Disclaimer: Gintama does not belong to me.
Children are sitting on a couch – the exact same couch, where he even now lies on Monday afternoons with strawberry milk. Years ago, it used to be strawberry milk and JUMP, but nothing lasts forever. Although looking at these children, he was getting a feeling that perhaps the time went backwards. Girl with red hair and wide curious eyes, wearing comfortable dress in Chinese style, next to a boy, whose only distinctive feature were his glasses. Damn, they were even thickier than Shinpachi´s. And their stares – they were similar, too. They did not believe him, it was pretty damn obvious; who would believe an old man who claims that he had saved the world – not once, many times, more than there are fingers on their tiny hands. They laugh. At least once more the living room is filled with laughter. He laughs with them. He was never the one to cry, even though the loneliness sometimes makes him consider this possibility. But for now, he laughs and watches, as Kagura´s daughter tries to make Sadaharu play with her. He is old too, and too big for Kagura to take him into her new home. Old and forgotten, two similar souls inhabiting place reeking of times long gone.
Children ask what does Yorozuya mean. What is he supposed to say to them? The warmest place in the whole universe? His entire world? The only family he had ever belonged to? Odd jobs, he says. The company –even now he is proud of this word- where your mother and your father had fun. You don´t earn money by having fun, says Shinpachi´s son and Gintoki laughs again, because he doesn´t know how to respond. He shows them some old photos instead, filled with people long gone or lost somewhere in depths of endless space. They ask and he tries to answer, but ends up laughing nervously again and again. He realizes he does not want to talk. They don´t understand and just keep making jokes about Katsura´s hair. He wants them to go, but wants them to stay at the same time. He craves to say Don´t leave me alone, but even now, he is a samurai with all of his pride. Proud they were, and young and careless. And brave, how brave they were until the last minute. It takes great deal of braveness, to look at your friends being slaughtered one after another, and yet helpless, because that was the destiny they had chosen. And now, the samurais are gone. No big deal; this world doesn´t need them anymore
He pours strawberry milk into three glasses. Even that milk tastes somehow wrong, a bit bitter. Children don´t complain and drink, Sadaharu yawns and someone down on the street argues with street vendor. It should be calming, but it doesn´t work. Gintoki misses too many small things – faint sour smell of sukonbu, voices from Otose´s snack bar, warmness. He should stop dwelling on the past, that´s what sensei would tell him. Yet apparently this advice wasn´t the most popular one – Katsura practically made his living from trying to come back in time and Takasugi somehow managed to end that living for the same reason. And Gintoki was left behind in present, but this present looks as if time has really stopped in its saddest sequence. Perhaps he really is much more stubborn than those two. Still wearing the same set of clothes (they look terrible, he never learned how to properly wash and iron them), with wooden sword by his side (fairly scratched, teleshopping obviously wasn´t popular anymore) and that small phone strap. And giant dying alien dog, he reminds himself. Well, someone has to take care of the remnants of the past. Shiroyasha died shortly after the war, Gintoki remained and even he no longer feels alive. Things change, he repeats to himself, world changes. Only his natural perm is still the same, after all these years. Stubborn as its owner.
Children seem bored. He lets them go home, and after they leave, he goes back to the dreamless sleep in his old armchair.