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It takes over a year of marriage for Sougo to realize that it bothers him when Kagura leaves.
No, not leave him. As unconventional and, ahem, volatile as their relationship may be, the two of them are not the type to just walk out on one another. It’s just something she’s been doing since before they were married, or before they were even dating. At least once a month or so, Kagura leaves Earth with Sadaharu, sometimes alone and sometimes accompanied by her brother or her father, to explore the galaxy and do whatever odd jobs she comes across. Once a part of the Yorozuya, always part of the Yorozuya, so it seems.
“Gin-chan complains when I take those jobs because the money goes straight to me, but I know that he just wants me out of the office so he can hog the house with Toshi,” she explains between bites over dinner one night. Sougo snorts at that. Between the two of them, money isn’t an issue, thanks to his cushy government job, but he also figures that Kagura gets her wandering nature from her mercenary father, so he lets her do what she wants. He knows better than to try to make Kagura do something she doesn’t want, anyways.
He also knows that Earth is inarguably Kagura’s home. No matter how often she leaves, her family is here. It’s never been a question of if she’ll return, but of when and for how long.
So, really, Kagura’s trips have been a constant throughout their entire dating life. They’re practically a part of their routine. Sougo was always busy with his own job with the Shinsengumi (read: sleeping on the job while Hijikata did all the work), so he was never mad at Kagura for spending some time away to do her own ‘job.’ Instead, he would usually just joke that he would get their shared apartment all to himself, or that she could finally be out of his hair for a few days. They’ve never had an issue with the long distance either: they call each other every night, and if she’s gone for more days, she’ll start to send letters. Some of the letters have cute little gifts, like sweets or cherry bombs disguised like sweets. Her trips are somewhat frequent, but she’s definitely on Earth much more than she is in space, so it’s not like she’s gone forever.
Despite all this, Sougo has found himself bristling whenever Kagura shoots out the door to go bounce to the next galaxy over. Recently, he’s found himself tugging a little on her hair when she leaves, like he’s trying to drag her back inside, or lingering by her side for a little longer at the terminal and spending more time holding her bags above her head to make her late for her flights. And when she is gone, he finds that life is just...duller. He looks forward to their nightly phone calls even if he knows all they’ll do is bicker and diligently reads each of her letters, but no call or piece of paper can replace the thrill of arguing loudly in the street over something stupid like who’s going to pay for groceries.
Even his assassination attempts towards Hijikata become halfhearted. On one particularly humiliating, lonely day, he mopes around the Shinsengumi compound until Hijikata calls him out for being moody. In response, he hands Hijikata a whole bottle of clearly labeled poison, with no pretense or disguise or anything, and his sloppiness is so obvious that even Kondo asks if Kagura was home. The commander ends up sending him home, and most humiliatingly, Hijikata has the audacity to shoot him a look of sympathy on the way out. Bastard .
Sougo doesn’t do anything the rest of the day. He goes home, watches a boring rerun of some trashy reality tv show, and waits for Kagura’s call. Afterwards, flopping down in bed and gazing at the empty spot next to his, it crosses his mind that it is ever so slightly possible that he misses her.
Ew.
Him? Miss that brat of a wife? Never. She eats all the snacks that Sougo saves for himself and leaves her clothes everywhere and trips him with her foot on his way out the door. It would be much more likely that he just happens to come down with a recurring stomach bug that happens to make him sick at exactly the same time she just happens to leave.
Yeah. That’s definitely it.
“This month will be full of realizations for Cancers. If you also happen to be a sadist, keep an open mind! You just might be able to plot a single plan that will solve several problems at once. By the way, have you ever thought about having kids?”
Sougo chews his breakfast carefully in the mess hall while staring intently at Ketsuno Ana’s horoscope playing off of his phone. He’s never paid close attention to the weather girl until now, but he’s heard some things about her scarily accurate predictions. Intrigued about the point of plotting, as his inner sadist schemes, he thinks about the idea of kids. He’ll indulge this weather girl, for once.
Admittedly, kids were never something he and Kagura had talked about before getting married, likely because it had never crossed their minds for serious consideration. Sougo had never even thought about getting married before Kagura, much less thought about starting a family, but life with her is just full of surprises. If he was to ever think about kids at all, it would be about how best to hone them into little assassins that can assist him in his reign of terror against Hijikata. Kids are smaller and lighter, so they can sneak into places that adults can’t, and their innocence makes them trustworthy for unsuspecting targets. Wasn’t Nobume a child assassin? Would it be fucked up to ask her for tips on how to raise one?
While Sougo muses about the morality of having kids just for free child labor, Hijikata slides into the seat next to him. Bold, Sougo think to himself, and notes to that he should really start upping the ante with the assassination attempts if Hijikata feels comfortable enough to sit within stabbing distance of himself. He’s going soft.
“So, is China back yet?” Hijikata asks, as though he doesn’t already know from his consorting with the Yorozuya boss. Sougo levels him with a bored glare, and the vice commander chuckles. “It’s probably for the best, then. I think I like this docile version of you better.”
At this point, Hijikata is just asking for it. “You should be ashamed that you let your life lie at the mercy of the presence of your subordinate’s wife, Hijikata-san. How does it feel to be under the threat of a man who is only incapacitated when his wife isn’t around to keep him busy?” he deadpans, jabbing a fork in Hijikata’s direction.
Hijikata dodges the dancing fork and snarls. “You haven’t killed me yet, asshole. China’s got nothing to do with it.” Damn, does this man want to die? Sougo stabs at him with the fork again, putting real bloodlust behind it, and manages to get a good jab into his arm, almost hard enough to pierce through the uniform. Hijikata yelps and snatches the fork away from him, chucking it across the mess hall.
“What are you, a child?” Hijikata scowls at him, rubbing at the spot where Sougo stabbed him. Seeing him in pain really does wonders for Sougo’s mood, and he goes back to his breakfast, determined to tune out the rest of Hijikata’s lecture. “If this is what you’re like at this age, I can’t imagine what your kids are going to be like.”
Sougo freezes mid bite, ears perking up like a predator honing in on the kill.
Oblivious to the monster lurking right next to him, Hijikata sighs a long, suffering sigh and lights a cigarette (indoors, and at 8 am like it’s part of breakfast, like the pathetic nicotine addict that he is). “I’m thankful China’s gone so often, to be honest. Keep it up. I’d really enjoy it if you held off on spawning more of your little devils as long as possible, thank you very much.”
Sougo pretends to ignore him, and the conversation ends there. Internally, however, his mind runs at a mile a minute, scheming with the brutal efficiency of a practiced sadist.
First of all, if Hijikata doesn’t want him to do something, obviously his first instinct is to do it as soon as possible. Second of all, now that Hijikata’s brought it up, he’s curious as to what type of mutant freak he and Kagura can produce, even if it’s never something he’d thought about before. They’re both incredibly strong, so it stands to reason that any kids they have would absolutely dominate on both the school playground and the battlefield. Third of all, he can kill two birds with one stone by having kids with Kagura: he can make Hijikata’s life hell and keep his wife at home.
Sougo leaves the mess hall whistling a jaunty tune. He belatedly notes that Hijikata looks much more concerned at his sudden uptick in mood, since a happy Sougo usually corresponds to a miserable Hijikata. Whatever, what’s about to happen is all his fault in the first place, since he had brought up the idea of children. The man has dug his own grave, and Sougo can’t wait to fill it for him.
Upon brainstorming his plan of attack, Sougo decides that asking Kagura straight up about having kids would be no fun, and it would just be another thing they would end up arguing about if she didn’t agree with him immediately. No, the best way to go about this would be to brainwash Kagura into wanting kids, without letting her realize that Sougo had been convincing her to do it all along. If he had learned anything from his chaotic proposal attempt years ago, it was that the easiest way to get Kagura to do anything, besides bribing her with food, is to make her think that it was her idea in the first place.
He starts by leaving shit around the house, visible enough for Kagura to notice, but not so obvious that she immediately jumps to conclusions. He collects coupons for diapers and surreptitiously leaves them in the bag she takes with her when she goes shopping. Then, he moves on to personally asking the radio station he knows she’s listening to to start airing more ads about baby products.
A month goes by. Nothing. Not even a mention of kids from her end.
The next time Kagura heads out on a trip, he makes her a couple bentos, one laced with pure capsaicin wrapped in plain brown paper and one normal one wrapped in obnoxious blue and pink wrapping paper adorned with storks. Psychological conditioning, if he did his research correctly. He does get yelled at for that one, but his main objective still seems to be going unnoticed.
Alright then. Time to be a little less subtle and a lot more obnoxious.
Sougo buys her one of those baby doll things that eat and poop and whatnot and tells her it was because he was sad she never got to live a normal childhood with dolls. She whacks him on the head with it but continues to carry it around in her bag as a joke (Sougo considers that a half win). He manhandles Hijikata into a bib and asks her if he looks any cuter (that one didn’t work too well, she said yes and Sougo got jealous). He buys small plastic babies and puts them in their ice cube maker (Kagura chews on them and Sougo briefly reconsiders everything). He reads those trashy Tokyo gossip magazines around her, flashing the cover page of some celebrities having babies directly in her line of sight (she teases him for reading those magazines as though she doesn’t have a box full of them shoved underneath their bed). Another month goes by. He purposely forgets the condoms when she comes home again and she kicks his naked ass out into the street to buy another box. Still nothing.
The longer this goes on, though, the worse this desire gets. Sougo misses Kagura more and more each time she leaves, and the worst part is that now he’s having disgustingly domestic fantasies of having a kid sit on his shoulders and watching them scamper around while holding hands with their mom. It’s like reading all those baby magazines he bought as part of his scheme have infected him somehow and now he’s come down with a case of baby fever.
Dating Kagura has always been a competition that keeps him on his toes, but this one is driving him up the fucking wall. And if doesn’t resort to some more underhanded techniques soon, he might lose out on something that he badly wants.
And that’s how Sougo finds himself at a dango stand in the middle of his shift, handing out a stick of the stuff to a certain permheaded idiot while trying to make it look like he wasn’t waiting for him at all. Desperate times and desperate measures.
He waits for Gintoki to sit down and take a bite of his dango before speaking. “Danna. How do I get Kagura to want to have a baby?”
Sougo watches in glee as Gintoki chokes on his dango and then cycles through an impressive shade range of purples and reds as he tries to cough it back up again while processing his question. “You’re asking the man who raised your wife on how to get her to let you knock her up, ” he wheezes, choking out words in between pounding on his chest with his fist.
“Yes.” Sougo takes a bite of his own dango, enjoying both the food and the view of Gintoki staring out at the horizon, the five stages of grief rapidly flickering across his tortured face.
When he finally reaches acceptance after a few long minutes, he sighs and says, “Ask her if she wants her eggs fried or fertilized.”
“That’s too obvious. She has to think the baby was her own idea.”
Gintoki huffs, unimpressed. “Aren’t you a married couple? You aren’t teenagers anymore. You can just talk to each other, right? Why play the little Kaguya-sama game?”
“Why won’t Shinomiya and Shirogane just tell each other they like each other and go out already? It’s a matter of pride, danna.” He looks over at Gintoki, waiting for him to understand the sort of position he’s in here. Since Kagura grew up with him, Gintoki should know better than anyone that when she is involved, dignity is always on the line.
Everything with Kagura and Sougo has been a fight, a game, from day one. The biggest match that Sougo had lost was when he proposed to Kagura: arguably, he had sort of won in the end, since she eventually said yes, but it had involved a little bit of blackmail, a lot of wrestling, and lost pair of pants, but that was another long and incredibly embarrassing story for another time. The point is, Sougo has to make sure Kagura wants this as to avoid another will-they-won’t-they fiasco. Which is exactly what this is turning into.
The Yorozuya should be Sougo’s best bet, since they’re Kagura’s family. Or, since they know her so well, they’ll tell him it’s a lost cause.
Gintoki gazes at him thoughtfully, almost amused. Sougo bristles in contempt. “A word of advice, Okita-kun,” he says, humor and a little bit of sympathy lacing his words. “This is not one you are going to win.”
It wasn’t what he wanted to hear at all, but somehow Sougo knows that this is exactly the answer he was expecting. Sougo’s eyes lazily drift around the street as he thinks about his next step. Gintoki rustles next to him.
“That being said…”
Something slams into Sougo’s abdomen and he wheezes as all the air in his lungs violently expels itself. Gintoki’s sword presses into his ribcage with a bruising amount of pressure, but when he looks up again to see him chewing on his dango as calmly as ever. The laid-back, goofy expression from earlier is gone, replaced with a dangerous, feral glint.
“I know Kagura can take care of herself, so I never had to give you the shovel talk before.” His voice is the kind of low that it gets when he’s about to kick a villain’s ass. Sougo remains resolutely unintimidated by remembering the way Gintoki screamed when he shoved a sword up his butthole. “But if ever you hurt her or this devilspawn child of yours…” The blunt blade presses a little firmer into his ribs.
Sougo rolls his eyes. “I shouldn’t have wasted my time with you, Danna. All you’ve done today is tell me things I already know.” He firmly pushes the sword away from him and strides away, tossing enough money at the dango vendor to pay for the both of them.
Sougo waits for a period when Kagura is staying home for more than a month to make his final move. He comes home one day and finds her lounging around on the couch with her legs sprawled open, gazing slack-jawed at a half-rate actress bawling her eyes out on their TV. With sick fascination, he watches as she brings a handful of popcorn up to her face and misses, half of it lamely sticking to her tongue and the other half scattering around the couch. That’s the Yorozuya’s daughter, alright , he thinks with an amused resignation. The woman on screen gives another pathetic sob and for a brief moment, he sympathizes with her abject misery when he realizes that this monstrous and sloppy redhead is really the person he wants to have kids with and chain the rest of his life to.
He doesn’t actually. Contrary to popular belief, Sougo does not consort with women he hates, much less marry them. He’d made peace with his insufferable attraction to Kagura long ago.
“Welcome home,” he says in her direction, retreating into their bedroom before he can hear her grunt back in reply. He returns a moment later and sidles up to her, and she ignores him in favor of the TV. Avoiding looking at her face and with his eyes trained on the screen, he drops a Joys of Motherhood magazine, lovingly borrowed from Hinowa, into her lap.
And then he just stands there, awkwardly, staring at the K-drama.
Next to him, Kagura sits up without a word. Sougo can hear her pick up the magazine and slowly flip through it, but he still refuses to look at her. The woman’s sobs fill the heavy silence. It’s a rerun; he remembers watching this with Hijikata while she was gone. If she takes too long to respond he’ll spoil it for her.
The unnerving lack of a reaction drags on for what feels like an eternity. Just when he’s about to tell her that the woman is about to run into the street and get hit by a truck and lose her memory, he feels a tug on his sleeve.
He looks down to see his beloved wife, still staring at the screen but frowning slightly and with a tiny, almost indiscernible blush across her cheeks. His heart beats a little faster, and not (only) for sadistic reasons.
“You stinking sadist,” she fumes. “If you want a kid, you could’ve just asked.”
Sougo feels his breath catch in his throat. He leans down a little, catches her chin in his hand, and tries to pull her face up to his so she’ll look at him. You know, so that they can look into each eyes or whatever and it’ll look just like those stupid romances that she loves so much when they’re having a serious, emotional conversation.
In response, her hand snaps out and wraps around his wrist with a force threatening to break it. She still stares at the screen, blush flaring across her face. It would be an enjoyable sight if Sougo wasn’t about two seconds away from losing his hand.
“I miss you,” he murmurs, wrist still caught in her hand. Well, he’s here now, and he’s not about to move any time soon, so now’s as good a time as any to come clean. “I wish you were around more, and I thought that if we would have kids you would have a better reason to stay with me.” She scoffs, and Sougo smirks. “Also,” his voice lilts, taking on a more sinister tone, “it would be fun. Think of all the ways we can use it to torture Danna and Hijikata-san.”
At that, Kagura lets go of his hand and finally turns to face him, blue eyes locking on to red ones. “I don’t need to hear your gross reasonings. You know that you could never make me do anything I don’t want to,” yes, of course he knows that, that’s why he went through this entire convoluted scheme anyways, “but the fact that you want one is good enough for me.”
Something dumb twinges in Sougo’s chest. “Is that a yes?” Wow, that was easy. He could’ve done that months ago.
Kagura shakes her head and smirks. Sougo feels his heart sink to his stomach and he fights the urge to back away. Hope is a terrible, terrible thing.
“Ask nicely, Sougo.”
Sougo rolls his eyes.
“Kagura, please let me knock you up so you stay on earth with me instead of gallivanting around the galaxy like an unmarried harlot,” he delivers, deadpan. That should work, right? He said please and everything. Kagura certainly didn’t marry him for his romantic tendencies.
Kagura yanks him down by the nose so he clumsily tumbles forward onto the couch, facing her and caged on either side by her strong thighs. “Nuh uh. Try again.”
Alright, he kind of figured this would happen. He’s steeled himself for it and already drafted a list of how to get back at her. He prostrates himself in front of her, and puts on the puppy dog eyes that always worked on his older sister. “Kagura-sama, please have a baby with me, your undeserving earthling worm of a husband, so that I will always have a piece of you near me even when you leave me behind. As the inferior life form that I am, the opportunity to be the father of your splendid future offspring is the best I can hope to achieve in my measly and worthless lifetime.”
Kagura brings her foot up and props it on top of Sougo’s head, pushing her heel into his hair. “And?”
He barely suppresses the urge to flinch and bats his eyes instead. Stupid woman. “…And I love you.”
“How much?”
That does it. “Enough, you bitch, let go of me…”
“How much, Sougo???”
He sighs in defeat. “Very much.”
Kagura giggles, and Sougo risks raising his head to peek at her. She cradles his head and brings him in close, kissing him sweetly. Sougo knows she means it because she doesn’t bite. He brings his hand around her neck to pull her in closer, and they have one of the most normal kisses they’ve had as a married couple yet.
“I love you too. Now take off your clothes.”
The moon streams through the Yorozuya office window. Hijikata is sprawled across Gintoki's chest, and they’re quiet for once, until Hijikata remembers...
“Hey,” he pipes up. The perm head grunts in reply, one hand thrown across Hijikata’s back to keep him plastered to his chest and the other lying across his face. “I think Kagura and Sougo are trying to have a kid.”
“I know.” Gintoki replies. “The sadist brat told me.”
Hijikata clicks his tongue. He shouldn’t be that surprised. “Really?”
Gintoki hums his assent. Hijikata waits for him to elaborate, but he doesn't. He seems like he could care less that his substitute daughter is about to become a substitute mother. And, by proxy, make Gintoki a substitute grandfather. God, they’re old.
“Aren’t you worried about what kind of hellspawn those two are going to make?”
Gintoki snorts, face still buried in his arm. “Babe, I’ve fought like twenty arcs worth of antagonists. I've lived through wars. I’ve looked death in the eye and she ripped my nipple off.” At that, he finally pulls the arm off his face to gaze at Hijikata with his typical dead fish eyed stare. His other hand cups Hijikata’s face and tilts it towards him so he has a clear, intimate view of his dead fish eyes.
“I'm terrified .”
The two of them stand around the toilet, staring down at the pregnancy test and waiting for the double line to appear. Sougo rubs his hand in comforting circles on the small of her back, trying to distract himself from his excitement.
A beat passes. Then another. Kagura makes a soft gagging sound next to him, interrupting the silence.
A second line clears its way into existence.
“I fucking knew it,” Kagura groans, and then promptly vomits onto Sougo’s feet even though the toilet is right there.
“We’re pregnant.” Kagura announces out of the blue at a dinner where a conspicuous amount of their friends and family were invited.
Shinpachi lets out his signature shriek and almost trips himself jumping up to hug Kagura.
Otae gasps and smiles, clapping her hands together and congratulating them.
Otose throws back her head and laughs in between drags.
Hijikata immediately chokes and Gintoki pats him on the back, forcing out a congratulations between gritted teeth, glaring at Sougo the whole time.
Umibozu launches himself at Gintoki, yelling something about how it was his responsibility to take care of his daughter while she was on Earth.
Kondo bursts into tears and throws himself at Sougo’s feet, sobbing about how proud he is.
Sougo sits back and watches the chaos unfold with naked glee. Kagura nudges him on the shoulder and smirks at him, and he instantly understands that she had done this on purpose just so he could get a kick out of it.
She reaches under the table to hold his hand and he takes it, letting her squeeze his fingers affectionately, even if it makes him go a little numb.
“Oi, sadist.” Sougo comes to to his wife aggressively shaking him by the shoulder. “Wake up. Sougo!”
With a groan, Sougo rolls over and glances at the clock. 3:23 AM.
“I’m awake, you brat.”
“I’m hungry.”
Sougo buries himself under the covers and prays to anybody who would listen. “And what do you want me to do about it.”
“What you always do. Get me what I want.”
“I have work in three hours.”
“And I’m having your baby in six months. Get me Karbee shrimp chips. At least two bags.”
Sougo doesn’t move and instead takes some time to silently reflect on all his life decisions.
“ Now , Sougo. Before I puke on you,” and suddenly he’s out of bed in record time.
Kagura rests her head on Sougo’s lap, the two of them sitting outside and watching the setting sun while he plays with hair.
“Our kid better be the number one beetle fighter around,” he says, twirling red strands between his fingers.
“Mhm.”
“And a janken champion.”
“Couldn’t be any worse than you.”
“Oi,” he yanks at her hair, “you were the one who turned it into a brawl, not me.”
She snatches his hand out of her hair and brings it to her belly and he calms down, rubbing slow circles and waiting for the baby to kick.
“You know,” Kagura says, grin evident in her voice, “it would be a shame if we didn’t use him to mess with Gin-chan and Toshi at least a little.”
Sougo laughs and leans down to kiss her. “You get me.”
In the end, the kid does not come out with a pair of devil horns, sharp teeth, or monstrous strength. Instead it’s a soft, pink skinned thing, with Kagura’s eyes and Sougo’s floppy sandy hair. It has the doll-like innocence that the two of them had when they were young. Gintoki cradles it gently, thinking to himself that it doesn’t look dangerous, but at first glance he didn’t think Kagura and Sougo were either.
Cautiously, and ignoring Shinpachi’s hisses of “Gin-san!”, he reaches one hand up to touch the baby’s cheek. It doesn’t bite or grab his finger. It just breathes softly, and Gintoki feels a little piece of his heart melt like it’s strawberry ice cream or something.
“Gin-chan, give him back. You’re hogging him.”
Gin looks up in surprise. Kagura has been unusually quiet, and he hands the baby back with no fuss. She looks exhausted, but the adoration across her face as looks down at her child is obvious.
“He’s so cute, Kagura-chan,” Shinpachi whispers, the three of them huddled together and looking down at the little round face. They just sit there, Yorozuya plus one, until an equally tired looking Sougo returns with a bottle of water.
Gintoki and Shinpachi step back as Sougo pushes her hair back and runs his hand down her face, and she smiles up at him. The three of them make a picture perfect portrait of a family. If one didn’t know any better, they would just be a mom, a dad, and their new kid and not a freakishly strong alien, a sadist, and the possible antichrist. Gintoki’s heart aches a little at how normal they look. How happy.
Sougo pinches Kagura’s cheek. “That kid better not inherit your appetite or you’re not gonna have boobs by the time he’s done breastfeeding.”
Kagura reaches up and halfheartedly socks him in the gut, but apparently still hard enough to make Sougo double over. “Shut up, sadist.”
Yeah, they’ll be just fine.