AUTHOR & SERIES NOTES:
* To start with, I'm just going to say this to anyone who isn't already reading my stuff on my AO3 account: the formatting of this series is a lot easier to follow with the AO3 version. Please consider reading this series there, by the same title and same username.
* I'm only choosing to upload the rest of this series on FFN because I realize this series is already posted here. I have new series on my AO3 account if anyone is interested in more GinHiji stuff.
1. This is a collection of Gintoki and Hijikata's elementary school memories. Specifically, the grades 3 - 6.
2. The POV and narrator changes per chapter is not consistent. The POV would change between Gintoki, Hijikata, except one arc, where I told the story from a 3rd party POV. The narrator however, is a child of the same age as Gintoki and Hijikata.
3. Non-linear timeline. Chapters go back and forth between grade 3-6. I don't specify the year and age for every chapter, but if I do, you'll know. Pieces following a linear timeline will be placed in an arc.
4. That being said, you must read the chapters in order to fully understand any references
Pilot Chapter
"My turn!" A small hand raised from the makeshift human-circle formed in the school courtyard. The owner of the hand, a young girl with pigtails hanging off each side of her head, volunteered herself into the centre of the circle, declaring, "Gintoki! Truth or dare!"
Gintoki, who stood with a finger up one nostril, passed a passive glance to the third-grader standing at the centre. He shrugged and decided, "Truth."
"C'mon, you always pick truth," the dark-haired boy standing to the left of Gintoki whined, "You're so boring."
Gintoki pouted, turning to shove the offensive boy on the shoulder, tactfully using the hand that had paid a visit to his nasal cavity. "Stupid! Truth is always the way to go if you wanna last!"
The boy's, Hijikata's, nose wrinkled at the place of contact on his shoulder. "Stop wiping your boogers on me!"
"So whaddya want from me," Gintoki ignored the shouting from his side and turned to his female classmate.
"Tell us who you have a crush on!" she giggled, hands reaching up to cover her pursed lips. The kids around the circle 'ooh-ed' and 'aah-ed,' in essence giggling in the way children did when they teased and put the spotlight onto another classmate.
Gintoki huffed, shoulders hunched up but otherwise remaining emotionless. He turned his head slightly to his left to gauge the reaction on his best friend's face, which was a skeptical pinch of his brows and an uncertain line on his lips. He uttered a proud, "Nobody."
Hijikata's expression smoothed into his default displeased frown, assenting, "Obviously, because girls are annoying."
On cue, the female participants in the circle voiced their disbelief and regret, in essence 'kyaa-ed' in the way children did when they were upset and scared.
"That's mean, Hijikata-kun! Even though we like you!"
Hijikata flushed in the face, hands clenching at his sides while he turned away from the attention and reminded Gintoki, "It's your turn now!"
Gintoki blinked at Hijikata's flustered appearance, smiling his initial boyish grin at the redness in his friend's cheeks and wanting to poke at them to annoy him, but when a genius idea popped in his mind, the innocent smile turned into a devious smirk. "I dare you to eat grass!"
"What! No!" Hijikata shouted in protest, arms crossing in front of him.
"Don't be a loser and just do it!" Gintoki jeered, jabbing a thumb toward his chest, "I would do it because I'm a man and I'm awesome, just saying."
"Yeah, do it!" someone else from the circle shouted, which in turn elicited more jeers in favour, successfully pressuring the third-grade Hijikata into wrenching a fistful of grass from the earth.
"Fine, I'll do it!"
He brought his fistful of moist grass bits over his mouth, head tipped back and precariously he hung there just like that, hand shaking above his opened mouth, eyes squeezed shut. Seconds passed, children gathered around Hijikata with hands clutching into anxious grips. Gintoki, ever the impatient one, would have taken it upon himself to pry the hesitant boy's fingers open himself if it made the wait a millisecond shorter, but before that disaster could happen, Hijikata threw down the scattered straws of grass on his tongue and attempted to swallow. The grass bits refused to go down his throat with one gulp, clinging onto the roof of his mouth and the back of his tongue in the most unpleasant feeling. Hijikata gagged on the roughness and the bitter taste, hands clamping onto his mouth—not sure whether to throw up or throw down the atrocity in his mouth.
Gintoki burst out with roaring laughter at the tearful look on his face. Hijikata painstakingly chose to force himself to swallow down the grass, lest the others started teasing him about his very much intact manliness. He hacked and coughed once he was sure the bits were all gone.
"There, I ate it!" Hijikata gave the whole group a defiant glare and then straightened himself. "Now, you," Hijikata pointed to the first child who had merrily gone along and supported Gintoki's idea, "truth or dare."
"D-Dare!"
"Go knock your head against Gintoki's as hard as possible. It better be hard!"
"Hey! Why me!" Gintoki screamed his objection.
"Because then you'd both be hurting and I'd be happy," Hijikata smirked, a brow poised authoritatively on his forehead.
After more whining from both parties, the deed was done with a satisfying bang of skulls.
"I truth or dare you back!" the boy, with a very red forehead, said to Hijikata.
"…Dare…"
The boy laughed victoriously, hands propped on each hip and eyes creased into crescent orbs. "I dare you to kiss Ki-chan," he announced with mirth.
Hijikata fell silent, eyes darting between the now blushing-very-hard pig-tailed girl and the boy who had triumphantly declared his verdict. Hijikata was about to begin to refuse when he remembered the words Gintoki had mocked him with when he had first refused the grass-eating dare. He chanced another glance at the bashful girl, his hands getting clammier at each furtive glance she returned.
"O-Okay," he resigned to his fate and inched over to the girl. The boys all hooted and screamed at the prospect of their kiss.
Hijikata gulped his nerves away once he stood before her, face to face. He was not sure how to pace himself, so he awkwardly leaned forward and screwed his eyes shut, hoping he would meet her lips and not miss like a fool.
"You can't!" Gintoki screamed in his full outdoor voice and Hijikata came to meet the palm of Gintoki's hand when he blinked his eyes open. Gintoki repeated, "You can't!"
Hijikata, confused and probably misunderstanding something, did not know how to react, so he defaulted to his automatic defy-Gintoki mode. "Why the hell not!"
"B-Because she's a girl and girls have cooties!" Gintoki stated his stance on the matter with his hand still hanging between Hijikata and the girl.
"W-What are you saying stupid Gintoki!" the offended girl, annoyed with the interruption lashed in response, "Are you saying he should kiss a boy then?"
"No! Boys are," Gintoki paused to look at the boys standing around the broken circle, not knowing how to finish that sentence. "He just can't!"
The girl pouted, "You're just being ridiculous now! Then he can't kiss anybody in his whole life!"
Gintoki flailed his limbs about in a desperate need to defend his stance and uttered the first thing that came to mind before he could decide whether it was a good idea or not, "Well, then he can kiss me!"
Voices hushed over the group, children looked to and fro with awe and wonder, but Gintoki's first reaction to his own words was to whip his head around to see how Hijikata had reacted to his lapse in judgement, despite his own neck-deep flush. Like a contagious fire, Hijikata's face blushed a rosy red when he took in the tomato countenance Gintoki tried his best to ignore.
"B-But you said you didn't like anybody!" the girl called out again, pointing an accusatory finger at Gintoki.
"I-I don't!" Though this time his tone was tentative.