Rainy Days
Kagura does not like rain.
She didn't mind it, once, (she'd even thought that the grey skies were pretty) but that was when she was young enough that the top of her head only reached her father's waist; that was back when Kamui was still at home and mother was around to create blanket forts as the thunder boomed.
That was before mother died, before Kamui and father fought, before her family's blood turned the puddles reddish-pink. That was before she'd stood under her umbrella and stared at the stone that marked her mother's resting place; that was before she was left without her brother and without her mother, alone in an empty house as raindrops pounded on the ceiling - alone while her father travelled somewhere in the universe with an artificial arm.
Now, on earth, where the sun shines more often than not, where the sky is blue instead of grey, she'd rather soak in sunshine than drip in rain. She doesn't show it - she's learnt, over the years, never to show this sort of weakness; she's learnt, with time, to keeps her likes and dislikes to herself. Personal secrets are to be guarded as closely as her neck and heart in a fight - an attack to a person's mind is as deadly as a knife to any vital organ.
Gintoki is deadly, too. He doesn't look it, but he's more skilled than most Yato. He's perceptive as well, even when he looks blank and uncaring.
He sees Kagura's dislike for rain days after they meet - he knows before Kagura even realises that she's given it away. He sees it in the set of her shoulders, the blue of her eyes, the defiant arc of her back. He picks his nose and examines his findings, and casual as anything he says: "you hate rain, huh?"
Kagura whirls on him - "of course not!" she says, lying through her teeth.
Gintoki examines her with dull eyes, then shrugs. He lets her keep her secrets, or pretends to, when he's already seen right through her walls.
She hates rain. She's stayed with Gin-chan long enough that she trusts him, and so she tells him this one day. The best thing about him and Shinpachi and Otose and Sadaharu is that they understand, and Gintoki always seems to understand better than the others - in a deeper, more personal way.
He rubs his shoulder and glances up from his manga; his eyes are calm and comforting in their lack of exceeding sympathy, in their absence of judgement. "Why?" He asks.
"Because it's annoying," she says, and he shrugs.
"It is," he says, handing her a pack of sukonbu.
They sit side-by-side on the couch and watch Ladies Four, warm and safe in the apartment, and when Kagura looks out of the window the sky is blue, the sun is shining, and there's a rainbow arcing above Kabuki-cho.
A thunderstorm comes in a few months after she moves in with Gintoki.
Kagura hates it and spends the stormy days yelling at Gintoki, so that the shouting drowns out the sound of raindrops hammering against the roof; so that she doesn't have to listen to the silence that reminds her far too much of being all alone. Gintoki, lying on the couch with JUMP in one hand and strawberry milk in the other, helps greatly by yelling back with annoyance in his raised voice.
On the third day of the unrelenting storm, she sees that he hates the rain, too. She sees it in the dark apathy of his eyes, the hunch of his shoulders, the clenching of his hand around the hilt of his sword. She sees it in his unusual restlessness and all the tiny signs that he can't quite hide. Kagura knows Gin-chan quite well by now.
"You hate the rain too, yes?" She asks, and Gintoki shrugs.
"It's annoying," he says, quoting her response, and she throws a pillow at him. She's letting him off easy, really, but unless she wants to assault him with a television remote there isn't anything harder to hit him with, and since she's quite concerned with the remote's welfare she refrains.
Later she plops on the couch beside him and in silent agreement they turn the television's volume up loud enough that it drowns out the hammering of rain and the memories of pain. Sometimes the silence gets too loud, or Gintoki says that "the TV is too soft" even though it's near deafening, and they turn the volume even higher, until it's as loud as a herd of elephants and the two of them are waiting for Otose to yell at them to turn it down already.
He drinks strawberry milk and she eats sukonbu, and pressed together they are safe and warm and untouched by the hurt of the past.
On cold, dark mornings, when rain drizzles from grey skies to dampen the ground, Kagura pulls herself from her cupboard and drags her blankets with her, stumbling in warm sleepiness to the kotetsu, where she curls near the radiator with all her bedding around her.
Gintoki follows soon after (she always makes sure to create enough noise to wake him) and collapses beside her in a pile of soft fabric. Sadaharu pads over and cushions their heads on soft, warm fur. Kagura remembers the days when her mother had been around, when Kamui had curled with the two of them in a blanket fort with annoyed grumbling that it was really too childish. Mami had always kicked him out, saying that if it was too childish then he shouldn't hang around in it, and he'd wage war with a pillow, claiming that it was cold and the fort was warm and that anyway they'd stolen all the blankets.
But Gin-chan isn't Mami or Kamui, and Kagura has changed since then. Gintoki curls in the blankets beside her and grumbles that she's too noisy, and Kagura kicks him and orders him to shut up. Sadaharu yelps at the both of them and they all droop back to half-sleep.
In the apartment, rainy mornings are not chaotic; the air is not peppered by indignant yells and declarations of war, or the whomping sounds of pillows exploding with the force of impact. In the apartment, rainy mornings are cozy and sleepy and spent snuggled under the kotetsu, and the only sounds that fill the air are tired noises and quiet grunting.
Gintoki lies beside her and sometimes he cards fingers through her hair, gentle and comforting as a father's hold. His hands are bigger than Mami's and rougher than Kamui's, calloused and strong from long years of wielding the sword, but they're every bit as gentle as her mother's careful touch. She makes sleepy sounds and snuggles closer to him because he's warm and safe; Kagura falls asleep with her back pressed against his side and a hand fisted in the sleeve of his outstretched arm.
Hours later Shinpachi walks in and sighs exasperatedly at the two of them, but Kagura cracks one heavy eyelid open and she sees his eyes softening. Soft footsteps thud gently through the room, and then Gintoki is shifting as Shinpachi curls by his other side.
Kagura peeks over later and sees that Shinpachi's head is pillowed on Sadaharu's fur and that Gintoki's arm has slinked under Shinpachi's neck to hold him close; she smiles and puts her head back down on Sadaharu's side. Gintoki's arm winds around her side, and together the Yorozuya sleep through the storm.
And Kagura thinks that she will never like rain, but if she can spend rainy days like this - with the people who are now her family - she can learn to not mind it again.