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“Are you feeling under the weather, Vice Chief?” Yamazaki’s annoying voice comes first thing in the morning, like a headache, as Hijikata is eating with his eyes half-closed, the lack of sleep making his limbs, as well as his intellect, heavier than usual.
Hijikata doesn’t get his meaning until he realizes he has only slathered half a bottle of mayonnaise on his bowl of breakfast rice, enough half-heartedness to raise an alarm in his subordinate, he guesses. Hijikata thinks it’s creepy that Yamazaki pays so much attention. He empties the other half on top, if only because he doesn’t want any more questions, but it doesn’t taste as good as it should.
Very well, he is mopping a bit, he’ll admit it.
Which, yeah, he should disembowel himself for it, he knows that all too well.
“When is the Chief coming back from his hot date tonight?” someone from the Second Division comments as everybody leaves the mess hall and in his head Hijikata amends: no, whoever just said those words should be the one to commit seppuku.
He can tell all the men are amused (and secretly happy, too) that in a plot twist nobody saw coming their boss has become somewhat “hot property” on Earth’s marriage market and this kind of occurrences — not dates exactly, not old-fashioned matchmaking either, more like advanced diplomacy than anything else but still, the meetings themselves are not jokes — have been coming once a week lately. Whenever someone brings it up in Hijikata’s presence Kondou just looks embarrassed and waves it away, which he doesn’t have to do. Does he think Hijikata is judging him? That he thinks it’s ridiculous? Something is definitely ridiculous here, and it’s not the fact that the Shinsengumi leader is getting a handful of dates.
If it’s going to become a new routine, Hijikata is impatient to feel less personally unnerved by the process. So far it doesn’t get easier with next time it happens. Hijikata doesn’t get it. Why it must happen at all. Matsudaira said something about Kondou still being useful for political alliances, about his alliance with royalty from Planet Gorilla erm he means Planet Shoujo raising his appeal points, about Edo still having many enemies that won’t be defeated by the sword alone, and something about Kondou getting older and never being able to get married unless it’s through a marriage of convenience anyway. He said this last part many times. To Kondou’s face.
Matsudaira is the one who started saying Kondou was “hot property”. He said it like that, in English and with a drawl.
It was just aliens in the beginning — in varying degrees of ugliness and life-endangering sizes (no more gorillas, though, for which Hijikata was secretly relieved). But there’s been a couple of human women, even. Connected families. Not super rich — but specifically selected by Matsudaira to get ahead of old Bakufu-aligned factions gaining power again.
Like he said, Kondou is more of a political pawn than a playboy. Either of those concepts seem ludicrous to Hijikata.
He watches his men neglect training for a few more minutes of gossip, like schoolchildren, sending Kondou off as he leaves headquarters to attend a rundown of current police issues with the government and then the so-called date and Hijikata tries to make a normal-angry face at the lack of discipline in their ranks, rather than a these-days-angry face at the other thing, in case Yamazaki is still watching him like the creep he is.
Hijikata thinks Matsudaira mostly does it to mortify Kondou, because Matsudaira is the only person he knows who’s even a bigger sadistic freak than Sougo. Also he is fond of reminding everybody he met his wife through an arranged marriage, which actually relieves Hijikata a bit, on an existential level, because he doesn’t want to think about someone like Matsudaira scoring on his own. But this morning Kondou seems almost cheery at the prospect of meeting this noble woman, rather than just resigned, and this is completely unrelated to the fact that Hijikata gives the whole Shinsengumi extra drills until even Saito seems about to complain with voice and all, or possibly orchestrate a coup against Hijikata. Completely unrelated.
+++
The date/interview/whatever is a disaster of course, Hijikata doesn’t need to know the details to know that. This is completely unrelated to the fact that he uses the usual two whole bottles of mayonnaise with his dinner, and attacks it with gusto and it tastes as excellent and reviving as always.
(not that he would ever enjoy Kondou’s misfortune, but in this case, well, the alternative…)
It’s at dinner that Kondou gives everybody the usual debriefing. He must be a bigger masochist than that Sarutobi psycho to be doing this every time, Hijikata thinks as the most junior Shinsengumi members crowd their captain, elbowing Hijikata a bit out of the way in the process. Just as well, dessert will surely be much more enjoyable if he doesn’t have to be personally involved in this moronic conversation.
Ritual humiliation might be useful to keep group discipline, but it could be counterproductive when the one being humiliated is always their leader. Perhaps a good, logical reason to put a stop to this nonsense about Kondou getting married. That’s it, it could hurt the Shinsengumi morale, if he goes on like this. Plus, why do things have to change at all? Why can’t they stay as always? With Kondou being unlucky with women, being a stalker, and staying here all the time, with his men.
“What happened this time?” Yamazaki asks, his voice like that of a disappointed mother who uses the threat of a caring tone to shame her inadequate son.
Everybody has their theories. Some of them quite offensive, truthfully, and god knows if Hijikata was Chief he would never put up with this kind of disrespect.
“Must be this ugly scar,” Kondou jokes at some point, touching his face. Hijikata finds the comment uncharacteristically self-pitying. Who the fuck cares about a scar? Everybody they know has scars, missing limbs, whatever. Kondou has had the scar for years. It’s just odd that the Chief would say that, even as a joke to explain away his lack of appeal with women. “Girls get scared off by these things, right?”
He laughs and looks around, until his gaze falls on Hijikata, not certain if by accident.
“I don’t think it was your face,” Hijikata deadpans, clicking his lighter at the same time. He waits to draw in and blow out the smoke from that first puff before he continues. “I think it was your personality.”
“Toshi! That’s worse!” Kondou complains. “How can you be so mean?!”
He starts weeping, but that is more the norm. That is not alarming.
+++
He thinks he’s gotten over it for the rest of the evening, but something about what Kondou has said - no, more like his tone - keeps gnawing at him, like a creepy crawler under his skin.
It’s ridiculous, Hijikata repeats to himself as he marches hopelessly towards Kondou’s door. There are certain things a man should take with him to his grave and Hijikata believes, no, knows for sure, this is one of them. But he needs to know, why Kondou looked like that during dinner. He needs to know if his commander is really sad, or troubled, about the whole thing, and how to stop all that. He primarily needs to know how to stop it, yeah.
“Ah, Toshi,” Kondou greets when Hijikata gets inside the room.
Even though he looks (as always, Hijikata notes with the usual punch in the soul) extremely happy to see his subordinate Kondou’s voice is still strange, like it’s been since he came back from the stupid marriage interview. Or, and this is quite a strong possibility given Hijikata's state of mind, maybe Hijikata is just imagining he sounds strange.
Either way.
Kondou gives him a more confused look when Hijikata says nothing and simply closes the door behind him.
“Something wrong?” he asks.
Hijikata still doesn’t answer, he just kneels by Kondou’s side. Ah, this is the worst, he thinks. He runs his hands through his own hair until it’s a complete mess. Then he points at Kondou’s face.
“Your scar,” he says, no preambles, band-aid approach.
Kondou lifts his hand to touch it, seemingly out of instinct, and he looks a bit embarrassed as if he hates the idea of anyone drawing direct attention to it. It’s not like Kondou to be this self-conscious.
“What?” he asks.
Now Hijikata has to grit his teeth to get the new words out because really, what a foolish man, he really is going to make Hijikata say this.
“Your scar is fine,” he says.
Still, it doesn’t seem like Kondou gets his meaning, not really, so Hijikata grabs his head between his hands. Kondou’s cheeks scrunch up comically between the palms. The man looks slightly alarmed, like he fears Hijikata is going to headbutt him or something. Okay, maybe it’s Hijikata’s face, it’s that scary, that seemingly headbutt-prone, and maybe he could be holding Kondou’s face more gently, to make his point. But Hijikata is who he is and he has the face he has so he grabs Kondou’s face even more comically and then leans in to kiss him hard.
And granted, he doesn’t have much experience kissing people so it’s a bit surprising that he manages to do it with such conviction but maybe he suspects Kondou needs that conviction and there’s nothing Hijikata wouldn’t do, and without hesitation, when this man is in need of reassurance.
That’s why he does it. To reassure Kondou.
At least the first kiss is for that. The second one, well, Hijikata might be acting a bit selfishly with the second one.
“There’s nothing wrong with your face, you idiot,” he repeats, softer now, between kisses, Kondou’s lips feeling impossibly soft and warm and wet under his.
Then he grabs onto Kondou’s hair, slightly possessive, and brings him to his mouth again, gentler now, finally figuring out how to make the point. And he really thought that he would take this secret to his grave, but the way he’s acting, the way he’s kissing his Chief now, well, he guesses the cat is out of the bag.
Hijikata’s hands are a language of their own, one he feels as little confident about as with words, but he lets go of the other man’s hair and slides his fingers down his nape instead, closing them around it, feeling the muscles tense under his touch (Hijikata hopes that’s not a bad sign) and the curve of the kimono slack over the shoulder, disturbed by Hijikata’s caress. That last part makes Hijikata stop and pull his mouth away from Kondou’s, overwhelmed by a flash of something both vague and precise he’s not sure he can hope for.
He looks up at the other samurai with a tiny, apologetic smile. Sorry, Chief! he wants to say. He has really tried to keep this whole stupid thing under wraps. For Kondou’s sake. For the Shinsengumi. For Hijikata’s own pride.
But his boss doesn’t look mad at him for what he’s just done. Or particularly upset. If anything, Kondou’s usually hyper-expressive face oozes calculated restraint now, in a way that trips Hijikata up more than he cares to admit; he’s so unused to not knowing what the guy is thinking. So he’s not sure what to make of the way Kondou snakes one hand between their bodies and touches his fingertips to Hijikata’s cheek.
“Toshi…” he says, so full of intimate fondness, but it sounds familiar too. Has Kondou been saying his name like that all this time? Has he really been that much of an idiot? Then Kondou says something unexpected: “I’m sorry.”
Hijikata’s brow creases, instantly annoyed.
“What the hell are you saying sorry for?” he snaps.
Because he’s scared Kondou means sorry for kissing him back, or it’s a preemptive sorry for rejecting Hijikata. That wasn’t the point, Hijikata wants to yell. He didn’t do it so that Kondou would… well, not-reject him. He’s okay with being turned down —he didn't have expectations when he crossed the threshold of Kondou’s door tonight— as long as he never sees that sad expression on Kondou’s face again.
But it’s neither of those sorrys, because Kondou lifts his fingers again and traces the side of Hijikata’s face for a moment, looking terribly pained but more focused on the task at hand. His fingertips feel really hot where they touch Hijikata, like they should leave a mark. Are fingers supposed to be this hot on bare skin or is Hijikata deeply, hopelessly embarrassing when it comes to these things? He might be — because he gets distracted by thinking how it would feel to have those hot fingers touch him somewhere other than his cheek. And he forgets Kondou was supposed to be explaining why he was apologizing to him.
He does.
“I’ve hurt you,” he tells Hijikata. “I’ve been a brute, if I’d known before…”
Hijikata is kind of curious to hear what, exactly, Kondou would have done if he had known before, but the rest of the sentence dies on his lips. And on Hijikata’s lips, because apparently Kondou is kissing him again, like he too is getting distracted and can’t help but touch him some more.
It's very different, having Kondou take some of the initiative and it's not a question of experience thank you very much; Hijikata has lived with the guy for a good chunks of their adulthoods, he knows his sexual escapades are just as pathetic as his own. It's just that it feels good not to be alone with his own feelings, to have Kondou push his tongue inside his mouth like he's been waiting to do that for so long, even though that can't be true. It makes Hijikata relax into the kiss, give up noises he's sure the Shinsengumi code would proscribe, if the Shinsegumi code could ever imagine such things existed, if it hadn't been written by a repressed idiot who needed a good kissing.
He grabs onto the lapels of Kondou’s kimono, trying to steady himself; the fabric rough to the touch, very cheap, the Shinsengumi’s budget not stretching beyond “functional” at any point. He wants to... he wants things that have never been readily available to him, that feel like too much to ask, and Hijikata is very bad at wanting things.
Suddenly he holds Kondou away from him, not pushing him off but to hold him at a distance to see his face.
His face.
Ah. right. That was the problem.
This whole kissing thing was a detour, actually.
It’s now Hijikata’s turn to bring his hand between them, lifting his fingers to Kondou’s face. He doesn’t pretend he wants to cup and caress his cheek like Kondou did to him. He goes directly to touch the scar crossing his face, pressing his index to the spot on the slash right above the bridge of his nose.
He draws the dipping line of the scar with his thumb, enthralled by it. He has wanted to touch it before, Hijikata realizes, and what the hell is wrong with him, is he sick in the head. It’s all scarred skin now, still rough but almost pleasant to the touch, pale and wide. Hijikata can’t stop remembering how it looked when it wasn’t healed, when it was just an open wound. He knows it was part of a plan, but still, Hijikata remembers not knowing that the wound meant Kondou was going to survive. The scar might be years old but the memory is as fresh in Hijikata's mind as if it had all happened yesterday.
“We almost lost our general,” he says. “Every time I see this scar I remember seeing you there in that forest, thinking you were dead.”
I’m still in that forest, still in Kokujo island, I never made it back, Hijikata thinks — because no matter how many foes the Shinsengumi has defeated, how peaceful Edo seems these days, he now lives with it all the time, the knowledge of how it felt to lose Kondou, how it will feel if it happens again. Hijikata knows he wouldn’t survive — because he already didn’t survive, that time.
“Come here,” Kondou tells him, all sweet and soft, like he can tell exactly what Hijikata is thinking and wants to soothe his fears with his voice.
Hijikata's a bit confused as to where the “here” is, though, because they are already pretty close but then Kondou’s arms wrap around his shoulders and he realizes he meant a hug. It’s very embarrassing for Hijikata to admit this but damn, the hug feels almost better than the kisses. If the first kiss was something he thought Kondou needed then maybe the hug is something Hijikata has been needing himself all this time - ever since Kokujo.
Kondou’s arms make Hijikata feel smaller than he actually is. For a warrior this feeling would normally be a bad thing, but right now Hijikata can’t think like a warrior. It’s comforting. He’s small and there are warm arms around him, protecting him, comforting him.
He lets time go by like that, though consciously Hijikata knows it can’t be more than a few minutes, maybe even less. But it feels like they could just do this for the rest of the night.
Kondou’s hand carding through his hair; Hijikata knows those hands well, the skin is rough and hardened with countless hours of training, and Hijikata has watched those fingers grip a sword thousands of times, he has felt entire days go by just looking at Kondou’s hands exemplify a stance on the mats, guiding the rest of the men. It’s strange to think of those very public hands doing something so private now, running their fingers through Hijikata’s locks, pausing to pat the crown of his head so tenderly. Hijikata always knew Kondou belonged to everybody — he never imagined he deserved any part of him to keep all to himself, not even a fleeting moment like this.
It’s okay, he tells himself, if this never happens again. At least he’ll have this moment. It’s his and his only.
“I don’t want to hurt you anymore,” Kondou says all of a sudden, swiftly explaining away weeks of Hijikata's agony. “I’ll tell Matsudaira to stop setting me up with random women.”
“I wouldn’t interfere with your duty!” Hijikata argues, absolutely full of shit, suddenly embarrassed at his own greediness.
“I don’t want anyone else,” Kondou declares shamelessly, with the naivete of a child stating a simple desire - for a new toy, to go playing with friends, for food. Like this want is the most natural thing in the world.
Hijikata looks away. It’s too much. Kondou is everybody’s, Hijikata has no right to…
“I guess that was too direct,” Kondou chuckles, good humored as ever. It makes Hijikata look up. The joy in the wrinkles around his eyes. “But Toshi, you yourself were very direct tonight.”
Hijikata scrambles, pushing the other man off him a little.
“You don’t need to point it out!” he complains. Then, softer, because he knows how many Shinsengumi laws he has violated tonight, and in the last few years. “I’m sorry about that.”
The Shinsengumi Chief shakes his head.
He holds his hands up to Hijikata and Hijikata meets him halfway, pressing his cheek against a sword-rough palm without thinking, and then leaning against Kondou's chest, craving that hug once more, his body following its own rules and not giving a damn about samurai codes. Ah, this is the worst, he thinks again. This is the best.
“There’s nothing wrong with your face, either,” Kondou says, copying him, as if he can’t come up with his own way of seduction, the hopeless idiot.
“Of course not, my face is handsome,” Hijikata replies, his face now buried into Kondou’s neck.
Kondou laughs. He laughs so loud and Hijikata guesses it’s not just because of the joke, it must be because… Hijikata feels heat spreading all over and specially in the back of his neck, where callused fingers are dancing over his skin, and Kondou keeps laughing and it’s like being swallowed by an earthquake. A really nice and warm earthquake.