Asuka was regretting answering her phone, and certainly was REALLY regretting putting it on speaker, but her hands were full at the moment as she was helping her team with an experiment and it was the only solution. She looked over at her phone on the table, then at her hands, and finally at the three ladies helping to hold up the large glass case that was containing the reaction. It wasn't easy getting fingerprints off an entire partially melted refrigerator door all at once, but it couldn't easily be taken apart. So they resorted to using the chemical vapor method, but they needed a jury rigged cover to do it and a bunch of people to hold it up.The leader of the project just smiled and jogged her head in an indication she should go and handle the call. Asuka shook her head in response, as she was not about to walk away and force them to start over. She looked over at her phone again.

 

 

"Honey? Calm down. Now right now-" Hirofumi cut his wife off, "NO! You have no idea what your son has done!" Asuka quirked an eyebrow, "My son? Why is it whenever he does something bad, he's MY son?" Hirofumi humphed, "Nevermind! You have to come home right now, the-" There were some shuffling sounds and the phone sounded like it was being manhandled. The sound quality changed as you could hear it being put on speaker, "DAD! Give me THAT! Hello? Mom?" Asuka braced herself, "Toshi? Uh look-" Toshi cut her off, "Don't worry about it, mom. I fixed the toilet. Everything is fine. Dad is totally over reacting. Just get a toilet repair kit on the way home. We need to replace the swing arm inside the tank."

 

 

Asuka looked at her co-workers who all looked back. They shrugged. Asuka looked back at the phone, "Wait. What happened?" Toshi started but then the sound of the phone being struggled with again repeated and Asuka's husband was back on the phone, "What happened? WHAT HAPPENED?" There was a strangled cry, "Your SON has a date with that nice girl our daughter set him up with and he was just going to leave this morning without getting ready and he got angry and broke the lever on the toilet!"

 

 

In the background he could hear, "I wasn't angry!" Asuka humphed, "I don't care! He broke the lever! But then he tried to fix it and destroyed it!" Toshi yelled from the background, "All I did was take the lid off! The lever was made of plastic and broke! That's it! I couldn't fix it with duct tape-" Asuka cut in, "WHY were you trying to fix it at ALL! You are going to hurt your hands and get a disease!" Toshi sounded exasperated, "It's just a TOILET! If I could get sick from lifting up the lid, we'd all have the plague by now, anyways!"

 

 

Hirofumi sounded utterly distraught, "Oh sweet father of god, Asuka. You have to come home and fix this monstrosity!" Asuka finally cut back in, "Look, Just call a plumber. I can't get off work until after 8pm tonight. I'm sorry. You-" Hirofumi cut back in, "I called the plumber! ALL OF THEM! Nobody can come on a Saturday except one and she can't come until after Toshi has left and you know how I feel about being in the house alone with strangers!" His voice started to have a trembling quality of vulnerability to it, "Even if you can't fix it, I need you here if the plumber arrives!"

 

 

Toshi cut back in, "HOLY CRAP!" A pause, "No pun intended." The rest of Asuka's staff all chuckled. Toshi continued, "LOOK! I couldn't fix the arm, but all you need to do is lift the chain anyways, so I just put a cord in it through the lever hole and all you got to do is pull on the cord! It's FINE!" Asuka started shouting, "IT. IS. NOT. FINE!" He turned back to the phone to continue, "He used an electrical cord!" Toshi let out a cry of anguish, "AUGH! NO! Mom! It is just a USB cord! I needed a strong cord that had something I could clip the pull chain to. I had an old USB cord that was broken, so I just used THAT! Okay, it has an eight foot USB cord sticking out of it, but it works JUST FINE! SEE???" The sound of a toilet being emptied could be heard in the background, "As an added bonus, you can now flush it from the hallway, if you are so inclined."

 

 

Hirofumi promptly lost his mind.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Asuka suddenly figured out what was going on.

 

 

Asuka whistled loudly at the phone, "HOLD IT!" There was a pause, "TOSHI, Pick up the phone!" Asuka didn't want to have this conversation in front of her co-workers, but there wasn't a choice at this point. She'd just have to get it over quickly. There was a soft sound as Toshi picked up the phone, "Yeah, mom?" Asuka sighed, "It there anyway to put the toilet back the way it was? I don't care if it works, just put the parts back." Toshi was quiet for a second, "Errr.. no. The plastic shattered at the joint so it can't be put back." There was a pause, "Besides, I couldn't find the drivers for this particular model, so I'd have to reinstall the operating system and I don't have a Vista Boot Disk."

 

 

You have to understand that everyone who worked in the Toyko Police Forensics Department is a giant nerd. You couldn't get there unless you were super into science of some sort. Furthermore, in this world, it is women who like toilet humor, not men. Combine toilet humor with nerd humor and you get a rather irresistible combination for this particular audience.

 

 

All three of Asuka's co-workers were literally biting their mouths closed to keep from bursting out laughing.

 

 

Hirofumi lamented in anguish, "What? Did you install electronics into my toilet? OH GOD! Your son COMPUTERIZED THE TOILET!" Even Asuka was having a hard time not laughing, and she currently needed to wait another two minutes until the reaction was done. She forced herself to remain calm, "Toshi did not put a computer in the toilet. He's just joking." Hirofumi cried out, "IT'S NOT FUNNY!" There was a pause, then Toshi could be heard with his mouth away from the receiver, "Dad? I- Dad?" The sound of sobbing could be heard, "Dad? I'm-I'm sorry. Why?" Toshi started talking into the phone, "Mom, Dad's crying! What-" He sounded a combination of worried and annoyed, "Why are you crying? It's just ah-"

 

 

This was what Asuka feared would happen.

 

 

Asuka called out, "Toshi?" Toshi spoke into the phone with a panicked tone, "Mom. He won't calm down. He's just sitting on the bidet-" Asuka cut her son off, "Toshi, listen to me. Your father has a phobia about the toilet. He's afraid to use it in a thunderstorm because he's afraid he'll get electrocuted." Toshi snorted, "Seriously? You can't-" Asuka made a 'tsk' sound, "I know, I know, but it's still a phobia your father has and putting-" Toshi finished the sentence, "A USB cord into the tank is terrifying." Hirofumi wailed, "I'm sorry. I know it's stupid but it's still terrifying and why do you hate me so much?" Toshi suddenly sounded panicked, "What? NO! No I don't HATE You! No! I just- I wanted to fix- Oh crap, Dad. Don't. It's fine. It's FINE. I'll take it out and cover the hole with duct tape. It'll- it will be-"

 

 

However, no matter what Toshi said, his father kept weeping.

 

 

Asuka sighed and knew what this was like. She was about to give her son some advice when Toshi launched into a story, "Hey. Dad? You know that isn't an unfounded fear. It does happen, you know?" Asuka looked at the phone in surprise. Everyone else in the room looked puzzled as the shook their heads to indicate that that it wasn't the case. Hirofumi sniffled, "It does?"

 

 

Toshi started talking rather smoothly in a calm and reassuring manner, "Oh yes. In fact, the first recorded case of it happening in modern times was during world war two on an American light frigate, the USS Wichita." Hirofumi seemed to calm down a little and sniffle, "Really?" Toshi continued, "Oh yes. It was while they were on patrol in the Boston Harbor, I believe. There had been stormy weather for a few days, on and off, and the ship had been very busy looking out for civilian vessels in the area. At the time, the captain had been awake for over thirty hours, but they couldn't stop. They had just found a tuna trawler that needed to be escorted back to port."

 

 

Everyone in the room was listening intently. Asuka had a dawning realization that she had rarely just listened to her son. It was in this moment, listening to his smooth voice and how well he spoke that it seemed only natural that he would have become a singer. She'd always opposed him becoming a pop star, so she had never really listened to his music, but right here, right now, she could tell her son had a beautiful, even captivating voice.

 

 

"It was just the captain and the first mate, dead of night, a storm rolling overhead, and the only sounds were crashing waves, pattering rain, and the occasional thunderclap in the distance." Toshi was obviously setting something up, but Asuka couldn't tell what. Regardless, his father had clearly stopped crying, and that was a good thing. Toshi started speaking a little bit faster as he continued, "The rain let up, and it started to look calm. The boat was escorting the trawler back to shore and it was a straight run, so the captain knew it was at least an hour before you needed to do anything other than hold the wheel steady, so he told his first mate to take over and went to the bathroom."

 

 

Asuka could somehow 'hear' the sound of her husband cringing in anticipation.

 

 

"There was a small toilet right off the main cabin, so the captain went in to relieve himself in the very tiny room. While sitting there, he noticed he had not shaved in a while, and regulations required them to be clean shaven, and as the captain sat there, he got out his shaving kit and got working." Toshi's voice started taking on a dramatic tone to it, "And while he was shaving, the lightning bolt struck his ship! Due to a structural flaw, it routed the electrical energy right into the very toilet the captain was using and zapped him right in the butt!" There was a pause, "But that's not all!"

 

 

Hirofumi sounded puzzled, "There's more?" Toshi continued, "Indeed! Back then, they used straight razors. At the time he had his lips pushed out like a duck bill, so as his body spasmed from the zap, he accidentally cut off his own mouth!" Hirofumi gasped in shock, "Oh my god!" Asuka's co-workers were looking rather skeptical. Toshi continued in a most energetic fashion, "INDEED! And in his shock, the captain leapt out of the restroom!" He spoke in a tone of wonderment, "Just imagine. It's late. Your exhausted. You are in stormy waters. The ship just got hit by lightning, and then the captain, hair frizzed out because of the electricity, pants around his ankles, and his face covered in shaving cream and blood as he burst into the wheelhouse screaming incoherently while he lacks lips to actually articulate any words!"

 

 

Hirofumi spoke softly, "My word..."

 

 

"Indeed." Toshi started to speak more casually, "So, is it little wonder the first mate completely freaked out? Unfortunately he fell back, hit the steering wheel causing the whole boat to suddenly turn left, right into the path of the tuna trawler they were escorting. The Frigate got t-boned and both ships promptly sunk to the bottom of the Atlantic ocean." Hirofumi let out a long, low whistle, "What a tragedy." Toshi continued, "Indeed. It took six months for the US navy to finally figure out what happened. But finally they came to one inescapable conclusion." Toshi paused for a single breath.

 

 

"Loose lips, do indeed, sink ships."

 

 

There was a longer pause as Asuka's co-workers had the dawning realization that this whole thing was just a set up for a very bad pun. However, before anyone could groan, Hirofumi spoke up, "But... wasn't it the lightning bolt that was the real cause?"

 

 

The sheer cluelessness of Asuka's husband was absolutely perfect and the entire team collapsed in hysterics. Hirofumi seemed puzzled at the peels of laugher coming from the phone, "Asuka? Did you have the phone on speaker? Why are they laughing? Wait. Was that a joke?" Toshi tried to cut in but Asuka, "Was that whole story Bull? Oh my god! Toshi! That Is Not FUNNY!" Everyone started laughing even harder. Fortunately, the timer indicating the test was done went off, and everyone let go of the case, falling over in unison.

 

 

Asuka went over to grab the phone and return it to normal mode just in time to catch an earful from her husband. As she stood there, getting chewed out by her husband, listening to Toshi trying to explain the joke, while his co-workers rolled around on the floor, Asuka had a question gnawing at the back of her mind. It wasn't until after calming down Hirofumi and hanging up that the question finally crystallized.

 

 

 

 

 

~Why had the captain of the military vessel in Toshi's joke been a man?~