Maybe a Fake Gintama

Chapter 501: What Does the Real Santa Claus Look Like? No One Knows!

Maybe a Fake Gintama Chapter 501 What Does the Real Santa Claus Look Like? No One Knows!

"Um, Hasegawa-san, let's just forget about your complaints. No matter how much you drink, next year you'll still be unemployed. Drinking won't change the fact that you're unemployed this year," said Shinpachi, pushing his glasses up with an expressionless face.

"Hey! I finally managed to forget about that fact!" Hasegawa protested, clutching his chest. "Why remind me of it?"

"No, even if you forget about it, it won't change anything," Shinpachi retorted with a twitch of his mouth.

"Speaking of complaints, Shinpachi, do you have any grievances you want to express?" Kawaki asked, then smirked. "There must be, right? After all, your boss is that kind of guy."

"Well, yeah," Shinpachi sighed with some emotion. "After all, it's Gin-san. If I were to voice all my grievances about him, I feel like I could go on all night. It could even be treated as a snack~ Ahahaha…"

"Do you want another serving then?" Tsukuyo pointed to Kawaki beside her.

"Hey, what do you mean?" Kawaki squinted his eyes and asked expressionlessly, "Are you implying that you have a lot of complaints about me on ordinary days? You can count them as a snack if you bring them up at the year-end party?"

"You…" Tsukuyo's pupils involuntarily widened and murmured with disbelief, "You actually have self-awareness…"

"What do you mean by that?" Kawaki gritted his teeth, looking at Tsukuyo with a forced smile. "Do you want to fight? You stinky woman!"

"Come on, you two, calm down a bit. Let's not argue on Christmas Eve," Shinpachi kindly intervened.

"Tch!" Kawaki turned his face away disdainfully, then took out a bundle of colorful coupons from his pocket and handed them to Shinpachi. "Here, your Christmas gift plus New Year's gift. It'll be troublesome to give it to you again during the New Year, so I'll just give it to you all at once."

"Um... what do you mean by this, Kawaki-san?" Shinpachi pushed his glasses up on his face. "Can I assume that you're insulting me? Can I assume that you're looking down on me? Can I assume that you're thinking, 'If this kid doesn't go to a certain shop in Yoshiwara, he'll be a virgin for life'?"

"Yep, that's right," Kawaki nodded.

"Hey! Stop kidding around!" Shinpachi snatched the coupons from Kawaki's hand without hesitation, tore them into pieces, and yelled with red eyes, "I don't need this kind of thing at all! Absolutely not! Before I turn eighteen... no, before I turn twenty, I'll definitely say goodbye to my virginity!"

"Um... what were you saying all this time?" Kawaki looked puzzled, "Although I did think it's that in my mind, it has nothing to do with the gift I gave you, right? It's that... that... forget it, anyway, it's the handshake ticket for the New Year's special event of that idol you like. I got it from a lottery when I went to buy a game last time, and I got thirty of them. I thought you'd like it..."

"What...?!" Shinpachi exclaimed in shock, looking at the torn coupons and the words [Attention! Damaged, Invalid!] written on the fragments. He collapsed onto the table while occasionally twitching.

Seeing Shinpachi's reaction, Kawaki reached into his pocket, searching for something.

"I found it! There's one left! Shinpachi!" Kawaki pulled out an Otsuu-chan handshake ticket from his pocket. "The last one, Shinpachi!"

Upon hearing this, Shinpachi instantly revived. He sat up with tears in his eyes and took the handshake coupon from Kawaki with trembling hands.

"Kawaki-san…" Shinpachi wiped away the tears that couldn't stop, and sobbed, "I never expected to meet a real Santa Claus on Christmas Eve. I'm so... grateful."

"Please don't make that expression; it's kinda gross," Kawaki turned his face away, quietly commenting, then turned back and squinted his eyes with a smile. "But seeing the children's happy faces when they receive their favorite gifts is really nice. Perhaps, that's what a real Santa Claus is like."

"Brother Kawaki, where's my gift?" Seita pointed at himself and asked with excitement. "You must have prepared one, right? You must have prepared my gift, right?!"

"Ah, yes, I did." Kawaki nodded, then reached into his pocket to search.

Seita's expression grew even more excited, looking at Kawaki expectantly. But soon, his excitement turned into disappointment.

Looking at the hand-drawn greeting card that Kawaki forcefully shoved into his hand, Sieta remained silent for a long time.

"But I spent two minutes... no, a long time drawing it! Just accept it with gratitude!" Kawaki smiled.

"What kind of Christmas gift is this?!" Sieta threw the card to the ground, then screamed in frustration, "Is it just a hand-drawn greeting card?! Is it just a useless card that took two minutes to draw?!"

"Really, kids these days don't know how to be content~" Kawaki spread his hands, looking lamentful. "We would have been very happy to receive such a card when we were kids."

"You completely forgot about my Christmas gift, didn't you?" Seita accused angrily.

"How could I..." Kawaki waved his hand casually. "I just thought that those boring things sold outside wouldn't compare to a handmade greeting card. The sentiment is completely different."

"Don't lie!" Sieta snapped.

"Calm down a bit, Seita-kun," Otae spoke up to console him. "Actually, I have also prepared a Christmas gift for you. Although others may not dare to say it, I'm quite confident with it compared to Kawaki-san's gift."

"Really?!" Sieta exclaimed with surprise. "You really prepared a Christmas gift for me?! Sister Otae!"

"Of course," Otae squinted and smiled, then reached into her pocket to search. "As the only apprentice of Koudoukan, how could I forget about your Christmas gift? Here it is…"

With that, Otae handed a box emitting an ominous dark aura to Seita. "Here, fresh taiyaki~ Made especially for Seita-kun tonight. No one else has it~ This is a treatment only Seita-kun can enjoy~"

Looking at the dark substance in his hand, Sieta remained silent for a long time before finally forcing a somewhat unsightly smile. "Th... thank you."

Meanwhile, in the yard, Umibouzu and Gintoki appeared quite desolate, standing facing each other silently for minutes without uttering a word. They were so quiet that even the people inside the house, including Kawaki and others, had forgotten about their existence.

However, unlike their outward appearances, the inner turmoil of the two was in full swing, so much so that they completely ignored the laughter from inside the house…

'What should I do?!' Umibouzu's face turned completely black, sweat dripping down his face, his facial muscles twitching uncontrollably. 'Should I apologize? It's been almost ten minutes! Is he angry? What should I do?!'

'At this point, apologizing is out of the question…' Gintoki thought, his expression mirroring Umibouzu. 'It would just embarrass us in front of everyone!'

'This is like a comedian doing a parody of the song [O-fukuro-san (Mother)] when Shinichi Mori himself suddenly appeared from behind!' Umibouzu felt anxious.

'No! Absolutely not!' Gintoki was panicking. 'I absolutely don't want to expose that kind of ugliness in front of them!'

'What should I do?!' Umibouzu was sweating profusely. 'What should I do about this imitation situation? Answer me! King of Comedy!'

'Faced with the real person holding my shoulders from behind with an expression of "Good imitation" on his face, how am I supposed to not embarrass myself, King of Comedy?!' Gintoki, who was also sweating, thought frantically in his heart.

'Tell me, King of Comedy!' Both of them simultaneously felt despair.

After about three seconds of silence, both Umibouzu and Gintoki simultaneously came up with an answer.

They both stepped forward, exerting all their strength to punch each other. Umibouzu's fist hit Gintoki's abdomen, while Gintoki's fist hit Umibouzu's left cheek.

'Defeat the real one and let yourself become the real one!'

Both of them thought the same thing!

Struck by the blows, Umibouzu and Gintoki simultaneously let out a cry of pain and flew backward several meters!

Boom! ×2

Gintoki crashed into a tree trunk, while Umibouzu shattered the stone statue in front of the pond.

At the same time, the noise caused by the two alarmed the people inside the house, and they stopped what they were doing to look outside.

"Hey, what did you say to them just now?" Tsukuyo glanced at Kawaki and asked.

"I just told them to leave…" Kawaki replied casually. "I also gave them 10,000 yen."

Just as he said that Kawaki suddenly thought of something. "Yes! It's the 10,000 yen! Did they fight because of the 10,000 yen? I clearly told them to split it equally!"

"You should have divided it up between the two in advance!" Shinpachi complained. "In this situation, there's a high chance they'll end up fighting!"

"I had no choice! I ran out of small change!" Kawaki argued quietly.

At that moment, Gintoki and Umibouzu both coughed up blood.

'Santa Claus is really good!' Gintoki held his chest, panting heavily while thinking, 'He's definitely not just some fat old man who works only on Christmas Eve!'

'An old man like him was able to take my hit…' Umibouzu wiped the blood from his mouth while looking at Gintoki with a serious expression. 'Is this Santa Claus' true strength?'