We stay out of the cold and sumo wrestle with another man pressed tight against our backs

Mr. Sato x Yoshio: The New Empire

It was an especially frigid day in Tokyo and our poorly insulated offices were no exception. On this day, our writers Ahiruneko and Go Hatori were hard at work on their usual award-winning articles but struggled to forge ahead with rapidly numbing fingers.

Go was on the verge of blowing the lid off yet another sketchy looking online product but couldn’t pull his fingers away from his warm breath long enough to type another word.

▼ Go: “Cold… It’s so cold today…”

Our fashion correspondent Ahiruneko was ready to lay out all the hot trends of the summer, but even they weren’t hot enough to thaw out his frozen muscles.

▼ Ahiruneko: “It is cold… So freaking cold…”

However, their colleagues Mr. Sato and Yoshio were not cold, for they had stumbled upon the secret of true warmth and were about to share it.

▼ Mr. Sato: “Yo, get a load of those two. They’re so cold, they’re shaking.”
Yoshio: “That’s a damn shame. We should do something… Get the gear.”

▼ Mr. Sato: “You guys cold? If so, put this on. It’ll make you toasty in seconds.”
Yoshio: “Yeah, real toasty.”

▼ Ahiruneko: “Is that what I think it is?”
Go: “Full-body tights?”
Mr. Sato: “If you two wear this together. You’ll be super toasty.”

It was an unusual suggestion, but desperate times call for unusual measures so the writers cast aside their apprehension and agreed to wear the tights together.

▼ Ahiruneko: “I don’t think it’s possible for the two of us to fit in this.”
Go: “Let’s at least give it a shot.”

▼  Ahiruneko: “I guess I’ll put it on first and then you can come in?”
Go: “Sure, sure, I’ll start with one leg.”

▼ Ahiruneko: “Aw, come on! This is impossible! Two people are impossible.”
Go: “Um, should I come in now? Let me just…”

Of course, Mr. Sato never said this would be easy – he just said it worked. And if it were that easy we’d be seeing everyone walking around wearing tights in pairs.

▼ Ahiruneko: “It’s too tight! This is horrible!”

▼ Go: “OK! I got my legs in! Now, we just need the upper body.”

Little did these two know that this whole tights suggestion was just a ploy by Mr. Sato and Yoshio to have an opponent for doubles-sumo.

▼ Mr. Sato: “Let’s put on ours while those guys are screwing around.”
Yoshio: “We just need to do up the zipper.”

▼  Mr. Sato: “Yay! We got the zipper this time!”

▼ Go: “Urgh! I can get my arms in there! How do you guys do it?!”
Ahiruneko: “This is impossible! It’s absolutely impossible!”

▼  Mr. Sato: “Ha! Nothing is impossible – just feast your eyes on Shirofuji (4th dan).”

▼ Yoshio: “Yo.”

▼ Mr. Sato: “We’re ready anytime, so hurry up and we can get our sumo on!”

Their would-be opponents, however, we’re still far from ready.

▼ Go: “Those black ones looked like they were about to burst, so I got these green ones. They might hold.”
Ahiruneko: “It does feel bigger.”

▼ Go: “Argh, it’s still crazy tight though…”
Ahiruneko: “My back is killing me…”

▼ Go: “OK! Midorifuji (4th dan) is ready!”

▼ Ahiruneko: “Ugh…”

▼ Go: “We are always ready too, so let’s hurry up and do this thing!”

▼ Go: “Especially because I don’t know how much longer this will hold together.”

The two pairs of men stared each other down across the sumo ring and prepared for battle.

▼ Mr. Sato: “OK! Um, I probably should have made some rules… How about first person to touch a wall or fall down loses?”

And as the seconds passed, both wrestlers had hardly moved from their spots.

▼ Go: “I can’t… I can’t even take a step like this…”

Realizing that if someone did fall down in this state, they could get a serious workplace injury. They enlisted a safety crew like in the old kaiju movies to facilitate movement.

▼ Mr. Sato: “Masanuki! Lend a hand, would ya?”
Masanuki: “I’m on it!”

▼ Mr. Sato: “It’s working! They’re coming!”
Go: “We still can’t really… Come on, Ahi-chan! Left, right, left, right…”

▼ Mr. Sato: “Fine, we’ll just come to you then!”
Go: “No, no no! Don’t! We’ll tip over!”

▼ Mr. Sato: “Here we come! Hahaha!”
Go: “Noooooooo!”

▼ Go: “Stop! We’re seriously about to fall over here!”
Mr. Sato: “OK, let’s put aside our differences for now and I’ll help you.”

And so, even in the most heated of battles, these two vicious rivals were able to tap into the spirit of compassion.

▼ Mr. Sato: “This is really dangerous, so just surrender your bodies to our hands.”

▼ Mr. Sato: “This is just a print article with still photos, so we can just make faces like we’re fighting and no one will know the difference. I’ll just have to remember not to write what I’m saying right now in the article. Grrr!”

▼ Go: “I don’t even think I can do that much. It’s so tight…”

▼ Ahiruneko: “I can’t feel my spine anymore… How much longer do we have to do this?”

▼ Mr. Sato: “OK, not a problem… We can just add some after-effects and motion blurring to cover up the fact you can’t even act like you’re fighting. Just keep making those faces and pretending you’re in unbearable pain.”
Go: “We are… Arrgh!”

▼ Mr. Sato: “Great! You did it! I’m so proud of you boys. We just need to take a commemorative photo now.”
Go: “Hurry up! THE PAIN!”
Ahiruneko: “My back…”

And so, with the battle over before it even began, the wrestlers took a photo that may very well be the closest thing to a real-life recreation of an AI-generated image.

▼ Mr. Sato: “Everybody say cheese! Whew, that was fun…”
Go: “That was painful…”
Ahiruneko: “Uhhhngh…”

▼ Mr. Sato: “But you do feel toasty, don’t you?”
Go & Ahiruneko: “Yes, we are very toasty.”
Yoshio: “I’m glad you understand.”

The moral of the story is that when faced with a problem like the chill of winter, sometimes it’s best to give yourself a whole bunch of other problems and then that original problem will either go away or not seem so bad anymore. Happy holidays, everyone!

Photos ©SoraNews24
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