a/n: This chapter reflects my fondness for roasting Gintoki, as he rightfully should be at all times.
There had been a cherry blossom tree that Shoyou-sensei had liked to sit down to write poems and stories under as the flower petals made their way down towards the ground. It had grown quite close to the school and during the springtime, one would usually find him sitting there, appreciating the view if he wasn't either reading or writing.
It was there that Gintoki saw his teacher, once again. But this time he was a full fledged and complete person, still whole and eternally made the way Gintoki had first seen him as a demon child.
He glanced down.
He wasn't a child in this dream, so this couldn't have been a memory trapped in the past. In fact, he was wearing his familiar white and blue yukata with his boots.
This was... new.
As soon as he was cognizant of his surroundings, Shoyou-sensei had glanced up and spotted him.
For a moment Gintoki expected the dream to go bad, as it had in the past. His arms had tensed up, and he was prepared to see sudden darkness.
Perhaps his head would fall off.
Perhaps his body would disintegrate into ash.
Perhaps...
Then Shoyou-sensei opened his mouth, and his voice was gentle. "Come here, Gintoki."
With trepidation, he walked towards his teacher.
"Sensei... "
"Sit," Shoyou says cheerfully, and folds a booklet of sorts, setting it besides him.
He does. Gintoki waits patiently for him to speak, because this is a dream.
One might think they had all the time in the world.
His teacher smiles, tilting his head to get a closer look at Gintoki. "You look better. You were so skinny back then..."
Gintoki chuckles. "There wasn't enough rice for Zura to make enough onigiris for all of us during the war, Sensei."
"I suppose so. But I think you've gotten a little taller too."
"Did I? I don't remember."
"Adulthood suits you, Gintoki." Shoyou's smile fades, but only by a little bit. "You were always so strong, even when you were a boy. A quality I myself lacked."
Gintoki can't help but to chuckle. "What are you talking about, Sensei? I could never defeat you."
His teacher shakes his head. "That is not the strength I am referring to."
"Then... what do you mean?"
"The courage to endure," his teacher says, and there's a flicker of apology in his eyes when he looks at his student. "I was afraid. Afraid of what you three would think, if you knew the truth about the monster underneath."
"It's okay, Sensei."
And for once, Gintoki means it, with all his heart.
Things were okay.
At his teacher's questioning eyes, Gintoki smiles. "If you weren't a monster yourself, you would have been afraid of the little monster back then."
Shoyou looks at him for a long time, as if he doesn't know how to react.
Then, after a moment, he laughs.
"The best of me, I had hoped would pass on to you all," Shoyou says, finally, and turns his head back to the cherry tree. "And I think it has."
There's a pause, before he speaks again. "For a long time, I wondered if I was a human, or a monster. I was the remnants of what Utsuro hadn't destroyed and yet... "
Shouyou sighs. "I couldn't resist myself, even if I knew that some day I'd have to leave you all. For once in my life, I wanted to build something instead of tearing others down."
"I understand," Gintoki says softly, thinking of his kids. "It's like you're passing on your legacy."
He hadn't understood the meaning of such things until he nearly lost them. It wasn't that he had intended to do so when they started to live with him as his own family. It had just happened organically. And it was because of them that eventually, he'd allowed more and more people to steal pieces of his heart over time.
"It is. I was glad to meet the two of your own little samurai," Shoyou remarks, and his smile is so kind that it warms Gintoki's heart.
"They're good kids," Gintoki replies, and then abruptly wonders if he can still consider Shinpachi a kid, even though he's legally allowed to drink now. Was it the right time to finally recognize him as an adult?
Nah. He's still a cherry boy, he decides after a nanosecond of reflection.
"You ought to take them to see the school someday," Shoyou says seriously, interrupting Gintoki's train of thought. "Your roots are important. And I'm sure by now they've earned the right to know where you came from."
"You think so?"
"I do. The culmination of a man and who he stands for in equal parts come from his past, present, and future."
Spoken like a true philosopher; Gintoki couldn't help himself from grinning.
He had almost forgotten the way Shoyou liked to interject into his speech life lessons, even though he was as equally responsible for doing the same thing.
"I'll keep that in mind, Sensei."
A petal flutters into Shoyou's palm, and he picks it up, idly twirling it in between his fingers. "By the way, Shinsuke wants to tell you that he's happy."
"Sensei, I - "
"Don't apologize. You know as well as I do that boy was suffering and wanted a way out of this life. He couldn't do it himself, but Utsuro had given him a chance to escape."
Gintoki was about to say something more biting, but refrains from doing so. He took a deep breath instead, trying to calm down.
"So he's not reincarnated."
"No."
"But he left a lot of people who loved him behind."
Me included.
"That is the nature of dying, yes," Shoyou says dryly, and discards the petal. "But think of it as a honorable seppuku of sorts. He died, and saved the world, albeit at your hands. He wanted to die at your side, and no one else's. It was the same for me, back then. And neither of us would have wanted it any other way."
"But it's me, who had to deal with living with these things. It's fine to say that he wanted to die, but if I'm kept in the dark of what happens next... " Gintoki pauses. "The point is, I don't get closure. The fact that we're talking in this dream is weird, Sensei. I don't even know if you're real or not - "
"Gintoki."
"Yes?"
"To be a human is to live with regrets. We all did. You, I, and Shinsuke... it is the nature of life, in order to gain something worth living for. You've fought and lived with death by your side. The fact is, I am no more important than some other creature whose life you took away in the name of protecting others. Takasugi Shinsuke wanted to make his mark on his world, as briefly as it were. When the Bakufu collapsed from its own corruption, and the rest of the immortal creatures destroyed, he considered his life to be finished. Anything else that he managed to do was only done because he was running on borrowed time."
"Then I wish it wasn't me who had to make those hard decisions," Gintoki finally said. "I just... I've killed a lot of different people, but... "
He lets out a big sigh. "It was just so hard for me to take that step towards Takasugi, because... he'd suffered. There wasn't any redemption for him, you know? The only time he was happy in his life was when he was a student in your school, Sensei. And he had to die - and... "
His voice breaks off, until he finds the right words. "That was it. All he had to show for it was a bunch of ashes. That was all that was left for him. The end."
Shoyou looks at him thoughtfully.
"Sometimes, the mark of a life well spent isn't necessarily about the pursuit of happiness," he muses. "Some men don't need to be happy. Some men just want to see the world burn. And perhaps Shinsuke was that type of person."
To Gintoki, whose had always lived life in pursuit of a simple happiness, even during the war, this felt like an exercise in madness. He'd push the past away until it crept on him, forcing him to confront it head on. To live in his past, to wallow in it intentionally... The entire process to him had sounded counterproductive, until it wasn't.
"Well, maybe he was wrong. Maybe he should have just wanted a big mountain of Yakulk in the first place, and he wouldn't have ended up in the afterlife," Gintoki says stubbornly, knowing full well he held contrarian views in contrast to Shoyou's opinion.
It didn't negate his feelings, though.
"Maybe," Shoyou concedes. "But you know he was fine without that mountain of Yakulk... probably. It wouldn't have helped him grow any taller, at any rate."
Without meaning to, the idea of it makes Gintoki smile. "No, you're right about that," he admits.
They sit under the tree, letting the silence fall onto them without any sense of unease. For a while, there was nothing that needed to be done, nothing that required hurrying.
He wished he could have stayed there, forever.
After a minute or two, Gintoki thinks of something else to confess.
"You know, I promised him I would wait for him in hell," Gintoki says softly, and this time, he tells it in a voice that holds considerably less pain than he'd expected. "I told him that I wished we had more drinks together, but then he said he'd rather get more wins off of me."
"Oh, Gintoki," Shoyou sighs, his eyes in pain. "Living on Earth was his hell."
Gintoki had already understood that a long time ago, but still found it hard to accept.
He'd always thought dying was easy. It was living, and carrying the sins that you'd committed on your back, that was the harder thing to do.
Still, age brings perspective.
He's not a teenager anymore, after all.
"Yeah," Gintoki says, in a small voice. "I knew he wasn't built to emotionally recover from that. You were his compass and when you were gone for good, he couldn't hold it together anymore. Even his comrades weren't enough to fill that void. When he died, I thought it was the happiest I'd ever seen him... "
Shoyou places a hand on his. "Gintoki... "
For a moment, there's a look of mutual guilt between the two of them. An understanding, forged by tragedy. And then, Shoyou takes Gintoki into his arms, and hugs him.
A sign of absolution.
"You know he forgives you for what you've done." Sensei's voice is soft and full of pain.
"I know."
"And so do I."
"Sensei... "
Shoyou leans back, and cups his chin with both of his hands. Their eyes meet, red to red. "Tell me you believe me."
"I do."
"Good."
The height difference between the two of them isn't so stark anymore. Back then, his teacher had seemed so tall and untouchable.
Now, not so much.
In fact, he looked frailer than before. Tired. As if being in this dimension took away his strength.
He was fading away.
"What I would give to spend more time with you," Shoyou sighs, but smiles anyway. "Such is the fate of us cursed demons. How ironic, that I used to have all the time in the world, but once again, I must go already... "
Gintoki can still smell the scent of pine trees and gingko leaves in the folds of his teacher's kimono. He nods.
"Tell Kotaro that I miss him and think of him everyday."
"I will, Sensei."
"I'll have to go soon. But Gintoki, if there was anything I wanted you to know before I leave, it's this. I'll always be with you. Even if you can't see me, I'll be there by your side. I promise."
The surroundings were starting to fade to white. It was time to go home, back to where they both belonged.
"Sensei, before you leave - " Gintoki's voice was thick, a lump in his throat. "Thank you. For everything."
Shoyou lets go of him, right before giving his student a kind smile. "No, Gintoki. It is I, who must thank you. Don't you remember me saying that to you, so long ago?"
He took a step backwards, and faded into the background as the school dissolved.
-x-
When Gintoki woke up, it had felt as though he hadn't left that dream world entirely.
For some reason, he knew it was the last dream, interconnected with his subconscious and conscious memory, that he would ever have with Shoyou-sensei.
And yet with his conviction strong as his soul, he felt an acute sense of loss.
He let himself mourn.
Before this year, he had never allowed himself to grieve any deeper than a solitary tear, even when Shoyou-sensei had died at his hands. The circumstances hadn't allowed it at the time, and he had pushed his emotions away out of fear.
He had always been terrified that he'd never recover from his grief if he completely let himself go. In a way, that fear had caused more harm than good.
It had caused him to push away people that could have helped him.
Including the person that was sleeping across from.
He'd waited for her last night - knew she had rented a suite of sorts for them, but after a drink or two, he had drifted to sleep as it'd been one of her late shifts. She had slipped in here noiselessly without a sound, and had crept into bed next to him.
There was a piece of hair falling in between her eyes. He gently tucked it behind her ear, and kissed her on the forehead.
And then he noticed a lone cherry blossom next to her pillow.
Cautiously, he picked it up. The windows had been closed. Had Tsukuyo opened them when she came in last night?
No. That wouldn't have been possible. He glanced at a nearby calendar hanging on a wall.
It was February. Much too early for -
A lump formed in his throat.
I'll always be with you. Even if you can't see me, I'll be there.
He slowly made his way out of bed, careful not to wake her. He went past the other room, into the kitchennette, and then made his way to the balcony where the rays of the sun were starting to peak through the hole in the ceiling.
He let the pain wash over him, and allowed himself to feel every bit of it, in the way he had never let himself since he was seventeen.
He gave himself permission to cry.
Grieving someone was a sign of love. It wasn't weakness.
He let go.
This was all right, he thought, as his heart broke sweetly, cocooned in the knowledge that he would meet them in the far off future.
I won't forget either of you two, he thought fiercely. Not today. Not ever, even if I'm lucky enough to grow old.
I'll see you again one day.
-x-
"Do you think there's an afterlife?" he asks Midori one afternoon. The snow was was still drifting along, although the weather was warming up. On his small table next to the armchair, rested a small cup of chamomile tea.
"That's a question that nobody will be able to answer," she says thoughtfully.
"I think it's probably real," he says.
"A lot of my patients have said something to that effect. Personally, I'd keep an open mind about it. There's no way to prove that it doesn't exist."
He nods.
"Sometimes I feel like I'm getting more sentimental the older I get," he admits. "I thought it'd be the opposite. You know, a naive youth turning into cynic full of wisdom."
"People go through cyclical changes," Midori says. "It's not a crime to change your mind. After, the only constant in life is change."
She clicks her pen, and jots down a few notes. "You know, you're doing all the right things so far, but I think it's about time you met up with your old friends again. How about you set something up before our next session?"
"Okay," Gintoki says.
-x-
"You've been seeing someone," Sakamoto says bluntly. The three of them are playing, for some reason, a game of Monopoly on his garish spaceship.
Gintoki scowls. "I have no idea what you're talking about."
Katsura snickers, finally pleased to have revenge after years of Gintoki teasing him about Ikumatsu. "Try getting it out of him. He won't say a single word."
"Let me guess," Sakamoto replies. A sake bottle rested next to him, half empty. "She's either married, blackmailing you, or you're in this situation where you have a nondisclosure agreement where you're getting cucked by some other guy."
"You fuckers are getting nothing out of me," Gintoki says menacingly, and rolls the dice. "By the way, I'm winning this game, whether you like it or not."
By some miracle of nature, none of the usual antics of stalkers or Mayora Gorilla Sougo 13 were going to ruin the damn thing he had, not after years of misunderstandings and a general sense of self-hatred that had prevented him from getting laid on a consistent basis. It really wasn't that he preferred to keep it all a secret - she was well liked by anyone who knew her, and he certainly wouldn't have minded showing her off. It was just that the general cast of the show were stupid people.
They'd probably ask her the color of her panties or something moronic, and then they'd end up the hospital.
So really, he was doing them all a favor.
"Last time I was here on Earth," Sakamoto said, picking up his token and placing it onto the Park Avenue square, "Kintoki had the loneliest smile that I could remember. Now, he's got a hickey on his neck and he zones out even when I ask him a question."
"Indeed," Zura says, sniffing disdainfully as he riffed through his stack of Monopoly money. "I knew he was secretly a masochist, but to have it out in public like that? How indecent."
Fuck, they noticed.
"Stop kinkshaming me, assholes," Gintoki replies, while scowling. True, it'd been his fault that it'd been out on display - she had even offered him makeup to disguise the spot on his neck - but he'd thought his collar would have covered enough of it!
Then again, he should've known better than to go out in front of the other Heavenly Kings like this.
In the midst of their snickers, he flips them the bird. "A man is entitled to his private life, and no, I don't care if you guys have known me for over ten years."
"What private life?" Zura asks, outraged. "You were the one who was asking me if I was sucking Ikumatsu's noodles the other day - which I was, but only her soba! I'm only in love with her soba!"
"Yeah, yeah," Gintoki said, picking his nose. "Sure you are. Like her soba has nothing to do with the fact that she's been a widow for the last, I dunno, five or six years, and that you haven't made a single move despite being the goddamn Prime Minister of Japan at one point in your life."
"You all should embrace the bachelor life," Sakamoto remarks. "I mean, no one's gonna get on my ass if I wanna go to a cabaret club or two."
"What, except for that demon you call a vice-captain?"
"She's excellent at her job, ahahahaha! Doesn't diminish her efficiency, ya know!"
Katsura rolls the dice, picking up his token now. "I've heard rumors she's a blonde. I went on the Gintama Wiki page, so by process of elimination, it's either Ikumatsu, Matako, Pandemonium-san, Tatsumi, or Ts - "
"It's definitely the lesbian firefighter," Gintoki interrupts, voice dripping with sarcasm. "That's one hundred percent my type of woman. And yeah, I guess I'm really into bugs now. Even though that's technically my subordinate's first kiss."
Now Sakamoto whips out his smartphone to hastily Google search 'blonde girls from Gintama', already forgetting that they still had a board game to play. "I don't remember any of these characters!" he said indignantly. "How am I supposed to narrow down who Gintoki is dating now?!"
"You're not, dammit! Why do you two care anyway?!" Gintoki yells, resisting the urge to upend the board. "You guys are the gossipy sons-of-bitches here! I didn't ask to be ambushed like this!"
They ignore him, like they usually do whenever they meet up like this. Zura squints at screen, contemplative. "Hey, Tatsuma... Do you remember Gintoki's type, back when we visited the brothels back then?"
"Big boobs, definitely," Sakamoto replies instantly, snapping his fingers in excitement. "A sort of looser type of woman, ahahahaha! Not those yamato nadeshiko types, he kept complaining they beat around the bush - "
"Hey! Stop making me sound like an animal, here!"
The merchant samurai finally puts down his mobile, pouting. "But Kintokiiiiiii, it's not fair. We just wanna know who your secret lover is! Is that so much to ask, from your closest friends and comrades? We used to have each others' backs, back when we fought in the war and would die for each other. What happened to that, eh?"
"What happened that more than ten years has passed since then and we've all regressed to being idiots! Sadly, it started with you, Loud Guy! Your stupidity is contagious and it spread to the rest of us!"
Sakamoto sighs, tapping his fingers impatiently on the board. "Give us one good reason why we shouldn't meet her. Just one."
"One, she's a cop. So if you acted stupid - which is 90% of the time in this show - she'd throw you into prison. Two, she's an extremely busy person! Three, she's the least funniest person on this planet, so she wouldn't even understand your jokes. Four - "
"Okay, okay!" Sakamoto said, a bit miffed. "But why are you even with that kind of person, if she's the opposite of everything you stand for? Did you blackmail such a hard working person into going out with you?"
"Hey! Just because your lousy perm keeps you from getting you laid doesn't mean it's a problem for me!"
They both stare at him, skeptical.
"Stop looking at me like that," Gintoki snaps. "She's real, and that's all you need to know."
Sakamoto whistled. "He's serious."
Katsura puts down his cards. "So when is the wedding?"
"Don't be ridiculous," Gintoki scoffs. "There is no wedding."
Who cared about a wedding when he had no money to hold a proper one, and the woman in question was already married to her work?
Sakamoto, as if he's read Gintoki's thoughts, pulls out a huge wad of bills, teasingly out of arms' reach away from the samurai. "Yours, if you can at least give me a name."
Gintoki glares at him, but the space merchant remains silent, his grin firmly attached to his stupid face.
Stupid rich asshole friend and his stupid rich company and his stupid perm.
Fuck it.
Damn the discretion; it's getting to be too much of a pain in the ass to keep on hiding things.
He sighs, and pinches his nose. "So let's say if I were to arrange a meeting... what time would you be free?"
-x-
"What are ya lookin' at?" Tsukuyo asks one afternoon. It's still chilly outside, so rather than wandering around in the streets, they've taken a shine to resting under the kotatsu in random teahouses whenever she has time off. A rented copy of the Gintama: The Movie (2010) is playing on the TV, but at this point they've played it so many times that it's become nothing more than background noise.
He pours himself a cup of green tea - a habit he's picked up from her when he's run out of strawberry milk. It's considerably cheaper, he finds.
"I was wondering what kinda guy I'd be if I met you ten years ago."
She raises her eyebrow, still reading her manga while listening to him. "Oh? And what conclusion did ya come to?"
"Well, for one, I was wondering if your boobs would still be the same size - or would they be a bit smaller? OW!" He utters a curse as he takes out the kunai to his forehead.
"You'd be an idiot," she said calmly, turning the page of her volume. "Or do you think you've changed since then?"
The question forces him to think more deeply about it.
The scene where him and Zura are fighting off the Amanto on the ship is playing on the screen. Idly, he thinks for the thousandth time, how much better the animation studio had captured his best angles. It still wouldn't have reflected his true strength, though - he'd always known the peak of his physical ability had long passed since then, with the thrumming of war in his veins no longer necessary to survive in times of peace.
His core principles hadn't changed, but the way he'd approached them was starting to become a big different.
"I'd like to say so," Gintoki said, taking a sip of his tea. "I mean, it'd be boring if I was always the, uh, Shiroyasha."
War heroes tended to be one dimensional. It didn't leave much room for disappointment.
She nods, although this particular topic she tended not to press on, understanding that it was something he preferred not to talk about.
"Speaking of which, my friends wanna meet you," he says to her. On his borrowed tablet, he's catching up with chapters of some Demon Slayers, and she, in typical fashion, is reading a paper copy of Kimi ni Todoke. Oftentimes there is pizza involved, but this time they're just relaxing in each other's company.
"I haven't met them already in the show?"
"Nah. These guys and I go a long way back."
She furrows her brow. "Wow, Gintama sure has a big cast."
"Yeah. Even I haven't met all of them, believe it or not."
"Some main character you are," she remarks, and he rolls his eyes.
-x-
"I'm gonna have a few friends over tonight," he tells Otose. She smokes her cigarette and takes a long drag, waiting for further explanation.
He takes a swig of his sake. "They're ridiculous people, but I'm getting paid to introduce my girlfriend, so I guess it was time anyway."
She doesn't bat an eye, though he notices that she hasn't asked him for the rent yet. "The blondie, huh."
There's a moment where he pauses, not quite sure how to proceed. He had kept mostly his personal and family life separate, and had been deliberately evasive when lightly questioned for the last few months.
"I've met her a few times while she was waiting at your doorstep," Otose comments, and continues smoking. She didn't seem surprised. "At first, I thought she was a client. Why haven't you told the kids?"
"It's like as if your divorced parents are trying to date again. You don't wanna spring it on them all of a sudden unless you know for sure things are going to work out. Who know, they might even have a father complex - "
"You've been watching too many shitty TV dramas," Otose says, snorting. "That stuff only happens if they're a complete stranger. If she's a cast member of the show, I'm sure the kids have suspected something by now. Plus, how old do you think they are?"
"They know I'm getting better," Gintoki remarks slyly. "I mean, at this rate I'll be back to my old self pre-time skip."
"What, back to your shitty, non-paying rent ways?"
Gintoki checks the clock that hung behind the bar. "It took you two minutes to mention it. Must be a world record."
"It'd be longer if you paid the damn rent. That girl doesn't know what she's signing up for."
"Don't tell me you're jealous, Granny."
"As your landlady for the last decade, I actually couldn't imagine a worst fate, being tied down to a person like you."
"Funny, she said something like that, although I'm pretty sure it was because it was my turn to pay for the yakiniku and I turned up with nothing in my wallet - "
"Eating barbeque already, as a couple?" Otose smirks, and Gintoki flushes. "You two are getting along well."
"Shut up!" he snaps, although his voice lacks venom. "Anyways, I just came to tell you in case you're wondering about the future noises from the ceiling."
Otose stubs the remains of her cigarette into an ashtray. "When you're finished, you oughtta introduce her to the rest of this shitty bar. Some of these customers could look at something new than these old bag of bones."
"Hah! Tama isn't enough for those perverts?"
"No, I guess not," Otose says fondly. "Wait here."
She comes back with a bottle of vintage sake. Gintoki lifts his eyebrow and she sets it on the bar next to him. "I bought this when you first moved in," she explains. "Figured now that you're on the possible edge of moving out, you might as well open it."
"I'm not leaving here," he says. "Who said I was ever going to leave this place?"
"Oh? So you're sayin' that she'll be all right with you living here for the rest of your life? This neighborhood isn't any good for raising kids, you know."
"Who said anything about kids, Granny? And anyways, aren't you fast-forwarding too many steps? This isn't a Shonen Jump Weekly ending where everyone gets matched up and then you fast forward to a few pages, and then with absolutely no warning you find out they have a happy family!"
Otose doesn't reply. Instead, she shakes her box of Marlboros and extricates one with her fingers, before lighting it up. While waiting for her explanation, he polishes off the rest of his sake.
After she takes a drag, she chuckles, breathing out the smoke.
"You've never been interested in telling me about dating any woman since you moved here," Otose finally says. "That's why I think you're going to move out soon."
"Don't be ridiculous," Gintoki scoffs. "I thought you were supposed to be an evil mother-in-law. Like, no one is good enough for my good-for-nothing son! Or something like that."
"Knowing how useless her good-for-nothing son actually is, this old lady is thrilled that he's actually found someone in the first place."
"Hey! That's really not fair. You know how many women can't stand a guy with a natural perm? It's not my fault, seriously! The cards were stacked against me in the first place!"
"So you're saying she's a keeper." Otose smiles, and taps her cigarette on the ashtray.
"I did not say that. In fact, I don't even remember ever saying that in my entire life. I could tell you ten reasons why she's not a keeper, actually."
Otose doesn't bother to respond to that, and instead takes another drag of her Marlboro. The corner of her lip is upturned, as if she's trying to stop herself from smiling. "She's really quite beautiful, Gintoki."
He grabs the vintage bottle, before she can take it back. "I'm leaving," he announces, pink around his ears. "I'm breathing in too much of your damn secondhand smoke already; it's making me dizzy."
-x-
She's a big hit with them either way, and wins them over. While they wait for the sukiyaki to finish cooking at Gintoki's apartment, kids (thankfully) away, Tsukuyo destroys them in a game of UNO, thereby passing Katsura's first test. Then, as if they weren't already impressed, she takes Sakamoto's proposal of selling ten million bags in space seriously, gaining the space merchant's approval.
"She's nice, Gintoki," Sakamoto whispers as she leaves for a smoke break. "Are you sure you don't need money to help pay for this fake date? I mean, if she really is a courtesan - "
"Yeah, a courtesan my ass! You know they call her Courtesan of Death around these parts - how is that even sexy? Try asking her the first time I accidentally groped her boobs! She German suplexed me right into the middle of a business meeting with a gang of thugs!"
Katsura gives him a disgusted look, wrinkling his nose. "How do you even accidentally grab someone's boobs? Are they made of magnets and you couldn't keep your hands off them? Gintoki, you might be a ronin, but you're still supposed to be a man at the end of the day, not an animal."
"He's nothin' more than a beast," Tsukuyo interrupts gracefully as the shoji door to the foyer opens, bringing in a faint waft of strawberry-flavored smoke into the apartment. "He's just only a man because society forces him ta act that way from time to time. Otherwise, he'd be scrougin' around for acorns like a savage if no one had picked him up a long time ago."
Gintoki coughs, flustered at being caught talking badly about her. "T-thought you were going to take a lot longer than that, h-honey - "
"It'd be rude if I kept our guests waitin'," she says, dignified, and sits down next to him at the kotatsu. "Now, Sakamoto-san, you were sayin' very interesting things about me bein' a fake date, yes?"
Sakamoto, on the other hand, doesn't know what shame was if it hit itself on his head. "Ahahahaha! Of course I was! You shoulda seen this guy back in the day when we used to go out to the red light districts - he'd be picked last no matter what, ahahahaha!"
Gintoki glares at Sakamoto. If they weren't in his house at the moment, he wouldn't have refrained from knocking his friend's head upside down. Alas, Otose had already chewed him out for damages to the rooftop a few weeks ago, on account of the dog being a bit too enthusiastic after Kagura was about to take him for a walk in the park.
"I'm not surprised," Tsukuyo says, her eyes twinkling.
Great! Betrayed by both his friend and so-called alleged girlfriend! Gintoki scowls and says, "Screw you two. I wasn't that unpopular - and anyway, if you catch me in Yoshiwara, I guarantee you no one would turn me down!"
"Anyways, I'm not a fake date," she says, though the corner of her mouth is still lifted in amusement. "He could barely afford me if I was actually chargin' per hour."
"That's true," Katsura notes. Gintoki turns his wrath now and points viciously at the Jouishishi rebel.
"Hey! At least I made a friggin' move. I'm not the one procrastinating here."
Sakamoto, perplexed, finally diverts his attention to Katsura. "Ehhh? I thought Gintoki was joking about the soba thing. Zura, you have someone you're interested in? Is she a widow?"
"Of course she is, have you ever seen Zura interested in anyone other than married women?"
"I am not - please don't get the wrong idea, Tsukuyo-dono! I - "
"That ramen lady we visited last week," Gintoki turns to her vindictively. "Remember her? Blonde hair, with a long ponytail? Zura's been visiting her for years. He even found one of her lost relatives. And still to this day, they're both as far as I'm concerned, single."
"Ah! I remember her. She seemed prickly."
"She's not prickly," Zura cried out. "She's just going under some stress at the moment. I was actually supposed to help her make some deliveries a few days ago, but I was caught up in some red tape from the Shinsengumi - "
"Well there's your problem. Women really hate a guy who can't keep his promises."
Sakamoto, who had kept his mouth shut so far, started to laugh.
"And how many times has Gintoki been late when he sees you?" Zura shoots in Tsukuyo's direction, who could be as petty as anyone else if he was pushed.
"Fifteen," she chirps promptly. "I keep a record in my little notebook."
Gintoki takes an UNO card from a nearby pile and throws it at Zura like a makeshift kunai.
"Screw you Zura! How many times have you led the friggin' cops into my house because you were trying to hide from the Shinsengumi? Your problem is that you need to get laid. Make it happen, already!"
"I said that I am only in love with her soba!" Zura protests while dodging another card projectile. "Don't sully my admiration for her!"
"The only sullying that'll happen in this house is this UNO game!" Gintoki snaps back, throwing another card at Katsura. His hand reaches for the pile before Tsukuyo firmly places a firm hand on his wrist.
"You guys are like children," she complains. "I thought we were here for dinner, with a bunch of adults."
Gintoki huffs and drops the card.
"That's because they're childhood friends," Sakamoto explains. "It was like this when Chibisugi was here, too."
At the mention of him, Gintoki's shoulder stiffens. She doesn't bat an eye, though, and says, "You must've had a hard time reignin' them in."
"Yuuup! Ahahaha! You shoulda seen them one time at this whorehouse! Him and Takasugi picked the same girl - "
"For Christ's sake, don't tell her that story!"
"No, no, I really want to hear this one, though," she says, her eyes already gleaming in anticipation. "What exactly happened?"
Gintoki gets up, knowing that he's not going to stop Sakamoto from humiliating him, and shakes his fist at the lot of them. "I'll check on the sukiyaki, then! You all are a bunch of backstabbers, you hear me?"
-x-
After the vintage sake has been poured and emptied, and the doors were ruined in a passionate game of Truth or Dare, Tsukuyo finally sobers up enough to call a taxi to take her home. The other men had actually managed to be delighted, rather than traumatized by her propensity to get violent whenever she was intoxicated.
(Gintoki half suspects that he's not the only masochist in his group of friends.)
She yawns, while taking in Gintoki's worn out face. The taxi pulls up to the front of Otose's bar.
"That bad, huh?"
"Never again," he says flatly. "You're a nightmare when you're drunk."
"You knew what would happen if you brought that bottle to dinner," she lectures him, as if she's not responsible for the massive mess he'll have to clean up in the morning.
"Don't victim blame me," he says, although she is technically correct. "I told you not to drink it."
"I ain't a coward," she replies easily, although her eyes flashes in amusement. "Your fault for warnin' them I'm bad with booze. You knew they would dare me to do it. It'd break the rules of the game if I chickened out."
He sighs, too tired to rehash this argument at this ungodly hour. "Yeah, sure," he says, and opens the door for her.
"Hey, Gintoki..."
"Yeah?"
"I really enjoyed meetin' your friends. It was nice to know a bit more about you too."
"You already knew I was a loser," he says, shrugging.
"I did, but... " Her hand cups his jaw, and there's a tenderness in her eyes as she meets his gaze. "I'm glad you've got people where you can let your guard down. It's how I felt when I first met you."
She kisses him right before telling him good night, shutting the car door behind her.
He can't help but to watch the taxi drive away.
It's honestly super unfair how she can make him feel like the luckiest guy in the world.
Sakamoto pops up behind him. "I saw that," he accuses Gintoki in a slow drawl, still somewhat tipsy. "You sly dog. Lucky son of a bitch."
Gintoki nods, eyes still resting on the cab.
"Yeah," he agrees, and then with a small smile, heads back to his apartment. "I am a lucky son of a bitch," he says, and means every bit of it.
-x-
Kabuki-cho finds out the truth in quick succession, although it was true that rumors had proliferated long before then. It had mostly been an open secret - a sort of a don't ask don't tell policy - but Otose had always been an awful gossip. By the next morning, Gintoki had found himself knocked upside the down, staring down Kagura and Shinpachi's angry eyes. The place was still somewhat trashed.
"T-thought you guys were going to be out later - " he chokes. In the corner of his eye, he can see Elizabeth brewing a cup of tea for its master - who is still sleeping, eyes open, on the spare futon next to his.
"Why didn't you tell us about Tsukki?" Kagura wails, as she punches him in the stomach, launching Gintoki into a nearby wall. "We're your kids! Did you not trust us? I knew you were always lonely - we coulda set you up earlier if we knew you liked her!"
Shinpachi looks as if he's caught between indignation and embarrassment, and settles for pushing his glasses up his nose. "That's right! All this time we thought you were going to Yoshiwara to do honorable things! What kind of example are you setting to our audience? Do you even know how many college students and high schoolers are reading this fanfiction?"
"Calm down!" he shouts, trying to dodge Kagura's kicks. "At least let a man explain what's going on after he's gotten his twelve hours of sleep!"
"It's twelve in the afternoon!" Kagura yells back, and unexpectedly, bursts into tears.
Great. Making a woman cry! Now he's going to pay for it.
He had forgotten how sensitive teenagers could be.
"Oi, Kagura-chan, I didn't mean to upset you." Gintoki sits up, while Shinpachi fetches a box of tissues from under the desk. Kagura pulls a few and blows her nose. Noisily, of course.
"Why didn't you tell us?" she asks, wiping her nose.
"I was going to. I swear I was. That old lady just couldn't keep her mouth shut."
Even Sacchan had done a far better job of keeping things quiet - never mind that she was knee-deep in planning what must have been Edo's most expensive wedding of the century.
"We're growing apart and you're keeping secrets from us," Kagura wails again. Shinpachi places a hand on her shoulder to comfort her. "It's just like what happened to Papi and Kamui and - "
"Kagura."
She stops sniffing for a bit. "Yeah?"
"I'm not leaving you behind." Gintoki's voice is simultaneously reassuring and irritated. "Listen, if that hard head of yours can open its ears, I'll be perfectly happy to explain why."
Elizabeth comes out of the kitchen with a kettle and three cups of tea, and places one each in front of them. The sign reads, I HOPE I'M NOT INTRUDING ON ANYTHING.
"You're not," Shinpachi replies, and it nods, shuffling out of the living room to wake up Katsura.
Gintoki gingerly leans back on his sofa, after verifying that none of his bones are fractured. "Imagine you're stuck in a desert," he says, and Kagura nods. "Only you've been stuck there for ten whole years without any water to drink."
"Okay," Kagura says. "I can imagine that."
"And on top of that, you keep running across an oasis. Every time you get nearer to it, and you think you're about to drink water after being thirsty for so long - " Gintoki snaps his fingers, startling the two of them slightly. " - Just like that, it disappears! Gone. Like a mirage."
Kagura keeps on nodding, and reaches for her tea.
"Let's say that this kept happening all the time. You don't know what's real or what's not real. It keeps happening that when a real oasis turns up, you don't even bother getting near it."
"Right," Kagura hums, her head clicking.
"So you keep on walking. Because by this point why even bother? Every other oasis has been fake. But... something drags you back. Because you're not sure." Gintoki pauses, before continuing. "You keep walking, but come back to it every so often. It hasn't gone away even though it's been a while. And then finally, you take a step inside, and it's real."
He looks at the two of them, and gives them a small smile. "That's what you two are for me. You've been my oasis. I'm not here to get lost in the desert again."
Kagura's eyes are getting misty again.
"Now, think of a palm tree with a lot of dates. You remember those strange fruit things Tatsuma got for you guys after he visited Planet Waiiha?"
"Yeah," Shinpachi notes. "They weren't actually that bad. Kagura ate most of them, though."
"Well, without the oasis, this palm tree wouldn't have existed. But again, you're already so grateful for the water that you're not even sure you're allowed to climb the date tree in the first place."
Shinpachi gets it, and he starts to smile. "Ah, okay."
Kagura still furrows her brows, but at Shinpachi's expression, she's not as sad.
Gintoki continues anyway with his parable of sorts. "But over time the tree becomes less imposing. Because you've drank enough water, and you grow stronger. You're... recovering."
"Right," Shinpachi says, and starts to play along. "But why didn't the oasis know about you harvesting the dates? I mean, weren't they already there in the first place?"
"Maybe he didn't want to disturb the ecosystem or cause too much much trouble." Gintoki sticks a pinky into his ear and pulls out a ball of ear wax. "The point is, he didn't want to screw anything up, especially when it comes to things that he cared about."
"This is a crappy metaphor," Kagura complains, although her eyes are softening. "Next time, I wanna know all the details about how it happened, yes?"
Gintoki grins. "Not for another thousand years, brat."
She scoots closer to him anyways. "Are you going to propose to her soon?"
He stares at her in disbelief. "What the heck are you talking about? Why are you and the rest of everyone keep fast forwarding this type of thing? Is it not enough that I already suffer from her kunai attacks on a regular basis? Why can't we just be fuck buddies and that's enough - "
"That's revolting, Gin-chan!" Kagura yells at him, and hurls him into the wall. Shinpachi joins her as they kick his ribs with gusto. "And I'm gonna tell her that next time I see her!"
"This is elder abuse! Help, anybody! Stop it, already!"
-x-
"Nice plus one date," Hijikata says blandly as Gintoki signs the wedding register. He'd been assigned to security detail, though Gintoki doubted that it was necessary in the first place. Zenzou didn't seem to be the sort of person to leave anything up to chance.
For a split-second, Gintoki wants to reply back with a snappy retort, but then thinks better of it.
Mitsuba shouldn't have died, he thinks.
"Yeah, she is pretty nice," he says, and puts the pen back on the stand. "Seems like you guys get along pretty well. Should I be worried... ?"
"While you were gone, we worked together on a few overlapping cases in the Shinsengumi's jurisdiction." Hijikata doesn't shy away from looking straight into Gintoki's eyes. "She runs a tight ship down there - she doesn't like giving us any trouble. I was surprised to find out that she had such terrible taste in men."
"Not everyone can be perfect," Gintoki says, amused.
Hijikata doesn't laugh. "She might not be perfect, but what I do know is that she's too good for you."
"So I've heard." He'd been all right with hearing that sort of thing over and over again, as he had always agreed with the sentiment in the first place.
"As long as you understand that, then you probably won't fuck it up."
"I'll try my best not to," Gintoki promises, because beneath those words is a warning more painful than any rebuke.
Don't make the same mistakes as I did.
Over the past few years, he's gotten much better at understanding subtext these days. Chalk it up to middle age, or even therapy, but he'd become more acutely aware of the pain that lingered deep in the people around him.
Hijikata, as always, is smoking his Marlboros. Gintoki sometimes wonders if that's his atonement, for letting the ghosts of the past haunt him for the last five years.
"You know, I've heard there's a lot of nice, single girls who wouldn't mind that disgusting mayo habit of yours."
"You've heard wrong," Hijikata says wryly. "Not unless they happened to like Tabasco sauce, or shichimi pepper... "
"I'm pretty sure there's some weird girl out there like that," Gintoki asserts, avoiding the implication entirely. "If that messed up stalker can find love, I'm sure even you can too."
"Maybe girls can. Kondo-san still hasn't made any progress."
"Give it time. That gorilla woman is still young. She's trying to turn her father's dojo into a conglomerate. Kabuki-cho's the next Silicon Valley of outdated Edo arts."
Hijikata finally allows him a small smile. "Well, there is that," he admits. "Still, I won't get my hopes up."
"As long as he keeps stealing taxpayer money in order to keep buying her B'z tickets, I'm sure he'll be able to hold her hand for real someday."
"You don't even pay any taxes, idiot," Hijikata says, but laughs anyway.
They walk to church entrance, finally parting their ways, and Gintoki joins his kids who have already gone ahead of him. There was already a restless energy in the building, which had been decorated with breathtaking lily of the valleys. The representatives of the ninja clans had naturally showed up, but so had the Yagyuu clan and other members of the red light district.
He had no idea what to expect, really. In previous lifetimes, the only kind of person who was crazy enough to get married in wartime were the civilians. The people around him had no conception of what a domestic life entailed, to the point where they preferred entirely to avoid any possibility of such things. He'd been the same, until he'd gotten older and eventually changed his mind.
He gets it now.
When he sits down in the church pew, his second-hand, rented suit feels too pretentious. Kagura fidgets in her brand new formal dress - a gift from Otae - and a string of imitation pearls rests around her neck. Only Shinpachi looks comfortable in his blazer jacket, and he had even ironed his own slacks that morning.
Western clothing, or don't come at all. Sacchan had made it resolutely clear on the invitation that she intended to wear a white wedding dress, which he was sure was to outshine the rest of them.
A quartet of musicians were playing near the alter, a pleasant melody interweaving with the sounds of the audience. He vaguely recognized one of the tunes as a wedding march of sorts. Gintoki could recognize a few more guests in the church. Zenzou was already standing near the front, his tuxedo crisp and starched.
It was nice, Gintoki decided. He was happy for them.
When a hush of silence descended on the church, the doors opened.
The bride walked slowly, her dress dazzling in the sunlight. It hugged her curves perfectly, with lace trimmed across the bodice and shimmering lengths of tulle making up the train at the back. She was carrying a bouquet of white roses, calla lilies, and peonies. Her veil barely obscured her hair, which had been styled into an elegant chignon.
She was barely recognizable, especially without her trademark glasses.
For a moment, Gintoki panicked - what if she tripped? What if she didn't know where to go? That would have been extra embarrassing, especially on her wedding day - and he was about to walk himself out of the pew, before she passes his seat and turns her head at him.
She sticks her tongue out at him. Only for a second - barely enough time for anyone to snap a photo - but he'd seen it, and he knew that she knew he'd seen it, too.
And then he knows that he needn't worry.
Contacts, he realizes. She's wearing contacts. And making fun of him, goddamn it.
Not everyone had a childhood sweetheart, he thinks ruefully, but he returns her expression with a small smile of his own.
When she arrives at the alter, the groom is smiling.
The couple stands there in silence, before the priest takes place at the alter and the audience sits down. He shuffles the paper, and clears his throat.
"Here is the stuff of which romance novels are made: two childhood friends, on their wedding day. But such stories usually end at this point with the simple phrase: They lived happily ever after. This may be because they regard marriage as an anticlimax after the romance of courtship."
There was a pause as the elder looked at the audience, his gaze intent and focused.
"However, it is important for us to see the wedding day as not as the place of arrival, but the place where the adventure really begins."
"Marriage is first of all a new creation for the partners themselves. As husband and wife live out their vows, loving and cherishing one another, sharing life's splendors and miseries, achievements and setbacks, they will be transformed in the process... "
"Gin-chan," Kagura whispers, tugging at his sleeve. "I don't understand what he's saying. What does it mean?"
He gives her a fond smile. "You'll understand once you're older."
She huffed bossily, unsatisfied with his answer. "Whatever," she said.
"... This is our prayer for the couple that stands before us today. May the burdens we lay on them be matched by the love with which we support them in the years to come. However long they live, may they always know that when they pledged themselves to each other before this altar, they were surrounded and supported not by mere spectators, but by the sincere affection and active prayer of so many friends. Thank you."
There was a polite smattering of applause, before the string quartet played another song in the interim period. Wakikaoru stood up afterwards, bearing a cushion with two rings on top.
The priest finally descends from his podium, ready to receive their vows.
The groom goes first.
"Sarutobi. That's your name, isn't it?"
The guests laugh.
"I didn't think I was going to end up with teacher's pet, but here we are."
Another laugh. The bride smiles.
"When my old man took you into his school, I thought you weren't any special," he admits. "You were slower than the rest. Your eyes were no good. I thought you were a lost cause, and that if you had any sense, you'd stop going into this ninja business."
"But I was wrong. You worked your way up, and started to take on cases that would've challenged any of our superiors. Before I knew it, you became Edo's number one. And somehow in the process, I fell for you. Hard."
"I remembered when I found out, that the timing couldn't have been worse. Someone else had your heart. The Bakufu was in shambles, and there were people we needed to protect that couldn't protected. And still... I was hopelessly, madly, and terribly in love with you. Even with the world going to pieces, you were always here. Unchanging and still somehow that same person that I fell in love with, ever since we were kids."
"You've always been the most authentic person I've ever known. Even when other people couldn't understand who you were as a person, I always admired you for being unapologetically you. And when you were able to open your heart to me, I considered myself the luckiest guy on earth. I still do, to be honest."
Despite him own determination to not get emotional, Gintoki's eyes grew wet.
"What others don't know about you is that you'd take a kunai for anybody. You wouldn't think twice about it. Maybe you'd be a little selfish, and maybe you'd complain about it, but you wouldn't give a second thought in the moment. And maybe that's why this stray cat is settling down. I promise to protect you to the best of my ability, until the day I die."
He slipped the ring onto her finger. There was a pause as she thoughtfully looked at the ring.
Then, she turned to the audience and exclaims with indignation, "Now, how am I supposed to compete with that? This was supposed to be my time to shine, dammit!"
Behind in the pews near where the bridesmaids were sitting, Gintoki could see Tsukuyo placing her hand over her mouth, stifling a laugh.
Sacchan huffs, right before turning back to the groom.
"You got a lot of nerve just leaving me behind for two years while Edo was on the mend. You... and that guy. Your love rival. Anyways," she said, a hand placed on her hip. "The day you came back, I honestly thought that I could breath normally again. Like things were going to get better. And they did."
"It took me a long time to understand the difference between love and lust. You said it once - I was slower than the rest of our classmates. I almost got killed, once, before I figured out who I was really supposed to be with. And that would have been so scary. Because I don't want to leave you behind alone. You'd never be able to find someone else to rub your Preparation H on your ass."
"For a while, I was clinging onto an old identity, and I couldn't figure a way to let go of it. I mean, you're jacked, but you're also - well, you know everything about me. I couldn't imagine anyone who knew everything about me to be able to actually love me, much less want to be with me until the day I died."
Her eyes softened. "I was operating from the fear that I wasn't good enough for anybody. I was rationalizing that I wasn't good enough to be loved, and so I kept thinking I deserved to get rejected. But you saw something in me that I couldn't see in myself. So... how was I supposed to keep on living that way, when you were always there for me?"
"I promise to be next to your side, forever. Maybe it's no guarantee that tomorrow will come, but at least if I get to be next to you, things will be all right."
A wry smile tugs at Zenzou's lips. "You're more than enough, Sarutobi."
She smiles back at him in return, and gently slips the other ring on his finger. "I know."
The preacher places both of their hands on the holy book, and turns to the groom with a self-satisfied smile. "Do you, Hattori Zenzou, take this woman to be your lawfully wedded wife?"
"I do."
"And do you, Sarutobi Ayame, take this man to be your lawfully wedded husband?"
She beams, and it illuminates her entire body, to where she looks positively luminous. "I do, I do, I do!"
-x-
"You were crying," Tsukuyo accuses him, as the two of them were slow dancing at the reception.
"I was totally not crying."
"Yes you were. I saw it."
"I was not crying - and anyways, so were you! You think I can't tell if your mascara was smudged? Gin-san has worn enough mascara in his life to know when a girl is crying!"
"I was not! I was just - allergic! There were too many damn flowers in the wedding hall - "
"Allergic my ass. You've never been sick a day in your life."
He twirled her around.
"I was not crying," she said loudly. "I was just - "
"Happy. I get it. You shoulda worn waterproof mascara, then." Gintoki places his hands on her waist, and something in her eyes soften.
"Do you think they're going to last?" she asks him hopefully.
"I think so," he says.
They might not be actual born romantics, but the least they can do is to have faith in the others around them.
There's a cheer near the entrance of the banquet hall, and the two of them turn their heads.
It was Sacchan, who had now changed into a different dress, this time into midnight blue evening gown.
She was still carrying her bouquet of flowers.
"Time for me to throw these away," she annouces with a gleam in her eye. A gaggle of girls gathered around her.
There was no time to prepare for what happened next, because Gintoki had half suspected that the woman had planned this all along.
Sacchan threw the bouquet into the air -
- and somehow, it had landed in Tsukuyo's arms, much to her horror.
"Absolutely no way," Tsukuyo says adamantly. "This is not happening. Can I throw it back? Is this even legal?"
Gintoki looks at her, and laughs.
-x-
a/n: This is the first ending of the story. I will be writing an alternate ending in the next chapter.
The preacher's sermon is adapted from a very famous irl wedding. If you recognize it, you're a legend.