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Takasugi doesn’t have blonde hair.
It’s the first rule of character design—design them, then remember what they look like. So, if Takasugi doesn’t have blonde hair, then that kid in front of Gintoki isn’t Takasugi. Takasugi’s also not a baby, but he could overlook that, if he was faced with a green-eyed, dark-haired baby, preferably glaring at him. Instead, there’s this one.
Not-Takasugi coos, blinking his big blue eyes as Matako comes back in with a bottle of formula, ready to play mom again. She’s fallen into the role easily. Gintoki narrows his eyes. Maybe too easily. There’s a lot of time in two years to get knocked up and then hide your baby in a spring. Did you do that, Kijima? Did you?
Matako glances over like she can sense his thoughts. “Do you want to try feeding him?” she asks, her eyes bright and happy, like she’s offering him the world.
Zura cuts in, “I want to!”
“Aha! I will!” Sakamoto quickly swoops Not-Takasugi out of his highchair, and the kid takes it in stride, grabbing at Sakamoto’s scarf the second he’s in reach.
“NO!” Matako almost shrieks, slipping out of the happy-mom persona, “Last time you ‘fed’ him, you tried to use sake!”
“Exactly correct, Kijima-san,” Zura nods, “It is my turn.”
Gintoki takes the chance to duck out of the house, sliding the door behind him. The kihetai have settled down it seems, in a house by a lake, only a walk away from the baby-spring. Like they were expecting another one to pop out. Maybe they weren’t that oblivious. Maybe they were waiting for the right baby.
He follows a rough path down to the water, until he can look back and only see the glow of light far behind him to hint at a house. The lake in front of him is silent, but wide. In the dark he can’t see the other side, and he can almost pretend it’s an eerily still ocean.
Takasugi loves his ships, but Gintoki doesn’t know if that also includes the water below them. He can swim for sure, mostly just to hold it over Gintoki.
“Um,” his quiet voice shatters the silence. He flinches and glances around sheepishly, just in case Zura or something snuck out to join him. If someone’s out here, he won’t do this. He looks really hard, but finds nothing.
He turns back to the still water and finds his voice. “I know you’re dead,” he accuses. Then winces. Of course he started off antagonistically. “So, I know that kid isn’t you," he tries again, more neutral.
Silence. He imagines Takasugi’s high-pitched unfitting giggle, two kids weren’t enough, huh? His one eye glistening. Gintoki swallows hard. Not-Takasugi has both his eyes.
The Takasugi he knew was a bastard, a good-for-nothing, a swordsman on par—not better, of course—with him, someone with ideals he’d die for and—did. Did die for.
Takasugi is dead.
Gintoki blinks, and finds himself sitting on the shore, even though he didn’t notice himself going down.
Takasugi had always been more of a ghost than a person to him. After they separated, when Takasugi went to destroy the world and Gintoki went to go live with killing sensei, any thought of Takasugi became the thing of nightmares or villain encounters. Recently, he’d gotten to remember what it felt like when your friend was alive. And now…
Inside, Matako has something new to care about. Zura can teach this kid to call him Katsura. Tatsuma can keep bringing sake till the kid’s old enough to drink it. Gintoki can…
“We should’ve shared more drinks,” he tells the empty night, “or fought more. Or made a truce. Or something.” He takes a deep breath, and the cool air stings his lungs. “Dumbass. You should’ve stayed with the people you cared about and left the past alone.”
Maybe he should be saying that to himself.
He glares at the faultless lake, “We didn’t even change anything, you know? You didn’t get to see, but Sensei died again. Just like last time, trying to protect us. We didn’t save him, or kill him. Or anything. We couldn’t do anything.”
He shuts his eyes, feeling stupid all over again.
He catches what just, just might be the scent of familiar pipe smoke, and whirls around so quickly he falls on his palms. Nothing. Of course. His fists curl in the sand, and then he flings it out onto the lake, creating a billion ripples on the perfect surface. They destroy absolutely everything—but just for a second.