Chapter 4: A Komeiji of Errors

Friday evening. There truly was no better time during the working week! Sure, being an author meant that Chou was always on the clock, but she preferred walking in the park with a notepad and jotting down ideas, rather than sitting at a desk all-day. She may have been a rabbit, but the warren of cubicles was not her idea of home-sweet-home! The lagomorph stared at the clock in anticipation. Seven-o’-clock; one hour until she was allowed to go home for the weekend! In addition, she was making good progress on her love story! Her weekend was off to an awesome start; nothing could ruin her mood now!

“Hey, Usagi?”

Well… ALMOST nothing.

“Hello, Komeiji,” Chou sighed.

Goro Komeiji. This man had unfairly earned a reputation as the funniest author on the company’s payroll, a legend in the field of anti-humor, a person whose delivery of unfunny and/or nonsense punchlines was so cringey that he HAD to be doing it on-purpose! But Chou saw him for what he really was! While all the editors and the sheep were singing his praises, the bunny knew the truth that everybody else was too blind or too stupid to realize… Goro Komeiji was just REALLY fucking unfunny and a total jackass! …By which she meant he was literally a donkey.

“Hey, hey, Usagi! Listen to this!” Goro cleared his throat. “A rabbit and a cavalier King Charles spaniel walk into a bar…” he paused. “They went on a date together!” Goro could barely get that poor excuse for a punchline past his lips without bursting into rip-roaring laughing.

Chou stared blankly at the donkey, before turning back to her computer to finish up her work on her novel for the day.

“Good one, huh, Usagi?” Goro asked, his desire for affirmation palpable.

“Nuh-uh,” Chou thought. She was the only person in the entire office who had never laughed at a single one of Goro Komeiji’s “jokes”; she wasn’t going to give-in now! Even if it meant he would finally leave her alone, she knew that he didn’t deserve any validation, even if in the form of a fake chuckle or a pity-laugh.

“That… wasn’t a joke,” Chou softly explained. “See, what you did was point out that Fumihito and I are dating. That’s not comedy; that’s an observation.”

Goro rolled his eyes, as if to imply Chou was the one who was acting like a jackass. “I think you missed the part where they walked into a bar?” he stated, matter-of-factly. “Don’t you know about bar jokes?”

“Yeah, but I also know what actually makes them funny,” the bunny muttered under her breath.

“‘Don’t you know about bar jokes?’ Goro, that’s HILARIOUS!” a sheep giggled from across the hall, thinking that Goro was trying to tell a deadpan anti-joke.

“See, this guy gets it,” Goro chuckled, pointing over his shoulder. “You wanna hear another one? I’m sure I’ll getcha this time, for sure!”

All Chou could do was look over her shoulder and blink blankly at the donkey.

“Knock, knock.”

Oh, for fuck’s sake! It was Goro’s infamous “trump card”! The “joke to end all jokes”! Chou (and everybody else in the office, for that matter) had heard it five-billion times before! If the lagomorph responded with “who’s there?” (as one is supposed-to), Goro would simply reply with “Goro Komeiji”. And, sure, it MAY have been funny the first time, if even that, but every consecutive utterance of the same predictable punchline made Chou feel like puking! If she had testicles, they’d have retracted into her stomach by now, due to the cringe!

This was it; Chou knew she had been defeated. Somehow this jackass had backed her into a corner. She didn’t want to acknowledge the joke, but she had to say SOMETHING in response to his set-up! Chou stood up. She leaned her face in close to Goro’s.

“I need the bathroom,” she lied, hopping off in the general direction of Fumihito’s cubicle.

 

“Fumihito,” she whispered, peeping her head around the corner of one of his station’s walls, “I need your help.”

“You need my help, again? Chou, we’re at work,” the dog whispered back, “we can’t get romantic right now. Just wait another hour until we clock-out, ‘k? …Unless you want to hide under my desk and--”

“IT’S NOT ABOUT THAT!” Chou squeaked, before covered her mouth with her paws in embarrassment and returning to her hush-hush tone. “…It’s about Komeiji.”

Fumihito’s face lit up. “Goro?! Oh, man, that guy’s hilarious!”

“No, he’s not.” Chou leaned her body further into Fumihito’s cubicle, until she was wobbling with just her ass and left leg poking out of the three-sided box. “You know that Komeiji’s actually trying to be funny, right?”

“Of-course I do, Chou! Haven’t you heard of anti-humor?”

“It’s not anti-humor! His jokes are just reeeally bad!” Chou whined, her voice barely managing to keep within “whisper”-range.

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“Chou, come on. Nobody’s sense of humor could be that lame, unironically! That’s the joke!”

If not for needing romantic inspiration, the bunny girl would have dumped that mutt right then and there; unfortunately, she just had to live with the fact that she was dating a poor, naïve, little man.

“Oh, there you are Usagi!” a voice called-out as Fumihito’s tail began to wag and Chou’s ears meekly drooped to her cheeks. “Anyway, where was I…? Knock, knock!”

This was it. If she didn’t say “who’s there?”, then Fumihito would! And if Goro kept getting validation, he would NEVER stop telling his painful “jokes”! It was game over, man! GAME OVER!

“Hey, wait a minute,” the donkey brayed, a smile creeping across his face, as he began to take in the position that Chou was in. “I’ve got a better joke!”

“A better joke?!” the spaniel butted-in excitedly, “We’d love to hear it, right, Chou?”

Chou groaned. She had little doubt that the jackass’s next “joke” would only be marginally better than his knock-knock-joke, if even that.

Goro cleared his throat. “Ahem! What’s black and white and covered with lots of Japanese characters?”

…Could it be? Chou MUST have been hearing things! Was it possible that Goro was telling an actual joke, rather than making an observation, and annunciating it like it was a punchline! The rabbit had heard similar jokes before; it was a subversion of expectations and a play on words – the listener would assume the answer to be “a Japanese newspaper”, only for the joker to reply with “a manga”! Sure, it was sorta predictable, but at-least it was, y’know, a real joke?!

…No. There was no way that Goro Komeiji had come-up with that all by himself! He must’ve seen it in a stand-up routine, or read it in a children’s joke book! Or… or… or maybe he would just answer “a Japanese newspaper” after-all? Before Chou could say anything, Fumihito asked the question that would put an end to her misery.

“I don’t know. What’s black and white and covered with lots of Japanese characters?”

Goro could barely contain his laughter, as he spurted out the answer, syllable by syllable as he caught his breath. “Chou’s… pan… ties…”

Chou grabbed the back of her skirt with one hand, pulling it over her underpants – which were adorned with several chibi merchandise mascots – and covered Goro’s mouth with the other. She was done playing nice.

“Goro Komeiji, everybody thinks your jokes are supposed-to be bad. That’s why they’re laughing.”

Goro stared blankly at the bunny. “What? Haven’t you heard a ‘black and white and X all-over’ joke, before? Plus this one was about your panties, and everyone knows panties are hilarious!”

“There’s nothing ‘hilarious’ about my underwear!” Chou snapped.

“Yeah, that’s why it’s comical, Chou,” Fumihito said, “Goro’s joke is so unfunny that it loops back to being funny!”

Goro’s expression shifted to a look of shock. “Y-You think my jokes are supposed-to be unfunny?”

“Yeah, that’s why we like ‘em!”

“Oh. I see,” the donkey frowned, walking away.

Fumihito and Chou exchanged glances.

“Wait, he really wasn’t trying to be so-bad-it’s-good?” the dog asked.

“Told ya so,” Chou smirked, adjusting her skirt and hopping back to her station. “Hey, Komeiji,” she called out, loud enough for everyone to hear. “Why the long face?!”

The entire office burst into tears of laughter! …All except for Goro, whose frown was replaced with a look of confusion.

“Huh,” the jackass interjected, “I don’t get it.”

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