"No, Kagura-chan, not like that- see? The stroke is like this, not like that-" Shinpachi is bent over Kagura's workbook with her, markers spilled across the floor. The two are curled up together in a corner behind the bar counter in a little red and white bundle of cotton and pillows- Shinpachi's grown quite attached to Gintoki. He seems determined to become part of their little family, or maybe to draw them into his.

"Gintoki," Otose says, "How is it that a seven-year-old is more help with homework than you are?"

"Oi, oi, I helped with the family tree, didn't I?"

"The family tree she nearly got suspended for?"

"That wasn't my fault, dammit." Otose raises an eyebrow and Gintoki scowls. "It was your fault for telling her all that shit about me being her family in the first place. Am I supposed to be her Papi now, haah?"

"You're doing well enough," Otose points out, and Gintoki snorts, looks away.

"Gin-chan always draws the stroke like this," Kagura argues loudly.

"But the teacher says you're supposed to do it like this-"

"Gintoki," Otose says levelly. "Do you know how to write?"

"Um," Gintoki says, not meeting her eyes. "O-of course, what sort of stupid question is that?"

Otose stares at him for a moment while the pin drops.

"You don't know how to write at all, do you?!"

"Of course I do, stupid old hag! It's just that Gin-san isn't very good at formal, okay!"

"What sort of useless guardian are you, teaching your brat shitty writing?!"

"She's not mine, dammit! How many times do I have to tell you, old lady?!"

"Are you blind, you stupid perm-headed idiot? Do you have bad eyesight to match your white hair?!"

"Ahhhh? Have you looked in the mirror recently? Or is your eyesight so bad there's no point in looking?"

"Shitty punk!"

"Ugly old hag!"

"Are they always like that?" Shinpachi asks Kagura. Otose glances over to see Kagura nodding.

"It's okay, though! Mami said that if you can fight and still be friends, that means you really like each other, uh-huh!"

Shinpachi tips his head. "Really?"

"Uh-huh! We should try it sometime, pachi! We'll fight and then stay friends and then we'll know we really like each other, cuz that's what family does!"

"Ehh? But I don't want to fight you!"

Kagura looks at Shinpachi for a moment. There's something strange and solemn in her blue eyes - something vulnerable in the curl of her shoulders - when she says, "Never ever?"

Shinpachi nods with steady seriousness. "Never ever."

Kagura considers him for a moment, then her face breaks out in a grin that's brighter than the sun. "Okay! Let's make a promise! We'll never ever seriously fight each other, and we'll be family forever!" She holds out a little hand to Shinpachi, pinky extended.

Shinpachi smiles and his eyes are solid, warm, dependable brown- and Otose hopes to the ends of the planet and back that Shinpachi is just as dependable as he looks, that he is just that solid, just that warm.

Because that was a lifelong promise they just made, and Otose knows it like she knows that the sun will rise again. Because Kagura's a little kid, yes, and she made that promise almost casually, but she's been taught by Gintoki that promises are forever, and that pinky promises especially should never be broken. She's stubborn like Gintoki, with a certain ferocity that's all her own, and she'll uphold this promise until the end of time.

Otose glances at Gintoki. He's watching the children carefully, something dark and unreadable in his eyes, face falling into something blank and apathetic.

Then he catches Otose's look, and turns away.

-x-

The thing about Attis is, practically everyone on it is a refugee.

It's like the Kabukicho of the galaxy - a hundred times smaller than Earth, it's less of a planet and more of a tiny star. Full of strays and castoffs, the interplanetary scum collectected on a single planet; a place for criminals trying to escape the law, and refugees of planets engaged in war. Not quite the slums, but lawless, and ugly.

And the town Otose lives in is one of the shittiest on the planet - that's why Gintoki chose it, she thinks. No official will find him here, not with the utter disorder of the place. And he'd have no problem establishing a place in the pecking order with his swordsmanship.

But there's a certain sort of charm to it. It's like Kabukicho, familiar, with people eking out a living from nothing but dry dirt and bleeding hands. Plus, when everyone's worth shit and they know it, there's no point in discriminating against any single race.

There are pissing contests, yes, and brawls, and certain Amanto have certain grudges against others, or against humans, but it's not generalised, species-based discrimination. It allows for a certain sort of diversity, Otose supposes, if you ignore the frequent brawls and arguments. There's a certain sort of equality even in that: bite and get bitten, give and take. Everything's dependent on your own ability; survival of the fittest. A twisted kind of meritocracy.

Some idiot official classified this as multiculturalism, once upon a time, and established a day of celebration, or some bullshit.

"I gotta bring a Yato dish to school," Kagura tells Gintoki. "It's a cul- cull-chair festival!"

"Cultural," Shinpachi corrects. Kagura nods.

"What the hell is a Yato dish, haaah? I didn't see anything like that on your shitty planet; it was lucky if you had food at all."

"Gin-chaaaan! It's rice over eggs!"

"How the hell is rice over eggs a cultural dish?!"

Kagura crosses her arms, glaring up at him stubbornly. "It is. And Shinpachi's is rice balls, so you gotta help us cook, Gin-chan!"

"Haaah? Why don't you ask the old hag- and why are you coming to me, huh?" Gintoki swings around to point at Shinpachi. "Go ask your family, dammit!"

Otose throws a rag at Gintoki's head. "I have a bar to run, punk! Feed your brats yourself!"

"They're not mine!"

"Anu-ue and Obi-one can't cook," Shinpachi puts in. "And Papa's busy." He looks nervously up at Gintoki. "Kagura-chan says that you make good rice balls."

There's doubt in his expression, and his hands are working anxiously in his shirt. Gintoki looks down at him for a long moment, eyes unreadable and dull.

"Brats," he mutters, and Otose knows that he knows he's lost.

-x-

Gintoki's cooking isn't half bad. It's actually good, if Otose is going to be honest.

She swipes another of his rice balls. "Oi, punk, quit doing your stupid odd jobs and be a chef in my bar."

"Stop stealing Kagura's food, old hag. What sort of dishonest piece-of-crap adult steals a kid's lunch?" Despite the fact that he's munching on a rice ball, too, huh?

"Gin-san's really good at cooking," Shinpachi says, completely honest. Amusingly, it's the genuine, undisguised compliment that makes Gintoki uncomfortable.

"Idiot," he says, looking away. "From what you tell me, anyone would be good compared to your sister."

"Pachiiiii," Kagura whines, tugging at Shinpachi's sleeve. "I wanna learn to make black eggs, too! Bring boss lady over next time, okay?"

"Why're you already calling her boss lady?!" Gintoki yells. "I don't need you learning to make possessed eggs. I can just buy charcoal from the supermarket."

Kagura puffs out her cheeks and kicks Gintoki in the shin.

"Ah, Shinpachi! Gimme some of your rice balls!" Kagura grabs Shinpachi's lunch box as Gintoki hops on one leg, clutching his shin and spewing unintelligible curses. She sets the boxes side by side, kneeling on one of the bar stools, and starts redistributing the food with her chopsticks.

"Ka- Kagura-chan? What are you doing?" Shinpachi stares at her, wide-eyed.

"Stop stealing his food!" Gintoki takes a half-hearted swipe at Kagura's head. Kagura ducks to avoid it, still transferring food.

"I'm not stealing! I'm giving him some of mine, too!"

"Weren't you supposed to take food from your own culture? Am I going deaf, haaah?"

"Gin-channnn," Kagura whines, putting the lids back on and snapping the lunchboxes shut, "Stop being stupid!"

"You're a thousand years too early to-"

"Shinpachi and you and the old lady are part of my family," Kagura continues, and Gintoki goes still. "So I must be part Earthling too! That's why I gotta bring some rice balls!"

"Brat," Gintoki mutters, looking away, "I'm not-"

But Otose's old heart has grown bigger and warmer in her chest, and Shinpachi is smiling, eyes soft brown and so bright with joy. "And Kagura-chan's part of my family," he says, voice breathless and delighted with understanding, "and that makes me part Yato."

"That's not how it works!"

"It is too," Kagura insists, steamrolling right over Gintoki's arguments. "You just have to learn to use your umbrella right!"

"Oi, brat, have you been teaching Shinpachi how to fight with umbrellas?"

"No, but I should! Gin-chan, you're so smart!"

"No, that wasn't what I meant-"

"Shinpachi! Bring your umbrella next time okay?"

"K- Kagura-chan, I don't think-"

"Bring it!"

"Okay."

Gintoki groans, thumping his head against the counter, but Otose sees the ghost of a grin on his lips, and his eyes look a little less dead.

-x-

And suddenly, there is a bear-dog in the apartment.

"What the hell is that?!" Otose demands. Gintoki is covered in bandages and teeth-marks, but Kagura is cuddling with the monster like it's giant a soft toy. Her eyes are shining like stars.

"His name is Sadaharu!" Kagura declares. She has her hands fisted in thick white fur, so tiny against the beast. If she leant against it, Otose thinks, they'd lose her under all that fur.

Great one, huh? Well, it's certainly great in size. And isn't keeping overgrown dogs around children a safety hazard?

The dog yips happily, baring enormous fangs against Kagura's throat. Kagura just giggles, cuddling closer; Otose sees Gintoki eying it warily, one mummified hand curling loosely around his bokuto.

At least he's keeping an eye on it.

"If that thing destroys my apartment," Otose says, "You're paying for the damages."

Later, when Kagura is asleep, Gintoki explains, "The brat's always wanted a pet. Says she accidentally crushed the last one to death."

"What's with that horror story?!"

Gintoki nods. "Right? So I thought that it'd be better to give her an indestructible pet, before I came home to a sea of red."

"You could just ban her from having pets."

"Oi, old lady, weren't you ever young? Little kids always sneak home pets behind their parents' backs." Gintoki shrugs, folding his arms. "Anyway, it's good for brats to have pets, right? It teaches them responsibility and stuff, doesn't it?"

Otose raises an eyebrow. "The mother always ends up taking care of the pet."

"Oi, didn't I tell you that the brat's mother is dead?"

"Really? I seem to be staring at a pretty fine one."

"Who are you calling a mother, haaah? Gin-san's still got a terminal between his legs, ya know!"

A father, then. He doesn't know what a huge concession he just made, does he?

Otose smiles, and stubs out her cigarette on the counter.

-x-

This is the second time Otose has had idiots dripping water all over her floorboards, but it's the first that they've had a giant furball to haul in what must be half the lake. There's enough water in the bar to drown a lesser man.

"I just cleaned the floor!" Otose does not shriek. She is far too dignified for that, regardless of what Gintoki complains.

And he does complain. Loudly, and at length. "Shut up, old hag! Do you want us to go deaf, haaah? There are children here, children!" Ironically, Gintoki is so loud that Shinpachi, cradled in his arms, has his hands clamped over his ears.

"You're just as loud, punk! What the hell are you doing, do you want the brats to catch pneumonia?! And why are you dragging that water trap into my bar?!"

"The stupid dog jumped into the water! And this idiot-" Gintoki raps Shinpachi on the forehead, lightly enough that the boy doesn't even flinch "-tried to stop it, so he got dragged in. And Kagura thought that they'd drown, so she jumped in after them-"

"Gin-chann, it's not my fault! You can't swim!" Kagura, clinging to Gintoki's back like a tiny red monkey, has some sort of river plant in her hair.

"That's got nothing to do with the dog, brat! And you can't swim either!"

Otose can see it now. The dog jumped into the river, dragging Shinpachi with it. Kagura, brave and reckless, followed. And Gintoki, idiot that he is, dove in to help, even though he can't swim for shit. Presumably, at this point, the dog had to save them all, because there's no other way three idiots who can't swim would've made it to land.

Otose has the three most foolish humans on the planet freezing in her bar.

Kagura opens her mouth to retort, but sneezes explosively instead. This has the unfortunate effect of startling Sadaharu, who flinches, careening into a table. Apparently the dog's fur is actually a sponge, because so much water is squeezed from it that Otose thinks she should just call her bar a wading pool and be done with this whole thing.

She is not being paid enough to deal with this.

"Get them in the shower," Otose orders. "Tama, Catherine, clean this up."

Catherine shoots a death glare at Gintoki. It's enough to burn wood, Otose thinks. Which is probably good - maybe it'll warm those idiots up.

There's a lull in business about an hour later, so Otose heads upstairs to evaluate the damage to her apartment. With the amount of water they dragged in, she's surprised that the ceiling hasn't started to drip.

The apartment is surprisingly quiet. When no one responds the first time she knocks, she raps the door again, and it creaks open.

Gintoki peers at her, hair dried but in absolute chaos, wearing a white hakama with a towel slung around his neck. "Ah, old lady, you've learnt to knock."

"I always knock," Otose says, affronted.

"You call that hammering knocking? And there was that time you came in when I had my shirt off…"

"You weren't answering the door," Otose returns. His floor is surprisingly dry; Gintoki sees her looking, and says, "We spent almost an hour wiping the floor. Had to use a hairdryer on the dog - electricity bill's gonna go through the roof."

She stops in the living room, where Kagura and Shinpachi are lying curled against Sadaharu, sharing a blanket. There are cartoons playing on the TV, and empty mugs lying beside them. The children themselves are fast asleep, Kagura's head in the crook of Shinpachi's neck and Shinpachi's head resting on top of hers. Sadaharu lifts his giant head to glance at them as they walk in, then lays it back down, shutting his eyes.

"Old lady." Gintoki's voice is quiet; Otose turns to look at him, and he grins, raising a bottle towards her.

"What sort of idiot drinks at noon?" Otose asks. "Give me tea instead."

She sits on the sofa while Gintoki makes the drinks in the kitchen, watching the cartoon play. It's some show about a group of penguins trying to fly, building bigger and wilder devices to do so even as the other penguins snicker behind their backs.

Gintoki sets two steaming cups of tea on the table, and moves silently to turn off the TV. He kneels in front of the children, gently pulling the blanket over their shoulders, and touches Sadaharu's head when the dog turns to look.

The old, squishy couch sinks a little beneath his weight. Gintoki hands Otose her tea, and leans back, propping his feet on the table and sipping from his own steaming drink.

"You work too hard, old lady." Otose turns to look at him, but Gintoki is looking at the TV, as if there's something on it other than a black screen. "The bags under your eyes are like black holes."

Like he's any better. Otose snorts. "What kind of monster are you comparing me to?"

"The worst monster of all. An ugly old hag, a reminder of the mortality of mankind." Gintoki sips thoughtfully from his mug. "Want some help in the bar? It won't come free, though. Rent's not cheap."

His rent is very cheap, thank you very much. Otose would know. "Your rent's the cheapest on this planet. And I don't need the help of a mop monster to scare away the customers."

"Aa, you can do it just fine on your own."

"Shut up, you little punk." Glancing over, he looks exhausted, but he's smiling, too, like despite the cold, he's warm.

They're a matched pair, aren't they?

"I heard that there's some flowers blooming around this time," Gintoki says, offhand. "Thought I'd bring the brat to see, since it's a holiday. We're having a picnic tomorrow - Kagura wants you to come with Tama and Catherine."

Otose smiles, lifting the mug to her lips. "Oh? That sounds interesting."

"Shinpachi's bringing his siblings. Maybe his father, who knows."

"Alright. I've got to shut down the bar for a while, anyway; can't have patrons seeing the waterlogged floor."

"Can't have that," Gintoki agrees, a grin playing around his lips.

Geez, Otose thinks. It's cold outside, but this apartment really is warm.

-x-

A/N: Three months instead of seven! are you proud of me?

ok anyway some yorozuya bonding, just to flesh out their relationships. This is the most uneventful chapter yet, jeez. I've got the next few chapters planned in decent detail, though, so if i can just sit down and write they'll actually be out pretty quick. (Reviews always help motivate me to write, thank you guys so much for your support and kindness! I'm always so touched by your kind words.)

Here's hoping for quick updates! I'm itching to get to slightly more eventful parts of the story, muahahaha.

God bless you guys, thank you so much for sticking around. :)

(PS: I changed up some chapters on AO3- not a lot, but chapter two/three is somewhat different. I'll be updating them here in a bit!)