A Porcine Of Interest
The students all lazed around the common room, disheartened. Fukuzawa, the leg thief?
Kyoya stood before the fire place, staring at the embers with his arms crossed and a frown pinching his brows. Something wasn't quite making sense. For one, Fukazawa lacked motive. And if what his peers had relayed was true - and it was easy to look through Mori’s conversation history on his phone - then Fukazawa had legitimate reason to be in places he wasn’t normally at.
What else had possibly been out of place in the day? What was not normal?
The students had intercepted Heine in the hallway, he was struggling to reach the doorknob to leave the oxbridge premises. Zoro had easily put an arm around his waist and picked him up like a large watermelon; Heine was less than impressed. As it was he was laying back in Chopper’s common room dog bed, knees tucked towards his stomach while gulping down on a sippy cup of formula milk.
Kyoya appraised the small red-head who was simply too comfortable being held against his will.
“Naruto, what meat is this? It’s been cooked wonderfully, smokey and sweet, so succulent it should be illegal,” Sanji stared at the stick of meat in awe, savoring every bite, eyes big red throbbing hearts.
“It’s from Inosuke’s food truck, his best deer meat,” Naruto chomped happily.
“Deer meat?” Ace emerged from his hiding spot, behind the long curtain. His shirt was unbuttoned and his feet bare, board shorts hitting above his knee. His rippling chest rippled as he breathed. He licked his lips, rolling them between his teeth at the mere thought of more deer.
“Heine-sama, you’re a teacher!” Nekozawa shouted. “Where do you think Chopper’s missing appendage is???”
Heine pushed himself into a sitting position, glasses wonky on his face and the almost-empty sippy cup in his fist. “Owo what’s this? I'm not sure I understand, my dear kohais. Relay to me exactly what has happened,” Heine said gently. He was so happy to be back with his former students. He was so proud of what they had accomplished in the short time he tutored them. It warmed his heart to see them come back to him for advice.
The students clustered around him and explained the situation.
“Wow. That is a situation! You've certainly been keeping busy. Hmmm,” Heine pondered over the situation. Heine breathed in deeply, trying to stimulate his mind by increasing his oxygen intake- something Victor could never understand. Then suddenly, the smell of delicious meat met his nose. “Ah, Naruto-chan, you said you acquired that meat from Inosuke?”
“Affirmative!” the boyo affirmed.
“Hmmm,” Heine considered his affirmation, “I wonder…”
“Wonder what? Spit it out goddammit!” Kunikida snapped, he was gagging to know what the affirmation meant.
All of the students leant in, nodding, for they too wanted to know what it meant.
“I can't help but think back to that glorious time when we all went to the bar, Hogshead. Inosuke worked there as a barman, before his pig business gained traction and he was able to go into the food industry full-time. Remember?” He turned and looked his students one by one, watching them all nod in response, one at a time. “At the time, I thought it strange how interested Inosuke was in Chopper. He kept staring at him, and mentioned several times that he sold deer legs on the menu. Where is he acquiring such a rare type of meat?”
Kyoya’s thoughts ran rampant in his head. Alas, finally a theory that actually made sense! What an odd coincidence, for inosuke’s food truck to appear on the grounds on the same day that a deer’s leg went missing!
Naruto lowered his bowl of deer-ramen sadly. “No. It can’t be. Is this chopper’s leg? How do we reattach it, can we stitch it back on?” using his chopsticks he started to pull out lengths of deer steak, sure they could glue them back together.
“This reminds me of the legend of Dororo,” Atsushi thought, stroking his chin, “The only difference being that that boi could grow his limbs back and was cursed by the devil, whereas Chopper’s curse is being himself.”
“Perhaps the heaviest burden to carry,” Soma said sadly. He couldn't imagine having to be Chopper, to look in the mirror, to exist in Chopper’s head with the knowledge he was Chopper. Sometimes Soma wondered how Chopper had managed to get into Oxbridge.
“Should we confront Inosuke? Or should we perhaps leave Chopper with one less leg? Can we really be bothered to do more? We already faked a bomb threat, what more do you want?” Hikaru and Kaoru asked in unison.
Zoro, Sanji, and Chuuya nodded as subtly as they could, while they all wanted Chopper to experience positive emotions and/or excitement, they also did not care enough to, you know, have an active hand in making it happen.
“I would rather have Inosuke’s food truck than Chopper reunited with his leg,” Dazai piped up. It was clear that if they confronted Inosuke then they would never be able to hang out with the boi again, to taste his food, to patron his bar. But if they played ignorant? They could continue to enjoy inosuke’s delicacies, deers meat included.
The students sat in silence, pondering their options.
Unfortunately the world was against them, their pondering was cut short. There was a knock on the common room door.
“Password!” Atsushi yelled.
Sanji elbowed him in the ribs, shattering all of them instantaneously (he was fine guys dont worry he just regenerated), and sauntered to the door.
It swung open, revealing the boi. That sexi, sexi boi.
“It’s-a me, Inosuke!” the hog-headed rippling-ab man said.“Who wants some fresh deer legs?” Inosuke shouted eagerly, brandishing legs of meat above his head, grease dripping down onto his mask. “I have the missing-deer-leg special, bacon, bacon, bacon, ham with a side of deer leg, to celebrate this fortuitous day!”
“Suuuuspicious,” Chuuya sang from the corner, for it was indeed suspicious that Inosuke seemed to know that it was the missing deer leg day.
Naruto looked down sadly at his bowl of ramen. The brothel swished around the bowl, looking delicious. He could still taste the deer leg coating his mouth. “Inosuke-kun, might I perhaps have the missing-deer-leg special without the deer leg?” Naruto asked hopefully.
“No,” was the curt reply.
“Where exactly do you acquire these deer legs?” Kyoya asked slowly.
“From the black market of course. You can get all kinds of meat there. Deer legs, human legs, duck legs, mammoth legs, and one of my personal favourites,” he looked pointedly at Atsushi “tiger legs. Of course I would be selling more of those but alas as any good rare-meat-seller knows, it is not tiger leg season. Out of curiosity,” Inosuke’s boar eyes glinted, “I heard a rumour that with your ability you could endlessly regenerate your legs, so if say half a dozen or so went missing… and might I add, buyers are always out looking for prime meats when they are not in season...”
Atsushi pondered the idea. With his regeneration he could sell endless amounts of tiger legs, and receive a huge profit with practically no downfalls. He certainly needed more money to pay for his expensive dates with Sebastian. The demon butler only wanted the highest quality of dates, but alas Atsushi only had raisins to offer. Speaking of, the butler had mysteriously gone AWOL. He had sent one single message to Atsushi over the past couple of weeks: it was a gif of two cats kissing. He reciprocated with a selfie, showcasing his rippling tiger-abs, but he got no reply.
“And do you get any deer legs from a more ILLEGAL way. Say, today?”
“Now that you mention it, I did receive a shipment of one singular leg today that was unexpected. And by shipment, I mean it was delivered to me personally by a strange man…”
“Who?!?” the crowd shouted.
“I cannot tell you his name, because I simply don't remember it, but I can tell you he was simply radiant. His hair, perfectly mussed; eyes, hooded and sensual; lips, chapped yet visibly very perfect to kiss, not that I have fantasised about it. He radiated a kind of strength, like a demon. And as a demon slayer, I wanted to slay that booty. I wanted to plunge the shaft of my sword into his warmth. But he left before I could challenge him. All I know is that he was one HELL of a butler.”
“That could be anyone!” Atsushi screamed. “Anyone!”
Everyone nodded one by one, it could be anyone. The nodding continued, apart from Sakura who did not understand what was going on. She was too busy staring at Sasuke, imagining bearing his seed. And Chopper who was still acting too selfish to help them out with this even though it was his OWN leg JEEZ.
“And where is that leg now? If you haven't cooked it then we need it immediately, Chopper is waiting for it to be reattached!” Soma was bouncing with impatience. He prayed to the gods that the leg was still raw.
“Um? EXCUSEEE ME! Why would I give you my perfectly healthy, recently-obtained deer leg? It’s still fresh, and tbh i have no reason to ruin my business at your whim! I could have a family to feed! I don’t, but I could, not that you would know! I hate people like you, so entitled. You think you can just steal from me, after i spent the whole day feeding you my best offerings and even giving you discounts as I assumed we were friends? Friends wouldn't do this, friends don’t harm their friend’s business!”
The other students looked down guiltily. They felt like pricks - they realised they were doing to Inosuke what Chopper did to them. Act selfish and entitled, expecting everyone else to solve his problems.
“Well pay you! Kyoya!” Tamaki nudged his friend. “Pay this fine man.”
Kyoya sighed as he reached into his pockets. But, alas! He couldn't find his wallet. All he had on him was a crumpled receipt that said ‘IOU £1000000 - Tamaki’. Of course that amount was just pocket change, so Kyoya crumpled it in his hand and dropped it onto the floor.
“Might I be able to pay you in cocaine,” Chuuya asked, “Hypothetically. If I had any from my shady mafia connections?”
Inosuke could barely contain his excitement. He let out a scream, war cry, a shout of pleasure. “REEEEEEEEE!”
“Is that a yes?” Dazai asked. “I think it’s a yes. Is it a yes?”
“I can now make the fancy forbidden deer leg! Deer leg with a side of cocaine!”
“Chuuya, hand this fine man a unit of your finest cocaine, tout suit!”
Chuuya rose a fine brow, “Half a unit, I think you mean to say,” he stared at the hog-headed furry challengingly.
“Then I suppose I'll just give you hALf a lEg,” Inosuke said mockingly. “OOOHH - my name’s HAT RACK and I have COCAAAINEEEE - well guess what BITCH, every hoe has cocaine. How many hoes have deer legs? You can only bargain if you have the upper hand, didn’t you learn this at mafia school? Y’all are entitled idiots!” Inosuke’s rant only got louder and louder, his skin turning red from the strain of all of his shouting.
Chuuya started to shout, running forwards to fight the boar. Sanji held him back, placing a hand on his shoulder as he muttered in his ear, “Calm down, we need him, he still hasn't told us where the leg is!” Louder, he turned to Inosuke, “How many units do you want then?” he asked.
“Hmmmmmmm. Four!” he cried, holding up five fingers and two thumbs. He was very smug, clearly enjoying holding power over the group.
“FOUR?” Chuuya cried. “You said we were your friends, but now you're just extorting us?”
“Yes.” Inosuke placed his hands on his hips, waiting expectantly.
Chuuya growled. But the rest of the group were watching him expectantly. Sighing, he fished into his pockets and handed over the bag. The quicker they got this over with, the quicker he could get back to spending quality time drinking wine in the sky with his ‘friend’, Sanji ;)
“Pleasure doing business with you,” Inosuke said smugly, holding a baggie of cocaine between his fingers. “Allow me to lead you to the fresh deer leg I acquired today, I hope it’s the one you’re looking for!”
Sasuke’s jaw dropped. They hadn’t even considered the possibility of the deer leg Inosuke had being the wrong one. And if the leg wasn’t the same blood type as Chopper’s? They all knew what types of problems that caused, particularly Sanji.
Inosuke turned to the common room exit, Heine jumping up to follow after the dastardly man. Sure, Heine might never officially be senpai to these wonderful Oxbridge students, but he would always hold them close to his heart.
They passed his food cart, abandoned in an Oxbridge hallway.
Inosuke hummed as he walked, a hop to his step. This was certainly enough cocaine for him to forget a couple of days, oh blissful drugs! The prospect of it almost brought a tear to his eye. Inosuke remembered back to the days where he was the main drug supplier to the Hogsmeade region, back before dumb street drugs became popular and the recreational drug industry was tarnished by cheap fakes. Those were the days. He had his own harem back then, composed of thirteen brothers. He was the reason those brothers became famous and went to star in their own TV show, Brother’s Conflict.
The students begrudgingly followed Inosuke. Chuuya was positively FUMING at how much coke he’d been finessed out of by the greedy greedy hog. Where was the sanctity of the drug dealing trade! Where had those times gone! Alas, if only selling drugs were legal, perhaps transactions would be more regulated!
They reached the Oxbridge grounds tout suit, where they saw a van. Well, Heine didn’t, he was just too short.
“In this white van is something absolutely sensational to all of your eyes,” Inosuke held the handle for the boot. “Something many of you would never have seen before. Perhaps even illegal in some lands, though i don’t know why anyone would want to forbid this type of pleasure from entering mass media.”
Soma’s brown face turned pale, he pressed his hands over his mouth. He’d heard tales of the white van men, and Insouke was forcing them to see one as punishment for Chuuya’s bad bargaining skills?
Dazai rocked on his heels from excitement, eyes wide and shining. Maybe what ever lay in that van was a way to a painless suicide!
The door pulled open with a ZSCHHH.
Light flooded into the van. At first look, it appeared to be empty. Then, as their eyes adjusted to the dank light, a small body curled up in the back corner of the van became visible, a lump of flesh. Atsushi’s nose twitched - he could smell the blood. The ears on the top of the head fidgeted, clearly picking up on the noise the oxbridge students were making.
“I - is that…”