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On his fifth birthday, Sakamoto’s grandmother takes him aside out of view from all his immediate and extended family that have gathered to celebrate the day and slaps him. It’s because for a while, he’s been accepting the gifts that family members have handed him with wide smiles and well wishes without really looking at them or giving heartfelt thanks. “Do you know how lucky you are to have family?” she scolds him, quietly because she doesn’t want to draw attention, but her voice is stern. “Do you know how lucky you are to be able to laugh like this? To be able to laugh at all? There are hundreds and thousands of boys your age right now wandering the countryside with no home to go back to and no mothers to make them meals. They have to scavenge and pick even corpses clean just to survive. I don’t want to see any more displays of ungratefulness from you, today or any day. March back into that room and thank everyone from the bottom of your heart.” Sakamoto does this, and he laughs loudly all the while, because if he doesn’t, he might cry. His grandmother just yelled at him on his birthday. There are boys who have to touch dead bodies! That’s a scary image. But since then, he laughs when he can, because it is a blessing to be able to laugh. Laughing means you are happy! It means you know happiness. It means you can breathe enough to be able to laugh. It means you are not dead. He laughs his way through academy and he laughs when his father tells him he’s going to join the army, whether he likes it or not. It becomes a little hard to laugh then, because he’s busy throwing up most of the time on the ship from the way it rocks back and forth and slightly because the thought of plunging the katana his father gave him for the war into someone’s body makes him sick. But when he isn’t upending his stomach, he chuckles weakly and the rest of the crew gives him space.
He stops laughing when he meets Gintoki for the first time, although it’s because the rowboat that takes him to glorious hard ground is less stable than the fleet ship so nausea deals him a serious blow. But after he feels a little better, he’s preoccupied with fending off attacks from the patriots he’s been sent to join, and although he’s not that terrible of a fighter - the little one he can ignore, he’s all shouting and limited arm span in the first place - he’s breathless because Gintoki’s hair is amazingly silvery white. Gintoki’s face is covered with his puke so he doesn’t really look at him; but that hair draws his eyes and he can’t look away like a moth to a flame. It allows Gintoki to get in a few good hits to his face. Afterwards, when Katsura apologizes for his comrades’ behavior and introduces him to everyone he should know, he joins the rest of the patriots for dinner and he finally looks upon Gintoki’s face. It makes him shiver. There’s a mixture of hardened warrior and anxious child. This is a boy who has touched dead bodies, Sakamoto thinks. His grandmother is long dead but he can’t forget her words.
“Stop following me,” Gintoki says. “Stop touching my hair. What’s wrong with you? You’ve never seen curly hair before, you bushy-headed idiot?”
“No,” Sakamoto says honestly. “Your hair is so white, but you’re not old. And it’s so rough, like a rag.”
The backhanded compliment makes Gintoki grab his head in retaliation. “Oh ho,” Gintoki says, his fingers digging up against Sakamoto’s scalp. They look funny, no doubt, both of them holding the other’s heads. “Looks like the young master here has sweet oils and plentiful soaps to care for himself. You feel like a puffy cat, you softheaded fool.” Gintoki keeps ruffling his hair, but he’s grinning now, and Sakamoto thinks he’d pay anything for Gintoki to keep looking at him like that.
Money can buy friends - his father’s said so, but with the caveat that money can buy the wrong sort of friends. Here on the battlefield, money buys him the right sort of friends, the sort of friends who sees how he helps them and are thus willing to sacrifice their necks to save the one who can earn enough coin for them to stay in fairly decent lodging and talk his way to get cheaper prices on supplies. Katsura’s been brought up well, because he’s nice to Sakamoto regardless of whether a sale has been successful or not. Takasugi’s mouth has been shut ever since because Sakamoto gets results. But the only one who Sakamoto can’t seem to win over with his financial prowess is Gintoki, who stalks off into the woods whenever he comes back bearing gifts.
“Hey, hey,” Sakamoto says, tripping over tree roots to find Gintoki sitting by himself against an old tree. “I got you some oil for your hair. I heard from the others, you’re called the White Demon, right? So you’ve got an image to maintain. You can’t have rough hair that doesn’t bounce; that doesn’t sound good for morale. Here, I’ll even help you apply it.”
Gintoki knocks the bottle out of Sakamoto’s hands. He hits it so hard that it flies in a wide arc and smashes against another tree, breaking the bottle and sending the oil running down the trunk in thick rivets. “Quit it,” Gintoki says. “Stop trying to kiss up to me with your blood money. I don’t want any of it.”
Sakamoto laughs, but he’s only going through the motions so it sounds awkward and the notes are coming out all wrong. “I’m not trying to kiss up to you,” he says, and his voice sounds hollow even to him. “Honest. I just want you to like me.” His father always said he was too honest for his own good and he never thought before he spoke. “I want to be your friend. Really.”
Gintoki doesn’t say anything for a long time. Sakamoto sits there next to him at a distance feeling sorry for himself. He wonders vaguely if his father paid his friends to be friends with him, because he doesn’t remember friendship being this difficult. Maids became nicer, sweeter if he held up coin. Maybe he is just terrible at being social and fostering personal relationships. “I’m sorry,” Gintoki says eventually. “That must have been expensive.”
“It wasn’t that expensive,” Sakamoto says.
“What, were you trying to put cheap shit in my hair!” He leaps at Sakamoto and Sakamoto is momentarily terrified; he’s already caught Gintoki in a bad mood and he’s about to be slaughtered by the White Demon. But Gintoki is laughing, and he’s sitting on Sakamoto’s chest with such a wonderful heady weight. Sakamoto’s laughs are coming out wheezes. “I didn’t know you had enough brains to be concerned about stupid things like friends. But rest assured; I don’t hate you.”
“Sakata,” Sakamoto says, and he can really barely breathe. Gintoki stands up over him.
“Well, for starters, don’t call me that. It makes me sound like an old guy. And I’m not like the others…I don’t have a family to represent.” Sakamoto sits up on his own because Gintoki doesn’t offer him a hand. “Just call me Gintoki.”
Sakamoto scrambles to his feet. “So,” he says, “so, so, if I can call you that, can you call me by my given name too? That’s what friends do, right?”
“Sure, sure. What was it, again?”
Gintoki doesn’t call him by his name very often, preferring to go with insulting nicknames or derogatory terms - nothing special, he does the same with Takasugi, Katsura, and every member of his squad - but when he does, he says Tatsuma and Sakamoto bounds up to him no matter what the circumstances. He sees this as an improvement. Gintoki knows Katsura and Takasugi from childhood but he still calls them by their surnames. The gesture is worth more than its weight in gold.
[=]
Still, wars come and go but boys will be boys. They’ll slur their words and pick fun with the smallest of things when they’re among themselves, but when they’re in town, there’s other things to buy besides supplies and they’ll wash their faces and put on their best clothes. Usually, it’s Gintoki and Takasugi who will pick the same woman, because it’s always a competition between them so sometimes Gintoki watches Takasugi to see where his eyes land and goes for her too, or Takasugi will wait until Gintoki begins to approach a woman and will cut in before him. But this time, he and Gintoki pick the same girl, a girl who has a smile that is wide and laughs louder than the others. Her kimono is worn, and it’s clear she’s been wearing the same one for months already. They’ve just been paid, which is why the older patriots let the boys loose into the town, and Gintoki meets eyes with him and nods in agreement. A gentleman will make sure a woman doesn’t wear the same outfit twice in a row. She surprises them by asking for them both; she doesn’t want to pick and she doesn’t want them to either.
Before he joins the war, Sakamoto is a virgin. His father and teachers tell him the fastest thing to ruin a young man’s mind is liquor and women. Brothels are off limits, and when he’s home, he has no real reason to look for them; his friends enjoy their time watching the girls in the market and he’s got his studies to focus on. But after battle after battle and the only red that dyes his clothes is Amanto blood and his own, he needs something to take that all off his mind. At first he doesn’t have the guts, and he stays back at the camp with Katsura who has the discipline of a monk (although Sakamoto remembers at the last village, Katsura followed an older woman home and came back the next morning with two dead, plump chickens). When Gintoki and Takasugi learn that he’s still a bright young flower, they pull him with them and although Sakamoto spends his first night with his eyes squeezed shut and his mouth open in a chortle, he goes back with them every time. They’re young and stupid and gambling is an old man thing when there’s women to devour. Money, for most of them, is useless when death could be at the door at any day.
It becomes quickly apparent why the girl wears the same kimono. They go into her room and order sake, and after a few drinks, she pulls out a pipe and a small bag of opium. It makes Sakamoto’s brain stutter for a moment, and he remembers his teachers at school mention how it rots your soul and his grandmother - bless her soul - told him his laughter was annoying but it rang soundly like the purity of his soul, or something like that. She smokes it by herself for a bit and then passes it to him. Sakamoto doesn’t know how to refuse.
“Give it here,” Gintoki says, reaching over. “This guy’s worthless; he can’t smoke without choking.” Gintoki doesn’t look at him and takes a hit off the pipe before passing it back to the woman. Sakamoto doesn’t think he’s ever seen Gintoki smoke in his life either.
The woman takes off her clothes and she laughs when they touch her, and for a time, Sakamoto forgets that she’s smoked anything at all. He kisses the smooth skin of her stomach and Gintoki is groping her breasts. But after a while, the woman is breathing shallowly and her eyes are closed. She is doped up. Sakamoto is hard, he can feel it through his clothes. Gintoki has already shucked up most of his clothes.
It’s probably the alcohol and the dope, but Gintoki’s mouth is hot when Sakamoto kisses it. The truth is, they don’t come into contact with villages and towns very often; sometimes it’s too dangerous to expose themselves as patriots if the town is patrolled. At those times, boys are still boys. It’s been an accepted fact since the dawn of the samurai that older warriors take younger boys under their wing. Unrelatedly, Sakamoto thinks he might be the only one in the camp who has held Katsura; just once, though, and Gintoki asks them why they took so long to get water and why Katsura is walking funny when he claims he hadn’t been injured in the last skirmish. Sakamoto has never thought of propositioning Gintoki, because the thought never crossed his mind, like the idea of making love with a local god. But now he wonders why he never has, as Gintoki climbs on top of him, his fingertips calloused from holding a sword. Gintoki is a careless kisser and he sucks a mark on Sakamoto’s neck. Sakamoto has one hand around Gintoki’s cock and two fingers up his ass and Gintoki is panting against his collarbone, moving his hips. His eyes don’t seem to really see Sakamoto.
“Do you want to?” Sakamoto asks, laughter dying his throat. He can barely laugh, he’s so turned on and his breathing is ragged.
“Do it,” Gintoki says, but in the end, he’s riding Sakamoto with wild fervor. Sakamoto stifles his laughter with one hand; he’s known among the camp for bawling so loud everyone in the brothels can hear it, but it feels like this has to be a secret. Gintoki’s eyes are the color of rust and dried blood, but his hair is a brilliant white. He leans down, shaking, when he comes, and Sakamoto smells a whiff of perfumed oil in his white curls.
They hear a weak chuckle as they’re catching their breath. Sakamoto is getting soft and he slides out of Gintoki. “You two are so funny,” the brothel girl says, although she’s still so out of it she probably won’t be able to process what she’s seen much less tell the other girls while the camp is still in town.
“I didn’t hear you at all last night,” Takasugi says in the morning when they’re making their way back to camp. “Did you get the holes confused?”
“Nah,” Sakamoto says. “At least no one asked me if I’d entered after I was balls deep.” The jab makes Takasugi storm away in an angry huff. Gintoki doesn’t say anything to him either and never mentions it.
(Sakamoto catches Gintoki fucking Takasugi one night taking a piss when they’re stranded somewhere in the middle of fields on fields on fields. Takasugi’s hands are scraped against the tree and he’s gasping and hissing things at Gintoki that Sakamoto can’t hear. A dull surprise settles in his stomach, but he guesses rivals keep their friends close and their enemies closer. He doesn’t say anything the next morning when he sees Takasugi bandaging his hands.)
[=]
Sakamoto tries to tell himself it doesn’t really matter if Gintoki agrees to desert the army with him, and he believes it for a long time until his fleet reaches some distant planet where all the natives have dazzling silver hair. Sakamoto feels his knees going weak first, and he wants to throw up even though he’s on solid ground. “Mutsu, we’re going,” he says.
“Really, boss? We haven’t even gotten any negotiations started yet.”
“We aren’t doing any. Let’s go.”
[=]
Money can buy happiness. Sakamoto gets the door slammed in his face whenever he visits Earth, more specifically, when he visits the apartment over Otose’s Snack Shop. But when he waves around a few bills and says he’ll pay for dinner, Gintoki opens the door again and says he’ll go anywhere.
They go to a crappy sit-down place and to a discreet hotel on the outskirts of Kabuki District. Gintoki has a child at home who can be placated with pickled seaweed, her dog, and the television, who won’t ask questions when Gintoki stumbles home in the morning. Sakamoto tries to take things slow so he can savor it, as one should do with fine wine and exquisite cuisine, but Gintoki bites at his lip and he’s grinding up against him so Sakamoto takes him facedown on the bed. Gintoki’s hair is soft now, used to regular shampooing and pillows instead of rocks and dirt floors.
Money can’t buy happiness. After they’re done, Sakamoto wants to engage in fruitless pillow talk and maybe some snuggling, but Gintoki is busy rummaging through his wallet. Gintoki is worse than any con call girl. “Kintoki,” Sakamoto whines, purposefully getting it wrong so Gintoki will turn to him and correct him. It’s no longer good enough to be the pampered little rich boy in a war, now that Gintoki has moved off the battlefield and he has his own proteges and a bunch of people around him. Gintoki isn’t one to dwell on the past, and Sakamoto thinks he’s just a remnant of darker days. He can’t even really remember that night in the brothel that well anymore. “Stop robbing me.”
“Oh, shut up.”
“Hey, Kintoki,” Sakamoto says, hugging the pillow in lieu of embracing bare skin. “If you take all that money, will you be mine?”
“Hell no. What does that even mean? I’m not a thing to be bought and sold.”
“Okay, okay. Will you only look at me then?”
“Why would I want to look at your ugly mug for too long?”
Sakamoto begins to cry, because it’s frustrating, and the bizarre thing is that he’s also laughing. It’s such a strange ugly emotion. He doesn’t even have his sunglasses to hide his eyes. “Oh, come on. I wasn’t that mean, was I?” Gintoki puts his wallet down, but Sakamoto doesn’t miss how Gintoki’s own wallet seems fatter. “What do you want? Tell Gin-san, and he’ll try and make you feel better, you big crybaby.” Gintoki throws the covers over himself again and slides up next to Sakamoto, smoothing his hair and cooing condescendingly at him.
“I want you to return my money to you, because I earned it with hard work unlike you who hasn’t worked a day in his life.” Gintoki opens his mouth but Sakamoto cuts him off. “I want you to actually welcome me back when I visit Earth. I want to eat more dinners with you. I want you to come with me sometimes to see space. I want to have more sex with you.”
“Come on,” Gintoki says again. “That’s a lot of requests and only one Gin-san. And I’ll do all of those, if you pay me a pretty penny. Actually, you’ll take that literally, so multiple pennies. Billions of pennies.”
“I want you to do all those things without me having to pay you,” Sakamoto insists.
Gintoki sighs. His hand is rubbing his back in a very nice way. “Do you hear yourself? A rich young master who’s too stingy to use his money to get what he wants.”
“You said you don’t want my blood money.”
It takes Gintoki a moment to remember. “Who was it that left in the first place?” Gintoki kisses his forehead. “You’re being so full of yourself when you weren’t willing to stay with me back then and you’re trying to throw my words back at me? Don’t be so spoiled.”
“You got me there.”
Gintoki sees him off at the ship. Mutsu no longer questions it. “Get out of here,” Gintoki tells him. “I’m terrible at good byes and you’re coming back anyway, whether I like it or not.”
“Okay, but can I get a kiss good bye at least?”
“Seriously get out of here or I’ll kill you.”
Sakamoto watches Gintoki walk away as the ship takes off, lifting higher and higher into the sky. He wonders how much he’d have to pay for Gintoki to kiss him farewell. It would probably be extra to have him stand and watch until the ship was completely gone. Still, before he can no longer see, he notices Gintoki stop at the corner and look up. It makes him feel elated, even if Gintoki holds up his hand and it’s too far to notice which finger he’s pointing in his direction. His grandmother said some boys his age pick at corpses, but a good man will help those boys and not expect anything in return. He’s old enough to be thankful for that.