Gintama; Takasugi x reader (Finale) [Take Me With You]

Chapter 14 [Little Trouble]

     The city succumbs into a strange state of stillness. Streets spread out like branches of a tree and connect to bigger ones from alleys here and there but render quiet without footfalls to tread upon them. And as the stillness prolongs in the place where is never known for tedious living, it becomes hard to rely solely on the returns of a business in which barely a soul visits.

Among the line of sweets shops, only a certain decent dumpling store still welcomes the world while the rest bares doors to the land outside and shuts in exquisite tastes of dumplings that are no longer sought after. It is a small shop owned by two elderly spouses to ease their living needs and be less dependent upon their only child.

When the odd silence of days drives the other stores to a close, the spouses can't help but concern over the sudden change of affairs in the city. By living between the main districts and the outskirts, news take time to reach each and every area but the tension that radiates spreads like plague throughout the entire of Edo.

But whatever that is happening is the town's affair. It has little to do in pursuing business in times like this. Thinking so, the spouses carry on with their usual routine in running their store of selling dumplings. Not long after, their ignorance leads alight to the reason behind the eeriness of the town and why businesses are shutting in a rapid increase.

It is one afternoon when the wife is in the house preparing a plain meal for her husband. The moment is soundless as Hinako thinks that her husband falls asleep again while watching the store. A few minutes pass by then she hears the sound of conversation drifting from the front of the house to the kitchen. And whoever her husband is talking to, he does not sound pleased.

Hinako halts her cooking process and advances urgently to meet the person conversing with her husband. The hem of her kimono flaps her ankles in hurried swish. Hinako steps to the foyer of their home, her husband's voice renders louder and heated outside of the house. She doubts her husband would argue with a customer, and considering their business at the current state, she's surprised to receive anyone at the door at all. Perhaps her husband is in poor mood that nobody has yet visit the store for almost a week.

Hinako walks to the door, open at one side with a chair in front of the threshold for her husband to sit. Except that the chair is empty. Next to it she sees two shadowy figures standing at the other side of the door facing each other, and instantly recognizes the leaner one as her husband.

     "Daichi?" she calls him before peering out from the entrance. Her hand raises instinctively to shield her sight from the sudden contrast of the brightness of the day comparing to her own dimly lit home.

A large man in gray haori and black hakama pants stands before the line of chairs arranged for customers with small tables in between. He's looking down to Daichi, her husband, with an expression of suppressed exasperation. Then noticing Hinako is heading to them, the man turns from her husband to her, looking like a police sent to investigate her wrong doings.

Daichi never notices his wife as whatever upsets him overcomes his acknowledge of Hinako's presence. A scowl is plastered on his red face.

     "You are his wife?" the man in gray and black directs his question to elder woman.

Hinako comes to stand by her husband. "Yes, I am. What seems to be the problem?" she politely ask, offering the man a respectful distance from her in the shade of the house front.

Daichi finally turns to his wife. "He came out of nowhere and ordered us to close our business. Who does he think he is?" Daichi's angered voice interrupts the momentary silence they are able to hold.

The younger male flicks the man a warning glance before rivets his eyes back to Hinako. He comes closer to her, ignoring when Daichi attempts to stop him. Only then does Hinako realize that there rests two swords hanging by the man's waist, one long and the other shorter. Hinako swallows, but her stance remains firm, her expression as light and serene as it can always be.