Between a Rock and a Hard Place

Chapter 14 (Final)

Kamui sits on his chair amongst the piles of papers that scatter around the room. He sighs as he plucks more petals from the flower in the vase he is holding like a young maiden with a heart throb problem.

"She is angry… she is not… she is angry…"

Abuto walks in through the door and exhales once he sees the paper works that has been piling up from the days they missed their work and the days his commander spaces out. He started gathering the piles and cleans up the messy room like a good subordinate he is.

Kamui is not a good paper worker at all. His social skill is also lower than standard people. That's why he has Abuto around, to do his paper jobs that came attached to his awesome position as a Space Pirate and deal with all the bitchy uppers. Of course, Abuto knows well that everybody would probably call him 'Kamui's bitch' behind the scene, but with his commander like this everything is hopeless.

Once distracted, Kamui will never recover easily. When they first came back from Yoshiwara, Kamui acts as if his spirit left his body. The reason was because he saw Kagura there, dressed like a Geisha. He began to wonder if his sister lived there, or worse, works there. Kamui was eating more than usual due to stress and snuck down from his bedroom late at night to steal even more food. The result was poverty and hunger in the space ship with no restaurant or stop in sight for 3 days straight. Then, he refused to talk about his problems and locked himself in his bedroom with all the food until there was no food left. When he finally came out, Kamui smiled at everyone and asked them to die for his sake.

It was disastrous.

So, Abuto took Kamui to Earth and investigate where Kagura actually lives. Once he found out that his sister lives on the street of Edo city and not in Yoshiwara, Kamui hurriedly bought the house right across from hers and basically camp on the roof, watching his sister took her giant dog out for a walk every single days.

Abuto lived in that building across from Yorozuya for about 10 days and decided that it was time for him to get Kamui back to work. But, of course, that's when a single letter from Takasugi turned up and changed everything. It was a warning letter about the Kumoto's plan.

"Ah, Abuto. Take out the trash while you are at it." Kamui says from his seat and twirls the white flower vase in his hand without looking up. Abuto puts the stack of paper down and says:

"If you miss her that much, then you probably shouldn't have left her like that."

Kamui looks up sharply. "And who are you talking about here?"

"Your sister."

"I don't miss her. Not at all."

Is he stupid or just dishonest? Abuto thinks and put the papers on the table with a tired look in his eyes. He'd then reach his hand into his pocket and throw a crumbled piece of paper at Kamui's head. Kamui stops his movement and sighs.

"As you can see, I'm not exactly in the best mood for more work right now…"

"That's your sister's address. Write her a letter or send her some Sukonbu. I'm sure that will make her less angry at you."

With that being said, Abuto lifts up the papers in his arm and walks towards the door. To his surprise, Kamui started to laugh.

"You are such a good subordinate, Abuto. But I'm afraid that your memories are about to be erased due to concussion. I think that a white flower vase might be the cause, so please watch out."

"What are you talking…?" Abuto turns around and asks, but then the rest of the sentence was swallowed in the deadly silence. He felt chills running down his spine when he happened to spot a white flower vase in Kamui's hand.

Kamui smiles. And Abuto gulped and hurriedly excused himself from the room before the instrument of his demise can head his way.

"Geez…" Kamui laughs softly to himself.

That Abuto… Only good at things I never ask him to do .Kamui thinks and looks up at the ceiling. The look on Kagura's face when he left her almost broke his heart… or somewhere along the line. He knows he acted like an asshole, but that was the only thing he can do to keep his resolve of ever leaving her strong.

'You'll see what happen after you choose the path of the warriors like the rest of us Yato, Kamui. When you look back, you'll see that there is nothing there except for destruction and dead bodies.' Those words echoed in Kamui's ears for a while. It is frustrating to accept that someone else might be right and his believes might be wrong. All of a sudden, Kamui feels an urge to kill someone.

With a frustrated noise, he turns towards the window and sees Abuto walking right below his office. Kamui grabs the flower vase and drops it off the window, aiming for Abuto's head.

CRASH! Kamui looks down with expectations shining in his eyes, but turns back when he noticed that he missed Abuto's head by a few centimeters. Never mind, He thinks with a small, grim smile on his face, I can always order a new flower vase. But for now, I need to focus… focus…

Kamui scrambles through his messy desk and finds a fresh page of paper. After thinking for a while, he started writing.

dear Kagura,

"Shit." Kamui mutters under his breathe when he realises that he forgot to put the D in capital letter. He scrunches up the paper, throws it on the floor and reaches for a new one.

Dear kagura,

"Ah… Damn."

Scrunch. Another tree just died in vain. Should I even be using the word 'dear'?

To my sister,

That's just weird. Kamui thought and brushes the paper off the table. He breathes in and tries again on another paper.

Dear Kagu

CRRRZ. The sound of a pen that breaks in Kamui's grip resounds around the room. Deep blue ink splatters everywhere on the paper and Kamui's hand.

"F… Fuck!" Kamui swears heavily and sparks the broken pen across the room. He wipes his hand on his blue Chinese cloth and white pants with a small growl. Why is writing a single letter so fucking damn hard?!

He grabs another set of pen and paper. This time, with determination in his eyes, he writes slowly and carefully.

Dear Kagura,

Kamui exhales, leans back to take a good look at the paper, feeling superior and satisfy. A small smirk appears ghostly on his face. Great! He thinks and stretches lazily. Now I only have five more pages to go.

At Yorozuya Gin-chan

"I just need few more zeroes, and you guys can leave." Said Gintoki. He scribbles down at least ten more zeroes on the tissue roll and move along the zeroes line. Hijikata spits out his cigarette and steps on Gin's hand.

"That's enough, damn perm! How many zeroes do you plan to write?! We already paid for your house repair, didn't we?!"

"Yeah, but this and that is a different story." Gintoki casually brushes Hijikata's feet away and continues writing more zeroes. It has already been two weeks since the Kumoto left and Yorozuya Gin-chan was repaired back to its original condition. Kagura sprawls on the couch as Shinpachi do some more cleaning. Okita sips his tea and ignores the commotion his commander is making.

"Cut this out or I will cut your head off. We don't own you anything anymore. Let's go, Sougo!"

"Keep your voice down, Mayora. Can't you see that I need my beauty sleep?" Kagura grunts and flips to her side. "Gin-chan, I'm hungry."

"Just you wait until I'm done with this roll and the roll after that. I'll buy you anything you want then…. With their money."

"Danna, you really have got to stop being so selfish. If Hijikata-san runs out of money today, I won't be able to steal it and buy my dinner." Okita says and crosses his legs with a straight face. Hijikata changes his target and looks at Okita in disbelief.

"SO YOU ARE THE REASON WHY MY MONEY KEEP DISAPPEARING FROM MY WALLET?!"

"Damn… Guess I shouldn't have said that."

Shinpachi jumps out of the way when Okita runs his way. He thought that he was safe, but then Hijikata also came chasing after Okita, causes him to trip over the water bucket and falls on the floor.

"You guys… I've had enough of this insanity! Get out this instant! Wait… Are you wearing shoes on the floor that I have just mopped?!"

After that screams, others painful cries follow and the whole place is a complete mess. Just when Kagura thinks she should step on the battlefield, the doorbell rings. She takes this chance and runs to open the door.

Out there, is a tall man with big mustache and rippling muscles.

"Sorry. We don't have your money yet, but please wait for at least a month and Gin-chan will pay his debt…" Kagura started the speech she was made to memorize by Gintoki, but then the man hands a letter to her.

"I'm not a debt collector. Just your everyday mail man."

"Gin-chan!" Kagura calls inside the house room where Gintoki is squeezing every last drop of mayonnaise in the toilet. Hijikata screams in terror when he sees his beloved mayonnaise being wasted. "Gin-chan! We just got a letter, and it isn't even New Year yet!"

"What?!" Gin yells and kicks Hijikata who is trying to get in his way. "Are you sure that is not a threat letter from our debt collector? Or is it Sakamoto? If it is, then just throw it away!"

"Nah…" Kagura flips the letter in her hand over and read the address. "The sender is… Kamui…"

The room drop into a deep silence. The atmosphere is dark and awkward. Everybody's eyes dart around nervously until Shinpachi pokes Gintoki. Gin coughs and make a dry joke.

"Your… your brother? Ahahaha… I don't remember ever borrowing his money…"

BAM!

Kagura kicks down the front door and runs out of Yorozuya at the speed of light. Gin runs after her to examine the broken front door and started yelling angrily.

"You damn brat! You just broke our door after we got it fixed?! Oi, come back here, Kagura!"

"Sorry, but I have a trash to throw away!" Kagura shouts back from the street, waving the letter in her hand.

"The garbage is in our freaking kitchen! Where the hell do you plan to throw that letter anyway?!"

"Somewhere far… Like, Alaska!"

With that being said, the alien girl disappears from the street. Gin rubs the back of his head and calls Shinpachi over as he tries to put the front door back up.

"Um… Gin-san, do you think that Kagura-chan will be alright?" Shinpachi asks. Gin pushes the door up straight.

"Of course she will. Every young maiden recover from their problems fast like a lightning."

"What exactly do you know about young maiden, you lazy bum? Let's get going, Sougo. Your patrolling shift is about to start." Hijikata said and walks out the front door. Okita use the toilet paper on the floor to blow his nose in and follows Hijikata out with no complains this time.

"Wait, Souchirou-kun! You forgot to take your debt bill with you! Souchirou-kun!"

"My name is Sougo, Danna."

"And my name is Gintoki-sama, Sakichimi-kun."

"Tell you what," Okita stops abruptly on the way down the stairs and turns to face the other two Yorozuya members with a light sadistic smile on his face, "how about I pay the rest of our payment with one gluttony, sharp-tongue, female alien?"

Kagura sits down on her usual bench in the park and tears off the envelope. Her blue eyes quickly follow along the messy handwriting of her brother.

In the letters, Kamui talks about everything. He talks about his crew, his food supplies, and his shirt not being washed on time… heck, he even talks about his nightmare where his head is bald. The only thing he missed to mention was their crappy departure.

"P.S," Kagura reads aloud once she reaches the last line on the seventh page of Kamui's letter, "I will kill the Earthling soon. And I took some of your Sukonbu to discover that it interestingly delicious. Please send me at least one stripe attached to the letter you are going to send me in the next two days. Take care, from your brother, Kamui."

"You should send him the expired Sukonbu." The voice that comes from behind startles Kagura. But once she recognizes it, she just folds the paper and sigh.

"Reading another person's letter is really rude, Sadist."

"Why should I care when you know no manners to begin with? Besides, that last message clearly states that I might get killed. I have the right to see that." Okita yawns and walks over to sit beside Kagura casually. Because they have slept in the same room for the past months, that kind of closeness doesn't feel out of ordinary at all. Okita repeats again, "you really should send him the spoil Sukonbu."

"What makes you think I'm going to even write back to him? I don't even know how to write a letter." Kagura says and leans back against the bench with her eyes close.

"How about you ask for help from someone experienced? Like, maybe… Kondo-san." Okita suggests.

"That Gorilla will probably write something like 'your sister really turns me on' and that would just be awkward."

"Hmm… good point." Okita twirls the red eye mask in his hand. "Let's find someone else. How about Danna?"

"Gin-chan is too lazy to even write replies to the New Year greetings."

"Okay." Okita stands up with a thoughtful expression on his face. The orange light of the sunset reflect off his face. "That leaves you with one option. Me."

"What?!" Kagura's eyes snap open. She stands up and opens her umbrella to walk home. Okita walks beside her with his arms wrap around each other at the back of his neck. "You will help me write a letter? Excuse me, but you?!"

"What's wrong with that?" Okita asks. Kagura glances side way and start reconsidering as they fall into the same walking pace.

"Well… I guess that would be fine. But do you even know how to write a letter?"

"Of course I do." Said Okita. The two exit the park as they look at the orange-yellowish sky of Edo city. The lamps beside the street flicker and come to life as they walk down the street under the sun setting sky. Okita smiles a little. "Just you wait. I'll show you how to write one."

Somewhere in the space

Abuto and the rest of Space Pirates crews watch in pure horror as their teen commander trembles violently, his face white and pale as a ghost. The commander is looking very much like an erupting volcano.

In Kamui's hands is a crumbled piece of paper with one sentence on it and a single photo.

It was a photo of Kagura- the commander's younger sister- sleeping innocently with ink smeared on her left cheek. Beside the younger sister is a young man with light brown hair and deadpanned red eyes. It was clear that this brave and reckless young man is the one who took the picture, judging from the angle. He sent a small, irritating smirk out of the photo and has one of his hands on the younger sister's left lady finger.

From the crumbled piece of paper, the single sentence screams out in a big, neat writing which clearly does not belong to the young girl.

We are getting married

"K…" The commander utters. His eyes wide open, his body shaking.

Then he explodes.

"KILL!"

END

That was the end of my first Fanfic! How did you like it?

I must admit that writing the last chapter is really difficult for me. It was heart breaking. I hope that you guys liked it though!

CONFESSION: I write these fanfic in the last minute before I update. All the ideas you see is just something that pop up in my head at that exactly moment. I'm ashamed of myself for not being more organized, but hell yah!

I might write a prequel or one shot to continue this story, but that is in a distant future.

Please tell me if you liked it! Don't forget to comment and review and I might just write another one soon (bribe)!
Until next time! U