Chapter Text
Over the years, Sougo, Hijikata, and Kondou-san had built something of a system between them, when it came to housework.
Kondou-san handled the cleaning, because he liked to wipe down the floors anyway when something stressed him out, which was often. Though Hijikata wasn’t particularly good at cooking, he was the only one who bothered with the kitchen anyway—Sougo’s budding theory was that he liked having an excuse to wear his pink apron.
When it came to his own contribution, though, Kondou-san and Hijikata knew Sougo couldn’t be relied upon to do something that required consistency. He tired of things too easily. In the decade and a half they had known him, he had only ever committed to the sword.
So trivial, non-frequent tasks went to Sougo—things like fixing the roof tiles after monsoon season, or cleaning the scum off the pond water in their garden.
Naturally, then, when Sougo awoke one morning in June to the steady plink, plink, plink of rainwater dripping from the rafters, Kondou-san yanked open the door and cried: “Sougo, the roofing!”
“Kondou-san,” he muttered, sitting up and scrubbing his face tiredly, “If I climb up there now, I’ll slip and brain myself on the ridge.”
“But the kitchen’s leaking,” Kondou-san said, harried. “Toshi can’t stand by the stove because the roof’s starting to peel. All you have to do is go up and seal the cracks with silicone.”
Without a stove, there was no soup, or tamagoyaki, or rice. Without soup or tamagoyaki or rice, there was no breakfast. Sougo had never paid much attention in his village school way back when, but he could still do the math.
A hungry house was an irritable one. “Fine,” he mumbled, flopping back down and yanking the sheets over his head. “Twenty minutes.”
Footsteps sounded over the mat—then Kondou-san’s shadow was looming over him, and he was yanking Sougo’s sheets away again.
“Sougo,” he chided sternly. “You’re almost twenty-three, now.”
“That’s right, Kondou-san. And what a strong, healthy twenty-three I’ve become.” Sougo gestured vaguely to himself. “All thanks to the twenty-four hours of sleep I get every night.”
“Twenty-four hours is more than just a night, Sougo,” Kondou-san said nonsensically. “Up you get, come on! Toshi’s going to throw a fit if you don’t pull your weight!”
Sougo yawned so loud his jaw cracked, scratching his stomach under his sleep-shirt. “Hijikata-san can’t pull my weight either. Not with those scrawny arms of his.”
Kondou-san harrumphed like a long-suffering housewife. “That’s enough out of you,” he said crossly. “Now come along.”
There were a great many people in the world whom Sougo had no trouble disobeying; Kondou-san was not one of them. The pressure of his quiet disapproval was all it took to yank Sougo out of bed, like a dog on a lead.
Outside, the clouds had split open, making way for the early morning sky. Wet gravel slid under Sougo’s sandals, slick with yesterday’s rainfall.
Edo could be especially unbearable when the plum rain swept in on the very precipice of summer. Towering over the beginning of June, the Meiyu front—buried in a perpetually hot-and-cold state of dissonance—presented a tense and unpredictable stretch of time in which anything could go either way.
It had come early that year, on the heels of a turgid summer. Kondou-san, who had become chronically superstitious with age, seemed to think it was a bad omen.
“Be careful, now,” he said nervously, as Sougo propped up the ladder against the eaves of the house. “Today, Ketsuno Ana says that if you’re a Gemini, your world will turn upside down.”
“I’ve done this a thousand times before, Kondou-san,” Sougo muttered, as he made his way up the ladder. “Besides, I think my horoscope should frighten you more than anyone. The world I live in is the one with you and Hijikata-san in it. What’ll happen to you if it turns upside down?”
Kondou-san slapped a hand over his mouth, horrified. “Sougo,” he said tremulously, “I hadn’t thought about it that way. Do you think I should barricade myself in the bathroom with Toshi?”
“Right after you hand me the silicone,” Sougo replied tonelessly, hopping onto the roof.
The kitchen leak was further in, but not far from the edge where he’d first climbed up. Wet tiling slipped under his shoes as he made his way across the roof, bracing himself against the tall, jagged ridges running up the tiles. Down below, Kondou-san called out: “Are you alright, Sougo?”
“Fine, Kondou-san,” he called back. “You can go inside. I’ll shout if I need help.”
Light slanted through the clouds. Under his palms, the tiles glistened like ink blocks. Sougo knocked his fists against them until Hijikata shouted out the kitchen window: “There, Sougo!”
Then he got to work.
Sougo really had done this same job a thousand times before, because there was a leak every year since they’d moved out of the Shinsengumi complex and into Kondou-san’s old family home in the outskirts of Edo.
Their roof was old and rickety: it sometimes whistled like a hollow jar when the breeze passed through it. Sometimes he wondered if they’d built it out of matchsticks, like the old story about the three little pigs and the big, bad wolf.
Fortunately, the house was made of sturdier stuff. It took no time at all to seal up the leak. With a loud yawn, Sougo sat back against the roof and looked out into the distance, where Edo’s long, silver skyline gleamed like a bullet.
Three years of peace hadn’t changed much, but Sougo could admit that tensions between humanity and the Amanto had evened out. There still remained the deep, undeniable hostility between them, an uncrossable chasm: but somehow, they had managed to coexist.
“Sougo!” Hijikata shouted again, his head poking out of the window. “Come down for breakfast!”
“What was that, Hijikata-san?” Sougo called back boredly. “You’re speaking at a pitch I can’t hear. No wonder all the neighborhood dogs like you so much.”
Hijikata harrumphed like a harried old woman. “Just get down here, you bastard. Or we’ll eat all the umeboshi without you—then you’ll be sorry.”
“So impatient,” Sougo drawled. “I’m coming.”
Slowly, he rose to his feet. Damp fabric clung uncomfortably to his skin. Clearly, sitting against the wet roof tiles had been a terrible idea.
Just as he reached the roof’s edge, where the ladder was leaning precariously against the eaves, there came a loud cry of disbelief from below as Kondou-san ran into the garden.
“Sougo!” he shouted, waving his arm above his head. Fluttering in his hand was a small, bone-white envelope. “Did Kamui tell you he was getting married?”
Sougo blinked once, twice.
Then his foot slipped out from underneath him, and he fell sideways, right off the roof.
“Sougo!”
With a groan, Sougo blinked his eyes open. Overhead, Kondou-san’s terrified expression eased into something warm and relieved. The little envelope he’d been holding earlier was still crumpled between his fingers, now forgotten.
Sougo sat up sharply and yanked it out of his hand, ignoring the sound of Kondou-san’s feeble protests and the white-hot pain crawling up his arm. He stared down at the little black letters under the address block, dizzy and a little numb, his head and his heart pounding in unison.
I’m getting married! ^.^ it said on the back, in Kamui’s messy scrawl. You should come, Sougo! It’ll be fun!
“What is this,” Sougo said flatly.
“A… wedding… invitation…?” Kondou-san replied slowly, carefully, as though coaxing a wild animal.
Sougo stared down at the envelope again. “A wedding invitation,” he echoed, incredulous. “Pigs can fly now, Kondou-san. You’d better tie Hijikata-san down.”
“What’s wrong?” Hijikata asked, stepping out into the garden with a cigarette in his mouth. Smoke trailed out from the tip, acrid and unwelcome.
His gaze traveled down to Sougo, who was bleeding profusely all over his wet, muddy clothing, staring down at his hands, unseeing.
Hijikata snorted. “Kondou-san, I told you not to send him up there,” he said. “Those roof tiles are for warding off evil spirits—Sougo is exactly the kind of ill-intentioned bastard they’re meant to ward off.”
“Are you having fun, Hijikata-san?” Sougo said dully. “Congratulations. I’m happy for you. Uncoordinated bastards like you can never manage to hit moving targets, so it’s always a real joy when they get to kick someone while they’re down.”
“Like you’d appreciate my kindness if I so much as offered it to you,” Hijikata muttered. “You’d have something worse to say if I asked whether you were alright.”
“Hasn’t anyone ever told you what a reductive line of thinking that is? No wonder you’re forty and unmarried. I’ve been trying to pimp you out to every woman we cross paths with, but I think they can tell when a man is totally destitute.”
“What does that make you, then? Sitting in the mud, staring down at that envelope.” Hijikata blew out a plume of smoke with a long sigh. “You’re just as destitute as I am.”
When Sougo was young, there was a stray cat that used to come by the dojo with limp little songbirds caught in its bloody mouth. Sougo had always liked it better than the other cats, because it came close without startling, unafraid of his small, calloused hands. Sometimes, it would leave misshapen lumps of flesh on the hardwood for Sougo to eat. Dividing its meal in half, because they were something like friends.
Once, it had left him a full bird. Pink, frothy muscle, blooming open like the young blossoms in the garden; soft, downy feathers, dark with wet blood. Sougo had known better than to eat it, but he hadn’t looked away.
What was it called, when you didn’t want to look at something, but you couldn’t look away, either?
“You should count your lucky stars, Hijikata-san,” he said, without blinking, staring down at the envelope. “If it weren’t for this piece of paper, I’d have cut your filthy tongue out of your mouth in a heartbeat.”
Hijikata huffed. “Right. So he’s getting married, is he?”
Sougo did not bother with a reply. Moving felt like a chore. Every fiber of his body had dedicated itself to picking apart the envelope in his hands, searching for any meaning other than the one that had been so coldly presented to him in small, black lettering.
He flipped open the lip and drew out the small, cream-colored invitation card. In intricate lettering, it read:
On the twelfth month of the Stellar Calendar, Our Esteemed Admiral Kamui of the Harusame will wed the Honorable Young Mistress Himiko of the Yamataikoku.
We cordially invited you to the ceremony on our mothership, the Jiuta, as she turns one-thousand years old, in celebration of their timeless union.
“The Jiuta, huh?” Hijikata muttered, crossing his arms. “It’s not every day that ordinary samurai get to step foot on a ship like that.”
The Harusame spoke of the Jiuta like a matriarch. All the small, clean-fuel skiffs that skated along its wake were only scrawny children, incomparable to their hulking, big-bellied mother, who cut across the galaxy at a punishing pace.
Kamui had never liked returning to the Jiuta much. It meant round-table meetings with his Captains, who always had something or the other to say about the amount of time he spent on Earth. It also meant lots and lots of paperwork.
“The Yamataikoku?” Kondou-san said, his eyes wide. “That’s a very powerful monarchy, isn’t it? Whenever Matsudaira-san has to deal with their diplomats, he’s always sweating bullets.”
“I’ve heard Kamui talk about them before,” Sougo muttered. “They’re always at odds with the Harusame. Too proper for plundering, or something.”
“Must be a political marriage, then,” Hijikata replied idly. “Can’t imagine him marrying for love.”
Sougo couldn’t either.
“Maybe the message on the envelope is a cry for help,” Kondou-san said hopefully.
Sougo shook his head. “He drew,” he said slowly, “a smiley-face. I’m getting married, and then this.”
^.^, it said.
Sougo crumpled up the invitation and shoved it in his pocket.
“Fuck,” he muttered.
Then he flopped back onto the ground with a thump, staring up at the sky.
Sharp, hot pain lanced up the arm he’d braced his fall with, prickling against the numb, misshapen line where his bone had surely snapped. The sky above remained punishingly indifferent, as though nothing had changed at all.
“I knew he’d take it badly,” Sougo heard Hijikata mutter. “You should have waited until he was inside, Kondou-san. You know what Sougo’s like, when it comes to him.”
“I just couldn’t understand it,” Kondou-san said morosely. “I thought—I don’t know. I figured he would never be the type to do something like this.”
Me too, Kondou-san, Sougo thought to himself. Me too.
A long time ago, when Hijikata had taken him out for drinks after patrol, Sougo had confessed over a full bottle of rice wine that he’d asked Kamui, once, if he’d ever settle down somewhere one day.
And? Hijikata had asked idly, taking a drag of his cigarette. Halfway to drunk, Sougo had been too woozy to wrinkle his nose at the smell.
He’d ducked his head low, his hair hanging in his eyes. The world around him had been too bright, the lines bleeding into one another. Nothing made sense anymore. Maybe that was why it had been so easy to be honest, to let the truth slip from the deep recesses of his heart, somewhere it couldn’t be touched.
He just laughed, Sougo had said, drowsy and sullen. He laughed right in my face, and we didn’t talk about it again.
“That time we went drinking,” Hijikata said, evidently thinking of the same thing. “You told me he’d never settle down.”
“He won’t have to settle down, if he marries someone from the Yamataikoku,” Sougo replied dully. “The princess holds too much power to leave her country, and Kamui holds too much power to stay in one place. It’s good, their arrangement. It’s perfect.”
Kondou-san perked up. “That’s not really marriage, then, is it? Right, Toshi?”
“It doesn’t matter,” Hijikata replied. “Even if they don’t spend much time together, the Yamataikoku isn’t marrying off their princess to someone who won’t respect the sanctity of their union.”
“What?” Kondou-san cried. “But that’s—Sougo, you can’t let this happen!”
But all Sougo could think about was the paper burning a hole in his pocket, a bone-white trumpet heralding the end times, and the distant, forgotten sound of Kamui’s helpless laughter.
Your world will turn upside down.
Rain began to fall again, drumming against the rooftop. Lying flat on his back, staring up at the sky, Sougo thought that maybe Ketsuno Ana had been right in more ways than one.
*
In the afternoon, after the rain had let up once more, Kondou-san and Hijikata dragged Sougo to Snack Otose, in hopes of cheering him up.
“Fuck,” Hijikata muttered, as soon as they stepped inside. “Here we go.”
Sitting at the bar were three troublesome persons, each with their own growing crowd of empty rice-wine bottles, their faces pink and woozy.
“Yorozuya,” Hijikata grunted, by way of greeting, while Kondou-san sat Sougo down on one of the stools and called for as much liquor as Catherine could carry.
“Hijikata-kun,” Gintoki slurred. “You’re looking awfully—awful. Just awful. Urgh.”
Hijikata cursed. “Why’s this bastard so drunk?”
“Gin-san—urk—got dumped again.” Shinpachi slapped a hand over his mouth, growing a little green. “And Kagura-chan—she—she said we should have a—a drinking contest.”
“Because Gin-chan hasn’t given us our salary yet,” Kagura said matter-of-factly. Of the three of them, she looked the most sober, but there was a steady flush crawling up her neck. “So I figured that if he was going to drink, he might as well drink himself to death.”
“Idiots,” Hijikata muttered, sitting next to Sougo.
“What happened to him?” Kagura asked accusatorily, staring at the fat white cast looping around Sougo’s left arm.
“Sougo fell off the roof,” Hijikata replied.
Kagura burst into laughter, falling backwards off her chair.
“You’re dead, China,” Sougo muttered darkly. “This is all your brother’s fault, anyway.”
“No way,” Kagura said, clapping a hand over her mouth. “Did you try to jump off the roof because you heard my stupid aniki was getting married?”
“Not that it’s any of your business, but I was fixing a leak,” Sougo replied, popping the top off a bottle of rice wine. He took a long, hearty swig. “Unlike you three, we don’t live paycheck-to-paycheck, so we have the money to repair things.”
“You’ll need that money to fill the hole in your heart now that Kamui’s got a ring on his finger,” Kagura said smugly. “How could you let a stranger beat you to it?”
“It wouldn’t matter how fast I could have been,” Sougo muttered. “There’s no way he’d accept.”
Kagura scowled at him. “Why not? Are you saying Kamui’s incapable of love? That’s rich, coming from an unfeeling bastard like you.”
“Come on, China,” Sougo drawled. “Your brother would rather die than let me tie him down to Earth with a petty ring. Besides, who says I’d want to marry him?”
Kagura snorted. “You don’t need to say it. Everybody already knows how bad you’ve got it. If aniki threw you a bone and asked you to fetch, you’d go scampering on your hands and knees like a mutt.”
Sougo glared at her, pushing his sword out of its sheathe. “Who’s the mutt here? Aren’t you the one who digs through trashcans looking for scraps to feed that dog of yours?”
“You shut your mouth!” Kagura hollered, leaping to her feet. “Sadaharu doesn’t eat garbage, he eats dried chicken feet like any normal dog does!”
“Normal dogs eat bones, stuuupid,” Sougo drawled. “Looks like that gigantic head of yours is totally pointless, huh?”
“Every sphere is pointless!” Kagura cried, throwing her hands in the air. “Even Bigman doesn’t make sandpaper strong enough for block-heads like you!”
“Kagura-chan,” Shinpachi moaned, clutching his head. “You’re too loud.”
Cowed, Kagura sat back down again with a stubborn grunt.
Sougo took a hearty swig of his bottle again.
“You know, China,” he said tonelessly, staring down at his fingers through the green-glass. “Two people can mess around for five years without being anything to each other. It doesn’t matter to me whether your brother gets married or not.”
“Liar,” Kagura muttered, crossing her arms.
Afternoon light slanted in through the windows. Dust motes floated in its sleepy orange glow, like the fireflies that sometimes rose from the grass in their garden in the middle of the night. Skirting close, then darting away, just out of reach.
“By the time that ring is around his finger,” Sougo said impassively, staring down at the whorls in the wooden countertop, dark and beady like the watery eyes of a field rabbit. “I’ll have found someone else to toy with in his place.”
Sougo had lived twenty-three whole, fulfilling years. He had only known Kamui for five of them. It seemed as easy as anything, to fill that small, indiscernible gap the way he had filled the leak in the kitchen roof that morning.
Edo was a city that spat out newcomers like watermelon seeds. Sougo was better off without the vicissitudes of their five-year long entanglement. Or whatever the word was for when someone was so close to your rib that you felt their laughter like an arrhythmia.
Kagura scoffed, knocking her knees against the counter.
“Liar,” she said again, but it was lighter this time, less accusatory than it was almost pitiful, like Sougo was an old, weary dog who did not yet know he had to be put down.
“So mistrustful.” Sougo yawned into his palm. “You’ll never get anywhere with an attitude like that.”
“I could say the same to you,” Kagura replied haughtily. “Now that my aniki’s off the market, I’m sure you’ll never settle down. You’ll be hard-pressed to find anyone lacking enough self-respect to take your last name.”
“What can I say? I live by example. Hijikata-san’s a great role model—thirty-four years old, and the only action he gets is by flashing pedestrians in the street just to let his balls breathe.” Sougo grinned. “Debauched old perverts like him jack off so much they skin their dicks like birch trees. It must hurt like hell, huh?”
“Sougo,” Hijikata growled, swaying in place. Evidently, there had been another drinking contest: Kondou-san had totally wiped out on the floor, Shinpachi was fast asleep on the counter, and Gintoki was hunched over by the far wall, dry heaving into a bucket.
Sougo grinned. “You better watch out, Hijikata-san,” he said casually. “One day, a dog’s going to mistake your dick for a bone and bite it right off.”
“Say that again,” Hijikata muttered dangerously. “I’ll kill you, Sougo.”
“I didn’t say anything, Hijikata-san,” Sougo said impassively, raising his hands in mock-surrender. “You must be imagining things.”
Gintoki harrumphed, holding onto the wall for dear life. “Haah? I heard you! What was that about—hic, about skinny trees and—hic, and hacking coughs?”
“You’re a bad listener, Boss,” Sougo said tonelessly. “No wonder Takasugi dumped you.”
Gintoki wilted, slumping back against the wall.
“Leave him alone, you miserable bastard!” Kagura cried, leaping to her feet again. “You and my aniki spent five years fooling around and never amounted to anything! At least Gin-chan had a relationship to break!”
Sougo stood too, drawing his sword with one arm. “You must really want to die, China.”
“Hah!” Kagura whipped out her umbrella. “Yeah right! Says the one who threw himself off the roof because my aniki sent him a wedding invitation! If you don’t fight for the things you love, how do you expect to keep them?”
“Nobody said anything about love,” Sougo said dully. “Now you’ve lost your mind. You Yato jump to conclusions like you’re on hot coals.”
Kagura’s scowl transformed into something truly frightening. “You bastard! You fooled around with my aniki for five years, and you didn’t even love him? You have to die!”
Love, Sougo thought wryly as they stared each other down. What a reductive word for the wretched, thorny thing he’d felt that morning, when he’d held the envelope in his hands.
In the five years they had known each other, Sougo had taken Kamui apart enough times that putting him back together would have been muscle memory. They’d bled into each other so profusely that he was certain their bodies were now composed of each other in part.
One word could never be enough for something like that.
“I hope that isn’t a sword I see in your hand,” Otose-san interrupted, with an unimpressed look Sougo’s way.
“It’s a potato peeler,” Sougo replied impassively, sliding it back into its sheathe in a heartbeat.
He hadn’t heard her come in. Maybe she was some kind of secret stealth master, an ancestral leader of the Oniwabanshu—it was easier to entertain that thought than to admit that thinking of Kamui had yanked him down a chasm so deep he’d let his guard down.
Back at the counter, Kagura stood over Gintoki with her hands on her hips, scowling.
“I’m leaving you two here,” she announced. “Gin-chan’s clothes are all gross, and Shinpachi’s too heavy to carry. You can climb the stairs yourselves.”
Still dry-heaving, Gintoki made a distinctly affronted noise.
Sougo glanced back at Hijikata, who was nodding off into his umeshu, and Kondou-san, who had yet to twitch where he was sprawled out on the floor.
Otose-san raised her eyebrow at him, smoking curling out the end of her pipe.
“Hijikata-san’s gonna get the bill,” he told her, by way of farewell.
“So long as someone does,” she replied. “Run along now, boy, before I empty out your pockets for change.”
The only thing in Sougo’s pocket was Kamui’s wet envelope, and the cancerous little paper that lived inside of it. Neither of them were worth more than a hundred-yen coin; but on account of his broken arm, Sougo had paid a hefty price for them anyway.
There was a lesson there, he thought, as he stepped out into the early evening light. Reciprocity, maybe. Something about only indulging in things that rewarded you right back.
*
The following week, Edo swelled with rain.
On Thursday, Sougo forgot to bring the laundry in and escaped out the garden to avoid a scolding, but he was sopping wet and miserable anyway while on patrol because he’d forgotten his umbrella, too.
On Friday, he came down with a fever.
“I told you this would happen,” Hijikata muttered, setting a tray of congee down next to his futon. “You never remember your umbrella, idiot. Kondou-san even put it by the genkan so you wouldn’t forget.”
Sougo sneezed so hard his neck snapped forward.
“This is all your fault, Hijikata-san,” he said thickly, staring up at the ceiling. “I only jumped the wall because I knew you’d tear me a new one for leaving the laundry out in the rain.”
Hijikata snorted derisively. “Was it my fault you forgot your umbrella too?”
“Your fault,” Sougo agreed, sullen.
Outside, the sky was a dark, furious gray. Wind whistled through the rickety eaves of the house, a hollow, mournful sound. Through the blanket of rain, the world began to twist and warp like a mirage.
Someone had wept all over the picture in front of him. Colors bled together, awash with gray.
Hijikata let out a long, heavy sigh. Out of the corner of his eye, Sougo could see the tip of his cigarette, glowing faintly in the darkness.
“You’ve been distracted lately,” he said eventually, staring out into the garden. Rain drummed against the rooftop, a hushed, gentle rhythm.
“I always forget my umbrella,” Sougo replied.
“Only because you know it won’t rain for longer than an hour,” Hijikata pointed out, glancing down at him. “You forget it because you’re too lazy. This time, you forgot because you forgot.”
“After all,” Sougo said, pointing at him with all the energy he could muster. “There’s always only one truth.”
Hijikata scowled at him. “I’m being serious.”
Sougo yawned, tugging the covers up to his ears. “You watch too much Detective Conan, Hijikata-san. In real life, the poison is otome games, and the Black Organization is Koei Tecmo. Everybody knows that dating a virtual sleazeball shrinks your mind down to the level of an infant.”
“In Detective Conan, it’s his body that shrinks, not his mind,” Hijikata mutters. “But my point still stands.”
“And so does the hair on your head,” Sougo said. “Ever heard of a comb?”
Hijikata closed his eyes and began to count to ten under his breath. Sougo watched him with morbid fascination, burrowing deeper in his blankets.
Eventually, he opened his eyes again. “Where is it?”
Sougo yawned again. “Where’s what?”
“The thing that’s been distracting you,” Hijikata said, unimpressed. “The envelope that bastard sent.”
“Gone. I threw it away.”
“So it’s in your pocket, then.”
“You’re worse than evil, Hijikata-san,” Sougo muttered, with a surge of familiar hatred. “Trying to empty the pockets of a poor, sickly invalid.”
By then, the rain had slowed to a drizzle. Light split through the clouds, pooling over the wet grass and the swelling pond, where scattered leaves formed in a thin, green film over the top, only momentarily disturbed by the sozu breaking the murky surface.
A long time ago, Kamui had come down to visit Sougo at the Shinsengumi estate. Quietly, so as not to wake Hijikata, Sougo had slid the door open to let him in, sopping wet in the ratty cloak he always wore back then, and they’d trailed down the hallway into his bedroom, as quiet as mice.
It’s raining so badly, Kamui had said, shaking his head with a little laugh. Does that happen often, in the summer?
Why are you here? Sougo replied tonelessly, because he had always been callous in every way that mattered, because his heart was wailing in his chest, wondering, wanting—and he was afraid that a companiable answer might betray his own desire.
Kamui tilted his head, his eyes warm and curious. I wanted to see you, he said. Isn’t that enough?
The sozu had shattered their silence too, back then, startling them out of that strange limbo they seemed to fall in again and again, suspended in invisible orbit. When Kamui had dried off, the rain had finally let up, and they bruised each other black and blue, somewhat desperate to leave those unfamiliar feelings behind.
Hijikata glanced down at him. “How long are you gonna let it bother you before you get up and do something?”
“What am I supposed to do?” Sougo turned over to stare at the ceiling again, apathetic. “Fly all the way up to space and object? Sounds like a real waste of time to me.”
“It’s up to you,” Hijikata replied, through a long plume of smoke. “All I know is that he means something to you, even if you refuse to admit it.”
Sougo thought that was a bit rich, coming from Hijikata, who had refused to admit that Mitsuba meant anything to him until they’d gone out drinking one night, three years after she’d passed away.
I should have told her, Hijikata had slurred, after Sougo had accused him, as he always did when he was terribly drunk, of tossing his aneue aside like something expendable.
Through bleary eyes, Sougo stared at him uselessly. Told her what?
I should have told her I loved her, Hijikata mumbled, his forehead pressed to the wood of the counter, his fingers wrapped tight around the neck of his bottle. I shouldn't have let her go.
With a loud sneeze, Sougo jerked back to the present.
“Wishful thinking won’t make me into a real boy,” he said. “I need to prove my pure-heartedness to that meddling Blue Fairy. Change comes from within.”
“You haven’t changed for five years,” Hijikata replied, with a derisive snort. “That Blue Fairy will die of old age before she comes anywhere near you.”
“Here’s hoping you die of old age sooner rather than later, Hijikata-san,” said Sougo, through a loud yawn.
Hijikata scoffed. “I should’ve known even a fever wouldn’t be able to burn the devil out of you. No wonder your temperature’s so high. Hell must be living in your body.”
“That’s right. I’m going to drag you down with me soon, since you’re so invested in my non-existent relationship.”
Hijikata took another drag of his cigarette, quiet and pensive. “Is it so wrong for us to worry?” he asked, through a drag of his cigarette. “You liked his company. Kondou-san’s scared you’ll be lonely now that he’s gone.”
Sougo shrugged. “So? Finding company isn’t hard. That’s what cabaret clubs are for.”
“Not that kind of company.”
“I hate to break it to you, Hijikata-san, but that’s exactly the kind of company he and I shared.”
Hijikata grunted. “I know, you difficult bastard. But after five years of that, you’d think it’d be hard to want anyone else.”
“Come on, Hijikata-san,” Sougo replied casually. “When you want a cigarette, do you go searching for the one you just smoked, or do you light a new one?”
“If I smoked Camels for five years straight, I wouldn’t give them up for Pall Malls.”
“That wasn’t the question.”
“I know,” Hijikata said archly. “I’m making a point.”
“Your hearing must be going bad,” Sougo announced, sitting up to drag the tray of cold congee into his lap. “Don’t worry. I hear C4 is good for popping eardrums. If you’re too scared to light the fuse, I’ll gladly do the honors.”
Hijikata plucked the tray out of his hands. “Don’t eat it while it’s cold, idiot,” he muttered.
Sougo plopped back down on his bedding again with a grin. “Stealing food from the sickly, Hijikata-san? You really are the worst.”
Hijikata scowled at him, getting to his feet. “Shut up and get some rest. You’re only making your fever worse, running your damn mouth like that.”
“Careful now, old man,” Sougo drawled, closing his eyes. “I can hear your bones creaking.”
“If you don’t shut your mouth, Sougo, I’ll warm up all this congee just to empty it over your head.”
“Emptying pockets, stealing food, burning innocents—you’re as dastardly as they come, Hijikata-san.”
“I should kill you.” Hijikata scoffed. “But Kondou-san’s still scared you’re going to finish the job yourself. He won’t let me take credit.”
Sougo cracked an eye open, peeking at him. “What makes you think killing me is even likely? I’m young and sprightly, while you’ve passed your prime by thirty-four years.”
“Thirty-four,” Hijikata echoed flatly. “So—what? My prime was when I wasn’t even born yet?”
Sougo nodded wisely. “That’s right, Hijikata-san. Your prime was when you were in your mother’s womb, and she still had a fighting chance at getting rid of you.”
“That’s it.” Hijikata whirled around, marching back up to Sougo’s futon. Sougo watched him approach blankly, sitting up on his elbows with amused indifference. “You really do want to die today. I’ll make it easy for you.”
“Go easy on me, Hijikata-san,” Sougo said woefully. “I’m suffering from a broken heart, remember?”
Hijikata scowled, turning on his heel again to stomp back towards the doorway.
Just before he slid the door open again, he stopped. Only the sound of his sigh broke the silence, an enormous, weighty thing, drawing his shoulders tight with an invisible tension.
“Whatever you do,” he said, “Just make sure you don’t have any regrets.”
And the door slid shut behind him.
*
Jindai Chinpo: Good morning! Welcome back to Jinsei Midnight, Edo’s only late-night radio approved by the NHK, hosted by myself, Jindai Chinpo!
Today, we’re continuing last week’s segment—stories from the streets of Edo. We’ve brought in a lucky few participants who live in the gritty streets of Kabukicho. Make some noise, folks!
Loud, inaudible cheering. There’s a laugh-track, but it doesn’t seem necessary.
Without further ado, let’s hear from our first speaker of the night. Please, introduce yourself to our listeners at home!
Minamoto: Hello, everyone! My name is Minamoto Shizuka. I am ten years old, but I have the altruistic wisdom of a monk.
Jindai Chinpo: Thank you for joining us today, Shizuka-chan! Your parents aren’t angry with us for distracting you from your homework, are they?
Minamoto: Of course not! I did my homework before I came here, just so I could tell you my story properly, without distractions, Chinsuko-san!
Jindai Chinpo: Ha, ha! That’s Chinpo-san to you, Shizuka-chan!
Minamoto: But that’s what my parents call you, Chinsuko-san. They call you Chinsuko in public, and in private, they call you Chinkosuko.
Jindai Chinpo: Alright now, Shizuka-chan. Let’s talk about something else, shall we? Do your parents happen to be from Okinawa?
Minamoto: Yes! We own a bakery, and every year, we make chinsuko! That’s why I was very excited to come on this show. Thank you for having me!
“Serves that bastard right,” Hijikata scoffed. “Chinkosuko is Okinawa’s favorite running gag. What’s he thinking, going public with a name like that?”
It was nine o’ clock on a Monday. Ordinarily, they’d be winding down patrol with dinner, but disaster always struck when it rained particularly hard in Edo, because every criminal knew how hard it was for Shinsengumi patrol cars to pass through a narrow, flooded street in Kabukicho.
So far, it had been relatively uneventful.
“One could say the same thing about you, Hijikata-san,” Sougo replied wisely. “It must be some kind of war crime, walking around in public with a face as ugly as yours.”
Rain battered against the windows. Through the shrieking of the wipers dragging long, glittering arches over the windshield, Hijikata grunted, evidently too exhausted to squabble with Sougo for the thousandth time that day.
Jindai Chinpo: A wonderful story, Shizuka-chan. And this friend of yours—Nobita-kun, yes? Do his parents know about this strange cat that’s been granting his wishes?
Minamoto: Of course! Doraemon is Nobita-kun’s family, after all!
“You had a cat once, too,” Hijikata said conversationally, his cheek pressed against the cold glass. “Back in the countryside.”
“Thank you so much, Hijikata-san,” Sougo said, dispassionate. “There’s no way I could’ve known I had a cat once, if you hadn’t told me.”
“Bastard,” Hijikata muttered. “I remember now. It was a little orange stray. Kondou-san named it Mamoru, but you used to call it Mamo-chan. Whenever I tried to feed it, you always batted me away.”
“You’re good at sticking your nose where it doesn’t belong, Hijikata-san,” Sougo replied. “Look where that’s gotten us.”
Deep, swelling puddles surrounded them on all sides, sloshing up the sides of the street as they rolled through. Sougo’s hair was still damp at the ends from earlier, when they’d booked it out of a coin laundry while the rain was just starting to really pour. The dry crackle of their puttering heater had evened out the worst of it, but the wet chill remained.
“Don’t pin the blame on me.” Hijikata scowled darkly. “If you hadn’t convinced Yamazaki to send his girlfriend his dirty underwear, we’d have someone to cover the Monday patrol shift.”
Sougo yawned. “I thought it’d help with his erectile dysfunction. I read something about sharing microbiomes in one of the porn mags I confiscated. Apparently it gets some people going.”
Jindai Chinpo: Thank you so much for joining us today! Please introduce yourself to our live audience, and our dear listeners, wherever they are!
Gintoki: Yes, yes. My name is Sakata Gintoki. Thirty-four. My **** is seven inches hard. I’ve measured it using a leek.
Jindai Chinpo: Ha, ha! Whoa there, Sakata-san. This is a family friendly show!
Gintoki: Oh, is it? Well, for anyone who doesn’t know what a **** is, it’s basically a ****. And if you don’t know what a **** is, it’s the thing your mother uses to make katsudon.
Jindai Chinpo: Why don’t we move on to the story you’ve come to share with us today?
Gintoki: Fine by me. This is a sad one.
“Fuck,” Hijikata cursed. “We can’t even escape him in a moving vehicle.”
“Tenacity makes a good businessman,” Sougo said wisely. “Even if the Boss is dead broke.”
Long streaks of light pierced through the foggy windows of a dark crematorium, dashing briefly over their bumper. Sougo slowed to a stop by the curb, flicking the headlights off.
Hijikata sat up straighter, peering through the thick curtain of rain. “Flashlights,” he muttered. “Could be a night-guard.”
“Or the spirit of a vengeful ancestor,” Sougo supplied dispassionately, with a loud yawn. “Maybe it’s your great-grandmother coming for retribution because you haven’t been cleaning her grave properly.”
Gintoki: The point here is, you shouldn’t be trying to woo terrorists. They’ll up and leave you when you least expect it—happened to a good friend of mine. Takasugi-kun, if you’re out there, please return my calls.
“Turn that stupid thing off,” Hijikata grunted, batting blindly at the radio dials.
“Hold on,” Sougo said, staring blankly at the little green letters rolling across the small screen, Jinsei Midnight - Vol. 7, as though willing them to jump out and explain themselves. “Who’s this good friend of his?”
Jindai Chinpo: That does sound very difficult. Personally, I’d take the invitation down to the post office and stamp it with a good old return-to-sender. Nice and neat.
Gintoki: Oi, oi. You must not get to use your chinpo often, Chinpo-kun. Everybody knows that when you’re sleeping with a terrorist like that, you’ve got to really show out. Return-to-sender isn’t enough. You need to mail them a pipe bomb.
Jindai Chinpo: Ha! How about a Molotov Cocktail? Wine and dine your way into their hearts!
Gintoki: Sure, sure. Thing is, I’m not sure this friend of mine is the cowardly type. Forget pipe bombs and return-to-senders—he might really RSVP and show up with a bazooka.
Jindai Chinpo: Ah, I get it. Like—speak now, or forever be blown to pieces.
“It’s not the night guard,” Hijikata announced, still staring out the window. “I’m getting out. Turn the car off—they’ll hear the engine.”
Gintoki: No, no. Let Gin-san lay it out for you. It’s like that, you know—like blanched vegetables and plain boiled rice. Nobody eats them on their own, but they’re a little bit tolerable when they’re together.
The car door clicked open. Out on the wet street, Hijikata hunched over, one hand on the hilt of his blade. “Sougo,” he hissed. “What are you doing? Get out!”
Jindai Chinpo: Your diet is certainly interesting… How old did you say you were, Gin-san?
Gintoki: Last year I turned thirty-three.
Jindai Chinpo: So you’re thirty-four.
Gintoki: Five years ago, I was in my twenties.
“Sougo, you bastard, don’t ignore me.”
Jindai Chinpo: Yes—five years ago, you were in your twenties. Specifically, your twenty-nines. Meaning you are now thirty-four.
Children at home, if you’re listening past your bedtime—eat your blanched vegetables and rice, and don’t complain. Like Gin-san says, irritating things are always more tolerable when they come together.
Gintoki: That’s right, kids. A bad man told Gin-san he’d be hosting this show with Ketsuno Ana, but all Gin-san’s getting for his trouble is blanched vegetables without the promise of soft-serve ice cream.
“That’s it.”
Jindai Chinpo: I thought this metaphor was about blanched vegetables and rice. Anyway, Ketsuno Ana couldn’t make it. It’s her wedding anniversary.
Gintoki: Oi, oi! Do you think the venerable Gin-san doesn’t know that already, you bastard? You’re not just blanched vegetables—you’re a plain glass of milk! And Ketsuno Ana’s the strawberry syrup that makes you tolerable!
Something closed tight around the collar of Sougo’s shirt, jerking him halfway out the window.
“I told you,” Hijikata gritted out, “to turn off the car, and follow me inside.”
“Hijikata-san,” Sougo replied blankly, dangling from his grip. “If you’re going to be blanched vegetables, you should have the courtesy of coming with rice.”
“I’m going to blanch your entrails and use them to stuff you like turkey,” Hijikata vowed, as a pair of dark figures crept out the crematorium and into the dark street.
“Ah,” Sougo said, belatedly. “Behind you.”
Hijikata whipped around, releasing Sougo from his ironclad grasp.
“You!” he roared, as the figures took off, slipping and sliding over the wet asphalt. “Get back here—Sougo!”
“On it,” Sougo replied, leaning out of the window with his bazooka.
With a loud crack, a fat rocket whistled out of the nozzle, hurtling down the street. It exploded against a streetlamp, pulverizing the shards of glass encasing the bulb into a thin, fibrous mist.
Sougo let out a low whistle. “They’re down,” he said, staring through the darkness, where two misshapen lumps lay prone on the wet sidewalk. “Now fetch, Hijikata-san.”
“Don’t tell me what to do,” Hijikata muttered, sticking a cigarette in his mouth and stalking towards them.
Sougo slumped behind him, dragging his feet. They’d been on patrol for hours; the minute something even remotely interesting had stumbled into his lap, Hijikata had come along to shut it down. What a killjoy.
“I think you might’ve killed them, Hijikata-san,” Sougo said idly, as they came up on the two masked thieves, dressed in full black. “It’s too bad we’ll have to dishonorably discharge you from the Shinsengumi. I’ll think of you often when I take over as Vice Chief.”
“Nobody’s getting dishonorably discharged,” Hijikata muttered, kicking the limp bodies with his foot. “Oi, bastards. Get up. What are you doing, robbing a crematorium? Don’t you have any respect for the dead?”
“Come on, Hijikata-san. Haven’t you seen this before?” Sougo crouched down, staring at their shivering, would-be fugitives. “They won’t start talking unless you yank off their masks first. I saw it on TV.”
Hijikata scoffed, lighting his cigarette. “That only works when you’ve got four meddling teenagers and a talking dog.”
Sougo tilted his head, peering at the bodies lying prone in front of him.
“It’s fine,” he said. “With you around, we’ve still got the talking dog.”
Hijikata moved to throttle him. Sougo dodged neatly, leaning forward on his hands. In one fell swoop, he yanked both masks off.
“Ah,” said Shinpachi, smiling too wide. “Good evening, Hijikata-san, Okita-san.”
“Gin-chan made us do it,” said Kagura, blinking innocently up at them.
Hijikata stared down at them flatly. “What’s this? That bastard’s made you two into grave robbers, now?”
“You don’t understand!” Kagura cried, leaping to her feet. “They’re replacing people’s ashes with concrete powder so they can use them for spirit-summoning incense-burners!
“Hear that, Hijikata-san?” Sougo said, glancing up at him. “It’s your big break as a detective.”
“Yeah, this kind of thing’s got your name written all over it. Hands up.”
“Can’t. I’m still recovering from my broken arm.”
“The one you broke because you tried to jump to your death when you heard the news about my aniki?” Kagura asked, grinning.
Sougo drew his sword. “You’re on thin ice, China. I should slit your throat right here.”
“It’s not like we did anything so wrong! We only took this one little urn!” Kagura produced a small blue jar from the folds of her thief’s garb, holding it proudly above her head. “This is Kobacchi’s great grandmother Atsuko, who used to be an opera singer! She doesn’t belong in a skinny little incense stick—she deserves to be free and formless!”
“That’s right!” Shinpachi said fiercely. “It’s like that—you know, the story of Robin Hood! Stealing from the rich and giving to the poor!”
There was a long, tense silence. Smoke curled out of Hijikata’s mouth. With practiced motions, he reached out blindly, pushing Sougo’s sword back into its sheathe.
“Leave them,” he said gruffly, looking away. To Shinpachi and Kagura: “You tell the Yorozuya that he’s got to learn how to respect the law. Run along.”
“Roger!” they cried, saluting sharply.
There was a desperate scramble between them as Kagura slipped on the muddy asphalt and went careening into a lamppost, but Shinpachi caught her by the collar and yanked her upright with harried laughter, and they bolted down the street with their spoils of war, disappearing into the darkness.
“Hijikata-san,” Sougo began, watching them scurry off. “You’ve really grown alarmingly soft with age.”
“Shut up and drive, Sougo,” Hijikata replied, yanking the car door open, settling in the passenger’s seat, and slamming it shut behind him.
*
On Saturdays, when they were off-duty, Hijikata, Kondou-san, and Sougo almost always went drinking. More often than not, they ended up at the cabaret club in Kabukicho—the one where the apple of Kondou-san’s eye, Otae, once an underpaid host girl, now worked as lead hiring manager.
“Table for three, Otae-san,” Kondou-san said dreamily, grinning at her. Sougo wondered how unbecoming it would be to knock him out right then and there and save him the trouble of nursing a concussion later on—but Otae only smiled pleasantly and directed them down the steps, and they settled into their booth with no trouble.
Hijikata scowled at his empty lighter, utterly destitute after a long week of chain-smoking. “Great,” he muttered. “Four hours of this, and I don’t even have a lighter.”
“Do you really need one?” said the girl next to him, trailing her fingers up his arm. “I can light your heart on fire instead.”
“Light his pants on fire,” Sougo told her casually. “Hijikata-san’s wearing underwear with his face on it.”
The frustrated clicking of Hijikata’s lighter, failing to light for the thousandth time, suddenly picked up speed.
“It’s practical,” he gritted out. “A preventative measure, so our underwear doesn’t get mixed up in the wash.”
Sougo leaned back against the booth, stretching his arm out over the edge. “Hear that?” he drawled. “This old, eligible bachelor doesn’t even have a house of his own.”
The host girl recoiled, though her expression recovered remarkably quickly. Sougo was quietly impressed with her steadfast dedication to professionalism—and the way her deft fingers were slowly picking Hijikata’s wallet out of his pocket under the table.
“He’s only got two one-hundred yen coins in there,” Sougo added, to save her the trouble. “He saves them to scratch lottery tickets.”
Just as quickly as she’d slid into the booth to stick to Hijikata’s side, the host girl stood up.
“I feel sorry for you,” she told him solemnly, taking Hijikata’s hands in hers, “so I’ll tell you this. If you want to waste your money on something, you should waste it on a nice Kamisori razor to get rid of that scruff.”
They watched her go silently. Sougo turned to Hijikata and opened his mouth to say something rude and off-putting, but Hijikata’s hands were already reaching out to throttle him, so there wasn’t much left to do but dodge out of his way.
The night dragged on, as it always did. Kondou-san grew wild, Hijikata grew solemn, and Sougo grew honest.
“You’re quiet,” said Fubuki, the host girl sitting next to him. Sougo had seen her before, the countless other times they’d come to the cabaret club, but it was the first time she’d come to sit with him—likely because Hijikata was being more standoffish than usual, out of loyalty to the woman he’d taken out on a date last week.
Earlier, she’d managed to bleed Kondou-san dry of his money with woeful tales of her treacherous landlord. Now, as she pressed closer to Sougo’s side, she only appeared easy-going and amicable, utterly uncaring as to his patent indifference.
“I don’t like talking when I’m drunk,” Sougo replied truthfully, which was exactly the problem.
“Ah, I get it. You must be the type who can’t stand looking desperate.” Fubuki grinned, cradling her cheek in her hand. “I’ll do the talking for you, then. How about it, Okita-san? Would you like to have some fun with me?”
Sougo glanced at her, his expression flat. “Sure. How about I put a collar around your neck and walk you like a dog?”
“Oh. I thought something a little more like…” Fubuki reached out for Sougo’s free hand, sliding their fingers together. “This.”
“You want me to cuff you to the table,” Sougo concluded blankly. “Sheesh. You’re awfully adventurous for a cabaret girl. Sadism isn’t worth five-thousand yen an hour.”
Fubuki laughed, letting go of his hand. “Are you always this dishonest, or is it the liquor?”
“The liquor makes me honest,” Sougo replied. “But only when I’ve had too much of it.”
“Is that a bad thing?”
“Yeah,” Sougo said woozily. “More than ever.”
“Hmm.” Fubuki leaned further into his space. Her eyes curved, glittering in the low light. “It seems like you’ve got something on your mind, Okita-san.”
That much would have been clear to anyone with a discerning eye. All night, Sougo had done nothing but drink. Sequestering himself to a corner of the booth, staring through the windows at the dark, cloudy sky hanging overhead, he’d drained the bottle of liquor on the table until it was entirely empty.
The three of them—Hijikata, Kondou-san, and Sougo—were regulars at Otae’s club. Hijikata came along to keep an eye on Kondou-san, and Kondou-san came along to keep an eye on Otae. Sougo, on the other hand, took a morbid interest in the false platitudes cabaret girls were paid to offer, and the lengths to which he could push their tolerance for mischief. Every time he came along, there was some kind of incident.
So it would have been obvious to anyone that something was wrong, when Sougo hadn’t stirred once. Not even when Hijikata sneezed phlegm right into a host girl’s open mouth.
“It’s alright if you don’t want to tell me what’s bothering you,” Fubuki continued. “Only—it’s part of my job. So I really won’t tell anyone, if it’s something you’d rather keep secret.”
“You’re nosy,” Sougo told her tonelessly.
“Maybe a little bit,” Fubuki replied, raising her hands in surrender. “Can you blame me? It’s not often we see you so down in the dumps, Okita-san.”
It was a rare occasion, Sougo thought wryly, but only because the catalyst had been something so utterly unthinkable, he’d never once considered preparing himself for it.
“Not that it’s any of your business,” he began dryly, “but I got some bad news from someone I know, a few weeks ago. And I probably won’t get to see them as often from now on.”
“Someone you know,” Fubuki echoed. “Is it that person? The one you mention sometimes, when you’re really drunk?”
Sougo stared at her blankly. “I’ve mentioned him before?”
“The other girls have said so, sometimes.” Fubuki squinted at him. “You don’t seem like the type to hold someone in your heart, but maybe I’ve misjudged you.”
“That cuts,” Sougo remarked, staring listlessly out the window. “You’re kind of mean, Fubuki-san.”
Fubuki laughed. “Don’t act like you haven’t said worse.” She paused, and Sougo felt the prickle of her stare on his cheek, warm and inquisitive. “So is that it, then? You won’t get to see that person anymore, and it’s made you all somber?”
“That’s it,” Sougo replied, though it was hardly that simple.
“You can tell me about him, if you’d like.”
“There’s not much to tell.”
“Well, I’m sure if he’s managed to squeeze his way into your heart, Okita-san, there must be something special about him.”
Sougo glanced at her, dispassionate. “Before you get jealous, I only go for older women with lots of money, so it’s not like you ever had a chance.”
“Don’t get ahead of yourself,” Fubuki said wryly. “You have a nice face, but not much more than that.”
“Isn’t it your job to butter me up?”
“It’s my job to keep you entertained.” Fubuki grinned, tilting her head. “You’re a tough customer, Okita-san. But that’s what makes it fun.”
Tell me about him, Fubuki had said. Sougo wondered whether it was even possible to speak of Kamui without betraying his own emotions.
Memories of Kamui brought with them a fierce, unrelenting ache. It seemed utterly impossible to compress them into something presentable without ripping his heart right out of his chest and handing it over like nothing.
“He’s troublesome,” was what Sougo settled on eventually, still looking away.
Fubuki hummed thoughtfully. “Is that why you liked him?”
“I only liked him for his body,” Sougo said tonelessly. “The fact that he was troublesome only made it hard for me to get what I wanted.”
“I thought you might be the kind of person to enjoy a challenge.”
Sougo yawned loudly, folding his arms against his chest. “I won’t even eat my dinner if I have to warm it up first. Why would I waste my time on someone so flighty?”
Fubuki tilted her head. “Flighty?”
“Running away at the drop of the hat,” Sougo replied. “Like cornering a startled animal.”
“Would you rather forget him, then?” Fubuki asked gamely.
Sougo thought about it for a long while. Forgetting Kamui would be just as bad as remembering him. The Sougo of Present only existed because Kamui had irrevocably changed him—he could not possibly choose to wipe himself from existence. He was composed of the words Kamui had said to him, and the things they had done together, and those long tumultuous years they had wasted, trying to press closer despite their own distance.
To forget Kamui was to forget himself.
“Even if I wanted to,” he replied honestly, staring down at his hands, “I don’t think I could.”
Warm fingers pressed against his cheek as Fubuki caught him by the jaw, turning his face towards hers. Her mouth was red and glossy from liquor, like a maraschino cherry. Long, silky strands of hair tickled his throat.
She looked thoughtful, for a moment. Then she said: “I could help you, if it was something you wanted.”
Sougo stared at her. “Help,” he repeated blankly. “How?”
“I don’t know,” Fubuki replied, swaying close. “I could think of a few ways.”
“You switch up awfully fast,” Sougo replied bluntly. “I thought you said I had a nice face and nothing more.”
“What, I can’t change my mind?” Fubuki grinned. “It’s not about whether I want you, Okita-san. It’s just for the fun of it. I wouldn’t touch you with a ten foot pole outside of this club, but nothing exciting has happened all night.”
He watched her carefully, picking apart her mischievous smile, her tawny hair, the easy-going brightness of her clever blue eyes. Under the heady influence of an entire bottle of umeshu, Sougo could admit to himself that he was pathetic enough to take Fubuki up on her offer, not because she was beautiful, in the way most cabaret girls were, but because she looked painfully familiar. “Okay,” he said.
Outside, the streets were swelling with rain, and the sky was dark. Through the club’s tall, glass windows, the stars had hidden themselves behind the thick cover of yesterday’s storm—Sougo was absurdly grateful for it.
June had been nothing but a lesson in the impermanence of unspoken affections. It was much easier to forget his own suffering when the universe did not betray itself through the night sky, when there did not exist a reminder of what lived beyond his reach.
Sougo was rotting in his own melancholy, and the world was bleak and fuzzy, and he was just drunk enough to imagine someone else. When Fubuki tipped forward and kissed him, it was as easy as breathing to kiss her back.
Clarity lost itself to the heat between their bodies. Fubuki’s breathing stuttered, and Sougo thought back to the last time he had kissed Kamui, in the quiet of his bedroom—the rhythm of his thundering heart, the rugged edge of his pink scars.
Fubuki was soft where Kamui had been firm, and lean where he had been broad. But her hair was tawny, and her eyes were blue, and when she laughed, it rang out like the windchimes dangling from their kitchen window—however much of Kamui there was reflected in her, it was enough for Sougo, anyway.
*
When the night came to a close, Sougo and Hijikata hauled Kondou-san home on their shoulders, his feet dragging in the muddy country road up to the gates. Sougo was alarmingly drunk in his own right, but the cold rainwater soaking his socks had sobered him up by the time they stumbled into the genkan, kicking off their gritty sandals to deposit Kondou-san into the bathtub.
“Wake up, Kondou-san,” Sougo announced, turning the knob to drench him in sharp, freezing water. “It’s morning already.”
Kondou-san jerked up, fumbling with the edge of the tub. “Argh! Turn it off! What do you mean it’s morning?”
Sougo loomed over him, hands in his pockets. “It’s the morning of your wedding, Kondou-san. Don’t you remember? Yesterday night, you proposed to the cabaret girl at the club, and she said yes. You have to get ready quickly—she’s waiting at the altar.”
“Otae-san’s waiting for me?” Kondou-san sprang to his feet, beaming. “Sougo! Quick, get my clothes! I have to run! Wait, I should wax my leg hair, shouldn’t I? Where’s Toshi? Is he already at the wedding?”
“Hijikata-san isn’t coming,” Sougo replied. “He eloped already, with the Boss. They drove away in a big red car with a just married license plate. In case you were curious, Hijikata-san was the one wearing the dress.”
“What the hell are you saying?” Hijikata asked incredulously, shouldering into the bathroom with a bundle of clothing. “Kondou-san, don’t listen to this bastard. There’s no wedding, no proposal, and no eloping. Only these pajamas.”
“Oh,” said Kondou-san, wilting. “Alright then.”
Back in his own bedroom, Sougo settled down by the engawa, waiting for the bath to free up. The night was thick with humidity, near-suffocating, but nonetheless beautiful. Crickets whined in the wet grass, their mournful song belied by the occasional racket of drunken stragglers in the street, and the wind-chimes attached to the rafters, clattering gently in the passing breeze.
There was a time long past when, on such a night, Sougo might’ve had company; awfully demanding company, but company nonetheless.
They’d spend all their time caught in a pointless balancing act, pretenses upon pretenses upon pretenses, neither of them willing to unveil the truth. Sougo would lay out two futons far apart, when it was clear that Kamui would be sharing his; Kamui would rest his ear over Sougo heart, and they’d both pretend it was so he could tell when Sougo awoke.
They weren’t very good liars, but it was a sure thing when they were hell-bent on fooling themselves. It had worked, for a long, long time. Forever, Sougo had thought, distantly. One of many ways he’d managed to fool himself, back then.
Over the copse of trees in the yard, the moon hung low, round and yellow like a wedge of butter. It seemed awfully lonely, Sougo thought. It was awfully lonely.
Maybe he’d been waiting, unconsciously, for some kind of sign; for the envelope to turn into putty or burn up in his hands, like a poorly-timed magic trick; for Kamui to come bounding up the path, over the gates, just to tell him that it had all been one big joke.
It could have been funny when Sougo first heard the news and fell right off the roof. It could have been funnier when he kissed Fubuki at the cabaret club. Kamui certainly would have laughed.
But he was alone now, in his dark, empty room, cold and sopping wet—and there would be nothing funny about it all if it turned out to be one big joke, because Sougo was truly miserable.
No; there was no punchline coming. There had never been a punchline to begin with.
It was the cold truth, that Kamui no longer belonged to him in any way, that in a few months he’d marry someone else. And even though Sougo had never once considered it, it suddenly became his biggest regret; as though domesticity and matrimony had ever had a place in a relationship like theirs, as though Kamui would have agreed to a marriage with no utility beyond the feeble promises Sougo could make.
Not that it mattered. Sougo had always taken Kamui in whatever way he could have him, quietly reverent, in awe of his own luck. It would’ve been no different, had they continued on for years and years like he’d always thought, untethered but nonetheless bound, married in all but name.
How foolish he’d been, he thought dully. Begging to keep Kamui forever would have been a wiser wish than the one he’d made on New Years, praying to God for evil to befall Hijikata and his girlfriend of one week.
It was then that, while wallowing in his own misery, Sougo thought of Jinsei Midnight - Vol. 7.
Hijikata had intervened before Sougo could hear the whole thing, but it was undeniable that Gintoki had been speaking about his turbulent relationship with Kamui. Nobody eats them on their own, but they’re tolerable when they’re together.
Right then, just barely tipsy, Sougo would’ve taken anything to get his mind off of the consequences of his fatal inaction.
So it was a sure thing, slumping out into the hallway and settling down by the home computer in the living room, punching in the characters for Jinsei Midnight’s live recordings.
In small, blocky lettering, Vol. 7 - Monday, June 10th sat at the top of the list, emblazoned with the shining face of a little girl with the altruistic wisdom of a monk.
Sougo started right in the middle, where he’d last heard Gintoki say, Ketsuno Ana’s the strawberry syrup that makes you tolerable!
“Come now, Sakata-san,” Jindai Chinpo said, smiling peevishly. “I didn’t purposely deceive you. If you’d read the footnotes on the contract, I specifically stated that there was a chance one of us would not be there.”
“I did read the footnotes!” Gintoki cried. “But Ketsuno Ana said she loved me yesterday, on TV! It’s going to rain cats and dogs out there! Stay safe everyone, teehee! I love you! That’s exactly how she said it!”
Jindai Chinpo laughed heartily. “Your heart must be easily moved, Sakata-san, if you’ve got so many great loves in your life! What about that other person you were talking about—Takasugi-kun, was it?”
“Takasugi?” Gintoki slumped a little, staring wistfully off camera. “He dumped me for the hundredth time last week.”
“Ah, it’s like that thing you taught us earlier. You shouldn’t be trying to woo terrorists. They’ll up and leave you when you least expect it.”
“Happened to a good friend of mine.”
“A good friend of yours? The modern dating scene sure is strange, huh, folks?” There was cued laughter—then Jindai Chinpo leaned forward on his elbows, his eyes wide. “And where exactly are you people meeting all these terrorists?”
“Just around,” Gintoki replied, with a dismissive yawn. “That friend is a cop. Not so surprising that he got in with a terrorist.”
Jindai Chinpo laughed. “Watch out folks—the fish-eyed cop at your neighborhood police box might have it bad for a Captain of the Harusame!”
Gintoki cleared his throat loudly. “Oi, oi. He’s a scary guy, Chinpo-san. If you say too much on TV, he’ll enact his sadistic revenge on you in seven days. That is, unless you send this message to thirty other people by midnight.”
“Those never really work," Jindai Chinpo replied dismissively. “Anyway, if he’s scary, I bet he fits in well with that terrorist beau of his.”
“They’re the worst people I know,” Gintoki said dully. “It’s a match made in heaven.”
“They can’t be that bad, can they?”
“A trigger-happy cop and a battle-hungry terrorist is always bad for the nation’s GDP. Imagine all the destruction they cause when they’re flirting. Blowing up buildings and such.”
“I haven’t noticed any destruction lately,” Jindai Chinpo pointed out. “They must’ve really broken up.”
“What else can you do, when you get a wedding invitation?” Gintoki drawled. “It’s over, I tell you.”
The crowd seemed to wholeheartedly disagree, their deafening roars rattling the screen.
“We don’t think so,” Jindai Chinpo said. “This friend of yours, is he the type to be idle when it comes to his loved ones?”
“No,” Gintoki replied honestly. “I told you, yeah? He’s a pretty scary guy, but he’s even scarier when it comes to that.”
“Then maybe all he needs is encouragement.”
“Maybe,” Gintoki said. “But he’ll have to fight off the biggest, baddest vagrants the universe has to offer if he wants to object to this wedding.”
“You don’t think he can do it?”
“I know he can do it.” Gintoki shook his head. Somewhere in between stupid jabs and trite dismissiveness, he’d become scarily serious, his face set and solemn. “But it’s about his own resolve. If you want to protect the things you love, you have to fight for them.”
“Wise words, Sakata-san!” Jindai Chinpo sighed. “But is love truly supposed to be so difficult? Shouldn’t we encourage your friend to move on, to find someone else?”
“No way. Blanched vegetables and rice, Chinpo-san.”
“Blanched vegetables and rice!” the crowd roared.
Jindai Chinpo sighed again. “But…”
“Look, Chinpo-san,” Gintoki drawled. “The point is, there’s no one else in the universe crazy enough to want someone like him. Those two can only be with each other.”
“I see, I see,” Jindai Chinpo said wisely, stroking his phallic-shaped beard. “Then I only have one thing to say…”
Confetti burst into the air, raining down upon their heads. The stage light scattered into a frenzy of technicolor, dizzy and blinding. Jindai Chinpo caught a rose someone had thrown onstage from the audience and placed it between his teeth, springing forward in front of the camera.
He winked. “Go get ‘em, boy!”
The door slid open. Light slanted in through the hallway in one long, yellow stripe, momentarily blinding. Through the darkness, Hijikata called out: “The bath’s free.”
“Hijikata-san,” Sougo said slowly, turning to face him, his eyes bright, his heart thundering a mile a minute. “I’m going to outer space.”