Work Text:
“You live with a beauty,” Sakamoto says while kissing him. He’s laid Gintoki out like a delicious picnic spread over his futon, hovering over him like a protective but excitable puppy. He hasn’t even taken off his sunglasses, which he wears no matter what the weather because UV rays don’t disappear just because the sun is behind some clouds and my eyes are my moneymaker! Gintoki reaches up and lifts them off the bridge of Sakamoto’s nose and Sakamoto leans down for another kiss.
“I live alone,” Gintoki says, pushing Sakamoto’s face away with his palm. One has to be equally as enthusiastic to wrestle tongues with Sakamoto Tatsuma; it’s why Gintoki’s called him over, but when Sakamoto says cryptic things, he’s got to get to the bottom of it because it could mean Sakamoto’s about to send him some handymen to extend his balcony after a stray comment about wanting to put more of his junk outside or gifting Katsura with a fat duckling named Elizabeth out of the blue. “Look around. There’s only enough space for one body in this apartment.”
“I mean,” Sakamoto says, “you live in the same building as a beauty. When I got out of the elevator on your floor, I saw one of your neighbors. You know I’m not very picky about my partners as long as they can keep up, but he was one of those boys of good breeding.”
“I’m getting bored,” Gintoki says.
Sakamoto steals a kiss, but he does it slow and sweetly this time, without the energy of a horny teenage boy. Gintoki thinks it’s the end of the conversation, he dips his hand underneath Sakamoto’s shirt and feels the muscles of his back contract as he adjusts his position. Sakamoto’s back is broad and warm. “I mean, he was really eye-catching. He’s got a short stature, but the way his proportions fit together, and the stuff he wore, he was like an underwear model. I swear, Gintoki! He was real fine.”
Gintoki pushes Sakamoto’s face away from where it has been tasting Gintoki’s collarbone with distracted kisses, the words he’s saying peppering his skin more than any gesture of affection. “I really fail to see why I should give a damn about whoever you’re talking about right now. If you’re so obsessed with this guy, why don’t you to to his room instead of mine? Are you done talking now?”
“Yes,” Sakamoto promises, and then he fucks Gintoki one inch from his life (which is how he likes it).
“Ugh!” Kagura shrieks when Gintoki opens the door after her incessant knocking. She comes by every couple days after school since she’s a latch key kid and her mother is dead and her father is out often. Gintoki finds her hanging around the park looking up to no good and offers her the shelter of his place away from pedophiles and creeps (he thinks, as she’s chattering his ear off after she beats him in arm wrestling to test his strength and mettle if he’s worth her time, if he’s inadvertently done a creepy thing). She’s still wearing her uniform and she brings her hand up to her nose. Gintoki’s shirtless with sweatpants on and he’s opened the window but he supposes the smell of sweat and cum is still heavy in the air. Sakamoto is puttering around behind him, laughing all the while. “You should have told me you had the Perm over. I would have gone to Souyo’s house.”
“Sorry. Forgot. You can still come in if you want.”
“Yuck, no way. It smells. I don’t mind if you feel the need to spread your seed but I like to pretend it doesn’t actually happen. I’m a young girl in her prime; I could get pregnant if I hang around your dirty place.”
“It looks like I still have much to teach you about the world. Let me get my charts. You see, when a mommy and a daddy love each other very much...”
He breaks off when there’s the sound of a door in the hallway. Kagura herself clams up; they’re jokesters and they make a fuss, but they don’t do it at the expense of the discomfort of others. Gintoki knows what can happen if strangers get the wrong idea; the grandmothers who live in the building like Kagura and he’s young and unthreatening enough for them to cook him dinners sometimes, but he knows not to toe the line. A man comes out of the door, wearing a black turtleneck that looks tailored to his measurements and he gives Gintoki the worst look.
“Please keep it down. You’re making a racket,” he says, his eyes piercing. Even at a distance, Gintoki knows they’re the type that gleam when he’s being praised or insulted and the way the man speaks, soft but controlled like he’s capable of slinging the worst kind of insults. He’s shorter than Gintoki, but he isn’t scrawny or awkward; he stands with his spine straight like he’s got something to prove.
“Sorry,” Kagura says, caught off guard at actually being scolded, but when the man closes his door, she lowers her voice and grumbles, “What’s his problem? It’s the middle of the day; we can make whatever noise we want.”
“You’re right!” Gintoki yells, making her jump and glance at the man’s door again, and he laughs. His laughter draws Sakamoto to the door to peek. “You’re right,” he says again, although in his normal voice, and directed toward Sakamoto. “I do live with a beauty.”
[=]
He happens upon the beauty when he’s coming home from one of his freelancing gigs, tired as all hell so when he pushes his key through the lock and notices the man standing outside his apartment shuffling through mail in his hand, Gintoki opens his mouth and says, “The beauty.”
The man looks over at him. “Sorry?” he says, although there’s no accommodating tone to speak of.
“I mean,” Gintoki says, “a friend of mine said he saw someone who was really good-looking in the hallway and I think it was you.” He wracks his tired brain for the name on the tag outside the door; on one of his more slow days that he spends at home, Gintoki had gone around the entire floor learning name plates and making up stories for the people who lived behind those doors.
“That was a pathetic pick-up line,” the man says, and he opens his apartment’s door and disappears behind it.
“Who said I wanted to pick you up?” Gintoki calls, but the door stays closed. He shuffles over quietly to read the name: Takasugi.
It isn’t that he goes out of his way to seek him out, but Gintoki sees Takasugi next time in the apartment lobby. “Takasugi,” he says, testing the name. It sounds mocking on his lips. If Takasugi is surprised that Gintoki knows his name, he doesn’t show it. “I really wasn’t trying to hit on you, you know,” he adds.
“Sure,” Takasugi says. He wears a peacoat and leather gloves unironically, like he doesn’t live in a building with thin walls and faucets that sometimes only runs cold water. “I bet you’re also one of those people who says they’ve never thought a dirty thought ever in their lives.”
“I wouldn’t go that far,” Gintoki says, and he offers a smile; it’s not one of the ones he’d give Kagura or Shinpachi, and definitely not one that mirrors Sakamoto’s toothy grin. It’s polite, but unrestrained. It catches Takasugi off guard, because his face colors a little and the corners of his mouth twitch.
Then, the elevators open and a woman comes out, walking quickly toward Gintoki. She’s got a strange birthmark on her face, intersecting blood-colored streaks. Her name is Tsukuyo and anyone who knows her knows she’s one of the boys, and she says she doesn’t have the charms of a woman of beauty ever since god marked her in the womb. But when she walks past, people turn to look at her but she never notices because she doesn’t look back. “Your place is a dump,” she says, grumbling. “It took me forever to find my wallet. Clean up or I won’t come around again.”
“Maybe you should be more organized,” Gintoki suggests. She jabs him with her fingers, manicured and pointed and pastel coral. Takasugi stares at them like he’s never seen them before. “Good thing you found your wallet, though, because I’m a few days behind my next paycheck.”
“No, buddy, you’re paying for dinner. You’re not getting out of this one.” Tsukuyo finally spares a glance at Takasugi, who she is a full half-head taller than. “Your friend?”
“He wouldn’t have such high class friends,” Takasugi says, turning on his heel and heading to the elevators.
“You live in this building,” Tsukuyo calls after him. It isn’t until she and Gintoki are a few blocks away that she stops suddenly. “Wait, was he also implying I’m low class?”
[=]
Gintoki doesn’t see the sharp tongued beauty Takasugi on accident or on purpose until he gets a text from Sakamoto, who has bad luck with women he propositions and can only go a few weeks at a time without sex. When he arrives on his floor, he finds Sakamoto outside in the hallway chatting with a neighbor, who is of course - Takasugi.
“...and so I said to the guy, I would totally be down to travel halfway across Japan to this guy’s estate, if he’ll warm up to me and sign the damn contract, but then, remember, I have terrible motion sickness so I spent most of the time on the train in the bathroom throwing up my guts and when we finally get to the estate, I’m pale and weak and spend the weekend recovering in one of his guest rooms so I don’t even get a chance to chat with him or enjoy all the property he owns. He took pity on me, though, because he signed the contract in the end...”
“Bushhead,” Gintoki calls. It makes both Sakamoto and Takasugi turn. “What are you doing? Good boys don’t wander.”
“Hah! Kintoki!” Sakamoto loves getting his name wrong in front of strangers. “I just ran into Takasugi here when I was waiting outside your door and you know I have to chat, I love small talk.”
“He’s the one who called you a beauty,” Gintoki says, pointing at Sakamoto.
“I told him that!” Sakamoto laughs.
“You keep strange company,” Takasugi says.
“Better than no company at all,” Gintoki retorts, satisfied with his sick burn. Sakamoto laughs because he finds it funny but also because the sound would dissuade any serious argument between the two. He continues laughing as he waves to Takasugi and follows Gintoki toward his apartment.
“Tatsuma,” Takasugi says.
The name makes Sakamoto and Gintoki turn in unison. “How did you know my name?” Sakamoto asks.
“I hear that idiot call it sometimes when you’re together,” Takasugi says. “Try and keep it down for once.”
“Oh, shit,” Sakamoto says, laughing now because he felt awkward. “You’re going to have to bite the pillow next time, Kintoki!” Despite that, they have really quiet sex and Sakamoto has Gintoki check that the hallway is clear before he makes a beeline to the stairs after they’re finished. It’s only then that Gintoki starts seeing Takasugi everywhere, and he is the recipient of some very smarmy, knowing looks.
“If you have so much time to think about my sex life,” Gintoki says, as he’s taking his clothes - still wet, a waste of money - out of the dryer, “then maybe you should try it out instead of leering at me every time you see me.” Takasugi’s hands get quicker at loading the washer with his clothes, and it’s because he’s thinking about having sex with Gintoki on top of the line of washing machines. Gintoki knows because he’s thinking the exact same thing.
Except Takasugi was not thinking about that, because when Gintoki empties the dryer and puts his bin of clothes on the table and turns around and kisses Takasugi, Takasugi doesn’t immediately leap on top of the nearby washing machine and doesn’t say, take me now hot stuff. He says, “We’re in public.”
“It’s okay if we’re in private?”
It’s a dare, and it’s a dare that gets Gintoki into Takasugi’s apartment. It’s furnished neatly with the taste of a self-conscious bachelor, smatterings of cheap art on the walls and a raggedy couch. He’d take Takasugi right on that couch, which is what he almost starts going for, but Takasugi pulls him into the bedroom instead.
Takasugi’s sheets are much softer than Gintoki’s and they feel like they cost a lot; the shirt he pulls over Takasugi’s head has a brand name on the collar. Takasugi’s skin is soft and he’s got some fat on his waist, like a boy who has the leisure to work out but hasn’t worked a day in his life. He’s got the ass of a man Gintoki wants to sleep with, and he cups it appreciatively with his hands to prop Takasugi up for a kiss. “You don’t even know me,” Gintoki breaths into his mouth.
“You don’t even know me,” Takasugi shoots back, and he flinches when Gintoki kisses a spot right underneath his left eye.
“What’s wrong?”
“I’ve,” Takasugi says, “got a big blind spot in my left eye. Childhood accident.”
“Good to know,” Gintoki murmurs, kissing down his neck.
When they’re done, he doesn't know what to do, so Gintoki sits up. Takasugi is lying next to him, tapping his fingers against his chest in the antsy way of someone who needs a cigarette. “Wanna get dinner or something?”
“Do you do that with everyone you sleep with?”
“Not everyone,” Gintoki says. He’s never had dinner with Sakamoto. Drinks, yes, post-drinks food, yes, but never officially dinner. Sakamoto would probably say yes if asked, though.
“I’m tired,” Takasugi says. “And I still need to dry my clothes.”
“We can get takeout.”
They eat takeout on the raggedy couch after Takasugi comes up with a basketful of dry clothes (he’s gotten the good dryer). Gintoki thinks about whether they’ll make out on that couch and get ginger sauce in Takasugi’s hair and chicken all down Gintoki’s front, but then he remembers he’s just hungry.
“So can we do this again?” Gintoki asks around eleven-fifty, which is when he finally leaves Takasugi’s apartment. They do make out after eating dinner, but not to the extent that food leaves their designated receptacles. Takasugi gives him one long look before closing the door.