Gintoki climbed up and shook the door until it clanged loudly.
Nobuaki slipped away at top speed.
If he stayed any longer, he might really waver and open the door, so he had better leave quickly, leave quickly, and talk again when he delivered lunch at noon.
The little black room was silent.
‘Well, it’s a little black room, after all.
In the end, it’s basically the same as a prison cell, right?
Gin-san has experience with this.
A lot of experience.’
He calmly sat back down, then turned his head and saw a bloody fingerprint.
The corner of Gintoki’s eye twitched.
‘It’s an illusion, right?
An illusion.
People get like this when they’re alone.
It looks like there’s a double image in front of your eyes, but actually there’s just dust stuck on your eyeballs.
Totally safe~’
Gintoki closed his eyes, then opened them again.
Bloody palm prints were spreading toward him.
‘No, no, no, this is dust, dust.
It just happens to be bloody dust, that’s all.
So maybe some blood droplets fell into my eyes at some point.
Ah, this is really bad.
I need to hurry and wipe my eyes.’
Gintoki closed his eyes and rubbed them hard, then saw that the bloody palm prints had already crawled to his feet.
If that shape really had some invisible half-transparent thing crawling there, then it was basically right next to Gintoki now.
He breathed deeply.
Inhale, exhale.
Then he immediately scrambled and rolled to the bars, slapping the bars hard.
“No, no, no! There’s that thing here, that thing, it’s that thing! Help, hurry and let me out!”
As fast as Gintoki slapped, the handprints crawled just as fast.
Slapping on one side, crawling on the other.
“Aaaaaaaah!” In the end, Gintoki could not hold back.
With one burst of strength from his hands, the iron bars were actually torn open from his grip.
“Aaaaaah, I don’t know! Gin-san didn’t do it! I don’t understand what happened at all! Help!”
What happened to the promised Barrier Technique!
What happened to the Zenin Clan’s protection!
Do something useful for me, right now!
Gintoki escaped to freedom and ran all over the place.
He instinctively hid toward the shadows.
The result was first a collision, then both of them fell down.
“Ah.” A short breath came from inside.
When Gintoki opened his eyes, what he saw was Zenin Naoya fallen beneath him, along with the filth of Cursed Energy around him that belonged to him.
Don’t tell him this brat had been watching from the side the whole time.
Zenin Naoya’s fox-like eyes tilted up nobly.
“You’re actually afraid of ghosts, Zenin Gintoki.”
The mystery was solved.
It was all this brat messing around!
“I already said don’t call me by that mixed-up name.” Gintoki selectively ignored the current situation where his fear of ghosts had been exposed, straightened his upper body, and punched Zenin Naoya in the face.
“Perfect panda eyes have appeared. In the future, you can recognize one more branch of relatives.”
“Gintoki-kun!” Zenin Naoya messily pushed Gintoki down.
Tears gathered in his pretty eyes, but he held them back reservedly and refused to let them fall.
Gintoki clicked his tongue in wonder as he watched.
‘This brat is the chosen one for doujinshi.’
‘Then please, readers, go make Zenin Naoya a cast member.
It’s fine if you don’t think about Gin-san for this kind of good thing.’
“I just wanted to see your miserable unlucky state after getting locked in a prison cell.” Zenin Naoya wiped his eyes, and while wiping them, he did not forget to say completely unlikable words in a somewhat pitiful voice.
“If you talk like that, you’ll get beaten.”
“Hah? But didn’t you already hit me?”
Gintoki added another punch.
He beat the other eye into symmetry too.
Now Zenin Naoya could pretty much go claim kinship with Panda.
Zenin Naoya sniffled.
In his view, this did not count as a bad thing.
It was just a harmless little joke, just about enough to return the favor for the time Gintoki had forcefully stuffed crayfish into him.
As for Gintoki being afraid of ghosts, that was actually beyond Zenin Naoya’s expectations too.
After all, they had both grown up in Jujutsu Sorcerer families, and Gintoki was also a combatant who often went on missions.
He was so scared that it confused Zenin Naoya.
Then Zenin Naoya took a solid beating.
Zenin Naoya felt bitter inside, but just a little, really only a little, he developed that kind of “it feels like it can’t be written” feeling.
At least they had made contact.
For a stalker, this was epic progress.
Gintoki looked at Zenin Naoya, who somehow felt a little weird.
Had this kid been beaten stupid by his 2 punches?
Being stupid was fine too.
For some reason, idiots were still trendy now.
People with pretty faces and empty heads were very popular outside.
So the conclusion was that Zenin Naoya should thank him.
Gintoki immediately threw away his worries, picked him up, and walked outside.
“Gintoki-kun?”
“I finally found someone to take the blame. Gin-san doesn’t want to obediently stay locked up in solitary confinement. If we’re found, I’ll say you let me out.”
For no reason, a huge pot of blame landed on Zenin Naoya’s back, and his heart turned bitter again.
Gintoki’s eyes did not have him in them at all.
He was only barely bringing him along because he was useful.
If Gintoki heard it, he would nod without hesitation.
But after all, the prison cell had been destroyed through such violent dismantling.
Gintoki also did not think the blame he casually threw out could really land accurately on Zenin Naoya’s head.
He had secretly run out on his own, and most likely no one would believe he had been framed.
This was already set in stone.
If he did not actually go out and fish up something, that would be way too much of a loss.
At least, at least he had to snatch Zenin Naoya’s desserts as compensation for emotional damage!
Thinking of this, Gintoki shook Zenin Naoya, who was hanging from his hand.
“Hey, brat, where do you live?”
Zenin Naoya, who was only 1 year younger than Gintoki, listlessly pointed in a direction.
After reacting to what Gintoki was saying, he became a little happy again.
Was he going to his place?
Zenin Naoya did not know what a normal way to play was.
Considering his situation, strictly speaking, his way of playing was also twisted.
Curiosity had to be linked to the malice of mocking the other person.
His standard for judging others placed his own feelings above all else.
Try to understand his standard.
It was normalized malice.
It was not that he could not tell good from evil.
It was that even ordinary emotions were habitually accompanied by malice.
He had absolutely no intention of using goodwill to cover up his actions.
He openly hurt others while centering everything on himself.
Newly born children had no concept of good and evil.
What they possessed was only primal beast nature, and they simply did all kinds of things in order to survive.
In a normal family, children would be taught from a young age what they could do and what they could not do.
How to nurture a kind nature, how to make life choices, how to love, and how to be loved.
Through this process, children were raised into ordinary people who could adapt to society and had normal moral standards.
Zenin Naoya’s nature became twisted at this point.
As the legitimate son of the powerful Zenin Naobito, he had been praised highly since birth.
Aside from his father, his mother and the servants never went against his wishes.
As he grew up, he did whatever he wanted, even acting completely recklessly.
There was nothing he could not do.
There was nothing he could not touch.
Everything within his sight was something he could possess.
In this sense, the so-called “twisting” was only in comparison to normal circumstances.
He was instead the purest and most primitive kind of human.
He used his sharp nose to sniff out the beast-like aura on Gintoki, and he was captivated by it, overwhelmed by him.
The fear in his instincts warned him to back down, but the arrogance left free to grow urged him forward.
Go touch him.
Go tame him.
Happy reading!