Next Cast Member, Enter!

In the early mornings of Edo, the Kabuki district was slowly being filled with people as they went on with their jobs. At the Odd Jobs office, Hiroto was currently eating from a plate of french fries.

*crunch* "You know, Gin. *crunch* you shouldn't be eating ice cream so early in the morning." Hiroto said, eating a french fry.

"Oi, and what about you? *slurp* Should you even be eating that in the morning? Or at all? *slurp*" Gin said, licking his ice cream.

Hiroto waved a french fry around and said, "No no no, it's perfectly fine for me to eat this. But you, on the other hand, shouldn't be eating so much sugar so early in the morning…*crunch*"

Gin lazily laid down on the couch and said, "Shut up, what are you, my Doctor?"

Putting a latex glove on, Hiroto said, "Be careful what you say, I'm a jack-of-all-trades. That means I'm proficient in everything."

"Oi, what are you doing? Stay back! Stay back!!" Gin shouted as he ran towards the front door.

"Hold still! What would you do if your hemorrhoids started to act up!" Hiroto shouted as he chased Gin around.

"I don't even have hemorrhoids!" Gin said, opening the front door, but was then kicked back towards Hiroto.

"Guffaw!" Hiroto shouted as Gin smashed back into him, sending them sprawling across the floor.

"GINTOKI! HIROTO!! WHERE'S THE RENT MONEY?!" An old, and cranky voice came from outside of their home. In the broken doorway stood an old lady with a cigarette in hand as she shouted, "Don't you dare make any more excuses and pay off your entire rent!"

Pushing Gin off of him, Hiroto said, "Shut up, old hag. Didn't we already pay it off!"

"Yeah!" Gin said, rubbing his head and sitting up. "I fixed your VCR, remember? That oughta be enough to square us!"

"Not even close! You both owe me for five months!" The old lady, Otose shouted. "And the VCR broke again, so I missed an episode of Onihei Crime Story!"

"Why don't you just upgrade to blu-ray or something? The VCR is too outdated now." Hiroto said, sitting back down on the couch.

"Yeah! You need to get with the times now. If you don't, you'll be left behind and stuck watching Casablanca on repeat for years to come." Gin said, sitting next to Hiroto.

"Shut yer trap and give me the rent like I asked, you naturally wave-haired oaf! You too, you tomato head!!" Otose shouted, putting the two into a chokehold.

"Shut up! You don't understand the suffering we have to go through! It's not like I chose the tomato life, the tomato life chose me!" Hiroto said, as he squirmed his way out of Otose's grip and headed to the window.

Hiroto opened the window and climbed onto it, shouting back, "Hahaha! Remember this day, for this, is the day that you almost captured me, Captain Jack Sp-" *POW*

"Shut up, and get me my rent money!" Otose shouted, throwing Gin towards Hiroto and knocking the two out of the window.

*crash* *BANG* "Ow ow ow, that damn hag. Can't she be any gentler? Oi, am I bleeding?" Hiroto said as he rubbed his head.

Gin rubbed his back and said, "How should I know? With that hair, your heads always bleeding."

From the streets, Shinpachi walked towards the two and thought to himself, '... Should I be following these two? I know I told Sis that I saw something in them. But now I'm starting to doubt myself.'

"Ah, Shinpachi, you're here, good. You deal with Gin, I'm heading off for a job." Hiroto said, as he left the alleyway and into the streets.

"You have a job? Want me to come with you?" Shinpachi asked.

"Nah, it's fine. I have to go see this old guy, he called in about having something stolen. Didn't want to involve the police since he doesn't trust them. Something he read off the internet." Hiroto said, waving behind him as he walked away.

Shinpachi watched Hiroto walk away and said, "Hm, okay then. What are we going to do then Gin?"

"Eh, might as well go buy some groceries." Gin said lazily, as he walked to his scooter. "I want to have some sukiyaki."

-----

Hiroto arrived at a convenience store and entered, "Hello? Odd Jobs Hiroto here, you called me yesterday?"

An old man came from around the back and said, "Yes! Took you long enough."

"Hey now, don't complain to me. This was a last-minute request you put in." Hiroto said, walking between the aisles and checking out the items.

"Yea yea, whatever. Look, I told you that something was stolen right? I need you to find out where it went and bring it back for me!" The old man grumbled.

"Well, do you have anything I can lead off of? I can't just magically find the guy for you." Hiroto said, grabbing a cola from the fridge and opening it.

"There's some security footage you can watch." The man said, pointing to an old and rustic computer by the side.

Drinking the cola, Hiroto said, "Well, pull it up then. I'm not that good with technology."

"Fine. Shouldn't the young ones be more verse with this than me?" The old man grumbled to himself. He pulled up some security footage from the night before.

"There, it's her." The man said, pointing to a girl in the footage. Hiroto leaned in closer and saw that she was wearing a red cheongsam with yellow piping. She carried a purple parasol around with her, causing it to obstruct her face.

Rubbing his neck, Hiroto said, "Hmm, this isn't much but I could probably find her. Either she's really short, or is still just a kid."

"I don't care about her age, I just need you to find her and get back what she stole!" The man shouted.

"And just what was that she took from you?" Hiroto asked.

"Uh, it's. My precious collection!" The man said, looking away to the side.

"Hm, porn mags. Gotcha." Hiroto said, tossing the empty cola can into the trash and leaving the store.

"Huh? Wait! You didn't pay for that!" The man shouted, but Hiroto was already too focused on his tasks to hear the man's quarrel.

"Hmmm, where can I find her? Not a lot of people wear that sort of outfit, so she should stick out quite easily." Hiroto said, crossing his arms in his sleeves as he walked.

Walking along the streets, he heard a commotion coming from one of the alleyways. "Huh? What's all that shouting about?"

Getting closer, he heard a scooter being revved up. "Huh? Shinpachi, did you put on some weight?" A familiar voice floated to Hiroto's ear.

"Eh? Gin? What's he doing here?" Hiroto said to himself, peeking into the alleyway. What he saw stunned him. It was a girl in a red cheongsam, she held a purple parasol in her left hand, with her right hand gripped onto the back of the scooter than Gin and Shinpachi were on, stopping it from moving.

"How could a grown-up abandon a girl who's being hunted by the yakuza?" The girl said as she held onto the scooter.

"Ah! Hiro! Oi, girl. Let him help you instead, he's much more reliable than me." Gin said, pointing towards the red-headed Hiroto, whose head was peeking from around the corner.

"Oi, Gin. What's going on here? Is she extorting you for money? Are you being extorted for money by a girl? Are you trying to relive your school days once more?" Hiroto said, covering his mouth with one hand as he snickered.

"Don't just stand there and watch! Besides, in this country, we don't call people who can stop a scooter with one hand 'girls'." Gin said as he continued to rev up his scooter.

Hiroto nodded and said, "That's right, we call them mountain gorillas." the figure of Otae floated to the front of his mind.

At that moment, three people appeared next to Hiroto and pointed down the alleyway shouting, "Hey! There they are! Over heeeere--!" One of them shouted, running into the alley.

Hiroto stuck his foot out, tripping the man over. "Oh my, sorry. I lost my contacts and can't see properly." Hiroto turned around, whipping his elbow around and hitting the man in the face.

"Gah!" The man cried out, as he was knocked out.

"Ah, would you look at that, my eyesight just got better! Later!" Hiroto shouted as he ran down the alley, with Gin, Shinpachi and the girl already running ahead of him.

"Stop right there!" A man appeared at the end of the alley.

"Oopsie!" Gin shouted, kicking a trash can towards the man, knocking him away.

"Don't litter!" Hiroto shouted.

"It's fine! He's combustible trash!" Gin shouted back.

"Oi, girl! Why are they chasing after you? Is it the lolicon yakuza?" Hiroto said, running alongside her.

"I… I came here from a distant planet!" The girl said cheerfully. "I heard that I could make money if I came to Edo. My family is really poor. I can only eat seasoning on rice, three meals a day. I'd like to at least be able to eat raw egg and soy sauce on rice three meals a day."

Hiroto nodded and said, "Hmm, hmm. Truly some great goals, you'll do great in life." He gave her a thumbs up.

"Oi! Don't lump your own dreams in with her!" Shinpachi shouted.

"That's when I got an offer." The girl continued with her sad backstory. "They said that if I joined them, I could eat sake chazuke three times a day, so I jumped on board!"

"Why?! Shouldn't you eat three different kinds of meals a day?" Shinpachi said.

"You have to make do in life, Shinpachi. Even if it's eating the same meals three times a day." Hiroto said.

"All you do is eat french fries!" Gin yelled.