Hi there. I just rewatched peacemaker and uhm... felt the need to write. Just a warning: since I have no real idea how far I´ll take it, rating is rather low for now... But for everyone who doesn´t like BL: whoever Soujis secret admirer is, it certainly is a male :)

Thanks to my beta jsakurachan1 for looking through this, I really appreciate your hard work!!

Enjoy!

Chapter 1

Okita Souji crouched down before the pig pen with a bright smile on his face and watched the pigs of mibu wolf down their breakfast. The sun was shining on his back warmly, some birds chirped their songs in the budding trees and it was generally a very beautiful spring morning.

"Buki!"

A certain piglet attacked the lap of its master, demanding his undivided attention, and glaring at another bold pig in the process that had dared to invade HIS caretakers personal space.

"Ah, Saizo, good morning!"

The swordsman patted his special friend good-naturedly on the head.

"Buki!" the pig answered, nestling itself into it's masters chest.

"Ah, but I know what would make this wonderful morning even better!" Souji exclaimed suddenly and rose to his feet.

"Buki?" The piglet tilted its head in question, a skeptical look on its little face. Hopefully his master wasn´t hinting at meeting that other grumpy pet of his, the one that smelled so very disgustingly of smoke and burned tobacco…

"Candy!" his master beamed, much to Saizo's satisfaction. It always could arrange itself with the sweet tasting confects, no question. Just as long as it didn´t have to share Souji with anyone else…

Smiling and humming, the two of them made their way through the headquarter of the Shinsengumi, towards Souji's room.

When they reached their destination, the lavender haired swordsman suddenly stopped quite abruptly in front of the door with a stunned expression.

"Ah? What is this?"

The object of his interest was neatly placed in front of the paper doors. Apparently it was a white bag, adorned with a red little bow on top. Souji crouched down again to be eyelevel with his guest and peeked at it from all possible angles. Saizo eyed the offending object suspiciously and curled its little snout, "Buki!"

"Mh…" After having observed the item from a save distance, Souji shrugged and lifted it off the floor, "Someone probably dropped it."

"Buki!" the piglet agreed. It wanted candy and wasn´t willing to let anything interfere with its demands, not even a suspiciously good smelling paper bag!

"Maybe we should take it to Hijikata-san and see that he makes out its original owner, ne?" Souji smiled at the pig, but wasn´t rewarded with approval this time. "Buki!" came the determined rejection. Anything but the foul smelling pet!

"Mh…" Souji thoughtfully tapped a finger against his chin. "Maybe you´re right Saizo. Hijikata-san is always complaining that he has too much work to do anyway. Maybe we should take care of this ourselves, right?"

"Buki." came the muffled reply. At least the piglet was spared another visit at the demon vice commanders sticky stable…

"Right. Well, then let´s see… First we should see what it contains, so we can determine its possible owner, nee?"

With a confident and determined expression, the first unit captain carefully started to remove the bow, explaining to his piglet.

"One must always be careful with unidentified objects. It could be dangerous. Maybe someone of the Choushu brought it here." The cheerful face was replaced by a dark, murderous one for a split second, before it turned back to smiling and concentrated again. Fiddling with the bow for another minute Souji suddenly exclaimed,

"But surely they wouldn´t use such a difficult bow! After all, they would want it to be opened!" and just ripped it apart. Curiously peeking into the now open bag, Souji´s expression brightened even more upon seeing its contents.

"Buki!" the piglet nudged its snout into its masters stomach, wanting to be put into the picture as well.

"Look Saizo! Someone dropped candy!"

"Buki!"came the unidentifying reply.

"Let´s see what we have here… Oh! The owner certainly has good taste!" Souji exclaimed, cheeks flushed and mouth watery, while rummaging through the little bag excitedly. Then he suddenly stopped and looked thoughtfully at his piglet again.

"Say Saizo, don´t you think it´s rather sad that these poor candies were just abandoned like this?"

"Buki!" the pig nodded its tiny head.

"And don´t you also thing that it would be rather cruel of us to return these poor candies to an owner that so carelessly dropped them?"

"Buki!"

"Ah!" Souji clapped his hands together and smiled at the pig "Then it´s decided! From now on, these Candys will come to live with us!"

"Buki!" Saizo joined the welcome party and was so besotted by the sweet smell that oozed from the bag that it didn´t even pay enough attention to its surroundings anylonger and failed to notice that they were heading towards a direction, it would definitely not have approved of. Hence it also failed to violently protest when they neared towards the demon vice commander's quarters.

"Good morning, Hi-ji-ka-ta-san!" the first captain chirped, undeterred by the other mans, as usual, grumpy face.

"Souji." Hijikata growled in his best "I-loathe-everything-that-dares-to-exist-especially-sunny-happy-mornings" growl, shoving his pipe from one corner of his mouth to the other.

"Ah, isn´t this just a wonderful morning?" Souji continued his alleluia, pressing the piglet and the candybag in a tight hug against his chest.

"Hmph." Hijikata grouchily huffed a puff of smoke right into the beautiful mornings disgusting face.

Babbling on about the wonderful weather and completely ignoring the lethal aura that emitted from the vice commander and successfully withered away everything within three miles into a shriveled little nothing, Souji decided that it was finally time to make a closer encounter with his new friends. Fumbling around with the bag again, he was about to tell the vice commander about his plans on going to the temple later and playing hide and seek with whatever kid he stumbled upon, when aformentioned man finally decided to join the 'conversation'.

"Souji. How many times have I told you to quit stuffing yourself with this brat food. Eventually it will rot away your teeth." He grumbled, and adding in an even darker voice "And my hard earned budget, too."

Souji had finally succeeded in opening the bag and held one of the sweet confitures between his dextrous fingers. "But Hijikata-san. You are smoking too, despite how often I told you it won´t do your lungs any good."

Hijikata made another dourly noise and stubbornly took a drag from his pipe.

"See?" Souji beamed. "Besides, I didn´t even have to buy these. They were abandoned before our door and we decided to adopt them, right Saizo?"

"Buki!" the piglet cast it´s lot with his master, throwing the other pet a filthy glare.

"Haha." Souji laughed and was about to pop one of his candies into his mouth, but looked at his empty fingers in confusion the next moment. The piglet was violently trashing in his arms, snapping at the bumptious, stinking human who had the nerve to snatch the candy, that was under IT´S custody out of his masters hand, and snorted "Souji! You can´t just eat everything that´s lying in front of your door! What if it´s poisoned?!"

"Mh." Souji looked up towards the sky as in deep thought, a finger at his lips. "But it had such a nice bow… And it looks alright to me, ne Saizo?" With this he smiled at the Vice commander again as if with his reasoning the matter was settled.

"Geez…" The vice commander pinched the bridge of his nose, feeling the threat of an upcoming headache. Then suddenly he took a breath and hollered through the yard "ICHIMUUUUUURAAAAAAAAA!!"

Within a nanosecond the trampling of feet on wood could be heard and within another moment a red haired boy slithered along the floor, coming to a halt before the vice commander in a kneeling, bowing position.

"Hai, vice commander Hijikata-san!" was the breathless reply from underneath. The demon stared down at the boy, the slightest hint of satisfaction in his eyes for the prompt and proper appearance of his page.

"Eat this," he commanded, holding a bright red ball of sugar towards the boy.

"Hai?" Confusion evident on his face, Tetsu eyed the ball with obvious reservation, casting a nervous glance at the vice commander and an unsure one at Souji, who peered at Tetsu from behind Hijikatas broad shoulder with interest and innocent eyes.

"Hijikata-san…May I… What is this?" Tetsu finally inquired, eyeing the offered item as if it would explode into his face at any given moment.

"…Candy." Hijikata stated in a manner as if it was a perfectly normal occurance for him to hand out sweets to his inferiors.

"Candy?" Testu repeated dumbfounded, looking even more aghast.

"Right!" Souji beamed from behind, nodding reassuringly.

"O-oh…" Unsure of what to say, Tetsu scratched his head and then, as it dawned on him, a smile that could certainly compete with Soujis, radiated from his features.

"I see! If that´s so, I´ll gladly take it! It´s an honour sir! You didn´t know how to tell me, so you decided to show me how satisfied you were with my recent work by giving me candy! Hijikata-san, you aren´t such a demon, are you? But don´t worry, I understand, one must give a good example and maintain order and disciplin-"

The vice commanders left eye had started to twitch violently at the wink his page had given him and the big, bleary eyes full off admiration and sympathy made him want to toss out his breakfast right then and there. But he restrained himself from doing so and instead just shoved the damn thing into the brat's bloody loudmouth.

Tetsu choked from the sudden intrusion, but once the vice commander had withdrawn his hand, he concentrated on the sweetness and his eyes widened. "Wow, that´s…That´s delicious! Thank you sooo much, Hijikata-san!"

The vice commander observed his personal guinea pig with steely eyes, but when he didn´t roll on the floor death-rattling, vomitting blood, he turned away uninterestedly, declaring:

"Fine, it´s not poisoned."

Souji smiled brightly at him, hugging his candy bag. "I told you."

"Hrmpf. Still, you should be more careful." Hijikata gave him his best scolding glare, which, naturally, went ignored.

"Ah, Hijikata-san, don´t be such a party-pooper. Here, have one too. I´m sure Kondou-san just dropped them for me or something like this."

Hijikata pushed away Soujis hand and the offered yellow candy within it, not ungently, and prepared himself for his own duties, murmuring "Then it´s still Shinsengumi money."

Eventually he made his escape, leaving one chewing, happy Souji and a bewildered red haired page behind.

"Ah, he needs to relax more." Souji pondered sighing, turning towards his friend, who still knelt on the floor, eyes big like saucers and jaw hanging open. Then he closed his mouth and his bottom lip started to tremble. "Hi-Hijikata-san… How could you…" Tetsu started wailing in a heart wrenching manner.

"Ah, there, there." Souji patted him on the back sympathetically, offering him another piece from his precious bag.

Meanwhile Hijikata attended his boring meeting about patrol shifts and other painfully uninteresting things, but being a samurai he even endured the thirty minutes (perceived 3 hours) of gossiping, his commander didn´t seem able to refrain himself from sharing.

Suffice it to say that a certain vice commander's mood didn´t lighten up in the slightest, so when the meeting was finally over, he couldn´t refrain from sternly informing his commander that the shinsengumi money wasn´t supposed to be spent on brat food, even if it was for the first unit captain.

Koundo only blinked at him, telling him good-naturedly that he had no idea what Hijikata was talking about. This time, Hijikata even beliefed him, since having known the commander for such a long time, he had developed a sixth sense when the other was trying to outsmart him.

Gruffly he reached for his pipe and focused his attention on his paperwork, the matter soon forgotten.

Hijikata Toshizou: 0

Candyman: 1

review please?