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Sakata Gintoki didn’t enjoy what many call a normal life.
Whether he ended up in a legal mess, involved with dangerous Amanto, on the verge of death in bizarre situations, or doing some kind of strange job at the request of an eccentric client, somehow he was always in a scenario as far away from the norm as possible.
And yet, what happened that morning couldn’t be compared to any of the events he had experienced before.
As soon as he woke up, he left the house with a garbage bag in his hand and left it in the alley, glad the truck hadn’t passed by yet. As he went back inside, ready to go back to sleep, a basket under the stairs caught his attention. He approached the basket and glanced at the bundle of sheets that was inside, and after processing what he was seeing, he closed his eyes and firmly pinched one of his arms.
I’m still dreaming, that’s it.
He felt himself turn pale when he focused his gaze and that hadn’t gone away.
No, no, no. This is absolutely impossible.
He turned around a couple of times, trying to calm down. Reality had to be faced, and someone had abandoned a baby right outside his house. With a sigh, he grabbed the basket and went upstairs while swearing and cursing the bastard who had left the child in the first house they found.
He entered and placed the basket on the table. He slightly moved the sheets covering the baby and his fingers brushed against a piece of paper. He picked it up carefully so as not to tear it, and his face paled even more after reading what was written on it.
I can't take care of him so I expect you to be responsible for your son, asshole.
He covered his mouth so that the whine that escaped him would not wake Kagura, and after hesitating for a while, he took the baby out of the basket and cradled it carefully in his arms. When he saw him fully what little color his face had was completely gone, and even his limbs went numb. It had to be a nasty trick of fate.
The child looked exactly like him. He even had silver, wavy hair. How was it possible?
He hadn't slept with a woman in years, damn it. Even if he counted all the drunkenness that had left him unconscious and with no memory of anything, he was sure he had not been with any woman. And he always went to the same bar that never had any women in it. And although it wasn’t something he liked to admit lightly, he was going serious with the idiot vice-commander of the Shinsengumi. He wouldn’t be able to feel attracted by someone else having him in his head all the fucking day.
But then, what was that note and that miniature Gin-san?
He checked the time. It was still quite early and it would be a good while before Kagura woke up and Shinpachi showed up. He hid the basket in his room, and went for a walk with the toddler, who was watching him with curiosity in his little eyes. He made sure to take an uncrowded route and went around the same streets several times until he decided to stop for a rest in a park.
Gintoki and the baby looked at each other, one still in shock and the other interested in every feature of the man he barely knew.
Gintoki's mental state was so pitiful, he didn't even notice how close that park was to the Shinsengumi barracks.
At the same time Gintoki was conducting his own interrogation, a policeman with a cigarette between his lips was crossing the street in the direction of the nearest park to his workplace. He spotted a familiar head of hair and was a little surprised to see Gintoki there, and not wanting to miss the rare occasion, he headed right for him. When he saw him holding a baby he thought he might be working as a babysitter, but instantly he noticed something wasn't right. He approached him and felt his face distort no matter how hard he tried to hide it.
“Yorozuya.”
Gintoki hadn't even noticed his presence, apparently completely immersed in another dimension.
“Gintoki,” he uttered forcefully as he gave him a blow to the head. That was enough to snap him out of his trance.
Gintoki felt the sweat trickle down his neck under Hijikata Toushiro's penetrating gaze.
“Who is that kid?”
Gintoki swallowed as he organized his thoughts.
“I have no idea. I found him in a basket outside my house.”
Toushiro raised an eyebrow and sat down next to him. He looked at them over and over but the more he did the more they looked like father and son.
“I can assure you that I haven't been with any women in the last few years," Gintoki said, looking quite pathetic.
Toushiro didn't doubt him. But the resemblance was undeniable and quite uncanny. "Okay. I believe you.”
Gintoki's normally indifferent eyes now seemed very expressive and Toushiro didn't know exactly how to react to that. “So, they left him outside your house?”
Gintoki nodded without hesitation, then opened his mouth and closed it, unsure exactly what to add.
“Is there something you haven't told me?” Toushiro's voice was much softer than usual. He knew Gintoki wasn't in good condition and the least he needed was to shock him more.
Gintoki searched for the note in his pockets, and when he found it he handed it to him without further ado. Toushiro read the note and sighed, annoyed. He glanced at the watch on his wrist, it would soon be time to get back to work. “Honestly, I think the first thing to do is wait. That note was probably intentional so that the person who found the baby would have to take charge.”
“I see.”
“Are you planning to go home?” Toushiro stubbed out the cigarette on the ground and tossed it into the trash can to the side.
Gintoki shook his head at the thought. He definitely didn't want to witness the fuss they would all make.
“Well, in that case…”
Seeing him stop, Gintoki encouraged him to finish the sentence.
“Do you want to come with me? I'm in the office and you could stay there while I finish the work. That way no one would see you around with a child in your arms.”
Huh, Toushiro didn't waste any time, did he?
“I guess I don't have a choice.”
“Oi, what's that guy doing in Hijikata-san's office?”
“Don't you know him?” the officer asked his partner in surprise.
They both peeped, taking advantage of the fact that the door was not completely closed, too curious at that unusual scenario: while working with some documents, the Shinsengumi demon himself was giving constant glances to a silver-haired man sitting in front of him, and even smiling tenderly. It was totally inconceivable.
“Should I?”
“Well... That man is Sakata Gintoki, a Yorozuya who on several occasions has helped us with some problems. The two of them have a somewhat complicated relationship, but I would describe it as them being lovers.”
“L-lovers? Are you serious? Hi-Hijikata-san in a relationship with someone... and a man!” The poor boy was on the verge of a breakdown in disbelief.
To him, the vice-commander had always been a serious man with no interest in things like love. He took his job very seriously, was strict and constantly in a bad mood. The only smiles of his that he had ever witnessed were either totally sadistic, or were directed at any food containing mayonnaise. So to see him with a relaxed face, a small blush and a smile on his lips, was something that might as well happen every hundred years.
“It's hard to believe, I know. But I doubt you need any more proof than this. And anyway, why is Sakata-san carrying a baby?” The boy sharpened his eye past his friend and noticed something that puzzled him. “Hey, Murata, he and that baby... aren't they alike?”
At that discovery, they both fell completely silent and went back to their daily chores, too confused and wanting to shoo away the weird ideas that were starting to run through their minds.
Inside the room, the situation was much calmer. Gintoki had gotten the baby a feeding bottle, and was now carefully feeding him. The sight was quite pleasant. Although no one would expect it, Gintoki had a very strong parental instinct, and looking at a child, he could easily guess whether he was hungry, sleepy or cold. Surely he could become a great father.
“Children sure are a problem.”
Toushiro looked at him again. His face completely contradicted his words. The adoration in his eyes could not be hidden. And seeing him taking such good care of the little boy brought up memories he thought he had already forgotten. At that moment he reminded him so much of his brother. He thought of Gintoki, who remembered nothing but the silhouettes of his family and a deep sadness came over him. He tried to clear his mind by going back to work and running away from the reality in front of him. After a couple of calls, he turned to Gintoki.
“The authorities are going to look for the brat's parents. Stay with him for a few days, will you? Until they find someone to take responsibility for him.”
“A few days? Do you think he can survive more than a day with me?” Gintoki pleaded in whispers so as not to wake up the mini Gin-san who had fallen asleep.
Of course he would.
Toushiro refrained from answering so and instead asked,“so, what's your plan?”
“Um... could you…?”
“Me?”
“Could you... help me?” He bit his lip after speaking. He felt like he had never been so embarrassed in his entire life and he didn't even understand why.
Toushiro, for his part, was taken by surprise. The normally relaxed Gintoki had blushed. Beyond the days spent in a bar, he had never seen him like that. All words were sucked from his mind and he only managed to utter a weak "yes."
Gintoki's gaze lit up and although he wanted to mock Toushiro's stupid expression, he knew well that his was no better, so he simply smiled complacently. “You're pretty soft today, why is that?”
To whom do you think, you bastard?
“That's none of your business.”
“Yep, that's the Hijikata-kun I know.”
It had been three days since Gin-chan, as Toushiro had nicknamed him, had appeared at the Yorozuya's door. Days much more peaceful than they would have thought possible.
Gintoki used part of Toushiro's savings to send Shinpachi and Kagura on a trip, all so they wouldn't find out about the situation. And even though it was extremely suspicious, neither of them questioned either the reason or the source of the money, and happily accepted their well-deserved vacation.
Gintoki spent his days taking care of the kid, and in the evenings when Toushiro finished his workday, he took care of him and made dinner. Anyone who saw them would say that they were a happy and normal married couple.
Gin-chan slept most of the time and was quiet and obedient. So those three days went by rather quickly. Both of them grew fond of the baby and knew that when the time came to return him to his family, they would end up crying.
“Hey, don't you think his parents will let us see him once in a while? We did a good job taking care of him, right?”
Toushiro looked at Gintoki from the kitchen. He looked like a huge kid playing with Gin-chan, though he noticed a hint of unease in his voice.
“It's probably his mother who abandoned him. So we can only rely on finding his father." He intentionally avoided accepting that he was worried about not seeing the boy again by directing the conversation to another point.
"You’re right," Gintoki said. The woman should have just knocked on the door and handed him over, so there wouldn't have been all this confusion.
And by confusion he clearly meant the hundreds of rumors that had already spread around. That the vice-commander of the Shinsengumi had married because he had stopped sleeping in the barracks. That he had been seen carrying a baby around and that it was his son. As the mother had never been seen, some said that she had died, and others even said that the child was stolen. People went so far as to insinuate that Hijikata and Gintoki were in a relationship and had adopted the child, or conceived by unknown methods.
They were being delusional, obviously. While they continued to believe that their "relationship" was a secret, all their acquaintances entertained themselves by gossiping about the nature of it, and private topics that are not suitable for broadcast in family-friendly hours. They couldn't complain though, their definition of "being discreet" translated into constant public bickering about who was the best in bed, who was the best partner, who gave the best gifts, and anything related to who was the best.
After that, they both dove into memories of their respective childhoods, and didn't speak again until the next day.
Gintoki was lying on his futon next to Gin-chan when the phone started ringing. He lifted the boy easily with one arm while using the other to hold the device to his ear.
"Yes?”
“Gintoki.”
“Oh, Hijikata-kun. Why are you calling while you're working?”
“This is technically part of my job.”
“Huh?” he asked, confused.
"Gin-chan's father has been located. We should go see him right away.”
So fast?
Actually, it was about time, but he had gotten so used to taking care of the brat and spending time with him that he didn't want to accept it so easily.
“I understand. Where can I meet you?”
“Wait for me at your house. He lives nearby.”
Gintoki hung up after a brief affirmation and plopped down on the couch. He looked at Gin-chan for quite a while until there was that characteristic knock on the door.
Toushiro was also bummed, he could tell for sure.
They walked wordlessly to the house and Toushiro went ahead to knock.
“Excuse me, I'm from the Shinsengumi. Are you Kantarou-san?”
A man in a red yukata and impossibly similar silver hair nodded and greeted them politely. He looked at Gintoki curiously for a moment but upon seeing the child in his arms all his attention went to him.
“Kanshichirou!” Gintoki quickly returned the baby to his father with a subtle smirk as he saw the man's expression and finally knew where he had gotten the hair from. The perm was still a mystery as Kantarou had it only slightly wavy.
Toushiro's hand fiddled nervously with the cigarette box in his pocket as he talked to Kantarou.
“Apparently the woman who dropped him off in front of his house," he said, pointing at Gintoki, "got the wrong place. You said you've recently moved to Edo?”
“That's right. We both lived in a small village until a year ago. But she kicked me out of the house so I came to Edo to try my luck. A few months ago she also moved and I visited her a couple of times, although she absolutely refused to accept any help from me. I was thinking of settling down better here and trying to get custody of Kanshichirou, for his sake. I didn't think she'd be so messed up in the head as to abandon him just like that.”
Gintoki cursed the damned woman in his mind for dragging him into her marital problems.
“Well, after this it's clear that the custody of the child will be left to you, Kantarou-san. Be sure to follow the necessary procedures," Toushiro spoke in a mechanical, monotonous tone.
“Yes... How can I call you?”
“Hijikata Toushiro”
“Thank you very much, Hijikata-san,” he said and turned to Gintoki with an inquisitive look.
“Sakata Gintoki,” he added.
The man's expression changed. “Sa-Sakata Gintoki you said?” his eyes widened and his voice cracked.
“Yes, that's my name.”
“I-It can't be.”
Toushiro noticed the change in the atmosphere. Kantarou looked really shocked and Gintoki looked at him in total confusion.
“My name is Sakata Kantarou... Gintoki, is it really you?”
For a moment Gintoki thought he saw a face much younger and similar to his own. It looked very familiar but he couldn't remember from where.
“Sakata?”
When Gintoki realized it he felt like a bucket of ice water fell on him.
Sakata wasn't a very common surname, but even so he wouldn't have found anything unusual about knowing someone who had it. But that coupled with the clear physical resemblance, and the most characteristic feature of his family line, silver hair, could not be mere coincidence.
“Kan... Kan-chan!?” the name came out without even thinking about it. In his few memories there was a faceless Kan-chan. Could it be the same person?
“Brother.”
Gintoki's blank mind filled with images at high speed. He suddenly remembered the last moment he spent with his family.
Since before he was born, the country had been at war. The samurai were still fighting against the Amanto to avoid losing control of their territory. But casualties were mounting and the more extremist factions began to recruit children. They chose the eldest child from each household and took him away.
Gintoki was the eldest son between two boys. As much as his parents objected they still dragged him along. For a while he worked really hard at the samurai arts in order to become strong and return home alive. All the while with the memory of three desperate faces staring at him, his little brother crying, not understanding why he was being taken away.
However, one day he slipped off a cliff and they left him for dead, not even bothering to look for his body. But Gintoki survived, and was unconscious for two days until a man passing through the forest found him and saved him. By the time he awoke, he had lost his memory and didn't remember much beyond his name, and some blurry figures he knew were his family, though he couldn't remember their faces or names.
Not knowing exactly how to react, he got close enough to Kantarou, who was still shorter than him, and placed his hand on his head.
“You grew up well, Kan-chan. You even saved the family line and gave me a nephew....”
Toushiro stood to the side, gaping. Concerned, he stood beside Gintoki and discreetly held his hand. He knew him too well. And he was sure that even if Gintoki wasn't one to show how he felt, he was trying his best not to burst into tears right there.
“Come on," Toushiro patted Kantarou's arm. “Do it.”
Gintoki watched as Kantarou handed his nephew to Toushiro, and stiff as a board, not knowing exactly what to do, he let his younger brother hug him with all his might.
“So you're saying that this man is your brother and this little boy is your nephew?”
Gintoki nodded at Shinpachi's question.
Although they seemed very calm, a few minutes before they nearly lost their minds when they saw Kanshichirou and immediately thought he was Gin-san's son. Then, upon learning that he was in fact their nephew, they made triple the fuss upon discovering that their beloved boss-who-didn't-pay-them had a family.
Kagura was playing with Kanshichirou on the floor. “I thought you didn't remember anything from your childhood?”
“I still don't remember much, to be honest.”
“So, Kantarou-san, what exactly happened?”
“Are you referring to Kanshichirou or my brother, Shinpachi-kun?”
“Both of them, I guess.”
“Right.”
Shinpachi, Kagura and Gintoki turned their full attention to him quickly.
“I was five when they took Gintoki, who had barely turned ten. I was too young to know what was going on at the time, I just knew it wasn't good. My older brother was taken away and I never saw him again. Over the years I realized what happened, and why the war was raging in the country.” Here Kantarou stopped for a moment to organize his thoughts and held his son, who was trying to climb a piece of furniture. “They took the eldest son of all the houses because they needed men to face the Amanto, although the truth is that the children were simply used as shields, everyone knows that no child is fit to be a soldier. My parents searched for Gintoki for a long time, but it was too difficult to do so in times of war. And the young men who died daily were too many. When I was eight, we had to leave our home because of the fighting that was starting to take place there. But we ended up involved in a battle where my parents died.
At this point, Kagura and Shinpachi were crying dramatically at the story.
“Why did so many tragedies happen to your family, Gin-chan? What happened that you never came back?”
Gintoki looked at Kagura who was grumbling somewhere between angry and sad, and laughed bitterly.
“I was planning to go back, of course. I slipped off a cliff and the teacher saved me. Although I lost my memory and had to stay in his dojo.”
“So that's what happened.... I ended up training in a dojo too, with a woman who saved me from starving to death among the corpses of my family. I was never very good though, unlike you, brother.”
Gintoki would have choked on his strawberry milk, had he been drinking it.
“I would never have guessed that you would be the very Shiroyasha they talked so much about those days in the dojos,” Kantarou said with a smirk.
He choked anyway.
“How did you know that?” When Gintoki managed to catch his breath, his question came out in a whisper.
“That doesn't matter now, brother. I'll continue with the story.”
“When I turned eighteen I left the dojo and traveled around different cities. I met Kanshichirou's mother, and some time later we got married. Over time she changed. She became someone completely different. But I didn't think she would go this far.”
He stroked his son's cheek who was looking at him with a confused expression, as if he wanted to understand the complicated subject the adults were talking about. Kantarou's gaze darkened as he talked about his wife. Everyone hastened to change the subject.
“Gin-san. Why didn't you tell us about this and instead send us away?”
Gintoki looked at Shinpachi as if he were a miserable insect. “It was obvious. You were going to make a fuss thinking he was mine.”
Shinpachi smiled sheepishly, guessing he was right.
“That doesn't matter, Shinpachi. At least we got to go on the trip. Besides I'm sure that idiot Shinsengumi helped him.”
Gintoki looked dazedly at Kagura who was now eating a huge bowl of rice that who knows where she had gotten it from.
“That's true, Kagura-chan. Gin-san, how's Hijikata-san with children?”
“Uh…”
“Brother, Hijikata-san and you...?” His brother's raised eyebrows hinted at many things.
The colors started to rise in Gintoki's face, who was desperately trying to find an excuse while trying to understand how they knew so much.
“They're like an old married couple.”
“What things are you saying, Shinpachi? Don’t be ridiculous.”
“Exactly. That's impossible.” Gintoki flinched when he heard that voice.
Toushiro was standing in the doorway with his trademark cigarette between his lips. He put it out before entering when he saw Kanshichirou there.
“Speak of the devil,” Kagura spoke with a mouth full of rice. “Gin-chan, you don't need to hide it. The whole town knows about you two.”
The reactions of both of them were enough to confirm it.
Kantarou, for his part, was happy with the discovery. “Brother, I'm so glad you found someone special. Come on, don't try any harder,” he couldn't help but laugh at their flustered and astonished expressions.
“Okay, I give up. But how do you know?”
Toushiro sat next to his partner —were they boyfriends, lovers or exactly what? He didn't know for sure— still in disbelief.
“I think the first occasion was Valentine's Day,” Shinpachi took the floor. “Gin-san was very nervous that day. When we were going to celebrate at the bar where my sister works we ran into Hijikata-san on the way. Guess who threw chocolates at each other and started fighting about which ones were the best?”
Toushiro remembered. But he didn't remember it exactly that way.
“Yes, Gin-chan, the other night I was trying to sleep but I wasn't sleepy, so I stayed up all night. The two of you came home past midnight and I heard you doing-” Shinpachi covered Kagura's mouth before she said something that would cause either of them to have a stroke.
Kanshichirou clapped his hands cheerfully, while Kagura, Shinpachi and Kantarou smiled watching as the pair of lovebirds with nothing to say in their defense, gave up and intertwined their fingers confirming the obvious to everyone.