A/N: Liljani: haha sorry, hope you didn't disturb anyone with your scream. Hope you scream in this one as well, there's plenty more kissing *wink wink*
Patsuan: Thanks! and yay, glad you like the kiss. I was unsure about how I'd written it but glad people liked it. Hope you enjoy the kissing in this one too \(^_^)/ lol.
Kimchimustard: haha aw MayoKimchi sounds cuter. it sort of sounds like a ship name for Hijikata and Mitsuba lol. Also, ikr? ojisans are damn annoying lol. Don't worry, there's more kissing here...just not what you'd expect though, mwahaha.
XTataraX: yay ikr? about time the OkiKagu happened, damn author, being so slow about it! Oh wait... |(^_^)| hope you enjoy this one as well!
***here it is guys, new chapter, I realize I've been dragging the story a bit, so I cut out some scenes I wanted to put into the story and just skipped to the near-conclusion part. Hope you enjoy this one as well, criticisms are welcome!
Sougo woke with a jolt.
Huh? He thought to himself.
Why was it so dark?
He forced himself to get up.
A searing pain immediately erupted in the back of his head.
"Ack!" Sougo let out.
"Ah, you're awake! Chief, the Vice-chief's gained back consciousness!" Yamazaki's voice came.
Sougo looked around for his subordinate, only to be shocked by the discovery of his surroundings.
"Oy Zaki," Sougo called, spotting the spy standing a few meters away, "Why the hell am I in a jail cell?"
Yamazaki regarded him nervously, "Well, you see, Vice-Chief, you were sort of charged for burglary by China." The spy told him really fast.
Sougo threw his hands upon the cell bars in anger, "Stop f*cking around, Zaki, and let me out of here!"
The memory of the kiss had finally resurfaced, and he wanted to do nothing more than to confront China about it. Mainly because he wanted to continue where they had left off, before those damn idiots had interrupted.
"S-sorry sir, I can't let you out." Yamazaki apologized.
"One hundred lashes and a naked crawl on all fours, across Kabuki-cho, so that little robot crush of yours sees every bit of your shame." Sougo told him, making the spy shiver at the thought.
"Gah, please don't blame me! They're orders from the Chief!" Yamazaki whined.
Sougo looked him straight in the eye, before making crawling gestures with his fingers and occasionally mimicking the sound of a whip with his mouth.
Yamazaki immediately rushed out to look for the Chief, leaving Sougo still in captivity.
"Dammit!" Sougo let out.
"Oyoyoy, swearing won't get you anywhere, Okita-kun. It's your fault anyways, you little sh*t!" A familiar voice came from a nearby cell.
Sougo quickly looked for the speaker, only to be greeted with three murderous glares, aimed his way.
"What are you bastards doing in here?" he asked in his usual dead pan tone, unflinchingly facing their killer looks head-on.
"For beating on your garbage ass, you bastard!" Hijikata and Gintoki chorused, shoving their faces through the bars.
"I was arrested just because I was with them." Shinpachi added in a depressed voice.
"Stop playing innocent, I saw you land a kick or two, lying Megane!" Gintoki growled.
"If you ask me, we didn't beat him enough to get arrested over." Hijikata grumbled.
Gintoki turned to him, eyes bulging, "Hijikata-kun, that's not helping our case ya know!?"
"Well, you guys just keep arguing over there, I'm gonna take a nap until Kondo-san comes and sets me free." Sougo said nonchalantly, as he settled himself against the back wall of his cell.
"Oy, don't act like this has nothing to do with you!" All three men shouted in vain at an already sleeping Sougo.
Several hours later and a very hilarious, but traumatizing for the parties involved, incident concerning the usage of the in-cell toilet, the prisoners were all finally set free.
Or at least taken out of their cells and brought to the Shinsengumi Chief's office.
They were greeted with a serious-faced Kondo and a blushing Kagura.
"Oy, you okay?" Gintoki immediately inquired when he saw his brat.
"Y-yes." She replied, avoiding eye-contact.
But Gintoki could sense that something was up.
It was safe to say that Kagura was traumatized by the day she was having.
First of all, she was robbed, then she found out the one who robbed her was her crush.
Then her crush violated her and got caught by her fake boyfriend and her kind of brothers slash fathers, in the act of being violated. Then she had to witness her crush getting beat up by the previous three men, after he had already been knocked unconscious by her, accidentally. To top it all off, she had to spend hours being interrogated by a gorilla, whom had the weirdest interrogation techniques and questions ever.
From inquiries about her relationship history, her current satisfaction level for her love life, the characteristics of her ideal man and what not, the gorilla had pretty much covered everything that could make Kagura blush.
She drew the line when Kondo had asked her about the birds and the bees and if she and Hijikata had done it.
After giving the Chief a bump on the head, the perverted gorilla asked her who she thought robbed her umbrella.
She immediately regretted saying the sadist because it had started them on a whole new, strange, direction, where Kondo showed her endless amounts of pictures, featuring Sougo in various poses and situations.
Even now, Kagura's head was still in a buzz of Sadists, Former first-squad Captains and Kaiser.
Hijikata noticed the strange look in his girlfriend's eyes and attempted to catch her attention, by putting his face real close to hers.
This instantly triggered Sougo to shove an arm between the two of them.
"Hey bastard, what do you think you're doing?" Hijikata asked testily.
Sougo faced him with a blank expression.
"Trying to keep everyone's lunch in their stomachs. No one wants to see some old man all lovey dovey with a girl almost half his age." He replied, "Also, that's Vice-Chief to you. Call me Bastard again and I'll make sure you join in on Zaki's punishment."
The two men glared dangerously at each other.
The rest of the room feared another fight would occur, until Kagura interrupted.
"I kiss whoever I want!" She growled, pushing Sougo's arm out of her face.
"Hmm? Does that mean you wanted that kiss I gave you?" Sougo inquired with a smirk.
Kagura blushed, causing the mischievous glint in Sougo's eyes to shine brighter.
Forgetting that there were three men in the room that would attack him at a moment's notice, he moved closer to the flustered girl.
"I-I uh didn't - I wasn't- That kiss was forced I-!" Kagura stammered, pulling back from him.
Just as Sougo was about to edge closer to her, he felt a tug at his collar.
"Um, excuse me, Vice-Chief, get the hell away from my girlfriend!" Hijikata growled in his ear.
Sougo turned on him.
"Are your panties all up in a bunch because I've kissed her and you haven't?" He asked with that annoyingly innocent look of his.
Hijikata 'tch!'-ed and clumsily pulled Sougo, by his collar, closer.
"W-what are you talking about? I've kissed her p-plenty of times! Right H-honey?" Hijikata asked, his eyes pleading to Kagura for support.
"A-ah yeah, Darling!" Kagura attempted.
Sougo's smirk grew into a sneer.
"Oh yeah? Why don't you kiss her now and prove it?" He asked the couple.
Sougo knew it was a gamble, on one hand, he might just prove that something was off with this 'relationship', on the other hand, he could just be dooming himself into having to watch the girl he loved, kiss another man.
Hijikata absentmindedly let go of Sougo, he was too busy having a mental freak out with Kagura as they stared at each other.
That's when Kagura noticed Gin and Shinpachi in the room as well.
She caught her dear Gin-chan's eyes and tried to silently ask for his help.
The man blinked a few times before his eyes widened in realization.
Kagura almost let out a huge sigh of relief when Gintoki gave her a secret thumbs up.
She knew she could always count on him.
"Wait just a minute there, Okita-kun! It's rude to force a couple to prove their love!" Gin began one of his usual long-winding babbles, "What is so special about a kiss anyway? It doesn't prove anything. If you ask me, kissing is sort of disgusting. I mean, how would you know if the other person's mouth is clean? You use your mouth to eat, dammit! Your partner's maw should be ninety nine point nine percent sanitary if your gonna put your only body part for eating on it. Plus, people who don't even love each other, kiss all the time. Observe!"
Gintoki then proceeded to do something that probably signed his death sentence right then and there.
With Hijikata and Okita still inches away from each other, he grabbed both, by the back of their heads, and shoved their faces together. Their lips were instantly connected.
Kagura, Shinpachi and Kondo felt the blood drain from their faces as they watched the whole thing.
"See? A kiss is just a kiss!" Gintoki said with a shaky voice.
And, as if Okita and Hijikata kissing wasn't enough to traumatize everyone, he grabbed Shinpachi's face and locked lips with the poor guy.
"Nothing to it!" Gin said after separating from a red-faced glasses.
It was at this moment that Hijikata and Okita recovered enough to separate from each other.
"I'm gonna kill you-!" Hijikata began, his sword out and ready to slice up an idiot perm-head.
Gintoki couldn't think of anything else to do but grab his face as well and plant one right on his angry, trembling lips.
"Let's not forget Gorilla!" Gintoki shouted after letting go of a stunned Hijikata.
With a 'too late to turn back now' expression in his crazed eyes, Gin threw Shinpachi against Kondo, causing the two to lock lips as well.
"Hehehe see? A kiss doesn't mean anything!" Gin declared, standing up with his arms wide open.
All around him, stunned men that felt terribly violated, sat frozen.
Even with the door suddenly opening, the men didn't move.
"Chief! I got the release pape-" Yamazaki began, before noticing the aura inside the room.
"Oh Jimmy, too bad, you missed it!" Gintoki told the spy.
Yamazaki looked around at all the petrified faces in the room, and silently thanked every deity he knew that he'd missed whatever had happened.
"I'll just come back later." He announced, already a short distance away.
After the kiss fest, it took all of them a while to recover.
By the time any could talk coherently again, it was almost night time.
"Ahem, I think it's best that I sign your release papers now and we can discuss everything some other day." Kondo announced.
All the men were sitting far apart from each other.
They all stayed a considerably larger distance away from Gintoki in particular.
"I say we don't see each other for a while." Shinpachi suggested.
"What's the big deal? A kiss is just a-" Gintoki began.
"DON'T SAY THE 'K' WORD!" Everyone else chorused.
"The very few kisses in my life had been with a pandemonium, a gorilla and a curly haired old man. I feel like dying." Shinpachi muttered, rocking back and forth while hugging himself.
"What's the big deal? At least you didn't get the Sadist combo." Hijikata spat, "I think they infected me with something."
Over at his desk, Kondo whispered something, with a tear in his eye, that sounded like 'my first kiss is gone.'
"Shut up, Gorilla, at least you kissed a Shimura, its close enough." Gintoki mercilessly told him.
In the far corner, Sougo could be heard listing out things that he was considering cleaning his mouth with, after the kiss with Hijikata.
"Laundry detergent, bleach, boiling water, acid…" The sadist went on.
Perhaps It was the momentum of all the confessions about kisses and what not, but Kagura didn't think twice when she said, "Lucky for you guys, my first kiss was stolen by a sadist!"
It was then that she noticed all the men staring at her.
Gintoki, Shinpachi and Hijikata all look mortified while both Sougo and Kondo had on surprised, but slightly excited, expressions on their faces.
"Ah, China! So you admit that you and Toshi have never kissed before!" Kondo shouted in triumph.
Hijikata swore under his breath.
Kagura turned red.
Sougo smirked.
"Well, well, well. The jig is up. I knew you guys were faking it." Sougo said, sneering.
He got up and went over to Kagura.
The poor girl blushed even redder when he put his face real close to hers.
"Tell me, Kagura," Sougo breathed in her ear, "Why'd you pretend to date Hijikata-san?"
Kagura had never really panicked before, but with her breathing suddenly becoming ragged and her mind going into a daze, she was definitely panicking now.
What do I do? What do I say?, Questions like these ran through her mind as she stared into the sadist's eyes.
Her mouth felt so dry, she couldn't form words at all.
"I uh-ah I- Bu-" She tried.
Sougo's eyes bored into hers.
She couldn't take it anymore.
Everything was ruined.
She didn't want to face him.
Wait a minute, she didn't have to face him.
Kagura was just about to get up and run away when-
"She's in love with you, you idiot." A voice came.
She hurriedly looked at the owner of the voice.
Her eyes found Hijikata's.
What was he doing?
"What did you say?" Sougo asked, turning to him as well.
"I said, she pretended to date me because she's in love with you." Hijikata repeated.
He sighed, damn, he was really gonna get it from Kagura now.
But he couldn't see any other option.
Well, there were actually plenty of options, most involved causing the sadist pain, but it seemed all too bothersome.
Why should the poor girl have to go through so much trouble for the idiotic Sougo anyway?
Hijikata was going to end this charade.
Either the sadist realize what he's got or lose the opportunity to be with an amazing girl like Kagura.
Hijikata felt guilty of course.
The girl was literally pleading with her eyes right now.
He could tell she wanted him to stop.
But he couldn't and wouldn't stop.
He sighed again.
"She and I pretended to be together so that you'd get jealous and finally go after her. Kagura did all of this for you, idiot." Hijikata told Sougo.
Before anyone could react, Kagura suddenly got up and ran at Hijikata.
The former Vice-Chief closed his eyes and prepared himself for a beating, but it never came.
A lump formed in his throat when he saw why.
Kagura stood in front of him, tears streaming down her face.
His heart broke then when, instead of 'How could you!?' or some other accusation, the crying girl bowed and apologized for everything.
All he could do was watch as Kagura ran out the door and disappeared into the night.
He didn't know how long he stood there, staring.
The next thing Hijikata knew, Gintoki was beside him.
"Shinpachi, go back to the house and get Sadaharu to go to Kagura, she'll be fine as long as he's with her." Gin quietly told the glasses.
This left only four of them in the room.
Gintoki observed Sougo, the sadist was being strangely quiet for a guy that just found out the girl he's been messing with, loved him.
"Oy, are you still functioning? Has Sougo exe stopped working?" Gintoki inquired.
Sougo let out a snort.
"Sorry, I'm just trying to process the new data I just got. It's really messing up my circuits."
"Yeah well, you deserve your circuits getting messed up. You've been a little virus that been messing with others these passed few days." Gintoki told him.
At this, Hijikata turned to Sougo.
"Hey bastard, what are you gonna do about Kagura? If you break her heart, I'll turn you into -" Hijikata tried to say but stopped when the sadist held up a hand.
"Cut me some slack, Hijikata-san. I've just found out some very mind f*cking things and I'm still trying to get my head around them." Sougo muttered.
He did look incredibly confused.
How can one react to finding out the girl you liked, pulled off such crazy sh*t because she liked you back as well?
Plus, he hasn't even wrapped his mind around the fact that China felt the same way about him.
How could she after all he's done to her?
A thrilling thought occurred to him.
Could she be a masochist? Is that why she fell for him even after all their fights and the sh*t he's pulled on her?
Wait, wait, wait! Does that mean she only loves the sadist side of him, or all of him?
He had so many questions, so many things he wanted to know.
He needed to talk to her.
But wait, with the way things ended tonight, she'd probably just run away from him.
She probably already planned to avoid him after her secret got out.
Sougo had to do something, anything.
He couldn't lose her.
Not now, he finally knows she wants him as well.
Plans began forming in his head.
"Oy Sougo." Hijikata's voice interrupted his thoughts.
"What?" Sougo growled, then, after seeing Hijikata's face, he repeated in a more proper tone, "What is it, Hijikata-san?"
The Sadist couldn't help notice how serious the guy looked at him.
"Nevermind what you're going to do right now. I just want to know one thing," Hijikata said, "What exactly do you feel about Kagura?"
Gintoki and Kondo watched as Sougo looked Hijikata straight in the eye and said, "I'm in love with her, of course."
See you next time, I try to update on Wednesdays but since I'm going back to Japan this Wednesday, I don't think I'll update then. Hang in there!
Also, brain fart: when I was writing this, I accidentally spelled Gintoki like 'Gintokie' and it just cracked me up.
Lastly, OMG have you guys seen the new posters for the live-action film? I-I think I'm in love with live-action!Hijikata. The poster for Kondo though, he doesn't look it but I hope he acts the part! Also, for the manga readers: Yay the omiyoujis! (sorry if i mispelled that)
Very very last: Does anyone find the Kagura I write OOC? I mean, it's how I see her when she grows up but I'm not sure. Maybe I've made her cry too much in this story lol.