FicWad

Odd Jobs Crack

A Gintama thingy

by

EvilFuzzy9

A/N: This chapter is longer than the previous two, at least by a bit. It's also more coherent, slightly, and hardly breaks the fourth wall at all. Might this be the sign of an emerging plot?

... no, probably not.

Full chapter title:

Don't Smother Good Meat with Condiments, Kids! That's What Bad Meat is for!

Shinpachi's stomach did an unpleasant back-flip as he looked at the contents of the plate before him.

"Erm..." he said. "...are you sure this is safe for consumption...?" he asked the man sitting opposite him.

"Tch, of course it is," said Hijikata, taking a drag of his ever-present cigarette. "Mayonnaise is the king of condiments. It can make anything edible."

Shinpachi chuckled nervously, glancing down at the heap of mayo on the plate before him, so large that the orginal food could not be seen beneath it.

"You can say that..." he murmured dubiously, the look of a man on death row upon his face. "...but with Ane-ue's cooking, it's not so much about concealing the taste...as it is about neutralizing the toxins..."

"Ah," came the sound of his sister's voice from the kitchen, her tone dangerously sweet. "What was that, Shin-chan?"

Shinpachi's spine froze up in fear.

"N-n-nothing, ane-ue!" he stammered frantically. "N-nothing at all!"

Otae Shimura stuck her head into the dining room of the old, dilapidated Kodokan Dojo where her brother, Shinpachi Shimura, and the Demon Vice Chief of the Shinsengumi, Toshiro Hijikata, were seated upon tatami mats on opposite ends of a traditional low table, identical plates of mayonnaise covered something-or-other before them. There was a smile on her face, but it did not reach her eyes, which were cracked open just a slit, a deathly look being given to her two victims...er, guests.

"...If you say so, Shin-chan," she said sweetly, after a terrifyingly long pregnant pause during which Shinpachi and Hijikata's lives flashed before their respective eyes.

Otae then left, returning to the kitchen as she quietly hummed the melody to "What Planet is Yo Mama From?"

Shinpachi let out a sigh of relief, before glancing up at Hijikata, who was practically inhaling the nauseating mass of mayo on his plate. The teen fought back the urge to barf at the sight, dry-heaving before he shook his head.

"Say, Hijikata-san..." he quietly ventured after a moment of awkard silence, staring lifelessly at his plate of mayonnaise covered whatever. "...what are you doing here, anyway...?"

"Official Shinsengumi business," the man grunted with his mouth full, nearly causing Shinpachi to vomit.

After Shinpachi recovered from that near miss, he quietly said, "You're looking for Kondo-san, aren't you." It wasn't a question.

"No, actually..." Hijikata muttered, setting down his now-empty plate, using a napkin to wipe the traces of mayo from his lips. "I'm here on the chief's orders."

"...Did he tell you to try and convince ane-ue to go out with him?"

"...not this time," Hijikata said, sounding clearly embarrassed for his superior.

"Oh?" Shinpachi said, his curiosity piqued. "If not that, then what...?"

Hijikata sighed miserably.

"...to help you get a girl..." he muttered, looking absolutely humiliated.

Shinpachi blinked. "Eh?" he said. "Eh? Eh? Isn't there something odd about that? Isn't that a really shifty mission to be giving the Vice Chief of the Shinsengumi?!" he exclaimed disbelievingly. "He obviously has ulterior motives! And does he really think I'm the only thing keeping him from hooking up with ane-ue?!"

Hijikata shrugged, giving Shinpachi a "what-can-you-do-about-it?" look.

"What can I say?" Hijikata said, lifting his cigarette to his mouth taking a drag. "As the subordinate, it makes me look bad if my superior is constantly being made a fool of."

Shinpachi sweatdropped. "...It's more like your superior is the one making a fool of himself, you know..." he remarked.

"Whatever," Hijikata said dismissively. "The point is, the chief wants us to help his brother-in-law get a woman of his own."

"Since when am I his brother-in-law?-!" Shinpachi snapped. "And first he should worry about getting himself a woman! He's almost thirty, isn't he? He should be more realistic about his prospects!"

"That's mean, niichan," came the voice of Shinsengumi First Division Captain Sogo Okita from right behind Shinpachi. "The chief can't help it if he has the face of a gorilla."

Shinpachi jumped, startled. Whirling around, he jabbed a finger into the nonchalant Okita's chest, temples throbbing in his forehead.

"His face is only half of the problem!" Shinpachi shouted. "His personality is completely worthless, too! Ane-ue doesn't need some idiotic stalker harrassing her day in and day out!"

"How cruel," Okita said in his usual lethargic tone of voice. "Chief Gorilla can't help it if he has a learning disability."

"Heeey!" came a despairing shout from beneath the floorboards of the kitchen, "Who are you calling Chief Gorilla?! Do I really look that much like a gorilla? DO I?"

Shinpachi and Hijikata, as one, stomped down on the floorboards where the voice was coming from, their feet shattering the wooden floor and shooting straight through to impact with the plutonium-dense skull of the Shinsengumi Chief Isaru Gori—er, Isao Kondo.

... ... ... ... ...

"What are you doing in our floorboards, you damn stalker gorilla?!" Shinpachi snapped, stomping on Kondo's back, the man now spreadeagled on the floor next to the hole that had been made by his and Hijikata's feet

"Oy!" Hijikata snapped, temples throbbing dangerously as he assisted in stomping on his idiotic superior's back. "Why aren't you down at the station, dammit?!"

"I'm sorry!" Kondo cried tears streaming down his cheeks and snot dribbling from his nose. "I'm sorry! I'm sorry! I'm sorry! I just wanted to help my little brother find true love!"

Shinpachi's glasses shined eerily. "Ehhhh? Why have I suddenly been upgraded from 'brother-in-law' to 'little brother', you bastard?!" he shouted angrily, grinding his heel into Kondo's back. His temples appeared ready to burst, and his face was looking decidedly scary. He then paused, his demeanor and appearance reverting to their ordinary state.

"...well, in this case it feels more like a downgrade..." Shinpachi muttered under his breath, pointedly looking away from Kondo.

"Ahh!" Kondo shouted, looking up at Shinpachi miserably. "Too cruel! Are you saying you can't even bear the thought of being related to me?!"

"Of course I can't!" snarled Shinpachi. "Who would want to be related to an evolutionary throwback like you?! You damned Piltdown Man! No... you freaking Nebraska Man!"

Kondo cried pitifully.

"Too mean!" the grown man wailed pathetically. "Is that all I'm worth to you? A single pig tooth? Not even an orangutan skull, but just a pig's tooth?! Too mean! You're too mean, little brother!"

Kondo then jumped onto his feet in an apparent attempt to sweep Shinpachi into a manly embrace, but he was stopped by the teen's foot in his face.

"Don't touch me, you stinking pig's tooth!" Shinpachi snapped.

Hijikata sighed, taking a longsuffering drag of his cigarette and exhaling a sizable puff of smoke.

"Oy, oy," he drawled. "Kondo-san is really making us look bad, here..."

"You don't need his help to look bad, tax thieves," came a familiar, childishly feminine voice. "You do that well enough all by yourselves, aru."

The door to the dining room opened, revealing Kagura, who was wearing her usual red and yellow cheongsam and sucking on a piece of sukonbu, and as always she had her umbrella to keep her shaded. And standing next to Kagura, affectionately ruffling the girl's hair while sneering at Hijikata, was Gintoki.

"Did you hear that?" said Gin to Hijikata. "They say that little kids are able to see people's true natures, you know." He chuckled condescendingly at the Shinsengumi Vice Chief, pulling a piece of sukonbu out of his pocket and giving it Kagura, who casually accepted it from him.

"That's dogs, idiot!" Hijikata snarled, naturally aggravated by Gintoki's appearance. "They say that about dogs, not kids! And you're obviously just bribing her to badmouth us!"

"Do I look like a dog to you, aru?" Kagura said, swallowing the first piece of sukonbu and putting the second one into her mouth. "All that smoking must be ruining your eyes, mayo-freak."

Gin gave her another piece of sukonbu, which she stowed away in a pocket for safe-keeping.

Hijikata's temples bulged out of his head, his naturally small pupils shrinking even further. "Friggin' bastard..." he growled. "You're seriously pissing me off... And you're obviously bribing her, dammit!" he roared.

"I have no idea what you're talking about," Gin said. "Do you, Kagura-chan?"

The vermillion-haired Yato shook her head. "Uh-uh. The stupid pig must be seeing things, aru."

Gin gave her another piece of pickled seaweed while in the background Kondo started wailing anew about how he was definitely worth more than just a single pig tooth and Shinpachi kicked Kondo in the head.

Hijikata groaned, palming his face.

"I don't get paid enough to put up with this crap..."

TTFN and R&R!

translation notes:

"ane-ue" - "elder sister", respectful

"niichan" - "big(?) brother", somewhat childish or casual

"saru" - "monkey"