An off-duty morning in the Shinsengumi compound often leads to a boring day, Sougo thinks to himself. He lays down in the engawa with his sleep mask on while Hijikata sits beside him, reading the newspaper. Kondo, as always, is nowhere to be seen. Perhaps he's already gone stalking the Boss Lady.

Sougo, too, will usually take a walk to Kabukicho Park. But he was there yesterday after his patrol, and a week ago, and another week after that, and the one he has been looking forward to encounter is nowhere to be seen.

Maybe the timing isn't right, or maybe the other idiotic trio has finally found a proper job.

It's not like that he cares. But it sure has been boring.

"Top idol Terakado Tsu has found the perfect girl to join her idol unit for a limited time," Hijikata reads. "Huh. They should change the announcement to 'Terakado Tsu has found a girl uglier than her to join her idol unit but only for a limited time so she can hog all the glory while you live in 15 minutes of fame'. Typical idol move."

Sougo lifts his eye mask. "Hijikata-san," he says. "Did someone hurt you or something?"

"Shut up, Sougo," replies Hijikata. Then he pauses to add, "this girl looks familiar."

"Are you being salty because it says she specifically said that she only wants young girl and not an ossan in his late 20's?" Sougo continues, ignoring Hijikata's remarks on the news.

"I'm not," replies Hijikata. "And I thought I told you to shut up. This girl. I'm pretty sure I've seen her somewhere."

"Maybe a past victim of your lolicon tendencies—"

"TOSHI! SOUGO! YOU WON'T BELIEVE THIS!" Kondo's voice roars through the compound hallway, cutting Sougo's harassment towards Hijikata. The two looks up to see their Commander runs to them with his cellphone on his hand.

"What is it, Kondo-san?" asks Hijikata. "Is it about Otsu?"

"Oh God, have you read that article?"

"Yeah—"

Kondo pushes his cellphone screen to Hijikata's V-shaped bangs. "Look at the new member of her idol unit. She looks so eerily familiar."

Sougo huffs. He doesn't give a single flying fuck about idols or any sort of celebrities, really. But he has to put up with this conversation since Kondo is a mild Otsu fan despite the fact that Otsu clearly hates him for no particular reason, and Hijikata was—or maybe still is, he doesn't know for sure—an otaku. Both of them can talk about the girl with weird verbal tics—but less genuine than the China girl than the one she has—and he will continue his nap.

He doesn't know why he has to compare Otsu, a top idol in the entire Japan, to a booger-digging sukonbu-eater like Kagura, though.

"It's China-san, isn't it?!" says Kondo.

In a microsecond, Sougo finds himself sitting up. Hijikata, the ever perceptive person, shows him the girl who stands beside Otsu. The picture is small, but even with the light makeup, hairdo, and the frilly kimono, the vermilion hair and a pair of blue eyes are far too bright and too unique and he has seen it for too many times that he is certain, 100%, that the girl is Kagura.

"What's with that sudden interest, Sougo?" asks Hijikata, reaching for the cigarette packs inside his kimono. Sougo just shrugs.

"I just want to see if that's the real Otsu and not Danna with dark purple wigs," he says coolly. But of course he knows that it's the real Otsu. And the way Hijikata hums in response tells Sougo that he can't fool the man with his poorly made excuse.

"You're right," Kondo looks to his cellphone again. "We can check the TV for more evidence."

Sougo lies down again while Kondo enters the room with Hijikata to watch the TV, but he's not sleepy anymore.

He has a question to ask, so he gets up.

"I'm going to go for a walk." He mutters, then he puts on his sandals.

It's not hard to find her whereabouts. At the back of the studio building, he finds Kagura sitting alone on the steps of the backdoor. She opens a bottle of Koronamin-C and chugs it all in one go, seemingly exhausted.

Sougo doesn't have to ask why—he knows what idols do. It must be so difficult to get rid of the fact that she's a brawler. She uses her limbs to punch and kick whenever her instinct tells her, not to dance from some choreographed moves.

He hears her sighs. "You're doing this for a lifetime supply of sukonbu, yes? You can't give up now."

"I can't believe it. You're actually taking crazy route just for a 100-Yen snack with disgusting taste?" He mocks her. She looks up to see him towering over her. Her blue eyes widen upon the unexpected visit.

She puffs her cheeks in annoyance. "Sukonbu is the best, yes? But no, I'm in this for a lifetime supply of eggs-on-rice as well," she replies. "More importantly, what are you doing here?"

"Patrol duty," he lies.

"Why aren't you wearing your tacky uniform?"

"I'm trying to blend in with civilians," he says. "And look who's talking. I'm not the one who wears short kimono with furs."

"You—" Kagura stands up, ready to snap at the man, but then she sighs in defeat, sitting back at the doorstep.

She must be so tired she doesn't care about retorts anymore. "I'm what, China?"

"Never mind. I'm too busy to deal with small shrimps at the moment, yes."

Sougo flinches a little at the stated fact that he is unimportant at the moment, but he manages to put on a blank face. He sits down beside her. "Is this why the shop has been closed for two weeks?"

Kagura lifts both of her eyebrows. "How do you know?"

"I'm a police, remember? I do patrols. And I pick Kondo-san up from the cabaret club almost every night. As much as I hate to admit it, I'm a Kabukicho regular through and through."

Kagura leans back at the door, looking up to the cloudy sky. "Gin-chan thinks this job makes a great portable for the Yorozuya, yes?"

"You mean portfolio?"

"Yeah, that. But it's been great, except I don't really know what an idol should and shouldn't do, and dancing is so hard it's killing me."

She closes her eyes. "I'd rather pummel you to death, yes."

A long pause.

I'd rather hang with you.

Sougo purses his lips. "I'm hurt, China. You'd rather fight with me and you're not telling me any of this?"

I'm missing your presence.

"What do you mean? Do I have to tell you everything I do? Are you my mother?"

"Tch," he snatches the empty bottle of Koronamin-C from her hand and throws it to the garbage bin near them. "Forget what I said just now. You're so dense." He stands up. "You know, be careful with otaku. Pretty sure you've seen what they look like."

"Yup," she nods. "They're Shinpachi multiplied by a hundred, yes?"

"Not really. There are the ones worse than him," says Sougo. "Some of them are smelly creeps who imagine dirty things about their favorite idols."

She gulps. "By dirty things, did you mean—" and Sougo affirms her words with a nod. "Sakata P, no—Gin-chan says I'm going to have a pillowtalk meet and greet with the fans tomorrow—"

What the fuck? "A pillowtalk?" he interrupts her. "What kind of pillowtalk?"

"We're giving out handshakes with one purchase of autographed pillow, yes." she explains.

The imaginary sight of fans shaking hands with her and uses said hand to do dirty business angers him even more than the fact that she's becoming an idol without telling him. Sougo doesn't understand why he's angry, though. Maybe because despite the fact that Kagura almost kills him twice a week, he still respects women all the same. And, despite her erratic behavior, Sougo begrudgingly has to accept that Kagura is a girl, too.

Then his sadistic mind finds an idea.

"Otsu used to be a Shinsengumi Commander," he says. "Pretty sure you still remember the episode. I know a thing or two from the time spent with her how a good idol treats her fans."

Kagura looks at him warily. "Is this going to be another sadistic joke from you?"

"Nah," Sougo shakes his head. "This is going to save your life from those creeps. But I guess you're busy right now…"

He's ready to turn away when Kagura catches his right hand, surprising him. Her hand is so small, he thinks.

"I still got plenty of time left," she smiles, the first one of the day, and he suddenly feels oddly warm all over his body. "Tell me everything you know."

A week later, Sougo hears about the scandal—how Kagura, the new idol, crushes the hands her fans during the meet and greet because she thinks she's supposed to send them to the pillows they're selling. There is also something going on about the beef between the pair and GKB48, and how the media twists her word about her relationship with her producer.

Sougo feels weirdly happy with all the injured fans during the pillowtalk meet and greet to care about the other issues. That idiot should've known better that she shouldn't let strangers touch her body, and seeing her unconcerned responses to her scandals during her interview is enough to assure him none of these things affect her.

He lifts his right hand to take a good look at it as he lays on tatami mat. His sister must be so proud of him for protecting a girl's dignity.

He then stares at his iPod screen, but he doesn't feel like listening to rakugou today. So he sorts the title by artist name and scrolls through O.

Though, he has to admit, all he wants to hear is the K part of the new song.

Sougo puts his earphone on. A moment later, Kondo barges in to his room and tells him that they're going to have a covert operation. He mentions something about "backup band" and "the girl who plays the castanet", but Sougo's mind is preoccupied with something else.

Last week, Kagura muttered something about tearing him from limb to limb if he fails to come while handing a small piece of paper after his crash course on becoming good idol—a VIP ticket that he reluctantly accepted yet he has been keeping safe on his wallet nonetheless. He's not eager to come, not at all, but he looks up at the agenda and there'll be another handshake session and he's a perfectly good guy and as a police officer he only wants to prevent indecency from happening.

He smirks while Kondo continues to ramble. For the first time ever, he has a concert to attend this weekend.

Author notes:

Sougo is a sneaky bastard even when he's jealous. Also, I switched her "uh-huh"s that comes from the Viz translation to "yes?" from HWMN's fan translation because it feels more familiar (and less of a pain to type, lmao).

Kudos and comments are always appreciated. Thanks for reading!