Disclaimer: Why yes, I do own Gintama. That makes so much sense. Yes.
A/N: Nah, man. (I am slightly worried that I could actually get in trouble for saying that first thing)
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Chapter One: Being Around These Idiots isn't a Bad Thing
Waking up with a terrible headache was not a good start for the day. He reeked of sake so the smell didn't help either. He coughed. For a moment he contemplated if this was because of actually working.
Nah. It was the damned rain while he was doing a job. Of all days, he had the luck to run around Edo just to put up some banners and flyers for some troublesome businessman who couldn't wait.
It hadn't started raining until the middle of the job, and the pay was too good to have ignored until the next day. The guy was cocky and he demanded it to be done as early as possible. And it was only him alone to accomplish that, since Kagura and Shinpachi were given different tasks that day. The old hag was already asking for the monthly rent so he couldn't complain. It wasn't a good idea to go drinking out all night on the same day either.
The white-permed samurai called out for Shinpachi to bring him some food, before stopping midway, feeling like he might throw up.
There was no response.
Oh, right. The bespectacled boy had another practice cheering for an upcoming concert.
With a groan, he tried to sit up in order to go to the kitchen. His surroundings seemed to be spinning as he went. His head was throbbing. Entering the living room, he realized, Kagura wasn't here either. She must have gone out to play outside along with Sadaharu.
So he was alone for the rest of the day.
He reached the kitchen to try to begin making breakfast for himself, he coughed again, and again, slightly becoming worse than before. And if that wasn't enough, he was sweating all over, it was too hot.
He placed his hand on his forehead, closing his eyes. It seems he had caught a cold. He should've listened when they said that getting a flu was common these days.
How annoying. To have a stupid flu, a hangover, in this depressing cloudy weather. Wonderful. He would be too tired to go outside and there was no new JUMP for him to read. As someone who barely does anything on a daily basis, the fact that he literally doesn't have anything to do was troubling.
There wasn't anyone around to make his condition worse, atleast. Being alone from time to time is a good thing too.
His head had spun around again suddenly, both his hands placed over his head. It's like he has a second heartbeat in his head. And his throat was so dry.
Feeling a sense of dehydration, he felt like he was suffocating.
Gintoki ran to the refrigerator, ignoring the numbness of his body that refused to move. He desperately took hold of a jug of water and downed it quickly, not bothering if some slipped his mouth and spilled to the floor.
When he finished drinking, the jug of water was now completely empty.
He still felt like hell, but he was feeling a lot better than before now.
But still, it was like he was going to throw up.
Wait. Scratch that, he wasn't much better. And really did have to throw up. He covered his mouth with his hand. Upon finishing that, the Gintoki began breathing heavily. He slid down against the stall, panting. Everything ached, he coughed again.
He then brought his head up to stare at the ceiling with distant eyes.
Forget food, his stomach feels crappy anyway. He stood up steadily and slowly, heading for his futon to sleep off the pain.
As he used to.
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Everything was buzzing. Muffled screams, gunshots, explosions, noises, mixed with one another, it was all a blur. It was all too familiar.
He snapped his eyes open, smoke slowly dissipating away from his field of vision, giving him a hard time to be able to take in his surroundings. When everything was clear, the skies were dark, the noises from earlier were gone and it was deathly quiet. Groups of corpses were sprawled out on the ground, decomposing rapidly.
His white armor was covered in a dark, sickening red, as a katana laid forgotten on the ground as he looked to his surroundings tiredly.
His eyes widened as he stumbled backwards from the confusing scene before him. His stomach turned over, he still felt sick. He was still feeling dizzy, everything seemed all too surreal and it was hard to think straight.
Before he thought about anything else, a terrifying scream for help was heard throughout the battlefield.
By instinct, he turned around quickly to where it came from while he retrieved his katana. There, a few feet away, was an old lady laying down, trapped. Moving closer, it seemed that she couldn't escape, as her leg was held back by a seemingly heavy plank of wood. Another unlucky civilian caught up in this mess.
The silver-haired patriot decided to call out to her. "Oi, granny. What are you doing around here? It's dangerous to walk around late at night, you know."
She said nothing. Through the messy brown hair that covered half of her face, she was holding her breath, enduring the pain.
Without wasting anytime, Gintoki was already removing the plank of wood from her leg when he approached her, then dropping on his knee to examine her injuries. Her leg was broken.
"Granny, you can't walk with this." he stated, lifting her up as to carry her behind his back. "I'll get you outta here, okay?" he added.
It was only when he started walking to look for a nearby village, that the old lady finally spoke, "..Such a nice boy. You remind me of my grandson."
The delighted tone in her voice was clear. It was a good thing. She was more or less fine enough to still smile atleast.
"Ahh, is that so? Ofcourse. Everybody says so. I'm a really good person." he boasted.
A faint laugh in return was heard in response.
"Hn.. It seems that I was wrong. I believe my grandson's not as humble as you are."
"Oii. What's with the sarcastic tone? I'm telling you the truth, you know."
His head hadn't stop messing with him for some time now. With every step he took, it was getting more tiring for him.
"So. How'd you end up there anyway, granny? Don't tell me, you got cheated at a pachinko parlor then you teared it down or something?" he added after a while.
"What sort of bizarre setting is that?" A pause. "Though thank you for saving a helpless old woman such as myself. You look like you're getting tired. Are you alright?"
Sweat trickled down his skin, he panted as he tried to catch his breath.
The old lady frowned. "My, my. You can barely even breathe.. I'm very sorry to have troubled you. You shouldn't have tried to help."
Through shaky breaths he let out a grin. "Heh.. don't tell me that kind of crap. No one can just leave around a helpless old woman. That's not funny." he let out another cough right after saying that.
The old lady hummed, "That's right. It isn't wise to try to help someone like me in this sort of situation."
He was cautious of his surroundings, looking to different directions. Realizing that she had just said something, he scratched his head in his usual, lazy manner.
"Geez. Don't say stuff like that."
She scoffed at his reply. "You have other things to worry about. Like a promise you keep breaking."
He stopped. Messy white hair covered his eyes, his mouth formed into a frown.
He said nothing in return. The old woman began to laugh as she hugged him tighter. Yet the Joui patriot didn't move a muscle.
"...You're too weak to protect even yourself. Just stop carrying this weight." dictated the old lady. Her voice no longer sounding the previous quiet, kind voice she once had. Instead was replaced with a deeper, darker and somewhat demonic voice.
Shiroyasha flinched. He quickly tried to take the old lady off of him, to which she reacted by trapping him with a headlock, strangling him.
It was hard enough to stay conscious before. His heart was pounding, being loud enough for him to hear it ringing in his ears.
He took hold of the arms encasing him, gripped on it tightly, as he threw the arms over his head, forced to be taken along but he got free. He started taking tired, shaky breaths, trembling furiously. His stomach turned over again, and now it's as if he was stabbed to the gut.
The brown-haired old woman was nowhere to be seen. Smoke started covering the area and he could see someone, something glaring right back at him.
"Aren't you tired? Stop forgiving and start fighting back."
He disregarded the shadow's words, his hand positioned to gripped on his katana tightly. This would all be over once he kills whatever it was.
His vision was getting weary, and he was having fits of coughs.
"You're getting too soft, Gintoki."
This wasn't the time to recall random flashbacks. He opened his eyes, feeling nothing but rage as he attacked.
He launched towards it yet his ambush was caught short, blocked by another sharp weapon. The smoke was still there, slowly lifting up enough for him to see those pair of dark green eyes.
"Takasugi?"
He almost tripped as he clashed swords with a former comrade. The purple-haired man in front of him having a gleeful smile. Without saying anything he pulled back to slash at him.
He let out a soundless scream of agony, his hand holding onto the side of his gut as blood started to drip.
They continued exchanging blow after blow. The both of them covered with cuts and bruises, but with neither giving up. Every inch of his body screamed in pain but his body refused to go limp.
They weren't the only ones fighting anymore. All around him were fellow patriots fighting for their lives. He felt a rush of nostalgia as some were familiar faces.
He got the short end of the stick this time. He was weak and tired from the start it was surprising enough he even stayed alive for this long. He knew he was meeting his end as his katana fell to the ground, his eyes closing shut with a peaceful expression written on his face, waiting for the inevitable.
But it wasn't his blood that spilt his face, not his voice writhing in pain. Confusion was replaced with horror as he looked in front of him, a patriot being stabbed to the chest, the cold tip of the sword still in his front.
He could do nothing more than to stare helplessly at the patriot before him. The young man only giving a faint smile in return as his last words would resound in his head for many years to come. "F-For Shiroyasha-san.."
He had seen this too many times than anyone should. Not just to him particularly. Comrades taking the kill, sacrificing themselves for a friend or atleast someone whom they thought was too important to die, when it should have been him doing that.
Blood and saliva came out of the patriot's mouth as the katana was drawn back mercilessly, his body falling limp to the hard ground. Takasugi only looked down with a glare and a small frown after flunging his sword as he always did.
The sight alone was enough to set his blood boil, for him to be blind with rage. He picked his weapon up and gripped onto it steadily, his opponent doing the same. Both were planning to end this one way.
A swift kill with the first strike.
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He sat up breathing and panting for air, sweating all over. His movements were caught short as he saw two pairs of eyes. With a sigh he takes another breath for a moment, before looking back at them.
"..What? Is there something on my face?"
The vermillion-haired girl looked to the bespectacled teenager, sharing worried glances.
"No it's.. You seemed really shaken up when you woke up just now." Shinpachi answered quietly.
He narrowed his eyes.
"Huh? Oh, that. Don't worry about it. But are you guys sure there's nothing drawn on my face or anything? You were planning too, didn't you? There's nothing on my face right?"
"NOTHING'S ON YOUR GODDAMN FACE, ARU!" A sharp, intense pain had hit him in the gut, as his face was sent to the other side of the room.
He was getting up steadily when he shouted, "OII! IS THAT THE FIRST THING YOU SHOULD DO TO SOMEONE WHO JUST WOKE UP?"
"SHUT UP! You scared us when you woke up so suddenly, aru!" she shouted back. With that the both of them were thrown into an argument after another. It got loud enough for a neighbor to scream back at them from the window to shut up.
"SHUT UP!"
"Yeah! Don't interfere, aru!"
Both Gintoki and Kagura were looking out the window to glare at the man who dared to scold them. It was then when Shinpachi grabbed their heads and hit them against the frame of the window angrily.
"HOW ABOUT YOU GUYS SHUT UP?! You're disturbing others!"
They seemed to have calm down, he noticed. But now they were looking at him with an unreadable expression.
"Eh?.. W-What?"
"SHUT UP!" Gintoki and Kagura held his head and did the same to him on the table. Once they were done, they went to fixing their hair or massaging their heads. Shinpachi had a vein struck to his nerve when he recovered, tempted to get payback though dismissed the idea of it.
"..Anyway, Gin-san, are you alright?" he asked instead.
The white-permed samurai gave him a look, recalling the earlier event of his head being smashed against the window.
"Are you seriously asking me that?"
The glasses-wearing boy flinched, realizing how dumb it was to even say that. He originally meant to say it when Gin-san woke up, though was interrupted by other things.
"..Nevermind." he said.
A few moments of silence passed among them before the crimson-eyed man remarked about it already being evening.
"Ah. You had a fever when I cane here late in the afternoon." Shinpachi supplied.
Gintoki hummed, scanning around the room as he saw (fever pads), medicines, a towel and the like by the side of his futon.
"It was really weird. Because idiots don't catch colds, right?" Kagura added.
"Who the hell are you calling an idiot, you brat?" she only smiled with a smug face.
They were being themselves, as always. He had guessed that they didn't take notice of his outburst from waking up that much, and it wasn't really anything to worry about anyway. The tension on his shoulders lifted somewhat.
He scratched the back of his head as he sighed. "Ah, whatever. I'm whipping up a meal." He just realized he hadn't actually eaten all day.
The yorozuya members perked up, the mention of him cooking receiving all the attention.
"Well, if you're gonna cook something, make one for me too, aru!" the azure-eyed girl exclaimed.
"If you're feeling better already, you might as well cook for all of us." Shinpachi added with a cheeky grin.
"Arf!"
Gintoki let out a childish pout as Sadaharu strolled towards him. He was about to reach and pet him before the dog got caught of his hand in his mouth.
"Wai- Oiii! That's not something you do to convince me to make something for you!" he snatched his hand out, holding it as it drips a few drops of blood.
"It can't be helped, aru. You've been feeding him less than usual."
"Yeah, yeah. As long as the things I need's in the fridge, I'll make something good." he concluded bitterly.
After turning the stove on, and starting on making what he planned, two teenagers peeked through his shoulders.
"Gin-chan, you should teach me how to cook instead of wasting money on pachinko parlors."
"It smells really good. I can't wait."
"Oi. Don't bother me. Can't you see the chef's busy?"
He received nasty comments in return, and in time, they were arguing as he kept cooking.
But in the end, he let out a small smile.
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A/N: This initially started out as a oneshot. But then again, I decided on that a year ago, and adding more chapters would be fun too. Next chapter will probably be out quick.
But hey, review. Please? Tell me what you think :)