a/n: Lots of laughs in this chapter.
Something was wrong with Sarutobi.
Well, technically speaking, there were quite a lot of things wrong with her in general. But there was something... off. He was pretty attuned to her moods, so to hear her come in demure without uttering a word, versus a demand to have his head cut on a platter, was pretty out of character.
He'd been brushing his teeth in the locker room's sink when she had gotten back, flushed and red from the bath. He wasn't quite sure the water had been that hot, but...
Automatically he grabbed his makeshift blindfold. "If you need to change, I can - "
"No need," she said, and averted looking at him. "Just... close your eyes."
Huh.
Well, he wasn't going to say no. "Sure."
He heard a rustling of fabric behind him, and a few swishings of things being tied before she said, "All done, now".
The she stomped out of the room, slamming the door with a loud bang.
Ah, so there was that rather violent temper that he was inordinately fond of. He resumed brushing his teeth, lamenting that even the tranquility of an onsen was not enough to keep her vivaciousness at bay.
The door to the next path was already there, and Sarutobi was crossing her arms with a frustrated expression on her face. Par for the course.
"Well, that's one challenge down. Let's keep bypassing these bullshit couple rooms," he said, a bit too cheerful for the situation, but he couldn't help it. So far, he had played his part well enough. If Sarutobi was smart enough to understand the calibre of Oscar-worthy acting that he'd just done, he'd suspect she'd at least applaud his effort.
"Zenzou, someone put us here to set us up."
He blinked. "And why would they do that?"
"I don't know! But they keep forcing us to do things that we shouldn't be doing together in the first place! Doesn't that strike you as suspicious?"
"Who would gain from us being together?" he asked reasonably. "Obviously, neither of us would benefit from it, as I can't stand you, and you can't stand me - "
"I know! It makes absolutely no sense!" she exclaimed, throwing her arms in the air. "It's either a sociology experiment, or they're doing some weird porn shoot, or - "
Then she furrowed her eyebrows. "Do you have friends who keep setting you up with other girls?"
He swallowed.
"No. Definitely not my friends."
Which was a complete lie, actually. A lot of obnoxious people in his life had nastily coughed in his direction whenever he was in the same room with Sarutobi. They had judged correctly that she would never let go of Gintoki, but now that said man was officially off the table, the pointed stares in his direction had gotten a lot worse.
Apart from the dumbass samurai and his concerned wife who unfortunately happened to be close friends with Sarutobi, there was also what seemed like the most random people who were rooting for his lost crusade. Hinowa, of all fucking people, was starting to put two plus two together, having chosen to quietly revoke his VIP card at the local fuglies club one afternoon without advance warning. Now that had felt like an utter betrayal to Zenzou, who had single-handedly been responsible for keeping it in business ever since the Yoshiwara in Flames arc.
He wasn't even free of it on his days off. Asahi, former manager of the Oniwaban, had commented point blank, "Zen-chan, you're such a handsome man. If only I was a bit younger, like darling Ayame - " quickly prompting him to hightail it ASAP once he'd gotten his ninja license stamped and renewed.
Nosy biddies aside, that hadn't been the worst of the matchmakers. Momochi Rappa had phoned him three days after Gintoki's wedding and informed Zenzou, quite pointedly, that if he chose not to have children in the future, the properties from the Hattori clan would have to be passed along to his distant relatives which would "be a shame" as Sarutobi would only then be able to legally inherit his father's old temple school.
"She's the last woman on this earth that I would ever want to have children with!" he yelled into the phone, and had slammed it down so hard that Momochi, with her cold sense of consideration, had thoughtfully ordered him a new one through Amazon shipping. Once he'd opened the package, he had promptly sent it back to her antiquated cave of a home; ninjas were nothing if not petty.
WHY COULDN'T THEY ALL UNDERSTAND?
Just because he held this sad and pathetic fixation on her for years did not actually mean that they were a good fit together. Even if by some divine miracle they walked down the alter, he could already envision the divorce papers delivered on his doorstep a week later from hers truly, as if the occupational risk of death wasn't already a bad enough threat to their already incompatible relationship as colleagues.
And anyways, love as a whole was a bullshit concept. He knew she was far from marriage material - there were things he couldn't downright stand about her, and as she made painfully clear in the last few rooms, there were ten trillion things that she couldn't stand about him.
Sarutobi looked surprised at his answer. "But I mean, you have a lot of money, right? And technically, a really big estate - "
" - That you keep barging into without knocking on the front door!"
"And you're an obnoxious clean freak who always keeps a stocked fridge," she added, frowning. He had stopped buying beer for that very reason, knowing that she would filch a can or two whenever she "stopped by". "Women should be lining up to be hitched to your free ride."
Well, they're not, because somehow in this hellhole of a show, they all know I'm in love with you! Except for you, because you're a dumbass!
But of course, he wouldn't say that out loud.
"It's the hemorrhoids," he said, resigned, and something in her eyes was close to understanding. Thank Marishiten. "I think faced with the prospect of a man using Preparation H for the rest of his life, a woman has to reconsider whether they're willing to settle down with a husband like that."
"Oh." She chewed on her lip. "Yeah, I guess so. But like, you've got it under control, right?"
"Mostly, when you or the other characters in this shitty gag series aren't doing anything to me."
"In any case, you have lots of money, so really if you think about it, it's a fair equivalent exchange."
"But so do you."
"Not like you, mister moneybags."
He sighed and opened the door to the next room. "Anyways, let's get to the next one already."
-x-
This time, she was the first one to reach for the slip of paper. And groaned.
He raised his eyebrow, which was her cue to pass it over.
"Play a game of kick the can for thirty minutes," he read. "Well, that doesn't sound that bad - "
"Someone who clearly knows us is trying to set us up," she insisted. "Who else would suggest for us to play that stupid fucking game from back in school? C'mon, Zenzou - let's narrow it down. I don't think it's Wakikaoru, because that bitch has been trying to get at your defective ass for the last five years - "
"She has?" Now that was a surprise.
"Of course she was, you dumbass. Why do you think she keeps cooing over you when you're injured?"
"I thought she... Nevermind." He'd have to speak to her later - although that would have made sense why Sarutobi couldn't put two plus two together. They were notoriously competitive - when it came to boys, school, and lower-risk missions, they always seemed to clash against each other like oil and water. The only time they seemed to get along was when the stakes were especially high or if the job in question was actually well paid for once.
"Can't be your old man, because he's dead... " Sarutobi's eyebrows were furrowed again. Normally, he'd find it sexy, but right now she was being nothing short of melodramatic. Then she gasped. "Your mother! Do you think it was her?"
"She keeps asking me to go to these omiais where we have to pretend that we're mildly interested in spending the rest of our lives together, but in reality we know that we'll finish our meal and never see each other again. So no, I wouldn't say it was her."
He attended them mostly because it was more trouble than it was worth to ignore her, and risk an angry visit where she would take a train all the way from the village of Shiranui to Edo. The women who accompanied these lunches tended to be daughters or relatives of high-ranking Bakufu officials. Nearly all of them seemed to lack an interest in Shonen Jump, which to him was a dealbreaker. On the very few occasions where he got the oddball who happened to know that, yes, the Himera Ant Arc was probably one of the greatest storylines to come out of Punter x Punter, he would then slowly start to shift the conversation to, "What do you know about hemorrhoids?"
Sarutobi pouted. He absolutely did not find it adorable. "Your mother hasn't even considered me? But I'm a real woman, unlike those high-class, prissy bimbos who can't even tell the difference between the chakra and Nen systems of power."
"Jealous, Sarutobi?"
"Of course not," she snapped, and she flipped her hair with a haughty movement of her hand. "I don't give a damn who you get hitched to. But if that bitch ever gets in the way of our very professional and very cordial relationship where I happen to be the actual boss in disguise, then she's got another thing coming."
He couldn't help laughing, suddenly feeling very self-indulgent. "Of course."
The door had suddenly opened to a... forest. An expansive sky told them it was a relatively sunny day. Tall cedar trees grew everywhere, giving the place an overgrown look.
"Straight out of Naruto's training grounds, if you ask me." Sarutobi said thoughtfully. "It's a really good simulation."
He took out his kunai, and threw it as hard as he could against the sky. It bounced off the ceiling with a clang, and dropped back to the ground with an anticlimatic thud.
"So we can't escape from here," he said, sighing, picking it up and stowing it into his belt. "These tasks seem really random, if you ask me. I can't tell if they're trying to hook us up or teach us some weird lesson that we haven't learned yet."
"It does seem like something Master would do," she agreed.
As they walked further and further into the artificial forest, they could see something glowing in the distance. He squinted and then saw -
"A Pocari can. Of course it would be a fucking Pocari," Zenzou muttered.
Over the past few decades, there was an ongoing debate in the ninja academy as to which type of can was more advantageous for the person who played It. The shorter, stouter coffee cans from Boss were considered most unfair; when filled up halfway with pebbles, they would remain impervious in the face of rain or wind.
Pocari cans, on the other hand, were much lighter. They were inclined to fall over with the lightest breeze, making them a virtual hell for the person who had to defend it from tipping over. Their very last exam in school had been to defend a Pocari can in fifteen minutes, if that had been any indication of how difficult it'd been.
Never mind that he and Sarutobi had passed with flying colors at the time. He wasn't sure that more than a decade later he'd be able to replicate the same feat. Some of his old injuries were starting to act up, even though he technically still held the fastest record for Nin-Nin's pizza delivery service.
"Rock paper scissors - loser gets to be It," Sarutobi said, and he rolled his eyes, pulling out his fist.
She lost - having gone on the offensive first. He'd chosen to play rock to her scissors.
"Any rules or stipulations you want to add to the game?" he asked. It was custom to set a challenge back then.
"No poison," she said. "But otherwise, all's fair in love and war."
He nodded, and then waited for her to give the countdown.
-x-
Unexpectedly, his phone buzzed just as Sarutobi had started to look for him. Staring at it suspiciously, he reluctantly hit the call button, and raised it to his ear.
"Yo, hemorrhoid ninja. Have you landed on third base yet? Gotten any ninja puff-puff action?"
His mood instantly went downhill.
"You set us up in this god forsaken escape room?" Zenzou hissed into his mobile, in the middle of pulling his puppet strings. Standing on a tree, he could see Sarutobi, already tearing his first puppet into strips. "Once I get out of here, I'll be sure to snap up every single copy of Shonen Jump Weekly in this city for as long as you live. See how you like that, you damned permhead!"
"Please! Just think of it as a favor. And honestly? Ever since my wife bought me a subscription for the manga app, it doesn't matter anymore. Granted, sometimes I fuck up and press the wrong button, but these days I finally understand how to flip the pages on my iPhone 5 - "
Zenzou was already on the verge of throwing his very own flagship smartphone into the lake. "I don't give a shit! You and everybody else keeps thinking that she's going to move on - do you seriously think she's the type of woman to take marriage as an obstacle? Watch her claim your children as her own, whenever that day comes!"
"Listen, listen," Gintoki said impatiently. "I think we can all agree that I'm a shithead. If you asked my beautiful, absolutely powerful, and terrifying death courtesan of a wife whether or not I'm a shithead, she would agree and then take you out to dinner. However, you're not a complete shithead. You saved my life twice, so at the very least, you deserve my terrible ex-stalker."
"I didn't ask for this! What makes you think I wanted your leftovers in the first place!"
"Shut up, you annoying hentai protagonist. Your problem is that you'd rather be a martyr because it's easier. You won't put your ass on the line, because admittedly, the day that you actually decide to pursue this terrible woman for real, you'd know your hemorrhoids would perpetually suffer. And you know what? You'd be right, but at least you'd be happy while she stomped on your balls or whatever S&M play gets your jollies off - "
"Please stop projecting your sick fantasies on me, you hypocritical son of a bitch," Zenzou warned. "The last time I saw you at the supermarket, your wife skewered you with kunai at the checkout line because you thought buying five gallons of strawberry milk was a good idea."
"And it was! I'm just ahead of my time," Gintoki protested. "Listen, I'm a man in love. I think you'd have less of a pain in your ass if you consensually got pegged, rather than the other way round - "
At that point, Zenzou hung up, fuming.
That dumbass samurai had no idea what he was talking about. He'd known Sarutobi for at least twice as long as that man had known his own wife, and if there was something consistent about her, it was that she was as obstinate and as stubborn as a mountain boar. Only an act of God and nothing short of a natural disaster could stop her from getting what she wanted. Sure, Gintoki was married. But it would only be a matter of time until she stopped withdrawing from the world and start plotting a way to get him back.
To deny that part of her was to refute who she was. And unlike Sarutobi, he had never been one to live in a bubble of delusion.
He took a deep breath, and tried to think rationally about the situation.
Whoever was in charge of this grotesque misalignment would see after five or even ten more rooms that she wouldn't change her mind. They would finally give up on this silly notion, and then the two of them could go back to the real world where they were just horrible colleagues who ignored each other at every given moment.
No more kissing. No more confessionals. No more baths. No more, period!
Determined to get through this challenge, he tugged viciously on his second puppet and added a few sprinkles of Black Mist on the invisible line, cutting it slack with a kunai. The puppet exploded.
"Hey, you idiot!" Sarutobi shouted. "Are you trying to set this place on fire, or what?"
At this fucking point he would do anything to escape this place. He didn't answer her though, knowing she was goading him into giving up his location. The tree that the puppet had been next to remained unchanged - which was fairly impressive, considering how potent the Iga concoction was.
She was starting to figure out his pattern of diversion, though. Tch. He leapt to another tree, and tried to put more distance between her.
It didn't work, because as terrible as her eyesight was, her sense of hearing was impeccable. The kunai that she threw in his direction was only an inch away from slicing off his ear.
He cursed under his breath.
With another lift of his string, he maneuvered his third dummy to the Pocari can. Finally, Sarutobi turned her back in his direction and sprinted to protect the target.
His phone buzzed again. At this point Zenzou wanted to pick up the damn thing and snap it in half, but the temptation to keep yelling at the permhead was too overwhelming.
"Yes?" he snarled, ready to tear the man into shreds. Instead, a much more pleasant voice came across the line.
"I wanna apologize for my idiotic husband," Tsukuyo said. "He seems ta have the ability ta raise the blood pressure of anyone within twenty feet of him."
Understatement of the century.
His irritation went down by a notch, but not by much, either. "You were the one who told Sarutobi to meet at the statue. Was this your idea or his?"
"Neither, actually," she said, her voice a bit apologetic. "As expected of the leader of the Oniwaban. How did you figure it out?"
"Why else would she come with a book of BDSM? She can fool other people, but not me. You knew that would cause her to come out of her apartment - "
"If ya knew her that well, then don't you think that - "
"No! I don't."
"She missed you," Tsukuyo said quietly. "She looked for you. She went to your estate every week, hopin' you'd show up some day. Looked through every nook and cranny ta see if you'd left behind a clue to where ya might've been."
"She also literally used our group to look for your then-missing husband," he pointed out, refusing to let the guilt stab him even deeper in his chest. "She would do the same thing for you. I'm not special in that regard."
There was a pause, before the courtesan sighed. "My husband was right. The both of ya are as stubborn as a mule. I'm not gonna say what you should or shouldn't do, but lemme just say that in the end, the truth all comes out in the wash. Can't hide it forever, as much as I found out the hard way."
Zenzou genuinely wished that he could believe her. "How do I get out of these rooms?" he asked.
"When the both of ya are honest with each other," she said sadly, and hung up.
He stared at his mobile in disbelief, and then cursed as his coverage went down to zero once more.
Damn the two of them.
What was that supposed to mean?
It told him absolutely nothing. Honesty had gotten Sarutobi nowhere - in fact, it had completely demolished her chances. Honesty was a one-way trip to hell. Honesty was never the best policy, as much as others wanted to preach that sort of platitude.
Honesty could go fuck themselves.
He stuffed his phone in the pocket of his blue coat, frustrated. Then, he took a deep breath. With this new piece of information, knowing that these voyeuristic fucks wanted to see some semblance of a relationship happening between him and her, at least he would be able to brainstorm a new plan.
Plan A: Suppose he confessed his feelings. Sarutobi would scream at him, possibly castrate him. Neither of them would end up escaping this Dada-esque absurdity.
Plan B: Let him keep his feelings to himself. Sarutobi would continue to scream at him, but probably wouldn't do any further bodily harm to him than what he was used to anyway. Neither of them would still be able to escape the room, judging from what his benefactors had just told him.
Both options sucked.
Or, maybe, his mind quipped up most unhelpfully, Plan C: He would confess his feelings, Sarutobi miraculously received a brain transplant in between this room and whatever room he decided to spill his heart in, which would then lead to her somehow reciprocating his feelings, and then they would escape the room for good, and live Happily Ever After.
He pinched the bridge of his nose. That was delusional. More like, "They Lived Unhappily Ever After, and He Lost Half of His Assets in the Process."
Then he saw Sarutobi tearing his third puppet into strips again. He checked his watch and saw that it'd been ten minutes since the start of the game.
Hmmm.
Plan D: Pretend they hooked up, escape the damned escape room, and then go back to how things were?
His mind discarded the thought immediately. Sarutobi was a terrible actress, and he sighed at this inconvenient snag. Pity, for it would have been the most appropriate plan of action where no parties would be injured, emotionally or physically.
He'd have to think of something. Soon. Before something horrible happened.
-x-
The man was playing a game of cat and mouse. She was convinced of it, as she tried to hunt him down. Every time she thought she was closer to capturing him, he'd divert her to another spot. Even though it had been years since they'd graduated from school, he still had the advantage over her.
An apt metaphor for their relationship, now that she thought about it.
She was sorely glad this challenge didn't involve... kissing, or... bathing. Or telling each other things that probably should have been kept to themselves. This challenge at least ensured keeping a physical distance between the two, which she desperately needed.
She was not supposed to find her boss hot, ever! In fact, once her mind had imagined him holding a riding crop, she had waited until he had left the bathing room, and deliberately smashed her head into the stone wall.
It helped. For a good minute. And then she was back to wondering what would have happened if she had snatched that damned blindfold from his eyes.
Things could have happened.
Or not. She wasn't his type. He had made that exceedingly clear in the second room.
Still, her overactive imagination had never let reality get in the way. The prospect of being in these rooms were getting more appealing day by day. She wasn't sure if she was supposed to be horrified or pleased about it, but it was different.
She put that thought on hold, though, as she scanned the nearby vicinities for a trace of him.
She was not going to think about him pushing her against a wall and doing awful things to her when she was supposed to be tracking him down. They were colleagues. Ex-colleagues at one point. A long time ago, they'd even been rivals, until his skills had gotten to a point where it was nigh-on impossible to pretend that she ever had a chance to overtake him.
Admittedly, the lines had been blurred as of lately, but that was because they had no choice. They were stuck in an escape room, biding their time until they get out. Once they found out more clues as to why and how they were trapped, they'd be able to go their separate ways again. They had worked together on much more difficult missions before. She was confident that they'd be able to escape.
When a flash of blue crossed her peripheral vision, she turned on her heel and threw a kunai in its direction. A muffled groan was enoough for her to confirm her target, and she sprinted towards him.
In order to win the game, you had to catch the other person before they knocked your can over.
She was fast. He was faster.
But she was nothing if not tenacious. She tied a piece of string around her kunai and flung it strategically away from his body, the knife firmly lodged into the trunk of the tree he was jumping towards. The aim wasn't to maim. Her hand held onto the other end of the string.
He tripped.
"Gotcha," she muttered.
Zenzou regained his equilibrium by placing his palm on the branch, pulling himself to safety beyond her arm's reach. His mistake bought enough time for her to get a bit closer to him, but not enough to catch him.
She could've sworn he was grinning.
Bastard.
She pushed herself to go further and faster. He was one foot away from her now; her mind focused and intent on reaching his arm.
But as she stretched her hand out -
Ayame lost her balance.
She was going to fall to the ground, and cursed. Goddammit.
"Sarutobi!"
With inhuman reflexes, he turned back and grabbed her hand. He yanked her upwards and pulled her towards him, causing her to lean forwards into his chest as her feet were securely planted on the same tree branch that they both were standing on.
The force of his movements caused them to be in close proximity to each other. Again. Her heart beat had started to thud rapidly, as if she had been electrocuted with a thousand shocks. She could feel the blood rushing to her head, thrumming like the beating of a hummingbird's wings. The hand that gripped her wrist felt as though it was burning her skin.
"You okay?" he asked. His hair had shifted again, which mean that she could see the look of concern in his eyes.
Marishiten, they were beautiful. Why the fuck did he keep hiding them behind that blasted fringe? The world deserved to see them. They were the shade of indigo blue when he was cold and professional. Dark cerulean when he was angry. And with the way that he looked at her now, they shimmered like the color of the ocean.
"I - " Her mouth opened.
Some measure of self-preservation kicked in the nick of time. Ayame closed her mouth, and took a breath. "I win. You lose."
He let go of her hand, and snorted. "By which you mean that I caught you, so technically, it should be a tiebreaker." Checking his watch, he made a noise of impatience. "We're not even halfway through our time. Guess it's my turn to guard the can."
She watched his back go. Took a few more deep breaths before following him reluctantly.
She was so fucked.
.
.
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- tbc
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