Hello all! This was just a silly idea I had come to mind. I love Eurovision and am looking forward to it next week so, in preparation for next week, here's a short story based on Norway's entry to the contest this year. I really hope they win because the song is amazing!
"Uhh… Jack?" Legoshi looked down at his best friend. "What's… Why did you…?"
The wolf, having just recently woken up, wondered if he was still dreaming. The smaller labrador in front of him, bouncing on his heels, had just dropped the most random of objects in his hands.
Jack just turned around and left their dorm room. "Don't worry too much about it! Just enjoy!" He hummed a song to himself as he turned to the left and disappeared into the hallway.
What was that about? Legoshi wondered to himself as he sat down on his bunk. And why did he just hand me a… banana?
It wasn't that he couldn't eat a banana, as his body had evolved enough to be able to stomach the fruit, but it just seemed to be a strange thing for his best friend to hand him. Especially from one carnivore to another carnivore. He couldn't even remember if he and Jack had ever eaten bananas around each other. They much preferred watermelons as their fruit of choice.
Actually, now that I think about it, I don't know if I've ever even eaten a banana before.
Using his claws, Legoshi began to peel the banana in half. He only knew not to eat it whole or snap it in half because he saw Haru eating one a few weeks ago. Gently, he revealed the pale yellow flesh inside the peel. The color reminded him of Jack. The smell of it was a different matter. It wasn't rotten, and it wasn't sickening, either. It was more like… paste? Like a thick, yellow paste?
Holding the banana to his mouth, and having discarded the peel, the wolf took a delicate bite of the tip. He shut his eyes to take in the flavor of the fruit. It tasted… alright? It wasn't overly sweet, like banana pudding, but it also wasn't flavorful. If he was being honest, which he could be to himself, it was a bit… bland.
Nothing like watermelon. I'll have to tell Jack so he doesn't waste his money on this fruit in the future.
"Looks like someone's practicing their head game! I'm jealous of whoever the lucky guy is!"
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"Means you could do with a few banana practice sessions of your own!"
"Hey-"
Legoshi jumped at the new voices that had entered the room, his eyes now wide open and embarrassment flooding his senses.
"Wait, no! I'm not- That's not- I wasn't- Jack just-" He desperately tried to push through stammering to defend his purity.
The high pitched laughter of the hyena made Legoshi's face burn even hotter.
"Oh, thinking about Jack, eh? Can't say I blame you, but I didn't think twinks would be your type!" Miguno cackled at his own "jokes."
"C'mon Miguno, lay off him. You'll make his head explode with your impurity." Durham playfully punched the arm of his boyfriend, who finally seemed to stop his laughter.
"Fine, fine. Sorry, Legoshi."
"It-It's okay. No worries." Legoshi managed to get out.
They both approached his bunk with their arms behind their backs.
"Well, we wanted to be the first ones to give you these, but it seems that Jack beat us. Anyways, here." They both extended their arms out to Legoshi.
As he looked down, he saw them. Two bananas. Two ripe, yellow bananas.
What is going on? Is this some sort of prank all my roommates are playing on me?
Not wanting to disappoint his roommates, Legoshi took the pair of bananas and sat them down on his bed next to him. Slightly dumbfounded about the entire thing, he didn't immediately reply when Durham also produced a large cotton reusable bag.
"You might also want to carry this around today."The pair began walking towards the door. "Anyways, hope that you enjoy them, Legoshi. Don't go eating our grandmas now, we paid our tithes to our lord and savior!"
Eating their grandmas?
Durham smacked the back of the hyena's head. "You dolt! Can't even get your lines right. You pay tithes to the church, not to…"
Before the rest of their argument could be heard, they were out of the dorm room and out of earshot.
This day just keeps getting weirder.
As he packed his bookbag with his notebook and laptop, Legoshi eyed the reusable bag and bananas that had just been given to him.
Guess I'll bring them with me. Then I won't have to buy a snack later today. Even if they don't taste all that great, free food is still free food.
Resigning himself to a disappointing snack later in the day, Legoshi threw the bags over his shoulders and bit down on the banana he peeled as he left his dorm and headed to the cafeteria for breakfast. The short walk through the hallway of his residence hall had been mostly uneventful, until he ran into a first year red fox, who sheepishly handed him a banana. Before Legoshi could question him, the fox ran back inside his dorm room and shut the door.
I don't understand. Is everyone I see today going to hand me a banana? Is this some sort of school holiday that I don't know about?
As Legoshi arrived at the cafeteria, it seemed that the answer was not "yes," but it certainly wasn't "no." As he waited in line to fill his tray, six students approached him to hand him a banana, providing varying degrees of reasoning for doing so. They all seemed to relate back to not eating their grandmas, which now was more than a coincidence.
After filling his tray, Legoshi beelined to the table where he and his roommates ate every morning. Surprisingly, only Collot and Voss were sitting at the table. Unsurprisingly, the first thing they both did after he sat down was hand him a banana.
"Please spare my grandma, oh mighty Legoshi. She's so small and frail and surely won't taste good!" Voss overdramatically begged and pleaded from his seat.
"And spare mine as well. She's about to turn eighty, and has been waiting to go on her birthday cruise for four years. Don't deny her this experience, I humbly beg of you." Collot added in his own creative story before the two looked at each other and began laughing.
Narrowing his eyes at his roommates, Legoshi sighed. "Guys, please."
They both continued to laugh at their "humor" until finally calming themselves down.
"Now, can you explain to me why this is happening? First, it was Jack, and then Durham and Miguno, and so I thought it was something in our dorm room. But then, a fox that I didn't know handed me one, so I thought it might be a school holiday. And now, like six more students have handed them to me, and I just don't get it. And then you two as well, and I'm more confused than ever."
What had begun as a simple question from the wolf quickly devolved into a rant at the two students sitting across from him, who held their laughter in as long as they could before bursting again. Rolling his eyes and shaking his head, Legoshi shoved a sweetbread down his throat and got up from the table, his appetite long since abandoning him.
After cleaning his plates and silverware, he walked to the cart to return his tray. A tap on his lower back caused him to jump, and when he turned around, he saw Haru looking up at him.
"Ah, Haru! You scared me! You know that I'm sensitive about being touched there."
She smiled as the wolf crouched down to be eye level with her. "I know, that's why I poked you there. You walked right past me without saying hello. I wanted to check up on you and make sure that you were doing alright."
"Oh," Legoshi responded as he looked down at the ground. "Yeah, well, today has been really strange. I apologize for not coming to see you, but something…" He stopped and stared at the dwarf rabbit in horror.
"Does it have something to do with this?" She chuckled to herself as the wolf's eyes grew to the size of golf balls.
"Not you, too…" he trailed off, disheartened that even Haru was in on whatever torment the student body had decided to inflict on him.
"Here," she practically forced it into Legoshi's hands. "Take this and get to class before you're late. It'll all make sense by the end of the day."
And with that, she walked away from the wolf, too stunned to even say goodbye.
Class had been more of the same. Upon Legoshi's arrival to the classroom, several students got up from their seats to give him a banana. Laughter from his roommates, including his best friend and the one that had started it all, caused both embarrassment and humiliation to fill the wolf's thoughts. Instead of focusing on his notes, Legoshi spent most of class trying to come up with a reason why this was happening to him. Why was he the target of this kind of bullying? And from his roommates no less? Did they want to punish him for something he did? Or, was this some kind of prank at his expense?
The bag that Durham had given him was not only nearly full by the end of the lecture, but it was also heavy as he went to carry it with him to Drama Club's rehearsal. That didn't stop a few additional students from adding to the growing pile on the way.
As he approached the rehearsal building, he saw Juno standing outside the door. Not only that, she also was carrying a bag full of bananas! Legoshi moved as fast as he could while carrying the fruit that he was beginning to hate with a passion.
"Juno!" He called out to her as he approached. "You've been getting bananas today as well?"
"Yes," she sighed. "And no one will tell me why, either. Even the other members of our wonderful club are no exception. But, now that you're here, they'll finally let us in."
So it's been happening to her as well?
She knocked on the door. "Okay, Legoshi is with me now. You can let us inside."
The door opened to darkness. The lights had been shut off.
"That seems… strange, don't you think?"
"I wonder what's going on?"
They both picked up their bags, full of bananas, and headed inside. As they stepped beyond the doorway, the door slammed behind them and the lights flashed on. The two wolves dropped their bags and jumped as they were immediately surrounded by gigantic bananas racing towards them.
"Before these wolves eat our grandmas, give these wolves a banana!" the bananas sang at them.
Well, perhaps chanted at them was a more appropriate description. It wasn't so much scary as it was creepy. And silly. It was clear that these costumes had been rushed, and the choreography of their movements left much to be desired. And their voices weren't all that in sync.
And, just to spite him, the banana closest to him pulled down their costume to reveal Bill.
"What's going on here?" came an unknown voice.
As the bananas stepped aside, Louis appeared in front of them. At first, his brow was furrowed and a scowl dominated his expression. Then, he smiled triumphantly "Someone give those wolves a banana!"
A couple hours and a couple dozen bananas later, Legoshi left the rehearsal building and started lugging his bag, overflowing with a fruit that he despised, back to his room. If he ever saw another one of these demonic and cursed fruits after today, he was going to explode. Climbing the stairs to his floor was painful. The straps of the bag dug into his shoulders. He was going to have bruises tomorrow.
As he opened the door to room 701, he found his roommates sitting in front of Jack's laptop, laughing hysterically. He dropped the bag off near his bunk and walked over to his friends.
"Guys, you owe me an explanation! I swear, I don't know what kind of prank you-"
"Shh," Jack attempted to silence him. "Just come over here and watch this. Legoshi, have you ever heard of the Eurovision Song Contest?"
12 points to Norway from Spain.
As always, comments and constructive feedback are always welcomed and appreciated! Until next time!
