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“Ow,” says Katsura, the rope zipping out of his hands, the bucket splashing into the well water below.
With a frown, he looks down at the freshly stinging burns on the palms of his hands. There’s a pattern to the red marks [there’s patterns to everything, if you know where to look, and Katsura is always looking].
“Tch, can’t you do anything right?” comes a voice from behind him. He turns automatically, pressing his red palms to the front of his hakama. It’s the new boy, with the shock of white hair and the scowl. As always, he’s carrying Sensei’s sword [almost dwarfed by the size of it].
Katsura suspects the two of them might be friends, maybe; he isn’t sure, hasn’t really had a friend before. He supposes one day, he’ll ask for clarification [if the patterns of friendship haven’t become clear by then].
“I can do lots of things right,” he replies rather seriously, after some thought. “I can read, and touch my toes, and-”
“What happened to your face?” interrupts Gintoki. His scowl has deepened. “You got blood all over your face.”
The black haired boy curls his fingers experimentally into fists, feeling the sting of the rope-burn, little pinpricks of heat along the digits. They’re feeling numb around the edges [like his blackened eye and cheek, like his nose still itchy with blood]. “Nothing.”
Gintoki approaches suddenly [in that abrupt, mongoose-quick way of his] and Katsura becomes interested in his sandals. “You got beat up,” the permed boy states with flat certainty.
Katsura doesn’t reply.
“Was it that asshole Takasugi?” asks Gintoki. His voice is devoid of concern, but there’s something fierce and unfamiliar about his scowl now [a break in the pattern, Katsura thinks absently]. “That weasely little shit Kojima? Kugimiya?”
Reaching for the old rope again, Katsura says nothing. After a moment, Gintoki makes an irritated noise. He slaps Katsura’s hands away, drawing the bucket of water from the depths with jerky motions. Half the water spills from the pail as the boy slams it on the stones of the well [but it is still enough to wipe the crusted blood away from his face].
Gintoki crosses his arms and watches him wash away boys’ carefree cruelty with dull red eyes. Katsura is unconcerned by the stare [unlike the others, who are made uneasy by the feral, blank quality of those eyes]. On some level, he knows Gintoki is different from the rest of the students, with his harsh, wild movements and that ever-present glower. He’s too odd, too unpredictable, too estranged from the idea of conduct the others are used to.
Just as he himself is, perhaps.
“You should cut your hair,” the other boy says suddenly.
Katsura pauses, touching his high ponytail briefly. “Why?”
“So assholes would stop beating you up.”
Blinking clear hazel eyes, Katsura tries to process this line of reasoning. His hair has nothing to do with him, really. It just sits on his head until he washes it. He supposes he is content with the way it is, long like Sensei’s. Sensei’s makes him think of calligraphy, the easy, elegant way it moves in his wake.
Katsura likes calligraphy, and he likes Sensei, and he likes his own hair, and doesn’t see how that should end with three boys shoving him around behind the dojo.
“If you looked less like a stupid girl, they would screw off,” Gintoki snaps, when he doesn’t respond. “Idiot.” With that [and no patience for transitions or segues] he turns around, hand on Sensei’s sword, walking back the way he came.
Turning back to the well, Katsura drops his hands to the cold water in the bucket, feeling his rope-burn soothed. He thinks about hair, about the numb pain of his eye, about patterns.
He’s starting to believe he and Gintoki make a pattern, maybe.
-+-+-+-
Their bones all ache with the rain.
Their muscles ache with fatigue from pushing the supply carts through thick, swampy mud, and their hearts ache with battle cries of lost comrades, but their bones, their bones ache with the rain. It drills down on them as the ocean waves drill into jetties, carving them, eroding their will [to fight, to eat, to live].
Thousands of Amanto left to fight, and it is erosion that Katsura fears most of all.
Gintoki’s hand is on his shoulder. “Come on,” he mutters, steering him into the inn. “I’m freezing.”
Katsura snaps out of his reverie. “Tatsuma…”
“He’ll get over it after a good night’s sleep. It’s just a damn flu.”
“Is anyone-”
“Takasugi’s with him. Jeez, the innkeeper’s daughter is the medic. He’ll be more than fine once he sees the body on her.” They keep walking until they reach the bath house, and Gintoki picks up towels from an unruly stack. They are the very last of the company; most of the men have already been through the baths, as evidenced by the numerous muddy footprints along the wooden floor. Looking at the mess sharply reminds Katsura of the filthy state he must be in [the grime under his fingernails, in his clothes, in his hair].
“Come on,” Gintoki repeats, tugging him along by the edge of his haori. “Aa, what are you, anyway? His mother?”
His skin is crawling with dirt. His bones ache. “…Whose?”
“Sakamoto’s, we were just- did the weight of that wig finally crush your little brain, Zura?”
“It’s not Zura, it’s Katsura.” At the edge of the bath, they take off their chest plates, their forearm guards, their shin guards, their swords. A solid clump of mud hits the floor, dislodged from behind Gintoki’s armor [Katsura’s nose twitches, scrunches at it]. He undoes the ties of his shirt and pants, folding them and waiting for Gintoki to finish undressing.
“I’ll take them,” the other samurai interjects into the damp quiet of the bath house. As he grabs the mud-caked fabric gruffly from Katsura’s unresisting fingers, he adds in a put-upon sounding mumble, “Just get in already.”
Katsura nods, sitting down at the edge of the bath to unwind the wrappings from his shins and feet as Gintoki piles their discarded clothes on top of the others’. Into the steam, he unexpectedly gags as more layers of sludge are revealed beneath each curve of bandage [the grime is everywhereallover]. The only thing that stops him from vomiting into the pure water below is the thought of having to see the filth he’d probably regurgitate [outsideinside, there’s muck in his stomach and blood on his hands].
Beside him, Gintoki drops mutely, his feet splashing into the water. Then, as lightly as the steam around them, Gintoki’s hand comes to rest at Katsura’s lower back. He doesn’t say anything as Katsura grips bound hands on the wood’s edge and heaves spasmodically, fruitlessly [once, twice, three times].
Just as Katsura stops tasting bile in the back of his throat, the sword-calloused hand at his back gives a firm shove.
He drops into the water as if the regret in his belly is made of stone, and he stays submerged for a long, long time. The dark strands of his hair, the loosening bindings around his forearms, float up and around [strange and careless sea grass].
When his lungs are far past demanding for air, he resurfaces. Gintoki has slid into the bath in the interim, and is now leaning against the side, muscular arms propped up on the edge. He reaches out with one arm, catching the tail of a drifting bandage. Then, he tugs, reeling Katsura in, until the shorter samurai is before him. His other arm comes to wrap around him, hand sliding up into the slick ink-spill hair. The same slow, firm push he used to push Katsura into the water now bears down on the back of his head, pressing their mouths together [and again, Katsura stays submerged for a long, long time].
“You should cut your hair,” Gintoki breathes against his lips as they finally part. His hands are caught in the tangled blackness just as surely as brambles. The wet net bleeds foreign blood and filth into the water [a messy trail of defeat, a heavy reminder of lost hope and lost men].
The white-haired man doesn’t wait for a response [he never does]. Fingers clenching into wet, dirty hair, he presses his mouth to Katsura’s again. The kiss is deeper, harder [warm lips and persistent tongue tending as best they can to the rain-ache in his bones].
-+-+-+-
“I saw up your kimono,” Gintoki says indifferently, after a long pause.
“Shut up,” hisses the rebel, peering through the leafy yellow-green branches of the tree.
“Tch, they can’t hear anything over their own stupid shouting.”
“I can’t hear myself think over your stupid talking!”
“I’m just saying, I saw up your kimono. While we were climbing.”
“You didn’t have to follow me up.”
“Yeah, well, how else would I see up your kimono?”
Katsura punches him in the shoulder, making a frustrated I’m really not kidding you stupid paahead type of noise and telling him to shut up a second time. Gintoki makes an unattractive face, but complies. Katsura would like to think it’s because Gintoki actually listened [but he knows it’s only because a fall from this kind of height is nothing to sneeze at].
There’s silence, but it still isn’t silence; it is the height of summer, and the earth is buzzinghummingalive, impossible to quiet. The rebel has to strain his hearing to pick up the beat of the Shisengumi’s boots over the pulse of unrepentant August.
His eyes stray to the other man in the boughs, finding dead-fish eyes already trained on him. In the life-heat, in the not-silence, Katsura doesn’t notice the gold-green colour the leaves give to Gintoki’s ridiculous white hair. He doesn’t notice the knees brushing against his, the one leg kicking idly, like a schoolboy’s.
He listens, and he waits. Eventually, the thudding chase of the law drifts away, replaced in Katsura’s ears by their own breathing.
“They’re gone,” Gintoki decides. His eyes haven’t moved from Katsura’s [earthy and red like the heat of summer]. “You should buy me lunch for saving you.”
“I saved myself,” the rebel replies promptly, cool and blank. “You screamed, stomped out the fire on your shoe, and tore off running.”
“Don’t come on all condescending and ungrateful, you shit, I was saving you. And on an empty stomach, might I add.”
Katsura sighs, leaning his head back against the tree and letting his eyes close. In comparison with the vitality of the greenery, he feels boneless, drowsy. “Forget it. I’m not buying you lunch.”
“Zura, don’t be so stingy. I’m hungry.”
“It’s not Zura, it’s Katsura.”
Presumptuous fingers brush along his forearm, and he wants to look down at them, but he doesn’t. “I’m hungry,” says the white-haired samurai [his lips curling obnoxiously at the corners]. “I just want a little something.”
“Starve.”
“A little sugar-”
“Starve.”
Gintoki’s fingers creep up his forearm, inch by inch, shameless. “You know, high-speed chases are supposed to get people worked up. Are you worked up?”
“Yes.”
“…What, rea-”
“For the cause.”
The air sent whirling from Gintoki’s irritated snort brushes against the rebel’s cheek. He’s leant closer, his hand making it’s way to Katsura’s shoulder. “Aa, you’re really annoying, you know that?”
Katsura shifts against the bark of the tree, trapped by lit-up leaves and dark August eyes. There is nowhere to escape to. “You’re being more annoying,” he protests. Gintoki doesn’t respond, pressing closer still, hands moving heavily on his kimono. He complains in something dangerously close to a whine, “It’s too hot for this.”
The sword calluses are rough against his collarbone, plucking at the collar of the kimono, widening it. Katsura glares, his own hand coming up to grab at Gintoki’s wrist, but it’s intercepted, pushed to the side with the kind of purpose the Yorozuya usually reserves for glucose-related endeavors.
“What do you think you’re-” Katsura starts, but the fingers silence him, slowly spreading and sliding up his neck. They’re too warm, making the light sheen of perspiration prickle with the added heat. Deliberate in their movement, they curve up and along the column of his throat, leaving hot, oversensitive trails. The touches to his neck aren’t caresses; they’re too firm for such a feathery word, too possessive and sure [Katsura is put in mind of the way a samurai’s hand may linger on the hilt of his sword, seeking solid affirmation].
He exhales a small breath when Gintoki’s head ducks, and the too-warm touch of his fingers is proved to be nothing compared to the scorching heat of his lips. Katsura gives a sigh that is only mostly complaint, one of his hands hovering at the other man’s shoulder. The Yorozuya’s lips slide up his neck with a familiarity that would be grating if it weren’t so relaxing. “Gintoki…”
A hand suddenly sinks deeply into Katsura’s thick, sweat-damp hair, and the lazy slide of Gintoki’s mouth becomes hard, pressing biting kisses to the hot skin. The noise that Katsura makes is not dignified, nor refined.
“You should cut your hair,” Gintoki says lowly against his throat, followed by a weighty swipe of tongue, a scrape of teeth. Katsura just swallows, not trusting his voice yet. “You wouldn’t be so hot. Or so easily recognized by such moronic police forces, oi.”
“Won’t catch me,” the rebel murmurs, a little breathless. “Whether my hair is long or short or neon magenta and blinking.”
“That’s some confidence you have there,” says the heat against his neck, followed by another bite [softer than the others, but no less real, even in the wavering haze of the sun]. “And how do you know they won’t catch you, hn?”
“That’s simple.” A twitch of a smile pulls at the corner of Katsura’s mouth [he’s not going to give up anything to those bastards- not his rights, not his ideals, not even a single strand of his long, black hair]. “I won’t let them.”
Gintoki pulls back, his fingers still burrowed in Katsura’s hair. His face is close enough that the rebel can see the sweat at his temples- but Gintoki doesn’t close that final space [leaving Katsura’s sun-chapped lips itching]. “I’ll let you buy me lunch,” says the Yorozuya, instead.
Katsura pushes him out of the boughs. He lands in a heap on the roots of the tree, swearing loudly.
There is silence, and then the white-haired man speaks again.
“I can see up your kimono.”
A sandal rockets out from the leaves, pegging Gintoki in the face.
-+-+-+-
When Gintoki arches up underneath him, hands going to his hips and trying to take over the pace, Katsura tsks like a school marm, leaning forward as he stills entirely. Slowly, patiently, he peels the Yorozuya’s clenching fingers from his hipbones.
Predictably, Gintoki lets out an irritated moan, his head whumping back hard against the futon. “Get on with it, you’re driving me fuckin’ crazy, and not the good-yes-more-crazy, the other crazy where I might feed you and your stupid wig to Sadaharu, can you just-”
“No.” Katsura counts his own heartbeats [onetwothreefourfivesixonetwothreefourfivesix], waiting for the aftershock shivers running down his thighs to pass.
Gintoki groans again. “For the last damn time, I’m fine. We can do something a little faster-”
“I’m not going to let you rip your stitches because of something as stupid as this.”
“Oh, don’t pretend you’re not turned on, bastard, it’s not like I can’t see your erection.”
The rebel blushes, hunching forward over Gintoki. He counts more heartbeats [onetwo, theefour, fivesix, they’re slowing]. “Shut up, don’t be so vulgar, asshole.”
“Aa, how can you still be such a prude while you’re sitting on my damn-”
“I said don’t be so vulgar! If you’re going to keep whining, I don’t have to do this at all!”
“Sadist.”
“I don’t want to talk about work.” Truthfully, he doesn’t want to talk at all. They have only a small window of opportunity to be alone, and Katsura wants to use every moment of it wisely, take things slow and easy.
It isn’t the first time they’ve done this since what happened [the fight, the fire, the laborious swim back to shore]. But the first time was so delayed, and then too hasty and raw- he remembers nothing except the rush to completion [harsh declarations of I’m alive, you’re alive from two mouths]. Now that they have the chance, he wants to be able to feel everything without that unease, to have Gintoki feel everything.
And to keep the stupid moron from ripping his stupid moron stitches. “Are you going to keep your hands to yourself or not?”
“My shoulder is fine, damnit! Uh, nn, lean like that again.”
Katsura doesn’t. “Your shoulder is not fine.” Before Gintoki can start arguing, he places his hands on either side of Gintoki’s ridiculous perm, dropping his head to give the Yorozuya a kiss measured in calm heartbeats [one, two, three, four, five, six]. When he breaks it, he lets his lips linger. “Slow,” he reiterates, his no-nonsense tone emphasized by a sharp nibble at Gintoki’s lower lip.
Although he heaves an aggravated sigh, Gintoki’s body visibly stops straining [in most places, anyway]. Movements grudging and mocking, he puts his arms at his sides. “There. Happy?”
“Mm,” hums Katsura, non-committal. After another unhurried kiss, he sits back up, putting his weight back onto his knees. Shifting, he raises himself up, and then sinks gradually back into a kneel. His eyes shutter close as he repeats the motion. “Yes,” he hisses quietly. Gintoki just lets out a chuckle that sounds pained.
The long afternoon rolls by slowly [like hot sweat from Gintoki’s brow, like a hushed name from Katsura’s mouth]. The rebel is bent low over the other samurai’s body when he comes, the noonday sun warm across his shoulders and Gintoki hot inside him. It’s not like fireworks [his quota for explosives is full], and it’s not like seeing stars [he thinks enough, too much, about space].
It’s something else, whatever Katsura sees in Gintoki’s eyes as the Yorozuya follows his lead, hand straying disobediently to Katsura’s exposed nape. “Zura,” he slurs, bringing their mouths together hard and insistent, fingers clutching at phantom hair before sliding into the short, feathery locks.
When they break apart, Katsura climbs off Gintoki. His leg cracks loudly as he does, cramped from being held with such tight control for so long. “Ooh,” he startles in absent surprise, rubbing at the juncture between his leg and hip.
“See,” pants Gintoki, though he doesn’t explain what he means by that. His chest is heaving, and Katsura places a flat palm on it, avoiding the stitches.
Once he is settled on the futon beside the Yorozuya [stretching his legs], he cants his head up. “Wasn’t that better?”
“What’s that supposed to mean? Are you insulting me? Is that it?”
“You know what I meant, paahead.”
A dismissive hand waves over them. “Fast, slow, it doesn’t matter, why do you have to make everything so complicated,” he mumbles, but he turns an unusual pink [and he’s still half-panting for breath]. His hand finds it’s way up to the ends of Katsura’s uneven hair, twisting the short strands around his fingers, and before Katsura can yell at him for using the arm with the injured shoulder he blurts, “You should grow your hair out. It’s stupid like this.”
At that, Katsura raises a dark eyebrow. Gintoki doesn’t squirm, but he looks like he might want to. “Ah?” inquires the rebel.
“Shut up. It’s just.” Gintoki lost for words is a rare, rare thing, and Katsura watches the contortions of his face with something dangerously close to affection. “I don’t know, it’s just. It’s short.”
“I see,” says Katsura blankly. He wonders if the shorn strands remind Gintoki of events he doesn’t want to remember, but he knows better. He wonders if the close-cut hair makes the other man think of even closer calls, but he knows better. He wonders if Gintoki just prefers his hair long because he finds it more attractive, but he certainly knows better than that, too.
Without warning, Katsura rolls back on top of the other man. Gintoki lets out a startled oomph. “Short, long,” he mumbles. “It doesn’t matter.” Katsura knows what matters, and who matters, and that man is underneath him, looking up at him with a crooked, bemused grin. “Why do you have to make everything so complicated, ah?”
“You’re really just so annoying,” Gintoki responds, colouring again. He suddenly rolls them, his weight pushing the smaller man into the futon. “So, we have some time still before that gorilla girl comes back from Shinpachi’s. We can-" his face goes white as he leans on his bad shoulder, “-ow, ow, owwww.”
Katsura is unimpressed. “I told you,” he says flatly. He pushes the Yorozuya off gently, reaching for his discarded kimono. Gintoki sidles up behind him as he leans, his fingers brushing away the hair at Katsura’s nape. His good arm wraps around the smaller man’s chest as he presses his lips to the pale skin.
“Grow it out,” Gintoki murmurs, breath warm, the grasp around him unyielding and supportive. When Katsura tilts his head back, he recognises in Gintoki's eyes what he couldn't before; it's a pattern made complete [the easing of an ache, a chase concluded, years and years of being in something maybe like love].
“I was going to anyway,” replies the rebel serenely. He gives Gintoki a drawn-out kiss, cupping his cheek. “Ah, enough about my hair. Can we talk about getting rid of that ugly perm?”