a/n: this pairing. i can't. i can't get over it
x
Together, To Be
x
I know to be there
When and where, I'll be there
You know what's to be said
We said out loud, we never said
A premonition of the world comes to me
A sun in your hands from the middle life
Says I'm alright
- The xx
x
Though he had always wandered through life with plenty of company, there had been a painful loneliness that he had cast in the back of his mind. The murder of Shoyou-sensei had struck him deeper than the marrow in his bones. Some days he had understood why Takasugi had gone mad, susceptible to the insanity that accompanied a profound loss.
Then he'd met her. She struck him as lonely, too.
Gintoki wasn't a man who indulged in fate or girlish nonsense like that. But eventually he could see a woman who was a lot like him, sometimes too much for comfort. Beneath the veneer of self-deprecating humor, he could see there was something that held her back, as if something so painful would tip her over if you observed her closely.
He envied her then. On Shoyou's dying day, there had been none of his pupils to carry his body for a proper funeral. She had the privilege of closure. He'd averted her eyes when she carried her master onto her shoulders.
But there'd been no closure, not for him. There was nobody to punish but himself, and he carried the weight of the memory in silence. It was too foolish to believe that the pain would simply go away. It would diminish with time, but the poisonous wave of rage would have never subsided.
-x-
"Did you kill him?" she asked hesitantly as he laid in his futon, bandaged after his fight with Oboro.
"No."
"I see."
The smoke wafts lazily in his room, like a familiar comrade whose name used to curl around his tongue more often than he could count.
She takes out an ashtray from her sleeve and taps the excess from her pipe. Breathes out some more smoke. He wonders if she's came here to reassure herself that they're still alive or because there's another reason.
"Gintoki."
"Hm?"
"Don't push yourself. I... a lot of people would be... devastated if you died."
He flicks open one eye and stares at her.
"I know."
It's hard for her to express what she thinks. He's the same way. He dwells on things and keeps them shut in his head. There are things that his kids can't know because it's his duty to shield them from things they're not old enough to understand.
Like the stinking smell of a corpse rotted for three days, or a freshly cut head resting on a white sheet of linen cloth.
"Take care, Gintoki." She sets a carton of strawberry milk next to his futon and stands up.
"... See ya."
He realized belatedly his inability to interact with a normal woman his own age. It's not that Tsukuyo was normal - far from it, in fact especially when alcohol was around her - but relatively speaking, she was quiet and mild-mannered.
Alone without something to inspire mockery, he wouldn't have anything to say of importance. It wouldn't have been troubling if he thought he -
"Don't even think about it," he said, aloud to himself more than anyone else.
-x-
Years pass by. She and him intersect in different directions, but never quite connect.
"She's not here right now," Hinowa said. "She's working, the poor thing. While everybody is having fun on New Year's she's by herself... "
"Right," Gintoki said, his breath puffing into air, shivering slightly in the cold weather. "By the way I wanted to give Seita an envelope."
"How lovely, thank you. You didn't have to. But I'll take it to him if you want."
"No problem," he said, extending a red slip of paper to the other woman. "Now that - " my daughter, he wanted to say, but instantly corrected himself before it tumbled out - "Kagura is gone, I don't have to work so hard to feed myself."
"How is she doing?"
"Good. Blasting space aliens, financially burdening her father, making a name for herself... She's having fun." He grinned at the thought of her last letter. He would read it again later tonight.
"I'm glad to hear that."
A relaxed silence came between the two of them while they watched the snow fall from the roof to the ground. He looked up, and remembered when it had been wrenched open that fateful day.
"Is it lonely, living by yourself these days?"
"Not too bad," he said. "Shinpachi comes but not as often as he used to."
Kagura and Shinpachi are growing up, and he knows it. He can see that one day Shinpachi is going to come once a month instead of four days a week; that he'll finally sell all his Otsuu posters and CDs and find a decent girlfriend. Kagura is already somewhere else, in love with a new phase of her life, and just like that, she'll come back and never call him Gin-chan anymore. She'll drop the "aru" from her sentences and he won't know what to make of it.
Somehow this all depresses him, but what can he do? It happened with his old war buddies; all leading their own lives and only meeting each other sporadically. He pretends Takasugi doesn't exist, Katsura is always on the run, and Sakamoto is flying god-knows-where.
"Gin-san, it was nice of you to visit," Hinowa said. "Might not you wait a bit before Tsukuyo comes?"
"I don't think she'd care either way," he said.
"That's not true. She... " at this she paused, as if to deliberate on a sudden turn of fate, "She's not that sort of careless woman."
Gintoki shrugged, as if he could care less, turning on his heel as if to leave. He could see Hinowa protesting silently, watching him from behind, but the burden of filling a gaping expectation was too overwhelming.
-x-
"They told me you were decayin', but I didn't think it was this bad," she said as she examined his house. It was a mess, he knew. He hadn't thrown out the garbage in two weeks and there were empty cups of ramen littering the floor all over.
"Sheddep," he said, mildly sick to his stomach. She had found him drunk, puking his guts out in a backside alley.
"Well, I figure even someone like you has to be taken care of once in a while." She shook off her boots and helped him take off his own.
"..."
"What?"
"... why the hell are you helping me?"
"Because why not?"
"Tsukky, in case you haven't realized, you're in the house of an intoxicated person. Like, you know. Me."
"I'm not worried," she said.
"Oh, right, I keep forgetting you're the sort of girl who'd sue for someone poking your boob on a packed train."
"Don't make weird comparisons."
"'Tis true, though," Gintoki replied in slurred syllables.
He attempted to rise up but tripped unceremoniously. Tsukuyo quickly caught him in her arms.
It'd been years since she had felt the warmth of his shoulders. "Steady now," she said quietly. "Don't trip."
She led him to his bed.
"Thanks," he said as she tucked in the covers.
"It's no problem."
She was about to rise, leaving him when he rasped out, "Wait."
"Yeah?" She crouched down, looking at him once again.
"You ever thought about dying alone, without kids or a family, and you see yourself in the mirror growing older and older and think that your life might have been a waste of time?"
"Gintoki..."
"Because I do. All the time."
"I'm sure you'll meet a woman," she said, averting her eyes. "And have lots of grandkids. You said so. Remember that day I met you in Yoshiwara? Don't underestimate yourself."
"What if I already have?"
Tsukuyo couldn't answer.
"What if she's already in front of me?"
"..."
"Why won't you say anything?"
"Go to sleep, Gintoki," she said quietly. Against his will, his body finally gave up and succumbed to slumber.
-x-
"I wasn't kidding when I told you I liked you, you know," he said ever so casually, quietly behind her back. She had gone to do some grocery shopping for Hinowa and hadn't noticed him until he was paying for a copy of Shonen Jump.
"Don't say that kinda bullshit in front of the cashier!" she hissed. Her face had turned beetroot red when she realized who the man was behind her in line.
"It's true," he said. His normally dull eyes had an odd spark of vitality to them today.
She willed the cashier to scan her items more quickly by counting to ten. One... two... three...
"Ignoring me won't work. Now, I'm not so stupid as to grab any parts of you since that would invite physical submission, but frankly - "
"Gintoki."
"Hm?"
"Shut up."
"That'll be 2400 yen; cash or credit?" the cashier helpfully interjecting in the conversation.
"Credit," Tsukuyo said, taking out her wallet.
"She'll be buying the Shonen Jump too - " Gintoki said, most unhelpfully, ignoring the murderous glares of the woman next to him.
"Oh right right, just lemme scan it out for you. How long have you two been married?"
This last sentence was so alarming that Tsukuyo promptly forgot the fact that the cashier was also scanning a carton of strawberry milk and a pack of deodorant.
"We're not married!" and "Fifteen years!" were heard at the same time. The cashier just chuckled, pressed a few buttons and said "Have a nice day, then."
"Hey, stop feeding the audience the delusion that we'd make a good couple!"
"As opposed to a dysfunctional couple, or perhaps a bad couple?"
He had raised his eyes when she refused to deign him a reply.
"Tsukuyo. Be honest. Do you think we'd be good together?"
"I can't imagine why we would," she said, though she was pointedly looking away. "Though I thought you were joking when you... well."
"Those men in Yoshiwara may lie about those sorts of things, but I've always been an honest drunk."
She smiled sadly.
"Gintoki, it wouldn't work out. What respectable man wants to take on a woman who works in Yoshiwara as a proper wife?"
"I don't give a damn about something trivial like that," he said.
"Your parents will." She had seen many a girl shamed by her patronage's immediate family.
"I've never had any. Not connected by blood, anyway."
She looked up, eyes in wonder. "You were an orphan?"
A brief nod.
"I never knew."
"Most people don't."
"I'm sorry."
"Don't be."
The street of Edo was loud and noisy, bustling with business as the two of them watched the street in midday. Gintoki's motorbike was parked nearby from the supermarket. A profound silence grew between them as they were thinking, pondering.
"I'll give it a try," she said finally.
It's a start, he thinks. And he grins, because he hasn't looked like a total idiot, though she says "Shut up, you look like an idiot," literally three seconds after he thinks this to himself.
-x-
Her father used to smoke pipes after the end of a hard day's work in the rice fields. Then when the typhoons flooded everything away, her house became nothing more than a pile of sticks. She saw her siblings withering away until Father had to make a decision, to do away with one less mouth to feed.
The Amanto led her away and she had wept bitterly until she had entered Yoshiwara, a city that had no sympathy for a child. Girls were whisked away, either to be apprentices or servants until they were old enough to start selling their bodies. Such things would have happened to her had not Jiraia bought her out of debt and apprenticed her as a hardened warrior.
No matter what one thought of her master, she - his student - never resented him. The life of the prostitute was harsh even after the sky opened. It was competitive and what was popular one season might go out the next.
She saw her role as a silent guardian, since a city without the law of the Shogun was prone to deviances such as illegal drugs and child trafficking. To her relief most brothels were against child prostitution but there were some who still indulged a loyal customer once in a while.
Tsukuyo was a more complicated and more charitable woman than most, having worked for little money nor prestige for something that she believed in. Having known the misery of isolation, her body was lean and tough, her aim marked with a deadly precision built on years of practice and brutal repetition.
Killing men who raped women, trafficked children, and abused countless victims came too easily for her. Forgiving women was far easier.
Or so she had assumed, until she had met Sakata Gintoki.
After so many years she was unsure of thinking of herself as something important. There were other people to take care of, things to be conscious, the big picture to consider. So when she realized that she could not deny feelings for him, it felt like a betrayal.
Had she not given up her celibacy, her womanhood to protect others? she thought bitterly to herself as she stared at the ceiling at dawn, willing herself to go to sleep. Why now - at an old age, where no one could take her seriously as a woman - to be shy or God forbid, cautious around such a man? He was not remarkable at all, and yet something lit in her blood like fire when she came across him occasionally in the Kabuki-chou district.
Hinowa had smiled gently, upon Tsukuyo confiding her feelings.
"I'll give up everything I worked for," she said miserably, "should I choose to accept my feelings."
"Have you considered that he might reciprocate?"
At that she shook her head no. "Never. Why me?"
-x-
She still questions the same thing whenever she sees him watching the news weather lady on TV. She doesn't get angry, because there's a difference between infatuation and love, but she still leans on his shoulder for confirmation - "Why are you with me?" she asks through wordless sighs of exasperation. He just prods her gently on the forehead with a finger, telling her to shush and it is easily one of the most hurtful things he can do to her. She idly observes the pang in her heart and she goes off on patrol, trying not to be visibly annoyed because Gintoki is easily one of the most perceptive men she's met and it wouldn't do any good to cry in front of him.
Later he catches up to her and kisses the back of her hand, and she thinks: Ketsuno Ana, for all her superior beauty, could never appreciate the man next to her.
Their relationship is formed silently through actions more than words and still she does not know Gintoki too well, other than the fact that his favorite pajamas are the green pairs and he sloppily leaves his boots at the door with disregard to how unorganized it is. He takes too many sugar cubes in his tea and knows how to make a damn good creme brulee - though she would never admit it to him other than a smile or a small nod of approval.
She feels younger than she really is when he says, "Come over." His house on top of Otose's Snack Bar is comforting and strange at the same time.
He discovers that caffeine makes her loopy and this is how they finally kiss after so many years of ignoring the tension and hints between each other. Her lips are as soft as rose petals and he realizes that only after she puts her head on the table, drunk as she might be with sake if she was a regular woman. In the morning she sorts of remembers it and when asking him he nods in confirmation. He laughs at her face turning red, makes a lewd joke, and before she knows it he approaches her again and kisses all the embarrassment from her mind.
She drowns in the sky that is him, and succumbs slowly but surely.
-x-
Gintoki sometimes is surprised that he's found a gem, despite all his gamely insults towards her: that she's a pain in the ass, that she's too damn violent, she makes fun of him too often, that she's too much of man.
Despite her quirks and temper, she's easily one of the most unconsciously beautiful women he's ever met, which is saying a lot. He's astute enough to realize that most women wouldn't give him the light of day, with a wishy-washy income like his and a general "don't care" attitude. So when someone like her - who is considerably sane in terms of the characters he meets on a day-to-day basis - gives him a chance, he notices. He notices the New Year Cards, and the halting voice when she's near him, and the pink flush that adorns her cheeks when he teases her. He knows a lot more than people give him credit for.
She takes him in, doesn't see the gambling as a bad thing as long as its his money, or consider it an insult when he wants to go out for dessert rather than a proper meal. She accepts it all. If there's ever a moment where he proves he's a complete loser, she only sighs, pulls him out of a mess, and straightens him out like a good woman.
Figures he'd end up dating someone who wasn't as easygoing as he was, but then again he's not the type of man to deny attraction when he sees it.
-x-
Otose calls her one stormy night.
"I think you should come over," the old woman said, anxiously. "I just have a bad feeling - "
"I'll be right over," Tsukuyo said immediately, and she races to the elevators that take her from the bottom of Yoshiwara to ground level. She runs quickly, like a bullet under the silver sheets of rain.
It is eerily quiet in his apartment. She takes off her boots quietly, and creeps into his place. Her kimono is soaked, her skin warm and flushed. Tsukuyo pulls off her hair ornaments and squeezes the excess water out, combing it through with her fingers.
She finds him in his kitchen, drinking a cup of sake. He's staring at something, past her. His eyes are vacant, though he appears normal from a distance.
But she knows better.
"Gintoki?" she said softly.
"Hi," he said.
"Hello," she said.
Suddenly he smashes the sake bottle on the table. The glittering pieces of glass sparkle in the dim light like a million stars. Tsukuyo doesn't flinch, but her eyes widen just a fraction.
"Fifteen years," he says, with undisguised anger. He uncorks another sake bottle and takes a long draft.
"My master been dead for fifteen years," he said savagely. "And I've never had the pleasure of ripping the man who cut his head off."
She sees three or four other bottles, empty, rolling aimlessly off the table. He's had more than a few. She tries to put the pieces together.
It'd never been a subject worth prying into. But she's here, and he sounds less like the man she loves than the man she's seen years ago, shivering with rage in the Shogun's palace.
"Perhaps another man was better off avengin' him," she said softly, her blue eyes fixed on his red. "I don't doubt for a second that the Sadasada's killing was from someone who was wronged."
"I should have done it," he said.
"You're no man of vengeance," she says calmly.
"You don't know that. I've killed people - made them suffer - "
"You would rather protect others," she said, and she has never been more certain of this than anything else. A cool hand touches his cheek.
"And I failed," he said. "I couldn't protect Takasugi, I couldn't help my comrades, I couldn't - "
He breaks off in a sob. "I couldn't do anything in the end..."
She felt like crying, too. Instead she laid her head against his neck, her hair smelling like the stormy rain from outside and the smoke from tobacco smoked days before.
This is all I can do, she thinks as she undresses in front of him.
-x-
There are two types of women in Yoshiwara. The first one asks for compensation in exchange for her body. The second one gives it freely - out of sympathy, compassion, love.
It was odd, in retrospect. She crossed the final threshold of adulthood with an uncertainty that comes in sharp pangs. Gintoki is feverish, thrusting in her as if to banish the bad memories away. The question of whether he really looks at her comes up again, and finally she understands what the courtesans mean when they say there is pleasure in pain.
Still, there's a moment when he pauses and realizes in horror what she is giving up through the haze of alcohol. "You're - I can't - "
"It's okay," she reassures him. "I can get contraceptives tomorrow."
"That's not what I meant," Gintoki said, visibly upset. "You were a virgin."
"So?" she said casually, lighting up her pipe. "I woulda given it away eventually."
She tests out her limbs and there's a soreness down there, something she hopes will go away. Still, there isn't any bleeding - just a sensation of being stretched. There are a few bruises on her buttocks but those are easily covered.
"Tsukuyo," he said seriously.
"Hm?"
"Don't let me do that to you ever again," he said, voice deep and low.
"Okay," she said.
"I wanted you to be screaming my name," he said, and the intensity of his eyes inflicts heat in places she'd never expect. "I wanted you to cum first. To beg for release. I didn't want your first time to be like this."
She kisses him because there is no other way to console his desolation. Her head is dizzy from the taste of his mouth. Between kisses she murmurs, "It's okay."
-x-
The sakura trees shed their flower petals one by one on top of their blanket that they spread on the grass.
She leans on him comfortably, on his shoulder. He grins when he realizes that she's dozing off. Her pale lashes flutter dreamily as she breathes in the spring air.
This is as closest that he'll get to any public display of attention - it's difficult for him to rationalize holding her hand when the automatic assumption-slash-reaction is to get his head pummeled into the ground - so he takes a moment to really enjoy the physical contact.
He says in a straightforward manner, "Man, you're cute." As expected, there is no response, just slow breathing, and he continues to watch the cherry blossoms fall slowly to the ground.
He used to think that life was good, in the way that he expected to get home and have his two kids take care of him without asking for anything in return. But time never stopped still, even good things had to end eventually. He had moved forward each time - once upon a time he had decided this over Otose's manju and now it's the sight of Tsukuyo sleeping on his shoulder.
He makes a decision, simply because the time is right and fitting, enemies be damned. If living well is the best revenge, then he's already conquered the rest of the world.
-x-
"Oh my god," groans Seita, unfortunately fourteen and more obnoxious than Gintoki remembers him being in a while. "Look at you two. I'm going to be sick."
There's a dead silence before he clears his throat. "You guys aren't that subtle. Okay?"
More silence, until Seita realizes the horror of what he has to clarify.
"I could hear both of you - um... " For a boy who lives in Yoshiwara it's still embarrassing as hell to even say those words.
Tsukuyo lifts Gintoki off the ground. "I wanted to go to a love hotel, goddammit - "
"He's fourteen, I'm sure he hears that sort of thing all the time - "
"It doesn't matter! The hell is wrong with you? I bet you wouldn't want Kagura to hear us in your room!"
"Uh, guys, I'm still here."
-x-
"We should get married," he says randomly as she's chewing the last piece of dango on a bamboo skewer.
Needless to say, she choked. Handing over a glass of water, he patiently waited before she swallowed, eyes watering.
"THE HELL ARE YA TALKIN' ABOUT MARRIAGE FOR - "
"I think it's an excellent idea," Kagura said, emerging from the closet, yawning. "Other than that stalker, Tsukky's probably the only woman who can tolerate Gin-chan for more than a week."
"Kagura!"
"What? I'm just sayin' the truth. Hell you even started reading Jump - "
"Did not - "
"Did too, I totally heard you making a Gintaman joke the other day - "
"That's none of yer business, and since when did you live in his closet? I thought you were in space."
"Well I was. Then Sadist said he would treat me to dinner, and Papi said he'd rip his head off if I said yes, so here I am," she finished with a flourish.
"Seems like your father's doing something right for a change. Bring me his topknot next time," Gintoki said gruffly.
"Stop changing the subject, both of you. Besides, I found this under my pillow."
Gintoki swiped the box away from her. "Brat. I haven't even bought the insurance for that yet."
"Insurance? Wait, when did you get the money to buy something that needs insurance?"
"Stop worrying," he said. "Kagura, the real adults have something to discuss, so at least pretend to get out, okay?"
She stuck her tongue out. "Whatever," and walked out. When the door was shut, Gintoki turned to Tsukuyo and said, "Hey let's go over to your place."
"Wait, I thought we were going to talk about marriage."
"That can come later," he said. "I really, really need to stock up on some adzuki buns. And they swore that Yoshiwara actually makes them really well."
"Right now? But I just came over to your place."
"Like I said, the store in Kabuki-chou closed down. Damn those Amantos. We should torch 'em later."
"You could get one at the convenience store - HEY, WHERE ARE YA GOING - "
"Out. Feel free to follow."
She resisted the urge to punch him, and sighed. "Gintoki, you're a silly man, did you know that? Traveling an hour and a half to get adzuki buns..."
"What are you talking about? The best way to live a full life is to be a child, no matter your age."
-x-
"I swear the internet cafe said the address was around here - "
"Uh-huh," Tsukuyo said, skeptical.
"Oh well, never mind. I guess the place where we first met isn't too bad either."
"... Huh?"
Gintoki ripped the box open and took out a small case. "Right, one gold for me, one silver for you - "
She blinked, confused. "Wait, what are ya doing?"
He cleared his throat. "Proposing."
It takes her three seconds before she turned red. "Gintoki!"
"You don't have to react like that. I know I'm no great catch, but I think - no wait, I know that I'm supposed to be with you. You make me want to be a better man."
He slipped the ring onto her calloused fingers.
"All I really know is that I don't want you to be a stranger towards me anymore... I want you to weep when you need to and ask for help. I want you to lean on me with your runny nose. I want you to cry when you feel like crying. Laugh when you feel like laughing. When you're tearing up with an ugly face, I'll give you a good cry with an uglier face. When you're laughing so hard your stomach hurts, I'll laugh in a louder voice."
(And here, Tsukuyo really tried not to cry. She really did.)
"Will you marry me?"
"Stupid," she said quietly. "You're not supposed to slip on the ring before the girl says yes."
"You want me to take it off?"
"I didn't say no."
He laughs, beautifully bright and clear.
"Good, because I bought them with your credit card."
-x-
a/n: It's a two-shot. Next chapter will have kids. And a guest appearance by Takasugi.
Review away. Feed me inspiration to write. :D