Chapter Text
Although Heterohitokirimaru, as the designated lucky charm, was officially a position holder in the citadel (Head of Defense Against the Forces of Evil), that didn’t absolve him from the fact he had to do CHORES.
Indeed, if he didn’t do chores, he would just be running around playing in the grass catching grasshoppers all day. And bothering everyone else with his loud mouth. Our peakslop straight people slicer was assigned to fieldwork with Fudou today.
But alas… fieldwork was such an important job for the citadel. Soy wondered if leaving it to plain old Fudou would be alright. Since the citadel was already poor asf anyway, leaving accountant Yamanbagiri with not much to manage, Soy decided Yamanbagiri and Fudou together could tutor Heterohitokirimaru on the way of the weed.
Yamanbagiri walked the two out. “This is the field.”
Uh huh yeah it was in fact a field. It was placed at the very front of the honmaru, on the right side the moment you entered from the citadel gate. It was filled with plants and veggies of the edible kind, and on the side closer to inner honmaru were the stables and sheds.
“No shit, *hic*, even he can tell what a field is.”
“Fudou, don’t drink on duty.”
“The hell? Who even cares, *hic*… In the end, Aruji brought you over because I’m a useless sword who can’t even do this right, *hic*.”
“Don’t be silly. I’m just a copy that Aruji chose because I failed at my job and had nothing left to do. He doesn’t have expectations for me, either.”
“WOWOWOW LOOK AT THIS!!” Heterohitokirimaru beamed, sprinting around in the dirt.
“?! Heterohitokirimaru-san?!” Yamanbagiri flipped himself around. “When did he…?!”
The straight people slicer twirled around. “It’s so sunny out!!”
Fudou frowned. “Aruji has pretty high expectations for that guy, though. Even though he’s a wooden sword.”
—
“These are Aruji’s herbs.” Yamanbagiri genius-ly took them over to the row with a wood signed labeled “herbs.”
“Ooh! What herbs are these herbs?”
“… Herbs.”
“Like Soy Sausage related herbs maybe? Soybeans? Sausage plants?”
“*Hic* Do those look like soybeans to you? And sausages don’t grow from plants.”
Yeah to be fr they were kinda a little too Canada shaped to be soybeans.
“Huhhhh…” the puzzled Heterohitokirimaru tilted his head like a dog. “Then what could it be…”
“Weed, duh,” said Fudou confidently. This earned a baffled reaction from Yamanbagiri, but sure he knew better, Fudou shamelessly pressed on.
“We grow the… what’s it called? Cannabis in this row. We have a drug lab in that shed over there, and the toudan never see any of it so I guess we *hic* sell it for a dirty buck… Yeah, Yamanbagiri-san?”
“Uh, that’s…” Yamanbagiri was at a loss for words. In fact, he knew the truth. Actually, he was the ONLY one in the citadel who knew the truth of this row. ‘Cause one night he overheard Soy monologing to himself in the drug lab. Soy insisted to aaaaaaaall the toudan that this row was the most important to nurture, because after 100 years, it’d sprout the ultimate cannabis plant, but this was all a LIE.
This entire row was artificial. The plant was idk some kind of look a like but not at all cannabis. In truth Soy did not touch drugs at all because he was too intimated by his vape twin sister’s real sick delinquent aura to actually touch drugs. She was too cool. But he still wanted to look like he could measure up to her and chase his Breaking Bad fantasy. So that was a reason he insisted on this lie… a tragic inferiority complex against his sister (or that was how Yamanbagiri saw it), that Yamanbagiri could relate to 😞👊
At any rate, it was a secret Yamanbagiri was fine protecting, even if he wasn’t especially fond of Soy. Yamanbagiri nodded.
“Yes. Unlike other citadels, we do not grow only our own food. We think outside the box in terms of making profit, and have our own drug supply pipeline, too.”
“*Hic* Ahh~ It’d be nice to make our own sake too, *hic*.”
“Huhhhh, wow!” Heterohitokirimaru turned back towards the plants, genuinely impressed. “That’s so awesome!”
“…”
Yamanbagiri noticed this a while ago, but wow Heterohitokirimaru was kinda a wacko. He was loud, bright, and smiled a lot, but his pupils always seemed blank. The way he rarely smiled with his eyes was uncanny. There wasn’t anything fake or fascade-like about it… but it did make Yamanbagiri think of that one dog who lived mostly normally despite missing 95% of her brain or whatever.
So gullible and easy. Yamanbagiri was relieved though.
It put him at ease, having someone as cheerful as him join the damegatana gang.