Heaven Knows Everyone Is Miserable Now
Chapter 15: Thunder At Night
The air inside the car teemed with portent. From the moment Hijikata stepped inside it, he knew he would not return from that journey the same man. The reason why sat beside him on the passenger seat. A dazzle of silver hair, whining he was fit enough to drive a big rig through the ninth circle of hell regardless of the wound in his arm and Jirocho's express disapproval at having a 'corpse eater' drive his Subaru.
Hijikata's entire body coiled in on itself, repressing what he knew he was not supposed to feel. That emotion humanity as a whole had been cheated of, joy. He set the car in motion after repeated tries, persisting against the stubborn motor as Jirocho had done a dozen times before. Gintoki's japes fueled his tenacious attempts. Momentum built steadily in Hijikata's chest, then broke out as the engine roared forward, silencing Gintoki. Hijikata's lips drew into a smile, yet he was quick to conceal it in a ruse he intended to employ the rest of the journey. For as long as he kept his eyes on the road, his ears trained on his surroundings and his mind focused on the route charted on the map, he would be fine. Divorced from the battle that raged on inside him, where happiness and dread fought each other without end in sight. Even though his conscience yearned for forgiveness and his heart lusted for the one thing that would crush any chance of redemption, duty came first.
The roof of Jirocho and Pirako's house retreated beyond the reach of the car's rearview mirror. Hijikata drove westward through roads he had previously traveled unconscious, tucked in the backseat of the very same Subaru he now commanded. Memories of that time rose foggy in his memory, yet Gintoki's presence beside him seemed to cater to the effort, adding color to the scenes, structure to the shapes. Hijikata remembered the chill of the rain, the scent of the wet earth, the blisters on the soles of his feet, the warmth of Gintoki's back, the taste of bile in his mouth as he awoke in semi-darkness without his ring.
He shifted gears on the car, slowing it down. The scenery acquired less of a blur.
"Smoke break, already?"
Hijikata was too distressed not to take refuge in Gintoki's guess.
"What's it to you?" he scowled.
"Do I make you nervous?" Gintoki asked, "Been a while since it was just the two of us."
"The rot must have got to your brain, you should be checked."
"Deflecting," Gintoki observed, leaning his shoulder against the window, "I'll take that as a yes."
"In your dreams."
"Sometimes."
Hijikata's hands twitched. The car veered slightly off course and crossed the rumble strip on the left side of the road. Anger and embarrassment flushed his cheeks as he steered the car back into the lane.
"Caught 'ya."
Infuriating hubris coated Gintoki's voice. Hijikata didn't need to look sideways to see the grin plastered on his face.
"You're so full of shit." he said between gritted teeth.
"Look who's talking. Carry on like this and we're bound to crash and burn. Who's going to get Pirako-chan her dad's meds, then?"
"Your fucking undead corpse, you're the one with all the tricks up your sleeve."
"Not you too, Hijikata-kun."
"Don't call me that." Hijikata growled.
"What am I supposed to call you? We've known each other for a while, I thought I had informal privileges by now."
"You have the privilege of not getting punched in the face, how's that?"
"Aw, is it on account of my stitches?"
"On account of me currently driving this heap of junk!"
Gintoki was impervious to the outburst. The wagging tongue Hijikata knew him for had returned in full after days of restraint at the house and who knew how many hours, how many days of imposed silence alone in the wasteland.
"I said I could drive," Gintoki prattled on, "We would be halfway there by now. Everybody knows smokers are terrible drivers. They always take the scenic route so they can finish smoking the rest of the pack on the way. It's sick, I tell ya'."
"That's rich coming from you. You're the sick one here."
"Yes, I know my arm…" Gintoki placed a theatrical hand over his wound.
"No, I mean in the fucking head!" Hijikata barked.
"Yeah, yeah, Hijikata-kun, I see how it is, you need a smoke, right? I'll get it for you."
Hijikata did not have time to react. Gintoki reached a hand inside his jacket and felt about for the cigarette pack Hijikata kept stashed there. It took Hijikata every ounce of self-control not to take his eyes off the road and keep his hands firm on the steering wheel. Another pestering little laugh from Gintoki and the wispy thread of his sanity would snap.
"You-"
Words made their way to Hijikata's mouth, but he could not utter them. A heavy drum beat in his ears. He steered the car around a couple of abandoned vehicles in the middle of the road and glanced at them in the rearview mirror, wondering if he too could somehow escape and stay behind. Time and circumstance, however, were not on his side. Gintoki lit one cigarette — the flickering sound of Hijikata's lighter tearing the air inside the car like thunder. Hijikata heard Gintoki suck in a long, slow breath and, out of the corner of his eye, he watched Gintoki blow out a fat cloud of smoke before grimacing.
"These are terrible." Gintoki barked, holding back a cough, "I was gonna have one too but…" he turned the cigarette pack in his free hand, "What kind of brand are these?"
The road ahead stretched out in a straight line. Hijikata snuck a look at Gintoki, throat dry.
"Tough luck, dickhead. Give them here-"
Hijikata reached for the pack but Gintoki pulled it away.
"Oh, no, no. This one is for you. You can have it."
The cigarette was in Hijikata's mouth before he had time to protest.
Gintoki fiddled with the cigarette pack, mumbling absurdities at the brand name and paying no attention to Hijikata's agitation. Hijikata had no choice but to take a long drag to numb his nerves, lips upon traces of Gintoki's own.
He drove in a trance before stopping at the sight of a group of rotters shuffling back and forth across the road.
"I'll take care of them." Gintoki said, hand already on the door handle.
"Like hell you will."
Hijikata left the car running and stepped out in pursuit. The last time he had been out with Gintoki they had fought each other, Gintoki decked in blood and guts, hiding among the dead, and Hijikata stalking them, out in the world for the first time since his recovery. They had been on opposite sides fighting the same fight. The fight for survival. Same as now. Swaddled by trees along a derelict forest road.
Been a while since it was just the two of us.
Machete in hand, Hijikata sliced the heads of two rotters coming his way before dodging the outstretched hands of a third. He saw the hands plummet to the floor as a sudden gash carved them clean off the rotter's arms. When Hijikata looked up to gaze at the rotter's face, a blade pierced its skull, pointy end drilled between the eyes.
Gintoki retrieved the blade with a swift turn of his wrist and the rotter toppled to the side, gone.
Do I make you nervous?
Bodies littered the road behind Gintoki. Seven, eight, nine of them. Bodies Hijikata knew had not been lying there when he exited the car. He watched, aghast, as Gintoki wiped his dirty blade on the rotter's jacket.
"Abnormal cluster," Gintoki said, "Bloated and reeking like they've been out in the rain too long. If I had to guess, they're remnants of that horde those bastards rounded up on the mountain. You don't get creepers like this near the villages."
Hijikata's silence spoke for itself. He nodded, taking in the information, and looked behind Gintoki at the compact forest the rotters had crawled from. The intervals between the trees shrunk to a dark blur from which a warm breeze blew in. Charged. Pregnant. Above their heads, the blue sky of previous days had turned a yellowish gray that made it impossible to measure the distance between clouds.
"Means we're getting close." Hijikata said, swallowing his restlessness.
He didn't need to mention what place he meant. Gintoki knew it instinctively, his mind strangely attuned to Hijikata's.
"Yeah, that bridge ain't far from here."
Gintoki walked back towards the car and Hijikata followed him silently, staring at Gintoki's wide shoulders. He wondered if Gintoki had torn any of his stitches in the scuffle.
"Thanks for leaving the motor running." Gintoki said with a wink.
Hijikata was so out of it did not realize Gintoki had taken the driver's seat. He slammed the top of the car with his fist after Gintoki closed the door in his face and trudged around to the passenger seat, ignoring the dismay that threatened to swallow him whole. Control slipped from him, robbed him of the effusive joy he let fester inside him to revel in all of Gintoki's little gestures.
He sat down with a scowl and lit another cigarette.
"No safety belt?" Gintoki teased him.
"Fuck off."
"Your wish is my command."
Gintoki stepped on the pedal and took off, driving over the scattered limbs he had severed minutes before.
Hijikata took desperate drags on his cigarette to quiet the tremors racking him from the inside. He didn't care that the cigarette pack Pirako had given him might expire by the end of their drive. Cigarettes were not half as difficult to find as Jirocho's meds. He would ransack rotters, dead bodies, trash cans, whatever it took to fill his lungs and sooth his mind. Nothing else mattered. Nothing else worked.
The weight of the ring pressed against his chest, warm with the heat of his skin. Featherlight. He barely remembered it was there now that he had gotten used to the exposure of his naked finger. Besides, holding on to the ring for comfort had become meaningless after its theft. The ring was tainted, shared beyond the two people it had originally bound. How could Hijikata seek relief from it when it evoked the one thing he wanted to keep out of his mind. The blight that was Gintoki, returned to that place by his side Hijikata didn't have a word for.
Simmering rage consumed him. It burned bright orange at the tip of cigarettes he could not help inhale, one after the other. His mind ran circles around his predicament. He tried to think of the point at which he had relinquished control and allowed Gintoki to affect him so profoundly, but he could not place it. Gintoki seemed to have gathered all control to himself without any effort. His words wove threads around Hijikata, binding him, pulling him close. Hijikata had been strong for so long, so steadfast in his grief. He could not conform with weakness. Because it was weakness he felt when his scariest, most shameful thoughts told him a single word from Gintoki would deliver him.
A second cluster of rotters forced Gintoki to step on the brakes. Beside him, Hijikata spewed an expletive while keeping his cigarette locked between his teeth. The sight before them presented something far different from the usual meandering group of lurkers.
Covered in mud and slush, a swarm of fifty or more squirming bodies groaned stuck in place in the middle of the road. The lucky ones that managed to extricate themselves from the pile walked about aimless.
It was not the first stack of undead Gintoki had seen around the area. The rain had provoked many landslides across the region, and the lack of maintenance on the roads and mountain paths had not withstood the progress of the horde the Sweepers had unleashed weeks before. Many had tumbled down ravines and steep hills and ended up meshed in bizarre jumbles of limbs, rocks and sludge.
Gintoki turned the car around. Clearing the rotters would require too much work for the amount of good daylight they still had. Moreover, there was no point in pushing through the pile of bodies and risk getting rotten debris stuck under the wheels. They would have to find another way forward.
Hijikata pulled out the map they had borrowed from Jirocho, and, after a loud back and forth which called the attention of the nearest wandering growlers, they decided on a winding course through a gravelly path they had passed two miles back.
The car jostled between high bushes, advancing slowly over the gravel. Gintoki and Hijikata had to roll up the windows so the longest and sharpest sprigs would not cut their arms or poke them in the eye. By the time they reached the bridge where they had last parted, the sun was setting.
They drove past it, not a word between them. A few miles ahead, they stopped at a country house surrounded by an abandoned field and debated whether to sleep in the car. The Subaru was too small, difficult to steal on account of its temperamental engine, and both of them needed release from its cramped space. Consensus was reached surprisingly fast. Gintoki volunteered to check the perimeter outside the house while Hijikata secured the inside.
He did a quick sweep of the rooms and found them untouched. On top of the kitchen counter, a batch of flyers issued from the town council gave him a clue as to the possible whereabouts of the homeowners. If not dead or lurking, they had most probably surrendered to the fate of the local emergency shelter. Jirocho had told them all they needed to know about that.
Hijikata barred the front door and waited for Gintoki to enter through the back before pushing a heavy dresser and two small bamboo shoe racks against the shabby entryway.
"Anything?"
"A grave at the back," Gintoki said, "Here?"
"Clear."
"Good. Let's eat."
They shared a portion of the rations they had brought with them for the journey and ate in silence. As the light dimmed and night fell, so did their mood. Hijikata smoked a cigarette by the living room window, one of his last, listening for Gintoki's steps as he moved about the house digging for supplies. He brought down two futons from the bedroom upstairs and dropped them close to Hijikata's feet.
Hijikata's heart beat fast. He remained silent as he watched Gintoki unfold the futons and lay them side by side in the same manner they had slept at Jirocho and Pirako's, and, in another life, in the same manner Mitsuba had put down theirs.
"I'll take first watch."
Hijikata's preemptive remark came from a wretched place that refused to give Gintoki any kind of leeway. He needed to focus on the logical explanation for their sleeping arrangement. Safety, convenience, proximity to the nearest exits.
When Gintoki did not make light of the situation, Hijikata took a long drag on his cigarette. Smoke and relief filled his lungs. He looked outside the window. The sky hung dark, indiscernible from the mountains or the earth. Darkness had swallowed the horizon line. Charged gray clouds withheld both rain and light. There were no artificial city lights to color the clouds, conceal the stars. Night wore a black shroud that hid the threats, the monsters, and the tiny sparks of life where people endured and lingered on.
The glow from Hijikata's burning cigarette refracted on the window pane and threw a soft light into the murky room. He saw Gintoki's silhouette as he slumped on the futon.
Questions danced on the tip of his tongue. Not hearing Gintoki's snores, nor any indication that he had fallen asleep, they came tumbling out of Hijikata's mouth in a feeble attempt to smother the guilt he carried.
"Why did you go look for me? What if I was dead?"
"You weren't." Gintoki answered at once. He lay down on top of his futon, fully clothed, knife belt at his hip.
"How did you know?"
"I didn't. I wasn't sure."
"Waste of time," Hijikata huffed, sucking in a breath, turning cigarette to ash, "You could be with the kids by now. Instead, we're here."
"Look on the bright side, Hijikata-kun. The rest of the world is gone, now you can win the Biggest Fucking Downer award."
Hijikata ignored him, fumbling in the dark for the tiny plate he had been using as an ashtray.
"Don't you regret it?"
"No."
"If something happened to the kids-"
"Something always happens."
"All the more reason."
"In a hurry to ditch me? After all the trouble you took to invite yourself along."
Fabricated surprise coated Gintoki's voice. The teasing tone had returned in spite of Hijikata's best efforts to keep the mood between them serious, under his control.
"It's the least I can do to repay Doromizu-san and his daughter." Hijikata replied.
"I see."
Hijikata sensed a challenge, an accusation that did not come. He snapped.
"What!"
"Not so loud, Hijikata-kun. The creepers will hear ya'."
"Sometimes I think they are better company than you!"
Hijikata heard Gintoki shuffle on top of the futon, changing positions. He saw a faint reflection of Gintoki's back in the window.
"Can't say I agree, from my experience." Gintoki said after a long pause.
Something heavy pressed down Hijikata's chest. A bad taste filled his mouth. He wished he could take back his words, but it was too late. Nothing he said could make up for it. What apology could encompass the days and nights he had unwillingly set on Gintoki with only the dead for company? It had been a choice Hijikata did not comprehend, worthless as he considered himself to be to Gintoki, now more than ever after witnessing the way Gintoki dealt with the rotters, the way his entire self, his senses, his demeanor changed in the face of danger, away from the protection of human walls and fences. What Gintoki had lost to become one with the darkness, that was on Hijikata. If Gintoki had not gone looking for him, if he had not taken the ring, maybe the gap between them might not have become so insurmountable. Warped ideas of debt and guilt fed that gap until Hijikata could no longer tell right from wrong. Good from bad, right from wrong. The notion that good and right might not even match anymore shook him to the core.
"There's worse things than creepers out there." Gintoki's voice filled the room, small and quiet, yet unyielding enough to pull Hijikata from his spiraling thoughts and notice that his cigarette had gone out. Around him, the room was pitch black.
"You mean the Crow?" Hijikata asked.
"I told you. You can lose yourself out there."
Hijikata nodded, though Gintoki couldn't see him. The loneliness of those days, how he had abandoned himself to fear, how he had let it consume him until it was no more, Gintoki couldn't shed that any more than Hijikata could shed his grief.
"You mind if I touch it again?"
The tips of Gintoki's fingers touched the front of Hijikata's shirt. He seemed to have approached out of nowhere, soundlessly. Not even his silver hair glimmered in the darkness. Hijikata widened his eyes to catch the contours of the silver curls, the lines of Gintoki's shoulders, but he saw only a dark empty expanse in front of him. If he stretched out his arm, he was sure he would catch nothing but air.
"The ring?"
Hijikata raised a hand to his chest instinctively, seeking the necklace the ring hung from. His palm met the back of Gintoki's hand. It was warmer than he expected it.
"You wanted to know why I went looking for you?" Gintoki's voice was gentle, gentler than it had any right to be. In fact, Hijikata was surprised Gintoki wasn't cursing him outright.
"Is it that incomprehensible to you? Maybe you're a bigger fool than I thought."
"Keep running your mouth, see what good it does."
"What kind of monster do you take me for? That I don't think of Kagura and Shinpachi every day? That I followed you just to make your life miserable? That I took your ring for myself? Left you to die under that bridge?"
Every question hammered a nail into Hijikata's ego, the fortress he had built around himself.
"Shut up."
"Corpse Eater. Blood Drinker. Ring Stealer. That's who I am to you, uh."
"No."
"Who's going to save you from me, now?"
Hijikata scoffed. His breath came out with a shudder, a whimper almost.
"How could I show Shinpachi and Kagura my face if I left you for dead? If I let you die? Did you think of that?"
Gintoki's hands, calloused and cold, cupped Hijikata's face.
Light stormed the room in a flash. White, incandescent light touched every surface of the room, exposing the remains of the abandoned home. Then, as soon fast as it had come, it was gone. Darkness engulfed the room again. But Hijikata no longer saw emptiness in front of him. Etched in the dark was the outline of Gintoki's luminous face, the shimmer of his hair, the expression on his face, frantic, pleading, the completely opposite of the hollowness Hijikata imagined he would find there.
Without explanation, his pulse picked up. He held his breath in time with the rumbling sound of distant thunder.
"You're afraid of it too, right?" Gintoki said, "How good it might be."
"Afraid?"
"That you won't be able to live without it after," Gintoki replied, "You might know it better than I do. After all you…"
Hijikata pulled Gintoki by the collar of his shirt. Their faces mere inches from each other in the dark. Hijikata could feel Gintoki's breath on him.
"Will you stop if I tell you her name?" he asked.
"No."
"Then what?"
"I don't think I will ever stop."
Hijikata bridged the distance between their lips before Gintoki could process anything other than warmth and a weight on him. Hijikata cradled Gintoki's head in both hands, fingers digging into Gintoki's silver curls.
Gintoki took a while to react, overwhelmed with Hijikata's boldness. When Hijikata pulled back, a flash of lightening struck the room again and Hijikata's eyes were there for Gintoki to behold, filled with desire, dilated in shock. Their crystal blue hue shone pure, craven, ashamed of itself. It was a race against time to save Hijikata from himself, but the stale air inside the house had grown heavy and suffocating with the rain that refused to pour. Gintoki could barely take hold of his bearings. He didn't know what to make of the heat pooling at the bottom of his gut, whether to fear it or let it loose. He was certain the latter would consume him, but Hijikata gave him little choice. In between flashes of lightning, his eyes stared at Gintoki's parted lips in disbelief, lashes batting slowly, bashful.
Hijikata was so stunned, the color had not yet reached his cheeks. But Gintoki would make sure it did. He reached a hand towards Hijikata's chest and grabbed both sides of his jacket before pulling him in.
"Come here."
He inhaled Hijikata's scent, enraptured by the strangeness and familiarity; heart pumping faster at the fact he was allowed this close. He felt the softness of Hijikata's lips press against his. It all seemed like a hazy dream until a raspy moan escaped Hijikata's throat and short-circuited Gintoki's brain. He pulled back to reassess and once again met the drunken look on Hijikata's face illuminated by the intermittent lightening, the expression of a starved man.
Hot blood flushed Gintoki's cheeks, made a mush of his brain, rushed down in a primal swirl in time with the distant rumbling.
He hated being right. It was unbearable to have his conjectures proved right. That Hijikata wanted him just as much as Gintoki wanted him. Unbearable to think of the times Gintoki had buried his longing for both their sakes. Unbearable to think of all the times he'd taken Hijikata's rebuttals to heart. Unbearable to think they could have ditched pride and ego long ago.
A part of Gintoki, weathered and beaten, told him that perhaps it was too late, too risky. Wondered whether they should have broken the seal sooner before those banked feelings that laced every breath between them made themselves known. The ones hidden behind Hijikata's hard stare and unspoken in Gintoki's earlier promise.
I don't think I will ever stop.
Whatever fate those feelings marched toward, however, their consequences could come later. Right now, Gintoki's senses honed in on what was in front of him. Hijikata's head between his hands, going left and right as they tasted each other. The warmth of Hijikata's rushed breaths as he wrestled in Gintoki's grasp, digging his fingers in Gintoki's hair and tugging Gintoki further into his lap.
Gintoki hovered above him, half-lost to his senses. The throbbing of his wound was an echo against the aching in his groin. His hands slid down Hijikata's neck. The feel of his sweaty skin lit fires under his fingertips. He noticed the way his trailing fingers unraveled Hijikata, who all but shuddered at his touch before finally stilling once Gintoki pulled up his shirt and came upon the ring necklace.
For a moment, only their panting breaths interrupted the silence in the room.
"Sorry I took it from you," Gintoki said, seizing the ring, "Do you think she'll forgive me?"
"It's not her you need to worry about." Hijikata replied, seeking Gintoki's eyes in the dark.
"I think I was a pretty good keeper."
"That's a fine word for a thief."
"If I'm a thief then I'm about to score big."
Gintoki's voice carried the smirk plastered on his face.
"You can only take from me what I let you take."
The cocky remark had earned Gintoki a stony hand around the neck, but the tightness of Hijikata's grasp did not match the look in his eyes. He snapped Gintoki's hand off the ring and yanked his shirt off over his head.
"What a generous heart you have, Hijikata-kun."
"You're a greedy bastard."
Outside, pouring rain finally joined the rolling thunder. Up int he clouds, the dam had broken. Rain spattered against the windows, drowning out all sounds from within the house.
The gasps, the moans, the swearing.
Dawn came early and cool the next day, and the next and the next after that.