This part of the chapter was HILARIOUS to translate. I hope you all enjoy it as much as I did!

“You guys will help out with anything, right?” Hasegawa asked as he sat down in the pipe chair meant for guests.

“Yes. As the school should have mentioned, we will take in all requests from clients on principle,” Takechi replied.

Takasugi remained seated on the sofa, with Nizou leaning on the wall nearby him. Matako, Takechi, and Bansai all sat down in the various chairs they had scattered about their club room. It was time to start listening to their client’s request.

“So uh, I don’t know if you guys know this or not, but uh…” Hasegawa readjusted his shades with his fingers. “… I’m… actually the captain of the school’s Swim Club.”

Yup, that was something that none of them had known.

Matako nodded for the sake of following up. Perhaps encouraged by this, Hasegawa kept talking.

“Well, since I’ve been unable to swim easily through my life, I figured I might as well swim freely in the water.”

“Uh, we didn’t ask for your life story!” Matako swiftly retorted. Hasegawa kept going anyway.

“Swimming really is something that makes you happy, you know? I’ve mastered all sorts of swimming forms… Crawling through the flow of suffering, butterflying my way through a barrage of insults against my self-worth, using the breaststroke while showing all my dirty parts to society…”

“There’s something wrong here?! What’s the point of becoming a master of negative swim metaphors?!”

“There’s also treading through my shame and doggy paddling like a loser mutt. Huh? There are tears coming out of my eyes.”

“Why the hell did you come here?! Is your request for someone to hear your self-deprecating comments?!”

“Not exactly,” Hasegawa rearranged himself in his seat. “Frankly, what I wanted to ask you guys was actually… to clean up the pool!”

“Clean the pool…?” Takechi repeated.

“Yeah. The pool’s going to open up soon, you know? Normally the Swim Club would be in charge of cleaning it every year, but… well, this year there’s been some difficulties. I can’t clean the entire pool on my own after all.”

“On your own? What happened to everyone else?” Matako asked.

“Weeeell,” Hasegawa scratched the back of his head. “Actually, I held a meeting with the club and and we agreed that whoever lost at rock-paper-scissors would clean the pool alone as the punishment game. And then I was the loser. There’s ten of us in the club and I lost immediately in the first round. Jeez, just how many losses are going to stain my life here. Hahaha… oh, the tears came back…”

“Don’t cry over every little thing!” Matako sighed. “Well, I get what’s going on now.”

Hasegawa continued, “Can’t you guys help me out then? … Well, it was a punishment game. I guess asking others to help would be like cheating. But it’d be really hard to clean that huge pool all on my own.”

So that’s why he came to the Odd Jobs Club.

As soon as Hasegawa stopped talking, Matako and the others all naturally turned towards Takasugi.

As all their gazes fell upon him, Takasugi closed his eye and quietly stood up from the sofa. Of course he’d deny a request like this, right…? But the truth was that none of them were sure of what he would say. Their king was a fickle king after all.

Takasugi slowly raised his right hand and spoke quietly.

“Attention, Odd Jobs Club.”

Everyone gulped.

Suddenly, Takasugi’s eye snapped open as he roared, “CLEAN THE POOL UNTIL IT SHIIIIIINES!!!”

He yelled it with the exact same pose and intensity as when he had yelled “CRUSH THE CROOOOOWS!!!” in the Gintama Rakuyo Arc anime.

“WHY ARE YOU SUDDENLY SO INTENSE?!” Matako screeched as Hasegawa jumped out of his chair.

“But that means you’ll do it?! Thank you!”

Oh my god, Takasugi. For those of you who want to see, it’s Gintama episode 322, or Gintama. 2017 episode 6 (not Porori-hen).

Madao’s jokes were actually really hard to translate because it was all kanji using furigana that spelled out actually swimming techniques but the kanji were completely negative meanings. Directly translated, Matako would yell, “The kanji are all weird?!” I had to make do and take a lot of liberty to make sure it was understandable in English.