THE LIFE OF NORMAL-TARO

103 Lemon tea can make friends

"I don't get it!" Thankappan spoke out loud as the group were walking back to the Holy Land.

"What do you not get?" Taro asked.

"Rita—what do you think of her?" He asked back.

"What do you mean?" Taro tilted his head in visible confusion.

"She's cute, right?" Thankappan had a knowing smirk on his face while he asked that.

"I guess you can call her cute by human standards. Now that I think about it, I only call little children cute, since they deserve to be called that. So, don't ask me." Taro shrugged as he spoke.

"Ha. So, you do think that she's cute." Thankappan gave out the conclusion he received from Taro's words.

"That's an odd thing to say, but yea. You could kinda say that she's cute." Taro nodded his head in agreement.

"Then is there something wrong with her?" Thankappan asked.

"Oh, don't get me started! First of all, that clingy behavior she has pisses me off. Secondly-" Before he could complete his rant, Thankappan jumped back and interfered.

"No, I'm not talking about that. I meant if she had something wrong with her—her looks or something like that? I mean, something you don't like as a Wadorian citizen." He asked.

"Not really. If you're asking me whether she's appealing to the eye, then yes, she is. If not, then why else would Juan run after her with a rose in his hand?" Taro chuckled while thinking about Juan for some reason.

"I see. Nothing wrong with her looks too. Then why the hell are you not getting in a relationship with her. I mean, she's giving you all the signs, right?" Thankappan almost sounded frustrated as he spoke.

"Dude! What the hell's wrong with you? First of all, I'm a freaking alien. Who's gonna take responsibility if I fall in love with someone and demand to take her back to my home planet when it's time for me to return. Will you? No, right?" He asked.

"Well, we don't know how long it would take for you to return to Wados. So, why don't create some good memories for yourself while you're here?" Thankappan asked back.

This time around, it was the Wadorian's turn to get frustrated. "Why the hell do you think that good memories can only be formed once you get to a relationship? What kinda stupid logic is that, huh? What? You don't think good friends can give good memories as well?" He sounded passionate as he asked.

"Ah, that's not what I-" Thankappan tried defending himself and his statement, however before he could do so, his speech was interrupted by Taro.

"Secondly, it's not all about the looks. Sure, Rita might look a bit cute or beautiful even. If you wanna feminize it that way, however, her behavior can't be tolerated by me. I'm gonna tell you this one time. I don't judge people by their looks, but their characters. Even if Rita wasn't this beautiful, but her behavior was polite, if she were to properly ask me out then, I would have said yes. And I would not actively look out for it, since I'm not interested in those sorta things, so I'm gonna say this to you yet again—even if she was polite, I wouldn't actively ask her out. So, as of right now, she's not even in my radar, dude!" Taro replied.

"Ha, that's disappointing." Thankappan sighed.

"Why? I don't get it. Why are you trying so hard with it? Why don't you just leave me be? You didn't care about it before, then why now?" Taro questioned. He didn't like how Thankappan was getting fumed about his personal life.

"That—oh, we got here! That was fast! Those guys might be waiting for us! So, let's not waste our time loitering around talking random shit, shall we?" Thankappan gave out a nervous chuckle as he ran towards #306. Although Taro had things that he wished to speak with Thankappan, he didn't think of it as that important, so he played along.

"Hey, we're—back?" Thankappan, who gave out an enthusiastic cheer once he opened the door, was surprised by the events that happened before him in live time. "What the hell are you two doing?" He shouted upon seeing John and Kunjan Greco-Roman wrestling on the ground.

"Close the doors! Or else this bastard will try to escape." Kunjan cried as he muffled John's mouth as the MIB veteran tried struggling his way to the door. However, Thankappan listened to Kunjan's words and closed the door once Gibli and Taro slipped in as well.

"Okay, what the hell is happening right here?" Taro, who happened to see this for the first time since he had to rush in under the orders of Thankappan, couldn't hold off his surprise and asked.

"He—this guy remembered everything!" Kunjan cried as John somehow weaseled his way out of his clutch.

"Shit. Catch him—knock him out for all that matters!" Thankappan cried as John slipped him as well. However, once he said that knocking out was fine as well, John's fate was already decided. When literally centimeters divided John and the door, he was knocked out cold by Taro. His sheer punch was enough to knock his lights out. So, once that was done, John's unconscious body was dragged into a chair, and he was tied. Thankappan couldn't use the neuralyzer at this point because the receiver should be conscious upon its use. So, he turned towards the plankton instead.

"What the hell happened right here? Are you sure he remembered all the stuff? Or was it some vague bullshit just like what happened with Lonappan back then, huh?" Thankappan was suspicious. He joined in because John was trying to escape and that's never a good sign. However, he didn't know the reason behind it.

"I'm not kidding. He remembered and was about to call the MIB HQ. However, I threw away his phone and that's how we ended up like this!" Kunjan replied.

"Hmm, I'm still gonna need some explanation. About how this guy actually ended up remembering it. So, are you gonna elaborate the stuff that happened or not?" Thankappan asked.

#

Few hours ago. It had been quite some time since Taro, Thankappan and Gibli left for the school with Rita on the pretense of playing badminton. Well, Kunjan knew that Gibli wasn't lying about that and genuinely wanted to play badminton while Taro wasn't interested at all, but agreed to it because Gibli joined in. The one who did it under a pretense was Thankappan, because the plankton could clearly see the ulterior motive behind the MIB agent's tagging in. He wasn't aware of the reason, however he wanted to make Taro and Rita a thing for some reason.

So, John and Kunjan were the ones left in #306. Although M'Baku planned to come earlier as well, however Shivani requested them that she wanted to be with him for some more time, so they had to agree with the request. Since they were all alone, and they didn't have any sorta shared interests, things were getting awkward. Not being able to comprehend this awkward atmosphere, the plankton got up from his seat and went to the kitchen where he got some peace. He then proceeded to make some lemon tea to cool off his mind. For some reason, he had been getting this urge to drink lemon tea every other time. Kunjan suspected that he became an addict to lemon tea. However, since it was working out for him, he decided not to mind it anymore. As long as it works, why mess the system, eh?

Since he was making one for himself, he decided to get one for John as well, hoping that he would end up liking tea, thus creating something mutual between them. Although he had served the lemon tea to everyone else in the household, he was never able to serve it for him since John's arrival was the reason they had to work as teachers and this didn't work with John's sleeping schedule. He didn't want to serve cold lemon tea to John since he considered it the worst. So, this was perhaps the best and only case where he could serve some hot lemon tea for him.

"Here, take this!" The plankton placed a mug of the lemon tea before him and spoke.

"What is it?" John asked, since he couldn't recognize the beverage. Lemon tea had a distinct color much like green tea, which John hadn't tried in his life.

"It's lemon tea. Pretty good tea, if you ask me." Kunjan replied with a smile on his face.

"Tea? I don't drink tea. It's just bland mud water with no particular taste, isn't it?" John asked.

"You just told bland earlier. You don't have to specify it twice, you know?" Kunjan sighed.

"Well, that's how much I dislike tea." John replied.

"Hmm, don't judge a book by its cover. Try drinking it. You might actually enjoy it." Kunjan assured.

"Ha, I guess I'll trust your words on this!" John closed his eyes and took a sip of the tea. Suddenly, a bright smile was formed in John's face. "It's pretty good!" He spoke while taking another sip out of the mug.

"What did I tell ya?" Kunjan smiled as he took a sip of the tea as well. It seemed as if a friendship just bloomed between them, simply because of a lemon tea.

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