#taexgintoki

[vannahfanfics]

The Purest Form of Love

Category: Romantic Fluff, Hurt and Comfort

Fandom: Gintama

Characters: Tae Shimura, Gintoki Sakata

Requested By: Anonymous User (FanFiction)

“You know what I was just thinking, Big Sis? I don’t think any of us have seen Gin-san ever smile for real.”

Tae blinked and lowered her chopsticks from her mouth as she regarded her little brother with slightly wide eyes. The bespectacled boy rubbed his chin thoughtfully as he crossed his other arm across his chest, leaning back to stare up at the ceiling. His frown deepened when the ceiling tiles apparently refused to provide him elucidation as to why. “We’ve known him for so long, but I just can’t ever picture a time when he was genuinely happy… It’s just strange. Surely he has something to smile about.”

“Gin-san is a complicated man,” Tae shrugged as she resumed eating her own rice and egg. Kagura had taken up cooking seriously and invited Tae over to try her “signature creation,” which was just a fried egg draped over a scoop of rice, but Tae wanted to encourage Kagura’s budding talent. She never admitted it, but Tae knew her cooking skills were hopeless; someone in their friend group needed to learn to cook properly. It wasn’t healthy for them to live off store-bought bento boxes forever, after all. Shinpachi hummed contemplatively under his breath as he rocked himself back and forth slightly, arms still crossed firmly at his chest.

“Gin-san is about as complicated as a paper hat,” Kagura snickered with a devious glance into the living room where Gintoki was sprawled out in front of the small television, enraptured by the daily weather program’s afternoon update. He was, unsurprisingly, ignoring them completely, giving the young alien girl leave to insult him all she wished with no fear of reprimand. "But... I suppose it is strange that we have never seen him smile," she considered, her face falling into a thoughtful frown. 

“There has to be something,” Shinpachi repeated insistently. Tae had no idea why he chose this moment above all others to be so invested in Gintoki smiling, but she had to admit she was a wee bit curious. Thinking back, she couldn’t recall a situation in which he genuinely smiled either. She snuck a languorous glimpse at him out of the corners of her eyes. Surely, even Gintoki had something that made him elated beyond measure? She wasn’t truly sure. One wouldn’t think it by looking at him, but Gintoki was a haunted man. Warriors always were. Their belief system was a double-edged sword; no true human being could be completely immune to the horrifying shock of taking another’s life with their own two hands. Behind that apathetic expression was a man plagued with blood-soaked nightmares. Tae knew.

Tae knew because Gintoki took to wandering when they got too bad, and he had ended up at her place many a time. The first had been a few times after he had taken Shinpachi under his wing; she had awoken in the dead of night to light rapping on her door. She had bustled to the front of her house, tying the loose flaps of her kimono closed and peeking through the door to find a very gloomy and half-awake Gintoki Sakata. She didn’t know quite what to make of it, really. She could just tell by the hollow look in his eyes that something was deeply wrong. She had invited him in for tea. For once, he wasn’t snarky or smirky, just eerily… quiet, like his mind was someplace else entirely while his body operated on autopilot in the physical plane. He kept apologizing for imposing, and Tae kept insisting that it was all right and he could tell her what was troubling him, but he never did. He never did, even after several years of random nighttime callings and cups of tea and assurances that it was all right. He would just drink his tea, sit there in silence until the sun began creeping over the horizon, apologize again and then vanish like a ghost. A flitting spirit that haunted Tae on occasion, trying to communicate but never knowing how.

No, Tae wasn’t sure if Gintoki had any room in his scarred heart for true happiness anymore. He had known pain, so much pain, that it was hard to think about happiness without the tiny seed of doubt sprouting in the back of his mind. Tae wasn’t sure, but she hoped so, for his sake.

“I would like to see Gin-san truly smile, just once,” she whispered suddenly. She realized that she had spoken aloud when Shinpachi and Kagura looked at her incredulously. A faint blush rose to her cheeks and she fiddled nervously with her chopsticks. “What? Now I’m curious too!” It was a lie, a lame lie. Tae’s primary motivation was not mere curiosity. Tae wanted Gintoki to be happy, because, well… She kind of loved him.

She wasn’t sure when it started. Somehow, through it all, the misadventures and saving the world and melancholy midnight rendezvous, he just became such a constant presence in her life that she almost couldn’t help but love him. Tae really didn’t understand love all that well; no amount of shoujo mangas and romantic dramas could explain it entirely. Surely, though, the way she felt around him, the rapt attention he demanded from her by simply being in the same room, the fine details she committed to memory that only someone in love would bother to note… That was love, no? Her mind began to spiral down a rabbit’s den as she once more snuck his lounging form a lingering glance. Surely, wishing someone true happiness, that was the purest form of love there was…

“All right, then!” Kagura clapped her hands together gleefully, making the two Shimura siblings jump. “We shall quest to discover that which makes Gin-san smile!” Tae guessed that she was only mildly curious and most of her motivation came from having nothing better to do that day. It was no bother; any help was welcome because Tae knew discovering what made Gintoki happy was not going to be an easy task.

No, not an easy task at all.

They tried everything. Everything, everything they could think of. They surprised him with the newest weekly Jump issue and only got a small crack of a smile. They took him to the pachinko parlor and Tae even gave him a stack of cash to waste and the delight never reached his eyes. They took him to get that ungodly sweet red bean abomination he always ordered at the one food stall, and though they watched him with obsessed rapture every second he shoveled that grossness into his mouth, his lips never even curled. Tae managed to weasel Ketsuno Ana into dropping by, and even though Gintoki damn near fell on his knees to kiss her feet, the happiness was forced, every single time. By the end of the day, Tae was beginning to fear that the former samurai really had been robbed of every molecule of dopamine in his body.

“This is hopeless,” Shinpachi groused as they dragged their feet back to the Yorozuya. Gintoki, having been treated like a king all day, was strolling on ahead with his hands resting behind his head. The high-pitched tune he was whistling floated back on the gentle breeze to fill their ears with tinny notes. “We’ve tried everything that is so inherently Gin-san, and nothing. It’s hopeless.”

“Perhaps Gin-san cannot feel true happiness anymore,” Kagura moped, chewing on a beef jerky stick Tae bought for her at the local convenience store. Tae knitted her eyebrows worriedly before peeking at Gintoki out of the corners of her eyes. If he heard Kagura’s lamentation, he made no show of it; no tensed posture, no glances back, no self-pitying laughs. Just that repetitive tune, floating back on the wind like his apparently dreary soul.

“Kagura-chan, don’t say such things,” Tae chastised her quietly, despite the nagging possibility that she was unfortunately right. After all their efforts, how had they not managed to see any flicker of happiness within Gintoki’s silver eyes? It was like they were bottomless pools, deep and dark and abysmal. Tae watched his broad back as he shuffled along in front of them, seemingly oblivious to their avid discussion. Gin-san… Are you purposefully preventing yourself from feeling happiness? Do you not feel worthy? She wondered.

~~~~~~~~~~

It was late in the evening by the time they returned to the Yorozuya. Kagura made them dinner, a simple beef stew, and though she meant to leave a dozen times, Tae ended up passing out beside the kotatsu table right alongside the two youngsters while Gintoki lazily flipped through the television channels. The persistent drone of conversation and recorded television laughter kept Tae trapped in a state of hazy half-sleep. She lay on her belly with half her body cocooned in the dull, pulsing heat from the table, head resting on her arms as she blearily watched Gintoki in the living room. Her eyes kept slowly drifting shut before fluttering open as if she were making sure he was still there. Caught on the border between consciousness and sleep, Tae’s mind wandered frivolously.

Gin-san… What makes you happy? Did all those things make you happy, but you denied yourself the feeling as punishment? What are you punishing yourself for? Are your sins truly that burdening? I wish you would talk to me. I would never forsake you, Gin-san, no matter what you did. I love you, Gin-san…

“I love you,” she breathed as her lashes fluttered again and her unfocused eyes fixed on his lounging form in front of the television. She didn’t even realize that she had uttered it aloud. Lips slightly parted in a dumb haze, her brown eyes sluggishly followed him as he flipped off the television and sauntered over to the kotatsu table. Her body was long past the point of being numb, so she couldn’t move if she tried. He clicked his tongue disdainfully as he scratched the back of his head and looked at his two protégés curled up beneath the kotatsu table.

“Tch. Didn’t your mothers ever teach you not to fall asleep at a kotatsu table?” The words were harsh, but the tone was nothing if not loving. Tae’s eyes slowly trailed over his body until they arrived at his face, which was perfectly illuminated by the moonlight. That’s when she saw it… A smile, a true one, the most beautiful thing that had ever graced Tae’s vision. His eyes were lidded as he gazed down at Shinpachi and Kagura with intense brotherly affection. “Dumb kids…” So beautiful… So this is Gin-san’s true smile… Perhaps it was her half-sleep delirium, or perhaps it was the fact that their day full of toil had been rewarded— either way, a tear slipped from Tae’s eye to roll down her cheek. Something about the smile adorning his face moved her in such a way. She wished Shinpachi and Kagura could see it, but she also secretly relished the fact that she alone saw it. It was a secret for her alone to treasure.

She lamented the loss of the image as Gintoki walked down the hall. He came back a minute later carrying a trio of thick blankets. It was autumn; the small abode grew cold at night. Grunting as he squatted down, he draped the first blanket over Kagura and the second of Shinpachi. The young girl murmured something about “you won’t get away with this” before rolling on her other side, smacking her lips as she snuggled up into the folds of the blanket. Tae was overjoyed to see that smile appear on his face as he gently stroked her pinkish-red hair with a big palm. “Tough little Kagura… Don’t let them get away with it, ya hear?” Shinpachi snored softly beside her. Gintoki carefully eased his glasses off the boy’s face before folding them up and setting them on the kotatsu table. Tae’s heart stopped in her chest as he suddenly got up and strolled around to the other side of the kotatsu table to where she lay. If she had been in an intelligent state of mind, she would’ve pretended to be asleep. Instead, she just stared up at him with one wet eye as he came around. It took him a second to notice, but when he kneeled down to lay a blanket over her, his silvery eyebrows shot up his forehead.

“Tae? You’re crying,” he frowned, looking uncomfortable with the information. “Did you… Have a bad dream?”

“No. I’m just glad. I’m glad that I finally know what makes Gin-san truly happy,” she admitted with a contented breath. She really was happy; her entire body was humming with the bubbly emotion like she was filled to the brim with soap suds. Gintoki stared down at her with a puzzled expression before he smirked.

“So that’s what all that was about today?”

“Mhmm.” She found that she could move again, and so she shifted her body a little as the cold air began to creep in through the thin fabric of her kimono. Another tear leaked from her eyes when that familiar smirk melted into that gorgeous smile that was imprinted into her memory forever. “Such a beautiful smile… I was afraid I wouldn’t see it. I was afraid that Gin-san refused to let himself be happy.” It fell from his face as he again looked at her in surprise. Desperate to see it on his face again, she pushed herself up with her hands to grab clumsily onto the front of his clothes, hauling herself up his body to drape her thin arms around his neck. One hand cupped his face as she brought her face close, much too close for societal norms but her sleep-fogged mind couldn’t process that. “Please be happy, Gin-san. You deserve it just the much as the rest of us.” Tears sparkled on her lashes as they beaded like dew from her runny eyes. She felt the muscles of his chest tense impossibly tight as he drew in a hissing breath.

“You should be careful, saying these things and touching a man this way.” His voice was a rumble like thunder in the distance, vibrating like a cat’s purr against Tae’s chest. That smirk was back, curling and almost inflammatory as he stared at her. Those pools of his eyes were beginning to boil with a heat that sent liquid fire through Tae’s veins, making her skin grow unbearably hot all of a sudden. His hand rose to take a tight grip of her wrist. Tight, like he was strung between the decision of pulling her hand away or holding it there so he could turn his face and kiss her palm. “You should consider the consequences of your actions, Tae.” His tone was both a warning and an invite.

“I am well aware of the consequences. Perhaps I even welcome them.” Tae had never been such a combination of lucid and senseless. His eyebrows twitched a little at her response. Of course, Tae welcomed them. She knew damn well the insinuations of what she was doing right then. Her face took on a pained look as she resisted pressing herself into him because she wanted Gintoki to welcome her as much as she welcomed him. His eyes widened and her heart wailed in agony as fear flooded his eyes, and he withdrew his face a few centimeters from hers. He knew she wasn’t joking.

The line of his jaw was sharper than any sword as the tendon jumped from how tight his teeth were clenching. Afraid he would leave her clueless like every other time before, she clung insistently to him, face jumping forward as she all but yelled in his face, “I want to make you happy, Gin-san! Please, talk to me.” Her voice cracked with impossibly high emotion. “I hate seeing such a sad look on your face; please talk to me, tell me what haunts you. It’s all right. It’s all right.” She practically begged him as tears streamed down her cheeks, repeating the words he had told him so, so many times. “You don’t have to love me. You don’t have to love me. I just want you to be happy, Gin-san, I want you to be happy,” she sobbed quietly as she hung her head, her forehead landing on his shoulder.

Was she being selfish right now? Her head was just such a mess of confusion and half-finished thoughts and shadows of proper etiquette. Everything she had been holding in had just come boiling over. She couldn’t stand it any longer. After seeing that tender, loving, truly happy smile on Gintoki’s face, she just couldn’t stand the idea of him purposely refusing himself that basic human right on account of some stupid masculine preconceptions. Not even aware that words were spilling from her mouth, she kept repeating her blubbering pleas like a prayer to God. He stiffly held her as she cried out her manic emotions until finally, she felt his arm enclose around her, snugly securing itself around her waist to hug her close. The fingers of her free hand twisted into the fabric of his clothes; her other hand was still being held up to his face.

“Tae.” He said her name, but she was still sobbing too hard to respond. “Tae, look at me.” Somehow, she lifted her head to look tearily up at him. She couldn’t read his expression; he tilted his head as he regarded her, silver eyes traveling the tear tracks on her flushed cheeks, her quivering lips, her swimming eyes. Her chest heaved in the aftershocks of her sobbing gasps. The hand that was still clutching her wrist, now in a white-knuckled grip, slowly twitched to life. His thumb slowly began stroking rhythmic arc across the skin of the top of her hand, and then Tae stopped breathing because his face melted into the most beautiful smile yet.

“Thank you.” She could do nothing but stare, spellbound, starstruck, utterly and completed awed by the way he was looking at her. A fresh wave of tears spilled from her eyes at the mesmerizing sight. It was so bright it could be the moon, the sun, and the stars all in one; its light cascaded over Tae to fill her to the brim with its brilliance, but her body could not hold it so it leaked out in the form of her glittering tears of amazement. Her thumb jerked before dipping down to stroke over the corner of his mouth, and she gasped as his lips curled higher into a deeper smile. The edge of his lips was such a pleasant contour that she just mindlessly caressed it, all while Gintoki gazed at her like she was the most precious thing in the universe.

“Are you happy, Gin-san?”

He grunted in agreement, his mouth closing as his eyes flickered down to look at her hand. She sucked in a breath as he finally made his decision, turning his face in her hand to press a lingering kiss right in the center of her palm. A guttural groan bubbled out of her as he began blazing a fiery trail up her arm, silver eyes burning into hers all the while as he pushed up the sleeve of her kimono to mark his path of brief, open-mouthed kisses. When he could no longer roll up the fabric, he grabbed the neckline of her kimono and pulled to loosen it, scanning her face for any kind of discomfort all the while. As the garment fell loose around her shoulders, her skin baring for him, Tae was far from discomfited. Her breath jumped into her throat with unsteady gulps as she watched him start tracking up her shoulder. Her neck craned to the side of its own volition as his burning lips approached, and she shuddered as they met her pulse-point. His hands found her hips in a bruising grip as he worked up her neck, arriving at the peak with a hot kiss to her jaw before he suddenly pulled back to stare intensely into her eyes.

“Do I look happy to you, Tae?” She swallowed at the huskiness of his voice, the way it was laced with desire. As thick and hungering as his voice was, however, his silver eyes remained impossibly soft as they bored into hers. Those deep pools didn’t seem so dark and haunted anymore; they glittered like a radiant galaxy, magnificently endless and encompassing countless stars of happiness. Happiness, just for her.

“Yes, Gin-san,” she answered in a feeble whisper. In the face of so much overwhelming, crushing passion, Tae felt like glass in his sturdy hands, delicate, threading with cracks as his fingers dug into her hips. It wasn’t scary; it was exhilarating. The impending shatter made her nerves prickle and buzz. She felt like a star ready to collapse into itself, preparing to explode in sheer brilliance at the pin drop. He smiled again, making her lungs balloon in her chest and hold.

“Good. Remember this moment, Tae,” he told her, gently. For a lifetime, she promised eagerly, but all thoughts ceased once his face began to drift into her orbit, on an inevitable collision course with her waiting lips. Her eyes fluttered shut.

Then the pin dropped, and Tae was a supernova.

His lips smoothed over hers in an intensely zealous kiss. Tae didn’t think her lungs had any more room for air, but as soon as their mouths met, she inhaled sharply through her nose because it just felt so good. His hands pushed around to the small of her back to tug her against him. He had been kneeling on the floor the entire time, and he corralled Tae between his open legs, ensuring that every square centimeter of her body was flush against his broad chest. Tae’s hand roamed the contours of his front, making a roadmap of the lines of his pectorals and abdominals, while her other hand flew to the back of his head, greedy fingers digging into those gorgeous silver threads. She moaned quietly as he kissed her with increasing fervor, his tongue soon darting over her bottom lip pleading entry. She complied and their lip-locking rose to searing levels. As his tongue dove into her mouth to tangle adamantly with hers, she collapsed into him with near-faint, like he was stealing all her vitality with the ardent kiss. Suddenly she was tipping backward, and her back landed on the cold wooden floor with Gintoki climbing on top of her, their lips not separating for an instant.

The fire died gradually into flickering embers. Their chests heaved as they gazed into each other’s eyes, the edges of their noses occasionally bumping as they eased down from their highs. Breathlessly, he gave her that smile again, that smile that made Tae’s soul alight with joy and brought tears to her eyes, and he said: “I’m very happy, Tae.”

“Good. I’m glad, Gin-san. I’m glad.”

Tae’s blood ran cold when Kagura suddenly laughed triumphantly and vaulted herself over onto her other side, her legs kicking out a few times before she mumbled something like “take that, asshole” and fell silent. Shinpachi groaned loudly and sleepily muttered for her to shut up before mumbling incoherently and also falling silent. Tae and Gintoki stared in terror at the underside of the kotatsu table, realizing that they had just had a hot-and-heavy make-out session in the direct vicinity of two teenagers. After it was evident that neither of them was awake, she and Gintoki side-eyed each other before giggling under their breaths.

“I suppose I should be grateful for once that they’re both such heavy sleepers.”

“Yes indeed. Shinpachi wouldn’t be pleased to find Gin-san making out with his sister…” He gave her a wolfish smirk, bringing his face teasingly close and nipping at her jaw, making her squeal delightedly.

“You think I’m afraid of what that little four-eyed brat is gonna say?”

“No, but you love him, don’t you?” That caught Gintoki by surprise, and he gawked at her before his face ultimately softened. He sat up some to look back across the kotatsu table at their two sleeping, snoring forms. “Both of them.”

“Yeah. Guess I do,” he huffed slightly. After such an emotional ordeal, Tae’s body was practically screaming for sleep now. Her movements were languid and unfocused as she abstractly traced patterns into his upper chest before her strength finally failed her and her hand flopped down uselessly to her chest. Her eyelids drooped before they scrunched tight, a sudden yawn splitting her face. Her eyes fluttered open again to see Gintoki had grabbed the discarded blanket and was unfolding it to drape it over her. She wriggled around to put the rest of her body back underneath the cozy warmth of the kotatsu table.

“You won’t act like this never happened, will you, Gin-san?” she asked quietly, catching the hem of his kimono as he rose. He smirked down at her, putting his hands on his hips like the answer was obvious.

“’Course not. I’ll catch you for tea sometime, Tae,” he said. Her face flushed red at the very unspoken insinuations behind his statement. As she stared wide-eyed up at him, she caught it, that smile that marked a Gintoki that she and she alone knew. “G’night, Tae,” he said before whirling on his heel and striding off to go find his own bed. The fabric of his clothes slipped from her fingers as he retreated, the nerves of her fingertips bristling at the loss of sensation before falling quiet. She smiled widely as small tears prickled at the corners of her eyes again.

“Goodnight…”

Wishing someone true happiness was the purest form of love; Tae knew this now. Because nothing could be purer than the way he gazed at her just then, or the persistent thumping of her overjoyed heart in her chest as she drifted finally into the realm of dreams, or the memory of that brilliant moonlight smile of his as he allowed himself, for once, to feel true happiness.  

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[vannahfanfics]

Moonlight Sonata

Category: Romantic Fluff

Fandom: Gintama

Characters: Gintoki Sakata, Tae Shimura

Requested By: Anonymous User

“Bye, everyone! I’ll see you tomorrow night!” Tae called cheerfully over her shoulder as she walked out of the doors of the cabaret club. There was a chorus of polite farewells from her coworkers, as well as quite a few lamented wails from her drunken customers, as her sweet smile disappeared with the swing of the door. As soon as she stepped outside, however, Tae had half a mind to jump right back into the building, as a chilly wind swept across the dirt street to leap through the folds of her kimono and nip at her vulnerable skin with far too much glee. She lingered in the entryway for a few minutes, as its wooden bearings provided at least marginal protection from the biting cold, while she pondered what to do. The walk home was appreciable and she had no care to fall ill on account of simple pride and forgetting to check the weather forecast for the night. She also had no desire to linger in the cabaret club for the wee hours of the night until the sun came up to bless the world with its warming ways, either.

“Oh, dear… What a mess I’ve gotten myself into,” she tutted aloud as she pouted and tapped her index finger against her cheek. It was a pity that her gorilla-like stalker was seemingly absent today, for he would have undoubtedly noticed her plight and would be bundling her up in a coat by now. Stalkerish and annoying as he was, she did acknowledge that he cared for her and at least tried to, in his brutish, stupid way, look out for her… If he wasn’t a blatant stalker, I might even appreciate it! she thought with a dour look. Just thinking of his ridiculous antics soured her mood a little.

“Well, there’s nothing for it. It’ll only get colder,” she decided finally and pushed away from the post she had been leaning on to begin shuffling down the street towards her home. She kept her arms tucked to her midriff and her steps quick and light to avoid chilling her extremities too much, but it honestly didn’t help; after only a few yards or so she was shuddering and rubbing the pale, goosepimply skin of her arms in feeble attempts to reclaim the minimal warmth she had possessed a few moments before. She tossed a longing glance over her shoulder at the cabaret club. I could always nick a coat from one of those drunkards… She fancied it but would never follow through. She had no desire to be fired over stealing from a customer.

“What the hell are you doing out this time of night in just a kimono?”

While such gruff, aggressive speech would normally frighten a young lady alone in the dark of night, Tae thankfully knew the silver-haired man such rudeness belonged to. She pursed her lips as she turned back around to see Gintoki Sakata standing in the middle of the street, hands tucked into the pockets of his overcoat and that same bored look in his eyes that he always wore. Even this dense man had the sense to bring a jacket tonight, she thought with a small sigh. It’s not like it was surprising, since Gintoki watched the weather religiously due to his worship of Ketsuno Ana, but one would think that a samurai would bravely proclaim “I’m a man! I’m immune to the cold!” Yet here he was, bundled up like it was below freezing. With this wind, it probably is, Tae grimaced as she rubbed her arms again. She could swear that the tips of her fingers were going numb.

“I’m going home from work. I forgot to bring a jacket today,” she answered simply. Standing around conversing with him was only leaving her subject to freezing there on the spot, so she decided to resume walking because at least the activity would get her blood flowing and stave off some of the icy chill… theoretically, but it didn’t seem to help much. She only made it a few feet, right to where Gintoki was idling there just watching her with that same blank, disinterested stare, before she had to stop in her tracks again to let out a very loud, not-very-ladylike sneeze. Whining miserably, rubbing her nose, and lamenting the cold she was most definitely going to be bedridden with tomorrow, she cursed her own carelessness.

“It’s unlike you to look so in distress,” Gin chided at her, and she didn’t even have to look at him; she could hear the smirk on his face. Her head snapped up to deliver some stunning retort, but it died in her throat as soon as she saw what he was doing. There was a quick, shrill whine from the zipper of his jacket as he casually pulled it down, followed by rustling fabric as he shouldered out of the overcoat. Tae’s eyes widened as he thrusted it out to her with one hand (and picked his nose with the other, the gross bastard, ruining what could be a perfectly romantic moment in the only way that Gintoki could). “Here. Take it. I’ll never hear the end of it from Shinpachi if I let his sister freeze to death and not offer her my jacket.” He said so, but from the way that his eyes were trailed off somewhere over her shoulder rather than directly on her implied that perhaps even his seemingly callous heart was a little moved from seeing Tae in such obvious duress. A faint haze of pink bloomed on her cheeks as she reached out to gently take the offered coat, and she almost sighed in overwhelming relief from the sheer amount of heat that bloomed just on her hands.

“Thank you.” One wouldn’t think putting on a jacket had any erotic implications, but Tae literally had to suppress a very small, light moan as she slipped her arms into the large sleeves of Gintoki’s coat. His lingering body heat radiated into her every cell and made it feel like she was ice melting into deliciously warm water. It was slightly too big for her, requiring that she shake the ends of the sleeves slightly to allow her hands to poke through so that she could zip the jacket back up, and she did, right to the tip of her chin to trap as much of that heat in the fibers of the coat as possible. Gintoki, poor vagabond that he was, somehow had acquired a luxurious coat lined with furls of cotton on the inside, and very soon Tae had forgotten what the cold even felt like. Her smile was radiant as she once again expressed her gratitude to him, “Really! I feel much better now.”

“Yeah, yeah.” Tae knew for sure that he must have been freezing, but Gintoki had not a shiver about him as he ran his hand through his moonlight silver hair. Had he glanced at her even once this entire exchange? He was still gazing off lazily into the wild midnight blue of the starry night sky above them. Gintoki was a serious person and not shy in the slightest, so this behavior was definitely interesting. Tae blinked and leaned forward slightly to peer up into his face, and she was damned if there wasn’t the faintest dust of a rosy blush gracing his cheeks. He really does care, doesn’t he? “What the hell you starin’ at?” he snapped at her. He may have intended to place some bite behind those words, but it almost came out fearful; by the way that his face continued to redden, he caught the weakness in his voice and was not too pleased about it. She giggled lightly and flashed him another small smile.

“Care to walk a lady home? In exchange for letting me borrow the coat, I’ll make you a snack when we get there.”

“Tae, I will die before eating any of your cooking.” She stuck out her bottom lip at the terse reply, but, there was no denying she was a terrible cook. Still, there were things that even she couldn’t mess up.

“How about some hot tea, then, with lots of sugar?”

“Now you’re talkin’,” he grinned, and for the first time, his dark irises flickered to meet hers with an excited glitter. There were few things more powerful than Gintoki Sakata’s sweet tooth.

Placing his hands behind his head, he whirled on his heel to fall in step with her as she continued her trek through the streets to her distant abode. For a long time, the only sound was the alternating scrapes of their sandals in the cool sand of the unpaved streets; Gintoki once more had his eyes trained on the heavens as if he were involved in rather deep discussion with the moon and stars, which was apparently more riveting than a conversation with the woman right next to him; Tae didn’t mind, exactly. Truthfully, she wasn’t sure what they would even talk about.

She snuck a sordid glance at him out of the corners of her eyes, and with the silence, she could honestly appreciate the magic that the pale glow of the heavens was working on the otherwise undesirable samurai. Gintoki really didn’t have a bad face at all, and the white light accentuated that, defining his sharp jawline even further such that it mirrored the slicing edge of a katana. Its glow seemed to deposit the stars themselves in his dark eyes, glittering faintly only to Tae’s eyes. Then, of course, his white hair absorbed it like a sponge soaked up water, making the fine threads glow with an almost ephemeral quality that left Tae with the overwhelming urge to run her fingers through it because it looked like supple threads of silk. She was considering this as his gaze once more flickered to hers, and she went red because there was no arguing that she had been staring at him. “What?”

“I was just thinking that you’d be a pretty handsome guy if you weren’t the way you were.” His face immediately screwed up into a very unflattering grimace at her shameless, brutal honesty.

“Damn, Tae, just go and insult my entire being, why don’t you…” he grumbled under his breath and looked away in either embarrassment or annoyance. His arms dropped to his sides to slip one of his hands into the folds of his clothes, while the other fell against the end of his wooden sword, probably the result of muscle memory. From Tae’s vantage point, it almost looked as if his face did not know what expression to form. His reaction had been altogether peculiar too because if anyone else had been with them, he would’ve whipped around and sure given her a verbal lashing. Is he acting differently because we’re alone? she wondered, and she wasn’t quite sure what she would make of that if it were true.

Tae respected Gintoki a lot, despite his overall nature; he clearly loved Shinpachi a lot and he was an honorable man when it came down to the wire. Now that she considered that they were indeed walking side-by-side, under the moonlight, and she was wearing his coat and was going to prepare tea for him, there sure were a lot of implications. Tae found herself looking down at her feet as her face grew warm. It must be the cold muddling my head, she reasoned and slapped at her cheeks. Tae couldn’t possibly have a crush on such an uncultured sleaze like Gintoki Sakata! The brusque strike against her soft flesh left them stinging and faintly red.

“Is your face cold now or something?”

“Wh-what? Um, it was a little, but I just warmed it up a little!” she laughed nervously at his weary sigh. Suddenly she was the one who was nervous and couldn’t look at him. She focused on their surroundings, finding with relief that they were in her neighborhood; sure enough, when she glanced up, she could see her house. Eager to save herself from the awkwardness of the conversation, she scampered quickly over to ascend her steps and unlock the door, with a slightly frowning Gintoki ambling on behind her. “So, about that tea—" she started as she whirled around, her slightly hitched breathing producing a puff of fog before her mouth.

“It’s not that big of a deal. It’s late; I can really just take my jacket and head home,” Gintoki shrugged as he rubbed at the back of his neck. His expression had gone all stiff and complicated again, and Tae suddenly found herself terrified that she had annoyed him some way and disappointed that he didn’t in fact want to stay for tea. She wasn’t going to pester him, though, because she was actually kind of appalled she was disappointed; why on Earth would she want to be alone with Gintoki, and even worse, excited at the prospect? Mind whirling from all the very confusing emotions coming on her at once, she began removing the jacket as she hopped back down the steps. She was just wriggling her arms out of the sleeves at the halfway point when she very ungracefully fumbled over her own feet and tumbled into the open air. She let out a surprised yelp, hands grasping at the empty air in an instinctual attempt to find a hold, while the soles of her sandals slid uselessly across the wood of the steps.

“Whoa!” Gintoki cried and surged forward.

“Oh!” Tae cried as she landed against him. His arms wrapped around her in a tight embrace, and she was very aware of the shape and form of every muscle of his she was in contact with at the moment. Her face was buried right in the middle of his pectorals (which were actually softer than one would think) and just beneath the intense blazing heat grazing her cheeks she could feel the intense pounding of Gintoki’s heart. “I’m sorry!” she cried as she looked up at him; whatever she was going to sputter out next abruptly fizzled out on her tongue, because his face was a mere inch or so from her own. His mouth was similarly hanging open, in the process of asking her if she was all right, but what came out was more of a choked croak. His pupils met hers for only the briefest of moments before once again sliding to the corners of his eyes. “Why won’t you look at me, Gin?” Her voice was a mere breath, light in sound but heavy with desire and want.

Maybe it’s a small crush, quipped a little meek voice in the back of her mind. Her gaze flickered down to his mouth as she saw the corner of it twitch.

“Because I keep thinking you would be a pretty cute girl if I hadn’t seen you pound grown men into dust,” came the eventual reply laced with snark and a fair hint of hesitation. Tae’s eyes flickered back upwards to find that he finally was looking at her… and the way he was looking at her made every hair on her body stand at attention as an electric shiver pulsed across her nerves. Tae couldn’t even bring herself to be angry at the insult borne in his words because the connotation behind them, and that smoldering fire in his dark eyes, had dominated her mind. Tae’s mind was jelly but at least her body knew how to proceed; hands curling into the fabric of his clothes, her back arched slightly as she pressed against him, inhaling deeply with each square inch of skin that met his. The tip of his index finger ghosted across her cheek in the slightest of touches, but Tae could feel the nerves singing even long after he had pulled his hand away to bury it into her tresses of hair, tousling it out of the simple up-do with ease as it settled against the back of her head. After all that time short-circuiting in her mouth, her tongue finally managed to work so she could say something.

“Are you sure you don’t want to stay for tea?”

“Fuck yes,” Gintoki growled in response, and no sooner did that rumbling reply send another wave of intense electricity over Tae did he jump forward to claim her lips in a feverish, passionate kiss. Tae’s hands flew to his shoulders to brace herself against him as his broad body pushed against hers to make her back arch slightly to compensate for her head craning back; one of them soon began to migrate, sliding over his shoulder up his neck to bury her fingers into his luscious messy tufts of moonlight-white hair. Her eyes drifted closed of their own accord, and as blackness overtook her vision it seemed like every other sense of hers went on high alert; the sweetness of his lips was almost intoxicating, and sparks were jumping over her body with every igniting touch between them. Tae was barely able to stand under the assault of feeling, but when Gintoki pressed the kiss deeper, running his tongue over her bottom lip to silently plead entry, whatever starch keeping her knees steady melted away.

As she complied, parting her lips so his tongue could slither forward and eagerly entangle with her own, she slumped completely against him. He wound his arm around her waist to hold her up as every swirl of their tongues weakened Tae further. Warm waves of pulsating energy hummed in every one of Tae’s cells in tune with the singing of her frantic heart, pounding in a rising crescendo. Just as she was becoming deafened by the symphony of the moment, Gintoki pulled back, and suddenly the music fell into a deep but comfortable silence. Exhaling shakily, Tae’s eyes fluttered open and she found that Gintoki could look nowhere but at her all of a sudden. He chuckled as this fact brought a faint blush to her already flushed cheeks. “What? Now you don’t want me to look at you?”

“I didn’t say that!” she huffed at him while puffing out her cheeks. He laughed under his breath again as he pulled her against his chest, pressing his cheek against the side of her head while he played with the ends of her hair absentmindedly. It may be more than a small crush, she thought in faint amusement as she closed her eyes and just enjoyed the feeling of him holding her. Shinpachi sure won’t be happy about this…

One thing was for sure— Tae was the furthest thing from cold.

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