Kebchii says: Yes! I'm finally back! I know I should be shot to death right now but can you guys wait, at least, until I've finished this? -insert nervous laughter- Anyway, FFnet finally launched an application so if any of you have it on your device, please add me so we can chat all day and be best buds forever! Yaaaay~

Disclaimer: Sorachi-sensei is a genius who still doesn't have an ending for his manga. I love it.

Summer Heat

Kebchii

"A simple no would've been enough."

There was one thing that clogged Kagura's throat as she watched Sougo turn and disappear into the cottage.

Regret.

The trip back home was uneventful and unbelievably tense. Everyone inside the car knew something had happened between the two youngest in the group. They weren't even seated together anymore. Unknown to the others, Kagura had begged Shinpachi to trade his seat with hers.

Otae and Kyuubei tried to lift the mood with talk and the others eventually joined in. However, when the conversation was directed to either Kagura or Sougo, there was no response and it ended awkwardly.

Kagura leaned on the window and felt bad for ignoring everyone else. Suddenly feeling tired, she closed her eyes and eventually fell asleep.

When she opened her eyes, her groggy mind processed the fact that she was staring at a very familiar ceiling. She immediately shot up and looked around. Sure enough, she was back in her bedroom.

"Gin-chan, you should've just woken me up. You didn't have to carry me inside." She said as she went to the living room where her father was sprawled on the couch with the usual JUMP magazine on his hands.

"I didn't, though."

"Huh?" Kagura stared at her perm-haired father.

"It was Souichiro-kun who carried you inside."

Even though it wasn't the sadist's real name her father mentioned, it was still him and Kagura's expression changed from surprised to troubled. It didn't go unnoticed by Gintoki.

"What happened?"

Finally crumbling, Kagura slumped on the low table. "Gin-chan!" She could feel her tears threatening to spill. "I said some terrible things to a terrible person-"

"Isn't that fair, though?"

"- and I didn't mean it and after that he acted like I never existed and now I just had to know he did that and now I feel like shit 'cause I wasn't really honest with my feelings and I just wanna crawl into a hole and hope to sprout into an even better individual -"

"No, I don't think it works like that."

"Gin-chan, what should I do?" Kagura cried.

Gintoki sighed, closed his beloved magazine and looked at his daughter. "Listen, Kagura. To be honest, I don't really like you getting all mushy with Souichiro-kun," he raised a hand up to stop her when she opened her mouth to say something. "But all the more, I don't like to see you crying especially when your tears are mixing with your snot."

Kagura smiled at her father's words.

Then Gintoki added, "It's disgusting."

Kagura's smile fell and she frowned.

Gintoki scratched at his head. "I don't really know what to say to you but I guess you should go talk to him and straighten things out." He continued when Kagura just stared at the table in front of her. "You have a few days before the start of the semester. Think about what you will do until then." He grabbed his JUMP and read.

Kagura breathed out a heavy sigh before resting her head on her arms. She didn't really have a plan and she supposed she will never have one. She decided she'll do what Gin-chan told her to do.

Being the daughter of a teacher, Kagura had no choice but to wake up the same time her father would - and that meant arriving to school before everybody else.

Her eyes immediately shot up when the door would slide open. It annoyed her that her heart continued to beat at its unusual pace. Whatever foreign feeling she was having these days was surely because of the idiot sadist.

Clenching her fist, she was determined to deal with the sadist before class even started. So she waited…

… and frowned when the bell rang and he was nowhere to be found. The usual greeting was done and as they sat down on their seats, the door was abruptly slid open.

"Sorry I'm late."

Kagura hadn't even pressed her butt on her seat when he spoke and she stayed that way until she realized he was already seated and wasn't even looking at her.

What the hell?

The next opportune moment she saw was lunch break and the sadist was with Gorilla and Mayora at the back of the classroom. She started to make her way to them but before she could make another step, Sougo abruptly stood and walked out of the classroom. She knew something was going on when Gorilla and Mayora glanced at her direction.

In Algebra, when told to exchange papers with a seatmate, Kagura saw it as another chance - they had always been exchanging papers before ("This is not a 4. This is a 9." "You effing sadist! Stop trying to find errors! That's definitely a 4! The tip is pointed, you jerk!") - so she turned to him and was greeted by his wide back. Well, wasn't that a subtle way of telling her he wasn't going to exchange with her?

She gritted her teeth and thanked Kami Soyo-chan was there on her other side.

Halfway through the day, the sky slowly turned darker along with a loud rumble that echoed. Kagura's mood wasn't any better. She stared at the window as rain drizzled but she didn't give a damn about it. She gritted her teeth over the fact that the Sadist, she finally realized, was avoiding her like a plague. It was her fault, anyway, for saying those things; and she meant it when she said she didn't mean any of it.

The bell rung and classes were over for the day. Before Kagura could stand from her seat, Sougo was already on his way out the door.

She was about to shout profanities at the sadist's back when she felt a hand on her shoulder.

"The Disciplinary Committee will have a meeting at the discipline office," Gori told her then patted her shoulder gently and walked out. "Just thought you should know."

The meeting was taking longer than Kagura expected. She had been leaning on the wall next to the office, ready to ambush one particular officer of the Discipline Committee. She grumbled and stared at the glass windows before her. The sky was dark and the rain was pouring down hard. It didn't concern her, though. Her trusted umbrella was safely tucked in their classroom.

The young girl was surprised when the door suddenly slid open, momentarily forgetting her mission.

"I forgot my notes. I'll be right back," Sougo called out then turned. He paused when he saw a pair of very familiar cerulean eyes. It took a moment for him to turn to the other direction and walk away without a sound.

At the lad's sudden retreat, Kagura was snapped out of her reverie and followed suit. "Oi, Sadist!" She called but it seemed like it fell on deaf ears.

Kagura started to quicken her pace. Sougo looked over his shoulder and he noticed it. He immediately quickened his own pace.

Out of annoyance, Kagura gritted her teeth as she started to run and soon after the boy before her was also running.

"You damned sadist! Stop!"

They were already heading for the back-exit of the building and Kagura wondered if he would actually risk getting sick by charging to the heavy downpour.

Apparently, he did.

Well, Kagura thought as she went out of the doorway and felt the cold, heavy drops of the rain on her body, a little rain won't stop me either.

Sougo glared at her when he looked over his shoulder and saw her soaked from head to toe, both of them still running at full speed. "China, stop following me." He couldn't help but blurt out, "This is over the top as a stalker, ya know."

When she didn't say anything, he gritted his teeth and caught sight of a lone shed, probably a storage room, and turned towards it. Evidently, Kagura saw it as a chance to finally corner him so she did what every other girl would do in her situation. She jumped off her feet and flung herself towards him. They crashed against the room's door and it collapsed under them.

"What the hell?!" Sougo glared down at the girl sprawled on top him.

Kagura looked up, eyes glaring right back. "We need to talk."

The flaxen-haired boy immediately scrambled out from under her, vaguely feeling disgusted at how sticky he had already become because of the rain and dirt. "No, we don't."He pulled at his shirt to keep it fro sticking against his skin. "You're gonna get sick. Go back to the building and use your umbrella to get home."

"I'm not going anywhere until you talk to me."

"I'm speaking to you right now. There. Now, go."

It annoyed Kagura how it hurt.

She grabbed at his shoulder and forcefully made him face her. "Look at me, dammit!"

Sougo stared at her indifferently as he grabbed her wrist. "I don't take rejection too well, China." He pushed her hand away. "Go home."

Although her face contorted in anger, Sougo noticed that her eyes expressed differently. He jerked when her other suddenly grabbed his hand and watched as she shook her head as she stared at the floor. She mumbled something but it was too soft for him to hear. Frowning, Sougo leaned closer and demanded her to say it.

The girl looked up and it surprised Sougo how close their faces were. Her blue eyes stared at him and he wondered if he heard (or cared) whatever crap she was trying to say.

"I didn't mean it," she repeated, a little louder.

Sougo leaned away before he could do something that would probably kill him... or would it?

"What I said at the resort, I didn't mean it."

"Then what did you mean?" Sougo asked, his tone indifferent.

"I don't know! I don't know why I said all those things." Kagura turned away and placed her hand on her lap. Her other hand was still in the boy's grip. "I guess you surprised me. I didn't know if you were serious or not."

She felt his grip on her hand tighten a little. "Why are you telling me this now?" You still won't accept the thought of us together in that thick skull of yours, anyway, Sougo mentally added.

"Because I hate you."

"That's old, China. Don't you have any back-up reasons?"

Kagura ignored his sarcasm and continued, already feeling the heat crawling up to her cheeks. "I hate you for always teasing me. I hate you for always putting gum in my hair. I hated it when you sat next to me and annoyed the hell outta me on our way to the resort. I hate you for treating me to lunch-"

"No, you don't."

"Okay, I take that one back. But there're still a lot of things I hated you for after that. Then I hated you the most,"

Sougo raised a brow and waited.

"I hated you the most after the vacation; you didn't talk to me. Even today, you didn't talk to me, you didn't annoy me, you never looked at me. I hated you the most for that!" Kagura wasn't one for crying so easily, but the current situation wasn't so easy and she tried her best to keep her tears from falling. She glared at him and he stared back.

They continued like that in silence until Kagura couldn't take it anymore. "Say something, you stupid jerk!"

"You're wrong when you said I never looked at you."

"Eh?" Kagura paused.

Sougo flicked her forehead. "How do you think I would know if you're around when I was trying to get away from you?"

"So you do admit you were avoiding me!"

Ignoring her comment, Sougo looked away and whistled some random tune. As he did, he noticed the rain was letting up. "Let's go back. It's getting late."

Kagura watched as Sougo stood up and offered a hand to her. Uncertain, she took it and also stood. "Sadist?"

His deadpanned face turned to her and he raised an eyebrow, urging her to continue.

"Are we okay now?" she asked as she looked at their hands.

Sougo took a moment to think about it and just shrugged. "Come on," he said as he pulled at her hand to get moving. When she didn't budge, he looked over at his to see her pouting at him. "What?"

"You didn't answer my question."

"Whatever. I'm leaving you here, then." He said tried to head for the door but the girl's grip on his hand tightened.

Looking back, he jolted when her face was turning into an alarming shade of violet. "What the fu- China, what are you doing?!" He went to her as she continued to hold her breath and for the first time in his life, he didn't know what to do. "Uh- we're okay! We're okay!"

"Puah!" Kagura breathed in deeply before looking up, her eyes expectant. "We're okay?"

Sougo sighed and ran a hand through his hair, exasperated. He looked at the girl before him and nodded. "Yeah, we're okay."

Her face brightened up and she smiled, delighted. Her expressions were going to be death of him. He should live with his eyes closed from now on.

"Expect some bubble gum in your hair tomorrow," Sougo said as they walked along the hallways back to the Discipline office.

"I'm beginning to regret pinning you down earlier," Kagura said as she glared at the boy beside her. He stuck his tongue at her in response.

"You're soaked."

Both Sougo and Kagura stoped dead in heir tracks and turned to the (very familiar) voice.

"Gin-chan!" Kagura exclaimed, surprised that her father was still around.

"I saw your things inside the classroom. I figured you were still around."

"Oh, right!"

Gintoki turned to Sougo as Kagura ran to get her umbrella and bag. "Souchirou-kun. Is everything all right?"

"It's Sougo, sensei," he answered, completely ignoring the question thrown at him.

Gintoki stared at his student and said student stared right back. It was unnerving how both of them were indifferent in the current situation. Deciding he was wasting too much time already, Gintoki turned without another word to the flaxen-haired lad. He was definitely going home with his daughter tonight.

Later that evening, Sougo felt his phone vibrate in his pocket. Having just arrived from school, he closed the front door of his apartment behind him and placed his bag on the floor as he fished out his phone. A lone brow was raised when he saw the name of the sender.

From: China (bunny icon)
Subject: I didn't get to say this earlier.

Oi, Sadist. You were wrong, too. Apparently, I can. I can imagine the two of us going out - especially when you're paying.

He read the message again and again and it took a full minute for the message to sink in. He felt his face heat up and was grateful no one else was around.

As he decided that it was best not to reply for now, he noticed the blinking red light on his telephone. He pushed the button to hear the message.

"Sou-chan, it's me. Are you well?" A gentle voice from the telephone said.

"Aneue!" Sougo said in excitement.

"I hope you're doing well in school. It has been a while since I visited you. Maybe I will in the near future."

He smiled as he started dialing his sister's phone.

"Also, Sou-chan…"

Sougo's fingers paused when he noticed the change in his sister's tone.

"Father and Mother have decided on what to do with your arranged marriage."

...and POOF! It became a cliffhanger! ...can you consider that as a cliffhanger? No? Whatever.

Response section:

#ahsoei: Touyu and Yuuto are actually Utaite(s) in real life, so I guess they're not OCs.

#ToTheRest: I AM SO SORRY FOR UPDATING ALMOST A YEAR LATER SERIOUSLY OMG IF I WAITED FOR ANOTHER FIVE DAYS, I WOULD'VE REALLY UPDATED AFTER A YEAR. THANK YOU FOR YOUR SUPPORT. I LOVE YOU ALL.