Sorry for the lack of updates; this has been my first weekend off since the last update as I have been on call. So, as a compromise, here are the final two chapters of Inspiring the Creation.
Happy Jubilee Weekend, to all my fellow Brits x
Thalia, the muse of comedy
Inspiration: My friend trying to get someone to laugh one day and just telling joke after joke until they cracked a smile.
Seigaku: I chose Momo for this as he seemed to be the "comic relief" character of Seigaku. To me, it also seems that he hides behind his comedy and stupidity sometimes. And plus, comedy and tragedy are seen as opposites and if Kaidoh was tragedy, well…
Note: This one was really difficult for me to write for many reasons. 1. My sense of humour is the stereotypical dry English sarcastic type. 2. I am the type of person who finds this funny: "If I were a DNA protein, I'd be heliocase so I could unzip your genes." 3. I have a strong inability to be funny when I'm trying to be funny.
Raucous laughter echoed around the room as the crowd of people descended into uncontrollable fits of giggles. It was all centred around one desk, situated at the back of a classroom, where a boy with spiky black hair and violet eyes was sat. He'd just finished recounting a tale of his weekend and was delighted when he'd managed to make people laugh. Momoshiro Takeshi liked to make people laugh. It made him feel happy as well; the contagious nature of humour made him feel lighter and immediately made his concerns float away.
To be brutally honest, Momo didn't think he had much going for himself. He wasn't smart and he wasn't that great at sports beside tennis. At home, his parents seemed to like his little sisters better than him and, while he had never held it against any of them, he was a little upset. It seemed from a very early age that Momo was sent into a life of banal achievements. Until he discovered laughter.
He loved making people laugh. It was the highlight of his day to encourage an unrestrained crow from a classmate or hear the muffled giggles of the cute girls in his class. He had found out early on that it was one of the few things he was good at and so, he lived up to it.
He became the class joker. He would do anything for a laugh and a joke. He would eat in class and purposefully get caught by his teachers to elicit muffled sniggers from the surrounding teens. He would call loudly and idiotically to the old lady at the shop to hear the cackles of his upper and under classmen. He would do anything.
Of course his grades suffered because of this and he had had more detentions than most people his age but it was all worth it. All worth it for that laughter.
Or so he thought.
It was the start of a typical Monday morning for Momo. He had just sat down at his desk, telling a really bad pun to the five or so girls sitting across from him and everyone was gearing up for the start of the lesson. He glanced at the board, his violet eyes sleepy as this teacher walked in.
He wasn't a man with a particularly good sense of humour, Momo knew, but his over-reaction to everything meant that he was funny when he wasn't trying to be. The teacher approached the desk at the front, his suit crinkling with his movements and stood there expectantly. Like all dutiful students, they greeted him for the new day and a smile worked its way onto his badly toupee'd head.
"We have a new student joining us today," he began, noting the whispers that circled the classroom like the buzzing of many insects. He called out to the door, "you can come in now."
Momo watched with rapt attention as the new student entered. His eyes widened as he took in the slouching form and the intense grey eyes. For a fifteen year old boy, he had a concentration that was unfamiliar to many and he seemed as though he was very much a "no nonsense" individual.
"Class, this is Kaidoh Kaoru. Please make him feel welcome." Kaidoh executed a quick bow and turned to the teacher, an inquisitive eyebrow raised.
"Fshuu, where do I sit?" he said in a low voice, somewhat unexpected for his age.
"Over there. There is a seat next to Momoshirou," the teacher said and Momo raised his hand like a good little lemming. Kaidoh slouched over to the seat and dropped into it as though he was a marionette whose strings had all been cut. He bent over to retrieve his writing things and sat, poised for the lesson to begin. Momo leant over to him when the teacher's back was turned.
"Hi, I'm Momoshirou but everyone calls me Momo," he said, his hand stretched out in welcome. Kaidoh looked at his fingers but didn't take up his handshake.
"You should be paying attention," were the only words he said in response.
And like that, Momo was insignificant once more.
During the break between classes, Momo once more found his desk surrounded by his peers. They stared at him with expectant looks on their faces, waiting for what he did every break time. Momo slapped his palm with his fist, faking a look of revelation.
"Oh, I just realised, tofu isn't that great. It's just a curd to me," he said, his finger aloft with intelligence. The rest of the class burst into peals of laughter and Momo smiled in response. Until he saw Kaidoh, still sat in his chair, the same stony expression on his face as before.
He leant over to him and whispered "don't you get it?" He received a blank look in response.
"A curd? Occurred?" Momo said, explaining the joke. Kaidoh merely raised his eyebrow at Momo, looking at him like an exasperated parent.
And with one sentence, he crushed Momo's life.
"I understood the pun; I just didn't find it funny."
After that moment, Momo had made it his life's mission to make Kaidoh laugh at something he did. It was the only way he could see himself regaining the only thing in his lift that he was exceptional ad. It consumed his whole being until he had forgotten everything else. He grades slipped even more that they had originally been and he began to neglect his extracurricular activities barring tennis. The only reason he maintained his tennis was that Kaidoh had joined the club three days after he transferred.
His humour devolved from witty puns to humorous insults that he exchanged with Kaidoh on a daily basis. He argued with him, competed with him and shouted at him that made everyone else laugh but still left Kaidoh as stony and as angry as he had been the first time he had met him.
Momo had learnt over the years that the best way to make people laugh was to know a bit about them and target that way. He knew that his English class loved puns, whereas his tennis friends were more fond of off-the-cuff quips. And in that way, he knew about Kaidoh; he looked into him to make him laugh.
He knew that Kaidoh's family must love him dearly to make him that lunch every day. He knew that Kaidoh did not have a bleak outlook on life, but was stonily realistic about everything. He knew that Kaidoh laughed at nothing during school hours in the first year he spent with them.
He knew so many little trivial facts about him that it was unbelievable they weren't friends. But then again, friendship wasn't what Momo was aiming for because friendship wasn't his forte. Comedy was. And Kaidoh was just too different.
He had been bemoaning his lack of success one day in the tennis clubroom with the other regulars barring Kaidoh, who had gone to practice "as he should". They were crowded around the smallish trestle table, eating their lunches and Momo had been "quietly" ranting to Kawamura, the kind brunet, about his comedy issues. However, let it be known to all that Momo and quiet were not entities that belonged anywhere near one another for fear that Momo would completely obliterate the existence of quiet.
Thus, the others around the table were included in the conversation as well, even Eiji, who had been using Oishi as a climbing frame in an attempt to get his lunchbox from the top of his locker where he had thrown it that morning in his rush to get to practice on time. Momo became the centre of attention and he was tempted to make a joke at his own expense but couldn't muster up the energy. He had been so focussed on making Kaidoh laugh that everything else was secondary. Even making everyone else laugh.
Momo placed his head on his folded arms, sighing with displeasure. Kaidoh had taken over his life and the only way to make it stop would be to get him to laugh.
"Why doesn't he find me funny?" Momo asked the others, adding a whine to the end of the question, making him sound like a petulant child. The others exchanged glances, their faces concerned, except for Echizen and Tezuka. Mostly because Tezuka had only one facial expression –which was "stone"- and because what had Echizen's full attention was his lunch. Yes sir, he didn't care even a little bit about why Momo was so upset.
Not one bit.
"Humour, like most things, is due to patterns," Inui-sempai lectured, oblivious to the slightly glazed look in Momo's eyes. "Your brain perceives a pattern in most things, like the beginning of a story. When there is an abrupt or unexpected change to that pattern, the brain interprets this as humour. When the brain doesn't follow the initial pattern or has become so accustomed to the pattern's change, the subject is no longer interpreted as funny."
Momo's brain had literally switched off, clearly evident in his blank glaze. Even Eiji was looking at Oishi in confusion. Fuji decided he was needed to translate into a human language as opposed to Inui's encyclopaedic explanation. "Basically, Kaidoh doesn't laugh at you because he doesn't find you funny."
Eiji perked up at this. "Maybe we can help, Momo! He might find our jokes funny! Mother, we have to help him!" He said pointedly to Oishi, who flushed a little at being termed the mother of the group. Eventually, he just grinned as well and rolled with it.
"Ask your Father," he offhandedly said, gesturing to Tezuka, who simply raised an eyebrow in response. Most of the group began to laugh at the comedic truthfulness that they were a severely dysfunctional family and with a sunny smile, Eiji was off, dragging Oishi with him to devise jokes that would make Kaidoh laugh. Everyone else seemed to take this as a turning point also and they all began to disperse.
Momo was left standing on his own, the little first year stood next to him. Echizen sighed, identifying a little with Kaidoh before he slouched away, his parting words drifting lazily behind him.
"Why does he have to laugh to be happy?"
Momo was beginning to doubt whether this was actually a good idea. After Eiji's exuberant decision the other day, most of the members of the tennis team had decided to help on his task. The only two that didn't were, shockingly, Tezuka and Echizen. Momo thought that it was because combined, the two had the emotional range of a pigeon and as such, their senses of humour were more limited than Kaidoh's.
That made him pause for a minute. Tezuka never laughed at his jokes and all he ever got out of Echizen was a derisive smirk every once and a while, so why did he never pester them like he did with Kaidoh?
He sighed a little. Tezuka was his captain and so, it was a little expected for him to be slightly distant and even though Echizen rarely laughed, his smirks were an indication enough that he was amused and he and Momo shared a few interests whereas Kaidoh was his complete opposite.
They agreed on almost nothing and we so different. Something about him just urged Momo to rile the other up, to get a response and he didn't really understand it. He just had to.
But now, as Momo watched Eiji make an idiot out of himself, Kaidoh and everyone around them including Oishi –even though he wasn't there, but by extension of it being Eiji, Oishi was included- by trying to catch a fish dressed in a cat costume, it was starting to seem like a really bad idea. Momo's brain died a little upon seeing that and he ignored the little voice in his head, sounding suspiciously like Echizen, that he didn't have much of it to use effectively, let alone lose.
He watched from the sidelines as Kaidoh flushed a delicate colour but still refused to loosen a smile let alone a laugh and brusquely walked away, hands firmly thrust in his pockets. A trail of giggles followed him, mostly aimed at Eiji, but Momo could almost feel the sympathetic embarrassment Kaidoh must have been feeling.
Maybe this wasn't a good idea.
It was a terrible idea. Momo walked around cursing his mind for ever asking the tennis club for help. 'Don't blame me for this one,' his mind responded, still sounding like his snarky kouhai, 'this was all you. I had nothing to do with this.'
It seemed that the tennis club had underestimated their propensity for imitation. Once the popular members of the tennis club were witnessed to be doing something, other members of the student body latched on to the idea like lemmings.
So, what had been an idea to get a little help from his friends to get someone to laugh had devolved into what Momo was witnessing in the cafeteria that day. Many other students were pestering Kaidoh, trying to get his attention through various means and not all of them were as lighthearted as Eiji dressing up like the cat he so often imitated.
It seemed that some of the students hadn't fully grasped what the tennis club was aiming for and had simply thought they had chosen to embarrass and irritate Kaidoh. And that led to the current situation of Momo stood on the peripheries of the large room, watching silently, upset, as some of his classmates effectively bullied Kaidoh into leaving the room hungry.
He didn't want to believe that he'd been the cause of this but it was unrefutable. His simple desire to make Kaidoh laugh was ruining his school year. And although he didn't realise it, it had ruined Momo's as well.
Christ, the karmic backlash from this was going to be incredible, he distantly thought. He was going to check himself into a psychiatric facility if he kept hearing Echizen's voice in his head, cackling in a way he had never heard from the real Echizen.
It was the end of a very long week and Momo had become very despondent. Everything was falling apart; he couldn't make Kaidoh laugh, he was the active cause for what was making Kaidoh's life hard and his school life, social life and even home life were suffering because of all this. He didn't know what to do and so, in a rare moment of clarity, he decided to bite the bullet and accept whatever would be doled out to him by doing something that would make his life a living hell for the next fifteen to twenty-five years, depending on if there was photographic evidence.
"Think of it this way Momo," Fuji said, patiently sitting next to Momo on the park bench, calmly eating the ice-cream that had been bought for him with his omnipresent fox smile on his face, "if I were to describe you, what would you say?"
"Humour," was the immediate response. There was no need to think about it, after all, Momo had nothing else going for him.
"And Kaidoh?" Momo paused for a brief moment, unable to articulate what Kaidoh was. He was realistic but always seemed to have a downward slant on things, stoic but a little sad.
"He always looks sad," he finally settled on.
"So you see yourself and Kaidoh as humour and sadness. Opposites right?" Fuji asked and Momo nodded, not really understanding what he was getting at. "I see you as comedy and tragedy. And there is a fine line between those. They are shockingly similar if you think about it." And then he walked away.
Him and Kaidoh were similar? That's just not possible. After all, Momo was all smiles and laughter whereas Kaidoh was…
But when he thought about it, Momo realised that he wasn't smiles and laughter. He was other people's smiles and laughter. He couldn't remember the last time he laughed at another's jokes nor could he remember laughing spontaneously. He was so focussed on making others laugh he had not let himself laugh in years. He couldn't remember the last time he was simply happy.
So he stopped. He ceased trying to make Kaidoh laugh, he stopped trying to make everyone else laugh. He became more genuine, his smiles more natural and slowly, Kaidoh's life became more bearable. Eventually, they even became something akin to friends. Or at least an extremely good tennis doubles team.
And the voice in his head slowly vanished into nothingness, relieving Momo greaetly because, let's face it, if Echizen was his Jimney Cricket, he would have become much more screwed up than he already was.
Years later, they were playing tennis on one of the street courts. Early on, Momo and Kaidoh found that they made a rather good doubles team and so, they were steadily decimating the other pairs. In the lull between matches, they were casually talking when a new pair approached them. It was then that Momo discovered the horrific truth.
He must have been impossible to be around in school.
The new pair were determined to win by making them laugh themselves into mistakes. They wore strange headgear and flirted outrageously to get them to focus on them and not the ball. And the levels of annoyance and anger that flowed through Momo made him realised that this must have been what Kaidoh was feeling all those years ago when he had been persistent in his quest to make him laugh.
Once they had defeated the other pair, they sat on the bleachers, drinking some luminous sports drink and leaning backwards. Kaidoh had abandoned his sweaty bandanna and was gazing at the sky with his piercing grey eyes.
"Sorry," Momo muttered, his voice a grumbling whisper. Kaidoh looked at him in confusion. "About school, you know, pestering you all the time. It must been so irritating." With that he sighed and lay himself fully on the bench, directing his words to the vast sky.
"I've just had to withstand for two hours what I put you through for two years and I was thinking about commiting homicide or suicide, depending what the glasses wearing one said next." His gaze was so focussed on the sky that he didn't notice when Kaidoh turned to him and his face softened.
"It wasn't so bad." Was the curt response from the grey eyed one. He stood, deciding he had rested enough and was about to step away from Momo and go home. He paused slightly before doing so.
"Do you remember anything from our English Literature class?" Kaidoh asked.
"I took English Lit?" Momo questioned, genuinely not remembering ever taking such a class. Kaidoh sighed in exasperation. He walked right into that one.
"Did you know that in Shakespearian plays, comedies were classified as all those that weren't tragedies? Some weren't funny and a few were not even remotely happy but the simple lack of tragedy made them comedies. You don't have to be laughing to be happy; you don't have to be making others laugh to make others happy. Sometimes just trying is enough even if they aren't laughing."
And with a meaningful glance that Momo was sure he missed half the unspoken significance of, Kaidoh had left, returning to his university life. Momo remained, laid on the hard, uncomfortable bench, thinking over the significance he did catch.
And he smiled, also getting up and dusting himself off.
Kaidoh sat, slightly isolated from everyone, in the lecture hall for his first class of his second year. He had everything prepared and was simply waiting for the lecturer to arrive. As usual, no-one spoke to him, intimidated by his presence and he was satisfied with that.
It wasn't until ten minutes later that a bag dropped down next to him and a body took up the empty seat. He looked to his side and saw smiling violet eyes looking back at him.
"Hey," Momo said, looking like he had every right to be there. Kaidoh arched a thin eyebrow at him.
"I took last year externally and joined the second years. Looks like you're stuck with me."
And after several years, numerous attempts and stupid acts, Kaidoh let loose a small, Mona Lisa smile at Momo.
Yes, sometimes trying is enough.
Next Up: Urania's Stars
R&R Bumble x