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rainsometimesI've been writing this GinZura fic mostly set at an onsen a good while now, and I feel like sharing it with others.
Comments exceedingly welcome!
ETA January 6: Polished it up some now with the help of great concrit fromtonko! Any remaining errors are my responsibility alone. /ETA
The flavour I'm going for is cosy with thoughtful bits and silly bits and eventually somewhat sexy bits. In a way it might be seen as a relatively fluffy companion piece to my much angstier fic "Bathing In A Time Of Peace".
Many thanks to everyone who has encouraged me to keep going with this fic!
ETA: Now also on AO3 here!/ETA
DISCLAIMER: The characters in this fanfic are owned by their creator Hideaki Sorachi and are used here without permission for entertainment purposes only. This fic is not to be used for profit and may not be reposted anywhere without the writer's permission.
Title: Let Me Be Washed Up Right Next To You, Over And Over
Word Count: currently 7890 words
Characters/pairing: Gintoki/Katsura
Spoilers/setting: It's set at some vague point not all that long before the Shogun Assassination Arc. It's definitely after the Kintama arc, possibly also after Courtesan of a Nation.
Summary: Gintoki and Katsura run into each other at an onsen in Edo.
Rating: M
At the entrance counter of the onsen, the somewhat fishlike Amanto receptionist looked up with a bored expression at the wet and bedraggled samurai who had just stepped in. Streams of water were dripping steadily down from his clothes and his long hair, and his haori and kimono had big splotches of dirt besides; clearly he had left home without an umbrella, but he might also have slipped into a puddle in the road, or in a dirty alley. Fortunately her race’s sense of smell was weak, or she might have found his odour too strong to agree to let him in once he gave up on haggling and dug into his sleeves to hand over the full price she had asked for. Which in her view really wasn’t all that much, but then Earthlings always seemed to find something to whine about.
Along with the entrance fee, the drenched samurai also paid for the loan of a large towel. Then from seemingly out of nowhere, he whipped out his own wooden cleaning bowl with a bar of soap, a small head towel and bottles of shampoo and conditioner inside it. Those sleeves were unusually deep, she had to silently concede, slightly less bored now. He didn’t seem to be quite as spontaneous a patron as at first glance, this cheapskate Edoite.
Katsura sighed as he pushed open the door to the men’s changing room. He had just sent off a text to Elizabeth. The two of them had been split off on the street by a police convoy who hadn’t even been targeting them, it was just sheer coincidence; Elizabeth had been stuck on the other side of a big traffic jam and they’d decided over their phones that he might as well just go buy groceries and then focus on getting home and hold the fort there. Katsura wasn’t expecting anything major to happen right now that would affect his Joui faction, but considering that police convoy, it would be best to be prepared.
He shuddered again from the cold, his clothes being soaked-through all over. Hardly an inch of him felt dry. For now, he would put all the other things aside and focus on warming up. After some nice cleaning…
“You smell terrible, Zura.”
Katsura turned around to see Gintoki sitting there in the changing area in his skirt and underpants, wrinkling his nose at him. “I’m surprised they even let you in here, you smell like you’ve fallen into the sewers twice over,” the man continued.
“It’s not sewers, it was just a garbage heap. And it’s not Zura, it’s Katsura. A good thing the heap was there, though, I was falling from a rooftop. No, it wasn’t a police hunt, although I can see why you’d think that—”
“I wasn’t asking—”
“—it was simply that I wanted to take a shortcut to avoid the traffic jam and get to the videogame store having a clearance sale today in time, but alas, they had already closed when I got there,” continued Katsura. “You did the same thing once, so you have no room to complain, Gintoki. Not the videogame, I mean the falling into garbage bit. I didn’t even break anything. Anyway, now that I’m here I intend to get clean, naturally. I’m pleased you did show up after all,” he added with a sudden fond smile.
He had started to undo his obi and then take off his wet kimono as he talked, and he was already down to his white underkimono, feet bare.
“Are you high?” said Gintoki, picking his nose. “Is your brain trying to escape from being associated with you even more than usual? What do you mean you’re pleased I showed up after all? Don’t try to pretend you got here as some kind of careful plan when you were obviously just surprised by the rain like an idiot!” He had finished stripping down and started to walk over towards the exit with his gear in one hand. “I’m only here because Kagura broke the bath back home again this morning,” he said over his shoulder. But he was moving languidly enough that it was easy for Katsura to catch up to him.
Katsura said blithely, “We did say the other day that this weekend would be good for an onsen visit together. It’s been a long time.”
“That was you who said that, not me! I didn’t agree! I had other plans!” They left the changing room and stepped into the washing area, with the pools beckoning further away. Gintoki grabbed a stool to sit on. He looked as if he half considered whacking Katsura over the head with his cleaning bucket in a typical tsukkomi move.
“And yet, now you’re here,” Katsura pointed out, sitting down himself and starting to lather up. “And you, too, are smelly, Gintoki, so you evidently need it.”
“Well, you know, normally I have my own bath at home, but it’s just that there’s this gorilla girl who got it into her head to suddenly try a technique she was reading about in a manga right as she was having her bath… And don’t even start” – he leaned over to whap Katsura on the shoulder – “not when you’re coming right from the garbage heap and smell as rotten as your terrorist soul.”
Katsura scrubbed himself vigorously. “It’s true that I had also made other plans, like that videogame,” he allowed, “and yet, here we both wound up, so for once I think we can safely say this is what Fate has wanted us to do. We might as well take it easy and soak for a while. I admit I’m not in a hurry to go back out into the rain just now.”
“Not like you’re going to get a cold.” Gintoki was by now shampooing his hair vigorously. “Don’t give me your sudden ‘let’s be lazy and pretend we’re being wise’ insights. You’re too stupid to know how to wind down.”
“I daresay I’m 100% better at relaxing than you are at being energetic.” Katsura poured cold water over himself to rinse away the soap, then started to shampoo his own hair. “Did you forget the start of the Renho arc?” Eyes closed, he pointed in the general direction of Gintoki. “I have memorized quite a few favourite commercials! I’ve played a number of modern videogames!!” He got shampoo into his mouth and had to stop to cough and spit it out. Aggravated, he put the cold water on and pointed the nozzle at Gintoki first before starting to rinse his hair.
“Yaah! Why are you sounding so proud of that??” exclaimed Gintoki. Something hit Katsura’s head. It was probably Gintoki’s shampoo bottle. “Fine, you’re a slacker as a terrorist but you’re still no match for me when it comes to relaxing!”
“Oh, please.” Katsura did his best to reply while manouevring the shower muzzle so he wouldn’t get water in his mouth. “I remember literally hundreds of baths that would turn into splashing wars between two idiot angry brats. I’m the one who would treasure what little peaceful bathtime I got!”
“That was all his fault, not mine! And see, you still didn’t learn to relax, you were too busy lecturing us as usual—” Gintoki stopped, and then there was the sound of cold water being poured. “Ah, what’s the use,” he muttered. “Believe what you want to believe. I’m going to the bath.”
Katsura took his head towel and wiped his face, blinking. “Gintoki?” he said, tone unsure.
Gintoki was already walking away towards the bathing pools, his posture looking mostly at ease but with a hint of discomfort and irritation in his shoulders. “Forget it,” he said, not sounding upset exactly, but definitely not interested in further discussion of the matter.
Katsura frowned, now just a little bit troubled, and considered for a second to follow his friend over to the bath right away instead of finishing his pre-bath haircare routine. But he came to his senses -- taking care of one’s hair was important, after all -- and kept going, reaching for his bottle of conditioner.
A few minutes later, it was easy enough to find Gintoki again, in the furthest corner of the largest of the three bathing pools. The two smaller pools were taken up with old and middle-aged men chatting it up and clearly all familiar with one another, while the big pool was almost empty, just a couple of other lone bathers on the other side from Gintoki. All of them looked to be human and mostly Japanese, at least at first sight. Katsura surreptitiously checked for any more familiar faces, good or bad, and his shoulders relaxed more when he found none. He wasn’t in the mood for discussing Joui business with comrades right now, and even less interested in being spotted by a police spy.
He took off his towel and slipped into the hot bath at Gintoki’s side with a grunt. The brief splashings of warm water when he’d washed his body and hair hadn’t truly warmed him up, especially since they had had to be followed, as hygiene demanded, by colder water right away. But now, finally… ahhh.
After a few moments of adjusting to the heat, then a few more to adjust to the sense of bliss, he mumbled to Gintoki, “Is this the first time you’re visiting this onsen?”
“There’s other baths closer to home,” said Gintoki. “And this place isn’t the cheapest.”
“It’s not particularly expensive either,” argued Katsura. “I like it precisely because it’s quiet and out of the way. But still clean and working well, not in a state of breaking down like the very cheapest baths.” He reflected a moment, then added, in a sober tone, “Of course, those cheap baths are Japanese-owned, this one’s partially Amanto-owned, so there’s more capital behind it. But at least these particular Amanto do a decent job of things.”
“Huh, didn’t know that,” said Gintoki pensively. “Wonder why there’s not any of them visiting right now, then. I know there are Amanto who like to soak in their bath just like we do. Like the one back home who destroyed my bath tub.”
“There’s not all that many Amanto who live in the area,” said Katsura. “Those who do and have money go to fancier baths. Those who don’t have money come here on the weekends, same as Japanese working stiffs.”
“Wow, you’re well-informed,” said Gintoki, giving him an even more dead-fish-eyed look than usual. “Sheesh, Zura, I told you you’d be like this. Leggo and relax, for crying out loud.”
“You’re the one not relaxing enough,” muttered Katsura.
“Ehh?? What was that?” Gintoki kicked Katsura under the water; Katsura shoved at him.
Then he said, thoughtfully, “You could have invited Shinpachi-kun here, you know.”
Gintoki drew a hand through his hair. “Eh, they’ve got a working bath at home.”
“…Oh, that makes sense.” Katsura had a tendency to forget how big the Shimura estate was. He hadn’t been there much himself, though he’d sent his best spies there now and then, mostly to keep tabs on Isao Kondo. “Did you bring Leader here, then? Is she over there right now?” He waved in the direction of the women’s bath.
“Nah, she went over to the Shimuras, too. Said she couldn’t be bothered going the whole long way here.” Gintoki shrugged and slipped down a little further into the shallow hot water.
Katsura frowned. “I’m fairly sure this place is actually closer to your house.”
“Hey, I wasn’t going to argue. Couldn’t pay for her ticket anyway.”
“Aha!” said Katsura triumphantly. “That’s the real reason why you didn’t bring Shinpachi-kun, isn’t it?” He tsk-tsked. “Gintoki, you need to treat your employees better! They might leave you for greener pastures one day.”
“Ha, I wish. Nah, they’ll keep hanging around and bugging me just for the fun of it.”
Katsura couldn’t keep from smiling, and he felt there was a hidden smile in Gintoki’s voice too, try as he might to smother it down. “Imagine that. Anyway, Gintoki, with your talent for slacking off perhaps you should consider being on stand-by more often. Katsuratama is always ready to fill in for Gintama, you know! The franchise needs a more energetic protagonist!”
Gintoki shoved his head towel into Katsura’s mouth. “Shut up, idiot! I’m not getting myself ousted as the main character again!”
“Mmblmm!” protested Katsura, waving wildly and kicking Gintoki in the stomach. They scuffled back and forth a bit, but soon quietened down again, leaning back and looking up to the windows in the ceiling. The chilly autumn rain was still beating down out there, wild and windy.
To be here like this, just a bit removed from the ordinary chaos, just a little drifting away, like on a tiny warm island, with the luxury of taking it easy for once because he knew Gintoki would have his back if enemies appeared… In such a moment floating in time, old memories couldn’t help but tumble back into light.
The elite academy might have had baths somewhere, but if so they had only been for teachers, and perhaps one or two favoured older students. The younger students certainly weren’t offered the chance to use them. So after his grandmother died, Kotarô bathed alone at home. It took time to bring in water, it took more than double the time to heat it, and it was lonesome to bathe and not warm enough when he got out. But he washed himself diligently all the same so even if some of the other students still said he reeked of poverty, he himself would know they were just lying scoundrels.
Sometimes he’d stay in the water a little longer and remembered how Grandmother would have scrubbed his back and feet, the smell of her in the small washroom, feeling safe. Then he’d feel as if she might just still be watching him, somewhere. He’d need to keep trying hard.
So it had been for young Kôtaro back in those days. Until the time when he left all of that behind, left his past and hometown and the stiff crinkly elite school and came to join Shôka Sonjuku.
During that first summer, which they spent wandering looking for a new town to stay, the three of them took dips in streams and lakes together, warming themselves in the sun later or sometimes, if the weather shifted quickly, in front of a cooking fire. Once Shôyô found the new village that was willing to let him stay there and teach, the boys would start to take hot baths again. Sometimes they would only bath one at a time, with the others waiting their turn and helping to blow on the fire to keep the water hot; but more often it would all three of them, sharing the same big wooden tub in its separate bath shed. They would go in after Sensei, of course, who never lingered long in it. He would dry himself off, get into a yukata and then blow with a pipe on the fire so the water would get hot again while the three of them undressed and washed themselves, rinsed off the soap and climbed into the bath. Then Sensei would do kata exercises and occasionally blow on the fire again and then finally tell them that the time was up, no use staying so long they’d get wrinkly. He almost always left them more than double the time he took for himself.
It wasn’t always just that bathtub, wasn’t always just the three of them. There had been a few of Shôyô’s other students so poor they didn’t have a bath at home. Once a week three or four of them would show up in the evening to share in bathing times at the school. They’d all help moving rainwater barrels to make for extra bathtubs, and they would run around fetching water from the well and divide up chores and get caught up in games and have fun. Katsura remembered, now… it had been Yusuke and Shinji-with-the-freckles, Hiroshi and Long-Legs Nobu; and once in a while Kanda who lived the farthest from anybody else would be coaxed to come along. Those boys had been shy the first time they came, embarrassed over their families’ poverty, but Gintoki had made it easier for them to see the weekly bathing as something fun and ordinary, just by being his normal rude and lazy self. Gintoki always made things easy that way, didn’t he? It was a special talent of his.
(They’d joined the war, later: those boys were all dead now.)
But most of the time it was just the three of them, shivering in the colder months as they’d scrub themselves quickly – in the winter they’d try to do the washing inside the bath shed instead of outside, but the shed was small and badly lit – before finally climbing the steps up to the bathtub and slip inside. And that always felt so good, getting warm bit by bit, Shôyô never letting the water get cold until it was time to eat a warm dinner. Sometimes their bodies would be aching from training in the dôjô or from having tussled with one another, or some other mischief -- but they quickly forgot about it in the warm bath, safe from the cold outside.
The very first time they had shared a hot bath together, they had still been on the road. It had been in the house of a stranger, a kind man who had let Shôyô and the kids stay overnight even though there wasn’t much room. Katsura couldn’t remember much about him, but he remembered it had been autumn, with yellow leaves filling the courtyard of that place and even sweeping in through the spaces between the walls to land in the hot bath. He had felt awkward and out of place as he undressed and got washed. Takasugi too hadn’t been entirely at his ease, snapping back at Gintoki despite Gintoki not even really needling him.
But Gintoki had just given them a lazy look and had stretched his arms out behind him as they stepped into the bath, stretching out as much as he could in the small space. “Man, do you guys not even know how to take a bath? You just take it easy and do nothing at all.”
“It’s too crowded,” muttered Takasugi, glaring at Gintoki.
Gintoki picked his nose. “Aww, does the little rich boy not know how to cope without having a gigantic bathtub of his own?”
The two of them splashed hot water and kicked one another. Katsura sighed. “Stop that! Or they might just throw us out.”
“Fine. FINE,” said Takasugi, crossing his arms and sitting back. “I’m relaxing.”
Gintoki grinned smugly and made a lordly gesture with one hand, sighing with pleasure. “Ah, this is the stuff. You just feel yourself unwind. All the troubles just melt away.” Another leaf sailed down from outside and landed on his big fluffy white hair.
Takasugi looked at him in disbelief, and Katsura found himself starting to giggle. “Gintoki… You sound like an old man!” That Gintoki of all people would have anything to unwind from was so silly.
Now Takasugi was laughing, too. “Oh, well, then,” he said. “I guess for the sake of my tiiired ooold, I need to do some serious soaking.” His voice took on a plaintive ‘complaining old man’ quality.
Katsura cleared his throat, still bubbly with laughter. “I’m telling you,” he growled, “ kids these days don’t know how good they had it! We used to have to find a hot spring on our own to get clean! It could take weeks!”
“Right?” said Gintoki, flicking off a booger across the bath. “And if we couldn’t find any hot springs, we just had to make our own volcano to get one! But did we complain? Noooo.”
They were thoroughly warmed up by water and laughter, inside and outside, when they stepped out of the bath and dried themselves off and got dressed to go and get something to eat. Chowing down eagerly on dried fish and rice, Kotaro thought back to the very first time he had met Gintoki. Even then, as he jumped down from a tree to protect the two of them from bullies, had said they should all take a nap together, hadn’t he? Gintoki was just like that. Like Shôyô-sensei – he made things that would have been difficult seem so easy. A warm sun was shining in Kotarô’s chest. Maybe it would be all right to just keeping sharing baths from now on.
Gintoki sighed as he rubbed his sore shoulder and drew a wet hand through his soggy, currently less than usually wavy hair. Zura was gazing off into the distance with that moonstruck look on his face that could mean anything from contemplating the future political structure of the country to imagining the paws of a cute puppy he’d met on the street today. Or it might mean he was getting bogged down in old memories. He had always been the nostalgic type, after all.
“...Gintoki.” Zura’s voice was very low, almost like a buzzing bumblebee. Something about its resonance sent a tiny shiver down Gintoki’s neck and spine.
“Huh? Don’t bother me when I’m asleep.” He resisted the urge to submerge himself deeper into the warm water. He kept his eyes half-closed, not glancing at the man beside him.
“Eh?” Zura turned his head. “You’re not asleep, I was asleep. I’m talking in my sleep right now. Stop stealing my shtick.”
Gintoki glared at him. It was too much work to push his head into the water “Your shtick my ass. That was never your shtick.”
“I can make it mine, you can’t stop me, you’re too lazy.” Zura pushed away strands of hair from his face, lifting them over his shoulder and shifting his seat. “Gintoki,” he said again, tone again low and serious, though at least louder than a mere buzz this time. “Why didn’t you go with Leader to the Shimura house? You could have bathed there for free.”
“You’re that disappointed to see me here, huh? Man, I wonder what depravities you’d been planning to commit on your own.” Gintoki picked his nose and flipped the snot over onto Katsura, who made an indignant squawk and splashed back. “Probably just flirting with that receptionist fish lady,” he added.
Zura humphed and crossed his arms over his chest. “Obviously it’s a bit of an embarrassment to be seen in public with an uncouth slob like you, but I have grown used to this over the years. You are evading the question.”
Gintoki gave a put-upon sigh. Usually Zura was better at playing along when Gin wasn’t in the mood to answer something. This time around, he wasn’t even sure what the right answer even was. Was it that he didn’t feel like bothering the Shimuras today, like it was an imposition? Did he just want to get away from stuff, like any family father would feel at times when slipping away to a bar or to his pachinko club? Or was it the thought that he hadn’t seen Zura naked in quite a while that had pushed him onwards?
“Ehhh, why are you bothering me with this?” he whined in a put-upon way. “Why do you care if I felt like upholding a fine old Japanese tradition? With your moldy old political views, you should applaud me for it!”
Of course, there was something profoundly unsexy about a public hot bath house, especially indoors ones, what with wrinkly old men and their wrinkly old toes and sagging balls sitting around and chatting loudly about their ailments. But in Gin’s experience, right after a nice hot bath, they would both usually feel pretty fine and mellow, and even an uptight, energetic lunatic like Zura might just be in the mood for a quickie. If you could find a good place for it, which was normally easier said than done. Today they might just be able to use Gintoki’s own place, though, if only Kagura would have the good sense to linger for some time over at the Shimuras.
“It’s just not like you to pay for something you could get for free…” said Katsura, but then he trailed off, looking into the distance. Gintoki followed his gaze but could see nothing but the storm-gray sky outside. He gave Zura a puzzled glance. The other man’s eyes had widened, his lips parting a little. His cheeks were a little pink. “...Oh.” he said. “I see.”
Gintoki knocked him on the skull. “Hello? See what? What are you on about now? Are you talking to an imaginary friend again?”
“What do you mean, again, I haven’t done that since I was little… No, I mean, Gintoki, I realized you do already pay for something else that you could get for free, and that’s way more expensive than going to the onsen. Or so I gather, anyway. When you buy the attentions of a courtesan.”
“There’s no way I could afford any high-class courtesan, the right word is hooker! And what the hell does that have to do with this? Wow, you’ve got a lewd imagination…! I should tell the staff here, they’ll throw you out for being a dirty old man.” Gintoki picked his nose. “Although come to think of it, I guess that’s another fine old Japanese tradition I’m upholding, now and then.” Dammit, this wasn’t going in the direction he wanted. And why would the guy even have to bring up that comparison of all things?
“It’s not like I’m making it a weekly habit or something, I don’t have that kind of money to throw around,” he added. “I’m not Tatsuma.” He glanced askance at Zura. Was Zura thinking of himself when he said “something you could get for free”? Or was he just referring to Gintoki’s flirting skills in general? Of course, Gintoki did pick up one-night stands now and then, though he always backed off from the ones who seemed to be on the lookout for any longer relationship.
But he knew he wasn’t the greatest of flirts, and neither did he think Zura was of that opinion. There had been enough “this is why you can’t get a girlfriend” remarks tossed at him over the years to make that clear. Gintoki in his turn had often tossed plenty of “this is why you never get anywhere with those housewives you get stuck on” remarks right back.
“I understand,” said Zura, but he seemed to still be talking to himself. “It’s about independence. You’re a proud man after all, so it makes sense.”
“You’re just making up your own argument in your head there, Zura.”
Zura ignored this, too. “I daresay I’m more of a connoisseur of Edo’s bathing places than you are,” he remarked apropos nothing. “It’s been months since I had a place to stay that came with a bath.”
“But there have been other times when you’ve lived way nicer than I do,” Gintoki pointed out, “with a garden and everything.”
Zura waved a hand back and forth with unusual laziness. “It’s all up and down. Sometimes there’s a patriotic backer who can arrange a pleasant place to live for a while. Other times I’ve had to stay in much less appealing hideouts. But a roof over the head isn’t anything to sneeze at.”
“Yeah, you can say that again,” said Gintoki quietly. Old memories were crowding in his head, cold and harsh ones from his early childhood and not particularly nice ones from the war and right after. As for more recent years…
“Guess I’ve been pretty lucky to find the old bat here in Edo,” he admitted, his voice a little hoarse. “She keeps threatening to throw me out and a couple of times she’s even sold off my furniture, but it’s never gone further than that.” He’d hardly ever talked about Otose like that, except that one time to Catherine, who had needed to hear it. But it was easier to mention these memories, the foundation of his Edo self, than to go bring up those older, colder times from much further back. “We made a deal once. I was starving, she had mochi… I said I’d protect her in the bargain, so… She’s not the type who gives up on people, I guess.”
“Then you really have been lucky,” said Zura in a low voice. “Does she…” He stopped himself, then, falteringly, tried again, “Does she ever -- I mean, do you ever think of --if she’s similar--”
“Do you mean if she reminds me of Shôyô?” said Gintoki, also keeping his voice low. He looked up at the high windows. The clouds were still huge and dark.
“...Yes,” said Zura, hunching up his shoulders now.
“...I don’t know. Maybe. A little,” said Gintoki. His voice sounded thin to his ears, he wouldn’t be too surprised if it was swallowed entirely, words eaten up by this big noisy bath house. But he thought: not too long ago I would never have prompted Zura on something like that.
Not too long ago, Zura would never have brought it up.
The ceiling here was bright and distant, the room so large, so different from the hot baths of their childhood. Yet the murmur and soft splashes of strangers around them was oddly soothing. He found himself wishing the windows would fly open, letting in the storm and the rain, making the solace of the bath all the stronger in contrast. It was a childish wish, of course, but you needed those, didn’t you? You did need them, after all.
Zura shifted position, still looking tense. The man needed a massage, Gintoki found himself thinking.
“Do you know the udon place on Mugicha Street?” said Zura, in a studiously casual tone that would fool nobody.
Gintoki gave him a dead fish eyed look, not showing he was relieved at the change of topic. “The one with a knock-off Gundam in the shopfront? ‘Course I do. Food could be tastier but at least it’s not pricey.”
“When you say that, you just mean they don’t put as much sweet things into it that you’d like,” Zura said, a look of relief in his eyes. He stretched out his arms behind his head. “I’ve got a hankering for udon right now, it’s cold enough for it. Let’s go there after this.”
Gintoki thought for a moment. The restaurant was on a different route from here to Kabuki District than the one Kagura would likely take when she returned from the Shimuras, though you never knew with that girl. It wasn’t that she had a bad sense of direction, it was just that she liked to careen all over the place. Much like this wig here. “Whatever,” he said. “I’ll see what I’ll feel like by then. Well, at least it’s not soba,” he allowed.
He had a vague thought there was something he was forgetting, something practical perhaps, but he shoved it aside. It wasn’t condoms, was it? Not that Zura was acting very sexily, if anything ulterior was in that loopy head it was way more likely to be a Joui recruitment attempt or wanting to mooch a videogame from Gintoki, but that was only to be expected. It’s just Zura. I can handle him.
More people had entered the big pool they were in, now. The lone bathers from before had left, but now a company of three guys were sitting together at the other end, yakking it up. Seemed to be middle-aged businessmen boasting about their successes while pretending to be humble, from what Gintoki could tell. He gave his nose some more digging and sprawled out in an unimpressed manner, but they didn’t even shoot him a look. Jerks.
Katsura didn’t seem to notice them. He was looking out at nothing again, but this time he had a small smile on his lips. “Well, Gintoki,” he said. “You are welcome to come bathe at my place, the next time I get somewhere to stay with a bath.” He sounded neither grandiose nor nagging, just simple and honest, which was the most dangerous type of Zura of them all. It was the one that made Gintoki stop and swallow what he was going to say, throat dry and head steaming. The unsaid words seemed to ooze out of him and dissolve into the hot water, down where his toes were curling.
Oh no. He realized he had just let himself think, I can handle him. He held his head and groaned. That was dumb, that was hubris, he should know better... Almost every time he would blithely think that way he ended up getting the rug pulled out underneath him. Handle Zura? He was way, way too strange for that. No, that wasn't the right word for it...
But his frantic thoughts were cut short, because now Zura rose up and said "However, now I need to use a toilet.” He seized his towel at the edge of the pool, then climbed up. “You know, I do believe there’s an ice cream vending machine somewhere here.” He gestured towards the section that apparently led to the outdoors bath, going by the signs.
“I didn’t exactly bring money with me out here,” said Gintoki with a frown. “Where would I keep it?” But Zura only shrugged, having draped his towel around himself and now walking back to the locker room at a quick pace with his washing bucket in hand.
Gintoki remained in the water for a moment, stretching out just a little more, trying to take in the heat.
Then he realized what his brain had been trying to tell him before. He swore and hurried out of the pool, almost slipping on the wet floor in his haste.
He careened through the washing area and made it back to the changing room in the nick of time, right as a skinny bastard terrorist clad in Gintoki’s own white and blue kimono had reached the shoe area and was looking around for his sandals.
“I KNEW IT!” yelled Gintoki. “Zuraaaa!!” He was too far away, wouldn’t get in time if he rushed - so he threw his soap at the miscreant’s head just as he turned to look at him. In one hand he was holding Gintoki’s umbrella.
“Ow! It’s not Zura, it’s Katsura. Look, Gintoki, my clothes are still soaked! You can spare your kimono for a few hours, you still have your shirt and trousers! Stop it!” He brought up his arm in time to guard himself against the bucket Gintoki had just thrown at him.
“It’s November!” cried Gintoki, adjusting the towel around him as best he could while quickly walking forward. “I’m going to be cold without my kimono! And you’re stealing my umbrella too, you bastard!”
“It will stop raining soon! Don’t be a baby!” Zura said as he opened the exit door leading to the reception, but Gintoki took a big leap and yanked him inside again.
“Why, you- !”
“Be reasonable, Gintoki!” hissed Zura, and Gintoki became vaguely aware they weren’t alone in the changing room. There were some old people further away, sniffing disapprovingly at the ruckus.
“Reasonable my arse!” he hissed back. “You could have just asked me, idiot!”
“You’d just have said that it doesn’t matter if I wear wet clothes because I rarely get a cold. I know you!”
“Why do you have to smell so goddamn good right now?” Gintoki burst out, though in a low voice.
“...Eh?”
“Eh?”
They both blinked at each other, Gintoki feeling as baffled as Zura looked. He kept his grip on Zura’s shoulders, and now they were both taking tiny steps sidewise, away from the entrance. A quick glance behind revealed that a row of lockers were blocking them from view from the oldsters further inside the area. Good.
Few more steps, and then there was a small nook which was still not very private but somehow that Just Didn’t Matter right now. Zura smelled too good after the bath and he was such a dumb thieving bastard and Gintoki couldn’t stand it.
He gave him a good long kiss. It wasn’t quite fierce but it was solid. Zura’s hair was tickling his nostrils. It smelled like cheap shampoo and second chances.
Zura didn’t squirm anymore, he still seemed more surprised than anything else; but after a second or two he kissed him right back, grabbing Gintoki’s shoulders in his turn. Gintoki felt dizzy for a moment. Zura’s back felt so skinny, even through the cloth of Gin’s own kimono…hm.
“You’re not wearing any underkimono.” Gintoki’s throat had gone dry again. He coughed and lessened his grip, almost letting go but not quite. He stroke Zura’s back tentatively. “How, uh, daring of you.” Why were his stupid cheeks blushing.
Zura flushed, too. He broke free, taking a half step back. “Well, you’re not wearing anything but a towel!” he hissed. “Really, Gintoki! You’ll get us thrown out and banned from here! This is a good onsen!”
“If I go get dressed, you’ll just run away with my kimono,” Gintoki pointed out, picking his nose and positioned himself so he blocked Zura’s path to the exit.
“My underkimono got soaked through, too,” muttered Zura. He reached into one of the sleeves and brought out his regular outfit, wet but tightly rolled-up, holding it up. “See?”
Gintoki shrugged. “You said it yourself, you’re not going to get a cold.”
“Honestly, Gintoki! Just go get dressed and pretend you’re an upstanding citizen! I’ll pay for the udon if you do!”
“Deal! But I’ll take a second serving if I’m hungry enough!” Gintoki wheeled on his heels and strode away without a backward look towards where he’d hung his other clothes and things. Zura slipped out the door behind him, and Gintoki remembered the umbrella a little too late.
But once he stepped outside the onsen place a little later in his shirt and trousers, it had finally stopped raining, and the sun was peering down through the white-grey clouds.
Umbrellas were folded all up and down the street, and those who had hidden under roofs ventured out again, the pedestrians weaving between the large puddles. Gintoki joined the weaving and zigzagging throng, finding himself grinning for little reason. He picked up his steps, not wishing to autumn chill to cling to him. Also, he was beginning to feel hungry.
The udon place with a knock-off Gundam in the window turned out to be one street further off than he’d thought, but he got there and saw Zura sitting in one corner slurping down noodles at a slow pace. It was bizarre to see him in Gintoki’s kimono like this, out in public, and wearing his own yellow obi to boot.
When he peered up at Gintoki he looked surprised - or even pleased? hard to say with his mouth full of udon - for a second, but the next moment he swallowed his food and he gave an exaggerated sigh. “Oh. Hello there, Gintoki..”
“Oi. I know that look, you cheapskate. Shouldnta tried to make off with my clothes, you dingus.” The owner came over to their corner so Gintoki made his order, ignoring the put-upon sigh that Zura had the gall to heave.
“What the hell were you thinking, anyway?” he said as his bowl of udon arrived and he started to tuck in. “You were the one who suggested this place to start with. Didja really think I’d turn up all smiling and happy if you’d managed to sneak away with that thing?” He tugged at Zura’s sleeve - well, Gintoki’s sleeve, really.
Zura kept chewing at a meditative pace. “Not really. But you’re always complaining about something. I assumed you wouldn’t try to strip me in public, so it didn’t really matter.”
“Hn. You assumed that, huh.” Gintoki slurped his own udon, showing his teeth for a moment.
“More importantly,” Zura continued unperturbed, “I was just forced to send Elizabeth a text that I wasn’t able to make it to the videogame sale.” Zura heaved yet one more sigh. “I had so looked forward to a relaxing evening of strategizing and button-mashing. Hopefully one that wouldn’t be interrupted by the police halfway through it so I’d have to escape over the rooftops again.”
“Ow, my tongue.” Gintoki blew on his udon. “You’re overdoing that rooftops shtick. Kogorô Katsura only had to do it once.”
“I’ll direct all complaints to the Shinsengumi,” Zura retorted, wiping his mouth with a napkin. “It’s not like Sôji Okita lugged around a bazooka, either.” He put his empty bowl to one side and regarded the still-slurping Gintoki with an air of affectionate disapproval that was very Zura.
“Stop looking at me all snootily, this is how you eat udon,” Gintoki told him, kicking him under the table.
Zura kicked back, but his expression didn’t change. “People who can’t stand other people watching them in silence always have a bad conscience,” he pronounced. “Anyway. I have also texted Elizabeth that I will not be home for a couple of hours. Are you almost done, Gintoki?” He was drumming his fingers on the counter now. Gintoki kept looking at his neckline, deeper than usual and with that persistent lack of an underkimono.
“Don’t rush me, bastard,” he muttered, but a minute later he had hastily swallowed the last of it and called for the bill. As soon as it came over, he foisted it on Zura like they’d agreed. Zura sighed and huffed and grumbled, but he did pay.
The moment they made it to Gintoki’s place, Zura slipped out of his sandals and headed to the small balcony, where he whipped out his wet clothes -- haori, blue kimono, white underkimono - and hung them up to dry. “Otherwise they might get mold,” he insisted.
Gintoki picked his nose and gave him an unimpressed look. “Just as long as you hand that back,” he said, jerking Zura close by tugging his kimono collar. They stood and watched each other silently for a long second, mutually frowning.
Then Zura coughed and broke the stare-off, cheeks pink, which made Gintoki’s face feel hotter once more, too. “I don’t think Leader will come home for a while yet,” he observed, turning around and heading for the bedroom.
“How the hell would you know?”
“Because I called Shinpachi-kun a while ago at the udon place, before you turned up.”
“He said she’d be there for a while?”
Zura coughed again in the opening to the bedroom, this time in a more fake manner. “In a manner of speaking. Actually, I told him that I saw you flirting with a lady and that it would be best if Leader didn’t return for a few hours more. Or better yet, if she stayed the night there.”
Gintoki slammed the bedroom door shut and then grabbed Zura and kissed him roughly, pressing him towards the wall. “There you go tarnishing my good name again,” he said, his voice dropping.. “Making me look bad…”
“Tarnishing your what?” said Zura, undoing Gintoki’s belt and obi. “Be reasonable, Gintoki. You’d be too embarrassed to say anything. I’m making you look like a stud here, you should be grateful.” His voice sounded a little hoarse by now, and he had to clear his throat. His cheeks were even pinker now.
“Grateful my ass,” muttered Gintoki, “They’ll both send black looks my way tomorrow.”
“You’ll live… Ah!” Zura bit his lip, but not before letting out a moan as Gintoki’s mouth worked his way down his neck and to his collarbone, kissing and sucking. Zura’s hands dove underneath Gintoki’s shirt, stroking and scratching his back. Zura started to say something, then hissed and gasped; Gintoki wasn’t quite sure if it was his tongue or his roving hands that had hit the right spot just now, but he grinned widely all the same.
“What was that? What did you say, Zura?” he prodded in a smug tone. The obi was undone, the kimono was starting to slip off Zura’s too-skinny shoulders, but Gintoki wasn’t even looking closely; now he felt a firm tug in his hair, which sent a delicious shiver down his spine, and the next moment Zura was also pulling up Gintoki’s shirt.
“Let me just help you with that…” Zura’s tone was low and urgent; Gintoki felt he could tell without looking that Zura would be biting his lip by now and frowning in concentration. He just grunted in accord, and they removed his shirt together.
Then Zura was being all practical again and dragged out Gintoki’s futon, even craning his neck to look for a guest futon. Gintoki couldn’t remember right now where it had gotten to, but frankly they didn’t need it right now. He took off his trousers and tugged for Zura to sit down finally, and then they could get blessedly busy again. Gintoki heard his brain mutter there would probably be some ridiculous interruption before long, but he told his brain to get boiled and pushed all of that aside.
Zura had just taken off his fundoshi and was now straddling him, looking just a little gingerly for one long second, but then that faint, final cloud of uncertainty was gone. He murmured, “You know, I was about to say, before you interrupted, that it’s nice when I can be sure you’re clean for once.” He moved a hand through his hair and smiled, sweat glistening on his face.
Gintoki moaned as Zura rubbed himself against him. “Oi. I’m not the one who fell down into garbage earlier,” he pointed out. He grabbed Zura by the shoulder and pulled him down for another kiss. “You don’t smell so good anymore,” he said bluntly. “That nice onsen smell. Now you’re just you again.” One more deep kiss, and then he let go, the sensation of Zura’s breath filling his mouth, living in it. “But I like that.”
Zura blinked at him, opening his mouth and closing. For once at a loss for words, apparently. Gintoki grinned. A slowly moving but deeper flush than before crept across Zura’s face, up to his forehead and over to his ears and down to his neck. “Oh, that’s a nice sight,” said Gintoki lazily. “You’re a tomato.”
Zura put one hand over Gintoki’s face. “You stop that.” His voice had gone a little hoarse. He took a deep breath and went on, “Don’t be such a damn protagonist all the time. Just. Be happy we’re clean, it’s a good thing!” His other hand had found Gintoki’s and was squeezing it, now.
The next moment he removed the hand over Gin’s face, after Gintoki had licked and nibbled on it, and Zura had ‘eeped!’ a little. But he kept the other hand where it was.
Gintoki squeezed back and peered up at Zura. “Fine, fine. It’s a good thing. Sure. Now, where did we put the condoms?”
Comments exceedingly welcome!
ETA January 6: Polished it up some now with the help of great concrit from
tonko! Any remaining errors are my responsibility alone. /ETA The flavour I'm going for is cosy with thoughtful bits and silly bits and eventually somewhat sexy bits. In a way it might be seen as a relatively fluffy companion piece to my much angstier fic "Bathing In A Time Of Peace".
Many thanks to everyone who has encouraged me to keep going with this fic!
ETA: Now also on AO3 here!/ETA
DISCLAIMER: The characters in this fanfic are owned by their creator Hideaki Sorachi and are used here without permission for entertainment purposes only. This fic is not to be used for profit and may not be reposted anywhere without the writer's permission.
Title: Let Me Be Washed Up Right Next To You, Over And Over
Word Count: currently 7890 words
Characters/pairing: Gintoki/Katsura
Spoilers/setting: It's set at some vague point not all that long before the Shogun Assassination Arc. It's definitely after the Kintama arc, possibly also after Courtesan of a Nation.
Summary: Gintoki and Katsura run into each other at an onsen in Edo.
Rating: M
At the entrance counter of the onsen, the somewhat fishlike Amanto receptionist looked up with a bored expression at the wet and bedraggled samurai who had just stepped in. Streams of water were dripping steadily down from his clothes and his long hair, and his haori and kimono had big splotches of dirt besides; clearly he had left home without an umbrella, but he might also have slipped into a puddle in the road, or in a dirty alley. Fortunately her race’s sense of smell was weak, or she might have found his odour too strong to agree to let him in once he gave up on haggling and dug into his sleeves to hand over the full price she had asked for. Which in her view really wasn’t all that much, but then Earthlings always seemed to find something to whine about.
Along with the entrance fee, the drenched samurai also paid for the loan of a large towel. Then from seemingly out of nowhere, he whipped out his own wooden cleaning bowl with a bar of soap, a small head towel and bottles of shampoo and conditioner inside it. Those sleeves were unusually deep, she had to silently concede, slightly less bored now. He didn’t seem to be quite as spontaneous a patron as at first glance, this cheapskate Edoite.
Katsura sighed as he pushed open the door to the men’s changing room. He had just sent off a text to Elizabeth. The two of them had been split off on the street by a police convoy who hadn’t even been targeting them, it was just sheer coincidence; Elizabeth had been stuck on the other side of a big traffic jam and they’d decided over their phones that he might as well just go buy groceries and then focus on getting home and hold the fort there. Katsura wasn’t expecting anything major to happen right now that would affect his Joui faction, but considering that police convoy, it would be best to be prepared.
He shuddered again from the cold, his clothes being soaked-through all over. Hardly an inch of him felt dry. For now, he would put all the other things aside and focus on warming up. After some nice cleaning…
“You smell terrible, Zura.”
Katsura turned around to see Gintoki sitting there in the changing area in his skirt and underpants, wrinkling his nose at him. “I’m surprised they even let you in here, you smell like you’ve fallen into the sewers twice over,” the man continued.
“It’s not sewers, it was just a garbage heap. And it’s not Zura, it’s Katsura. A good thing the heap was there, though, I was falling from a rooftop. No, it wasn’t a police hunt, although I can see why you’d think that—”
“I wasn’t asking—”
“—it was simply that I wanted to take a shortcut to avoid the traffic jam and get to the videogame store having a clearance sale today in time, but alas, they had already closed when I got there,” continued Katsura. “You did the same thing once, so you have no room to complain, Gintoki. Not the videogame, I mean the falling into garbage bit. I didn’t even break anything. Anyway, now that I’m here I intend to get clean, naturally. I’m pleased you did show up after all,” he added with a sudden fond smile.
He had started to undo his obi and then take off his wet kimono as he talked, and he was already down to his white underkimono, feet bare.
“Are you high?” said Gintoki, picking his nose. “Is your brain trying to escape from being associated with you even more than usual? What do you mean you’re pleased I showed up after all? Don’t try to pretend you got here as some kind of careful plan when you were obviously just surprised by the rain like an idiot!” He had finished stripping down and started to walk over towards the exit with his gear in one hand. “I’m only here because Kagura broke the bath back home again this morning,” he said over his shoulder. But he was moving languidly enough that it was easy for Katsura to catch up to him.
Katsura said blithely, “We did say the other day that this weekend would be good for an onsen visit together. It’s been a long time.”
“That was you who said that, not me! I didn’t agree! I had other plans!” They left the changing room and stepped into the washing area, with the pools beckoning further away. Gintoki grabbed a stool to sit on. He looked as if he half considered whacking Katsura over the head with his cleaning bucket in a typical tsukkomi move.
“And yet, now you’re here,” Katsura pointed out, sitting down himself and starting to lather up. “And you, too, are smelly, Gintoki, so you evidently need it.”
“Well, you know, normally I have my own bath at home, but it’s just that there’s this gorilla girl who got it into her head to suddenly try a technique she was reading about in a manga right as she was having her bath… And don’t even start” – he leaned over to whap Katsura on the shoulder – “not when you’re coming right from the garbage heap and smell as rotten as your terrorist soul.”
Katsura scrubbed himself vigorously. “It’s true that I had also made other plans, like that videogame,” he allowed, “and yet, here we both wound up, so for once I think we can safely say this is what Fate has wanted us to do. We might as well take it easy and soak for a while. I admit I’m not in a hurry to go back out into the rain just now.”
“Not like you’re going to get a cold.” Gintoki was by now shampooing his hair vigorously. “Don’t give me your sudden ‘let’s be lazy and pretend we’re being wise’ insights. You’re too stupid to know how to wind down.”
“I daresay I’m 100% better at relaxing than you are at being energetic.” Katsura poured cold water over himself to rinse away the soap, then started to shampoo his own hair. “Did you forget the start of the Renho arc?” Eyes closed, he pointed in the general direction of Gintoki. “I have memorized quite a few favourite commercials! I’ve played a number of modern videogames!!” He got shampoo into his mouth and had to stop to cough and spit it out. Aggravated, he put the cold water on and pointed the nozzle at Gintoki first before starting to rinse his hair.
“Yaah! Why are you sounding so proud of that??” exclaimed Gintoki. Something hit Katsura’s head. It was probably Gintoki’s shampoo bottle. “Fine, you’re a slacker as a terrorist but you’re still no match for me when it comes to relaxing!”
“Oh, please.” Katsura did his best to reply while manouevring the shower muzzle so he wouldn’t get water in his mouth. “I remember literally hundreds of baths that would turn into splashing wars between two idiot angry brats. I’m the one who would treasure what little peaceful bathtime I got!”
“That was all his fault, not mine! And see, you still didn’t learn to relax, you were too busy lecturing us as usual—” Gintoki stopped, and then there was the sound of cold water being poured. “Ah, what’s the use,” he muttered. “Believe what you want to believe. I’m going to the bath.”
Katsura took his head towel and wiped his face, blinking. “Gintoki?” he said, tone unsure.
Gintoki was already walking away towards the bathing pools, his posture looking mostly at ease but with a hint of discomfort and irritation in his shoulders. “Forget it,” he said, not sounding upset exactly, but definitely not interested in further discussion of the matter.
Katsura frowned, now just a little bit troubled, and considered for a second to follow his friend over to the bath right away instead of finishing his pre-bath haircare routine. But he came to his senses -- taking care of one’s hair was important, after all -- and kept going, reaching for his bottle of conditioner.
A few minutes later, it was easy enough to find Gintoki again, in the furthest corner of the largest of the three bathing pools. The two smaller pools were taken up with old and middle-aged men chatting it up and clearly all familiar with one another, while the big pool was almost empty, just a couple of other lone bathers on the other side from Gintoki. All of them looked to be human and mostly Japanese, at least at first sight. Katsura surreptitiously checked for any more familiar faces, good or bad, and his shoulders relaxed more when he found none. He wasn’t in the mood for discussing Joui business with comrades right now, and even less interested in being spotted by a police spy.
He took off his towel and slipped into the hot bath at Gintoki’s side with a grunt. The brief splashings of warm water when he’d washed his body and hair hadn’t truly warmed him up, especially since they had had to be followed, as hygiene demanded, by colder water right away. But now, finally… ahhh.
After a few moments of adjusting to the heat, then a few more to adjust to the sense of bliss, he mumbled to Gintoki, “Is this the first time you’re visiting this onsen?”
“There’s other baths closer to home,” said Gintoki. “And this place isn’t the cheapest.”
“It’s not particularly expensive either,” argued Katsura. “I like it precisely because it’s quiet and out of the way. But still clean and working well, not in a state of breaking down like the very cheapest baths.” He reflected a moment, then added, in a sober tone, “Of course, those cheap baths are Japanese-owned, this one’s partially Amanto-owned, so there’s more capital behind it. But at least these particular Amanto do a decent job of things.”
“Huh, didn’t know that,” said Gintoki pensively. “Wonder why there’s not any of them visiting right now, then. I know there are Amanto who like to soak in their bath just like we do. Like the one back home who destroyed my bath tub.”
“There’s not all that many Amanto who live in the area,” said Katsura. “Those who do and have money go to fancier baths. Those who don’t have money come here on the weekends, same as Japanese working stiffs.”
“Wow, you’re well-informed,” said Gintoki, giving him an even more dead-fish-eyed look than usual. “Sheesh, Zura, I told you you’d be like this. Leggo and relax, for crying out loud.”
“You’re the one not relaxing enough,” muttered Katsura.
“Ehh?? What was that?” Gintoki kicked Katsura under the water; Katsura shoved at him.
Then he said, thoughtfully, “You could have invited Shinpachi-kun here, you know.”
Gintoki drew a hand through his hair. “Eh, they’ve got a working bath at home.”
“…Oh, that makes sense.” Katsura had a tendency to forget how big the Shimura estate was. He hadn’t been there much himself, though he’d sent his best spies there now and then, mostly to keep tabs on Isao Kondo. “Did you bring Leader here, then? Is she over there right now?” He waved in the direction of the women’s bath.
“Nah, she went over to the Shimuras, too. Said she couldn’t be bothered going the whole long way here.” Gintoki shrugged and slipped down a little further into the shallow hot water.
Katsura frowned. “I’m fairly sure this place is actually closer to your house.”
“Hey, I wasn’t going to argue. Couldn’t pay for her ticket anyway.”
“Aha!” said Katsura triumphantly. “That’s the real reason why you didn’t bring Shinpachi-kun, isn’t it?” He tsk-tsked. “Gintoki, you need to treat your employees better! They might leave you for greener pastures one day.”
“Ha, I wish. Nah, they’ll keep hanging around and bugging me just for the fun of it.”
Katsura couldn’t keep from smiling, and he felt there was a hidden smile in Gintoki’s voice too, try as he might to smother it down. “Imagine that. Anyway, Gintoki, with your talent for slacking off perhaps you should consider being on stand-by more often. Katsuratama is always ready to fill in for Gintama, you know! The franchise needs a more energetic protagonist!”
Gintoki shoved his head towel into Katsura’s mouth. “Shut up, idiot! I’m not getting myself ousted as the main character again!”
“Mmblmm!” protested Katsura, waving wildly and kicking Gintoki in the stomach. They scuffled back and forth a bit, but soon quietened down again, leaning back and looking up to the windows in the ceiling. The chilly autumn rain was still beating down out there, wild and windy.
To be here like this, just a bit removed from the ordinary chaos, just a little drifting away, like on a tiny warm island, with the luxury of taking it easy for once because he knew Gintoki would have his back if enemies appeared… In such a moment floating in time, old memories couldn’t help but tumble back into light.
The elite academy might have had baths somewhere, but if so they had only been for teachers, and perhaps one or two favoured older students. The younger students certainly weren’t offered the chance to use them. So after his grandmother died, Kotarô bathed alone at home. It took time to bring in water, it took more than double the time to heat it, and it was lonesome to bathe and not warm enough when he got out. But he washed himself diligently all the same so even if some of the other students still said he reeked of poverty, he himself would know they were just lying scoundrels.
Sometimes he’d stay in the water a little longer and remembered how Grandmother would have scrubbed his back and feet, the smell of her in the small washroom, feeling safe. Then he’d feel as if she might just still be watching him, somewhere. He’d need to keep trying hard.
So it had been for young Kôtaro back in those days. Until the time when he left all of that behind, left his past and hometown and the stiff crinkly elite school and came to join Shôka Sonjuku.
During that first summer, which they spent wandering looking for a new town to stay, the three of them took dips in streams and lakes together, warming themselves in the sun later or sometimes, if the weather shifted quickly, in front of a cooking fire. Once Shôyô found the new village that was willing to let him stay there and teach, the boys would start to take hot baths again. Sometimes they would only bath one at a time, with the others waiting their turn and helping to blow on the fire to keep the water hot; but more often it would all three of them, sharing the same big wooden tub in its separate bath shed. They would go in after Sensei, of course, who never lingered long in it. He would dry himself off, get into a yukata and then blow with a pipe on the fire so the water would get hot again while the three of them undressed and washed themselves, rinsed off the soap and climbed into the bath. Then Sensei would do kata exercises and occasionally blow on the fire again and then finally tell them that the time was up, no use staying so long they’d get wrinkly. He almost always left them more than double the time he took for himself.
It wasn’t always just that bathtub, wasn’t always just the three of them. There had been a few of Shôyô’s other students so poor they didn’t have a bath at home. Once a week three or four of them would show up in the evening to share in bathing times at the school. They’d all help moving rainwater barrels to make for extra bathtubs, and they would run around fetching water from the well and divide up chores and get caught up in games and have fun. Katsura remembered, now… it had been Yusuke and Shinji-with-the-freckles, Hiroshi and Long-Legs Nobu; and once in a while Kanda who lived the farthest from anybody else would be coaxed to come along. Those boys had been shy the first time they came, embarrassed over their families’ poverty, but Gintoki had made it easier for them to see the weekly bathing as something fun and ordinary, just by being his normal rude and lazy self. Gintoki always made things easy that way, didn’t he? It was a special talent of his.
(They’d joined the war, later: those boys were all dead now.)
But most of the time it was just the three of them, shivering in the colder months as they’d scrub themselves quickly – in the winter they’d try to do the washing inside the bath shed instead of outside, but the shed was small and badly lit – before finally climbing the steps up to the bathtub and slip inside. And that always felt so good, getting warm bit by bit, Shôyô never letting the water get cold until it was time to eat a warm dinner. Sometimes their bodies would be aching from training in the dôjô or from having tussled with one another, or some other mischief -- but they quickly forgot about it in the warm bath, safe from the cold outside.
The very first time they had shared a hot bath together, they had still been on the road. It had been in the house of a stranger, a kind man who had let Shôyô and the kids stay overnight even though there wasn’t much room. Katsura couldn’t remember much about him, but he remembered it had been autumn, with yellow leaves filling the courtyard of that place and even sweeping in through the spaces between the walls to land in the hot bath. He had felt awkward and out of place as he undressed and got washed. Takasugi too hadn’t been entirely at his ease, snapping back at Gintoki despite Gintoki not even really needling him.
But Gintoki had just given them a lazy look and had stretched his arms out behind him as they stepped into the bath, stretching out as much as he could in the small space. “Man, do you guys not even know how to take a bath? You just take it easy and do nothing at all.”
“It’s too crowded,” muttered Takasugi, glaring at Gintoki.
Gintoki picked his nose. “Aww, does the little rich boy not know how to cope without having a gigantic bathtub of his own?”
The two of them splashed hot water and kicked one another. Katsura sighed. “Stop that! Or they might just throw us out.”
“Fine. FINE,” said Takasugi, crossing his arms and sitting back. “I’m relaxing.”
Gintoki grinned smugly and made a lordly gesture with one hand, sighing with pleasure. “Ah, this is the stuff. You just feel yourself unwind. All the troubles just melt away.” Another leaf sailed down from outside and landed on his big fluffy white hair.
Takasugi looked at him in disbelief, and Katsura found himself starting to giggle. “Gintoki… You sound like an old man!” That Gintoki of all people would have anything to unwind from was so silly.
Now Takasugi was laughing, too. “Oh, well, then,” he said. “I guess for the sake of my tiiired ooold, I need to do some serious soaking.” His voice took on a plaintive ‘complaining old man’ quality.
Katsura cleared his throat, still bubbly with laughter. “I’m telling you,” he growled, “ kids these days don’t know how good they had it! We used to have to find a hot spring on our own to get clean! It could take weeks!”
“Right?” said Gintoki, flicking off a booger across the bath. “And if we couldn’t find any hot springs, we just had to make our own volcano to get one! But did we complain? Noooo.”
They were thoroughly warmed up by water and laughter, inside and outside, when they stepped out of the bath and dried themselves off and got dressed to go and get something to eat. Chowing down eagerly on dried fish and rice, Kotaro thought back to the very first time he had met Gintoki. Even then, as he jumped down from a tree to protect the two of them from bullies, had said they should all take a nap together, hadn’t he? Gintoki was just like that. Like Shôyô-sensei – he made things that would have been difficult seem so easy. A warm sun was shining in Kotarô’s chest. Maybe it would be all right to just keeping sharing baths from now on.
Gintoki sighed as he rubbed his sore shoulder and drew a wet hand through his soggy, currently less than usually wavy hair. Zura was gazing off into the distance with that moonstruck look on his face that could mean anything from contemplating the future political structure of the country to imagining the paws of a cute puppy he’d met on the street today. Or it might mean he was getting bogged down in old memories. He had always been the nostalgic type, after all.
“...Gintoki.” Zura’s voice was very low, almost like a buzzing bumblebee. Something about its resonance sent a tiny shiver down Gintoki’s neck and spine.
“Huh? Don’t bother me when I’m asleep.” He resisted the urge to submerge himself deeper into the warm water. He kept his eyes half-closed, not glancing at the man beside him.
“Eh?” Zura turned his head. “You’re not asleep, I was asleep. I’m talking in my sleep right now. Stop stealing my shtick.”
Gintoki glared at him. It was too much work to push his head into the water “Your shtick my ass. That was never your shtick.”
“I can make it mine, you can’t stop me, you’re too lazy.” Zura pushed away strands of hair from his face, lifting them over his shoulder and shifting his seat. “Gintoki,” he said again, tone again low and serious, though at least louder than a mere buzz this time. “Why didn’t you go with Leader to the Shimura house? You could have bathed there for free.”
“You’re that disappointed to see me here, huh? Man, I wonder what depravities you’d been planning to commit on your own.” Gintoki picked his nose and flipped the snot over onto Katsura, who made an indignant squawk and splashed back. “Probably just flirting with that receptionist fish lady,” he added.
Zura humphed and crossed his arms over his chest. “Obviously it’s a bit of an embarrassment to be seen in public with an uncouth slob like you, but I have grown used to this over the years. You are evading the question.”
Gintoki gave a put-upon sigh. Usually Zura was better at playing along when Gin wasn’t in the mood to answer something. This time around, he wasn’t even sure what the right answer even was. Was it that he didn’t feel like bothering the Shimuras today, like it was an imposition? Did he just want to get away from stuff, like any family father would feel at times when slipping away to a bar or to his pachinko club? Or was it the thought that he hadn’t seen Zura naked in quite a while that had pushed him onwards?
“Ehhh, why are you bothering me with this?” he whined in a put-upon way. “Why do you care if I felt like upholding a fine old Japanese tradition? With your moldy old political views, you should applaud me for it!”
Of course, there was something profoundly unsexy about a public hot bath house, especially indoors ones, what with wrinkly old men and their wrinkly old toes and sagging balls sitting around and chatting loudly about their ailments. But in Gin’s experience, right after a nice hot bath, they would both usually feel pretty fine and mellow, and even an uptight, energetic lunatic like Zura might just be in the mood for a quickie. If you could find a good place for it, which was normally easier said than done. Today they might just be able to use Gintoki’s own place, though, if only Kagura would have the good sense to linger for some time over at the Shimuras.
“It’s just not like you to pay for something you could get for free…” said Katsura, but then he trailed off, looking into the distance. Gintoki followed his gaze but could see nothing but the storm-gray sky outside. He gave Zura a puzzled glance. The other man’s eyes had widened, his lips parting a little. His cheeks were a little pink. “...Oh.” he said. “I see.”
Gintoki knocked him on the skull. “Hello? See what? What are you on about now? Are you talking to an imaginary friend again?”
“What do you mean, again, I haven’t done that since I was little… No, I mean, Gintoki, I realized you do already pay for something else that you could get for free, and that’s way more expensive than going to the onsen. Or so I gather, anyway. When you buy the attentions of a courtesan.”
“There’s no way I could afford any high-class courtesan, the right word is hooker! And what the hell does that have to do with this? Wow, you’ve got a lewd imagination…! I should tell the staff here, they’ll throw you out for being a dirty old man.” Gintoki picked his nose. “Although come to think of it, I guess that’s another fine old Japanese tradition I’m upholding, now and then.” Dammit, this wasn’t going in the direction he wanted. And why would the guy even have to bring up that comparison of all things?
“It’s not like I’m making it a weekly habit or something, I don’t have that kind of money to throw around,” he added. “I’m not Tatsuma.” He glanced askance at Zura. Was Zura thinking of himself when he said “something you could get for free”? Or was he just referring to Gintoki’s flirting skills in general? Of course, Gintoki did pick up one-night stands now and then, though he always backed off from the ones who seemed to be on the lookout for any longer relationship.
But he knew he wasn’t the greatest of flirts, and neither did he think Zura was of that opinion. There had been enough “this is why you can’t get a girlfriend” remarks tossed at him over the years to make that clear. Gintoki in his turn had often tossed plenty of “this is why you never get anywhere with those housewives you get stuck on” remarks right back.
“I understand,” said Zura, but he seemed to still be talking to himself. “It’s about independence. You’re a proud man after all, so it makes sense.”
“You’re just making up your own argument in your head there, Zura.”
Zura ignored this, too. “I daresay I’m more of a connoisseur of Edo’s bathing places than you are,” he remarked apropos nothing. “It’s been months since I had a place to stay that came with a bath.”
“But there have been other times when you’ve lived way nicer than I do,” Gintoki pointed out, “with a garden and everything.”
Zura waved a hand back and forth with unusual laziness. “It’s all up and down. Sometimes there’s a patriotic backer who can arrange a pleasant place to live for a while. Other times I’ve had to stay in much less appealing hideouts. But a roof over the head isn’t anything to sneeze at.”
“Yeah, you can say that again,” said Gintoki quietly. Old memories were crowding in his head, cold and harsh ones from his early childhood and not particularly nice ones from the war and right after. As for more recent years…
“Guess I’ve been pretty lucky to find the old bat here in Edo,” he admitted, his voice a little hoarse. “She keeps threatening to throw me out and a couple of times she’s even sold off my furniture, but it’s never gone further than that.” He’d hardly ever talked about Otose like that, except that one time to Catherine, who had needed to hear it. But it was easier to mention these memories, the foundation of his Edo self, than to go bring up those older, colder times from much further back. “We made a deal once. I was starving, she had mochi… I said I’d protect her in the bargain, so… She’s not the type who gives up on people, I guess.”
“Then you really have been lucky,” said Zura in a low voice. “Does she…” He stopped himself, then, falteringly, tried again, “Does she ever -- I mean, do you ever think of --if she’s similar--”
“Do you mean if she reminds me of Shôyô?” said Gintoki, also keeping his voice low. He looked up at the high windows. The clouds were still huge and dark.
“...Yes,” said Zura, hunching up his shoulders now.
“...I don’t know. Maybe. A little,” said Gintoki. His voice sounded thin to his ears, he wouldn’t be too surprised if it was swallowed entirely, words eaten up by this big noisy bath house. But he thought: not too long ago I would never have prompted Zura on something like that.
Not too long ago, Zura would never have brought it up.
The ceiling here was bright and distant, the room so large, so different from the hot baths of their childhood. Yet the murmur and soft splashes of strangers around them was oddly soothing. He found himself wishing the windows would fly open, letting in the storm and the rain, making the solace of the bath all the stronger in contrast. It was a childish wish, of course, but you needed those, didn’t you? You did need them, after all.
Zura shifted position, still looking tense. The man needed a massage, Gintoki found himself thinking.
“Do you know the udon place on Mugicha Street?” said Zura, in a studiously casual tone that would fool nobody.
Gintoki gave him a dead fish eyed look, not showing he was relieved at the change of topic. “The one with a knock-off Gundam in the shopfront? ‘Course I do. Food could be tastier but at least it’s not pricey.”
“When you say that, you just mean they don’t put as much sweet things into it that you’d like,” Zura said, a look of relief in his eyes. He stretched out his arms behind his head. “I’ve got a hankering for udon right now, it’s cold enough for it. Let’s go there after this.”
Gintoki thought for a moment. The restaurant was on a different route from here to Kabuki District than the one Kagura would likely take when she returned from the Shimuras, though you never knew with that girl. It wasn’t that she had a bad sense of direction, it was just that she liked to careen all over the place. Much like this wig here. “Whatever,” he said. “I’ll see what I’ll feel like by then. Well, at least it’s not soba,” he allowed.
He had a vague thought there was something he was forgetting, something practical perhaps, but he shoved it aside. It wasn’t condoms, was it? Not that Zura was acting very sexily, if anything ulterior was in that loopy head it was way more likely to be a Joui recruitment attempt or wanting to mooch a videogame from Gintoki, but that was only to be expected. It’s just Zura. I can handle him.
More people had entered the big pool they were in, now. The lone bathers from before had left, but now a company of three guys were sitting together at the other end, yakking it up. Seemed to be middle-aged businessmen boasting about their successes while pretending to be humble, from what Gintoki could tell. He gave his nose some more digging and sprawled out in an unimpressed manner, but they didn’t even shoot him a look. Jerks.
Katsura didn’t seem to notice them. He was looking out at nothing again, but this time he had a small smile on his lips. “Well, Gintoki,” he said. “You are welcome to come bathe at my place, the next time I get somewhere to stay with a bath.” He sounded neither grandiose nor nagging, just simple and honest, which was the most dangerous type of Zura of them all. It was the one that made Gintoki stop and swallow what he was going to say, throat dry and head steaming. The unsaid words seemed to ooze out of him and dissolve into the hot water, down where his toes were curling.
Oh no. He realized he had just let himself think, I can handle him. He held his head and groaned. That was dumb, that was hubris, he should know better... Almost every time he would blithely think that way he ended up getting the rug pulled out underneath him. Handle Zura? He was way, way too strange for that. No, that wasn't the right word for it...
But his frantic thoughts were cut short, because now Zura rose up and said "However, now I need to use a toilet.” He seized his towel at the edge of the pool, then climbed up. “You know, I do believe there’s an ice cream vending machine somewhere here.” He gestured towards the section that apparently led to the outdoors bath, going by the signs.
“I didn’t exactly bring money with me out here,” said Gintoki with a frown. “Where would I keep it?” But Zura only shrugged, having draped his towel around himself and now walking back to the locker room at a quick pace with his washing bucket in hand.
Gintoki remained in the water for a moment, stretching out just a little more, trying to take in the heat.
Then he realized what his brain had been trying to tell him before. He swore and hurried out of the pool, almost slipping on the wet floor in his haste.
He careened through the washing area and made it back to the changing room in the nick of time, right as a skinny bastard terrorist clad in Gintoki’s own white and blue kimono had reached the shoe area and was looking around for his sandals.
“I KNEW IT!” yelled Gintoki. “Zuraaaa!!” He was too far away, wouldn’t get in time if he rushed - so he threw his soap at the miscreant’s head just as he turned to look at him. In one hand he was holding Gintoki’s umbrella.
“Ow! It’s not Zura, it’s Katsura. Look, Gintoki, my clothes are still soaked! You can spare your kimono for a few hours, you still have your shirt and trousers! Stop it!” He brought up his arm in time to guard himself against the bucket Gintoki had just thrown at him.
“It’s November!” cried Gintoki, adjusting the towel around him as best he could while quickly walking forward. “I’m going to be cold without my kimono! And you’re stealing my umbrella too, you bastard!”
“It will stop raining soon! Don’t be a baby!” Zura said as he opened the exit door leading to the reception, but Gintoki took a big leap and yanked him inside again.
“Why, you- !”
“Be reasonable, Gintoki!” hissed Zura, and Gintoki became vaguely aware they weren’t alone in the changing room. There were some old people further away, sniffing disapprovingly at the ruckus.
“Reasonable my arse!” he hissed back. “You could have just asked me, idiot!”
“You’d just have said that it doesn’t matter if I wear wet clothes because I rarely get a cold. I know you!”
“Why do you have to smell so goddamn good right now?” Gintoki burst out, though in a low voice.
“...Eh?”
“Eh?”
They both blinked at each other, Gintoki feeling as baffled as Zura looked. He kept his grip on Zura’s shoulders, and now they were both taking tiny steps sidewise, away from the entrance. A quick glance behind revealed that a row of lockers were blocking them from view from the oldsters further inside the area. Good.
Few more steps, and then there was a small nook which was still not very private but somehow that Just Didn’t Matter right now. Zura smelled too good after the bath and he was such a dumb thieving bastard and Gintoki couldn’t stand it.
He gave him a good long kiss. It wasn’t quite fierce but it was solid. Zura’s hair was tickling his nostrils. It smelled like cheap shampoo and second chances.
Zura didn’t squirm anymore, he still seemed more surprised than anything else; but after a second or two he kissed him right back, grabbing Gintoki’s shoulders in his turn. Gintoki felt dizzy for a moment. Zura’s back felt so skinny, even through the cloth of Gin’s own kimono…hm.
“You’re not wearing any underkimono.” Gintoki’s throat had gone dry again. He coughed and lessened his grip, almost letting go but not quite. He stroke Zura’s back tentatively. “How, uh, daring of you.” Why were his stupid cheeks blushing.
Zura flushed, too. He broke free, taking a half step back. “Well, you’re not wearing anything but a towel!” he hissed. “Really, Gintoki! You’ll get us thrown out and banned from here! This is a good onsen!”
“If I go get dressed, you’ll just run away with my kimono,” Gintoki pointed out, picking his nose and positioned himself so he blocked Zura’s path to the exit.
“My underkimono got soaked through, too,” muttered Zura. He reached into one of the sleeves and brought out his regular outfit, wet but tightly rolled-up, holding it up. “See?”
Gintoki shrugged. “You said it yourself, you’re not going to get a cold.”
“Honestly, Gintoki! Just go get dressed and pretend you’re an upstanding citizen! I’ll pay for the udon if you do!”
“Deal! But I’ll take a second serving if I’m hungry enough!” Gintoki wheeled on his heels and strode away without a backward look towards where he’d hung his other clothes and things. Zura slipped out the door behind him, and Gintoki remembered the umbrella a little too late.
But once he stepped outside the onsen place a little later in his shirt and trousers, it had finally stopped raining, and the sun was peering down through the white-grey clouds.
Umbrellas were folded all up and down the street, and those who had hidden under roofs ventured out again, the pedestrians weaving between the large puddles. Gintoki joined the weaving and zigzagging throng, finding himself grinning for little reason. He picked up his steps, not wishing to autumn chill to cling to him. Also, he was beginning to feel hungry.
The udon place with a knock-off Gundam in the window turned out to be one street further off than he’d thought, but he got there and saw Zura sitting in one corner slurping down noodles at a slow pace. It was bizarre to see him in Gintoki’s kimono like this, out in public, and wearing his own yellow obi to boot.
When he peered up at Gintoki he looked surprised - or even pleased? hard to say with his mouth full of udon - for a second, but the next moment he swallowed his food and he gave an exaggerated sigh. “Oh. Hello there, Gintoki..”
“Oi. I know that look, you cheapskate. Shouldnta tried to make off with my clothes, you dingus.” The owner came over to their corner so Gintoki made his order, ignoring the put-upon sigh that Zura had the gall to heave.
“What the hell were you thinking, anyway?” he said as his bowl of udon arrived and he started to tuck in. “You were the one who suggested this place to start with. Didja really think I’d turn up all smiling and happy if you’d managed to sneak away with that thing?” He tugged at Zura’s sleeve - well, Gintoki’s sleeve, really.
Zura kept chewing at a meditative pace. “Not really. But you’re always complaining about something. I assumed you wouldn’t try to strip me in public, so it didn’t really matter.”
“Hn. You assumed that, huh.” Gintoki slurped his own udon, showing his teeth for a moment.
“More importantly,” Zura continued unperturbed, “I was just forced to send Elizabeth a text that I wasn’t able to make it to the videogame sale.” Zura heaved yet one more sigh. “I had so looked forward to a relaxing evening of strategizing and button-mashing. Hopefully one that wouldn’t be interrupted by the police halfway through it so I’d have to escape over the rooftops again.”
“Ow, my tongue.” Gintoki blew on his udon. “You’re overdoing that rooftops shtick. Kogorô Katsura only had to do it once.”
“I’ll direct all complaints to the Shinsengumi,” Zura retorted, wiping his mouth with a napkin. “It’s not like Sôji Okita lugged around a bazooka, either.” He put his empty bowl to one side and regarded the still-slurping Gintoki with an air of affectionate disapproval that was very Zura.
“Stop looking at me all snootily, this is how you eat udon,” Gintoki told him, kicking him under the table.
Zura kicked back, but his expression didn’t change. “People who can’t stand other people watching them in silence always have a bad conscience,” he pronounced. “Anyway. I have also texted Elizabeth that I will not be home for a couple of hours. Are you almost done, Gintoki?” He was drumming his fingers on the counter now. Gintoki kept looking at his neckline, deeper than usual and with that persistent lack of an underkimono.
“Don’t rush me, bastard,” he muttered, but a minute later he had hastily swallowed the last of it and called for the bill. As soon as it came over, he foisted it on Zura like they’d agreed. Zura sighed and huffed and grumbled, but he did pay.
The moment they made it to Gintoki’s place, Zura slipped out of his sandals and headed to the small balcony, where he whipped out his wet clothes -- haori, blue kimono, white underkimono - and hung them up to dry. “Otherwise they might get mold,” he insisted.
Gintoki picked his nose and gave him an unimpressed look. “Just as long as you hand that back,” he said, jerking Zura close by tugging his kimono collar. They stood and watched each other silently for a long second, mutually frowning.
Then Zura coughed and broke the stare-off, cheeks pink, which made Gintoki’s face feel hotter once more, too. “I don’t think Leader will come home for a while yet,” he observed, turning around and heading for the bedroom.
“How the hell would you know?”
“Because I called Shinpachi-kun a while ago at the udon place, before you turned up.”
“He said she’d be there for a while?”
Zura coughed again in the opening to the bedroom, this time in a more fake manner. “In a manner of speaking. Actually, I told him that I saw you flirting with a lady and that it would be best if Leader didn’t return for a few hours more. Or better yet, if she stayed the night there.”
Gintoki slammed the bedroom door shut and then grabbed Zura and kissed him roughly, pressing him towards the wall. “There you go tarnishing my good name again,” he said, his voice dropping.. “Making me look bad…”
“Tarnishing your what?” said Zura, undoing Gintoki’s belt and obi. “Be reasonable, Gintoki. You’d be too embarrassed to say anything. I’m making you look like a stud here, you should be grateful.” His voice sounded a little hoarse by now, and he had to clear his throat. His cheeks were even pinker now.
“Grateful my ass,” muttered Gintoki, “They’ll both send black looks my way tomorrow.”
“You’ll live… Ah!” Zura bit his lip, but not before letting out a moan as Gintoki’s mouth worked his way down his neck and to his collarbone, kissing and sucking. Zura’s hands dove underneath Gintoki’s shirt, stroking and scratching his back. Zura started to say something, then hissed and gasped; Gintoki wasn’t quite sure if it was his tongue or his roving hands that had hit the right spot just now, but he grinned widely all the same.
“What was that? What did you say, Zura?” he prodded in a smug tone. The obi was undone, the kimono was starting to slip off Zura’s too-skinny shoulders, but Gintoki wasn’t even looking closely; now he felt a firm tug in his hair, which sent a delicious shiver down his spine, and the next moment Zura was also pulling up Gintoki’s shirt.
“Let me just help you with that…” Zura’s tone was low and urgent; Gintoki felt he could tell without looking that Zura would be biting his lip by now and frowning in concentration. He just grunted in accord, and they removed his shirt together.
Then Zura was being all practical again and dragged out Gintoki’s futon, even craning his neck to look for a guest futon. Gintoki couldn’t remember right now where it had gotten to, but frankly they didn’t need it right now. He took off his trousers and tugged for Zura to sit down finally, and then they could get blessedly busy again. Gintoki heard his brain mutter there would probably be some ridiculous interruption before long, but he told his brain to get boiled and pushed all of that aside.
Zura had just taken off his fundoshi and was now straddling him, looking just a little gingerly for one long second, but then that faint, final cloud of uncertainty was gone. He murmured, “You know, I was about to say, before you interrupted, that it’s nice when I can be sure you’re clean for once.” He moved a hand through his hair and smiled, sweat glistening on his face.
Gintoki moaned as Zura rubbed himself against him. “Oi. I’m not the one who fell down into garbage earlier,” he pointed out. He grabbed Zura by the shoulder and pulled him down for another kiss. “You don’t smell so good anymore,” he said bluntly. “That nice onsen smell. Now you’re just you again.” One more deep kiss, and then he let go, the sensation of Zura’s breath filling his mouth, living in it. “But I like that.”
Zura blinked at him, opening his mouth and closing. For once at a loss for words, apparently. Gintoki grinned. A slowly moving but deeper flush than before crept across Zura’s face, up to his forehead and over to his ears and down to his neck. “Oh, that’s a nice sight,” said Gintoki lazily. “You’re a tomato.”
Zura put one hand over Gintoki’s face. “You stop that.” His voice had gone a little hoarse. He took a deep breath and went on, “Don’t be such a damn protagonist all the time. Just. Be happy we’re clean, it’s a good thing!” His other hand had found Gintoki’s and was squeezing it, now.
The next moment he removed the hand over Gin’s face, after Gintoki had licked and nibbled on it, and Zura had ‘eeped!’ a little. But he kept the other hand where it was.
Gintoki squeezed back and peered up at Zura. “Fine, fine. It’s a good thing. Sure. Now, where did we put the condoms?”