Work Text:
Gintoki has never woken up before six in the morning just to make breakfast in his entire life, for anyone, not even himself.
But here he is now, huh. Because he wanted to.
Because his dumbass “boyfriend” or whatever has to take a taxi back to his stupid shitty live-in job soon, and do a million stupid practice swings with a shinai before helping lead a stupid daily meeting at eight, and if Gintoki wasn’t awake right now then that stupid boyfriend would do all that stupid shit on an empty stomach.
And Gintoki is stupid too, so he said, “Hell no you’re not dumbass,” when he asked about it last night and heard “I’m probably just gonna wait till lunch to eat”, after they had sex and took a bath and got into bed together, and were falling asleep and mumbling drowsily about pointless crap.
So: here he is.
It’s all very stupid. And he’s doing it anyways.
It’s winter, so it’s fucking cold as shit and still dark outside, but a bunch of jackass birds are already awake and screaming their little bastard heads off so Gintoki can’t even take a minute while the dashi simmers to peacefully rest his eyes a bit. The kitchen light is doing its best to burn them directly out of his skull anyways, but he’s gotta do the eggs now actually so he just deals with it by groaning and moaning aloud a little bit.
“Hey, you seriously don’t have to do this,” says the dumbass boyfriend himself from over in one of the office couches, like a total dumbass. Sounding all meek and remorseful n’ shit. Cute motherfucker.
“Already doin’ it, ya blockhead.” Gintoki yawns so wide that tears stream down his face, and decides to crack enough eggs for him to have some too. It’s gonna be the sweet kinda tamagoyaki whether this guy likes it or not, now. Ha. “If I go back to sleep now the house’ll explode.”
“I know how to at least turn off a stove,” Hijikata mutters.
“Don’t believe you,” Gintoki says, because he doesn’t. “When’s the last time you used a stove?”
When thirty entire seconds pass and he straight up does not get an answer, he snorts and finds himself quickly overcome by tired and delirious giggles. Fuck, it’s so early. Why’s Hijikata so cute, seriously. This guy. Gintoki can hear him turning red over there.
Maybe it’s not so bad getting up early every now n’ then.
Like it sucks, obviously, he’s never doing this again, but it’s definitely kinda fun getting to mess around with Hijikata a little before he heads off to work, instead of just waking up alone in bed later.
“You have mayonnaise in the fridge, right?” he asks, and Gintoki’s goodwill depletes significantly.
(Of course he does, because he really likes this disgusting freak for some reason, but he’s not about to pony up to that.)
“If I say “no” you’re just gonna come check for yourself anyways, aren’t you.” Uurgh shit where’d the rectangular frying pan end up last time... The eggs are gonna be a little artistic today, fuck it.
Wordlessly Hijikata has indeed gotten up and slouched into the kitchen, and is now brushing behind Gintoki to get at the refrigerator like an impatient toddler would before dinner, or like Kagura does 24/7. He finds the mayo easily of course, because it’s right there on the middle shelf of the door next to some half-eaten tokoroten from the convenience store, exactly where it got put away after the last time this weirdo ate here.
He makes to retreat with his prize, but before he’s completed the getaway Gintoki warns over his shoulder with a wary squint that is still mostly against the kitchen lights, “If you ruin your appetite slurping on that crap after I woke up at five to make you breakfast I am never touching your dick again until the day I die. I fuckin’ mean it.”
He doesn’t actually mean it. He’d really, really miss Hijikata’s dick.
“Like I’d do that!” flusters the guy whose body has the dick in question attached to it, sounding huffy and affronted at the idea, as if it were not a known fact that he literally just eats the stuff directly out of the squeeze bottle sometimes as a snack.
“And no you don’t.” Tch. Well no, obviously not!!
He just puts the bottle on the table with the rest of the cluttered kitchenware tossed together into a couple of place settings, though. In the middle, beside the soy sauce and furikake. He slouches into the sofa, tips his head back over the top of the cushion and yawns loudly, which makes Gintoki immediately yawn again too.
After a sniffle and some more sleepy, teary-eyed blinks, Gintoki remembers he heard the rice cooker switch from “cook” to “keep warm” a little while ago already, right.
“Yo,” he comments, a bit absent-minded as he fusses with trying to roll the eggs half-way decent in the wrong kind of pan, not doing an overly fantastic job. “The rest of this is still gonna be a sec so you can start on the rice if you want, if you don’t mind servin’ yourself.”
“What? No,” Hijikata barks, sounding mildly appalled, but mostly still sluggish and tired. “You’ve gone outta your way to do all this, I’m not- I’m gonna wait. We can eat... together.”
The significance of his hesitant diction, on top of the words themselves, makes Gintoki’s whole body squeeze up with ticklish embarrassment. He’s very glad he’s too busy negligently slaughtering some bunches of enoki mushroom on the cutting board to be making eye contact with Hijikata right now, but almost as much wishes he could see whatever bashful fidgeting he’s got to have resorted to after saying something so downright sweet .
It’s still embarrassing, though.
Aahhhh, he wants to see , though!!
“Suit yourself then I guess,” he counters very lamely, and extremely late. Geh.
“Sure,” Hijikata remarks offbeat, in an even smaller voice than before, when he didn’t even need to say anything in the first place, and Gintoki’s knees nearly buckle and dump him on the floor to pummel the kitchen tiles because he can’t fucking handle this atmosphere or how goddamn adorable this guy is being all of a sudden for no reason!!
It’s too early for this! He’s gonna die!!!
He doesn’t die. He puts the final veggies into the miso soup, while the sloppiest tamagoyaki he’s probably ever made cooks on its first side a little too long and almost starts to burn. Too much sugar, maybe? Nah, no such thing.
The meal finishes coming together without incident though, maybe ‘cause Gintoki gets to focus his drowsy uncooperative brain on only cooking instead of awkwardly affectionate smalltalk. When he plates everything up and turns around to bring it over, Hijikata is still quietly slumped into the couch with his eyes shut.
He straightens up with another contagious yawn as soon as he hears footsteps coming his way, and Gintoki slyly flicks his line of sight down to his own footing the split second before the two of them can make any eye contact and turn this breakfast thing into some sort of… Breakfast, Thing.
It’s not a Thing.
When you’re sleeping with someone, you make ‘em breakfast sometimes. That’s all.
Between getting the soup and tamagoyaki safely on to the coffee table and shuffling into his own seat at it, Gintoki’s been so thoroughly sapped of the body heat he built up staying active in front of the stove that he contemplates just getting back up again to drag the futon in from the bedroom. The jinbei he sleeps in is not warm enough at all to be winter pajamas, why the hell doesn’t he have any cozier pajamas?
… Because he never gets out of bed before dawn, especially not in the middle of winter, to make complimentary breakfast for booty calls. Right.
His shoulders jump around on a quick shiver, and he sneezes explosively into the crook of his elbow almost as if on freakin’ cue.
Across the table, where Gintoki can practically feel through the atmospheric pressure of the fucking planet itself that Hijikata is still just tensely sitting ramrod still like a dog with a treat balanced on its nose, there comes a quick put-upon sigh, and a “Seriously-”
“Nope, shut it,” Gintoki intercepts, wiping his nose on his shoulder. He sniffs the rest of his snot back up inside his nasal cavity, and reaches over to pop open the rice cooker like an A+ fucking host. “You’re the one who was just getting so bent outta shape about eating together just now, remember? Why d’you wanna get rid of me so bad all of a sudden, huh? Embarrassed? Didja get embarrassed?”
Despite all his deflective sneering, Gintoki still can’t bring himself to look Hijikata in the eye while he fills up a bowl for him, and flings quite a bit of very hot rice off into the office somewhere with his unnecessarily vigorous use of the serving paddle.
Instead of dignifying any of that highly transparent goading with an argument, Hijikata just sighs again, and reaches across the table to accept his food when Gintoki thrusts his arm out to offer it. Haaaa, wow, startlingly graceful! Thank Christ.
Yep! Gintoki is absolutely never doing this again!
The weight of the rice bowl halfway disappears from the upside-down grip of his hand. The edges of three of Hijikata’s rough, short nails softly meet and linger flush against the prints wound into Gintoki’s own fingertips, as they both momentarily hold possession of this bit of cheap DonQi bargain sale kitchenware overzealously filled to teetering with food.
Gintoki’s entire chest cavity is shuddering like someone just bludgeoned it with an AED current on max voltage.
“Thanks for the food,” Hijikata mutters sleepily with passing decorum, and tucks into his rice.
He makes a satisfied-sounding “mph” a few bites in, then keeps on noisily eating in that gross way he’s got, where he just noshes so happily on whatever’s lucky enough to be covered in mayo at the time that he doesn’t hear himself letting out all these chuffed little grunts and grumbles. Yuck. Cute. Awful. Worse table manners than the kid who just upturns the whole rice cooker into her mouth.
But the grub seems like it turned out ok, huh. Good. Whatever. He only really cooked half of it himself anyways.
Gintoki fills his own bowl with a disturbing tingly hyperawareness of the digits on the hand that holds it, with the lingering feeling of electric eels thrashing in his ribcage.
Why’s he feel kinda like his heart just got intensely jacked off through his fingertips?? His brain’s still stunned and reeling in some insane overstimulated refractory period.
Like, having the head of your dick played with right off the bat with is pretty much universally recognized as the best way to blow your load embarrassingly early, and Gintoki’s only human himself, sure, but he’s built up at least some physical resistance to that over so many times, and what feels good just feels good goddamn it.
So… is this like that, then? Was his heart always just kind of an easy slut to begin with, too?
Or, wait, it’s probably the other way. Like some sorta shivering overeager virgin, who barely gets the tip in before it’s all done already.
Both the tip of a person’s dick and the tips of their fingers are pretty damn sensitive. Scary stuff.
He’s never done this before, he realizes again, dimly.
But, so what, though? Most people keep on experiencing new things till they’re all old and wrinkly anyways. It’s way too early for this navel-gazey shit.
With the kitchen light at a gentler distance, behind the back of his head, Gintoki’s able to eat with his eyes shut and just enjoy the fluffy comfort of fresh hot rice warming his chilly body from the inside out, while the steam heats his face and knuckles. His feet are freezing cold already, so he tucks them under his butt on the couch with his legs crossed, and slips further back into a nice kind of muzzy half-sleepiness while he chews. He’s definitely getting back in bed the second Hijikata’s out the door, but for now this is a decent compromise.
There’s no conversation going on, but there’s also not that shitty tangible gap you get when there needs to be a conversation going on, because they’re both just eating their food and it’s fucking early as hell in the morning. Gintoki doesn’t have anything to say, so he doesn’t say anything, and he doesn’t feel like he should say anything. Breakfast just kinda happens.
This is pretty decent.
Also pretty weird.
It’s weird. Having breakfast in the dark, TV off, across from the guy who made you come twice last night then shared your bathtub and your futon. Maybe it’s not weird for some people, but for Gintoki it is definitely weird. Not unpleasant, or anything, just… weird. Yeah.
Is it weird for Hijikata? He’s still across the coffee table eating the crappy breakfast Gintoki made for him, so this whole thing isn’t so wildly foreign it’s chased him out the door already, at least. Cool. Is it cool? God, who cares. Gintoki just eats some more rice.
He remembers he did want more than just rice, and reluctantly cracks his comfortably sleep-sticky eyelids open to find whatever’s left of the tamagoyaki. And, yeah, predictably the serving plate with enough for two people on it has just been wholly drenched in little florets of mayonnaise. Whipped egg sauce on top of eggs. Sure.
Well, he grabs a piece with his chopsticks anyways. Sometimes the stuff Hijikata insanely adds mayo to ends up actually tasting kinda good. Most of it doesn’t: coffee definitely fucking doesn’t, miso soup doesn’t, rice does not, sweets and desserts make him angry they end up so repulsive, the list goes on. But if you’re sparing, fried stuff like yakisoba is ok. Okonomiyaki is normal to put mayo on, so that one’s good too. These eggs were fried, and almost burned a little, so maybe they’ll be comparable?
They are not! The creamy, rich, savory slightly-sour taste, and heavy texture of mayonnaise adds a highly unpleasant weight and contrast to the custard-like interior of a rolled omelette, and the sugar in that omelette makes the whole wretched mouthful a cacophony of signals on Gintoki’s tastebuds which translate roughly into a “fucking disgusting”. He’s not sure why he expected different. Goddamn it.
He pulls a grimace from sheer necessity and powers through finishing the rest of the mouthful anyways, cause he ain’t wasting food he went through the trouble of waking up at ass o’clock to prepare, and swallows unhappily.
“Ueghh,” he states definitively of the experience.
“‘S good,” Hijikata argues, pouts really, audibly with his mouth full of some of the same. Smacking away over there.
“Mngh,” Gintoki rebuts grumpily, and seizes another cutting of his poor poor tamagoyaki between his chopsticks. He uncrosses his legs and leans forward all the way across the coffee table, smears the mountain of condiment covering his food off on to Hijikata’s rice like you do with your sandal on the grass when you step in dog shit, and leans back into his seat again with the (mostly) salvaged result.
“Your loss,” Hijikata shrugs, sounding a little happy to be given Gintoki’s “leftovers”.
What an enigma, this man by the name of Hijikata Toushirou.
He’s like some sorta freaky microcosm of mundane things that can be so, so wrong with such a classically handsome guy. Gintoki sure likes him a lot, doesn’t he.
Heck, even his name is this funny contradiction to the weirdness of the one who’s got it. Toushirou, written with the numbingly common characters for “fourteenth son”. So normal.
… Well, ok, as normal as being a fourteenth son could possibly be?! Did his old man really make that many kids and not keep track of ‘em all? What a scumbag. Eesh. Maybe it’s like… a hyperbolic sorta thing, the numbering in Hijikata’s given name. Gintoki kinda hopes so, for whatever dumb sentimental reason.
Hijikata Toushirou.
Toushirou, huh. Toushi. Hehehe.
The only one who can call him “Toushi” and get away without, at minimum, a sharp glare of warning, is that big oaf Kondou. But it still is something he answers to. That one’s a lot more fun to think about, logistically. He gets called Toushi at work, where he’s in charge of a buncha rough sweaty brutes, and isn’t even a little embarrassed by it. What an awfully charming gap. Gosh.
-ah.
Right, work- little Toushi’s gotta get himself off to his dumb stinkin’ job soon, doesn’t he? That being the whole reason Gintoki’s even awake right now, giggling internally about inappropriately cute nicknames.
It feels like they’ve probably still got some time to spare, but Gintoki’s own sense of urgency is famously not too up to snuff before noon, so he tells Hijikata he should probably check what time it is as he lazily chews a good mouthful of egg and rice. Mm, yep. It’s a lot better with the mayo wiped off. Not bad at all.
Hijikata makes a noise across the table, a weird… strangled little sorta squeak? So for a second, Gintoki thinks, oh, guess he must be running late after all, and feels a tiny bit disappointed he’ll just be chewing in the dark by himself real soon.
… but, he doesn’t hear anything else after that, and from the definite lack of movement Gintoki can judge with his eyes groggily shut from the couch across from him, and through the still flooring of the office, Hijikata is still sitting down. That’s a little confusing, so Gintoki reluctantly takes a peek through his heavy eyelids.
Hijikata is in fact still sitting down. Ok. He’s stopped eating, though. And he dropped a bunch of rice on his leg. Isn’t that gonna leave a burn if you ignore it? Hey.
He’s staring at Gintoki in some kind of shock, also. His bottom lip’s bunched a little in the middle, like he’s starting to bite the inside of it the way he does when he’s worried about something or other. What’s his problem all of a sudden?
Before Gintoki can ask what’s his problem all of a sudden, Hijikata swallows visibly on nothing, and opens his worried mouth.
“--uh, what-? Just now, um. What did you just… say?”
His voice sounds tight, too. Seriously, what the hell?
“Uhhhh,” Gintoki dully keeps chewing his food, and tries to rewind his brain through the past thirty seconds for anything that could possibly be making Hijikata so weird right now. “‘You might wanna check the time’... right?” He’s pretty sure that’s what he said? In exact words, even.
Hijikata makes another little noise, clears his throat, and covers his mouth with his free hand. Another familiar thing: his thumb against the side of his nose, fingers curled around the other side of his jaw, like he’s got himself in a sort of comfort hold.
Gintoki usually likes seeing this one, because it usually means he’s done something to make the guy flustered, but right now he cannot especially enjoy the sight because he is starting to get highly confused.
“M- mm, no, I mean. Uh.” Hijikata talks from behind his hand, sounding a little breathless. “Before. Before... that.”
“Before? Before… uhhhh… Lemme think... “ Gintoki is still just chewing, chewing and frowning a little, because, did he say something before? This literally just happened, but it’s still not even daybreak yet, for crying out loud! As if he can be expected to have a functioning brain!
He honest to god cannot remember. So, he mentally engages in a little roleplay, as himself from half a minute prior. Chewing his food: check. Oh, that might be it actually. His mouth’s full, so instead of starting with a whole word, he probably grunted at Hijikata first to get his attention. Yeah, that sounds like him.
Something like: ‘Mm, Hijikata, you might wanna check the time.’ Isn’t that what he said? That doesn’t feel completely right. The heck… It’s starting to bug him.
Mm, Hijikata.
Hey, Hijikata.
No, not “hey”, that’s an open-mouth noise right off the bat.
So the mm is right. Or maybe it was a hmm. Interchangeable, so that’s not really the important bit, is it.
‘Mm, Hijikata, you might wanna check the time.’
Hiji.
Hi.
Hi, hi, hi...
Hi… hi? That’s not right either.
But what the hell else would he have called--
Gintoki suddenly feels like someone has smashed a cinderblock across the back of his head, jolts, drops his whole bowl of food on to the couch as both his hands fly up over his mouth.
Hijikata, seeing him realize, goes a deep shade of red visible even in the half light of the kitchen, and drops his whole face into his palms.
Hijikata Toushirou, elbows on his knees, cowering in colossal embarrassment.
Hijikata Toushirou.
‘Mm, Toushirou, you might wanna check the time.’
Fuck.
“Is--” Fuck. Fuck. Shit. Gintoki can feel the blood surging up his neck into his face, and now they match, and isn’t that perfect!
“Is that not, um, uhuhh-” he half-laughs, feeling the same dryness of the throat that’s been getting to Hijikata, too. Pair of fuckin’ idiots that they are. Awesome. Goddamn it.
Hijikata is what he calls this guy. Sometimes with a -kun or a -san or some other thing, depending on how cute Gintoki wants to be or how annoying or both, or whatever, because it’s just what feels right for him and for them. He’s just Hijikata. Even when they’re fucking, he’s just Hijikata! Gintoki doesn’t know any other Hijikatas, so it’s not like they’ve ever had to establish something unique!! It’s been fine like this!!!
Hijikata knows it’s been fine like this, he knows it’s been familiar enough for them, even when they’re fucking and something more personal might normally start to slip out in the heat of the moment, instead of half-asleep at the coffee table in the office for breakfast, and that’s why even the tips of his ears peeking out the sides of his hair are bright bright red with overwhelmed timidness, because he knows, and because this is way, way more.
‘Toushirou’ is- it’s-
Well.
Honestly?
It didn’t feel bad... saying it.
Obviously, right? ‘Cause Gintoki just went and said it without even noticing, and, alright it’s not like he’s never done shit that feels bad without noticing, and that in fact is historically a bit of a problem for him, but not this time, is the point.
And not the problem.
Fine for him, sure, but-
“For you, is that not, is that one a no-go, I mean… uh,” Gintoki finally manages to expel from his stupid mouth, feeling like his head is liable to blow the top of itself off soon from accumulating blood flow. His armpits are starting to get real sweaty.
Hijikata raises his head out of his palms, still looking spectacularly embarrassed, but otherwise not… upset? Not that Gintoki expected him to be really, because he had no expectation for this kind of scenario at all, because he never thought about this before.
He never even thought about this sorta thing, because he’s always just called Hijikata “Hijikata”, and Hijikata’s always just called him “Yorozuya”, because like... sure, maybe on paper that seems like they’re holding each other at some sorta weird professional distance, but in reality they are really not, anymore, if they ever did at all, and they’ve both just sorta been aware of that, so it’s never been an… issue.
“I don’t… know,” Hijikata states, on his own delay, peeling that glob of hardening rice off his pant leg and putting it on the table. Certainly sounding for all the world that he does not know. He’s still very red in the face. “I’ll… I’ll, uh, get back to you. On it. Probably.” He goes back to eating breakfast, with a bit less of the natural ease he had before, looking straight down at his own knees.
“Oh,” Gintoki says. “You don’t really… have to, I guess, if you don’t wanna, but... ok.”
And thus ends the only conversation they have for the rest of the meal. There is definitely a… tension, there, that did not exist before Gintoki’s slip of the tongue. But he’s too busy with his own thoughts to notice if there’s any downright awkwardness, to the relative silence of the two of them biting and chewing and swallowing and using utensils and dishes and stuff.
He’s thinking about how Hijikata might have felt, getting hit with his given name like that. If it pissed him off or made him sad, Gintoki likes to think he could probably tell. Some people get all hot and stuttery when they’re angry or sad, but Hijikata isn’t one of those people, in his own experience of knowing the guy. So… Gintoki feels like he can at least safely hypothesize that he possibly felt… a net positive?
He still just looks like it was confusing and embarrassing. Gintoki can appreciate that. He feels plenty confused and embarrassed having said it. The confusion is starting to take the lead, but it’s still a close one.
After not much more time has passed, Hijikata declares himself finished eating with a gruff “Thanks again, for the food,” which is a normal enough thing for him to do as he sets down his two empty bowls and chopsticks on the coffee table in a neat stack. Doesn’t do anything as helpful as take them over to the kitchen, but Gintoki would’ve bet himself money on this bad habit so he’s not especially irritated.
“Sure, sure,” he says absently, still very wrapped up in the subtleties of given names and shit, sluggishly lagging behind the finish line of their breakfast race.
Hijikata lingers around the couches as he straightens himself out a bit, picks another few grains of rice off his trousers. After he’s smoothed down the front of his vest, he throws Gintoki a glance.
“Gonna head out now, I guess.”
“Mnp,” Gintoki says through a full mouth, swallows. “Oh. Gotcha.” He remembers how tired he still is, because of how early it still is, god. He’s attacked by a very wide yawn. “Off ya trot then,” he adds after it subsides, and rubs some sleepy tears off his face.
He stays put on the couch, ‘cause they never like… kiss goodbye, or anything, if Gintoki’s ever even awake when Hijikata sets off the next morning. Kissing Hijikata with his own mouth full of food would definitely gross him out, though. That could be fun. Maybe next time.
“I dunno when I’ll be free enough to stay over again,” Hijikata comments lazily, as he heads over to the front door. He picks up his sword from where he left it leaning against the inner frame of the entryway, and slides it back home into his belt.
“Eh,” Gintoki waves dismissively over the back of the couch. “I’ll probably just run into ya sooner or later anyways. Don’t think about it too much.”
“Ha,” Hijikata barks a quiet laugh, as he pulls on his shoes on the stoop. “Guess you’re right about that one, huh.”
“‘Course I am,” Gintoki preens, as much as one can preen while starting to fall asleep sitting up.
“See ya,” Hijikata offers over his shoulder with casual finality, and leaves. Gintoki looks at the ceiling.
He just tells people to call him whatever they wanna, traditionally, he’s reminded himself. Gintoki, Gin-san, Gin-chan, Paako, Yorozuya, whatever- they’re all him, and they’re all fine, and it doesn’t really make much difference to him either way.
He thinks about Hijikata calling him “Gintoki”, though, and gets an odd, heart-racing feeling. Not because it’s got any particularly different… meaning, really, at the end of the day. Obviously. It’s just his name. But there’s a difference in the context, there, definitely. The one using the name is the key, ain’t it.
Heck, this is all just some pretty basic stuff. Switching to a first-name basis is something couples do when they want to graduate to some mythical Next Level of intimacy, or… whatever.
Thinking about the term “couple” is weird.
It’s all weird.
This morning is weird.
Gintoki heaves himself off the couch with a hefty groan, and slumps directly back to his bedroom. He’ll deal with the dishes and the leftovers n’ shit later.