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What kind of man spends Christmas day sitting alone on a park bench, drinking cup sake, and not even good cup sake; not the kind with the fancy design on the glass, so you can take it home and rinse it out and pretend you're the kind of person who owns nice drinkware. The cheapest, shittiest cup sake, which tastes like paint stripper, because you spent your last 1500 yen on a gift for your ex-wife, which she'll probably look at precisely once - does she even still like those little crystal animals, which she used to excitedly point out in the shops while you were dating? - before putting it on the back of her shelf, where it will gather dust, like all her happy memories.
She's making new memories, now. And Hasegawa. Well. He's sitting alone on a park bench, on Christmas day, drinking cheap cup sake, because that's the kind of guy he is. Cheap booze warming bare toes. He might have invested in winter shoes, but he'd been feeling lucky, thought he'd invest in pachinko instead.
He wasn't lucky. Geta in 2c weather is not a lucky man's fashion choice. Drinking cheap cup sake on a park bench on Christmas day in geta is not a lucky man's pastime.
"Oi."
Hasegawa looks up. Adjusts his gaze sidelong, to the man sitting on the bench beside him.
"Gin-san." He gives an apologetic nod. "How long have you been sitting there?"
"Just got here." Gintoki sounds about as cheerful as Hasegawa feels. Pinky finger shoved halfway in his ear, like he's trying to scratch his brain. Maybe he is; he does look a little hungover. "How about you?"
Hasegawa lifts his cup in a mocking kanpai. "All day," he says.
"It's only 1pm."
"Then I've got all day ahead of me."
Gintoki gives an unimpressed shrug. "Not very festive of you."
"Yeah? At least I've got a drink." He slams back another slug of throat-scouring sake, as if to prove it. Gintoki doesn't react. Just sits there, staring dully into the distance. Hasegawa reaches into the plastic Oedo-mart bag at his feet, pulls out a fresh cup.
"Hair of the dog?" he says, holding it out to Gintoki.
He wrinkles his nose. "There's dog hair in this?"
"No, no, it's a turn of phrase. Hair of the dog that bit you. As in. Drinking alcohol to fix the damage alcohol already did."
"Oh." Gintoki takes the cup. "Do I look hungover?"
"Yeah. Are you?"
"Yeah."
Hasegawa drains the last of his sake. After a moment's consideration, Gintoki twists the ringpull, peels off the aluminium lid. Takes a contemplative sip; wrinkling his entire face at the rank taste before taking a second, longer sip.
"Thought you'd be doing Christmas with the kids," Hasegawa says, lighting a fresh cigarette. "They ditch you for a better offer?"
"The old lady's having a party. Didn't feel like it. Kid's stuff, y'know. Celebrating Christmas." He gives a lofty little sniff. "Besides, it's a made up holiday anyway. It's only been around for thirty years."
"Forty," Hasegawa says. "I remember people celebrating it when I was a kid. They'd have a family get-together and order Oedo Fried Chicken."
Gintoki quirks a curious eyebrow. "Didn't your family do that too?"
"No," Hasegawa says. "We were poor."
"Oh."
They sit drinking in companionable silence for a little while. Hasegawa smokes his cigarette to the filter, then lights another. A young couple enter the park, arm in arm; rosy-cheeked and giggling, the first flush of love, until they notice the two haggard men drinking, and their smiles turn to pity. That could be us someday, their furrowed brows say, and Hasegawa wants to tell them not to worry. Bright young things like them could never become MADAOs.
"It's cold," Gintoki suddenly declares. "Aren't you cold?"
He is. He's become very good at ignoring it. The alcohol in his blood helps.
Gintoki gets up. Still holding his half-finished sake.
"Might as well come back with me," he says, as though it's already been decided. "I don't have Oedo Fried Chicken, but I've got raw egg and rice."
Hasegawa's stomach growls. He hasn't had a hot meal in days, or at least, one that hasn't come from the Oedo Mart oden counter (60% off if you turn up an hour before closing time.)
"Sounds good," Hasegawa says, and it does.
#
It's a decent Christmas, in the end.
They play Go and drink cup sake until they run out, and Gintoki sneaks into the bar downstairs to snag a bottle of shochu, which is how Hasegawa finds out that he hadn't, in fact, opted out of Otose-san's Christmas gathering, so much as he'd been banished for being too drunk and obnoxious the night before.
( she told me to apologise for calling Catherine ugly, Gintoki bemoans, swigging shochu from the bottle. I said even buddha himself can see she's ugly, what good would it do me to lie about it? )
They eat rice and furikake, because Kagura ate the last of the eggs, and watch the Oedo News special report on Christmas soup kitchens across Edo, staffed by harried-looking Shinsengumi while Matsudaira swans about dressed as a debonair Santa Claus. Gintoki argues that the program would be improved if Ketsuno-ana presented it; Hasegawa disagrees, citing Hanano-ana's superior interview prowess and pretty eyes. They both concede, with a sigh, that Matsudaira is devilishly, unfairly handsome.
"I'm tired," Gintoki says, and Hasegawa doesn't know if he means in this present moment, or if it's a statement on life in general. Frankly, either would be legitimate. It's been a long day. It's been a long life.
Hasegawa gets to his feet. Unsteady, after the shochu, but careful not to kick over any of the discarded cups, the Go board, still bearing its half-finished game. "I'll just get going, then..."
Gintoki blinks. "What? Don't be stupid. It's cold. And it's late."
"It's 10pm," Hasegawa points out.
"That's late at your age." Gintoki shoves the coffee table out of the way with his feet; the Go pieces scatter, clattering onto the tabletop. "It's okay. You can have my futon." He gets up, sways toward the cupboard; piling futon and duvet and pillows onto the floor, and Hasegawa wonders if he's supposed to put the damn thing together, if Gintoki just sleeps like this, in a haphazard pile of bedding, until he drags the futon over, arranges it with something approaching care.
"I'm gonna take a piss," Gintoki declares, rubbing his eye with his palm. "Make yourself comfortable."
"Sure," Hasegawa says. "Thanks."
He strips down to his underwear, places his folded sunglasses next to his clothes. Climbs into the futon, pulling the duvet up to his chin. His body sags the moment his head hits the pillow. He hadn't realised how tired he was, how cold. The faint scent of Gintoki on the pillow. Unfamiliar detergent. His own bedsheets are threadbare, scratchy. It's a positively luxurious experience. Like a room in a worn-down, comfortable hotel.
He's drifting off to sleep when the duvet abruptly shifts and Gintoki climbs in beside him. He sits up, startled. Stares bleary-eyed at Gintoki, who tugs at the duvet, face contorted into an irritable scowl.
"What the- "
"You take up a lot of room, don't you?" Gintoki says. "No wonder your wife divorced you. Move over. It's cold."
"I'm not divorced," Hasegawa mutters. "I never signed any papers."
"Okay, whatever. You're not sharing your wife's futon though, are you? You're sharing mine. So move over."
He does. Settling back onto the futon, a little bemused, but too tired to argue. He shifts over so Gintoki can stretch out a little; Gintoki takes this as an invitation to sling an arm around his waist, loop a cold foot around his calf.
"Cold feet are bad bed sharing etiquette," Hasegawa declares, with drunken gravitas.
"I'm not your damn wife," Gintoki says.
"No," Hasegawa agrees. "She'd let me be the big spoon."
"Go sleep in Sadaharu's bed if you don't like it." Curling up tighter, so that Hasegawa couldn't, even if he wanted to; Gintoki's grip is surprisingly robust. "You ever woken up with your entire head in someone's mouth? Don't answer that."
"Are you always this chatty when you share a bed," Hasegawa says, dry, "or am I special?"
"You'd like that, wouldn't you?" Gintoki shifts, yawns. Pleasantly warm, like a human kotatsu. "It's okay, Hasegawa-san. You're not special. Just a MADAO."
"Chisel that on my gravestone."
"That's so morbid. You morbid old man! How am I supposed to sleep under these conditions?" He sighs dramatically. Mumbling against Hasegawa's shoulder, sleep-slurred and slow. "It's fucking Christmas," he says. "You can die tomorrow. Go to sleep."
"I've been trying," Hasegawa mutters, but Gintoki's breathing evens out, the weight of his arm doubling with unconsciousness, and what choice does he have but to let it be? Merry fucking Christmas, he thinks, settling in against Gintoki, and still, it's better than drinking cheap cup sake alone in the park.