Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“Don’t look at me like that.”

“…”

“Stop it.”

Silent tension lingered in the space of the Yorozuya living room, save for the incessant tapping of Hijikata’s boot against the wooden floorboards. Five minutes ago, he had barged in holding a cheap strawberry cake and tried to bribe Gintoki with it. Tried to bribe him to work with the Shinsengumi on a job, that is.

The Yorozuya’s time and efforts could not be so easily bought out, as Gintoki had stressed, but his resolve was wavering with every passing minute. The unrelenting glare of the demon vice-chief and the unrelenting tapping on the floorboards was difficult to ignore, partly because it was so damn annoying, and especially because they were engaged in some sort of staring contest. The strawberry cake was looking more enticing by the minute, too, though Gintoki kept that thought to himself.

“If I agree to help you, you’ll have to bribe me with more than a cake,” Gintoki scoffed, finally, throwing his hands behind his head and crossing his legs on top of his desk.

“How about ten thousand yen?”

Gintoki narrowed his eyes suspiciously. Ten thousand yen would be enough to buy a decent amount of food for Kagura that wasn’t just sukonbu on rice.

It was a pretty tempting offer, but he wasn’t about to agree before finding out exactly what the Shinsengumi needed his help with.

“I’m listening.”

“Prince Ba- Prince Hata lost another one of his pets. This time it’s some weird sea-creature thing.”

“Hell no, I’ve been roped into cleaning up after him and his weird exotic animal obsession one too many times. Really, why the hell is the Shinsengumi concerned about this shit, anyway? I thought you guys were supposed to catch criminals and stop terrorist attacks and stuff? Who’s fault is it going to be when society crumbles because the honourable Shinsengumi was too busy tracking down Prince Baka’s glorified goldfish to do their job?”

“Shut up, Yorozuya! The problem is that this… thing is dangerous. Like, really dangerous, and if we don’t get our hands on it then the damn Joui might. It's like an isonade.”

“Oi, and who the hell let Prince Baka keep something that’s comparable to an isonade as a pet?!”

“Beats me. At least we get paid for the damage control, though.”

“Right, and why do you need the Yorozuya’s help on this?”

Hijikata clicked his tongue in annoyance and averted his gaze. “Kondo-san suggested it. There’s a huge case in the works and most of the Shinsengumi are busy with it, even Sougo, that slacker. We don’t have the manpower available right now that we’d need to guarantee the capture of this thing. This job needs to get over and done with soon, and fast, before any Joui take notice of it. These things are intelligent and there are records of them being tamed and used like weapons, you know.”

“Excuses. You’re avoiding answering the question honestly by trying to distract me with the concept of weaponized fish. Why exactly do you want the Yorozuya to help you with this?”

“Well… you guys know Prince Ba- Prince Haka pretty well, right? And, you know, that China girl is powerful enough to knock the monster out with a single punch, I’m sure.”

Gintoki narrowed his gaze. “What you really mean is you know we’ll get it done because we’re desperate for money, we’ll be willing to finish the job no matter how messy it gets, and if something goes wrong, the Shinsengumi can shift the blame onto someone else.”

“…”

“…”

“Fifteen thousand yen?”

“Deal.”

——

The next day, Hijikata found himself on a boat borrowed from the Bakufu, joined by Kondo, the 5th squad of the Shinsengumi, the Yorozuya trio and of course the Prince himself. The boat itself resembled some sort of yacht, though if it ever housed any luxurious yacht-like amenities, it didn’t anymore.

From what Hijikata had gathered, it actually used to be a yacht owned by Matsudaira, used to entertain women and throw parties. He got tired of it eventually and bought a bigger yacht, transferring ownership of the vessel to the Bakufu, who made use of it occasionally for miscellaneous purposes such as this one.

“Hime-chaaaan! Hime-chaaaaan! Where are you?!” The Prince screeched out into the desolate expanse of the ocean. It was a sunny day, thankfully, and nothing but shallow waves breaking over the water could be seen around them from this side of the horizon.

“Hime-chan? Oi, did this guy really name his pet sea monster ‘Hime’?” Gintoki leaned over to whisper in Hijikata’s ear.

“Just don’t think about it. Also, shut up and focus on the water.” The officer muttered while taking another drag from his cigarette, the smoke quickly dissipating in the powerful sea breeze.

Behind them, the two men heard a loud thud on the deck of the boat. They whirled around and were met with the sight of Kagura holding down a writhing fish that was almost as long as she was tall.

“Kagura-chan, what are you doing?!” Shinpachi squawked from the other end of the boat, where he had also been surveying the water.

“Grocery shopping,” Kagura deadpanned, slowly releasing her hold on the fish as its erratic flopping began to subside.

Gintoki strode over to her and patted her head affectionately. “Gin-san has taught you well. I am proud to have raised you to be so resourceful.” Kagura grinned and replied with something along the lines of ‘should we make nigiri out of this or simmer it?’

“Oi, oi, focus!” Hijikata growled, otherwise unfazed by the Herculean girl and her interesting choice of a meal. After knowing the Yorozuya for years, he was pretty used to this. The same could not be said for the speechless group of Shinsengumi officers on the other end of the boat who witnessed the ordeal, though.

“How exactly are we planning to lure this thing in, anyway?” Gintoki inquired, making his way back over to Hijikata to join him leaning on the handrail. “I mean, last time I checked, the ocean is kind of big.”

The officer turned to regard him with a glint in his eye that clearly bode nothing good, and Gintoki immediately got the sinking feeling that he wasn’t going to like the answer.

“From what records show, it’s a man-eating creature. There isn’t a whole lot of documented encounters with the species, but evidence suggests that it’s favourite food is… well, humans.”

Gintoki glared at him, intentionally mustering the most unimpressed expression he could. He knew where Hijikata was headed with this. “You dickhead. The only reason you wanted us here is so you could use an innocent civilian as bait.”

Hijikata shot him a wry smile. “Twenty thousand yen?”

“Twenty-five.”

“Twenty-two, final offer.”

A pause, silent save for the Prince’s ceaseless calls of ‘Hime-chan! Hime-chan!’ and then Gintoki groaned and buried his face in his hands. He was already here, out in the middle of the goddamn ocean with the goddamn Shinsengumi, and he would be lying if he said he couldn’t use that money.

“Fine, but the next time we go drinking, no, every time for the next two months, you’re paying.”

“I do that anyways, don't I?”

“Shut up.”

——

Approximately fifteen minutes later, Gintoki was being fitted into scuba gear and dropped through a hatch in the bottom of the boat. Two Shinsengumi officers he didn’t recognize had fitted him with a rope, and provided him with instructions for when he noticed the presence of Hime-chan.

“If you pull once, then we’ll pull you back up, for whatever reason. If you pull twice, that means you’ve seen her, and we’ll pull you up as fast as we can,” the taller one explained. Gintoki huffed and glared at Hijikata who was crouched over next to them, though the effect of the glare was lessened by the ridiculous-looking goggles he had been given.

“You got this Gin-chan!” Kagura beamed, giving him an enthusiastic thumbs-up. Damn, if it wouldn’t have been considered borderline child-endangerment, Gintoki would have switched their positions without a second thought. Doubtlessly, her Yato strength could easily have this monster captured in five seconds flat.

He considered doing it anyway, and God knows it would have been the right choice. But, putting a kid in a dangerous situation, even if that kid probably had more physical strength than every adult there combined, probably wasn’t a good suggestion to make in front of a bunch of police officers.

Shinpachi regarded him nervously, crouched down in a similar position to Hijikata. “Be careful, Gin-san.” Thank God, Gintoki thought, at least someone here understands that this situation is actually pretty dangerous!

The last thing Gintoki heard before the officers began to unravel the rope and he was lowered into the water, was Kondo’s cheery exclamation of “Good luck, Yorozuya!”

Gintoki directed his gaze upwards, towards the hatch, as he sank lower and lower until the boat was nothing but a tiny silhouette in his vision.

Surrounding him, there was nothing but limitless blue, no beginning or end to it except for the distant surface above him. He felt weightless, kind of like an astronaut in space. All he could perceive was his own steady breathing.

It was an unusual feeling, to say the least. He might have felt fascinated, oddly peaceful maybe, had the circumstances been different. Unfortunately, relaxed and unsuspecting bait typically gets eaten, so this was not the time nor the place for feeling like that.

He whipped his head around in all directions, surveying for any signs of life. It was quite discombobulating, because the more he looked around, the more difficult it became to tell left from right. It felt like he was in a void, and he found himself peering up at the boat above him with increasing frequency, just to remind himself that he was not, in fact, in some sort of black hole.

Gintoki didn’t know how long he had been waiting before he felt a strong current sweep through the water and shift his position. He heard his breath quicken, and his heartbeat pick up. Without thinking, his hand moved on its own to tightly grip the rope to which he was attached, ready to tug it twice and alert everyone on the boat at a moment’s notice.

That current must have been generated by something alive, right? The water had been almost perfectly still until then, and after a few seconds, it had stilled once more.

By this point, Gintoki’s heartbeat sounded louder in his ears than anything else, which was saying a lot, because he was nearly hyperventilating. Why did he agree to this!? What was wrong with sukonbu on rice?!

A long moment passed as Gintoki waited, motionless, in agonising anticipation for the next sign that he was not alone. He was expecting to catch a brief glimpse of a tail or fin, from a safe distance, but unfortunately the Gods had other plans.

He should have expected it, really, because a species that was known for hunting humans must be pretty damn good at it.

He should have expected it when all of a sudden, a massive pair of jaws approached from beneath him with horrifying speed, and opened wide.

——

“He’s been down there awhile, don’t you think?” Shinpachi piped up, concern tainting his voice only slightly.

Hijikata hummed in acknowledgement and shrugged. Kagura picked her nose and flicked it into the water.

“Vice-chief?” One of the Shinsengumi officers voiced meekly.

“What?”

“There… there’s no resistance on the rope.” Eyes wide, face paled, the officer demonstrated his point by easily tugging several feet of rope out of the water with one hand.

Hijikata froze. “Oh.”

Everyone went silent, unbelievably silent, even the Prince had shut up. The only ones who dared to speak were a couple seagulls flying overhead, blissfully unaware and uninvolved with the situation.

Then, chaos.

“GIN-CHAN! GIN-CHAN!” Kagura shrieked, leaning so far off the handrail that Shinpachi had to hold her back to keep her from falling in, or jumping in. Footsteps thundered across the deck of the boat as everyone scrambled to try and manage the situation.

Hijikata caught glimpses of Shinpachi desperately trying to convince Kagura not to put on a diving suit of her own, of the two officers who were monitoring the rope shouting at each other over whose fault this was, of Kondo literally sticking his entire head into the water from the opened hatch to see if he could spot anything.

Unlike literally everyone else, Hijikata didn’t feel panicked at all. He couldn’t explain it, but some strange intuition told him that Gintoki was fine. Not only was he fine, but he would be back just about any second now…

Abruptly, a deafening crash was heard in the water on the left side of the boat, and the vessel rocked violently on the waves it generated. There was Gintoki, gripping tightly onto Hime-chan’s dorsal fin for dear life, being violently thrashed around in the water. He managed to rip off his mask and snorkel at some point, and then he was screaming something along the lines of ‘I am never helping you again you tax robbing-‘ before he was pulled back underwater.

Hijikata couldn’t spot any blood in the water, and from what he could observe from a distance, Gintoki was completely unscathed. The fact that he wasn’t dead, let alone the fact that he was basically riding on the back of this monster, was insane. Well, insane to anyone who wasn’t familiar with the guy.

Hime-chan turned out to be even more of a monster than Hijikata had envisioned the worst-case scenario to be. She must have been at least forty feet long, easily dwarfing Gintoki, who looked kind of like a tiny remora fish latched onto her. She was quite obviously unhappy, lashing her massive tail against the surface and sending onslaught after onslaught of waves towards the boat. Her teeth were bared, rows and rows of sharp white teeth, maybe hundreds, glinting in the sun with every hostile movement.

Hijikata would have compared her to a shark on steroids and left it at that if it wasn’t for her skin. He had never touched a shark, but he imagined that their bodies might be kind of soft, considering their skeletons were made of cartilage and all. Hime-chan, on the other hand, was more comparable to a tank. Her body was covered almost entirely in large, thick scales, sort of like a military-grade armadillo. Hijikata winced as he imagined his katana snapping like a twig if it ever made contact with those scales.

“Oh, oh, I recognize that fish!” He heard Kagura exclaim, hurriedly tapping him on the shoulder to get his attention. “Pappy hunted one of those and brought it home for dinner once!”

“…”

“It tasted like tofu and we had it with rice,” she added as though that would help his confusion.

“Why would it taste like tofu?!”

Gintoki’s cries sliced through the air once again, forcing the two to continue their conversation at a later time.

“HELP ME! HELP ME YOU USELESS, TAX-ROBBING- blub blub blublubblub”

“Get it together, perm-head! Weren’t you an esteemed warrior or something?!” Hijikata frustratedly shouted back, but his actions betrayed his words as he unsheathed his katana. Thankfully, there were a few areas of the creature’s body that weren’t covered by scales. As long as he didn’t snap his katana in two before he managed to stab one of those vulnerable places, he had a chance.

“What are you going to do to Hime-chan?!” He heard the Prince sob from somewhere behind him. Hijikata clicked his tongue and ignored his pleas. He never had even the slightest intention of capturing this thing alive. Just one more reason why he had decided to involve the Yorozuya in this: Gintoki would be attacked, and therefore the decision to kill Hime-chan would be justified. The brains of the Shinsengumi, that Hijkata was.

As much as he couldn’t stand the Prince, Hijikata wasn’t sadistic like Sougo, so his goal wasn’t simply to end the life of the Prince’s pet and revel in his devastation. However, he meant it when he told Gintoki that this monster needed to be under control before the Joui got to it. In the interest of public safety, and whatnot.

He would not admit to anyone that he kind of just liked the challenge of trying to kill the thing.

As rapidly as his feet would carry him, he climbed up towards the highest point of the boat, the roof that enclosed the helm. Steadying himself and gripping the handle of his katana tight, he took a deep breath and planted one foot behind him in a manner that bore some semblance to a sprinter’s crouch start.

Even from a distance, he could perceive Gintoki’s eyes going wide in disbelief. The silver-haired man started to yell something like ‘you’re not seriously going to jump?!’ but Hijikata could barely hear it, not as he was flying through the air.

Truthfully, he probably could have made a more calculated decision, but during times like this when his sword was drawn, he found himself less inclined to care about things like common sense.

It was by the grace of the Gods that he actually managed to land on target instead of dropping into the water with a pathetic splash. Well, sort of on target.

“What are you doing?!” Gintoki bellowed, peering over his shoulder at the officer clinging to his leg.

Hijikata opened his mouth to reply and tell him he should be grateful, but his words were swallowed up by the water and his entire body was violently wracked as Hime-chan pulled them both underneath the surface.

It felt like there was an earthquake happening and he was a book on a rickety, lopsided bookshelf.

It took everything he had to maintain his hold on Gintoki’s leg as he was thrashed left, right, up, down. He could barely even tell when he was under water and when he was above water. Everything began to blur into an utterly disorienting mix of suffocating blue, white wave caps and gunmetal-coloured scales that may as well have been made of actual gun metal.

Focus, he needed to focus.

He waited for Hime-chan to descend towards the water again after jumping out from it. He took advantage of the momentary shift in gravity, and mustering all the strength he could, he let himself fall forward on top of Gintoki, latching his left arm and both legs securely around his torso.

“Are you a monkey?!”

“Hold on!”

“What?!”

Instead of explaining himself, he ignored the other man’s confusion in favour of leaning over and plunging his katana deep into Hime-chan’s right eye.

The monster let out the most bone-chilling, feral sound Hijikata had ever heard a creature make. Something like metal scraping across ceramic, mixed with a noise a dinosaur would make. Of course, that was just the interpretation he came up with to the best of his ability, because he had never actually met a dinosaur. Regardless, the sound only served to remind him that this was not a shark on steroids, but a goddamn alien. A monster.

Hijikata was a seasoned fighter. He had trained in martial arts for the majority of his life. He knew how to injure an opponent, and he knew how to make one stop breathing.

Those two things were not the same, and apparently, he had momentarily forgotten that fact.

Hime-chan’s eye was injured, sure, but that wasn’t going to kill her. Takasugi Shinsuke had lost an eye in battle, and he was certainly still alive and kicking, running the Kiheitai for that matter. Yagyuu Kyuubei had lost an eye too, as a child even, and she was also fine.

Essentially, Hijikata had no idea why the hell he thought he would be able to win this battle with a man-eating creature by way of non-lethal injury. Furthermore, he should have anticipated the man-eating creature becoming very, very pissed off.

Hime-chan’s thrashing became even more erratic and violent, if that was even possible, and Hijikata held onto Gintoki for dear life. Between splashes, he glimpsed the man’s grip begin to slip from where it gripped the creature’s fin.

He tried to yell, “Don’t let go!” but his words and his breath were yanked out of his lungs, left many metres below him, as they were both flung high up into the air.

Chapter Text

Gintoki awoke with a horrible headache, akin to how he felt after a night of drinking. His body was pleasantly warm, however. He was laying down in something that had been baked in the sun, he could tell. Was it sand? He could hear the steady push and pull of waves, and the low ringing sound of heat beaming down on his skin.

Blearily, he forced his eyes open as the memories of what had transpired earlier slowly came back to him.

He was laying on his back, sprawled out on a beach, and he wasn’t drenched in water anymore. His scuba gear and his hair were completely dry, so he must have been laying there for a while. Feeling weak, he rolled over to his side, and was met with the sight of Hijikata in a similar sprawled-out position.

He was deep asleep, but he must have been awake before. Gintoki could tell because he had taken part of his uniform off and even folded it neatly beside him, which seemed like a really ridiculous thing to do given the circumstances. He was wearing only his white button-up shirt and his pants, which were rolled up to just below his knees.

Something about the fact that Hijikata had taken the time to undress so properly, as though he was in his own goddamn room, was the final straw for Gintoki. Furious, he lunged at him and started to shake him awake by the collar of his shirt.

“Hijikata wake up! Hijikata wake up right the fuck now so I can beat the hell out of you!”

Before even opening his eyes fully, the officer reached out his arm and punched Gintoki hard in the jaw with impressive precision. Perhaps they had fought enough times that the officer knew exactly where to aim if he wanted to punch Gintoki in the face, even if he was only half awake.

“Can you fucking get off of me, perm-head?” He groaned, the irritation in his voice ever-present.

“I’m never helping you with a job ever again you stupid tax thief! Twenty two thousand yen isn’t nearly enough to cover the compensation I deserve for emotional distress!” Gintoki screeched, successfully landing a punch straight into the other man’s nose. That act of violence was more than enough to snap Hijikata completely out of his daze.

“What the fuck are you going on about?!” the officer spat, returning the punch, “This was completely your fault! You were supposed to alert us when you first saw her, and you didn’t! Instead, we only knew you found her when we saw you holding onto her back like she was a goddamn mechanical bull!”

“I did alert you when I-“ Gintoki started, but his voice faltered as he remembered that no, he did not, in fact, alert the others immediately upon taking note of Hime-chan’s presence.

He had felt the shift in the water, but he had gotten too scared to move a muscle.

“Exactly!” Hijikata retorted, noticing his sudden silence. “You stupid asshole! You should be grateful that I risked my life to help you, anyway!”

“You did jackshit! If it wasn’t for you, Hime-chan wouldn’t have gotten so pissed, and then flung us hundreds of feet into the air!” Gintoki paused in the middle of gearing up for another punch. “Wait, that’s the last thing I remember. Uhm, how did we end up here?”

Hijikata huffed, roughly shoving Gintoki off of him and brushing the sand out of his hair that had accumulated during their half-hearted fistfight. “Well, you literally passed out midair like the weakling you are. We landed somewhere so far away from the boat that I couldn’t see it anymore, but I managed to find a piece of driftwood to hold onto. So we got on, well, I had to lift you onto it because you were still fucking passed out, and then I paddled towards this island that I saw in the distance. Oh, also, you almost fucking drowned like three times, and I saved you. So, you’re welcome, you useless dickhead.”

Gintoki blinked at him, dumbfounded. It was impressive, really, that was pretty impressive. Still, even if Hijikata did technically save his life, he wasn’t about to thank the man who got him into this mess in the first place. Well, he wouldn’t give genuine thanks to Hijikata under any circumstances.

“Good! That’s the least you could do after roping me into this shit!” Gintoki sputtered, throwing his hands up in the air. Hijikata shot a glare at him.

“You knew this was risky, but you barely gave it a second thought when you realised you’d be able to afford something to eat other than sukonbu on rice.” Goddamnit, Gintoki hadn’t even told him that. He could see right through him, the rotten vice-chief.

“The only thing that roped you into this was your own poverty, which is a result of your pathetic pachinko addiction, bastard,” Hijikata added.

Well, Gintoki didn’t have an answer for that, so he just clicked his tongue and averted his gaze to take in his surroundings.

There were barely any signs of life on the island. The only indication that there had ever been people there were a few wooden planks, warped by the water, scattered along the beach. It was clear that nobody had been here for many years, though, as the vegetation surrounding them flourished, untouched.

Tall palm trees lined the area where sand met a large hill. From what Gintoki could see, the island itself was pretty tiny, and almost perfectly rounded in shape. He wouldn’t mind taking a nice relaxing vacation here any other day. But this was not that.

“They’re going to come rescue us soon… right?”

——

Night was beginning to fall over at the Shinsengumi headquarters, where those who had been on the yacht hours earlier now sat around a tatami. They had returned from their expedition several hours ago, after capturing Hime-chan.

Turns out, Matsudaira had actually fitted the boat out with cannons (which really didn’t make sense for a party yacht, but then again, that sort of thing wasn’t surprising for Matsudaira) which got the job done pretty well.

Much to the dismay of Kagura, who was hungry, Hime-chan’s body had immediately sunk down once she was killed, courtesy of the armoured scales.

The Prince proved to be a handful but the paperwork wasn’t, because even the Bakufu officials didn’t want a monster like that alive either in the ocean or in an aquarium. Even maintaining amicable political relations had its limits.

Everyone on the boat had watched as Gintoki and Hijikata were flung into the air. Kondo, who knew the waters well thanks to maps provided by Yamazaki, was pretty confident that they had landed within the vicinity of one particular island.

The island was deserted, but not forgotten about. The only reason it wasn’t inhabited was because years ago, the Joui had taken control of it and used it as a hideout for awhile, until it was eventually infiltrated by the Shinsengumi.

Following that success, the Shinsengumi had installed a basic video security system to ensure that the Joui wouldn’t try and take over the island again. Of course, nobody wanted to live on an island that was rumoured to be monitored by the government.

Despite the fact that the whole ordeal happened ages ago, the security system had never been dismantled. All it took for Kondo to log into it was a quick look at old documents and some help from Yamazaki.

Now, Kondo, Kagura, Shinpachi, and Sougo (who had conveniently returned to headquarters immediately upon hearing the news that his superior was stranded) were seated around a computer screen watching real-time footage of Hijikata and Gintoki trying to start a fire.

They could have easily gone to retreive them, sure. What’s the fun in that, though? Everyone agreed that their relationship might stand a chance for improvement if they were forced into a survival situation together. Everyone was also pretty sick of their constant fighting and yelling, as well as the property damage that inevitably ensued from it.

Sougo in particular was quite fond of the idea, as expected from the sadistic brat. The only person who wasn’t completely onboard was Kagura. However, she changed her mind quickly when she remembered that nobody would be there to tell her what time at night she had to stop watching TV.

“Oh, oh, look, he’s getting mad.” Sougo pointed, amused at Hijikata’s tiny, blurry figure on the screen.

“I’m sick of you Yorozuya! What right do you have to call yourself ‘odd jobs’ if you can’t even start a fire?!” came the officer’s staticky voice through the video footage. He was pointing an accusing finger at Gintoki from the opposite end of their campsite, the entirety of which fit conveniently within the camera's frame.

It was almost like the patch of land had been used as a campsite before. Which it probably had, by the Joui, but Gintoki and Hijikata were clearly too busy arguing to take notice of that fact.

“I’m doing my best, you stupid government dog!” tiny Gintoki retorted, shouting at Hijikata from his crouched position over a pile of logs. “If you haven’t noticed, I don’t have much to work with!”

“Hey, I bet your hair is pretty flammable. C’mon, give me your head.”

“No! Leave my beautiful wavy hair alone!” Gintoki shouted before Hijikata pounced on him and then they were fighting again.

“These two are so useless.” Sougo drawled between bites of popcorn, “They’ve been at this for what, twenty minutes? Thirty minutes?”

“Useless adults.” Kagura agreed, reaching over to discreetly snag a piece of Sougo’s popcorn when he diverted his focus back to the video.

By this point, Yamazaki as well as a few other officers had sat down beside Kondo and joined the audience, like this was a goddamn movie night. Yes, they respected their vice-chief, of course, but seeing him in this situation was kind of funny.

It was really funny.

“Look! They did it!” Yamazaki exclaimed suddenly, and everyone whipped their heads around to look at the screen. Gintoki had managed to start a small fire, likely motivated by spite after Hijikata’s slew of insults concerning his hair, his fashion sense, his work ethic and his blood sugar. In that order.

“That’s our Gin-chan!” Kagura beamed. Kondo hummed and gave a brief round of applause.

“Is this just a reality show now?” Shinpachi muttered after a few moments, but he knew the answer.

——

The moon had risen now, and countless stars shone down on them. As much as he hated the situation, Hijikata couldn’t help but appreciate the view. Back in the city, light pollution would never allow for a sight like this.

The fire had dwindled, but that was okay, because they had gotten their use out of it. After about an hour of wading through the shallow waters just off of the shore, Gintoki had managed to catch a couple fish, which they had roasted over the flames. If there was one thing he knew how to do, it was scavenge for food and make use of nature’s rawest resources, courtesy of past experience.

As Gintoki finished scarfing down the last of his grilled fish, Hijikata anxiously surveyed the waters around them. No sign of a boat, no sign of their friends coming to get them. As a force of habit, he reached into his pocket for his pack of cigarettes, as he had already done many times since they arrived here. It would have been nice if they had miraculously dried up and been ready for use since the last time he checked, ten minutes ago, but they had not.

Suddenly, an idea dawned on him. Pathetic, maybe. Resourceful, though? Definitely.

“The hell are you doing?” Gintoki barked, watching confusedly as the officer began to individually unwrap the paper from each one of his cigarettes and dump the tobacco from inside them atop a large leaf.

“Making do,” Hijikata muttered, engrossed in his task.

After the contents of the cigarettes had been neatly laid out in a thin layer, he gathered some pieces of scrap wood that they had picked up from various places, and built a makeshift wall around them.

“Why are you building your cancer sticks a house?” Gintoki groaned, but he couldn’t hide the curiosity in his tone.

“To make sure the wind doesn’t blow it away.” Hijikata replied, finishing off his creation with a ‘roof’.

“Once it dries out I’m going to re-roll them,” he explained, locking eyes with Gintoki, a determined expression on his face. “And then, I am going to smoke it.”

Gintoki was speechless. Should he make fun of him for having such a crippling addiction? Should he be really, really impressed? He didn’t know. This guy, seriously.

“What are we going to sleep on?” Hijikata inquired after a while, still hunched over next to his passion project, as though all might be ruined if he turned his back for a second.

Gintoki clicked his tongue, pondering. “Well, there has to be something around here that we can use. Why don’t you go look, Hijikata-kun?”

“Me? Why do I have to do it? You go!”

“Hell no! As an officer, shouldn’t you be willing to accept tasks like this? Put the well-being of others before yourself, and all?”

“If I die because I get bitten by a poisonous snake, Sougo is going to take my position. Do you really want that? Tell me, Yorozuya, would you like for that sadist to become the vice-chief of a police force that serves directly under the shogunate?”

Remembering episode 203, Gintoki decided that he did not.

A few minutes later, they found themselves trudging through the brush. Lacking a flashlight, as well as any source of direction, the only real navigation they had were the stars. Gintoki had been clinging to a piece of Hijikata’s shirt the whole time, and Hijikata had commented on it at first, but then dropped it.

At the end of the day, it would have been a really stupid idea for either of them to go alone. Therefore, it would really suck if either of them got lost. If Gintoki clutching the fabric of Hijikata shirt’s like a scared child would help prevent that situation, so be it.

At the beginning of the walk, they had bickered, exchanging jabs like ‘ow, you stepped on my foot!’ and ‘watch where you’re going, idiot!’ but now, after running out of things to say, they simply traversed onwards in frightened silence.

The further they strayed from their little ‘camp’, the more they got the feeling that something was going to hear them and attack them. A poisonous snake like Hijikata had said, maybe, or perhaps a harmless frog that would scare them shitless, causing them to lose their balance and then plummet down the hillside to their demise.

Thankfully, the island really wasn’t that big, so after about ten minutes they arrived at the shore opposite the one where they had initially found themselves. Both men breathed a sigh of relief, and Gintoki finally let go of his tight grip on Hijikata’s clothing.

They split up, but made an unspoken agreement not to lose sight of one another. Thankfully, the length of the shore was vast, so they were able to venture quite a ways in opposite directions while still remaining within view of each other. Also, the moonlight that shone down was now unfiltered by trees and bushes, therefore illuminating their surroundings clearly.

After a few minutes, Hijikata called out for Gintoki to ‘come over here’ from the other side of the beach. He did, and was met with a small, broken-down shack.

The structure was quite deteriorated, the roof had caved in and the wood was warped, but there was no doubt that it had once been a shelter. Lifting planks and ripping plants out of the way, Gintoki uncovered a set of drawers and rummaged through them. Behind him, Hijikata managed to find two old blankets.

“Ah look, clothes,” Gintoki grinned, holding up a tattered t-shirt and pair of cargo shorts that he had pulled out of a drawer.

“That's disgusting.”

“Whatever,” Gintoki shrugged, starting to undress out of his scuba suit, which had been sticking to his skin uncomfortably for hours.

They returned to their campsite a while later, Hijikata carrying the two blankets as well as an oil lamp and oil, and Gintoki carrying a handful of objects he had picked up which included fishing line, a box of matches, a half-empty bottle of soap, and a hatchet. Thankfully, it was much easier to walk the return path, as their trail had already been broken in.

Obviously, they didn’t have any means to tell the time, but the moment they returned Gintoki felt a wave of exhaustion wash over him. Judging by his biological clock as well as the position of the moon in the sky, it must have been well past midnight. He made to reach for one of the blankets, but stopped in his tracks when he realised that Hijikata had taken them both in hand and was making his way towards the water.

“Hey! Where the hell are you going? I want to sleep!”

Hijikata whipped his head back at him and shot him a condescending look. “I’m going to wash them, idiot! Do you seriously want to sleep on something that’s just been sitting here for years? Disgusting.”

Gintoki opened his mouth to retort that he really didn’t mind, but quickly shut it. Sure, there had been a point in his life where he wouldn’t have cared about that sort of thing. As a kid, he had literally scavenged battlefields and looted the decaying corpses of soldiers for food.

He was an adult now, though, and it would probably make sense to hold himself to a higher standard. He had a house, and kids, and he wouldn’t want to carry any sort of disease back to them.

Begrudgingly, he sat down against a tree trunk with a huff and folded his arms, trying to muster all the patience he could.

Being patient turned out to be somewhat difficult. Hijikata took the better part of half an hour just to wash the blankets, dousing them in soap, scrubbing vigorously, and then thoroughly rinsing them out in the sea water. He then repeated the process three times. Or, three times before Gintoki stopped keeping track.

After he was satisfied, he hung them up to dry above the fire, which he had managed to rekindle with the help of the matches. The whole time, Gintoki watched in silence, trying to keep himself from nodding off. As boring as it was to do nothing but sit for so long, it was a little entertaining to watch Hijikata essentially do the laundry like some sort of hyperactive, highly frustrated maid.

Gintoki suddenly felt a hand on his shoulder, shaking him awake from what must have been a nap. “Oi, they’re dry.”

“Did I fall asleep?” He murmured, rubbing his eyes. The fire had been put out, but he didn’t remember when. Everything was dark now, the gleaming moonlight interrupted by towering plants. He could barely see Hijikata’s silhouette leaning over him.

“Probably. Anyway, come on.”

He followed the sounds of Hijikata’s footsteps towards where their ‘beds’ had been laid out like they were futons. Gintoki wouldn't necessarily have minded sleeping on the soil, but once again he decided to hold himself to a higher standard.

As he laid down, his head made contact with a pile of fabric that smelled strongly of sea water and faintly of cigarette smoke. Distantly, he realised that Hijikata had given him part of his uniform to use as a pillow. Well then, maybe there was some purpose to the outrageous amount of layers that made up the Shinsengumi uniform. He was grateful, but he didn’t say anything.

Gintoki was quickly falling towards a deep sleep. There was one thing preventing him from actually dozing off, though, and that was Hijikata’s ceaseless fidgeting and shuffling right beside him.

“Oi, stop it,” He groaned, “Be quiet.”

A few moments of silence before Hijikata muttered, “It still feels so gross even though I washed it.”

Gintoki clicked his tongue. Stupid government dogs and their fat paychecks and their luxurious standards of living.

Normally, Gintoki would have made a jab along the lines of ‘sorry, my tax money can’t help you out here’ but to his own surprise, he didn’t. He was too exhausted, he just wanted Hijikata to settle down so that he could follow suit.

“You’re imagining it,” he grumbled, but his voice was quiet and lacked any bite to it. “It feels gross because you’re worried that it’s gross. In reality, you cleaned the shit out of it, and it’s probably in much better condition than it was the last time someone used it.”

Silence followed, as though Hijikata was trying to wrap his mind around the fact that instead of making fun of him, Gintoki was offering some sort of reassurance. What a weird day.

There was no spoken response to his words, but Hijikata’s fidgeting had stopped within the minute. Within the next minute, Gintoki was asleep.

Chapter Text

It was mid-morning the next day by the time that Shinpachi had made it to the Yorozuya house and slid open the door. “Kagura-chan?” he called, but was met with silence.

He had gone to check on Kagura, to make sure she had eaten a healthy breakfast and such. He knew she was perfectly capable of taking care of herself, she had been completely alone before Gin-san had taken her in all those years ago, but he still wanted to check up on her. He peered around the house, inside her closet, under the kotatsu, but she was nowhere to be found.

Shinpachi made his way downstairs to see if anyone else knew where she was. When he arrived, Otose peered up from where she stood cleaning the bar top.

“Good morning, Otose-san,” he greeted her with a small bow, “Do you know where Kagura-chan is?”

“Where’s Kagura? Oh, she called last night to say that she was staying at the Shinsengumi barracks. Weird, but whatever. I didn’t question it, I figure she’s safe in a building full of police officers.”

By the time he finally arrived at the barracks, Shinpachi was pretty confident that he knew why she had stayed there.

The officers standing guard at the entrance knew him well, as the younger brother of their commander’s love interest, so they let him pass through without a fuss. Shinpachi’s intuition told him that Kagura was still in the same room they had all gathered in last night, and he was correct.

“Morning ‘Pachi.” Kagura waved at him, only briefly averting her eyes from the computer screen that was still situated in the exact same place it had been the day before. Beside her was Sougo, sitting crossed legged and also watching the screen intently.

They had obviously made themselves comfortable. A futon was rolled up and tucked in the corner of the room, which must have been where Kagura had slept the previous night. A trash bin located in the opposite corner was overflowing with empty sukonbu packets. Both Sougo and Kagura were seated on zabutons that must have been brought over from somewhere else in the headquarters. There were several other zabutons piled against the wall, as though there had been others who had joined them at some point and were expected to return eventually.

“Did you stay here last night?” Shinpachi wondered aloud, but it was quite obvious that she had.

“Yeah. I wasn’t gonna miss this. ‘Pachi, this is some high quality entertainment. Just this morning, we watched Toshi try to catch a fish for breakfast and he failed miserably. It literally jumped out of the water and slapped him in the face.” Beside her, Sougo chuckled at the memory. “So, Gin-san had to step in and catch the fish. That was one point for him!”

“… Point?”

“Yeah!” Kagura grinned, holding up a pad of paper that must’ve been placed out of view when Shinpachi entered the room. The page that it was opened to had been divided into two columns, labelled ‘Gintoki’ and ‘Hijikata’. Five tally marks and six tally marks were scribbled within the columns, respectively.

“They get a point for everything they do that helps them survive. See, Hijikata-san found blankets last night so he got a point.” Sougo explained, ignoring the other boy’s completely dumbfounded expression.

“Gin-chan managed to build a sort of grill out of sticks about an hour ago, so that was a point too,” Kagura added. Abruptly, she gasped and beckoned for Shinpachi to come sit next to her.

“Look! Look! Toshi is going to try and roll his dried tobacco now.”

“...What?”

Shinpachi peered at the blurry figure of the vice-commander on the screen, hunched over what appeared to be a small arrangement of wooden planks that had been configured in the shape of a box.

“His cigarettes got wet in the ocean, so he dried out the tobacco overnight and he’s going to try to roll them into new cigarettes. Using leaves, I think?” Kagura continued, “Oi, Sadist, should he get a point for that?”

Sougo hummed in thought, crossing his arms. “I don’t think so. ‘Cause really, it’s not helping them survive, it’s just satiating his crippling nicotine addiction.” He paused before adding, “Actually, let’s give him a point for creative thinking.”

Kagura nodded affirmatively and clicked the pen in her hand. She leaned over to flip the page on the pad of paper and reveal two more columns, labelled with Gintoki and Hijikata’s names, but also labelled ‘creative thinking’. She scribbled down a tally mark in the section assigned to the officer.

“You guys are both sadists,” Shinpachi interjected in an unimpressed voice, but as he spoke, he was reaching over to grab a zabuton to sit down on.

“Who are we to turn down this opportunity?” Kagura grinned, looking far more innocent than she should be, “The Gorilla is going to have to pick them up at some point, because Toshi has to go back to work. May as well enjoy this while it lasts. But Shinpachi, you should’ve heard Mayora last night when he came up with the idea. He went,” she furrowed her brows and dropped her voice down an octave in an effort to mimic the officer, “I am going to smoke it.” Sougo started cackling.

“Okita-san, don’t you have… a job?” Shinpachi piped up after a few minutes of watching the officer fumble with what was apparently dried tobacco in front of him.

“Who’s gonna tell me to get back to work?” Sougo scoffed, “Hijikata-san?”

——

If someone had told Gintoki about twenty-four hours ago that he would find himself alone on a deserted island with the vice-chief of the Shinsengumi, of all people, working together with him to light a rolled-up leaf packed full of tobacco, over a pile of burning sticks, he would have never believed them. A lot of crazy shit happened to him, a bit too much for his liking (even considering he was the main character), but a situation like this seemed out of the question, even for Sorachi-sensei.

But nope, here he was.

“Tilt it down,” Hijikata growled, voice muffled by the makeshift-cigarette between his lips. He was leaning in towards the fire, one hand holding the thing and one hand forming a cup-shape to shield it from the wind. Gintoki was supporting the creation hanging out of his mouth to make sure it didn’t unravel, holding it carefully over the flame. They could have used a match, that sure would have made things a lot easier, but unfortunately all of the matches had gotten wet in Gintoki’s pocket when he had slipped and fell in the water earlier trying to catch a fish.

Eventually the fire caught the tip of the leaf at the same Hijikata inhaled, finally lighting the damn thing.

Gintoki was pretty sure that in the time he’d known Hijikata, he had seldom seen him without a cigarette in his mouth. So, considering it had been almost a full day since the last time he had nicotine in his system, the completely blissed-out expression he wore on his face after taking the first drag made sense. Even if a display of such happiness was utterly uncharacteristic for the officer.

“Thank you kami-sama, thank you tobacco plant,” Hijikata paused in his rambling to take another drag, “thank you to the plant that provided me with this leaf, and thank you to the trees that provided me with sticks to build this fire. I am forever,” another drag, “indebted to you all.”

“You sound so stupid,” Gintoki grumbled. Inwardly, he was glad that Hijikata had figured something out to satiate his addiction, at least for the time being.

He did not under any circumstances want to experience what the already hostile officer would act like going through nicotine withdrawal, so he made a strategic decision to shut up about this, more or less. Choosing your battles, and such.

“Yorozuya,” Hijikata sighed contentedly, staring whimsically off into the distance and taking a seat on a rock, “I think we should just chill out. Honestly, worrying about things isn’t going to make people come to rescue us any-“ another drag, “-sooner. Let’s just relax.”

Gintoki had half a mind to smack the stupid thing out of his hand, if there wasn’t the very real possibility that Hijikata would knock him out cold in response. “Oi, this guy’s entire personality just changed. Oi, Hijikata-kun, are you okay? Did you hit your head?”

The officer slowly turned to face him, wearing the most genuinely elated expression Gintoni had ever seen on him. It was indescribably unsettling.

“This,” Hijikata whispered, gesturing towards the still-smoking ‘cigarette’ between his fingers, “This is all I care about right now. So shut up Yorozuya, your annoying voice is ruining the moment.”

Gintoki literally felt his hand twitch. Don’t punch him, don’t punch him…

Silently, he prayed that the Gorilla would come pick them up before this stupid chainsmoker ran out of things to smoke.

——

“You smell like shit,” Gintoki barked, wrinkling his nose.

“Huh? So do you, asshole!”

Of course they did. Obviously neither of them had showered since the day before, and the mixture of seawater, sweat, and dirt that clung to their bodies wasn’t helping anyone’s case.

“Do you still have that bottle of soap?”

Many miles away, Sougo and Kagura realised what was about to happen and hurriedly decided it was time to leave for a lunch break.

Not a moment too soon, too, because the two men were just as hurriedly making their way down to the shore and ripping off their clothes.

“Let me go first,” Hijikata ordered as he unbuttoned his shirt, “I was the one who found the soap, anyway.”

“Nuh-uh, I should get to go first, cause it’s your fault that I’m even in this situation in the first place.”

“Don't ‘nuh-uh’ me, you child. And, not true.”

As expected, neither of them could decide, so they ended up just passing the bottle between them as they both cleaned themselves at the same time, backs turned to one another.

Gintoki didn’t want to look, he really didn’t, but he couldn’t resist. How many other opportunities would he ever get to see the vice-chief of the Shinsengumi butt naked?

He just wanted to save the mental image to remind himself of whenever they were fighting, and he felt like he was losing the upper hand. Just to give him a boost of confidence, because how could he ever feel threatened by a man whose butt he had seen?

“Nice ass, Hijikata-kun.” Which it was, interestingly enough.

“BASTARD!”

Gintoki yelped and stumbled forwards when he felt the bottle of soap hit him square in the back of the head, granted with a lot more force than a piece of plastic should be capable of generating.

And then Hijikata was right next to him, shoving his face into the water with practised technique that made sense for the dirty cop to have developed. Who knows how many criminals he’d waterboarded throughout his rotten career.

When he was finally let up, Gintoki made the mistake of mocking him further, “Is that how you treat a guy who compliments you? Such a tsundere Hijikata-kun!” and was shoved right back down.

The whole process was definitely a lot more difficult than it should’ve been, what with the sputtering and coughing up water and the punches and insults, but by the end of it, at least they were clean.

“I need a fucking smoke after that,” Hijikata grumbled as he slipped his arms back through the sleeves of his button-up.

“Don’t go through your little stash too fast. I don’t want to deal with a version of you that doesn’t have any nicotine in his system,” Gintoki snickered, but God knows he was completely serious.

The officer glared daggers at him. “You know what, you’re right. I shouldn’t waste my smokes over a dickhead who makes me angry, because you make me angry all the goddamn time!”

——

It was evening that same day when the clouds started to roll in.

“No way. No way is it about to rain,” Gintoki paled.

“Shit.”

As quickly as their legs could carry them, they scrambled to collect all of their belongings, also known as the results of their scavenging, as a clap of thunder boomed overhead.

“Where do we go?!” Gintoki shrieked.

“Follow me, I think I saw a shallow cave on the other end of the island yesterday,” Hijikata shouted in reply, and then he took off, leaving Gintoki to run after him.

The distance from one side of the island to the other felt a lot shorter than it did the day before, but that was probably because they were practically sprinting. Gintoki couldn’t care less about the brambles and thorns scratching his legs and his arms, he was just trying to focus on keeping up with Hijikata while being sure not to drop what he was carrying. Hijikata had made him take the blankets, because of course his top priority was his tobacco and unfortunately there wasn't any time left to argue.

Finally, they made it to their destination just as the rain started to fall down. It was harsh, heavy, coming down like hail. That’s tropical storms for you.

“Dickhead,” Gintoki wheezed, utterly out of breath.

“What did I do?”

“I don’t- don't know. Just, you’re a dickhead.”

Hijikata chuckled dryly, then leaned back against the wall of the cave with a deep sigh. The space was shallow alright, like a burrow that might have been made by a giant rodent or something. They had to crouch over to get in, and it was so small they had no choice but to sit. It was musty and muddy and dirty, largely undoing any cleanliness they had achieved from their earlier bath in the ocean, but at least it was dry from the rain.

“This fucking sucks,” Gintoki muttered, leaning back on his palms and stretching his back.

“I seriously don’t understand why they haven’t come to get us yet,” Hijikata huffed, reaching into his pocket for a cigarette out of habit and then clicking his tongue in frustration when his hand came up empty. “There’s no way we got thrown that far away. It’s not like there’s a shit ton of islands in this area, I know that.”

“What do you mean? So you know this area?”

“Well, sort of…” Hijikata scratched his chin, wracking his brain. “I know that years ago, the Shinsengumi raided an island around here. I didn't tag along for that one, I was busy, but I heard about it. There was a Joui hideout there, and after the raid, it became deserted.”

“Is it this one?”

“No, couldn’t be. After the raid, cameras were installed to make sure that the Joui didn’t set up here again. I would have noticed if there were cameras, I’m not an idiot.”

“Right. Wait, and I am?”

They ended up just sitting in silence for a while, hammering rain continuing to strike the ground outside at an unrelenting pace.

“Do you think the kids are okay?” Gintoki piped up after some time.

“China and Glasses? Of course,” Hijikata replied without hesitation, “I’m sure they’re fine. They have Gran and the Shimura girl.”

Gintoki hummed in acknowledgement, but he didn’t sound convinced, so Hijikata continued.

“What, you don’t think so?”

“I just miss them.”

Briefly, Hijikata startled at the honest tone in which Gintoki spoke.

“Yeah, they probably miss you too.”

——

Back at the Shinsengumi headquarters, anyone walking by must have thought some sort of party was happening, because it was a total riot.

“That’s funny! Like, It’s my responsibility to take care of Gintoki’s kids!?” Otose barked. Beside her, Catherine shook her head in disapproval at the mere idea.

“If there were cameras he’d notice them! He would totally notice them!” Sougo spluttered, practically hysterical. This was one of the best days of his life.

“Good thinking, Toshi! Remembering that cave,” Kondo gave an enthusiastic thumbs-up to the screen, “How many points is he at now?”

“Eleven,” Kagura responded, pen in hand.

“That’s my Toshi!”

“Hey, Gin-san is at twelve!” Sarutobi snapped, crossing her arms.

“Man, I hope this teaches Gintoki the value of money,” Hasegawa griped, “I hope that after this, he learns to be grateful for the roof over his head.”

“Yes, we can hope, Hasegawa-san,” Otae sighed, pouring herself another cup of sake. Otose muttered something like ‘but will he be grateful enough to pay the rent?’ to which Otae then responded with something like, ‘we can hope for that too’.

“Oi, Yamazaki, we’re getting low on sake. Wanna grab another bottle?” Kondo motioned towards the now empty bottle in Otae’s hand, which she then placed down on the floor next to another empty bottle.

“Yessir!” Yamazaki responded, dashing out of the room, intent on completing his task quickly so he didn’t miss anything.

A light knock resounded on the shoji door, and Shinpachi strode over to open it.

“Tsukuyo-san!” He exclaimed.

“Hey! I brought food,” she beamed, holding up two full bags of takeout boxes. Everyone cheered and scrambled around the room to seat themselves around the chabudai. Tama grabbed the computer to position it at one end of the table, where they could all see it clearly.

“Dibs on the Yakitori!”

“You can’t have all of it, Kagura-chan,” Shinpachi deadpanned, “We’re sharing.”

“I can if I get to it first.”

“Don't, though?”

“Kyuu-chan, you can just go ahead and eat,” Otae leaned over to whisper into the ear of her confused-looking friend, “Nobody here cares about manners.” Kyuubei nodded and reached forward to grab a piece of tempura.

“Got it!” came Yamazaki’s voice, another bottle of sake in hand, and the room erupted into cheering for a second time.

“Oh look! The rain stopped!” Kondo pointed to the screen, and everyone whipped their heads around to watch.

“Okita-san, what are we looking like for bets on the next time the vice-chief smokes?” Yamazaki inquired.

Sougo hummed, reaching his arm out towards Kagura, who mindlessly handed him the pad of paper she was holding. “Let’s see… It’s been six hours since the last time. Granny bet on four hours and you bet on five, so you’re both out. The Madao, the stalker girl and the Yagyuu girl all bet on six hours, and Kondo-san bet on… twelve?”

“I have faith,” Kondo explained.

“Kyuu-chan, you made a bet?” Otae inquired.

Kyuubei shrugged. “Seemed fun.”

Suddenly, the shoji door flung open and startled the entire room into silence. Standing menacingly in the doorway, gun in holster, was none other than Matsudaira.

“Oh! Pops!” Kondo grinned nervously, “What brings you here?” Everyone sucked in an anxious breath and Yamazaki immediately shot up into a perfect seiza position.

“I came to see why the hell no work is getting done! What’s going on here, huh? A damn movie night?” He leaned over the commander to peer at the screen. “What are you watching?”

“Um, well,” Yamazaki stammered, “remember a long time ago when there was that raid of that island where the Joui had a hideout?”

“…Yes?”

“Well, so, the vice-chief and this other guy got, uh, stranded there and we… we thought…” his voice trailed off, palms starting to sweat.

Matsudaira leaned even closer to the screen, studying the image through narrowed eyes. “You’re telling me that Toshi is stranded on an island, and instead of going to help him you’re just watching him trying to survive like it’s a damn reality show? Through the cameras that we installed as a terrorism prevention measure?”

The silence was deafening. Slowly, Yamazaki nodded. Matsudaira’s eyes didn’t leave the screen, not until Sougo reached up to offer him a yakitori skewer.

“Want to eat with us for a bit, pops?”

More silence as Matsudaira eyed the skewer dubiously.

“How long are you planning on leaving him there?”

“Not long,” Yamazaki quickly reassured him.

Matsudaira just continued to stare at the screen, the cogs in his head turning.

“We have sake.” Kondo mumbled sheepishly.

“Yeah, okay. Just for a bit.” To everyone’s shock, Matsudaira sat down next to Kondo and even shrugged off his jacket, taking the yakitori from Sougo’s hand and motioning for Yamazaki to pour him a glass of sake.

“Pops,” Sougo grinned, not even trying to hide his elation at this new development, “how do you feel about placing a bet on something? There’s about six thousand yen in the pool as of now.”

——

The sun rose early on the morning of their third day on the island, hot and bright, dissolving every trace of the rainstorm that had occurred the day before.

Gintoki blinked awake, groaning and scratching his head as pushed himself up into a sitting position. He missed his futon desperately. After a few moments, he realised that Hijikata was nowhere to be found. He also noticed a message that had been traced in the dirt a few feet away from him that read, ‘gone to find food’.

Yawning, Gintoki stretched his arms and stood up. Even stranded on an island in the middle of the ocean, Hijikata was a routine-driven priss through and through, who would probably keel over and die before he voluntarily slept in.

After a while, Hijikata returned, arms full of several different types of fruit. His hair was completely dishevelled, there was dirt streaked across his face, and his white shirt was barely white at all anymore.

Gintoki thought it was kind of hilarious that the vice-chief of the Shinsengumi looked like some sort of hermit, but he kept the thought to himself in the interest of being allowed breakfast.

Chapter Text

Back at the Shinsengumi headquarters, the sun was coming up as well, casting an orange glow through the shoji screen of Sougo’s room. The officer sat and watched the computer screen intently, sipping a cup of tea as he did so.

Beside him, Kagura stirred awake. “What are they doing now?” she muttered, rubbing her eyes and squinting at the screen.

“They’re arguing over who gets,” Sougo paused to yawn, “which pieces of fruit for breakfast.”

“They’re not making a lot of progress, are they?” Kagura grumbled, shaking her head disappointedly at the blurry images of the two men arguing on the screen. “The goal was to force them to figure out how to work together.” Mindlessly, she reached out to take the second cup of tea that Sougo passed to her.

“As crazy as this sounds, considering they’re alone on a deserted island and all, I’m starting to get the feeling that they’re not under enough pressure. Maybe the circumstances aren’t dire enough,” Sougo wondered aloud.

“So what are you suggesting?”

The officer flashed her a devious grin. “Want to come with me on a little errand later?”

The first day that Kagura had stayed over at the barracks, she received a number of confused looks. It’s not everyday, or ever, that Captain Okita had a girl over. After people started to notice that the vice commander was gone, though, and started to ask questions, word got around as to why Kagura was really there.

Now, on the third day, the officers that she passed walking through the barracks just greeted her politely. It was starting to feel like a bit of a power trip, hearing ‘good morning Kagura-san’ from a bunch of adult men she didn’t even know. Maybe it pays to know the first squad captain, she considered.

So, when nobody really said anything as she and Sougo got ready to leave the barracks in a Shinsengumi squad car, she wasn’t that surprised.

“You’re totally not allowed to use this thing for anything other than work purposes, are you?” Kagura scoffed, sceptically eyeing the police radio and the bars separating the front and back seats.

“China,” Sougo sighed, turning the keys in the ignition, “who the hell is going to tell me off? Hijikata-san was the Shinsengumi’s main method of rule enforcement. Kondo-san is off stalking the Shimura girl half the time, and Pops barely cares about anything that doesn’t involve cabaret clubs, liquor, or Kuriko-san.”

Kagura crossed her arms, watching buildings and people zoom past them as they made their way through the streets of Edo.

“Fine. Though, you better not take advantage of this momentary power imbalance to steal Toshi’s position or something.”

“China, you wound me. I would never dream of it. Hey, want to see how fast everyone moves out of my way when I put the sirens on?”

——

“What are you doing?” Hijikata gaped, staring dumbfounded at the man on the other side of their campsite.

“Leaving my mark on this planet. Immortalising my memory,” Gintoki sighed dejectedly, continuing to carve into the tree trunk in front of him using a pointy rock that he had sharpened using another rock.

Shaking his head, Hijikata strode over to see what Gintoki was writing. The characters were messy and barely legible, but after some effort he made them out.

The words read, ‘I am Sakata Gintoki, a legendary samurai and hero. I have been laid to rest on this desolate island, forgotten by the world. To anyone who reads this, please cherish my memory and my legacy.’

“You are so stupid,” Hijikata grumbled, smacking the rock out of Gintoki’s hand.

“Oi!” Gintoki glared at him, bending down to pick up the rock.

“We’re not dying here! More importantly, where the hell are you pulling out ‘legendary samurai and hero’ from?! Last I checked, you were a useless, lazy, stupid perm-head!”

“Oh, well, I’m sorry that my memory is more cherishable than yours.”

“Huh?!”

“I am Hijikata Toshirou,” Gintoki mocked, holding an imaginary cigarette to his lips, “a stuck-up tax robber and mindless bakufu dog. I have pathetically died on this desolate island, because I am too stupid to survive anywhere that’s not paid for by the tax dollars of the person reading this.”

“Hold on, why am I stupid for dying but you’ve been ‘laid to rest’?!”

Gintoki shrugged, like the answer was obvious. “Because you are stupid, and I am not.”

Hijikata grit his teeth and focussed on holding back the punch he desperately wanted to throw. If he threw it, he would just be playing into Gintoki’s childishness. Instead, he huffed and turned away, making a beeline towards his tobacco stash.

“Oh? Going for another one, Hijikata-kun? You know, the sooner you burn through all of those, the sooner you’re left with no nicotine at all,” Gintoki called out from behind him.

“Fuck off! I don’t care! I need nicotine to deal with your bullshit!” Hijikata spat back over his shoulder, practically stomping at this point.

Gintoki clicked his tongue and refocused on the task at hand, which was carving his legacy into a tree. For a few minutes, they didn’t talk, just listened to the sounds of crashing waves, Hijikata periodically taking puffs of his leaf-cigarette, coughing occasionally when the smoke hit his throat too hard due to the lack of a filter, and Gintoki scratching into the bark.

After a while, the silence was broken by Hijikata’s surprised gasp.

“W-what is that?!”

“Nice try,” Gintoki drawled, making a point not to divert his attention from what he was doing, “you can’t scare me Hijikata-kun. What, is there a ghost behind me? A monster? Oh no, I’m so scared.”

“No, no, I’m serious! Yorozuya, look! Fucking look!”

“Would you stop it? You’re annoying me.”

“Yorozuya!”

Before Gintoki could retort, Hijikata had sprinted over to him, roughly grabbed his shoulders and spun him around so that he was looking in the direction of the centre of the island.

Gintoki opened his mouth to yell at him, but his words died in his throat and his face paled as he took in the sight before his eyes.

Smoke. There was thick grey smoke billowing out into the sky from the highest point of the island.

——

“We’re here.”

The engine of the squad car sputtered to a stop as Sougo shut it off. He scanned the area briefly before moving to exit the vehicle.

“Sadist, where the hell are we?” Kagura wondered, taking in her surroundings. They had parked in the middle of nowhere, and in every direction all she could see were narrow dirt roads and fields of crops. Somewhere, very far in the distance, she was pretty sure she could see a small herd of cows. “Why are we in farmland?”

Sougo didn’t answer, only beckoned for her to follow him. After walking right through the middle of a field of corn for a few minutes, they finally reached their destination, which was apparently a metal hatch in the ground. Sougo opened the hatch using a key that he pulled out from his pocket, revealing a dark tunnel and a rusty ladder that led straight downwards.

“Ladies first,” he smirked, gesturing towards the ladder.

“You’re not going to kill me, are you?” Kagura mused, but she was already climbing into the hole and making her way down the ladder as she spoke. She had absolutely no clue what the hell was going on or where Sougo had taken her, but in a way, she viewed this like a challenge. Even if that challenge was climbing down a rusty ladder that led to a place only Okita Sougo had knowledge of, her competitive nature won over her common sense.

She wouldn’t admit to herself that spending the last several days with him might have increased her trust in him, just a little bit. If he had wanted to kill her in her sleep, he had missed about two chances to do it since Gintoki and Hijikata had ended up on that island. Or three, if that post-lunch nap she had taken the day before could be counted.

“Kill you? Not today.” Sougo replied nonchalantly from above her, before climbing down the ladder himself and shutting the hatch above them.

For a couple seconds, everything was dark, but then rows of dim recessed lights flickered on to illuminate the space. With the lights on, Kagura could tell that the base of the ladder was about thirty feet below her.

She glared at Sougo sceptically, and he peered down to meet her gaze as though he could sense that she was looking at him.

“What?”

“Are you secretly a serial killer, sadist? Is this where you hide the bodies?”

“China, if I was going to kill you right now, I wouldn’t let the entire Shinsengumi watch me drive off with you. Way too obvious.”

That was reassuring enough, so Kagura just shrugged and continued her descent down the ladder.

Finally, they reached the bottom. The space was cold, it was damp, and it smelled like wet soil and dust. The ladder had led them down to a small room, no larger than an average office space. The walls, the floor and the ceiling were all metal, and the light fixtures were the same as the ones that lined the vertical tunnel connecting them to the surface. Along one side of the room, there was a large control panel that was built into the wall, complete with an array of switches, buttons and even screens. There was a metal chair placed in front of the control panel that was clearly eroding. Judging by the dust and the musty smell, it was clear that nobody had been down there for many years.

“The hell is this?” Kagura murmured, wiping some dust off of one of the screens.

“Remember how the Joui used to have a hideout on that island?”

“Yeah?”

“This was kind of like their secondary base for it. Sort of like a back up, so if anything were to threaten their main base, they would have everything here. Copies of documents, computers that controlled the entrances and exits of the main base, stuff like that.”

Sougo explored around the room for a minute, flipping through dusty files and scanning the buttons on the control panel. Eventually, he startled Kagura, who was engrossed by the sight of a particularly large spider, by making an ‘aha’ noise and plopping down to sit in front of the control panel.

“What?” Kagura wondered aloud, making her way over to him.

“I found what I was looking for,” Sougo grinned, flipping open the latch on a glass casing that enclosed a red button.

“Huh? A big red button?” Kagura scoffed, “What is this, an action movie?”

“Now this,” Sougo mused, ignoring her inquiry and tracing his fingers over the button, “This is what we need. This will do it.”

“Do what? Speak, sadist.”

“If I press this button,” the officer continued slowly, never taking his eyes off of the button in question, “The island will self-destruct.”

Kagura blinked, dumbfounded. “Huh?”

“It was a security measure,” Sougo explained. “The Joui built it so that if the location of their hideout ever got compromised, they could just press this, destroying every single piece of evidence that could be used to convict them of illegal activity. Thankfully, we knew about this place prior to the raid, so they didn't get the chance to do that.”

“What? You’re making no sense, stop talking like a cop.”

“Basically, this big red button would have saved their asses. Also, I am a cop.”

“Barely. Anyways, how exactly does that work?”

Sougo finally turned towards her, grinning from ear to ear with pure malicious intent. “Think of it like a man-made volcano.”

“What?!”

“I don’t fully understand the technicalities of how they made it, but yeah. It’s impressive, honestly. I know that it’s rigged up with explosives somehow, which triggers an eruption through a conduit that they’ve dug, by disturbing the-“

“Okay, okay, enough with your big words. So you’re saying that you want to literally cause a volcanic eruption on the island that Gin-san and Mayora are on?”

“Yes.”

“With the hope that they’ll become all buddy-buddy after surviving it together?”

“Yes.”

“Don’t you just want to kill Mayora?”

“I mean…”

Sighing, Kagura scratched her head and made her way over to stand behind Sougo, peering apprehensively at the button. She hummed in thought, weighing her options.

“We won’t kill them, right? They’ll be fine, right?”

“Of course,” Sougo forced a smile. “The lava flows so slow, you'd have to be stupid to not get away from it. Stupid, or a snail.”

“And… This will bring them closer together. They’ll stop fighting and causing property damage.”

“Absolutely.”

“And, they kind of brought this on themselves, right? For constantly being so goddamn insufferable, fighting each other at every given opportunity and annoying everyone else all the time.”

“For sure.”

“Let’s go get them right after though, yeah? Before they catch hypothermia or drown or something. We can go pick them up off the piece of wood they’ll probably be floating on.”

“Definitely.”

Kagura reached forward, then retracted her hand. Sougo watched with wide, intrigued eyes. He kept silent for the next few moments, which was all the time it took for her to mutter ‘screw it’ and slam her fist down onto the button.

——

“Run! Run you stupid bastard!” Gintoki shrieked.

“Shut the hell up!” Hijikata screamed back.

The lava was flowing slowly, incredibly slowly, so really there was no pressing need to run. However, the prospect of molten hot lava engulfing the entire island was terrifying and more than enough to make both men want to run for their lives, regardless of the languid speed at which it was travelling.

The eruption had occurred at the highest point of the island, right in the centre. The lava was flowing steadily, almost perfectly, right from the mouth of the volcano and trickling down the rock in an even layer, reaching towards the sea in all directions.

They were both too terrified in the moment to consider how odd the uniformity of it was.

It didn’t take long for both men to reach the shore, adrenaline pumping and bodies trembling with fear. It wasn’t until they had reached the shore, though, that they began to ponder their next move.

“Where the hell are we supposed to go from here?!” Gintoki cried, frantically looking around him for any object that could provide some aid. A boat that had gone conveniently unnoticed before, maybe. By this point, the lava was about twenty or thirty metres away from them, still approaching.

Hijikata didn’t answer, just stared, jaw dropped, at the thick blanket of magma that threatened him from afar.

“What is with our luck?! Did you piss off a God or something, Yorozuya?!”

“Stop whining!” Gintoki snapped, “Help me figure this out! And, if anyone’s pissed off a God, it would be you! Stupid tax thief!”

“Tax evader!”

“Rotten Vice- why are we arguing right now?! Stop arguing with me!”

“I’m not arguing with you, you’re arguing with me!”

After what felt like far too long, Gintoki finally spotted something in the distance. Whatever it was, he picked up his feet and made a beeline for it.

“Where the hell are you going?!” Hijikata shouted, chasing after him.

By the time he caught up to Gintoki, he found him trying to haul a large wooden board out from under the low-hanging branches of a tree.

“Help me!”

No questions asked, Hijikata raced up to him and within a few seconds, the board was dislodged. The fact went unspoken, but both men silently agreed that this was their only escape route. Scrambling, they carried the board towards the water and laid it atop of the pulling waves.

Unfortunately for Hijikata, Gintoki was the first to manoeuvre himself on top of the thing. Once again, the unspoken agreement was that Hijikata would be the one to push it out to sea. Obviously, the officer wasn’t happy about it, but there were more pressing matters at hand than negotiating his circumstances.

In a frenzy, Hijikata gripped the warped edges of the wood and pushed with all of his might. He pushed until his feet no longer found purchase in the sand below him and he was submerged up to his neck, coughing and panting.

The officer made to clamber on top of the board, but Gintoki roughly shoved him off by his shoulders.

“What the fuck, permhead!”

“We’re not far enough away! Swim! Push it and swim!”

Again, there was no room left to argue. Hijikata didn’t even look behind him to challenge Gintoki’s assessment of their distance from the lava. He just obeyed, leaning the weight of his upper body onto the wood and kicking his legs in the water with all of his might. It was difficult for sure, but nothing the Vice-chief of the Shinsengumi couldn’t handle. After a few moments, he found his bearings, and succeeded in pushing them out to sea.

He probably would’ve kept paddling forever, really, had Gintoki not snapped him out of it by offering his hand and helping him up.

Panting and drenched, Hijikata flopped face-first onto the plank. Gintoki clapped him on the shoulder.

“Good job, officer. You saved a civilian. How honourable of you.’”

“Be quiet or I’ll drown you.”

“Now that wouldn’t be very honourable, would it?”

Thankfully, the tide was pulling outwards, keeping them floating away from the island which was now more or less on fire. They both watched in silence with wide eyes, as flames slowly began to lick up the tree trunks and magma swallowed the ground.

“Now what?” Gintoki asked, though there was no bite to his tone. He really wanted to know, and was praying that Hijikata might be able to come up with an answer of some sort.

“Fuck if I know. I guess we wait for help?”

Gintoki opened his mouth to retort, but nothing came out. He wanted to berate Hijikata for not being able to think of anything better, but realistically, he was right. So, he settled for just sighing and rubbing the scratches on his legs which had accumulated when they sprinted clumsily down to the shore.

Noticing what Gintoki was doing, Hijikata peered down at his own legs and was met with a similar assortment of shallow scratches and cuts. In their hurry, he had forgotten practically everything of his on the island, including his ‘cigarettes’. All he had now was his white undershirt and his pants. Gintoki wasn’t faring much better, wearing only the tattered clothes he had found days before.

Speechless, the men watched as they drifted further and further away from land, out into the endless blue water. Gintoki felt his heartbeat start to calm, and he began to register the feeling of splintered wood beneath his fingertips. The air tasted salty, and so did the sweat that had accumulated above his lip.

He felt his energy gradually leave him as the level of adrenaline coursing through his body settled. Sighing, Gintoki laid his back down on the plank, sprawled out like a starfish, and squinted against the cloudless sky. Seated only a few inches away from him, Hijikata whipped his head around to take in their surroundings.

There wasn’t much to take in.

“Somebody is going to come for us, right?” The officer asked, trying and failing to mask the worry in his voice.

“Yeah, of course.” Gintoki didn’t know if he believed that or not, but he knew that he had to keep Hijikata feeling as reassured as possible or else he may very well just be strangled and dumped into the ocean.

He’d seen enough movies and read enough stories to know that when stranded at sea for too long, people go insane. Hijikata was already fated to go insane sooner or later since he had no cigarettes with him, and Gintoki didn’t want to contribute to an impending hysteria or psychotic break in any way.

They floated aimlessly for just less than an hour before Hijikata shook Gintoki’s shoulder and yelled something incomprehensible to him.

“What?” Gintoki groaned. He must’ve fallen asleep. Funny how that keeps happening to him in comparatively unsafe situations. Old habits die hard, maybe.

“Look, look,” Hijikata’s voice was clearer now, “There’s a boat!”

“Don’t fuck with me.”

“I’m serious!”

Doing his best to shield his eyes from the sun, Gintoki glanced in the direction that Hijikata was now pointing to. Lo and behold, there was indeed a boat approaching. It was large, similar in size to Matsudaira’s yacht, or maybe even a little bigger. Unlike the yacht, however, it closely resembled a pirate ship.

There were at least a dozen men gathered together on the deck of the boat, gesturing to each other and pointing in Gintoki and Hijikata’s direction. Frantically, both men waved their arms and began shouting variations of ‘help’ and ‘over here’.

Once the boat had approached them to the point that they were cast in its massive shadow, Gintoki noticed one of the men on board point directly at Hijikata, not him, and wave over someone else. Rapidly, several others joined them, all focusing their attention towards Hijikata.

“Do they recognize you or something?” Gintoki wondered, glancing over his shoulder at the officer.

“What?” Hijikata replied, clearly confused. Within a split second after he spoke, a loud ‘thwack’ rang through the air and Gintoki watched Hijikata’s eyes roll back in his head as he slumped forward, limp.

The last thing Gintoki perceived was a tiny dart lodged in the side of Hijikata’s neck, before he felt himself become extremely dizzy, only momentarily, and then everything went dark.

Chapter Text

Fuck, Gintoki’s head hurt. Everything hurt. He didn’t want to open his eyes, fearing that any light that invaded his vision would fry any remaining brain cells he had.

“Kagura?” He groaned, voice barely audible even to himself. He must be hungover, that’s it. “Bring Gin-san a cup of water and… and some vitamins, will you?”

“Gintoki?” The voice that replied was not Kagura’s, although it was familiar. Steeling himself, Gintoki forced his eyes open.

He barely had it in him to feel shocked at who he was met with.

“Zura? The fuck-”

“It’s not Zura, it’s Katsura. Gintoki, what the hell were you doing in the middle of the ocean?”

Gintoki just stared, speechless, at the face of his friend in front of him. Katsura was regarding him with an uneasy expression, perhaps laced a little with concern, but mostly confusion.

“Never mind that! Why are you here?!” Gintoki barked. As he found his bearings, he noticed a dull ache in his wrists. Holding them in front of himself, he saw marks in his skin from what must’ve been ropes.

“Did you fucking tie me up or something?!” He snapped.

“I’m sorry! I gave them orders to capture anyone suspicious! They did untie you once they realised you were the Shiroyasha, though.” Katsura held his hands up in front of him defensively. “Plus, they saw that the vice-chief of the Shinsengumi was with you. So, you know, a Joui patriot’s natural reaction to that is to capture him and any of his accomplices immediately.”

“Why weren’t you there?! Shouldn’t you be present when your men literally capture someone?!”

“Orders exist for a reason, Gintoki. It’s called the beauty of delegation. If you must know, I was playing UNO with Elizabeth.”

Exasperated, Gintoki sighed and closed his eyes again. He could feel the boat rocking, confirming that they had indeed been brought onto the ship. He should’ve known that it was a Joui ship when he first saw it, really, but minute details like that had escaped him in the moment. He was seated on the wooden floor on the inside of the vessel, back against the wall. Dim light shone through the circular windows that lined the wall of the boat, and he could hear distant chatter coming from the floor above him.

Suddenly, he remembered that he hadn’t shown up here alone.

“Where’s Hijikata?”

“Still out cold, I think. In a room down the hall. My men wanted to get rid of him, but I stopped them, so you’re welcome.”

Certainly in no mood to say ‘thank you’, Gintoki huffed and pushed himself up off the ground, ignoring the residual dizziness from whatever the hell he had been tranquillised with. He demanded Katsura direct him to the room in question. He did, and Gintoki opened the door to the sight of the officer slumped against the wall in a similar fashion that Gintoki had been, fast asleep. He still had his hands tied behind his back with rope.

Briefly, Gintoki had the fleeting thought that maybe he should just leave Hijikata asleep, because that would prolong this rare opportunity for peace and quiet. However, he decided against it, because if Hijikata were to ever find out that Gintoki had just left him there for any amount of time, he’d get his ass beat.

“You should thank us for rescuing you, you know,” Katsura drawled as he approached Gintoki from behind. “You probably would have died.”

“You knocked us out and tied us up!”

“By accident!”

Entirely fed up with the entire situation and too exhausted to argue, Gintoki approached Hijikata and crouched down beside him, leaning forward to begin to untie his hands.

“Why haven’t you untied him yet, Zura?” Gintoki grumbled frustratedly as he fiddled with the tightly wound knots, “You know this guy!”

“Yeah, but like I said, my men don’t. And, once I was done playing UNO, I was busy watching the rerun of-“

“Okay shut up, shut up.”

As he was jostled around by Gintoki, who was scrambling to finish loosening the ropes, Hijikata slowly blinked awake.

“Huh? Yorozuya?”

Gintoki met his gaze and sighed.

“Good morning.”

“Where are we?” Hijikata muttered, rubbing his head and his sore wrists once they were freed. He peered around the room, unfocused until his sights landed on Katsura.

“Why is he here?!” Hijikata screeched, making a move to get up and reaching for his blade out of habit. Of course, his blade wasn’t present, and he was still too dazed to stand up properly. He ended up falling back onto the floor with a thud.

Gintoki opened his mouth to explain, but Katsura beat him to it.

“Funny story, Bakufu dog,” Katsura began, crossing his arms. “My men and I were out on the water, on our way to… Uh, anyway, I decided to switch up the route a little and pass by that island, because I wanted to check on you, Gintoki. Sorry we shot you guys, I wasn’t expecting you to be floating on a piece of wood, so I didn’t realise who you were until you were on the boat.”

Dumbfounded, both Hijikata and Gintoki stared at him with wide eyes.

“How did you know where we were?!” They shouted in perfect unison.

“Long story,” Katsura shrugged, waving his hand dismissively. “But, you guys are fine, so all’s well that ends well, right?”

“Oh no, no no no,” Gintoki cackled dryly, pointing an accusing finger at him. He was practically seething with anger by this point, and Hijikata was getting there too as the last traces of his drug-induced haze dissipated from his system. “You explain. You explain now.”

Katsura rolled his eyes and grumbled something to himself, but heeded the request.

“Fine. Okay, so, turns out that island you guys ended up on was-“

“Wait, wait,” Hijikata interrupted suddenly, “I need a cigarette before I listen to this shit. Please tell me you have cigarettes on this boat.”

Caught off guard, Katsura nodded slowly. “Uh, yes. Some of my men smoke.”

If the man standing before him had been anyone other than a powerful figure representing a terrorist organisation that Hijikata’s entire career revolved around toppling, he would have gotten down on his knees and begged.

In the interest of keeping at least a shred of his dignity, he settled for using his words.

“Can I please have one?”

Katsura narrowed his eyes at the officer, and then at Gintoki.

“Why should I entertain the request of a Bakufu dog?”

“Please, Zura,” Gintoki interjected desperately, “Please get him a smoke. He’ll kill me if you don’t. I think he’ll actually go crazy like a rabid animal and murder me, I’m serious.”

A few minutes later, Hijikata finally had a lit cigarette between his fingers, and Katsura was able to continue with his explanation.

“As I was saying,” he cleared his throat, “The island that you two got stuck on was actually under surveillance.”

“The fuck?” Hijikata choked on a puff of smoke, “By who?”

“Um, the Shinsengumi.”

Hijikata blinked once. Twice. His mouth fell open and the cigarette fell to the ground, onto the wooden floor. Gintoki dropped to his knees and scrambled to pick it up, yelling something about setting the ship on fire. The officer looked like he had seen not one, but maybe ten ghosts.

Sensing that Hijikata wasn’t about to come up with any words anytime soon, Katsura continued, “And so… So your first squad captain, he found out how to access the surveillance cameras and um…”

“Zura,” Gintoki snarled warningly through gritted teeth.

“They decided to leave you guys there for a bit.”

“FUCKING SOUGO!” Hijikata screamed. Gintoki, who was standing right beside him, covered his ears.

“Why?!” Gintoki shrieked, “For what reason?!”

“I’M GOING TO KILL HIM!” Hijikata added, hands spasming around a non-existent sword so frantically it looked like he was trying to itch a phantom limb.

“I don’t know!” Katsura responded defensively, “I don’t know! I think they were going to come get you guys at some point! I just, I don’t know!”

“Fuck! Everything makes sense now!” Hijikata groaned, pulling at his hair in frustration, “That was the old Joui hideout! That volcano, that wasn’t a volcano, that was a system that they put in place to destroy evidence! And Sougo must have fucking activated it!”

“We need to get back,” Gintoki rasped, his eyes bulging with anger, “We need to get back so we can bury that goddamn sadistic brat six feet under.”

“About that,” Katsura mumbled gingerly, “You can’t… you can’t go back for awhile.”

“Why?” Hijikata asked, sounding surprisingly level-headed considering the circumstances. He had calmed down suddenly, his mind focused on nothing but cold, bloody murder.

“We can’t change course now,” Katsura explained, “There’s a storm approaching the area between where we are and Edo, it wouldn’t be safe to traverse through it. Plus, we’re on a pretty important trip right now, I can’t turn the boat around just for you guys. You should just be grateful that we rescued you before you died out there.”

“You didn’t rescue us,” Gintoki reminded him, “You knocked us out and tied us up.”

“Would you let that go already? I said sorry!”

“Uh, I don’t think you did!”

—-

“Oh, we’re fucked,” Sougo stated dumbly.

“The hell do you mean ‘we’?!” Kagura snapped, slapping the officer in the back of the head. “This was your doing!”

“Screw that, you’re implicated too!”

Until Katsura’s boat had come into the picture, the whole scenario was pretty hilarious, as expected and intended. Watching Gintoki and Hijikata run at top speed away from magma that was flowing at a snail’s pace was hilarious just by itself, and then watching the two of them clamber onto a single piece of old wood made it even funnier. The cherry on top was the sight of Hijikata paddling in the water like an overly-energetic labradoodle trying to swim.

Unfortunately, watching the two of them get captured by Joui patriots wasn’t quite as funny. Well, it was, until Sougo and Kagura realised that if they didn’t get them back, and soon, they were going to be in a lot of shit. A whole lot.

“Do not speak a word of this to anyone,” Kagura hissed.

Sougo glared at her. “You don’t have to tell me that, China. You keep your big mouth shut too, yeah?”

“We can lie and say the surveillance system went down to buy time, right?”

“Well…” Sougo hummed in consideration, “That could work, in the short term. It’ll buy us a little bit of time, but we still have to go find them as soon as possible, or Kondo-san is going to kill me.”

“You’re worried about Kondo-san, I’m worried about Sa-chan! Not only is she obsessed with Gin-san, she’s literally an assassin!”

“It’ll be fine,” Sougo reassured her in a manner that wasn’t reassuring at all, “We’ll figure something out. Nobody will ever even know they left the island.”

——

“Maybe when you and your little government dogs take down the Joui one day,” Gintoki mused, staring into the night sky, “You should make an exception for the guy whose cigarettes you’re smoking. He’s doing you a big favour. Make a deal or something, it’s only right.”

“Already did,” Hijikata replied, taking a long drag from the cigarette in his hand.

“What?” Gintoki startled, “I was joking. Wow, you really were desperate.”

Hijikata just shrugged, finishing the last of his smoke and flicking the roach off the deck into the sea below.

Things were peaceful out in the middle of the ocean. The absence of light pollution allowed the stars to shine brightly, and the unobstructed full moon cast everything it could reach in delicate light. Behind them, inside the ship, they could hear the muffled voices of Katsura’s men having cheerful conversation and probably also drinking beer.

“Yorozuya.”

“Yeah?”

“What’s the game plan?”

“Uh,” Gintoki tapped his finger against the railing of the deck in thought, “Well. If Zura knew about this whole thing, then obviously it wasn’t just Souchirou-kun who was involved. I think we have to get back at everyone, not just him.”

“Right.”

“What if we play dead? You know, really make them think they screwed up.”

“Sougo would take the vice-chief position,” Hijikata grumbled, gritting his teeth.

“Right.”

They stood there in silence, leaning on the railing, for a few more minutes before Gintoki piped up with another suggestion.

“Let’s pretend we’re not coming back, and then make them beg for us to come home.”

“Interesting idea,” Hijikata responded, eyeing him curiously.

“I think it could work. You know, make them regret pulling this shit on us. Make them learn to have some respect.” He emphasised the word ‘respect’, and something in the officer’s eyes lit up.

Respect, that was one thing Hijikata always wanted to have from others. His subordinates should respect him enough to follow orders without question, and his friends should respect him enough not to leave him stranded on an island for their own entertainment.

“Right. Okay, let’s go with that.”

“Sweet,” Gintoki grinned, “Pleasure doing business with you, vice-chief.”

——

“Remember to turn off the caller ID.”

“I know.”

It was morning the next day and Katsura, Gintoki and Hijikata were seated cross-legged in a circle on the deck of the boat.

“Are we even going to get a signal over here?” Hijikata wondered aloud.

“We’re close enough to land right now that it should work,” Katsura nodded affirmatively, gesturing to their right. Indeed, rows of small houses and other various buildings were within sight. “But make it quick, because we’re going to lose signal pretty soon here.”

“Yeah, yeah, give me the phone,” Gintoki huffed, reaching forward to snatch the device out of Katsura’s hand.

If there was one thing he remembered, it was Kagura’s number. Occasionally, or frequently depending on who you asked, he found himself drunk in the middle of the night and wracking his brain for the combination.

Upon remembering it, he’d use it on a payphone so he could tell her, ‘Gin-san’s not coming home for a while, remember to brush your teeth before bed’. She’d usually respond by just starting to berate him about being a useless drunk, but whatever. He'd barely be able to hear her over the fog of inebriation and the beauty of the telephone was: you could hang up. What a fantastic invention.

By now, he knew the combination like the back of his hand, so he dialled the numbers on Katsura’s phone no problem. The line rang a couple times before Kagura picked up.

“Hello?”

“Kagura-chan! Hello, how’s it going?”

“Gin- Where are you?!” She screeched. Gintoki winced and held the phone a little further away from his ear.

And suddenly, it dawned on him that he had no clue where he was going with this. He studied Hijikata’s face, who was glaring at him and silently urging him to think of something, and quick.

“I’m… uh… I’m on a beach. Somewhere far away.”

Katsura leaned in close to the phone to try and make convincing seagull sounds. Gintoki roughly shoved him away with a palm in his face.

“What- A beach?! I thought you got captured by that ship!”

“Oh, we did,” Gintoki laughed nervously, “But they dropped us off. Couldn’t deal with us. Hijikata-kun just wouldn’t stop begging for mayonnaise, I think that’s what did it. He’s like a deranged animal. His eyes go all bloodshot and he just won’t stop saying ‘mayo, I need mayo’ and foaming at the mouth. I mean, have you ever seen him go so long without consuming mayonnaise before? I guess this is what happens when he’s deprived. It’s honestly pretty terrif-”

Gintoki managed to grab the officer’s wrist inches away from his face just before a punch landed.

“So what, you’re on a- a beach now?”

“Yeah, yeah, somewhere nice and tropical. Another island, one without, um, volcanoes. That really threw me for a loop, haha!”

“…”

“Oh hold on Kagura-chan, stay on the line, I just need to talk to H- The ice cream salesman for a second.” Hijikata was frantically waving at him.

“Gin-chan, why is there an ice cream salesman on an island-“ Gintoki muted himself and covered the phone’s speaker before she could finish.

“Be more convincing!” Hijikata hissed at him. Gintoki clicked his tongue.

“Tell her you got rich,” Katsura offered, tucking his arms inside the sleeves of his yukata.

“What?” Hijikata turned towards him, raising an eyebrow. “Why would that work? That's not convincing at all. This guy is forever broke, he’s like a reverse-magnet for wealth.”

“The concept of money is a powerful thing. Come on, just try it,” Katsura urged.

“I mean, maybe…” The officer hummed in consideration, crossing his arms and peering apprehensively at the phone in Gintoki’s hand.

“Okay, okay, it doesn't take this long to order ice cream!” Gintoki snapped, before quickly shushing the two of them and unmuting the phone.

“Okay, I’m back Kagura-chan!”

“Okaaay…”

“So, turns out, Hijikata-kun and I have actually just found a ton of money!”

“What?!”

“Like, a lot. It just washed up on the shore in a- in a briefcase. Crazy amount! Like, I could retire right now, type of amount.” He chose to be the bigger person and ignore a mutter that came from Hijikata’s direction. The mutter sounded a lot like ‘retire from what, unemployed bum’.

“Seriously?! We’ll be able to afford so much sukonbu!”

“Actually, Kagura-chan,” Gintoki chuckled, making a show of examining his nails as though she could see him. He was definitely getting into his groove now. “I was kind of thinking that I might not. Come back for a while, I mean. Or… Or ever.”

“What do you mean?!”

“See, Hijikata-kun and I learned about your little prank and we’ve decided that we don’t want to see any of you for a while, or ever, like I said. It was quite disrespectful, honestly. And, why would I want to share any of this money with people who disrespect me?”

“Wait, no! Gin-san!”

“Kagura-chan, I know you’re young, and my job as your guardian is to teach you the ways of the world.” Gintoki held the microphone right up to his mouth, dead-fish eyes glinting and a smirk plastered on his face. “This is today’s life lesson, bestowed upon you with love and wisdom from Gin-san. It’s karma.” And then he promptly hung up.

“You think everything will be fine while we’re gone, right?” Hijikata inquired, gnawing on the cigarette in his mouth that had lost its light a while ago, “Like, Sougo’s not going to pull anything crazy, right? He’s not going to try and take my position?”

“That guy?” Katsura scoffed, “Don’t worry. I know a thing or two about how your little government organisation works, considering you’re my enemies and all, and I highly doubt they’re going to let him do that. Nobody wants that brat in your position.”

——

“Yamazaki, do you have the USB stick?” Sougo called, placing his laptop down on the table.

“Yes,” Yamazaki mumbled, and reluctantly handed it to him.

Kondo watched from where he sat cross-legged on a tatami mat, arms folded and eyebrows raised, as Sougo set up his computer and plugged in the USB stick.

“Yamazaki, lights.” The lights in the room promptly turned off, leaving the room illuminated by a projector, which was displaying the image of Sougo’s computer screen onto the wall. He got up, taking his computer with him, and went to stand right beside the projection.

Clearing his throat, he accessed the contents of the USB and opened a file, which appeared to be a slideshow. The projector was now displaying the first slide, which read, ‘Why Okita Sougo Should Take Vice-Chief’.

“Are we ready?” He asked.

“Um… Yeah,” Kondo replied after a moment, rubbing his temple. Sometimes it's important to humour kids.

“Wonderful. Let me start with this. Kondo-san, you know I would never dream of assuming this position unless I truly believed that it was open for the taking. Based on the information I’ve gathered, I feel confident that sadly, our dear Hijikata-san will not be returning. It appears that he has lost sight of what’s truly important, his responsibilities as an officer and his duty to the citizens of Edo. He has fallen weak to materialistic ideals. Really, quite an unfortunate and disappointing turn of events. I expected better from him. I’m sure you did too.” He shot Kondo a sympathetic glance and sighed exaggeratedly, shaking his head.

“Now,” Sougo continued, proceeding to the next slide, which included a low-resolution picture of a mayonnaise bottle and a stock image of a man smoking, “I figure that we need to look on the bright side of things. I believe that this unprecedented development has exposed certain questionable aspects of Hijikata-san’s character, which we have ignored in the past.

“For example, his mayonnaise addiction. Now, the toll that this addiction is bound to have taken on his body must be severe. Additionally, his smoking habits only contribute further to the unmistakable decline in his health. Now, Kondo-san, I will say that personally, I find some difficulty in accepting leadership from someone who lacks the discipline to care for his own body.” Ignoring Kondo’s vaguely unimpressed expression, Sougo continued on to the next slide.

“Now, I would like to take this opportunity to remind you of my strengths,” He said, gesturing towards the list of said strengths now being displayed, “Of which there are plenty. Firstly, I make a great officer. I am more than capable of wielding a sword, and cutting down anyone who threatens the Shinsengumi. I am also more than capable of properly enforcing the law, as my track record will show. Secondly, I am an upstanding, model citizen. I-“

“Okay, okay!” Kagura shouted, yanking open the shoji screen and storming into the room, making Sougo and Kondo jump in surprise. Yamazaki didn’t jump exactly, rather he nearly choked on a bite of anpan. “I was gonna let you finish, Sadist, but this is getting to be too much. Upstanding citizen? Really?”

“Piss off, China!” Sougo shouted back, abandoning his laptop to go grapple with her and attempt to push her away. Unfortunately for him, her unparalleled strength won over and Sougo was literally thrown out of the window of the room within seconds. Ignoring his spew of insults and the banging of his fist against the window, Kagura cleared her throat and took his spot at the front of the room. By now, Kondo’s eyes just looked empty.

“My turn,” she muttered, pulling out a crumpled piece of paper from her pocket and holding it out in front of her. “Now, Gorilla, I have my own proposition for you.”

“Make it quick.”

“You are aware that Gin-san is my primary caregiver, yes? I live with him. He provides everything for me. Shelter, food, water, everything.”

“Doesn’t he make you sleep in a closet and work for free?”

“Shut up Gorilla! This is a non-interactive presentation! Anyways, as I was saying, now that Gin-san is gone, I no longer have a guardian to take care of me. And you know who I blame for that? You!”

Kondo stared at her, dumbfounded.

“What?”

“If the Shinsengumi hadn’t sent us out on that mission in the first place, Gin-san would still be here! I wouldn’t be all alone!” She pitched her voice higher and hid her face in her hands, a very obvious attempt to fake sadness, the obviousness of which was lost on the dimwitted man in front of her.

“Don’t cry, China! I’m sorry!” Kondo desperately tried to console her, but she turned her face away from him dramatically.

“I find it only proper,” she sniffled, “That you compensate me for what has been lost. I no longer have a home to go to, and it’s your fault. How do you plan on supporting me, huh?”

“Um- I-“

“It’s okay if you don’t know the answer to that, after all, you bear quite the responsibility. So, to make things easier for you, I compiled a list here of what I believe is worthy compensation for me.” Still refusing to make eye contact, she handed Kondo the list.

“You want a house?” Kondo squinted at the paper, making sure he was reading it right. “With a pool? And a six-car garage? And a bar? China, why the hell would you want a garage and a bar? You’re too young to drink or drive!”

“A traumatic event like this causes a child to mature past their years. Anyways, I made things easy for you, my criteria is simple. All you need to do is find a real estate agent who can make it happen.”

“And you want a lifetime’s supply of rice and sukonbu?”

“Yeah, I’ll starve if you don’t give me food! Gin-chan was the one who took care of that!”

“Hold on, hold on,” Kondo sputtered, gripping the paper tight and neatly ripping it, “You want a yacht?!”

“Yeah, the one you guys have is pretty cool, I was thinking I want one too. Anyways, those are the terms and conditions of your screw-up, Gorilla. Take it or leave it. If you leave it, then you’re ruining the life of a helpless little girl. Do you really want to be that guy? The guy who ruins my life? Do you think big sis is going to want to speak to you after that?”

Before Kondo could answer, Sougo barged back into the room through the shoji door, having taken the long way around to get back in. While he and Kagura bickered and threw punches at each other, Kondo and Yamazaki took the opportunity to quietly slip out.

Chapter Text

“Well, this is our stop!” Katsura exclaimed, clasping his hands together. Gintoki and Hijikata simply glared at him with a mixture of irritation and confusion.

“What do you mean, Zura? We’re still in the middle of the ocean!”

“Yes, yes we are. See, since I’m still en route to… some official business, the Vice Chief needs to leave. He’s a government official, and all that. Can’t have him knowing what we’re up to.”

Hijikata scowled, reaching for the handle of his sword once again and being met with only thin air. It had been numerous days since he last had it by his side and yet the habit was far from being broken, especially in the presence of the Joui. His mouth opened and closed rapidly, practically choking on silence, unsure of what to say.

This new development was not only predictable, it was simple, and he should have seen it coming. He really had no choice but to get off the boat.

“So, what? Are you just gonna drop us into the water or something?” The officer grumbled.

“Don’t be silly, government dog. What do you take this organisation for? We have standards. You and Gintoki may take one of our smaller boats.”

And so, about twenty minutes later, a group of Katsura’s men were lowering a tiny boat into the water with two very displeased men seated aboard it.

“Oh, shit,” Gintoki startled, gesturing frantically at Katsura who was now standing on the deck quite far above them, “A paddle! Give us a damn paddle, Zura!”

Thankfully, a single paddle was tossed down to them seconds before they touched the water. The last Gintoki saw of his friend was his retreating frame re-entering the inside of the boat, waving goodbye in a manner comparable to the wave of the English Queen.

“Is this not the exact same situation we were in before?” Hijikata mused, pulling a cigarette out of his pocket. The man onboard who had been giving him smokes agreed to let him have several packs to take with him, as well as a lighter.

The only catch, the man wanted it in writing and signed by the vice-chief of the Shinsengumi that he alone would be spared during a raid. The man called the raid hypothetical, Hijikata called it inevitable. Either way, the officer was banking quite a lot on that document never seeing the light of day.

Or at least, not the eyes of his superiors.

“No, we have a boat now,” Gintoki pointed out, squinting against the sun which beamed down on them, “And a paddle. So, get to paddling, vice-chief.”

“The hell? You do it, permhead!”

“Wait, where are we even going?”

“Um… North?”

“Which way is north?!”

In all actuality, they had been ushered off the boat in quite the hurry. It appeared as though Katsura had forgotten that he needed to get rid of them, and the boat was actually much closer to its destination than he had realised.

Further backing up this theory was the fact that Katsura had rushed over to break the news after a multi-hour UNO marathon with Elizabeth. Unfortunately, providing Gintoki and Hijikata with directions regarding where the hell they were supposed to go from here had slipped everyone’s mind.

“Uh, let’s follow the sun. We’ll end up somewhere at some point, right? Seems pretty simple to me,” Gintoki suggested. “It’s not like we’re in a rush to get home, anyway. Best to drag this out as long as possible.”

“Yeah, I guess,” Hijikata shrugged. He was a lot more agreeable now that he had cigarettes.

And so, they paddled. Since they only had one paddle, they switched every now and then, taking turns. Thankfully, the weather was clear, so it was easy to follow the sun. Plus, the water was calm. Any form of storm could have easily overturned the small, rickety old boat.

Hours passed, and the sky began to darken. Miraculously, just before it disappeared beneath the horizon, a distant strip of land came into view. Gintoki stood up abruptly, shouting and pointing at it, nearly flipping them over. Hijikata, in his attempt to steady the boat, nearly flipped them over too.

They found themselves finally disembarking the boat onto a small fishing dock. Beyond the dock were rows of small buildings and stores, illuminated by warm light which emanated from within the establishments and contrasted with the darkening sky more and more by the minute. A few passerby could be seen strolling around the streets, although far less than could be seen in the busy city of Edo. Gintoki wasted no time approaching an old man who was closing up shop for the night, asking for directions under the premise of being lost fishermen.

Turns out, they had arrived in a small town on the southern side of Kyushu Island. The old man helpfully supplied Gintoki with instructions to get to a hotel, one of only a few that could be found in the town. And so, the two men trudged forward as the moon began to rise, stopping once for some food and once more to buy themselves each a haori. It was pretty cold. Thankfully, Zura had remembered to provide them with some money. Although not much, it would be enough to hold them over for a little while.

By the time they finally reached their destination, nighttime had settled in and the number of people out walking had dwindled even further. The hotel was tiny, quaint, warm and inviting. They were greeted by an elderly woman who welcomed them with a kind smile, and thankfully, a pretty affordable price for a room.

In time, they had settled down for bed and were laying in peaceful silence in their respective futons. The only noises that could be heard were distant conversations taking place outside the window, and the gentle rustling of tree leaves in the wind.

The silence lasted for a few minutes before Gintoki decided to pipe up with an inquiry that had been, regrettably, plaguing both of their minds ever since Katsura had left them many hours before.

“Now what?”

Indeed, Hijikata pondered, replying with a short huff. He let his gaze fall to the pack of cigarettes laying on the floor a few feet away from him, weighing the options of smoking another one or not in the interest of getting some sleep. He usually tried not to smoke right before bed, considering nicotine was a stimulant, but it had become a habit that being in the presence of Gintoki would almost always make him reach for one. He decided against it, unexpectedly, for maybe the first time ever since he had met the Yorozuya boss. Oh well, the circumstances surrounding their situation were unexpected as well.

“How long do you think we can lay low here?” Gintoki continued, clasping his hands behind his head and staring up at the ceiling.

“As long as it takes for them to beg us to come back,” Hijikata responded gruffly. He certainly wouldn’t admit it, but Katsura’s words about how the Shinsengumi would never let Sougo take his position had succeeded in providing him with a bit of comfort.

He was prepared to drag this out. Duties and paperwork be damned, he was pissed.

“We’re gonna have to play the part, you know,” Gintoki hummed, “Make it believable that we came across all that money. Shit, we might have to get jobs.”

“That’s fine,” Hijikata shrugged, propping himself up on an elbow, “I bet it’ll be easy. There’s plenty of shopkeepers around here, I don’t think it'll be hard to find someplace we can help out at.”

“If I can get a hold of a phone,” Gintoki considered slowly, “I can send them pictures. Like, some social media ‘I’m living my best life’ type shit. That’ll totally make them jealous.

“Also, dear vice-chief, you understand that in order for this plan to work you have to negate all of your government duties. You can’t help them with anything. You have to make them realise that they need you there.”

Indiscernible to Gintoki in the darkness of their room, Hijikata raised an eyebrow at the words. Indirectly, he realized, Gintoki had just expressed his belief that the Shinsengumi needed him. He knew that, he knew it very well, but somehow when that form of assurance came from Gintoki, it made his chest swell with pride a little bit.

Only because the silver-haired man was constantly berating him, calling him a tax-thief, and couldn’t ever seem to shut up about how pointless his job was.

“You too, Yorozuya,” Hijikata decided to deflect instead of acknowledging whatever Gintoki’s words stirred in him, “You can’t do anything for your kids.”

“Ah, that’s fine. They’re pretty self sufficient anyway. Plus, I know plenty of people will be making sure that Kagura takes care of herself.”

——

“Kagura-chan?” Shinpachi called, lightly knocking on the front door of the Yorozuya house.

“Kagura-chan?” He tried again, “I brought you some food!”

No sooner had the words left his mouth that he heard footsteps stomp rapidly towards the door, before Kagura flung it open.

“What did you bring?” She asked excitedly, eyeing the bag in his hand like some sort of animal.

“Takoyaki,” he replied, loosening his grip on the bag at the exact moment Kagura reached forward to snatch it out of his hand. Overtime, knowing exactly when to let go of whatever food he was holding had become muscle memory. Not too soon, or else it would fall, but not too late, or the force with which Kagura grabbed it would effectively topple him over. He liked to think of it as a refined, polished skill.

As expected, Kagura was well into the process of devouring the entire contents of the bag within minutes. She didn’t leave a single bite for Shinpachi, but he expected that too, and had eaten before he went over.

As Kagura remained engrossed in the task of inhaling piece after piece of takoyaki, Shinpachi took the opportunity to take a stroll around the house and assess the situation. It was a little grim. No, a lot grim. Laundry had been piling up, sukonbu packets were strewn everywhere, and the kitchen was a complete mess. Cabinets were left open, the sink was overflowing with dishes, and flour was spilled on the counter from what he could only assume was an attempt at baking something.

Kagura’s closet remained untouched, only because she had decided to move into Gintoki’s room instead. Like the rest of the house, it was in complete disarray. She had even gone so far as to move the television into the bedroom, and DVD cases for action movies littered the floor surrounding it. Shinpachi even noticed an empty bag of popcorn forgotten beside the futon.

“Kagura-chan,” he started as he walked back towards her, trying his best to keep annoyance out of his voice, “Are you going to… clean?”

She met his gaze, confused, and spoke with her mouth full of food because of course she did, “Whaf if fere t’clean?”

A useless thing to bring up with this girl, Shinpachi should have known. So, he changed his route of questioning, “When was the last time you talked to Gin-san?”

“Mmm,” she wondered aloud, finally swallowing her mouthful, “Yesterday? I guess wherever he is, he found a phone. He’s been texting me.”

“Why didn’t you say anything?! What did he say?!” Shinpachi exclaimed, whipping his head around the room in search of her phone. Helpfully, she pointed towards where she had placed it on the kitchen table, before shoving another piece of takoyaki into her mouth.

Frantically, Shinpachi opened the phone and found Gintoki’s name in the messaging app. Sure enough, he had contacted her. Unfortunately, what he had to say was far less than ideal. All glimmers of hope that he had vanished as he read through the messages.

The first message, from Gintoki, read ‘Hi Kagura-chan, it’s Gin-san! I bought a phone with all that money I got LOL! How are you?’

Kagura: ‘When are u coming back? I need u 2 buy me more sukonbu!!!! >:(’

Gintoki: ‘I already said, I’m not coming back anytime soon. U guys screwed up LOL’

And, to Shinpachi’s utter dismay, this message was followed by a selfie of Gintoki and Hijikata at what appeared to be a beach. They were both wearing sunglasses and sun hats, and Gintoki had a massive grin on his face. Hijikata didn’t, probably opposed to having his picture taken, but he was holding a can of beer up for the camera to see.

Kagura: ‘Wtf are u and Mayora doing???’

Gintoki: ‘We’re relaxing by the beach! After all that money we got, we’ll never have to work again and can spend all of our time here!’ This message was followed by a sunglasses-emoji, a palm-tree emoji, and then another ‘LOL’.

Gintoki followed this up with a picture of Hijikata posing awkwardly next to a surfboard that was leaning on a fence. He was holding up a peace sign to the camera and forcing a smile that looked painful.

Kagura: ‘Well I hope ur having fun. Just so u know, everything is totally fine without u here!’

Gintoki: ‘Glad to hear it Kagura-chan!’

And that was it. Looking up from the phone and taking in the state of the house around him, it was quite clear to Shinpachi that everything was not, in fact, fine without Gintoki there.

“Do you really believe that you’re fine without Gin-san?” He wondered aloud, peering at Kagura sceptically.

She just scoffed, and thankfully she was in between bites so no food flew out of her mouth when she did so. “Of course! I don’t need that lazy bum. I don’t care what he’s doing, if he wants to go on a little tropical vacation, whatever. He’s just being immature because he’s pissed about what we did. He’ll get over it, then come crying back to us because he’s useless by himself!”

She sure didn’t sound very convincing, but Shinpachi chose to keep that thought to himself. For now.

——

“I can’t believe you went so far as to buy a surfboard just for a picture,” Hijikata scoffed, “Nobody surfs here. I’m surprised you even found one.”

“It’s worth it, trust me,” Gintoki shrugged, “I had to sell the story.”

They had been staying in the village for nearly a week now. To their pleasant surprise, it was even easier than they expected to find work. Many of the people who lived in the village were elderly, and more than happy to hire two strong young men to help them out. One lady in particular, the mother of a fisherman, had offered them employment working for her son.

What helped them land the job must have been Gintoki’s impressively elaborate story about their lives as fishermen. Unfortunately, he led the lady to believe that he and Hijikata had plenty of experience fishing, which they absolutely did not. So, now they found themselves alone out on the water in a small boat, equipped with loads of gear that they had no clue how to use, and a quota to make before they headed back for the night.

“Any bite?” Gintoki inquired, not taking his eyes off of his own fishing line, which had been quite still for quite a while.

“I’d say something if there was, be quiet,” Hijikata barked. “Your annoying voice is scaring away all the fish.”

“Not true! They can probably smell the mayo on you, and are too disgusted to come close.”

“I haven’t had mayo in weeks, Yorozuya.”

“Doesn’t matter, it’s in your blood. It’s leaking out of your pores. It’s ingrained into your essence of being. Your body is at least ninety percent mayo, Vice-Chief.”

Fishing was boring, so boring. Gintoki’s eyelids were starting to feel heavy and he had to jolt himself awake before he nodded off. Judging by the way that Hijikata snickered quietly at his quip instead of retorting, he must be tired too.

“Oh shit! Oh! I got something!” Hijikata suddenly exclaimed, tensing his grip on the fishing rod and grounding his feet more firmly on the floor of the boat.

“Pull! Pull it!”

After a few seconds of watching Hijikata struggle to reel in his catch and battling against the weight of whatever had latched onto the hook, Gintoki decided to help in the interest of getting paid by their employer. He positioned himself beside Hijikata and placed his hands next to his, gripping as tightly as he could.

Whatever the hell was on the other end of the line, it didn’t want to budge. Gritting their teeth and grunting in exertion, both men started to feel dread creep up on them. Any creature that managed to challenge the strength of both the demonic Vice-Chief and the Shiroyasha at the same time must be quite formidable.

“What the fuck is this?!” Hijikata gasped, exasperated, panting from the sheer amount of effort it was taking to reel in the catch.

“Pull harder so we can find out!” Gintoki shouted in reply. Only seconds later, the two of them finally won out and practically flew backwards as the line went slack and their catch flopped onto the boat.

It was a large sturgeon-like fish, at least fifteen feet long and sporting rows upon rows of sharp teeth. Its scales were a light blue-grey, metallic and shimmery. Clearly, it was an amanto creature. The fish continued to flop around for a moment, rocking the boat dangerously with the sheer force of its thrashing, before its movements began to still and it finally lay motionless.

“Do you think granny will accept this?” Gintoki wondered, scratching his head and leaning in close to get a better view of the creature. In addition to the rows of pointy teeth, its spine was lined with spikes that closely resembled pointy teeth themselves.

Nothing about this thing looked particularly appetising, and unfortunately, they had been tasked with catching trout to sell at the market.

“It’s probably fine,” Hijikata muttered, taking out his pack of cigarettes from his pocket. He had made sure to keep them inside a plastic bag so they wouldn’t get wet while they were out on the water. “I mean, this thing looks edible enough, right? They just have to prepare it properly. It’s probably really tasty, or something… They can serve it over rice, yeah,” he suggested, recalling his previous conversation with Kagura about a certain monster fish tasting like tofu.

“You’re serious… Okay, you know what,” Gintoki sighed, “Sure. Let's go back.” Agreeing with Hijikata out loud wasn’t generally something that came easily to him, but judging by the clouds that were beginning to approach overhead as well as the incessant growling of his empty stomach, it was time to end their expedition.

And so, after yanking the tail end of the creature’s body clumsily onto the boat, they started the journey back. The fish was so big that Hijikata had to sit on the edge of the boat and practically hug his knees, as there was no room left for him to sit properly. Gintoki was left to paddle, and doing so with the added occupant of an alien that probably weighed hundreds of pounds didn't make things any easier.

As they finally neared the shore and the fishing dock came into view, the air began to change. People mulling about on and around the dock noticed them and then for some reason, didn’t look away. Briefly, Gintoki was reminded of how Katsura’s men had gestured towards them excitedly before shooting them in the necks with tranquilliser. Just as those men had, the people on the dock were pointing at them and waving over other passerby.

However, the faces of Katsura’s men had showed curiosity and confusion, while the faces of these people simply showed complete and utter shock.

“What did we do?” Hijikata wondered, staring in disbelief at the large gathering of people on the dock that was growing in size by the second.

“Who knows,” Gintoki sighed, standing up and getting ready to dock the boat. “Let’s just get off and then find out.”

Once they were within earshot of the people waiting for them, they finally gained a bit of understanding as to what the commotion was about. In the midst of the shouting and clambering, they made out the face of the lady whose son had hired them for the job. She seemed just as worked up as everyone else, and pushed through the crowd to rush over to them.

“It is as foretold! It is as foretold!” She was practically shrieking, movements far more frantic and excessive than what would be expected of an old woman.

“What’s foretold?” Hijikata asked, puzzled. Gintoki raised an eyebrow at the woman as he worked on unravelling the mooring line.

“The prophecy!”

“What prophecy?” Gintoki scoffed in disbelief.

“The story goes,” the lady cleared her throat,

Day by day and night by night,
The monster plagues us all with fright.
Sharpened fangs and beady eyes,
Its victims cannot voice their cries.
This unrelenting, vicious cycle,
We are saved by their arrival,
White and black, red and blue,
They slay the beast and make this true.

“How is that a prophecy?” Gintoki was truly bewildered. “This is just a poem, and a shitty one at that! And who wrote this crap? Who tried to rhyme ‘cycle’ with ‘arrival’? Did a kid come up with this prophecy for a school assignment?!”

“You have saved us!” Exclaimed another villager, running up to give a tight embrace to a very uncomfortable Hijikata.

“We are plagued no more!” Cried another one, falling to his knees in front of them and bowing his head.

“Wait, wait, wait, let me get this straight,” Hijikata sputtered, finally managing to catch his breath after succeeding in shoving the man off of him, “We didn’t just catch a weirdly large fish, we caught a sea monster that’s been terrorising this village for… how long?”

“Centuries!” Someone in the crowd replied.

“My great grandmother is finally avenged!” Yelled someone else.

“How did you do it? You must have been blessed by the Gods, surely!” The old lady implored, eyes shining with excitement.

“With bait,” Gintoki deadpanned.

“And it’s true! White and black,” the lady beamed, gesturing excitedly towards their hair colours, “And your eyes! Red and blue! It is as foretold, just as foretold! What can we do for you? Anything! Anything you want! We are forever indebted to you!”

Hijikata and Gintoki exchanged a thoughtful look.

“Money?” Gintoki offered.

“A place to stay?” Hijikata added.

Chapter Text

“China?”

It was just past midnight, and Sougo was heading back to the barracks after finishing his patrol when he spotted her. Sighing, he rolled down the window of his car and squinted into the darkness, trying to make out the figure that was bent over the side of a large garbage receptacle. He was pretty sure it was Kagura though, the red hair was hard to miss.

“The fuck do you want, Sadist?!” Came Kagura’s voice. It appeared as though she had been trying to climb out of the bin, was unsuccessful, and was now stuck. Her legs were inside, and the top half of her body was hanging pathetically over the outside. She steadied herself against the side of the bin, only to lift her head up enough to make eye contact and scowl menacingly at the officer.

“You want some help?” Sougo offered, amused.

“Fuck off!”

“Boy, looks like not having Danna around has allowed your language to become even more vulgar,” he snickered, exiting the car and making his way over to her. Kagura’s scowl only deepened as he approached, but she didn’t resist as he grabbed her under the shoulders and lifted her up easily.

“Can you put me down now?” She snapped. Instead of letting her down onto the ground, Sougo held her draped over his shoulder in a fireman's carry and started making his way back to the patrol car.

“I’m arresting you, China.”

“What?!”

“Dumpster diving is illegal.”

“Oh come on!” She shrieked, pounding her fists against his back. “I was hungry! I love Big Sis, but I can’t eat the goddamn dark matter she calls eggs!”

Sougo merely hummed in response, opening the door to the backseat of his car and letting her slide off his shoulder. He didn’t release his grip on her though, so before she could make a get away, he snapped a pair of handcuffs on her, shoved her inside and slammed the door.

“What’s illegal about dumpster diving anyway?!” She continued, her voice muffled from inside the car. “It’s all trash! It’s getting thrown away, what does it matter if I take it?!”

“I don’t make the laws, I just enforce them,” he yawned, unbothered, settling into the driver’s seat and starting up the car once again. “And, China, you can’t be left by yourself if you’re resorting to things like that.”

“Don’t look down on me!” She snarled, thrashing around in a manner that Sougo thought resembled a toddler having a tantrum. “I can survive by myself! I don’t need Gin-chan, I don’t need anyone! I’m fine! LET ME GO!”

——

“So, you’ll be staying here for awhile,” Kondo clicked his tongue, crossing his arms as he peered down at Kagura. Sougo had brought her back to the Shinsengumi headquarters, and his superior wasn’t particularly pleased about being woken up this late at night.

“I’ve been thinking about what you said before, about how it’s only right for me to assume responsibility for your well-being until Yorozuya returns,” he continued sternly.

“That’s not what I meant, Gorilla! I didn’t want a babysitter, I wanted a damn yacht!”

Kagura was showing no signs of calming down anytime soon. However, she hadn’t made an effort to break out of the handcuffs, despite being more than capable of it. It was a good sign, because it signalled to Kondo that she was more or less willing to cooperate.

Being without Gintoki was definitely getting to her more than she would like to admit.

“I’ve arranged for a room to be set up for you. Anytime you leave the barracks, you must inform either Sougo or myself. Also, you must always be back here by 8 o’clock at night at the very latest.”

“You’re giving me a curfew?! I'm not a fucking child!”

“Yes, you are. Meals are served here, which you will be provided access to,” Kagura’s ears perked up at this, despite how annoyed she was, “And feel free to ask for anything you need, anytime. Are we clear?”

Kagura could only gawk at him, her facial expression flickering between anger and shock.

“Clear, China?” Sougo piped up. He was standing behind her, so she couldn’t see how smug he looked, which was quite.

“Damnit,” she muttered, dropping her gaze to the ground. It sucked, the whole thing made her feel pathetic, like she was being treated like a helpless kid. Still, it had become somewhat clear to her that she wasn’t able to live by herself, at least not well.

She missed Gintoki, she missed hot meals, and she missed a tidy home. Here, she could at least have two of those three things.

“Fine,” she finally replied through grit teeth, keeping her gaze locked on the floor.

“Very good,” Kondo nodded, breathing a sigh of relief. “I’m going to go get some sleep now. Sougo, show her to her room. Actually, no, show her where she can take a shower first. No offence China, but you smell like actual garbage.”

——

“The leaves are starting to turn,” Hijikata hummed thoughtfully, cigarette in hand. He was leaning on the balcony of the small home they had been given by the villagers, observing the scenery with an expression that could only be described as wistful.

“Yup, it’s fall,” Gintoki huffed, immersed in his JUMP.

The place they had moved into was modest, but in a comforting kind of way. Many of the buildings in the village had only one floor, but this one had two stories, and the view from up top was beautiful. Beyond rows of small houses, trees were dotted around sporadically, sporting leaves of yellow, orange and red. Further beyond the village, they could see the fishing dock, and beyond that, the ocean.

“Don’t you miss your precious Shinsengumi?” Gintoki piped up from behind the pages of his magazine, still splayed out lazily on the floor.

Hijikata regarded him curiously for a moment before turning to face beyond the balcony again, taking another drag from his cigarette. “I mean, sure. But they disrespected me, bad.”

“Yeah.”

“If they really need me, they’ll apologise and beg for me to come back. Until then, I’m staying here.”

“Yeah.”

“Don’t you miss the kids?”

Gintoki shrugged, although only to himself because Hijikata wasn't watching him anymore. “Sure, but again, I’m waiting for them to admit they screwed up.”

“Yup.”

Silence befell them again, interrupted only by the sound of a gentle breeze and the indecipherable chatter of villagers below.

Originally, they had been expecting to have to find jobs, but the villagers turned out to be quite generous with the reward money. They had enough to last them the season, at least. So, they were still trying to figure out how to occupy themselves. Hijikata more so than Gintoki, though. The Yorozuya was well-versed in the art of lazing around all day but the officer, on the other hand, was a workaholic through-and-through. He was getting antsy, for sure.

“Apparently, there’s a festival in a few days. The Tsukimi festival. Do you want to go?” Hijikata said over his shoulder, breaking the quiet. Something about asking the Yorozuya to hangout with him felt weird on too many levels to even try and decipher. But, in comparison to everything that had happened to them since getting stranded, it felt notably less strange.

“Aww, are you asking me on a date, vice-commander?”

“Drop dead,” the officer spat, ashing his cigarette on the railing.

Gintoki snickered, before closing his magazine and sitting up. “Yeah, let’s go. Might be fun.”

“Mhm.”

Back home, Hijikata never had much time for things like attending festivals. As an officer, he would typically be tasked with providing security or surveillance at those types of events, missing the opportunity to actually enjoy them as a regular civilian. Here, he had no such responsibility, and was free to attend just like anyone else. The prospect was exciting, and he had been looking forward to it ever since he overheard some villagers talking about it. Of course, he had been keeping that to himself, and he had made a conscious effort to carry a tone of indifference in his voice while bringing the subject up to Yorozuya.

Gintoki, on the other hand, couldn’t remember the last time he had attended a festival without his kids in tow. He loved them, he did, but mixing Kagura and endless rows of food vendors never bode well for his wallet.

-----

Edo, generally speaking, was a lot busier than this small village. Events and festivals held in Edo occurred often, and without knowledge of their existence prior, they could be easy to miss. Hidden amongst the cityscape, rows of lanterns, decorations and vendor booths were sometimes unnoticeable from only a few blocks away. Particularly in Kabukicho, where colourful LED signs and storefronts provided plenty of distraction from anything else.

Here, though, it was a different story entirely. Approaching the balcony of their house for his umpteenth smoke break of the day, (may blessings be upon the elderly man who ran the smoke shop on the other side of the street), Hijikata could clearly see the whole of the village illuminated in a red and orange glow. Nearly every building, homes and stores alike, were adorned with paper lanterns and other festival-related decorations.

The majority of the townspeople could be seen gathering around a small temple, located on the outskirts of the village, bordered by forest but not quite surrounded by it. Small though it was, it stood out and shone brighter than any other place in the vicinity, a large collection of lanterns illuminating the one area in particular like a concentrated fall of snow. Even the slow rise of incense, disappearing into the night air, was visible from where Hijikata stood on the balcony.

“Are you ready?” Gintoki called from somewhere behind him, startling the officer out of his daze.

“Yeah,” he responded, turning around after one last glance at a young child accompanied by who he presumed to be her grandmother making their way towards the temple.

Hijikata was startled once again after perceiving Gintoki’s appearance. He was clad in a striped navy kimono, and a dark grey obi was neatly tied around his waist. Overtop, he wore a haori that matched the colour of his obi. Even his hair was somehow a little bit less messy-looking than usual, but it was difficult to pinpoint why.

What really threw Hijikata off, though, was how neither of his arms were lazily tucked into his signature yukata, and instead rested at his sides. He didn't know how or when he had gotten so used to Yorozuya carrying himself in that weird stance, but apparently he had, because this felt odd.

He had seen Gintoki dressed nicely before, but something about this particular situation threw him for a loop more than he’d like to admit. The feeling was simply a reflection of how strangely their situation had developed, most probably.

“Yes, I know I look great, but stop staring and let’s go, vice-chief.”

“Shut up.”

The stroll through the streets was even more surreal. In the back of his head, Gintoki kept expecting to hear the sultry calls of cabaret girls stationed at his left and right, something he had gotten so accustomed to in Kabukicho. Here, those calls were nonexistent. Instead, he could hear the chatter of families, of groups of friends, and such a pleasant mood filled the air that it was difficult not to feel peaceful.

“This reminds me of my hometown,” Hijikata piped up, exhaling cigarette smoke into the gentle breeze.

“Does it?” Gintoki responded curiously, not making eye contact and instead focusing on their path as they traversed through the streets.

When Hijikata didn’t elaborate, he added, “Why?”

Hijikata looked at him then, the surprise at Gintoki’s engagement in conversation subtle but still noticeable on his face. “I lived in the country. Farmland. The town was small, kind of like this.”

“Pretty different from Edo, huh?”

“Quite.”

“Did people hold festivals there?”

Hijikata hummed, then hollowed his cheeks around the cigarette once again. “I remember one. It was tiny, even smaller than this. It wasn’t so much a festival, more of a… village-wide celebration? I don’t know. I remember lights, people, and the smell of incense. Decorations that people put up in front of their houses.”

“If it reminds you of this, it might’ve been for the Tsukimi festival too then. Celebrating the harvest seems like something that would happen out in the farmlands.”

“Yeah, true.”

They fell into silence once more, before Hijikata spoke up, “What about you?”

“Hm?”

“Do you have any memories of celebrating festivals, or something like that?”

Gintoki pondered this for a moment, before breaking out into a low chuckle. “Sort of.”

“Sort of?” Hijikata raised his eyebrows at him, clearly encouraging him to go on. It was strange to him, strolling through the village like this with someone who he fought with almost every time he saw back home. But, this wasn’t home, and he didn't want to fight now. Weirdly, this sort of conversation was refreshing, nice.

They had been through a lot together within the past several weeks, after all. Hijikata had the fleeting thought that he wanted to hold onto the moment for as long as he could, though he’d never voice it. Ever. He would just enjoy the odd illusion for as long as it was meant to last.

“I remember one time during the war,” Gintoki started to respond, but his voice began to trail off, instinctually. Hearing himself talk about the war was never something he had entirely gotten used to, but he willed himself to keep speaking. This was a happy memory, after all.

“I think it was summer. Zura was there, and the others. We were at camp, and I was about to sleep, but then Sakamoto barged into my tent with some makeshift fireworks,” he snickered, recalling the memory. “I don't even know how the hell he got them. But, we set them off, and Zura’s clothing almost lit on fire because we didn't know what the hell we were doing. Takasugi was yelling at us for being stupid, but we eventually convinced him to light one too. They were way louder than we expected and we ended up accidentally waking up half the camp, even though we lit them in a clearing that was a ways away from there. But damn, it was fun.”

Finishing his recollection and peering back up at the man walking beside him, Gintoki was momentarily taken aback. Hijikata was smiling, genuinely, his eyebrows unfurrowed and his expression showing no form of malice, a theme that the demon vice-commander’s face displayed almost always. He laughed, a foreign sound to Gintoki's ears, and shook his head.

“If only Katsura actually set on fire. That would've saved me plenty of trouble.” Hijikata chuckled. Gintoki elbowed him lightly in the side. “I'm kidding, I'm kidding. Sort of.”

By now, they were approaching the steps to the temple. Trees were beginning to grow taller, reaching over their heads. They formed a canopy that allowed the illumination of the moon to be replaced with the glow of lanterns all around them, like a blanket of warmth and light.

----

“This is the lamest crap I’ve ever had to do. This is what you do all day, sadist? You just sit in your little car and stare out your little window? You know you get paid for this, right? Do you seriously not care that you’re basically just taking a massive shit on precious taxpayer money?”

“Shut up China. You don't even pay taxes yet.”

“And when I do, are you gonna act any differently? No.”

Huffing and turning to glare out the window of the patrol car in quite a similar manner to what she had just described, Kagura tapped her finger on the dashboard impatiently, loudly. Beside her, in the driver’s seat of the car, Sougo observed her with bored eyes.

“You’re annoying me, China.”

That morning, Kondo had ordered that Kagura join Sougo during his patrol. Why? To get her out of the barracks, to allow the men some peace and quiet. Ever since she had arrived there, just less than a week prior, chaos had ensued.

It started when she brought Sadaharu to the dining hall. Half of the Shinsengumi’s men had their lunches eaten by the pup, and the other half left the hall with bleeding head wounds. Next, Kagura had leapt at the chance to practise sparring with the men. Of course, they underestimated her, and her ability to control her own strength still needed some fine-tuning, something that became quite apparent to the entirety of the barracks that day.

The final straw occurred when Kondo caught her peeping through Yamazaki’s files in the middle of the night, trying to determine the location of the Bakufu’s yacht.

Unable to send her home on the basis of self-instilled moral responsibility and absolutely nothing else, Kondo resorted to the next best thing. This solution involved sending Kagura out with Sougo for an entire day of patrol. In reality, Sougo was basically the only person in the Shinsengumi capable of dealing with her antics, and therefore he had been, begrudgingly on his part, tasked with watching her for the day.

As a bonus, this little field trip allowed the necessary timeframe for the giant dog-sized hole in the wall of the dining hall to be repaired.

“At least buy me some food or something. I'm hungry,” Kagura whined, fiddling with the hem of the oversized uniform jacket she had been made to wear. Kondo had made her wear it, as someone dressed in civilian clothes couldn't really be seen in the passenger seat of a patrol car, at the risk of strange glances from onlookers. The one upside for her was that she did get away without having to wear the cravat.

“No.”

Groaning, she dug the palms of her hands into her eyes. “I’ve never been so goddamn bored in my life!”

“You brought this on yourself.”

Although her first instinct was to argue this, Kagura was smart enough to know that Sougo’s words were the truth. So, she settled on glaring at him.

“Want some?” Sougo spoke up after a while, handing her a stick of pink bubblegum.

“Yeah.”

The rhythmic chewing of gum did help calm and distract Kagura a little bit, which both of them were grateful for. They sat in somewhat-amicable silence for several minutes, until Sougo abruptly jumped in his seat and quickly turned the keys in the ignition.

“What are you doing?” Kagura sputtered, gripping the armrest of her seat as the car suddenly accelerated forward.

“I found the suspect.”

The sirens turned on and within the blink of an eye, they were speeding down the street in pursuit of someone, apparently.

“Suspect of what?” Kagura shouted over the sound of the wind outside the open window, sputtering around the strands of hair that were blowing into her face.

“Involvement in illegal drug manufacturing!” Sougo shouted back, eyes focused on the road and hands clutching the steering wheel.

‘So you weren't actually just sitting around doing nothing?’ Kagura thought to herself, somewhat perplexed. She decided not to voice this realisation aloud, in the interest of not backing down on the very reasonable jabs she previously made towards the officer’s job.

It took a moment for Kagura to pinpoint who the suspect Sougo was chasing actually was, but eventually, it became clear. Aside from the crowds of people hurriedly clearing the street to allow the car to pass through, one man stood out in particular, sprinting away as fast as his feet would carry him.

“He won't stop! Why does he have so much stamina?” Kagura yelled, exasperated.

“China, hold this!”

“Huh?”

She watched as Sougo reached into the backseat without taking his eyes off the road, pulled out his signature bazooka, and handed it to her.

The weapon felt huge in her hands, a stark contrast to her small stature, but it certainly wasn't too heavy for her. After seeing the sadist point that bazooka at others, mainly Hijikata, too many times to count, Kagura knew immediately what she had to do. Inhaling sharply, she leaned out of the open window and pointed the thing straight at the fleeing man, who was about to turn a corner.

“This is the Shinsengumi!” She bellowed, finger hovering over the trigger, “You are under arrest! Stop right now, or I'll blow you the fuck up!”

It was nearly comical how quickly the man came to a halt. He stuttered in his movements so abruptly he almost toppled over. Shooting a weary glance in their direction, he fell to his knees and placed his hands over his head.

Kagura peered at Sougo, briefly, to see him grinning from ear-to-ear, before he parked the vehicle and exited while twirling a pair of handcuffs around his finger.

----

“I’m feeling pretty done with boats, at the moment.” Hijikata grumbled, recalling the events of the past several weeks.

“Nah, nah, this is different,” Gintoki drawled, making his way towards the dock, “So, come on.”

At least thirty people had gathered by the dock, surrounding a number of small boats that were lined up on the water and manned by one person each. One by one, townspeople boarded the boats, and then set off away from the dock and into the night.

The sky was clear, cloudless, the moon shining brightly and proudly. The boats, some close and some far away, were slowly making their way around in a wide circle in the water.

“It's a short ride. Only about thirty minutes, a lady told me,” Gintoki said encouragingly, “Let’s go. Please?”

Begrudgingly, Hijikata followed. Distantly, he wondered, ‘why do I have to go with you? Go yourself’ but he left that thought unvoiced. He and Gintoki boarded one of the approaching boats along with about five other people.

“It’s tradition,” Gintoki explained as they sat down, “Moon viewing on boats.”

“Yeah, yeah, I’m already here, you don't have to keep convincing me,” Hijikata responded with a huff. Out of habit, he reached into his pocket for his packet of cigarettes, but stopped himself. Seated close to them was a young child who had boarded the boat with his parents, and he always made a point not to smoke around kids. This was a personal choice that he had made out of the goodness of his heart, and certainly not because one time, an angry mother had slapped him in the face.

It was beautiful though, really. The moon and the stars reflected off of the calm water, painting their surroundings in light that danced across the gentle waves. To their left, the village remained bright in glimmering shades of orange and red and yellow. As they gradually strayed further from the shore, the sounds of chatter turned quieter, becoming peaceful white noise and nothing more.

Enraptured by the intricate image that was his surroundings, it took Hijikata a moment to realise that Gintoki was staring at him.

“What?”

“Do you think they have stuff like this in Edo?” Gintoki inquired, the breeze ruffling his hair and returning it to its usual messy state, undoing whatever he had done to it before they left the house that had made it look slightly less unkempt.

“Probably, sure,” Hijikata shrugged, “Are you thinking of taking the kids?”

“Yeah. I just don't have the damn money,” Gintoki chuckled dryly, turning his attention back towards the endless expanse that was the ocean. “They probably charge lots for stuff like this in Edo.” Beside them, the young child and his family were engaged in conversation, but neither Gintoki nor Hijikata were focused on what the conversation was about.

“People probably market it as this big thing,” Gintoki continued, grumbling, “Like, ‘scenic boat ride!’. It completely takes away from, like, the tradition of it. People have been doing this for generations, and they just now decide to make it something you have to pay for.” Gintoki sighed dejectedly, leaning back on his hands.

“I’ll pay,” Hijikata blurted before he could stop himself. Gintoki, taken aback, raised an eyebrow at him.

“I mean, they'd like this,” Hijikata continued hurriedly, feeling the overwhelming need to justify this sudden and unusual display of generosity, both to Gintoki and to himself. “It can't be too expensive, anyway.” Noticing Gintoki’s half-awestruck, half-disbelieving expression, he added, “Don't get the wrong idea. I'm not doing this for you, but for the kids. They deserve to experience stuff like this, especially Kagura. She's probably never done something like this before.”

Gintoki’s expression hadn't changed, still displaying that oddly awestruck look, so Hijikata decided to add an insult in order to bring some familiarity back to the situation.

“And- and I know you're too much of a broke deadbeat to give that to them.”

Instead of retorting at that last quip, Gintoki only laughed. “Alright, alright. Yeah, well, I’d appreciate that. You owe us after everything we’ve done for you and your litter of government dogs.”

“Sure,” Hijikata muttered. That was true, he really did owe the Yorozuya trio. For a lot.

Chapter Text

‘I wonder what Gin-chan is doing right now’, Kagura wondered, sighing. ‘I wonder when he’s coming back. He’s coming back, right? These Shinsengumi dogs don't buy me nearly enough sukonbu. And I miss our TV, and our couch. And I miss my closet, even though I took over Gin-chan’s room anyway. I wonder if Gin-chan is having fun, wherever he is. I guess he and Mayora are getting along now?’

She was startled out of her daze by Sougo, who exited the interrogation room and slammed the door behind him.

“He’s not fucking cracking,” he snarled, fists clenched at his sides, clearly exasperated.

They had arrested the man several hours ago, and had brought him into the station shortly afterwards. Unfortunately, they had made close to no progress. The man had ties to the illegal drug manufacturing network for sure, but Sougo couldn't seem to get him to talk.

The man wasn't high up enough in the ranks to be notably important, however, he was high enough to have a reason to keep quiet. Money, fear, whatever. Regardless, the sun had long since disappeared under the horizon, and Sougo was growing restless. Kagura was too. Since she had been essentially designated to Sougo for the day, she had to follow him everywhere. So, she had been waiting outside the interrogation room for so long she had lost track of time. If anything, she was more hungry than bored.

“Let me at him,” Kagura offered, crossing her arms. Sougo regarded her with a weary expression.

“You're not an officer,” he replied, but the tone of his voice suggested that he was too exhausted to care about such specifics.

“Right now I am,” she replied smugly, pulling on the lapel of the uniform jacket she was still wearing to prove her point. Sougo studied her for a moment, a considering look on his face, before he finally sighed and gestured towards the door.

“Fine.”

As soon as the word left his mouth, Kagura barged into the room. She was tired, she was hungry, and she was going to do everything she could to wrap this up.

As she entered the room and closed the door behind her, the man peered up at her with a confused expression on his face.

“Who are you? I didn't think women could be in the Shinsengumi,” he huffed, resting his chin on his hand in an unimpressed manner.

“Yeah? You don't know what's in my pants,” Kagura barked back, seating herself in the chair opposite the man with no hesitation whatsoever. He scoffed at her retort but regarded her with bored, unintimidated eyes, and this irked Kagura to no end.

She was going to finish this, she told herself, and quickly. Dinner had been served in the barracks’ dining hall nearly an hour ago. Her food certainly wouldn't be hot anymore, but if she wanted it at least somewhat fresh instead of microwaved, she’d have to hurry up.

“Are you tired?” She asked, politely.

For a second, the man looked even more confused, before he answered with uncertainty in his voice, “Sure?”

“Me too.” Kagura sighed, shaking her head. “I’m tired. I'm hungry, I'm fed up.”

“Oh… Okay?”

“Which means,” she continued slowly, switching her tone of voice to something that she hoped was more menacing, “I don't have time for your shit.”

“Is that so?”

Clearly, the man was unfazed. Kagura knew that if Sougo had a hard time getting this guy to spill, then he was obviously a tough nut to crack.

“Do you have any family?” She asked, tapping her finger thoughtfully on the wood of the table.

“Why should I tell you?” The man responded, furrowing his brows. “Why does that matter?”

“Just making conversation,” she shrugged. “I have family, but at the moment they’ve all left me.”

“Uh… why?” The man inquired, confused but clearly taking the chance to switch the subject of conversation and stall the questioning.

“My father and brother are in space,” she explained, “And I haven't seen either of them for a long time. My brother has tried to kill me multiple times, too.”

“I’m sorry to hear that?”

“My mother is dead. Here on Earth, I've been basically adopted, but that man has left me now as well.”

“I see?”

“Sometimes I wonder what my mother would think of me,” Kagura continued, leaning forward on the palms of her hands, “If she would be proud, or disappointed.” This was a lie, more or less, but she had to try. Something in the man’s expression flickered ever so briefly, and she knew she had found an in. Bingo.

“Do you know what that feels like?” She asked, innocently. She knew that she could take advantage of the fact that she was a young girl to make herself seem vulnerable, approachable even. Judging by the subtle ways that the man’s demeanour shifted, it was working.

“...”

“Is your mother dead?” She asked, taking note of his lack of response.

“No.”

“But you haven't seen her in a long time?” Kagura inquired.

The man stayed silent, just staring at her.

“And why is that?” She continued, standing up now, leaning as far across the table as she could so that she was towering over the man to the best of her ability, “Afraid to show her who you are? Are you ashamed?”

“Okay, I know what you’re trying to do-”

“I'm not trying to do anything,” she interrupted briskly, “I’m just asking. As a son, are you ashamed? If she saw you here, in this room, detained on suspicion of criminal activity, what would she think?”

“You-”

“We know you’re involved. We followed you, picked you out in the crowd, and arrested you on the spot, remember? Plus, you ran. Even that implicates you. Imagine telling your poor mother that you ran from the cops. It doesn't look good. Hey, I bet you send her money, huh?”

The man’s expression became even more guarded, and he even recoiled his body ever so slightly. Bingo, once again.

“Dirty money, I bet. Do you think she would be accepting of that money if she knew where it came from, what you did to get it?” She leaned in even closer, face to face with the man now. “Do you think she’d accept you?”

“Stop,” he spat, but everything about him was faltering, steadily.

“See,” she hummed, sitting back down and crossing her arms, “I know who she is. I know she runs a farm out in the country. Her husband died years ago, and he was the breadwinner. She doesn't make nearly enough to keep herself afloat. However, she’s still running the farm. And that, that means that her dear son has been selflessly supporting her, don't you think?”

All of that time spent waiting outside the interrogation room had proved useful. She had seen the man’s file and read through it out of boredom. But now, that information was providing her with an advantage.

“Don't involve my mother,” the man scowled, voice unsteady, “Leave her out of this.”

“I would never hurt an innocent woman,” Kagura continued, “But If you don't cooperate, I can’t say I’ll leave her out of this. The way I see it, you have a couple options. Option number one, you give us information regarding this little operation that's oh so important to you.”

Reaching beside her without breaking eye contact, she grabbed an empty soda can that Sougo had left on the table. “Option number two,” she continued, crushing the can easily in her grip, “She gets to see her son again, but in pieces.”

“W-what?”

“I'll send you back,” she said slowly, dropping her voice low, “In pieces.”

“What the fuck are you talking about?”

“In boxes, I’m thinking. One box for each of your limbs. Your guts in another one. And, the real kicker, your severed head. Maybe I'll bubble wrap it. Imagine, your dear mother, unwrapping your severed head and holding it in her hands, unable to believe it's her baby boy.”

The man’s eyes were wide, although his expression still held a significant air of disbelief. “Don't fuck with me. You government dogs can get away with a lot, but not that.”

“See,” she let a wide grin spread across her face, “You were right about one thing. There's no women in the Shinsengumi. I'm not one of those government dogs. And truthfully, those dogs owe me a lot. They’d overlook it if I did what I wanted with scum like you.” That was a lie, completely, but the man seemed to believe it. Disbelief in his face was replaced with poorly concealed fear.

“You can't do shit to me,” he spat in a last-ditch effort to regain the upper hand, “You’re just a little girl.”

Now, the grand finale. Swiftly, Kagura smacked her fist down on the centre of the table, crushing the entire thing. Pieces of wood clattered onto the floor, and she reached for one particularly sharp piece that had broken off from one of the table’s legs. Raising an eyebrow as provokingly as she could, she held it up to the man’s throat.

“This little girl has nothing to lose,” she whispered. “But you, son, you do. I'm thinking about your mommy’s face when she sees you in a body bag. Are you thinking about that too?”

“Fuck- I’LL TALK!”

----

“What do you think?” Called an elderly woman, exiting the door to her shop and meeting Gintoki just outside. He was eyeing a display of light pink chrysanthemums outside the store window.

“They're really nice,” he replied, gently touching the petals of one particularly vibrant flower.

“You should take some home to your husband. And don't worry about paying, dear, it's on me!”

Gintoki’s blood ran cold.

He sputtered, quickly retracting his hand from the flowers so as to not accidentally rip them apart in his shock.

“My what?!”

The lady tilted her head, clearly confused. “Your husband, Hijikata-san.”

“He’s not my husband!” Gintoki stared at her, mouth agape.

“My dear, it's alright. We’re accepting of all types of love in this town,” she reassured him, smiling warmly. “We all assumed that you hadn't explicitly said anything because you weren't sure how it would be received. But, you two are adorable, and it's quite obvious.”

“What do you mean, obvious?!”

“Well, you go everywhere together!” The lady said, becoming even more confused, “And we all saw you two at the Tsukimi festival.”

Gintoki felt colour rush to his face. Now that she had said it, this didn't look good for him.

“I do hope he’s your husband,” the lady continued, peering at him wearily, “Because if he isn’t, then you're… kind of just two men who live together. Which would be fine, if we all knew you, but… I mean, a tad shady, isn't it?”

“What…”

“The prophecy is about a couple,” she continued, “Obviously.”

‘It’s not obvious at all!’ Gintoki thought, his mind reeling.

“So, if you’re not a couple, then who’s to say the prophecy even applies to you?”

‘Because we caught the fucking fish!?’ Gintoki’s brain screamed at her.

He waited, desperately searching for any indication in the woman’s face that she was joking. He couldn’t find one. He took a deep breath and steadied himself.

“Okay, you got me.”

The lady beamed. “So, Sakata-san, would you like to take some of these flowers home to your beloved?”

“...Sure, thanks.”

----

Kagura missed Gintoki. She did, really. However, at this moment, with a large platter of delicious food being placed in front of her by none other than the Sadist himself, she wasn't thinking of him at all.

“Why thank you, Captain,” she snickered. Sougo glared at her with malice in his eyes but kept his mouth shut, swiftly turning on his heel and walking away.

Kondo had been extremely grateful for Kagura’s help in the interrogation of the suspect they had captured the day before. So, he rewarded her with a nice dinner. Kagura stated that her terms of acceptance included having Sougo be the one to serve her. He agreed. The expression on the Sadist’s face as he was forced to do so was just as priceless as she had hoped.

Starting to dig into a large chicken leg, Kagura noticed glances from some Shinsengumi members seated at the table beside her. Perhaps they were jealous of her meal.

“You can’t haf any,” she barked, mouth full of chicken, and flipped them off with the hand that wasn’t gripping the drum.

“Ah, no, Kagura-san, that's not it,” One of the men chuckled nervously. “We were just… impressed by what you did yesterday. Interrogating that suspect, I mean. You really managed to get a lot of useful information out of him, enough to prepare us well for an eventual raid.”

“Yeah, well,” she shrugged, swallowing her mouthful and waving her hand dismissively, “It's not hard. Just get into their mind, you know. It's all psychological.”

“You just threatened him,” came Sougo’s bored voice from behind her. Without looking back, Kagura reached out to smack him in the arm.

“Yeah, you did too, but the difference was I was successful. Go refill my glass,” she snapped. Grumbling, Sougo obeyed, taking her glass away to go top it off with more non-alcoholic sparkling wine.

“I wish you could come to the raid,” another one of the men expressed, “If you were able to scare that suspect, I bet you could be a big help.”

“No,” Came Kondo’s stern voice from the table on Kagura’s opposite side, “We are not putting her in danger like that. Out of the question.”

Kagura huffed. It's not like she hadn't tagged along on Shinsengumi business before. Perhaps the Gorilla was hesitant because before, Gintoki had been there, so he was responsible for her safety. Here, if she got hurt, the blame would fall on Kondo’s shoulders.

“I can handle myself, probably better than any of your men can,” Kagura retorted. She hadn't wanted to join in on the raid until now. However, now her capabilities were being questioned, so the competitiveness in her was bubbling to the surface. “Besides, if I stay here, who’s watching me? With Mayora gone, you need everyone you can get.”

“You can stay with the Shimuras,” Kondo replied easily. Kagura grit her teeth in irritation.

“They can't stop me from going out,” She shot back.

Kagura was playing it like she was going to join the raid no matter what, and no one could get in her way. In reality, she didn't care much, and instead was just extremely bored. At this point in time, after countless days of being stuck at the barracks, a raid sounded like the most fun thing in the world.

Kondo regarded her in silence, frustration coming across clear in his expression. Before he could speak, Sougo reappeared, placing Kagura’s refilled glass back in front of her.

“You should let her come,” he suggested, startling everyone slightly. Kagura’s instinctual feeling after hearing this was doubt, because since when did Sougo ever stick up for her?

“Why?” Kondo raised a quizzical eyebrow at him.

“Let's just let her tag along and keep her in the car.” Kagura felt her blood start to boil.

“That way we can watch her,” Sougo continued.

“Don't talk about me like I’m your pet dog!” Kagura snapped.

“I’ll think about it,” Kondo muttered after a few moments, and that was the end of that.

Kagura had just resigned herself back to finishing her meal when she felt Sougo lean over her shoulder and whisper into her ear.

“Good dogs get to go out on walks.”

----

“You fucking idiot!” Hijikata practically screeched.

“It’s not my fault!” Gintoki whined in response, defensively taking a step back from the demon vice commander who was radiating nothing but pure, unfiltered murderous intent.

“You could have come up with a better excuse!”

“I panicked!”

“So because you panicked, we now have to act like we’re married?!”

Gintoki dodged a book that was ripped from the shelf and chucked towards his head.

“We don't have to do anything different! They already thought we were!”

“That's even worse!” Hijikata bellowed, clenching his fists in his hair with just shy of enough strength to rip it out.

“Calm down! Calm down!” Gintoki urged, desperately, “It’s fine. It's our cover, you know? It works fine. Calm down.”

Hijikata didn't take well to people telling him to calm down. However, what did help sometimes was a cigarette. He placed one in his mouth and brought his lighter up to it, while simultaneously letting the previous one fall from between his lips and towards the ground.

“I cannot fucking believe,” he enunciated each word with a sharp bite, “I have to pretend that I’m married to you. This is insane. I am the goddamn- I'm the goddamn Vice-Chief of the Shinsengumi, and you are a stupid, unemployed, piece of shit!”

“Not now, you’re not,” Gintoki pointed out, keeping his tone steady for the time being, “You’re not the Vice-Chief here. You're just some dude. Nobody’s judging us.”

Hijikata glared daggers at him, but instead of retorting, he chose to take another irritated drag of smoke.

“If anyone at home hears about this,” he started, warningly.

“They won't,” Gintoki assured him with a huff, “Believe me, it's not like I want this crap broadcasted. Sougo would have a fucking field day, and that would suck for both of us.”

Silence for a while, and then Hijikata barked, “You’re the wife.” Gintoki opened his mouth to counter but Hijikata cut him off, “You’re the fucking wife, you bastard!”

“How?! Gin-san is manly as hell! You're the damn wife! You used to have long hair, even!”

“Suck my dick, Yorozuya!” Hijikata shouted. If his voice had been only a little louder, Gintoki swore it could have shattered glass.

“You suck mine! Ain't that the wife’s job?” Gintoki couldn't resist. The second book flying towards his face was worth the joke.

“You laze around all day! Maybe make yourself useful and cook for me, huh? Stupid dickhead!” Hijikata stomped over to him in his rage and grabbed hold of his collar, “You're the fucking wife! I'm more of a man than you!”

“You're a goddamn closet otaku! More of a man, my ass!” Gintoki’s composure was finally faltering, anger finally bubbling to the surface.

“That wasn't me!”

“You're lying to yourself! You still haven't changed your goddamn ringtone! You can't fool me, motherfucker!”

“Who’s a motherfucker?!”

Outside, the lady from the flower shop that Gintoki had spoken to earlier strolled by with her husband.

“Oh dear, are they fighting?” She gasped, concerned.

“Don't worry, honey. I’m sure they’ll make up,” Her husband responded, patting her arm in ressurance.

“Did they buy that whole ‘the prophecy only applies to couples’ thing?” He inquired after a moment.

“Yes,” she giggled, “Oh dear, I feel kind of guilty about it. Sakata-san looked a little scared there, for a moment. But, I was sick of them tiptoeing around pretending like they weren’t together! I thought it was the only way to get them to admit it.”

----

It was early afternoon on a sunny day when Tsukuyo heard her phone ding.

“Who’s that?” Hinowa called from behind her. Tsukuyo shrugged and placed her pipe down on the bench she was seated on so that she could pull out her phone.

“Oh, it's Gintoki!” She exclaimed, “It's been a while since we’ve heard from him, huh?”

“Yeah!” Hinowa agreed, rolling her wheelchair closer so that she could peer over the other woman’s shoulder at the phone screen. “Last I heard, he and the Shinsengumi’s Vice Chief had left Edo over some sort of childish quarrel with their friends. Kind of odd for those two to end up together, don't you think? Well, whatever.”

Tsukuyo hummed her agreement before opening Gintoki’s message. He had sent her a single video, just over ten seconds long.

She pressed play.

“Oiiii! Tsukki!” Gintoki’s giddy voice called through the phone speaker. He had the camera pointed at himself, and a flush on his cheeks plus a sake cup in his hand suggested that he was pretty plastered.

Scoffing inwardly to herself, Tsukuyo peered up at the sun above her and wondered what the hell Gintoki was doing getting drunk in the middle of the day. Not that he was entirely unknown to do things like that, of course.

“Look what I found!” He turned the camera around so that the screen now showed a set of Kunai being displayed in a store window.

“Made me think of you!” He said in a sing-song voice into the phone’s microphone, then broke out into a laugh. The screen was only displaying the sky now, although that only lasted for a second, before it was displaying Hijikata’s forehead. Unmistakable, thanks to those V-bangs. He appeared to have yanked the phone out of Gintoki’s hand.

“Stop it, idiot,” he barked. His words were slurred, making it obvious that he was drunk too. “Hi Tsukuyo! And bye-” he added, before the video cut off on a blurry image of Gintoki’s hand reaching for the phone once again, as well as Hijikata’s hand reaching out to stop him.

“What the hell are they doing?” Tsukuyo wondered aloud, equally perplexed and amused. She turned to Hinowa, and was startled after seeing the look on her face. She was still, her eyes wide and her mouth agape.

“W-what?” Tsukuyo stuttered, visibly confused.

“Rewind to that last part,” Hinowa mumbled, wearing a focused expression. Tsukuyo rewinded the video to the shot of Hijikata’s forehead.

“A bit less.”

“Here?” Tsukuyo asked, showing the other woman the screen as it displayed the blurry image of the mens’ hands reaching for the phone.

“Am I… Am I crazy, or are they wearing rings?” Hinowa stammered. Tsukuyo’s breath caught in her throat and she brought the screen closer to her face so she could get a good look.

“Holy shit.”

Sure enough, on both of their ring fingers, were silver bands. They were thin and barely noticeable, especially due to the blurriness and comparatively low quality of the video, but definitely rings.

“Gintoki’s gay?” Hinowa mumbled, bringing a hand up to her chin in thought.

“Forget that! It was pretty well implied after what happened with Hasegawa in the Scandal Arc!” Tsukuyo choked, feeling blood rush to her cheeks. “But he eloped?! With the fucking- the fucking Vice-Chief of the Shinsengumi?!”

“There’s no way,” Hinowa blinked, trying to wrap her brain around what the hell they just discovered. “Don't they hate each other? Gintoki’s always talking about how much he can’t stand that guy.”

“I-I-” Tsukuyo stammered. It seemed so impossible, so outlandish, so insane, and yet there was no other explanation she could think of for the rings.

“Do you think his kids know?” Hinowa asked, breaking the silence that had fallen over them when Tsukuyo became unable to form words.

“I doubt it,” She finally managed to reply, “Or else we’d have heard. Obviously they didn't intend for us to know yet, either, and they must’ve- must've accidentally shown us ‘cause they were drunk.”

“What do we do?”

“I think we have to keep quiet for now. They’ll tell us when they’re ready.” Tsukuyo breathed.

She locked eyes with Hinowa, and immediately the reality of the situation became quite clear.

Like hell they were going to keep quiet.

Chapter Text

Something was stirring beside Gintoki, and there was some sort of weight resting on his calf. He grumbled something that was incomprehensible, even to himself. Not wanting to open his eyes yet, he settled for resting his cheek against the hard surface of what felt like a wooden floor.

Distantly, he could hear the sounds of passersby outside, down below. Judging by the proximity of the sounds, he deduced that he was back in his and Hijikata's house.

The house he shared with Hijikata? Ugh, ew. He’ll never get used to that.

Willing himself to blink awake, he was almost immediately hit with a massive headache. The sun had set outside of their window, suggesting that it was nighttime, but not that late, since he could still hear people outside. Good lord, this is why he didn't drink during the day.

Whatever was next to him stirred some more. He groaned, rolling over and haphazardly reaching out to push whatever it was away. Unfortunately, he ended up just smacking Hijikata in the face.

“Ow!”

“What…” his voice trailed off. He didn't even want to figure out what the hell they were doing on the floor of their house. He just scoffed and shut his eyes once again. Hijikata didn't seem to want to let him off the hook that easily, though, and swiftly responded by delivering a smack to Gintoki’s face.

“Bastard!” Gintoki whined, feeling his head throb. He heard Hijikata snicker victoriously and then groan in pain, indicating that he had a headache of his own.

They just laid there for a minute, breathing, trying to muster the willpower to sit up. Hijikata was splayed out on the floor beside Gintoki, one leg draped over his, but neither made to move just yet.

“The fuck happened?” Gintoki groaned, digging the palms of his hands into his eyes.

“We got drunk.”

“No shit. Wait, did I send a video to Tsukuyo?”

Hijikata huffed, turning his face away from Gintoki but still not moving his leg from atop his, as though he had forgotten it was there. “You did, but I took your phone and deleted it. She might have been able to tell where we were from the video, can't have that.”

“Oh. Wait, how did you know my password?”

“I got it on the second try. ‘Ketsuno Ana’ wasn't that hard to guess.”

“Damn. What else did you try?”

“Strawberry milk.”

“That's my other one. You know me so well, sweetheart.” He reached over to pat Hijikata’s forearm affectionately and his hand was immediately slapped away.

“Don't tell me that Yorozuya, what if I hack into your bank account or something?”

“What bank account?”

Hijikata laughed at that one, but just like before, he broke into a pained groan after a few seconds.

“We need to get up,” Gintoki sighed, eyes fixated on the ceiling but unfocused all the same. The feeling of Hijikata's leg atop his was starting to make him feel uneasy. Not in the sense that it was unwelcome, but more so the fact that it wasn't unwelcome. It was almost comfortable. Now that, he certainly didn't want to think about.

‘I’m just tired,’ Gintoki thought, ‘And probably- definitely still a little drunk’.

“I don't want to,” was Hijikata’s reply. He had placed his arm over his face, so the words were muffled by the fabric of his yukata.

“Seriously?” Gintoki blurted. Who was this lazy guy and what the hell did he do with the demon Vice-Cheif?

“Yeah. I'm serious. I think that if I try to get up I’m just going to puke.”

Gintoki could only stare at him in astonishment. It's not like he really wanted to get up either, but he thought if Hijikata did, he’d probably follow just to avoid being one-upped. However, if Hijikata was staying on the floor then Gintoki was too, no question.

“Are you close to the couch?” The officer grunted.

“Yes?”

“Grab the cushions.”

Gintoki heeded his request mostly out of curiosity. Thankfully he only needed to move ever so slightly to do so.

He passed one of the cushions to Hijikata, who immediately snatched it out of his hand and placed it underneath his head. He let out a dramatic, relieved and exhausted sigh that truly sounded like it couldn’t have possibly come from him. The way he nuzzled his face into the cushion to get comfortable made Gintoki do a double take.

“Goodnight Yorozuya.”

“At least gimmie a pet name, ain't we married?” Gintoki smirked, placing the other cushion underneath his own head and closing his eyes.

“Goodnight, insufferable piece of shit,” Hijikata yawned.

----

“We’re here,” Sougo said, parking the car. Beside him in the passenger’s seat, Kondo wasted no time stepping out of the vehicle as soon as they had come to a stop.

“Watch her,” Kondo ordered sternly, gesturing towards Kagura, before he took off to rally the rest of the troops.

“Watch me do what? Sit here handcuffed while the rest of you get to have fun?” Kagura complained, looking out the window as the rest of the Shinsengumi’s squad cars began to park in a line behind them. Altogether, there must have been around eight or ten vehicles.

“You can break out of those easy, he knows that,” Sougo huffed, leaning over his shoulder to regard her with unimpressed eyes.

Outside the window, Kagura could hear Kondo yelling out orders to the troops. They had parked in front of an industrial-looking building, although this building was located right in the middle of Edo. Passersby were shooting them weary looks and hurriedly leaving the vicinity, some out of fear and some in response to the officers who were ushering them away. Kagura marvelled at how quickly the officers worked to set up a perimeter, the way they moved with practice and uniformity.

“They're stationed in the basement,” Kondo shouted to the gathering of Shinsengumi troops. “Squad three, you’ll enter from the stairs located on the east side of the building. Squad four, you will descend the stairs on the west side. Squad two, you will follow my lead as we breach the ground floor from the south side. Squad one, you will follow Captain Okita towards the north side, where you will also enter on the ground level.”

“That's my cue,” Sougo grunted, sparing one last bored look at Kagura before he exited the car. “Behave yourself, China.”

“Uh-huh. Have fun, Captain Okita,” she sneered.

Kagura had been present at Shinsengumi raids before, but it felt different when all she could do was watch. A lot more boring, that's for sure. All she could really do was sit and observe, so she did.

The men were lined up in front of Kondo and Sougo in perfect uniformity, like a grid. Kondo yelled one last command before they all unsheathed their swords at exactly the same time, and broke off into groups to station themselves on all four sides of the building.

From where the car was parked, the street on the east side of the building, Kagura had a clear view of both the south and north sides. She watched in interest as both sides were breached simultaneously.

Kondo opted for simply opening the door and ushering his men inside, whilst Sougo literally blew up the entrance with a bazooka that one of the men handed to him, because of course he did. So unnecessary. Kagura chuckled at the sight, though.

The sounds of boots clattering against the pavement and then the floor on the inside of the building faded away gradually. She could hear yelling, some deafening booms that she could only assume was Sougo continuing to fire the bazooka, and the clashing of swords ringing dully through the air.

Sighing exasperatedly, she peered up at a pigeon that had made itself comfortable atop a powerline just outside the car.

“I wonder what they're doing. Do you know?” She asked the pigeon. It squawked in reply before suddenly flying away after a particularly loud explosion as the bazooka was fired once again.

“Drug bust, I think?” She muttered to herself, leaning against the headrest of her seat. “Sounds fun. Ugh, they should've let me go with them.”

Around three minutes had passed while the sounds of fighting continued to emanate strongly from inside the building, when Kagura noticed some movement coming from the structure’s fourth floor.

She squinted, the sunlight beaming down from the cloudless sky impairing her vision somewhat. However, after a moment, she could clearly see what was going on.

Four men were scrambling out of a window, shouting to one another and frantically making their way down a rope ladder that one of them had thrown over the windowsill. She stared, intrigued, as they clambered down the ladder and towards the street one after the other.

She giggled to herself as she watched one of them nearly lose his grip on the ladder between the second and first floors.

“What the hell are those guys doing?” She wondered aloud, amused, “This is some American action movie shit.”

It wasn’t until all four of them had reached the ground floor and begun to pile into a car parked a few spaces in front of her that the reality of the situation, finally, started to click in her brain.

“Wait-” She rapidly scanned the front seat, searching for a walkie-talkie that she could use to alert Sougo and Kondo of the escapees. There were none. In hindsight, it was a little stupid that the officers didn't leave Kagura with a way to communicate with them, but there was no time to be frustrated with ‘what ifs’ right now.

The car was starting to speed off down the street.

Kagura took one last glance at the building and sure enough, all of the officers were still inside. No one except for her had noticed the four men escaping.

Shit. Incompetent government dogs.

Within a split second, she broke apart the handcuffs and climbed into the front seat. She thanked the Gods that Sougo had left the keys. Really, they had made a lot of easily avoidable mistakes! Thankfully, though, this particular mistake made it possible for Kagura to turn the keys in the ignition and turn the car on.

“Okay, that's the brake, that’s the gas…”

Sougo was much taller than her and she didn't have time to adjust the seat, so she could barely see over the dashboard. Oh well, this would have to do.

She stepped on the accelerator gingerly, although the car responded more sensitively than she expected and she only narrowly missed clipping the bumper of the vehicle parked in front. She did miss it though, and that was the only important thing.

“Stupid fucking tax robbers,” she grumbled, “Making me do everything myself.”

As she sped down the street in pursuit of the four men, swerving and nearly running a red light or two, she decided that not only did she miss Gintoki, she missed Hijikata as well.

He wouldn’t have let this shit happen.

----

Shinpachi had always played the straight man. That was how it was, how it always would be. If he had to name other people who were capable of fulfilling the straight man role, then he would probably suggest the Vice-Cheif, among others. He knew that Hijikata could play a pretty good straight man, at least a decent portion of the time.

Well, that illusion was officially shattered.

“At least he finally settled down,” his sister sighed from beside him, sitting seiza and calmly sipping a cup of tea. “I never thought Gin-san was marriage material. I hope he doesn't make a shitty husband.”

“Based on the data that I’ve gathered,” Tama piped up from where she was also sitting seiza at the opposite end of the chabudai in the Shimura’s living room, “Gintoki has an 88% chance of making an, objectively speaking, shitty wife.”

“That's reassuring,” Otose snickered beside her, a cigarette between her fingers. “Wait, wife?”

“I apologise,” Tama continued, “But I have not collected enough data regarding homosexual relationships to come up with an accurate statistic concerning Gintoki’s potential as a husband. If you would like, I can go to the store and purchase some Boy Love manga to further my knowledge.”

“No, not necessary,” Otae cut in, chuckling nervously. Tama responded with a polite nod.

“Gintoki will make a wonderful wife!” Katsura interjected, defensively.

“He's not a wife,” Catherine pointed out.

“Why 88%?” Otae inquired, turning to Tama, “I thought it would be higher. What the hell makes up that 12% that would make him a good wife?”

“Based on my data,” Tama supplied helpfully, “Some of the most sought-after qualities in a wife are maternal instincts and the inclination to care for children. Gintoki scores highly in both of these categories. However, his overall score is brought down by his lack of ability to prepare food, to be punctual and organised, to set a good example, to be proper and well-mannered, to-”

“Maternal instincts?!” Shinpachi shrieked, banging his fist on the table, “Gin-san is not my mom!” He was calculatedly ignored by everyone else in the room. They were all ignoring Sarutobi as well, who had been sobbing uncontrollably in the corner for about half an hour.

“We’re getting off track,” Tsukuyo quipped, crossing her arms. “Focus.”

“Right, right,” Otae hummed, waving her hand dismissively, “So, back to the point. How does this marriage benefit us?”

“I want to be acquitted,” Katsura said, “Of all charges. If Gintoki’s married to a police officer, then I should benefit, huh?”

“Nope,” Everyone responded immediately. Kyuubei patted him awkwardly on the back in an attempt to be comforting.

“I want the damn rent paid,” Otose spat. “Those Shinsengumi dogs can manage that, surely. They're implicated now.”

“Shinsengumi in-laws,” Shinpachi chuckled dryly, lifelessly, planting his face down on the table. “They’re our in-laws, Otose-san.”

----

“Honey? Would you pass me the TV remote?”

“Would you stop fucking calling me that?!” But Hijikata did as he was told. Although the pass was more of an overhead throw aimed square at Gintoki’s face.

Grumbling about how ‘that wasn't very ladylike’ and to ‘be careful not to damage Gin-san’s pretty face’, Gintoki switched on the TV.

“There she is,” Gintoki sighed delightedly, leaning back against the couch and kicking his feet up onto the coffee table, “There’s my beautiful girl.”

Indeed, the screen showed Ketsuno Ana’s smiling face as she gave the weather report.

“Don't talk like that about other women,” Hijikata snarked from the armchair he had draped himself sideways over. Gintoki even caught him chuckling quietly at his own joke.

“Oh! So I can't make wife jokes, but you can?!”

Hijikata only shrugged in response, still snickering to himself.

Gintoki watched in enraptured silence as Ketsuno Ana gave her weather report, while Hijikata remained engrossed in his newspaper and the cigarette between his lips. After the horoscope readings were over, Hijikata asked for the remote back. Gintoki obliged, because it wasn’t like he wanted to use the TV for anything else.

‘He’s going to switch it to the news channel,’ Gintoki thought, peering expectantly at the officer. Watching TV together like this had become a habit.

Indeed, Hijikata switched the channel, and the screen now displayed a male news reporter seated at a table with his hands clasped and the floating title below, ‘Breaking News’.

“-has sped up, and is now on the freeway,” Came the reporter’s hurried words through the speaker, “And now appears to be taking the next exit.”

“A car chase?” Gintoki mused, raising his eyebrows at the screen. Now being displayed was what appeared to be real-time footage of a black minivan gunning it down the highway with an indeterminable number of police cars in pursuit.

“Those are fucking- those are fucking Shinsengumi squad cars,” Hijikata gasped, unable to tear his eyes away from the screen.

Gintoki did a double take. He hadn't realised at first, but lo and behold, those were indeed Shinsengumi cars.

“The individuals in the black vehicle are suspected of illegal drug trafficking and illegal drug manufacturing, among other crimes,” the reporter announced, although the image didn't change despite the fact that he was speaking.

Gintoki and Hijikata stared at the screen in stunned silence as the aforementioned black vehicle began to weave in and out of cars on the freeway. The other cars were driving at speeds significantly slower than the vehicles within the camera’s focus, within sight one second and gone the next. It was impossible for both men not to hold their breath anxiously.

One of the squad cars was right on the tail of the vehicle containing the suspects, while the rest of the cars were a ways behind. Clearly, the weaving was done in an effort to shake that one car off, but it was in vain. Almost like a shadow, the squad car stayed right on the tail of the suspect vehicle without faltering for even a moment.

“You didn't tell me that the Shinsengumi recruited Dominic Toretto. Who the hell is driving that thing?” Gintoki asked, entirely perplexed and intrigued. He peered at Hijikata briefly to see him shake his head and shrug his shoulders.

The reporter began to say something along the lines of, ‘We would like to remind those currently on the road to keep a safe distance if you see this vehicle, and not to make contact under any circumstances’ but the sound of his voice was drowned out in both mens’ ears, as they took in what was happening in the footage. They were both sitting on the edges of their seats, literally.

Someone was leaning out of the window of the one squad car that was tailing the suspect vehicle. They couldn't have been leaning far, for one of their hands had to still have been on the steering wheel, but it was hard to tell. As that person moved, they swiftly accelerated and moved into the lane adjacent to the suspect vehicle. Both cars were door to door.

Gintoki held his breath, his eyes feeling like they were bulging out of his head, praying that the two cars wouldn’t accidentally make contact and spin out of control. Even the slightest bump could send either of them careening off of the road, at the speed they were going.

“What the hell?” Hijikata breathed.

“It looks like one of the officers is going to make a move to apprehend the suspects!” The reporter exclaimed. Both Gintoki and Hijikata could hear their heartbeats thundering in their ears, sweat collecting on the back of their necks.

Just when the two cars were nearly wheel-to-wheel, the person inside the squad car reached out, gripped onto the cargo rack that was fixed to the top of the suspect vehicle, and hoisted themselves up onto the car roof in one swift motion.

Gintoki only knew one person with the physical strength to pull off a move like that. He didn't even need to see the red hair blowing ferociously in the wind to know exactly who it was.

“Is that fucking China?!” Hijikata practically shrieked.

Gintoki could only respond with complete and utter silence, feeling entirely incapable of picking his jaw up off the floor.

Chapter Text

[ Two days earlier ]

“Yorozuya,” Gintoki heard the slurred, deep voice call from somewhere behind him as a warm hand clapped onto his shoulder, “Pour me- pour me another cup.”

“Say please,” Gintoki responded, voice equally slurred, but he was already pouring it.

It was evening, and they had been drinking since noon. It had started with a single beer with lunch, but their respective competitiveness had spurred them on. After about three beers each, they had made their way to a bar, where they currently found themselves.

Together, they had already downed about one and a half bottles of sake. The bar was relatively quiet, save for them and their banter. However, as the sun was starting to dip towards the horizon, customers were slowly coming in.

“Look- look at this Yorozuya,” Hijikata mumbled, holding up his hand with the ring on it. “This is so-” he paused to hiccup, “-stupid.”

“But it makes the whole thing believable,” Gintoki shrugged. “We have to keep up the… the facade, remember?”

“When we get home,” Hijikata drawled, resting his chin on his hand and closing his eyes as though deep in thought, “I’m going to melt this down. And, and turn it into a tiny dagger or something. And stab you with it.”

“Romantic.”

The officer just scoffed and lifted up his cup of sake to take another gulp. Gintoki did the same.

“Ah, Sakata-san! Hijikata-san!” Called a feminine voice from somewhere in the bar, “How are you two lovebirds doing?”

“Love-” Hijikata started in a choked voice, whipping his head around, but Gintoki cut him off by abruptly hooking an arm around his waist and pulling him close.

“We’re doing well, granny!” Gintoki replied, forcing a grin onto his face. The lady who had called out to them was the same woman who Gintoki had met at the flower shop, and who was arguably responsible for this whole fake-marriage mess.

“What have you two been up to?” She asked, smiling politely.

“Uh,” Gintoki started, watching curiously from the corner of his eye as Hijikata’s body stiffened further with every passing moment, “You know. Couple things.”

It was pretty hilarious how desperately Hijikata was trying to stop his expression from morphing into a grimace. Just to fuck with him even more, Gintoki tightened his grip on his waist. He felt Hijikata suck in a breath and he had to focus to keep his smile warm and innocent instead of smug, because oh boy was this fun.

“Ah, to be young and in love,” the lady giggled, regarding them with kind eyes. “You two are adorable.”

Gintoki should have known, he should have fucking known, that Hijikata wasn't going to let himself get one-upped in anything. And apparently ‘anything’ included pretending to be married.

Leaning his head onto Gintoki’s shoulder, Hijikata snaked an arm around his back and rubbed his upper arm affectionately. Gintoki felt his entire body turn to stone. He noticed, very briefly, that his face felt hot, but he decided to attribute that to the alcohol.

“Well,” Hijikata sighed in a relaxed, contented voice, “We do our best.”

Gintoki wanted to gag. He knew that Hijikata probably did too. Still, those words only fired up his competitive instincts even further.

He settled for languidly tracing a line up the back of Hijikata’s neck with a fingertip and then gently carading his hand through silky black hair.

Why was it so soft? Curse this stupid police officer and his stupid, straight, soft hair. He couldn't help himself from continuing to stroke it gently, almost baffled by how nice it was. Wait, what were they doing again?

Gintoki was snapped back to reality by the way that Hijikata shivered in response to the touch. Ha, take that asshole, he thought.

“Honey,” he mumbled against the shell of the officer’s ear, strategically loud enough for the lady to hear him, “You’re embarrassing me.” Distantly, he took note of the fact that Hijikata’s ear felt warm, hot against his lips. Weird.

“Sorry, sweetheart.”

Oh my god. Oh my god, how did they end up in this situation?! In what world does the demonic Vice-Cheif call anyone, let alone Gintoki, ‘sweetheart’?!

Competitiveness be damned, that was fucking enough.

“I should get you home, dear,” Gintoki said quietly into Hijikata’s hair, “You must be tired.” The black strands felt impossibly delicate against his skin. Maybe he was the tired one. No, he definitely was.

“Mhm.”

And so, they bid farewell to the old lady and staggered out of the bar. If their arms were linked around each other’s waists as they walked, it was for balance. And for show.

“You're fucking awful,” Hijikata snarled as they strolled through the streets and back towards their house.

“Nah, fuck you,” Gintoki retorted. Wait, why were they arguing? He was too drunk to make sense of the situation. The sun hadn't even set yet but wow, was he ready to sleep.

“Hey, why do you hate me?” Gintoki decided to ask. What possessed him to say such a thing, he didn't know. Well, he did know, it was alcohol. And a lot of it.

Hijikata stared at him dumbly, visibly perplexed that Gintoki would ask that, as though the answer was obvious.

“Because you're stupid.”

“That's not a good answer.”

Hijikata blinked at him a few times, trying to figure out what to say. They continued to stroll through the town, bodies pressed close to one another still even though they were far away from the bar by this point.

“I…” Hijikata faltered. Of course, of course he didn't actually hate the Yorozuya, but mutual hatred was the premise of their entire relationship. He had never questioned it before, but all of a sudden it felt like a pointless, flimsy thing. Gintoki’s eyes bore into him expectantly, genuinely, and it only served to make him feel even more speechless.

“I just hate you,” he settled for that, finally. He didn't believe those words and he knew that Gintoki didn’t believe them either, but it was necessary to keep up their years-long charade. Hijikata might feel ready to confront the fragility of that charade one day, but today was not that day.

“Alright,” Gintoki shrugged, sighing. “I’ll accept that.”

Deep down, Hijikata felt a mix of relief and frustration that Gintoki had dropped the subject. Why? He didn't want to know.

With that, they rounded the corner towards their house and Gintoki clumsily opened the front door. He said something along the lines of ‘ladies first’ while ushering Hijikata inside, and was met with a half-hearted scoff.

Gintoki turned to shut the door behind them, and heard a loud thud. When he turned back around, he saw that the Vice-Chief had face-planted on the floor and was sprawled out like a starfish.

“For fucks sake,” he grumbled, kneeling down beside the man and steadying his swaying body with a hand on the officer's shoulder. Hijikata made no move to shake him off. Was he asleep?

Gintoki watched, dazed, as Hijikata’s torso rose and fell rhythmically. He listened to the sound of his breathing, muffled since he was still face-down on the floor.

Clicking his tongue, Gintoki decided to use the last of his strength to lift Hijikata up by the underarms and flip him over so he was laying on his back. Because, well, Gin-san is just such a nice guy.

Sure enough, now that he could see the officer's face again, he was sound asleep. He barely even responded to being moved, only mumbled quietly and incoherently.

From where he stayed in a kneeling position on the floor, Gintoki could see the inside of his bedroom and his futon. His very comfortable futon.

He made to crawl over to his room, a place where he could actually get a good night’s rest, but was rudely interrupted by Hijikata. He groaned in his sleep and swung a leg over Gintoki’s, as though sensing him leaving.

‘Stupid government dog,’ Gintoki thought to himself, as he laid down on the cold wooden floor and shut his eyes.

----

“I’m so screwed,” Kondo griped, burying his face in his hands. He had to speak loudly to be heard over the deafening wind outside his open window as they sped down the freeway.

“Kondo-san,” Sougo started sympathetically, impatiently, but he was cut off.

“Gintoki will never forgive me.”

“This is not the time to be worrying about that, Kondo-san,” Sougo replied matter-of-factly, not taking his eyes off of the suspect vehicle in front of them. He spoke calmly, but Kondo could tell that he was stressed by the way that he gripped the steering wheel like his life depended on it. Or, like the China-girl’s life depended on it.

“She's insane,” Kondo muttered to himself, unable to tear his own eyes away from Kagura now that he had looked back at her. It had been a couple minutes but she was still on top of the vehicle, holding onto the cargo rack, gritting her teeth in a manner that reminded Kondo of a feral dog. The suspects had been swerving all over the place trying to shake her off, but to no avail.

Whatever her plan was, she was having trouble executing it while she was occupied with just trying not to fall off due to all the swerving.

“...them in,” Kondo heard Sougo’s voice order loudly from beside him, snapping him out of his daze. The younger officer was speaking directly into his walkie-talkie, practically shouting in order to be heard over the wind. “I repeat, squad car three, take the left. Car six, take the rear. I will take the right. Box them in. I repeat, box them in.”

Immediately, the squad cars sped up and moved to surround the suspect vehicle. Kagura barely spared them a glance.

Sougo had no way of communicating with her aside from shouting at the top of his lungs and trying to be heard from a lane over at speeds of nearly 200 kilometres an hour, but that was okay. Kagura understood what he was trying to do, words were not needed. Now that the squad cars had the suspects surrounded, they couldn't swerve like they were doing before, and Kagura was free to make a move.

Apparently, this move was smashing the driver side window with her fist and shattering glass everywhere. She leaned her body down over the window, reached inside with the hand that wasn't still hanging onto the cargo rack, and locked the steering wheel all the way to the right.

“WATCH OUT! WATCH OUT!” Kondo screamed. Sougo slammed on the brakes. The suspect vehicle careened towards the right side of the road, narrowly missing clipping the front bumper of the vehicle that Sougo and Kondo were in. It crashed over onto its side with a deafening noise and finally came to a stop as it collided with the roadside barrier.

“Holy shi-” Kondo started, but his own voice broke into a choked gasp as their own car screeched to a halt. Sougo slammed his door behind him as he exited the vehicle and full-on sprinted towards the black car, the front end of which was completely crushed and smoking dangerously. On his left and his right, other Shinsengumi squad cars came to a stop and the rest of the officers made to run over to the suspect vehicle.

By the time that Kondo had made his way over, the officers were already pulling the suspects out of the car and handcuffing them. The two who had been seated in the front were injured the worst, blood running down their faces and one of them even missing a tooth. All four of them were swiftly ushered into separate squad cars.

“Sougo?” Kondo called, barely able to hear himself over the sirens and the chaos. “China?”

After a few moments, he spotted them. Sougo was crouched over by the side of the road, shaking Kagura’s shoulders. She was in a seated position, slumped over against the roadside barrier.

“China? China?” Sougo yelled, waving his hand frantically in front of her face.

From what Kondo could see, she was unresponsive. He ran towards them and joined Sougo in a crouched over position. Around them, other officers hurried over to see what was going on.

She was in somewhat bad shape. A patch of blood was soaking the hair just above her forehead, trickling down over one of her eyelids. Her lip was split, there was a large gash covering one of her cheeks, and that was just her face. It looked to Kondo like she might have dislocated a shoulder. The most worrisome injury, though, was the one on her head.

“China?” Sougo’s voice was starting to break even though he was clearly trying desperately to hide it, and Kondo felt his heart clench painfully. He lifted two fingers up to Kagura’s neck.

“She has a pulse, Sougo,” he reassured him. “She’ll be okay. She's a Yato, remember?”

Kondo watched with a raised eyebrow as Sougo let his head down to rest on Kagura’s shoulder, gripping tightly onto her upper arms with both hands.

“Sougo…” Kondo started, but his voice trailed off. He patted his back comfortingly. “She'll be okay.”

“I know,” Sougo choked, trying to convey his words with an uncaring bite and failing miserably.

The sirens echoed around them as they all waited in silence. Kondo regarded Kagura’s beaten form, the way her breathing was ragged and slow. After this, maybe that brat really did deserve a yacht or something. A small one, though.

“The ambulance will be here soon, right, commander?” An officer piped up nervously from behind him. Kondo peered over his shoulder to give a curt nod. In the time since he had followed Sougo to kneel by Kagura, every single officer who hadn’t left the scene to escort the suspects had joined them by the roadside. Altogether, about twenty men had gathered, all of them watching Kagura worriedly.

Kondo felt a tiny bit of pride swell in his chest. Dog-sized holes in the wall and other forms of chaos be damned, it was clear that the Shinsengumi as a whole had really come to care for Kagura during the past few weeks.

“Get- get off me, Sadist.”

Kondo whipped his head around and felt his heart catch in his throat. Kagura was awake. Behind him, the gathering of officers erupted into cheers and sighs of relief. Sougo lifted his head off of Kagura’s shoulder to look at her, but didn't let go of his tight grip on her arms. He was hiding his expression from everyone except her.

“Are you fucking serious?” She groaned, her voice gravelly, “I’m fine.”

Sougo exhaled shakily and let his head tip forward so he was facing the ground again, still holding on to her.

“This is unbecoming of you, Sadist,” she huffed, pointedly turning her face away. “You're ruining your reputation.” A blush was creeping up on her cheeks, which would have normally been indiscernible thanks to all the blood, but it was hard to miss against her pale complexion.

Sougo didn't move a muscle, only releasing his grip on her shoulders once the ambulance arrived.

----

Kagura awoke groggily to a brief pressure on her upper arm, and a beeping noise as her blood pressure was recorded.

She could recall flashes of memory, from the crash until now. Being put on a stretcher and wheeled into the hospital she could remember, but everything was fuzzy once they had started giving her pain medication. The medication-induced sleep must be what she had just woken up from.

As far as hospitals went, this one was alright. The curtains were partially drawn but a dim light still shone through them, illuminating the room as well as a head of light brown hair at the foot of her bed.

“Sadist.”

Sougo stirred and lifted his head, blinking at her sleepily.

“Huh? Oh-”

Abruptly, he shot up and stumbled over to her, nearly tripping over himself. He cupped her cheeks in his hands, eyes darting anxiously back and forth across her face.

“How do,” he swallowed, “How are you?”

“M’fine,” she scoffed, batting his hands away. He grabbed the chair that he had been sitting on and pulled it closer so that he could be seated right next to her.

Kagura watched with curiosity as Sougo reached into his pocket and pulled out his phone. He dialled a number and held it up to his ear.

“Danna? She's awake. She's okay.”

Kagura could hear the muffled exclamations of relief through the receiver. She even heard a barely discernible ‘Hijikata-kun! Kagura’s okay!’ that made a small smile tug at her lips.

“He wants to talk to you,” Sougo cleared his throat, passing the phone over to her.

“Ugh,” Kagura groaned, regarding it wearily, “Fine.”

Picking up the phone, she was expecting an immediate scolding, an onslaught of jabs at how stupid she was. She was expecting to hear Gintoki practically shrieking, hysterical, struggling to get out all of the choice words he had bubbling up in his brain. However, he said nothing of the sort.

“Kagura?”

“What.”

“I'm sorry.”

That caught her off guard.

“W-Why?”

“For leaving you. It was so stupid. So much shit has happened, it seems so dumb that I was even mad in the first place. I'm really sorry.”

“Gin-chan-”

“Hijikata-kun and I are coming back to Edo. We’ll see you soon, the next boat there is in about a week. Oh, he wants to talk to you-”

Some incoherent noises as the phone was handed over,

“China?”

“Mayora?”

“I'm glad you're okay.”

She felt her face flush. Since when is the Demon Vice-Chief nice to people? Especially her, Kagura, Gintoki's kid? Good lord, life was weird.

“Thanks,” she mumbled.

“Sougo is still there with you, yeah?”

“Yeah, he is, I don't know why,” she squinted at the man in question. He was waiting quietly, expectantly, his elbows resting on the bed.

“He's been with you since yesterday,” Hijikata explained, “Giving us updates and such.”

“For fuck’s sake, why?!” Kagura choked, feeling her cheeks become even hotter, “Don't you have a job, Sadist?”

Sougo tightened his lips in a line and avoided eye contact with her, suddenly becoming very interested in the ceiling fan. Oh my god, Kagura thought, oh my god.

She heard both men chuckle through the receiver before Hijikata handed the phone back to Gintoki.

“I’ll see you soon, Kagura.”

“Okay, bye Gin-chan.”

Breathing an exasperated sigh, she hung up and placed the phone down beside her. Sougo was still staring at the ceiling fan.

“Sadist.”

He remained silent.

“Sadist.”

“What?”

“Can you get me some food? I'm hungry.”

“Yeah.”

What? Okay, since when did Okita Sougo actually agree to things? Or, or do things for her? Kagura felt her head start to spin with the sheer force of how perplexed she was.

“Sadist, did you sustain brain damage or something? I thought I was the one in the car crash.”

He ignored her, pushing himself out of his chair and making his way towards the door. “What do you want to eat?”

“Egg over rice.”

“No.”

“Why?”

“No nutrition.”

Oh my god. It was all she could do to stare at him with wide, disbelieving eyes, and she was grateful that he wasn't looking at her anymore.

“Then, uh… Udon? And yakitori? And maybe tsukemono?” She wanted to see how far she could push it. Surely, surely he wouldn't agree to three different-

“Okay.”

With that, Sougo exited the room and shut the door behind him.

Through the gap between the curtains, Kagura spotted a pigeon perched atop a tree branch outside of her window.

“He definitely has brain damage, right?” She asked the pigeon. It didn't supply her with anything helpful in response.

Chapter Text

“I'm stressing out.”

“Just don't, Shin-chan.”

“That doesn't help!”

Shinpachi was pacing back and forth across the small fishing dock, the rotten wooden boards creaking noisily and repetitively under his feet. His sister regarded him with a deadpan stare, crossing her arms in mild frustration.

“Get yourself together, Shin-chan,” Otae urged him, “You have to be welcoming. Come on. We have to react positively, for their sake.”

Shinpachi continued to pace around while he muttered incomprehensibly to himself, pulling anxiously at his hair.

“Are you homophobic?” Otae guessed.

“What- No!”

“Do you have a problem with the Shinsengumi?”

“Don't you?!”

“Shinpachi,” Kagura called, striding over towards him, “Calm down. He’s still Gin-san, even if he and Mayora are married.”

“But-”

“Are you really that surprised?”

“Yes! Are you not?!”

Kagura hummed in thought. “I mean, I guess. Honestly, I’m just happy, if anything. Think about it. We are now going to have a much more reliable person around to help take care of us.”

“Kagura-chan,” Otae beamed, “I’m so glad you feel that way. That's really mature of-”

“But more importantly,” Kagura cut her off, “Mayora actually has money. He has money, Shinpachi. Gin-san’s kids are his kids now, and he's not the type of guy to let his kids go hungry, right? Think about it, seriously. We’re set, we’re totally fucking set-”

“Do you see absolutely no problem with this?!” Shinpachi cried.

Before Kagura could reply, Kondo called out from where he was standing on the dock behind them.

“Look! There they are!”

Shinpachi squinted against the glaring sun, trying to determine what the tiny dot on the horizon was.

“I think that's just a fishing boat, Kondo-san.”

Indeed, the vessel approached slightly, and it became clear that it was not the one that they were all watching for.

The group had been waiting by the docks for about half an hour now. Truly, they didn't know exactly when Hijikata and Gintoki were going to show up, since it wasn't like either of them could provide an ETA from wherever they were in the middle of the sea. However, earlier that day, Gintoki had told Kagura over the phone that today was the day that the two of them would be coming back. Helpfully, he had specified that they would be arriving by boat. So, that news spread like wildfire, and now the only thing left to do was wait.

“From how far away do you think I could hit Hijikata in the face?” Sarutobi muttered to Tsukuyo, twirling a Kunai between her fingers, “I have a pretty good shot. I’ll wait for the right moment, and then impale this straight into his skull.”

“Put that shit down,” Tsukuyo hissed. “Do you really want to be responsible for murdering the Vice-Cheif of the Shinsengumi? Really?”

“I don't even care anymore,” Sarutobi replied, her eyes empty and focused, “That son of a bitch deserves to-”

“Is that them?” Kyuubei interrupted, pointing towards yet another dot on the horizon.

“Where?” Otae responded, covering her eyes from the sunlight and peering out into the distance.

“Oh, never mind, I think it was just an eye floater.”

“Ah.”

“So, you wanna kill Hijikata-san?” Sougo muttered into Sarutobi’s ear. She jumped slightly, startled by his presence. “Looks like we share a common goal. Let’s keep it quiet, but what do you say that you and I work together, huh?”

Sarutobi opened her mouth to reply, but quickly shut it when Sougo was suddenly smacked in the head with the back of Kagura’s hand.

“Hey, hey, I think that's them!” Tsukuyo suddenly exclaimed.

A tiny boat had come into view from behind a steep cliff in the distance, approaching from the corner of the bay. Indeed, two people could be seen on it, one with black hair and one with white hair. Unmistakably, it was Gintoki and Hijikata. Their faces couldn't be seen clearly and they weren't wearing their usual clothing, of course, but the group watched Gintoki raise an arm and wave at them after a few seconds.

“GIN-CHAN!” Kagura screamed, frantically waving back. Shinpachi, who was standing beside her, covered his ears. He noticed that her eyes were starting to water and she was practically buzzing with energy. All of those weeks of being in denial of the fact that she missed Gintoki were hitting her like a truck.

“Oh god, what do I say,” Katsura mumbled worriedly to himself. Beside him, Elizabeth stood holding a blank sign and a marker, literally trembling with the difficulty of deciding what to write. “I wasn't prepared. I thought I was, but I’m not. Gintoki, congratulations on your marriage? No way, no way. Now that he's married an officer, he certainly won't be joining the Joui-”

Katsura’s muttering was drowned out by everyone’s cheers and calls as the boat neared. Kagura hadn’t shed a tear yet, although she was close. Kondo, on the other hand, was positively bawling. Sougo looked displeased, understandably. Tsukuyo was busy trying to wrestle a Kunai out of Sarutobi’s hand. Kyuubei was embarrassed at how happy she was, clutching her hands to her chest and trying to conceal her smile, whilst Otose simply watched the men approach with a fond smile.

Others were gathered behind them, including Hasegawa, Gengai and even Princess Soyo, who Kagura had snuck out of the palace just for the occasion. Even a large group of Shinsengumi officers were waiting expectantly. The air was filled with deafening noise, cheers of excitement and joy.

As the two men finally reached the dock and began to tie up the boat, they were both nearly knocked into the water by the speed at which people ran to them. To Gintoki ran Kagura and Shinpachi, followed closely behind by the rest of his friends, while Hijikata was instantly surrounded by his men, a very relieved Kondo and a very not-so-subtly annoyed Sougo.

“Gin-san, Gin-san,” Kagura was definitely crying now, her tears flowing freely and making a wet spot on Gintoki’s shirt. Both her and Shinpachi were clinging onto his arms like they never wanted to let him go again.

“I'm sorry,” Gintoki sighed, smiling down at them and patting their heads affectionately, “I'm sorry. I’m back now, yeah?”

The Yorozuya boss suddenly jerked his head to the side to dodge a Kunai aimed straight for his face.

“I thought you were trying to get that away from me?!” Sarutobi blurted, shocked.

Tsukuyo shrugged. “I suddenly got mad, after actually seeing him.” She stomped over to Gintoki and grabbed him by the front of his shirt, reaching over the kids’ heads to do so.

“If you ever make your kids go through this shit again,” she warned, glaring daggers at him, “You’ll have it fucking coming to you.”

“Yes ma’am,” Gintoki replied meekly, avoiding eye contact.

“Toshi,” Kondo wailed, sinking down to his knees and gripping the fabric of Hijikata’s haori, the one he had bought while in the village. “I'm so glad you're back. Oh my god, please never leave us again. I’m so sorry.”

“I’m sorry too,” Hijikata sighed, trying and failing to pull his commander back up to a standing position.

Meanwhile, Sougo was watching their interaction from a few metres away, hands in his pockets, chewing on a stick of bubblegum. His demeanour showed indifference but Hijikata knew that he was beyond pissed. He could deal with that later, though.

“Gintoki,” Katsura cleared his throat, walking over to them with Elizabeth in tow, “Vice-Chief.”

Gintoki waved, greeting him with a ‘hey Zura’ while Hijikata responded with a curt nod. Since the day that they left Edo, Katsura was the only familiar face they had seen, but even that felt like ages ago.

“It has come to my attention… I mean, I've been informed that…” The Joui’s voice kept trailing him off. Both men looked at him, puzzled.

“Spit it out,” Hijikata urged, still trying to shake Kondo off of his leg. He was clinging to him like a sloth at this point.

“What he's trying to say is,” Otae interjected, but her voice trailed off as well. She began rocking back and forth on her heels nervously, her gaze suddenly becoming intently fixated on a certain wooden post.

Even Shinpachi piped up, “Gin-san, Hijikata-san, we have to talk about…” but words escaped him too. Still clinging onto Gintoki, Kagura froze and pressed her lips into a thin line, staring up at him expectantly.

“You sent me…” Tsukuyo started as well, holding up her phone to try and get her point across, but she quickly became speechless just like everyone else. Within a matter of about ten seconds, the entire group had fallen silent, all staring at the two men with expectant eyes.

Gintoki and Hijikata couldn't have possibly been more confused.

“Can you guys just say whatever the hell it is you're trying to say?!” Gintoki threw his hands up in the air, exasperated and impatient.

Before anyone had a chance to speak further, a familiar voice cut through the awkward silence.

“Toshi! Welcome back!”

There he was, strolling towards the fishing dock, gun in holster and cigarette between lips. It was Matsudaira.

“Pops?” Hijikata replied, bewildered. Hurriedly, Kondo clambered up from the ground and greeted his superior with a deep bow. Every other Shinsengumi officer there followed suit, moving in near perfect unison.

“I'm glad you're back!” Matsudaira grinned, clapping the Vice-Chief on the back. “Normally, I’d want to take some disciplinary action since you've been gone without notice for weeks, but I understand that it was a complicated situation and since your work ethic is basically perfect otherwise, I'll let this one slide. Just don't let it happen again, yeah?”

Hijikata nodded his head rapidly. “Y-yes, absolutely won't happen again. Thank you, pops.”

“Good.” Matsudaira pulled the cigarette from his lips and tapped the ash off, shifting his gaze as he did so and catching the glint of something silver in the sunlight.

He peered suspiciously at Hijikata’s hand.

“Toshi, is that a ring?”

The blood ran cold in the bodies of so many people all at once, the temperature in the area probably dropped a few degrees.

Hijikata wasn't the type of person who got scared easily. The ‘demon vice commander’, that title was earned. The demonic, unyielding, brave fighter who let nothing stand in his way and would stare down any enemy without fear. Hijikata Toshirou was not one to be messed with, not one to be intimidated, not one to be frightened.

Now, though? Oh yeah, he was scared.

“Uh- uhm… I met- I met someone. A nice lady. We got engaged.” As if on instinct, he slowly turned his body away from Gintoki as sweat started to collect on his temples, his eyes bulging.

Nobody dared say a word. This group of people had never been so quiet, not even close. The closest sounds of speaking were distant, coming from the streets, quite a ways away from the fishing dock. If the waves of the sea and the seagulls flying overhead weren't part of the equation, you could’ve heard a pin drop. Drop and then echo, even.

“But, where did you meet her, a cabaret club? Damn, you should’ve invited me if that was the case!” Matsudaira broke the silence, entirely unbothered by it, and laughed heartily at his own joke.

“Why… Why would I have gone to a cabaret club?”

“Oh come on, it's obvious! That's where you meet women, right? And you go there with your buddies! Now I know you and this guy aren't exactly buddies, but if you two went on this little adventure together,” he gestured towards Gintoki with the cigarette between his fingers, “Then you must’ve each met a woman there.”

“Why do you- do you say that? Why would we have gone to a club together? Why would he have met someone too?” Hijikata was trembling, and Gintoki was starting to as well. Every passing second felt like a lifetime. Unbeknownst to the two men, everyone around them was also in a similar state.

Matsudaira nodded his head in the direction of the Yorozuya boss, bringing the cigarette back up to his lips.

“Well, cause he's got a ring too!”

A poorly concealed smirk was visible on Matsudaira’s face. He didn't believe a single word that had just come out from his mouth, and everyone could tell. He was screwing with them.

The world went silent. Everything living thing held its breath, the seagulls even stopped squawking. The fish below them probably stopped breathing through their gills, even.

Then, chaos.

“YOU FORGOT TO TAKE IT OFF!” Hijikata lunged at Gintoki, abandoning all thoughts and rationality in an instant, overcome with unfiltered rage and embarrassment.

“ME?! YOU DID!” Gintoki screeched back, trying to block a swift punch to his nose and completely failing. The picture of them became a jumble of flailing limbs, screaming and kicking, before they stumbled off the dock and into the water with a violent splash.

“MY REPUTATION!” Hijikata screamed the moment his head was above water. Gintoki’s hand shot up from below the surface, grabbed a fistful of his hair, and pushed him back down.

“YOURS?! YOU ASSHOLE-” Gintoki was cut off as his turn to get shoved underwater was realized the next moment.

“Oh dear,” Otae gasped, covering her mouth with her hand as she watched the men grapple to try and drown each other, “They really didn't want us to find out, did they?”

“They'll come around on their own terms, I guess.” Otose shrugged. She pulled her pack of cigarettes out from her pocket and pulled one out. “Crap, I don't have a lighter.”

“I got one,” Matsudaira said, strolling over and lighting her smoke for her.

“Thanks.”

“I suppose it can be difficult for gay men to be open with their families and friends about their relationships,” Kyuubei sighed, shaking her head. “Social acceptance, and all. They just need some time.”

“I’M GOING TO KILL YOU!” Hijikata’s bellow rang through the air as he pushed his upper body up onto the dock. “Sougo, I’m going to kill you too, but later. So give me your sword-” once again, the officer was cut off as Gintoki grabbed onto the clothing on his back and pulled him underwater once again. The captain of the first squad simply stared, unimpressed.

“Certainly. My data shows that many men in homosexual relationships are hesitant to be honest with their loved ones about their sexuality,” Tama offered. Kyuubei nodded in solemn agreement.

“I don't know what the big deal is,” Kondo griped, scratching his chin in confusion. “I don't care if Toshi’s gay. Do I not provide an accepting enough environment? Do I need to do better?”

“It's fine, Kondo-san,” Sougo reassured him, “You provide a wonderful environment for gay men.”

“This is your fucking fault in the first place!” Gintoki’s shouting sounded more distant now. Having both given up on the possibility of escaping by hoisting themselves up onto the dock, which they had both attempted several times at this point, the two men were now by the beach. At present, Hijikata was crawling up towards the sand, heaving and coughing up seawater. Unfortunately for him, Gintoki wouldn't let him get far. He was roughly pulling him back towards the sea by his leg.

“My fault?! How?!” Hijikata’s shrill voice rang through the air.

“The fucking fish! If you hadn't caught the fish from the prophecy, we would never have gone to that village!”

“Oh?! That’s fucking rich! You helped me catch the fish! You were the one who got us that fucking job, too!” Hijikata yelled as he wrestled himself out of Gintoki’s grip and tried once again to make his way to the shore, to no avail.

“What the hell are they talking about?” Kagura mused. She was munching on a packet of sukonbu now. A good portion of the group that had gathered was starting to walk away, not wanting to be around for a couples’ fight. Even Sarutobi, feeling defeated after having at least three kunai wrestled from her grip, was taking her leave.

“And if you didn't-” Hijikata paused in his shouting to shove his palm straight into Gintoki’s nose with nearly enough force to break a bone, “If you didn't let Katsura take us on that little fucking roundabout then we could’ve gone home!”

“That wasn't my fucking fault! You make everything my fault!” Gintoki shrieked back. “He wouldn't have even taken us onboard in the first place if it weren't for you! I should have never untied you! I should have let them throw you in the ocean!”

“Uh, explain?” Otae turned towards the direction where Katsura had been standing, but he and Elizabeth were gone. They had probably left due to Matsudaira’s presence. Katsura had worn a disguise, posing as a regular civilian, as he had expected a number of Shinsengumi officers to show up to greet their Vice-Chief. However, apparently he wasn't willing to take any chances with Matsudaira around.

“You bought the fucking rings!” Hijikata bellowed, dodging a punch aimed for his face by rolling over. At this point, they were both only partially in the water, their upper bodies more or less on the sand. Gintoki’s Haori had been ripped off during the fight, lost somewhere in the water, and while Hijikata still had his, the front of his yukata was hanging open and he only had one sandal.

“I had to buy them to cover our asses!” Gintoki shouted, desperately trying to defend himself with his words and his fists at the same time. “You were the one that forgot to remind me to take them off this morning!”

“Why the hell should it be my job to remind you?!”

“I asked you to! I asked you to because I knew I’d forget and you said, sure!” Gintoki wailed. He was under Hijikata, having been pinned down by him, but he swiftly hooked his leg over the officer’s waist and flipped their positions.

“Wh- You asked me before I had my morning cigarette! My head wasn't in the right place you asshole! Fuck you!”

“No, fuck you! Stupid, idiotic, tax-thieving nicotine addict! How do you expect to lead your troops if you need nicotine to function properly?! You know, I’ve been wanting to bring this up for a while!”

“Oh,” Hijikata feigned a gasp before literally rolling away to avoid another punch, “Have you?! Have you really?!”

“Yes! It's a filthy addiction!”

“And what about you?! What about your gambling addiction, you useless sack of shit?! How do you expect to provide for your kids?!”

“I provide for them!”

“No, you're shit at it! That's part of what made a horrible wife!”

“How many times do I have to tell you that you were the wife?!”

“Sis,” Shinpachi stuttered, leaning towards his sister and blushing furiously, “Are they… what are they…”

“I think they're flirting,” Otae replied, squinting at the men curiously like they were a couple of tropical birds and she was a scientist trying to deduce whether or not they were going to mate.

“Foreplay.” Kagura added, bluntly. Shinpachi shot her a disgusted look. “We should get out of here. We’ve seen them act irresponsibly in public plenty of times, I doubt they’ll draw the line at acting indecently. Mayora is practically half-naked. Sex on the beach, that's a thing, right?”

“Kagura-chan, I thought your use of vulgar language might have cleared up a little with Gin-san gone,” Otae muttered, wrinkling her nose in distaste.

“Gross,” Otose shuddered, before flicking her cigarette butt into the water and starting to walk away.

“I don't need to see this,” Tama added, moving to follow Otose, “I’ve scanned enough Boy Love manga over the past week, witnessing this serves no purpose to my database.”

“We told you not to do that,” Otose clicked her tongue.

“My apologies. I deduced that I may be able to show Gintoki more empathy if I understood his situation better.”

“And what a situation it is,” Sougo scoffed, watching the two men roll around in the sand. He turned on his heel and began to walk back towards the streets. “China, want to go get food? I'm hungry.”

Turning away from the two men as well, Kagura quickly followed in Sougo’s footsteps. “Can we get udon again? The place we went to a few days ago was really good.”

“Sure, just don't burn a hole through my wallet again. Two- three bowls max, okay?”

“Fine, deal.”

“Since when do those two hang out?” Tsukuyo wondered aloud as she, too, began to take her leave along with the few others who remained.

“It's weird, I know.” Shinpachi huffed, sparing one last look at the two men who continued to roll around like wild dogs, before walking away.

“You think I can lead my fucking men if they think I’m married to you?! You think they’ll take me seriously?!” Hijikata screamed, and now the only one who could hear him was Gintoki. The officer was sporting a split lip, a bleeding nose, and a bruise to his jaw. Gintoki, on the other hand, had a bleeding nose as well, plus a couple other bruises scattered across his face.

“What about me?!” Gintoki spat, aiming a punch towards the officer’s gut, “Is your reputation the only one that matters here?”

“You-” Hijikata started, but he cut himself off due to how heavily he was panting. He successfully blocked Gintoki’s punch, as it was a half-hearted one, but he barely even had the strength left to do that. Hijikata could spar and he could fight for long periods of time no problem, but against Gintoki? Perhaps his stamina ran out a little quicker. Luckily for him, the Yorozuya boss didn't seem to be in much better shape. He was taking strained, heaving breaths as well from his position atop Hijikata, and his arm muscles were even visibly shaking from how much he was exerting himself.

Hijikata's momentary hesitation in the midst of their fight would have indicated an opening for Gintoki to take the upper hand in any other circumstances, but he was exhausted. Letting his body go limp, he flopped over onto the sand next to Hijikata with a groan.

For several minutes, the two of them just laid there, trying desperately to catch their breath. It was Hijikata who spoke first.

“What the fuck do we do?”

“I don't-” Gintoki paused to swallow dryly, his panting subsiding now, “I don't know.”

“They'll understand if we explain everything to them, right? We had to do it! If we didn't, the villagers would have kicked us out.”

“Hijikata-kun.”

“What?”

“Even then, you know, it doesn't look too good for us.”

“Why?”

“Because it shows that we’d rather pretend to be fucking married then come back here and apologise to them. We are immature, stupid adults.”

“Oh.”

More silence. Gintoki let out a long exhale, closing his eyes. The feeling of the sand beneath him, hot from the sun, was bringing back memories of the day he and Hijikata had ended up on that godforsaken island in the first place. So much had happened since then, a period of only about a month and a half had felt like far longer.

“Whatever,” Hijikata finally sighed, breaking the quiet. “We’ll tell them, the way that they react is just something we’ll have to deal with.”

“Yeah.”

“Hey, Yorozuya?”

Gintoki opened his eyes and peered at the officer, who was now propping his head up on his elbow and regarding him with an indecipherable expression. Gintoki mimicked his position and propped himself up as well.

“What?”

Hijikata hesitated for a brief moment, his eyes flickering over the ring still on Gintoki’s finger, before focusing back on his face.

“I'm glad to be back, but…”

“Hm?”

“That whole thing was kind of… Really funny.”

Gintoki just blinked for a moment, registering the words. Then, he broke out into a low chuckle, which quickly turned into uncontrollable laughter. Hijikata started laughing too.

“Fuck, it was, it was. Remember when you tried making your own cigarettes?”

“Oi! Remember when you put on those clothes that we found in that hut? You probably have a disease now.”

“Nah, I bet you do. Those cigarettes that one guy on Zura’s ship gave to you, I bet he poisoned them and you're going to die a slow, painful death.”

Hijikata paused in thought for a moment before snickering. “Fuck, I forgot about that. Hey, did you ever think about how goddamn weird that prophecy thing was? I mean, what are the chances?”

“Personally? I think everyone in that village was out of their mind.”

“They put on a good festival, though.”

“Hm, that's true. I still think I'm gonna take the kids to one in Edo, one with those boats. You're still up to pay for it, Vice-Chief?”

“Fine,” Hijikata huffed, “I mean, I said I would.”

Gintoki grinned. “Sweet. Hey, you know what was fucking hilarious? Watching you read a newspaper and drink coffee every morning. You're like an old man.”

“Shut up, you did the same thing, just with JUMP and strawberry milk. Like a kid.”

“True, true.”

“I'm gonna make Sougo’s life hell for the next little while,” Hijikata said decisively, “He set off that fucking volcano. If he didn't do that, they would've picked us up sooner or later, right? Because if they didn't set it off, Katsura wouldn't have found us.”

“Yup. I'm not gonna go easy on Kagura, either. She was part of it.”

“Hm, she did single-handedly take down those criminals though,”

“In an extremely reckless way.”

“Maybe, but you wouldn't have done anything different, Yorozuya.”

Gintoki chuckled humorlessly, recalling the image that had been broadcasted on TV of Kagura crouched over on top of the suspect vehicle, which had been driving nearly a couple hundred kilometres an hour.

“You're right. I need to be a better role model, don't I? I can't have her thinking it's okay to put herself in dangerous situations like that.”

“That's hypocritical,” Hijikata answered swiftly, easily.

“Why?”

“Because if she has to watch you do that type of shit to yourself, over and over again, it's not fair if you can't handle it being the other way around. Your kids care about you, Yorozuya.”

“Hmm.” Gintoki shot him a side-eye, unconvinced.

“Be more careful, that's all. When Hime-chan first attacked you, Glasses had to literally hold China back from jumping in the water to help you out.”

“What about you, huh? You jumped in to help me out. I think you’re the hypocritical one, Vice-Cheif.”

Hijikata grumbled and averted his eyes from Gintoki, laying back down on the sand and clasping his hands together over his chest. “Maybe we’re both stupid. Well, I know we are. The past weeks have confirmed our shared stupidity, for sure.”

Gintoki laid back down on the sand as well, fixing his gaze on the clouds slowly rolling overhead, dotted sporadically throughout the afternoon sky.

“You hungry, Mayora?”

“Yeah. We haven't eaten since we left this morning. Are you up for udon?”

“Sure.”

Groaning with exhaustion, both men gradually made to get up. Gintoki got up first, and reached out a hand to pull the officer to his feet. Gintoki’s haori had washed up onto the shore by this point, so he strode over to pick it up and wring out the seawater before draping it over his shoulder.

Dusting the sand off of their clothes and out of their hair, they started walking back towards the dock.

“Hey, what are you gonna do with your ring?” Gintoki inquired curiously once they had reached the street. Onlookers were shooting them weary looks, noticing their beaten-up faces, but they were all ignored. “Are you still gonna melt it down into a dagger and stab me with it?”

“I haven't decided. I wouldn't just throw it away though, it's a pretty nice metal. Crazy how you afforded that, huh? Oh well. I suppose I can say bye to affluent Yorozuya, now that those townspeople ain’t spoiling us anymore.”

“Aye, I still have some money left. Anyway, I know someone, Murata Tetsuko. I bet she could forge these into something cool.”

“Like what?”

“Eh, let's think about it over udon.” They had reached the restaurant, and Gintoki quickened his pace right before they reached the entrance to open the door for Hijikata. He was smirking, and Hijikata glared at him, wondering when on earth these wife jokes were going to end.

“After you, milady.”

“Die, Yorozuya.”

As they entered the shop, two familiar heads of hair caught their eye.

“Sougo?”

“Kagura?”

The two turned to look over their shoulders almost simultaneously. Kagura had her mouth stuffed full of food and Sougo was holding a cup of sake against his lips.

“Hijikata-san? Danna?” He quirked an eyebrow, beckoning towards the seat beside him. Kagura pulled out the chair of the seat beside her. “What are you guys doing here?”

“We were hungry,” Gintoki shrugged, sitting down beside Kagura and patting her head. Hijikata took the seat beside Sougo.

“Just so you know,” Hijikata started slowly, leaning in towards Sougo and dropping his voice, “I was serious about killing you. So fucking serious.”

“Well,” Sougo scoffed, “If anything, I’m more motivated to kill you now, too.”

“Is that right?”

“Yeah,” Sougo hissed, glaring daggers. “Bring it on, Vice-Chief.”

“Gin-chan,” Kagura piped up between mouthfuls of food, effectively interrupting and silencing the other two men.

“Yeah?”

“When were-” she paused to swallow, “When were you going to tell us that you and Mayora were seeing each other? I feel a little blindsighted, you know. It's kind of like, your rebellious teenage son gets a girl pregnant but you don't find out about the baby until it's born. He doesn't even tell you, you find out by yourself, which hurts more. As a mother it hurts.

“And you wonder why he wouldn't tell you, and you mull over the possibilities in your head. Is it because he's rebelling? Is it because he's embarrassed that he got her pregnant? Is it because in the past, his family and her family never really got along? Gin-chan, I'm hurt. Maybe it's not traditional, but we all accept your relationship with Mayora. And you wouldn't know, but the Yorozuya and the Shinsengumi have actually been getting along lately. You know what I mean? Gin-chan, are you understanding this metaphor? Does this make sense to you?”

Avoiding eye contact with absolutely everyone, Gintoki snatched Sougo’s cup of sake from his hand and tipped the whole thing into his mouth. Hijikata just went straight for the bottle.