Butterflies
"You need to get a check-up to see if you have AIDS yet. You probably do from sleeping around with all of those guys at night. Then again, I just remembered that nobody wants to sleep with an ugly monster like you when the only thing you can do is just annihilate everything you touch."
Insult.
"Well your face is super-duper ugly that I wanted to barf out my intestines, but no one's complaining about that."
Retort.
It was a daily routine for the Shinsengumi first division captain—Okita Sougo—and an alien of Chinese descent—Kagura—to juggle ridiculous insults whenever they encounter each other; whether it would be a quarter after one, or five o' clock in the morning, nothing would change. From the very first moment they met (episode 1-2 but is in actuality episode 5), they hated the other's guts.
Sougo arched an eyebrow at the female alien, before smirking. "Couldn't you come up with something better to say than that, China? You're starting to bore me to death. Keep that up, and I might just have to jam a sharp object down your throat so I can be amused."
Kagura pulled her left eyelid down the middle finger and stuck her tongue out at him immaturely, "BLEH!"
Snap.
She blinked and realized he took a picture of her face with a cheap plastic electronic—a cellphone. She straightened herself and glared at him with sky blue eyes harshly. "Delete it."
He smirked, flipping it closed and shoving it in his pockets. "No."
"Delete it."
Once again: "No."
She snapped, "DELETE IT YOU BASTARD OR I'LL WRAP YOUR TESTICLES AROUND YOUR BALLS!"
"I dare you, China."
"Challenge accepted!"
Hook, line, and sinker.
Sougo jumped to the side, dodging the umbrella that was thrust particularly towards his vital regions. "Tch. Aim for the most sensitive body part, as expected from someone so weak like you," he commented snarkily. Withdrawing his nicely hand-crafted sword, he swung forward at her casually with very little effort.
Out of natural habit, Kagura did multiple black flips and skidded on the ground, narrowing her eyes at him. "You're so weak you super sadist. You can't even get a single hit on me, a girl. Pathetic!"
"Are you sure you're a girl?"
"…." Her eyes twitched vehemently and she aimed at his face, shooting a couple of bullets.
Wearing a blank face, Sougo let his sheath take the hit and chuckled. "Why so angry, China?"
"If you just deleted the picture and stopped being such a sadistic bastard, we wouldn't be in this predicament to begin with!"
"Predicament? Nice choice of words. Your vocabulary has been slowly improving since I last saw you. Good job."
"Stop being so sarcastic!"
"I will when you go back to being a flat-chested-no-butt alien."
"Shut up! And why are you looking? Jealous because you can't get any of this?" Kagura taunted, grinning perversely.
Sougo rolled his eyes, "With such revealing clothes that one could mistake you as a prostitute you pick up at the street corner, of course I would look."
She gasped in shock. "Take that back!"
"I could, but I don't want to."
"You—!"
"—want to bring me to a hotel and have your own way with me? Sorry, but I'm not interested in fake things."
"Fake? Sucks for you, but they're real as unicorns can be!"
"Unicorns are fake."
"Are you really going to tell me that when we're stuck in a show where aliens exist? Really?"
"Point taken."
The two got into a fighting position, preparing to attack once more to end the "battle." That was until Sougo's face was slammed into the ground from a certain vice chief. He was definitely going to kill the son of a bitch that had the guts to do this to him. "Get back to work Sougo. Stop picking a fight with the Yorozuya," the vice-commander of the Shinsengumi—Hijikata Toshiro—grunted, lifting his feet off of Sougo's head. He glanced over to Kagura and frowned. "And you, stop encouraging him to continue fighting. He has a job he needs to do."
Kagura scoffed at him, "A job? Yeah, like what? Besides being tax robbers, I don't really see you guys do anything useful! Unless you count gorilla stalking Anego!" Before giving them any time to retort, she grabbed Sadaharu from the sidelines (he was taking a dump) and began stalking off back home.
"Hey! Clean your damn mutt's—!"
A huge gaping hole was left where Sadaharu's dirty deed had been.
"NOT THAT WAY!" Hijikata felt a sense of dread all of a sudden, and he turned around to see Sougo holding up a bazooka at his head with a sadistic gleam in his eyes.
"Die Hijikata."
An explosion went off.
Gintoki lifted his head from his Shonen Jump and glanced at Kagura and Sadaharu—with the girl cursing the whole time while throwing her shoes to the side. Should he ask her, or should he wait? Chances are, he might get his balls torn off if he asked her now while she was still in a pissy mood. So, keep his so-called pride or lose it…Hmmm, what a tough choice.
"I hate him!"
Then it clicked.
He arched a silver eyebrow at her behavior and set his magazine down, leaning back in his chair and crossing his arms. "Oh, and who is this person you hate?" he questioned dully, knowing that she was automatically referring to the first division captain of the Shinsengumi.
"THAT SADISTIC BASTARD OF COURSE!" she screamed.
"Kagura….I know it's good to let out your feelings, but sometimes, you let it out too much." Gintoki rubbed his pained ears, frowning.
She exhaled, trying to calm down before nodding furiously. "You're right Gin-chan. I'm more mature than this! I should try to act more like my age." She grabbed the sukonbu on the table and began snacking on it angrily, glaring at the dark screen of the television set as if she was trying to force it to turn on by itself.
"Who the hell even acts their age when they're sixteen," he muttered underneath his breath, standing up to fetch his carton of strawberry milk. Striding over to refrigerator, he grabbed the handle and pulled it open only to be disappointed.
Nothing.
He closed it and held his breath, before opening it again.
Nothing.
"Kagura! Did you drink my strawberry milk?"
"You drank that yesterday night after you came home from the bar, Gin-chan!" she called out from the living room. He came out of the kitchen to find that she was watching T.V. with a bored expression, finally holding the remote to switch the channels on. She looked at him and grinned, "You were so drunk yesterday that you mixed part of the strawberry milk with your chocolate cake in the blending machine."
Pause.
"….How did it taste?"
"I don't know, but you began stripping and jogged around Edo, naked, until six A.M."
He grimaced. So it must have tasted pretty damn good.
Then again….
"Since when did we have blending machine?"
"It came from Zura'!" she chirped.
Ah. So it was a gift from the terrorist that puts bombs in everything. "…." He walked back to the kitchen with his wooden sword in his hand, eyes glistening with an unreadable emotion. "I'm sorry, but you must go." Lifting up his arms, he smashed the technology in half before throwing it in the trash can. He couldn't afford to have an object from Katsura, that could contain a bomb, in his household. Even if it could make some pretty damn delicious, super fucking duper, sweets.
"Oh wait! Did I say that came from Zura'? I meant that Shinpachi brought it on Christmas for you!"
"…Dammit."
"Well, I'm going to sleep! Night Gin-chan!" Kagura switched the T.V. off and headed towards the closet, sliding the door open and jumping in it before closing it. Her head hit the pillow and she stared at the dark ceiling, sighing. She then closed her eyes, trying to drift asleep before an image of Sougo popped into her head. She gasped and sat up, head slamming into the ceiling harshly. "OW!"
"If you're going to do the naughty deed, please try to keep it quiet," Gintoki said from the living room, returning to his magazine.
"SHUT UP! I'M NOT DOING ANYTHING LIKE THAT YOU DIRTY OLD MAN!"
"Right, and I'm a virgin."
"Aren't you?"
Silence passed through them.
"Kagura."
"Yes Gin-chan?"
"Shut up."
"It's hot," Kagura groaned. She strolled through Edo, holding the purple parasol above her head while looking at everything on sale. Her movements faltered at the sight of a familiar red mask on the ground. Frowning, she bent down to pick it up and examined it. It was still in good condition—which is surprising since there were so many people on the busy streets of the city that one would have expected a person to steal it or trample it. "I should probably give it back to him…OR, I can blackmail him into buying me a thousand boxes of sukonbu! BWAHAHAHA!"
"As if I'll let you do that." Without noticing, the mask in her hands disappeared and Sougo stood in front of her. He stored the precious object in his pocket, staring at her with a blank face. "No one will ever buy a thousand boxes of sukonbu just to feed a fatass like you."
She pursed her lips in a pout, "I was just kidding! I was going to return it to you!"
"I believe you."
"….You liar." She then recalled yesterday's events and asked him a question, "Hey sadist. Yesterday, before I was about to fall asleep, you appeared in my head. What does that mean? Does it mean I hate you so much that I think of even when I'm going to sleep?"
Sougo eyed her suspiciously, and contemplated on what she said. "Maybe…you're in love with me? Or you're in the process of falling in love with me?"
"Ew. Give me a better response before I choke you. I'm being serious here."
"I don't know," he replied, shrugging his shoulders. "That's how the dramas I watch portray falling in love with someone."
"Which is?"
"Falling in love is when you think about the person every second of the day, even when you're about to fall asleep."
"A-And?" Could she be in falling in love with him? No way. No fucking way. She refused to accept that.
"You…want to get together with them? Have sex? S & M in particular?" Sougo said hesitantly, before growling. He scratched the side of his head and grunted. "Listen China, I don't know how to explain it. Maybe you have the butterflies in your stomach when you see me, or you don't! I. Don't. Care."
"WAIT A MINUTE! I HAVE BUTTERFLIES IN MY STOMACH?"
"Do you?"
"DO I?"
"China, I don't have the answer to your ridiculous question."
"ME NEITHER! HEY! HEEEEYY! DON'T WALK AWAY FROM ME WITH THE BUTTERFLIES IN MY STOMACH! WHAT IF THEY KILL ME? WHAT IF THE FUTURE CHILDREN I HAVE ARE BORN LOOKING LIKE A CATERPILLARS? DO SOMETHING!" she screeched, panicking.
Well, there was only one way to find out if she had them or not. He grabbed her by the wrist and tugged her forward, their lips pressing against each other lightly. It was only for a couple of seconds did they stay like that, but Sougo found it pleasing. There was barely any female in his life—unless you count his sister Mitsuba—and though there were girls that chased after him for only his looks, only Kagura managed to keep his attention. Pulling apart, he saw the blush on Kagura's face as she touched her lips, shocked at the action of losing her first kiss to her rival.
"So, do you have the butterflies?"
Her cheeks turned red and she looked at the ground, causing a microscopic smile to appear on his face.
"….I will murder you if my kids have wings."