![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rainsometimesTitle: Human Beings Are Simple Creatures
Chapters: 4/5
Rating: G (maybe T/PG13 for language)
Word Count: Around 4100 in this part
Characters/Pairing: Gintoki/Katsura; with some GinTakaZura vibes and some Katsura->Ikumatsu, but only Gin and Zura are featured in the fic (of those four characters)
Spoilers/Setting: See more in the post for Chapter 1. This chapter spoils the Courtesan of a Nation arc and the Homeless arc.
Summary: See Chapter 1.
Continued from Chapter 3.
Gintoki wasn’t yet healed from his injuries from the raid on the palace when he came home to see an extra pair of sandals by the door, and heard the sound of Shinpachi’s voice and another familiar voice from the living room, though no words were audible.
He sighed as he took his time getting his boots off. It seemed all too likely Zura would either scold him for having been far too reckless or sulk because he’d been left out of the fun. Or, knowing him, both.
When he hobbled into the living room he didn’t look too closely at Zura’s impassive expression; focusing on Shinpachi was more telling. The boy looked thoughtful and earnest rather than confused or exasperated, so Gintoki guessed Zura was in a serious mood himself. Unless he’d just arrived and hadn’t had the time to try Shinpachi’s impressive patience yet… No, the tea in his cup was nearly all drunk.
“Oi, Pachi-boy,” said Gintoki lazily, leaning on his crutches, “I thought I’d told you to only let in clients and not any idiot living wigs. I can understand it if you feel bad for him, being a Glasses creature yourself, but Wig creatures are way worse than Glasses ones. They’re truly beyond all hope. Glasses creatures have a brain, after all.”
He sat himself down noisily in the same couch Shinpachi did and spread out, one arm over the back, picking his nose and giving Zura his best rudely unimpressed look.
“Ah… Gin-san," Shinpachi said, "Katsura-san came here to ask…”
“I came here because you stole my conditioner the last time you were at my place,” Zura interrupted haughtily. He took out a bottle from his sleeve. “But you’ve apparently finished it already, so I’m taking your shampoo in recompense. Fair is fair.”
“Oi! What the hell nonsense are you yapping about, I didn’t steal a thing!” Gintoki objected loudly and not very truthfully. “And give that back, you slime! Steal from an invalid, how low can you get? Shinpachi, don’t let him get away with it!”
Shinpachi sighed and drank tea. “I’m not getting into the middle of this,” he said primly.
“Yes yes, you should! Be a man! Stand up for your mentor!!” insisted Gintoki. Zura was getting up now. Already? “Anyway,” Gintoki went on, changing tactics, “even if I had borrowed your lousy conditioner – not that I did – it would only be fair payback for when you didn’t return that video game!”
“I did return it!”
“Yeah, after you’d hold onto it three months longer than I said you could! It was practically growing mold by then!”
“Well, excuse me for leading a busy life, it took time to get through it!”
“Because you’re a terrible player!”
“No, because I have less free time than a N.E.E.T like you!”
“Oi oi! There’s only one of us two with steady employment, and it sure ain’t you!”
“I’m going to get started on dinner,” Shinpachi announced suddenly, taking his and Zura’s empty cups of tea and retreated to the kitchen.
“Leaving already, huh?” Gintoki said in a calmer tone after the boy was out of the room.
Zura put his arms into his sleeves. “I have things to do.” He paused, then said, more quietly, “Everything will be different now. The Tendôshû have been challenged by their former puppet the Shogun. It may take some time, still, but… Things will start to move for real, soon.”
Gintoki gave him a long look, then leaned back and sighed. “You weren’t talking about shampoo with Shinpachi.”
“I can get answers out of him,” said Zura pointedly. “He’s a kind and helpful young man. Not like some people.” He crossed the room slowly, but didn’t leave the living room just yet: he turned and looked back. “I… I’m not saying I’m changing tactics. There are some things I’m still going to try. But… it all will change, soon. You know that, right?”
“I’m not enough of an idiot not to see that,” Gintoki said, not turning his head. “Or to not realize it’s a miracle I still have my head on my shoulders.” But he wasn’t going to make any excuses, nor tell the whole story of how it came to pass he’d been storming the Shogun’s palace and bringing down the former shogun in order to heed the wish of a dying courtesan. Or explain why there hadn’t been time to get Zura into it. Zura would have heard the main points from Shinpachi by now, anyway.
There was just one thing…
But he didn’t know how to talk about Oboro. Even if it felt like Zura ought to know, to hear that the man was dead now… How should he even explain? They’d never known his name back then. ‘You remember a man of the Tenshôin Naraku from that day, wavy grey hair and a big scar, the one who took Takasugi’s eye…?’ And with Shinpachi just in the next room over.
No. No.
He couldn’t.
Katsura left Odd Jobs, knowing there were things left unsaid again, as there always seemed to be between them. Likely on Gintoki’s part, and certainly on his. Katsura had told him the truth, how the nation was bound to change soon, but he hadn’t talked about all of it.
He’d heard of how, when the Shogun had denounced his uncle and, refusing to put blame on those who’d toppled Sadasada Tokugawa, hypothetically mentioned it as a possibility – and all those present there, Shinsengumi and Mimawarigumi and palace troops, come to support him, all had turned their swords against him demonstratively. It seemed too strange to be real, and Shinpachi hadn’t been able to confirm it, having already left the scene by then; but several other trustworthy sources did.
If it was true… Surely that, in itself, even if nearly everyone present was an avowed enemy of the Jôi, pointed to a new Japan not being such an impossible dream after all.
But how to go on from extraordinary moments like that, shaped by circumstances that wouldn’t arise again in the same way, and find a way to build on them?
There were too many things that said, ‘danger, danger, great disaster and war’, even while right now on the surface it was all back to normal; the opportunities for good that he could scent seemed fragile, hard to catch… and yet, if Gintoki with his small band of comrades had done as much with minimal planning, what could be done if you truly did your best to lay a multitude of plans carefully and diligently?
...And why did Gintoki have to buy such overly sweet-smelling shampoos?
He shook his head, burying the offending bottle deeper in his sleeve. He wondered if he should have mentioned Sadasada’s assassination. Had Gintoki guessed who was, in Katsura’s mind, most likely to be behind it? It didn’t seem pin-point enough for most ninja-style assassins. But it had been too clever and effective to be any other random assassins, whether mercenaries or terrorists. That specific combination of efficiency, great daring, and ruthless but intelligent bloodshed all pointed to one man only.
He shivered despite the warm spring day. He couldn’t help but feel a grim satisfaction that that monster, the one who’d ordered the Kansei purge, was finally dead and gone. But that didn’t stop him from sensing again the cold breeze of the high air, the heaving and trembling of an embattled airship, the burning smoke and splattered blood, the otherworldly glow of the awakened Benizakura, and the icy stab of betrayal.
Nor could he stop his mind from going over it, wondering about secret allies, plots and machinations by a man who seemed determined to never be on the same side as him again, to do everything not to ever earn Katsura’s trust again – his, and that of those he cared for.
Things were changing. But he couldn’t see them changing enough to dare to resurrect that old hope again, left bleeding and dying inside him.
It was true that Gintoki sometimes missed things that were obvious in retrospect, but once you’d seen them, you couldn’t start to re-miss them.
Like how Zura evidently felt about Ikumatsu of Hokuto Shinken.
The guy was walking next to him and the kids in the snow, now, leaving that same ramen restaurant behind them. Gintoki put his hands inside his sleeves in the cold air as they trudged through the city in near-silence on this New Year’s Eve, till they got closer to Kabuki and Kagura started to get rowdier, prompting Shinpachi to return in kind.
Ikumatsu, now. She was a fine woman, sensible and strong yet not without softness. She wanted to give Zura some kind of place in her life, clearly liking him enough to start with, yet also ready to smack him around when he was being obnoxious. And maybe it was true that her dead husband still took up the biggest part of her heart, but that didn’t mean Zura didn’t stand a chance. If he would only push a little, make some effort to woo her, then that could change...
She would be so much better for him than Gintoki ever could be. Someone to guide him forward, not drag him down into the past. Zura had his share of scars, too.
So it was frustrating to see him continuously step back and not do a thing for his own cause. It wasn’t like he couldn’t have helped Ikumatsu deal with her evil former brother-in-law and reunite with her amnesiac homeless father while also courting her, was it? But when he muttered as much to Zura over beers some time after they’d reached Otose's Snack Bar, Zura gave him a blank look and said that the time wasn’t right.
“It would have been too much for Ikumatsu-dono to think of at the moment,” he insisted.
“Tch. You’re just scared of getting rejected. Aren’t you?”
Zura took a drink from his cup silently and didn’t reply for several long seconds. Just when Gintoki was going to poke at him to answer, Zura said in a low voice, expression unexpectedly sober:
“Does it make any difference if I am or not? Either way, that doesn’t change anything about what Ikumatsu-dono is feeling. Her father can’t remember her. Not more than tiny glimpses, at least. That’s doubtless why her husband never revealed who their homeless guest at those New Year’s Eves truly was. But she feels so badly about never realizing the truth until now… If we hadn’t been able to find him, to help him after he saved her from the river, it would be too awful to contemplate. Of course I had to focus on that first and foremost.”
“But you still…”
“It’s not like you wouldn’t have done the same.”
“I wouldn’t - Tch. That’s not - I’d have at least asked for a date in the future. Even if not right now.”
Zura drank up again, not looking at him.
“Gin-san,” Shinpachi called out. “Kagura’s nearly falling asleep, I’m helping her upstairs before she’s out for good.”
“Not asleep, nuh-uh,” mumbled Kagura. “I can still make it.”
“Make what? You’re just talking in your sleep now,” Shinpachi told her as they left.
Otose was engaged in talking to a regular over at the bar, Catherine was getting involved in an intense card game at one table, so even with the kids being gone the noise level was high enough to keep a sensitive conversation going in their corner.
“No, you wouldn’t have,” Zura continued their talk now, still not looking at Gintoki. “And you know that.”
“Stop being so damn knowing!” he burst out. “You’re pissing me off here!”
Zura glared at him. “Oh, I am, am I?” He got up abruptly. “I’m leaving. Happy New Year, Gintoki.” He stalked to the exit on somewhat unsteady legs, nodding politely to Otose as he went past the bar.
Gintoki opened and closed his mouth, intending to get up, then made himself stay put, sulking.
Then, abruptly, he got up anyway before the bastard could get out of sight. Did he really think he was getting out of the conversation so easily? No way! He said to Otose in passing, “Tell Shinpachi I’m going to another bar and might stay there,” then was out the door to hear her ticked-off, “And a Happy New Year to you, too, useless bum!” and slipped out.
He saw a dark long-haired figure just passing out of the range of a streetlight and then getting harder to see, and hurried after him, anger still churning. Zura ducked down a side-street. To Gintoki’s surprise, he then doubled back until he stopped by the other side of a house Gintoki recognized as facing his own house on the other side.
In fact, it was the house he remembered that one unobtrusive Shinsengumi guy had stayed at not too long ago while he did an increasingly obvious stake-out of their place and wound up getting a crush on Tama. What was his name again… Yamazaki, right. Anyway, what the hell was Zura doing in a house like that?
“Stop running after me, Gintoki. I said what I wanted to say,” Zura snapped.
“You’re not listening, dammit! Stubborn dumbass.” Gintoki hopped from one foot to the other in the cold. “And since when are you staying here, anyway?”
“Since just the other week. This house is going to be torn down, in case you didn’t know. So the rent is low right now.”
“Ehh, I doubt that will happen. The background assistants and animators won’t stand for having to learn to draw some new building there.”
“Things like that can always be handwaved with a gorilla in charge. But go home, Gintoki. Leader will miss you when she wakes up.”
“She’ll be fine, she’s got Sadaharu and I think Shinpachi is staying the night, too. Stop trying to change the subject! You know I’m right about this and you’re being noble but stupid.”
Zura pursed his lips and didn’t turn his head, just glared ahead at the lock on the door angrily. “That’s rich coming from you!” he snapped. “You’re the king of avoiding the subject! Even when you’re the one who started it!” He threw the door open and strode into the apartment building.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” hissed Gintoki, head hot now and a buzzing but angry feeling in his stomach. But while he was far from sober, he did manage to keep in mind that the walls looked thin and neighbours could be nosy. The house wasn’t too big, but the hall at the entrance floor had four different doors, and a staircase at the end.
Zura shot him a dirty look but said nothing while walking to the farthest door from the entrance, which he unlocked and stepped through. Gintoki closed it behind him. The air was cold and musty in the small apartment. The one window didn't face his own home, but one of the side-streets.
“Don’t be coy!” Zura went on, then, his tone still sharp and his movements still angry as he took off his shoes and went into a tiny kitchen to put some tea on. “For months and months now, Gintoki, you’ve been sulking about something most of the times we’re together! Together together, I mean! You keep throwing me dirty looks or drop cryptic remarks and when I ask why and what you mean, you refuse to explain! But I’m not a mind-reader!”
“That’s- I don’t- I mean--” Gintoki took a deep breath and swallowed, since his throat was dry, “That’s just because you’re so dense!” he burst out.
Zura gave him a cold, weighing look, crossing his arms, saying nothing.
“Well, you are! And tiresome. The way you just…”
“Well? The way I just what?” Something hurt came into Zura’s eyes and he looked away. He said in a smaller, troubled voice, “Gintoki, are you saying you haven’t been enjoying yourself at all?”
“No, you idiot,” said Gintoki heavily, sinking down on the room’s only couch and resting his elbow on the table. “That’s not true at all.” He paused. Too late to back out now. He closed his eyes, rubbing his forehead. “I have. But what about you? You just…” He opened his eyes again, going on in a lower tone, “You just swoop in and take care of things.” He swallowed. “It pisses me off. What about your needs, huh? What about your wishes? Shouldn’t bother with a jerk like me. I just can’t… It’s not right. You’ve just been making it too easy for me, Zura. But you need to… think about yourself more.” He heard his own voice turn weaker and thinner at the end, less certain of what it was saying. He knew he was a hypocrite, pushing for something he couldn’t offer.
Zura looked baffled. “Is this what you’ve been trying to say all this time?”
“I… It’s not that simple! I couldn’t just… This is just why Ikumatsu would be good for you! Why do you have to be so stubborn and not let her know that?”
Again, Zura looked away, but now he was blushing and scowling at once, as if he'd been rebooted into a tsundere. “But I might not be good for Ikumatsu-dono,” he muttered. “And besides… Maybe my heart’s not pure enough for her.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Maybe there’s one or two other people I like, too,” said Zura in a low voice, only barely audible. Then he turned his head and looked at Gintoki. “Are you trying to get rid of me? Is this what this is about?”
“I’m not doing anything like that!” protested Gintoki. “But she’d be better for you, that’s all! I’m a mess. And I can’t… Zura, I can’t offer you what you should be able to have.”
Again, Zura gave him a look of utter bewilderment.
Gintoki couldn’t meet his gaze anymore. He looked down at the table. “That’s why I haven’t said anything. This whole time. If I say you should be able to have more… but if I can’t offer anything more, at least not enough, then it’s useless to say it.”
“But… You offer me plenty, Gintoki.” Zura’s voice was soft now, unbearably so. It tore at Gintoki.
He shook his head. “Not what you should have. Not enough. I wish I could. I really wish I was a better person, someone more whole… someone who could do that.”
“But it’s not a problem for me…”
”No. It should be. You do deserve more, idiot. And I can’t…” He took a deep breath. In a bleak tone, he continued, “Like... it's like this. There's this. Room inside me. That I can't get into anymore, can't open, it's locked now... but still there. It belongs to that bastard."
He didn't raise his head to look at Zura, but he registered Zura's shape going even more still than before. "And. Even if it will always be all locked, even if he'll never come back to us... I still have to stand guard over it. I just have to. It's still there." He opened up his right hand, palm up, then let it fall down to hang at his side.
It was silent.
He heard a deep intake of breath. Katsura was standing with his back against him, now, before the window. Snow was falling outside, white against the blackness of night.
Zura moved, stopping only when he was very close to him. Gintoki looked up to see warm eyes and a small smile. “I want him back too, you know,” he said quietly.
He brought a hand up to Gintoki’s cheek, holding it there for several seconds. Gintoki closed his eyes.
“You two have always been so wrapped up in each other you can’t see what’s under your noses.” Zura removed his hand, and Gintoki opened his eyes. Zura’s eyes in the lamplight looked clear as water. “But,” he continued slowly, closely, “if he can come back to us, if there’s still a room inside him that belongs to you, one he hasn’t managed to burn down…” His voice increased in strength, “Do you really think none of you have rooms inside you that are for me? That I’ll be left outside, then?”
Gintoki said roughly, “Of course I don’t think so.” Then he grunted, after a moment, “I can’t speak for that bastard, though… But really, if he hasn’t managed to burn down my room, yours should be fine too.” He paused, then said, “…Bet your room is somewhere up in the attic behind a lot of old rubbish blocking the way.” He grabbed Zura by the wrist and yanked at it, trying to get him to sit down.
“Oh? Then your room must be outside the house proper, in a coal shed outside it!” Zura looked indignant for a moment, but then got a distracted look on his face as he finally complied and sat down beside him. “…You know,” he mused, “now we’re making it sound like his inner house is really posh.”
“Once a Richie Rich, always a Richie Rich,” mumbled Gintoki. He swallowed, feeling off-balance. “I bet Tatsuma’s inner house looks like a ship,” he offered.
Zura gave a fond smile at that. “A floating nightclub kind of ship.” He didn’t inch away as Gintoki moved a little closer, letting his thigh graze against Zura’s. “What about yours?” he only asked.
Gintoki blinked. “Uh? I guess… it’s just like a regular house… Like the Odd Jobs place, or our old school. Sort of looking like both but with more rooms? Was only supposed to be a metaphor…”
“Mine is more like a campfire… But since you raised the room issue, I suppose there are tents nearby.”
“Mm-hm.” Gintoki put his hand over Zura’s.
“Your hand’s cold, Gintoki.”
“So warm it up,” he whispered roughly.
Zura leaned his head against Gintoki’s shoulder, and Gintoki could feel him exhaling slowly, deeply.
“But you know, Gintoki…” he murmured. “If he does come back, even if there’s no room for me… even if I’ll just be the old acquaintance dropping by to say hello every five years or so… I would still want that.” His voice started to get unsteady. “If the two of you would be fine… it would make me so happy.” He started to cry, almost silent sobs as tears rolled down his cheeks. But he was smiling as well at the same time.
Gintoki shook his head helplessly, reaching out to try and wipe Zura's tears away with just his hands, having to move his seat a bit to reach right.
“Idiot. When you keep saying stuff like that," he murmured, "how am I not supposed to think you're so much better than me?" It was bewildering, seeing Zura cry like that, for real, not dumb over-dramatic tears over some made-up melodrama. Small sobs, but real ones, snot and hiccups and all. It had been a long time.
Although he wasn't crying that hard, Gintoki's hands weren't of much use, so he brought up his wide sleeve instead, drying Zura's face carefully. He even put a bit of force to it, like Zura would have done if it had been the other way around. The fussy idiot, he thought, and couldn't help but smile a tiny bit.
Zura closed his eyes now, and the tears had stopped. Gintoki hesitated, intending to sit back again, but then wondered if he shouldn't say something. But Zura grabbed his shoulders and leaned his forehead towards Gintoki's.
"It might not ever happen," he mumbled, in a close voice, thick with emotions, yet firmer again now. "It might all be burnt down."
Gintoki breathed in the smell of Zura's hair. "Yeah," he agreed, and his voice was softer than he thought it would be. "And it doesn't. Change anything. In what we need to do."
Zura didn't raise his head yet, and held onto Gintoki's shoulders a bit longer. "I know," he said simply.
He fell asleep that night holding Zura, an arm slung over his side, his face close to the other's hair, the two of them drifting like a raft through the ocean of night. Even now a voice in his mind mumbled, I'd better get out of here. I should get up and leave as soon as I can, and while that thought was like a small flickering flame in the strangely deep calm he was engulfed by, it was still there. And maybe it was the truth.
But when he woke up the next morning it was Zura who had left, Gintoki's clothes tidily folded together next to the futon, a spare key residing on top.
Concluded in Chapter 5
Chapters: 4/5
Rating: G (maybe T/PG13 for language)
Word Count: Around 4100 in this part
Characters/Pairing: Gintoki/Katsura; with some GinTakaZura vibes and some Katsura->Ikumatsu, but only Gin and Zura are featured in the fic (of those four characters)
Spoilers/Setting: See more in the post for Chapter 1. This chapter spoils the Courtesan of a Nation arc and the Homeless arc.
Summary: See Chapter 1.
Continued from Chapter 3.
Gintoki wasn’t yet healed from his injuries from the raid on the palace when he came home to see an extra pair of sandals by the door, and heard the sound of Shinpachi’s voice and another familiar voice from the living room, though no words were audible.
He sighed as he took his time getting his boots off. It seemed all too likely Zura would either scold him for having been far too reckless or sulk because he’d been left out of the fun. Or, knowing him, both.
When he hobbled into the living room he didn’t look too closely at Zura’s impassive expression; focusing on Shinpachi was more telling. The boy looked thoughtful and earnest rather than confused or exasperated, so Gintoki guessed Zura was in a serious mood himself. Unless he’d just arrived and hadn’t had the time to try Shinpachi’s impressive patience yet… No, the tea in his cup was nearly all drunk.
“Oi, Pachi-boy,” said Gintoki lazily, leaning on his crutches, “I thought I’d told you to only let in clients and not any idiot living wigs. I can understand it if you feel bad for him, being a Glasses creature yourself, but Wig creatures are way worse than Glasses ones. They’re truly beyond all hope. Glasses creatures have a brain, after all.”
He sat himself down noisily in the same couch Shinpachi did and spread out, one arm over the back, picking his nose and giving Zura his best rudely unimpressed look.
“Ah… Gin-san," Shinpachi said, "Katsura-san came here to ask…”
“I came here because you stole my conditioner the last time you were at my place,” Zura interrupted haughtily. He took out a bottle from his sleeve. “But you’ve apparently finished it already, so I’m taking your shampoo in recompense. Fair is fair.”
“Oi! What the hell nonsense are you yapping about, I didn’t steal a thing!” Gintoki objected loudly and not very truthfully. “And give that back, you slime! Steal from an invalid, how low can you get? Shinpachi, don’t let him get away with it!”
Shinpachi sighed and drank tea. “I’m not getting into the middle of this,” he said primly.
“Yes yes, you should! Be a man! Stand up for your mentor!!” insisted Gintoki. Zura was getting up now. Already? “Anyway,” Gintoki went on, changing tactics, “even if I had borrowed your lousy conditioner – not that I did – it would only be fair payback for when you didn’t return that video game!”
“I did return it!”
“Yeah, after you’d hold onto it three months longer than I said you could! It was practically growing mold by then!”
“Well, excuse me for leading a busy life, it took time to get through it!”
“Because you’re a terrible player!”
“No, because I have less free time than a N.E.E.T like you!”
“Oi oi! There’s only one of us two with steady employment, and it sure ain’t you!”
“I’m going to get started on dinner,” Shinpachi announced suddenly, taking his and Zura’s empty cups of tea and retreated to the kitchen.
“Leaving already, huh?” Gintoki said in a calmer tone after the boy was out of the room.
Zura put his arms into his sleeves. “I have things to do.” He paused, then said, more quietly, “Everything will be different now. The Tendôshû have been challenged by their former puppet the Shogun. It may take some time, still, but… Things will start to move for real, soon.”
Gintoki gave him a long look, then leaned back and sighed. “You weren’t talking about shampoo with Shinpachi.”
“I can get answers out of him,” said Zura pointedly. “He’s a kind and helpful young man. Not like some people.” He crossed the room slowly, but didn’t leave the living room just yet: he turned and looked back. “I… I’m not saying I’m changing tactics. There are some things I’m still going to try. But… it all will change, soon. You know that, right?”
“I’m not enough of an idiot not to see that,” Gintoki said, not turning his head. “Or to not realize it’s a miracle I still have my head on my shoulders.” But he wasn’t going to make any excuses, nor tell the whole story of how it came to pass he’d been storming the Shogun’s palace and bringing down the former shogun in order to heed the wish of a dying courtesan. Or explain why there hadn’t been time to get Zura into it. Zura would have heard the main points from Shinpachi by now, anyway.
There was just one thing…
But he didn’t know how to talk about Oboro. Even if it felt like Zura ought to know, to hear that the man was dead now… How should he even explain? They’d never known his name back then. ‘You remember a man of the Tenshôin Naraku from that day, wavy grey hair and a big scar, the one who took Takasugi’s eye…?’ And with Shinpachi just in the next room over.
No. No.
He couldn’t.
Katsura left Odd Jobs, knowing there were things left unsaid again, as there always seemed to be between them. Likely on Gintoki’s part, and certainly on his. Katsura had told him the truth, how the nation was bound to change soon, but he hadn’t talked about all of it.
He’d heard of how, when the Shogun had denounced his uncle and, refusing to put blame on those who’d toppled Sadasada Tokugawa, hypothetically mentioned it as a possibility – and all those present there, Shinsengumi and Mimawarigumi and palace troops, come to support him, all had turned their swords against him demonstratively. It seemed too strange to be real, and Shinpachi hadn’t been able to confirm it, having already left the scene by then; but several other trustworthy sources did.
If it was true… Surely that, in itself, even if nearly everyone present was an avowed enemy of the Jôi, pointed to a new Japan not being such an impossible dream after all.
But how to go on from extraordinary moments like that, shaped by circumstances that wouldn’t arise again in the same way, and find a way to build on them?
There were too many things that said, ‘danger, danger, great disaster and war’, even while right now on the surface it was all back to normal; the opportunities for good that he could scent seemed fragile, hard to catch… and yet, if Gintoki with his small band of comrades had done as much with minimal planning, what could be done if you truly did your best to lay a multitude of plans carefully and diligently?
...And why did Gintoki have to buy such overly sweet-smelling shampoos?
He shook his head, burying the offending bottle deeper in his sleeve. He wondered if he should have mentioned Sadasada’s assassination. Had Gintoki guessed who was, in Katsura’s mind, most likely to be behind it? It didn’t seem pin-point enough for most ninja-style assassins. But it had been too clever and effective to be any other random assassins, whether mercenaries or terrorists. That specific combination of efficiency, great daring, and ruthless but intelligent bloodshed all pointed to one man only.
He shivered despite the warm spring day. He couldn’t help but feel a grim satisfaction that that monster, the one who’d ordered the Kansei purge, was finally dead and gone. But that didn’t stop him from sensing again the cold breeze of the high air, the heaving and trembling of an embattled airship, the burning smoke and splattered blood, the otherworldly glow of the awakened Benizakura, and the icy stab of betrayal.
Nor could he stop his mind from going over it, wondering about secret allies, plots and machinations by a man who seemed determined to never be on the same side as him again, to do everything not to ever earn Katsura’s trust again – his, and that of those he cared for.
Things were changing. But he couldn’t see them changing enough to dare to resurrect that old hope again, left bleeding and dying inside him.
It was true that Gintoki sometimes missed things that were obvious in retrospect, but once you’d seen them, you couldn’t start to re-miss them.
Like how Zura evidently felt about Ikumatsu of Hokuto Shinken.
The guy was walking next to him and the kids in the snow, now, leaving that same ramen restaurant behind them. Gintoki put his hands inside his sleeves in the cold air as they trudged through the city in near-silence on this New Year’s Eve, till they got closer to Kabuki and Kagura started to get rowdier, prompting Shinpachi to return in kind.
Ikumatsu, now. She was a fine woman, sensible and strong yet not without softness. She wanted to give Zura some kind of place in her life, clearly liking him enough to start with, yet also ready to smack him around when he was being obnoxious. And maybe it was true that her dead husband still took up the biggest part of her heart, but that didn’t mean Zura didn’t stand a chance. If he would only push a little, make some effort to woo her, then that could change...
She would be so much better for him than Gintoki ever could be. Someone to guide him forward, not drag him down into the past. Zura had his share of scars, too.
So it was frustrating to see him continuously step back and not do a thing for his own cause. It wasn’t like he couldn’t have helped Ikumatsu deal with her evil former brother-in-law and reunite with her amnesiac homeless father while also courting her, was it? But when he muttered as much to Zura over beers some time after they’d reached Otose's Snack Bar, Zura gave him a blank look and said that the time wasn’t right.
“It would have been too much for Ikumatsu-dono to think of at the moment,” he insisted.
“Tch. You’re just scared of getting rejected. Aren’t you?”
Zura took a drink from his cup silently and didn’t reply for several long seconds. Just when Gintoki was going to poke at him to answer, Zura said in a low voice, expression unexpectedly sober:
“Does it make any difference if I am or not? Either way, that doesn’t change anything about what Ikumatsu-dono is feeling. Her father can’t remember her. Not more than tiny glimpses, at least. That’s doubtless why her husband never revealed who their homeless guest at those New Year’s Eves truly was. But she feels so badly about never realizing the truth until now… If we hadn’t been able to find him, to help him after he saved her from the river, it would be too awful to contemplate. Of course I had to focus on that first and foremost.”
“But you still…”
“It’s not like you wouldn’t have done the same.”
“I wouldn’t - Tch. That’s not - I’d have at least asked for a date in the future. Even if not right now.”
Zura drank up again, not looking at him.
“Gin-san,” Shinpachi called out. “Kagura’s nearly falling asleep, I’m helping her upstairs before she’s out for good.”
“Not asleep, nuh-uh,” mumbled Kagura. “I can still make it.”
“Make what? You’re just talking in your sleep now,” Shinpachi told her as they left.
Otose was engaged in talking to a regular over at the bar, Catherine was getting involved in an intense card game at one table, so even with the kids being gone the noise level was high enough to keep a sensitive conversation going in their corner.
“No, you wouldn’t have,” Zura continued their talk now, still not looking at Gintoki. “And you know that.”
“Stop being so damn knowing!” he burst out. “You’re pissing me off here!”
Zura glared at him. “Oh, I am, am I?” He got up abruptly. “I’m leaving. Happy New Year, Gintoki.” He stalked to the exit on somewhat unsteady legs, nodding politely to Otose as he went past the bar.
Gintoki opened and closed his mouth, intending to get up, then made himself stay put, sulking.
Then, abruptly, he got up anyway before the bastard could get out of sight. Did he really think he was getting out of the conversation so easily? No way! He said to Otose in passing, “Tell Shinpachi I’m going to another bar and might stay there,” then was out the door to hear her ticked-off, “And a Happy New Year to you, too, useless bum!” and slipped out.
He saw a dark long-haired figure just passing out of the range of a streetlight and then getting harder to see, and hurried after him, anger still churning. Zura ducked down a side-street. To Gintoki’s surprise, he then doubled back until he stopped by the other side of a house Gintoki recognized as facing his own house on the other side.
In fact, it was the house he remembered that one unobtrusive Shinsengumi guy had stayed at not too long ago while he did an increasingly obvious stake-out of their place and wound up getting a crush on Tama. What was his name again… Yamazaki, right. Anyway, what the hell was Zura doing in a house like that?
“Stop running after me, Gintoki. I said what I wanted to say,” Zura snapped.
“You’re not listening, dammit! Stubborn dumbass.” Gintoki hopped from one foot to the other in the cold. “And since when are you staying here, anyway?”
“Since just the other week. This house is going to be torn down, in case you didn’t know. So the rent is low right now.”
“Ehh, I doubt that will happen. The background assistants and animators won’t stand for having to learn to draw some new building there.”
“Things like that can always be handwaved with a gorilla in charge. But go home, Gintoki. Leader will miss you when she wakes up.”
“She’ll be fine, she’s got Sadaharu and I think Shinpachi is staying the night, too. Stop trying to change the subject! You know I’m right about this and you’re being noble but stupid.”
Zura pursed his lips and didn’t turn his head, just glared ahead at the lock on the door angrily. “That’s rich coming from you!” he snapped. “You’re the king of avoiding the subject! Even when you’re the one who started it!” He threw the door open and strode into the apartment building.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” hissed Gintoki, head hot now and a buzzing but angry feeling in his stomach. But while he was far from sober, he did manage to keep in mind that the walls looked thin and neighbours could be nosy. The house wasn’t too big, but the hall at the entrance floor had four different doors, and a staircase at the end.
Zura shot him a dirty look but said nothing while walking to the farthest door from the entrance, which he unlocked and stepped through. Gintoki closed it behind him. The air was cold and musty in the small apartment. The one window didn't face his own home, but one of the side-streets.
“Don’t be coy!” Zura went on, then, his tone still sharp and his movements still angry as he took off his shoes and went into a tiny kitchen to put some tea on. “For months and months now, Gintoki, you’ve been sulking about something most of the times we’re together! Together together, I mean! You keep throwing me dirty looks or drop cryptic remarks and when I ask why and what you mean, you refuse to explain! But I’m not a mind-reader!”
“That’s- I don’t- I mean--” Gintoki took a deep breath and swallowed, since his throat was dry, “That’s just because you’re so dense!” he burst out.
Zura gave him a cold, weighing look, crossing his arms, saying nothing.
“Well, you are! And tiresome. The way you just…”
“Well? The way I just what?” Something hurt came into Zura’s eyes and he looked away. He said in a smaller, troubled voice, “Gintoki, are you saying you haven’t been enjoying yourself at all?”
“No, you idiot,” said Gintoki heavily, sinking down on the room’s only couch and resting his elbow on the table. “That’s not true at all.” He paused. Too late to back out now. He closed his eyes, rubbing his forehead. “I have. But what about you? You just…” He opened his eyes again, going on in a lower tone, “You just swoop in and take care of things.” He swallowed. “It pisses me off. What about your needs, huh? What about your wishes? Shouldn’t bother with a jerk like me. I just can’t… It’s not right. You’ve just been making it too easy for me, Zura. But you need to… think about yourself more.” He heard his own voice turn weaker and thinner at the end, less certain of what it was saying. He knew he was a hypocrite, pushing for something he couldn’t offer.
Zura looked baffled. “Is this what you’ve been trying to say all this time?”
“I… It’s not that simple! I couldn’t just… This is just why Ikumatsu would be good for you! Why do you have to be so stubborn and not let her know that?”
Again, Zura looked away, but now he was blushing and scowling at once, as if he'd been rebooted into a tsundere. “But I might not be good for Ikumatsu-dono,” he muttered. “And besides… Maybe my heart’s not pure enough for her.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Maybe there’s one or two other people I like, too,” said Zura in a low voice, only barely audible. Then he turned his head and looked at Gintoki. “Are you trying to get rid of me? Is this what this is about?”
“I’m not doing anything like that!” protested Gintoki. “But she’d be better for you, that’s all! I’m a mess. And I can’t… Zura, I can’t offer you what you should be able to have.”
Again, Zura gave him a look of utter bewilderment.
Gintoki couldn’t meet his gaze anymore. He looked down at the table. “That’s why I haven’t said anything. This whole time. If I say you should be able to have more… but if I can’t offer anything more, at least not enough, then it’s useless to say it.”
“But… You offer me plenty, Gintoki.” Zura’s voice was soft now, unbearably so. It tore at Gintoki.
He shook his head. “Not what you should have. Not enough. I wish I could. I really wish I was a better person, someone more whole… someone who could do that.”
“But it’s not a problem for me…”
”No. It should be. You do deserve more, idiot. And I can’t…” He took a deep breath. In a bleak tone, he continued, “Like... it's like this. There's this. Room inside me. That I can't get into anymore, can't open, it's locked now... but still there. It belongs to that bastard."
He didn't raise his head to look at Zura, but he registered Zura's shape going even more still than before. "And. Even if it will always be all locked, even if he'll never come back to us... I still have to stand guard over it. I just have to. It's still there." He opened up his right hand, palm up, then let it fall down to hang at his side.
It was silent.
He heard a deep intake of breath. Katsura was standing with his back against him, now, before the window. Snow was falling outside, white against the blackness of night.
Zura moved, stopping only when he was very close to him. Gintoki looked up to see warm eyes and a small smile. “I want him back too, you know,” he said quietly.
He brought a hand up to Gintoki’s cheek, holding it there for several seconds. Gintoki closed his eyes.
“You two have always been so wrapped up in each other you can’t see what’s under your noses.” Zura removed his hand, and Gintoki opened his eyes. Zura’s eyes in the lamplight looked clear as water. “But,” he continued slowly, closely, “if he can come back to us, if there’s still a room inside him that belongs to you, one he hasn’t managed to burn down…” His voice increased in strength, “Do you really think none of you have rooms inside you that are for me? That I’ll be left outside, then?”
Gintoki said roughly, “Of course I don’t think so.” Then he grunted, after a moment, “I can’t speak for that bastard, though… But really, if he hasn’t managed to burn down my room, yours should be fine too.” He paused, then said, “…Bet your room is somewhere up in the attic behind a lot of old rubbish blocking the way.” He grabbed Zura by the wrist and yanked at it, trying to get him to sit down.
“Oh? Then your room must be outside the house proper, in a coal shed outside it!” Zura looked indignant for a moment, but then got a distracted look on his face as he finally complied and sat down beside him. “…You know,” he mused, “now we’re making it sound like his inner house is really posh.”
“Once a Richie Rich, always a Richie Rich,” mumbled Gintoki. He swallowed, feeling off-balance. “I bet Tatsuma’s inner house looks like a ship,” he offered.
Zura gave a fond smile at that. “A floating nightclub kind of ship.” He didn’t inch away as Gintoki moved a little closer, letting his thigh graze against Zura’s. “What about yours?” he only asked.
Gintoki blinked. “Uh? I guess… it’s just like a regular house… Like the Odd Jobs place, or our old school. Sort of looking like both but with more rooms? Was only supposed to be a metaphor…”
“Mine is more like a campfire… But since you raised the room issue, I suppose there are tents nearby.”
“Mm-hm.” Gintoki put his hand over Zura’s.
“Your hand’s cold, Gintoki.”
“So warm it up,” he whispered roughly.
Zura leaned his head against Gintoki’s shoulder, and Gintoki could feel him exhaling slowly, deeply.
“But you know, Gintoki…” he murmured. “If he does come back, even if there’s no room for me… even if I’ll just be the old acquaintance dropping by to say hello every five years or so… I would still want that.” His voice started to get unsteady. “If the two of you would be fine… it would make me so happy.” He started to cry, almost silent sobs as tears rolled down his cheeks. But he was smiling as well at the same time.
Gintoki shook his head helplessly, reaching out to try and wipe Zura's tears away with just his hands, having to move his seat a bit to reach right.
“Idiot. When you keep saying stuff like that," he murmured, "how am I not supposed to think you're so much better than me?" It was bewildering, seeing Zura cry like that, for real, not dumb over-dramatic tears over some made-up melodrama. Small sobs, but real ones, snot and hiccups and all. It had been a long time.
Although he wasn't crying that hard, Gintoki's hands weren't of much use, so he brought up his wide sleeve instead, drying Zura's face carefully. He even put a bit of force to it, like Zura would have done if it had been the other way around. The fussy idiot, he thought, and couldn't help but smile a tiny bit.
Zura closed his eyes now, and the tears had stopped. Gintoki hesitated, intending to sit back again, but then wondered if he shouldn't say something. But Zura grabbed his shoulders and leaned his forehead towards Gintoki's.
"It might not ever happen," he mumbled, in a close voice, thick with emotions, yet firmer again now. "It might all be burnt down."
Gintoki breathed in the smell of Zura's hair. "Yeah," he agreed, and his voice was softer than he thought it would be. "And it doesn't. Change anything. In what we need to do."
Zura didn't raise his head yet, and held onto Gintoki's shoulders a bit longer. "I know," he said simply.
He fell asleep that night holding Zura, an arm slung over his side, his face close to the other's hair, the two of them drifting like a raft through the ocean of night. Even now a voice in his mind mumbled, I'd better get out of here. I should get up and leave as soon as I can, and while that thought was like a small flickering flame in the strangely deep calm he was engulfed by, it was still there. And maybe it was the truth.
But when he woke up the next morning it was Zura who had left, Gintoki's clothes tidily folded together next to the futon, a spare key residing on top.
Concluded in Chapter 5