The Misadventures of an Early Morning

Summary: Patience is a virtue, albeit one which the majority of even occasionally sane human beings sorely lack at three o'clock in the morning. Gintoki, Katsura, and the cast navigate a few such dysfunctional ante meridian hours.

- - - - -

Lesson 1: What Doesn't Kill You Makes You Stronger

- - - - -

Gintoki huddled in a corner, his back pressed to the wall, a glass containing a half-melted, soupy parfait seized in one hand's white-knuckled grip and his bokuto clutched defensively in the other. The menacing shadows of beings with an insatiable appetite to rival Kagura's and an equally absurd amount of facial hair played starkly over the shōji in cinematic contrast, the color-sapped images accompanied by a chorus of moans and groans and the thump, thump, thump of shuffling footsteps on the veranda. A nervous laugh cracked high in the octaves of Gintoki's vocal cords, and he compensated by cranking up the decibel level and shouting loud enough to drown the pubescent tremor in his own voice.

"W-w-what is this, some campy B-movie rehash of Night of the Living Zombrows? Come and g-get me, you bastards! If you wanna get your grubby paws on the w-world's last parfait," Gintoki bit back a genuine sob at that, "then you'll have to go through me first!" he concluded, his yells now verging on hysterical.

Bang, bang, bang answered the thunderous pounding of fists on the shōji, the sounds more impatient and ever closer with each passing moment. Thump, thump, thump.

Craaap, now they know where I am!, Gintoki panicked, squeezing himself further and further into the corner as if he could spontaneously meld into the boards. Of all the half-baked, big-mouthed ideas—

The nearest shōji screen ominously rattled open on its tracking to reveal a horde of Zombrows, their forms eclipsed in shadow beneath the light of a stereotypical full moon.

"Gintoki!" a voice murmured, close enough that the speaker's breath tickled in Gintoki's ear.

Gintoki's eyes flashed wide in terror.

Health me! Wait, that's not right. . .help me! Help, it knows my name! How on earth does it know my name?! It's—it's game over!

But even steeped in such grim prospects and without a Heart Container[1] in sight, Gintoki resolved to defend the lone parfait to his very last. He wound his sword arm tight as a pitcher's on the mound before heaving backwards and mightily hurling his bokuto at the nearest Zombrow assailant.

"Aaaaah—!"

"Ginto—mmmph!"

Gintoki awoke suddenly to find himself not encircled by ravenous, blood- thirsty and parfait-hungry Zombrows but perched ramrod straight on the edge of his own futon, panting, as beads of cold sweat trickled down his forehead. The blankets had long been flung aside in his nightmare-induced frenzy, but Gintoki's groggily reorienting brain alerted him that his alarm clock was pinched viciously in his left hand's death grip where a parfait had been mere moments before. Gintoki then traced the imaginary trajectory of his would-have-been bokuto, only to find that he had actually transformed his pillow into a makeshift weapon. While still sound asleep, he had apparently managed to nail the invading foe clean in the face with said pillow—which you have to admit is pretty impressive. As evidence of this minor victory, a single, oddly lumpy and irregularly outlined silhouette was framed in the doorway, the pillow resting at its feet.

Well, I can deal with one straggler, at least, Gintoki assuaged his wounded pride, warily securing his hold on the alarm clock in a vestige of self-defense.

But instead of, "Nnnnrgh, give mee paaarfaaait," the Zombrow simply looked at him and said, "I did knock."

Gintoki frowned, taken aback for the briefest of moments at what most certainly had to be a very bad joke, before two and two converged to make four and somebody flicked the light on upstairs. Oh.

The images vividly hearkened back to Gintoki's childhood recollections of a town shrine festival, when after gorging himself on sweets beneath the dreamlike swirl of color eddying in the warm light of a million paper lanterns, he and Shouyou-sensei's other students had trodden barefoot through a cool patch of grass to gaze in awe at the hanabi. Sensei had regaled his wide-eyed students with thrilling tales of the devious kidnapping antics of Aobōzu and Yama-uba[2], demons who would surely snatch the children away if they neglected to practice and do their chores.

Late that night, suffering a temporary case of sugar-induced insomnia and timidly skirting every dark temple corner with a wide berth for fear of vengeful yōkai[3] (Gintoki was self-consciously aware that in his earlier excitement about the festival, he had neglected to clean the fude brushes like Sensei had asked), Gintoki had tiptoed his way to Katsura's futon.

Katsura was lying awake, staring at the ceiling and apparently experiencing similar circadian complications. He stole one look at Gintoki, who was nervously clutching his pillow and sporting the "I'm not scared, stupid" pout, before rolling his eyes and obligingly scooting over. Without further pause, Gintoki had commandeered half of Katsura's futon and two thirds of the blankets with only a smartly kicked shin for his trouble. The ensuing bruise had been a small price to pay for a peaceful night of yōkai-free dreams.

Gintoki squinted through the darkness at the misshapen figure in his present-day doorway.

". . .you're not a Zombrow, are you," Gintoki established flatly, lowering the alarm clock with still-shaking hands and suddenly feeling a tad foolish.

"No, I'm not," the silhouette offered, unfazed as it calmly stooped to retrieve the pillow projectile.

Gintoki cocked his head in bewilderment when the silhouette moved and something squishy subsequently plopped to the floor with a wet-sounding plunk. He caught a simultaneous whiff of an incredibly potent rotten smell that reeked of last week's burnable trash. But before the appropriate question could form on his lips—

"Aha! You're still calling them 'Zombrows'!"

A triumphant index finger was shoved nearly under Gintoki's nose, and the revelation hit his sleep-hazed brain like a ton of bricks.

Zura.

Of the million pithy remarks and burning questions that simply begged to be voiced, "You look like hell," was the first coherent phrase to slip uninhibited from Gintoki's mouth, quickly followed by, "And you smell like garbage."

"Thanks. I hadn't noticed."

- - - - -

Notes:

1. "Heart Containers": Heart Containers are collected in the Legend of Zelda video games to increase and recover the player's health.

2. "Aobōzu and Yama-uba": Aobōzu (a blue monk) and Yama-uba (usually a hideous old woman) are traditional Japanese demons known for preying on children. Ironically, a benevolent Yama-uba is said to have raised the orphan Kintaro, who grew up to become the legendary warrior Sakata no Kintoki (yay, Gintama reference XD).

3. "yōkai": Japanese folk monsters, as above.