Author's Note: A Secret Santa Gift for abstractcactus of tumblr.

abstractcactus wrote the following comments in her request/prompts for her story:

"i love fukuchou. i love fukuchou's hair n fukuchou's Bad Poetry n gloomy fukuchou thinking he knows what's best n overworked fukuchou falling asleep at his desk ..."

"my go-to ship is hijichizu...

- i'm a sucker for fukuchou pov in general…. u know when a rasetsu messes up chizus room n she has to stay in fukuchou's room for the night… i always just wanted to see that touched on In Some Way, any way really… "

I hope you enjoy your story!

Wonderful cover art provided by nollatooru on tumblr!

Note: New cover art added and final section revised on January 4, 2016.

~ImpracticalOni

A note about the title:

In Western Church traditions, the Twelfth Night concludes the Twelve Days of Christmas, also referred to as Christmastide. Epiphany follows Twelfth Night, and the word "epiphany" usually means "a moment when you suddenly feel that you understand, or suddenly become conscious of something that is very important to you."

Twelfth Night is also a play written by William Shakespeare for a celebration of... well, twelfth night. I have unashamedly copied Sir William's title.

Twelfth Night, or What You Will*
*Not the play by William Shakespeare

They spent their first night together after she was attacked by the rasetsu. Or at least, that's what the annoying, ungovernable part of his mind insisted. But nothing had actually happened. Except, maybe, within himself.

It was his own fault, really. With Chizuru's room a shambles of blood-soaked tatami and walls—not to mention the door, which had been destroyed when the rasetsu had crashed through it—she obviously needed to go elsewhere for the night. That said, he could have asked any of his subordinates to move and give up their room for the evening. He was the one who had felt safer having her go to his room.

When he had wanted to have Yamazaki look at the gash in her arm, she had gotten visibly upset—had snapped at him, at them, for the first time ever. He suspected that he knew why, but he still couldn't quite believe it.

And then there had been the crisis with Itō to cope with. Furtive meetings in the shadows, mostly between Itō and the men he planned to take with him when he left. Including Heisuke. That had been a blow, but not unexpected, at least, not by Hijikata. He had seen the boy's impatience, his need to be his own person, his growing disaffection for the government of the Tokugawa shogunate. Still, it was a major rupture—the first true parting with a one of the original group from the Shieikan dojo.

One of the clandestine meetings had not involved Itō, however. Rather, Hijikata had gone out to stand under the sakura tree in the small side courtyard, and an invisible presence had asked for instructions. There had been no wasted words; they had already planned for this day. Just a short exchange, and Saitō had been condemned to spend half a year in Itō's company as a spy, his life and honour in the balance each day. Not that Saitō had ever complained, of course—not then or since.

It had been approaching dawn when he had opened the sliding door to his room and drawn up short at the sight of Chizuru—Yukimura—curled up and asleep in his bed. He could only imagine how she must have fretted before finally giving in to exhaustion. Another mistake on his part: surely there must have been other bedding? But hers was unusable until it could be washed and she had gone straight to his room as he had ordered.

Even as he had stood in the doorway, frozen by the sight of her small, vulnerable form huddled into his futon, she had stirred and turned her head toward him, blinking at the soft light shed by his small lantern. It was right at that moment, at the end of that crazy night, with the lantern creating a small cozy world just for them, that he had first noticed that his feelings were not really those of a guardian or a disinterested police force vice-commander.

"Hijikata-san," she had murmured, and he had known that the note of relief and… happiness… had meant that she was already a little in love with him. After all, Hijikata did know women, both as sisters and as lovers.

"Hush, go back to sleep," he had answered, quickly closing the door behind him. He probably should have left, but he hadn't. Instead, telling himself that it was duty, he had gone closer "to check on her". That's what he had told himself.

Much to his surprise, she actually had gone back to sleep, and he had found himself sitting with his back against the wall beside the futon. He had laid his swords down beside him—Saitō would have been appalled, since he hadn't cleaned his katana since attacking the fury in Yukimura's room. Oh well. Saitō had had other problems to consider over the course of that long, long night.

He had settled himself into a resting position, legs in front of him and head tilted back against the wall. For no apparent reason, the sound of Yukimura's soft breathing had been very relaxing. When he had woken automatically about an hour later, as the sun first touched the sky, he discovered that she had turned to face him, and one of her hands lay in his. With infinite care he had moved his hand away, trying not to notice how small and soft her hand was in comparison.

By the time that the day had fully dawned, he had straightened his clothes, tidied his hair, and left the room. He wasn't sure whether she ever remembered the hour that they had obviously slept while—more or less-holding hands. Hijikata had never asked. He preferred to treat that first night with Yukimura as a pleasant dream, half-remembered but best unshared in case it lost its wonder.

The second night that they had spent together was the night he had gotten drunk. He still hadn't quite forgiven the others for making Yukimura stay at the inn to look after him. But he hadn't gotten especially angry with them either.

Sometimes he wished he could forget what had happened; other times, he was glad that although he got drunk—well, not easily, exactly, but without much difficulty—he tended to remember what he'd said and done. This was helpful in various circumstances. For one thing, he could find out who would try to lie to him if they thought they could get away with it.

He had grabbed her by the front of her kimono and shouted at her. Not one of his finer moments. In retrospect, it was amazing how much she had actually dealt with during the time she had been with the Shinsengumi. At the time, she had been startled, certainly, but she hadn't fallen apart, which was better than many Shinsengumi soldiers would have done in her place.

She had ended up at his side all that night. It was the reverse of the first night. Except that with the license of the inebriated, he had demanded to hold her hand "just to help me get to sleep". It was embarrassing. The Oni no Fukuchō holding hands with a seventeen-year-old girl in order to sleep peacefully.

And there was something else. Something neither of them had ever mentioned. Hijikata remembered it vividly though. Whether it was the context—they had been at a place that supplied both drink and women, after all—or the sake, or the scent and touch of Chizuru herself (most likely, although he had tried hard not to think about it), Hijikata had woken not long after first falling asleep to find that he had drawn Chizuru's—Yukimura's—small fingers to his lips and was kissing them. He had been most definitely aroused, and only the thought that he'd really hate himself in the morning if he didn't sort out the situation right away had kept him from pulling the dozing Yukimura down onto the futon with him. Even now he wondered if she would have minded. She had been asleep, but she had been smiling.

Their third night in each other's company had been after he had rescued her from the botched mission at the geisha house. Actually, that wasn't fair. The mission had been a success, insofar as they had found the men who had been plotting against the Shinsengumi. But the entire covert and subtle part of the mission had been a disaster.

Even Saitō and Yamazaki, his two most reliable officers had been drawn into the conflict that had raged throughout the establishment throughout most of the night. He was glad that he hadn't found out the worst of it until later, when Saitō had confessed that he had seen that bastard Kazama (the words always went together in Hijikata's mind) at the place that night. Apparently Kazama had been amused by the enthusiasm of the Shinsengumi operation.

Hijikata had hauled Yukimura through the streets rather unceremoniously, which he acknowledged had been hard on her in her high platform sandals. But it had been embarrassing to be thought to have carried her off illicitly! And then worse to have Sōji see them leaning together once they had made it back to the compound.

He had rather unkindly stuffed her into a room when a few of his soldiers had gone by, and it had only seemed fair to help her with whatever she needed once the coast was clear to help her back to her own quarters. Oddly enough, although he had admired her appearance earlier in the night, it was the tired and rather dishevelled girl that had made him suddenly think how beautiful she was.

They had sat out on the engawa for quite some time after she had changed back into her regular clothes. She should have gone to sleep, of course, but somehow, that hadn't happened. They hadn't spoken of much in particular—or spoken much at all—but after she had finally gone in to bed, and his captains had come to make their (rather sheepish) reports, Hijikata had been in a much better mood than he had been for some time. It was a pity that the peace of that evening hadn't lasted.

The fourth night had been just after the disastrous battle of Toba-Fushimi. They had lost most of Shinpachi's Second Division and had been forced to retreat back to their headquarters, which was itself under heavy bombardment. In fact, without Harada and his valiant Tenth Division, it was unlikely that any of Shinpachi's troops would have survived. Even Saitō's Third Division had suffered casualties, but to be fair, he had been facing the demon Amagiri again. Those bastard Oni… as if things hadn't been bad enough already with just regular enemies with modern rifles.

Yukimura had been wonderful throughout it all. She had jumped a bit at the cannon-fire, but she was the one who had fed them, cleaned them up and dressed their wounds. She had even managed to smile at them, which was a small miracle in itself. He had put a stop to her plan not to eat—food was running low, and she had been worried about the men—pointing out that having her faint wasn't going to help anyone. Or maybe he had just told her to eat. All he remembered well from that day was a brief moment in the garden with her and the realization that her small, sturdy frame and bright eyes had become a constant for all of them.

The next day he had sent Yukimura and Gen-san off to fetch reinforcements. Only a quarter of an hour later—perhaps a little less—he had discovered that their allies had sold out to the other side. The stronghold to which he had sent kind Gen-san and gentle Yukimura was suddenly full of enemies.

Hijikata remembered the terrible feeling of foreboding that had filled him, remembered seeing the world change in a heartbeat, as the Satsuma-Chōshu army became the Imperial Army. Just like that, the loyal Shinsengumi had become enemies of the Court; enemies of the Emperor. But although he had recognized the importance of the Imperial Battle Standards unfurled by the enemy army, his first real thought, left unvoiced, had been fear for Yukimura.

He had run after her hoping to warn her in time, or to rescue her from their traitorous former allies. He hadn't wanted to consider that she might already be dead. But he hadn't been fast enough—at least, not for Gen-san. After dealing with the scum who had killed the Sixth Division Captain, he had fought the Oni, Kazama, in deadly earnest—fought him hard enough for the arrogant demon to need the use of his true form. Except that he'd had to take the ochimizu to do it, and even that hadn't been enough. The bastard still would have taken him apart if Amagiri—the big, red-haired Oni—hadn't intervened. As had Yamazaki. The Shinsengumi's talented medic and shinobi had taken the brunt of Kazama's last, deadly strike.

Yamazaki had eventually died of that wound. That was an injury—a death—that Hijikata had kept close to his heart. It reminded him of the price of acting out of personal pride and fear. But if he hadn't gone when he had, risking his life, then Yukimura Chizuru would have died. And that would have been… terrible. Of course, at the time he had told himself that his unsettling physical and emotional reactions to Yukimura were all due to what was going on around him. After all, the Shinsengumi had lost so much, and it was normal to think occasionally of the only woman who was always around the camp or compound. He had buried his feelings under the burden of leadership in the face of disaster, so that he could make the Shinsengumi his one and only priority.

At the end of that awful day, when he had fled with Yukimura and the remaining Shinsengumi out of Kyoto, driven like scurrying rats before the vastly superior firepower of the newly minted Imperial Army, he had found Chizuru waiting for him by his gear. Her eyes had shone with tears for Gen-san, but her presence, her demeanour, had told him that she fully intended to care for the living… and especially Hijikata-san.

They had sat together on a blanket under a tree in the cold night, a little ways from their makeshift camp. Poor Kyoto had been a glow on the horizon, alight with the fires of war like some grotesque kind of festival with the crash of cannons instead of fireworks. Yukimura had eventually started to shiver, despite her winter haori, and he had put his arm around her shoulders to warm and comfort her. It was another of those things that they never spoke of. She had leaned back into his embrace—though he had not thought of it as an embrace, at the time—and he had been able to allow his stern, undaunted façade to fall for a little while.

The whole disaster—from the use of the old, well-tested tactics that had killed so many of Shinpachi's men, to the decision to send Yukimura and Gen-san in search of allies—had taken place under his command. Kondō had been injured in an assassination attempt not long before the battle; he and Sōji, the latter now clearly ill with tuberculosis, had been taken out of Kyoto before the worst of the fighting had begun. So it had all been on him: every death, every mistake.

He had always thought that Chizuru must have known about his silent tears, and his vow to learn from his errors and to do better the next time. But that night, all he had acknowledged was that she was content to sit with him until she fell asleep, warm and comforted—and comforting. He had eventually, reluctantly, taken her back into the main camp and tucked her into her own blankets. A glare had been more than enough to silence the few men who had looked at him askance for treating his page with such strange solicitude. But there hadn't been many of them; most of the soldiers were too immersed in their own cold, frightened worlds to pay much attention.

In the end, unable to sleep, he had been awake most of the night, occasionally reaching out to soothe Yukimura, who seemed to be having bad dreams. The only person to approach him was Saitō, who had brought him tea along with the most recent scouting report. The tea was… hot. But that was about the best that Hijikata could say about it; Yukimura's tea was always perfectly made to his personal tastes in both flavour and temperature. Nevertheless, the tea—and the practical solicitude of the taciturn indigo-haired captain—had gotten him back on his feet to make another round of the surviving men. He could see Shinpachi and Harada also moving about from time to time, and he had made a point of speaking with both of them whenever possible. They were brave, loyal, capable men, who didn't deserve to be on the losing side of what he could now see would be a bitter, brutal civil war.

They escaped from Kyoto to Osaka only to find that the Shogun fled before them, leaving no supplies and little food. They left Osaka by ship not long after that. Although nobody ever spoke of it—likely because it seemed terribly unimportant in the aftermath of Toba-Fushimi and the death of Yamazaki—Yukimura spent all of her nights aboard in Hijikata's quarters. There was a simple reason for this: there was very little space aboard the ship, between the refugees and the soldiers, and the Vice-Commander was taking no chances with the safety of his erstwhile page.

Consequently, their fifth through ninth nights together were spent in very close quarters, as the rooms aboard ship were tiny. Yukimura had insisted that Hijikata sleep in the narrow bunk, pointing out that her smaller frame was better suited to curling up in a futon on the floor (she had resisted the idea of a hammock, as had he). He had retaliated by pointing out that he didn't sleep much anyway, with the predictable response that he should get more sleep, and now was as good a time as any. In the end, despite his commands and her soft demeanor, she had won; he should have expected as much from the beginning and given up. Edo women were like that.

Those nights had been the most difficult, in many ways. His heart ached, but he could show nothing of that to either his men or to his beloved commanding officer. Kondō had still been recovering from his gunshot wounds, which clouded his usual sunny disposition. So Hijikata had been the one to cheer up the men—primarily with his own brand of sarcasm and invective, which had kept them believing that although things might not be good, they weren't exactly bad, since the Demon Vice Commander was clearly his usual self.

But at night the mask slipped occasionally, although he had never actually cried again, thank the gods (if there were any). Chizuru—in his mind she had become Chizuru by that point, although he invariably called her Yukimura aloud—was always there for him. Even if she had her own troubles, or illness, or worries, she had tea and food prepared for them to share at the end of every tedious day, and she would tell him stories about his own men that he didn't know. He had found out later that she had learned a great deal from Yamazaki, who had entrusted the Shinsengumi to her care after he was gone. She had been desperately grieved by Yamazaki's death, but had done everything to hide the worst of it from him, knowing—somehow—that his guilt over the man's death would be exacerbated by her tears.

Night after night he had listened to her soft breathing, and her carefully muffled crying, and he had discovered that being a rasetsu made him vulnerable to the scent of her blood. He had remained able to function during the day, but it had been becoming unpleasant. He had known that Chizuru was fretting over the way that he had been forced to drink the ochimizu, but it had never bothered him in the same way. Men (and women, in his experience) made sacrifices in war. He probably would have used the damn stuff sooner or later.

One night he had woken from a short rest to find himself on his knees beside her, as a dream managed to meld with reality and his body had seemingly moved without his volition. Once again he had been aroused; once again he hadn't been sure whether she'd seen him there and what she would have said if she had been fully awake and he had asked. Asked what though? To hold her? To lie with her and—appalling thought—use her body and her kindness to calm his anguish at the state of the world. Or worse yet—maybe—to taste her blood and calm the literal fury inside him?

Oddly enough, such thoughts, and more specifically his disgust with himself at such thoughts, had given him the resolution to seal them tightly away. His duty to the Shinsengumi came first; even if he felt some genuine… admiration… for Chizuru, he would never be able to place her needs ahead of that duty.

The war to come would likely be terrible, with no quarter given. There was hatred on both sides, as well as greed. Greed made a man predictable, but hatred was another thing entirely. Where greed sought to preserve, hatred would destroy. The Tokugawa Shoguns had enjoyed absolute power through military might for more than two hundred and fifty years. If they were defeated, the victors would not treat them kindly. He had honestly hoped that he was wrong, but he doubted it. Chizuru was best away from the kind of atrocities that arose when there were old wounds in issue.

After a few minutes spent lost in dark predictions, he had risen cautiously from the deck and lay back down on his bunk. He had fallen asleep again with a sense of loss, but a clear conscience.

Their tenth night together had taken place after Hijikata had been forced to leave Kondō-san behind to surrender to their enemies so that he and Chizuru could escape a well-planned and well-executed trap. His life had been spared, but the loss of his commander, teacher and friend had been agonizing.

After slaughtering as many enemy soldiers as had come within his reach, he had finally stood watching the setting sun, with a heart full of anger, regret, and the bitter certainty that he should never have left Kondō-san to face such a fate. Chizuru had stood with him, watching the light fade from the sky. She had refused to leave his side all night, and he had only made a half-hearted attempt to send her away.

He didn't love her—he couldn't—but she was a constant and therefore a comfort. She had demanded nothing from him except to be allowed to stay nearby.

He hadn't slept at all on the night of Kondō's capture, and neither had she; it had been a joint vigil. When morning came, she had silently gone about her duties, and he had started to make plans for Kondō's release.

Chizuru didn't know about their eleventh night together. She had been asleep in her room, still the picture of innocence with her dark hair fanning out across her white yukata. She hadn't known that he would leave her behind the following day when the remnants of the Shinsengumi embarked for their last refuge on the island of Ezo. But Hijikata had known, had planned for it to ensure that she could not follow him. He had been quite certain that Ezo would see the end of the war, one way or the other, and he had wanted her out of it.

He had spent the night at her side, his swords beside him, like a European knight on a vigil before the altar of some Christian saint. It was a strange, foreign thought, but everything was foreign these days it seemed.

He had been unable to resist a parting kiss on her forehead, the first and only gesture of a lover's affection that he had ever allowed himself to show. In fact, it had startled him. When she had stirred and murmured his name, he had risen gracefully and left her room immediately, conscious of deep sadness, but refusing to look too far into the well that spawned it.

Twelfth Night

It had been five years since they had first met on a snowy night in Edo with the smell of blood and dead bodies around them. In the morning, he would fight the most desperate battle of his life, and he didn't really expect to survive it. That evening, for the first time, he had kissed her on the lips and acknowledged that everything before had been a delusion. He loved her, he wanted her, he needed her with him. It had been a true lovers' kiss, full of heat and longing and love. But like many such kisses, there had been sadness, for time lost and opportunities missed.

Eventually, he had drawn her over to a low European couch and had pulled her into his lap. There had been too much to say, and not enough time to say it, so they had spoken their love in kisses and caresses. She was entirely innocent, and inexpert, but it didn't matter. He had enough experience for both of them. He had enjoyed untying the cord in her dark hair and winding his fingers through the long strands; it had struck him as symbolic, as if he were releasing her from the last vestige of being his page and allowing himself to become her lover. He had wanted to do this countless times in the past. Whenever his thoughts had escaped him and he had wondered which of the young men around her would win her once she got tired of trailing after him, this was the image that had fuelled his self-inflicted (and unacknowledged) jealousy: strong hands in her hair untying the red ribbon and the white cord; hands other than his having the right to that first, intimate undoing. He hadn't realized how much the image had disturbed him until he could banish it for good.

"I need to go out to see to the men," he had said not long after, savouring the wonderful feeling of her body held tightly against his. He had done everything he could to drive her away from him, fearing first for her heart, then for his loyalties, and finally for her life.

"I know." Her voice had been a little breathless.

"Will you wait for me?"

Her head had tilted a little, as if she were startled that he had needed to ask.

"Yes. I always have."

He had stood up reluctantly, still holding her close, knowing that he was already late for his rounds. Tomorrow, the last part of the war would begin. He and Otori-san between them commanded about two thousand men. The enemy had arrived with fifty thousand.

"Will you stay with me tonight? I mean…" He had been surprised to find himself nervous. "Will you share my bed?"

She had blushed of course, but there had been no hesitation in her response.

"Yes."

And so here they were, on the twelfth night, finally together. They lay entwined on Hijikata's bed, skin-to-skin, flushed with passion and hungry need. It was as if all the other nights had been leading to this—not for Chizuru, who had known her own mind and heart early on, but for the experienced and aloof Shinsengumi Vice Commander. It had taken him a long time to give himself permission to admit how he felt. Chizuru had borne a great deal without expectation or hope of requital. She had felt constant fear for his safety, and the loneliness of watching him pursue his single-minded purpose without being allowed to even support him except as he allowed. It was a small miracle that her feelings had remained untainted by resentment, but there was no shadow of anger in her eyes and nothing but desire in the way that she touched him.

"I love you," he told her, not for the first time that night, tightening his hold and tangling his legs even more securely in hers.

"Then live for me, tomorrow," she returned, somewhere between a plea and a command.

He sighed against her hair.

"I will try, Chizuru. For you… for the chance to have another night with you… I will try."

[END]

A/Note: Please review or leave me a comment by PM or on tumblr! I always appreciate hearing from readers. \(^u^)~