Habit

Author: Lariat


The little girl kept turn her face the other way in defiance as I kept pushing the spoonful of food against her cheek. "Why you little brat..." I sighed. "Look, I'll show you again." I ate the spoonful of food for the third time. I guess I'm not the best cook, but she had to eat something. I swallowed the food down my throat (to the best of my ability) and said "See? It's good and safe to eat. Now eat it!" I took another spoonful and directed it towards her mouth. She still wouldn't eat it.

"Ugh, why won't you eat it?" Maybe she could actually sense the fact that it tasted horrible in the first place.

"Man, I don't want stupid old porridge!"

I slowly took the spoon away as I recalled that moment. "...That's right. You'd like bananas better than this crap, wouldn't you?" As soon as I said "bananas" the little girl perked up right away. I sighed, "You never change, do you?" I quickly realized my mistake. "I mean... not you, I meant... Ugh." Almost three years with this kid and I still can't get used to it! I just keep comparing them to each other...

I stood up as I walked out of the room, but stopped at the doorway to look back and say, "Don't do anything stupid and run away or something, okay?" The little girl just looked at me in a daze then directed her attention out the window into space.

"Yeah, yeah, I won't. Don't worry about it, sheesh."

...She's doing the same things as last time- no, I mean... the same things as she did. I sighed again, "Nah, I should probably take you with me... I can't leave a kid alone by herself." That, and the possibility that she would end up wrecking the place by the time I would get back, the perpetrator missing from the scene of the crime. Just like her. I went back to pick her up and carry her along with me.
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"Okay, I've been walking along this forest path for a while now, where are the damn banana trees!? I could've sworn I found them around here just yesterday." The little girl I held in my arm started to shuffle around, a determined look on her face. She stuck out her nose and sniffed out to the air.

"Uh... what're you doing?"

"Well we obviously ran out of food. And the minute we got into this forest I smelled and abundance of banana trees! So I'm sniffing them out!"

"If only you could focus that kind of energy on actual serious things..."

The little girl found what she was looking for and pointed to the direction of her discovery. I sighed, "Just like always..." Wait, no- damn it. If I still had my other arm, I would slap myself. I followed the direction to where the little girl was pointing.

Sure enough, we actually found some banana trees thanks to her ever so reliable yet strange power of banana detection.

"H-How did you-?"

"Hmph! I'm just good like that! You should have more faith in me!"

"Yeah... Maybe when we hit a food shortage back at headquarters or something."

"What was that!?"

"Ow! Haha, what? I'm just saying..."

"W-What the- Hey! I told you before, didn't I!? Peel it first before you eat it!" I scolded as I peeled the banana for her. She only seemed distressed when the fruit was taken away from, based on the fact that she acted just as happy as when she first had it. "Only caring about the fruit, huh? You never cha-" I slapped myself. Why do I keep doing that!?

I looked down at the little girl happily eating her fruit. The little girl that resembles my lost friend ever so much. That's probably why, isn't it? Because she looks the same, acts the same- she's pretty much the same person, the only difference being the eyes, scar, and age. Because of all that, I keep thinking that it's her, but I know it's not, yet I act just about the same way as I did around her. I guess it's just a habit. A bad habit that I can't break off...

"What's your name, girl?"

"Girl!? I'm not 'girl', I'm-!"

"Fuu~!" The little girl exclaimed, throwing away the finished banana peel.