'This is ridiculous' Okita thought as he lay in bed. 'It's just a girl.' And yet why was it, that since that day in the park he found her constantly on his mind, creeping insidiously into his thoughts? Why had he offered to take over Yamazaki's dual duty of spying on the Yorozuya and keeping their glorious gorilla of a leader out of trouble?
'Ridiculous', he repeated with a slight cough, 'it's just a girl'. A rude, brash, violent, alien girl - with horrible hair buns, no figure to speak of, no social graces, and a tendency to get herself into utterly stupid situations; with beautiful soulful blue eyes, a smile that brought colour and life to the world around it, laughter that bespoke a passion to live life with zest….
He shook his head.
'This is stupid.'
All this, just because someone was finally able to keep up with him at janken? There was only one solution. He'd just have to ask her out, and break the delusion so he could get back to normal. That settled he turned over and went to sleep, pushing away distracting thoughts of stroking her hair.
The next day…
"Hey you. China."
Kagura interrupted her musings on the marketability of sukonbo ice-cream and looked up. It was that boy again.
"What do you want? Can't you see I'm busy? I'm inventing something that will start a culinary revolution!"
"Uh yeah, whatever. As long as it doesn't involve mayo. Listen, I was gonna head downtown to take a look at the new mp3 swords. You uhm.. wanna come?"
"…Okita Sougo. Are you… asking me out on a date?!"
She began to laugh, but stopped as she took another look at him. A real look. At his sandy brown hair, large dark eyes, and a face more suited to smug, self-satisfied smirking then the half-annoyed, half-embarrassed look of consternation he had now.
"Well that depends."
"On what?"
"If you're gonna say yes. If you say no, then I'll have to pretend that I was just joking, and punch you really hard as I laugh."
"You're such an asshole. You know that if you did that, I'd break every bone in your body right?"
"Promises, promises China."
" But I'm not really in the mood for a fight today," she continued as if he had never spoken, "so I guess I'll just have to say yes. You're gonna buy me lunch though. I'm hungry."
Besides, she thought. He's actually rather cute when he's not torturing kittens, or whatever it was he did as a hobby.
As they strolled through the aisles of the electronics/swordsmith shop they came across a brightly lit metallic plate with two circular holes in it.
"Huh. I wonder what this is" she said. "It almost looks like the Neil Armstrong Cyclone Jet Armstrong, but it's missing the important central component."
She reached down to touch the brightly lit hole as Sougo stood sniggering… And promptly realized that she'd just stuck her hand into a fan.
"FUCK!" She exclaimed, pulling her hand away as the fan blades ground to a screeching halt and started smoking against her yato toughened skin. "You knew it was a fan didn't you, you fucking asshole."
"Aww, poor baby. Do you need me to kiss the boo-boo better?" He taunted, laughing unrestrainedly.
"Get fucked cockstain."
And that was how the rest of the day went, one improbable incident after the other; Her smashing her head into a lightbulb after bending down to look at some trinkets, him walking into a wall while she distracted him, them loudly plotting the kidnap and torture of children at the beetle fighting arena, and running away from a strange mumbling lady who wanted to take a picture with them; him getting beat up by her so badly on the cab back to the station that madao gave him a discount on the fare, and him getting hit by the squad car which she insisted she knew how to drive and promptly backed into him.
Yet throughout this string of accidents, fuckups and utter randomness they felt inexplicably drawn to one another. As he drove he turned again to look at her as she stared out of the window, fascinated with the sunset and felt a pang in his heart, as a strange sensation filled it. He remembered, after a moment of recollection what that feeling was. It was happiness. As he looked at that carefree face making rude gestures at cars which passed by he struggled to recall the last time he'd been happy. It seemed like an eternity since he had ran about in the sun, under the watchful eyes of his sister.
"What are you smiling about. You look like a retard smiling to yourself like that."
"You know China, today has been strangely… pleasant." He said as he pulled the car over.
"Yeah…" she said with a smile, "it was… HEY WHY THE FUCK ARE WE OUTSIDE A LOVE HOTEL?! YOU FUCKING PERVERT! IF YOU THINK I'M GOING IN THERE WITH YOU.."
"Relax China girl. I'm doing Yamazaki a favour. He thinks two of his badminton club members have been sneaking off here together recently, and asked me to check it out."
"Aren't all the members of his badminton team guys?" she frowned.
Sougo shrugged. "Well, whatever floats their boat you know. You really should pay more attention, don't tell me you haven't seen what Hijikata and Gin have been up to?"
"WHAT?!"
"Nah, I'm just fucking with you. Hijikata's way too self-absorbed to be in love with anyone."
"Yeah, and Gin-chan's just a big kid."
They both fell quiet, and as Sougo spied her out of the corner of his eye he felt that strange alien feeling in his gut, that gnawing sensation. Beyond affection, beyond attraction; it was a carnal, almost bestial basal human craving. He wanted her.
"You know, the Yorozuya's not all that far from here. I think I can walk."
As she turned to open the door, Sougo grabbed her arm and spun her to him.
"OY, what the fu-"
And then they were kissing, her trying to pull away at first, but slowly giving in to his gentle murmuring, and his kisses grew harder, hotter, wanting, demanding, taking, and she quivered under his relentless onslaught, wanting to pull away, wanting more. And they were kissing in the lobby, in the elevator, in the hallway. They were kissing in a room, struggling to rip clothes off, wanting, needing, more but afraid of what it might mean.
They tumbled onto the bed, an undifferentiated mass of limbs and body parts inextricably enmeshed with one another, clawing, grabbing, ripping, shredding and touching. Most important of all, always touching. They clung to each other in frenzied desperation, each needing the other at that moment, or perhaps admitting what they had known all along, more than life itself.
As they broke for air his gaze bore into hers, a strange juxtaposition was occurring. The dark almost frightening passion with which she normally lived life burned within his brown orbs, and pierced the depth of her sapphire eyes, echoing the world of cold amusement within which he normally existed.
"Sin from thy lips, O trespass sweetly urged" he breathed "Give me my sin again"
He leaned down for another kiss, and was rewarded with a yato fist to his face.
"Ow- What the fuck?"
"…Shakespeare? You fucking pompous little shit!"
He sneered, and wiped a dribble of blood away from his mouth.
"Of course, I should have known a plebian like you would never understand."
"I understand you're about to get a broken fucking face is what I understand."
He picked her up and threw her on the bed, pouncing on her with a snarl, fending off another slap in the process. He leaned in and kissed her, this time without a hint of tenderness and as she broke off the kiss, he bit down hard enough on her lower lip to draw blood.
Her eyes flared fire brimstone and death. "I hate you." She hissed.
"You know, you'd be a lot more convincing if you weren't kissing me back"
"I really fucking hate you."
"Since you already hate me, it doesn't really matter if I do this now does it."
He viciously twisted a nipple, and she let out an involuntary snarl of mixed pain and pleasure, clawing her nails up the length of his back, breaking skin and making him hiss through his teeth. His other hand went south, pulling down her panties and exposing the dampness beneath.
He moaned as she tore away his underwear, the flimsy elastic band of which was already fighting a losing battle to keep his surging erection in check.
They kissed again, the blood in their mouths intermingling, forming an irresistible aphrodisiac that drove them to greater heights of lust-filled insanity. She guided him into her, rigid unyielding hardness entering grinding walls of boiling wetness and heat.
They didn't make love, or become one undivided being or any other bullshit involving rainbows and unicorns. They weren't even fucking or mating or coupling. This was the bestial hedonistic rutting of two creatures so driven past the point of lust by their attraction to each other that they had temporarily lost all capability for higher order thinking.
Their entire world, their universe, was encapsulated within each motion, there was no other creature than the one he/she was thrusting into / being penetrated by (for such was their lust that they had long ago lost all sense of self). There was no past beyond the current stroke, no future beyond the next thrust. And when they came, it was the implosion of a black hole, a white dwarf going supernova, getting simultaneously falcon punched and roundhouse kicked by Chuck Norris hammering the last vestiges of their sanity away. The minute remnants of their Ego and Super-Ego gave way to the Id and what started out as each other's names emerged as animalistic howling.
Much (much) later*, after sanity and consciousness had resumed their stately progress through their minds** Kagura turned to Okita.
"This doesn't change anything you know. I still hate you."
Okita lolled his head sideways, and saw Kagura, his Kagura lying there with her arms crossed, her face somehow managing to pout and be filled with righteous indignation at the same time. All this while lying amidst a pile of shredded clothes damp with sweat and bodily fluids.
He put his arms behind his head, closed his eyes and smiled.
"I know China, I know. I love you too."
*YOU try getting falcon punched and roundhouse kicked simultaneously by Chuck Norris
**Albeit with much grumbling and complaining on their respective parts. Non-corporeal manifestations of abstract concepts have schedules to keep you know.