"I've been a shinobi, a soldier, since just before my thirteenth birthday. We have an Academy, kind of like the one Clove and Cato went to, to train us before that. So it didn't seem strange to me when Clove told me she'd had the same kind of training. I've always known I'd grow up fighting for my village and my country. I thought," He shakes his head. "I never realized just how different our worlds are. Not until I heard what Katniss said on the journals last month."

Katniss said a lot on the journals. About the place where they grew up, about her own actions... and about Prim. About Prim's death. He knows Prim was sure to hear it, and that telling her he had too is the same as telling her he knows she's dead in her own world. He won't say it out loud, not right away, and Chouji doesn't want to push the matter if it will hurt Prim.

Then there's the fact that Panem betrayed its citizens. Its children. Asuma's last words on the king they ought to be protecting have always been gripped tighter by Shikamaru than by Chouji, but he still believes them. Panem's children all grew up dreading six years of wondering whether they'd be drawn to die against their will, in defense of nothing and for someone's entertainment. It was never a conscious choice, becoming a shinobi. It was the family legacy. But he did have one, and the country never ordered him to die.