This fic is dedicated to Okitopus!
Hope you enjoy!
Disclaimer: Please don't actually randomly turn up out of the blue and give pets to people, whether they're close friends or whoever, unless you have asked them beforehand and they genuinely want one. Keeping a pet is a big responsibility, and if someone is not ready for that responsibility, it would be detrimental to the animal. Not everyone is capable or willing to take care of a living being, so unless you know for certain the poor creature won't be mistreated, try an alternative gift instead. :)
This Thing We Call Love
Gintoki stared at Katsura, then at the cardboard box in the Joui's outstretched hands, before shifting his gaze back up into olive-brown eyes.
"No! No! No! What is this?!" Gintoki demanded, his hands waving furiously in rejection. "What do you think you're doing it?"
"Its a birthday present," Katsura replied solemnly. "It's rude to reject birthday presents."
Gintoki shook his head, pushing Katsura out of his living room. "It's more rude to forget when a person's birthday is; mine isn't today, so don't leave that thing here."
Katsura didn't budge, "It's not a thing, it's a cat," he corrected with a frown. "If you won't accept it as a gift, then at least a favour? You wouldn't want him slayed on a joui mission, would you?"
Gintoki sighed, scratching his head. "Then find someone else to take him, I don't care. Don't push this onto me."
"I found him on the streets, Gintoki, if anyone else had wanted him, they would have taken him long ago. You're the only one I can trust." Katsura shoved the box into Gintoki's hands, and before he could protest, Katsura jumped away from reach, running out the door with a parting shout, "I know you wouldn't be so cruel to abandon him!"
Gintoki sighed as his ex-comrade disappeared, loud wooden footsteps echoing as Katsura stomped down the stairs. The old hag downstairs would probably blame him for the ruckus again.
Hesitantly, Gintoki peeled open the lid of the box. His actions were rewarded with a shy meow from the small creature huddled in the corner of the box. He groaned inwardly; what's Zura doing giving a cat to a dog owner? When Kagura returned from walking Sadaharu, no doubt only trouble would happen. Maybe even cause the final straw that would kick him out of Otose's place. He wouldn't be surprised in that case.
He slammed the lid shut, squinting his eyes shut and shook his head in denial. But there was no ignoring the meows that continued to relay from the box.
In a slower, more reluctant fashion, he reached out once more, removing the lid. The furball was tiny, no larger than the width of his two hands next to each other.
"I only have strawberry milk," he mumbled to the kitten. Letting the cat out onto the floor, he poured half a carton of strawberry milk into Sadaharu's bowl, shoving it in front of the cat before drinking the rest of the carton.
He stared at the animal as he drank, scrutinising the small, pink tongue and its twitching ears. It needed a proper home, and with that thought, Gintoki grabbed the feline once more, tucking it in his arms as he headed downstairs.
As expected, Otose's Snack Bar is almost deserted during the afternoon. Otose scrunched up her nose as soon as Gintoki entered. Gintoki pulled a face of his own in retort.
"Finally here to pay your overdue rent?" From Otose's bored tone and raised brows, it was clear she already knew the answer.
"How about if I pay you in the form of this?" He lifted the cat onto the counter. "He's not even named yet!"
Otose narrowed her eyes as Gintoki put on his best grin. "Trust me, it'll help your customers to have something to pet as they moan about their petty problems."
The curtains leading to the back swung open, and a second ugly hag rushed out into the lounge. "That will not be necessary, Otose's already got an adorable cat to lure in her customers!"
Gintoki rolled his eyes, turning away from the cat-amanto. "More like a cat to scare away customers," he muttered under his breath.
Otose picked up the cat with two fingers, dropping it back into Gintoki's lap.
Gintoki stared back at her with disbelief. "But you're the strays-lady!"
"Ever since I picked up a certain stray in front of my husband's grave, I'm beginning to regret this habit of mine. Now go and find some money to pay the rent, rather than playing pet shop."
Gintoki pouted, "Thats not what I'm doing! It's all Zura's fault."
Otose shook her head, a hand massaging the bridge of her nose. "Next time I see you down here, it better be for paying the rent. Now get out of my face."
It was just ridiculous timing, that as Catherine pushed Gintoki outside, they were just in time to meet Kagura and Sadaharu at the bottom of the stairs.
He groaned, a hand on his forehead in exasperation as the young Yato noticed him and his charge. He clung to the cat tighter, turning away from Kagura.
"Gin-chan, what's that you have in your arms?"
He shrugged, "Zura's thing; nothing you'd cars about. Take Sadaharu indoors already-"
Kagura was no longer listening, her eyes sparkling as she leaned over. Gintoki let out a grunt, matching the young girl's force as he pushed back. The cat yowled at the commotion, scrambling from Gintoki's arms with a scratch.
"Ow," Gintoki complained as he watched the cat land on the floor.
Then to everyone's dismay, Sadaharu leapt with excitement, landing headfirst atop the tiny puss. Gintoki shuddered, "I guess that solves the problem of where to put the cat."
"That's a wicked thing to say," Kagura protested. "It's all your fault; if only you'd given it to me!"
"It wouldn't have been much difference," Gintoki snapped. "At least that should send the message across to Zura that this is a bad place to dispose of his trash."
Sadaharu whined, barking as he jumped away. Kagura cheered as the ball of fur unravelled itself.
Gintoki groaned, "What a lucky cat."
Catherine, propping her hands on her hips, laughed, "Cats have nine lives, you know!"
"Come on then, Zura's Thing," Kagura skipped over, grabbing the cat. "Lets get you inside."
Powerless to stop the young teenager from getting what she wants, he could only slap his hand into his face as Kagura brought the cat back inside, followed closely by Sadaharu.
He had barely finished climbing his stairs when suddenly, Kagura's shriek echoed the neighbourhood. He rushed inside, barely registering Catherine's shouts protesting against the noise.
He sighed, for the millionth time that day, when he entered the lounge. Kagura stood alone in the middle of the room, scratches on the couches and the cat nowhere to be found.
"What happened?" He asked warily.
Kagura shrugged, not at all apologetic. "Zura's Thing leapt away from me."
"Stop calling it Zura's Thing," Gintoki narrowed his eyes. "That's not its name."
Kagura pouted, "Then what are you going to call him?"
Gintoki had no answer for that: "What would you like to call it?"
Kagura propped her hands on her hips, nodding satisfactorily as she replied, "Zura's Thing"
Gintoki rolled his eyes, "Firstly, let's focus on finding it."
To Gintoki'a surprise, raising a cat was not as trouble as he had first estimated. Yes, it was still a pain in the ass, but as he glanced at Shinpachi, then Kagura, and ten Sadaharu, he realised it wasn't the first stray he had picked up anyway.
Upon seeing the cat, Shinpachi had been quick to get a collar, a good quality red leather collar that Gintoki would rather trade for sake than leave it on the feline to get dirty.
Most times of the day, Zura's thing was content to wonder through the house itself, as long as Kagura didn't forget to pour a bowl of milk for him at meal times - although, often she did forget.
Shinpachi came over more frequently, and where Kagura and Gintoki were more dog people, he suspected Shinpachi a cat person. The young boy would play with the car whenever he could, and Gintoki found the cat toys in his house gradually increasing.
However, a more irritating development came a week later, when Zura strolled into Gintoki's house without even a knock. Gintoki glared at the cause of his trouble, but the Joui didn't seem put out at all as he took his seat at couch.
"What the hell do you think you're doing barging into my house?" Gintoki demanded after him.
"How's the kitten I found?" Zura asked, not even sparing Gintoki a glance as he looked around. "Any trouble?"
Gintoki glared, "He's doing fine, no thanks to you. Shinpachi has been looking after it."
Zura looked at him expectantly, and with a groan, Gintoki headed towards the small corner of the house they'd dedicated to their pets. Getting on all fours, he reached out, grabbing the cat as it screeched from the contact.
"It doesn't seem to like you," Katsura mused.
Gintoki raised a brow, "No shit, Sherlock."
"It's not Sherlock, it's Katsura." The reply seemed almost automatic as he reached out, taking the cat into his hands.
"I didn't know you liked animals so much," Gintoki muttered. He slid into his seat behind the desk, lifting his feet onto the table as he leaned back. "On that note, where is Elizabeth? Not that I miss that creepy thing at all."
Katsura seemed to hesitate, before he gave Gintoki a pointed look. "I left Elizabeth at our base, he wasn't interested in coming. Though I can ask you the same thing, where's Leader and the glasses boy?"
"One's out grocery shopping and the other one's out with Sadaharu."
"So it's just the two of us?" Katsura's expression was unreadable, with his face focused on the cat.
Gintoki nodded, "Yeah, just us and the cat."
Zura didn't reply to that, seemingly intent in playing with the cat. He patted it, and scratched it, and flicked his tail. He held it when it purred and the bond the two formed was far from the hostile tolerance that Gintoki felt for it.
Gintoki was just content to watch the other man snuggle with the kitten, though he'd never show it as he kept his eyes half closed, feigning sleep.
They were silent, but no words needed to be passed between them to feel each other's presence, or to appreciate it. After all, silence had been a rarity in the joui war, and although he was often glad for the ruckus the others would cause (they were a distraction from his darker thoughts), he never failed to treasure the silence between his joui friends.
Not that it was frequent, considering how Sakamoto never shut up and how it would ring with the clang of swords unsheathed whenever Takasugi appeared.
But when it did occur, Gintoki wouldn't be the one to break the silence. Katsura didn't seem to either, as he let the cat stroll from his lap, simply watching the feline play by itself as he settled into a more comfortable position on the couch.
Only when the sound of the sliding door from out front interrupted them did their moment break. It felt as if the magic that had been suspended in the air came collapsing all at once.
Gintoki sat up properly on his seat, leaning forward as he propped his elbow on the table. Katsura stood up robotically, turning to Gintoki with an elegant nod.
"I should probably return to base," Katsura explained. "I'll come back the next time I get some spare time."
"Not necessary," Gintoki shouted after him, gawking when he noticed the direction Katsura was heading. "Dude, the door's that way."
By then, it was already too late, as Zura clambered out the window, disappearing from view with a jump. Gintoki slammed his forehead on to his desk in exasperation.
It was Shinpachi who came through the door, entering the lounge, a moment later. "I heard voices, was someone here?"
Gintoki just groaned, "We really should rename that cat as 'Idiot's Thing'."
It became a constant occurrence after that. In lazy afternoons, when Kagura and Shinpachi were out and about, Katsura would come over. Little explanations were given for his presence, and Gintoki didn't bother asking anymore as he grabbed the cat and presented it to the other man.
At first, Gintoki had been content to do his own thing - sleeping, or daydreaming, - in silence, but the mews of the cat as Zura played easily distracted him.
He found himself drifting closer, until he would even sit beside Zura on the couch. He never touched the cat, but it wasn't a bore to watch Zura do so.
Sometimes, they would talk a little; Gintoki would complain about the old hag downstairs, or Katsura would reenact his latest escape frenzy from the Shinsengumi in a way that made Gintoki want to facepalm. And when they begin to neglect the cat in favour of conversation, neither of them noticed.
Until one day, Katsura came through the door before Gintoki could hide the scratches on his face.
The joui paused at the door, and for a moment, Gintoki worried he'd run out the window again.
"What?" he said rather defensively, as his fingers flew to his scratch. "Shinpachi couldn't come over this morning, so I had to look after him instead, since I couldn't trust Kagura not to squish him to death."
Katsura was silent the whole stay, not in a relaxed kind of way, but as if their setting was so rigid, yet fragile it'd shatter like glass if he spoke. Gintoki let him do whatever he wanted, returning to his own desk and taking out the latest volume of Weekly Jump.
Barely focusing on the panels and pages of the magazine, the afternoon drifted with unwelcome tension. Until at last, Katsura stood up, letting the cat go.
Gintoki expected him to leave, but instead, he headed towards Gintoki's desk, standing before him with a frown on his face.
"What?" Gintoki put down his book, not bothering to bookmark when he had barely registered anything he read at all.
Katsura took a deep breath. "I didn't realise the cat was still such a bother to you. I was under the impression that you've come to like him." Katsura hesitated. "I can find a cat-sitter, but I just thought that you liked him here. I... If you want, I can take him back. I won't bother you with him again."
Gintoki stared at Katsura with a silence that seemed to drag on forever. He thought back to all those moments the ungrateful feline had scratched him, yowled and screeched, or even that one time it bit him. But then he also thought back to their quiet afternoons, the way the cat expressed his content with purrs and the way Zura expressed his with a blush.
He hesitated, scratching his cheek with a frown. "Who do you think I am to be unable to take care of a cat?! Keep him here, or Kagura and Pachi would accuse me of having eaten him or something." His voice changed into a low grumble. "It's no trouble at all."
Silence reigned the room again with tension hung in the air. Katsura seemed hesitant to respond, the mood only breaking when Zura's Thing jumped onto their desk with a sly mew.
Gintoki glared, and Katsura pointed at him triumphantly. "See, Gintoki, you don't like him after all."
"I totally do."
"And yet, I've never seen you play with him. He's relaxed with me, who's only here half the time, yet he still scratches you." Katsura crossed his arms, his chin stuck out in a way that told Gintoki he just wasn't going to give in.
"That's my problem, if I say it's fine, then just let me be," Gintoki retorted. "You gave it to me and I should be able to do whatever I want with it."
Gintoki left his desk, walking around Zura to flop down on one of the couches. "It's a love-hate relationship, okay? It's the same as how I can tell at you all day as you do something incredibly stupid, yet in the end, I still-" Gintoki paused, "Well, yeah, in any case, I'm keeping him, okay?"
"Gintoki," Katsura trailed off. "Okay."
With the feeling that something important had been left unsaid, Gintoki watched as Katsura showed himself out the door.
He tried to shrug off the day's events, but something tugged at his chest, weighing it down no matter how hard he tried to forget.
In the next week, Katsura didn't turn up at all. Gintoki tried not to let it bother him; the idiot wasn't a Yorozuya member in the first place.
It was better this way, anyway. Now he could finally resume his bad habits in peace. No one to distract him from reading his jump and no one in his way to sleep on the couches. But that didn't stop him from turning to the door at any small noise.
It was only after another week - of absence and empty silence - before the joui samurai returned to Yorozuya.
Gintoki raised a brow, though he questioned whether his unimpressed expression was convincing at all. "I thought you weren't coming back."
Katsura shrugged, "I changed my mind. If I didn't come back, I wouldn't get any more screen time, you know."
"Well, Kagura went to the pet shop with Sadaharu, they took Zura's Thing along to get him a new collar."
"Its not Zur- Wait, what?!"
Gintoki'a smile was sheepish, "You never told us his name, so we had to make do."
"At least call it 'Katsura's Thing'!" Katsura protested.
Gintoki's grin widened, until Katsura sat himself on the couch, and it faltered again: "Do you like the cat that much? You're going to wait for him?"
Katsura's glance towards Gintoki was unreadable, his expression dark and peculiar. He tilted his head, "Do you really still think I've been coming all this way for the cat? I mean, I do like him, but surely not that much."
Gintoki held his breath, his own eyes widening. He forced his expression back into calm, "Then I really underestimated your idiocy, didn't I? You'd come all this way even when you don't even like the reason you came for that much."
"The cat's not the reason I came for, Gintoki," Katsura's voice was soft, but even the quiet couldn't hide the disappointment in his voice. "But it's fine, your response is enough indication that I should leave."
"Wait!" Gintoki's voice was much more excited in contrast. "Zura, are you saying what I think you're saying?"
Gintoki caught Katsura's eyes, holding them until the other man nodded.
Gintoki sighed, "And all this time I've been getting jealous over a cat..."
Zura grimaced, "Elizabeth suggested it; said it would give me a good reason to come by your place."
Gintoki shot Zura a pointed glance, "Oh, come on, reasons or no reasons had never stopped you before, you idiot."
"And all you've done then is kick me out," Katsura retorted, crossing his arms across his chest with a pout.
Gintoki grinned, "Looks like I should make up for all those times, then."
End.