(This is not proofread. Please forgive.)

lmao I can only imagine how many people wrote a fic for the sadist… the sadist doesn't deserve this guys he's just a gangster chihuahua


'Happy birthday, Sou-chan!

I hope your 18th year will treat you well!

Remember when you were only 8, when I made you a blueberry cheesecake? It wasn't the best cheesecake, but I can still remember your face lit up like the candles on the cake – ah, but maybe that's my memory taking creative license. Can you believe how quickly time flies? I do hope every birthday goes as well for you as that year!

Anyway, I'm still doing great, and the air here is fresh as always. So don't worry too much about me, okay? Work hard, Sou-chan!

Plenty of love,

Mitsuba'


It's a good omen.

Reading the letter Yamazaki slipped under his door, with no annoying birds chirping in the background, makes Sougo think the day will continue on just as peacefully. At this rate, Sougo is confident that this will be the day that bastard Hijikata finally stops breathing.

It'll be the best present that bastard can give him, at least.

Sougo stalls when putting on his uniform, in no haste to get to work so early in the morning. He takes his time carefully putting his sister's letter in his pocket, the same one his spare chili-flavored candies are in, patting them twice for good luck. Sougo shakes his jacket, airing it out, and gets a whiff of mayonnaise in the process.

Of course, Sougo thinks, annoyed. Of course the bastard's mayonnaise would stick its scent everywhere. It's no big deal, really - Sougo can survive a summer day without a dark jacket absorbing the sun's heat. But the idea of that-bastard-Hijikata and his mayonnaise haunting him even in the safe haven of his room - that is a big deal.

He huffs as he opens his window, and replaces the teru teru bozu* with his jacket. Sougo prays fervently for rain to wash away everything that is dirty in the world - and hopefully drown Hijikata and wash him to a faraway place.


"Happy birthday, Captain!"

As expected from a group of men, the cheer is a mess and absolutely not in unison. Yamazaki is the First Division's sacrificial lamb, standing in the front lines of the crowd with some kind of cake as a peace offering.

"Captain, I made sure none of these guys could get to the cake before you got here!" he says with a proud smile. He holds out the creamy-looking round cake, and Sougo notices the purple swirling through the white. It isn't the evil purple anime swirls, either; from this angle, Sougo thinks it looks like-

"-blueberry," he says under his breath.

It surprises Sougo when Yamazaki hears him over the noise in the dining hall and says, "That's right! Commander said you'll like blueberry cheesecake."

"That gorilla, huh," Sougo sighs. He mulls over the probability of Yamazaki filling the cake with Tabasco, before concluding that Yamazaki is too plain for such an act. Sougo takes the cake from Plain Jane and grins.

"You'll only hear me say this once: thanks." Sougo takes pleasure in the stunned silence of the group of men, and he manages to grab a Shinsengumi sausage from the pile on the table before walking away.

A spring forms in his step when he hears one of his men yelling, "did anyone record that?!" and the chorus of "no" that follows.


Sougo gets only a few minutes to himself, strolling in the streets until he sees Kondo and a familiar mug he really doesn't want to see.

"Happy birthday Sougo!" Kondo jogs towards him, and the closer he gets, the easier it is for Sougo to see the purple and yellow bruises forming on his cheeks. His face is starting to look a bit like blueberry cheesecake.

"Thank you," Sougo replies dully. He watches Hijikata take his time to join their little Shinsengumi huddle; and when the mayonnaise-loving bastard finally does, he looks slightly uncomfortable.

"Happy birthd-"

"Do you hear that?" Sougo cuts the man's greeting short. "I think I hear a fly, oh, please crush the fly."

"You brat!" Hijikata almost drops his cigarette, and he looks disturbed – as he should, Sougo thinks. "Brat, I'm being civil here!"

Sougo grins, savoring the look of discomfort on Hijikata's face. "Hm, sure doesn't seem like it. The only time Hijikata-san can be civil is if he's sleeping forever. Anyway" – he ignores Hijikata's complaints of 'that's when I'm dead, isn't it?! Oi!' – "Kondo-san, did Boss Lady beat you until you were inches to your death again?"

"Ahaha, Otae-san sure did," Kondo says, like it's his most amazing achievement.

Sougo thinks his eighteenth birthday is like any other day – another day of wishing for Hijikata's death and that wish being refused – and he wouldn't prefer it any other way.


He manages to slack off for a few hours at a small café, enjoying his iced chocolate and watching the world pass outside the café's window. Sougo watches a kid spill his ice cream, watches Amanto in fierce arguments with whoever is on the other side of their phones, watches a man pace back and forth for ten minutes before running up to a woman and inviting her into the café. At one point, Sougo also sees an outright bag snatching, but the Yagyuu heir seemed to have it in control.

Sougo leaves the café, convincing himself that it's because he's had enough of the suffocating caffeine scent, and definitely not because of the look of rejection the lady at the counter had been giving him for the last fifteen minutes. He decides to take a breather and visit the park; but when he gets there, he's greeted by yet another familiar mug he really doesn't want to see.

The girl seems to be at peace on the park bench, however – for once. Sougo decides it's safe to be within a kilometer radius.

"China brat," he says, sitting on the other side of the bench.

"Sadist," Kagura replies. Sougo's surprised by the brief response, but tries not to let it show on his face.

"Not making any noise today, huh?"

"Too hot," is all the girl says. Sougo hums, and a large white mass on the grass catches his eye. He watches Sadaharu enthusiastically chase a small terrified cat for a while.

"Your beast of a dog doesn't seem to think so," he tells Kagura.

"Sadaharu's just making friends," she says, unaffected. "You wouldn't know it, of course."

Sougo doesn't bother with a response. A silence falls between them, and it's strange, too strange.

"I smell candy…" Kagura eventually mutters. She looks in Sougo's direction, sniffing at the air.

"I knew you were a bitch, but I didn't think it went this far," Sougo says, as irritatingly as possible. Kagura narrows her eyes at him.

"You have candy," the intensity in her voice contrasts with her weary tones from before, and it startles Sougo. "Give me candy, Sadist!"

"Wow, did no one teach you not to take candy from strangers?" he mutters, before handing over the candy in his pocket. Kagura snatches it from his hand, and moves at a speed that Sougo can barely see the candy before it enters her mouth.

Watching her reaction to the chili-flavored candy pleases him more than anything. Watching her face turn red, her quick gasps of air – it all satisfies his sadistic streak.

"Sadist!" Kagura yells. "Jerk! Bastard! Get up and fight me!"

"With pleasure," Sougo grins. He draws his sword, and immediately finds himself pushing it against Kagura's bright purple umbrella.

They spar for a minute or so, but even ten seconds feels like a minute to Sougo when he's flooded with adrenaline pumping through his veins. Kagura's swings are wilder and more erratic than usual, and Sougo almost gets caught by one of her uppercuts – but he won't admit it, of course.

Suddenly, a crisp white square piece of paper is blocking his view of Kagura, and her view of him. Their battle halts; Sougo tries to snatch the letter from the air as quickly as he can, but Kagura is slightly quicker and his fingers scratch at Kagura's hand instead.

"What is this, a love letter?" her tone is skeptical, and her arched eyebrow says it all.

"Sure is a foreign object to you, isn't it?" Sougo blurts out. He wishes that he could just shut up sometimes, that the girl won't rip the letter up, and he wishes that these wishes will be different from the other ones.

Kagura's eyebrows meet in the middle, and her lip curls. She tosses the folded paper in the air and punches it, yelling something unintelligible like "uooohhhh uoooohoh" in true pig bitch fashion. Instead of swaying in the wind, the paper sticks itself to Sougo's face with amazing force.

"Just because it's your birthday, the Queen of Kabukicho will cut you some slack, 'kay? Next time you say crap like that, you won't escape with your life, I swear!" Kagura screeches, stomping off. Sougo peels his sister's letter off his face, in time to see Kagura halt mid-step and turn around.

"Mami told me a girl's 18th birthday was her most special," she shouts from the grassy area. People throw disapproving looks in her direction, but she pays them no heed. "This is the only time I'll give you cake, so you better savor every single bite!"

"Don't throw it, you idiot," Sougo wants to say, but it's too late. The white box the length of his hand is already in the air, hurtling towards him. The box opens, and – ah, just his luck – its contents spill out, straight onto his face. The whiff of blueberry hits Sougo in the face – literally. Cream and biscuit crumbs drip onto his clothes, and he doesn't regret leaving his jacket hanging by his window at the Shinsengumi headquarters.

Kagura's laughter is loud and obnoxious, and she struggles to apologize. When Sougo wipes away the cream in his eyes, he sees her bent over and clutching her stomach, and he knows how not sorry the brat is.

He runs his finger across the cream on his forehead, and scrapes away as much cake from his face in a similar fashion. It takes a while for Kagura to finally leave with Sadaharu, and Sougo is appalled that the brat even has the audacity to wave at him. Behind her back, he raises his middle finger in salute.

Sougo looks down at his black vest, now stained with white patches. As passersby give him judgmental looks, he eats whatever crumb he can pick off his pants, and his lips feel dry from how much he's licked them.

"Blueberry cheesecake again," he mumbles. "What the hell am I supposed to do with so much blueberry cheesecake?"


/insert Gintoki's and Shinpachi's complaints of being main characters yet not being in a fic and why does the sadist even get a fic about himself how disgusting

I never really decided if this is from Sougo's view, or from a narrator's view. But I think I've written enough Sougo to last me a year lmao. 'Til next year, I guess!