Complicated: Sanosuke's Story
Chapter 1: Katsu (Written to DC Talk, The Matrix OST, and The Beastie Boy's Hello Nasty')
(My writing project for Idaho begins! Since I took down my old Sano story for repairs, I figured I should really write a new, better, and funny one to replace it, lest I become unworthy of my pen name. It may be posted all at once when I get home, depending on how much I've written and whether I waste Stealiana's time by getting her to edit it. Which reminds me, props to my usual list of authors I freely admit are better than me; MindMelda, Stealiana, The one I can't spell but it looks French and has a J, and the other one I can't spell but it's two words and they both start with I and she's the best ever. Yeah. I'm gonna go write now. Enjoy!)
(Sano: Author-san, you forgot the disclaimer!
T3h jack: Oh yeah! I don't own ANYTHING, I'm broke and living off my parents.
Sano: Poor Jack-kunyou work to hard, anata!)
A beautiful day dawned over 19th century Tokyo. Housewives (and a certain former revolutionary assassin) were up early cooking for their husband (or landlord in the case of the Hitokiri), children played in the early morning light, and the famous cherry trees bloomed in springtime perfection.
Neither of this chapter's main characters was awake.
Neither were they awake later, at 9:00, when Kenshin's carefully prepared breakfast was wolfed down by Kaoru and Yahiko.
Or at 10:00, when Megumi nearly beat down Sanosuke's door in frustration.
At noon, Katsuhiro woke up, felt the hangover, and decided he was safer going back to sleep.
It was, then, about 3:00 PM when Sano, whose hangover was, if possible, even worse, was awakened by Katsu's incessant pounding.
"KatsuI know we're old war buddies and best friends, but if you ever wake me up with a hangover like this again I WILL fujita no kiwamae your ass right to our beloved Captain Sagara. Wakarimasu ka?"
"Wakarimasu, Sanosuke, but we need to have a little talk. About my favorite gunpowder merchant. And his broken arm. And the rumor that last night-" "This morning," Interjected Sano.
"Right. This morningwhere was I?" Katsu looked at Sano, who was innocently attempting to de-crust his eyes.
"Oh yes. Anyway, and the rumor that this morning a man with Aku on his jacket broke into his shop and threw him into the wall across the street." Sano was now very interestedly inspecting a lock of his hair that had somehow fallen from the reverse gravity field surrounding his head.
"Sano." He looked up. "Oh, what, Katsu?" Sano even tried his winning innocence smile.
Katsu had known him for FAR to long for THAT to work. "Why did you break his arm, Sano?"
The Zanza sighed. "You know how many times this has happened? He's one of the richest explosive peddlers in Japan, Katsu! Every time we go out drinking until 5 in the morning, you start talking about Captain Sagara, and how his ideals have been perverted, and how it makes you want to just blow it all up, and then you get this really weird look of drunken deviousness in your eyes and wander off claiming Not that I personally would blow anything up!'."
It was Katsu's turn to find something FASCINATING about his rather worn sandals, and how if you wiggle your toes you can see them through the worn-out tabi.
"And in the morning you show up and tell me to come over, and your cabinet is bulging with gunpowder, which you spend the next few days making into bombs until I threaten to tell Kenshin and you whine and moan until I point out that you can always dig them up later, and we both spend a hard and sweaty day burying them all."
Katsu had found a point of great interest right above Sano's left shoulder to stare at.
"And so I decided that this time I wasn't going to let you increase that goddamn vendor's profit margin OR the explosive content of the hills surrounding this city, not to mention reducing the amount of cash you have to lend me so I can go out gambling. Or drinking, which I hereby am swearing off for a month."
He caught sight of Katsu hiding some sniggering behind a hand. "What!?"
"Oh come on, Sano, you'll be drunk within 24 hours or strike me dead where I stand!"
Sanosuke pondered this briefly and nodded. "Right. You wanna be with me when I do? It'll be easier to strike you dead where you stand in case you're wrong."
"Sure, but stop me if I start about blowing stuff up again"
*
As if the day's trials would be stopping there!
"Please please PLEASE tell me you're joking. I mean, do you want me to STARVE!? Get some unhealthy and painful fatal disease?"
"Sumimasen, Sano," Said Kenshin "But it's no joke. Kaoru-dono is making lunch, de gozaru."
"Oh come on, Sanosuke!" The ex-gangster in question was beating a slow rhythm against a post with his forehead. "I've been teaching her! The Miso smells good already! And I've only had to put out seven rice fires this month!"
"Kenshin, it's the 13th of March. I'm glad you managed to get it down to merely one every 2 days, but it's still pathetic. The woman could ruin the Akebeko's cooking just by trying to add salt. She routinely makes YOUR cooking awful merely by attempting to season it, or even carry it to the table. I would rather eat her HAIR, or maybe one of Katsu's bombs."
"Oh no, has your friend been making those again? I heard you two were out late last night, which is usually a bad sign"
Sano sighed deeply. "No, I've headed it off." He decided not to mention the use of physical violence, lest his friend's obviously growing opinion of Sano's maturity be again reduced to a level slightly below Yahiko. "Tired of helping bury those damn thingslet's hope Saitou doesn't come to visit anytime soon, one unlucky flick and he might destroy Tokyo."
Kenshin giggled in an exceptionally girly way. "Hey, umm, Sano" He trailed off.
"Kenshin, whenever you do that I want to snap your cute little neck. Is it possible for you to ask one single question without hesitating or throwing in any polite euphemisms? Just one? Please? For your old pal?"
"Wellwhat's going on withyou know, you and Katsu?" Kenshin eyes shone with a slightly frightening blend of hope and fear.
Which were replaced quickly by pain when Sano smacked him a good one on the back of the head. "Damn, of all the people to ask! I don't have anything like that for Katsu, you redheaded freak, now get your mind out of the gutter. We're just old comrades in arms, and drinking buddies. I value my bachelorhood!"
Kenshin apologized profusely (Which he would have done even if he had COMPLIMENTED Sano, so it didn't mean much), and gave a trademark Rurouni smile (Which he would have done even if shot repeatedly or totally ignored), but deep down this answer made him glad. Because Sano had forgotten to mention the gender of his non-partner. Which meant that maybe, just maybethe gender was not an issue.
The master of Battou-justu began to plot
*
The day was not done with Sagara Sanosuke. Because after spending nearly a quarter of an hour demeaning past instances of Kaoru being allowed to make lunch while this new culinary disaster was crafted, Kaoru refused to allow him to leave until he made full amends. Because Kenshin had somehow managed, after only several years of trying every day, to teach Kaoru to cook. And it was good. And she knew it.
Sanosuke, pinned under the combined weight of a rack of bokkens, Yahiko, and Kaoru, suffered the attentions of Kaoru's shinai until he said he was very sorry that he had made fun of her cooking and how much it had sucked, and how once she had almost burned down the kitchen and how her rice balls were actually less likely to stick together than plain rice from a field, uncooked, and-itai! Fine, the meal was good, can I walk it off now?
Damn that Kenshineven when he does a good deed of this magnitude he manages to annoy me! Oh well, I'll let this one slide, but if he runs off to Kyoto without me again I'm gonna cram my fist so far up his ass- che, it's Megumi! RUN!!!
It was indeed Megumi, in her usual unholy splendor, turning heads as she stalked after Sano like a wolf. "Oh SanoSUKE!"
Kuso! I'm gone! Sano took off at top speed around the next corner, and jacket flapping in the wind, ran as fast as he could-
Directly into a road block managed by Ayame, Suzumi, and Kaoru, who was grinning like an idiot and waving the same shinai responsible for the large welts on the back of Sano's head (under Yahiko's teeth impressions).
"I see where this is going, Jou-chan, and I will NOT, repeat NOT be in any way civil to Megumi no matter how you try to force me. I will under no circumstances voluntarily give her the time of day. And I will refer to her ONLY as Kitsune if you don't let me go RIGHT NOW."
"Oh, playing hard to get?" Kaoru was still grinning stupidly, apparently her cooking success had gone to her head. "You know you want to spend more time with the pretty lady, Sano. And here she comes now! I think she has some work for you, maybe I'll go start on dinner since you liked lunch so much."
She sauntered off, apparently unaffected by the mental daggers Sano was using to carve his initials into her back with his eyes.
"Oh rooster-head! So nice to catch up to you!"
Sano said something that would take this story RIGHT off PG-13.
(Heh, I wrote most of this at 10,000 feet! Isn't technology great!? Anyway, I'm still undecided on Sano's future love interest, as much as I want to turn him over to my all-time favorite red-head I might get some slams for that, and it could be tricky because my need to write angst might pop upbut I don't like Megumi at all, and she's playing a totally different role in this story anyway. I'm just blowing off steam and writing about my favorite character in this story, but please do tell me what you think! I love you Koishii! L8r!)
G10ss fr0 j00!!1111
In case you haven't read enough half-translated manga:
Anata= male form of beloved', or dear'
Wakarimasu ka/Wakarimasu= Understand?/I Understand
Aku= Kanji character for Wicked'
Tabi= Basically, Japanese socks!
Zanza= What Sano used to be called, gangster'
Sumimasen= Sorry
-dono= Miss when used on female
de gozaru= Kenshin's annoying little that it is' phrase
Miso= Vegetable soup. Whadya want, a recipe?
Battou-justu= The uber-fast draw cut that Kenshin got his name for. You know, Battousai
Bokken/shinai= wooden swords
Itai= Ow!
Che= Shit!
Kuso= See che
Kistsune= Fox. Not to hard, eh?
Jou-chan= Sano's special name for Kaoru, literally little-missy'