First off, sincerely sorry about the late updates. I know I take too long. I'm sorry. And now here it is.

"Ahhhahahahaha," Kondo's laugh echoed in the room. He rubbed his hair with a thick towel. "Well I guess Otae-san still hasn't warmed up to me yet," Kondo looked across the room to the open sliding doors. "Right Toshi?"

Hijikata sat just outside the door with a similar towel draped around his shoulders. His gruff voice escaped him, "Yeah."

"But I guess I'm lucky you were there! I could have drowned in the river if you hadn't saved me!" Kondo bolstered on loudly, scratching the back of his head. "I just hope you don't catch a cold because of me,"

"Kondo-san, you don't have to worry about Hijikata-san," Sougo drawled, lying on his side while watching TV, "Idiots don't catch colds."

"Eh?" Kondo blinked, "Ahh ha ha, maybe you're right Sougo?"

Hijikata was barely listening to the two. He was staring out at the night sky in a trance. The stars shone above but the Shinsengumi boundary walls cut off half his view. He could only see glimpses of the soft red light district glow in the distance. Hijikata lowered his head and looked instead at the discarded handkerchief in his hand. His fingers ran over the fabric. A yellow tulip in the corner.

Kondo watched Hijikata and noted the somewhat crumpled handkerchief in his Vice Commander's hand. He raised an eyebrow, "Is something wrong Toshi?"

Sougo side glanced from the TV at the sudden serious tone of Kondo's question. The three were quiet for a moment, only the sound of the program host laughing loudly on the TV filled the room. Finally Hijikata replied, "Nothing's wrong."

Kondo stared at Hijikata in worry while Sougo turned his attention back to the players embarrassing themselves on TV. "Ehh, Hamada-san out again?" Sougo mumbled in monotone.

—

The next morning the Shinsengumi was uncharacteristically quiet and eerily so. Kondo had been sitting in his office since the early hours of the day, his arms crossed over his chest and his face scrunched up contemplatively. Hijikata had been going at his training once again, swinging his sword sharply through the air repeatedly. The rest of the Shinsengumi tiptoed around the Commander and Vice Commander; some wondered if this was still about the whole towel incident and others thought it was some sort of psychological test or challenge on their loyalty. They were all high strung and weary. The only normal one was Sougo, if you consider his sadistic antics normal. So it was a welcome sight when a certain glasses wearing little brother showed up at the Shinsengumi's doorstep, demanding to challenge the Shinsengumi's Commander to an one-on-one duel.

"Right this way Shinpachi!" Yamazaki personally guided Shinpachi into the Shinsengumi grounds while the other Shinsengumi members began crowding around and offering to polish Shinpachi's sword in preparation for the match. Shinpachi blinked, surprised at how willingly all the Shinsengumi members welcomed him and even encouraged the fight, rather than saying, for example, 'you'll have to go through me before you get to the Commander!' What Shinpachi didn't know was that the officers were desperate for anything to end the eerie quiet. If Shinpachi's challenge could distract the Commander long enough, maybe it would put a stop to his whole meditative state or unnecessary worrying about towel possession. So they continued to cheer Shinpachi on for his valor and tenacity.

"Eh? Uh thanks. But— wait, huh?" Shinpachi looked back and forth at the ushering Shinsengumi members in confusion. Somehow he ended up in the courtyard before the Commander's office. From within the crowd Yamazaki drew out Kondo who looked considerably more serious than anyone could ever imagine he could possibly achieve. Then he saw Shinpachi and his face opened up to utter surprise. The Shinsengumi members all shared a collective sigh of relief, some sense of normalcy had been restored by the familiar confused idiotic look on Kondo's face.

"Shinpachi? What are you doing here?" Kondo asked. The Shinsengumi members all stared expectantly at Shinpachi to say something outrageous and to evoke the usual idiotic gorilla response from the Commander.

"Ah, uh I— I came here to challenge you!"

"There it is!" one of the Shinsengumi officers squeaked to another and they all looked at their Commander, waiting for the inevitable random dramatic response. But Kondo remained still and silent, staring down at Shinpachi. After a long moment Kondo finally spoke,

"I refuse," the Shinsengumi officer's faces fell. Kondo turned, ready to return to his office.

"Refuse?" Shinpachi said, under his breath, his face was dark and his hand wavered over the hilt of his sword. Kondo looked back along with the other Shinsengumi officers. "I refuse . . . I refuse to believe that Sis could ever be happy with some gorilla like you!" Shinpachi looked up and glared at Kondo. "Sis is the toughest person I know. She's raised me on her own ever since our father's death and she works tirelessly to uphold the family dojo. And for that and so much more she deserves better than anything or anyone can possibly offer. But . . ." His fists tightened then slowly released and his sharp gaze softened, "But now . . ." Shinpachi swallowed, "Now that I've seen the way Sis goes around smiling— genuinely smiling— and the way she looks whenever she pulls out that handkerchief you gave her—," Shinpachi's hand fell to his side and away from drawing his sword. "I have no choice but to accept the one who makes Sis that happy."

A pause.

Tears welled up in, surprisingly not Kondo but, Shinpachi's eyes, "But don't think this means you deserve my Sis! She's always been way out of your league and if you ever—,"

"Shinpachi,"

"I'm not done yet!"

"Shinpachi!"

Shinpachi looked up while half rubbing the tears from his face and under his glasses. Kondo remained as serious as no one thought he could be. "I never gave Otae-san a handkerchief."

Shinpachi blinked, "Eh?"

—

"Oh you're back?"

Otae looked up from setting the table for lunch. Across the room Shinpachi stood at the doorway staring at his older sister. He had left the Shinsengumi Headquarters more confused than ever and no amount of mulling over his confusion led to any solution. He decided to risk it and simply be straight forward about it.

"Sis?"

"Hmm?"

"Who gave that handkerchief to you?"

Otae flinched and paused for a moment.

"What handkerchief?"

Shinpachi blinked, "Eh? The one with the yellow tulip in the—,"

Otae turned with the same unchanging smile on her lips, "I threw that away."

Shinpachi's eyes widened and he stuttered out, "B-but what about— I mean— I thought . . . I thought it was something precious to you . . ."

The silence hung over the two. Shinpachi stared in worry at his older sister and Otae stared at the bowls on the table. Then Otae replied in a bittersweet tone, "What are you talking about Shin-chan? It's just a handkerchief after all . . ." And as always, she put her best face forward, smiling as if everything was perfectly fine, and brushed the matter off by changing the subject, "Now, it's time to eat, here you go." She placed a little box with her speciality burnt tamagoyaki in front of Shinpachi, "Eat up."

Shinpachi stared at the dish before him, Is she trying to give me amnesia to forget about the handkerchief?! Shinpachi side glanced and somehow managed to excuse himself. He left the room quickly, leaving Otae alone to stare at the burnt tamagoyaki.

—

Just outside of the Shinsengumi entrance, patrol car parked to the side, Hijikata stood trying to light a cigarette. He adjusted his collar and fumbled with the lighter. His throat felt painfully dry and his skin was burning all over. The cuffs of his sleeves were stubbornly bunched up and his uniform seemed more ruffled than it actually was. Try as he might, the cigarette hanging from his lips failed to light. Frustratedly he shook his lighter and grumbled under his breath.

All the nonstop training had not helped to clear his mind and definitely had not helped him come close to understanding what Otae's words had meant. But he had stubbornly believed that absorbing himself in training would somehow pound away a clear and obvious answer. Could it be that possibly, just maybe, her words meant that she had feelings for him? His thoughts left him in a flurry of confusion and burdened by a weight of self doubt. He couldn't believe Otae would have any reason to love or even have feelings for a mayonnaise loving Demon Vice Commander. Hijikata wanted to speak to Otae again, to try to clarify things, so he could confirm that he was delusional and there was no way she felt a thing for him. He was so certain at times that she wanted nothing to do with him but in an instant he would be second guessing all over again. In the end all he wanted was to see her again. He just needed to tell her the truth. And the truth was that from before the very first 'never mind', he was already in love with her. But how would she react? Would she tell him to go commit seppuku? Would she beat him to death? Any of those reactions he could take, what would break him is if she simply turned away from him with reproach, like so many others had in the past, seeing the demon more than the human in him and retreating with disgust. Yes, he was able to face a thousand men on the battlefield without a moment of hesitation but the idea of rejection from the one he loved made him recoil in an instant. He was exposed and without a single means to protect himself. Love could do that to a person. So he had trained and trained, hiding and worrying and furrowing. He would have continued if it wasn't his turn for patrol duty, and of course, who would he just so happen to have his shift with? Only his most favourite person in the whole world.

"Hijikata-san, Hijikata-san, you're looking awfully pale," Sougo's monotone remark fell on deaf ears.

"Shit," Hijikata grumbled and threw the stubborn cigarette to the ground. He reached for another but he began to cough. Sougo watched with an unchanging face and when there was finally a pause in Hijikata's coughing, he said calmly,

"You're sweating all over Hijikata-san. You're uniform's a mess and you look like you just got run over by a taxi in full reverse." A pause. "Oh wait, that was last week when I needed to go to the bakery." Hijikata ignored Sougo as he continued on in the background, contemplating to himself, "I wonder if I can claim that as a travel expense . . ."

Hijikata swore to himself as he held a hand up to his mouth. His throat felt sore and all of a sudden it felt like his head was going to throb into oblivion. If Hijikata had thought to pause his training earlier he would have realized that he was getting a fever and all the symptoms of his cold were catching up to him. The combination of his river rescue and stressed, sleepless days had culminated into a whopping force of a cold. But the thought never occurred to Hijikata, obviously he had been preoccupied with more pressing matters. Without realizing it, Hijikata reached into his jacket and pulled out Otae's handkerchief. He brought it up to his mouth as he went into another fit of coughs.

"Well, what do you know? Apparently idiots do catch colds." Sougo noted, more intrigued in this revelation than the sorry state of the Vice Commander. Just as Sougo supplied his quip, Kondo appeared to investigate the increasingly violent hack coughing.

"What's that sound? Eh, Toshi? Sougo? What's going on? Are you alright Toshi?"

Hijikata panted slightly as he recovered from his fit, waving his hand to Kondo in silent, signalling that he'd be fine eventually. He brought the handkerchief away from his mouth and then froze. It was brief but for a moment Hijikata stared down at the handkerchief in his hand, felt the soft fabric now wrinkled in between his fingers, followed the creases to the yellow embroidery. Then he immediately shoved it back into his jacket and cleared his throat. It was a brief moment but the handkerchief had caught Kondo's attention.

"Come on Sougo, we have to do patrol." Hijikata managed out, his voice audibly more gruff than usual because of his coughing fit. Sougo took on his best bratty voice while still maintaining the ever present monotone quality and replied,

"Ehh, no way. I don't want to catch your cold. Do the patrol by yourself."

Hijikata glared at Sougo with killer intent and in disbelief that in any and every situation, Sougo always managed to be the most annoying person alive. Before Hijikata lunged to strangle Sougo, Kondo spoke up, but as though he was preoccupied and only half present in the conversation, "You shouldn't do patrol Toshi . . . you have a fever . . ." Kondo stared at Hijikata, his eyes lingering at the lapel of Hijikata's jacket where he had hurriedly stuffed the handkerchief. Hijikata noticed Kondo's stare and turned away quickly, pulling the car door open and insisting,

"I'm fine. Let's go," the later was directed at Sougo but he did not budge. Hijikata glared back at Sougo, willing for him to move with the nearly visible rays shooting from his gun-metal blue eyes.

"No." Sougo stated bluntly.

"What did you just say?!"

"You must be going deaf Hijikata-san. The smoke must be clogging your ears."

While it took every inch of Hijikata's body to stop him from bursting a vein or breaking the car door now creaking under his grip, and Sougo continued to leisurely insult Hijikata, Kondo had not stopped staring at Hijikata. Slowly— very slowly— but surely, the gears were grinding in Kondo's mind and when they finally clicked in place his whole body seized up.

The signs were always there. Maybe Kondo had truly never noticed or maybe he had and fallen to denial, willfully ignoring everything that was already there before him. The clear and obvious truth. It built up before his eyes, all the little moments and things he brushed off out of his faith in each— well, misguided and hopeful but forced belief in the one. What followed was a mixture of thoughts and emotions that Kondo did fairly well in controlling, considering his temperance and tendencies for emotional outbursts. He felt sympathy at first and an immediate guilt at himself for holding onto something for so long that was never there and would never be there, harming others along the way. The self loath and pity continued until he became pent up with rage. Suddenly he didn't care if he had harmed others and all that mattered was that he was hurt and stupid and blindly being fooled. But then he forgave in an instant because he wasn't being intentionally fooled. No one plans to fall in love. He fell into self loath and pity again. Then briefly a flicker of finally seeing Toshi happy after so many unhappy years. In all those years Toshi had always stayed by his Commander's side. No one was more loyal. So loyal that it was to a fault. And of course Otae smiling. Not a cover smile but a real, genuine, and truly at peace smile. But then he raged, jealously washed over him, pity again, the feeling of bitter betrayal and then rage. It continued, each emotion like a wave washing up on shore, receding and then pouring back, pulling away and then pushing and stinging. All this in seconds as Kondo stood frozen to his spot and Sougo and Hijikata had continued to bicker in the back.

"Just make Zaki do patrol." Sougo waved his hand, writing himself off for patrol duty.

"Yamazaki's at badminton practice, that's why you're here in the first place— as his replacement."

"That's right, you wouldn't willingly sign yourself up for this. That's just self abuse. Unless you're a masochist. Are you a masochist Hijikata-san?"

"I'm as much of a masochist as you aren't a sadist." Hijikata grumbled as he made to get into the car, "Now let's go." But suddenly Kondo's hand came down on the car door and pulled it back.

"What do you think you're doing?" Kondo's voice was firm and authoritative. It was different than the voice that commanded the Shinsengumi officer's attentions before he would go off on a rant of how beautiful Otae was that it was almost a crime. This voice commanded Hijikata and Sougo's attention. Sougo was mildly curious at Kondo's sudden change of tone and Hijikata stared at Kondo in surprise; he rarely saw such a serious gaze coming from him. While Hijikata was momentarily speechless, Sougo was far from, "Hijikata-san never bothers to think, his brain is just mush from all that smoking."

Hijikata shot a glare at Sougo but Kondo spoke again, firmly, "What do you think you are doing?" For a moment, Hijikata truly wanted to believe that Kondo was acting this way because he knew Hijikata had a fever. In serious escalated moments, Kondo never failed to misread the situation, jump to the wrong conclusions and react very inappropriately. Take the towel incident for example. But even so, sometimes those inappropriate reactions were a chance to relieve the tension of the situation and to avoid facing the truth. So Hijikata hoped that was the case for this time as well, even though, deep down in his gut he knew otherwise.

"I'm fine Kondo-san, someone has to do patrol—"

Kondo's fist flew from nowhere and far too quickly for Hijikata to dodge. It made impact and Hijikata fell to the ground. Holding his face where Kondo punched him, Hijikata blinked and looked up in shock, "Kondo-san!"

His eyes met Kondo's and in a flash everything revealed itself. Kondo had seen the handkerchief. Kondo had finally seen it all. Hijikata's heart raced, his head throbbed and his cheek burned.

Kondo glared at Hijikata and said, unfaltering, "A man who breaks a woman's heart is worse than any cold-blooded criminal."

Hijikata froze. His chest ceased up, the ringing in his ears stopped and his cheek went numb. He cast his eyes down to the ground. Then he slowly staggered back to his feet and replied wryly, "I don't know what you're talking about."

Kondo made to hit Hijikata again but all of a sudden Sougo's fist swung into the picture and knocked Hijikata to the ground.

"What the hell was that?!" Hijikata yelled, outraged, as he got back on his feet once again.

Sougo clenched and unclenched his fist as if in preparation for a second round, "It seemed fun so I wanted to try."

"What were you trying? Trying to break my jaw?!" Hijikata's cheek was now prominently bruised and beginning to swell. Sougo and Hijikata began to bicker but Kondo interrupted, pulling Sougo back by the shoulder.

"Enough. Sougo, ignore him." Hijikata and Sougo stopped and turned to look at the Commander.

Kondo glared at Hijikata, "Leave, I don't want to see your face."

"What?" Hijikata blinked in surprise while Sougo perked up at the hint of the Vice Commander's dismissal.

Kondo turned his back on Hijikata and barked, "I don't need an officer who thinks more of his commander than he treasures the woman he loves!"

Hijikata's mind blanked. His throat caught. His skin burned and the handkerchief, under the lapel of his jacket, seemed to scorch straight through to his heart. That yellow tulip in the corner.

"Did you hear what I said?!" Kondo waited for a response.

Hearing nothing he began to repeat his question but Hijikata interjected, very calmly, "I understand."

"No you don't under—," Kondo turned around, only to find Sougo standing alone. Hijikata was already driving off in the patrol car. The two were left to watch as the car disappeared down the street.

"What was that all about?" Sougo asked. He glanced back but Kondo made no response. The Commander of the Shinsengumi was too preoccupied with drowning in his own tears and snot. For a long time now Kondo had been uncharacteristically calm, so to make up for that he finally had the massive meltdown all of the Shinsengumi had been waiting for. He bawled incoherently, all the while clinging to Sougo's arms, sobbing and drooling everywhere. Sougo could only give an exasperated sigh, "Ahh you're back to normal? That's too bad, you actually looked pretty cool when you hit Hijikata-san."

Kondo's cries continued up into the sky while Hijikata sped off, heading straight for a certain cabaret club in the red light district.

so ch. 460 with the cockroach at the festival and the handkerchief reference . . . I watch/ read too much Gintama. I'm that attuned to Sorachi's ideas. plus all the okikagu feels in the arc before ch. 460 omfg. and ch. 474 did everyone see it?! Otae was BLUSHING when it was Hijikata (in Gin's body admittedly but it was still Hijikata). why do you do these things to us Sorachi!? this. is. basically. canon.