DOJOLAND (Elementary)

Chapter 6 - The plot begins to take shape

It was an uphill struggle. Monky wasn't dumb at all but he wasn't motivated in the slightest.

Still, He managed to figure out Monky and, red in the face, Hei started reading out loud a sketchy, romantic-comedy centered on a man who had several girlfriends. It caught Monky's attention and offered to lend the novel to him, as long as he figured out his abc's. It took Monky 6 days to learn to read out loud himself.

"Alright, so I mastered reading, now nothing can stop me from pretending to go to school and go hooky until the Monk tells me to stop going", Monky announced after an exhausted Hei heard him read a particularly explicit paragraph of "the Casanova Manual" that Monky had picked himself.

Hei groaned. He wasn't going to let this monkey get his way all his life, not after he had worked hard to set him on the righteous path.

"You... you don't know what you're missing then...", Hei began, uncomfortable and ashamed at the bait he was about to set.

"Missing? nice try, Hei, but there isn't a single thing in school for me"

"it's... it's super fun, I tell you..."

Monky smirked, this Hei boy was really nice and a little too much of a goody-two-shoes for his own good but he agreed that he had the best intentions. "oh yeah, like what?"

"Th-there's the school festival in the summers!"

"Festival? yeah, we get a festival twice a year at the temple. A ceremony, some offerings and a bunch'a stalls on the temple grounds. We ring a bell at da start o' the year, too"

"Th...", Hei hesitated and grit his fists. "there's the sports event in the fall!"

"huh? what? running and sweating? I do that every week when the monk makes me clean up the fallen leaves, you gotta try harder man! hahaha!"

Hei lowered his head, red all the way to the ears. He mumbled something that ended in "-suits..."

"Hmm? what's that? c'mon, Hei, if you don't speak up, me, your bro, won't be able to hear ya!", Monky snarked cocking his ear toward Hei.

"Girls in swimsuits... girls in yukatas... dating... inter-school sport club events... girls in bloomers.... forbidden relations ... cute teachers... h-hot librarians...", Hei listed Presto Ponche's "things he loved about school life" all while an alarm in his head screamed "This isn't love! this isn't love! it's lewd! get it away from Hei's heart!".

But Monky's broad, teasing smile shrunk with every item listed and then his nostrils began to flare and puff steam.

After listing for several minutes the categories of the adult library he had unwillingly learned, Hei was panting with his hands on the ground, his eyes swirling and his face visibly blinking red. Monky, however, had a firm and determined visage. "As expected of Hei... your wisdom far outpaces your age", Monky began.

"My eyes have been opened to the endless possibilities of the Academic life. To think that my ignorance and bias towards the sacred places of knowledge would have stopped me from living such an experience! o, the humanity!", Monky stated, a soliloquy worthy of the finest drama schools. "Heavens! how could I have been so blind!!", Monky went down on one knee and propped the back of his wrist against his forehead, an anguished expression in his face. "Alas! 'tis not too late! with thine aid and naught but the firmest heart I shall brave this torment! this sacrifice! for the good of the world! for, is it not said that 'the power of one is the power to change a world'? then I so declare, that I shall be that one!", he proclaimed, making a fist toward the setting sun.

"What have I done?", Hei thought in despair as he witnessed Monky go through the elementary textbooks faster than he ate bananas the day after.

The day arrived when Monky had to take the entry test. A tired Hei went to the nearest shrine to stare at the altar and think repeatedly "maybe he won't make it...". He didn't feel it was fair of him to wish for Monky to not pass only because he was a pervert. Still, without asking the gods for anything, he decided to run to the school to see how Monky had done.