a/n: Final chapter.
-x-
In the end, he left her the same way he found her. On her back, heaving from the wounds as she bled into the ground. And now she's crying because it hurts, it all fucking hurts, inside and outside and she can feel the hot tears dripping down her cheeks as her vision blurs.
Hijikata runs up to her and she's a mess. He calmly assesses the situation, sees that her stomach's been punctured and calls for someone to pick her up and transfer to a nearby hospital. All the while, she is crying so fucking hard that she can't see jack shit. Her hand is clasped over the wound, stopping the blood but it's seeping outside of her palms, and everything has gone out of control.
"O-oi, Tsukuyo, it's going to be alright." Someone's talking to her. And picking her up. She doesn't care.
Shinsuke's parting kiss is still warm in her hair. She doesn't understand why he didn't look back - for a week, seven whole days, she had been perfectly willing to betray her city for him. In the end, he gutted her like a fish so that she wouldn't follow him into the dark. Instead, another man is running in his direction to kill her lover, her oasis in a dark paradise.
"Shhh," says whomever is holding her. Their arms are trembling. She stops, breathes, and blinks before realizing that Gintoki is the person who's chosen to pick her up, even if his clothes are getting stained from her blood.
He's crying. Not sobbing - but there are tears from his eyes too.
"He did this to you, didn't he?" he whispers brokenly into her ears. "I'll kill him. That rotten, evil, son of a bitch..."
She blacks out after he says such things, and descends into hell.
-x-
Hinowa places her cool palm over Tsukuyo's forehead as the woman sleeps in the hospital bed.
"Mom, is she gonna be all right?" Seita asked, tugging on the courtesan's sleeve.
"It was a clean wound. Not fatal," Hinowa says, reassuring the boy with steady hand on his little shoulder.
Still, she hands Seita a wad of cash and tells him to get her a coffee from the lobby. When her son goes away, she places both her hands over eyes and weeps.
She has lost too many goddamn things over the past few years. This isn't the first time that she's seen Tsukuyo admitted to the hospital before. The nature of her job means that she's exposed to dangerous situations everyday. The problem isn't that Tsukuyo isn't tough enough. It's that Tsukuyo is beautiful. Beautiful things don't last long in a city like Yoshiwara. They get burned, torn, or ripped to shreds. After all, Hinowa would know. She's still bitter that she can't walk with her own two legs.
Someone's done this to her little moon, her little doe bird. A jealous lover - or a spiteful one? Hinowa doesn't know, doesn't even care, all she knows is that before they found her, Tsukuyo had been crying over something but wouldn't tell anyone exactly why.
And now this is how she ends up, hours later: in a hospital bed. No explanation. The police had said something about a terrorist - Takasugi Shinsuke - but those are all details that don't matter. Hinowa is just plain hurt that Tsukuyo never told her what was burdening her mind, even though that's the way how their relationship has operated for over two decades now.
Because in the end, she saw everything. The cuts on her neck, hidden beneath a scarf. The hot water in the bath, the pills taken from the chemist to stymie pregnancy. She had been stunned to discover those in the bathroom cabinet, but had quietly placed them back, trusting that Tsukuyo knew exactly what she had gotten herself into.
She just didn't expect this.
All Hinowa can do is to cry, cry some more, and pretend that she's not worried sick every time Tsukuyo doesn't talk to her.
-x-
Hijikata sighs. "And in the end, he got away. Goddamn those Amanto bastards."
Gintoki rubs his eyes, dead tired.
"Hey, thanks for your help," the policemen says. He pushes an envelope full of money to the samurai, and Gintoki pockets it, exhausted.
Both of them haven't slept in over twenty four hours. The adrenaline that's fueled both of their pursuits have worn off long ago, and even the caffeine pills aren't helping anymore.
"At least he won't be coming back to Yoshiwara anymore," Hijikata muttered, more to himself than anything else. "But goddamn. Goddamn!" He lights up a cigarette.
"He's been living that life for years," Gintoki replies. "Don't expect to catch him so soon. I'm gonna go get some sleep."
"All right." They're not arguing with each other because disappointment has a funny way of sapping out the energy from the two of them. Hijikata's disappointed because he's staked a lot of the Shinsengumi's pride and honor over this, and yet they've caught only two people whom are suspected to be grunt workers.
He visits Tsukuyo later in the hospital, with his two kids in tow. Kagura wails and cries at the sight of an injured Tsukuyo. She's always adored the older woman - hell, wasn't she the first one to call her Tsukki? Gintoki can't look at her for too long or else he'll break down into pieces too. Shinpachi is busy expressing his condolences to Hinowa and Seita, who are quietly sitting next to the woman's bed.
He can't stand being around emotional people, so he goes outside the room, and sits on a bench near the vending machine where it's nice and cool.
It's been a long time since he's seen someone like that hurt as badly as she was. Something had snapped intrinsically inside of him. The closest he'd gotten to resurfacing the Shiroyasha in months.
He's not stupid. Even if she won't admit it, it's obvious who was responsible for her wounds. The real question is, exactly why was she sobbing so hard that night that he found her? He's seen her stabbed before, moons ago, back when he met Jiraia for the first time. Tsukuyo wasn't the type of woman to cry simply from flesh wounds.
On further thought, maybe he doesn't want to know. Maybe the truth would fuck him up even more, and then he'd really go out of control. It's not something he'd think Tsukuyo would ever tell, and it's not his place to find out. He's got secrets of his own, and she's got hers.
-x-
She dreams of Shinsuke and his lips on hers. Then she wakes up in a world of hurt and remembers exactly how he broke her heart and other things too.
Finally she thinks - Enough. She's been stupid for too long. She's made people cry over her and if there's something that she can't stand, it is precisely the image of Hinowa with tears in her eyes.
She mentions the affair briefly one day, when the two are sitting on the rooftop overlooking the city of Yoshiwara. She remembers a story that Shinsuke told her about birds. One flies off into the Yoshiwaran sky and she says that he - just another man, in her own words - found a dead bird. It'd been the first time he encountered the loss of life. His teacher had told him it was okay to cry, and so he did. The second time he cried was when he saw his sensei's head resting on the cold winter ground of a snowy evening.
Hinowa pauses, knowing it's not just another simple story passing for the sake of frivolity. Tsukuyo doesn't do small talk, she speaks with her fists and frowns and the pointy toe of her boot.
"So it's over, then?"
"Yeah." The woman breathes out smoke. Hinowa isn't satisfied yet. Her hand reaches out for her little sister's, and it is with a rare sort of despondency when she says, fiercely -
"Find someone who can be with you, without having to hurt you. You deserve that much."
Tsukuyo is still looking at the setting sun. "I've already fallen in love twice. The first one won't ever love me back. The second one slit my stomach into two."
-x-
Despite her gloomy predictions, life goes back to normal fairly quickly after she recovers from her injuries. Patrols are made, recruits are hired, and crime enforcement proceeds steadily as usual.
Gintoki comes back, says that Hinowa hired him for a few jobs here and there. Tsukuyo doesn't really believe him, but sits next to him anyway and watches him play a round of pachinko on her break. She's always had a soft spot for guys like Gintoki - the type that talks big all the time, but never means half the things he says.
"You should come over to my place sometime. I think the old lady's gonna take us out for sukiyaki tonight."
"Can't. I got work."
"Jesus Christ," he says, shaking his head. "Worth a try though. I was counting on impressing those old hags, bringing along someone cute like you."
She smiles. A year ago, she would have probably kicked him in the ass, but now she knows better. Gintoki's like that to everyone. She's nothing special.
"Well, if you change your mind around six o'clock, here's the address." He asks for a pen and scribbles the name of the restaurant on her palm. She blinks, surprised at the sudden physical contact.
An hour later, she decides to come anyway. Just to check it out. Not that she wants to seriously hang out, because she's not that lame -
Who is she kidding? Some company would be good. She's been alone for far too long. When she gets to restaurant, Gintoki waves her over.
His kids are there, and so are Tama, Otose, and Catherine. They invite her over, happy to see Gintoki with someone his own age that isn't a smelly old drunk or just flat out bizarre. The conversation quickly turns vulgar. They drag out embarrassing moments, intent on humiliating the other parties, and even though they've heard it all, Tsukuyo hasn't, so it's another reason to tell it all over again. At the end she's laughing so damn hard she almost chokes on her food. And they stay there for hours.
All the while Gintoki is next to her, keeping her steady company, quietly depositing pieces of meat on her plate before Kagura can steal them away from the table. And she realizes that all her old feelings for him are still there, kind of like a latent existence.
It's too bad she won't act on them. It's a lot easier to be in love than to actually extend it.
-x-
Eventually, Otose comes up with the brilliant proposition of taking the entire party to a karaoke bar, and Kagura jumps up, yelling "Ole! Ole! Sambaaaaaa!" in a poor imitation of Kato-ken on TV. Gintoki and her are the only ones left at the table. The bill, thankfully, has already been paid. She gets up, ostensibly to leave. Gintoki follows her to the door, and thanks her for coming.
She chuckles. "No. I should be the one thanking ya for invitin' me over, Gintoki."
His hand scratches the back of his head. "Well, it's not a big deal. You just seemed... uh... "
"Lonely?"
"Yeah. Kinda. After that incident, y'know?"
Tsukuyo laughs. "Yeah, I kind of have been, actually. Thanks for bein' so concerned."
"It's not a problem. I mean, I was going to ask for you something anyways."
"Oh, really?"
He nods. Everything that she associates with this man is so casual, so nonchalant that she almost doesn't hear him when he asks, "Do you want to go out with me?"
Her mouth drops open. "What?"
"I said, do you want to go out with me?"
It's honestly the first time that such a situation has happened to her. She doesn't know how to react. After a few moments Gintoki just sighs and says, "You know what, just forget about it - "
"Yeah."
"Huh?"
"I'll go out with you."
"All right." He's smiling, and kind of adorable with the way he walks away from her with a skip in his step. He turns back and hollers, "I'll see you this Sunday! There's a showing of Aliens vs. Yakuza 2! I think it'll be great!"
-x-
A month later there are news reporting that the Shinsengumi has finally beheaded Takasugi Shinsuke over four hundred counts of terrorism and murder.
Tsukuyo reads the newspaper and thinks she was lucky to get away from him. It's a regular Sunday at the Yorozuya's house - Kagura is napping on the couch, Shinpachi is sweeping up the dust, and she's agreed to take all of them to go see the aquarium in an hour or so. They've gotten used to her coming over whenever she has free time.
Gintoki drops a kiss on her forehead. "Something wrong?" he asks.
She folds the newspaper and slides it back onto the coffee table.
"Nope," she says, smiling, and leans over to kiss him back.
-x-
The End
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a/n: If you like my writing in general, please review. :)