So keep your silence and know: This man, unless slain, is fated to die.
Based off the 31 Days theme for August 24, 2006.
Shinsengumi lore has it that Okita kept seeing a black cat before he died.
Their first time was their goodbye. In some ways Okita knew he was forcing Hijikata's hand, drawing the man out when he was at his most vulnerable because he knew what the man wanted from him but would never admit to. In some ways, he was guilty for it. Nevertheless, it felt right in Hijikata's embrace, and when they kissed all felt well in him for the first time in years, since he had felt the first coughs rattle his lungs.
Hijikata was scared to hold him, and treated him like something of glass that would shatter at a touch. Okita angered him with words and tears to make the man take him by force, roughen him up with love. Each thrust made Okita feel warm and real — the hurt was something he could deal with. It would have hurt more if they had never touched each other at all.
Hijikata cried in his arms when they were finished; Okita fell asleep first against his will, and woke up to find that the man was long gone. From then on he lived on the small reports the maidservants left him with out of kindness. It was when they stopped coming that he began to see the black cat watching him from the courtyard.
They told Hijikata that Okita had died with his name on his lips. Hijikata had them leave him. He poured some sake and drank, thinking it the taste of Okita's lips.