
"So apples, maybe. They're a bit harder, and they have a peel. Sometimes they look fine on the outside, but they're rotten inside. And then … sometimes they look rotten on the outside, but they're great on the inside." Jou paused for a moment before continuing. "But, actually, that didn't sound right either. You don't look rotten, and I'm not sure whether you're rotten to the core or not yet, even if you're a complete jerk sometimes."
Kaiba ignored the insult and motioned for Jou to go on.
"And then, finally, it came to me – you are a fruit."
Kaiba's eyebrow went up again.
"You're a litchi," said Jou proudly, leaning back further.
"How do you figure that?"
"Well, they have the same problem as the others, I know, but there's something … litchi about you. Maybe you're sweet on the inside, I don't know, but I can only see that hard surface. You know, they're different colors, the outside and the inside?"
He could hardly see Kaiba's eyebrow any more.
"I don't know. You just strike me as a litchi."
"Interesting," said Kaiba. "So you were thinking about me all that time because …?"
"I told you! I had nothing better to do."
"You know, it almost seems like you have a crush on me."
"WHAT?!"
Jou's chair fell to the floor just as the bell rang.
Kaiba smirked and stooped over him, extending a hand.
Jou stared up at him.
"Hurry up, mutt. I'm not going to wait for you forever."
Jonouchi finally swallowed up his pride and grabbed Kaiba's outstretched hand. "Does this mean I get to call you Litchi?" said Jou idly as the two made their way out of the classroom.
"Only if you wish to die a slow and painful death," was Kaiba's reply. "When are you going to let go of my hand?"
-
"I can't believe I lost," groaned Anzu.
Honda laughed. "Yes, you can. Don't tell me you expected to win!"
"But what was Jou doing with Kaiba?" Yugi looked up at the two, concerned.
Honda grinned and patted the smaller boy's head. "I wouldn't worry my pretty little head over it if I were you, Yugi," he said cheerfully. "Let's concentrate on getting to class, okay?"