The Life Of Normal-Taro

Chapter 114: The story

"Nothing much. I just felt like telling it to you. And maybe talk about you guys' experience in love as well." Taro replied to the plankton's question.

"Hmm, since when did we start talking about our experiences in love and stuff?" Plankton scoffed on this idea and was about to get up, when Taro forced him back to the seat.

"Since today. Come on, tell me! You oughta have some sorta story, right?" Taro excitedly asked.

"What about you?" Kunjan asked.

"Huh?"

"I mean, if you want us to talk about it, you should be the one who talks first, right?" The plankton spoke with a smile on his face.

"Ah, but I don't have any stories though. Like, I was not in a situation where I could do something like that." Taro replied.

"Well, we're all in the same boat then. I mean, I was in the battlegrounds from the beginning, so if you wanna ask whom I loved, I would probably say something like my torturing device." He spoke. It looked like the plankton was reminiscing all the great times he had with the torturing device and that wasn't really a good thing to imagine for the rest of them; therefore, they quickly turned their attention towards someone else.

"Ah, Thankappan! What about you?" Taro asked.

"Hmm, being inside the dungeon didn't help me in anything other than my training, so I'm in the same boat. Although, there's recently been a budding crush for me recently." He spoke, blushing slightly.

"You better not be talking about Shivani." Taro spoke, while holding his phone close to call police at any given time, much like what the teachers did back then when he talked to Abhirami in the staff room.

"No, I'm not. Sheesh, what made you think that?" Thankappan asked in a frustrated tone.

"The constant coincidences we've been having with her in the mornings, your creepy advance towards her and you taking pictures of her without consent." The rest of them thought as the MIB agent pouted.

"So, who else is it?" Taro asked.

"Well, there's this anime that Gibli showed to me once. The girl in it is pretty good looking." He replied.

"Ah, shouldn't have asked you." Taro sighed.

"Oh, you watched my suggestion! Nice." Gibli was the only one happy after listening to Thankappan.

"And Gibli, what about you?" Taro asked. He didn't expect anything from him though, because the ones he expected had been pretty disappointing.

"Ooh, listen to me, okay? I got a pretty good tale for you guys." Gibli replied, which shocked the people around him. 

'How come Gibli has a better story than them?' was the question floating in their minds.

"Hmm, do tell us then." Taro urged.

"Okay. Look, this is from years ago, when I was backpacking across Western—Europeana. I was just outside of—Barcelonalulu, hiking in the foothills of Mount—Tibidabodabu…" Gibli was about to continue with his tale, when Taro stopped him.

"It's my fault that I trusted you to tell us a good tale." Taro sighed.

"Well, it IS a good tale!" Gibli assured.

"It is. Just not yours, right?" Taro spoke.

"Huh?"

"You really thought that you could get away with it by just changing the names to something that doesn't even exist in Ark and sounds eerily similar to the places on Earth. I mean, I watched every television show that airs in India regardless of the language. You trying to make a fool out of me, boy?" Taro asked.

"I thought you wouldn't know." Gibli replied.

"Ha… Anyway, who is it that you wanna sleep with among us?" Taro bluntly asked.

"Wha—what the hell are you talking about? I'm not interested in sleeping with any of you!" Gibli was flustered by Taro's question.

"Well then. Why did you tell THE story then?" Taro asked.

"What is that?" Gibli asked, totally confused about what was going on.

"This is why you shouldn't reference anything unless you watch it thoroughly. Or else you'll look like a fool, just like right now." Taro replied.

"I'm sorry." Gibli looked ashamed.

"Meh, it's nothing to apologize about. Rookie mistake, that's what it was." Taro patted Gibli's shoulder before continuing. "Now that the tale's done, John, you wanna say your experience with love?" Taro asked the guy from the HQ, who was just being the spectator for the most part.

"Oh, never thought that you'd ask me as well." John replied.

"Well, you're our roommate and you're here right now, so it makes no sense if we don't ask you. And I got this feeling that you'd be the one experience with this kinda stuff the most." Taro chuckled while he gave out his reply.

"Is that so?" John mumbled. "Well, I have yet to experience something called love. I mean, I have met up with quite a lot of women and made love with them, however, it's usually for the undercover missions. If it's not that, either I or the woman opposite me would have some reason not to get in a relationship. Like, there won't be anything wrong between us and yet we'd end up stopping at the very first stage. Things like this is why I'm quite surprised seeing Lonappan married." He replied.

"Ah, he loves his wife quite a bit, doesn't he?" Taro spoke.

"Yea, but it wasn't love at first sight or something like that. Hell, they weren't even dating before their marriage. It was an arranged marriage. It seems like they fell in love with each other after marriage." Thankappan spoke.

"Damn, to get into such a loving relationship after getting into an arranged marriage, dude's truly lucky, isn't he? I mean, it's a huge gamble, isn't it? Marrying someone without even getting to know them clearly; it isn't something practical at all. I mean, there's a lot of stuff that could end up going wrong in a relationship like that. And yet, they survived. Good for them, if you ask me."John replied, to which everyone nodded their heads in agreement.

"Ah, now that we heard everyone's—" Taro was about to wrap it up, when someone raised their hand.

"Aren't you gonna ask me about mine?" The person asked, turning all the attention towards him. It was M'Baku.

#josei