Hullo! Me again! I'm sure you were all looking forward to this. Shifty eyes In any case, this is the longest chapter so far! Yay! I'm so happy! Don't expect them to get longer, though oO; They're supposed to be one-shot-like-things.

Disclaimer: I don't own Peacemaker. No. I don't. Really. Stop looking at me like that.

Chapter Three
Puppy for the Puppy

Hijikata felt extremely out of place, and people seemed to think so too. He'd been wondering around the market place for approximately two hours, trying to figure out what the heck Tetsunosuke would want for a present. It'd been a long time since he'd been 16, and he really couldn't remember what the heck he'd been given, anyway. However, that wasn't his only problem – he was attracting too much attention. Everybody was looking at him like he was child molesting pervert.

He gripped his hair in annoyance, sighed and muttered. "God damn it… I hope Tetsunosuke doesn't have any Birthday's any time soon after this."

So far the only things he'd found would be things that Souji would like. Like skipping ropes, or hair ties. Why, why was he so damn hard to buy for?

"HIJIKATA-SAN!"

Hijikata froze. It was worse enough that complete strangers were looking at him strangely, but that voice had belonged to Souji – and he was sure that he never did voluntary shopping in front of him.

"Shopping for our puppy?" He asked, bounding into stride with the older man. Hijikata twitched.

"Yes. But I can't figure out what to get him. What's that?"

Souji blinked, looking down at his left hand. In it were three separate (full) brown bags. "Oh! This is the Candy for the party tonight."

"Speaking of which," Hijikata said, scratching the back of his head, "Who's going to cook, seeing as Ayu is…"

"Oh!" Souji stated, cutting him off, "Nagakura, Harada and Todou said that they would do it –" Hijikata sweat dropped "- but back to your present dilemma. Why don't we get a combined present?"

The idea intrigued Hijikata. Souji was probably far more knowledgeable about what Tetsunosuke would like for a present – and that would take off the stress of actually discovering what he liked.

"Sure. Like what?"

"A puppy for our puppy!" Souji stated, clapping his hands together.

Hijikata anime fell. A puppy? Sure, puppies were cute, but it would grow into a dog, it'd need food, and training. Then again, he could understand why Souji suggested getting a puppy, it really was ironic that Tetsu's nickname was the same.

"A… puppy?"

"Yeah! It'd give Tetsu some responsibility, and something to do after he finishes his duty. Besides, it wouldn't hurt to have a guard dog would it?"

Perhaps Souji was more grown up than Hijikata could give him credit for. He really had thought it through – giving Tetsu some real responsibility might make him take more care in his page duties, and having a guard dog at the Shinsengumi wasn't such a bad idea.

"… Alright Souji."

"Yay!" Souji announced, clapping his hands together – yet again. "We'll have to get it a kennel, a leash, a collar and some toys and stuff too!" It seemed that Souji was about as excited about it – he was excited about just about everything.

"First," Hijikata said, "We have to get the actual dog."

Souji stopped celebrating. He hadn't thought that far. "Right. Well, we're in Kyoto aren't we? There has to be someone with puppies around."

"… You're right. We should as- Souji?"

Souji was way ahead of him already. He was stopping from stall to stall, talking to all the stall owners one by one. Hijikata sighed, and followed at a distance. It took a while, but Souji bounded back beaming.

"Found some!" He announced.

Souji had lead Hijikata to a residential area that he had never set foot in before, and it was surprisingly rather clean. It'd taken about half an hour to find the right address, but it wasn't long before they were standing outside a clumsily made pen, looking at a series of mutt pups.

"They're so cute!" Souji announced, grinning as he leant over the side, "I wonder which one Tetsu-kun would like?"

"I think we should see the parents first." Hijikata stated, turning towards the elderly woman who was giving away the puppies in the first place. "Would you mind?"

"Not at all." The woman said, smiling lightly, "But we don't know who the Father was. But I'll get the bitch."

She put her fingers in her mouth and whistled so loudly that Hijikata and Souji both had to put their hands over their ears. However, it wasn't long before a large dog – of course, it was a mutt – bounded through the door, and threw itself onto the elderly – but obviously still healthy – lady.

"Down girl! Down!"

Once she had the dog by it's collar (which was a simple rope), and once the dog was seated, she said, "This is the Mother."

"Sugoi! It's huge!" Souji stated, grinning hyperactively and leaving the edge of the pen to look over the dog. Souji was right. Within a year – if Tetsu didn't have a sudden growth spurt – the puppy would just about tower right over him.

"Not a finer dog in town!" The woman announced proudly.

Although Hijikata could think of several dogs that were finer than the mutt, their time was short, so he and Souji exchanged a quick glance – they'd buy the puppy from his litter.

"Why don't you choose, Souji?" Hijikata said, getting sick of standing, and lowering himself to the ground in front of the elderly lady. It was unfortunate that the dog broke free of it's owner, and tackled Hijikata back so that he was now lying down, trying to avoid the licks from the giant beast. Souji, however, wasn't paying attention.

"Which one… which one…" He sang to himself, looking over the puppies, all of which had fallen asleep. "Man… they're all sleeping."

A single puppies ear twitched, then its eye opened, it rolled up to a sitting position, and yawned. Both eyes turned towards Okita, as he got onto his still reasonably shaky limbs, and padded in the direction of the First Unit Captain. Once it had gone as far as it could, it stopped, plopped itself down on its buttocks, and yawned again.

Souji grinned, and clutched his hands together, and announced, "SO CUTE!"

The puppy was a black colour, although it had a few splotches of white and light brown on occasional places on it's body, and a spot of reddish-brown on the tip of its tail.

"This one, Hijikata-san! This one!"

Toshi pushed the bitches muzzle back, so that it eventually was clear of his body. He then seized the chance, and got up to a sitting position, and then stood up, brushing the excess fur from his robes. "Which one?"

Souji grinned, reached in, and seized the puppy – who surprisingly didn't retaliate – and lifted it up to Hijikata's point if view. "This one!"

"Alright then. Lady, how much is it?"

The elderly lady tilted her head. "It's a give away. Didn't I tell you?"

"No."

"Oh."

"You know," Toshi said, sighing, "We probably should have gotten all the other stuff before we got the dog."

Unfortunately for Hijikata, he'd been forced to carry the puppy, now that Souji had stopped for dinner. Not only that, the puppy had just stopped from trying to lick Toshi's chin, and this reason was because it had randomly fallen asleep.

"But, then, we wouldn't know what colours he'd like. I think there's a pet shop somewhere around here…" Souji said, grinning. "Ah! Here we go."

The pair stopped outside the shop that was marked so clearly, that Hijikata failed to notice that they'd been past the shop twice that day.

Once inside, they headed for the dog section, and Souji mused over everything that was available. This included kennels, leashes, food and a lot of different other things that dogs would use. "Hijikata-san, why don't you choose the collar?"

Toshi blinked. There wasn't much choice – it was black, black or black. He chose black, and handed it to Souji, who grinned. "Black lead too, kay?" He then added that to his hand as well.

"Now we need toys!"

"Just give the mutt a bone or a stick." Toshi said, yawning.

Souji pouted, but he crossed toys off of his mental list. "Kennel! How big should we make it?"

"Medium for now." Toshi said, sighing. The dog would grow into it, and if it grew bigger than the medium – which he thought it would – he'd just get a new one.

"Okie!" Souji paused, holding out his hands to receive the puppy – who was still asleep. Hijikata twitched. He should have expected that he would have to carry the kennel. He sighed, forked over the dog, and picked up the Kennel.

Once it was paid for, Souji was overly happy. "Hijikata-san, would you hide puppy from puppy until tonight?"

Toshi sighed. "I suppose I have to, don't I? But you're cleaning the pee stains off my floor."

Tetsu blinked. Getting up swiftly. He was sure he saw Hijikata walk by with what appeared to be a kennel, but then again, it could just be part of his imagination. He bounded forward to the door, and just as he was about to turn his head around the corner…

"Tetsunosuke-kun!" Okita grinned, clapping his hands together.

"Oh, Okita-san." Tetsu said, thrilled that somebody was actually talking to him.

"I just came to say," Okita said, thinking quickly, "That Hijikata wants you to clean the other Dojo too."

"Oh." Tetsu said, his stature drooping a bit. Okita had only come to tell him what the vice commander wanted him to do. This day wasn't getting any better.

I hope this makes up for the short chapter before! It had better. Yes. It had better.

You don't know how tempting it is to name the puppy "Ralph". (Ralph is from my Fruits Basket fic: A Series of Twisted One Shots: Furuba Style (give it a read!)). But I guess it wouldn't fit in with the story, and I don't think that name existed in Japan. I don't even know if pet shops existed in Japan in the Peacemaker time… oh well. I don't care that much.