Namidairo

Disclaimer: I do not own Gintama.

Summary: Sougo's first week in edo. He is unfortunate enough to get lost in the red light district, but is saved by Hijikata. Much to his dismay. (HijiOki).

He was lost. Sougo stumbled blindly in the dark alleys of Kabuki-cho, unsure of what to do next. Empty, broken bottles of alcohol and various dirty wrappers littered the streets. Sougo looked away, utterly disgusted. He fumbled into his pocket, and took out a useless, poorly drawn map. He glanced at it, and frowned.

He walked a few hundred metres before he tripped over a still body, sprawled out in the garbage. The man was drunk, asleep and filthy. Sougo immediately stood up, and started to run. His palms were bleeding, and his knees were scraped. He didn't care. He halted, when he came across a fork in the road. He closed his eyes, and listened for sound. It was faint, be he could hear it. With renewed hope, he clambered towards it. As he drew closer, the sound became louder, until it was almost deafening. He turned a final corner, and the sharp beam of lights blinded him. When his eyes had gotten used to the light, he glared into the street angrily.

Crowds of people flooded the area, most of them drunk, some of them unclean and all of them men. Women were in traditional heavy kimonos with their obis tied in front of their waists, they were kept behind thick, red bars. A few of them reached out of called out to the passer-by's.

Prostitutes.

Sougo kept his head down as he rushed past them. He needed to get out of here. Fast. He twisted around the many brothels, bars and casinos, trying to find something that resembled an exit. He had a brief idea of where he was.

"Hey you." A deep voice called out.

Sougo pretended not to hear, and increased his pace. The voice called out again, and he felt a heavy hand grip his shoulder. He stopped.

"Acting cocky aren't we?" Sougo turned around to face two huge, drunk ugly men. They were literally twice the size of him. But that was no problem of course. He was tempted to cut the annoying hand off his shoulder…then he remembered that he had left his katana back at headquarters.

"Let go of me."

One of the men sneered. "What if I say no?"

Sougo fiercely ripped away, and then sank his fist into the man's face. Stunned, the man collapsed onto the ground. Sougo smiled to himself, satisfied with the impact…then winced when he felt his wrist twist painfully.

When he looked up, he found himself staring into the faces of more ugly men.

"When did you call for backup?" he asked sarcastically.

"Brat! Look what he did to aniki!" The previous men snarled. "Hold him down!"

Sougo felt strong, iron claws pin him onto the wall, sharp fingers scratched into the soft flesh of his arms. The men grinned hideously and he saw one of them take something that looked like brass knuckles out of his pockets, and slip them on gleefully. Sougo shut his eyes, waiting for impact…

When a moment passed, and nothing happened, He opened his eyes, to see the man knocked out, by another equally ugly (but fairly more intelligent) looking man. The grips on his loosened, as they tried to help their fallen 'aniki', but a voice yelled at them sharply.

"And what do we have here…?" Ugly smiled, showing rotting black teeth.

"Oi!" the knocked-out man revived himself and stood up groggily. "You didn't have to do that asshole! It was totally under control…"

"Idiot!" Ugly sneered. "You were just about to waste a profitable face."

"You disgusting bastard!" Knock-out guy spat on the ground. "He's a boy! Not to mention underage…"

"You call me that." Ugly snickered. "But wasn't that the reason why you stopped him?"

"W…what? No!" Knock-out spluttered.

"I can't blame you I suppose." Ugly put his dirty finger on Sougo's cheek. "I know some…nice people that would love to keep you. We get a profit, and you get a nice home. What do you say?"

Sougo didn't say anything. He just opened his mouth, and bit down hard onto his flesh.

Ugly chuckled, as he managed to wrench his bleeding finger out. "Feisty too." He was about to say something else, but he was interrupted.

"Oi. What's going on here?" a rough voice cut through the air like a knife.

Sougo looked up confused at the familiarity of that tone. A figure with a loose, dark blue messily tied hakama walked out of the crowd, lazily eyeing the gang members not even giving them a second glance. When his gaze fell onto the boy, he slapped his forehead and groaned.

"I should've known." He sighed, and reached into his pocket to pull out a cigarette. His lit it up and inhaled. "Stupid brat. You cause trouble wherever you go. Give me a break already."

"Hm…a friend of yours?" Ugly directed his question to Sougo. When he didn't answer he faced the slack samurai. "If you don't want to get hurt, I suggest you get lost."

"Yeah!" others echoed after him.

Hijikata's eyes narrowed. "I don't think so. But if you don't have a death-wish, then I suggest you let go of him right now. If you do that, I'll just kill you three quarters of the way and let you go."

"What the heck is ¾ killing?" Knock-out asked.

"Sorry." Ugly snickered. "He's ours now." Sougo began to protest, but a hand clamped down over his mouth.

"No actually. He's not." Hijikata discarded the burning filter onto the floor and stepped on it. "But I'm a generous guy, so I'll give you three seconds to get your dirty hands off him and fuck off."

They all laughed, Oblivious to what they were getting themselves into.

"3…"

"You have no idea who you're dealing with." Ugly sniggered.

"2…"

Sougo sighed, and braced himself.

"1."

About half a second later, every single man was laying on the floor either groaning in pain or unconscious. Sougo stood in the middle of them, slowly rubbing his wrists.

"You better thank me, Brat." Hijikata said smirking. "Well?"

"I didn't need your help bastard." He mumbled.

Hijikata snorted. "Yeah right. You definitely looked like you were going to be a-okay."

Hijikata began to walk away, towards a suspicious looking building, and Sougo followed him reluctantly. They both walked in silence through the huge door and Sougo looked around at the rooms. They strongly reminded him of the alleyway that he had just escaped from.

"…I would rather have been beaten up then to be rescued by you." Sougo found himself muttering.

Suddenly, he felt himself slammed into a nearby wall held up firmly by the collar.

"Kusogaki." Hijikata's growled. His face was so near to him, that Sougo could feel his breath on his cheeks. "Do you have any idea what they were planning to do with you?"

Sougo gritted his teeth and looked away, but Hijikata lifted his chin back up with two fingers, one resting under his jaw and the other sliding across his cheek. Sougo blushed, and attempted to gnaw off his finger, but Hijikata pulled back slyly, stroking across his face.

"Hm?" Hijikata licked his lips, enjoying the control and reaction he was getting from the smaller boy, who was usually more…difficult. "Or maybe you really want me to bring you back there and-" He stopped as he looked into Sougo's eyes and saw through his stubborn expression. He pulled back and dropped him onto the floor.

"Don't ever do that again." Sougo's voice wavered. He sounded like he about to cry.

Hijikata coughed, and turned back to face the corridor. "Just as long as you understand." He said gruffly. He began walking again, but after a few steps he felt Sougo grip the back of his hakama. "Brat…"

Sougo allowed himself to be lead into a bright room. It was much livelier than the dead hall way, the walls were decorated with a red color. There was a long, black table in the middle of the room. The table was covered with empty sake bottle and food. The whole room reeked of alcohol. The room was filled with drunk men (some of whom Sougo had recognized as from the troops) and woman, who were serving sake. He tightened his grip on Hijikata's shirt. This time, Hijikata shook him off. Some of the women called at them, but they were ignored. Hijikata sat down next to an empty table near the window (Sougo wondered if that was the place where Hijikata saw him from) and leaned back onto the wall. "Sit." He commanded. "And stay."

Sougo obediently sat, tucking his arms around his knees. He stared at the floor. "…I'm cold."

"Did you say something?"

Sougo shook his head. Hijikata sighed, and pressed his cigarette into a nearby ashtray (that could just as well have been someone's drink). Sougo reached out for a thin, red, silk sheet sprawled out on the floor, but Hijikata slapped his hand away. "Don't touch it. You don't know where it's been."

Sougo pouted, but drew away. Hijikata looked down at his shivering body and gave in. "Hey. Lady." He snapped his fingers sharply. "Bring…a hot drink. Non alcoholic."

"If you heard what I said then you had no reason to ask me to repeat it." Sougo muttered.

"Shut up." Hijikata exhaled. "Brat. Acting so spoiled…Your sister isn't here anymore so you're going to have to start looking after yourself."

Sougo, instead of bursting into a fit of anger, looked away to hide his face. "Shut up Hijikata you bastard."

There was silence between them, for a while. The sound of yelling men and laughing woman echoed into the room.

"…Can I have some sake?"

"No."

"Why not?"

"Just no." Hijikata rolled his eyes lazily. "I don't want to be the one who has to carry you home because you're drunk and can't support yourself."

"Even if I was drunk and couldn't support myself, I would rather crawl home on my hands and knees then be carried by you." Sougo shot back.

Hijikata looked amused. "Interesting. Lady! One bottle of sake over here!"

An hour later…

Hijikata laughed softly to himself as he supported his barely conscious subordinate with an arm around his shoulders. "That idiot."

Sougo whimpered softly as he stumbled clumsily on his own feet. His cheeks were bright red. He mumbled something that could have either meant 'Screw you Hijikata', 'I can still drink more' or 'Get off.'

Hijikata shook his head. The usually deadpan, mischievous, stubborn brat was being surprisingly…insecure today. He somewhat reminded him of a kitten. Unlike a dog, he was cocky and proud. But of course, insanely adorable.

They soon reached an area built entirely from stone; there were two gray floors, barely two meters wide. Between them was a softly running river, and above that was a stone bridge. Along the river side were dozens of glowing lanterns.

A small but long wooden rowing boat was floating besides the bridge; in it was an old man who was half asleep.

"Oi." Hijikata gently kicked the side of the boat waking the boat man. "To the main city."

The boat man eyed the drunken Sougo suspiciously, but his eyes gleamed when Hijikata handed him a few gold coins. He immediately gleamed and scrambled up to grab his ore.

"I doubt you two will be able to sit properly in the back." He said sheepishly. "You'll have to get your girl to sit on your lap."

Hijikata considered his options. He had a feeling that if he corrected the old man, he would be getting even stranger looks.

"Fine."

So they settled down in the back of the cramped rowing boat, Sougo comfortable on Hijikata's lap. Sougo gave a small moan before collapsing onto his chest. Hijikata considered tipping him into the water but decided against it. It actually felt okay. The boat was now moving, skillfully skimming the water's surface. The moon was full, and reflected beautifully in the river. Hijikata was dying for a cigarette, but resisted the temptation.

"Damn Sougo." He muttered. "You're so troublesome."

He stared at the younger boy's face. He was cute, for a boy. But not beautiful like his sister. The red rush that was previously staining his pale cheeks had faded to a simple blush.

The silence after that was calming. Only the sound of the wind, and gentle waves could he heard.

In his arms, Sougo began to wake up. His eyes fluttered open, but just barely. His vision was still blurry. He reached out and grabbed hold of his collar, pulling his face downwards.

"Oi. Sougo-" Hijikata was cut short as Sougo's lips pressed against his own.

To be continued...