Author's Note: Please enjoy this chapter! ^-^ . My apologies for the lack of extensive OkitaxKagura in this chapter, but there is a little. More will be coming next chapter, I promise! The next chapter will be posted on Tuesday. Please review, and thank you for reading!

Nothing in the events of the next morning suggested that something unusual was to happen that day. Gin had informed Shinpachi and Kagura that a client would be coming, and then propped his boots up on his desk and buried his nose in JUMP. Kagura was combing her fingers through the rice cooker in a mostly futile attempt to discover any remaining grains of rice, occasionally shoving them in her mouth before continuing. Shinpachi was furtively eyeing the refrigerator and wondering if Gin-san or Kagura-chan would notice if he tried to eat something, something edible, for once in his life. Was that too much to ask? Was it? Apparently so.

A soft knock on the door announced the arrival of their client. Shinpachi walked over to let in an elderly man. The man had severely thinned grey hair, that is, he had exactly twelve silver hairs left on his head. On his face was a wrinkly smile, and he wore a tan apron over a red shirt and khaki pants, as if he worked in a store, but on his wrist was a clearly expensive watch. He hobbled, bent over a cane, to the seat offered by Shinpachi, and accepted a cup of tea, looking at Gin.

"Good morning, old man," Gin greeted him.

"Good morning," replied the elderly man, "Are you the Yorozuya?"

"That's us," replied Gin.

"We'll do anything for the right price," added Shinpachi, fantasizing about the food he could buy. Images flashed before his eyes. Curry. Real curry. Eggs. Not black and withered. Not deflated and defeated, but golden and fluffy and delicious.

Gin had sent Kagura to the kitchen to wash the rice cooker, but now he called her back to introduce her to their client.

"Oy! Kagura!" he hollered. She bounced in to the room, followed by Sadaharu. Sadaharu was not bouncing. If he had been, they would have found themselves having this conversation on the floor of Otose's Snack House.

Upon seeing Kagura, the old man's face took on the appearance of a proud grandfather. He looked as if he were contemplating which of his wisdom he would share with the impressionable youngster.

And then he saw Sadaharu. His eyes narrowed to furious slits, and then shot sideways. He clutched his cane in a death grip, and spat at the floor, eyes burning a hole into the floorboards where his spit had landed.

Kagura blinked, confused.

"Is something wrong?" Gin looked at the old man carefully.

The old man cleared his throat nervously.

"Is it a spitting competition?" asked a recovered Kagura brightly, working up saliva in her cheeks.

"No!" Shinpachi looked alarmed.

"No." The old man agreed, seating himself cross-legged on the floor, and pulling out a handkerchief. "I'm terribly sorry. I have... an eye for detail. I work with clocks, you see." He began scrubbing the floor with his handerchief. He fidgeted a bit, then continued, "Well, erm, I saw a ... a speck of dust on the floor. Yes! That is, it was probably me that brought it in, so, uh, I felt the, the need to clean it." He smiled apprehensively.

Kagura leaned back on the couch, disappointed, and was poking a finger at her cheek, as if wondering what to do with all the spit.

"Right then," Gin was obviously no longer interested, "What is the job, and how much are you willing to pay us?"

The old man seemed to consider, then looked furtively at Gin. "You'll do anything for money?"

"Or sukonbu," drooled Kagura, giving up on doing anything to control the unborn spitball.

"Or real food," drooled Shinpachi, unable to contain his hunger at the thought."

"Money." Corrected Gin, watching the old man through his dead fish eyes.

"Right," nodding, the old man seemed relieved. "Well, as I told you, I work with clocks. I make them, I fix them, I sell them. Buisiness usually goes smoothly.

"Like clockwork?" Kagura quipped.

"Indeed. However, recently, a...a friend of mine told me that my shop looked... messy. I ought to... tidy it up, he said. Make it presentable," he was getting comfortable now, getting into his story. "As for me, I'm just an old fellow who's back isn't as good as it used to be. But...I make high quality...products. And, I've got a, well, I've got an important...customer, yes, a customer... coming, and I'll need the store to look presentable for them. Could I ask you Yorozuya to tidy it up for me?"

The Yorozuya enlisted Catherine's help, and then proceeded to the old man's shop. Actually, after seeing the old man's watch, the cat-eared woman had volunteered to help. The old man didn't seem to notice the danger he was in. He immediately took a liking to Catherine.

The job had seemed simple enough, at first, but the old guy wouldn't let them go into the back, and kept asking, "Does this make it look suspiscious?" The Yorozuya managed to not worry about the ticking noises that put them on edge after all of their experience with Zura, because, they were, after all, in a store full of clocks. They managed to, that is, until Kagura threw a faulty alarm clock into the trashcan, and it exploded.

"Woah!" Shinpachi exclaimed, "That's not normal. Let's get out of here. There's definitely something suspicious going on."

"No, no, Shinpachi," Gin deadpanned, "didn't you hear the old codger say it was broken?"

Then Zura walked it.

"Well, looks like we're done here." Gin said quickly, "Doesn't your store look nice? Bye now."

The old man looked apologetically at Zura.

"I'm sorry, sir. They found out."

"It's not sir, it's Katsura. Do what you need to do." And then Katsura left, the squeaking footsteps of Elizabeth following him away.

The old man sighed. "Please don't blame me for this. Yes, I am selling bombs to a group of anti-Amanto rebels, but I didn't mean to. I honestly didn't. It's your dog's fault."

"Sadaharu didn't do anything." Kagura looked like she was about to introduce his face to her fist, so Gin restrained her. He wanted at least a little revenge for all of the blood that had run down his forehead, and all of the lovely, putrid presents Sadaharu had left in the apartment.

"I saw him one day in the park, and, well, I reacted like I did earlier. There wasn't any dust on the floor. I lied."

"Really now." Shinpachi looked exasperated. An obvious confession like that didn't excuse the fact that the man had caused them to participate in illegal activities, and endangered their lives.

"But I didn't mean to get involved with all this. I don't react like that because I hate the Amanto. It's really more simple than that. I'm just..." he paused, "I'm just not a dog person. I'm a cat person."

He turned to Catherine. She stared emotionlessly back at him. "I love you!" he proclaimed, "Will you marry me? Will you date me?" She slapped him.

"You're too ugly for me." she replied, and left, now that she knew there was nothing worth stealing. The old man sank to the floor, weeping, heartbroken.

"There, there," Gin patted him on the shoulder.

"Anyways, when I spat like that in the park, a man named Katsura saw me, and hired me. So, here I am. And now I have to do my job. I...I don't suppose I could pay the lot of you to keep quiet about this, either?" the man sniffled.

"No amount of money can suppress the noble spirit of the samurai!" proclaimed Gin.

"I figured that might be the case." said the old man, and then he said. And then he poked one of the clocks. It tipped over. And fell on the clock next to it.

Which exploded.

This caused the next clock over to explode as well, triggering a chain reaction down the shelves. The room filled with smoke, then went dark.

When the Yorozuya woke up, they were tied by their ankles and hanging upside down in an empty storeroom.

"Maybe I should have accepted the money." said Gin.

"No way!" said Shinpachi, as Kagura simultaneously said,

"Of course, you idiot. Did you ever stop to think that I might be hungry?"

They had been hanging there for about an hour when there was a pounding on the door.

"Open up, this is the Shinsengumi."

After a brief fight, the Shinsengumi stormed into the store to confiscate any remaining bombs. They gave everyone jobs in different parts of the store, except Okita. His sadist radar had picked them up. He found the concealed door to the storeroom, and approached the three of them. He walked up to the silver-haired samurai, and held the latest version of JUMP out in front of him. It was too much for poor Gintoki, and his head fell to the side, out cold. He then proceeded to wave Otsu-chan's new album in front of Shinpachi. Shinpachi wiggled around on the string, but eventually, he, too, passed out from the emotional strain.

Finally, Okita turned to Kagura. He pulled out a large bowl of pork and waved it in front of her.

*Snore*

She was sleeping? How could you torture someone who was sleeping? He frowned. He waved the bowl in front of her face. No signs of life. He pushed it against her face, right under her nose. Suddenly, without warning, Kagura's mouth opened, as if of its own accord, and devoured the contents of the bowl. Her eyes popped open.

"Woah! How did you know I was hungry?" she beamed at him. Okita stood there in shock. Had she tricked him? What was wrong with her?

She smiled brightly. "You're upside down. Did you guys fail to get the bad guys too?"

"No. You're the one who's upside down." He responded. "We beat them." Her face fell.

"You stole all the fun for yourself? How cruel! I wanted to get back at that old geezer."

Wait. This was too much for Okita to process. First he had tried to torture her and failed, and now she was providing him with something that hurt her? What was she doing?

*snore*

"That much is obvious." He said to himself. "She's sleeping."

And then he left.