Sakata Gintoki was standing alone in a dark room. It was pitch-black; the room had no windows or doors but it was still freezing, as if there was an invisible air conditioner that was set on its lowest temperature and on full blast. All of a sudden, the ceiling started bleeding a scarlet red that illuminated through the darkness - it oozed and dripped sinisterly down the walls before rapidly filling the room. First it was at his ankles, then it swiftly reached his hip, then his chest. Finally, it was up to his neck. Gintoki was panicking; he tried to scream for help but blood entered his mouth and clogged his throat. He struggled for what seemed like an eternity before he was abruptly yanked backwards by the collar of his yukata by an unknown hand. It was callous and rough, but it saved his life. Before he could turn around to face his savior, however, the entire scene cuts to black once again and he wakes up.

Gintoki was rudely awakened by a dull ache that drummed against the side of his right temple; that was the fifth recurring dream he's had that week. It was probably late afternoon, he guessed, observing the way harsh sunlight threatened to burst through the window blinds and into the dingy setting of the room he was now in. The events of the previous day were a hazy memory and Gintoki for the life of him couldn't remember how or why he ended up in this dirty place — probably because of how fucked his head was the day before. He definitely wasn't drunk, but he could only recall bits and pieces of what had happened: blood, petals, a flash of dark hair- oh, yeah. That guy.

He vaguely remembered the Shinsengumi officer telling him that he'd come back to the hotel after his job duties, and also remembered himself responding with a "come back soon".

...Did he? Who knows. It doesn't seem like something he'd say, but he was sure that was what he had meant. The realization then struck him that Hijikata didn't actually return like he had said and his heart ached lightly with indignation. Huh, big talk and no action for a cop who claims to care for his citizens.

He felt another coughing fit creep up from within his throat and he yielded to his body's urges to expel whatever goddamn shit was blocking his airways at that moment. The white bedsheets, now stained a fresh red in addition to what had accumulated over the course of Gintoki's sleepless night, was covered in clumps of white chrysanthemum petals which - ironically and in contrary to his own physical state - were fresh as if they'd just blossomed minutes before.

Great . He knew that this was a thing in fanfiction, he just didn't think that it'd actually happen to him. The fact was that he didn't contract this illness after arriving in Kawaguchi; getting it was the whole reason why he had left Kabuchi-cho in the first place. He didn't even know how or why it had happened, only that he was simply having a nice evening minding his own business and having some sake after a tiring work day, only to see a sore sight from the corner of his eye.

It was a dirty Shinsengumi officer with V-shaped bangs entering the bar opposite his, with a woman who seemed to be clinging on to his arm for her dear life. Curious. Was he on a date? He wasn't dressed in his uniform - just the casual blue yukata he usually wears when he's off-shift, so he probably was.

Gintoki had idly swirled the remainder of sake left in his cup and pondered for a moment, before finishing it and calling on the waiter for the bill. Maybe he wanted to know what the demonic vice commander looked like trying to flirt - or if he was even capable of that at all. Either way, Gintoki had left his own bar to spy on the pair. He was soon aware of how much he looked like a creep staring at them from this distance, but he couldn't help it. For some reason, this sick curiosity of his compelled him to go against his reasoning, and he decided not to move from underneath the dim lamp post across their bar. He obviously didn't care, this was just more fun than drinking alone.

Within the span of half an hour, the samurai saw the woman grow increasingly tenacious in her efforts to seduce the Shinsengumi officer, and he saw the said officer lean close to whisper something in her ear as if they were sharing a lover's secret. Gintoki found himself illogically vexed at this observation; in that moment he wanted to enter the bar himself just to intentionally ruin their date and throw the cop into a bad mood, just for the sake of being annoying. Happy couples, man. Stop flexing your lovey-dovey nonsense and spare a thought for the single people who have to bear your unpleasant public displays of affection, oi . He didn't do that, however.

Unbeknownst to Gintoki, Hijikata had only been tasked to accompany a high-ranking official's daughter while she was in town for the night. He was already displeased at the fact that he had to take precious time out of his off-shift day to 'babysit', and the rowdy atmosphere of the bar only aggravated him further. He unfortunately still had to maintain his cool for the sake of being professional, and so tried to tell the girl that he had to leave early for an emergency meeting at the barracks and that he'd send her home before that. The music that blasted through the bar's loudspeakers annoyingly prevented him from getting his message across clearly and he had to resort to shouting into her ear. They soon departed the place five minutes after that, but Gintoki had already left the scene with a nagging weight on his heart.

That's it. That's where Gintoki must have gotten this stupid disease from. The virus that had lodged itself within his body somehow wrongly registered his irritation as jealousy and took it as if whatever the two men had between them was unrequited love bullshit. You had one job, virus, and now you're just carelessly going to take the life of someone who doesn't deserve it.

He was already coughing up full flower petals three days after that incident much to the alarm of Kagura and Shinpachi, who had heard his hellish hacks and wheezes but not seen the actual flowers that fell elegantly towards the ground with each cough. Gintoki had immediately covered his mouth with the sleeve of his yukata and told them it was nothing to worry about- just caught the flu bug. The following day, he had left the Yorozuya office with nothing but his bokuto and a fresh set of clothes, leaving behind a note that only said "will be back".

The initial plan was to quietly find a cure while not giving everyone else unnecessary worry, but it had been more than a week since then and he was still at a dead end. All he knew was that he could either surgically remove the flower buds in his lungs, or find the person of his affection and get them to return his love somehow. The former, in retrospect, should have been his immediate choice then, since he had erroneously contracted the virus and the surgery shouldn't have affected anything much. Or- even if it wasn't a mistake, at least he wouldn't be guilty about the unlucky sob on the receiving end since he didn't know who it was at the time.

And now? Well, he wasn't too sure. He had created a checklist of all the possible women he could have fallen for, but after more contemplation, decided that none of them really fit the bill. Sure, he had met plenty of attractive people in his life, but if he were to really look , he'd prefer someone who he knows would understand him the most. Probably someone who he'd be able to stand on equal ground with, both physically and mentally. Probably—

A loud click echoed through the room and the door of the main entrance swung open. It was Hijikata Toushirou in his uniform, looking as poised and serious as he usually does. He gave Gintoki a hard stare, then sighed and placed his belongings near the bedside table before removing his jacket and folding it neatly on the small dining table at the other end of the room. When that was done, Hijikata turned to look at him once again. "Did you not shower?"

Gintoki thought he felt his headache come back tenfold. "A 'good morning' would have been nice. And no, I haven't. There's nobody I need to impress right now, and there are more urgent matters at hand than general hygiene, I think." He gestures to himself and the bed, and sees Hijkata trail his eyes over the messily strewn petals and bloodstains on the sheets. It was an eerie, abstract artwork of blossom and gore, and Gintoki was the ill-fated artist.

"Okay. Firstly, it's way past morning. In fact, it's already half past 2." Hijikata retorted coldly. "Secondly, I'm the one who's going to have to clean all this up for you, so I'd really appreciate it if you'd at least shower as a decency."

"I'm not asking you to do this for me, you know? Nobody's holding a gun against your head either."

"And I'm not returning you to the kids in this condition."

A long silence. Gintoki was desperately racking his brains for a witty response but eventually couldn't come up with any. Defeated, he begrudgingly muttered a "fine" under his breath and made his way to the bathroom, leaving the black-haired male to stare at the mess on the bed in quiet contemplation.

—

The bathroom was chilly and way more slimy than he expected, but Gintoki decided against complaining; he wasn't the one paying for the stay in the first place. It was a squeezy cubicle that could only accommodate half his body, and he found himself needing to prop one foot on the toilet bowl beside him in order to stand comfortably.

The soap had a strong coconut scent that wasn't to his liking, and he was about to ask Hijikata to go out and get him another type of soap when he was struck yet again by a coughing fit — the worst one so far. Gripping the walls around him, Gintoki thought his lungs were tearing.

It started out as an immense pressure that grew and expanded in his chest, crushing his windpipe. Coughing as hard as he could, he felt his heart palpitate wildly with every jerk and his eyes fill with water. Full, fresh chrysanthemums landed on the bathroom floor. The petals, originally white when he first got sick, were now stained brown from mixing with fresh and old blood. The water of the shower ran slightly pink and swept the petals towards the drainage.

There was a loud rustling outside the bathroom door and Gintoki heard an unusually concerned voice on the other side.

"You okay…? Do you need help?"

Gintoki scoffed, then wheezed extra hard. Does it sound like he's okay? A stupid question coming from someone who's supposed to be smarter than he is. "You want to help scrub my back or something?" he responded sarcastically.

No reply. Fair enough. He knew he was being an asshole about it, but he didn't know how else to approach the matter. The situation was ridiculous enough to make jokes about, yet grave enough to start considering partaking in heartfelt conversations lest it be the last chance he got — and Gintoki was not in the mood to do either.

He continued with his shower routine, making occasional brief pauses to ponder the implication of Hijikata's presence in the room at that moment and the reason for his visit. The concern in the cop's voice earlier made him uneasy; it was foreign and uncanny, and he had never experienced it before. Perhaps this was what it feels like to have the police genuinely care for your wellbeing. Or perhaps — it was because it maybe, slightly, distressed him to know that he had worried Hijikata at all.

When he finally exited the bathroom, Gintoki noticed how much heavier the atmosphere of the room had gotten since he'd left it. It could have been the fact that the gravity of the situation had finally registered in Hijikata's mind, or he could just have been mad that Gintoki had been unnecessarily rude to him since their first meeting in the alleyway. The samurai wasn't sure if he was ready to handle either of those scenarios.

Hijikata was looking at him once more, but this time it wasn't a glare. It was more like a pitiful, slightly worried gaze, and it made Gintoki sick to the stomach. The last thing he needed right now was to have this V-banged bastard try to comfort him. That however, didn't happen. The vice commander seemed to open his mouth to say something but the words never came.

Uncomfortable with the strangeness of it, Gintoki started, "if you're going to come all the way here just to stand and gawk at me, then I don't think you should have wasted your time coming in the first place."

Hijikata cleared his throat. "I made the bed. And, uh- I just have some time to kill before I have to return to work." he was obviously as painfully awkward as Gintoki was in such vulnerable situations. Both men shuffled on the spot for a good few seconds.

"Cool."

"Yeah."

The silence that soon enveloped them was as deafening as it was oppressive. It was solemn and chaotic all at once; they didn't physically speak, but silently yelled incoherent sentences at each other till their imaginary voices were hoarse. Regardless, neither of them could hear the other. For Gintoki, it was frightening to know that their conversation had deviated from the usual routine of bickering and fighting. What were once insults and hard slaps were replaced by muted glares and uncomfortable fidgeting.

Just fucking say something.

He let out an irritated sigh in an attempt to show the cop that he was losing his patience, but the other man didn't seem to get the hint. Or he probably did, but was just as lost as he was in trying to save the situation.

After a few more painful minutes, Hijikata finally caved. "Are you planning to go for the surgery?"

"No."

It was a plain response, but it hid a myriad of feelings Gintoki couldn't properly express. He prepared an essay in his head for if the other man pressed him further: it was too troublesome, he couldn't be bothered, it would probably be expensive — all the excuses he knew weren't the actual case. He had already half-acknowledged the reason why, but it was so absurd, so irrational , that he was having trouble even convincing himself that it was the truth. And so he waited, but the question never came.

They eventually ended up lingering together in smothered quietude, with Gintoki on the bed and Hijikata leaning against the window; both men soberly watching the reddish sun descend beyond the skyline.

It was nice, Gintoki admits after a while, to share a peaceful moment with Hijikata — it was as if their past and future problems had disappeared together with the sunset and all that remained was comforting liminality. As the blazing sun rays shifted and draped themselves like a blanket of orange light across the dark-haired male's torso, Gintoki couldn't help but gaze at the outline of his back instead; the sunset seemed to create a halo around him, as if to tell Gintoki: Yes, this is the man. This is the man who can save you.

Gintoki's eyes widened at the complete realisation, and he chuckled. Scratch that, he fucking guffawed. If he wasn't going to die from the disease, he was going to die from laughter. The other man whipped his head towards him with a surprised and slightly offended look.

"The hell's so funny?"

"N-nothing. I just remembered a joke."