Once upon a time---of all the good days in the year, on Christmas Eve---old Tamahome sat busy in his counting house. The heavy gold coins clinked and chinked against each other, reflecting light in Tamahome’s greedy eyes. He counted silently in his head, a thin smile growing on his lips.
In the next room sat Suboshi, cold and shivering, copying letters for Tamahome. There was a small fire, but not even barely a fire, just a little coal lit by an ember. Suboshi shivered again, rubbing his hands together, wondering how the hell he was stuck with this job, what had he done to deserve it? He stopped himself, remembering a certain something in episode 27, and went back to writing.
“A merry Christmas, Uncle! God save you!” came a cheerful voice from the front door. It was Amiboshi all dressed up in warm clothes. He smiled happily at his uncle.
Tamahome stared, bewildered at this, “Who could they cast *you* as my nephew?! We’re enemies! And plus, you’re identical to my clerk!”
Amiboshi pulled Tamahome closer, “They thought I’d be good at the part. Beside, they did as much as they could to make your clerk and I different. Look! I’m not wearing my headband! And they dyed my hair. See? It’s blonde, not green like his.” Amiboshi pointed to his brot---er, Suboshi, the clerk, “anyway,” he cleared his throat, stepped back and began again, louder, “A merry Christmas, Uncle! God save you!”
Tamahome was still studying both of the Boshi twins, looking for more differences.
{Tamahome!} came a voice from above {your line!}
“Oh, right!” Tamahome got back into character, looking all mean and money grubbing, “Bah humbug!”
Amiboshi had heated himself so rapidly walking in the fog and frost, he was all aglow, his face ruddy and handsome1 (oh, yes, he was *very*, *very* handsome indeed =), his eyes sparkled, and his breath smoked again.
“Christmas a humbug, Uncle?” Amiboshi was aghast, “you don’t mean that, I am sure.”
“I do!” Tamahome replied firmly, “Merry Christmas! What right have you to be merry? What reason have you to be merry? You’re poor!”
“What right have you to be dismal? What reason have you to be morose? You rich?” Amiboshi shot back.
“Bah humbug!”
“Don’t be cross, Uncle!” Amiboshi pleaded.
“What else can I be?” Tamahome demanded, “when I live in such a world of fools as this? Merry Christmas! What’s Christmas time to you but a time for paying bills without money, a time for finding yourself a year older and not an hour richer, a time for balancing your books. If I could have my way, every idiot who goes around saying, ‘Merry Christmas’ should be boiled in his own pudding and buried with a stake of holly through his heart, he should!”
“Uncle!”
“Nephew!” replied Tamahome sternly, “keep Christmas in your own way, and let me keep it in mine.”
“Keep it! But you *don’t* keep it!”
“Let me leave it alone then. Much good to you,” Tamahome snorted, “Much good it has ever done you!”
“There are many things from which I might have derived good by which I have not profited, I dare say, Christmas among the rest. But I am I have always thought of Christmas time, when it come around---apart from the veneration due to it’s sacred name and origin, if anything...” Amiboshi trailed off, looking down at the script and realizing he had a hell of a lot of lines that really made no sense, so decided to sum it up and improvise with, “Christmas is good! And I say, God bless it!”
Suboshi, who had been listening to all this, applauded happily, “Bravo, ni-chan!”
{Suboshi! You two aren’t brother’s in this fic!} came a hiss from above.
“Oh, sorry. Bravo, Tamahome’s nephew!” then catching a glare from Tamahome, Suboshi quietly went back to writing.
“Don’t be angry, Uncle. Come, dine with us tomorrow!” Amiboshi pursued.
“No.”
“But why?” cried Amiboshi, “why?”
“Why did you get married?”
“Because I fell in love.”
“Love! Ha! Love is an illusion!” snarled Tamahome, then turned back to his precious money, “Good afternoon!”
“Uncle! You never came to see me before I got married either. You can’t use that as an excuse now.”
“Good afternoon.”
“Why can we not be friends?”
Tamahome turned, his eyes wide in fury. He got, grabbing Amiboshi’s collar and shoving him against the wall, “Friends? Why can’t we be friends?! You---”
“Tamahome, Tamahome! It’s just in the script, okay? It’s not my fault! It’s just my line!” Amiboshi pleaded desperately.
“I’ll show you a line!” Tamahome brought his fist back and Amiboshi closed his eyes tightly, waiting for the punch.
“Let go of my brother!” Suboshi cried, coming up to grab Tamahome and pull him away from Amiboshi. Tamahome turned and glared at Suboshi, “I’ve got a bone to pick with you too, yo-yo boy!”
“Bring it on!” Suboshi yelled, bringing up his fists.
{Guys, guys!! Stop, okay? Tama, what’s up your ass? Just leave everybody alone! I’ll tell you something, if you hurt my Amiboshi, I’ll---}
“*Your* Amiboshi?!” Amiboshi exclaimed, bewildered.
“He wanted to be friends! Can you believe that?” Tamahome shouted to the author.
{It was his line, Tama. Let everyone alone. We don’t need to turn A Christmas Carol into a brawl, okay? Suboshi, get back to writing, Tama, go back to your money, and Amiboshi...just start being happy and such again.}
Everyone got back to their spot and got into character again.
“Good afternoon,” Tamahome said, once again.
“I am sorry for you, Uncle, to find you have no Christmas spirit. We have never had a quarrel,” Amiboshi coughed slightly and sweat dropped, “but I’ll keep my Christmas to the last. So a merry Christmas, Uncle!”
“Good afternoon.”
“And a Happy New Year!”
“Good aftern---God! How many times do I have to say this? Did Dickens just have a brain block and this was the only thing he could think of to write?!” Tamahome exclaimed.
{That was the last one.}
“Okay then.”
Amiboshi left, saying goodbye to Tamahome’s clerk and wishing him a merry Christmas too. Suboshi returned it and Amiboshi closed the door behind him.
Timidly, Suboshi began to approach Tamahome. He was silent, but Tamahome broke the silence by asking flatly, “I suppose you want all tomorrow off?”
“If it’s convenient, sir.”
“It’s not convenient, and it’s not fair. Why, if I give you a day off, everyone will want a day off!” Tamahome replied.
“Uh....sir, you have no other employees.”
“It’s the principle, Cratchit!”
“My name’s Suboshi.”
“The script says ‘Cratchit.’”
“Well, my name’s Suboshi.”
{Just call him Suboshi, Tama.}
“A poor excuse for picking a man’s pocket every twenty-fifth of December!” muttered Tamahome, “but I suppose you may have the whole day. Be here early the next morning.”
“Oh, yes, sir! Thank you, sir!” Suboshi cried happily, then muttered under his breath, “why did I ever agree to this? I can’t believe I have to call him ‘sir’. I think I’ll just---”
{Just remember what’s coming to you, Suboshi. Keep in mind what you’re going home to,} the author’s voice interrupted his complaining, {remember what we agreed to.}
Suboshi eyes seemed to light up, “Oh, yeah! I’m happy with this job.” with that, he hopped out, happy as can be. Tamahome muttered a ‘bah humbug’ unhappily, and went back to counting his money.
He eventually decided he should go home, and got up, putting on his overcoat. He went out into the deep, fluffy snow, trudging through it.
“Bah humbug, bah humbug, bah humbug!” he began chanting, trudging through the snow.
{Uh, Tamahome? Scrooge doesn’t say ‘bah humbug’ all *that* much. What are you doing?}
Tamahome looked up, “I like saying it! It’s fun!”
{Whatever.}
“Bah humbug, bah humbug, bah humbug,” Tamahome chanted all the way back to his house. He went up the stone steps to his door and before opening his door, he had to look twice at the door knocker.
It was normally the head of a large gold dragon--Tama liked pounding it against the door, bruising it and teasing it greatly---it had melted into the head of what appeared to be Tamahome’s old colleague, Hotohori. Tamahome screamed as it glared at him, and fell backwards down the stairs. Fallen in feet of snow, Tamahome peered out over the line of the snow at the door knocker. It appeared to be a normal dragon’s head again. He got up slowly and crept towards it. It was still just an inanimate dragon. He laughed nervously, rubbing the back of his neck, then opened his door. Before enter, he grinned mischievously and lifted the knocked, pounding into the door hard. He snickered slightly, then closed the door behind him.
He took off his coat and hung it up on the coat rack, shaking snow off of it. He went to his living room and sunk down in the tall velvet chair with his dinner. He was very fond of gruel---
“I am not! It’s disgusting!” Tamahome shouted.
{Scrooge was fond of gruel so you are too.}
“Who the hell would be fond of gruel?!”
{Scrooge was a weird guy, okay?}
Tamahome was very fond of gruel and ate all of it up. He ate every last drop and enjoyed the whole thing. He smiled and said, “I love gruel!”
Tamahome, who was almost green from eating all that gruel, said, “You are really, really heartless, you know that?”
{Heh, heh} the author chuckled softly, {I love being the author.}
Tamahome, after finishing his gruel, settled back in his chair. He began thinking of how much he loved money, when he heard something from behind him. It sounded like the clanking of rusty chains dragging across the carpet floor, with heavy footsteps to add to it. Tamahome froze, not wanting to turn around, not able to turn around. The footsteps and clanking got louder, as if coming nearer to him. Now, the seemed almost right behind him. He slowly, very slowly, turned around, and gasped at what he saw.
There stood a pale and transparent aberration of Hotohori. He was bound with chains and was dragging them everywhere with him. He stared at Tamahome with cold, long dead eyes, standing proudly and sternly as ever.
“W..who are you? What do you want from me?” Tamahome stammered, shaking violently with fear.
“Ask me who I was,” Hotohori boomed.
“Who *were* you then?”
Hotohori dove at him, grabbed his shirt collar angrily, “You don’t know who I am? You don’t remember me after all we’ve been through?!” Both men sweat dropped. “That came out wrong,” Hotohori said, standing up. He stared at Tamahome again, “You don’t believe in me.”
“I don’t.”
“Why not?”
“You could be an undigested bit of beef, a blot of mustard, a crumb of cheese, a fragment of undercooked potato...” Tamahome began.
Hotohori snorted, “All you had was gruel.”
Tamahome clutched his stomach sickly, “Don’t remind me.”
“Hey, Tama, why the hell are you getting gruel? You’re rich?” Hotohori suddenly asked casually.
“I like gruel!” a fake smile was planted on Tamahome’s face as he said this. Hotohori raised an eyebrow, but let it go.
“Mercy! Dreadful ghost, why do you haunt me?” Tamahome cried.
“Do you believe in me or not?”
“I do, I do! I must, or the author will make me eat more gruel.” Tamahome sighed.
{Hey!}
“What? It’s true!!” Tamahome shouted, then turned back to Hotohori, “But why have you come to me?”
“I am required to walk among the Earth like other spirits. All our happiness is turned to sadness,” Hotohori let out his attempt as a frightening cry.
“Tell me, Hotohori, why do you wear that chain?” Tamahome asked.
“I wear the chain I forged in life. Every bad deed I committed in life added another link to it, and I am cursed to drag in for the rest of my afterlife. It really makes me look awful, doesn’t it?”
Tamahome shrugged.
“Heh,” Hotohori snickered, “Your’s was this long and heavy seven Christmas’s ago!”
“Hotohori! Old Hotohori-sama, tell me more! Speak comfort to me, Hoto!” Tamahome begged imploringly.
“I have none to give,” Hotohori said, almost rather smugly, “my time here is short. I can’t linger any longer. I am here tonight to warn you that you have a chance and a hope of escaping my fate.”
“You were always a good friend to me. Thankee!” Tamahome cried joyfully, then turned to muttered, “kind the hell kind of word is ‘thankee’?”
{It’s Dickens. Just go along with it.}
“You will be haunted,” Hotohori went on, “by three spirits. Without their visits, you cannot hope to shun the path I tread. Expect the first tomorrow when the clock strikes one.”
“Couldn’t I take ‘em all at once and have it over with?”
Hotohori ignored him, “Expect the second when the clock strikes two, and the third when the clock strikes three. I must go now, but remember what has passed between us.” Again, both men sweat dropped, and Hotohori murmured, “They really gotta fix my lines so I don’t sound like I’m coming onto Tama.”
With that, Hotohori walked backwards and disappeared through the wall. Tamahome watched him with frightened eyes till he was all the way gone and long after that. Soon, without really meaning to, Tamahome felt great fatigue and fell into a deep sleep.
1 This is *not* my writing, really, although it may seem like it, seeing as I am a very big Amiboshi fan, but this was actually taken from the original Charles Dickens novel, that Scrooge’s nephew really was handsome. I was just agreeing with it.