Work Text:
With Heisuke off to Edo for a while to recruit more people for the Shinsengumi, a problem has arisen within the baka trio. After all, if Sano and Shinpachi aren’t going to be able to pick on Heisuke, who can they pick on then? Apparently Sano has decided to pick his own solution to this conundrum, which means picking on Shinpachi instead. Maybe he’ll take him out drinking tonight to make up for it. Maybe. If he’s in a good mood.
In any case, it means that he’s convinced his best friend that Heisuke is actually coming back a few days earlier - today, namely - and that Shinpachi should totally await him at the gate and scare the living shit out of him as a welcome back joke. Of course Shinpachi immediately laughed and agreed, not knowing that it was a lie or that Sano sent him out there at the same time as Hijikata would return from having done some business out in the city that day.
(Look, there needs to be a good balance in these pranks between getting yelled at, which is hilarious, but not being ordered to cut yourself open, because Sano knows from experience that it’s not exactly the most pleasant of experiences.)
And so Shinpachi, as gullible as he sometimes can be as well, is waiting at the gate, completely excited about this whole deal. This is going to be amazing. He can only imagine the look on Heisuke’s face - or, even better, the sounds he’ll make - when he suddenly sees Shinpachi popping up in front of him the moment he enters the ground of the headquarters. It’ll be hilarious. It’ll be brought up at many drinking evenings from this point on. Man, Sano’s such a great friend, giving him the opportunity to do this stuff.
But in the middle of his train of thought, Shinpachi can hear footsteps. And so he prepares himself to give away his best performance here. Someone rounds the corner, walks through the gate, and Shinpachi jumps out with what might just be his best impression of a tiger’s roar–
Except it’s not Heisuke. Nor is it Hijikata, like Sano had planned. Instead it’s Chizuru, staring at Shinpachi with wide eyes, and when Shinpachi realises he got the wrong person his eyes grow wide in a similar way.
And then they let out a scream at exactly the same time, almost comically so.
Shinpachi franctically looks around him, feeling cold sweat running down his back (because there’s just something inherently wrong about scaring Chizuru, okay, she’s almost like a little sister in the way she’s so kind and sweet and adorable) before slamming the palms of his hands so hard together that it almost sorts. “A– ah, Chizuru-chan, it’s you! I was just.. um, I mean.. it’s not that.. I didn’t mean to..”
Yeah, words aren’t really going to come. And Chizuru - in the middle of the surprise and not knowing what’s even going on here - is still staring at him as if in shock.
This is going badly, this is the worst..
Obviously there’s only one solution left. Dropping himself to his knees, Shinpachi bends forward until his forehead is practically touching the ground. “Sorry! I didn’t mean to! So don’t think badly of me, yeah?”
It’s only that sight that seems to shake thought and life back into Chizuru, although she seems a little fussy for entirely different reasons now when she quickly starts to shake her head, gently putting her hand on the man’s shoulder as if to urge him to please get up again.
“N.. Nagakura-san, it’s alright. I was a little surprised, but.. um, I’m sure you had your reasons..”
It’s the most diplomatic way of putting it and obviously so, but Shinpachi still lifts his head enough to be able to look at her, his eyes practically shining with hope. “R-really?! You’ll understand?”
When she nods with a smile, he’s practically letting out a near-wail. “Chizuru-chan.. How can a person be so kind and forgiving?! After all, you really are–”
Except midway through his statement a taller person appears behind Chizuru, and Shinpachi’s the one looking the most shocked right now at the appearance.
Especially when he starts to speak.
“Shinpachi. What are you doing instead of getting work done? Do you have an explanation for this?!” The voice slowly starts to rise in volume halfway through the statement, and there’s not been a single battle where Shinpachi has climbed back onto his feet more quickly than now.
“A-ah, yeah.. ‘bout that..” After looking left and right, as if he’s trying to think up an explanation on the spot, he instead latches his hand around Chizuru’s (look, he can’t abandon her here with the demon vice-commander, okay, it’s one thing if it’s Heisuke but Chizuru is too innocent and precious for this world to do that to her) and starts sprinting away back into the headquarters. “I’ll explain later, Hijikata-san!!”
Chizuru looks surprised for a moment at the sudden action, but then as they get further away, her expression instead changes into a soft smile.
At least not a single day is dull like this, huh?
-------------------------------------------------------
“Sano-san.”
“Hm?”
“So, we’ve been wandering around for a few hours now, and it’s already getting late..”
Heisuke’s voice trailing off like that somehow didn’t give Sano too much of a good feeling about all of this. Sure, it isn’t a terrible feeling, but still one that something more is up than is going on here. It’s not like Heisuke is unfriendly - that’s the last thing anyone would say about Heisuke, surely - but he’s also not the type to volunteer himself to help along with Sano’s chores. Yet here they are, wandering down the streets of Kyoto while carrying all of the supplies they needed back over at the headquarters. A task that Hijikata passed down to Sano, yet his ponytailed friend is bouncing (or, well, less bouncing now they’re weighed down by the goods) right alongside him.
“Go on,” he verbally nudges him, just wanting to get it out of and over with.
“Well, when are you going to do it?”
“It?” Sano blinks, glancing sideways and down at his friend. He’s half convinced Heisuke is trying to make some weird kind of wordplay joke, but the curious wide eyes that he finds staring back at him tell a different story entirely. It’s almost as if Heisuke is well and truly convinced of something - and of what, Sano has no idea whatsoever.
“You know.. “It”,” Heisuke insists with the same gaze.
Sano lets out a frustrated sigh. He’d rub his temple if he had any hands free to do so. “No, I don’t know what “it” is. Now are we going to play the guessing game or can you just get it over with and say it?”
Heisuke glances left, and then right, like he’s trying to make sure no one can hear what he’s about to say. There are still some people out on the streets, so he probably finds them being overheard so unavoidable if he’d speak normally that Heisuke moves up on his tiptoes (Sano stops walking to accomodate him, he can at least do that much) to whisper into the taller man’s ear in the smallest voice someone as naturally loud as Heisuke can manage. “Visit your children.”
“Hah?!” The sound escapes Sano almost naturally at an accusation that weird. Him, children? It’s not as if he doesn’t want a family, but under the current circumstances– wait, that isn’t even important right now. What is important is where Heisuke got that idea from to begin with.
At least Heisuke seems to notice Sano’s surprise (not like it’s hard to do so) and quickly explains more, his head bopping up and down a little like he’d like to use his hands and gestures to explain it better as he usually does but can’t with the stuff he’s carrying.
“Y– y’know, all the kids you have with the girls in Shimabara? I thought that you’d sometimes sneak out during chores to visit them, that’s why I came.. I wanted to see it myself!”
Sano isn’t entirely sure if it’s embarassment or frustration at how outrageous that idea is that colors his cheeks the same bright shade of red as his hair, looking at Heisuke like the other guy just grew a second head out of nowhere.
“Why would I have kids there?! Who told you that?!” Because surely there’s no way even Heisuke’s wild imagination could come up with that out of the blue.. right?
Heisuke looks away almost guiltily for a moment before he starts mumbling. “Well, Shinpatsu-san said that sometimes when you guys went there alone, you had a few accidents…”
…
The nerve of that guy. And then Heisuke’s own naitivity on top of it, to believe something like that..
Sano drops the supplies he’s holding straight out of his hands - and (however accidentally) straight on top of Heisuke’s toes, who shrieks, drops his own goods in turn and manages to hit himself with those too. Which means that he ends up hopping on one foot while trying to hold the other with his hands and whining in pain. “S.. Sano-san, what are you–”
But when he opens his eyes in the middle of his little pain dance, all he can notice is the older man’s back as he stomps back in the direction of the headquarters, his arms empty and having left the supplies behind. Even from a distance, Heisuke can still hear him grumbling: “Shinpachi, you ass..!”
“S-Sano-san, wait! I’m sure he didn’t– hey, Sano-san, are you listening to me?!”
But no matter how loudly he yells, the other isn’t turning around and coming back - he just keeps on walking until he turns a corner and disappears from sight.
Heisuke’s about to follow him, but then he almost trips over something. And when he looks down, he sees the huge pile of supplies that have gathered from his and Sano’s combined drops.
Ah. Those are having to come back to headquarters with him too.
All of those.
All the way back to…
…
“S-Sano-san! Please come back! You can’t leave me with this– Sano-saaaan!”
After that day, Heisuke decided to not just blindly trust Shinpachi at the risk of another two weeks of muscle pain in his arms.