Ishikawa Goemon - 'Learning Slowly, Together'

Note: This is a fanfic!

The realization came in the most humiliating way possible.

They were sitting at the low table in the living room, surrounded by the comfortable chaos of the share house. Jack was scrolling through his phone with practiced ease. Sharaku was complaining about delivery fees while placing a vacuum cleaner into an online cart. Yona was loudly arguing with Kikunosuke about whether midnight flash sales were a scam. Even Azamin was tapping away confidently, humming as she compared prices.

Rin watched all of it quietly, hands folded in her lap.

Goemon was beside her, arms crossed, expression unreadable but tense in a way she knew well. The kind of tension he got when he felt out of place but refused to admit it.

“So,” Jack said casually, not looking up from his screen, “I just ordered a new audio interface. It should arrive tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow?” Rin echoed before she could stop herself. “You mean… you did not go there?”

Jack blinked. “Go where?”

“The shop,” she said, genuinely confused.

There was a beat of silence.

Then Sharaku turned slowly. “Rin. Please do not tell me you still call Jigoku Takamura every time you need to get something. That line's always so busy that it's such a hassle to order things by phone now.”

Rin hesitated. Her eyes flicked sideways to Goemon.

Goemon cleared his throat. “We… outsource.”

Yona burst out laughing. Kikunosuke followed immediately, nearly falling backward in his chair.

“You two are unbelievable,” Yona said between laughs. “You know Takamura hates phone calls, right?”

“He does,” Goemon said calmly. “That is why I keep them short.”

Rin looked down, embarrassed. “We just never learned how to do it ourselves. Everyone else seemed so… fast.”

Azamin tilted her head. “You mean online shopping?”

Rin nodded.

Goemon sighed, long and resigned. “It appears we are the only criminals here who have not mastered the art of buying things without leaving the house.”

That was how they ended up at an electronics store the next day.

The store was bright, loud, and full of things that hummed softly, blinked, or glowed in unsettling ways. Goemon stood stiffly at the entrance, scanning the room like it was enemy territory.

Rin tugged gently at his sleeve. “You are glaring. People will think you are about to steal something.”

“I am assessing threats,” he said.

“Threats,” she repeated, amused. “From machines.”

“They are unfamiliar,” he said, lowering his voice. “That makes them dangerous.”

A young clerk approached them with a rehearsed smile. “Are you looking for anything in particular?”

Goemon straightened instantly. “A box that contains the internet.”

The clerk stared.

Rin covered his mouth. “A computer,” she corrected quickly. “We would like a computer.”

“Oh. Of course.” The clerk smiled, though his eyes held the faintest trace of fear. “Laptop or desktop?”

They both froze.

Rin leaned closer to Goemon. “What is the difference?”

“I believe one is… portable,” Goemon murmured. “Like a very intelligent writing board.”

After much pointing, explaining, and Rin repeatedly apologizing for Goemon asking whether the device required spiritual energy, they left with a modest laptop.

Back at the share house, they carried it into their room like it was something precious and fragile.

They sat side by side on the floor. The laptop rested between them.

Rin went to fetch the instruction booklet from the box.

When she turned back, she stopped.

Goemon was sitting exactly where she left him, the laptop balanced confidently on one arm. But that was not what made her freeze.

He was wearing her glasses.

Goemon Laptop

They sat a little too low on his nose, the thin frame completely mismatched with his sharp features. The screen light reflected faintly on the lenses as he stared at it with exaggerated seriousness.

“…Goemon,” she said carefully.

“Yes?”

“Why are you wearing my glasses?”

He finally glanced at her, the corner of his mouth lifting. “I wished to see you more clearly.”

“That is not what glasses are for.”

He hummed, fingers tapping clumsily on the keyboard. “I disagree. These make me look more intelligent, do they not?”

“They do not.”

“Unfortunate,” he said lightly. “I felt wiser immediately.”

Rin walked closer, trying and failing to hide her smile. “You cannot even see the screen properly.”

“I can see it just fine,” he said, tilting the laptop slightly toward her. “Look. The words seem sharper. More threatening.”

She laughed then, a soft sound, reaching out instinctively to adjust the frame. Her fingers brushed his temple, lingered just a second too long.

“You look ridiculous,” she said, fondly.

Goemon leaned back, completely unbothered. “And yet you are smiling.”

“That is because you are stealing my glasses.”

“I am borrowing them,” he corrected. “To understand your world.”

Her chest warmed at that. “You could just ask.”

“I know.” His voice softened. “But this way, you have to stay close.”

Rin did not take the glasses back right away.

She sat beside him instead, shoulder to shoulder, their heads nearly touching as he continued to hold the laptop with exaggerated care, glasses slipping slightly as he squinted at the screen.

For a moment, the world felt very small. Just the glow of the screen, the sound of his breathing, and the strange comfort of learning something new together.

When she finally reached up to remove the glasses, he let her.

“…You may wear them again later,” she said quietly.

Goemon smiled to himself.

They learned slowly. How to move the cursor. How clicking too hard did not make it work better. How the internet was not, in fact, a single place but many things layered together in ways that made Rin’s head spin.

They laughed when Goemon typed with only one finger, brow furrowed in deep concentration.

They laughed harder when Rin accidentally opened twelve tabs and panicked because she thought she had broken it.

At one point, Rin leaned her head against Goemon’s shoulder, eyes tired but bright.

“This is… kind of fun,” she admitted. “It feels like learning to read all over again.”

Goemon glanced down at her. “You are doing well.”

“So are you.”

He hesitated, then said quietly, “I like that we are slow together.”

Rin smiled at that.

Eventually, they found what they were looking for. A simple set of spices they had run out of weeks ago and had been meaning to call Takamura about.

Rin hovered her finger over the final button. “If I press this… it will arrive?”

“That is what they claim,” Goemon said.

She pressed it anyway.