Gintama Fan Fiction ❯ salarymen go to heaven ❯ part 7 ( Chapter 7 )

I don't own Gintama. I should just give up on writing that out every bloody time and copy paste it, I know, but I am loathe to write the same thing twice, even if I am required to repeat myself. Is this making any sense?

 

 

* * Part Seven: In Which Men Learn Their Place and I Learn There is No Translation for MADAO * *

 

 

In the room that used to be Gintoki's bedroom, giggling sounds punctured by rustling crept between the doormat and the floor to flow around Gintoki's living room. There he sat, opposite Shinpachi, trying to concentrate on a conversation they were supposedly having.

 

“Yes, so, the case before left some money, but it won't be enough to pay rent...”

 

Gintoki looked at his subordinate incredulously, his lifeless eyes asking `and that is my problem, how?' to which Shinpachi just sighed continuing, “…this month. Either.”

 

A flash of giggles filled the room. The two men ignored it. “In any case, you have about enough for food-“

 

“And Jump!” added Gintoki quickly.

 

“-and Jump, yes,” continued Shinpachi, “for at least another three weeks. But we should start looking for a job.”

 

“We are not door-to-door salesmen, Shinpachi. People come to us,” said the master Freelancer sternly.

 

“Meaning you are just too much of a lazy troglodyte to do it,” replied Shinpachi in much the same voice as his employer.

 

Snorting, staccato laughter, followed by a long, dragged out “EEEEEH?” invaded their male universe of accounting again. Still, they marched on. “It is not that I am lazy, it is principle. If you go around begging for work, they'll think you don't have any money. They won't take you seriously and they'll just pay you a ridiculously small sum, because they'll think you'll say yes to anything.”

 

“We DON'T have any money! And we will say yes to anything!” screamed Shinpachi, annoyed with this line of reasoning.

 

“Perhaps, but it is a question of principle,” stated Gintoki plainly.

 

Whatever Shinpachi was going to retort was cut off by a loud rumble from the next room and his sister's enthralled voice going: “Are you SERIOUS?” and then “NO WAY! He DIDN'T!”

 

Shinpachi looked at the master Freelancer who was staring at something he dug up in his own ear. “Wasn't there a deal that said we weren't supposed to date until 18? Neither Kagura nor me?” he asked.

 

“Oh, you go date, I don't care, lose your accounting spirit along with your virginity, for fuck sake,” mumbled Gintoki. “As for Kagura,” he continued in a slightly sharper voice, “I don't think you can really call this a date.” He bit down on the last words as if they were physical. His entire posture shifted slightly into displeasure that bordered on being called angry which was a rather rare spectacle.

 

“Why not? As I understand it she is going to have dinner with a boy she met in the park,” said Shinpachi, confused and concerned by the overly ominous grumble in his boss's voice. Sure, he thought of Kagura as a (freakishly strong, dirty minded, all around monstrous) little sister (in these things, she was much like his older sister, thus `freakishly strong, dirty minded and all around monstrous' were adjectives he always connected to the word `sister') and so he was loathe to see her going out with some guy he didn't even know and couldn't disapprove of.

 

But on the other hand, she was the age when these things will happen and better that she sees right away just how much like Gintoki all the men of the world were than to nurture delicate illusions that would later be crushed like so many glass slippers. So as long as she came home at a polite hour and then threw herself on the couch next to them, saying all men are assholes, Shinpachi won't terribly begrudge her one date.

 

Gintoki, however, was staring at him in silence that said `I pity the fool' louder than any human language.

 

“What? Don't tell me you think of Kagura as a daughter to that extent?” Shinpachi laughed nervously, trying to figure out his faux pas.

 

Gintoki sighed. “I'll tell you two things about this `date'-thing, but first I want you to keep in mind this is Kagura we are talking about.”

 

Shinpachi shrugged, failing to see why this needed to be additionally accented.

 

“Who is a member of the most powerful clan in the Universe,” added Gintoki, meaningfully.

 

Shinpachi nodded, a bit unsettled by where this conversation was going.

 

“And currently she is under the protection of your sister. Who doesn't even register on a Universal scale or at least they haven't made up a scale for her yet.”

 

Shinpachi nodded again.

 

“All in all, two very scary women,” Gintoki said, looking his apprentice in the eyes, “against whom we stand no chance.”

 

Shinpachi fiddled with his glasses. “Yes, but it's just a dinner-date! It's not like they're going to-“ he stopped himself thinking that what he was worried about was Kagura grappling in public view with some zit-faced greasy-haired excuse for a teen who would be grinding down her hip shamelessly, while Gintoki seemed to be far more concerned about Kagura killing someone over a meal.

 

Gintoki huffed a cynical snort. “Dinner-date my lily white ass! First of all, as I understand it he told HER to pick HIM up at HIS place.”

 

Shinpachi's mouth dried at the mention of HIS place in capital letters.

 

“And second, they haven't met in the park. They've been MEETING. In the park. For almost two months now,” said Gintoki in a cut up voice, accenting every word and watching the understanding slowly crawl over Shinpachi's pale face. “Once a week,” he continued mercilessly. “…every Thursday.”

 

Shinpachi climbed up on his feet violently enough to upset the two empty cups on the table and turned with every intention of barging into Gintoki's ex-room, when a strong hand clamped down on his shoulder and pushed him back to the couch.

 

“GINTOKI! You can't let Kagura go meet that--- and in HIS PLACE? You mean he called her to the Shinsengumi? They aren't having dinner, are they? This isn't a date, is it? It's call-in escort service!” screamed Shinpachi struggling with his words. “We can't let her do this, she doesn't know about-“

 

Gintoki shook his head gravely, making a point of how much Kagura might or might not know, but also indicating his previous words. She had made up her mind. When have they ever managed to change Kagura's mind about something? And now that she was under Otae's divine protection, not even threats or bribery could possibly work.

 

Shinpachi exhaled a long, exhausted breath. He went on one date in all the years of his life. In conclusion, he ended up with his money stolen, but before that he was about three minutes and a condom away from having sex with a girl he knew for maybe an hour, everything combined, on their first (and only) date.

 

As for Gintoki, he was a foul-mouthed bachelor balancing on the fine line of becoming an old man who visited maid bars and similar red-light district establishments whenever he had the money for it.

 

The other people Kagura had to learn from were Otae, who was herself working in one of those establishments, Katsura, who could provide no lesson in human relations other than those of a political nature as far as Shinpachi could tell, the chain-smoker landlady, her immoral barmaid and Hasegawa, the man who had already crossed the fine line leading into the realm of “old-man”.

 

So, considering the material offered to her, Kagura learned well.

 

Meeting in the park! They were all fooled by the destruction, when they should have actually been prompted into doubting this sparring-partner relationship even more, considering the nature of the ones involved.

 

Okita! Okita of the Shinsengumi! He was a bloody captain in a law-enforcement force that enforces law using by far the most force than any other such organisation. He was a maniac! And he was older than Kagura, right? Much older, he was… How old was he, anyways?

 

Sure, they had helped each other in the past, the most memorable occasion certainly being the quest to regain Otae. But while the Stalker, Kondo (who, Shinpachi had to admit, was an irrationally likeable character in his essence), was there with a real purpose in mind and the will to help Shinpachi in the reclaiming of his sister and Hijikata seemed to be there to support his commander, Okita Sougo was there just to hear some people scream.

 

Gintoki, who had obviously reached a similar point in his thoughts before, was staring in his characteristic lazy spite, the passive resistance of procrastinators, into the door to his bedroom, listening to the laughing female voices as they shared god knows what terrible secrets and tips. Shinpachi lost feeling in his legs at the thought of his sister giving his adopted sister advice on his to handle Okita Sougo.

 

“…what should we do?” he asked weakly. “We have to stop this, that man-“

 

Gintoki turned his gaze on his employee and exhaled a melodious breath that signalled retreat. “I have no idea. What would you like to do? Because our choices are simple: we try and stop Kagura and we die, or we don't do anything and we watch the end of the world in peace. I vote for observing the coming destruction with chocolates in our pockets, hm?”

 

Shinpachi flipped this sentence over in his head for a while, looking for sense that might have been hidden on either side. There was none after all. Only the all-encompassing reconciliation.

 

At this point, Otae barged into the living room and in the excited voice of a girlfriend's girlfriend proclaimed Kagura had no idea where the Shinsengumi headquarters are and it befell the men of the household to take her there. “Besides,” Otae said happily, “won't that be just charmingly old fashioned, Gintoki? Like giving her away in her father's stead! It makes you the cool uncle who never made much of himself, but can handle kids well.”

 

Gintoki coughed a disgusted laugh and earned himself a punishment.

 

 

* *

 

 

I apologise for the “lily white ass” reference. I had to. It was stronger than me.