By animeninjaNIPPON
Only time would tell if I had settings right for those loyal to my family. But I had yet to set things right with my mind – along with the pressures of training, I had the subtle curse of Chocolove's humor stuck in my mind. Even now – who knows how long it had been since we met – I had to suppress smiles and such when the memories of his unfunny jokes came to mind. So I tried even harder not to think – I trained harder, I meditated on other things – I even tried listening to Horo, but the ice shaman just didn't have those same idiosyncrasies that brought Chocolove to my attention. Then eventually his sister came, and Horo was busy showing her around, and I spent the days doing other distracting things.
On one such day, I was absent-mindedly flipping through a Japanese-language edition of "Patch Cooking: Volume 2" that Manta left on a table. Finding little interest in the recipes, I put the book down, only to come face-to-face with Chocolove. "AAH!" I jumped back slightly, knocking over a potted cactus. "What do you think you're doing?"
"You seem depressed," he replied. "Want me to do my comic routine for you?"
"No," I muttered, stooping over to pick up the desert plant. "And I'm not 'depressed.' I'm acting no differently than I do every day." I scooped some spilled dirt back into the pot.
He knelt beside me and put some more of the soil back into its container. "Well, you seem depressed every day. You should smile more often."
"Well, what about you?" I retorted. "You seem ecstatic every day. Nothing can be that wonderful."
Chocolove dropped his handful of dirt. "I'm not always happy."
"Why do you want me to be happy anyway? Why is it so important that I should smile?"
He stood up, and, as if stating the obvious, said, "It is my duty as future Shaman King to spread the winds of laughter across the world. Besides, you're my friend, and I want my friends to be happy."
"Nobody's happy all the time." I swept the rest of the dirt to the side and hoped that Silva wouldn't notice it. "Not even you – you said so yourself."
"But WHY are you so unhappy?"
Did he really want to hear about the Hell I had been through? Could that idiot really understand my background of bloodshed? "It's none of your damn business," I responded, turning to leave, thinking I could perhaps watch Yoh train for his upcoming battle. A brown hand caught my shoulder.
I lifted my head up. Chocolove had that same angry look he displayed when he found out that Hao was Yoh's twin. "I haven't had an easy life either. But you don't have to be rude to me."
Just who did he think he was, anyway? I slipped out from under his hand. "Do you really want to know what it's like for me?"
Fortunately, I was saved by an outburst by Silva. "Who moved that cactus?" he demanded, pointing to the plant I accidentally disturbed.
Chocolove grinned like a wiseass. "Ren's practice!" He pointed at me.
Silva eyed him weirdly, then got called away by Kalim.
That was the stupidest thing I'd ever heard in my life. I don't know where he was going with that joke, but it didn't work – not in English, not in Japanese, not…
Heh. It was so asinine, it was almost amusing. Only he could take something completely out of context and find comedy in it (just like that banana joke). I started to smirk…
"Hey…are you smiling?"
I tried to ignore him.
"You are…"
Oh crap. He saw me smile. And to him, that was like saying, "I find you interesting."
Instead of answering him, I glared at him, gave a dignified "hmph" and left him alone, hoping he'd get the message. That was my way of saying, "Don't make me smile. Don't make me laugh.
Don't make me like you."
End of part eight
The Chocolove joke in here kind of works in Japanese. Sono saboten o ugoite wa dare desu ka means "Who moved that cactus?" and renshuu means practice. So "cactus" and "practice" rhyme in English, and he points to Ren because of the RENshuu. Alas, that was really lame, but it took me literally an hour and a half to find a joke that worked to some extent in both languages, and I wanted to get more done ASAP.
- animeninjaNIPPON