a/n: Chapter 2 was dedicated to Zenzou's POV, so I decided to make this chapter entirely Sacchan's. The rating is now M because of her overactive imagination lmao

Ayame was having a hard time. They had finished the challenge, and the adjacent door had opened. Now the two of them were waiting for the next task.

It had occurred to her, quite suddenly, and out of nowhere that in the midst of fighting him, that she was starting to develop somewhat of a small infatuation for her boss. It was reminiscent of the time back when she had kept thinking of Gintoki for no reason, but hadn't quite started to stalk him yet.

And as everyone very well knew, that particular phase had led to absolutely nowhere.

So naturally, she was worried.

Proximity wise the dynamic between her and Zenzou had stayed the same. He was infuriating - and that would always remain consistent, a natural consequence of how opposite they were in temperament. But she was starting to fill in between the missing puzzle pieces, the gaps of him which had previously been a mystery to her before. There was a sly wit to him, if she could coax it out. The hint of a small smile that sent electric shocks through her body whenever she managed to amuse him. An uncanny ability to remember the small details. She especially admired his remarkable sense to remain calm under pressure, no matter how absurd or dangerous the situation was.

Once upon a time, those details would have escaped her notice. But now, it was nigh-on impossible. Once she knew, she couldn't possibly un-know any of it.

It was horrific. Maddening. Flummoxing.

Not supposed to happen.

And yet, it was simultaneously one of the most exhilarating things that she had experienced in months. The disillusionment that she had suffered through ever since Gintoki had gotten married had snuffed a considerable amount of joy in her life.

Of all the people she wished it could have happened to, he would stayed at the bottom of the list. His emotional coldness would have been completely incompatible with her needs. After an extended period of rejection, she didn't think she could handle another few years of being unwanted.

But that damned kiss...

She couldn't stop thinking about it. For someone who once had told her, "I don't really care what happens to you," and meant it, he turned out to be something of a god at kissing.

It wasn't fair.

She had gotten to hug Gintoki on several occasions, and even received a pseudo-proposal of sorts, but she had never gotten anything remotely close to a kiss from him. Not even a single peck on the cheek.

And as for someone who didn't love her, in this very strange and twisted scenario, he had somehow managed to do the impossible: to make her forget about Gintoki.

When had that happened?

She was starting to suspect that, aside from the obvious starting point when they were first trapped in the escape room, the attraction had been latent. It could have started a few years ago, back when she had stood on that pine tree and saw him leave Edo, not knowing when, or if, he would ever come back.

The image had haunted her then, knowing that he operated in dark spaces where Gintoki wouldn't.

Gintoki had no loyalties to anyone - not even to the former Shogun, back when he had been alive. He was a renegade. If he killed someone, it was to protect a person or the home that held the people he cherished.

The Oniwaban entertained no such indulgences. If you died, that was that. The ninja academy had taken in mostly orphans for precisely that reason. With no family ties to bind them down, it was much easier to send them off to die if they knew they had no one to come back to. The organization would continue to exist whether or not a member died or not. Serve the Shogun, die for the Shogun. That was their oath. Their duty.

Even Zenzou had understood that he wasn't irreplaceable, and left the organization under her leadership. He knew she didn't want to be the head, but she had accepted, nevertheless.

"Even if I disappear, you're still here, right Sarutobi? I'm sure that even in a peaceful world, you'll do great guiding the blade that is the Oniwabanshuu."

Back then, she knew Gintoki would have came back. She couldn't say the same about Zenzou at the time.

She'd been angry for months on end after the two of them had left. But she was considerably more upset with the latter.

Why?

She chewed on her lip, thinking.

Ayame was never that good at self-introspection. But the surrealism of the situation had forced her to confront a lot of ugly truths. Some of them weren't exactly flattering on her behalf.

Admittedly, yes, she had been angry at him for a while because it seemed like he had basically forgotten that she'd existed.

But hadn't she been doing the same?

She was reasonable enough to take a step back, in order to re-evaluate the situation. She wasn't stupid, contrary to popular belief.

If there was a chance in hell that he could possibly learn to love her, she would probably reciprocate his feelings. But that was hugely conditional - based on a series of "if only's". If only she was his type, which she wasn't. If only they weren't the type to get on each others' nerves at any given moment, which they most certainly did. If only they didn't know each others flaws inside out, which unfortunately they did after twenty years of working or studying with each other in the same proximity.

Ayame stood up again, and smashed her head into the nearest wall.

"Has anyone ever told you how weird you are?" Zenzou asked mildly, flipping through his copy of Shonen Jump. "I know you're a masochist, but - "

"Shut up!" she snapped back. "I'm just getting sick and tired of being here with you!"

"Getting cabin fever, already?" He seemed amused, and she saw the corner of his mouth rising. "I had no idea that I would be able to provoke such a violent and passionate reaction from you."

She absolutely did not find that sexy. She did not find his voice, or his relaxed demeanour attractive, at all. For fuck's sake, this was the same man who applied Preparation H in front of her!

Granted, she'd been wearing the wrong prescription of glasses at the time, but still!

What was wrong with her?!

She sat down, rubbing her forehead, and turned her back away from him. This was ridiculous.

She desperately needed a boyfriend. Someone who didn't read Jump. Someone who was relatively fucking normal. Someone who had a job, not too much money, but not someone who was broke, either.

Ayame rubbed her eyes and sighed.

It seemed she was destined only to prefer impossibly strong men who carried emotional baggage the size of Mount Fuji. That they preferred to read Shonen Jump was a terrible coincidence.

To be fair, she didn't think she could be with anyone she didn't respect. She barely respected Zenzou in the first place, but he was stronger than her. She'd give him that. On paper, he would probably make a good husband. If said hypothetical wife was into clean, pedantic freaks and could stand a lifetime of hemmorhoid ointment.

Which she definitely could not.

Then again, it wasn't as if Sakata Gintoki had been a better choice. Once her love had somewhat faded for him, even she had to admit that he wasn't as perfect as she thought he was. Even Tsukuyo, an absolute saint of a woman, sometimes had to rant about her husband, being that she was destined to be the breadwinner for the rest of eternity. Though Ayame had observed every one of his flaws from afar, it wasn't the same as having to live with them, day after day.

Maybe Ayame was already better off being single for the rest of her life. This was the modern world, after all. She had plenty of money, and if she chose to retire even now, in her late twenties, she'd have enough to live comfortably for a long time. Being a professional, skilled assassin had its benefits, and financial stability was one of them.

She sighed again. This, too, did not seem congruent with what she really wanted. When she had admitted to Zenzou that her deepest desire was to be loved, she had meant it.

She wanted something to live for, something to look forward to. Gintoki might not have reciprocated her ardor, but that had been enough back when he was single.

Once upon a time, the samurai had represented to her a possibility.

It was a possibility of being something more than what she could do. He'd awoken in her a side of carnal sensuality that she didn't know existed in her. It was a part that had manifested entirely apart from being reduced to her functions.

Assassin. Killer. Leader of the Oniwaban, at one point.

But not much else.

She wanted to share other parts of her with someone. She hadn't realized how much she wanted her feelings to be reciprocated until she had seen Gintoki do the impossible and fall in love with somebody. Seeing him content had made her wish for her own happiness.

The life of a shinobi was often lonely. Sometimes she would get home from a week long mission, covered in bloodstains and god knows what else, and her room would be dark. Empty. Not a single soul to tell her, "Welcome back."

Gintoki's apartment, though dirty at the best of times, was always full of warmth. He had his circle of people who loved him just as much as he loved them, and though she wasn't part of his found family, she had felt content basking from afar.

He was the closest thing she experienced to love. It wasn't the same thing as sex, although that was certainly part of the appeal. It was the potential that had appealed to her. He was a package deal.

Gintoki had made her realize that she didn't want to be alone for the rest of her life.

Her friends filled in the void part of the time, but sometimes...

She just wanted more.

If that made her selfish, so be it. Unlike Zenzou, she wasn't content to be by herself all the time. Solitude wasn't what she was naturally made for. She was loud. Naturally aggressive. She needed to be the center of attention. That wasn't possible if one was alone.

Lost in thought, she wasn't aware that someone tapping her on her shoulder.

"Hey, Sarutobi."

His voice made her jump. It was Zenzou.

Damned sneaky ninjas.

"Next assignment," he said quietly. She glared at him, and snatched the paper from his hands.

"Hold hands for ten minutes," she said quietly, quirking up an eyebrow. "Interesting."

Well, that was decidedly more tame than kissing. Or taking a bath together. Somehow she had expected the scenarios to escalate in nature, but in fact, they had become easier.

Maybe she could get through this room without thinking too hard about... certain things.

-x-

Ayame was wrong.

It was hell.

She had kissed other boys before, during ninja school. It was a bit of a pagan institution, teaching young children how to murder human beings, but somehow in the process they still all struggled to deal with the same things like everybody else, including hormones and a bit of teenage awkwardness. So admittedly, she had enough reason to underestimate the whole notion of it.

Zenzou had simply stuck his hand out, complaining, as he usually did, how shitty these challenges were.

"What are we, thirteen?"

She had rolled her eyes as well, thinking the same thing.

And then his palm closed over hers, fingers interlaced like lovers, and she stopped breathing.

Ayame was known for having an overactive imagination. Most of the time, it was an enjoyable experience. Her melodramatics entertained the SJW audience with her flights of fancy. Of course she wanted to be whipped in chains and tied up in rope - any person who had the opportunity of going to subspace would have felt the same way. The high that came from executing a good BDSM scene to completion was unparalleled to nothing else, in her humble opinion.

This time it was a goddamn curse.

His hands were broad, big enough to wrap around hers. His palm was cool, and his fingers were calloused from years and years of handling, sharpening, and throwing kunai. Like hers, they were faintly scarred. Sure, they were asymmetrical and wide, but she'd never been one for conventional beauty.

She could not, for the love of all that was holy, stop wondering what it would feel like for those hands to run across her body.

His eye for the little details, his quick ability to formulate a plan... she figured he would be incredible in bed. Add to the sheer amount of stamina he surely had...

All of a sudden, she grew uncomfortably hot.

He was reading his comic, flipping the pages using his other hand. Like it was just another day and they were in some facsimile of a relationship. They weren't talking to each other, but that was probably for the best. She would probably fuck it up by accidentally saying something incredibly sexual, and then they'd never get past this fucking room.

Screw this escape room. Whoever had put them here could go to hell.

She needed to calm down. But how?

She tried to pretend it was somebody else. Gintoki. She used to have the most incredible delusions about that man.

Closing her eyes, she tried her utmost best to disengage completely from the person who was currently holding her hand.

It didn't work. After a minute or so, she gave up; the effort to divert and to distract her from the situation was no good. By some freakish coincidence, her mind would simply not allow her to get carried away with fantasizing about a married man. Something about it felt off. Incongruent. Uncomfortable, even.

But the basic urge to indulge in something decidedly less than innocent still remained.

Ayame slowly inhaled, and exhaled. Fine. It was too late for her to show any signs of frustration at this point. If she had an active imagination - which she most certainly did - it would be best of her to embrace it, rather than to fight against the urge and make things even worse on her end. And anyways, she was an elite ninja who specialized in sabotage and deception. He had already set a timer for the damn task on his cell phone. Ten minutes wasn't a long time, surely. This physical reaction would go away as soon as she stopped touching him.

She decided to start from the beginning.

First, he'd kiss her. The same way that he had in the first room. Slow and intent, until she was breathless and aching for his touch.

She'd beg for him to take her. He'd ignore her, like the way he usually did outside of work. He'd pin her down, and take his time undressing her.

He'd pepper her with kisses, slowly moving down until he reached her mons. He would spread her legs, and slowly stroke her. One finger, down the seam of her sex. He wouldn't be rough, but he would watch her, carefully gauging her reactions. His eyes would darken at the sight of her enjoying every minute of it.

Once her arousal made its presence known, he'd slide in two fingers. They'd press softly against her G-spot, causing her to buckle. It'd be his cue at that point to slowly lap his tongue on her clitoris, providing a dual stimulation that would propel her to a state of no return.

He'd make her burn in pleasure. Would watch her as she came for him. And he'd do it over, and over again until she was a writhing mess. Eventually, she would beg for him to fill her. Completely and fully.

He'd make her go on all fours, like the dog that she was. It was one of her favorite positions. She would do it because she was his subordinate, and she was eager to please him.

Is this what you want, Sarutobi? he'd ask her quietly, and she would say yes, boss. Take me, claim me, fuck me. Do whatever you want with me.

And because this was a sexual fantasy, he'd acquiesce.

He would take care of her. Even if she wasn't his type, she would trust him implicitly to give her what she needed.

He'd wrap her long hair around his hands, and yank hard as he sank deep into her. Just the way she wanted. Pain and pleasure.

He'd fuck her, setting the speed and pace on his own terms. She would let him use her. He'd grip her so hard he'd leave bruises on her hip, as if he was marking his territory.

Mine, he'd say. Say it.

I'm yours, she would moan in response.

He'd work her relentlessly, making sure she was punished in the best of ways. He'd overwhelm her to the point where she could only see white and black spots in her vision, because he would know how to make her come. Knew how to fuck her in ways that she needed to be fucked, but could never explain why.

One final thrust would send her over the edge. She wouldn't be able to stop herself from coming. Not that she ever wanted to deny herself from doing so in the first place.

Her body would quake and quiver, but he wouldn't let her collapse. Not yet.

I'm not finished, he'd remind her. You still have a job to do. Turn around.

And she would, kneeling in front of him. She aimed to please.

He'd cup her chin with his hand. Open your mouth, and look at me.

She'd obey. Her mouth would take all of him in one thrust, and she'd be able to taste herself as she looked deep into those blue eyes. His hands would slip into her hair, tugging it possessively, and he would begin fucking her mouth. He'd start off slow but build up to a faster rhythm, almost hitting the back of her throat.

He'd encourage her. That's right, he would groan, as she took in more and more of him. You were made for this. I know you can handle this.

He'd ask her to touch herself. Not one to miss out, she would acquiesce.

She was already so wet. Her fingers would stroke herself, quick and intent while he fucked her mouth.

They were both close.

So close to coming together -

"Oi, Sarutobi! Are you falling asleep?"

The voice of the real life Hattori Zenzou jerked her violently out of her daydream, and she nearly shrieked as she recalibrated herself back into the real world. Fuck, why was she still wearing clothes? And what was that blasted alarm clock noise, threatening to give her a heart attack?

She rubbed her eyes.

She couldn't help resenting that he'd interrupted her, even though he looked much better in person than in her fantasies. Fitter. More visceral. Flawed, but again... maybe that was the appeal.

He was real.

Not an illusion.

He had already let go of her hand. Inwardly, she couldn't help noticing the loss. She watched him turn the alarm off, and the familiar door opened.

She was so sick of looking at those blasted doors.

Couldn't they just... ?

Just what? she wondered. Do the things she had just imagined to him and with him? The thought of it made her flush bright red.

Zenzou had tilted his head, a bit bemused by her reaction. "Time's up. Sorry if I was interrupting a really good dream. You seemed like you were having a - "

"No, it's all right," she replied hurriedly, still feeling the heat in her cheeks. She tried to calm down, as if she did not just have a full-blown, erotic fantasy with someone she would have never ever considered a week ago.

He placed a hand under her bangs. "You're heating up," he said, frowning. "You don't feel sick, do you?"

Please stop touching me, she begged him. But practicality took over her brain, for once, and she shook her head vigorously. To her relief, he seemed to believe her and mercifully took his hand away.

"You've been acting a bit weird lately," he said. "But you know, we'll figure out how to get out of here. I know it's been a really weird situation for the both of us, but we can't get too discouraged, right? "

Ayame looked at him. And thought very hard.

Normally, she wasn't a deep thinker. Outside of her job, she made it a point to fully embrace her emotions, knowing that to be a human was to make mistakes. She woke up, knowing that any day could have been her last day alive, and as such, she tried her best to live her life without any regrets. She had always done the things she always wanted to do.

Even if people had made fun of her for the amount of passion she once held for Sakata Gintoki, she had refused to listen to them. Their opinions didn't matter - she knew that at the end of the day, what ultimately mattered were hers.

Shame? Embarrassment? She didn't have much of those things, for a good reason.

She wanted to feel alive. Living in the moment gave her joy.

To calculate risks in a profession where she could die at a moment's notice was ridiculous.

And with a moment of clarity, the answer has suddenly came to her, of how to finally escape these damned rooms.

Perhaps the man next to her wasn't the one she initially wanted.

But maybe, just maybe... he was the one she needed.

"No," she said slowly. Zenzou was still looking at her. "No, I guess we can't."

She leaned towards him carefully. She took a deep breath, moved closer to his face without further thought, and kissed him.

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- tbc

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