AN: You don't think I will go down with nothing for my baby's birthday, do you?

Last year I gave him two horrid drabbles. I guess it's still the same horrid thing this year, or even worse than last year, because this is... obnoxiously long.

Mood song: If we ever meet again - Timbaland ft. Katy Perry

***

(Y/N) was sent back to the past.

It happened as suddenly as it was described here. (Y/N) didn't know how it happened. She was just taking her broken rice cooker out to the repair shop, and took a shortcut down the hill through a range of trees. Then, suddenly, it was not the same range of trees that she knew, and when she got out, it was not the same road that she knew either.

No more streets bustling with pedestrians and houses that ran for miles. Only a typical countryside road in the middle of rice fields, a few wandering chickens and an old farmer riding a bullock cart.

After a very confusing exchange with the farmer, (Y/N) came to the knowledge that she was not only more than a decade into the past, but also half a country away from her hometown.

Her brain was overloaded with realization, fear of the unknown and tingling survival instinct as she sit dumfounded on the side of the street, on top of a rock, hugging a broken rice cooker.

Of course she had not a single clue of what to do.

If she was at least in her hometown, she could go back to her house and pretend to be a long-lost relatives. Her family would believe her, right, since she was the exact copy of their daughter... but maybe it didn't work that way. Those years spent on reading sci-fi stories let her know the possibility of creating a time paradox if she were to meet her younger self. It could break the flow of time, lead to a mass extinction event, and destroy the future world as she knew it.

That was scary, but dying on the side of the road tonight because of no food to eat and no place to stay was also scary. Her survival instinct was not tingling anymore. It was screaming because it knew how pathetic she was in this strange situation.

Unlike those heroes in sci-fi stories, she was just a normal weakling whose purpose was to fix a rice cooker. No useable money. No fighting ability. No mean to cross half the country to her hometown. She guessed today was the last day of her short sad life.

***

"I found her on the side of the street, on top of a rock. She was holding a broken rice cooker looking so lost. When I called her, her face became like that until now."

"What is a rice cooker?"

"That thing she is holding. I guess it cooks rice by itself...?"

The young boy stared at the strange woman who wore a kimono that was much better in quality than that of people around here. She was clutching a big block of metal like it was her treasure, and her face was...

...extremely dumb.

Her eyes were opened wide like two big chicken eggs and her mouth dropped hanging in pure admiration. She didn't even looked at him when she walked in because she was paying her full and complete attention to the person who brought her back, which was also a dumb person for bringing back strange people.

"There must be a limit to what you do. Collecting random kid on the road is one thing. Collecting a fully grown-up woman like this screams big trouble!" The boy hissed with hostility and was replied with gentleness.

"How big a trouble could she be. She is a fairy. A rice cooker fairy who gets lost in our world."

"Yes I am, Shouyou-sensei."

Two big chicken eggs that were her eyes sparkled as she smiled sheepishly. The pinkish hue seared across her face while her fingers tap-danced on the rice cooker. An hour ago she was dead frightened from the supernatural phenomenon, but right now she was crazily elated for meeting him, a supernatural being, but also one of the greatest sensei ever existed.

(Y/N) knew a fair deal about him. Who he was. What he was. What he did. And that made her develop great respect for this sensei.

However, that was not the most important thing right now. She was still stuck in the past.

Look at that graceful and charming smile.

She needed to figure out how to get back to her world.

They never told me that he is this good looking.

Maybe he could help her to get back to the present.

He is even more beautiful than a girl!

"What kind of fairy looks this perverted! Stop staring at him like that!" The young boy that had been complaining on the side interrupted (Y/N)'s conflicting thoughts and made his presence known.

"Kid, why are you so rude—"

When she finally noticed the tiny human, her hands let go of the rice cooker in surprise but she instantly saved it before it crushed her feet. Her face for the rest of that night was no more admiring, but just plain shocked, staggered and... lost.

The woman looked even dumber that way. Gintoki thought.

***

Gintoki wouldn't admit that the strange woman was a fairy, but she must have come from another world...

... because she didn't know how to do a freaking thing!

They had no choice but to let her stay at the school and she asked to help around, but whatever she touched, it instantly turned into a disaster. She cleaned up the shelves. The shelves fell and crumbled. She washed the dishes. The dishes ceased to exist. She carried a few stacks of boxes. She tripped and scattered the boxes everywhere, dropping one of it on his head that gave him migraine for a week. She was a total klutz, the biggest one there was.

It irritated Gintoki so much that he complained to Shouyou but the benevolent sensei acted like no one had done a better job than her.

"It's not perfect, but (Y/N)-san is trying her best. She's a fairy so she is not familiar with human chores."

"Don't talk to me like I'm a kid. I tell you she must be a mistress of some rich old bastard who found another woman and disowned her faraway from home so she couldn't come back!"

"Suppose that was true, you want me to disown her again?"

Gintoki shut up and stared at his sensei unpleasantly, then darted his eyes outside. The subject of their conversation was wandering in the garden, feeding the birds some breads that she saved for them.

She teared it into small pieces and scattered... stupidly against the wind so the crumbs flew into her eyes. The miserable girl crouched down and rubbed her eyes in regret, then one bird landed on her shoulder and picked up the bread crumbs from her hair. Of course, she had to spread a carefree, innocent, and lovely smile, as the other birds gathered around, asking for more bread.

"No... I—I didn't mean..." He snapped back inside, flustering for no reason and that didn't go without notice.

"You seem to like her—"

The shriek from the silver hair boy launched the birds to fly all at once, fluttering (Y/N) hair while she glanced back at the source. Gintoki was jumping and screaming at his sensei who was as calm and composed as the great Buddha.

It was definitely a once in a lifetime chance to see them like this. (Y/N) smiled softly but felt worried nevertheless. She didn't know why she ended up in the past and what triggered it. What she did know was she shouldn't tamper with anything that could change the course of future, if she wanted to return to the exact timeline that she came from.

That raised the question of how to deal with this silver perm head who at this point in time, was so tiny he was just around her waistline. It was not in her nature to be a bully... but oh my, she wanted to. Pinch his cheeks. Pull his ears. Flick his forehead. Lift him up and just watch him wailing angrily. She was sure he would be able to rebuff her anyway but she would like to do it at least once. Chance like this never came by in her timeline.

Despite all the violent impulses, (Y/N) just put her hand on top of his fluffy white hair quietly, watching it sank down and got lost in the mass of whiteness.

The boy reacted like a whole nest of ants fell on his head.

"Get your hand away from me! Who said you can touch my hair?! Respect people's personal space!" He flinched and stepped away from her, hand still holding a spatula as they were in the kitchen cooking dinner. Actually he was the one cooking because they couldn't afford this woman to burn down their only kitchen.

"I just want to give you head massage." She answered with a straight face, and her look was strange. She was looking at him but it felt like she was not looking at him.

"I don't want it! Don't just carelessly touch people!"

Her aloof eyes stayed on him for a second, then she turned back to her pot and mumbled nonchalantly:

"So you said. You are the one who keep asking for it until it gets really annoying."

"What do you mean... 'me'? I asked what?"

Her eyes widened like chicken eggs again before feigning an uninterested look.

"I mean... my friend. He... is really similar to you so I just blurted that out. Sorry for the confusion."

Yep she was gonna go with that. (Y/N) pretended to check the fire and added more woods under the stove while maintaining a straight face, in hope that Gintoki would overlook that weird moment.

"You are good at cooking rice."

He overlooked that alright, but what he said was out of her expectation. Ever since she came here, all that this boy got to say was endless nagging and criticism.

He was aware of that too.

"Don't get me wrong!" His voice raised higher while he crossed his arm and shyly looked away "You suck at everything you do... but you cook... almost perfect rice. How do you do that?"

(Y/N) blinked at him a few times before glancing back at her rice pot. It was boiling steadily on the flaming wood pile that she kept watch. She knew when to add water, when to add wood, when to close the lid and when to lower the fire. The rice she cooked never burned. It was not sticky. It was not hard. It was well-done, nice, white rice that Gintoki failed to do sometimes.

Considering that she was a mistress in a rich family, Gintoki couldn't fathom how she achieved this competency level. Now don't go on about that stuff of her being a rice cooker fairy... she was not even using the rice cooker!

The woman was more thankful to that compliment than Gintoki expected. Placing a hand on her chest, she looked back and forth between him and the rice pot with a sheepish smile. Her cheeks that grew red due to the heat was now a little bit redder, gratefully.

"It... It was the same friend. He taught me how to cook rice without the rice cooker."

Like hell there was such a friend here. Gintoki grumbled internally. It must be her lover! Probably a servant of the rich old bastard who seduced the mistress to runaway with him, only to abandon her after he got what he wanted.

And the idiot here must still believe that the guy would come back for her one day, thus that stupidly hopeless smile.

"You are not pregnant, are you?"

She laughed until the rice pot was done. She told Shouyou and they both laughed throughout dinner. She kept laughing for the rest of the night even in bed.

"G-Gin... You have a peculiar mind at such young age... Haha..."

"Oi! Stop laughing! People are trying to sleep here!" The awkward boy yelled from his futon on the other side of the room, face blushing deep red "How could I be sure? You may very well just bloop out a kid here and that's an additional mouth to feed!"

"You seem to worry about the strangest things..."  (Y/N) had to assure the boy that she was not a pregnant lady on the run due to some family tragedy. She was just a normal person who tried to fix her rice cooker and got lost.

"Come to think of it... when I first met you— him. I mean him. He was so weird too."

Shifting her eyes from the ceiling to the broken rice cooker in the corner of the room, (Y/N) spoke softly. She knew that she shouldn't talk freely about the future but there was that unexplained need to converse with someone, and tonight she just felt so relaxed.

"The guy that taught you to cook rice?"

"Yes... Very weird. I was asking some policemen about the nearest electronics shop to fix my rice cooker. Yeah... It was the same rice cooker."

She confirmed without Gintoki even asking, knowing that he was making that scornful face. It did sound like her life only resolved around that rice cooker.

"Then he barged in out of nowhere. Said that he could fix it for a cheap price, and that all the repair shops only cheated off their customers. He was so insisted on fixing my rice cooker that I was scared..."

"You should be. He sounded like a perverted old man." The fluffy silver head commented.

"But the police said he could be trusted, just that he was desperate to make money, so I let him fix it."

She paused and stared at the ceiling in deep thought. Just when Gintoki came to the idea that maybe she was harassed by that old man at his place, the woman giggled softly:

"And he couldn't fix it. He tried very hard but I can see he didn't know how to do it at all. I followed him for a week asking to have my rice cooker back but he refused to. Then he ridiculed me for being such a spoiled girl and that I should learn to cook rice the traditional way."

"And you spent another week learning it from him?"

"A whole month. He said I was not good enough... until I sneakily got my rice cooker back and had a technician repaired it for me." (Y/N) brought her hand to her lips and laughed again, obviously not taking any of that to heart "That's why I was so touched when you complimented my rice."

"Oh my freaking god..." A long disdainful groan came from Gintoki as he poked his head out of the futon "How stupid can you be. He played trick on you! He did that so you would stay around!"

"I think so... maybe... yeah..."

Her submissive answer put Gintoki in a hopeless place as he smashed his face against the pillow, realizing that her stupidity was beyond his comprehension.

"But he looks lonely... and if complaining about my rice helps him a little bit... then I don't mind."

When Gintoki looked up, the strange woman already fell asleep. The moon that sneaked through the creak of the window caressed her soft gentle feature in its peaceful light, then made a straight line to shine on the rice cooker in the corner.

She couldn't be a real fairy, could she?

***

"(Y/N)-san went to the market to buy fish. She will be back before—"

"Why did you allow her to go?! Does she know the way? What if she get lost? That woman is so clumsy and vulnerable!"

Shouyou hadn't closed his book and Gintoki was already ten meters away, chasing after their lady helper. The children in the class didn't know what hit the perm head and that made it even funnier.

Shouyou knew what hit Gintoki but even if he explained, these children wouldn't understand.

"Don't you have any friend, GinGin?"

"Don't call me like that! I'm not a kid!"

The kid who had been fending off (Y/N)'s nickname-giving attempt yelled loudly while submerging under the water. After he caught up to her at the market, Gintoki somehow entered into a fight with the fisherman, claiming that his stock was not fresh and yet was sold for such ridiculous price. End result? The kid dragged her to the nearby stream where he just caught fish by himself.

(Y/N) stared at Gintoki like 'Are you a bear?' And he glared back.

'Watch.'

By the end of that evening, he earned himself the title 'Beartoki' against his will, but nothing could change (Y/N)'s mind now. She was too impressed by the boy's hidden talent to call him anything else.

"Beartoki, you are so reliable when you want to be."

Gintoki threw daggers at that uncool nickname, but her dazzling eyes looking at the basket full of fishes did... flatter his ego.

"Of course I am. Plus, you are too clueless and unreliable."

"Yes... I know I am."

Giving an easy answer which ticked off Gintoki again, (Y/N) looked up to the sunset sky and mumbled nonchalantly:

"That's why my life is boring and plain. I mostly live in my own bubble. I'm afraid of being judged by people and sometimes I'm not sure what is right or wrong in this world."

She then darted her eyes at him, and it carried the breathtaking color of the sunset.

"But you are so different from me. Your heart is good and you live by it fearlessly. You don't let bad things change who you are and you never ignore anyone in distress..."

While Gintoki was stunned by that sudden talk, (Y/N) stretched her sleeves and leaned down to wipe some mud off his cheek, but he instinctively grabbed her hand.

"Your kimono is expensive! Don't dirty it!"

They just stared at each other, with Gintoki's smaller hand holding hers and that shot him boiling red in an instance. Contrary to his virgin reaction, (Y/N) just laughed and wiped his cheek anyway:

"No wonder why people love you so much."

For the rest of that night, Gintoki was so puzzled by what she said.

The tiny perm head was sure the strange woman talked nonsense again, because she couldn't possibly mean him. Him? Being loved by people? As if! And she had that look in her eyes when she said so, like she was looking at someone else and not him.

It must be that guy friend she often mentioned.

Gintoki twisted and turned on the tatami mat, not knowing why he felt this... way. He ruffled his hair a few times and tried to sleep, but when he closed his eyes, his mind was filled with her. The woman with a broken rice cooker who lived in her own bubble.

"I thought you would know where (Y/N)-san is. You are very close to her recently."

"It's your fault for bringing back such a clueless person." The young boy dodged his sensei's knowing smile "You don't know how much of an airhead she is, right? She talks to me and not to me at the same time. It's like she is living between worlds."

"Ah. You got something there." Shouyou's iconic smile turned brighter as he put his book down "Didn't I say she's a fairy and this is not her world?"

"T-That's..."

"Don't worry too much, Gintoki. Soon (Y/N)-san will return to her world and not bother you any longer."

The expression on Gintoki's face was exactly as Shouyou predicted and it brought him mixed feelings. Happy because his student had learned to care for others. Sad because of what would eventually come.

"The best you could do is ensuring she is happy with her time here."

While Gintoki hadn't sorted that out in his head, he saw her casually chatting with... a man over the fence. It was someone Gintoki knew and hated. Who else but the fisherman that fought with Gintoki at the market?

The guy was doing most of the talking. His lips moved nonstop. Hands swung around to aid his lame story. Eyes glued to her aloof but pretty face, and there was a gross hue of red splattering on his cheeks.

That died down fast when Gintoki did his thing: walking out with the most unwelcome stare he could project.

"Beartoki, Yasuda-san gives us some fresh fishes. Isn't that great?" She briefly showed Gintoki the basket brought over by the guy before bowing respectfully to him "Thanks so much, Yasuda-san. The children will be very grateful to you."

"Not me."

(Y/N) looked at Gintoki surprisingly, then placed her hand on his shoulder and brought him close:

"Yasuda-san said this is for you. He's sorry that the fishes this afternoon were not the best. You know what to tell him, right?"

Gintoki would tell him to