A/N: Happy Valentine's Day, Faithful Readership!
Sorry I wasn't able to get this up sooner; I didn't even remember V-Day was today until yesterday, and this was nowhere near finished (being jobless and preoccupied with classes apparently does odd things to my general sense of time). Stupid Cupid turned out to be less WAFFy and more…pointy and sharp. Must be my recent reading material and mood.
It also turned out to be a beast of a project, so it's being split up; the next bit will come tomorrow. So, awesome?
An aside: when I was discussing this story with my friend Christie not too long ago, and gave her the barest premise of the plot (being as it was still mostly an idea at that point), she sent me a LOOK and said of Saitou, "Stalker much?" That morphed into us joking about Stupid Cupid's actual title being Stupid Cupid: In the Bushes!! Watch Out! It's A Trap!
…yes, this is how we amuse ourselves on Friday nights, my friends and I.
We lead sad lives.
(Virtual V-Day Red Velvet Cupcakes for whoever gets the movie reference in the "real" title…)
Disclaimer: Not mine, not now, not ever.
Stupid Cupid
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Takagi Tokio, plucky twenty-seven year old office lady, wasn't feeling very plucky tonight, and only a promise had made her attend this charity event.
Shinomori Aoshi was twenty-five, good-looking, and did everything right: he was polite, attentive, from a good family…and Tokio couldn't understand why she didn't want to marry the man. They had been set up by her friend Teruhime some months back, and they had got on quite well, well enough that they had gone out until a week ago, when Tokio had finally had to tell Aoshi the truth:
"I don't want to date you," she blurted over breakfast.
He stared at her for several seconds before slowly blinking.
"Hn," was what he finally settled on.
"It's not that I don't like you," she was quick to assure, "because I do! A lot! But…not to date. I'd rather keep you as a friend."
He was watching her with those silent icy eyes—not that they were cold, exactly (although they could be, she had learned): they were an icy blue, so pale as to be glass-clear. To Tokio, Aoshi's eyes were the color of chilly winter mornings when the sky was clear and crisp and bright.
Once upon a time, she had thought them the perfect counterpart to her own eyes, eyes the other color of chilly winter mornings, gray and overcast and threatening snow.
"I've had the same thought," he said at long last.
She blinked.
"You have?"
He nodded. "We make better friends," he said simply, and Tokio had agreed and that had been the end of that.
So they were only friends now, and she was only his date tonight to the annual Bunkyo Ward Policeman's Ball because he had asked her to go with him three weeks ago, and he hadn't been able to find a real date on short notice.
Her "date" had been strong armed into leaving her side a few moments after they had arrived, not that Tokio had been surprised: Aoshi was a rising star in the Bunkyo precinct, and tonight was a good opportunity for him to circulate and get in good with the higher ups he needed to impress in order to advance. So she hadn't seen him since he'd been whisked away an hour ago, which had left her quite on her own, and she'd wound up at the bar.
I hope I won't have to eat alone, too, she thought ruefully, smiling a little crookedly to herself. This isn't turning out to be a very fun night out.
"Martini," came the bartender's voice, and Tokio turned back toward him and smiled.
"Thank you," she said, picking up her drink.
The bartender grinned back, and Tokio instantly realized the man thought she was flirting with him.
Oh hells, she thought, her smile frozen on her face while panic set in.
Before the bartender had a chance to make her very uncomfortable, a white glove settled in a decidedly proprietary manner very close to her elbow.
"Saké," a new—male—voice said, his tone cold and authoritative.
"Yes sir," the bartender said, hurrying off to fill the order, and Tokio looked over at the man who'd saved her an awkward conversation.
He was dressed in his policeman's uniform, and it was immaculate. The badge on his chest proclaimed him an Inspector, and from the way it winked at her, it was regularly kept in spotless condition. He was a lean man, tall, with a long face that was all angular lines and austere planes. His eyes, though—they gleamed amber and knew much.
Far too much.
"You'd be Shinomori's date," he said, leaning casually against the bar in a way that told her he was very alert to everything going on in the hall.
"Yes," she said, suddenly knowing who he was. "And you'd be Saitou-san."
He raised an eyebrow, and she smiled, daintily taking a sip of her drink.
"Aoshi's told me a lot about you," she said, and her smile widened at the way his eyes narrowed. "All good, of course."
The amber eyes flickered over her in silence, before a faint smirk curved thin lips.
"Of course," he said, a touch of mockery in his tone, and Tokio frowned.
The bartender returned with Saitou's saké, which Saitou accepted with a nod before turning back to regard her; the bartender, knowing he had been dismissed, went to the other side of the bar without shooting Tokio a single look.
Thankfully.
"Not what I expected," he said.
"I beg your pardon?" she asked, unable to keep the arch tone out of her voice—really, the man had just met her and he was being insufferable!
"You," he said, eyes once more flickering over her where she sat. "You're not what I had in mind. I thought Shinomori'd have someone a little more…frigid on his arm tonight."
Tokio narrowed her eyes, deciding she didn't care for the man before her in the slightest. Not that he seemed to have noticed:
"You, on the other hand," he continued, raising his cup to his lips, "are the farthest thing from frigid there is. You're warmer, salt-of-the-earth type."
"Thank you for your assistance, Saitou-san," she said icily, slipping off the stool she'd been perched on, and annoyed to find out just how tall the man actually was; even standing before him in heels, he towered over her.
"My pleasure, Takagi-san," he said with a smirk, and she was irritated that he seemed to not only be quite aware of her opinion of him, but was amused by it.
She spared him a curt nod and then turned and began weaving through the crowd, toward the table she knew she'd be sitting at with Aoshi for dinner. As she walked, an uncomfortable itch started up between her shoulder blades, an odd prickling sensation tripped down the back of her neck, and she knew she was being watched. And when she turned to see who it was, she found Saitou, still nursing his saké, one hand in the pocket of his sharply creased slacks.
"May I help you?" she asked, a little irritably.
"No, not me," he said mildly.
"Is there a reason you're following me?" she demanded.
"Just heading to my table," he said, the picture of innocence.
Tokio wasn't buying it for a moment.
"Your table," she repeated flatly. "I don't suppose you're sitting at the same table Aoshi and I are sitting at."
"That is a distinct possibility, yes," he said, tone bland, before taking a sip of his drink.
"Of course," she muttered, rolling her eyes as she turned and continued on her way, her tall, annoying shadow a few paces behind her.
She tried to ignore him once they got to the table, but it was just about impossible—she could feel those amber eyes boring into her. The sensation was uncomfortable, not because she felt like he was undressing her in his head, but because his gaze was so intent.
"Don't you have someone else to…stare at?" she finally decided on, instinctively knowing that outright admitting to any kind of annoyance would be detrimental.
"No," he said, surprising her with his bluntness. "You're much more interesting," he added with a smirk that was decidedly wolf-like.
She frowned at him.
"I doubt that," she said, sipping her martini.
He seemed content to let that remark go without commentary, and there was something like companionable silence between them for a few beats before that damn staring of his started bothering her again.
"Are you sure you don't have anything better to do?" she asked, unable to keep the annoyance out of her voice now even if she'd wanted to.
"Something better than keeping my junior officer's guest occupied?" he asked. "Not in the least, Takagi-san."
"And just how is it you know my name, anyway?" she asked crossly.
"I have my ways," he said, placid.
Jerk, she thought uncharitably.
"Fine," she said, giving up, mostly because this man was Aoshi's direct superior, and she didn't want to make her friend look bad, "since you seem so set on occupying your junior officer's guest—occupy me."
He eyed her, then smiled in a predatory way that made Tokio suddenly very sorry that she phrased her concession as a challenge.
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As it turned out, Saitou wasn't so bad.
Still quite a jerk, but an interesting one, so he was a little more bearable than your run-of-the-mill jerk.
He had known she wouldn't be interested in official inter-office goings-on, so he'd first given her a rundown of the silent and live auction prizes they'd be handing out later—including a very nice dinner for two at Kitcho, and a two night stay, also for two, at the Mandarin Oriental Tokyo in Chūō Ward—before moving on to inter-office gossip about the people at the party. Tokio was simultaneously mortified and fascinated by the man's utter disregard for decency and politesse.
"Him over there?" Saitou said, gesturing with his nose to a man three tables over who was standing over a much younger woman while he spoke with another gentleman, both males decked out in their dark blue finest. "That woman he's with is his mistress."
"She is not!" Tokio whispered, scandalized, shooting Saitou a reproachful look.
"Oh yes she is," he said with a smirk, leaning forward on his elbows and putting himself within murmuring distance. "She's popped out three kids for him in the last five years. She's doomed to disappointment if she thinks he'll leave his wife for her—his old lady's got him by the short hairs. He doesn't jump unless she tells him to."
"And just how is it you know about all this?" she asked, looking over at him, one eyebrow raised.
His lips curved into another sharp smile that reminded her uncomfortably of a wolf.
"I have my ways," he said, and she sent him a sour look.
"Tokio!"
They both turned around at Aoshi's voice, and Tokio straightened in her seat and smiled.
"Did they finally let you go?" she teased, wrapping an arm around the back of her chair and setting her chin on top of it; she saw Saitou send her a speculative look but ignored him.
"More like I escaped," Aoshi muttered. "Saitou-san, thank you for keeping Tokio company for me, I appreciate it."
"Hn." Saitou rose, picking up the hat he'd taken off and set on the table and tucking it under his arm, and the glass of saké he'd been nursing for at least an hour. "Not like I had anything better to do. Shinomori, Takagi-san."
Tokio was thrown by the cool, formal dismissal; Saitou strolled away from them without a backward glance.
"That was rude," she commented, and Aoshi sighed and took a seat beside her.
"He's like that," he said, almost apologetically. "I hope it wasn't too terrible. I'm sorry about that."
She smiled at him and patted his arm.
"It was fine," she assured. "I understand you're quite the man to watch around here, so I forgive you for ditching me."
Aoshi rolled his eyes and Tokio laughed.
And though she felt that uncomfortable prickling sensation the rest of the night, she never did see Saitou again.
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"Coming!" Tokio called, turning down the burner of her stove.
She had to play with it for a few seconds—it was a tetchy old thing, her stove—before she was satisfied her dinner wouldn't boil over, then went to the door and opened it without bothering to ask who it was, since she had been expecting her friend Teruhime.
And decided, upon opening her door and seeing her guest, that she would have done very well not to assume she was safe to make assumptions.
"Do you make a habit of answering your door without bothering to see who it is first?" Saitou asked, hands in the pockets of his uniform slacks, one eyebrow raised.
"What are you doing here? How do you know where I live?" Tokio asked, eyes huge with dismay.
"You really should be more careful, Tokio," he said blandly, apparently deciding he wasn't going to answer her questions. "You never know what psychopath you could be inviting into your home."
Her gaze narrowed.
"Like yourself, for example?" she asked, voice wintry.
He had the gall to look offended:
"What a terrible thing to say to an officer of the law in charge of making sure you can go to bed with peace of mind at night."
Tokio wasn't taken in by his dramatics for a second—especially not with that taunting gleam in his eyes.
"Seeing as I never gave you my address and yet you know exactly where I live, I doubt I'll be sleeping very peacefully."
He smirked.
"I have my ways," was all he said, and Tokio rolled her eyes.
"Of course you do," she muttered, and he let out a short, sharp bark of laughter at her bad temper.
It surprised Tokio enough that she stared at him in shock for several seconds, before she remembered herself.
"Well, Saitou-san?" she asked, lifting her chin. "Why are you here?"
"Just paying a visit to Shinomori," he said, and she raised an eyebrow.
"I beg your pardon?" she asked after a second of staring at him.
"Paying Shinomori a visit," he repeated, and there was something about the faint smirk playing about his mouth that she didn't…
…trust.
"Aoshi doesn't live here," she said.
"Really?" He sounded distinctly unsurprised by that information.
"Yes." Pause. "So it seems you've wasted a trip," she prompted when he seemed content to stand before her door, hands still in his pockets, and watch her placidly.
"Oh, I wouldn't say that, exactly," he murmured. "Invite me in," he demanded before she could ask him just what that was supposed to mean.
"No," she immediately said, and he snorted, amused.
"No?" he asked, smirk widening—if he were someone normal, it would have been a thoroughly amused smile, she knew.
"No," she very emphatically repeated.
"Hm. Not even if I brought dinner?" he asked, and Tokio raised an eyebrow in disbelief before very pointedly looking him up and down.
"Invisible dinner? You shouldn't have," she deadpanned, and he let out another one of those short, sharp barks of laughter.
Before she could insist that the lunatic in front of her door vacate posthaste, the elevator doors opened and a young man in a uniform appeared, holding two large nondescript brown paper bags. When he got closer, Tokio could smell something absolutely delicious.
The young man walked right up to Saitou, who pulled out his wallet and paid the boy, then accepted the brown paper bags. The boy hurried away, and as soon as the elevator doors closed on him, Tokio looked back up at Saitou, who lifted the bags.
"Dinner," he said matter of factly. "Curry rice and yakitori."
Which happened to be her favorite.
She glared at him; he only sent her a knowing look and lifted the bags once more.
How did he know that take-away was my favorite?! she thought furiously.
"Fine," she said, stepping aside, and was irritated by the smug look on his face.
Ass, she thought mutinously, glaring at his back.
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Aoshi blinked.
"I'm sorry, did you just order me to tell Saitou-san to leave you alone?" he asked after a pause.
"Yes." Tokio said with a nod.
Aoshi pursed his lips and considered her.
"No."
Tokio's jaw dropped.
"Aoshi!" she exploded, and he sighed and rolled his eyes.
"Tokio," he said patiently.
"I can't believe you'd choose that maniac over me!" she said, appalled.
"You don't know what working with Saitou is like, so you don't have the luxury of complaining," Aoshi replied.
She glared at him.
"Way to throw me under the bus, traitor."
He rolled his eyes.
"Tokio, look, you don't have anything to worry about—"
"He showed up at my door uninvited!"
Aoshi sent her a long suffering look.
"Tokio, I promise you, as weird as this all looks and seems, you don't have anything to worry about. Saitou isn't a weirdo, he's just…quirky."
Aoshi's expression morphed into something like a cross between distaste and hesitance, clearly not sure that his description covered what his boss was like.
It didn't matter either way to Tokio, who was having none of it:
"Stalking is not a personality quirk! It is an indication of severe mental issues!"
"I'm the first to agree that Saitou isn't exactly normal," he said. "However, that being said, you're fine. He's an Inspector with the MPD, his record is beyond reproach and he literally scares the shit out of everyone in the office except the chief."
Tokio sent him an incredulous look:
"You won't help me because you're scared of him?!" she demanded, her voice going up an octave.
"Very," Aoshi immediately affirmed with a nod, apparently not at all ashamed of admitting this.
"You're pathetic!" she screeched, and Aoshi glared at her.
"This man holds my career in the palm of his hand, Tokio," he said, tone cold with rebuke. "He could destroy me if he wanted to, with very little effort or thought on his part. And if stalking you keeps him happy, there is no way I am fucking with that. You don't taunt the wolf."
"Get out of my apartment!" she demanded, pointing at the door.
Aoshi swept out, wearing cold anger and his usual long white trench, slamming the door on his way out.
"Traitor!" she yelled at the door, loud enough that she knew he heard her through the cheap wood.
There was no response of course—Aoshi wasn't childish enough to give in to petty impulses like she was, something that currently irritated almost as much as her stalker—but she had gotten in the last word, and while it did very little to soothe ruffled feathers, she took her "win" and held it close.
Something told her that she was going to be winning very little in the coming months, anyway, so she might as well enjoy this one.
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Aoshi nursed his grudge for a while, not that Tokio was particularly surprised; her friend was stubborn, and not inclined toward forgiving or forgetting.
That in no way helped her Stalker Situation, of course.
She couldn't go to the police with this one, because Saitou was the police—or one of them, anyway—and the MPD was a lot like a good ole boy's club: they "took care of each other," as the saying goes. On top of that, she didn't have any concrete proof of any wrongdoing on Saitou's part: no creepy phone messages, no disturbing letters, no contact at work (although she had no doubt that he knew where she worked), nothing necessarily untoward aside from the fact that he dropped by her apartment once a week like clockwork. She had no basis for a restraining order, or at the very least, it was a flimsy one.
And Saitou actually wasn't too pushy; he was polite, in his own way, never stayed more than a handful of hours, and always provided dinner—it was his fail-proof method of gaining entry, because as uncomfortable as she was with the idea that this virtual stranger apparently knew more about her than some of her closest friends, she was too polite to close her door in the face of his spending money on food for her.
The bastard was using both her kindness and stomach against her.
And winning, damn him.
"Why are you here?" she moaned, dragging her feet down the hall to her door as soon as she caught sight of him loitering outside her door, large paper bag in one hand.
"Hello Tokio," he said sweetly, eyes laughing at her.
"Oh shut up," she mumbled, glaring at him as she stopped in front of her door.
He silently held up the paper bag, and the smell of something tantalizing wafted towards her nostrils.
There's pork in there somewhere, she thought. Hot, spicy pork.
"Don't you have some other unwilling woman to impose on?" she asked.
"Wednesdays are yours," he said patiently.
"Thank you for penciling me in," she said, voice flat, "you shouldn't have."
"I lead a very busy life," he said, expression and tone solemn…except for the laughing eyes.
"I don't like you," she said irritably.
"I'll grow on you," he assured.
"I doubt that," she said.
He shrugged, apparently entirely unconcerned, and she wondered if his ego really was that big or if he was just that obtuse.
Instinct told her it was the former, though she wasn't sure if that was better than his being obtuse or worse.
Possibly, they were equally unappealing.
"I really wish you'd go away and leave me alone," she said, crossing her arms over her chest.
"Do you, Tokio?" he asked, sending her an assessing look.
"Yes," she said. "Very much so."
They considered each other for several moments in silence, and then he nodded and presented her with the paper bag.
"My apologies," he said with a very formal bow, and Tokio stared at him, badly thrown off by this turn of events.
She took the bag from him with wide eyes, and then he gave her a curt nod and walked passed her, and it took Tokio a moment to realize that he was leaving and—
"Where are you going?" she asked, whipping around to stare at him.
He paused and looked over his shoulder at her.
"Leaving," he said mildly.
"Why?"
He turned on his heel, only halfway around, and cocked his head while he watched her.
"Because you want me to," he said.
"I always want you to," she pointed out, and he shrugged.
"You've never told me to."
She paused, considering this revelation. He was leaving because she'd told him to—had it really always been that easy to get rid of him? To just tell him to go? Hell, if it was she would have done it a long time ago!
Her gaze turned thoughtful, though, as she watched him patiently watching her, waiting.
No, she finally decided. She wouldn't have. Not when he showed up at her door with dinner. Because he didn't have to buy food—and food she liked, on top of it; the man hadn't brought her one thing she didn't like in the month that this farce had gone on for—and he didn't have to bring it to her. He didn't have to spend his money on her. He did because he wanted to, and it simply wasn't in her to turn her nose up at that.
"You'd leave if I told you to?" she asked at long last.
He nodded, once.
"Would you have kept demanding that I invite you in the first night if I had said no after the food came?" she asked.
"No," he said. "If you had said no, I would have left."
Tokio wasn't sure what to make of this new and startling information—she'd had no idea the power she wielded in this odd…whatever this was.
"What did you get?" she asked, deciding to examine that later, when she was alone and had time to think.
"Pork dumplings, soba," he said.
Pause. Then:
"Please come in, Saitou-san," she said, bobbing her head.
His smirk was a little off, and it took her a moment to realize why that was: he was pleased that she'd invited him into her apartment because she wanted to, not because she felt like she had to.
He was happy.
How odd, she thought as she unlocked the door after he took the bag from her.
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It irritated her less, his apparent unwillingness to leave her be, now that she knew that he would stop if she ever told him to.
What was odd to her was that she didn't particularly want to.
Oh, he was annoying, that hadn't changed; he was still too arrogant and coarse for her liking. But a little part of her was pleased with the attention.
Both because it was male, and because the balance of power was tipped in her favor.
And she'd probably never use it, but it was nice to know it was there.
As time passed, Saitou began to alternate when he came over with dinner, and when he didn't. And she had learned, on the very first night that he didn't bring dinner, that the man was actually quite the accomplished cook.
It had been so incredibly strange to see him in her kitchen, doing something as mundane and domestic as cooking. He had shrugged, when she'd remarked on it:
"Man cannot live on instant soba alone," was all he said, toying with her tetchy old stove.
She had also discovered how handy he was: he'd fiddled with her stove one night after dinner (take away again), while Tokio watched him with the phone in her hand and finger poised to call emergency services, since she was sure he was going to blow himself up, not that she wanted him to—aside from the fact that there was something very unappetizing about someone blowing themselves up in your kitchen, he wasn't really all that bad and she didn't particularly care to see him hospitalized. Or, you know, dead.
She needn't have bothered worrying, as it turned out; he'd made adjustments so that she didn't have to toy with it so much to get the temperature where she wanted it at, and told her she ought to think about getting a new one.
Aoshi held out for three months before they started speaking again. And he'd surprised her when he had—reluctantly—put aside his career aspirations:
"I'll tell Saitou to leave you alone," he said, looking distinctly unhappy at the prospect.
Tokio had stared at him in surprise for several seconds before slowly smiling at him and then shaking her head.
"Thank you, Aoshi, but don't worry—I have my stalker well in hand."
And so Tokio even started to look forward to Wednesday nights, and the prospect of spending time with the odd Inspector who seemed intent on insinuating himself into her life.
As to what purpose…ah, now there was a question to ponder, wasn't it?
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Tokio was not a happy camper.
Her day had not been a good one, which made three bad days in a row at work, which officially made this week a bad one.
"Where'd all my good karma go?" she muttered morosely.
It hadn't occurred to her that today was Wednesday until she saw Saitou standing outside her door, patiently waiting with his hands in his pockets, and Tokio groaned.
She had gotten used to him, no doubt, but that didn't make his presence any less stressful for her—the man was still as obnoxious as he'd been the night they met, and it took a special kind of tolerance to deal with him.
Tolerance she was severely lacking right then.
"Hello Tokio," he said with that familiar smirk, then his eyes narrowed and his smirk faded into a frown.
"I don't feel like dealing with you today," she told him baldly, and somewhere within her good manners cringed at the way she'd told him, without preamble or courtesy, that she was not in the mood for him.
"Bad day?" he asked neutrally, inscrutable gaze going over her face.
Tokio rolled her eyes and opened her door.
"Bad week," she muttered. "And sometimes it feels like a bad life."
She stepped out of her shoes and dropped her purse on the floor and went to the table and slumped down into the chair, head pillowed on her arms. She heard him step into the apartment and shut her door, and she sighed.
Dammit, she was going to have to tell him to leave, and she wasn't sure she'd be able to be nice about it.
Because as annoying as he was, Tokio didn't want to hurt his feelings.
(At least, she was pretty sure he was capable of feelings like normal people, not that he'd ever given her any indication that this suspicion was justified…)
It was quiet for a long time, and finally Tokio decided it was time to tell him to leave.
"I'm taking you out to dinner," he said abruptly. "Put your shoes on."
Tokio frowned down at the tabletop, then raised her head and frowned at him.
He wasn't the least bit fazed; he watched her expectantly, and Tokio decided that yes, he really did expect her to listen to him.
"I don't want to," she said. "I want to go to sleep."
"You can sleep after you eat."
She closed her eyes and prayed for patience.
"Saitou-san—"
"Put your shoes on and get your purse," he said.
"Don't order me around, I'm not your underling," she snapped, and he raised an eyebrow but tilted his head in the barest nod of acknowledgment of this fact.
And though the gesture was typical Saitou, she was inexplicably irritated that he hadn't verbalized his apology.
"I won't take you too far," he said. "It's that Mongolian place you mentioned the other day, near Sugamo. Shilingol."
She had mentioned the place in passing three weeks ago, but Tokio decided to ignore her surprise that he had not only been paying attention, but that he remembered a remark made in passing so many weeks prior.
"I just got home and don't feel like leaving," she said.
She couldn't understand why her digging in and being stubborn wasn't making him angry; Aoshi had told her Saitou detested repeating himself, and didn't suffer it.
For anyone.
"Put your shoes on," he said.
They stared at each other, and it was at the tip of her tongue to tell him to leave. And she saw in his eyes that he fully expected her to say the words, and he fully intended to abide by them.
Tokio's eyes narrowed suddenly:
A test? she wondered.
Silence stretched so thin it seemed to be in danger of snapping. Then:
"Creeper."
Saitou's brow rose.
"I'm a creeper for taking you out to dinner?" he asked mildly.
"You're a creeper for ordering me to go to dinner with you…creeper."
He considered her, gaze neutral, and Tokio finally sighed and rose.
"All right, but I'm not wearing those shoes," she said. "They aren't comfortable enough."
He inclined his head ever so slightly again, and Tokio rose to hunt more serviceable shoes with a lower heel, the wheels in her head turning.
They left her apartment after she'd locked the door in something very much approaching companionable silence, but Tokio knew better.
Something told her the balance of power had shifted again.
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