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“General Mahamatra,” you began one day on a patrol of Ardravi Valley. “Although there definitely are dangerous creatures in Sumeru, I have to say that a lot of them are quite cute, especially in groups. Do you know which one is the most affectionate?”
His brow furrowed in a way that made your heart soar. He was thinking about it! He was giving it honest thought! This was it! This was the moment you’d finally succeed.
“Affectionate? I suppose Shroomboars and Rishboland Tigers do take care of their young…” He mused.
You hummed.
“Well, I suppose so. But personally, I think it’s the fungi.”
His brow raised.
“Oh? Why is that?”
You spun around to face him with a playful grin on your face.
“Well, it’s because they love each other so mush!”
There it was! The punchline! The moment that you spent the past twelve hours waiting for! You set up the joke and he fell for it beautifully. It had everything he could ask for. A good build up! A great play on words. And a performance to boot. And thus here would be the moment. You would finally get him to–
“I see.” He began in thought with a hand against his chin. “You substituted ‘mush’ in mushroom for ‘much.’ Hmm… not even I thought about that.”
After he contemplated your joke for a few moments, your jaw dropped as he then took out a small notebook from his pocket and began jotting who knew what inside. The smile that joyously captured your expression from before soon began to twitch at the edges.
“W-Wasn’t it funny?” You asked hesitantly.
He looked up from his book and nodded with the straightest face imaginable.
“Extremely. I find it upsetting I didn’t think of it first. The whole matra has been getting better at jokes. If I’m not careful, I’ll have my title taken away from me.”
“But you’re… that wasn’t supposed to…” Your shoulders dropped. “Never mind…”
Never did you think a fun bet you made with the rest of the matra would be so difficult. It was such a simple thing too. The first person that got the General Mahamatra Cyno to laugh would have free drinks for a week. Nobody thought it would be that hard. Though he wasn’t the most expressive, he did love terrible jokes. Surely he would be happy to get a taste of his own medicine.
But much to your dismay, your lighthearted jokes only seemed to bother Mahamatra Cyno, as much as he told you otherwise. In the back of your mind, you knew the reason why he held onto jokes so much. He only started telling them to relax the rest of the Matra. Still, you wished your jokes would help him to relax too instead of making him feel like you were trying to take his place.
As he walked on ahead to scope out the rest of Pardis Dhyai, you hurried to catch up to him. One more joke. You would try one more joke until you called it quits.
“Out of all the forest animals, though,” you began. “I think I’d prefer to hang out with the mushrooms the most.”
He turned to you raising a brow, “‘Hang out?’ Don’t you think that’s a bit dangerous?”
You shrugged.
“Yeah, but they’re just such fungis. You know. Fun-guys? ” You added with a wide smile at the end. But just like before, his expression turned to that of confusion, contemplation, then jealousy.
“First, be honest with me,” he began as he took your shoulders with a look of intensity upon his face. “Are you and the rest of the matra looking to replace me as the resident jokester? Because if so…”
He then dropped to his knees, prompting a gasp of shock from you.
“I will not take this standing–”
“What are you doing!” You exclaimed as you tried to pull him back up. “The General Mahamatra can’t kneel before a lowly matra. The ground is dirty too–”
He cleared his throat.
“I said, I will not take this standing .”
You stared at him.
He stared back.
You stared more.
He looked right back into your eyes.
“Do you get it? The reason why I sat is because–”
“Yeah, I get it,” you sighed. “Now stand up already, please. You’re making me uncomfortable.”
“You’re right,” he said with a nod as he stood. “I must always be out standing in my field.”
You shook your head as you made your way forward, leaving your boss behind. You did your best to ignore the way frustration filled your gut. The fact that you almost laughed at his lame jokes only served to heighten your irritation. He wasn’t supposed to be making you laugh. You were supposed to be doing that to him. But instead of playing along, he got competitive and decided to one up you instead.
With the wind in your sails gone, you did your best to keep the pout from your lips as you continued on your patrol. You didn’t want to admit it, but you were irritated. With him. And with the way he noticed your irritation and was trying to appease you by burying you with even more lame jokes made your irritation even worse. By the end of the patrol, it was only inevitable that you were about ready to burst.
Thankfully, the General Mahamatra was not so obtuse so as to not catch onto the tension in the air.
“First,” he began at the end of the patrol, “I… apologize. I was trying to make you laugh, but it seems I’ve only accomplished the opposite. Forgive me.”
But somehow instead of calming you down, the apologetic expression on his face only threw you into even more of a frenzy.
“No, that’s not what I– Mahamatra Cyno, you– Why are you apologizing? I’m the one that should be apologizing!” You exclaimed. “This whole time I was trying to get you to laugh, but all I accomplished was making you upset. And then I got mad at you because you didn’t do what I wanted. I was the immature one in this situation!”
He paused.
“You… were trying to get me to laugh?”
You ran a hand through your hair in frustration.
“Me and the whole matra! At first it was for free drinks for a week, but we do genuinely want to make you laugh. You try so hard to make us feel comfortable, so we only wanted to do something for you in return. But…” You sighed as your shoulders dropped. “Who would’ve thought with all the bad jokes you enjoy telling, you don’t like them getting told to you in return.”
“So that’s why you all were telling me so many jokes this past week,” he hummed.
He glanced down as his hand went to his chin in thought. Then after a few moments, he looked back up with a resolute nod.
“Very well. Then for my fellow matra, I shall make more of an effort to laugh,” he announced.
“You can’t do that! We’ll know if you don’t mean it! We’ll be able to tell!!” You cried.
He nodded. “I see. Then I’ll study more jokes to learn what makes them so funny, then I’ll share them with the rest of you.”
Your jaw dropped.
“But you already do that!”
“If that’s the case… I’ll conduct a study with the rest of the matra to research what they find funny, analyze the findings, then fit them into the framework of my sense of humor. That should solve the problem, shouldn’t it?”
“Why would you– Do you even have the time to do all that work!? You shouldn’t be trying that hard just to make us happy! Besides, we–”
He chuckled.
“First, I’m joking.”
You froze.
“You… That’s not…” You turned away with a pout, ears burning. “That was a horrible joke.”
“But you made me laugh, didn’t you?”
You snorted.
“It wasn’t worth the amount of emotional turmoil you put me through. Wait till I let everyone know that the General Mahamatra’s sense of humor is bullying people,” you announced, stomping away, doing your best to ignore the way he was laughing behind you.