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Don Quixote, for all of her brashness and extroverted-ness… was not quite a people-person!
In the sense that people largely didn't understand her , and in the same vein she found herself not understanding people either! In serious moments she was hard to get along with; in fun moments she became too intense, driven with the steadfast desire that always brimmed through her valiant blood, that chivalrous knight-fixer within her just aching to break free, similar to the horse that wrestles the leash around its neck, choosing to gallop into the sunset – ah, and she's getting away from herself!
The point is: Don Quixote, in all of her greatness, was not quite a people-person. It excited her, then, when the great Yi Sang sat next to her, posed a question: “Don Quixote, one has found that it is… quite hard to break out of the cocoon…”
“Hoho,” Don Quixote said, laughing brilliantly and slapping her thigh. The rest of the sinners were outside, undoubtedly doing deeds that would make any good knight-fixer squirm with the apprehension of unjust murder, and so she had refused to come along, as to not compromise her morals! Yi Sang, similarly, felt a great deal of disgust from the thought, and had also sought to stay away from the bloody carnage. This left only them and one other person, the good lady Ishmael, to stay on the steed of Mephi! “My good sire, Yi Sang!”
Yi Sang looked particularly startled by her loudness. She did not understand quite why, for she was always loud, and found it more difficult to be quiet. “Thou mustn't speak in such metaphors! Say exactly what thou means, and thou must say it with thy chest!”
Yi Sang looked as if he wanted to shrink into a ball, similar to one of those pillbugs. “Erm,” he said, awkwardly, hands still on his lap, and then suddenly moving, fingers going to pick at skin between fingernails – wasn't he awfully pale? Did he get enough sun?! “Well, what – what one wanted to know, was… er… how does Don Quixote… how is it that you are able to say what you mean, so clearly and without hesitation? I find myself questioning a-many words that I say daily… and, once the words have left my mouth, like the rushing water of a stream, I feel the need to construct a dam against my mouth…”
“Ah, ah,” Don Quixote said, and then sneezed very loudly. “Excuse you,” Yi Sang said, nodding politely. “Yes, you are asking the great knight Don Quixote on whereforth she has gained such thick and lively confidence in her words! Well, sire, you ought to have led with such things in the first place! Now, listen well, for I shall impart such devastating knowledge, surely you will be a changed man once I am finished relaying it!”
Yi Sang, who had sat a bit away from her on reflex, now looked at her with slightly wider eyes of abject fascination and worthy reverence. He leaned closer. “Yes, yes?”
“ It may not happen in a day !” She shouted. Ishmael shot her a look of fury. She did not quiet. “But, Yi Sang, the one thing you must do is begin! A journey towards the self fulfillment is always starting from the very beginning – when Adam and Eve became the first sinners, when the Devil became the first fallen angel – everything happens in firsts! So, my dearest Yi Sang – there is only one solution to your blight! You must throw away your apprehensions!
Simply think to yourself: what is the worst that can happen, if I say so and so? Then, once you begin to say this, you will find that absolutely nothing beyond a light verbal abuse will occur, and even then we have suffered literal death at the hands of the unjust criminals and fiends we challenge!”
Yi Sang looked both unimpressed and reignited at the same time.
“So!” At once, Don Quixote realized she said nothing at all, and during her rant she had made to stand while banging her lance on the ground to make a point. “Yes,” she said, smiling gracefully. “Indeed.”
“Indeed,” Yi Sang said. “You are truly wise, Don Quixote.”
“I am well aware, my dearest Yi Sang,” she said, laughing; “I am well aware!”
At this time, the rest of the sinners began to flood in, looking bloody and disheveled. Heathcliff and Ryoshu in particular shot all three of the bus-goers dirty glares, likely for not bothering to go and help – Don Quixote felt not an inch of shame, and instead thought herself mightier than the other ruffians who insisted on mindless slaughter when an agreement with words could be brought about! Discluding the good Manager, of course – they, nervous as ever, nodded once at the bus before sitting down, fidgeting, and Don Quixote felt a pang of guilt, only for a second.
Yi Sang, however, looked lost in thought. He stared at the ceiling, eyes glossy and not-all-there, and at once Don Quixote deemed him temporarily invalid, and instead started to talk to Sinclair, who came to sit next to the both of them. Sinclair indulged her in a quick conversation about the advantages and disadvantages of different types of ice cream while he wiped away the blood covering the bottom strands of his hair with a towel.
“My favorite ice cream,” Hong Lu said, butting into their conversation without a second thought, “is,” and then proceeded to say something very, very fancy and very, very rich. Don Quixote nodded twice, emphasizing the movement of her nose, to convey the notion that she hadn't wanted him to interject at all. Then Rodion approached: “ooh, ooh, I like those ice cream sandwiches!” Even Heathcliff, who found conversations like this ultimately annoying, chimed in: “I like frozen yogurt.”
Oh, but this sent Sinclair into quite the tizzy: “Frozen yogurt,” he said, with slight hesitation in his voice, for he knew he was about to come off as argumentative, “is barely an ice cream, Herr Heathcliff…”
Oh, but this sent sir Heathcliff into quite the tizzy: “Eh?! Who the hell do you think you're talking to, bloke? I'll smash yer face in!”
Which made Sinclair double down : “no need to get violent,” he said, on the assumption that Heathcliff would not get violent, “I'm just saying it how it is…”
Then, Yi Sang, from nowhere, to deliver a powerful blow: Don Quixote's eyes could only sparkle in excitement as he said, “I… like popsicles…” and this in particular made just about everyone involved look at him with a sideward glance, as if to say, popsicles are not an ice cream at all, and usually Yi Sang would shrivel back at such glares but he did a dramatic lifting of his chest, and he quirked his chin up once, and said, “one enjoys the more subtle sweetness of icey popsicles on a summer day.”
“That is hardly an ice cream,” Sinclair said, politely, and at once Don Quixote was very interested in how much Sinclair was concerned on the definition of ice cream – was it a standard growing up for his Kalw town? “It's more ice. You can create it without any – any cream. There is no cream in it.”
“There is cream in some, though~,” Rodion said, tilting her head and licking her lips out of hunger. “Like those, er, ones on a stick.”
“No, they don't,” Sinclair said.
“You can get ice cream on a stick, though, can't you?” Heathcliff said, tone not angry but rather genuinely confused. “With those fuckass shapes of color fixers…”
“Why, when the good Don Quixote was a mere infant,” Don Quixote piped in, because of course she did, “She would skip to the ice cream truck and purchase quite a few ice creams on sticks with the Red Mist on them for the maidens who followed the great future knight around!”
“I like popsicles though,” Yi Sang said quietly, quickly losing the strange confidence he had earlier. Sinclair looked increasingly constipated out of the shame of fighting a losing battle. Yi Sang looked contemplatively out of the window, a sight you might see in dramatic television, and said, “why must we confine the term ice cream to one unchanging definition? If one says, ice cream must contain cream , and another says, ice cream is just a sweet treat , then who is the common man, to tell one that he is wrong or right?”
A butterfly appeared. Yi Sang held out his hand, and it landed on his finger. The sunbeams through the window, combined with the elegance of his current pose, made him seem like a storybook princess. Sinclair looked very constipated. “Nothing is in a word except for the guidelines we enforce unto it,” Yi Sang said, voice calm. “So, in such a world… everything can be ice cream…”
Rodion, Heathcliff, and Hong Lu wisely nodded, as if Yi Sang said something especially powerful. Sinclair, who looked ready to soil his pants, said, “well, no, words just have definitions,” and Don Quixote, who takes the good word of the intellectual Yi Sang as fact most of the time, swatted Sinclair on his thigh for his immediate transgression.
“My good Sinclair,” she said, quieter, “you must acknowledge the good people's opinion, and not confine yourself into a word, just as the good Yi Sang has just said. Now you have become the solid ice cream that must have cream and ice cubes and milk and whatnot, while everyone else can become a popsicle, snowcone, or frozen yogurts. In time you will become wholly unoriginal!”
Sinclair froze, and then looked very contemplative, and then nodded once. “I guess I get it,” he said. “Thanks, Herr Yi Sang.”
Yi Sang looked startled. Don Quixote, suddenly remembering their earlier conversation, provided a thumbs up with great enthusiasm, and Yi Sang’s face turned a pale red from maybe embarrassment and he averted his eyes quickly, but gave a shaky thumbs up back, with the hint of a smile on what little fact Don Quixote could see.
“So,” Heathcliff said, wisely, “would chocolate be ice cream?”
“Absolutely not,” said the entire bus, in tandem, including Yi Sang.