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Chapter 25: Dangos Over Flowers

"Hm?" Sumiko said, puzzled when she couldn't find Chizuru anywhere. She had been doing some follow-up checkups on the men Matsumoto-sensei had diagnosed with various illnesses while Chizuru did some sweeping.

"Something wrong?" Shinpachi asked when she saw her looking around.

"Oh, Shinpachi-san. You and Sano-san are back from patrol already?" She asked as he headed over to her. "I was just looking for Chizuru, but I can't seem to find her…"

"Oh, Chizuru?" He said. "Don't worry, Sano took her out to have dangos with this girl called 'Sen'. She's been looking pretty down lately, so he thought talking to another girl for a little while might cheer her up."

"I'm another girl." Sumiko reminded him, chagrined. "But yeah, I get what you mean. I heard about Osen-chan from Chizuru the other day. It'll be good for her to be able to talk and laugh with someone her own age without having to worry about anything for awhile."

"Speaking of which, you seemed to be pretty worried about something yourself…" Shinpachi commented. "Wanna talk about it over some sake?"

"I'm just worried about Koudou-san and Chizuru. There isn't really anything new to talk about there… but I won't say no to some sake." She replied with a wry smile.

"Heh. See, if you were a girl, you'd have at least said something about it being 'too early'." Shinpachi teased.

"Shinpachi-san. You like to live dangerously, don't you?" Sumiko asked, raising her fist.

"Ah! I'm against domestic violence!" He cried, shielding himself.

"What are you two doing?" Hijikata asked sternly. They had better not be slacking off again.

"Nothing. I was just about to beat some sense into Shinpachi-san. That's all." Sumiko replied innocently.

"… Carry on." Hijikata said, walking away.

"Eh!?" Shinpachi exclaimed incredulously. Did he seriously just give her his blessing to beat the crap out of him? Did Hijikata have any idea what sort of hell he had just unleashed? This wasn't going to be like getting hit by a normal woman…! He glanced cautiously back at Sumiko, who was a rather ominous smirk on her face. "Ah, hold on… wait a minute, Sumiko-san—I mean, Sumiko-sama—I'm sure we can come to some sort of arrangement…"

"I want some inarizushi to go with the sake." She stated boldly. "You have ten minutes."

"She's been hanging out with Okita too much…" Shinpachi mumbled to himself as he turned and made a run for the kitchen. There was no way he'd finish her request in that shot amount of time! And to begin with, how did you even make that dish? All he knew was that there was fried tofu added in at some point…

Sumiko smiled slightly as she watched him scurry away in a panic, and let out a laugh, but her expression became more solemn again as she raised her face to look up at the blue summer sky.

'Well, I guess I should try not to think about it or let it bother me so much.' She thought. 'After all, worrying is like praying for stuff you don't want to happen…'

—∞—

"Chizuru-chan, eat up." Sen said cheerfully when they served their tea and dango. "The dango here is quite delicious." Chizuru smiled and picked one up to try.

"You're right. It's delicious!" Chizuru said.

"Right? I'm glad." Sen said, smiling brightly. "I've been thinking about you since then."

"Eh?"

"It must be rough, being a woman in a male troop, I thought." Sen said as they both glanced at Sano, who was acting as Chizuru's chaperone and waiting nearby in the shade of another building, a discrete distance away. "It didn't feel like the first time I'd met you, I couldn't just leave you be. Still, I guess I'm just being nosy." She added with a wink.

"Thank you." Chizuru said, smiling happily. "But it's all right. I have Sumiko-san with me. For me she's like a dependable big sister, but she's so cool and strong that a lot of the men actually call her 'Aniki'."

"Haha! I'd like to meet this Sumiko-san." Sen said, smiling and laughing good-naturedly. She sounded like a real card. Chizuru smiled. She had a feeling Osen-chan and Sumiko-san would get along well.

"Oh, but Osen-chan, how could you know right off the bat that I was a girl?" Chizuru asked.

"Of course I could." Sen said. "We're both girls."

"Oh, yeah…" Chizuru said.

"Chizuru-chan, where were you born?" Sen asked.

"Um, Edo."

"Huh. Any siblings?"

"No."

"An only child, huh? The same as me." Sen said, smiling as she took a bite of her dango.

'Come to think of it, it's been a while since I've talked to a girl other than Sumiko-san like this.' Chizuru thought with a small smile.

"People don't speak well of the Shinsengumi in Kyoto, but some of them are good people." Sen said, glancing at Sano again. "He told me, 'She's been down recently, so have a lively talk with her, make her feel better.' "

"Eh? Harada-san did?" Chizuru asked, surprised.

"Ah! I promised to keep it a secret…" Sen said, making a silly but cute face at herself for the slipup. "Well, I'll be going now." She said, standing up.

"Thank you, Osen-chan." Chizuru said, following suit. "It was a lot of fun."

"For me too." Sen said, smiling. "Next time, let's go somewhere that has delicious manju. You bring Sumiko-san with you, too, if you'd like."

"Okay!" Chizuru said, smiling.

"And you as well, sir." Sen said, turning to face Sano. "See you!" She bowed goodbye and walked away.

The sun was setting now as Chizuru and Sano made their way back to headquarters.

"Um, Harada-san… Thank you very much." Chizuru said as they walked. "Um, have I been that gloomy?" She asked, blushing slightly out of embarrassment.

"Huh? Oh, jeez. That girl told you, huh?" He asked, smiling wryly. Looks like he got caught after all.

"Sorry." Chizuru said.

"Not at all. But good thing, huh? You look happy that you got to eat some dango." He said brightly.

"Huh!?" Chizuru said. "No, that's not—"Sano smiled as he patted her on the head.

"Well, 'Good fortune comes to those who smile,' right?" He said with a wink.

"Hai!" Chizuru said, smiling brightly.

—∞—

The next morning, both girls were bright-eyed and busy-tailed.

"Here." Chizuru said cheerfully, handing Inoue-san a full rice bowl. He, Hijikata, and Saito were already present and eating. They were just waiting on the late risers now.

"Thank you." Inoue said, smiling.

"I'm sleepy! Fooood!" Shinpachi said sleepily while Sano yawned as they came in to join them.

"Good morning!" Sumiko greeted them brightly as she and Chizuru smiled.

"Yeah." Both men said, a little surprised by the sudden transformation. They glanced at each other and smiled, silently congratulating the other on a job well done.

"Where's Heisuke?" Hijikata asked. He already knew where Okita was.

"Ain't he still asleep?" Shinpachi said with a smirk.

"Yukimura-kun, I'm sorry, but could you go wake Heisuke?" Inoue asked.

"No way, let Sumiko-san do it." Shinpachi said with a grin.

"Yeah. Show no mercy." Sano said, smiling wryly.

"No mercy… just what kind of image do you guys have of me?" Sumiko asked, smiling wryly as she got up and left to wake the sleepy Heisuke.

—∞—

Later on, the two girls smiled and laughed, racing each other while they wiped the porch floors. Sumiko won three out of five times, but Chizuru won the winner-takes-all match.

"All right, that'll do it." Chizuru said, smiling cheerfully, as they stopped to wipe the sweat from their brows now that the floorboards were sparkling clean.

"Finished?" Okita asked.

"Eh!?" Chizuru gasped, startled, when they both looked over and saw that Okita was sitting on the porch steps with his wet hair down and the front of his kimono open."Okita-san, what are you doing out dressed like that?"

"I got sweaty while I was sleeping. I took a quick bath and have been drying in the sun." He explained.

"You need to be more careful. No matter how good the weather is, with your hair wet like that, you're going to catch a cold!" Sumiko scolded him sternly, furrowing her brow.

"You look just like Hijikata-san when you glare like that." Okita said, laughing. Sumiko frowned, unamused. For just how long was he going to keep teasing her about her crush?

"It's all right at all." Chizuru said. "Please take better care of yourself."

"You're unexpectedly nagging, with a weird sense of worry." Okita commented, glancing at Chizuru. It was one thing coming from Sumiko; she was a doctor, so was like an occupational hazard. "You're like Hijikata-san, too." He said as he started to tie up his hair.

"Eh?" Chizuru said, blushing. Sumiko sighed when she saw the look on her friend's face, but she quickly getting up and smacked Okita's hand out of his hair.

"I told you, you have to properly dry yourself first!" She scolded him, grabbing the towel he had slung over his shoulders so she could use it dry his wet hair better.

"Th-That's right!" Chizuru said, backing Sumiko up, as she recovered from her blush.

"Sumiko-san! Why do you have to be so forceful?" Okita asked, chagrined, as she continued rubbing his hair roughly with the towel.

"Just because." She huffed moodily, frowning. She recognized the look she had seen on Chizuru's face. It was the look of a girl in love. She sighed. Why did they have to have the same taste in men…?

Okita noticed the look on her face out the corner of his eye and glanced at Chizuru.

"Hnh. You can stop. That's dry enough." He said, standing up. It looked like they both sucked when it came to picking who to fall in love with. He pulled his hair back and tied it up in his usual hairstyle."There's something I want to ask you."

"Huh?" Chizuru said. Why did he suddenly look so serious?

"Truthfully… what do you think of my hair?" The two girls blinked and exchanged a glance, but then they smiled.

"It suits you." Sumiko said with a wry smile.

"Yeah." Chizuru agreed.

"Oh, yeah? I'm glad. Thank you." Okita said, smiling happily. He knew Sumiko wouldn't have sugar-coated her opinion for him, so it must be true. "The truth is, I was trying to copy Kondo-san with this." He admitted.

"I was kind of wondering… I thought the two styles were kind of similar." Sumiko said.

"True enough, the style is the same." Chizuru agreed, smiling.

"You can't tell anyone else." Okita told them, holding a finger to his lips.

"Hai." They said, smiling. It was nice to have made a promise with him that didn't end with '… or I'll kill you.'

—∞—

Later that evening, Sumiko and Chizuru were taking a walk around the grounds, and happened to overhear Hijikata scolding someone as they drew near the front gate.

"You've come back awfully late for not having been on patrol." Hijikata told Shinpachi, Heisuke, and Sano, who were all pink in the face from drinking. "I believe I told you long ago that breaking curfew is cause for seppuku."

"I was the one who forced 'em to go." Shinpachi said, crossing his arms. "They're not responsible at all. Tell me to do seppuku, and I'll do it!"

"!" Heisuke and Sano gasped, startled.

"Shinpachi, you're not the one to decide that." Hijikata said sternly. "Regardless of who made whom go, the fact is all of you broke the squad's rules."

"Please wait, Hijikata-san." Sano said.

"The two of us were bad, too." Heisuke said. "If we'd said 'let's go' sooner—"

"You fools go to your rooms." Hijikata commanded the two of them. "I'll give further instructions later." He then turned and led Shinpachi away to confront him first.

"S-Sano-san! Is this okay?" Heisuke asked anxiously.

"Let's go!" Sano said, grabbing him by the wrist, so he could pull him along. "Chizuru, Sumiko, you two come, too."

"Right behind you!" Sumiko said as the they followed the boys.

–∞–

"Well, what'll it be?" Shinpachi asked impatiently once he was seated facing Hijikata. "I've come too far to be afraid of death now. If you're gonna say it, just go and say it." Hijikata sighed.

"You're unhappy with how I've done things, yes? This is how you've always acted in times like that." He said calmly.

Shinpachi was a bit taken aback to have been seen through so easily, but while they were on the subject…

"It's like… recently, you've been kind to the new members, but way too hard on us guys who've been around the longest, haven't ya? Sure, we're not clever talkers and don't have friends in high places. But the Shinsengumi only got this big because we fought, ready to die for it, right!? Shinpachi said heatedly. A bead of nervous sweat rolled down the side of his face when Hijikata closed his eyes and there was a long, heavy moment of silence in the room.

"I'm sorry." Hijikata said.

"Ah." Shinpachi said, surprised. Hijikata opened his eyes and raised his head.

"There are those who've said I've treated you all too fondly. That I only give the veterans important posts, that I favor them, give them special pay. Garbage like that. However, it was wrong of me to go so far, nagging you about this and that." Hijikata said with a small smile towards the end.

"Jeez. I swear, I'm no match for you." Shinpachi said, smiling wryly. He bowed to Hijikata. "I'm sorry, too. Let's go drinkin' again soon." He suggested on a happier note now that they had made up. "I'll find some weak sake that even you can handle can drink, Hijikata-san."

"Hmph. You've got it all wrong." Hijikata said, smiling. "It's not that I can't drink; I just that I don't drink."

Shinpachi smirked. Yeah, sure.

The four who had been listening anxiously outside the door all shared smiles of relief.

—∞—

July, 1866

"Th-The Shogun…!" Shinpachi gasped as he sprinted back to headquarters with some startling news.

"Lord Iemochi is dead!?" Hijikata exclaimed when they all heard the news, furrowing his brow with concern. Sumiko closed her eyes and looked away. It was starting…

Shortly thereafter, the conquest of Choshu, which had begun with the Kinmon Rebellion, brought about the shocking conclusion that was the Bakufu Army's great defeat. It was the instant that great tree which stood unshaken for 260 years had begun to creak.