Gintama Fandom [Oneshots]

🎄Katsura Kotarō x Reader🎄

GIFT EXCHANGE

Do you believe in Santa Clause?

Even after nearing the end of my teenage years, the legendary guardian of children's faith has always held a special place in my heart. Always more than a mythical tale of winter nights.

Especially on this night of Christmas Eve, when the gentle winds birth frost on the streets and shabby roofs of the city's residences, it's as if the boundaries between myth and truth have thinned out like the fragile flakes of the night sky.

Like the lingering faith that if you squint at the chimney of a particular house, you might just catch a glimpse of that familiar red-and-white that you've imagined it so many times as a child.

A fairytale.

Regardless of others' scorn, I keep a strong faith. As a way to escape the reality that always has its claws behind my neck.

Before I know it, I've ventured off the street I usually commute between work and home—a tiny yet not-so-stifling apartment not far from the Terminal.

Instead of neon lights blinding passersby, a couple of aged streetlamps flicker weakly along the deserted road I'm padding on. Stylish, expensive homes are replaced by roughly-built shacks with barely strong enough doors to hold against a blizzard.

I observe the homes as I pass, wondering if the occupants are celebrating a day considered holy by foreign lands behind each lit windows.

My childhood expedition floods my mind, and a well of hollowness opens in my stomach at the muteness all around. Not a single soul roams the snow-packed road of the slums.

Adjusting the scarf steadier around my neck, I continue into the cold night, aimless and alone.

I near a broken streetlamp, where the lack of light sectionally plunges the way in semi-shade. The snow thawing on the sides of the street gives it the impression of a distorted mirror, or false sparkling stars. I idly study its wonder until my gaze goes several paces ahead, squinting at something moving. An elongated shadow shuffles from within an alley.

A cat perhaps, judging by the restless noises it makes. I glance up at the sky, thick with chances of snow yet fallen. It doesn't seem like the temperature would be rising for the next few hours—it's now around midnight I suppose. I've chosen to numb my solitude with the icicle winds, but which stray feline deserves to be cast into winter's oblivion, starving and uncared for?

I approach the alley. Making my steps as noiseless as possible, I peer into the dimness, searching for the source of the tinkling sound. To my surprise, my eyes instead land on a silhouette definitely too large to be a cat. But it's not the discovery of the person that compels another step from me.

It's their clothes.

"Santa-san!" I exclaim, out of sheer impulse, startling the figure.

Something shatters nearby when the figure jump at my sudden intrusion, right as a horrid thought passes my head. I immediately regret my idiotic act.

What if it's some kind of serial killer?

The figure turns around before I could think twice about backing away. And just then the broken streetlamp blinks to life across the road, brightening the otherwise clean alleyway beyond and the man—woman?—dressed in an all-too-familiar red shirt and trousers with white fluffy cuffs.