Late at night at the Aoyama Municipal Cemetery, during a Sunday...
Standing before Yahiko Myojin and Sanosuke Sagara was (probably) the reincarnation of Megumi Takani, with her princess cut hairdo and her quiet elegance showcased in a modern context (i.e., with a fancy Tokyoite dress quite unlike the vests and pants that Shizuru "Neechan" Kuwabara wore).
Like with Daiji Matsudaira (Aoshi Shinomori's reincarnation) and Likka Ikumi (Misao Makimachi's reincarnation), the (grieving?) woman was the spirit and image of one Miss Takani from Aizu, a doctor friend of the "Kenshingumi" whom they met a good century ago.
Was this the will of Koenma Daio's "spell" that tightened the red string of fate's grasp on everyone involved in the incident between Makoto Shishio and Kenshin Himura?
Well, actually, there were differences between Megumi and this girl that the two noticed after they got over their initial shock.
One, although she had the same hairdo as her past self, her present self was bonier, taller, and possibly more voluptuous.
Her reincarnated self was more like Natsuki Shinkai (Yutaro Tsukayama's reincarnation), then. Similar, but different in certain aspects.
Also, she was actually quite well-dressed for someone merely visiting a cemetery. Did she perhaps attend a recent wake and hung around until midnight or...?
The familiar face with a stranger's consciousness brushed a bang of hers and tucked it behind her ear.
"Um... Hello. Do I know you two gentlemen?" the woman asked Yahiko and Sanosuke with a raised eyebrow after they just stood there and stared at her, mouths agape.
Of all the places they'd meet her after all this time, it'd just have to be a cemetery. Just their luck.
Youtou Shinnoken
A Rurouni Kenshin/Yuyu Hakusho Crossover Fan Fiction Story by Chester Castañeda
Original Concept by Chad Yang
So Sano and Yahiko somehow found Megumi's alleged reincarnation! How will they and the rest of the Kenshingumi react?
Disclaimer: Yuyu Hakusho is the rightful property of Yoshihiro Togashi, Shueisha, Fuji TV, and Studio Pierrot. Rurouni Kenshin is the rightful property of Nobuhiro Watsuki, Shueisha, Shonen Jump, Viz, Sony Studios, Fuji TV, Studio Gallup, Studio Deen, and ADV. This disclaimer also covers all the other copyrighted material that are far too many to mention here. Don't sue me please, I'm very poor.
Chapter 44: Fourth Avenue Cafe (Part 2)
Inside a cafe on the fourth avenue (literally named the Fourth Avenue Cafe) in the middle of a Monday afternoon...
Doctor Aoi Arai raised a delicate eyebrow at the people before her.
The four individuals wore old-fashioned traditional Japanese clothing, no less. Was there an upcoming festival she wasn't aware of?
After meeting with the strange pair of Yahiko and Sanosuke, she invited them out for coffee sometime in this cafe.
She didn't realize they'd take her up on her offer so soon. Or bring company.
'They didn't have to bring their entire family along with them. Jeez.'
Wait, the better question was: What possessed her to ask strangers... teens, really... that she met in a cemetery out for lunch at the cafe in the first place?
They kind of looked like country bumpkins straight from the boondocks, come to think of it. Except for the girl with bright blue hair. She looked like she belonged in Shibuya or Akiba (Akihabara) instead.
Then again, if they were from the far-flung countryside, that would explain why those two kids didn't look all that fazed at the idea of strolling around a cemetery at night.
There was the spiky-haired kid wearing a loud Hawaiian shirt at the Aoyama Cemetery, but this time wore a more subdued blue haori (jacket) and white with blue trim hakama (pants).
Then there was the guy with even spikier hair that looked twenty to thirty but probably was just a tall college-aged student and Yankee by the way he acted.
He wore an off-white martial artist jacket and pants as well as "sarashi" bandages over his stomach like a gangster wannabe, which was a refreshing change from his even more inappropriate all-leather "gay bar" ensemble that he sported yesterday.
She chuckled at the two in remembrance back at the cemetery she visited the day before. What were their names again? Yoshi and Sasuke, right?
Their companions... a blue-haired girl wearing a pink kimono and a red-haired (perhaps orange-haired) girl wearing a red (or perhaps lavender) haori... also caught the doctor's eye.
Huh. Was that a sword around that other girl's waist? Was she an underage yakuza princess (yeah, right) or was it a prop for cosplay (costume play)?
'They look like the Japanese version of the Village People,' she mused, primly wiping some perspiration from her brow. 'I wonder what they're doing here...'
"Ah! She spotted us! There she is, Kenshin!"
"Well, what do you think? It's her, isn't it?"
"Wow. She really does look like her! It's Megumi! It's Megumi in the flesh!"
'Megumi...?' Aoi thought, bemused. 'Who's that?'
Late at night at the Aoyama Municipal Cemetery, during a Sunday...
The young man in a Hawaiian shirt cleared his throat and broke the ice. "Good evening. Any reason why you're visiting graves in the middle of the night, uh... ma'am?"
"I should ask you two gentlemen the same question," said the female with the black veil and wardrobe (as opposed to the white outfits associated with traditional eastern funerals).
"Aren't you boys playing around a bit too late? Your mommies are going to get really mad at you," she joked, and they laughed. A bit too hard, actually. What she said wasn't that funny.
"We're here to pick up some chicks," blurted out the taller dude before being elbowed by his shorter companion.
"Unusual place for pick-up artists to get a date. You should've tried Shibuya. Or Roppongi. Or Kabukicho," she suggested.
"That's what I told Yahiko-chan, but he's such a prude!" said the lankier spiky-haired dude dressed in leather while giving a noogie to the Hawaiian-shirted spiky-haired kid.
What strange little boys they were. "So how long have you two been going out?" she asked.
"WE AREN'T GOING OUT! WE DON'T SWING THAT WAY!" the two shouted back.
The lady covered her mouth and giggled at the pair. "I was kidding. Still, I wonder what you're doing in this graveyard at this ungodly hour. Is it for Kimodameshi (Test of Courage)?"
Incidentally, Kimodameshi was a game not unlike going to a Haunted House amusement park attraction. It involved pairing up teens that had to go through an obstacle course late at night that was set up to be as scary as possible.
Oftentimes, it was the teachers and students themselves who help out with this game by pretending to be ghosts and whatnot as a sort of field trip activity.
"No, we just like to, uh, hang out in places like this at night."
"Well, I can understand the tall guy, but don't you have classes tomorrow, little boy?" she asked.
"I-I'm older than I look... Hey, stop laughing, Rooster Head!"
"I'm not laughing! Pffft..."
Hmmm. Did these kids sneak into the cemetery like she did? Or maybe they were ghosts?
Aoi smirked. 'As if. Ghosts don't exist. There's no scientific proof for them. When you die, that's it. The only 'ghosts' that remain are the memories of you from those you've left after you've died.'
She then noticed them staring at her while she was deep in thought. "Um..."
"Oh. OH! We were just amazed at how much you look like a friend of ours back in the day," explained the tall, thin man.
"So that's it!" She tapped a finger on her chin.
"Hey, Sano! Aren't you saying too much?"
"She has the right to know, Yahiko-chan!"
"Sano? Yahiko-chan...?" she repeated, and a sense of nostalgia washed over her. As though she'd heard the names before. Were they her past patients?
"I'm Myojin Yahiko. And this here is Sagara Sanosuke," Myojin introduced themselves. "His street name is Zanza."
"Er, okay...?" She raised an eyebrow at that.
That last quip earned Yahiko a headlock. "You make me sound like a little kid with a codename, ya li'l brat. Are you making fun of me?"
The grinning kid in a Hawaiian shirt and jeans choked out, "I dunno what yer talkin' 'bout, Zanza."
"Say my name right!"
"Ow! All right, Sano! Jeez!"
What an unusual pair of naughty boys. Then again, perhaps this should be the kind of weirdoes you'd expect to hang out at a bone yard.
They sure were quite the fearless pair to visit a graveyard at night for fun. Or perhaps they were like her, who realized that the dead and buried couldn't hurt the living save perhaps by exhumation and biohazard from decaying human remains.
She giggled at their antics. "Arai Aoi. Doctor Arai Aoi. M.D. Nice to meet you." She handed them her business card. "Don't hurt yourselves too much with your horseplay."
Sano took a look at the card and then backhanded the shoulder of the coughing and recovering Yahiko. "She's a doctor too! As expected of the Kitsune-Onna (Foxy Lady)!"
Before Myojin could respond, Aoi slapped Sagara right in the face.
Inside a cafe at the fourth avenue, in the middle of the afternoon...
'What was I thinking? Slapping a stranger. That was unbecoming of me,' Doctor Arai thought, her head (and cheeks in particular) feeling warm while scoping out the broad-shouldered, lanky, and boisterous Sano.
His present attire seemed to fit him more than his leather one did and his face seemed somewhat familiar to her even after immediately meeting him in the graveyard.
Could he been have been a lover of hers in a past life?
She covered her mouth with a napkin and laughed at the thought. No way. Straightforward idiots like him were not her type. She dated kind, caring, and intelligent people, not bull-rushing, impetuous morons who wore their hearts on their sleeves.
Besides, she was probably... What? Three to four years older than him? Perhaps mentally, she was practically ten years his senior, even.
She wasn't into dating younger guys. She'd rather date older, more mature individuals instead. 'Why am I even thinking of dating him? Ew. I better get my mind off the gutter.'
Oh, speak of the immature devil, here he was now. "Ah. Sagara-san, was it?"
"Aw, don't be so cold, Kitsu..." He flinched when she raised her hand by reflex. "HEY! What's the big idea?"
"Oops, my bad. I almost did it again."
"Your bad? Excuse you! You don't sound sorry!"
"Well, it's quite rude to call strangers... strange names after meeting them for the first time, Sagara Sanosuke... AKA Zanza."
"Point taken," Sanosuke grunted. "You can call me Sano. Er... Doc."
"D-Doc?!" The nerve of this guy! She had half the mind to slap him... again. She breathed in to relax herself. She was one to talk when it came to doing inappropriate things to strangers, though.
What was it about this guy that rubbed her the wrong way?
"You're definitely a Worcestershire kind of guy. Showy and loud. The kind of guy I hate the most," she said more to herself than to Sanosuke.
"Eh?" Sagara blinked. "What in the seven hells is Usutasha?"
"What did I just say? It's Worcestershire. As in the sauce. Don't they have that in the boondocks or wherever you came from?" asked Aoi. "I guess even Worcestershire men don't even realize they're obnoxious and loud. Like foreigners, almost."
"So much for you complaining about strangers calling strangers strange names, you're the one who's doing that to me right now!" yelped Sano.
"Think of it as revenge for earlier," said Aoi, only for her to stop when she overheard patrons say, "What's going on?" and "Is it a lover's quarrel?" as well as "They kind of look cute together."
"Please excuse my companion," the shorter, redheaded girl who was possibly as tall (more or less) as Yahiko apologized on Sanosuke's behalf. "He's quite excitable. He was actually here to apologize to you for calling you a Foxy Lady."
Myojin, together with a light-blue-haired girl (Was she a cosplayer?) in a pink kimono forced the thin man to bow at Arai with their hands on his nape.
"...Ugh. I'm sorry I said too much yesterday. Will you forgive me, Kitsune-Onna? I mean, uh, Doc?"
With a raised eyebrow, she asked, "Is he doing it on purpose?" to the red-haired young female with a... plunging neckline that revealed too much of her braless chest (young Heisei people nowadays were getting more and more daring for her tastes) and a plaster that covered her left cheek.
"H-He really isn't." The svelte, bony girl bowed herself, revealing her (lack of a) cleavage, and Arai looked elsewhere as she heard her say, "I'm Himura Kenshin, by the way. It's nice to meet you, Arai Aoi-dono."
After they all sat back down at a bigger table while waiting for their orders (Doctor Aoi's treat)...
"I'm... well, Botan. For now," said the other girl in the quartet.
"...'For now'?" Aoi repeated, a dollop of sweat forming at the side of her head. 'Does she have other gang names and aliases like Sagara Sanosuke, AKA Zanza, AKA Sano?'
"Er, never mind that. Ignore what I said!" Botan said before excusing herself and taking a sip of her cup of soda.
'Not one normal person in this group,' Arai concluded. 'They might as well be a Manzai Comedy Troupe or something out of a boy's manga.'
"Hey, Kaoru! Stop being weird!"
"You're being weird! And I'm not Kaoru right now! Shush!"
Aoi had no idea what they were talking about.
"Sooo... did he really bring his entire family from the province just to apologize to me? Seems a bit excessive, Ken-san," Doctor Arai broached to Kenshin without thinking, eliciting gasps from those present. "Huh? Why is everyone quiet?"
Everyone just stared at Aoi, which worried her. "Did I say something wrong?"
"Ken-san..." the four repeated at once, with the girl with dyed, unnaturally sky blue hair doing so with grit teeth and without opening her mouth.
"If you have a problem with the name, I could always call you something else, Ken-san!" insisted Arai.
"F-Family, huh?" With the warmest of smiles, Kenshin said, "I don't know if Yahiko and Sano told you this, but you remind us a lot about a friend of ours back in... the past. She also used to call me Ken-san."
"So I've heard," the doctor said. "What a coincidence, huh?" She smiled back at the girl. "So what's your relationship with these two knuckleheads who regularly traipse into cemeteries like they're playgrounds?"
"They're old friends of mine," Kenshin answered. "From waaay back."
Aoi tapped her finger on her lips, then narrowed her eyes. Her foxy eyes full of mischief.
"So have you and Sano been dating, Ken-san?" she couldn't help but ask, which prompted Botan to do a spit-take at Yahiko's face, spewing a whole mouthful of cola, while Sano himself just about fell off his chair.
With that one statement, the gadfly gathered quite a lot of info about the group. Botan probably had lesbian feelings for Kenshin (Oh my!).
As for Sano and Himura, they probably haven't confessed their feelings for one another either with the "high school crush" way they reacted to her controversial assessment.
Meanwhile, Yahiko was probably aware of this love triangle with the bland, calm, and chuckling way he reacted to the news.
"O-Oro?" blurted out Kenshin while Myojin patted Botan's back to help her recover from her coughing fit.
As for Sanosuke, he shouted, "BWAHAHAHAHA! As expected of her! She's definitely Takani Megumi, and she hasn't changed one bit! She's still up to her old kitsune tricks!"
"Is this Megumi person an ex of yours too? Is that why you couldn't stop talking about her, Sano? I remind you too much of her?" she needled further, which prompted a satisfactory flabbergasted reaction from her target.
Men like Sano were all bluster and arrogance until the shoe was on the other foot.
"D-D-Do you even know what you're saying, woman!?" Sagara yelped and Yahiko looked the opposite way, his shoulders shuddering even as he continued to slap the coughing Botan's back.
"I figured you to be a playboy, but you shouldn't play with the pure feelings of someone as nice and kind as Ken-san. You'll regret breaking the heart of a fine young woman like her!"
"B-But I'm a guy!" and "B-But he's a guy!" were Kenshin and Sanosuke's (and Botan's) respective protests.
"Eh?" said Arai, her almond eyes turning into circular pinpoints of blinking confusion. "Wait, is Ken-san a newhalf?"
"WHAT THE HELL IS A NEWHALF?" asked Sano while Yahiko, who apparently knew what that meant, palmed his face in mirth.
Yahiko laughed out loud, wiping his tears. "Hey, Kenshin. I think Doc's an even more interesting person than Megumi was, no offense to Megumi. Bravo, Doc. Bravo."
Sagara conked Myojin's head while Himura admonished, "Don't be rude to Aoi-dono."
''Aoi-dono'? We're on a first-name basis already, huh?' Doctor Arai thought, but her mouth quirked upwards as she shrugged to herself.
'Well, I guess I'll let it slide. I had the audacity to call her... I mean, him... Ken-san, after all. Even though we just met.'
Uh oh. Presently, she could feel the dagger glares coming from an otherwise smiling Botan, who seemed to be having an debate with herself for some reason. 'Well, this is awkward. Is she suffering from schizophrenia or something?'
Awkward, but familiar. The whole experience filled her with a sense of dj vu, in fact. Did they all meet in a past life or something? 'I should stop buying into this past life nonsense. I'm beginning to sound like my mother.'
She dared to take a peek at Botan after she felt the dyed(?)-haired girl's gaze leave her person, only to chance upon her longingly gazing at Kenshin instead. 'Even a blind person can see what's going on there.'
Dammit. And Kenshin was just her type too. 'I wonder if he's taken. I wonder if Botan had already made her move.'
"Oro? What is it, Me... Aoi-dono?" Himura asked. "Do I have something on my face?"
Aoi cleared her throat. "Oh! Uh, nothing. Nothing."
Sanosuke chimed in, "Yeah! Do you remember anything at all about this situation?"
"Remember...? Of course not. What am I supposed to remember?"
Aoi did a side glance on the effeminate beauty. Amazing. How could this person with features and skin this soft be a man? Aside from the flat chest, she could've sworn that Kenshin had wide hips and a thin waist underneath those heavy clothes.
Then again, Sano probably had just about as thin a waist if he bared his midriff. Ah, who the hell cared about that ruffian anyway? It was Kenshin who was kind of cute. A bishonen (pretty boy) knockout with kind, sad eyes she could imagine losing herself in.
He was an earnest, old-fashioned Japanese man in an era of flashy, shallow men who valued hedonism and greed.
Arai then felt Botan's glare settle on her person once again when the latter realized that the former was staring at Kenshin for a little too long.
Aoi then cleared her throat and said, "I see you're more of a soy sauce kind of a guy, Ken-san, unlike Sano who's the Worcestershire variety."
"Soy sauce...?" Kenshin asked Sano.
Sagara shrugged. "Beats me. She also compared me to foreign condiment sauce for no reason."
Yahiko then explained to the two "country bumpkins", "It's Tokyo slang from the Eighties. If you're a traditional kind of guy who's hardworking and earnest, you're soy sauce, a time-honored Japanese condiment. If you're aggressive, flashy, and act more like a gaijin than a more reserved local, you're Worcestershire, a foreign type of sauce."
"HEY! I'm so not Worces... Worces... THAT! I'm not aggressive, flashy, nor do I act like a fucking foreigner! Take that back, Kitsune-Onna!" shouted Sano, who grabbed hold of the doctor's shoulders.
A blue-faced Aoi could only look away and smirk while Yahiko remarked, "You're kind of proving the Doc's point."
What an idiot.
"I do hope these two didn't creep you out or anything when you met them at the Aoyama Cemetery," Botan said with a plastered smile on her face.
"Oh, no, not at all! I was more afraid that they were security guards or something," reassured Arai. "It was already way past visiting hours, so I kind of just slipped in like they did."
"Where are you from, Aoi-dono?" asked Himura.
"Huh? I'm from Fukushima. I came here to Tokyo to study medicine and I graduated recently. I'm a doctor at the Sanno Hospital, actually."
"The hospital is named after me?" brought up Sano.
"I think they're spelled different," said Aoi. "What a coincidence, right?"
"Speaking of coincidences, she's from Fukushima! That's the modern name for Aizu, Kenshin!" was the strange bit of trivia Myojin shared that made everyone grin knowingly.
"Actually, Aizu is in the Fukushima Prefecture, and its name wasn't phased out or anything. It still exists," Arai corrected, which made Yahiko blush while Sano elbowed his ribs.
"Haha! Our know-it-all got told off!" said Sanosuke.
"Shut up, Rooster Head." Myojin pushed Sagara's arm away.
'What's with these people and their secret code words?' Aoi wondered. 'And they still wouldn't shut up about Megumi.'
She then put two and two together. "Say, I don't want to pry and all, but since I found you two at a cemetery, could it be this friend of yours has already passed away?"
The quartet went silent and looked at each other with knowing glances. Kenshin was about to say something in reply, but Sanosuke beat him to the punch.
"You could say that," the one they called Rooster Head remarked with a scratch of his bushy hair before the younger man (who acted older than him... usually) stomped on his foot and made shushing gestures. "OW! Hey, I'm not exactly lying here!"
"READ THE MOOD, YOU CLUELESS SACK OF STUPID! We're being serious here!" said Yahiko.
Sagara retorted, "I am being serious! We should come clean and tell her about...!"
It was Himura's turn to interject. "...Yes. Megumi-dono is a dear friend of ours and it's a huge coincidence that you look, act, and have the same job as she had. It was such an amazing stroke of luck that we all had to see you for ourselves. I'm sorry for troubling you so much."
The girly man bowed low, and Doctor Arai bowed in return.
"Oh, not at all! I'm sorry for misunderstanding your intent earlier," she insisted. "I don't mind one bit. In fact, I'm kind of honored at how accepting you are of me even though we just met!"
"Eh? What do you mean?" asked Sano.
"I thought you were going to ask me for compensation or something for assaulting you back at the cemetery!" she confessed, which made them all laugh.
"That's silly! I don't have money for a lawyer!" Sanosuke said.
"...Is that the only reason why you're letting me off the hook?" she asked in concern and he didn't answer, laughing it all off.
"Anyway, we simply wanted to meet you in person. Now that that's over with, we don't want to trouble you any further," said Kenshin, his eyes crystal clear in honesty, as far as Aoi could tell. "Thank you for your time, Aoi-dono."
"Hey, Kenshin...!" began Sanosuke, who was about to get up from his seat. However, with a tap of Himura's sheathed sword (Wait, that was just a prop, right?), the taller man sat back down.
"We just wanted to reminisce about old times with a familiar face, even though it belongs to a stranger," added Kenshin.
Arai stared straight at Himura's flat chest, unable to meet his eyes, and brushed her hair back. "Well, we might've been strangers before, but at least we're more like acquaintances now. Right, Ken-san?"
The swordsman wannabe nodded in affirmation. "Of course, Aoi-dono."
"THAT'S RIGHT!" Botan, of all people, said, which took Arai aback. Wasn't she (Botan) the girl who'd been silent for most of the entire conversation?
Regardless, the blue-haired cosplayer(?) said, "We only met today, but you're less of a stranger now than before. I feel like I've known you a lot longer, actually. I hope that doesn't sound too forward of me."
Doctor Arai found herself shaking her head. "Not at all. I feel the same way. You're all interesting people. I'm glad to have met you all, even if it's just during my lunch break."
"Don't be a stranger, okay?" said Botan in a voice that sounded higher pitched than her other "regular" voice. Maybe she was one of those voiceover artists who could change the sound and intonation of their voice at will. For radio, animation, and film.
What a multitalented girl.
Yahiko gave Botan's shoulder an encouraging squeeze before saying to Aoi, "Sorry for imposing on you and your time. You must be very busy after this. We won't bother you anymore."
"Oh no, you're not a bother at all. This was a welcome break for me after a hectic week, believe me," confessed Doctor Aoi. "Although I can't say much about your friend Megumi, I do hope I inspire positive memories of her from you."
"Oh, yes! Of course! You remind us of everything great about that Kitsune-Onna... Oh crap. Sorry 'bout that." Yahiko slapped his face with an open palm and wiped it across from forehead to chin.
Arai giggled. "No worries. I'm kind of sick of being needlessly upset over that silly nickname. It's just a name, after all. I do hope you didn't call your friend Megumi that name constantly, though!"
It worried Aoi how Myojin laughed weakly and avoided eye contact after she said that.
At any rate, the doctor got up, bowed, and bid them adieu. "I wish to see you all again soon! Or maybe not. Never let a doctor tell you that!"
"Oh you," said Kenshin with a chuckle.
She waved goodbye at the four weird individuals, feeling as though she were waving goodbye to her eccentric relatives or something.
However, at the back of her mind, she felt like their hopeful stares and inspiring statements seemed to sweep past her. They weren't looking at her, but instead at the shadow of some person she never met that looked like her.
While she felt a twinge of longing from her meeting with these strangers, the weight of their words and actions felt as heavy as lead.
Such a shame, though. These people seemed like a fun bunch to be around.
After her lunch break, she said goodbye to the traditionally garbed, out-of-town country bumpkins/cosplayers from Akiba and went back to the ol' grind of her hospital work.
If only she could've enjoyed that reprieve for longer than an hour. In particular, she felt torn between apologizing to Botan for indirectly teasing her about Kenshin, but at the same time she hoped she still had a chance with the handsome rogue in Edo Era garments.
Since when did she have such naughty thoughts?
'Maybe they're having a historical reenactment or play later? They should've at least told me about it...' she mused. 'They stood out like sore thumbs. It felt like I was in Akiba or some sort of manga convention.'
She looked in the mirror and was surprised to see her reflection smiling back at her. What an unfamiliar expression.
"How's your patient, Arai-sensei?" Hiroshi Suwabe... a surgeon who was older than Aoi in age but remained her junior in Sanno Hospital because he'd only started working there around two years ago... asked.
He had quite the reputation connected to his name.
Aoi heard stories of Suwabe engaging in the supernatural and the occult, which was hardly the kind of "hobby" that a renowned doctor would partake in.
Wow. A medical doctor that was also a witch doctor. He was like a mental hospital with a doctor named Lunacy or Dementio. Like some sort of Batman villain, in fact.
Then again, as Arai had witnessed, there were all sorts of people in this world.
A witch doctor posing as a real doctor, though? What was the point? Regardless, for a believer in the supernatural, he did excellently enough in modern medicine. He was one of their best surgeons around.
Aoi the Doctor of Internal Medicine answered, "She still the same as always, unfortunately." She sighed after being reminded of her duty.
Back in 1991, around two years ago, an automobile accident happened between a drunk driver and a family of three... a father, a mother, and a daughter... whose family car got run over by a delivery truck on an otherwise uneventful Sunday evening.
The young girl was the only one who survived the whole ordeal, but consequently suffered significant head trauma that had her end up comatose, her stay in the hospital funded mostly by her grandparents and their life savings.
A sad tale made even sadder by the fact that this happened more often than one would believe. In any case, the doctors assigned to take care of the patient had changed hands multiple times, until she finally reached Doctor Arai.
"A little bird told me they're about to pull the plug on the kid. So sad. Is that true?" prodded the nosy Hiroshi. "That scene the family had inside the hospital was so..."
"Snooping as usual, Doctor Suwabe?" berated Doctor Arai. "That's hardly becoming of a professional in our medical field."
"The nurses tend to gab. And who can blame them? That family was making quite the commotion within hospital premises, you know?"
She proceeded to ignore the doctor and go about her work, the incident he alluded to fresh in her mind but pushed at the back of her head since she had many other things to attend to.
"I apologize, you seem to be busy. Good luck with your patient, ma'am!"
The Head of the Intensive Care Unit had assigned Arai this patient because the grandparents were having issues with their medical bills, and the hospital was concerned if their insurance company would still cover the hospital costs of the girl.
The other day, relatives... the other surviving children... of the aged couple aired their concerns about the decreasing monetary resources of the family due to this one child that had been in a coma for two years.
It went about as well as one would expect.
The children and grandchildren were hurt that the old couple were spending all their life savings on this niece or cousin of theirs, which was supposed to be their inheritance from generations past.
The grandparents told them to mind their own business and to stop being greedy. The children rebutted that the old couple were fighting a losing battle.
They were told to think about their own futures and how hard it was for senior citizens to live in poverty without a pension to support them.
Some of them even asked if the couple thought their comatose granddaughter was more important than their other grandchildren.
They were allegedly throwing all their money down the drain over a little girl that should've been euthanized by now.
Someone slapped someone else after hearing that, followed by lots of crying, apologies, and awkward silence afterwards.
Doctor Arai didn't know the full details, but she knew enough.
"How's our little angel?" Doctor Arai asked the nurse. She was handed a clipboard with a sheet. "Thank you."
She stared at the poor girl before her. On life support. There were catheters, tubes, and an "iron lung" attached to her to keep her alive.
To be more specific, the comatose young woman was connected to an oscilloscope that monitored her vital signs, IV (intravenous) fluid hanging on an IV pole, EKG (electrocardiogram) nodes, chest tube, foley catheter, endotracheal tube, nasogastric tube, and a respirator.
The patient almost looked like a puppet on strings, waiting for a puppeteer to make her move.
The comatose state involved "unarousable unresponsiveness", with your eyes closed and no awareness of your surroundings or self. Meanwhile, the vegetative state or being a "vegetable" involved wakefulness without awareness of your environment or self but with reflexive motor activity involved.
She wasn't a vegetable, but more like Rip Van Winkle. Or Snow White. Hell, maybe the fairy tale of Snow White referred to the real-life occurrence of some young woman who was in a coma but eventually awoke from it.
That was how such stories about fairies and strange creatures from beyond always worked, didn't it? There was actually a more mundane and scientific explanation for all that nonsense.
The Little Mermaid tale, which was recently released as a film by Disney, was supposedly based on the repressed unrequited homosexual feelings Han Christian Anderson harbored. Or so she read about in some book or heard from some rumor.
Also, Little Red Riding Hood was allegedly about some demented serial killer cannibal who cross-dressed as Red's grandmother a la Norman Bates from Psycho. Probably.
Regardless, those explanations made more logical sense to her than this concept of the supernatural.
Anyway, speaking of grandmothers, Arai's grandmother from her hometown in Fukushima was herself a superstitious grandma who believed in charms, pendants, and new age kind of stuff as well as took only herbal medicines and barely even went to the doctor.
Not that Aoi was too worried at the time, though, since granny was as strong as a horse and fit as a fiddle. Or she was until grandma got lung cancer from being a chain smoker.
Aoi's father and mother did their best to keep granny alive, believing that they could nurse her back to health by bringing her to various witch doctors and "psychic" surgeons.
Help from hoodlums and scammers like Doctor Suwabe. People who pretended to help her, but as famous stage magician and paranormal debunker James Randi showed, they were nothing more but great pretenders who used sleight of hand and bloody chicken guts to pretend to rip out the cancer from her granny's stomach for the sake of money.
Even way back in 1964, when Randi was still an active magician, illusionist, and escapologist, he'd been offering $1,000 to anyone who could prove the existence of the supernatural. It soon went up to $10,000 and then Lexington Broadcasting wanted to add $90,000 to it so that Randi could do a show called "The $100,000 Psychic Prize".
Yes, she looked that all up from encyclopedias and newspapers.
Even to this day, no one could claim that prize or showcase actual supernatural abilities as seen on television and science fiction B-movies.
Regardless, the Arai Family must've spent countless yen on these con men claiming to be "espers" (literally "Extra Sensory Perception" users or "ESPers", a term coined for people who had supernatural senses, telepathy, and psychic abilities) in order to help make their granny become healthy again.
The term, for some reason, gained more popularity in Japan than from the West where it originated, coined in this sense by Alfred Bester in his 1950 short story "Oddy and Id".
This went on until belatedly, her superstitious family finally consulted a doctor. However, by then, it was too late.
Keeping Granny Arai alive (Aoi's father married into her mother's family instead of the other way around) drained their fortunes even more, especially since her old-fashioned mother and father believed in taking care of the elderly and doing everything they could to keep them alive.
Just like the middle-class senior citizen grandparents of this comatose girl doing everything they could to keep their precious granddaughter alive.
Because of the Arais' immature wish to take care of a senior citizen who was already knocking on Heaven's Door, they went into even more debt and Aoi ended up living a life of poverty that eventually led to the destruction of her family.
They were dangerously naive. Perilously foolish. The Road to Hell was indeed paved with good intentions.
Could Buddha's teachings of achieving Nirvana by letting go of worldly attachment and suffering be of help to Aoi's family back then, or was it just lip service to get devotees to stay quiet and endure in silence?
All throughout their suffering, where was this benevolent "Kami-sama" or "God" who was supposed to protect them as alleged by all of the major monotheistic religions?
Where were the myriad of gods and divinities of the ancient Shinto Religion?
To this day, she wondered what would've happened had her parents not indulged the superstition of her grandmother. Not only would she have lived a longer life; she might not have brought Aoi's family down with her. To a proverbial hell, if not a literal one.
Not that the good doctor hated her granny; she only wished she could've saved both her as well as her mother and father from themselves sooner rather than later.
Aoi rubbed the forehead of the unresponsive child to part her bangs to the side. Pulling the plug was still ultimately the choice of the patient's grandparents, but the doctor would be lying to herself if she believed she didn't have any influence on their decision.
She could give them more choices than wait in agony while their finances were drained in the middle of an economic bubble burst and the recent 1989 stock market crash that left many a pensioner like them out in the cold.
It wasn't as if they could find a job and make back those savings, after all.
Doctor Arai bit her lip and lightly nibbled on her manicured fingernails. Was she really horrible person to think all this? Or was she just being pragmatic?
Was it so horrible for her to suggest they cut their losses and give up instead of having blind faith and ruining their lives in the process?
Before Doctor Aoi knew it, she was already heading for Fourth Avenue Cafe again for some dinner instead of ordering at a family restaurant or something.
To be honest, she'd rather have a beer than coffee. Or anything alcoholic really, just to make her forget that she'd considered telling a couple attempting to save their comatose granddaughter to pull the plug on her to save themselves the trouble and their children's inheritance.
However, someone stopped her cold from heading wherever she was supposed to go, emerging from a dark alleyway with touchy-feely grabby hands that were bandaged.
"DOC!" he called out.
"EEK!" she screamed.
"OW!" he then yelped after she kicked his shin, missing his balls because of her skirted uniform.
"AH! S-Sano...? SORRY! Y-You scared the hell out of me!" she said.
It was the familiar, bushy-haired, red-bandanna-wearing, and tapered-chin face of the slim yet buff (swimmer's build, really) Sanosuke Sagara, the other weirdo from the cemetery.
A Sano that hopped on one foot, to be exact.
Come to think of it, what was he, a bandage spool? What was with all the bandages he had on? Having a sarashi (cloth used to bind breasts and/or torsos of martial artists or yakuza) was one thing, but if he had any more bandages on him, he'd look like a mummy!
He was definitely a Worcestershire kind of man, then. Flashy, obnoxious, and with a bit of a tangy aftertaste.
"Godammit, Kitsune-Onna! Why are you always so violent!? Jeez," he stopped hopping soon after, none the worse for wear, which made the doctor wonder if he reacted to her kick for show. "You haven't changed a bit."
"Kitsu...? Oh jeez, there you go again!" Doctor Aoi said, her arms crossed and her mouth pouting (she guessed, she didn't have a mirror handy to see the look on her face). "You know, it's kind of creepy of you to refer to me to as your late acquaintance or ex-girlfriend or whatever. Please stop."
His eyebrow twitching (probably at the ex-girlfriend jibe), Sanosuke shrugged. "Would you rather I refer to you as Doctor Kitsune-Onna?"
"HELL NO!" she shouted at Sano little too loudly. Again, they were having a failure at communication here. "Her name's Megumi, wasn't it? Well, I'm Doctor Arai and she's Megumi. I'm not her and she's not me, understand?"
"Like I said before, she's also a doctor. Just like you," said Sagara, which made the supposed Foxy Lady palm her face. "What? I'm just sayin'."
"Look, dude," Doctor Arai... AKA Not Megumi... spoke in a manner that she guessed "Megumi" would never do. It worked, and she indeed got Sano's rapt attention. "I've been through quite a lot for the day. I need a break. I'm not who you think I am. I... wish you the best of luck in getting over the death of your ex-girlfriend. I've been there, and it's tough. My sincerest condolences."
She froze when Sanosuke unexpectedly grabbed her by the shoulders with his bandaged and non-bandaged hands.
"Wha..." Doctor Aoi trailed off, her heart caught in her throat. She hadn't been held like this since she and her ex-boyfriend broke up thanks to their long-distance relationship, with her ending up in Minato and him staying in Fukushima (they were six hours away by car and three hours away by train).
"There's no need for condolences, because Megumi isn't dead! Not anymore, at least! You're Megumi! You're her reincarnation, Doc!"
"Okaaay," she said while prying Sano's grabby hands from her shoulders and pushing him away. 'This guy is absolutely bonkers!' she thought.
"Dammit, come here! I have to show you something!"
"Eh? Wait, what? AHH...!"
They then ran like eloping lovers, the neon city lights a blur. 'I really should stop watching those sappy soap operas,' she admonished herself for thinking like a lonely housewife fantasizing about romance novels and chick flicks.
They ended up hand-in-hand in an open space beyond the alleyway full of people and whatnot. At the very least, the man was bringing her into an open crowd instead of an even more hidden area.
However, they eventually arrived at an empty construction site during break time, when the workers were out to dinner, the area filled with trucks, hollow blocks, cinder blocks, bricks, rebar, and half-finished buildings with steel beams jutting out of the ground.
Oh crap.
She tried letting go, but Sanosuke's grip on her hand was pretty firm. And she just ran what seemed like a marathon for her.
Arai considered taking out her pepper spray from her purse, keeping in mind that according to Japanese law, it was legal but using it could result in imprisonment depending on the damage caused to the target.
"Did that little run remind you of anything yet, Kitsune-Onna?" said Sano, who looked as fresh as a daisy while Aoi herself was bent down and panting. "It's like the first time we met!"
She finally slapped his hand away after punching his nose and taking control of her own ragged breathing. She didn't know what to feel about that comment of his, though.
"W-What's the big idea?" she managed to finally squeak out, half-expecting him to confess his love then and there.
"Kenshin wouldn't let me talk to you earlier because he didn't think you should get involved with our group at all, but that's a damn shame because you're one of us, so now that we're alone, I can tell you the whole truth about your identity!" he blurted out in one breath.
Aoi caught only one word out of that run-on sentence. "My true identity? What the...?"
She was about to scream and/or spray Sano's face with mace when he said, "What if I told you you're the reincarnation of a doctor born a century ago? You were also a doctor in your past life!"
She then pressed the pepper spray button hard, but Sano dodged the oleoresin capsicum blast, of all things. Who the hell was this guy?
"Holy shit! Did you just try to spray my eyes with gas, you crazy Kitsune-Onna!?"
"I'M CRAZY? I'm not the creep who pulled me into a dark alley and then made me run all the way into an empty construction site late at night while yammering about past lives, you stalker!"
"Wait, what? NO! This is all a big misunderstanding! I have no intention of being your boyfriend like you wanted earlier!"
"Huh? I didn't want any such thing, you pervert! Whatever, you're not going to make a skin suit out of me, Jame Gumb! Suck on this like a nice Chianti!"
Before the doctor could spray another shot of oleoresin capsicum in Sano's face, he balled up his fist and hit a hollow block with it, pulverizing it into dust.
"FUTAE NO KIWAMI! AAAH!"
After a minute of absolute silence, Sagara asked, "You calmed down now? Good. Let me continue." He palmed Aoi's outstretched hand and forced her to put the mace back into her purse.
He then took a deep breath and squatted, his back against an unfinished wall. "I know you're Kitsune-Onna in a past life because I've met you in the past as well."
Her eyes darting everywhere, Doctor Arai humored the psycho and asked, "How? Through your past life?" while formulating a plan of escape from the... karate master who could pound hollow blocks into dust.
The last thing she wanted was to become the next Girl in Concrete that she watched in the news back in late Eighties.
"Well, no. Not exactly. Because my past life is my present life. I've been Sagara Sanosuke for more than a century. In fact, I'm not a human at all. A living human, at least."
"So you're dead?" she asked with a raised eyebrow.
"I'm a ghost. Or I was, until... Look, long story short, I came back to the dead and everyone from our old gang from way back in the Meiji Era are returning. It was you, me, Kenshin, Jo-chan, and Yahiko. We were the best of friends. There are many other people from back in the day like you who got reincarnated as spittin' images of their past selves!"
"Faascinating. So what now, Casper-san?"
Sanosuke scowled and got up again. "You don't believe me."
"Oh, yes I do, Mister Poltergeist... who's afraid of pepper spray."
"Even ghosts don't like having gas sprayed on their face! Well, that's exactly why I brought you here, anyway! Watch and learn!"
Dammit, he sounded even more of a gullible country bumpkin than her parents and grandmother ever did. The kind that would buy charms at temples or a Ouija board to summon ghosts.
She nodded and smiled while hiding a brick she picked up on the ground from behind her back. "Makes perfect sense to me!" she said, intending bash Sano's head in as soon as he took off his pants.
"Look, I know it sounds crazy, but I really am a solidified ghost and you really are the reincarnation of one of our friends back in the Meiji Era!" Sagara insisted. "There's no reason for me to lie!"
"A deluded person doesn't lie, but that doesn't mean he isn't mistaken," she pointed out, reconsidering her plan of bashing Sano's head in and instead hoping to talk some sense into him. Or at least that was her Plan B.
"I'm not deluded! I'll show you I'm not! I was sent here to battle demons and shit by the Lord of the Dead, which is some pacifier-sucking... Look, you gotta believe me!" he begged.
"In this age where science and technology has advanced so much, to be talking about ghosts and goblins..." trailed off Aoi.
"They exist. It's just that narrow-minded people can't see them," said Sano. "Open your eyes and see the truth! You are Kitsune-Onna, living a new life in the modern age!"
She pressed on. "Ghosts. Gods. Demons. Ogres. Goblins. Elves. Fairies. Hobbits. Et cetera. They're all figments of the overactive imaginations of our superstitious ancestors who knew little to nothing about the world around them. They probably mistook dinosaur fossils for dragons and monsters too."
"Bullshit! I've seen and met firsthand ogres, demons, gods, and spirits right from the afterlife! You better start believing in ghost stories, Doc. You're in one!"
Sanosuke then thrust his hands up into the sky and grunted hard, like a bodybuilder doing a dead lift or one of those characters in children's cartoons preparing to increase his power level.
Or, to be quite honest, like a constipated man.
The winds had picked up for some reason, tousling the hairs of Arai and Sanosuke, seemingly converging right into the palm of the hoodlum-looking karate man's outstretched arm and hand.
'No. NO. Don't even start,' Aoi berated herself. 'This lunatic has nothing to do with these gusts of wind. Nope. Coincidence.'
When everything was said and done, Sanosuke's feet dug deep into the ground as he hefted the weight of something quite huge and heavy.
"Well? Whaddya think? You can't deny the existence of the supernatural now!" said the sweat-drenched "ghost" while hefting... something... from behind him.
"'Well' what?"
"How do you like my huge sword?"
"...I'll sue you for sexual harassment. Among other things."
"DAMMIT, YOU PERVERTED WOMAN! I'm talking about the sword on my shoulders!"
"...What are you talking about?"
Sagara "lugged" around some sort of gigantic plank of wood or something. Or he "mimed" doing so, unless the object in question was completely invisible.
"Are you high?" she said after her spit-take. "I thought it was impossible to smuggle drugs in Japan, but apparently I thought wrong! Or maybe you're just drunk! Or stupid!"
"I'm not high! You of all people shouldn't joke about drugs, you opium-making fox!"
"You are high! So you took opium before getting here!" she concluded.
This didn't make sense to her, though, since opium caused reduced anxiety, pain relief, relaxation, and impaired coordination or alertness. The exact opposite of what was happening to Sano.
'Although he did barely flinch when he pounded that hollow block into dust, as though his pain receptors were dulled.'
"What the hell are you talking about? Are you still denying my power? I just summoned a gigantic horse-chopping sword right in front of you! You saw all that wind and dust! That was all me! I made that happen!" Sanosuke countered.
In all sincerity, the good doctor said to Sano, "If you aren't taking recreational drugs and you still believe you're holding a... giant sword like a character from Dragon Quest, then maybe you should take prescription drugs to deal with your mental disorder. I even know some good neurologists that can help you out."
"I'M NOT CRAZY! OR HIGH! Holy shit, you really can't see the Zanbatou, can you?" Sagara realized. "Why can't you see it? It's huge, hard, and twelve-feet long! Are you blind?"
She palmed her face. "You did not just name your imaginary sword, did you?"
"That's what all swords of this length are called, shut up! And it's so not imaginary!" The spiky-haired man in seeming custom-made karate clothes answered. He then (rather convincingly) wielded his heavy arms while taking care not to "hit" Arai with it.
Like an expert mime.
Like those street performers who could pretend there was a wall in front of them or a huge gust of wind was pushing them back. Or like Michael Jackson doing his signature Moonwalk.
Pretty impressive.
"Strange. Maybe you can't see it because, like Yahiko said, people with lower power levels can't see spiritual objects made by people with higher power levels," was the nonsense Sano spouted to himself to rationalize his madness.
This only made Aoi feel a bigger chill down her spine. 'I gotta get outta here, away from this crazy person!'
"I'LL PROVE THAT IT'S REAL! See that steel beam? I'm gonna slice it in half! No, in quarters! No, I'm going to slice it into thin sheets like daikon! Thinner than square dinner plates!" swore Sanosuke while holding up his "invisible" Zanbatou high up in the air.
"Hiten Mitsurugi Ryu: RYU TSUI SEN...!"
"Eh. EEEH? KEN-SAN!?" she screamed, "What are you...?"
The next day, on a Tuesday...
Doctor Arai still couldn't believe what had happened last night.
Kenshin Himura, Aoi's rescuer, had jumped from out of nowhere (from atop the steel frame of the building that was being constructed, perhaps?) and knocked the drunk Sano out with a flying sword slash to the noggin, the blade in question thankfully sheathed or else she'd be a witness to a crime.
She also couldn't figure out whatever it was that Sanosuke smoked to make him act like a buffoon yesterday. 'The poor thing. Maybe the death of his ex really hit him hard.'
Kenshin claimed that Sano merely drank "bad" rice wine, which was why he was acting so weirdly. Naturally, Arai could smell that that was bullshit from a mile away, since alcoholic drinks didn't spoil but aged like one would expect wine would.
She didn't call Himura out on it since the girly man she thought was a manly girl did save her from an awkward situation. She was petrified before, but she misunderstood Sanosuke's intentions back then.
She would've definitely called the police on Sanosuke for stalking and whatnot had Kenshin not explained the whole situation to her.
"Yes, he really does miss Megumi. More than he admits," confirmed Himura with that helpless girlish smile of his.
'I knew it,' she thought at the time. 'Poor thing is suffering from grief and a broken heart.'
So the worst that would've happened to her was him breaking down and crying on her shoulder about how much he missed Doctor Takani and how much she reminded him of her.
She was kind of worried about Sanosuke getting a concussion after having his head bashed from a heavenly hammer blow (which made her wonder if Kenshin was some sort of acrobat or something to pull a stunt like that), but true to the redhead's word, the sullen Sano was none the worse for wear.
She didn't realize Kenshin was an actual kendo practitioner rather than a pretender who carried around swords but never actually got trained to use them.
He was such a Soy Sauce kind of man. Quiet, calm, and reliable. The Japanese ideal of manliness.
"Past lives, huh?" Aoi said aloud, realizing that Sagara's passive-aggressive, beat-around-the-bush, and anguished declaration of love for Megumi must've manifested itself with convoluted stories of reincarnation and fighting against fate.
So allegedly, Arai was a late 19th century doctor, only to be reborn and become a late 20th century doctor anyway. 'So not much had changed. At least I wasn't reincarnated into a banana slug or something.'
She giggled, catching the attention of the nurses who were working the day shift with her.
"Ooh, what's this about past lives?" one of them asked, a busty girl who recently "graduated" from internship. "I love that kind of talk, Arai-sensei!"
"Oh, it's nothing. I just heard some kook talk to me about meeting him back in the Meiji Era or something," Aoi answered, waving the whole thing off.
"Well, you better watch out for such a guy. Sounds like a pickup line, if you asked me," another nurse said, this one wearing glasses and sporting a strict librarian or teacher air to her.
"But isn't it romantic? Being able to meet with a past lover or something from beyond the grave, from beyond time?" the first nurse swooned. "It's like that kabuki play 'Sakura Hime Azuma Bunsho'!"
"And that's why you get your heart broken so much! You're so gullible!" the librarian-like nurse rolled her eyes and adjusted her glasses.
"Jeez, there isn't a romantic bone in your body! You're going to end up a cat lady in the future!" said the bouncier of the two nurses.
"All right, all right. Back to work, everyone," chided Aoi with a few urgent claps, unable to hide her smile that wouldn't go away.
It was almost kind of romantic, really. If you could take out the part about him fighting demons and being revived by the Lord of the Dead like this was some cheap B-movie or a horror-based boy's manga, then it'd sound like the kind of story you'd hear from, well, girl's manga.
The kind of world she'd want to escape in.
Doctor Arai loved her line of work. Really, she did. However, there were days or even entire weeks when she hated being a doctor.
Perhaps it was burnout. Perhaps it was because entire lives hung in the balance of her quickest of judgments. Either of the two.
She'd met too many a med student who was in a scholarship program like she was that were obviously depressed but couldn't admit they had depression... as in clinical depression... anxiety, and many other health issues because of fear of getting kicked out of medical school.
That certainly was the case for her. There was a stigma for having depression in med school, especially in Japan where the concept of "gaman" or "enduring suffering in silence" existed.
No, she didn't hate her patients. No, she didn't hate her life, despite superstition... a drunken delusion like the one Sagara had yesterday after he had too much to drink over his lost love... arguably destroying her family.
You were supposed to be the one who decided your destiny, not the capriciousness of make-believe gods and divinities. You should never let others dictate your life for you.
Her thoughts were then interrupted by a call from the front desk. "Doctor Arai, there's someone requesting to see you. He doesn't have an appointment, so if you're busy, I'll just tell him to make one."
Aoi had an unexpected visitor at the front desk. One that made the rest of the nurses giddy and giggly. 'Oh boy.'
"Hey, Doc," was the ice breaker that Sanosuke Sagara came up with, wearing his usual ensemble of gangster-level white pants and huge jacket.
"Hey, Sano," she greeted back, hiding her face behind her clipboard lest he saw the smirk on her face. Which he probably did, judging by how he frowned and looked away.
And thus Sano handed to her a bouquet, which in a hospital didn't look all that out of place, except usually these were delivered to patients, not doctors.
"Oh. What's this?" she asked coyly.
Sanosuke cleared his throat and said the obvious. "Flowers."
She sniffed the fragrant bouquet and chuckled. "This doesn't seem like your style."
"It isn't. Bo-chan insisted that I give you some while apologizing."
"Bo-chan...?"
"My nickname for Botan. You know, the girl you met the other day."
"Oh, right. So... how's your head? That was a nasty... fall you had the other day. We could check you for a concussion right here and now."
He waved her off. "Nah, Doc. I'm good. I've gotten my head bashed countless times before."
"That's even more reason to...!" She unthinkingly held his hand and was about to lead him to the X-Ray Room when she stopped cold, embarrassed about how they looked.
'What am I doing?' She could feel the stares of the nurses and staff interns as well as a couple of patients here and there. 'Dammit.'
"Never mind that!" He grabbed her by her arm. "D-Do you forgive me? I swear I didn't mean to lead you down that alley and...!"
With a little "Eep!" she covered his mouth with her hand and shushed him.
"Let's keep that our little secret, shall we? I was in the wrong too. You were acting weird, so I misunderstood your intentions. So fine, your apology is accepted, you stupid Rooster Head."
"Ya sure, Doc?" he asked.
She let out a sigh. "It's water under the bridge. Don't do it again, though. If you weren't a ghost before, you sure as hell will be."
She brought out a syringe from under the drawer to illustrate her point, making Sano become as white as a ghost or a blood-drained corpse.
To Be Continued...
According to Seitokai Yakuindomo, "Worcestershire Men" and "Soy Sauce Men" were old-fashioned Eighties terms that described whether a Japanese man is a traditional and earnest kind of man (Soy Sauce) or more aggressive and happy-go-lucky like a foreigner (Worcestershire).
Think of them as the Showa Era versions of "Carnivore Men" and "Herbivore Men", which are Heisei Era slang terms for introverted and extroverted males.
Arrivederci,
Abdiel