Chapter Text
Contrary to appearances, Nezumi-Otoko knew precisely what his mischievous little seven year old of a crony was thinking. After all, as soon as his loss is revealed, Kitaro can nary do much but tag along. As a result, Nezumi-Otoko could try as he might to shake him, but there would be no fruition to the effort anyway. From one demon to another, haunting each other wasn’t so bad of a pass time, even if it was a waste. At the very least, he could gloat any moment he wished. That was his one consolation for his cold, and the only reason he would ever miss the Freak Olympics. Unlike some idiotic runt in particular and his so-called noble schemes.
Nezumi-Otoko had climbed at least three centuries beyond the cackling hunchback at his side’s mere decade. He knew what it was like to be old, and for now he would play his part. Even then, he had to shave three years off of Kitaro’s intelligence like the nonexistent head of hair on his root-shaped head. It wasn’t as if Kitaro actually learned anything from his stint as a bureaucratic bodyguard, nor the consequences of getting in over his miserly pig head. He had absolutely no vision for the long term, no genius to his lineage. There was a reason the boy was with him now, rather than frolicking in the sands of Hell. The Olympics were nothing but a school field trip to him, some collection of shabby spectacles that held no candle to the fulfillment of proving himself right. It was only natural a youthful demon wouldn’t be able to grasp how utterly intangible the afterworld was to humans, especially since the significance of Hell’s history was lost on a child such as he. Especially since youth wouldn’t be pried from him easily, hypothetically speaking alone.
Whether or not he was stupid enough to think he could sell real happiness was what bemused Nezumi-Otoko so. Otherwise, wouldn’t he use his ticket to attend for the sake of his own? It was self-evident that the boy was much too bored with Hell’s conventions, yet unwise enough to realize how out of touch with the times he was. He talked big about suckering in more clients, unknowingly and fittingly blind to the fact that his competitor could sell one of the many things Kitaro gave no second thoughts about. It would be so easy to literally strip away his immortality. So distracted by his desire for gratification, Kitaro wouldn’t even notice if his precious chanchanko was swapped until it was far too late for him to do anything about it, but Nezumi-Otoko had his own ingredient this time.
Nezumi-Otoko merely chuckled with him, crookedly entertained by the fact the boy had the nerve to call him hopeless. “That again?”
“Yes,” When the one-eyed boy was bored and the playing field was even like this, he wasn’t only hopeless but incurably naive. He accompanied a man as twisted as Nezumi-Otoko back to his meager refuge, his belly howling as if it wanted to be found by a pack of hell hounds. “I can’t even rely on you to save a stash of dried plums.”
Kitaro was too above him to beg, but too beyond him to catch on to the irony of Nezumi-Otoko’s lacking irritation. “That depends, Kitaro-chan. What were your earnings after hoodwinking yourself of your own ticket? Invitations from the lord himself aren’t ripe to come by.”
Nezumi-Otoko didn’t need to wait long. Kitaro wasn’t thinking twice, judging by the way his back straightened and his leg was propped. “Hoodwinking myself? I hardly agree.”
Well, that was a surprise. It seemed that Kitaro was reluctant to squeal. It could have been so easy for an ear welcoming of yen, but apparently he thought he could distract the older demon’s priorities. He had soaked up enough mockery from the boy. It was time to play his cards as well. “That nonchalance of yours will hurt your chances of profit.”
The buck toothed little punk puckered his lip. Got him. “We both know I’m the victor. You didn’t earn a damned thing because you’re too decrepit and bitter to have a vision like mine.”
“Bibibi!” The proceeding slap was so swift and precise that if his one eye focused enough, it would reel in the after images of the robed rat’s filthy hand. “I will have you informed that my panacea is unlike any in the land! It’s the one and only cure-all in this world!” As boastful as he was in the face of his eternal rival, Kitaro was a malnourished seven year old, and a measly survivor of a near extinct race at that. Whatever mysterious power he had inherited, he fell to the dingy floor easily.
“Ow! Do you always have to hit me when I’m starving and vulnerable?” Kitaro sputtered with his beak shaped lips, sitting up from his humiliating collapse with a narrowed eye. It was pathetic, but he was better off with his head whipped back than his chin in the air like he had some unrivaled wealth of knowledge that surpassed Hell’s history. It was ridiculous, watching his parade of compensation as if it meant anything more than the Olympics below.
“Maybe if you’d listened to your father, you wouldn’t be starving right now. As I was saying, you only have your own carelessness to blame,” Sniffling triumphantly, Nezumi-Otoko stuck out his three tongues and blew a slimy raspberry with the appropriate maturity level of a demon his age.
Kitaro cringed from the squalid ground, for the other’s spit was gleeking onto his face. He didn’t believe for a second what the fusty old rat had to say. If his remedy truly was a miracle, he wouldn’t still be hairless. “Eww, you’re going to give me your plague. Keep your scurf to yourself, you smelly pilgarlic rat!”
Finally, another cruel, haggard laugh ruptured from the rat’s chest, followed by a scratchy slew of coughs. As sick as he was, and as much as he would prefer to be in Hell, it was a great pleasure of his to torment the boy he found such twisted kinship in. Only Kitaro would pointedly obsess over an arbitrary point such as his baldness, even after it had lost it’s relevance. “I will. If you tell me where your cash is. You’re not freeloading here with this elaborate pity party you’ve thrown. Actually, that’s only because I’m almost touched by how you follow me around like some stray mutt.”
“You failed to repair your brain damage, I see. I’m not compensating for anything. I achieved the deliverance I wanted fair and square. Your company is useless to me,” The graveyard boy returned that savage laugh with a subdued but nonetheless malignant smile. For some reason unfathomable to humankind, he was foolishly diverted by this game. The karmic cycle awarded him with the company he deserved, but he celebrated the regalement in good humor. “Where do you get off, treating me like some tenant? You’ve stolen from me time and time again. What makes you think I owe you a thing? I ought to give you a whipping for daring to suggest it! I can haunt where I want.”
Nezumi-Otoko shuddered, but he had one tactic to use in case Kitaro decided he didn’t want to play on equal grounds anymore. He pegged the kid as spoiled enough when he wasn’t getting what he wanted, but easy enough to push around. “You listen to me, you contrary little mule,” Tugging pointedly on the mop headed boy’s ear, Nezumi-Otoko plugged it with a sloppy finger, eliciting a quaking shriek from Kitaro. “Sheesh, pipe down. Don’t pretend I didn’t see you pouting earlier, you self-centered runt. Your old man is very disappointed, you know. You didn’t think even once that he might have wanted to spend quality time with you, and instead you’re messing around here with me! What flattery it is, too! It’s like we’re as close as brothers!”
The horrified squawks Kitaro had been wailing out cut off abruptly as he gagged, using his limited stamina to scrabble away from the disturbingly affectionate rat above. Unfortunately for him, he was easy to snag by the vest. As if that wasn’t insulting enough, when his ear was finally freed, the nasty bastard was rubbing the sticky wax between his fingers. “Stop it, Nezumi-Otoko! Don’t say vulgar things like that!”
Shrugging with a mocking air of disregard and pretending he wasn’t the least bit hurt by the lack of assent, the sickly man snorted and ejected a snotty sputum before dropping the struggling boy on his tail bone. “Big talker. You like it, or else you wouldn’t linger. Just don’t be a pest. I’m not feeling well and I’m not in the mood to babysit a cold-hearted brat like you. I’m turning in for the night, but don’t think for a moment you earned anything.”
“Whatever, skin head. Never, ever do that again,” Kitaro grumbled, watchfully regarding the man as he arranged his futon and crawled in. That was a peculiar change in demeanor, if he’d ever seen one. As if he hadn’t just been traumatized for the rest of his endless life, Kitaro made no reservations about creeping and hovering over the odorous rat, grabbing him by the scruff of his bedraggled robe, and making as if to choke him. His hold was more feeble than expected. “What about me?”
“What about you?” Kicking the boy off of him with ease, Nezumi-Otoko resigned himself to more bickering. “Here you are, mooching off of poor, sick me, and you don’t even do my bidding. You can sleep on the floor and starve for all I care.”
Momentarily deterred, Kitaro rubbed his aching side. He didn’t know which mood he preferred on the scuzzy rat. “The only reason Enma Daio gave you an invitation in the first place was because you’re acquainted with me. If he doesn’t come to your dreams, I will.”
“Anything to convince yourself that you’re resourceful. If it’s that necessary, you can sleep on the couch, but only this once. If you have an accident I’ll beat you up,” Nezumi-Otoko turns his back to the persistent stripling, evoking a witchy cackle from him. Plainly, Kitaro did not take that threat seriously. He couldn’t blame him, with his obvious affinity for filth, but if he had the energy he would anyway. The stretch of quiet and lack of indicators that Kitaro had moved at all unnerved him, though. “What are you waiting for? Get.”
The undernourished half-pint stood over him, whining faintly as his stomach knotted and yowled. It was music to tone deaf ears and pulled no sympathy from the sleepy rat. In fact, it put his spirit to ease. Tactics such as those might have worked on the late Mizuki, but it was Kitaro’s own fault for leading him to Hell in every dimension he roamed. When lofty snores taunted Kitaro’s ears, he heaved indignantly out of his nose, an involuntary whistle sounding from his stubbly snout. He would just have to look for those plums himself. Staggering to his feet, they brushed and stumbled against the floorboards. Reeling over an ebbing sensation of dizziness, he took a moment to prop himself up on the arm of the couch, but sank sideways into the stiff cushion. Maybe after a smoke?
Checking his pockets, the shoat nosed boy snorted in a chapfallen manner. His matchbox was intact, but he must have consumed his pack of Peace entirely. After a moment’s wait and an anticlimactic battle with his stuffy nose, Kitaro used the grievance as fuel to stand back up. Nothing would get his blood pumping like a tasty cigarette. Decidedly, he peeled back the patchy rag that Nezumi-Otoko used for warmth and began frisking. The man shivered under him, not at all appreciating the physical contact with the clammy skinned boy. There wasn’t as much force in pushing him away, but that was out of zonked curiosity. No rest for the wicked, as the saying goes.
“What in the hell do you think you’re doing, you leech?” Nezumi-Otoko began resisting him, pushing the little miscreant so they were inches apart. Even in the dark, he could make out the impudent, fiendish eye the swellheaded half-yokai was giving him. It wasn’t that he didn’t like it, but it was unsettling when directed at him personally. What, did Kitaro think he was cute?
“I’m cold,” Kitaro leered, lacking all of the slyness he thought he was made of. “Is this any way to treat an honored guest? Leaving him out in the cold to get sick?” Gesturing with a wave of his arm for the odorous man to behold his dilapidated abode with fresh eyes, Kitaro’s mockery was palpable. Especially when he broke eye contact to gawk at the empty entryway. There was no door to protect them from the hawkish wind outside, not that it would save them much. The floorboards could and have been pulled up before, a good chunk of the walls were cracked or missing, ants were building hills with the dusty soil the wind had pushed in over time, and he had yet to see the condition of the place of convenience, if it existed at all. As things were, life falls hard sometimes and sleeping with a futon right beside the lacking door was just how things had to be; stupid and ridiculous.
“If your remedies are so genius, why have you fallen ill anyway?” Mentally deriding the not so extravagant setup of elixirs in their colorful little vials, Kitaro carped on. “I told you anti-depilatory cream didn’t constitute to anything worthwhile. Any scheme you come up with is hopeless.”
Were all seven year olds as annoying as Kitaro? It was difficult to remember that this was a child he was speaking to, not that his behavior gave him away. Nezumi-Otoko cracked up at the notion of throwing him over a bridge, even though he affectionately considered himself the type that enjoyed the company of kids. “If little honored guests want to snuggle, all they have to do is ask,” The root headed rodent cooed, locking the unfortunate boy in an agonizingly olid hug. Shivering more in disgust than frigidity, Kitaro’s eye began to water. To add insult to injury, those prickly whiskers nuzzled intently against his cheek, stabbing his ear and lower jaw in a way that made him hack and dry heave. If his stomach weren’t empty, he would have hurled all over the repulsive man. “Honoring poor little you won’t comprise the deliverance of mankind, but here we are, wasting our time together like best friends.”
“That’s enough! I concede already!” Gasped the vagrant mop of hair, of which he might as well lose from the stress of his predicament. It wouldn’t be the first time he ran around with a bald head. Nezumi-Otoko slackened his hold on the boy and rolled over to lie on his side, observing his victory elatedly. Kitaro was avoiding proximity altogether in favor of the brisk draft of the doorway. Oh well, he had fled empty handed. Warmth just wasn’t worth it when it was Nezumi-Otoko. Confronting a nippy breeze was obviously the smartest decision he’d made all night, not that this praised his intelligence much. Surely his rivaled astuteness wouldn’t be wasted if he’d only parted ways to begin with. What could he do to to get his bitty hands on a gasper now? He hadn’t planned on a night out as his last one ended dismally, and he was currently suffering the onset of sickness.
It was a good thing he didn’t confess his earnings to the depraved rat, not that he had any intention of doing so this time. The temptation to gloat was at hand, but he more so wanted to squeeze more yen out of him in the form of sustenance if he could. His hands weren’t the only empty thing about him. Stuffing them in his pockets dully, Kitaro began his expanse around the district. “That rat probably holed himself up in his depository just because he couldn’t pay rent anymore. What a joke.”
The teeth of his geta hit the ground with a creaky wooden rap; it was a sound as delightful as a pealing bell. For his ears, it could have filled the emptiness with space, but the interval between his own eerie noise and the blat of a nearby motorcycle easily thundered over his liberation. The ever piping suona he’d stalked was complimented exquisitely, if his noble sentiments had any voice for the moment. Auditory felicity was almost as enticing as quelling the nauseating hunger he’d endured. Well, someone he poked in the butt once told him to go where the money was, and if that wasn’t a rich sound…Half a laugh and half a strangled bark rippled from his smoker’s throat, pulling even dubious ramen vendor eyes into jabbing him with the look of disapproval.
As to not agitate the common folk, he clambered up the dull leaden blue stool with minor issues. The livid thing felt comfortable on his sore rump, and he emphatically sighed so, not even disbursing a five hundred yen note. He observed expectantly, giving no reaction when he was told he couldn’t bum around unless he intended to buy something. The patrons were sparse, some three sheets to the wind and others striking up small talk. If politics could be that, not that opinions or butting heads occurred. Nobody was idiotic enough to speak out of line, as this wasn’t a conference after all. For most of the working class, this was a time to be casual. Even though stalls such as these were no longer illegal, allusions to harder times to break the ice were quite common.
Kitaro, on the other hand, had no class. “You,” He inelegantly accosted the man devouring his wheat noodles, “You’re that guy!”
Pushing up his sunglasses pompously, the man with his lavish stack of ramen bowls straddled his stool. This guy was really full of himself, and appeared doubtlessly fulfilled. Kitaro’s stomach flipped and whimpered at the sight. “Do you know who I am, little man?”
Giving forth the most blank contended eye, Kitaro barely moved his stiff, beak shaped lips as he spoke. It made for a flippantly melancholic voice. “Pardon me, but aren’t you one of those famous people? What’s his name?”
“Do you have a speech impediment or something, dude? You’re mooning over me and it’s weird.”
With enduring longing such as this, Kitaro’s nictating membrane drew across his eye to maintain his appetency. “Might I trouble you to have one mere insignificant bite of pork?”
Expressly shoving a slab of the desired meat into his chops, the beatnik with his too-too spotted sweater refused. “No way, man. I ordered all of this to treat myself!”
“I see,” Kitaro appealed lightly, as if still inwardly begging for scraps. His relent was half-hearted at best. What could he do now, ask how the man’s fiance was? That wouldn’t put him in a favorable spot.
“I won’t allow anybody to have even a speck of my luxury, no matter what happens to them!” Ever the freethinker, this guy. Kitaro noted a fish cake had gotten lost in his bandanna and brooded over whether or not to steal it.
“Do you know who I am?” The scant boy rejoined, giving him rapt attention that he never gave anyone. His vigil became mournful when the fish cake was noticed and done away with down the high-flown hatch of the other. “I have a service you won’t be able to defy.”
“Hmph! You’re that pervy little crook that sexually harassed my ex. It doesn’t matter who you are, you wouldn’t understand something like that. The Whatevers take pride in not being understood!” The implication stagnated in the air not even seconds after the exchange. The yatai vendor was about to cut in, and now things were delicate. He was actually glad most were deterred before the kid could ruin his stall’s reputation even more. This wasn’t just uncouth, it was seedy. For his own mental health, he would shoo him again.
“Kid, the government funds this stall. You can’t sell yourself here, it’ll ruin me. Please go away.”
The loafing straggler and the rapacious consumer reacted in stunned silence and indifference respectively. It wasn’t because his ears were freezing, benumbed, and feverish that Kitaro’s lobes blistered. His entire face was ruddy and raw. He’d meant to pitch his insurance plan to this stooge, not abash himself in the process! Spilling from the stool, Kitaro nursed his nose where it knocked into the ground. With his loss of face, he bowed apologetically and spun around on his heel.
“Hey, Stripes,” The beatnik called, seeming not to care whether or not the time was inopportune. “If you want to know what it takes to be a Whatever, follow me.”
"Oh?" The softly piqued sigh that escaped Kitaro could have formed a question mark if he only had a cigarette right then. As it was, he had no concept of never following strangers. It seemed to be a bad business philosophy, not that he acted out of anything short of childlike gullibility now. With no sense of alarm, he obliged the man’s offer, left his grave error behind him with his folded hands, and observed in an easygoing manner the way the rebellious human stroked his facial hair...