I wrote this last year, but had been hesitating if I should put it under the 'Everyday Diary' series or if I should make a new one.

However, thanks to Gintama 528, I could safely say that this one deserves a new story section, all because Tokugawa Soyo is too important to be ignored by the okikagu fandom. After all, she's the captain of the okikagu ship. :)

Anyway, this was a prompt sent to me by aozul of Tumblr.

Enjoy!

Disclaimer: I do not own Gintama. It belongs to Sorachi Hideaki.

The Matchmaker

drama school rivals being cast as romantic opposites because they have "crazy sexual tension" according to their director AU

"And… CUT!"

Immediately, the two people acting out the masquerade ball scene of the play tore away from one another, their faces openly showing disgust at the scene they had just acted. The tangerine-haired girl immediately went for the water bottle located at the side of the stage to drink her share while the person playing the romantic opposite made a face.

"See? That wasn't so bad." Shimura Shinpachi, the casting director, said, smiling.

"Yeah, but it took them six takes to get that right…" a fellow classmate muttered under his breath.

"But it looked so real!" Tokugawa Soyo clasped her hands together, grinning madly, ignoring the fact that both of the actors shot her a death glare. "And I could just feel the anger from Okita-kun when Kagura-chan said her lines!"

To be quite frank, the reason why the two rivals in their class were playing romantic opposites was because their very own director, Tokugawa Soyo, had schemed everything, from volunteering to be responsible for the whole production to forcing Shinpachi to put them in a lead role that would involve a lot of insulting.

To say that their transfer student was nothing short of cunning was an understatement. She actually forced the two to work together, despite the fact that they were openly hostile with one another, making them stay beyond the after-school practices, telling them that she wanted everything to be perfect on opening night. And yes, that included perfecting the dance sequence between the male and female leads of the play.

At first, they were quite happy with having to say rather mean-spirited things towards, as written on the script, but when they had to make the masquerade scene work, which meant repetition of the scene that involved them holding hands, while Okita's arm was wrapped around Kagura's waist, bringing her closer to him, and dancing to a rather slow melody…

Kagura was the first to complain about it.

"But why?!" Kagura had yelled. "This guy is the worst, and I can't work with him, much less get closer to him!"

Okita, on the other hand, found it rather amusing to make Sakata Kagura's life a living hell just by simply doing what he was told to do. "Don't care if I have to work hard as long as I annoy Sakata every single day of her life." he commented, flashing a smirk at Sakata, who looked like she wanted to punch him.

"Because," Soyo said, grinning at her very angry best friend. "you two are the only ones I know who has this much chemistry with one another, and it's actually perfect for the main characters of the play!"

Okita raised an eyebrow. "… Chemistry?" he did not like where this was going.

"Oh, my bad." She cleared her throat. "I believe people refer to it as 'sexual tension'. You two have it, and I intend to fully take advantage of it to make it believable!" she winked.

Dead silence… until…

Okita Sougo laughed out loud, making Soyo raise an eyebrow. "Oh, sorry, I thought that was a joke." he said, wheezing, trying his best to stop laughing.

Kagura rolled her eyes. "You're totally blind, Soyo-chan. There's nothing between him and I except the fact that I want to gut him open as soon as this is all over."

'Oh, just you wait.' she said, narrowing her eyes at both of her main actors, determined to make them eat their words.

If there was one thing that Tokugawa Soyo had done that no other person could ever achieve, it was to force them to work together and actually be civil towards one another for the time being. Until after the play ended its one-week run, that is.

The end result lead to a large amount of sexual tension that was always present whenever they had scenes together. Thought there were two sets of couples in the play, everyone involved in the production always looked forward to the scenes between Okita and Sakata. It was evident that Kagura was itching to hit her partner during the masquerade scene, especially since he was holding her close and was secretly pinching her while she gripped tightly on his hand, hoping to break his bones. Because she could not hit him, she made up for it by spitting out her lines that oozed with anger and spite in a scene where her character was badmouthing her rival to the masked man, who turned out to be the rival himself in disguise.

The tension between them went overboard when they started practicing the confession scenes, confusing even the skeptics who were involved in the play, as they thought that with them as the male and female lead, it would end either in disaster or with one of them walking out.

And finally when, in the final scene, the kissing scene between the male and female lead ended with them kissing for real…

(It happened only because someone had dropped a rather huge prop on the ground, making Kagura jump up in surprise, accidentally kissing Okita on the lips when they were only supposed to be standing close to one another to make it look like they were kissing to the viewing audience. Soyo was beyond herself when she saw the whole thing happen before her very eyes and barely managed a neutral expression when the two actors turned to look at her in horror.)

To say that both of them were in shock after the accident was an understatement.

Immediately after pulling away, Sakata Kagura begged off for tomorrow's practice, stating that she had a very important appointment to attend to before running out of the auditorium, her face a bright red.

Okita Sougo did the same, citing that he needed to brush his teeth over and over again after that disgusting and pathetic excuse for a kiss. It did not escape Soyo's notice, however, that Okita-kun's ears were a little red when the kiss happened, and that he was smiling when he thought no one was looking as he discreetly exited the auditorium.

The transfer student was elated.

It was only a matter of time before they would fess up and do what the male and female leads of the play did as well… minus the marriage part, that is.

All she had to do was make the most out of this opportunity she had to matchmake them.

The play they're practicing for is Shakespeare's 'Much Ado About Nothing', which, I think, fits okikagu so much. :)

Thank you so much for reading.