Chapter Text
In his dreams, Toushirou saw scenes. They slipped by his mind too fast for him to comprehend what he was seeing, but he remembered smoke, cries, and flames. He saw a battlefield, riddled with corpses as a single man stood in the middle of it, white clothes and hair dyed red despite the rain. He heard a plea, the desperation of a comrade, and he heard steps. He heard the words and the sound of the blade.
He saw the tears.
He felt the cold, then the warmth of a manjuu in his mouth. He smelled the scent of sake being poured into a cup, heard the cheers and the laughter. He smelled the fur of a pet, heard the nagging of a boy, felt the kick of a girl. He saw the sky, the sun.
Then, he saw himself, smoking a cigarette.
The scene switched and now he was the one smoking, facing a silver-haired man. Come back, the man said, and the world faded to black again.
*
When Toushirou woke up, there was no kid next to him. He sat up, running a hand through his bed hair and realizing a bit belatedly that he wasn’t in his uniform anymore. He was dressed in his usual night yukata, and now that he looked more closely, he noticed that the futon was different. It was his futon. It was his room, in the barracks.
He was back.
He stood up and opened the door to his room, only to come face to face with Kondou. His commander almost jumped, surprise etched on his face before his expression crumpled in relief.
“Toushi, you’re awake.”
Toushirou nodded wordlessly, allowing his commander to walk into the room. The man was still in uniform, probably working late night hours. They both sat down as he switched Toushirou’s desk lamp on.
“You’ve been sleeping for a day and a half since Sougo found you passed out in the forest,” Kondou said. “We were worried.”
“Pretty sure you were the only one worried,” Toushirou answered jokingly.
Kondou grinned, and Toushirou was struck by how reassuring the sight felt. It had only been a day, but damn, he’d missed this. He’d missed having his commander near, or not even near but just there, somewhere he could go see him if he wanted.
He’d missed being home.
“Don’t say that, Toushi,” Kondou chastised happily. “Some even got you get well gifts!”
“Is it mayonnaise?”
“For the most part.”
Toushirou chuckled. “I taught them well.”
Kondou smiled before his tone turned serious. “Toushi, what happened? You weren’t even that injured, we didn’t understand why you wouldn’t wake up.”
Slinging his arms inside his sleeves, Toushirou looked out the window. The sky was cloudless.
“Kondou-san, have you heard of a man called Yoshida Shouyou?”
His commander looked puzzled before turning thoughtful. “I think I might have heard of him from somewhere, but...” He looked up. “What about him?”
Toushirou stared at the moon, at its light that hadn’t changed even after ten years.
“No,” he said. “It’s nothing.”
*
It was in the fifth book records of the war that Toushirou found out about the Kansei Purge. Under the command of the previous shogun, Tokugawa Sada Sada, more than a hundred men and women suspected of being dissidents had been arrested or killed, their factions or houses taken down. In the list of names, Toushirou had read the first mention of Yoshida Shouyou, founder of the Shouka Sonjuku Academy and anti-bakufu conspirator, arrested in December 1854. The Shouka Sonjuku Academy had been burnt to the ground, its students left to their own devices.
Toushirou closed the book when the list went to another name. December 1854. It was November right now.
One month after he’d left, Yoshida Shouyou would be put behind bars.
He thought back to the rice fields, swinging softly with the wind. The sound of children playing with their shinai. The taste of onigiri and green tea. The fading summer sun, the laughter, the peace.
The smiles.
One month later, government officials would come and burn it all away. The kids would watch, unable to do anything as their teacher was taken from them, unable to stop the flames from rising through the air. Nothing left, nothing...
All of it, gone with the wind.
Toushirou forced himself to breathe. There was a weight on his chest that he didn’t know how to lift. He felt both cold and hot and he hated it. He hated all of it.
He threw the book against the wall to stifle a scream.
No matter how many pages he read after that, the name Yoshida Shouyou never came up again. He read through the entirety of the Shinsengumi archives, book after book of dusty lines that blurred together the deeper he went into the night. When dawn peeked through the window, he closed the last book with a sigh.
He wasn’t done yet. There was still one place he hadn’t checked.
The phone picked up after the fourth ring. “You, what time do you think it is? A man needs his sleep, especially after a night out and too many shots to remember it. Speaking of shots, if this isn’t first place on the urgency list, the next shot I’m having is a shot at your head, Toushi.”
“Matsudaira Pops, I need a favor. I’ll do anything.”
*
Toushirou closed the file and put it back on the table.
Matsudaira stared down at him as he smoked a cigar. "Got what you asked for?"
Toushirou shook his head.
After heaving a sigh, Matsudaira stubbed his cigar in the ashtray. "Well, you got all you could ask out of me."
"Is there nothing about him being released from prison?" Toushirou asked. "Or being... executed?"
"Nothing," Matsudaira confirmed. "At least, nothing the crows would make public."
"The crows?"
Matsudaira sent him a look, then pitched his voice significantly lower. "Tenshouin Naraku. If someone's out of the archives, it has to be them."
Toushirou looked down. Tenshouin Naraku. Why would a secret assassination group working for the Tendoushuu be involved in Yoshida Shouyou's fate? The more he learned, the more his suspicions were confirmed that the gentle instructor wasn't just anyone.
"Although," Matsudaira continued, "I did hear a rumor or two."
Toushirou looked up.
"I may or may not know a dove who used to have black wings, and who'd been there to witness the end of a certain man."
There was a moment of silence as they stared at each other, Toushirou in apprehension, Matsudaira in appraisal.
"Do you want to hear what he told me?" Matsudaira asked, and by his tone, Toushirou knew it stood as a warning. A warning that he might not get to hear what he wanted to hear.
Toushirou nodded anyway.
Matsudaira paused, then looked out the window.
"November 21st, 1859. Beheaded by one of his disciples."
*
The pleas, the words, the blade, and the tears.
Beheaded by one of his disciples.
Matsudaira had been right. In life, there were things Toushirou wished he could have known, and things he wished he'd never had.
*
“Toushi, what are you doing?”
Toushirou glanced at his commander, then back at the barracks’ calendar. His eyes trailed the loop of the 2, followed the line of the 1.
November 21st.
“Leave him be, Kondou-san,” Sougo said with a bored tone. “He’s been going in and out of zones like this for the past three days. Brain damage is irreversible, you know.”
“Toushi...”
“With some luck, it will only get worse.”
“Sougo!”
Toushirou let the discussion drift from one ear to another. He traced with his eyes the ink of the numbers for one last time, then stood up and grabbed his jacket.
“Toushi? Where are you going?”
“Smoke break,” Toushirou mumbled as he left the barracks’ canteen, meal untouched.
The air was crisp, clouds heavy. Autumn had settled in fully, carrying a scent of cold through the streets. Toushirou walked, not bothering to put on his jacket as he simply held it over his shoulder, cigarette between his lips. He walked, walked, and kept walking.
Until he saw him.
Toushirou wasn’t stupid. He didn’t need to know all of the details to have a fair idea of what it had all meant. He’d done enough investigations before to know how to connect a dot or two, even with insufficient information.
The kid, the Shiroyasha, the Yorozuya. He may not have the whole picture, but he had enough now. Enough to know what it meant for the man to be sitting alone at a dango shop, munching absently on a stick as he looked down at the ground.
He knew what November 21st meant, now.
“One plate, mayonnaise topping,” he told the shop owner as he sat down.
The Yorozuya blinked then looked up, only now noticing Toushirou next to him. He remained silent for a moment before letting out a soft snort. “Slacking off in the middle of the day, Officer? This town’s doomed if even the Demonic Vice-Chief picks up bad habits.”
“Smoke break,” Toushirou reiterated, puffing out a cloud of smoke in demonstration.
“At a dango shop? Yeah right. Come back when you’ve learned how to lie.”
You should work up your lying game if you want to actually sound credible.
Toushirou snorted at the memory. “You really haven’t changed since then. What’s with you and lying anyway?”
“The more you lie, the more impact it has when you’re being honest.” The man shrugged. “It’s a good way to win over people’s hearts.”
“You don’t win over people’s hearts, you stain them.”
“All the same.”
Toushirou’s dango plate arrived. He thanked the owner and paid, much like he’d done three days ago, fifteen years into the past. He grabbed a stick as the clouds cried their first drop of rain.
By the time he was done with his first dango, the Yorozuya still hadn’t moved on from his, too busy staring at the rain to eat.
“You’re not inhaling your food today.”
The Yorozuya looked down at his hand holding a stick. “I’m just savoring it.”
Another moment passed, Toushirou munching the silence away with his second dango. Even after he’d finished it, the other man hadn’t progressed one bit.
“Lousy weather,” Toushirou commented, looking up at the sky above.
The Yorozuya followed his line of sight.
“Yeah,” he said. “Lousy weather.”
Toushirou looked at the man’s profile. At his empty eyes and hollow lips, betraying nothing and everything at once.
Before he could help it, he reached out a hand.
The Yorozuya’s eyes widened when he felt something ruffle his hair. “What are you doing?” He asked, expression dithering between confused and stunned.
Toushirou met his gaze, hand still up in the mess of curls. “Do you hate it?”
When the Yorozuya frowned, mouth parting in what was sure to become a protest, Toushirou quirked an eyebrow at him. The gesture seemed to rob the words from the man’s lips. He closed his mouth and looked away.
“No,” he admitted. “I don’t hate it.”
Toushirou smiled.
“You’re right. It does feel nice when you’re being honest.”
“Shut up.”
As he ran his fingers through the silver tuft of hair, Toushirou brought the man’s head to his chest. The colder the wind was as it ruffled their clothes, the warmer they felt where their bodies met. They watched as the rain fell, carrying whispers of memories through the air before washing them away.
“As I thought, this size suits you best,” Toushirou said.
Gintoki chuckled.
“You’re saying strange things again.”