Disclaimer: I do not own Gintama.
Gintoki was staring at the calendar stapled onto the wall. He flipped it two pages forward, then one page back, and finally focused his eyes onto the current date.
"Today is Valentine's Day..." Probably the chocolate company created this stupid idea to brainwash women believing that giving chocolate would make their dream man love them. What about the rest of the men population who aren't considered the 'dream man?' Are they going to fall into the abyss of depression realizing how cruel the world was, how unfair life really was? Gintoki, the non-dream man, grumbled to himself as he continued the staring contest with the calendar. Finally, he slapped the calendar closed, causing it to fall to the floor. He trudged to the lounging room and threw himself onto the couch to sleep again.
Suddenly, there was a scream and Shinpachi came crashing into the lounging room, "Gin-san!"
"What? Did you wet the bed?"
"No! Did you see the mailbox?"
"Why would I want to see a freaking mailbox on Valentine's Day? I don't want to even think about that vile day-yes, now on we will call it Vile Day." Gintoki scratched at his head and then those dead fish eyes started to splash with a sparkle of life, "What was in the mailbox?"
"W-W-" Shipachi held out his hand so Gintoki could see, "We got Valentine chocolates!"
"What?" Gintoki eyed at the gigantic heart shaped chocolate box as if it was made out of gold, "Impossible." The silver head man shoved the boy out of the way and stepped toward the entry way. His eyes did not deceive him; he could see a looming shadow of items on the other side of the shouji door. He slammed it open and watched as the boxes of chocolates spilled over his sandals. He knelt down and gathered the boxes carefully like babies. "This has to be a dream."
"It isn't a dream!" Shinpachi laughed as tears were falling out of his eyes, "Finally! I feel like I'm popular!"
"Popular? Idiot, I was ranked one in the Gintama Popular Character Ranking!"
"I was ranked eight!"
"Hah, loser! That number fits you well, since you have those things." Gintoki pointed to Shinpachi's glasses. Shinpachi was about to scream out retorts, but Gintoki quickly shut down the listening volume. "Who's it from I wonder? I hope it's not Kagura again." He read the name and his eyes widened. "Manabu?" he picked up another box to read the little tag hanging at the tip of the heart, "Shinichirou?" Gintoki eyed up at the fuming four eyes, "Is it some kind of fad to give boy names to young girls?"
Shinpachi adjusted his glasses to see the name on the chocolate box he was holding, "Not that I heard of..." They suddenly exchanged glances and dove into the mountain of Valentine chocolates to read each and every one of the names.
All of them were boyish names.
All of a sudden, it seemed that the world had crumbled onto their heads. "Ah," Shinpachi uttered after the painfully long silence, "I think these are like a thank you card from those people." What he referred to those people were the transsexual host club members. They didn't know their names, but it was probably them.
Gintoki had shut down his listening mechanism once again, entering his own world. He stood up suddenly, collided his head into Shinpachi's neck. The boy was thrown off his feet and crashed to the floor, almost squishing a few of the chocolates.
"O-Our first obligatory gift chocolates and we got it from men? What is wrong with this world?" Gintoki screamed, his eyes burning red in anger, "This is worse than getting a small bite size bag of candy covered chocolates! "
Shinpachi had to agree with Gintoki. He expected a crowd of beautiful young ladies with large pretty eyes as they handed the chocolates with a blush on their cheeks. He was fully focused on the raging samurai that he didn't notice there was someone at the doorway. Shinpachi finally looked up, and his face paled.
Shinpachi tapped Gintoki's shoulder, "Ah...Gin-san-"
"-Worse than being forced to eat Otae's handmade chocolates-!"
"Gin-san."
"-look at this! This chocolate is shaped like that thing! The dude must have used his own to mold this chocolate out! Repulsive!"
"Gin-san! Would you snap out of it?" Shinpachi shouted in the other man's ears. Gintoki snapped out from his soliloquy performance and switched on his five senses.
"What? I'm telling the readers here about how bad it is for a main character-ranked number one- to get a load of chocolates from a man!"
Shinpachi slammed a finger to his lips, hushing the man to shut up. "You idiot, don't repeat that last part!" he hissed.
"Why huh? I'm really depressed right now!" Shinpachi threw down his arms as if he had given up, which he did. He then held out a hand toward the entrance way just like how a tour guide would introduce a national monument. Gintoki's eyes followed the hand, and raised his head to finally see that they were not alone. The samurai stared at the visitor in silence. Then, his eyes widened in horror.
"Hou, you don't want chocolates from a man." The visitor mused, rolling the cigarette over his lips, "I see then." He glared down at Gintoki with ferocity. The man wore a loose black kimono, an outfit he wore when he was out of duty. While one hand was tightened into a hard fist, the other held a small red bag. The man smirked and although the anger mark pulsed, his voice was horrifyingly calm, "I guess I'll give this to Kondo-san since he's probably not going to get any in the first place."
"T-Toshi-!" Gintoki scrambled onto his feet as the Shinsengumi officer stomped down the stairs, "Wait! I take back what I said! I want your chocolate!"
Shinpachi listened as Gintoki's voice faded away, screaming for his boyfriend to come back. He sighed, shaking his head, and silently gathered up the chocolates. Another year of a horrible Valentine's Day at the Yorozuya.
The End