Work Text:
To any outsiders who happened to pass through, Ebisu Town seemed like it could be considered a heaven of some sort. Despite being as poor as they came in Wano, the people who lived there were renowned for their constant laughter and joy. The untrained eye however, sees only this facade that lies on the surface. The average passerby thinks nothing of the unnaturalness of their happiness, does not see the pain hiding behind their eyes. The average passerby does not know the secret darkness behind Ebisu town after all. That these poor people have been stripped of their ability to express anything but joy. Taken advantage of and forced to forever remain unable to express any form of negative emotion.
Toko is no different. She may live in the Flower Capital now, sending the money she makes to her father, but her roots will always be in Ebisu Town. She too is cursed to wear this mask of happiness for the rest of her life. She too, becomes known for her distinctive laughter to all those she meets. She smiles and laughs everywhere she goes. Smiles on her way to work, laughs with the nice Soba shop owner and his friends, and smiles some more during the courtesan’s procession.
And then the other guests started making fun of the shogun during the banquet, and poor Toko couldn’t stop her laughter even if she had wanted to.
They’re forced to run after that, but before she even knows it Toko is running as fast as she can back to the Flower Capital because that’s her father up there about to get executed. That’s her father calling out and taunting the shogun, claiming he can finally leave this world with a smile on his face, and she can’t have that. She smiles when the shogun shoots him down from his perch, and she laughs as he lies on the floor bleeding out. Through all the yelling around her, she hears the resounding laughter of the other Ebisu Town residents echoing out through the square, some sort of haunting mockery of a eulogy that betrays the grief she knows they all surely feel. She feels it too.
But all she can do is smile as her father dies before her very eyes. Just like she always will.