The Misadventures of an Early Morning

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Lesson 2: It's the So-Called Little Things That Become the Most Complex

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Over the course of the last hour, Katsura had successfully dislodged himself from most of the foul-smelling muck by way of the kitchen sink's garbage disposal, a hot shower, and a generous dollop of shampoo. After discarding his filthy kimono (Katsura couldn't quite recall what had become of his customary haori), he had donned an old set of Gintoki's jinbei[1]. The clothes hung stubbornly baggy on Katsura's slim frame like an oversized nightshirt despite all of Gintoki's multi-knotted efforts to the contrary—you need to eat more sugar, Zura; it's good for you.

Now, the two samurai were confronted with the ultimate gauntlet: the final boss battle posed by the numerable gobs of neon-tinted chewing gum stuck fast in Katsura's hair like a silly crown of rubber confetti.

"I heard you can get it out with peanut butter. It's supposed to be relatively painless," Gintoki commented, eyeing the gum clinically and yanking experimentally on a fuchsia-colored wad.

"That's connected, idiot!" Katsura yelped and batted Gintoki's hands away. "And peanut butter?! You want to rub a salty, sticky condiment in my hair?"

"Did you even see yourself an hour ago? The grunge look is all the rage now. All the kids are doing it."

"I told you it was just part of my cosplay as a garbage collector. During this afternoon's mission, I encountered Matsuko-chan's dear cousin, twice removed on her father's side, who had accidentally disposed of the family's prized possession, so I chivalrously offered to retrieve it for them," Katsura recounted, sagely nodding in self-satisfaction with his fabricated monologue.

Gintoki, obviously riveted by the story, merely shoved his fingers deeper into his ear canals, delicate eardrums be damned. The inconvenient phenomenon called wishful thinking painted images of his lonely, abandoned pillow, and Gintoki almost, almost longed for the Zombrows' collective company. Katsura, of course, paid his tribulations absolutely no heed.

"Matsuko-chan's cousin neglected to mention, however, that the precious object in question was a giant Densuke watermelon[2], one which had been sequestered in a dumpster for the past week. I couldn't very well refuse her help, you know, since the family has fallen on hard times ever since the recession, and without the melon to sell at market, they were this close to being forced to withdraw poor Matsuko-chan from school to work on the family melon farm in Hokkaido. But all her life, Matsuko-chan has only wanted to be a doctor, yearning to discover the essential cure for the illness afflicting her fath—"

"Who would believe that in the first place?!" Gintoki interrupted, yanking his fingers out of his ears. "There's no way people would carelessly throw away something so important, much less ask a well-known terrorist for help to get it back!"

"You're not listening, Gintoki," Katsura shook his head in disdain. "I see there's just no place for common decency in this country anymore."

"Shh, or your idiotic decency is going to wake Kagura," Gintoki schooled his voice to a hoarse whisper, smirking.

Katsura unconsciously took the bait.

"That's a lie. Don't underestimate Leader; she could sleep through a typhoon."

". . .exactly my point," Gintoki retorted, reveling in his own punch line. "You're one of the few who could wake her up."

Katsura's eyebrows narrowed, emerging from beneath gum-fringed bangs. When this ordinarily serious expression's only effect was prompting Gintoki to erupt in a fit of giggles (I can't take you seriously like that, Zura!), Katsura finally caved.

"Elizabeth and I were being hotly pursued by an entire squad of Shinsengumi members, and they were no more than a block away from cornering us in a dead-end back alley. We played an impromptu round of jan-ken-pon, and Elizabeth won and took the fire escape to the roof. I lost and hid in the dumpster. End of story."

"You should have just listened to me when I told you to cut it, you know," Gintoki enthused with a condescending shrug. "It's like one giant mop of a bubblegum magnet."

Katsura's expression flatlined.

"And your good-for-nothing perm is one giant mop of a female turnoff."

Gintoki's jaw nearly came unhinged as it plummeted to the floor. Katsura camouflaged the faintest glint of a smug smile behind a robed sleeve and affected cough, not that the ruse fooled Gintoki for a moment. Rather than dignify Katsura's apt statement with a response, however, Gintoki chose to collect his jaw from the floorboards, ignore Katsura completely—those are words straight from your own mouth, Gintoki, and you know it—and brush roughly past the other man, sulking his way to the pantry with Katsura's not-quite laugh chasing his footsteps.

Fortunately, the daunting quest to locate and secure a jar of peanut butter from within the crammed-and-cluttered monstrosity of a pantry proved more than enough distraction for the two samurai. Gintoki was also afforded a pointed visual reminder of why exactly he would never again allow Kagura to do the shopping on her own.

"I could've sworn we had some peanut butter here somewhere," Gintoki mumbled, his voice muffled as he probed blindly through an avalanche of sukonbu and assorted sugary snack foods and emerged empty-handed. "I guess we're fresh out. Maybe Kagura declared yesterday 'Giant PB&J Day' without telling me. Better luck next time, eh, Zura?"

A mental exclamation of, Kyaa, sleep, blessed sleep is in Gin-san's future!, was triggered as Gintoki's eyes alit on a tray of New Year's mochi cakes, which strikingly resembled tiny pillows to a presently one-track mind.

Katsura crinkled his nose in disgust as he peeled his attention away from an opened jar of miso stamped with an expiration date two years previous.

"Well, there's a convenience store down the block. Just go buy some."

Gintoki excavated himself from the pantry and blinked back at Katsura, nonplussed, until the latter's words could sufficiently compute.

"Excuse me?!" he finally spluttered. "Go get it yourself!"

Katsura gasped shortly and stumbled backwards a pace from his kneeling position.

"We've been best friends—nay, comrades all these years, and you're willing to sacrifice me to the Shinsengumi for lack of a jar of peanut butter?" Katsura waxed dramatically poetic before a captivated audience of instant ramen, one hand clasped over his heart. "You wound me so. I have held our friendship in the utmost esteem, but I now realize the error of my ways. I should take my leave before I impose upon you further. Good night and farewell, Sakata-san. May this be our final parting."

Katsura stood and tossed his hair over his shoulder to execute the "Memorable and Heartrending Exit" moveset (a hidden Easter egg that had debuted in Bakiboki Memorial 2: Revenge of the Swordfish), though the smattering of rainbow bubblegum twisting and tangling the silky strands of his hair thoroughly negated any and all of the move's melodramatic potential, making it downright hilarious instead. Still, without advance warning beyond an exaggerated sigh, Gintoki lunged forward to seize a surprised Katsura's arm, used the leverage to heave himself to his feet, and stalked to the entranceway, clumsily yanking his boots on while he hopped to the door and carrying on wildly about useless samurai who should have pursued careers as two-bit street performers and air-headed, pansy-sniffing terrorists with cosplay complexes each and every stumbled step of the way.

Either Katsura brooked one hell of a death wish or had genuinely misconstrued these actions as positive signs, for he possessed the blatant nerve to call, "And, Gintoki, pick up some corn potage Nmaibo while you're out, will you? I used my last stick as a diversion," while waving cheerily from the kitchen door.

In response, Gintoki stormed out without even pausing to shoot mental daggers over his shoulder, boots unbuckled, hair disheveled, and effectively still clad in his pajamas, simply to thwart the nigh-irresistible urge to throttle his oh-so-very-best friend.

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Notes:

1. "jinbei": Traditional, loose-fitting Japanese nightwear or leisure clothes. Gintoki wears something similar as pajamas.

2. "a Densuke watermelon": A highly prized Japanese watermelon with a black rind, only grown in Hokkaido. One melon can sell for anywhere from 25,000 to 650,000 yen ($275 to 7,100).