The two kids stared at the figure lying on the floor before them, as they tried to decide exactly what he was doing there.

"Maybe Gin-chan didn't eat enough sugar today" said the girl as she chewed on her sukonbu. "I'm sure that if we hit him hard enough he'll get better, Gin-chan always says that you can fix anything by doing that." She said thoughtfully as she flexed her arm; ready to strike.

"NO! You can't do that! Don't listen to that crazy man and his ideas, he won't be happy with you when he ends up dead!" said the slightly older boy next to her. "And besides," he added as he pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose, "he probably passed out after doing some adult things last night…" he reasoned, remembering the other day when Gintoki had been in bed all day because of a hangover.

"Don't be stupid Shinpachi, no woman would want to do adult things with Gin-chan because Gin-chan say's that girls don't like men with natural perms!" she said insistently, not seeming to notice the sudden look of horror on Shinpachi's face.

"Exactly what kind of things has that guy been telling you?" Shinpachi shouted.

"Hey, shut up!" she screamed loudly, swinging her umbrella at him wildly. "You'll wake up Gin-chan!" she continued, getting louder by the second.

"You're the loud one!" he replied, as the two continued arguing, Gintoki slowly pulled himself up and walked into the kitchen.

Once there, he began helping himself to some strawberry milk from the fridge, wondering vaguely why the two kids were fighting again. Today was a special day after all; he would have hoped that the two would at least shut up just this once, it was the day they disappeared; it was… collection day. Well it was the day he disappeared; the two idiots could deal with the old hag by themselves.

Walking past the two kids who were now screaming at each other, he took his house keys off the hook, opened the door, and then promptly locked it from the outside. Hopefully this would keep them inside long enough to be of a distraction for Catherine, he was afraid that he didn't have the money to pay the rent just today, and he wasn't really in the mood to deal with her. The best idea would be to hide out for a couple of days then come back when she'd given up.
Meanwhile, Shinpachi and Kagura had finally stopped arguing.

"Is he gone yet?" Kagura asked as she peered out the window.

"I think so, now let's hurry up and get everything ready… Kagura what are you doing?!"

"I'm following Gin-chan to make sure he doesn't get into any trouble." She answered, as she climbed over the windowsill.

"But you promised that you would help me…"

"Don't be so selfish Shinpachi! Gin-chan's safety is much more important!" and with that she jumped out the window; even though she was on the second floor.

"You're the selfish one!" he shouted after her "You're just using it as an excuse to not help out!" sighing, he sat down on the sofa, wondering how he'd have the time to get everything done without Kagura's help.
He supposed he could ask his sister but the idea of asking her for a favour was too terrifying to even contemplate. He then sighed again, sounding like some poor housewife who had been abandoned by her family to do dishes on her own.

While Shinpachi was having his little 'mid'life crisis Gintoki was having a rather peculiar conversation with a very persistent terrorist.

"Why won't you move Zura? You're in the way, can't you see that I want to get back into my house?" he asked, annoyed at Zura who was standing directly in front of the house door.

"It's not Zura, it's Katsura and I will not move until you agree to join me in the great cause of saving this country."

"But my wallet is in there, how can I help the cause without any money to donate?"

"That's a good point, well I guess if it's for that, then its fine…"he said as he began to move out of the way, stopping and moving back into place as soon as he saw the sudden evil grin on Gintoki's face. "No wait, you were tricking me!" Katsura quickly moved back in front of the door.

"You're not getting past until you agree to join me!"

"Fine I'll just go round the back" he said, walking past Katsura towards the huge hole in the wall that Kagura had made a few days before, he'd forgotten about it prior to a few moments beforehand, and was now thinking that maybe locking the two of them in may not have been one of his best ideas after all .Just as he was about to climb into the hole in the wall, a demon appeared, for some strange reason Shipachi's sister was inside of his house! Gintoki was just about to open his mouth to complain, but she quickly silenced him.

"You're not supposed to be here Gin-san, so I would like to suggest that you sit out here and wait until we're ready" she said sweetly, with only a hint of warning in the tone of her voice.

"Fine," he said expressionlessly, "I'll just get in through that other hole right next to you." he said, the corners of his mouth turning up into a mischievous smile as Otae turned to look along the wall for another hole.

"Wait there's noth-"but when she had turned around she found that Gintoki had already vanished and gone into the house.

Looking around, Gintoki saw a lot of strangely familiar people inside of his apartment, one of them was a women who was tying up a gorilla, another weirdo being some old Madao wearing some creepy sun glasses, the weird one eyed brat was there as well; beating up the mayora for accidentally touching her shoulder, as well as a few other people who he couldn't be bothered to mention.
Going up to Kagura, who was putting up some huge banner, he asked her what she was doing.

"I'm helping everyone get ready for Gin-chans birthday party!" she said smiling, not seeming to notice who she was talking to.
Walking past her and in between all of the people who were jamming up his house, he looked at the calendar, and then looked back at the people surrounding him.

"Idiots…" he muttered, before going into his room, retrieving his wallet and then leaving the house, picking up a newspaper on his way and smiling as he looked at the date in the right hand corner of the paper. It was October the 11th according to the newspaper and on the calendar he had clearly circled the date of his birthday: October the 10th.

He was a little surprised that he had turned twenty three yesterday, but even more surprised that Kagura and Shinpachi had remembered, well sort of…

"Well I guess it's the thought that counts." he said contentedly, as he smiled his first real smile that day. He then began laughing a strange evil laugh as he walked along the street, eating the cake he had taken from the table on his way out of the house...

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Format got a bit messed up...

Gin-sans character is very difficult to keep in check; in fact it was so difficult that this will probably be the only Gintama fanfic I'll ever write… Since even though it's my favourite manga/anime, the characters, characters are really hard to keep in character (used character too many times…) I've never done a birthday oneshot before… Makes me feel a bit silly… Sorry if it sucked... I know Gintama is meant to be funny but well...

Oh yeah and thanks alot hevava for being my Beta!