I do not own any of the characters. I write for the enjoyment of others, and I am a poor student, so please do not sue. Let me know how you like it, and if you have any comments/suggestions. Murasaki

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August of 1870 (Meiji 3)

It was mid-afternoon when someone knocked at the door, and a lilting, soft voice called out, "Please pardon my rudeness!" Saitou scowled at the door, putting away his shoes, which he was polishing inside to avoid all the patented idiots that seemed to have invaded the Kurasawa house. Then he went very still as the door opened.

"Who is it?" He called, before he could see the face, having a very good idea of who it really was.

"Takagi Tokio, at your service, Fujita-san." She bowed to him at the door, hiding a small smile in the shadows of the door. He noticed, and then realized, a little irritably, that she had meant him to.

He had spoken to her rarely since his arrival, since she'd fallen off the roof his first night there. She was always busy, serving everyone with a smile that he was curious to know if she actually felt. Idly curious, he amended to himself, nothing more. "Your business here?" He asked, knowing very well that she had been politely avoiding him purposely the last few months, interacting only on a very basic level.

"I had realized I had forgotten a promise to you, Fujita-san," she replied, eyes moving to cast over his face. Or, more particularly, his hair. He had made a few attempts to fix it himself, and settled mainly for tying it back in a small ponytail. "If you have the time available, I would cut your hair."

Saitou knew better than to think she'd forgotten about something like that, although with the passage of time, he had been beginning to wonder. Hope, he amended to himself again, he had begun to hope. "Surely there is something more productive both of us could be doing," he pointed out dryly.

Tokio shrugged her thin shoulders gently. "I was planning on doing as I brought the children outside to collect more firewood and fruits and vegetables. We're planning on going over by the river today- plenty of berry bushes there."

In the past few months, he noted before he could stop himself, the woman's face had filled out to look a little more her age, and she seemed stronger, especially emotionally, then she had been when he'd first met her. Through all of that, however, she had not put on an ounce of weight, as far as he could tell. Times were lean, of course, he dismissed it. "I suppose I have nothing else –better- to do," he replied, trying to sound bored with the proposition as he followed her out.

"I'll be waiting here for you," Tokio told the serious-faced children, "Please find everything you can, and please remember not to go off alone- stay with your partner at all times, understand?" She began to distribute the little baskets to the pairs of children.

"Takagi-sensei?" One of the girls, Kaede, sidled up to her as her partner, Katsu, took the basket from their teacher. "Who is that man? He lives with us in the house, doesn't he?" Her voice was in a whisper, but Tokio didn't doubt that Saitou, over by the tree, could still hear them. There was something about that man.

"Yes, Kaede-chan," she smiled, trying to diffuse the tension the girls had about him, although she identified perfectly well, "His name is Fujita Goro. And be careful with that basket, Katsu-chan, it has a little hole in the side, see?"

The little girl nodded, "I'll be careful, Takagi-sensei." They hurried off, and Tokio watched them go, old hands now at the prospect of finding food for the Kurasawa house, before turning and joining her companion.

"Saitou-san," she called softly as she walked toward him, "I beg your pardon, for making you wait." They sat in the shade of the tree, Tokio directly behind him.

He felt the gentleness in her fingers as she draped a piece of scrap fabric over his shoulders to catch the hair that fell. Saitou tried to shake himself mentally, cursing a mental blue streak that he noticed such things about the woman, when it was not his place to think of them. She reached over his shoulder to guide the fabric again, reaching to grab it professionally with the other hand, coming over his other shoulder. Tokio then tucked it into his collar, disturbing the hair at his neck.

"Do you have any preferences about wanting it cut?" She asked, still in her soft, businesslike tone.

"It matters not to me," he replied, but the usual gruffness was slightly lacking. She chose to ignore it, but he knew she noticed.

"Fine, then." There was silence again as she undid his ponytail, combing through it first with her fingers, then with a little comb she had brought along. "How is my friend Shinoda-san? I haven't visited her in a couple weeks now." On the surface, it sounded as if she was just making idle conversation, but through some ironic trick, Saitou Hajime had learned to read the woman better than that.

The scissors came, trimming up the ends of his hair to begin with. If she was hiding something on this topic, he couldn't very well point it out to her, as he was hiding something just as well. "She is as she usually is," he replied before he realized that he hadn't –quite- allowed himself to lie to her.

"She is one woman definitely destined to remain herself, you know, Fujita-san," Tokio remarked amicably, "I find it quite admirable." For his part, he was now scanning the area for whoever had come into hearing that he, somehow, had not noticed, for her to switch using names like that. She'd become quite attached to using Saitou in private, not that he held an opinion of more than annoyance one way or another. Odd to realize how much the slip had bothered him, as there was definitely no one nearby.

Then he almost laughed out loud, something which would've likely sent Tokio running for the hills. Was the small woman behind him- jealous- in some way? This humoured him greatly. His face remained impassive. He and the cook spent equal parts of their time arguing and angry as conversing like civilized people, but something about Shinoda Yaso had kept him returning to the Ueno kitchens rather frequently.

The cigarettes, he decided.

"Sentimental," he commented to her dryly, concerning her comment. "Too sentimental for your own good." She only replied with a little –hmph- sound, and continued to cut away hair.

"Well, rumor has it that Shinoda-san is going to move to the Kurasawa residence in September, you know." No sign of surprise from him, although she was fairly sure that Yaso wouldn't have mentioned it to Saitou.

"It's her lookout," he replied after a pause that ran slightly too long.

"Yes," she agreed nonchalantly, "I'm sure the kitchens at the Kurasawa house will be much more suitable to her, once our cook, Ran, leaves for Tokyo." Unlike Yaso would have been doing, he could tell Tokio wasn't trying to get a rise out of him. But she was trying to do something, although it really made no sense to him. Another pause. "I'll be glad to see her come," she sighed at last, voice happy, but with strange undertones of what he could only decide to be regret.

"Aa," he replied, and they fell into silence again, Tokio concentrating on his hair. He watched the river go by with studious calm. "There's a girl here," he began after quite a while, "named Katsu?"

"Yes," she replied, mildly surprised, if he judged by her tone of voice. "What of it?"

He shrugged his shoulders, which earned him a gentle touch on his shoulder again, cautioning him to stay still while she cut a section of hair near his neck. When it became apparent that he wasn't going to say anything, she continued, "She's an orphan here, under Kurasawa-san's care. I'm not really sure of her history, I'm afraid."

"It matters not to me," he replied, closing his eyes lightly as her fingers skimmed away the excess hair from his neck. Definitely, he decided, much better than the last time someone had cut his hair.

"You asked," she replied tartly, resuming her clipping.

"My sister's name is Katsu," he volunteered unexpectedly, startling both her and himself. "Hearing the name brought back memories."

He felt the scissors leave his hair and heard her sit back, exhaling lightly. "Memories are dangerous things, Saitou Hajime," she warned, almost more to herself than him. There was another silence, as her gaze fell upon the careless, placid river, followed by an almost violent continuation of hair-clipping.

"Especially memories of our antics as children," he continued as if she had not spoken, "Katsu was always more headstrong than I was. More pigheaded."

She snorted, rather unladylike, in disbelief, and he felt more than heard that the conversation was unsettling to her. "Now that seems a tall tale to tell, Saitou-san."

Saitou smirked. "She would've enjoyed meeting you," he replied, the praise falling just short of an insult.

"I think one of you is enough for me, thank you, Saitou-san. It would be too much for my health to be jumping off of too many more buildings, now, I'm afraid."

"I take no responsibility for that," he replied in the same mocking tone of voice, "It was merely your sentimental over-reaction to my presence."

"You must have many happy memories to speak so lightly of them, Saitou-san," she said instead of continuing that line of conversation.

"No more nor less than any other," he told her, shrugging once again. Her tongue clicked in warning and her hand fell fimly back on his shoulder again.

"You're like a little boy, squirming so," she scolded him, transparently trying to stay one step ahead of any kind of deeper conversation. "And a little boy, to be so trusting. You barely know me, Saitou Hajime, not someone to be telling your stories to."

"I know very few others here well," he replied comfortably, "Close to none, as a matter of fact. Through matter of choice I prefer it that most flinch away from me, Takagi-san. It weeds out the idiots."

"I have noticed that you do not tolerate fools well," she said cautiously, searching for any polite way out of the conversation. It wasn't comfortable for her to talk about herself- no sense in exposing herself to whatever this man was.

"Astute of you," he replied, wishing once again that he had a cigarette.

"My gratitude," she murmured sarcastically in return, matching his tone, and cut his hair so that his long, thin bangs fell across his face once again. Once again, her fingers brushed slowly across his neck, attempting to catch all of the stray hairs. "I believe I am finished here." Rolling up the cloth expertly, so that none of the hair would escape when she removed it from around his shoulders, she reached around him, over his shoulders, with both arms to remove the cloth.

For a moment, as she pulled the cloth away from him, she smelled his smell of soap, cigarettes and a vague spicy aroma that always seemed to cling to him, and she felt the urge to replace her arms around his shoulders and hold him close to her. From the look on his face, inscrutiable to almost anyone else, he was thinking of his sister again, memories not as happy as the ones he had briefly mentioned to her.

Tokio placed a hand softly on his shoulder, debating whether to intrude on such an intimate moment, or just leave him there and go find the children. "I'm going to go find the children, Saitou-san," she told him quietly, reasoning that if he didn't hear her, he was too deep in memories for it to be polite to awaken him from them. "Don't lose yourself," she whispered, even quieter than before, knowing how memories worked on a person.

She felt his hand cover hers for a moment, its dry warmth enveloping hers, then push her away from him, as if he didn't want to force her to leave him, but had no choice.

Well, she reflected, he didn't, really. He had been seeing Yaso for a little while now, and... she let it all stop at that, shaking herself as she rose to her feet to clear the dizziness in her head. Men were dangerous, she reminded herself firmly, and left the little clearing under the trees.

"We're just a pair of sentimental fools," she whispered to herself scathingly as she left.

The wolf smirked as his ears picked up the whisper not meant for him with his exceptional hearing.