DISCLAIMER: Gintama belongs to Sorachi Hideaki. The choker belongs to Yishuu. The stress belongs to Toshirou. I got nothing.
WARNINGS: Sougou has a short hemline. Hijikata has a . . . lap. Gintoki has a dubious thought process. PG-13 for the above and a couple of bad words.
A/N: I have to admit I was harboring secret doubts about how Sougou would actually look in a short kimono and lace but Wow! Yishuu's AWESOME drawing of Sou-chan has totally won me over. See it yourself at (take out the spaces) http://fc03. deviantart. art/ fs24/f/2007/315/9/c/Sou (underscore) chan (underscore) by (underscore) Yishuu.jpg . This picture just makes my year.
Then I was trying to figure out why Kondo would have this kind of kimono lying around and I decided that it was probably due to some secret Otae fantasy he had, but then Sougou happened to see it in his closet and said "Okay, I'll use this," and appropriated it, leaving Kondo with a tear in his eye - but only a little one because when Sougou is happy, Kondo is happy. Unless Sougou is happy due to more than ordinarily sadistic reasons, in which case Kondo is just mildly worried.
Uh, anyway, this is a shortish chapter because the next one will be long (and not posted til next week sometime). Step 6!
Ten Steps to Breakdown or Breakthrough
Chapter Three
When last we left off, Sougou was getting disturbingly into his role and Hijikata was getting increasingly in need of a stiff drink.
6. The Alcohol
During the next three days, Sougou got absurdly good at putting on makeup and, more worryingly, clinging to Hijikata whenever they weren't on patrol and saying deeply embarrassing things memorized from a sheet of crib notes that Yamazaki had prepared and Otae had liberally embellished.
Hijikata had tried to reason with Kondo, pointing out that they didn't need verisimilitude. Nobody would care if he got 'married' to somebody five minutes after seeing them on the street. But Kondo had just steadfastly insisted that Shinsengumi members needed to set a good example for the rest of the populace and thus could only be married after a proper length of engagement (which was apparently 5 days).
And then he had dragged Hijikata out shopping with Sougou to buy a choker that matched his outfit, because apparently they were the "in" thing this season.
The only plus to the entire situation was that at least Kondo had confiscated Sougou's rocket launcher because it "wasn't girly enough". (Sougou had promised to cover it with Hello Kitty stickers and glitter, but thankfully Kondo had remained firm).
The dark choker brought out the gleam in Sougou's eyes and the paleness of his skin. Kondo had made Hijikata buy it, and had lectured him when he complained. And then Sougou had said "'I'll thank you later in bed, darling'," in the same tone he usually said "'Die, Hijikata, die'" and the only thing that had stopped Hijikata from doing something violent was the fear of getting blood on the new choker, because he couldn't afford to buy another one on his salary.
All of which was why, with two days to go before the honeymoon ship took off, Hijikata Toshirou was alone in a bar trying to avoid being clung to by his fashionable 1st captain and mocked as a bad boyfriend.
Silently, he drained another glass, balancing somewhere between glum and peaceful.
He didn't bother to look up as the bartender slid another drink over. "Lady problems?" the man guessed sympathetically.
"You have no idea . . . "
Hijikata stared moodily into the murky depths of his drink. He had ordered sake but for some reason the liquid was faintly pink. It didn't matter. All he needed for the rest of the night was a few more shots of alcohol, a few more hours of solitude, and absolutely no cross-dressing fiancées in sight.
He wasn't surprised, then, when - as if summoned from some twisted dimension created solely to torment Hijikata Toshirou - the door swung open and Sougou appeared in the doorway. Expression determined and kimono sleeves swishing, he marched to the bar and plopped himself onto Hijikata's lap as per Good Fiancée Rule #4.
"Dammit, what are you doing here?" Hijikata would have liked to just push Sougou to the ground, but he had already learned the hard way that a shoving match on one's lap resulted in friction in all the wrong places.
"'I missed you'," Sougou said in the most unimpassioned voice imaginable.
"Don't be an idiot. I thought I told you not to bother me here." Hijikata lifted his glass again, manfully ignoring the eyeful of leg and lapful of warmth he was now subjected to.
"No, you told me to 'come here anytime because we have an open and mutually respectful relationship with a sincere enjoyment of conversation as well as excellent sex'," Sougou announced to the bar in general in a bland, bored, obviously coached way.
"No, we don't," Hijikata stated, trying not to catch anyone's expression.
"Yes, we do."
"NO, we DON'T."
Sougou frowned. "Do I have to prove it to you?"
"There is no way—whatareyoudoing?"
Sougou's lips were suddenly coming closer, so close that Hijikata could actually smell the fruity scent of the lipstick.
"Nrg," he said.
Sougou leaned closer. Hijikata's world abruptly narrowed to peach smeared lips and deadly brown eyes and utter panic. He couldn't remember this in any of the scripts. Perhaps Sougou was actually annoyed that Hijikata had spent the whole evening successfully avoiding him.
Well, too bad, Sougou could just . . . . Sougou could just . . . .
Sougou's lips were slightly open, his breath playing against Hijikata's face, and the shift of his weight as he leaned forward made Hijikata swallow. Prudently, he focused on the smell of the lipstick, because it really was a sickly sweet smell and not erotic at all.
Correction: NONE of this was erotic in any way. At all.
. . . . Right. He had almost forgotten that. What the hell kind of sake was this bar serving anyway? It was affecting him far more than it should.
"Sougou, if you come any closer I will kill you," Hijikata said flatly.
Sougou didn't seem particular put out by this reaction. "Maa, Hijikata-san, you really are a bad boyfriend," he sighed.
"I am not a bad boyfriend. Now get the hell off me."
Apparently tired of teasing, Sougou obediently withdrew somewhat, although he remained resolutely planted on Hijikata's knee because Yamazaki had assured him that it was What Fiancées Do. Hijikata was planning to have a serious talk with Yamazaki in the near future, preferably somewhere secluded where no one could hear the spy's screams.
The odd-tasting drink was still in his hand. Hijikata took a long sip.
"I want a drink, too," Sougou said petulantly.
"You don't deserve a drink."
"You should buy me one."
"Never."
"I don't know," said the bartender, "maybe you should appreciate what you have, buy her a drink, and stop being such a bad boyfriend."
"I am NOT a bad - who asked you?!" Hijikata demanded, glaring at the figure behind the bar. Then he blinked and realized it was Sakata Gintoki.
Well, that explained why everything he ordered was arriving mixed with strawberry milk.
"Perfect. What are you doing here, asshole?" he demanded tiredly.
"Job."
"Do you even know how to make drinks?"
Gintoki shrugged. "Pour stuff in a glass. It's an instinct every man is born with."
No wonder Hijikata was feeling so sick. Not turned on. Just sick. And very, very drunk.
"Ah, spring," Gintoki sighed, gazing into the distance as if he were an eighty year old man, "when a young man's thoughts turn to groping."
Wearily, Hijikata wondered why groping kept entering his conversations.
Now the crazy red-haired girl joined in, dressed in a waiter's outfit and coming from the end of the bar where she had apparently been eating all the snacks meant for customers. Of course the kid with glasses followed.
"Kora!" she exclaimed, pointing dramatically at Hijikata. "I won't forgive you if you cheat on Okita."
"I am Okita," said Sougou.
Kagura peered closer. "Oh. I didn't recognize you because you're not usually in his lap,"
Sougou mimicked Gintoki's shrug. "Job."
Gintoki also peered closer. "Is that what you do in the Shinsengumi?" he asked curiously.
"Only this week," Sougou said matter-of-factly. "It's because of Kondo-san."
The Freelancers digested this for a minute, during which time Hijikata again weighed the possibility of dumping Sougou onto the floor.
"I see. . . ." Gintoki said sympathetically, "a bad breakup, was it? But do you really think running to this guy on the rebound will make you happy? He's obviously not a kind or nurturing person. Well, neither are you, of course . . . ."
"I wasn't going out with Kondo-san," Sougou clarified.
"Oh, so it was you he broke up with?" Gintoki regarded Hijikata. "Lucky break for him, I'd say."
Hijikata glared at the apparently dating-obsessed silver-haired Freelancer irritably. "Kondo-san did not break up with me."
"You broke up with him? How cruel!"
"Ne, don't you have to commit seppuku if you break up with the commander?" Kagura asked curiously.
"It seems only fair," Gintoki decided, nodding sagely.
"I think so, too," Sougou agreed.
"NOBODY is going out with Kondo-san!" Hijikata bellowed. "Sougou and I are only engaged so we can go on a honeymoon ship and arrest some smugglers."
Stoically, he tried to ignore how incredibly idiotic that sentence had sounded. It got even harder when Sougou took the opportunity to wiggle more firmly into his lap.
"Smuggling?" Gintoki looked interested. "Is there a reward for stopping it?" he asked speculatively. "Maybe we should go, too."
"Na, Gin-chan," Kagura asked eagerly, "can I be the man?"
"You're too young to be the man," Gintoki said severely, as if that was the only objection.
Kagura looked annoyed for a second, but then shook it off and turned to Sougou. "Anyway!" she said excitedly. "Okita-chan, I'm so happy to have another girl around. Let's be best friends!"
"Can't we just fight like always?" Sougou asked wistfully.
"No, you'll put a run in your stockings."
Sougou sighed lightly. "I don't like being a girl," he complained.
Hijikata was obscurely relieved to hear that.
"Come to think of it, you don't usually dress like this, either," Kagura said, as she had apparently just noticed the whole kimono-and-lace motif. Looking interested, she reached out to take Sougou's chin in one deceptively fragile-looking hand, and turned it in various directions to examine him. It probably would have broken his neck if he had tried to resist, but he looked tempted to anyhow as she bent him backward across Hijikata to get a better look.
"Gin-chan," she said finally, "his makeup is better than yours."
"Don't make it sound like I always wear makeup," Gintoki rebuked. "That's only on special occasions."
"That looks like Ane-ue's nail polish," Shinpachi suddenly said from where he had wandered over to inspect Sougou with Kagura. "Is that where she went the other day with Kondo-san? Did she . . . you mean she . . . .she dressed him up?"
Shinpachi looked stricken, deeply upset at the thought of Otae being sisterly to someone else.
"I should never have said I was too old for that . . . ." he murmured plaintively, no doubt imagining a future where Otae was married to Kondo and happily dressing up Sougou every day, while he, the once loved now forgotten brother, stood alone and forlorn in the wind, and rain, and snow, outside closed gates, clutching a long-abandoned girl's kimono . . . .
Or something like that.
Sougou was still being forcibly splayed across Hijikata. "Can I sit up now?" he complained.
Kagura kindly let him go and he returned to a more modest upright position, although not much more modest due to the obscenely short hemline.
After a second, Hijikata realized that he wasn't the only one noticing this fact.
"Sakata, dammit! Is that how you treat other people's fiancée's?" he growled.
"She was making eyes at me!" Gintoki protested. "Weren't you?"
"Were you?" Hijikata demanded.
Sougou shrugged.
"Ah, the hot pangs of jealousy," Kagura said, gazing off into the distance as if she were an 80 year old man. Woman. "Those bygone days of love and groping."
"I will kill the next person who mentions groping," swore Hijikata. "Other than the fact that we hate each other, Sougou and I have nothing more than an ordinary, platonic relationship."
Gintoki nodded wisely. "Obviously ordinary, platonic relationships equal sex."
"They do not!"
"Ah, you're still so young in the ways of the world."
"I am not, you bastard!"
"But Gin-chan," Kagura cut in, her nose wrinkled in unusual contemplation, "don't you have a platonic relationship with me? And don't you also have one with Shinpachi?" She turned to Shinpachi with a suddenly outraged expression. "Shin-chan! He's two-timing us!"
"Ane-ue . . ." Shinipachi whispered, lost in his visions, " . . . it's so cold . . . ."
"How can I be two-timing anyone when the three of us are together day and night?" Gintoki wondered curiously.
Kagura gasped. "Gin-chan, that's disgusting! You have soiled the emotions of my innocent girlish heart. Okita-chan, let's go sing karaoke and talk about how men are swine!"
"Okay," Sougou agreed passively, letting Kagura take him by the hand and drag him off Hijikata.
The motion again hiked up his already permanently hiked hem, a fact that Hijikata only noticed because it was going on right in front of him and he had no choice. Obviously.
It was only when Sougou and Kagura were halfway to the door that Hijikata noticed Gintoki was looking in the same direction. Again.
"On the bright side," Gintoki draped a commiserating arm around Hijikata, "for a sadist, he really has pretty nice legs."
In a way, Hijikata felt relieved. Finally, after days of enduring nonstop humiliation . . . here, here at last . . . was someone he could punch really hard.
So he did.
Tbc!
Bobolac: Glad you liked last chapter! Yes, I'm fond of Hijikata's cigarette power. Unfortunately he couldn't smoke in this chapter because it probably would have set Sougou's hair on fire.
