Hating The Facts
“Um… Could you … hand me the mayonnaise…?”
Cold, suspicious eyes gaze upon you from several inches above you, and he doesn’t move.
“Please?”
A sigh. A quick movement of his hand. Crossed arms. “Don’t you dare take too much of it.”
You smile. “Don’t worry, I won’t.”
You really won’t. You’re eating French fries, and thus, a little swap of mayonnaise certainly is not wrong. But ever since you know Hijikata Toushirou, you pay meticulous attention at not eating too much of it.
First, because you have reasonable suspicion that eating too much mayonnaise could turn you into a chronically bad-tempered, sword swinging, loud chain-smoker.
Second, because you also have reasonable suspicion that eating too much mayonnaise could get you killed by a chronically bad-tempered, sword swinging, loud chain-smoker.
And third, because every time you have to watch this man eating, you get kind of sick at the thought of mayonnaise.
But it’s okay for now, because French fries and mayonnaise simply belong together. Humbly, you dip some of them into your small drop of the yellowish substance and direct them to your mouth, trying desperately not to pay attention at the fact that Hijikata’s bowl of rice isn’t even visible under the large amount of mayonnaise.
The Hijikata Special. That’s what they call it.
The Mindrape of Every Person Involved. That’s what you call it.
The two of you are sitting in silence on the patio of the terrible restaurant that is selling this crime against human sense of taste to the Shinsengumi’s Vice-Commander, and watch the sun rise up.
Wait, are you just eating French fries for breakfast? Wow, you’re one to talk.
Though, maybe it is wrong to call it your breakfast. Because normally, breakfast is the meal you eat after getting up, right? And getting up is that thing you do after sleeping.
You didn’t sleep. You’ve been awake the whole night until now, so this is not really your breakfast. It’s just something you eat to keep your hands busy. You always need something to do when you’re with Hijikata and the two of you are not … well, doing what you do most of the time. Because Hijikata analyses everything you do, even if you think you are not doing anything. When you just sit there and stare, usually your fingers will start moving, fiddling with your clothes or drumming in the palms of your hands or something like this – just because, somehow, you are not able to stay still while you’re with this man. He makes you nervous. He just seems to have this kind of effect on people.
And every time, he will ask you what on earth you are doing, or why you are this agitated, or just what the fuck is wrong with you. And every time, you won’t know how to answer.
So, you eat in silence, glancing over at him every once in a while, just to think that he even looks good when he is slurping down this bowl of awfulness.
But he is not yours, not yours.
You yourself have got deep, blackish bags under your eyes, while Hijikata looks perfectly fine. Well, he did sleep. You know that, because you have spent an entire night lying next to him and staring at him.
Not yours.
You have had sex – as always.
You were at home when Hijikata just randomly rushed in, without knocking or anything, slammed the door shut, ripped the book you were reading out of your hands and pinned you into the couch. You could smell the scent of cigarette smoke, blood and explosions all over him – while you weren’t even able to check if there was also blood on his uniform, because he was so pushy and tempestuous that he didn’t leave you any time for that. All you could see was his angry face, his impenetrable eyes and flashes of black hair, and before you could even realize it, he didn’t even wear most of his uniform anymore.
“Wh-What the hell is… What are you… Hi-Hijikata-san! What happened?” you managed to grind out, halfheartedly trying to push him away.
You heard him grumble something that sounded like “Later.”, and the second you wanted to curse at him, his hands were starting to do various things that prevented you from uttering complete words or sentences.
He took his time. The sky was pitch black and you felt something between exhausted and totally devastated by the time he was finished with you.
You had quietly slid in your bedroom to put on some new underwear (and dispose of the mostly wet pieces of clothing you had found under the TV table) and were now standing in the living room, watching the back of the man on your balcony. He had put his pants back on, but not his shirt. Asshole. He had to know that he was giving you kind of a hard time like that. And, of course, he was smoking.
On the balcony.
The corners of your mouth twitched into a small grin. Why, yes, you were quite proud of that. Maybe it was something like your lifework. A masterpiece. Though you didn’t really know how on earth you had actually done that, you did know that you had successfully trained Hijikata Toushirou to not smoke in your apartment.
After all, it’s the small joys in life that should make people happy…
Silently, you stepped into the doorframe leading to the outside and tried to smile at him. “Hungry?” you asked the back of his head.
“Nah,” he answered. “Just gimme something to drink.”
It was always the same. He never wanted anything to eat, but you always asked, because you were always hungry. Yes – sex with Hijikata made you hungry. Maybe he just didn’t eat anything with you because he knew that eating in the night was not very healthy. But as you didn’t have to be a perfectly trained policeman, you didn’t really mind.
You knew he would have wanted coffee, but you never gave him any. First, because drinking coffee at this time of the night would be as unhealthy as eating something and you didn’t want him to stay up all night in your flat – for various obvious reasons. And second, because you had once seen him pour mayonnaise into his coffee. That was one thing you didn’t want to see again. Ever.
Thus, you just handed him a bottle of water as you stepped beside him on the balcony. He didn’t complain. Instead, he downed almost half of the bottle in one, then took another drag on his cigarette, and then turned his head away from you – to burp. You chuckled. Manly.
“So,” you started slowly, paying attention to not look at him but at the starry sky above you. “Do you want to tell me about your terribly bad day?”
He sighed and flipped a small rain of ashes down into the dark street. “They’re a bunch of lousy morons. None of them are really able to do any job, even if it’s just cleaning the fucking toilet. And as soon as I’m not around, they start partyin’ like they’re goddamn teenagers, and then they go whining, ‘Oooh, nooo, please noooot’ when I tell’em to go commit seppuku…”
You closed your eyes for a second and tried not to laugh. “Hijikata-san, this is not a bad day,” you said. “This is a normal day. You always tell me stuff like this and I really don’t believe you were this furious just because everything is perfectly normal. Come on…” You risked a quick glance at the side of his face, just to continue your very intrigued analysis on the moon in the next instant. However, you couldn’t hide your small, wise smile. “What has Sougo done this time?”
He let out a low, frustrated growl and stared at his cigarette. “Somehow got into my room while I was working.”
“And?”
“Blew up my wardrobe.”
“Oh.”
“And my futon.”
“Oh.”
“I don’t even know why. Normally he just tries to kill me, but I wasn’t even there. He knew that. Just what the fuck was that for?”
“Well, I guess he really hates you.”
“You’re not even trying to be helpful, are you?”
“Sorry… So, when are you going to get new stuff?”
“Dunno. I didn’t even tell Kondou-san about it yet.”
“Lemme guess – you saw your room, turned around and came straight to my place to scare the shit out of me.”
“Did I scare you?”
“A bit. You’re always mad when you come here, but normally you still manage to at least knock and say hello when you enter.”
“Hmh. I just had to do something to prevent myself from running amok through the entire town.”
“Well, it’s always an honor when I’m allowed to be such a big help to protect Edo… I guess.”
“Stop being sarcastic; I’m still pissed –”
“You’re always pissed.”
“– because I’ve got no clothes to wear tomorrow. I’ll have a new futon by tomorrow evening for sure, but I’ll have to work in today’s stinking uniform just because of that bastard… What are you doing?”
“You’d have to work in your stinking uniform just because you didn’t take the time to tell anyone you need a new one,” you corrected him while turning away and stepping back into your apartment. “But don’t worry. You can sleep here as long as you don’t have your own futon, and I’ll do your laundry now.”
And while you actually were washing a Shinsengumi uniform in the middle of the night, he went to sleep.
It’s always like that. The Shinsengumi’s First Division Captain does something to piss Hijikata off, so he visits you to have anger management sex. He stays in your flat for the rest of the night and then rushes off in the morning to start working. Yes, he kind of treats you like a prostitute and sometimes you think you should demand some money for this service, or just tell him to go fuck himself and stop using you like that, but well – you can’t.
You like him too much.
Honestly, you like him way too much.
You don’t remember when exactly you fell for him, but you know for sure that you did. You can’t deny it anymore, you know perfectly well. And you also know perfectly well that he did not fall for you. He will never fall for anyone, that’s your guess. Never again.
He is nice to you. And you know that this is indeed an honor when dealing with a Demonic Vice Commander. He doesn’t treat you like dirt or something like that. He is indeed behaving quite civilized when he is with you (well, except for the anger management sex, but never mind) and you can’t help thinking that this must be his way of appreciating what you do for him.
But that’s all. You hate to admit it, even though you know it’s the truth.
There will never be more. You won’t even be friends. Geez, you’ve been sleeping with each other for a while now and you’re still addressing him with his last name. There will never be anything more than sex, a warm bed and sometimes breakfast.
Because he is not yours.
The two of you finish your meals, he pays yours without comment and then turns towards the street.
You don’t want him to go.
“So, um…” you say, shifting slightly from one foot to the other. “You know you can come back if there’s still no futon, right?”
“There will be one,” he says.
Maybe you should try to contact Okita and tell him he should blow up the new one as well.
“Right,” you mumble. Holy crap. Of course you had to fall in love with an asshole as sensible as a brick. Who the hell does such things? “Is there … any more I can do for you?”
You try to say it without sounding like a whore and end up saying it sounding like a broken-hearted teenager. Thus, he frowns at you for a second and then simply shrugs.
“Nah,” he says. “Gotta work.”
“Take care,” you say.
He raises an eyebrow and you feel like fainting at the fact that he actually chuckles and slightly grins at you. “Sure.”
Only as he slowly leaves the place (of course without uttering anything like a goodbye; he’s too cool for that), you feel the tiredness of a night without sleep rushing over your mind and body. You watch him stroll down the street some more meters until you feel like you’re going to throw up all the French Fries and then turn away to head home.
You love it when he randomly crashes into your place.
You love it when he seems like he’s trying to devour every inch of your body.
You love it when he rants about his colleagues and the rest of the world and you are the only person worthy to bear all that hatred.
You love everything he does.
But still, you hate everything you know about him.
It’s not much. Yes, there are very few things you know about Hijikata Toushirou, but still, you are able to hate all of those facts.
Hijikata Toushirou is the Vice Commander of the Shinsengumi. He loves this position, this police force and this work. He is terribly dedicated and faithful to his Commander and everything that has to do with him. He once fell in love with a girl he almost never talks about. This girl is one reason for his war with Okita Sougo. This war will never end, because he will never get away from this girl.
You are not this girl – which leads to the last fact you know, and hate most of all.
He is not yours.
He will never be yours.
