Hellooo! I hope everyone is doing well. Now, onwards!
part five. United we stand
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"We're back and ready to start our second game. Cooking? Cooking!" Hanano yells to the thunderous crowd live in the studio.
And with that, the four Joui are back to gracing television screens in pink frilly aprons.
"It's time for a cooking contest to showcase the teamwork in Houkago Happy Hour. For this purpose, we've split them into two teams with color-coded aprons and had them come up with a team name during the commercial break. I'll now announce, in pale pink, the 'You bastards wish you had straight hair' team of Zurako-san and Shinsuko-san!"
After lots of practice ignoring straight man cues, Hanano has reached a zen-like state and no messy titles on cue cards can faze her now. "And in hot pink, we have Tatsuko-san and Paako-san in the 'Don't look down on naturally wavy hair you bastards' team. This is the ultimate cooking contest you've been waiting for, Edo. Let's see what our damsels in aprons will prepare for us today. Our theme is 'warmth on a chilly day' and as for our ingredients…"
One of the staff brings out a dartboard and attaches it to a makeshift wall, bringing about some oohs and aahs as it garners the attention of participants and observers alike. Hanano quickly explains its purpose: "You will use this dartboard to determine the ingredients you'll have at your disposal. Each section corresponds to an ingredient which you'll get if your dart lands on it."
Katsura collects his three darts and throws them out with a startling speed faster than the cameras can catch them before they materialize on the board.
"Buckwheat noodles," Hanano reads out from her chart, "Spaghetti, and instant ramen (noodle only, flavour packet not included)."
"Go, Shinsuko," Katsura beams and holds out his palms in grand encouragement. "Use the unbending power of our straight hair."
Power or no power, Takasugi's rapid-fire darts hit just beyond the bullseye.
"Let's see. Wow, that's lobster, halibut, and a live chicken!" exclaims Hanano, "Those are ingredients for quite a substantial meal, although the lack of seasonings is a bit worrying for our Team Straight Hair."
"It's not Team Straight Hair, it's Team You Bastards Wish You Had Straight Hair," Katsura points out.
"Yes, yes," Hanano says soothingly. "We'll have our Team Wavy Hair take aim for their ingredients now."
Gintoki faces the dartboard and lets his heart do the aiming. Yes, his heart would pave the way to "Whipped cream, honey, and an instant ramen flavour packet (chicken flavour)!"
"My flavour packet!" Katsura cries in outrage. "Just wait, dishonourable thief. We'll squash your instant ramen flavour packet (chicken flavour) with the flavour of our live chicken, right, Shinsuko?"
Some of the ingredients are already being brought out and Takasugi is eyeing the caged chicken rather hungrily.
"Che, are you looking down on Tatsuko's skill?" Gintoki is quick to defend his team's pride. It was the pride of his hair, after all. "Oh, but you can't look down on him, can you? You can only look up, eh, Shinsuko?"
"Hahahahaha, that's not helping right now," Sakamoto inserts. "But here I go!"
He takes a step back, bends his knee, and twists his upper body in an impressive stance for maximum throwing power.
The crowd quiets, building up anticipation.
The dart flies off somewhere and someone yaps in pain.
An ambulance arrives; "Oh, no! He's not breathing!" yells a paramedic, and a stretcher is loaded into the ambulance.
The ambulance drives away to leave a silent crowd.
"H-hey!" Gintoki screeches. "You just killed someone! In front of thousands of people! On camera!"
"T-they're fine," Sakamoto waves off weakly. "I'm sure they're fine. I can feel that they're fine. They're alive in my heart, ahahahaha."
Hanano is completely sure that no one will die on her watch, too. Definitely not on her program. That kind of thing never happens, right? It's impossible for their aim to go that off course. It must have been a mass hallucination. "Yes, he's fine. We'll proceed. Tatsuko-san, you have two darts left for your team."
"That's two darts too many!" bellows Gintoki. "Let me throw them instead!"
"I have one eye left," Takasugi mutters to no one in particular.
"You don't trust me, Paako? I'll get it on this shot," Sakamoto sends him a wink and the dart in the air before anyone can stop him.
The good news? No one gets his or her eyes scourged out.
The bad news: it falls uselessly on the floor three feet away from the dartboard.
"Give me the last dart! Let me throw it at Tatsuko so I can at least use her as an ingredient and skin her alive." Out of things to yell, Gintoki sits back down resignedly. "What do you expect me to cook with only whipped cream, honey, and Zura's flavour packet?"
"Paako." Sakamoto calls out, brandishing their final dart and final hope. "I'm done warming up."
Gintoki sighs. "You'd better be, you idiot. Get that bullseye already."
And the dart flies straight and true, stabbing into the centre of the target with perfect symmetry.
Everyone breaks into enthusiastic applause.
"Aha!" Team Wavy Hair exchanges a victorious high five. "That's a bullseye, it better be a damn good ingredient. So what did we get, Hanano-chan?"
"Ah," Hanano looks down at her chart with shifty eyes. "Congratulations! You get a vinyl sex doll."
"A what? I think I heard wrong. It's a bullseye. A Double Bullseye. Shouldn't we at least get some matsutake mushrooms? What kind of ingredient is a vinyl sex doll?!"
"Well, you know," the host tries to explain, "We didn't really expect any of you to hit a double bull so we just put something random in there. Nothing to worry about, though. It's inflatable."
"There's plenty to worry about!" Gintoki's protests fall on deaf ears, and at the very least he makes Sakamoto carry their final ingredient as they move to their cooking station.
Two open kitchens have been set up on either sides of the stage. "I'll now announce the criteria we will judge this contest on. There are three categories: Taste, Creativity, and Popularity. Our special judge will award points for the first two categories and we'll have our live audience poll for the last one."
As she speaks, a mysterious person has stepped on stage. Well, it's not so much a human person as an amanto. A very familiar amanto with something sticking out from the top of his head walks into the spotlight.
Regrettably, I must dash the fangirls' hopes. It's not Kamui.
Cue a distinctive yodelling tune.
"How do you do, I'm Prince Hata," Prince Baka says as charmingly as his charm point. "Hey, who's doing the narration? Anyway, I've been asked to judge this contest. Let's have a fair competition with love and peace~"
Two-and-a-half pairs of eyes light up in recognition.
"Senpai!" Katsura exclaims.
"Oh, it's the idiot prince," Gintoki acknowledges him too, though the Prince of the Royal Planet can't really say he's happy with this kind of acknowledgement. "You would get along with him, Tatsuko."
Takasugi simply glares, his mood visibly souring and emitting dark, angry waves. You would think he loathed Prince Baka with every fiber of his being, but how would that even come to be? What did the Prince ever do to him?
…There was a little something called episode 75, but that was eons ago. Has Takasugi carried his grudge for this long?
"We'll start the timer for sixty minutes to prepare your dishes including all final touches. Ready, set, cook!"
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With trembling hands, Shinpachi removes the stack of CDs from the drawer.
Four smiling, winking, grinning, smirking faces look right at him.
They are Houkago Happy Hour, and they reconnect his buried memories of a ranking that tore apart his world.
The group that supplanted Otsuu-chan's position in everyone's hearts.
Why did Gin-san own ten copies of their CD?
Beside him, Kagura picks up a CD and gasps. "It's her, Shinpachi! The new purple-haired original character and Gin-chan's mistress Mary Sue Takasugi Shinsuko!"
"Shinsuko? How do you even write that?" Shinpachi takes one look and begins to wail. "She has an eye patch. It's the eye patch, the second evil after cat ears in luring innocent young men in. Gin-san must have fallen to the eye patch! Ah, even though he's not innocent or young."
His next composed thoughts scatter when Kagura, having re-entered the room with a CD player, pops in a CD and hits play before he can stop her.
When the song ends, in the brief interlude between the original and the instrumental version, Shinpachi musters the strength to stop it from going on. He doesn't need to listen any further to deduce what has happened.
He can't listen any further anyway when Kagura slams into him. Her eyes have gone into swirls of despair as she clutches at her ears. "It's cheery! It's too happy! This is the song Gin-chan was humming yesterday!"
Otsuu-chan and even Gin-san…
"There's no doubt about it. This Shinsuko, no, this Houkago Happy Hour must be a conniving group of villains seeking to gather innocent young men and brainwash them into a mindless army using the power of mindless idol music. Their objective is to take over Otsuu-chan's world; our world."
Shinpachi straightens up.
"It's up to us to stop them, Kagura-chan."
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"Shall we drop by each kitchen to see how our participants are doing?" Hanano, armed with a cameraman, leads to way to the glitteringly clean kitchen of the glitteringly glossy Straight Hair Team. She cuts off Katsura's correction of their team name just in time to catch the cutting of a chicken.
"Hehehehe," Takasugi giggles softly, amusedly, fixatedly. He lifts the butcher knife over his shoulder and it glimmers and momentarily blinds even those who sit farthest away.
But it's only those on stage who can hear the next words whispered. "Sensei… itadakimasu."
He slices down in one bold stroke, dousing the camera lens in chicken guts and carnage. The video feed fades to black.
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"Yush, let's do this."
Gintoki uncaps four bottles of whipped cream at a time as Sakamoto unscrews the lid off a pot of honey and dips a large ladle inside. With unmatchable speed and awe-dropping accuracy, they spray, fill, and lather sticky-sweet condiments on their full-sized blown-up sex doll.
Hanano and the cameraman shuffles away without comment.
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After opening a few cupboards, Katsura finds a pot. After a few moments of deliberation, he fills it with water from the tap. Then he pours out some of it because he filled it with too much water, and then he pours out a bit too much so he runs it under the sink for a few more seconds. He takes the pot and puts it on the stove, turns up the heat, and fits the lid on. Some thoughts flit through his head, like whether he should put the seasoning in first or wait until the water boils or wait until the noodles are in the pot or put them in at the very end, or put in half of the packet at first and then the rest at the end. Then he remembers he doesn't have a packet of MSG goodness since Gintoki took it and settles on waiting for the water to boil. His teammate would take care of the soup's flavour.
Katsura glances over at said teammate. The broken man trying to destroy this broken world breaks up the chicken in so many pieces it breaks Katsura's heart. Bones jag out of raw, bloody meat beaten to a pulp with blunt knives and the Houkago leader feels a surge of pride that almost makes his heart burst as he watches Takasugi's unflinching focus on his task in the goriest chapter yet.
Watching Takasugi make mincemeat out of chicken is honestly an inspiring experience. The once smooth, familiar swordsmanship style had melded with a new unhinged rhythm and warped into something of its own beast. It's then he truly realizes how far they've all come; Shouyou-sensei's original style as he'd taught them fifteen years ago is just barely distinguishable beneath Takasugi's evolved form, and Katsura knows this is true for Gintoki as well. Has it really been fifteen years? Katsura must work hard, too, and cook the instant noodles just the right amount for them to retain their springy texture so Takasugi's efforts don't go to waste. He's still entranced as the remnants of what used to be fine, plump poultry get tossed into a bowl and whipped up some more, and only when hot, hot water reaches his feet does he remember about his boiling pot of water on the stove.
It's a little too late, and now there's not enough water left in the pot after it bubbled over. Katsura reaches out, turns off the heat, dumps out the water into the sink, and sets off to boil a fresh pot.
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And like that, thirty minutes tick by.
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"Oh, the cameras are back on us, Tatsuko."
"Kids, don't try this at home, ahahaha."
"I wouldn't cook a sex doll at home, either. Ahhh, what a waste."
"But you have Shinsuko, ahaha, hahahahaha—"
He ducks under the counter to avoid the knife and whipped cream canister headed his way. "Now, now, that's not very nice."
"You know what would be nice? A lobster. Oi, Zurako, I'll trade you your flavour packet for your lobster."
"Listen to yourself. Why should I trade with you? And it's not Zurako, it's… ah, it is Zurako."
"But you're not using it, Zuraaaaaaako. Why do you need the lobster if you're already grounding up the chicken? Lobster is lobster. Chicken is chicken. They've got to be separate dishes. Don't waste your lobster and give it here."
And after much distractive haggling, Team 'Don't look down on natural wavy hair you bastards' gains a lobster and Katsura forgets about his third pot of hot water.
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Takasugi finds an electric blender in one of the shelves.
The rest (of the chicken) is history.
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With plenty of time to spare, Gintoki swirls the whipped cream into pretty shapes to ornate their dish. He draws a small circle, and another one right beside it, and an elongated cannon-like shape on top.
Adding on a spiffy honey glaze splaying outwards, the final touches to their dish are now complete.
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Dong! Katsura lifts up the lid with a flourish, to reveal their stunning creation—
"This is our dish: instant noodles in a fresh, simmering broth that is sure to warm you on a chilly day."
Prince Hata looks at the pot of noodles stewing in blood-red soup. "Isn't it a little, you know, too fresh?"
"Don't be put off by the colour. It's Tom Yum soup," explains master chef Takasugi. He serves up a hearty bowl of the truest whole chicken noodle soup out there and slams the bowl down in front of the Prince. "Go on, eat it."
To his irritation, Prince Hata pushes it away. "No, thanks," he says. "I don't like Earthling food."
"Then why the fuck are you the judge?!"
The butcher's knife lies in its holster too close in reach for a certain one-eyed femme fatale for comfort. Hanano, eyeing it uneasily, tries to smooth things over before the boiling point.
"Don't worry. Prince Baka's taste buds are on his charm point, so he can just submerge it in your food to taste it. Right?"
The charm point enters the soup with a plop.
The amanto royalty flails. "H-Hey! That's not how it works! That's my charm point!" After a few moments of digging in steaming poultry entails, he fishes it back out, now feeling rather grumpy. Love? Peace? What were those two things again? "I get it, I'll just assign some points. Leave it to me. I'll give you a 10 for taste and -10 for creativity."
"Taka—Shinsuko!" In his haste to restrain Takasugi's sudden flare of bloodlust, Katsura nearly calls out the wrong name in the wrong tone of voice. He hesitates for half a second to make sure he doesn't hear that first division captain's relentless 'KATSURA!' in the audience and then continues soothingly to his teammate, "It doesn't matter. There's no way we'll lose to the other team."
That was a fair point. Takasugi accepts the score with one last hateful glare at the prince, and the second team steps up to present their miraculous 'dish'.
Smirking chef Gintoki deigns to differ. "Ah, and that's where you're wrong. We'll win this thing with our thingamabob… which Tatsuko will explain. What did we make, Tatsuko?"
That had been the plan, to use Tatsuko's last redeemable moments of normalcy to pass this off as normal. "This is the blowup s*x doll dressed up in honey and whipped cream for your pleasure, ahaha, ahahaha. If you're cold, one use and it'll warm you up, right, Paako?"
"Yes, yes. Shinsuko-chan, you should try it. It might get that stick out of your ass."
When Takasugi's hand jerks forward in reach of Dangerous Sharp Objects, Hanano gives a small shriek, covers her eyes and thinks In the next life I'll work a 9-5 desk job and waits for everything to go to shit. The sound of a blade whisking through the air fails to materialize. She slowly opens her eyes to see Katsura with a ladle in his hand and a disapproving-mother-frown on his face.
"Do you want to be disqualified?" He's chiding, and belatedly Hanano realizes that he might have whacked the back of Takasugi's now reddening hand with the ladle. "No violence until we win! You've waited this long, you can wait a few more minutes."
…A good point, Takasugi concedes grudgingly. He folds his arms together, and remembers—"Wait. Where's my lobster?"
"Oh, that." The Yorozuya boss whips out one of those plastic food storage containers into which he'd carefully packed the lobster in obvious glee. "I'm taking it with me to go. It's lobster meal tonight!"
Takasugi shoots Hanano a look that clearly read, aren't you going to stop that idiot freeloader?
Hanano passes on the same look to the PD and the rest of the staff watching mutedly. "Well, um, I suppose since you've already packed it into a container, you can take it with you."
"I call the noodles!" Immediately, Katsura throws his hand and ladle up in the air. "Hand me a container, Paako."
"Ah," Hanano says, and tries to maintain diplomacy by helping Gintoki pass over an empty container.
No one could be as diplomatic as Sakamoto, who had sauntered up to a fuming Takasugi with an offering of peace. "You can take the s*x doll if you want," he holds out one of its arms with the widest, open, trusting, mega-watt business smile.
In the blink of an eye, the blow-up doll deflates as what had once made up its arms, legs, and head fall to the floor in a puddle of honey and melted cream. Ah, Takasugi feels completely refreshed. He tosses the dirtied knife in some direction behind him and exhales. "Forget it. Hey, shitty prince, give them the score they rightfully deserve."
A few meters away, looking around cupboards for more things to take home with him, Gintoki fervently nods. "Yeah, idiot prince. Why don't you give us our rightful score?"
Prince Hata looks from one menacing face to another and blanches. Who signed him up for this again? Oh, right, Jiji had told him of interesting species called 'idols' that would make cute pets, but there was nothing cute about these dolled-up humans.
"Um… um…." he stammers. He spots Jiji in the audience, and opens his mouth to scream at him just as the lights above flicker once, twice.
There's a cry of alarm and then the entire studio is plunged into darkness.
Takasugi forces his other eye shut. The loss of one eye has already sharpened his other senses to fill the blind spot in his vision, and now he relies on those acute senses. A slight rustle becomes prominent and he thrusts out an arm to reel in Sakamoto who was about to plough into him. His back presses against a warm weight; his hand slowly reaches into his pocket.
In the cursory moments before someone finds the light switch, he is able to read the positions of four young soldiers on a battlefield. Promising and disjointed, arriving at a full circle.
This time, the glare of fluorescent light tears them apart.
"We apologize for the sudden power outage. Someone probably tripped over a cord somewhere," Hanano is speaking into her microphone and about to bow for good measure, and the banner strung atop the set catches her eye.
She gasps.
What clearly wasn't there before the blackout, but is now provocatively staring back, is a bright neon poster of a voluptuous silhouette and the string of letters to spell,
N-A-K-U-R-A-I-S-C-O-M-I-N-G.
"Huh." A squinting Gintoki opens his mouth to read the combination of letters and closes it when no sound comes out. Ah, screw it, English was never his strong point. "Oi, what's that say?"
The particular combination of letters did not spell D-E-S-T-R-O-Y, or Y-A-K-U-L-T, which were the only English words that Takasugi had deemed necessary to recognize, so whatever it said could not be that important anyway. He's about to tell Gintoki this; 'who cares, it's probably the work of some terrorist', he's about to drawl and not minding the fact that there were two notable terrorists standing on stage, when their emcee does another shocked gasp.
Hanano is reading from signs held up behind the rolling camera. "We've just gotten the news that Nakura has entered Edo's music charts!" she exclaims, and goes on to explain, "The galaxy's number one solo artist is now expanding her reach to target Earth. It seems she has openly declared war with Edo's hottest new trend, Houkago Happy Hour! This has turned into an international matter!"
("What the hell?" Hijikata says before he can stop himself. Seeing the commotion and alarm beginning to spiral out of control in the audience and on stage, he quickly takes charge of the squadrons interspersed around the building. "Ahem. Use formation Kanmuru Cantabile Crane-Wing Kai."
Sougo doesn't move. He stares at the intrusive banner with narrowed eyes that smoothes over in the next moment, and recalls an earlier memory as vividly as if it was unfolding in front of his eyes again. Those quick steps, fluid movements, sharp edge dancing a hair's breadth out of reach—he'd danced to this heated pace before, sheathed his sword and hers by turning the entire complex into rubble. The hairs rising in the back of his neck when the lights had gone out pointed unmistakably to... one girl. No, it was too kind to call her a girl; 'killers' was the term she had fitted onto the both of them. And If she was somehow involved… what a pain. He was off duty but Hijikata-san was definitely going to make him investigate. Right. Won't you please drop dead, Hijikata-san?
He lets out a wide yawn with eyes oddly tight, and reports what he assumes is one of the toe positions in the crane they were supposedly forming. Somewhere above, standing out as either the eye of the crane or one of its boogers, or something like that anyway, he hopes Hijikata-san gets a brain aneurysm from yelling at toes to not wander off by themselves.)
On stage, Gintoki is shaking his head. "You're kidding. Another declaration of war from a super galactic pop idol? Hasn't this kind of plot line appeared in the manga already? Is going through this sort of thing once not enough, and now I have to do it again?"
Katsura gives a long-suffering sigh. "The life of a pop idol is treacherous. They must engage in battles with rival idols on a daily basis. The enemies have eyes everywhere. Show business is a war where the fittest survive."
"Well," Sakamoto muses, "I thought we would be inexperienced with this, but we're well-prepared, aren't we, ahahahahahaha?"
"We leave one battlefield behind for another. Didn't I say?" Takasugi's grin is smug and cancerous, and soon they all find themselves grudgingly sporting similar grins. "You all belong on the battlefield."
"Yes, well, Shinsuko-chan, if you wanted to cross-dress sooner, no one would have stopped you."
"Not too early," Katsura contends, "Let it be established that Zurako was the original."
Standing below stage lights washing their faces aglow, they find renewed motivation to move forward. The cameras are rolling but this moment passes by insignificantly, is cut out in the editing; the microphones are recording yet it's too loud to catch their words. Surrounded on all sides by mostly unknown faces in a chaotic crowd and the questionable poster behind, Houkago Happy Hour doesn't falter. In fact, their faces are looking kind of evil, now.
That Nakura-something-or-other wants a war? She'll get one, all right.
They don't get a chance to make a cool video message, though. Katsura has always wanted to make a public video message. Hanano, who has learned by now that while Houkago's team play is mostly a mess, it's when they look marginally united that things turn truly fearsome, intercepts the opportunity at the first possible moment.
Signalling for the camera's attention, which had previously been panning over the Shinsengumi's exclusive formation, she puts the chaos to a swift end. "We've.. gone overtime, so let's end it here for today! Thank you for tuning in to Super Edo and we'll see you next week!" Probably. The show's staffs were still trying to contain the crowd of agitated fans from causing too much set damage. She thinks they'll have learned to stay away from inviting idols as guests, now.
These last four guests are ushered out through a back door that is thankfully still paparazzi-free. With the screeching of car tires and telltale of reporter teams not far away, they make a run for it.
They'll regroup and take appropriate measures for the impending war.
But first—
"To Oedo Mart!"
Katsura had made sure to first collect the gift certificate he'd won, of course.
"Good. I was getting hungry, anywa—aiiiiit. I left my lobster in there…"
Sakamoto ropes an arm around his shoulder consolingly, ahahaha, ahaha, and drags his crestfallen teammate along.
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The Joui four stand imposingly in front of the glass doors to the friendly neighbourhood Oedo Mart.
Gift certificate in hand, Katsura pushes up his fake nose and glasses (part of his clever disguise, since he is kind of maybe a terrorist) and shouts, "Let's go, Houkago!"
The three respond with pumping fists and matching jerseys.
"Free food!" Houkago #5 Sakata Gintoki darts into the snacks aisle.
"Where's the Yakult?" Houkago #4 Takasugi Shinsuke mutters as he steps in. The ventilation sends a breeze through his hair that lifts his bangs, and his eye is focused, scouting.
"Alright, I'll push the cart first, hahaha," Houkago #6 Sakamoto Tatsuma charges his way through in a break for the meat section at the back.
Houkago #8 Katsura Kotarou is already deep inside the store.
And even if he's not directly present, they can still feel him in the shadows. Houkago #15, Kurokono Tasuke. The Generation of Miracles moves out to cover the expanse of the supermarket, members carrying out their positions with ease.
"Hey, wait a second, Shinsukecchi. I'm the leader and the captain, so I should have jersey #4. Switch with me."
An indulgent pause. "..No. Move aside," Takasugi says, and brushes past the man blocking the display coolers. Katsura topples to the floor, his ankles giving out from beneath him and surprise flitting across his face.
This… this is…
Ankle Breaker!
"I understand," he acknowledges. Dusting off the back of his shorts as he gets up, he adds, resolutely, "However, I won't lose to you."
He jogs off, and narrowly misses a Yakult thrown after him.
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They gather at the rack of sunglasses where Sakamoto is trying on every last pair.
"Do you need more sunglasses?" Gintoki questions as he moves around the items already in the cart to fit in a large pack of toilet paper. "You're still going to buy the same style as always, aren't you? My stuff is more important. One day you're going to crash at my place and ask to use the washroom and then there won't be any toilet paper, just so you know."
Giving him a rough shove in favour of more sunglasses, Sakamoto snorts. "The only one who can look better than me in sunglasses is me."
Takasugi refuses to relinquish the bottles of Yakult layering the bottom of the cart or his many piles of containers of tofu on top.
"Technically, this is my gift certificate, which I won from defeating all three of you, so my items should have priority," points out Katsura with a haughty turn of his nose. He loads in bottles of shampoo and conditioner, only putting a few back on the shelf when Takasugi growls at him for remotely squashing his tofu.
Which reminds him—"Why exactly are you buying tofu, again?"
He gets a short and succinct answer in return: "I like cutting tofu."
Well. To each his own, Katsura supposes. It was better for him to cut tofu than cut other things, like humans, or worse yet, human hair. Katsura shudders thinking back to his Benizakura hairstyle and the bitter memories it brought and lets Takasugi keep his tofu for now.
The group makes their way to the cashier. "Hold on, the coupon says all-you-can-carry." Katsura peers at the fine print on the coupon. "One of us has to carry everything over to the cashier and carry it all out."
The wheels turn in their heads. Without pause, Gintoki dumps the package of toilet paper unceremoniously into Sakamoto's arms, Katsura gathers his hair products and slips them into the hidden pockets of Sakamoto's jacket (crushing all those pairs of sunglasses in its place), and where Sakamoto manages to shift the toilet paper to one arm, he finds himself precariously balancing half a dozen packs of Yakult in his other arm.
Giving Sakamoto a once-over to make sure he was carrying up to his max capacity, Katsura nods in approval.
"Let's go."
Gintoki slips the pair of sunglasses Sakamoto had been eyeing onto his head. See, he wasn't such a bad friend. He also slips a package of pickled seaweed into the front of Sakamoto's shorts.
"Don't drop the Yakult," Takasugi mutters under his breath as he passes.
Letting out a bark of strained laughter, Sakamoto trudges after them.
He empties the items onto the counter, relishing in the temporary relief as the cashier scans them in monotonously. Toilet paper. Conditoner. Sunglasses. Yakult. Yakult. Yakult. Strawberry Pocky. Shampoo, 2 pack. Conditioner. Shampoo and conditioner set. Tofu. Yakult. Yakult. Yakult. Yakult. Tofu. Tofu. Sukonbu. Yakult. Body lotion. Tofu. Yakult. Lube. (Sakamoto whistles.) Yakult. Yakult.
Finally, all items are scanned through and it is time to pay. The cash register totals the amount to some obscene number that Katsura doesn't read. He waves his gift certificate in the cashier's face and Sakamoto starts to gather all the items into his arms again when the cashier takes the paper and points his finger at the very fine print,
"I'm sorry, this coupon is valid only at participating stores. This location has opted out of these offers." The clerk drops the crinkled coupon back to Katsura's trembling hands. "So, how would you folks like to pay for these items today? Credit, debit, cash...?"
"Bomb," Katsura whispers.
"Excuse me?" The clerk leans in eagerly. "I didn't quite catch that-"
He doesn't need to catch anything when the whole establishment goes up in flames.
The four of them make it outside where the fire blazes in the backdrop, unscathed and completely used to evacuating when Katsura is in one of his moments. He's tossing up and catching absentmindedly another such bomb. It's sturdy in his grip and works wonders in keeping him grounded.
"I haven't used one of these in ages," he muses to himself, and he realizes that he's missed the comfort. Gintoki, Takasugi, and Sakamoto are all inching away from him, but the bomb's warmth is steady and pulsing and faintly ticking. "Why did I stop using these anyway? Hm..." He pauses.
...Faintly ticking?
The second bomb detonates into the night. The sound is swallowed by the lively city streets and the sirens of fire trucks rushing to put out fires in particular supermarkets. As the Joui Four walk in the other direction, now comprised of one straight haired and three wavy, permy, afro-explosion-haired men, Katsura's befuddled thoughts clear up and he remembers,
"Ah, I see. That's why."
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Somehow, Shinsuko's chronic Yakult drinking in the vicinity of cameras pays off. With her being seen carrying around Yakult in shows, pictorials, paparazzi shots and fan-taken photos and making headlines permanently associating herself with the drink, she was bound to catch the attention of their advertising department.
She's the unofficial spokesperson anyway, and it does wonders for the brand already; Yakult sales have gone up to an unprecedented high, the demand higher than the current factories could support. The Yakult Honsha Co. is the midst of discussing plans for factory expansions, and the future is bright for the children of tomorrow.
So they make her official, and that is how Houkago Happy Hour find themselves in the middle of shooting a one-minute commercial for the fermented milk brand. Complete with a catchy jingle and full-body Yakult suits, Takasugi has never been granted greater honour than this in his life.
He is demonstrating his speed in emptying 80mL bottles when a set designer speaks up. "Please don't consume the props, Shinsuko-san."
"Oh, let her," the director, a kindly old fellow, has seen much in his years. He gives a permissive wave for Shinsuko to go ahead. "We have lots more Yakult."
But his worldly experiences will not help him here, when he's facing the universe's most idiotic samurai in plural form.
(Filming must be continued the next day after the stash in the studio's back room is found to have mysteriously vanished.)
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"There's not much left in this arc," Gintoki comments out of the blue.
Takasugi hums noncommittally. He thinks he'll miss being on land. It's hard to get Yakult out at sea and even harder in space, and there's only so much you can stock before the ship is under max load.
Tobacco was much more compact.
"I take it you're going to go back to your world destruction machinations after this."
Gintoki cuts to the chase. He receives confirmation in the form of a cool stare for his efforts, wholly unnerving, and his mouth moves on his own. There's so much to process and his mind is reeling. Where did they stand? He doesn't think he's made zero progress after four chapters. But in this oppressive tension he finds himself agitated and grasping at straws. "Shouyou-sensei wouldn't—he wouldn't have wanted—"
"Don't you dare." Muted, bitter, closed. "You think I don't know? Shouyou-sensei would roll in his grave if he could see what I am. And yet… Shouyou-sensei is in a grave because he is who he is. His principles which you futilely protect mean nothing in this time and world. I'll destroy this undeserving world. That's all."
Gintoki is reminded of a headstrong boy with an idolizing attachment to his teacher and an aloof countenance to everything else. Stubborn, resourceful, freeform and poetic and memorizing rigid green books by heart. His teachings were law but the teacher was his world. An uprooted world was lawless. The same clear green eyes that were once a lively forest in the spring waning into dulled swamps bared and brambly. Gintoki used to be able to read everything in those eyes.
"Don't overstep your bounds, Gintoki. I still… only want to destroy."
It doesn't sound like he knows who he's really trying to convince, anymore.
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In another round of dishonest UNO, our Joui pen the following poignant lyrics:
to the tune of: Wonderland (FLiP) TV size.
.
Sayin' can you please leave
Booked full from 8 to 3
What do you mean you don't have Joui class?
Tryin' to get back on track here
What the hell are you doing in a school
Questioning straight man asking round & round
Yes I designed a Jouishishi course
Does it teach how stupid the Joui are
Ahaha… ahh hahaha!
Here's a PSA for people who watched Bakumatsu Rock
Call me Cindy and I will make sure I'll destroy you all
Understand understand understand what you have at stake here
You will never get Yakult ever ever ever
Wrapping this song up with a cute phrase for our loving fans
Give us your yen forever ever ever ever
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Katsura looks on approvingly at the transcribed lyrics on his new whiteboard. He'd gotten it as an addition to the boring mayonnaise factory décor and to facilitate effective patriotic meetings, for there were many points of discussion to bring up on the season's Korean dramas. Katsura is always on Team Second Lead. And now, it was to be used for Houkago Happy Hour's upcoming repackaged album. Being a leader of two groups at once was rather tiring, but it couldn't be helped. Katsura was born to be a leader amongst his contemporaries, after all.
Coming up with a title was the next item on their to-do list.
"Speaking of titles," starts Gintoki, scratching his nose absentmindedly, "What's with the title of this chapter? Are we supposed to be united? And then next chapter we'll probably be divided and fall, but I think we're already there."
Katsura tuts. "Of course not. Don't underestimate author-dono; there would be a twist, like instead of 'Divided we fall' it will be 'Divided we topple the Bakufu'. Then, we should discuss how to achieve that by the next chapter."
"How about 'Divided we split our earnings already'? I'm a pop idol, a pop idol! I should be able to get a parfait or five whenever I want to."
"I've already created a budget for our profits. We'll be investing them back into the production of our future promotions."
Leader Katsura takes his role very seriously. Gintoki sticks his tongue out at him and notices Sakamoto giggling at his phone. Admittedly, something about technology still irks him and he doesn't get how people can read the too-tiny text on a tiny screen. He needs to magnify everything on a page and slowly, blindly, randomly find his way around, and things never responded to him the way they were supposed to.
It's with curiosity and a bit of peevishness that our Sakata Gintoki plucks the phone out of Sakamoto's hands and squints at the screen. He catches his name, or stage name rather, and Bakasugi's, and some other words that should never be in the vicinity of either of their names. He centers in on one such phrase and soon fiercely wishes he hadn't. A heated blush rises from the base of his neck to the tips of his ears like sunburn on too-pale skin (and he's rather familiar with that) as he sputters, coughs, tries to muffle the coughs, and sputters some more.
"Th-thi-what the hell are you reading, Bakamoto?!"
He nearly drops the phone in shock, and Katsura takes it from him in his moment of weakness. "Ooh, ooh, let me see!"
And so Katsura begins to read from a passage that catches his eye, voice changing colour from distant to awe in a span of three seconds, and here all you kiddies under 18 should listen at your own discretion, "'"Paako-ohhh," Shinsuko moaned sensuously. She bucked back against the hot friction riding in her hips, eliciting a wanton moan from the gargantuan silver-haired man holding him in place. He had a tight grip pressing on Shinsuko's thigh against the stall door—it'll leave a mark—iand the deft fingers of his free hand tugged at her—'"
And then there was nothing else to read, for the phone had been sliced neatly in half by the man half-seated some feet apart from the three of them. A closer inspection would reveal that the two parts of the phone are not as neatly sliced as Takasugi's blade edge is known for; a testament to the Kiheitai governor not being as collected as he would like to seem.
His eye clouds over with a promise of storm that did not bode well for Sakamoto. The intent was terrifyingly clear: explain fast or end up like your phone there.
"Wait, Shunsuke, I can explain, ahahahaha..." His laughter trails off as the storm brews ever closer. "It's just fanfiction. Your shipper fans write stories featuring you guys as characters and post them up in fancafes, blogs, archive sites, to share with other shippers. Sometimes they write about you two having passionate sex in public washrooms, isn't it cute? I started a Paako x Shinsuko fancafe and it's gotten really popular, ahaha, ahahahaha."
If Takasugi didn't end him, Gintoki soon would. "You what?" He could understand fanfiction, for one thing. He knew he was kind of in one right now; how else would this mess be happening? He imagines he'd be lounging at home, sipping strawberry milk if he could swindle some change off Pattsuan instead of hanging out—was this hanging out?—with loud, no-brained, destructive idiots. But this—sex—Takasugi—that wasn't part of the deal. I mean, if they did... do it, it would be a private affair. He certainly wouldn't want other people reading about it. What were they doing, jerking off while reading about them? Isn't that voyeurism? Jeez, people with their creepy fetishes. What did they mean by... "Hold on, did they call me a man? Paako-chan's cover shouldn't have been blown already. I hope."
"Ah, that was an AU. Alternate Universe with genderswitched male!Paako.. The realm of possibilities in fanfiction are endless and infinite. Just like space, ahahaha. There is also High School AU, Vampire AU, De-Aged AU, Demon AU, Body Swap AU, and Old War Buddies AU."
"The last one is pushing it, oi."
"It is." Takasugi seems to be agreeing with the lazy excuse of a samurai a lot more these days. He is faintly worried at what meaning he would find for this if he delved deeper. For the moment, he will ask one more question to settle Sakamoto's fate. "Why..." he coughed, "Why in this order?"
He watches the realization dawn in Sakamoto's eyes. "You mean... ah...hahahaha... well, there was already a Shinsuko x Paako fancafe, no point in making another one! It's very popular too. I can send you the link to it. You can count on me, Sousuke! I'll even make you a recommendation list of my favourite fanfics!"
Takasugi counts the different ways he can land kicks on Sakamoto's anatomy; the quiet frown in Gintoki's expression goes unread, and all is quite well.
Having written meticulously on the whiteboard during the mayhem, Katsura now claps his hands for attention. Yes we can.
"Starting tomorrow, we're going to take a short break to recuperate the vitality of our skin and rid of the bags beneath our eye(s). Make sure to do a full face mask before bed and sleep in as much as you can. Ah, I don't need to remind you about that, Gintoki. Next, in four days, we will be accepting an award on stage where there will be a lot of cameras focused on our youthful skin. Have you brought the CC cream, Sakamoto? No, not BB cream, those are old news. And you call yourself a businessman. We will also unveil our new song then since we will have a short live performance scheduled before awards presentations." He pauses for breath and meets expectant eyes. "Any objections?"
Sakamoto raises a hand. "Can I go back to the Kaientai for a bit? Mutsu's probably wondering where I am. I wouldn't want her to cry over my missing person, ahahahaha. Or declare me dead and take the title of Captain, ahahahahahaha. Mutsu has such a sense of humour sometimes, ne?"
Katsura gives him the nod of approval after careful consideration. "As long as you're back for the awards show and spend time practicing your parts in the song. Ooh, we also need to do a fitting for our outfits! I have these new Elizabeth suits," he exclaims, and runs off to find them. Gintoki waits in muted horror at the aspect of playing his guitar with Renho hands. Zura wasn't serious, was he?
Zura's always serious, the inner voice of a demon sounded too gleeful.
He returns a couple of minutes later in tears. "Ta-Takasugi! How could you?" That's when Gintoki sees the torn white sheets that had once been the uniform of the Renho in Katsura's white-knuckled grip, and feels much relieved.
Takasugi regards the results of his handiwork (he won't bother to deny it) with disinterest. "You know I'm not about wear that."
"When will you learn to not cut down everything you don't like? Your way of thinking is extraordinarily childlike, Shinsuke."
"You don't have a right to tell me that, Zura. Forget the white monstrosities and find some actual outfits for humans for a change. How you expect to scale the piano with two flippers for hands is beyond me."
For some time, a thought has been plaguing Gintoki. He voices it now. "Aren't you guys being a bit too enthusiastic about this? This being the stupid girl band plot that the author stole from that single shot in the Mantama opening. I would have expected you all to lose interest by now."
At least Katsura was known for his short attention span, usually jumping around from goal to newfound goal and Korean channel to Korean channel. Takasugi never had any patience for anything; Sakamoto let ropes tie him on firm ground and not in space and that alone said more than enough.
Katsura realizes their group is comprised of strangers. Estranged by time, but they had a lot of time now, stupid girl band plot or not. He swallows the vexed exhale in his throat, lets the matter of ruined Elizabeth outfits go, and turns to Gintoki with a beaming smile. "Of course not. A Samurai doesn't half-ass anything."
Gintoki rolls his eyes. The fondness in his voice takes away certain bite. "We're half-assing this right now. What happened to coming up with a title for our song, huh? I bet readers have already forgotten that we wrote a new song in the first place. What are we even doing here?"
Sparing a glance outside the window, Katsura greets another setting sun. "We will use the break to come up with ideas," he decides. "Meeting adjourned! You will have to excuse yourselves, as I have re-runs to catch."
Sakamoto is not one for wasting time. He jumps up and bids some of Katsura's men farewell (his good-humoured and raucous nature garnered much popularity with some of the younger ones) before pausing at the door.
"Goodbye, Zura, Kintoki! Is Rinsuke headed for the port, too? Let's go together like old times, ahahaha!"
"When did I ever go anywhere with you?"
Takasugi is walking with him only because he really is headed to the port, and his quickened strides in an attempt to lose him cancel out against Sakamoto's longer ones so that they're walking side by side in the end.
"Ahaha, don't be like that, Hamtaro."
"The hell is Hamtaro. You just ran out of –suke names, didn't you."
Takasugi feels a weary sort of ache ebbing at his temples, knowing that Sakamoto's merriment will ring in his ears the whole way.
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Gintoki ends up stopping by another Oedo Mart to stock up on the low strawberry milk levels in his fridge, on the path home. He takes a roundabout path, giving himself room to mull over thoughts after hectic days. Sukonbu is on sale, so he grabs that too with an indulgent glow to his eyes. Softening. He even buys a glasses cleaning solution, figuring that Shinpachi should probably have a bath from time to time. No, that was not his wallet. He also figures that if Zura didn't want people to take his wallet, he should leave it in less open spaces.
A vibration in his pocket that contacts with his leg startles him momentarily. He'll never be one hundred percent at ease with these little automatons, and his mood simmers down a bit. Oh, hey, a text message. Probably Zura noticing the absence of his wallet when he tried to buy Pocari during the commercials. Tap, tap.
He reads it with a snarky reply already at his fingertips, thumbs poised above the keyboard.
The contents give him pause.
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.-.-.
/end part five
Yay more song lyrics ruining. Lyric writing to existing music is very fun. Hehehh.
If anyone reading this is also keeping up with the Gintama manga, review and/or shoot me a PM and let us spazz together. These past few weeks have been very intense and inspiring and pushing me to write more and more, so blame that for another long chapter. I keep meaning to end it but then it just spirals on and on...
Also, to any Canadians out there, Happy Thanksgiving : Thank you to all who have stuck around. Aaaand hopefully you will stick around until next time!
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coming up next...
"I'll kill ya."
Now with 30% more cameos, 40% more nonsense and 100% more plot! 'Be Careful When Shopping Online' reaches its climax in the next chapter. Dun dun dun.
-10/12/14 +minor edits 12/17/15