The Zebra
It had been a nice evening.
Toriko and Sunny had been off on a little journey together, no big adventure, but they'd managed to avoid fighting among themselves long enough to recover some rare seeds from the bottom of the Ravine of Ancient Sands, despite having nobody else along with them to send them back to their corners. On their return, Komatsu (who had had to stay behind due to a staffing change at the hotel that he needed to oversee) had declared the event worthy of a celebration, and had made them dinner.
Of course, with the length of time it took to feed Toriko, and the length of time Sunny tended to take over inspecting his surroundings and his hair and his teeth and his outfit between courses, it was the early hours of the morning by the time they left the Hotel Gourmet and set off walking in the direction of chic little spa hotel that Sunny was staying in.
The small, dark side street they were passing through was quiet at this time, and Sunny's voice seemed far louder in the hush.
"It's not like you have to walk me back," he bitched. "What's gonna happen, somebody'll mug me? Me?"
"It's pretty much on our way," Komatsu told him, quellingly.
"Yeah? Toriko, where're you stayin'?"
"At Komatsu's," Toriko replied thoughtlessly. Komatsu hid his wince, but could hear Sunny gearing up to start asking questions he didn't feel ready for, when thankfully all of their attention was attracted by an unexpected sight as they turned a corner.
On the other side of the street, one of the shop windows was still fully lit. The sign above the window was in shadow and hard to make out, but the window display, whatever wares it showed, was elegantly arranged. Various items stood on small podiums of different heights in amongst draped swathes of plum coloured fabric, all illuminated by tiny spotlights.
Like a moth to an aesthetically pleasing flame, Sunny forgot their conversation and jogged across the street to take a closer look, Toriko ambling along in his wake with a shrug. Komatsu sighed, then glanced habitually up and down the empty street before running after them. As he drew closer, he began to be able to make out some detail of the small items in the display, and the eventual realisation of what he was looking at abruptly explained why Toriko and Sunny were just standing there staring.
It was a sex shop.
Komatsu walked over to stand between his friends and looked up at each of their faces in turn. Toriko looked amused, and perhaps a little confused, which was understandable given that he was looking at something that, in a different context, Komatsu would have assumed to be some kind of hair ornament. Sunny on the other hand was staring fixedly, open mouthed, at the centrepiece of the display. Which was...well, it was...really...he supposed...a...a...
Dildo.
Komatsu felt embarrassed even thinking the word.
"I've never seen one of these places before," Toriko said happily. "Do they always look so swanky?"
"I wouldn't know," Komatsu replied, trying to find something in the window to look at that wouldn't make him feel like he should wash his eyes.
Sunny shook his head vigorously. "Most of 'em are dumps," he announced in tones of authority. "This one's pretty nice, and it looks like they've got some exclusive stuff too. Look at that!" And he pointed at the, ah, the dildo he'd been staring at.
"It's a big rubber dick." Toriko summarised after a few seconds thought. "What's so exclusive about that?"
"Look!" Sunny cried, gesturing energetically at it. "The colour scheme!"
"It's, um, black and white?" Komatsu tried.
"It's stripy," Toriko added.
Sunny sighed in exasperation and pointed to just below the item, where there stood a small photo frame with typed card inside. "Read that," he snapped.
Toriko and Komatsu both craned forward to look at the card, which gave the materials and dimensions of the item in question and also its whimsical name.
The Zebra.
Toriko let out a laugh. "Oh man! He'd hate that. He'd think somebody named it after him!"
He kept laughing, but Sunny narrowed his eyes and fixed Toriko with a serious look. "They did name it after him. Don't you get it? Look again."
Toriko and Komatsu both leaned closer to take a better look, glanced at each other, then turned back to Sunny, matching expressions of confusion on their faces. Sunny looked quite put out.
"You remember how that guy never locks the bathroom door?" he asked Toriko.
"Nope."
"Seriously? When we were teenagers and he spent ages in there? You never went in?"
"Nope."
"So you saw him nude when he was washing Sunny-san?" Komatsu asked.
"No, I wouldn't recognise this version if I'd seen 'im washing, would I. No, I saw him doing something else."
"Wha...aargh!"
"Settle down, Komatsu," Toriko said. "So Sunny, you remembered that image for more than ten years?"
Sunny scowled at him.
"And anyway, he didn't spend that long in the bathroom. Why'd you barge in?"
"Haven't you ever had an emergency?"
Toriko and Komatsu glanced at each other again.
"Nosebleed?" Komatsu guessed.
"Diarrhoea?" Toriko tried.
"Ew! Don't you guys ever have an eyebrow hair come out of place?"
Two shaking heads.
Sunny rolled his eyes, flicked his ponytail back over his shoulder and turned his back on them. A little bell rung above the shop door as he opened it and they heard a cheery female voice greet him in the moment before the door swung shut, ringing the bell once again.
Komatsu and Toriko looked at each other, then back at The Zebra.
"Do you think he's right?" Komatsu asked.
"Could be. It wouldn't be the first time somebody tried something like this."
"Really?"
"Yeah." Toriko absently tapped his finger against the window pane, as if he expected The Zebra to turn and look at him. "A few years ago, somebody tried to sell one of these things they claimed to be based on Coco. Sold a couple of million too, until Coco threatened to sue them and they took them out of the stores."
"He must have been furious," Komatsu said. "Was it really based on him?"
"Nah. It was just a marketing scam thing. I'm pretty sure it didn't look anything like his. It didn't even have the piercing."
"Oh..."
"What do you think that's for?" Toriko asked, pointing at the hair ornament thing.
"Umm..."
"Or that little necklace thing?"
"Those are an...um..."
"What?" Toriko looked over at him, eyebrows raised.
"Nothing."
"No, what?"
"...beads..." Komatsu said very quietly.
Toriko was about to say something more, but Sunny's re-emergence from the shop interrupted him. He was carrying a long gift-wrapped box, bedecked with ribbons and a little cluster of fluffy feathers.
"Rin's birthday gift is taken care of," he announced, hefting the package.
"You didn't..."
"G'night gen'lemen," Sunny called merrily, striding off along the street.
Toriko watched him go with a dumbstruck expression on his face, then shuddered slightly and shook it off. "Let's go, Komatsu," he said and Komatsu nodded.
Without Sunny, the street seemed even quieter, almost remote despite the number of people who must have been all around them, fast asleep in their apartments. In the hush, Komatsu reached up and slipped his hand into Toriko's, glancing up to see his partner smiling warmly at him.
"That was...an interesting experience," Komatsu offered.
"Yeah," Toriko agreed distractedly.
"Do you think Sunny really got...that?"
"I dunno, he can be a little weird. Hey Komatsu? When's your birthday?"
...
I put this down as being in the romance and humour categories, only because there was no option for 'random brain fart experienced during dull meeting'.
Most of my stories would be in that category, if I'm honest.