Nothing happens.
Not that Gintoki exactly expected something to happen. But.
Nothing happens.
He goes to school the next day and the only interaction he has before lunch is Sakamoto talking about the stars and the teacher yelling at him to stop sleeping in class. At lunch, Katsura chats about Elizabeth's new bow. Even Takasugi comes for once, not hanging out with that weird bunch on the roof like usual. They crowd around his and Sakamoto's desks and laugh, and when the bell rings it's with plans to go to Takasugi's after school.
Hijikata doesn't talk to him, and he definitely doesn't talk to Hijikata, so he hangs out with the boys and forgets about it.
The next day is the same. Then it's the weekend.
He doesn't tend to worry over things. He sets it to the back of his mind and listens to whatever new band Takasugi has going as they play an intense game of Mario Kart, helps Katsura give Elizabeth a bath, lays on the roof with Sakamoto and watches the stars.
On Monday, something happens.
He sleeps through his morning classes, and it's lunch when he finally wakes. The classroom is loud with laughter – not unusual during lunch, but when Gintoki peeks open one eye and peers out at the room, he sees one desk surrounded by a hoard of girls.
He sits up, intrigued.
He can see the edges of Hijikata's messy black hair between the pale sweaters the girls are wearing. He can also see, when the mob shifts, his face, smile wavering and eyebrow twitching. Gintoki grins.
Decision made he stands up and swaggers over, saying vague 'excuse me's as he shoves through to the middle. Hijikata looks up at him with surprise.
"Hello, ladies." Gintoki says, putting on his best smile as he addresses the crowd. He leans his forearm on Hijikata's shoulder, the epitome of suave, casual, and charming. "What are you all doing, harassing poor Toushirou?" He feels Hijikata's shoulder tense.
"We weren't harassing him." One girl says, brushing hair over her shoulder. "We were just talking." The other girls agree, nodding.
He turns to Hijikata. "Is that true, Toushirou?" The quickly concealed look of horror on his face just makes want to Gintoki grin wider.
"Y-yeah, we were just talking." Hijikata grinds out.
Gintoki pouts. "Don't go talking to that many women at once. I'll get jealous, you know?"
"Sorry..."
Gintoki can't believe his luck. It takes almost more self control than he has to not start laughing right then, but he manages, somehow.
He faces the girls again and pulls Hijikata into an awkward half hug, black hair tickling his cheek. "Don't crowd my Toushirou too often, okay?" He tells them. "He's mine at lunch." And with that, Gintoki swiftly grabs a chair from a neighboring desk, pulls it up to Hijikata's, and sits down.
The girls, luckily, begin to disperse, whispers still loud among them. Once their all-seeing eyes have moved off of them Hijikata turns on him with a glare that could turn milk bad. Gintoki stares easily back.
"So? Was Gin's performance excellent? A-plus?"
"As if you could get an A-plus in anything." Hijikata snaps.
"You hurt me." Gintoki rests his head on his arms, looking up at Hijikata through his bangs. Hijikata's intentionally not looking at him, picking at his nails and looking across the classroom.
"Where's your lunch?" Gintoki asks him, surprising even himself with the question. Hijikata looks at him suspiciously.
"Don't have one." He says.
Gintoki uses his best mom-voice when he says, "Don't you know you're supposed to eat three meals a day?"
"Yeah? And where's your lunch?"
"Being made by my beautiful mother back home at my mansion. She's going to deliver it later."
Hijikata snorts. "Yeah, okay."
Gintoki sits up, looking him in the eye. "Are you making fun of my mansion? Making fun of my beautiful mother?"
"Nothing that gave birth to you could be beautiful."
"You dare insult my superior looks-"
The bell rings. Hijikata jumps, his frown falling back into place. Gintoki looks at him for a moment, thoughts a mess of letters in his mind, before standing up loudly, shoving the chair back into its place, and returning to his desk.
He goes to Sakamoto's after school and they play video games until it's dark. He doesn't think about Hijikata or Hijikata's frown or the fact that, for a couple of minutes, he didn't seem to hate Gintoki as much.
Gintoki is sitting opposite Hijikata, watching him finish today's homework. His own worksheet sits crumpled and uncompleted in his bag, but he pays it no mind. If he starts putting in work this early in the year the teachers will start to have – dare he say it – expectations of him, and that would mean he wouldn't be able to slack off as freely. He enjoys not having to do work, thank you.
So, he watches Hijikata.
For the last couple of weeks it's been like this – Gintoki making himself comfortable on or around Hijikata's desk, and Hijikata all but ignoring him. It works, he thinks, even if it's boring. It keeps the girls away if nothing else, and that's what he's here for.
Hijikata's face is blank as he writes. His skin is paler than Gintoki's, sun bleached bark on the beach compared to the sand. It looks so soft and smooth. Gintoki wants to shove him through a wood grinder.
"Let's go somewhere today." He says. Hijikata glances at him, eyebrows coming down in a familiar frown.
"Why?"
Gintoki figures this, Hijikata not immediately saying 'No', is improvement. He makes a mental tally mark under his name to mark this victory.
"I want a parfait, and since you're my boyfriend-" He puts extra emphasis on it. "-I thought you should come too."
Hijikata opens his mouth and Gintoki's sure he's going to say 'No, dumbass, go just like you'll die: alone' or 'I don't want to be seen with you at the store' or 'you're going to die of diabetes. Alone.' - but all that comes out is, "Just give me a second to put this away."
Gintoki blinks.
He blinks again.
Then Hijikata's standing up and walking to the classroom door and looking back at him with irritation. "You're the one that wanted to go, and now you're not going to get up?"
Gintoki stumbles to his feet and jogs to catch up. "I was distracted by the thought of finally having my parfait." He says. "She's going to look so beautiful. I'm going to eat her like I'm making love – slowly, taking pleasure-"
"God, stop, please." Hijikata makes a face.
"Oh, that's right, you're a cherry boy who doesn't understand true love like the love between a man and his parfait."
"I'm the cherry boy? You're such a cherry boy that you have to love your parfait because no one else will love you." Hijikata says, descending the stairs two at a time. Gintoki's right behind him.
"At least I have a parfait. All you have is your hoard of girls you keep pushing away."
"You don't have it yet." Hijikata says.
"No, but I'm coming for her. She's in the refrigerated section, sitting there all cold, waiting for me to come warm her up-"
Hijikata shoves him out the door and onto the street, cutting him off. He glances at Hijikata beside him as they walk; aside from squinting at the sun, doesn't seem more grouchy than usual. He takes this as another victory.
It's only a couple of blocks to the store and Gintoki spends each second preparing himself for the parfait. He hasn't had one in almost a week – much too long for a sugar-addict like himself. He explains this to Hijikata at length. Hijikata tells him to shut up.
They walk the rest of the way in silence.
Neither of them realize the time until they're walking back into the school. The final bell rings and they share a look of horror before taking off up the stairs.
Gintoki pauses outside the door to catch his breath and check that his parfait isn't too shaken from the run. Hijikata just shoves open the door and goes to his seat. Gintoki ignores the teacher's glare as he sits down, puts the parfait next to the desk (he didn't think he could push his luck far enough to actually eat it in class) and rests his head back down on his arms.
(He blows Hijikata a kiss on his way out of the classroom later that afternoon, obnoxious kiss-y noise and all. Hijikata flips him off. Unscathed, he considers this yet another victory.)
"So, when did you and Hijikata start dating?"
Katsura looks over at Gintoki in shock. Takasugi doesn't look up from his phone. Sakamoto watches him expectantly.
Gintoki sticks his pinky in his nose. "Who?"
Sakamoto opens his mouth but Katsura beats him to it.
"Why didn't you tell us, Gintoki? Why didn't you tell me?" Katsura's voice says he's been personally insulted, but his eyes say gossip. Gintoki flicks a booger at him.
"I'm not dating him-"
"You sit with him at lunch everyday, though."
"I was wondering why you kept turning down my lunch study sessions!"
"That's not why he turned those down."
"I'm not dating him." They look at him, disbelieving, as he shifts to lay on his side on Takasugi's bed. "What? I'm not some weird species of space monkey to be stared at."
"You can confide in us, Gintoki." Katsura says, the picture of a kind and trustworthy friend. His eyes still spell gossip, however, and Gintoki doesn't want to imagine the ears this might end up relayed into.
Takasugi snorts. Sakamoto stays silent. Gintoki just sighs.
"I'm telling the truth. I'm not dating that asshole."
"You want to, though." Takasugi says, eye glinting with amusement. Gintoki reaches down, pulls off his sock, rolls it up, and throws it at Takasugi's face. It brings him great pleasure to watch Takasugi flinch and scrunch his face in disgust as he flicks the sock off himself.
"Like fucking hell I want to. Have you seen that bastard?"
Katsura speaks up next. "Then why have you been sitting with him at lunch."
Gintoki pauses.
He's not supposed to talk about their deal – the fact that this is all a favor. He usually wouldn't have blinked an eye at revealing it – usually wouldn't have cared at all.
But.
But he does, for some reason. He doesn't want to go against his promise, no matter how much that asshole irritates him.
So.
"I was lying. I am dating him. We're madly in love." Pinky still nail deep in his nose, he's the epitome of sincere. Takasugi snorts again. "We're thinking of a summer wedding – so we can miss Takasugi's birthday without looking rude."
"As if you've ever cared about that." Says Takasugi.
"Be serious," Katsura scolds. "We just want to know what's going on."
"Speak for yourself." Takasugi sneers. "I don't have any interest in his non-existent love life."
"Hey! I just told you, I'm in love with him! You're not invited to the wedding now."
"Oh, no. How could you. I'm so devastated that I don't get to go to your fake wedding."
Gintoki reaches down and throws his remaining sock at him. Takasugi dives out of the way – onto Sakamoto's lap, shoving him over, too. They roll around for a minute, tangled in the blanket Sakamoto had wrapped himself in, before a head of messy black hair resurfaces, red-faced. Sakamoto's giggling madly, so Gintoki lays back down, one knee propped up and the other crossed on top.
"Stop throwing your nasty socks at me." Takasugi orders.
"Stop being a little bitch."
"You know that isn't going to happen." Sakamoto says.
"Okay, you guys. Let's stop fighting." Katsura says.
He can still feel Takasugi glaring at him, harsh and burning, but he's too used to it to mind. The topic changes and before Gintoki realizes it's midnight and Katsura is corralling them into bed. With Sakamoto's warmth at his back and Katsura's hair in his face, Gintoki falls asleep.
Gintoki looks around his room.
It's messy, as usual. Clothes are sprawled across the floor where he was too lazy to pick them up, and papers are littered next to his bed, discarded from his backpack. Textbooks lay unused next to his cluttered desk.
There's something off about the room, but he can't quite place it. A sort of anticipation drips down his spine.
He turns, and comes face to face with himself. He looks into the one mirror he has, glances over his tangled white hair, stares into his maroon eyes. Deep purple bags, the kind that come from years of restless sleep, highlight his eyes. Normal.
Movement catches his eye, a shadow behind him – his breath stops and he whirls around-
It's Hijikata.
Silky black hair, deep blue eyes, uniform shirt loose – the same Hijikata he's always known.
But he's smiling.
It's a soft smile, affectionate. Hijikata's fond gaze captures him, reels him in, and before he realizes it they're inches apart and Hijikata's hand is coming up to cup his jaw.
Something warm pools in his chest, heavy but not unpleasant. He looks into those summer blue eyes, watches as they flutter shut, swallows as his own follow suit. Hijikata lets out a sigh between them and Gintoki can feel it on his lips.
They're getting closer, the space between them rapidly decreasing. His arms reach up toward Hijikata without thought, closing the last of the gap, and their lips finally brush –
Gintoki wakes with a gasp, struggling to sit up. He feels like he's suffocating, and he can't move –
He takes a deep breath and looks around, squinting into the darkness. The room is dim, but he can just barely make out Sakamoto's face in front of him, slack with sleep. Sakamoto's arms are a trap around him and it takes him a minute to extract himself, but eventually he standing and maneuvering himself around Katsura's cascading locks and twenty different shirts scattered across Takasugi's floor.
He opens the bathroom door with a little too much force, slapping his hand across the wall until he hits the correct light switch. He puts his hands on the edge of the sink and leans heavily into them, staring at himself in the mirror.
No Hijikata. The wall behind him stays still, and after a moment he rubs a hand over his face. There are bags highlighting his eyes, and a glance over at the clock shows it to be much too early for him to be awake. He represses a groan and turns on the tap, shoving his hands under the flow.
He's definitely not going to think about that dream. He doesn't want to question his already muddled thoughts, especially not at Takasugi's house, and especially not about Hijikata.
He cups his hands and lets the water collect.
If only they hadn't teased him the night before, he thinks, he wouldn't have had this messed up dream. It's because their conversation brought Hijikata to the forefront of his mind. He nods to his reflection.
There's nothing for him to think about, because it was only because of the conversation.
He repeats this as he walks back into the bedroom and tries to find his way back to his spot. With him gone Sakamoto had latched onto Katsura, who holds him back with just as much passion. He steps over them.
As he wraps himself in one of the many blankets they had thrown out earlier Takasugi rolls to face him.
"What were you doing?" He asks, voice lowered and only slightly groggy.
"Taking a piss." Gintoki flips himself over so he's staring at Sakamoto's back, but he can still hear Takasugi mumble 'gross' before there's silence.
He doesn't fall asleep again until there's light peeking through the sides of Takasugi's curtains.
"- and get this, Elizabeth quacked! I know, I can't believe it either. Always the jokester, Elizabeth." Katsura ends his story with a hearty laugh. Sakamoto joins in. Gintoki doesn't raise his head from the desk.
As Katsura moves on to another one of Elizabeth's riveting adventures, Gintoki stares blankly at one of the posters on the wall above his head.
The dream he had a few nights ago is still bouncing around his head, even with his firm belief that it was purely connected to that night's conversation, and it's entirely coincidental to how horrible Hijikata looks today, with his wind mussed black hair and summer blue eyes.
Gintoki isn't sure what's happening.
Hijikata's the same as he always is, face scrunched and grumpy, eyes screaming death upon anyone who looks at him wrong. But, suddenly, it's less unpleasant. His voice is smoother, his clothes fit nicer. This little voice in the back of his head is yelling at him how attractive Hijikata is today, and he tells it to shut the fuck up as best he can without actually yelling it out loud.
He doesn't sit with Hijikata at lunch, and as soon as the final bell rings he's out the door.
He doesn't go home.
after this chapter we'll be getting more into the the rest of the plot - ill begin introducing other characters (yes, kagura and shinpachi lol) and building up side plot. i am sorry for slow updates but please bear with me! if anyone would like a sneak peek feel free to message me on tumblr (also natodiangelo)!
also please please please let me know how youre liking this fic so far! every comment means the world to me and keeps me motivated to keep writing. thank you!
