Gintama; Takasugi X Reader (part 2) [Save Me]

Chapter 1 {Y/N}

I nod vigorously. "Now let's go back to sleep."

"Wait," she says before I can lay back down. "Before that, don't you think now's a good time to explain yourself?"

I look at her innocently. "Explain myself?"

"Yes. No wait. You are going to explain yourself, young lady," she says, then gets up to pull her futon adjoining to mine. She hops down the mattress, her demanding gaze fierce. "You said you're well enough. So speak."

"But it's in the middle of the night," I protest, gesturing to the darkened house. I stifle yawn, though I could bet on anything against the thought that I would be able to sleep now.

"We can wake late tomorrow," she simply states. "What happened to you to have you ended up like this? How did you end up like this anyway? Do you know how many times you've jolted up in the middle of the night these past weeks, crying? You nearly gave me several heart attacks. Why-"

"Slow down," I cut off, holding my hands up and surrendering. My mind spins along her questions. "I can't answer those all at once."

Senya throws me a look and huffs. Her sleepiness, it seems, has completely abandoned her. Scrambling for a way to escape her inquiry, I avoid her gaze and pretend to take a sudden interest in the sunken hearth across the one-room house.

To be honest I've been neglecting the chances to tell her of my past. Weeks have passed since that fateful day when she found me and dug me from my grave. My body heals by a good portion for me to help her around the chores a little. Senya lives alone with her pet dog. And living a peaceful life as hers, I don't know what should I tell her of the short yet most complicated chapters of my own. I don't know if I could even speak, having to remember all those moments which took my tears to be able to suppress them back.

"Well?" Senya urges. I avert my eyes to her.

Seeing the impairment written on her face, I think of something to speak. I take a narrow path of the truth.

"The reason why I ended up like that was because I...kind of got involved in some conflict," I tell her. Her eager face prods me to continue. "I tried to make a run for it, but then a guy mistook me for his enemy. Thus resulted my wounds."

Senya listens carefully. "So you just involved. But if you weren't part of the mess, then why on earth were you poisoned?" she demands. "What conflict did you get yourself into, Y/N? And why were you buried alive?"

"Umm, maybe they thought I was dead after all," I say, because I share the same thought. I felt it.

"Who are they?"

"Oh, they..."

"No. Stop." She shakes her head and says, "You're either lying, or you're still keeping things from me."

I open my mouth to speak, but another lie won't come out at the look on her face.

"Was it some event so secretive that you can't talk to me, Y/N?" she questions soberly this time. "You can trust me. Anything you're worrying about. I've seen how you look sometimes, as if you're still in pain." She brings a hand atop of mine, the signal to reassure me opposing her troubled expression. "I think of you as my sister," she mutters. "I care about you. So please tell me."

She appears small at this moment. Curly brown tress falls near her face. The tightness of her lips is the same as back when she related to me of her mother, who had passed away two years ago and left her in loneliness. Unlike me, she told me everything she's gone through, every truth she knew. How I am still breathing now is the prize of her effort. My ability to move comes from her constant work of traveling into the forest to pay for my medicines.

All those for me, whom she never knew. And what am I doing?

Instead I lied and neglected her rights to know. Instead, I've became a burden on her shoulders just because I couldn't get myself out of a mess I voluntarily joined. And to what end? I've only caused more trouble to those around me.

Remorse coils in my stomach. I clench the fabric of my blanket, unable to face her. I stare at her hand on mine, her fingers slender much like the rest of her.

"I'm terribly sorry, Senya," I apologize after a moment of silence. "Of course I trust you. I just..." Swallowing the guilt, I search for her gaze. Our eyes lock in the dark.

It doesn't matter if she finds it foolish. Or if she thinks she's saved a foolish life. My choice might have been so, but nothing can describe what I've been through. It's an irreplaceable part of who I am now, and I wouldn't choose another way even if there's another chance.

I squeeze Senya's hand. A fresh truthfulness opens up between us. "Would you listen again," I ask anew, "to my real story?"

Senya returns my gesture and nods.