le-luthe: I do ship them, yup.

A/N: I do multi-ship but this particular couple I feel the need to write about. Yes it''s one of Sorachi's troll ships but I can work in about 1-20 chapters of plot. Yup there will actually be a length. About the word count…Maybe 1000-5000 each chapter. It varies really. And it'll be told from two viewpoints Hijikata's and Tae. So yes I will continue this and it'll probably have longer chapters because I am descriptive and a perfectionist at writing…

Also on a side note if the chapter before and after are different I probably revisioned it because I wasn't happy with something.

EDIT: Garowyn: I'm so glad there's someone else that ships them. Ah goodness I'll definitely write more!

Ginger Ale Helps a Stomach Ache But Sometimes it Just Makes You Bloated

First the woman violently steps on his toes, that'll definitely leave a bruise, if not then a hairline fracture on one or all of his toes by how he couldn't walk straight—and suddenly she's inviting him to her house for tea.

Honestly his life has gotten out of control and Hijikata needs that control. Recently, he lacks it. To where he spent hours in a cemetery. For a good reason but still.

After his part he had just gone up and left, maybe it could be taken rudely since he had left before he had even considered tea but the silence was stifling and he didn't really find it necessary to drink his woes away, in tea in the very least.

Rain wasn't calming to his as it reminded him so much of unpleasantness. It comes in a downpour today. In the midst of it he walks in it. Replacing the short lived heat with the cold rain he's probably going to get sick from it at the sudden climate change.

Downtown he finds himself in a bar and drinks himself silly to where the bartender cuts himself off.

"Hey you okay there bud?" a man lends him his ears and words that is beside him. Instead of her, he talks about his whole life story, or at least the annoying parts of it, taking a breather when the man gives him a cigar, (it isn't what he would smoke usually but it's all he has and it's free), while the man understands completely. No, he doesn't understand but he pretends he does for someone as sad as this man.

"So basically sadists are after you? Well if you're into that BDSM…" the man goes on about he ties himself up and that's when Hijikata thinks that he had too much.

When he's getting drunk, all he will have vague remembrance later is that the person is hard boiled or something like that.

Closing time beckons near and Hijikata is back on the streets, aimless as he could be mistaken as a bum on the street.

It's still raining.

When he comes upon the Shinsengumi he tries to discreetly go into his corridors. But he's too drunk to even realize he had gone through one of the windows for accessibility and the grand idea of 'this is what they do in movies to not be suspicious'.

Dwelling in his room—he's laying on his futon. Really, he should change out of his again dampened clothing and at least take a bath or shower but he doesn't have the will to. It's strangely quiet and he knows Sougo is somewhere making himself scarce due to this day as well.

Wasted was his pack of smokes, and he chucks that in the trash and misses the rim as he burrows further into the crevice of the bedding that is getting progressively damp.

It's preferable to the days when the only bed he was on the dirt or hay that a farmer had left out.

Sleep comes in a form of punishment and when he wakes up he's overbearingly hot and breathing erratically as he tries to get up but he doesn't actually.

"What the hell Toshi?" Kondo chided at him after barging in and cuddling next to him. "Who throws up on a person they love? My cuddles can't be that bad."

They aren't but he's delirious, as he shivers in his futon, stripped of his outerwear. His stomach was emptied despite that he hadn't eaten that much and still he had puked, all from him drinking. A hangover he had also been diagnosed with. Random flashes of hot and cold go up and down his body. Coughing, he shifts from him as his head is aching horribly and he just wants to sleep even if it won't do much now.

"Geez. You must really be sick if you can't even complain." Then there's a pat at his shoulder nearest to the man and he knows that Kondo means well and Kondo knows too what he has done last night. Which is why he's shortly left after instructing when to take the medicine and how many due to headache size.

Thankfully it came in pills and not that liquid crap. There's medicine for when he got wasted too However they're both difficult to take with a sore throat and he's in desperate need of something better than water.

Green tea with ginger or even ginger ale would be beneficial to him but there's no one that would look after him.

Men looked after themselves after all and Hijikata was too prideful of a man.

With his stomach that is against him, he waits it out.

—

Coming into the Yorozuya she's sharing the fried omelette that she had accidentally went overboard leaving them with about a week's worth.

Normally Shinpachi would clean the place but he was busy, in anticipation of a new teaser of Otsu in a girls band collab, something along those lines she tells them. Tidying up the place despite Gintoki complaining about his 'man cave,' and she has the pride of accomplishment when everything is cleaned.

Then Gintoki complains that everything is sparkling and it hurts his eyes and he couldn't find his manga because she organized everything but doesn't move from his position on the couch. Yet he lets her do what she does. Honestly how a grown man could complain so much about things that were suppose to be good made her agitated.

Albeit Gintoki had not or does not show it, he was still recovering from the wounds of the Four Devas. Since he was a successor he had to be well versed in those matters and so did she.

The police hadn't interfered as much as they should have with the warring town. Well after all it had been a town matter. Attack a town and a war comes knocking on the doorsteps.

Someone is at the door and Kagura bounds up and shouts loudly as there's a commotion.

No wonder they didn't get work if they fight with their clientele but she's not going to tell someone how to run their business.

Said other person makes a partial truce giving the girl a box of baked pastries. It's pink and white with cartoon animals on it.

"They're so cute! Sadist you did yourself good! Now just forty-one more to go and we'll be good for a month!" Though the box is above her head not due to his height but that he's playing keep away, she kicks him in the shin and climbs up his arm to get it as she takes a glimpse inside and hollers some more.

"Are you a lolicon? Are you courting her?! She's like—seven," Gintoki puts up his fingers to show him how much seven exactly is before he's kicked in the face by Kagura.

The two tussle around as Tae sweeps past them going into the kitchen to take care of the dishes. It'll take a while as she knows how much Kagura can eat along with a person that would challenge her being a proper grown adult. But Gintoki was neither proper nor a grown adult, rather in a stage of never growing up.

Sougo shrugs, "I lost a fight and had to make up somehow. And she wanted something to eat." Well at that age, all girls wanted to eat but Kagura did so excessively. Seeing how the girl was salivating over the cake he shoves her face into the opened box. "Careful don't get too excited."

Scratching at the side of his face, Gintoki sits up to eat some of the cake before spitting it out because of tabasco sauce that's slathered on it and discreetly so. No wonder Kagura had shouted and sped to the bathroom. Fervent washing and yelling echoes in the bathroom in her quirky accent and Tae is glad her brother is at home doing whatever he did on his computer. To be exposed to such indecency.

"That's a dishonor to cake." Gintoki is in dire need of something to quench out the fusion of the foods and he doesn't know why anyone would ruin perfectly edible desserts; the remaining cakes that hadn't gotten splattered by the impact of Kagura's face were pristine and he wished he had a tolerance for spices.

Then he goes to scratching his belly. "Where's that other policeman? The mayo freak, did high cholesterol catch up to him finally?"

That makes Tae look up from where she's washing the dishes and drying them as she puts them up. Drying her hands off she puts herself beside Gintoki on the couch though the man takes up most of it due to his sideways slouching. Jabbing him in the ribs gives her adequate space to sit comfortably.

Flipping up his red eye mask Sougo glances at them before sliding it over his eyes as he slouches on the other recliner.

"Not from mayo but from the rain. Damn idiot had walked in the rain a few days ago. I mean getting sick from the rain, what is he an old man?"

Both of them aren't spectacular at hiding their concern.

Disinterested he just wants to take a nap but Gintoki doesn't let him as he continues their one-sided conversation.

"Probably, if he had forgotten his umbrella. Alzheimer's at such an age it's shameful." Gintoki picks at his nose and Tae is repugnant by that and edges from him as he flicks it. If he's looking at her yukata like he wants to use it as a tissue again she'd going to punch him. With a warning smile he his hand move to behind his head.

As he couldn't get a wink of sleep he gives a fake yawn before getting up from a mirror like image of the lazy samurai that even Gintoki was impressed.

"Anyway I should be going. Patrolling or something. Gang activity is such a hassle with all these punks…" he lets himself out and it's just them as Kagura had dashed from the bathroom after the boy, making another earthshaking commotion outside on the streets.

Shouting goes off and then it gets quieter as they went somewhere to begin another fight.

"Speak for himself, he's a punk just in fancy attire that Souichiro-kun," it's then he notes how Tae is quiet with a look that makes him poke at her. Then Gintoki pokes her with both pointer fingers when she doesn't do anything. "Hey…I know kids can be scary—"

It's not that but the look on her face scares him. Well her face can be scary enough but... With her hands perched under her chin she takes a long drawl of air as she stares up at the clock. Batteries had the juice drained from them and Tama needed to fix that because Gintoki wouldn't.

"Did you know that Hijikata-san loved someone?" She doesn't know why she's bring it up to Gintoki but she knows that he at least does get involved with the other man, as much from them fighting.

Maybe she could hassle some information out of him while making it appear like small talk.

Taking a second to see the other, he's making a face as if he was seeing the sun for the first time. Squinting at her like she was from another planet. Apparently she's not as discreet as she would have liked.

"Don't tell me you fell in love with him. That'd be the worst you have your whole life ahead of you," he then stops or rather is stopped by Tae's fist slamming into his face.

Whining he curses at the gods and why did he deserve this as he rolls on the couch. Rubbing at his face, that one had more vigor to the other ones she's thrown at him and he opens his JUMP that was wedged in cushions of the couch and he had just remembered. A spot that she hadn't cleaned because he refused to move.

She's waiting patiently and he relents.

"I met her once. She was the older sister of that devil spawn you just saw," she's surprised and he scratches his leg with his other foot. Flipping through the pages he can't believe that's how Naruto ended. The author was a scumbag no doubt. "She was a nice girl. Liked hot sauce as much as mayo head. Maybe that's why he loved her."

From this, it's getting sober and he pads over to the fridge to drink out of the carton of strawberry milk. Having the couch to herself she draws herself closer, listening.

So there was a woman, someone he loved.

Taking a gulp of the milk, he swirls the carton in his hand to estimate how much he had left and decided to drink it all anyway. "She died from a lung disease. From how she was, Hijikata was selfish."

How she was? Selfish? How was he selfish? In her mind, Hijikata did his job and he didn't appear to be a selfish man. Usually whenever she saw him it was him taking care of business, whether it be dirty work or a mild brawl with Gintoki. Then again, what did she know.

Silently Tae urges Gintoki to continue but he's done talking as he he crunches the rectangular box in hand, staring out of the window.

There's something in his eyes similar to when he was injured but it's softer. Like he's reminiscing.

Getting that she had weared out her welcome, she leaves with a farewell as Gintoki glances at Tae from the corner of his eye.

Offing the last of and belching he rubs at his stomach. It gurgles at him and he looks at the carton. At the expiration date that had been about a week ago he throws the carton away with more force than necessary.

"This went bad. Man."

A/N: I think I'll outline the whole story in one go because right now it's a skeleton. But there will be updates because I am motivated haha. I have a clearer understanding because I'm going back and re-watching things and I hope they're aren't that OOC. Then again most Gintama characters do act like that. Especially Kagura and Sougo and I also ship them too so there might be some other signs of more minor ships.

About the Naruto reference I once was into Naruto way back and then it got bad like really bad. So a bit of bashing and poking fun at through Gintoki is mandatory!

Sorry if there any mistakes I'll probably tweak some things hehe.

Anyway leave a review please they motivate me!