Disclaimer: I do not own Gintama. It belongs to Hideaki Sorachi. I only own the plot, the ideas and the gag in this fanfiction.
Of Addiction and Neglect
Chapter 4
Kagura hasn't touched her QSP in a while.
The urge to play was still there (she had been busy playing games, minus the punishing and brutal gaming hours she had practiced), but whenever she would reach for the game console, that stupid sadist's words would haunt her.
"I said it wasn't a joke." He repeated. "You should know better than that, China. Didn't thoseotome games teach youanythingabout romance and shit?"
For once, he did something that wasn't a joke.
Second, he was right. Despite the fact that she had finished one otome game, she learned nothing, except that guys had their own quirks and one had to adjust to his whims, never the other way around.
Now that she thought about it, it was quite… pathetic and sad.
As much as she hated to admit it, the sadist had been, to some extent, correct in calling her 'pathetic'.
How does one become knowledgeable in romance anyway? All she had was a QSP to teach her, especially since Gin-chan traumatized her with vivid tales about what went on between a male and a female, and the fact that he didn't want her to date anyone made it difficult. He was like a father through and through, and any male who leered at her got hit immediately by Lake Touya.
The only male who had an effect on her, to her utter frustration and embarrassment, was him.
"ARRRRRRRRGH!" she screamed, punching the wall beside her, which, thankfully, didn't crack. Her strength training had been for naught if the wall had shattered. "I hate you so much!"
"Kagura, keep it down." Gintoki said absent-mindedly while flipping through his latest Weekly JUMP magazine. "It's a peaceful morning. Which reminds me, why are you up so early anyway?"
"N-none of your business, Gin-chan!" she said, flopping back to the couch that was opposite of where he was lying on. He didn't have to know that she hadn't been sleeping properly ever since that couch incident happened. Whenever she closed her eyes, she remembered the way sadist leaned over and started kissing her and—
To her mortification, her face started turning a bright red and she started screaming, eyes closed. "No, no, no!"
"Kagura, for the love of… are you pissed because you picked out the wrong answer in that reverse harem game of yours?" Gintoki, in his father mode, asked the young girl who had suddenly sat up and started punching the couch she was sitting on.
"I haven't even touched my QSP today!"
"Then go somewhere else, geez. You're so noisy…" he gave out a big yawn. "Go out and play. The sun is shining brightly, and it probably won't hurt you too much."
"Fine, I'll go out and play by picking a random guy on the street and—" before she could even finish her sentence, Gintoki was up on his feet.
"Come on, let's have breakfast!" he placed down the magazine and headed off to the toilet. "Give daddy ten minutes and he'll be ready!"
She smirked inwardly.
It had been six days, fifteen minutes and four seconds since he last saw her.
'I sound like a stalker.'
It had been that long since he saw China, but it didn't really matter. In fact, he took great lengths in avoiding her ever since the incident in the office of Yorozuya occurred, but it did not lessen the morning laundry time. In fact, his dreams became more vivid that the idea of an unattainable China irritated and frustrated him further. If it wasn't her dear Gin-chan standing in his way, it was now a QSP, videogames and males that do not exist in the 3D plane.
Why the hell was she obsessed with 2D guys anyway?
Were the men in Edo not enough for her?
Was he not enough for her?
Moreover, why were women so damn complicated?
Pinching the bridge of his nose in frustration, he got himself dressed in his usual Shinsengumi uniform, which took him half an hour to dressed, as he really wasn't in the mood to get to work. His shift was changed to eleven until eight in the evening, which was fine with him, considering that he would just spend the whole day taking a nap whenever the urge to sleep would get to him. Slipping on his leather shoes, he was just about to start his patrol when Kondo and Hijikata approached him. "Kondo-san, Hijikata-san."
"Sougo, before going off to patrol, how about lunch?" the commander asked, grinning at him, and he replied with a shrug. "Great! Let's get going before the lunch crowd gets our table."
Well, he didn't really care if they got available tables or not, but he wanted to eat, and if Kondo-san treated him out to lunch, why the hell not?
The three of them made their way to the Battle Royale Host Restaurant, and as soon as the server led them to their table, Sougo noticed that the booth beside theirs sat the Yorozuya danna and… China.
Immediately, his heart began pounding madly against his chest at the sight of her.
"Kagura, geez, stop playing that game and eat!" an exasperated wavy-haired samurai kept hitting the young woman on the head, who was too engrossed in her gameplay. "We're out here to eat, not to watch you giggle and grin like an idiot!"
He fought the urge not to laugh at the spot-on observation.
She swatted his hand away. "Gin-chan, gimme a minute! I just need to clear this damn month so I can get to the next one!"
"Yeah, right. You can't even make that damn guy happy 'cause you don't know the proper response." At China's shocked expression, the danna shrugged. "I've watched you play at times. You know how to respond to every question they ask, yet you suck so much when you play the route of that Do-S whatever-the-hell-he-is."
"That's 'cause I don't have any idea what he frickin' wants!" at this, she slammed a hand against the table, which surprisingly didn't crumble against the impact. "That stupid bastard calls me his 'manservant'! You think I'd take that lying down!"
Gintoki slammed his hand against his forehead. "Okay, let's not talk about these things in public… I'm losing my appetite." At this, the female Yato turned off her QSP and shoved it at the corner of the table. "Now eat."
At this, she took her chopsticks and began digging in.
"What's so interesting in the Yorozuya table?" Hijikata's voice had snapped him back to reality, and he immediately donned his poker-faced expression.
"Nothing really." Sougo replied in his trademark bored tone. "I just find China pathetic right now for playing QSP otome games."
Kondo tsked. "Now, now, Sougo, it's as if you didn't play something similar. Love Choriss [1], remember?" the commander said, prompting him to remember that he had indeed played it, though ended up regretting it because he, well, got publicly humiliated.
"… Fine, but I find her pathetic nonetheless."
At this, Hijikata sighed and called for a server. "Don't bother, Kondo-san. He'll just deny everything to death when it comes to China."
Sougo knew that the vice-commander was trying to get him to talk and deny everything, but he kept his silence, knowing that anything that he might say can and will be used against him.
How ironic this whole thing was, for he was a policeman, and he should be the one saying it to the criminals.
Hijikata seriously deserved to die.
Just as soon as their food got served, the Yorozuya duo was done with theirs, and somehow, the silver-haired samurai had noticed them. "Ah, it's the tax robbers. Yo, Sofa-kun, Gorilla, Oogushi-kun." He waved a hand at all of them. "Kagura, be polite and greet them."
"It's Sougo." He said automatically in between bites, trying hard not to look up at the girl who sat diagonally across from him.
"… Hi." She mumbled, her azure eyes shyly aimed at the sadist, who was currently eating his brunch and wasn't looking up. Curiously, Kagura was blushing a bright red, but quickly pressed a glass of cold water against her cheek. "Gin-chan, can I get another game?" she asked, changing the subject.
Gintoki sighed. "You just got one last week! And," he then dropped his voice that Sougo struggled to hear what he was saying. "wasn't that the one wherein they spoofed the tax robbers in that game?"
There was a game about them? He made a mental note to research on that.
Also, what the hell was that company thinking, making a fool out of them?
Need to find the company office and blow it to bits.
"Ah yeah, Pakuouki [2]." Gin-chan had one of those rare moments wherein he had become generous and decided to get his 'daughter' something nice, which ended up becoming another otome game. All in all, she now had three in total, and the recent one that he had gotten her was an unauthorized Shinsengumi otome game. He had meant to sit beside her as she played the game and laugh at the stupidity of it.
He ended up doing just that, minus the making fun part. At times, Gin-chan would roll his eyes at the stupidity of the heroine but nevertheless watched Kagura play it if he wasn't busying reading his JUMP comics. "It was… okay. But it was just… ugh. I felt really down after playing the routes… I wanna play something fun!" the vermillion-haired girl whined, which Sougo found, to his horror, adorable.
Since when did she become adorable?
The very thought of the female Yato becoming 'adorable' was strangely not as disgusting as he first thought.
"Finish your games first." He said. Gintoki was referring to the fact that she hasn't finished both her games because Kagura didn't want to date the Do-S whatever-the-hell-he-is and didn't bother playing Pakuouki because the sadist's counterpart was the top-ranked guy there.
"No!" she screamed it so loudly and so quickly that most of the patrons in the restaurant, the Shinsengumi included, looked at her oddly. The female Yato ignored them and looked back at her father figure. "I'm not gonna play it."
"Suit yourself." And with that, he shrugged. "Let's get going." A handful of bills were placed on the table and he stood up, walking out of the restaurant.
"Gin-chan, wait! You promised to get me sukonbu!" she jogged towards him until she was beside the samurai and grabbed his arm. "Come on, come on!"
"Geez, stop pulling my arm, Kagura. It might fall off." He said before he disappeared out of his line of sight.
At once, he went over to their table and grabbed the QSP that China had left behind. Kondo was curious as to why Sougo had grabbed the item and was about to ask when Hijikata voiced it out for him.
"Now, now, Sougo, you know that stealing is wrong." Hijikata commented, looking at the gaming console in his hands. "Better give that back to its owner."
"I'll return it later." He said nonchalantly.
For a price.
To be able to torture China again was his idea of a perfect day.
[1] Love Choriss – Obvious parody of a popular dating game. It's an arc in the Gintama series.
[2] Pakuouki – Obvious parody of the popular otome game that got localized recently to English. By the way, 'pakupaku' in Japanese is the onomatopoeia of the flapping open and close of the mouth, which did happen in the PS3 version of the game. I would've gone for Bakuouki since the word 'baku' means 'exclamation' or 'burst of laughter'. In the game, the localization team seriously got fond of the word 'bark' for just everything. 'Bark of laughter' et al, plus the gun used in the game 'barked' as well.
I'm so sorry for the late update. I have been very busy lately with real life, not to mention that I've been tired lately, so I sleep really early. I've also been preparing for a local event in my country, which will be by the end of September, so I've been doing more research than writing. So sorry, everyone. Hopefully, I'll be finished with all my Gintama fics before we hit the third week of August until the whole of September, since I may not be able to commit myself to writing a chapter.
それに、フィリピン人の皆様も９月末イベント会いたい～
Thanks for reading!