"Well, this is awkward."

Okita glanced at the silent girl sitting next to him, quietly munching on his snacks. "Also, I'd appreciate it if you didn't eat all of my snacks."

She shrugged, reaching for another apple and biting into it.

His face fell into an annoyed expression. "What are you even doing here? I thought you'd have gone back home by now."

She finished chewing on her piece of apple, then directed her blue eyes at him for the first time since entering his hospital room.

"I don't like unfinished business." She started, then gnawed on her bottom lip in thought. "And I've been thinking a lot lately."

Okita knew exactly what she was referring to, but decided to play ignorant for the sake of the stiff atmosphere in the room. "I hope you didn't hurt your head while doing that." He remarked instead, in a futile attempt to recreate their usual banter.

But she just lowered her head and glanced at him through her bright orange bangs. "Stop that."

The Shinsengumi captain sighed and sank back into his pillow, knowing this conversation wasn't going to go anywhere if they both kept their mouths shut like this.

One of them was going to have to step on their own pride, and it looked it was going to be him.

"Kagura." He began. "Why did you come here? If it was to laugh at my pitiable state, then you can go again."

The shock of suddenly hearing her own name made her head snap back up to look at him. Her stiff posture loosened slightly as she leaned back on the chair the hospital provided for visitors. Then she groaned.

"As much as I'd love that to be the reason," She mumbled, "I didn't come here to laugh at you, your subordinates in front of the door already took care of that."

While making a mental note to punish them later, Okita glanced over at the female Yato. "This conversation is awfully out of character for both of us."

"Gee, thank you for your brilliant observation, Captain Obvious." Her sarcasm shone through.

"That's Captain Okita to you." He replied with a smirk, but with that their banter came to a standstill again.

However, it didn't stop the damn alien from stealing his get-well snacks.

She reached out for another apple, but stopped herself before actually taking it. "Sorry, I eat when I don't know what to do."

The apology itself would have been a miracle, but the tone she said it on sounded anything but apologetic.

But he was willing to let it go this one time. He sunk back into his pillow and closed his eyes. "You think too much." He said instead, stopping the female Yato from diving straight back into her thoughts. "Stop thinking and just say what you want to say."

She stared back at him with wide, blue eyes, fragments of words hanging from the tip of her tongue. "I spoke to my brother."

Okita peaked at her through a half-lidded eye, raising an inquisitive eyebrow. That wasn't quite what he had been expecting, but okay.

"In the end, you were right." She continued, glancing off to the side and pulling her knees closer to her chest. Her arms encircled her own body shortly after that, and Okita nearly forgot that this was a killing machine he was talking to. He also made sure to not let his eyes rest on her exposed leg skin for too long.

"I was right about what?" He asked quietly, countless insults he threw at either of them at some point in time crossing his mind. Or was it maybe… something to do with what happened in the control room?

"You once said… that Kamui and I are more similar than we'd think." She mumbled reluctantly.

"I did?"

She sighed, resting her forehead against her knees and letting out a string of incoherent curses. Why was this so hard?

In fact, what was she even thinking? She fought the blush threatening to turn her face the same shade as her hair, mentally berating herself for showing such indecisiveness, all while a small voice in her head kept repeating that this particular earthling had already seen her in a far worse state.

On top of that, why was she talking about Kamui? That wasn't the thing she intended on bring up at all!

"You're thinking too much again." The sadist's lazy voice drawled, reminding her that he was also in the room.

She ignored the way her heartbeat sped up and sent him a soft glare. One more of his comments and she was so smacking him again, regardless of the fact that he was in the hospital because of her in the first place. In fact, they could treat his wounds right away.

"Although this is probably the first time you acknowledged his as family." Okita added thoughtfully. Kagura wanted to hit him just for the heck of it, but remained seated, begrudgingly noting that he was right.

Her relationship with both Kamui and Baldy was nowhere near a normal family's, but it wasn't as instable as an atomic reaction anymore. They were working on it, together. She had been so selfish to assume that she was the only one affected by her mother's death.

"I just said that we spoke." She answered vaguely, trying to find a way to plausibly change the subject as well as somehow talk about the thing she wanted to talk about it.

She didn't spend twenty minutes loitering in front of his hospital room for nothing.

"Just forget it." She added, trying to phrase her next words correctly. "What I actually wanted to say was…"

His red eyes were on her, giving her undivided attention. She felt her blood rush towards her face once more, the disgustingly warm and fuzzy feeling in her stomach.

"What I wanted to say… Well, I wanted to ask you to…" She groaned, breaking off her sentence and burying her face in her knees once more.

"Just stop doing that." She finally said, louder than intended and full of her frustration.

"Stop doing what?" He inquired, genuine confusion lacing his voice.

"Making me feel this way."

The thick silence sat in between them, neither of them daring to say a word.

Okita didn't dare ask her to elaborate on her statement, and judging by the mortified expression that crossed her face right after she had said that out loud, the only thing keeping her in this room was her pride.

She hadn't looked at him once in the time span it took her to hectically gorge away the rest of his gift basket, not that it was a long time period to begin with.

All of a sudden, she stood up, making the chair clatter as it hit the ground. A split second later, she was hauling him up by the collar of his hospital gown.

"Oi, what are you doi-" He was cut off by the sharp glare she gave him, additionally to the sudden flip of personality. On a side note, at least she was acting more like herself now.

"This is your fault." She muttered darkly. "It's your fault I'm behaving this way! I don't get, but ever since you've been around… I… I… I think too much!"

"How is that my fault?" He shot back at her. "Do you really think you're the only one going through this shit?!"

His unintentional sudden outburst shut her up, and the anger and confusion in her eyes slowly faded into revelation.

Then she blushed. Hard. When she had picked him off the bed, she had pulled him quite close to herself, their faces mere inches apart.

He sighed, this time paying more attention to suppressing his wants and going with rationality. Their position was practically inviting him to just reach up and… and… damnit.

He had subconsciously already put his hand on her wrists, slowly trailing his fingers up along her arm, the skin contact making her stiffen.

Screw rationality. Screw consideration.

Why did he have to hold himself back? Why was he being so nice to her? Wasn't she the one who had rudely barged into his hospital room and eaten all of his get-well snacks? Did she really think he was unaffected by this?

Obviously, he was way too affected by her.

"You haven't answered me yet." He said seriously, although it came out more like a whisper. His fingers nearly reached her cheek, but just as they were about to pass her jaw bone she jerked and cast her eyes towards the floor.

"I'm awfully selfish, aren't I?" Kagura muttered in defeat. "I'm just an inconsiderate monster, a tool for those who don't want to get their hands dirty, a naïve little girl who declared war on the universe thinking she could actually win. Look at where that got me."

The earthling's touch had left a burning sensation on her skin, much like it had before.

Everything was so out of her control she had already given up on reigning everything back in.

She let a bark of pained laughter escape from her lips. This conversation was out of control already. "I'm pathetic, am I not?"

Her grip on his clothes loosened slightly, but not enough to let him rest back on the bed. His hand rested on the side of her face.

"Right now, you look pretty pathetic." He admitted honestly. "But then again, nobody looks good in crippling self-doubt."

Her heart sank with every word, growing heavier and heavier with each syllable that left his mouth.

He tilted her head back up to look him in the eye. Kagura vaguely remembered him doing this before, but back then she had been caught up in the situation to realize just how much her body welcomed the touch.

His ruby eyes held a hard edge to them as he examined her face, then he shook his head. "You really look horrible with that expression. Are you constipated?"

In the snap of a second, he was hauled halfway across the room, shoved through the window headfirst, teetering on the verge of falling out.

"Maybe I should make you shit yourself!" She retorted angrily. "Or better yet decorate the pavement with your guts!"

He grinned up at her, making her treacherous heart skip a beat. "What are you grinning for, you smug bastard?!" She continued, holding him further out of the window.

"That's more like it." He answered, his grin turning more into a genuine smile. "That's more like the China I know."

"Eh?"

Surprised by his answer, her grip on his hospital gown loosened completely, making her remember that she had been holding him out of the third floor window.

She scrambled to catch him before he actually hit the pavement below, grabbing a handful of his sandy locks and pulling him up by them against the force of gravity. Unceremoniously, she pulled him back into the room and dumped him on the floor, exhaling deeply in relief.

"Goddamnit China!" He shouted at her. "That hurt!"

Kamui nodded eagerly at the woman's words, jutting in words of complete agreement every now and then.

"That pig, truly unforgivable." He exclaimed at the end of the housewife's story about her cheater of a husband.

Tears rushed down her cheeks, creating a mess of snot and salt water on her face. "And then he just kept on denying it, telling me I was the only one he'd ever love!" She wailed, blowing her nose into a rag that Shinpachi was sure was one of Gin's missing shirts.

"Truly, all men are pigs." Gin added solemnly. "Don't worry miss, we shall put him in his place."

Another sob escaped the woman's lips. "Y-You would? Thank you so much!"

Kamui and Gin reassured her by nodding vigorously, but Shinpachi knew them better than that.

He didn't say anything when they dropped by the convenience store to get a few buckets of popcorn.

He didn't even point out how wrong it was to replace watching soap operas with watching real people fight.

He was also pretty sure they just ruined a marriage.

Gintoki went off to the nearest bar, giggling at his supposed ingenuity to make the woman pay upfront, leaving only Sadaharu, Kamui and him on the streets of Edo.

"You're not going to join him?" Shinpachi asked the Yato, who was technically old enough to drink and had even accompanied Gin more than once already.

Kamui shook his head. "Not today. Kagura is still in town, so I was going to show her around a bit later."

Shinpachi nodded approvingly. Anything was better than sucking up more of Gin's bad influence. Besides… "It's good to see you getting along with her. Family is important."

Kamui tilted his head to the side thoughtfully. "Hmmm, getting along isn't exactly the word I'd use. It's more like she isn't actively trying to kill me anymore."

"W-Well, you know what they say." Shinpachi muttered. "Baby steps are a good start."

"Will you stop being such a baby?!"

"Will you stop pulling my hair, woman?!"

Okita tried prying the girl off of himself, but the fully recovered Yato overpowered him easily, holding him down on the floor. "That's what you get for biting me!" She hissed at him.

"That's because you were trying to suffocate me!" He reached out for the nearest object, grabbing it and shoving it towards the Amanto who was back at trying to turn him into a mirror image of her bald father.

To his dismay, he had only gotten hold of a pillow. China blinked at the soft, white object in confusion, then she broke out in laughter.

"You- You didn't actually think you were going to do a lot of damage with that, did you?" She choked out between laughs.

He bit down on his lip, trying not to join in on her infectious laughter, but failed.

Their laughter mingled to create a cacophony, but they didn't care. At least, he didn't care.

Perhaps this started off as a mistake. Maybe this was wrong.

But he honestly, whole-heartedly, did not give a damn about that.

She was close enough for him to just reach out and… Their laughter died down with him reaching up in order to straighten a few stray strands of her hair, brushing her skin ever so slightly in the process. He sat up slowly, meeting her eyes on eye level.

She observed him with interested eyes, her lips pulling into a pout when he suddenly squished her cheeks between his fingers.

"You already look so much better. Now you look like the pig you are." He mused, pinching her cheeks just a bit tighter, earning him retaliation in the form of China nearly tearing off the skin of his face. He let out a pained chuckle, letting go.

He rubbed his sore cheeks after she had eventually let go as well.

He heard her sigh heavily. "This is a mess. We are a mess." She had meant that both literally and figuratively, to which he agreed.

"We can be each other's mess." He mumbled absentmindedly, not realizing he had said the cheesiest thought he had ever had out loud.

"That'd be weird." China remarked, wrinkling her nose. "But kinda nice." A blush spread over her face, and he noted that she could totally be a cute idol or such if one were to do something about her terrible personality.

The terrible personality he was oddly fond of.

"Actually, it'd just be really weird." China rambled on, overthinking things again.

A grin split on to his face, and he was cupping her face again. He seriously needed to stop touching her face.

She glared at him lightly, wordlessly daring him to pinch her cheeks again, and while it was very tempting, he had something else in mind.

He leaned in closer towards her, only stopping when there was less than an inch between their noses. He stared straight in to her ocean-like eyes.

"You think too much." He whispered breathily, before eliminating the last remnants of distance between them.

Hopefully she wouldn't give him a concussion this time.

Their lips met, and to his relief she relaxed into him, allowing him to pull her closer with one arm, the other trailing to the back of her head, his fingers getting caught in her hair.

Her mouth still tasted like all the snacks she had eaten without his permission.

When the head nurse had barged into the room, it was needless to say that Kagura had been thrown out promptly, and she had left without a single fuss. Apparently even fearsome space pirates knew better than to mess with upset medical staff.

He also received quite the earful on receiving new injuries, property damage and bringing a girl into his room.

Additionally he had to deal with Hijikata's reprimanding, as well as the trigger-happy Matsudeira.

But it was alright. It was worth it.

She was worth it.

Kagura still felt somewhat light-headed and her heart was still racing when she stepped out of the hospital, the events of the past hour finally catching up to her completely.

She buried her red face in her palms, wondering how she had let things take the turn they did. She didn't come here to make out with the earthling.

Clearing her thoughts, she remembered the official purpose of her stay in Edo. Weeding out the leftover Harusame members that still thought they stood a chance against the seventh division.

"Commander." A voice called out to her. She looked up to meet Abuto's eyes and greeted him with a nod.

"You forgot your umbrella." He held the newly repaired purple parasol out to her, which she accepted with a quick thanks.

Then she frowned. "How did you know where I was?"

Abuto looked to the side guiltily, a tell-tale sign that he was looking for a plausible lie in his mind.

She narrowed her eyes at him. "Abuto…"

AN: Whew, this story is almost done :) just one or two more chapters to round the plot off (Whaaaaat?! This had a plot?!) and the epilogue, then I can call it a day (and work on my ten thousand other ongoing works).

I hope you enjoyed the OkiKagu ;P

Since we're so close to the end, won't you pretty please leave a review? Reviews motivate me to sit down and write :D

~Emi