Kids Will Be Kids by kingfishers_game

Chapter 1: People Who Have Weak Stomachs Shouldn't Eat Food They Found Outside

"Something was wrong. Abuto had known his commander quite a long time, and over the years, he'd become attuned to Kamui's different expressions. It could be difficult to discern actual thoughts from the commander's face, given that he was almost always smiling, but Abuto thought he'd become fairly adept at it.

And now he knew something was wrong, because Kamui was beaming like a kid on Christmas morning."

...

A recipe for disaster with three ingredients:
1) a police officer with a sadistic streak
2) a bloodthirsty space pirate
3) the only thing in the entire universe that can get them on the same side—a girl. Of course.

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A ray of early summer sun filtering through the leaves of the tree above was leaving a patch of heat on Gintoki's left cheek. He left his eyes closed for another second, relishing the rare moment of peace. How long had he been napping? Long enough for the lone ray to leave a sunburn? If so, maybe Kagura was already finished with the job.

Today's client had enlisted the Yorozuya to bring him a fish from a hidden pond on a mountainside a few miles from Edo. Apparently the fish were magical. Probably some Amanto nonsense as usual, but the client had paid half up front and Gintoki wasn't about to leave perfectly good cash on the table. Making money while sleeping felt like a job well done—not that he'd suggested splitting up to leave Kagura with all the work on purpose, but she'd kept him up all night with her friggin' "nemurenai-aru"s and he'd been so exhausted that his hourly JUMP-reading break had turned into slumber.

But he could hardly blame himself, could he? The atmosphere was perfect for a nap. Life as a business owner and single parent of two idiot children rarely left time for enjoying the simple things in life, like the way the long, wispy grass flicked against his bare arms or sweet smell of fresh air. An outside nap on a day like this was pure bliss. The warm sunlight, the sound of birds chirping and leaves rustling, the smell of grilled fish...

Grilled...fish?

Gintoki jumped to his feet and took off toward the source of the smell. "Kagura! Kagura, where are you? Those fish are going to pay our rent for the next three months! They're going to pay off my pachinko debts! If you're stuffing your face with magical fish right now, I'll deduct the expenses out of your portion of the reward!"

"If you do, you'll have to actually start paying me, uh-huh," Kagura replied between bites, not even turning away from her campfire to acknowledge Gintoki's approach. Beside her was a massive pile of wooden sticks and fish skeletons, all bare save for the scanty bits of meat that hadn't made their way down the Yato girl's black hole of a gullet.

That little piglet... "Have you been sitting here eating fish this whole time? Seriously? While I've been slaving away searching for this pond, criss-crossing all over the mountain..."

One look at Kagura's deadpan expression was enough to communicate to Gintoki how little faith she had in his work ethic. He sighed and kicked a few sticks out of the way to sit down next to her. "...Well anyway, did you at least leave any for me?"

"There's one left there, uh-huh," Kagura jabbed a thumb at the pond behind her, where a glittering white form darted through the clear water. So she'd left him one? That was good, he'd been feeling a little peckish since waking up. It was surprisingly thoughtful of Kagura to leave one for him—

"That's for the client, though," she added.

Of course.

"I caught something else, if you want to grill it up and eat it. It might taste funny, but since you're an sadist too you should be immune to its do-S germs."