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Kagura might be an amanto and Japanese might not roll off her tongue as easily as everyone else but that doesn’t mean she’s dumb. An idiot, yes, but not dumb.
Socially, though, that’s another thing.
So when her Papi comes to take her away and Gintoki doesn’t fight it, she only argues for a moment. Don’t let him take me, she all but says. But those dead fish eyes don’t promise her that she has a home in his heart. Instead, he turns away. And that tears at her heartstrings, heavy and low in her gut. It boils, and the farther Gintoki gets, the hotter it burns. By the time he's out of sight, her face is buzzing and there’s a numbness in her toes, hands cold. So, she’s obedient when her Papi nudges her to leave. So, she follows, head down, and she ignores the sad look Shinpachi sends her way.
Because Gin-chan refused to fight for her. And he should have, he should have. Time and time again he has dealt with her nightmares and stories about a father who abandoned her and a mother who died (never about a brother, but she wouldn’t be surprised if he somehow knew about that, too.)
And yet he didn’t fight for her. So, fine, then she wouldn’t fight for him.
The days following her return(?) to Earth were rocky. She’d been heavily upset, eyes more damp than not and hair a tangled mess, struggling to regain the normalcy that had once been so engrained into them.
Now, the floorboards cream and she wonders if she ever knew the flat at all.
Gintoki hadn’t brushed her hair. Hadn’t done much of anything, really. Well, he just hadn’t done anything different. Everything was so Gintoki and not enough comfort. He’d hardly apologized.
He’d betrayed her. She’d yelled that at him once. It was dark out, Shinpachi wasn’t even there, and Gintoki hadn’t said a thing when, timidly, Kagura approached him about something partially related. It had escalated. It escalated in her heart, blood boiling and face burning, and he’d given her that same dead look. The same exact eyes that had abandoned her. That had pushed her away and hadn’t shed a single tear.
So, she’d yelled at him. And, again, he didn’t fight for her. But he had looked different. There was a heaviness to his gaze, as if looking at her were difficult. His brows pulled together in a heavy crease as his fists clenched at his sides. And yet he refused to move. Hardly spoke a word.
Kagura had run to the Shimura’s that night. And Gintoki let her. Odd enough, Sadaharu didn’t go with her and she didn’t have the patience to drag him out. She had growled, hair splayed and teeth barred, half decided on charging at the man she had almost considered a father (and she still does, maybe, but he’s been on a slippery slope of tears and rage.)
She broke into Shinpachi’s room. He shouted awake, eyes narrow in blindness. She paced as he scrambled for his glasses.
Once he put them on, he could see her red face and could practically see the steam coming from flared nostrils. Her bright blue eyes shined, damp even though her cheeks were already rubbed red.
She cried again in heavy sobs that surely woke the older sister. She wailed and clenched Shinpachi so tightly he must have bruised. She asked, over and over, why, after everything, Gin-chan did that.
Shinpachi let her cry for a while. Waterfalls poured and Shinpachi draped Kagura in a heavy blanket, sighing as she blew her nose in the soft fabric. It was loud, wet, disgusting, but Shinpachi just rubbed circles on her back and slowly carded fingers through tangled hair.
“He abandoned me,” she sniffles into his shoulder. Not that Shinpachi thinks she’s done, not if the grip on his wrist is anything to go by.
Shinpachi bites his lip at that and stares at the top of her head. He squeezes her arm a few times and she leans back, sluggish and obedient by consequence. Shinpachi doesn’t think for a second that she’s weak. And if he did, it wouldn’t be because of this.
“Kagura-chan." She doesn’t raise her head but she flicks those blue eyes up to him, brows raised to her crown. “Gin-san, he didn’t have a family.” It’s a poor excuse and Shinpachi feels the scoff that rattles her lungs. But it comes out weak in a light cough.
“I know that,” she says, and she does. She was there when Gintoki had spilled that secret in coded words. She’d cried the whole time so the words were muddy, but she got the gist.
She’d also heard Shinpachi’s declaration of being Gintoki’s family. And she’d agreed.
But it still hurt. Shinpachi had almost abandoned Gintoki. And Gintoki? He almost let him. Shinpachi wasn’t sure which was worse, both coiled in his gut and left him at a loss of appetite and, really, anything other than sorrow and rage.
He’d never be able to understand Gintoki, never be able to truly decipher what it meant to be an orphan when he was. He’d heard stories, mostly from his father. Stories of how difficult things were at the start of the war. Stories of orphans dying alone and starved at the end of an alley, blood trailing from blue, chapped lips. Mouths open in a silent plea that always went unanswered.
His father hadn’t meant to scar him but it wasn’t a story Shinpachi wouldn’t forget any time soon. And he knew that was the time Gintoki had been a child- at least, he thinks it was.
It explained a lot about Gintoki, actually. Not that Kagura had quite seen that.
“Gintoki thought it was the right thing to do.” The words flop from a heavy tongue. Kagura freezes in his arms, suddenly cold. She leans back, face frozen before wide eyes drift up, mouth open but unmoving. “He really did. He thought it was best that you’d be with your father. ‘Cause your father loved you. And I’m not, I’m not saying he was right. He wasn’t. He shouldn’t have,” Shinpachi breaks the crescendo and breathes. He shakes his head, emotions pooling in his gut as he remembers the conversation and Gintoki’s dead eyes. A practiced stoicism. It’s terrifyingly unreadable, so much so that only Otose really knows. Shinpachi’s never sure if he’s read the man right, he can only hope. And again he hopes the words falling from his own lips are true; they have to be. “He wasn’t right but he really thought he was. He really thought that you’d be better off- you know he’s always trying to get rid of us.”
“No, he-” Kagura says but she stops herself. Her gaze drops and her lips purse, brows furrowed. She wraps her arms around herself loosely.
He was. In his own way, in giving the cold shoulder every time something important happened. Every time someone comes along that, if for a second, Gintoki thinks is a good person (and that’s everyone,) he brushes them off a bit more. Shoots them harsher words and never fights for their relationship.
It’s infuriating. It makes Kagura scream and boil. It makes Shinpachi scowl and churn. Both are just tired of it. They love Gintoki, they do, and they know he loves them. But it’s not obvious at all. It’s never clear and sometimes they aren’t sure, they can’t be. But oh how they want to be confident in that fact.
“But… you should’ve seen him, Kagura.” Shinpachi sighs and drops his head. “He was, he looked so- at the flat, he just kind of… drifted. Acting all aloof and indifferent, not a peep about you outside of his choice being final. His words being true- but he wasn’t, Kagura-chan, he wasn’t happy. He’s an absolute idiot but when I told him that you were family to him, he didn’t seem to understand. He didn’t.” The words make Kagura tilt her head and he pauses and licks his lips, “He didn’t think that’s how we felt about him."
“But of course we do.” The words fly from her mouth and her face twists, a single brow raised and her head cocks to the other side.
They’d made it so obvious. They’d all but screamed it in his face, we love you. And he all but screamed it back, carrying their burdens, carrying them. It was how they functioned. And they loved it. They liked using harsh words rather than plushy ones that were better suited for manipulation. For them, it was raw chemistry, unadulterated and uncensored. Pure and real.
So, so real.
So how could Gintoki doubt it? How could he think that they- did he really? But Kagura looks into Shinpachi’s eyes. They’re wide and innocent, especially compared to Gintoki’s. Kinda like hers. But they’re scrunching, with edges creased in worry and bags starting to form where they shouldn’t be. Those brown eyes had once been doe-like but they’ve begun darkening.
Kagura feels it in herself. Little by little, a growing maturity that Gintoki has attempted to postpone yet feeds all the same.
“And how would Gin-san know?” It’s a testament to whatever Gintoki had in the past, whoever it was that raised him and gave him his principles. Whoever must have saved that poor orphan boy (if anyone, but they really hope someone had reached out a hand.)
They don’t like the thought. It coils in their guts, churning and twisting, soaking in a discomfort that pulls at their throats. But Gintoki was too lazy, too much of a useless old man to be so… so what?
(It reminds Kagura of the planet that always rains. Gray, wet, lonely. All that stuffed into her chest, empty yet so full of whatever that is. Kagura doesn’t want to know.)
Was that even important?
Kagura sags as does Shinpachi. Exhaustion tugs at crusted eyes, keeping them practically closed with no will to open them. They’ve reached a consensus and their shoulders sag, muscles forcibly limp. Kagura’s cheeks are moist but drying, stiff in the aftermath of salty tears. In a tangle of limbs, they fall heavily as heap, heads falling on arms and some forgotten pillows.
The next morning they wake up and stretch from awkward positions, necks stiff. Kagura doesn’t howl. She blinks awake, eyelids heavy and crusted. She’s sluggish in moving and her face aches so she rubs at it. But everywhere else feels just fine. Better than fine - no aches, no pains, no churning in her gut and no need for release.
No anger.
She offers Shinpachi a soft smile before leaving the Shimura residence. She’ll let him explain it all to Anego.
She reaches the Yorozuya flat earlier than Gintoki would be awake. On a normal day, that is. But when she slides the door open and doesn’t hear Sadaharu right away, she knows Gintoki’s up. Maybe out and about, but his boots are still sitting in the doorway, droopy and lazily thrown but oddly organized - like a leftover thought. Or one done in anxious boredom.
Kagura spots Sadaharu first. The dog lifts it’s large fluffy head and turns round eyes to her. But then he looks to the back of Gintoki’s chair and a soft sound emits from a closed throat, something like a whine.
Kagura doesn’t pace, she doesn’t stand in her own home and shift awkwardly. She doesn’t sit in silence while Gintoki says nothing (she does, but only for one short insecure moment.)
She inhales through her nose and stares right at that turned chair. Because there is not a stranger behind it. It’s just stupid, idiotic, stupid Gin-chan. He’s her family whether he likes it or not.
“I love you.”
The chair squeaks as Gintoki freezes. She just watches. She can’t hear much, her heart thunders in her ears and she twitches, fists clenching. But he doesn’t move.
Move, she doesn’t tell him to. She waits, and waits. Her lip trembles and her gaze wavers. But she blinks away the burning and scowls, tight but unwavering.
(She twitches and picks at her fingers, thankfully nail biting had never been a characteristic of hers. But it's tempting for a short moment.)
It’s an eternity before the chair shifts. It spins, slow, and Kagura watches that mop of silver hair move. He stands, leaving it to spin without a passenger as he looks at her.
His eyes don’t hold the same dampness as hers but she spots distressed wrinkles at their corners and she recognizes a heaviness to his expression. The shadows are far darker than they had been.
But he blinks at her a few times. A head tilt would follow with anyone else, but he doesn’t. Instead, he crosses his arms. She wobbles, shifts her weight, wary but ready because Gintoki can really be heartless, can’t he?
But then he smirks and shakes his head, eyes low and chuckles tumble from his lips before he can really stop them.
He walks towards her one step at a time. Bare feet pad softly but Kagura doesn’t move. When he reaches her, he stands at an angle. Close but not too close. He smiles and raises a hand, slow but sure as always. She doesn’t flinch but she does lower her gaze. A familiar and large palm is gentle on her crown. He ruffles her hair, firm but light.
Gintoki smiles, small and only seen from the corner of Kagura’s eyes.
“Your hair’s getting tangled,” he says, “I’ll get the brush.” And he walks away without another word. Kagura stays standing for that moment, shock seeping into the floor. In its absence, the interaction processes and her face heats up, ears warm and she cups them. Almost cups her whole face but she just shakes it instead. Still, the warmth bubbles in her chest and spreads to her fingers. She shuffles to the couch and sits right where she knows she should. Stiff, but only through a forced control of the excitement buzzing underneath her skin.
She should demand he say it back. She should stomp and growl and scream at him because she said it. But, she doesn’t. Not at all. Because he had, in his own way, he had said it.
The issue’s not over. She knows it isn’t. After all, he didn’t say it back word for word. But she decides to not be so aggressive this once. It feels better. And as Gintoki comes back and begins going through her hair, Kagura allows her eyes to drift shut to a familiar tugging. Gentle and careful with the abundance of tangles.
Lovingly. She can imagine he’s reluctant to admit it, reluctant to claim his love and admit just how scared he must be to lose them. Not that they’d permit it, but he’d be scared of it, wouldn’t he? She’d heard a few nightmares. She’s sure most of them are silent, manifesting in sleepless nights - that’s how they worked with her before Gintoki - but she’d heard enough.
So she’ll make sure that there’s one thing Gintoki doesn’t have to fight for, doesn’t have to worry about. She won’t make him fight for her (she might, just once, but she’ll be careful about it,) because both her and Shinpachi know all they need to. And if they ever doubt it, they have Otose and the others to keep them on track.