If you know the reference, you'll know.
In fact, you might laugh (I laughed while writing this)
or you might...burst into song.
Anyway.
Disclaimer: Sorachi Hideaki is brilliant
Note: Running gag number 2 is pancakes.
Note: Sort of a filler chapter, but pretty amusing, so I hope you enjoy.
Eyes of Wolves
- 38 -
.: ELEVEN YEARS AGO :.
"If I hear Ocentisa, Ocentisa one more time, I will break something." Mei whips around and hisses, "I will break your leg."
"It's already broken," he deadpans with inundating tolerance. The painkilling drugs are soporific, and they mollify his usual lack of patience with the carrot-headed Mei. Zenshi is patient with all other things, but Mei he will stamp on and tell her to shut up within a moment's notice.
"Kougi," Mei says, "break his leg for me."
"It's already broken," sighs the canine girl, her fluffy cream-colored tail sweeping the back of her seat. "Besides that, I don't do violence."
"Yeah, you're the fluffy kind, I know." Mei rolls her eyes.
"Are you insinuating that I'm a fluff, or that I'm literally fluffy?" Kougi asks. "Because I am literally fluffy."
"You two give me a headache," Zenshi openly complains. He rocks between ignoring the two girls to wondering why they are even there.
"The drugs have done a number on him," Mei explains with mock seriousness. She turns and asks him how his alcohol tolerance is. She expects no answer, but he simply smirks and replies:
"High."
Kougi bursts into yips, which is how she laughs, and one of the other roommates in the hospital tries to shush them, to no avail.
"Either you are high as shit or you're serious." Mei flopped on Zenshi's hospital bed, with no regard for his injuries. He doesn't even grimace, because he probably can't feel his legs. "Tell me which."
"I'm always serious."
"You're high," she whispers, eyes widening. For Zenshi, all he sees is a pool of electric orange spilling across his lap; he blinks a few times. Mei squeals and leaps away, grasping Kougi by the shoulders and showering the room with her bewitching laughter. "He's high, ohmigod."
"I think you might be high," Kougi asserts with half a snort.
"Honestly, I think he's not even with us right now. You there, Zen? Hello?" Mei waves her hand in front of her companion's face. "Hey Mr. Blue, how do you do?"
"Kougi," calls Zenshi. "I think that bed is vacant." He gestures to the empty gurney swathed in fresh white sheets beside him.
"I'm not breaking any bones for you, either." Kougi harrumphs and folds her paws. "Though you are a little more talkative than usual. You usually just give me the look."
"What look?" Zenshi chances a half frown.
"He's high," cries Mei, with delighted laughter.
"I'm sorry, could you please quiet down?" asks an octopus-like Amanto splayed ungracefully in his bed, across the room. "Some of us are trying to rest."
"It's noontime, it's lunchtime, there's no time to rest!" Mei exclaims.
"Mei," Kougi pleads, "please shut up."
"When there's food, there's no time for sleep!" Mei begins to hum their school anthem without even realizing that she had just claimed to break whoever dared sing it in front of her.
"Did you slip some of his meds?" asks Kougi incredulously. "Mei, I'm not kidding. You want me to report you?"
"Oh Kougi," laughs Mei, "you'd never betray me."
"You're crazy," Kougi barks, though her expression is friendly.
"Ocentisa, Ocentisa," Zenshi mutters under his breath. Mei whips around and drives her elbow down on his leg, but before she makes contact, Kougi has pounced on her and they're wrestling around the room, and the poor hospitalized students have to suffer amidst all the chaos because this shared room is full of crazy Yato. The only sane one is the Inuisei, and she can do little more than tussle with the orangette in vain.
When Mei is finally drained of all excess energy, she's spread-eagled across the floor in the middle of the room, Kougi kneeling beside her, both of them laughing.
"You have dust bunnies in your hair," laughs the dog-girl.
"I don't care, I'm chopping it off," shrieks the Yato.
"Parents' day is soon, I don't think they'd be happy if you cut it off," Kougi warns.
"I don't care, I don't care, I can't keep it long anymore," sings Mei, rocking to an upright position and leaping to her feet. She steals Zenshi's issued hospital blanket and swirls it around her shoulders extravagantly. "I don't care, I don't care, let the orange drop to the floor!"
She leans in close to the poor octopus-boy. He's got a humanoid face but strange suckers all along his arms and legs — all eight of them — and a nervous lip-biting tic.
"I don't care," Mei shouts, "what they're going to say."
"Are you sure about that?" Zenshi halfheartedly calls from across the way.
"Just let them get angry," Mei exclaims.
"You're crazy," Kougi repeats, laughing.
Mei whips around, the white cape fluttering behind her with grandiose exaggeration. The octo-boy shrinks back, as do the rest of the patients as she rounds the room. Dramatically, she throws her long, coral hair over her shoulder, and it swishes powerfully behind her.
She throws defiant glares at any who protest.
"Their words never bothered me anyway."
.: AUGUST, PRESENT :.
The threshold of sleep was often elusive for him, but that night, he found that he could not determine when or how he fell asleep. In fact, he awoke beside the windowsill, laying on his side with one arm crushed beneath his torso, partially numb. It was as if he'd been sitting in an upright position, and someone had tilted him over so that he could rest with more comfort.
He wasn't all that surprised to find that someone had entered and draped the futon blanket over him. In doing so, a faint tobacco odor trailed behind, and he was rather miffed that he no longer reacted as much when Tsukuyo entered and exited.
Pushing himself off the floor, Zenshi groggily checked the time in the little flat clock hung on the wall. It was nearly 8 o'clock, but the sun was not as potent that day. He was grateful that his window pointed west, so that the sun had not been beating down on him as he slept.
A knock at the door alerted him to a new presence. Again, he was unsettled that his sensory skills had dulled considerably.
"Hey," came Seita's voice, quietly. "You awake?"
"Come on in," Zenshi told him. Seita threw open the door a little too vigorously, and the sliding panels clattered ominously.
"Um," said the boy.
"Um," repeated Zenshi dryly.
"You wanna have some pancakes?" the boy asked, before hesitating. "It doesn't have to be a pancake."
Zenshi got to his feet, straightening the clothes he'd fallen asleep in, and running a hand through his hair. He guessed that he looked like a mess, but that wasn't a big deal.
"Pancakes sound fine," he assured the boy, who beamed.
As they descended into the front parlor, Tsukuyo's audible, incredibly amused snort made Zenshi hesitate. Hinowa had prepared tea, jam, toast, and pancakes because Seita requested. When she swiveled around in her chair, a grin split from ear to ear, and she couldn't hold back a delighted laugh.
Zenshi browsed their expressions apprehensively.
"Yer hair," Tsukuyo managed, taking a slow drag on her pipe to conceal her laughter.
"Seita," Zenshi deadpanned, "is there something I need to know?"
The mousy little boy giggled nervously behind his hands. Zenshi's hair was, in fact, lopsidedly spiked on one side, and he looked so bedraggled that when he sighed loudly, everyone burst into fits of laughter.
"You have worse bed head than I do!" Seita exclaimed, barely in control of his hysteria.
"No, I don't think so," Hinowa admonished. "I still think you're the messiest. You should see Seita when he oversleeps."
The former top courtesan of Yoshiwara shared a comical glance with Tsukuyo and gestured for Zenshi to sit.
"I think," Zenshi announced in his low, wearisome tone, "I'll be taking all of those pancakes. None for you, Seita."
And the look of horror that so mawkishly flashed across the boy's eyes was funnier than all of Zenshi's bad hair days combined.
.: FIVE YEARS AGO :.
"This is disgusting," Tabs whispers. Nonetheless, Abuto slides a cup of green slush over to the whimpering boy.
"It's not that bad, kid," the vice-captain mediates. "It's just celery, spinach, and cucumbers thrown into a smoothie."
"That's no smoothie I've ever seen," Tabs mutters.
"It's good for you."
"It's gonna kill me."
"You're deficient in vitamins, and you almost didn't pass the last evaluation." Abuto flips through a few of Tabs's health documents, with Mei and Zenshi very casually peeking over his shoulders. "See here? Your vitamin A levels are low. You need to have sufficient, healthy levels of vitamin A where we're going next."
"Why?" Tabs sees no need for vitamin A, which he probably doesn't need because Yato don't tend to get cancer or eye problems, for which said vitamin is a good supplement for prevention.
"You just do," Abuto states curtly. "Your friends Mei and Zen over here passed with flying colors, unlike yourself."
"Mei is probably popping crazy supplement pills and the lieutenant is superman," Tabs protests.
"Superman?" splutters Mei. "He's a freaking tea addict."
"Peach tea," Abuto and Tabs add in unison.
"All those antioxidants or whatever," Mei continues.
The lieutenant casts his aide a dubious look, because what does that really have to do with Tabs nearly failing his medical examination?
"Lieutenant," Tabs addresses quietly, "if I pay you in twenty sticky rice cakes will you drink this for me?"
"He already drank his," Abuto informs them all, "and besides that, no bribing."
"I can't believe you drank this," Tabs whispers.
"He's superman," Mei boasts, as if proud of the fact that Zenshi can down all varieties of nutritious sludge with ease. "He can disintegrate celery with his eyes alone."
Abuto chuckles, shaking his head. "I remember when you two were vitamin deficient."
Tabs peers up at them, and finds that his crewmate and his superior both have horrified expressions on their faces. Well, Mei is clearly mortified, and Zenshi has gone to his dangerously silent rejection of the topic.
"Could it be…you two had to drink this too?" He's delighted, and plucks at the buttons on his sleeve excitedly.
"It was a few months after you guys had your first med exams," Abuto recalls. "This one," he says, jerking a thumb at Mei, "had to be force-fed. And this one —" a nod towards the stoic, ebony-haired lieutenant "— swallowed everything whole as if his life depended on it."
"Superman," reiterates Mei forcefully.
"Just drink it, Tabs," Zenshi tells the other Yato flatly.
"Well," says the man, sucking in a breath sharply, "I guess if the lieutenant says I should, then I will. And order's an order."
Abuto throws his hands up incredulously. "And ya won't listen to your vice-captain? Boy, do you need to listen to yourself!"
Tabs offers Abuto such a sweet, innocent grin, half hidden behind the cup of crunchy leaf slush that there is nothing left to offer.
"So, where are we going?"
.: AUGUST, PRESENT :.
The day passed with little excitement — Seita studied, Hinowa hummed as she darned a seemingly endless stream of socks, and Tsukuyo exchanged awkward glances across the table with Zenshi as he tutored the rebellious little boy between them.
"Well," she stated, clearing her throat when noon passed with a few rumbling stomachs. "Hinowa, I'll go buy somethin' for us all in town, then."
No one had asked, but the silence was squashing the blonde's usual composure. The agitation was slight, but evident in the bead of sweat glistening on her forehead. The day did not bring great sunlight, and a good portion of Yoshiwara fell into the walls' shadows anyway.
"Take Zenshi with you," Hinowa chirped coolly.
"I'm done with math?" asked Seita, eyes glimmering.
"Yes, for now," Hinowa agreed. "You'll stay here and do your summer journal, though."
"But I've kept up with it! I wrote about Jiraia and the fires, and then I wrote about Suzuran and the Shogun and the—"
"I'm sure your teacher will love that, but how about now? You ought to write something about now," Hinowa suggested.
"I wrote about when we met Zen, and I wrote about when Zen took me to the market, and—" An epiphany sparked across his features in the form of raised eyebrows and a quivering grin. "I got it!"
"You did?" Hinowa prompted him to tell, but he shook his head.
"I'll show you later, Mom. But only you." Enthusiastic about doing homework for once, the boy bounded up the stairs to retrieve his journal.
"You two had better leave now, before he changes his mind," hummed Hinowa. "Have a good time."
Zenshi, who had been casually patting his hair down, watched Tsukuyo clear her throat and roll her pipe around with her teeth.
"Fine then. What do ya want us to bring home?"
The look on Hinowa's face was almost terrifying; Zenshi had a flashback to the time his mother very blatantly stated that she dreamt of grandchildren. Tsukuyo, apparently, sensed this, and took a step out of the parlor.
"Just some bread, lettuce, cheese, salami. Maybe tuna. Tartar sauce. I want to make an English tea setting. Cucumbers, little cucumber sandwiches are nice." Smiling sweetly, the woman bid them farewell, and the two cautiously trekked to the elevators, not exactly far away from one another, but making sure they weren't close enough to touch.
"What kinda tea is good fer English tea?" Tsukuyo wondered aloud.
"Earl," Zenshi told her. "Earl Grey."
GREEN SLUSH: inspired by what the author is drinking right now
it really wasn't that bad
but if you asked me to drink more right now
just. no.
VITAMIN A, TABS, VITAMIN A.
and tumblr is going cuckoo on me, so I'm mad.