That's probably it for today, but FUN FACTS!
Ch. 38: Okay, if you didn't get the Frozenparody, then you're missing out! Mei definitely sang her own version of "Let it Go," and c'mon: "Do you wanna have some pancakes?" . . . "It doesn't have to be a -SNOW MAN-".
Ch. 38: The English tea is because I was rereading Kaichou wa Maid-sama and that's what Usui suggested for their Footman Audition table set-up.
Ch. 36: Zenshi's aunt's name literally just means "weeping weeping willow tree". Because weeping willow tree in Japanese was too long, so I just kept the weeping part. Haha.
Ch. 35: And, once again, any mention of the Planet Pheromones is a reference to Usui Takumi of Kaichou wa Maid-sama, the TRUE Prince of the Planet Pheromones.
Random: Because I actually did just drink a green slush...
The epic conclusion of the "WHAT DID I JUST ALLUDE TO?!" game!
Story: "higher-up" whose sister-in-law is killed in Harusame endeavors? Linter
Series: AHH NO YOU DON'T GET THIS ONE YET! lol.
DISCLAIMER: All hail Hideaki Sorachi.
Eyes of Wolves
- 39 -
.: AUGUST, PRESENT :.
"You never answered my second question."
"Which was?"
"What's your relation to the samurai?"
"That's a nosy question."
"I am," Zenshi confirmed confidently, "an apparently nosy person."
"Ya mean you've got a big nose? Sure?"
"And you've got some hist'ry yer unwillin' ta share, hmm?"
They exchanged caustic glances as the elevator hummed upward with mellifluous background music loping from wall to wall.
.: MAY, THREE MONTHS AGO :.
He wondered if he could smell colors, but convinced himself that it was the rain playing tricks on his senses, the gentle pitter patter hypnotically soothing the senses into a dream-like juxtaposition. But there was a mixture of fresh rose and coffee, ground intricately with a stream of tobacco. It wasn't altogether unpleasant, but distinct.
Zenshi supposed that, with Tsukuyo's head resting on his shoulder, the woman swayed into a gentle sleep, it was a sensation he didn't mind. In fact, it erased the malaise of stress and elucidated the calm of the rainfall. He caught himself before his hand reached around for her hair, startled by the fact that he hadn't thought twice about tucking the straw-golden hair behind the courtesan's ear.
But she noticed; he hadn't refrained in time.
"Has the rain stopped?" Her eyes never opened, and she was still too entangled with her drowsiness to fully comprehend her position.
"No," he told her gently. "Not yet."
Like a kitten tucking back into its curl, Tsukuyo's awareness slipped again, leaving the weight of her consciousness on Zenshi's shoulder, inexplicably at ease.
.: AUGUST, PRESENT :.
"Alien-san!" came the accented call. It was a raspy but feminine voice, belonging to a not quite stout but rather rectangular middle-aged woman. "Alien-san and Tsukuyo-san," she called with what appeared to be feigned enthusiasm.
"Ah," was all that came from Tsukuyo's lips.
It was not a human, but an Amanto woman that approached them. She had recognizable cat ear's and a plain — or, rather atrocious — bob cut, as well as thick, definable eyebrows that both Zenshi and Tsukuyo internally cringed at.
"Catherine," Tsukuyo attempted to continue. "Hello."
"What brings you two to Kabukichou?" asked Catherine. "I'm buying Otose-san some groceries. You?"
Her accent was disconcerting, even for Zenshi. He'd become accustomed to strange tongues, all of which translated to lilted intergalactic speech, and he found the differences in pronunciation curiously pleasant. He would admit to a growing fondness for Tsukuyo's speech, but Catherine's broken Japanese never ceased to make him uncomfortable. While amusing, the cat-woman's jerky sentences and misshapen emphases made it hard to understand her full intentions.
"Same," Tsukuyo answered briskly. She took notice of Zenshi's tendency to fall laconic in public settings, but didn't mention it.
"Otae-san is having a party at Snack Smile, would you like to come? For everyone and lots of drinks!"
"Oh, well—"
"It's tonight, we'll see you right? Snack Smile is advertising Snack Otose, how nice!" Catherine was definitely in her own little world then, stifling them in a sore quagmire, stuck between polite refusal and lack of openings to do assert their thoughts. "See you then!"
"Ah—"
Zenshi touched her elbow, as if to tell her to give up.
"I guess we're goin' to a party," the blonde muttered. "Do ya wanna go?"
"Was I invited?" he drawled flatly.
"She did call you Alien-san. How do you know Catherine?"
"Long story. Was that question twenty?"
"No, it wasn't."
"So you get to choose, while I don't?"
"Choose yer questions?" Tsukuyo smirked. "Yes, I do get to choose my questions. I initiated the game, after all."
.: NINE YEARS AGO :.
Graduation is such a colossal event that Zenshi tends to block it from his memory. The morning of, his roommates — one rather neutral Yato whom everyone calls the scavenger crow of the lot, and one leopard-boy who purrs in his sleep — have been chased from the dorm, and he finds that Mei is slamming pots and pans together in front of his face while Kougi whistles away on a flute.
Almost instantaneously, the dark-haired boy leaps to his feet and grasps Mei by the wrists, swinging his legs around so that when he stands, he can trade places with Mei by throwing her down on the narrow mattress. He deftly catches the silverware and kitchen tools — one metal ladle and a huge saucepan, with a smaller one sitting by just for kicks.
"Don't ask me, she has a death wish," Kougi sniffs when Zenshi glares at her, too. "You have nice hair, by the way."
He is in no way, shape, or form in the mood for that compliment, and snarls in his lupine manner, brows slightly furrowed and upper lip curled.
"You aren't a morning person, are you?" Mei's bored, and she crosses her legs, humming as she studies the plain white ceiling of his room. "You never decorated this place in all four years? How sad. Our room's painted green and aqua and light purple. Have you ever seen it?"
Zenshi stuffs a pillow in the girl's face.
"No, I haven't."
Mei resurfaces, and tells him he should.
"Why are you even here?" he half moans, sour.
"Because it's…" Mei and Kougi exchange devious glances. "Graduation!"
.: THIRTEEN YEARS AGO :.
The first day of class is a spate of greetings and conversations and new faces. The Yato that accompanied him to the planet are dispersing in wide arcs, discovering the crowds. Zenshi mulls about, hackles raised whenever anyone approaches, looking solemn and unfriendly. There is one Yato, a short boy that is one of the rare Yato who need eyeglasses, that follows him at a distance. Zenshi recognizes him as the son of one of Linter's aides, and dismisses him as one of those followers.
Suddenly, there is a spat in the middle of the grandiose lecture hall and there are hisses, shouts, a dispersion of people from the center aisles.
"Damn you!" screams a girl. She is an urgent figure, her entire essence shouts for attention. With hair like the middle of a flame and pale, porcelain features common to that of the Yato, this girl is a force to contend with. She shields another Amanto with her body, and it's a quivering Welsh corgi of a child, an Inuisei female student. Coincidentally, the Yato is guarding the dog-girl from another of the same race: a hulking bearlike shepherd junior who growls from deep within his throat.
"Get out of the way," he roars. No teacher is in the room, not yet, because this is the informal initiation, and the students are "getting to know one another".
"No," spits the Yato girl. Her hair is like fire and her eyes are a mellow amber that flash deep coral with her anger. "You have no right to push her around like that."
"C'mon, she's my girlfriend, you ain't got—"
As soon as the Inuisei reaches out a grimy paw, the orangette is on him like a vicious cat. Her slim figure is the body of a fierce, wild feline, and she scratches his face once, twice, before driving a bony elbow up his jaw and the crack that resounds silences the entire room.
"I won't let a filthy bastard like you even touch a girl," she seethes. "You're disgusting. That was disgusting. Whatever you say, this is what you deserve. Next time you lay a hand on this girl, I will take out an eye. What's your name?"
"Ah ain' tell'n ya." The Inuisei crawls to his feet, holding his broken jaw in his paws, looking severely pained. He can hardly speak, but he tries nonetheless. An expletive comes from his dog's muzzle almost incomprehensibly, but the way he throws it out makes it clear what he meant.
"You're not even supposed to be in here, you're not a freshman," hisses the Yato girl. At that exact moment, a peppy-looking Amanto teacher strides into the room with little more than a nonchalant smile and a colorful bowtie.
"There seems to have been a ruckus. What happened?"
No one says a thing. The orange-headed girl is still shielding the corgi with a wide stance, while the perpetrator clasps his broken face gingerly. The crowd of hundreds — a few hundred out of one or two thousand incoming freshman — goes eerily, suspiciously silent. The teacher waits.
"He tripped on the stairs and hit his jaw against a desk. It's broken."
All eyes turn to Zenshi, who chews on a stalk of grass and folds his arms, meeting several gazes, which drop before the intense pressure of his own. The lecture hall does sport many seats and desks, and the precariously aligned stairs up the way create plausible circumstances for such an accident.
The teacher, however, is not clueless. Almost imperceptibly, he angles the glint of his eyes briefly towards Zenshi, before sweeping his gaze down the aisles from Yato to Inuisei and back.
"How unfortunate," he finally concludes. "All right, let's get you to the nurse. I'll be back in a moment to introduce you all to the school. Continue with whatever you were doing."
The teacher gestures for the injured to follow.
The Yato girl shoots a glare after the dog-boy.
Little did they know that in their later years, the dog-boy would drop out before his own final year, and that his final attempt at harassing the poor corgi girl — quite obviously, Kougi — would result in his loss of an eye by the hand of the one and only Mei.
Gorou the Inuisei has since then kept a wary eye on the Yato, and is all too happy to take them out when ordered to.
Even though his Harusame 8th Division falls to ruin when he is thoroughly executed by Admiral Kamui in due time.
.: AUGUST, PRESENT :.
"Welcome to Snack Smile! Oh, if it isn't Tsukuyo and her friend!" It was the frightening brunette, her one-eyed companion, and a few other cabaret girls. Zenshi felt a tug in his gut that told him to leave at once, and apparently, Tsukuyo must've had the same idea, because both of them hesitated at the door.
Unfortunately, they were dragged inside, a few girls cooing at Tsukuyo and her friend.
As soon as they entered and the Yorozuya caught wind of their arrival, the faces of several men went ghostly white. Gin, who had danced around a corner only to bump into Tsukuyo, soon had a complexion fairer than Snow White, fairer than the most sheltered Yato in the universe.
He mouthed "oh my god" and then whispered a prayer, clutching a bottle of white wine to his chest and backing away slowly.
Tsukuyo glared.
"What?" she snapped irately.
"Hey, Tsukki," laughed Gin nervously, "what's up? Yeah, like, no alcohol today or anything, we're totally not drinking so you don't have to either, you know, like, yeah."
"Gin-chan, quit it with the 'like, yeah!' it's really annoying, yes?" Kagura exclaimed, appearing from a booth donned in fantastic furs and sipping orange juice like it was a fancy cocktail.
Shinpachi sidled up to Zenshi and whispered, "She has a low alcohol tolerance. Very, very low."
Zenshi gave the boy a sidelong glance, as thanks for the impromptu explanation. He would have deduced it in good time, but from the way Gintoki reacted, he guessed that learning by experience would mean learning the hard way.
"Hey, Blue Yato," Gin chortled, seemingly inventing new names for Zenshi every time they met, "We're not drinking, right? Right? Say that I'm right."
"Of course," Zenshi complied.
"Oh, Zen-chan, are you Tsukki's date?" Kagura called rather loudly.
"No he's not," Tsukuyo almost immediately replied. She flushed red, and grabbed the wine bottle from Gin's hands. The samurai yelped, grabbed a friend — a rather slovenly older man wearing sunglasses and ratty straw slippers, who screamed most appalling, dirty, anomalous ossan [in other words, MADAO] — and then ran for his life to the back of the cabaret club.
Shinpachi screamed willy-nilly like a little girl and sprinted after them as if the ghosts of Glasses past, present, and future were at his heels.
"Hey everyone!" called Otae, the fearsome brown-haired woman. "I'd like to thank you all for coming to our celebration of Oryou-chan's birthday! Everyone in Kabukichou is invited, and any travelers are welcome to come inside as well!"
The microphone screeched momentarily.
"Please enjoy yourselves this evening!"
Someone shouted the birthday girl's name, but a rock flew across the way and silenced whoever it was very quickly. Meanwhile, as half the Yorozuya and a few terrified men ducked behind chairs, Tsukuyo took a brief swallow of wine because she deemed it necessary.
There was a prickle at the back of Zenshi's neck.
The recollection of an earlier heeded warning resurfaced, and as Tsukuyo grabbed his arm and swung him into a wild waltz, only one drink setting her past what one might consider intoxicated, he saw the party at the right end of the club rise discreetly to their feet.
One man wielded a large umbrella, his left shoulder emblazoned with the fifth squad's sniper specialist's platinum star.
Watch out for the fifth and seventh squads. They're on patrol. There's also an order to take your head if you're spotted.
The man never once aimed for Zenshi, never once had that intention, and it was apparent. There was another body blocking the shot to Zenshi, and the target was clearly that person.
Zenshi, in that split second, placed both hands on Tsukuyo's waist before she could push him away in her drunken daze.
He spun them in a swift dance, dipping her down so that the bullet hit his shoulder instead of her head.
The club erupted in screams.
uwahuwahuwahuwah
sometimes these things happen randomly
but they fit in
and if you're reading this far, kudos to you!
if not
shame on you
lol just kiddin'.
ANYWAY: GO CHARLIE WHITE AND MERYL DAVIS LET'S GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO.