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English
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Published:
2023-07-18
Completed:
2023-08-21
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1,995
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2/2
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168
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Milk-fish

Summary:

He remembers him.

Paper cheeks, scowling mouth. Stunning eyes.

Gintoki presses the cold glass of water against his busted lip. Against the melting condensation, the cut stops stinging, starts buzzing— "Sakata."

Chapter 1

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

He remembers him.

Paper cheeks, scowling mouth. Stunning eyes. 

Gintoki presses the cold glass of water against his busted lip. Against the melting condensation, the cut stops stinging, starts buzzing— "Sakata."

Gintoki looks away. Glances at Jirocho sitting across. "That last liver punch was something else. You always put up a good show, kiddo."

"Thanks."

"What, your head's too big for a compliment now?"

Gintoki leans back against the wall, the darkened glue from decades old gravure posters probably sticking to his hair. He wants to stop sitting on the floor, wants to stop sitting. He wants to lay down. He says, "It's my face, isn't it? Everything I say sounds arrogant because of how handsome I am. People always expect good-looking persons to be unfairly kind, society's at fault here, really." Jirocho scoffs, eyeing the yakitori on the table between them.

He picks up a piece with his chopsticks, says, "Did you get into boxing because people beat you up every time you opened your mouth?"

Gintoki's lip drags into a lazy smirk, eyes squinting. His cheek aches where he got punched with a mean right-hook just hours ago. He says, "Sorry to disappoint you, but I got into boxing because of Ashita No Joe."

Jirocho shakes his head.

Gintoki glances away. Meets eyes with that guy — paper cheeks, dark hair, matchlight gaze —bright, sparkly and defined by friction. Immediately, he looks away from Gintoki — something to hide; origami swans tucked into your crush's notebook and being a man, holding another man's hand in temptation — in impulse.

"Coach." Gintoki says, looking back. Jirocho hums. "I need some fresh air."

Jirocho clicks his tongue. "When our coach treated us to an aftermatch dinner back in the day, we wouldn't leave a single morsel behind. And here you are, shitty brat, trying to book it."

"I want to leave even more when you start talking like an old fart. I can smell the geriatric ward in here."

Jirocho reaches across the table and pulls his ear with unnecessary strength. Says, "You know the drill. Headache, nausea, deliriousness, any kind of unusual pain anywhere. Go to the emergency room immediately."

"Yessir." Jirocho waves his hand.

"Stay safe, kid."

Outside, Gintoki half-sits on the sidewalk railing. Near midnight, the street is sparsely walked by incoherent half-drunks — college-aged people and middle-aged salarymen. He takes out the half-empty box of strawberry pocky from his backpack. The artificial flavour makes him feel at once famished and full. Gintoki looks down at his bare arms.

The light from the restaurant is orange-golden. It contours his forearms into something inhuman, the unnatural angles of it blending into his skin, cutting a long vein in half. Gintoki makes a fist, his muscles immediately bulging, light moving, and a person's footsteps interrupt his gaze.

The man he was expecting leans on the railing next to him. Gintoki looks up. His eyes are even more striking up close, set deep and impression pure — probably an attractive crier.

"Smoke?" He asks, his voice deep, and offers his pack to Gintoki. 

"Nah." Gintoki says, smiling, scratching lightly behind his ear. His hands flop down hard into his lap. "I'm an athlete. Can't smoke."

A raised brow, fingers immediately remove the unlit cigarette in his own mouth. He says, "What sport do you play?"

A small pause—"Boxing."

Their eyes meet, "Boxing." 

"Yeah."

"In college?"

Gintoki says, "No. What's your name?"

". . .Hijikata Toshirou."

Toshirou's cheek is half-golden, half-moonlight. Gintoki offers him his sweets. "No." Toshirou refuses, glancing down, his colours shifting, bangs falling over his eyes. He peers back up, and Gintoki feels an ache across his shoulders. "What's your name?"

"Sakata Gintoki." He says.

Toshirou tells him, "I don't like sweet things."

"No?"

Then, "Where do you box?" Toshirou asks.

Gintoki nods to the other side of the street. "Korakuen hall."

"Shit."

"Yeah." Gintoki smiles, "Impressed?" 

"Depends on your win streak." Toshirou says.

"I won tonight's match."

"Yeah?" He asks, "Are you showing off?"

Gintoki looks away, feeling like an over-aged star ready to fall apart. He breaths out, shrugs, "Is it really showing off if my win was inevitable?" Toshirou’s eyes squint, his mouth curving.

Gintoki runs his palm across his thigh— across the coarse denim of his loose jeans. "I've never gone to a pro-boxing match. When's your next one?"

"There's always three months in-between matches." Gintoki says.

Toshirou looks the other way, humming. In his lap, his hands are very impressively masculine, strong — fingers loosely intertwined, fair, his blue-maybe-green veins standing out between long sleeve and bare palm. Toshirou looks back, their gazes catching— "I've seen you before." Gintoki confesses, "My friend is in the fine arts department at T-uni. I think I saw you at an art exhibition he forced me to attend." Toshirou’s eyes widen just that little.

"I'm also in the fine arts department at T-uni." He says, "I sculpt."

A pause. "Huh."

"What?" Gintoki watches Toshirou’s ear fill with colour, can't tell if that's the streets of Tokyo or the restaurant — or Gintoki. Gintoki wants to — tease. Yet, "Your hands are pretty." He tells Toshirou.

Toshirou’s mouth parts, Gintoki watches his posture recline back, hands coming to cover his face. 

"Hey, are you embarrassed?"

Toshirou doesn't say anything. A woman walking past them glances at Toshirou once then twice, curious. Gintoki says, "Hey."

"Shh."

"Shh?!"

Toshirou brings his hands down, his features unmoving. He doesn't look at Gintoki. 

Says, "Your hands are prettier."

"Ah."

Gintoki looks at them like he has never seen them before — like he didn't methodically wrap them in tape just hours ago before shoving them into his favourite ten ounce gloves. His skin is extremely roughened at the knuckles, shape distorted, feeling sore. "Yeah?"

"Of course."

Gintoki looks at him, smiling. His split lip stings.

Toshirou says, glancing at Gintoki's mouth, "Do boxers get injured often?" 

Gintoki says, "Yeah. And no matter how skilled you are, getting punched hurts."

"You enjoy it?"

"The pain? No. Boxing, yeah."

Toshirou hums. Gintoki says, "Come to my next match."

"Is that a demand?" Toshirou asks.

"I'm asking you out on a date." A pause.

"How can it be a date if you're in the ring and I'm in the crowd?"

"How is that not a date?"

Toshirou says, "We would be doing different activities." He says, "It can't be categorised as a date."

"You nerd."

"The fuck did you say?"

Gintoki feels his smile dragging, his cheeks bunching. "I said, baby."

Toshirou looks away, looks back, "I'll take you out on a proper, real date. Show you how it's done, yeah?"

Gintoki thinks this is the same feeling as his favourite ice cream seeping into the bland wafer in the sundae glass, all those weekend afternoons and cheat-days and needles digging into the brain. He swallows, flexes his fist. Says, "Is that a challenge?"

"—Hijikata!"

The string stretches thin, and Gintoki’s feet hurt. He turns to look at the restaurant's entrance. The guy says, glancing quickly between Toshirou and Gintoki, "Hey, you gonna be back? We're discussing where we're going for round two if you're in."

A pause, Toshirou says, "Be right back." Gintoki looks at Toshirou like he's the end of the school lunch time — lax-ruled basketball matches in the gymnasium and laughter left unfinished because Nohara-sensei and his unhappy life won't allow slackers into his class. 

But Toshirou gives Gintoki his phone, tells him to add himself to his LINE and to, "Go home safely."

Gintoki says, "Hey."

Toshirou turns around. Gintoki says, "Can I kiss you?" 

The restaurant's light spills behind Toshirou, his features shadowed — and Gintoki is suddenly looking at the other side of the moon. Toshirou says, "Not gonna call me baby this time?"

"Did it work last time?"

Toshirou steps in. He leans down so their heights match. 

Toshirou’s mouth is soft and his hands hold Gintoki's jaw firmly — a sculptor's hands turning Gintoki malleable. Their lips only brush, ocean dragging at the shore, and Gintoki holds Toshirou’s hips, opens his mouth — Toshirou pulls back. 

"Later." Toshirou walks back.

"Baby." 

He hears Toshirou snort. "Loser." 

Gintoki closes his eyes, presses the texture of his knuckles to his smile. Goes home.

 

 

Notes:

I enjoy the concept of Gintoki being a loser-type boyfriend who's desperate for Hijikata's attention and affection. I also really liked how hard Gintoki tried to show off and impress this attractive stranger, and to what end...?

I have a unfinished jujutsu kaisen and gintama fic each... and I'm in an irrevocable writing funk... please cheer me on thank you. Eh? Is it right to rant like this to my readers?... I don't know...

Chapter 2

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

Gintoki finds Toshirou outside DBZ gym, leaning against the glass windows and right next to the colourful new poster announcing Gintoki's title match for the Japanese Middleweight championship. His gaze doesn't emerge from the book in his hand. From where Gintoki's at, he can't tell what book it is. 

Sunset stains Toshirou's silhouette with something religious, like a painting — fresco — Toshirou told him on their last trip to the art museum, and the dirty awning of the gym is the ceiling of a chapel. Toshirou is made of paint, of warm skin — from cautious hands and with quivering affection. Gintoki jogs up to him.

His noisy panting seems to finally get Toshirou's attention. Toshirou looks up. Gintoki breathes harder — somehow.

"Hey." Gintoki says. "Who are you waiting for here all alone?"

Toshirou's mouth is an almost smile. He stays leaned back, but closes his book around his finger. "What's it to you?"

Gintoki glances around. Shrugs, leans his own shoulder sideways into the pillar. "Good looking guy like you —had to give it a try or I'll regret it all my life."

Toshirou searches his gaze but eventually looks away, blinking wildly. Silence, then, "Does that usually work out for you?"

Gintoki smiles. "Ah, well. You know, I don't just walk up to anyone."

"Your attention is valuable."

"Of course."

"Hm."

"So? Who're you waiting for? I go to this gym, I can call them out for you. Can't promise they'll come out in one piece though."

Toshirou's eyes squint. He looks at Gintoki. "Oh you wouldn't know him." He says, "He's super obscure. Loses all his matches." Gintoki crosses his arms.

"That's a talent in itself — enough to make someone famous." Then, "Friend?"

"Partner."

"Partner."

"Yeah." Toshirou says, "I was going to walk him home since he has an important match coming up — and you know how it is with all the dieting and weight management leading up to it. Men become monsters."

"That they do." Gintoki says, "It's terrible." He admits.

"Yeah. And he's running himself dry. Wanted to cheer him up a bit — save the remaining dredges of his humanity. Clearly, I have a hero complex."

"Break up with him." Gintoki insists, leaning closer to Toshirou. "Date me. I'm much better. You're too caring for that bastard."

Toshirou smiles and when their lips kiss, he's still smiling. Insists, "I'm not caring."

Gintoki leans his forehead on Toshirou's shoulder. "Define caring."

Toshirou tells him, "I'm here for selfish reasons."

Their gazes catch. Gintoki says, "I'll take a shower and be right out. Wait for me?" 

Toshirou nods. Gintoki stands straight. Hesitates. Frames Toshirou's face carefully and leans in to kiss his cheek. He says, "We can have dinner."

"No." Toshirou rejects, shaking his head away, bangs messy in his eyes. "I get food and you look at me like I'm eating your first born child."

"No I don't." Gintoki says quickly.

"Fucking masochist." Toshirou pulls Gintoki away by his ear. 

"No I don't! We can totally get dinner! We should go just so I can prove you wrong."

Toshirou pushes him in the direction of the door, "Your mouth just loves to run for no reason."

"This is outrageous! Let's make a bet, huh?! I'm fine. I can live without eating parfaits for the rest of the year!"

"Tell that shit to your diary!" 

"Are you two fighting again?" Jirocho asks when they step inside, lowering his mitts before the rookie within the ring.

Toshirou says, "No."

Gintoki says, "Are your ears failing you now or is it your eyes, old man?!"

A pause. Next to him, Toshirou slowly steps outside the gym. Gintoki feels his heartbeat picking up — exactly how it feels right before the first bell sounds during a terrific fight; the overhead lights burning his skin.

"Right." Gintoki murmurs.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Notes:

I wrote this drabble because I wanted EVERYBODY to see the doodle @caaarot_ drew for me after reading the previous chapter!! Thank you for always supporting me Rhom!!

They have a lot of Gintama fanart, please check them out on twitter or on insta!!!

Oh yes, if anyone wants to chat ginhiji/gintama, i have a tumblr acc: https://tayasui-mono.tumblr.com/?source=share