I See Red
Chapter 13: Red Bastard


It took some time for the immediate aftermath of Tokugawa Soyo's kidnapping to die down. After the students were made to give their statements, the teachers who acted as chaperones had to give even longer statements, briefings, and debriefings by the police officers.

As Kagura waited for her silver-haired dad to come out of the school, her thoughts ran like wildfire. Would he say anything to the police about her brother? Will he tell them about the Harusame, and consequently, about her and her messed-up family tree? Would she be brought to a different country again just to keep her away from that group?

Most important of all, what happened to Soyo-chan? What could she do about it? She didn't know where Gin-chan will place her next, whether it was back to Papi or with police protection, but wherever it was, she'd have to find a way to get out, find her idiot older brother and fight him, then get Soyo-chan back within the next few hours. Her insides were a mess of anger, guilt, shame, and despair, but she pushed them further down so that there was nothing else but raw, idiotic determination fuelling her.

Before Okita went home with Kondou and Hijikata, he touched her shoulder firmly and looked her in the eye. "Whatever insane plan is forming in your head right now, I'm in," he said in a low voice. She nodded numbly in response.

It was almost daybreak when Ginpachi was released by the police. "Gin-chan," she asked in an uneasy voice, "Am I… are you going to send me away? B-because if you are… it's okay, I mean… if it will be safer for you to send me somewhere else…" The wetness that suddenly invaded the corners of her eyes caught her off guard and made her trail off.

He had the weight of the world on his shoulders, but when he looked at her, he had the same, lazy, comforting look on his face, as if nothing earth-shattering happened. "What're ya talking about? You ain't going anywhere. You're still grounded, remember?" He ruffled her hair then, and Kagura couldn't help but to half-hug, half-tackle him in sheer relief.

"Gin-chan! Are you sure? Wauuugh!" She sniffled and sobbed and snivelled in the least lady-like manner she could muster as she gripped onto Gin-chan's shirt.

The silver-haired man—her dad, she thought fondly—patted her on the head comfortingly as her tears and snot stained the front of his shirt. "Why the heck would I send my only daughter somewhere else? Listen—you're stayin' with me whether you like it or not, all right? And I ain't sending you off until you get married (when you're forty. Make sure that damn sadist knows)."

"Stupid Gin-chan!" Kagura meant to playfully hit him on the chest, but this turned out to be not-so-playful. Ginpachi received this with an oof as the air was forcefully pushed out of his lungs.

"Oi, watch it. Gin-chan's so freakin' tired he'll need to sleep this off for the next three days." He coughed as the small girl kept on hugging him.

They rode off on their Vespa with Sadaharu galloping beside them. The first rays of the sun bled into the dawn's sky. Kagura's mind continued to race.


Principal Hata suspended classes the next day amidst continuing investigations, pressure from the government, and the media circus that followed. At around 9 AM, Ginpachi was called to come to the school for an emergency meeting.

"Dammit." Kagura heard him mumbling through the door. With her trained ears, she was able to pick up the sound of him splashing water on his face, putting on his white coat, and fumbling with his shoes near the doorway. He mumbled a soft, "I'm leaving," to no-one in particular before the sound of the door closing and the lock sliding shut was heard.

She took out her mobile phone and sent a group text. Park bench 15 mins.

A flood of Oks and OMWs went in her inbox one by one.

It was safe to say that all of them in that group chat had little to no sleep since the events of the dance, judging from how quickly they responded to the call. Kagura had told everyone to gather weapons, and surprisingly, for this group of high schoolers, this was not difficult to do.

The Shimuras had supplies from their family-owned dojo; Shinpachi knew how to use a wooden sword and Otae knew how to use a spear. Kyuubei and Nobume were the stars of Kendo club and had shinai of their own. Sa-chan said that Hattori-sensei was her personal coach in rhythmic gymnastics at school which is why she had all assortments of actual fuckin' knives and ninja stars—no one bothered asking how these things connected.

Hijikata, being part of the baseball varsity, had access to a shit load of baseball bats. Before they went home from the school, he got Yamazaki and Saitou to help him smuggle them out of their stockroom. Kondou and Okita worked hard in the former's basement, slamming a variety of nine-inch nails into the old wooden ones. All of them had one each, except for Yamazaki who said he felt more comfortable fighting with his badminton racket.

Apart from his trusty bokuto, Katsura also had Elizabeth prepare a bunch of illegal fireworks for their mission. Luckily, the truce within 3Z extended to him also, and the Shinsengumi boys let him go this one time for the sake of their class president.

As for Kagura, she thought about just going with her own body, but she knew that she needed to be the strongest she could be against Kamui. She had taken a deep breath and slid the door of her closet wide open, revealing the darkest, most hidden part of it.

Her own purple parasol, slightly dusty with disuse, gleamed under the fluorescent light of her room.

She took it out and swung it in the air, its weight familiar and dreadfully wonderful in her grasp.

She placed it over her shoulder and turned to Sadaharu, who barked at her happily. "It's a sunny day, boy! Let's go for a nice walk."

She left, leaving the apartment she shared with Gin-chan hollow. She promised that by hook or by crook, she would be back in that apartment by night-time, with Soyo-chan safe in her own home.


They all met in the park at the designated time. As agreed upon in the group chat, all were dressed in clothes that were easy to move around in. Funnily enough, they all decided to wear track suits in different colours. The most striking of them were Katsura, who was dressed in curry yellow, and Shinpachi, who had a Holstein pattern about him.

Kagura, in her blood-red tracksuit, nodded to everyone resolutely. She regarded everyone's bleary eyes, but determined gazes. They all had their weapons concealed one way or another. If any of the police were following them then, they would think that they would probably be doing radio calisthenics together. "Nobume-chan, are they coming yet?"

The raven-haired girl-in-question, who looked the most dangerous of them all in her snow-white track suit and her shinai, merely nodded. As if on cue, a number of limousines suddenly appeared near them.

Along with a number of men in suits, a familiar guy with dark eyes and a receding hairline greeted them from within one of the limousines. "I appreciate the punctuality, Shinsengumi and friends. Let's go."

"Limousines…? This wasn't what we were expecting, Takechi-san," said Kondou.

"We can explain later, I suppose. We barely have time to waste."

Trying to ignore the feelings of uneasiness within themselves, the 3Z students did as instructed and went into the limousines.

And that was how they found themselves in a luxurious Western-style home, sipping tea and eating chiffon cake. In the background, a Mozart piece was softly playing.

"What the fuck?! This isn't the time to have a fancy-ass tea party!" Hijikata exclaimed, putting down his cup of Darjeeling rather violently on the table. Anticlimactically, however, most of the others in the group went from apprehensively tasting their cakes to scarfing it down without dignity when it turned out that it was quite delicious.

Takasugi shrugged. "You don't have to take it if you don't want to, Hijikata-kun. But Bansai's mom worked hard baking that cake for all of you. Isn't that right?"

The guy in dark glasses and an obnoxious looking headset shrugged. Apparently, since his parents were in the music business and managed and produced for a number of successful artists, the Kawakamis were freakin' loaded. This was contrary to what they were expecting, which was a meeting in an abandoned warehouse at some wharf somewhere. "I daresay we are fresh out of mayo, Hijikata-dono. My deepest apologies," he said politely.

"That's not why I'm pissed off."

"Beg your pardon, Takasugi-kun," began Kondou, ever the diplomat. "It's just that, truce or not, we didn't expect this kind of treatment from you and your friends. It's a pleasant surprise."

"I told Takechi that holding a meeting under the bridge with just Yakulk for everyone would be good enough for the likes of you, but my suggestion was respectfully overruled. Anyway, that's barely of importance, as Hijikata-kun has eloquently pointed out just now," said the one-eyed leader, lighting a cigarette in between his lips. He then turned to Kagura, who was in the middle of eating her second (… actually, fifth) slice of cake. "So, Red Girl. You were the one who asked to talk to me. What do you want?"

She knew that he was trying to unnerve her with his one-eyed stare. Beside him, that crazy blonde bitch was also glaring at her, as if daring her to spit on her face again. Kagura tried not to give in to instinct, though. She glanced at Nobume, who barely touched anything and was coldly glaring back at the Kiheitai, and to Okita, who merely nodded in her direction.

She looked at Takasugi right in the eye and said, "Yeah. I want to know exactly what happened that night, uh-huh."

He smiled back suggestively at her. "Which part?"

"The part where you set up a meeting inside school grounds with that insane older brother of mine—a legit criminal—in what he said was a fight to the death, yup." She said this in a steadfast tone. She knew that he was hinting at the fact that he caught her and Okita, um, going at it, and that he knew that the two of them were keeping it a secret for now. She told herself not to care whether he decides to reveal it to everybody else or not.

Surprisingly, he didn't. "Kamui's hunted me for a while now. I agreed to beat his ass that night so that he'd quit it."

"Why bring the mess inside the school, you bastard?" seethed Hijikata. "We knew that your miserable ass was still involved in gangs, but because of what you did, they went in and took the princess!"

"Excuse me, Hijikata-san. I understand that everybody here is upset, but you are gravely mistaken," said Takechi, regarding the tension in the students' faces. "It was Kamui-san who insisted on having the meeting inside the school. We did not know why he was insistent on that at the start, but it is beginning to be clear that the Harusame's primary intent was to kidnap Tokugawa-hime. It seems that Kamui-san sought out Takasugi-san on his own and acted against the orders of his superiors."

That seemed to be true. That scruffy brown-haired guy who went up to get Kamui looked harassed when he saw what was going on.

"The… Harusame? What's that?" asked Shinpachi apprehensively.

Takasugi smirked. "Good question. Care to elaborate, red girl?"

At this, the others in the room turned to look at her in curiosity. Okita looked the most curious of them all.

She steeled herself. No more hiding, she repeated in her head, as she had done when she looked at the mirror that morning. "The Harusame's a huge organization from Hongkong, Taiwan, and parts of mainland China. It's involved in a lot of criminal activity. Drug smuggling, human trafficking, money laundering, you name it, yup. Papi—my real Papi, not Gin-chan—used to be one of the heads of that triad, but he left. Kamui, my stupid older brother, is still part of that group."

The cruel Takasugi, with his cold, unaffected smile, said, "Go on."

She felt the cold sweat trickling down her back. She hated his guts right now, but she had to explain it in full, or else their mission wouldn't make sense. She took a deep breath. "I… I was in Kamui's group before. But I left… Papi fought them and gave me a chance to leave and made Gin-chan legally adopt me so I could start over here in Japan…"

A small gasp escaped from the 3Z kids. As she recounted her bloody history in simple terms, she bitterly remembered that the Harusame was not above using strong little girls as killing machines. She felt her throat closing in—just the mere mention of it brought back memories of the cold bodies, the blood on her hands, and the overwhelming fear, thick in the air, snuffing out the human part of her.

"Did they find out about Soyo because of you?" Nobume's voice was so sharp that she felt it cut through her heart.

"No, Nobume-chan, I'm not in contact with any of them, I swear!"

"She's right. That insane bastard didn't even realize that China was in Gintama High until he saw her on the rooftop," said Okita in his usual emotionless and detached voice. Despite that, it surprised her that it gave her comfort. "And it was finally clear what this one-eyed freak was up to all this time. He was trying to prevent these two monsters from encountering each other and making a mess of things."

"Hm. So I was," said Takasugi, "But you knew that already, ne, kouhai?"

Nobume stood up in a cold rage and pointed her shinai at Takasugi's face. Matako, in response, jumped in front of her leader and brandished an aluminium bat threateningly against the other girl. Everyone else jumped up in battle stance, so that it was instantly a messed up Mexican stand-off.

Kagura's body was tensed and ready to fight at any time. However, she had only begun to process what Takasugi said, and Nobume didn't deny: she knew that Kagura was being bullied. And she let it happen.

She didn't do anything. She knew about the beatings, and she didn't do anything. A pang of sorrow filled the void within her chest. Something warm and damp made itself felt at one of her cheeks, and she heard Anego's voice softly speak her name in worry.

Nobume didn't acknowledge this. Instead, she tilted her head and sent a cold glare at Takasugi. "I made Soyo stay out of your business because you said it was for Kagura-chan's own good. For everyone's own good."

"And I meant it," said Takasugi. "That's why it's unfortunate how these things happened."

"If I find out that you are working with those criminals—"

"Bitch, don't make Shinsuke-sama repeat himself," snarled Matako, swinging the bat full-force down on the table. "He's already told you dumb-asses from the very beginning that he's reformed, right?! There's no way that we'd work with those criminals. After we worked extra hard to keep that brat away from Gintama High and from that crazy red-haired bastard, this is how you punks see us!"

In response, Hijikata pointed his own baseball at the girl. "Then explain to us why you fucking idiots decided that the best way to keep her away from him was to send a bunch of girls to do the dirty work for you! You could have just—"

"What? Asked nicely?" replied Takasugi, with a ridiculing smile on his face. "Believe me, my dear Shinsengumi, if I even tried calmly telling you gents about this, you wouldn't have grasped how serious the situation was. The first time I heard of a foreigner with red hair and blue eyes whose fighting skill was at par with Okita Sougo's, my first concern was confirming that it wasn't Kamui going after my head. When I found out it was a little girl, I knew instantly that it was that sister of his that he is famously known to rant about. There's a rumour that she's the reason why he went to Japan in the first place."

Kagura flinched. Papi never told her why she had to stay put at Gin-chan's house, but she had an inkling of the truth. Hearing her worst fears confirmed was more upsetting than she thought. Okita was looking at her with a hint of worry now.

"And it was just as Ginpachi got me back on track too. Tsk. I knew that the red girl and I should not be in the same place—there were too many troublesome possibilities—so Matako here said that she'd take care of it."

Kagura thought back to when she was being bullied. It never occurred to her then that it was strange that all those girls came together out of nowhere to force her to leave the school, when she was making her then-hatred of the Sadist very plain to see.

"That's why you dragged China to your turf. To confirm who she was," said Okita.

He nodded. "It was around the same time that red bastard discovered that I was coming back to Gintama High. When I actually came back and saw the red girl here without a single cut or bruise despite a week's worth of injuries, I knew that she came from the same genetic pool as him. We had to resort to even more drastic measures." He laughed, and irregular puffs of smoke went out of his nostrils. "It was just my luck that the Shinsengumi and Zura got involved. We had to resort to breaking my strategist's arm to keep the situation less complicated."

"It had to be done. A feminist will do anything to protect women, no matter how drastic," said Takechi wistfully, staring at Kagura with longing. She must have made a disturbed face, because Katsura stepped in front of her with a bokuto in his grasp.

"Still, Takasugi. It was despicable of you to go behind Ginpachi's back like that. I know what he went through to get you back," he said in a low voice. "Expulsion is the least of your worries. You know what he's capable of doing."

"I appreciate you worrying about me, Zura, but I believe that the ends justify the means. In this case, I did what I needed to protect his kid. Whatever my men did to her is nothing compared to what Kamui is capable of doing to her."

"What is he capable of doing anyway? I'm sure that whoever that punk is, Ginpachi-sensei can outdo him!" exclaimed Sa-chan, a slight blush on her cheeks. "There's no reason for any of us to be scared!"

"Sarutobi-san, it isn't a good idea for sensei to be involved," replied Hijikata. "Besides, a criminal bastard who's at par with Sougo or even this one-eyed freak is someone to worry about. And if he's involved with a bunch of other criminals, that guy doesn't have a limit to the type of cruelty he could do."

"Why can't we involve Sensei?" asked Otae, the worry plain on her face. "Sa-chan is right. He's the best person to handle this. He should have every right to protect Kagura-chan!"

"Because Ginpachi-sensei will tell us to wait on the sidelines and handle all this shit himself and likely get himself fired, that's why! Besides the princess and Kagura, isn't he the main reason why we decided to take these things into our own hands in the first place?"

A heated argument exploded between Hijikata and the girls in the room. Kagura barely managed to control the turmoil building up inside her. She inhaled deeply and struck the table between them with her two hands, and everyone fell silent and looked at her.

She tried to forget about the way the silver-haired man patted her so comfortingly on the head earlier. Sorry, she said to him, hoping that the telepathic message gets through somehow. "Gin-chan cannot find out about this. And that's final."

To Takasugi, she said, "I don't care about what shitty feud you might have with my idiot brother, or what you guys thought you were doing when you thought you could make me do something against my will." A tense silence followed, with everyone staring at either Takasugi or Kagura. The girl inhaled deeply and let the breath out, and she looked up at his one eye with new courage in her eyes.

"What I want to know now is, how can I get to him so I can kill him and get Soyo-chan back?"

"You? By yourself?" asked Takasugi, an incredulous tone apparent in his voice. "You might have forgotten how he almost killed you before sensei intervened."

"She's not doing it alone." To her surprise, she was suddenly surrounded by the tall figures of the Shinsengumi boys. The gorilla, stepping into his Commander mode, stepped in front of her heroically. "It's part of our code to defend the students of Gintama High, no matter how difficult the situation is. We'll have her back."

"Us too." Shinpachi stood up, and he and Otae and Kyuubei and Sa-chan took their places next to Kagura. "We don't understand what's going on completely, Kagura-chan, but we'll stand by you. Even if you don't want him to be involved, we made a promise to Gin-san that 3Z will help each other, no matter what."

Katsura and Elizabeth stood up as well. "We won't abandon you in your mission, Leader. I'll personally keep an eye out for Takasugi for you, too. Just in case he has any more tricks up his sleeve."

"Y… you guys…" Kagura clenched her fists as an unidentified emotion rose within her chest. She was prepared for them to leave, to stay away from the ugly mess that her crazy family has created, to keep themselves at a safe distance, but here they were, jumping right into the eye of the storm with her. "It's too dangerous to—"

She felt a warm hand subtly hold on to hers, and the contact was so sudden that she swore she felt a shock of electricity surge through her. She glanced up at his fierce, red eyes. "Refuse our help again, China, and I'll make sure to beat you up so hard that your two old men wouldn't recognize you anymore."

"As if you could do that, you idiot. I'd beat you up first, yup." Nevertheless, she blushed furiously at this, leaving everyone to uncomfortably speculate whether she was actually an M or not.

Takasugi cleared his throat. He turned to Nobume, who remained steadfastly separated from the rest of the group. "How about you, kouhai? I thought you and her were best friends," he sneered.

The raven-haired girl frowned, her black eyes flashing. "How do we know that you aren't shitting us? That you aren't involved in your gangs anymore?"

That cold smirk of his never leaving his face, his hand slowly went up to the eye patch over the left side of his face.

"Shinsuke-sama—" protested Matako, but she was held back by Takechi and Bansai.

The eyepatch went off, and underneath it was… nothing.

The hollow eye socket stared back at all of them disconcertingly. Ignoring the looks of horror and disgust in their faces and some commentary about pink eye gone wrong, Takasugi said to Nobume, "I left that world some time ago. This was my payment. I don't intend to let this go to waste. And I don't intend to let Shouyou-sensei down any more than I already have."

Kagura didn't know who Shouyou-sensei was, and why the mere mention of his name made Nobume's breath audibly catch in her throat. To everyone's surprise, she merely nodded, and stood up in solidarity with the rest of them.

That was all they needed. The delinquent of legend, Takasugi Shinsuke, now a reformed man, put one elegant hand down the table and told Kagura all she needed to know about Kamui.


As he cleaned out the nozzle of his parasol-gun, Kamui suddenly sneezed, and inexplicably pulled the trigger as he did so. A bullet ricocheted around the warehouse and almost hit Abuto, who barely dodged out of its way.

"Watch it," he berated. His red-haired captain grinned at him without an ounce of apology on his face before going back to cleaning his weapon.

Well, Kamui certainly was his superior, but he felt that he was less a leader and more of a nuisance. He had the strength and rage of all the fires of the seventh layer of hell, yet all of it was trapped in this unbearable brat's body. Being the only one in the Harusame who could manage him somewhat, Abuto found himself the reluctant babysitter of the 7th Division's Captain.

They were in an undisclosed location somewhere at the edge of Kyoto, surrounded by the forest. In front of them were black and white screens, showing different views of that little girl that they kidnapped. Abuto wrinkled his nose—kidnapping little girls, whether for slavery or for ransom or for blackmail, like in this case, was too tasteless in his opinion. But they had to do what they had to do.

It was close to seventeen hours since the girl has been kidnapped. Housen had her placed in a windowless room with a bed, a cabinet full of clothes, a toilet, and about twenty security cameras that watched her every move. Nobody else was allowed inside except for some of their women gang members, who brought her food and a disposable toothbrush three times a day. She was a strong girl, and so far she has not had a single meal or shed a single tear. She also made a show of destroying any video camera that she was able to find.

One of the screens turned to static—she found the sixth one under the bed. Seeing this, the red-haired captain laughed out loud.

"Good job, princess! Now I won't be able to see her feet. Man, this is so exciting," he drawled. He put down his umbrella, apparently finally satisfied with it. He let out an exaggerated sigh and leaned back on his chair, his arms behind his head. "Why the heck do we have to do this anyway, Abuto~? It's been a day of this fuckin' nonsense!"

Abuto grunted in response. He'd asked that question so many times that it was like the time they did a raid in Tokyo Nezuland and all he did the entire time was ask are we there yet? Are we there yet? "I told ya, Cap, Housen ain't releasing her until Shigeshige gives in to his demands."

"Why? We got lotsa money and weapons, don't we?"

"We don't need those from Shogun." Well, Tokugawa Shigeshige wasn't actually a shogun, per se, but he had so much influence and popularity that he might as well be.

"Then what? What does that shaved head have that we need so badly? And why am I doin' this again?"

Abuto pressed two fingers on his temple and struggled to keep his tone even. "Political backing. And a guarantee of safe passage of our merch. You know it's been difficult circulating our goods in this part of Japan so we resorted to downright dirty tactics. He's had the idea of getting something valuable from Shigeshige for some time now, and it was apparent that there's nothing else of value to him but the princess here. Housen got you this job 'cause you're the only teenager in this division. You're the only one who could sneak into her high school without anyone asking a lotta questions."

Kamui already look disinterested and at the point of falling asleep in the middle of Abuto's as-you-know spiel. Honestly, he acted like a five-year old sometimes. "Shit. The only reason I agreed to do this job was 'cause I heard that the one-eyed freak went to the same school. Kidnapping is a really stupid method to get your way in my opinion." He looked at the screens again, his usual unnerving cheerful smile on his face. "Look at her, though. Lookin' like a proper princess, even when all she's done is destroy our stuff and shoot daggers with her eyes. It'd be a shame if Housen tells me to cut off one of her pretty fingers to send to her bro. I'd prolly take her out for xiao long bao if the situation were different. She looks like she'd enjoy that type'a thing."

"You? Pssh. She's outta yer league," scoffed Abuto. As if this poor girl don't got enough to worry about. "And you should really let go of that unhealthy obsession of yours with that one-eyed guy. I mean, since he's gone back to school, he ain't got any more beef with us, yeah?"

"Haha! No way, man. You saw it for yourself, right? He's hiding that weak little sister of mine from me. Now I have no choice but to kill him and get her back to where—"

When he suddenly stopped speaking, Abuto turned away from the screens and stared at Kamui. The boy inexplicably froze and started sniffing the air in the next second. The lock of hair that usually flopped from the top of his head stood straight like an antenna. The older man could almost hear the beep beep beep from the insane radar that the aliens (?) installed in his head.

"Oi. What's the matter with you?"

"We gotta go, Abuto." Within the next second, Kamui's gone from his seat and leaping off in the direction of where the Princess's room was hidden.

Abuto knew that look. He's seen it twice before. One was right before their ship carrying methamphetamine was raided and bombed by the Hong Kong Police. Second was when a group of turncoats attempted to kill them with a bomb in their then-hideout in Shanghai. In both of those times, Kamui had no clear explanation how he knew about those attacks. It was probably the same gut instinct that made his old man Umibozu survive for as long as he had, even outside of the triad.

Shit. Is this it? Am I going to die now?

In any case, Abuto knew he had no time to lose before something else exploded. He yelled at the other members of the gang to get the fuck outta the warehouse if they wanted to live. A lot of them didn't listen to him and chose to remain in their places. He didn't care.

As soon as he saw Kamui with the Princess slung over his shoulder and beating up her guards with his free hand, he destroyed a portion of the wall with his umbrella-gun, cleared a path for them, and ran out.

In ten seconds, the bombs planted outside detonated, and the warehouse was erased in a giant fireball.


AN: Sorry that there's so much dialogue~ This chapter went through so many revisions it ain't even funny~~ I figured I'll never be happy with it so I'll publish it as it is right now. Sorry there isn't much Okikagu here huhuhu
Takasugi's a good guy deep within his heart, okay? If shit didn't happen he'd be treating everyone to Yakult every chance he gets~
It was scarily easy for me to write in Abuto's POV. I hope it isn't because we have the same personality. :O
I'm no expert in traditional Chinese cuisine, but I do love me some xiaolongbao. It's a kind of a soupy steamed dimsum. I like the ones from Din Tai Fung. Just writing about it makes my mouth water~