He walked forward, more than aware of the looks people were giving him. Silent pleas, jealousy, curiosity, ambition. Women looking for his company and men wishing he would just vanish into thin air. He didn't really care, and he didn't pay any attention. He never had.

Maybe that's why he had become popular in the first place. A stoic, strong and handsome man only a few could get. A dream for all the girls and a reality only for a few of them, the lucky ones.

He wasn't interested. Not anymore. He had somewhere else he was supposed to be.

When he had stopped mysteriously sleeping with girls, the rumours had started. He kept coming to Yoshiwara, but there were no happy and proud girls the mornings after. Did it mean he just came here to drink alone? To have some harmless fun? Maybe he had gotten himself a secret lover? The truth was, however, nobody really knew what was going on.

Some of them had tried following him, but he had not been a Shinsengumi Captain for nothing. He was intelligent and cunning, and that meant that, if he didn't want to be found, he wouldn't be found.

Well, that wasn't what he wanted, but what she had decided.

It had been strange for him at the beginning, too. Different. He wasn't used to the same girl over and over again, but they had a deal, and he had to admit she was addicting. Fiery red hair, void deep blue eyes and milky smooth skin. Nothing like the others. Nothing like what she used to be. Nothing like he imagined her to be. Always loud, boisterous and bubbling. Where was she now?

That was always the question entering his mind when he embraced her, his arms around her waist and her hands tangled in his hair. Her old self would had never let him touch her, not so intimately. But the girl beneath him didn't seem to care when he took her clothes off, leaving her skin exposed for him to see and taste and enjoy. She didn't squirm when his mouth found her neck and stomach and legs, and the once shouts of protest whenever he clashed his sword with her umbrella had turned into moans and gasps of pleasure.

That was what it all was about. They didn't care about each other, not anymore. Whatever had been between them had turned stale and now the ashes of their old camaraderie were the only reminders of what their life had once been. Of when she laughed and picked her nose and shouted to a silver haired samurai and a glasses boy. When his only interest had been to kill his superior in the most absurd of the ways and when they would punch each other in the face whenever they met by chance in the streets of the busy and lively Kabuki District.

Before the White Plague had come to take everything away.


He woke with a jolt, his upper body heaving with ragged gasps and his eyes wide open. He took a hand to his forehead, damp with sweat, and he ran a hand through his hair, taking the sticky locks away from his face. Breathing deeply in order to calm his uneven pulse, he sighed slowly, letting the air out.

A dream. A bad one, sure, but it was now just a distant memory.

He looked around the room, realising it was nighttime as everything was dark, and finding the Yato lying next to him looking straight at him with a questioning gaze. She was such a light sleeper sometimes he wondered if she had ever had to spend the night awake in fear of someone attacking her. Other times, however, she didn't seem to have ears and she slept like a child.

He opened his mouth to wet his dry lips, and her eyes followed his movement.

"A nightmare?"

"Maybe."

He tried to remember what had woken him in the first place. Kagura had been in the dream, with a nostalgic feeling accompanying her; something about rumours, too, and people looking at him. Ah yes, something about the first months after their agreement.

He regarded her again, now propped up in her elbows and still looking at him with curiosity. She had changed since then. A change for the better, however. He had changed, too. He did care now, and she just didn't know how much.

"So?"

"So back to sleep, China. It wasn't anything." He grabbed the blanket to cover them again, and he rested his head in her chest.

"Uh? What are you doing?"

"Your breasts are so big I might as well use them as a pillow."

"You pervert!" She smacked him in the head, but he didn't budge.

"I don't think you can call me that at this point." Burying his face even more in her warmth, he tried to distract himself from his current thoughts. He didn't want to deal with anything related to his past so late in the night, or so early in the morning. What a better way to divert his mind than to infuriate this prone to violence girl?


Kagura stilled in bewilderment. What was going on? She was oh, so peacefully sleeping for once and then she woke up out of the blue. Well, not so out of the blue. It was an unusual sight to find Okita so agitated, a lot less if the cause was a dream. But here he was, gasping for air. As he had just told her, it had been nothing and he wanted to go back to sleep, but she was not stupid.

Even though she was usually the one looking for warm arms around her, he was now clinging to her like a child. More or less. Kids didn't have such a bad mouth. She wondered the source of his perturbation, and guessed it was related to his late sister. She grimaced, knowing there was nothing she could about it. If there was one thing that got him feeling something, it was Mitsuba.

She wished she had met her, as everyone she had asked about it had talked wonders about the woman. She was nothing like Sougo, as it turned out to be, sweet, caring and kind. Such a big contrast with his brother people couldn't believe they were blood related.

Said man was currently trying to sleep whatever had made him so restless off. For once, she let him be. Her hands reached for his hair, and she massaged his scalp. He hummed in contentment, and she smiled fondly. Yup, he was such a kid sometimes.

"Say, Sadist. Are you afraid of something?"

He took his time to answer, and she realized that, instead of answering something among the lines of 'Are you stupid? I fear nothing', he was pondering the question seriously.

"Everyone is afraid of something, it's part of what makes us human. So yes, I have my own demons."

Sincerity was not something she got from him often, and the word human always reminded her about her condition as a foreigner on Earth. Her mind was suddenly filled with lots of questions she didn't have an answer to, about her, about him, about their demons and their fears.

"I see."

She decided it had been enough for the night, as she didn't have the mental strength to continue with the topic at the moment, so she followed his example closing her eyes. She also wanted to sleep this strange conversation off. They already had enough troubles in their daily lives to sum up some more nightmares to them.


I'm not dead guys, just very busy!