Gintama Fan Fiction ❯ salarymen go to heaven ❯ part 10 ( Chapter 10 )

I don't own a blow dryer. Seriously. Even though I live in Hokkaido at the moment, I never got around to buying it and, really, I hate the bloody things.

 

 

* * Part Ten: In Which Murphy is Shown to be the Ruling Force of the Universe * *

 

 

Yamazaki ran back to the Commander's room thanking the Merciful Heaven this didn't turn out the way he thought it would.

 

Yamazaki is a person who takes Murphy's law to heart. If there was the smallest possibility of things going wrong, they will go wrong. If there are four ways in which things might go wrong and you prepare for all four, things will go wrong in a fifth way. If the attack is going really well, it's an ambush. The easy way is always mined. Those who know the least will always know it the loudest. A Smith & Wesson beats four aces. Et cetera.

 

But most of all, Yamazaki knew that if there is anything he can do wrong, he will do so at the precise moment Hijikata is watching.

 

And what he did wrong tonight was come back from badminton practice to see the Commander staring stone-faced into the instantly recognisable outline of Sakata Gintoki. Yamazaki gripped his racket, trying to imagine what this grave silence meant, when from the shadows, the Vice-commander himself stepped out and called him into their solemn circle.

 

Yamazaki followed with a stone in his stomach as the Freelancer was invited for a drink by Commander Kondo in a voice which suggests infinite understanding only possible between two people who share a desperate need for the healing powers of alcohol. Hijikata went behind all of them, watching so Yamazaki wouldn't slip away to the common room where they couldn't extract him to use in their plotting.

 

Because what happened next could only be described as plotting.

 

Yamazaki was briefed by Kondo, while Hijikata and the master Freelancer fumed at each other in the background.

 

And what Kondo told him was that he should go take food to Captain Okita and come back for a debriefing promptly afterwards. All of this would make a lot more sense if the Commander wasn't uncorking a large bottle of imported alcohol that the Shinsengumi got as a present after Captain Okita saved the town from the Terrorist Who Must Not Be Named last month. Behind the Commander, Vice-commander Hijikata was setting three glasses on the table, saying something about not getting drunk this time to which the master Freelancer snorted and Yamazaki was briefly attacked by memories he wanted to keep deep within himself where they would never surface into his consciousness again.

 

“Sir,” said Yamazaki, “is Captain Okita under suspicion? I mean, is it really ok for me to check up on him like that? He'll know something is wrong, I don't bring food normally,” he finished and shivered at the thought of Captain Okita questioning his motives. There are things spies couldn't abide, tortures one cannot ask them to endure, and the First Captain practically invented them all.

 

“You can tell him you were demoted to housekeeper,” growled Hijikata. “I'll corroborate.”

 

Yamazaki looked down on his knees knowing he was being sent on a suicide mission without the faintest prickle of remorse from his superior officers and their unusual guest.

 

And then the food trey came in.

 

And then there were two sets.

 

And even God figured something was wrong.

 

Yamazaki gaped at the steaming rice and the fish and the many other soups and sauces that all came in pairs. Then he blinked at his commanders-in-chief, then back at the ominously coupled sets of chopsticks.

 

“I, em…Am I to understand the Captain is WITH someone?”

 

Hijikata looked at his spy in amazement. “Way to go, Yamazaki. How is it that your brain logs in for the fun only when I don't need it to?”

 

Commander Kondo said something about Yamazaki being bright and Toshi being unfair while Sakata Gintoki stared on into the bottle of alcohol, telepathically willing it to pour some of its content into his glass, but Yamazaki could barely perceive all of this.

 

His superiors were asking him to go spy on another superior who was having a dinner guest. Maybe a woman. Maybe not so much of a dinner guest. (Yamazaki watched enough television to know all the meanings of the word `dinner' and none of them ever included any eating… Of food.)

 

So now, when he reopened the sliding doors to a scene of three tense men boozing around the Commander's heavy wood table, he felt nothing but relief that, even though there was a girl in Captain Okita's room and even though they were positioned in an intimate setting where the girl nibbled on snacks while the Captain finished up on his reports, he managed not to walk in on…the worst case scenario (which in Yamazaki's tortured mind included whips, chains and shiny, shiny, shiny boots of leather).

 

Kondo called him forth and pointed to the end of the table. Yamazaki obediently sat down and said, in a crystal clear voice, how absolutely nothing awkward was going on. “The Captain is finishing up on the day's work and the young miss is eating some snacks, waiting,” he racked his memory for more information he could offer. “They seemed at ease. The TV was on.”

 

His superior officers and the Freelancer skewered him with their gazes. “Nothing was going on, nothing whatsoever?” asked Kondo finally.

 

“Nothing, sir,” nodded Yamazaki. “From what I could tell, nothing was happening before I came in, either.”

 

“The TV was on? She was watching TV?” asked Hijikata using the voice he usually does when debriefing, what is to say, a rather dry, sharp tone that tells you immediately his only purpose in life is to prove how stupid and incompetent you are, even though now it was slightly watered down by the liqueur.

 

“No, sir, she seemed to be looking around the room,” said Yamazaki. “Taking in the surroundings, looking to the Captain, that sort of thing.”

 

Silence fell around the room. Obviously something he said thinking it was normal behaviour between dinner-friends, to these men meant imminent doom. “And they weren't fighting?” asked Hijikata again.

 

“No, sir. As far as I could tell, sir, they weren't talking at all.”

 

“Not bitching about each other? Not actually hitting each other?” This time it was the master Freelancer that leaned over the table and into Yamazaki's face.

 

“No, sir.”

 

“Not even one snide remark?” pushed the Freelancer.

 

“No, no, sir, nothing like that,” answered Yamazaki wondering why they would be fighting. Surely, Captain Okita had some strange ideas about fun, but dating is always dating.

 

Yeah, and dinner is always `dinner'.

 

Commander Kondo, looking solemn beyond words, filled the glasses of everyone at the table, even a small, green one meant, Yamazaki realised with a start, for him. “Oh, this is worse than I thought,” he said, shaking his head. “If they actually like spending time together, it's…”

 

Sakata Gintoki downed his glass of alcohol, had it refilled by Kondo and then gave a shaky, fake laugh. “We are being ridiculous, I mean there is no way they would, I mean, they are, what? How old is your one anyways?”

 

Kondo shook his head, “But precisely because they are young, they are expansionalising!” He didn't notice the master Freelancer giving a little twitch at the talk-show wording. “And Sougo has a way, I mean, he is a darling, really, once you get to know him. Sometimes he may come across as a tad odd, but, truly, he is a lovely person, and, isn't that right, Toshi?”

 

Hijikata grunted something into his glass that could have been interpreted as either affirmative or demeaning to the entire bloody concept, and flushed the contents down his throat.

 

“See? Sougo has a way of growing on you!”

 

“Yeah, like a tumour,” hissed Hijikata hoarsely, clearing the booze from his throat.

 

Yamazaki looked on into his own centimetre of brownish liqueur, trying to distance himself from this entire conversation. Captain Okita was many things, but only Commander Kondo could describe him as a darling. But then again, Kondo was also the only man who could call the Vice-commander Toshi and that, to Yamazaki, was the peek of all daring and insane bravery.

 

“No, no, you two are missing the point,” said the master Freelancer, louder then necessary and also slightly mispronounced. “It's not your kid that bothers me, it's Kagura. It's all very well when you're advertising how lovely this darling is, but I can't say that about Kagura. Kagura is a snotty, terrible… And she's too young to like how lovely darling your lovely darling is, I wanted to say, I mean, she's not old enough.”

 

“They are both too young, I agree!” huffed Hijikata. “But I don't think you have any room to talk, I mean, the last time, we had pretty much this conversation and you said your first time was back-“

 

“Those were different times, different times,” Sakata Gintoki waved rubbery fingers in front of his face.

 

“Different times!” shouted Kondo and raised his glass in salute.

 

“Different times!” shouted the Freelancer and Hijikata together. Then the three men looked to Yamazaki who was still groping his glass in insecurity.

 

“…I wasn't around back then, sir,” he tried.

 

“…is he calling me old? Are you calling me old?” said Sakata Gintoki and, before his superiors could answer, Yamazaki shouted “different times” and threw his head back along with the alcohol.

 

As the heat slowly spread through Yamazaki's body, he remembered Murphy. There was nothing he could have done to escape this fate, nothing at all.

 

If anything can go wrong, it has already gone wrong.

 

You just weren't notified.

 

 

* *

 

 

Murphy is god. There is nothing to dispute that fact.

The “shiny shiny shiny boots of leather” refer to “Venus in furs” a song about masochism by Velvet Underground. As an example, another bit of the song goes: “strike dear mistress and cure his heart.” You get the picture.