Chapter 4

Spring 10, 2003

It's now mid-afternoon. Yuki and Choco are in the house doing their own thing. Yuki is reviewing some paperwork that he received that morning in the mail. Choco was in the living room playing with Uma-Kun while watching cartoons on TV. Things were quiet and peaceful for the moment.

Soon enough, a knock on the door disrupts Yuki's concentration. “Come in!” yelled Yuki.

Lumina opens the door, and slowly walks in carrying a small package behind her back. “It's me, Lumina! Am I interrupting?”

“Of course not.” said Yuki. “What can I do for you?”

Lumina pulls the box from her back, “I brought you a gift. It's chocolate.”

As soon as Choco hears the word “chocolate” come out of Lumina's mouth, she runs up to her, and snatches the box from her hands. “Thanks lady!” said Choco as she runs back into her room.

“Choco! That was really rude!” yelled Yuki. “Come back here right now, and apologize to Lumina!”

Choco is so preoccupied thinking about chocolates, she never heard her father as she runs to her bedroom. She shuts the door behind her, and starts to devour the chocolates without hesitation.

Yuki gets up from his chair, and quickly walks up to Lumina. “I'm so sorry about Choco. I have no idea where she gets her manners from.”

“Oh, it's okay. She's just so cute, how can I ever get mad at her? But. . .” Lumina looks over at the pile of paperwork that is on the table where Yuki was sitting at. “What are you doing?”

Yuki notices Lumina stare at the papers that piled on the table. He sighs as he walks back to them. Lumina follows him, and notices that they were all legal documents. “These are vital records that I requested from my hometown Atland. They just came in this morning. I really wanted to find out who is her mother, and what in the world happened 10 years ago.”

“What did you find out?” asked Lumina.

“Nothing!” sighs Yuki. “I checked every last office. Medical records, school records, church records, nothing comes up! According to what I have here, Choco shouldn't even exist. But yet, here she is.”

“That's really strange. Maybe she wasn't born in Atland. Maybe she was born in the next city over, and she was raised in Atland.”

“Even so, I should have gotten something. But no matter how hard I look, I can't find any trace of Choco, or her mother. Whoever she is, she doesn't want me to know who she is.” Yuki sits on the chair again. The stress that has built up all morning long was giving him a slight headache, and he needed to rest. “I don't get it, I have never had a girlfriend before, let alone a lover. How in the world could a virgin have a kid?” Yuki looks up at Lumina and notices her stare at him awkwardly. “You don't believe be, do you?”

“Well, I would like to. . . But. . .” Lumina and Yuki moved their attention at Choco's bedroom door where they both could hear her munching on Lumina's gourmet chocolates. “I'm sorry, but it's hard to believe you. It's like saying I don't believe I Santa Clause when he's sitting right in front of you.”

“It's fine, I wouldn't believe me either if I was in your shoes.” said Yuki with a depressed look on his face.

Lumina noticed how stressed Yuki looked. She takes a deep breath, she’s been practicing this all day, so she needed to get this right. She pats his shoulder, and says, “you know, raising a child all by yourself must be tough, especially for a single parent. Maybe you should. . . You know, find yourself a nice wife to help you raise her.”

Yuki looked at Lumina awkwardly. “And by a wife, I take it that you are talking about yourself?”

Lumina's cheeks light up. She looked away, and held her blushing cheeks trying to hide her shy look. She knew where she was trying to get at, but she never thought that Yuki would catch on so quickly. “I . . . wasn't trying to suggest myself really. . . But if you think that I would make the best wife, I wouldn't mind taking up that responsibility.”

“Nice try.” said Yuki. “But Choco is my responsibility. I'll have to take care of her myself.”

“Are you sure you can handle it? Raising a child is not something easy to do alone.”

“Come on, she's ten years old already. How hard can it possibly be?” said Yuki full of confidence.

Spring 11, 2003

Yuki is in the middle of feeding his cows when he hears a commotion coming from outside. He puts down the bales of fodder, then walks out the barn to find out what's going on. As soon as he walks out the door, he finds Choco in the pasture chasing all of his chickens while carrying a tree branch.

Yuki freaks out and screams, “CHOCO!!! Are you insane?! Stop chasing my chickens!”

Choco stops as soon as she hears her father's voice. She hides the branch behind her back and asks, “what did I do?”

Yuki rushes up to her, and snatches the tree branch from behind her back. “Choco, you can't chase my chickens! Chickens lay good eggs when they are happy. And chickens are not happy with a kid chasing them around.”

“Oh, I'm sorry.” apologized Choco.

Yuki placed his hand on his head to try to relieve the instant headache Choco gave him. “Choco, why don't you go back home and play there? I'll go play with you later, okay?”

“Ok. . .” sighed Choco.

As Choco returns to the house, Yuki tries to calm the frantic chickens that are still running around the pasture. Some of the chickens have even jumped the fence and ran out of the farm in fear. It takes Yuki about an hour to return all the chickens to the coop and feed them. As soon as he is done with the animals, Yuki goes over to his mushroom shed to check if the fungi were ready to sell. When he twists the knob, he notices that the door was locked.

“Oh, I forgot. I keep this door locked to keep the hobos out. It's a good thing I leave the key inside the house.” Yuki goes back inside the house to get the key to the mushroom shed. Next to the door is a rack of hooks where Yuki keeps the keys. However, the key to the mushroom shed is missing. He hears a flush coming from the bathroom. The door is open, so he checks to see what's going on. He sees Choco inside, but she was not using the bathroom. Yuki thinks that she was just playing with the toilet.

“Choco, I'm missing a set of keys. Have you-” Yuki interrupts himself. As soon as he gets close, he notices Choco dropping the keys that he was looking for in the toilet. The water was still draining when she dropped them. Yuki screams his lungs out, then moves her out of the way trying to get the key before it goes down the drain, but he is too late. “Oh my god, that was the only copy that I had. Choco, why did you do that?”

Choco steps back nervously. “I was just bored. I never see you use that, so I thought it was junk. It's fun to see stuff go down the hole.”

“Stuff?” asked Yuki. “What else did you drop in here?”

Choco points at the pile of empty toilet paper cores. As soon as he realizes what Choco did, he slams his own head against the toilet seat screaming trying to vent his anger. Choco gets scared, so she runs back to her room and closes the door behind her.

Spring 12, 2003

Yuki leaves the cows out in the pasture that morning to graze on the fresh green grass. He wanted to take out the chickens too, but after what happened yesterday, he feels that it would be better if they remain inside for a while. As he filled the crates with chicken feed, he hears an unusually loud “moo” coming from the pasture. He drops the chicken feed on the ground, and runs outside.

As soon as he runs outside, he sees Choco out in the pasture with the rest of the cattle. He almost faints as soon as he saw her pulling on the tail of his best cow Bess. He runs up to Choco and yells, “CHOCO!!! Let go of Bess right now!” She releases Bess, then looks up to see her father's angry frown. “What the heck did you think you were doing?”

“I was hungry.” answered Choco. “I just wanted some milk, but the stupid cow didn't wanna give me any. So I thought that if I pulled it's tail, it would give up and give me some.”

Yuki grunts and says, “You know, you're old enough to make a sandwich on your own. And besides, milk is not a food, it's a drink.”

“Oh!” said Choco.

Yuki rubbed his head in disbelief. “Please, just go home. If you're hungry, I have more than enough food in the kitchen. If you want, I'll bring you some milk later, okay?”

“Ok.” said Choco. Choco then goes back to the house to find herself something to eat.

As soon as Yuki is done with the chores of the farm, he grabs one of the bottles of milk, and brought it back to the house. However as soon as he enters, he drops the bottle on the ground out of shock. He finds Choco sitting on the kitchen counter eating all of the chocolates she found in the cupboard.

“OH NO!!! MY CHOCOLATES!!!” yelled Yuki.

As soon as she heard her father's yell, she hid the chocolate that he had in her hands behind her back and says, “What did I do?”

Yuki walks up to her in fury, nearly stomping on the ground. He grabs the chocolate that she is hiding behind her back and asks, “What do you mean 'what did I do?', what do you call this?”

Choco puts her chocolate covered fingers in her mouth and says, “I'm sorry, but I was hungry. You took too long with the milk.”

“Chocolate is NOT food, it's candy!” yelled Yuki. “By the way, how much chocolate did you eat?”

“All of it,” Choco answers nervously.

“All of it!? I had over 100 chocolate bars!” Yuki checks the open cupboard and finds his stash of chocolates are gone. He screams, and beats his head with his own knuckles. Choco runs back to her room again, and closes the door so that she doesn't watch Yuki beat himself up.

Spring 13, 2003

Early in the morning, Yuki returns to the animals to care for them for the day. This time, he decides to leave all the animals inside the barns and coops. He starts with the chickens, they are pretty calm after what Choco did to them a couple of days earlier. The cows are fine, but Bess is still upset about having her tail pulled by Choco.

The sheep are a different issue. As soon as Yuki walks into the sheep barn, Choco is already inside. She has Yuki's wool shears in her hands cutting the sheep's wool in funny patterns. Yuki screams to the top of his lungs which upsets the sheep. They all run around the barn in shock.

“Oh hey daddy!” said Choco cheerfully. “Look at what I did, ain't they pretty?”

Yuki takes the shears away from Choco's hand. “Choco! These are sheep, not poodles! You can't just cut their hair any way you like! Don't ever touch these shears again! Do you understand me?”

Choco looks at the ground with guilt, and says, “I'm sorry.” She rubs a tear that starts to develop in her eyes. Yuki feels bad about yelling at her. He calms down and puts his hand on her head saying, “Choco, if you want to show off your artistic talent, you have crayons and an art pad in the house. Why not draw me a picture instead?”

She happily nods and runs back into the house. Yuki sighs, and checks the wool that Choco clipped from the sheep. The wool is poorly cut, so it cannot be used or shipped. He has to throw everything away and wait another week until the sheep can be sheared again.

Later that day, Yuki returns home. However, he is not pleased when he finds the condition of his house. All of his walls has drawings made with Choco’s crayons on it. Choco is in the kitchen drawing little rainbows and butterflies on the refrigerator door.

“CHOCO!!! What did you do to my house!” yelled Yuki.

“Oh, daddy, you're home! Whens dinner?”

“Don't change the subject on me!” Yuki points at the closest wall drawing, “What is this?”

“That's a cow grazing over a field of grass over some clouds. Pretty good huh?”

“Yeah, for a kid your age, this is pretty good – Wait a second, why am I praising them!? Choco, why did you draw on my walls!? You have a drawing pad, don't you!?”

“But I ran out of paper.” said Choco showing Yuki the drawing pad.

Yuki takes a few deep breaths trying to control his anger. As soon as he's calm, he says, “Okay, from now on, if you run out of paper, DO NOT DRAW ON MY WALLS! Just let me know, and I'll get you some more paper. Is that clear?” Choco nods. “Fine, now please go to your room.”

Choco goes to her room quietly, Yuki looks at the mess made by Choco, and sighs heavily. He has no other choice but to get his cleaning tools, and clean up the mess. He didn't even ask Choco to help, because he's afraid that she'll only make things worse.

Spring 14, 2003

Nami pays a visit to Yuki's farm in the middle of the day. The door is open, so she let herself in. She finds Yuki sitting in the dining room with his head resting on the table. Nami walks up to him, and taps on his shoulder to see if he is sleeping or awake. Yuki looks up into Nami's blue eyes with a look of stress and exhaustion on his face.

“Are you Okay?” asked Nami.

“I'm so tired.” answered Yuki. “That girl is harder to handle than I've ever imagined. She's supposed to be ten years old, but I swear that she acts like if she was half her age. She has no common sense, she always causes trouble or damage to the farm, and she always wants to play. I don't know how long can I last at this rate.”

Nami smiles and says, “Sounds like you need a little help. I think what you need is a good wife to help you raise Choco. I can name someone who would more than happy to be your wife. Someone with red hair, and blue eyes.”

“Deja vu,” said Yuki. “A young brunette with amber colored eyes said a very similar line like that one just the other day. She even brought me chocolates as an offering, but Choco stole them.”

“Darn! She beat me to the punch!” thought Nami biting her lip in frustration. She then notices that Choco is not in the house, so she asks, “Where is Choco anyway?”

“She told me that she's going to pick some flowers by herself.” answered Yuki.

“Are you sure it's okay to let her do that on her own? You just said she causes trouble to the farm.”

“She's only going to pick flowers.” answers Yuki. He then shrugs and continues, “What kind of harm could she possibly do at this point?”

“Daddy, I'm home!” yelled Choco carrying a bouquet of plants with small white flowers.

Yuki and Nami’s eyes widen. “Uh oh!” yelled Nami as soon as she realizes what Choco brought home with her.

“Choco, you didn't!” Yuki runs to Choco, and inspects the plants that Choco brought with her. Yuki panics and continues, “Oh my god, you did! How could you!?”

Choco takes a few steps back and asks, “What did I do?”

“Those are not flowers, they are strawberry plants that were about to give fruit!”

“Oops! I'm sorry, I didn't know.”

Yuki takes the bouquet from Choco, and places a hand on her shoulder. “Okay, I promise I won't get mad. How many of these did you cut down?”

“All of them.” Choco says nervously. “I wanted to find the best flowers to give you, I didn’t know they were strawberry plants, I’m sorry.”

Yuki screams, and runs out the house to check the condition of his field. Just as Choco said, all of the strawberry plants were cut down. His crop fields are littered with dead plants rejected from Choco’s bouquet. Yuki falls to his knees and says, “I can't believe it. One hundred and eighty eight strawberry plants were destroyed right under my nose, and I didn't even notice it coming. The entire strawberry harvest is completely ruined!”

Nami leaves the house and finds Yuki on his knees trembling with anxiety. She walks up to him, and tries her best to comfort him. “Calm down Yuki. She didn't mean to destroy the harvest. There is still plenty of time before the season ends, so you can grow another harvest. Besides, maybe she did a good thing. After all, you are allergic to-” Yuki does not want to finish hearing Nami out. So he stands up, and starts to leave the farm. “Where are you going?” she asked.

“I'm heading over to the Blue Bar. I seriously need a drink.” answered Yuki.

“But what about Choco? You can't leave her home alone.”

“Babysit her then!” snapped Yuki leaving Choco in Nami's care.

Yuki arrives at the Blue Bar a good ten minutes after leaving the farm. He goes to sit on his usual stool and slams his head against the counter. Muffy quickly notices Yuki, so she goes up to check on him. She could tell by his entrance that he was very stressed.

“Hey there Yuki, how are you?” asked Muffy.

“Please, just kill me.” said Yuki.

Muffy smiles and says, “I bet that Choco is giving you a hard time. You know, if you need a wife to help you raise a child, I'll be more than willing to take the role of a mother figure.”

“Not you too. You're the third person who is taking advantage of the fact that I have a kid living with me now.” said Yuki.

“I'm just saying that you don't have to do this by yourself. This would just be a lot easier if you were married, that's all.”

“Thanks for the advice, but I'll manage somehow.” Muffy is pretty disappointed at Yuki's answer. Seeing that Yuki can barely handle raising Choco all by himself left her feeling confident that he will change his mind eventually.

Suddenly, the telephone rings at the bar. “Hello, this is the Blue Bar. How can I help you?” answers Muffy. She hears an odd sounding voice on the other end of the line requesting to speak to someone who is supposed to be in the bar. She is not familiar with the name, but she places her hand on the phone and yells, “Excuse me everyone! Is there a Ben Dover in the bar? Is there anyone in the bar named Ben Dover?”

Everyone in the bar suddenly laughs out loud. Muffy didn't understand why everyone was laughing at first. Then she thinks about the name requested. After she realizes that the call was a prank, she she puts the phone back on her ear and says, “Excuse me, who the hell is this?” She hears the laughter of a child on the other end of the line. “I know that voice. Choco, is that you?”

Yuki screams his lungs out, and leaves the bar in a hurry. He returns to his home as quickly as he could finding Choco and Nami laughing in the living room. It didn't take long until they notice Yuki in the house steaming angry. Choco points at Nami and says, “She made me do it!”

“I didn't make you do anything!” Yelled Nami. She then looks away embarrassed and continues,“I just gave you the phone number, and dared you. You didn’t have to say yes.”

Seeing Yuki angry, Choco runs to her room and closes the door; the only place where she can be safe at this point. Nami sweats nervously and says, “I just remembered, I have a doctor's appointment. See you later!” She then runs out of the farm in a hurry leaving Yuki all by himself.

Back at the hut, the Witch Princess is rolling on the floor dying from laughter. Feet kicking in the air, fists slamming on the floor, she really is enjoying Yuki's torment. After a while, she finally finishes laughing. She goes over to her crystal ball, and watches Yuki throw himself on his bed trying to relax.

She smiles ans she says, “I never would have thought that my plan could work this well. I almost feel bad for the guy. . . Never mind, no I don't. Ha ha! This is his punishment for trying to fix everything that I worked hard to accomplish. Trust me Yuki, this is not the torment I have planned for you. Just you wait, I will make you suffer even more.”