SANTA HACK BRINGS YOU FOUR CHAPTERS THIS WEEK. WHO LOVES YA BABY?
So I meant to post 2 chapters last week, and 2 chapters this week. But I forgot it was finals week. So now you get four chapters at once as an unintentional and sort of late Christmas present. Which ain't a bad trade-off. Right?
Note: At long last, Saitou's past with the department comes out! And as such, I must warn you, things get a little heavy-duty.
Disclaimer: Like I really need to be reminded of that lamentable fact….
Words To Watch Out For:
taichou: can be translated as "captain" (Peace Maker, Bleach, etc.) or "unit commander", though within the contexts of this story, "unit commander" is the one I have in mind when "taichou" comes up.
fukuchou: anyone who's seen Peace Maker will know this one—"vice-commander".
More Of A Note Than Anything:
Nada.
Captain Miserable Finds the Greener Grass
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Chapter Twenty-Five: Making It Official…like
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"Soon" ended up being a whole week and a half later.
Not that Saitou was about to complain (overly): it could have been a lot longer.
Like, say, another eight years.
It took so damn long because there was so much freaking paperwork to get sorted out with this whole mess. Plus, Saitou had sort of kind of almost beaten Wu to death, which was sort of kind of a huge problem. The only reason he didn't get into more trouble was because Okita, Kenshin and Aoshi swore up and down that Saitou had not used "unnecessary force and/or excessive brutality in subduing and detaining the suspect," and the statements taken from one Yukishiro Enishi from his hospital bed, and from one Takagi Tokio in the police station, backed up the officers. Hijikata's hands were tied unless Wu's attorney really wanted to push the issue. At the moment, he wasn't inclined, and as Wu was in the hospital and looped up on medication to make him forget that Saitou's fists had smashed his face in, he wasn't too inclined either.
As it was, though, Saitou was ordered to do some time with an anger management counselor, news which made Okita laugh so hard he fell out of his chair and onto the floor, clutching his stomach and tears rolling down his cheeks.
So once that mess had been sorted out, the officers had had to deal with the complaints filed by the five officers Kamatari and Enishi had gotten into a brawl with (and, in Saitou's opinion, had totally had their asses handed to them by the twosome; Kamatari had gotten badly beaten, but they never would have been able to arrest the effeminate man if he hadn't let them), and the reporter Saitou had picked up and then thrown. The news people were real pissed off with him because he had ordered them to move. Here, though, Saitou got some help from the paramedics: they had filed their own complaints against the news people, saying that because they were blocking the way, they'd interfered with the ambulances getting to the scene in a timely manner.
Just as Tokio had said (yelled, but details aren't important), Saitou got a stinging dressing-down from Hijikata for the security team's failure to follow procedure, a blow to his pride more than anything else, but one that he took with relative good grace, because he'd been expecting it even before Tokio had brought it up.
He barely saw her at all in that time, unless it was at the luncheonette, and she was busy herself; the officers had done quite a lot of damage in the storage room, and she was trying to get that cleaned up and find replacements. She was also at the hospital every night, staying first with Kamatari until he was discharged four days after being admitted, and then staying with Enishi so Tomoe wouldn't have to choose between staying with her brother or staying with her husband. So he wouldn't have been able to see her anyway.
But once things calmed down, he decided "soon" ought to be clarified, and he waited for Tokio to finish her lunch and pay, then walked out with her, and once they were away from Shiori's watchful eyes and frighteningly good (when it suited her) ear, immediately asked,
"When is 'soon'?"
She colored slightly and cleared her throat and sent him a reproachful look.
"Hajime," she murmured, voice disapproving.
"Deprived," he reminded her, and she rolled her eyes.
"Let me see," she said finally, sighing. "Someone needs to stay with Enishi so Tomoe-san doesn't freak out."
"When will you know?" he asked.
"Tonight," she replied, and he frowned.
"Damn it," he muttered.
She raised an eyebrow.
"Should I be flattered or worried?"
"Whichever you like," was the irritable reply, and she shook her head, smiling, and said,
"I'll call you around six and let you know, okay? It's not going to be tonight, though, I can tell you that much—too short notice."
"When the hell does that bastard get out of the hospital?" Saitou demanded, deciding it was all Enishi's fault that "soon" wouldn't be tonight.
The little turd was messing with him, damn it.
"When the doctors are ready to discharge him," she patiently returned. "Now be a good little Wolf, all right? Or you may have to wait for 'soon' for quite some time."
He sent her a deeply wounded look.
"Now that's just not fair," he said, and she laughed and leaned up and kissed his cheek.
"Life isn't fair," Tokio cheerfully informed him. "I have to get back. I'll talk to you later, okay?"
He grunted and squeezed her wrist in parting, and then watched her until he couldn't see her anymore before turning and heading back for the station with his soba in tow.
As promised, Tokio called at six o'clock. He was home, sitting on the couch and pretending to pay attention to the news.
"Well?" he asked when he answered the phone, not bothering to check to make sure it was her.
"Kamatari-chan agreed to sit with Enishi tomorrow night," she said, sounding more than a little amused, and Saitou took a moment to silently celebrate this piece of very good news.
"Come over tomorrow night around this time," he ordered.
She chuckled.
"Want to get an early start?" she asked dryly.
He smirked.
"Something like that," he said, voice innocent, and she snorted and he could almost picture her rolling her eyes.
"Good-bye Pervert," she said, "I'll see you tomorrow."
"Six o'clock," he reminded her before they hung up.
And then, he threw the phone onto the couch next to him and stretched his arms up above his head and then folded them behind his head and smirked in smug satisfaction.
It was about damn time.
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As agreed, Tokio left the museum at five forty-five so that she could be at Saitou's by six.
Because she hadn't had to meet anyone today or otherwise put up the front of the professional woman, she'd worn jeans and a cashmere turtleneck. Kamatari, who was back at work, gave her a strange look but didn't say anything. She got several strange looks from several people, actually, but she didn't pay them any mind. It was enough that Sae was back, and she was going to be getting laid tonight.
Ah, Sae. At the thought of her secretary, Tokio smiled. Tokio had never quite fully appreciated how very much she depended on the other woman until she'd found herself without her. And she'd never fully appreciated Sae's dedication, both to the museum and to Tokio, until Tokio had arrived at work the day after Wu's arrest and found Sae seated at her desk outside Tokio's office, a cheery smile on her face and a chipper,
"Good morning Tokio-san,"
to greet her boss with.
Tokio had hugged the life out of her.
"My Sae's back!" she wailed, crying and not feeling the least bit embarrassed about it.
"It's nice to see you again, too, Tokio-san," Sae said, patting her boss' back and producing a few tissues, and Tokio laughed at her secretary's efficiency.
She'd cried a little more when she'd found a cup of steaming tea and a muffin waiting for her on her desk along with her mail and a stack of papers that needed her signature.
Misao had been a fine fill-in, but there was nothing like having Sae back, Tokio decided as she blew her nose and sighed and got down to work.
Having Sae back put Tokio very much at ease, and Kamatari mentioned it the day he came back.
Tokio had smiled.
"Sae's a godsend," was all she'd said, and Kamatari smiled faintly, face still tender.
"That she is," he agreed, "to put up with your mood swings. And speaking of long-suffering individuals, how's your Inspector?"
"Fine. Frustrated with all the paperwork we gave him," she added with a meaningful look in his direction.
"I know a cure for that," Kamatari said with a letchy grin. "I bet he loves it too."
"La la la la la la, I can't hear you," Tokio said in a sing-song voice, fingers in her ears.
Slowly, things were getting back to normal.
Relatively speaking, of course.
She was actually glad she was going to see Saitou tonight. Aside from the fact that she was getting laid tonight, she'd missed spending time with him; talking to him over the phone just wasn't the same, especially since he wasn't much for conversation. She had very quickly learned that Saitou didn't do small talk very well because he really didn't care for it, so he'd never bothered to actually do it. Being an obnoxious ass, on the other hand, seemed to be a natural talent.
She made it to his building with time to spare, so she took the elevator up and arrived right outside his door at six and rapped on it with her (this time gloved) knuckles. He called that he'd be there in a minute, and she heard some shuffling and other, odder noises that were harder to place before he opened the door…and stared.
Tokio smiled mischievously. She'd purposely worn a much shorter coat than usual so he'd be able to see the jeans a little more clearly, and it appeared he was duly impressed, if his expression was anything to go by. She did a little twirl and didn't miss the soft, almost strangled noise he made in the back of his throat, and it just made her grin widen.
There was a reason why she, Sada and Kamatari had dubbed these jeans the "Fabulous Butt Jeans," and he'd just seen it.
"Can you breathe in those?" he asked finally, and she managed to resist the urge to laugh.
"Yes," she replied, all seriousness.
His eyes narrowed and she smiled faintly.
"Like 'em?" she asked, hooking her thumbs into the pockets of her jeans.
"I think I found a new fetish," he said, and this time she laughed.
"Letcher," she teased in a sing-song voice and he grabbed her by a lapel and yanked her forward and kissed her.
"Those are some very tight jeans, Chiisai," he said.
"Yup," she agreed.
"How can you move?" He sounded intrigued. And baffled. Very very baffled.
She shrugged, leaned up and kissed him.
"Just can," she replied, and he looked thoughtful.
"Hm. Guess we're gonna find out later what else you can do," he said finally, and she rolled her eyes and poked his stomach.
"You're a pig," she informed him.
"Thank you," he immediately said. "Did you eat yet?"
"Uh-uh," she said shaking her head.
"All right, then let's go," he said, reaching back and grabbing his jacket.
"Where are we going?" Tokio asked curiously from under his arm while he shut and locked the door.
"Some place a couple wards over," he said, maneuvering her toward the elevator.
"Can I have a hint?"
"Mmm…no."
"Mean." she grumbled under her breath, glaring at him.
It had snowed again, a good, liberal fall, and Tokio was in higher spirits because of it. Saitou still couldn't understand the appeal of what was essentially glorified rain, but her good mood was infectious, and he found himself smiling at the way she excitedly told him how no two snowflakes were alike and that her uncle in Aizuwakumatsu had shown her so last winter when the family had visited him for the New Year and Saitou really ought to take the time to see for himself because it was really neat and so forth and so on.
It also added to his good mood that Tokio wasn't saying anything about the hand he'd slipped into one of the back pockets of her jeans.
They took the train to Chou Ward, and ate at a Thai restaurant in Ginza that Kamatari had mentioned (read: explicitly stated) that Tokio was fond of, much to her surprise and obvious delight. As for himself, Saitou didn't really care one way or the other; he barely had any taste buds left after years of his mother's cooking. Which was not to say that it had been bad, because it hadn't, but Saitou Masu had raised her children up on chili pepper "enhanced" dishes and Saitou was pretty sure he'd killed or burned off the majority of his taste buds before the age of ten. This had come in very handy when he'd been with the department, as it had ensured that he was capable of eating pretty much anything without complaint so long as it wasn't rancid. He had complained occasionally, just for the hell of it and to piss off Okita (especially when he hauled Saitou off to some restaurant specializing in American fare, and particularly when Okita dragged him off to the Hard Rock Café in Minato Ward, down around Yokohama way), but the truth was that at this point in his life, he tasted very little of what he ate anymore, which was partly why he could eat as much soba as he did and not get sick of the stuff.
That and it had been his favorite food since primary school, much to the bafflement of his family, who all loved food so hot they started sweating profusely after taking their first whiff of their food.
"Do you like Thai?" Tokio asked as they sat down.
Saitou shrugged, and she raised an eyebrow.
"What sort of answer is that?" she asked.
He sent her a decidedly evil smirk:
"An acknowledgment of your having said something," he replied, and Tokio rolled her eyes; he was still hung up on that eight-year-old argument?
"Ha ha ha," she dryly returned, and his smirk widened. "Seriously though, do you?"
"It's all right," he said. "I don't hate it, anyway."
She raised an eyebrow in obvious surprise.
"You may be the first person I've ever met who has no real opinion on Thai food." she said, and he grinned.
"And why is that?"
"Because people either really like it and or can't even hear the words."
"You fall into the first category, I gather," he said idly rubbing his jaw.
She nodded, smiling a little. "My brother hates it. First time he had Thai food he took one bite and refused to eat anything but bread the rest of the night. Sada doesn't like it either, she says it's too hot."
"You'd love my mother's cooking then," Saitou drawled. "She thinks chili peppers're a food group."
"Not a fan of hot food?"
"I really don't care one way or the other," he said with a shrug. "I haven't got enough taste buds left to."
Saitou was not easily impressed but the way Tokio could pack away all that hot food without even a faint sheen of perspiration breaking out on her forehead was really rather remarkable.
"You must be immune to it," he decided thoughtfully.
"Maybe," she agreed, grinning. "I like eating raw jalapeños."
He winced, and she laughed.
"Good gods," he muttered. "You'd definitely love my mother's cooking."
He paid for dinner and they left and strolled around, eventually ending up in front of the candy store Tokio liked. He felt a certain amount of dread, as he thought she might want him to buy her something and he didn't have enough money on him for that, but she was content to just window shop.
"You are without a doubt the oddest woman I have ever met," he commented when they finally left the window and continued on down the street, she tucked under his arm and his hand tucked into one of her back pockets again.
"Oh? And how exactly do you figure that?" she asked archly.
"Hot peppers at one end of the spectrum, candy at the other," he replied.
"So what?"
"It's funny."
"Oh yeah, and I'm odd," she said. "Who eats soba everyday for lunch, hmm?"
"I never said I wasn't odd," he said mildly.
"Are you familiar with the saying 'The pot calling the kettle black', Hajime?"
"Oi, I said I never said I wasn't odd," he said a little more insistently. "How about you try listening to me when I talk to you?"
She reached up and poked him in the stomach.
"Chill out," she ordered. "I'm just messin' with you."
"A favorite pastime of yours," he said dryly, and she laughed.
"And vice versa for you," she drawled, and he goosed her with the hand in her back pocket, making her yelp and jump, startled, which made him laugh.
"So how'd you get into those jeans?" he asked as they made their way back to the train station after wandering around Ginza for an hour.
"Very very carefully," she replied.
"I bet—they look painted on."
"Sada and Kamatari got them for me for my birthday. We call them the 'Fabulous Butt Jeans'," she added, and he started laughing.
"And so they are," he said with a grin, giving her rear a very affectionate pat.
"I take it you approve," she said with a smile.
"Very much so," he assured, and she smiled and rolled her eyes. "But, I'd appreciate it if you wore a longer coat next time, so people aren't staring at your ass when you walk by."
And by "people", of course, Tokio knew he specifically meant "men".
"You're such a baby," she chided.
"This is my ass," he informed her, patting said body part, "just like those legs are my legs."
"Oh are they now?" She quirked an eyebrow. "Since when?"
"Since I said so," he replied, and she laughed.
"What kind of an answer is that, you jerk?"
"My answer."
She shook her head.
"Weirdo," she muttered affectionately. "I wore a short coat for your benefit, just so you know."
"And I appreciate your thoughtfulness on the matter," he assured her, "but taking a longer coat off long enough to show me would have been just as good."
"Neurotic," she said in a sing-song voice.
"Quiet you," he growled, pinching her again.
She poked his stomach again, which led to a very short and oh-so-mature pinching-and-poking fight that lasted until Tokio complained that he was going to bruise her right cheek if he kept that up.
They were back at his apartment by nine thirty, and Tokio immediately threw herself down on his bed and sighed.
"That was a lot more walking than I was planning on," she said, rolling over onto her stomach and anchoring her chin on her stacked arms.
He stood in the doorway, one shoulder leaning against the doorjamb, and shrugged the other shoulder, thumbs hooked on the belt loops of his jeans.
"No one told you to wear those high heeled boots," he pointed out. He grinned. "Though I sort of wish you'd been wearing the hooker boots."
Tokio snorted.
"So how many fetishes is that again?" she asked.
"Three, and they're all your fault, I might add," he informed her. "You've been a corrupting influence since the day I met you."
Tokio laughed.
"Oh yes, because you were so innocent before you met me," she teased.
He sent her a half-smirk.
"That's right," he said. "Pure as the driven snow."
"If you're going to lie, you should try a little harder, you know," she drawled, pushing herself up to sit cross-legged on the bed. She reached up and started taking off her earrings. "It's sort of insulting if you half-ass it."
"I'll keep that in mind," he said, eyes following her hand as she deposited her earrings on the bedside table closest to her and then removed her watch; it joined the earrings.
"Want some coffee?" he asked, and she raised an eyebrow. He raised one of his in response. "What?"
"Are you stalling or something?" she asked.
He blinked. "'Stalling'?"
"Yeah."
"Stalling what?"
She sent him an incredulous look.
"I didn't take off my earrings and watch because they were suddenly bothering me, Hajime," she said, and her cheeks pinked. "They'd have gotten caught on my shirt."
"Turtleneck," he automatically corrected, and she sighed in exasperation, the blush darkening a little more.
"Same difference," she said.
"I didn't think you'd be…" He frowned, searching for the appropriate word. "…receptive, to—"
"You aren't the only one who's been deprived," she muttered, face flaming now and arms crossed over her chest, and it took supreme effort on his part not to laugh, as he was fairly certain she would not appreciate the humor of the situation in quite the same way he did.
If she appreciated it at all to begin with, which he had his doubts about.
"Chiisai," he said, voice teasing, and her glare deepened. "What am I supposed to think, as skittish as you get whenever I—" What she'd said suddenly clicked, and his eyes narrowed. "What do you mean I'm not the only one who's been deprived?" he asked, voice low and gruff.
She raised an eyebrow.
"I wasn't aware that there was more than one way to take that within the context you've been using it," she replied dryly.
"That's not an answer," he growled.
They glared at each other for a very long time, and then Tokio let out an irritated huff, reached over and snatched her earrings and watch off the bedside table and hopped off the bed.
"Fine, forget it, I'm going home," she muttered.
And she would have too…if he hadn't tackled her.
One minute she was walking toward the doorway, intending to shove past him and go home. The next minute, he had pinned her to the mattress, holding down her wrists and pinning her legs in such a way as to make it, if not impossible to kick him in the groin, then at the least very difficult for her to.
"Hajime!" she yelped.
"The hell you're leaving!" he snapped. "Every time we get into an argument, you decide to end it by leaving! Well we're gonna finish one for a change, damn it! Now what the hell did that mean?!?"
She glared up at him.
"Get off me!"
"Answer the question!"
"Then let me breathe you idiot!"
That made him pause, and after a moment he let her up, and she jerked her wrists out of his grasp and kicked her legs out from under his, and was genuinely sorry she didn't clip him.
"Well?" he demanded, glowering at her.
"You already know what it means, or you wouldn't be acting like such a stupid ass," she snapped.
"You said you'd never had sex before," he accused.
She sent him a chilling look.
"Really? I said that did I? I just offered up that information, just like that? How odd that I don't have even the faintest memory of that conversation, don't you think? Because I happen to think that if we had had that conversation, I'd remember having gotten into this fight already!"
Saitou sent her a baleful look that she returned for several moments in silence, and then he said,
"Fine, you never said that."
"No, really," she spat sarcastically. "Whatever gave that away."
"But what was with the fucking virgin act? Every time I said anything remotely sexual you'd get all tense and change the subject!"
"Did it never occur to you that maybe it was inappropriate?"
"When we were alone?"
"Just because my mind wasn't in the gutter with yours doesn't automatically mean I'd never had sex before idiot! The two don't go hand-in-hand!" She snorted. "I can't believe you're being such a baby about this," she muttered.
He bristled and snapped,
"Well what the hell else was I supposed to assume damn it?!?"
"You weren't supposed to assume anything!"
"And if I'd asked you would have told me?"
"No!"
"Then?"
"…Oh shut up! Why are we even arguing about this?!?"
"Because!" he snapped.
"Oh great answer," she said, voice heavy with sarcasm. She made a low sound of disgust. "Ahou."
He glared at her, then faced forward and tried to burn a hole in his carpet with his eyes. When it became obvious that that wasn't going to work, he looked back over at her. She was still supremely pissed, and she was watching him with an expression that left little doubt as to who she held solely responsible for that. After glaring at each other for several moments, he reached over, grabbed her watch and earrings from her hand and basically tossed them on the bedside table, then went back to glaring at the carpet.
"I wasn't expecting you to have any experience," he growled finally.
"The idea of which pleased you to no end because you're vain like that," she said in a dry, sardonic voice that he recognized as the one he used when he was in the mood to act like a dick—she could be a damn good mimic, unfortunately for him.
That and the fact that she was absolutely right did not make him any happier with the situation, which was completely ridiculous as far as he was concerned; in less than five seconds, he had gone from being minutes away from finally getting laid to getting into a fight with her.
For any other person, this would have been unusual.
For him, it was just another day.
In fucking hell.
"Fine, yes, the idea of being your first appealed to me because I'm vain like that," he snapped. "Sorry for having a fucking ego."
It was quiet for a long time, and then he felt the bed move and she draped herself over his shoulders.
"Stupid man," she muttered. "Just so you know—"
"I don't want to know," he muttered, and she reached down and grabbed his right nipple and twisted.
It had been a very long time since someone had been able to do that—probably the last time had been his first year of middle school. After he threw Okita into the wall, no one else had dared to try it, and Okita hadn't repeated it because cracked ribs hurt.
He let out a very loud, very sharp yelp of pain and grabbed her wrist.
"Shit Tokio!" he snapped.
"Shut up," she ordered, pressing the palm of her hand over the spot she'd abused and kissing his cheek. "I've only been with one guy, and I didn't really enjoy myself for the whole month we slept together. Didn't really impress me."
He paused, intrigued with this information.
"Is that right?" he asked finally, and Tokio rolled her eyes and grabbed him by the shirt collar.
"Hajime, would you take off your clothes already?" she asked, exasperated, as she shoved him back onto the bed.
Oh this was still going to happen?
…Sweet.
"Yes ma'am," he drawled, scooping her up and flipping her over to the side so he could do as she'd ordered before she changed her mind.
A man had to be quick with this one, he was learning.
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A chill breeze awakened her.
Tokio slowly opened one eye and looked around blearily, then yawned and huddled down deep into the warm mattress and sheets that smelled like Saitou's cologne.
…Saitou's cologne?
She opened her eye again and blinked until everything came into focus, and she slowly smiled when she realized she was at Saitou's apartment, in his bed…naked.
So that really hadn't been an incredibly realistic dream. Good. Because she would have been really pissed off if it had been, especially after all the trouble she'd gone to to get ready for tonight.
The last thing she remembered was curling up against his side and closing her eyes while he stroked her hair in a lazy sort of absentminded way that had been incredibly relaxing. Not that she actually needed to be relaxed at that point, because in his quest to obliterate from her mind the memory of having ever been with anyone else, he'd more than assured that (and the obliterating-the-memory-of-having-ever-been-with-anyone-else too, incidentally).
Apparently, really great sex made her very sleepy.
She lifted her head and looked around for him and frowned when she realized she was alone in the bed. She pushed herself up onto her elbows and gave the room a more careful perusal, and that was when she noticed the sliding glass door was open—that's where the cold air was coming from. She gathered the sheets around herself and hopped off the bed and walked over to the doors, and found him seated in the chair, wearing his jeans, and smoking.
She couldn't help but grin.
"Smoking after?" she drawled, clutching the sheets tighter around herself against the chill air. "How cliché."
He looked around, saw her and smirked around his cigarette.
"Yeah? So is knocking out right after." He took his cigarette out of his mouth, crushed it out in the ashtray and rose.
She stuck her tongue out at him, and his smirk widened.
"By the way," he said sweetly, "you drool in your sleep."
Tokio was promptly horrified.
"I what?" she asked, aghast, and he laughed. "Are you serious? Hajime!"
"I'm kidding," he said, hands sliding into his pockets.
She sent him a wary look. "Honest," he insisted mildly. "The look on your face was priceless, by the way."
She rolled her eyes and turned around to go back inside.
"Jerk," she muttered as she padded to the bed and plopped down on it.
He strolled in after her, and slid the door shut, watching her with a grin on his face that she didn't recognize, a fact which made her immediately wary:
"What?"
He shook his head.
"Nothing," he said with a shrug. "I like the hair—got that 'I-just-got-nailed' look."
"Well," she began with a mischievous smile, and he chuckled.
She marveled at the fact that she felt entirely at ease. She'd been very worried that she'd be horribly embarrassed and unable to look him in the eye afterwards, that she'd feel awkward with him, but all she really wanted to do now was jump him. Maybe it was the jeans—man always wore the most flattering jeans….
She crooked her finger at him, and he raised an elegant eyebrow, expression amused, but came over anyway, and she hooked her finger into the waist of his jeans and tugged.
"Jeans—lose 'em."
"Ready for Round Two, I see," he said.
"I had a cat nap," she said, and he laughed.
"You're welcome," he said with a mock bow, and she smiled and shook her head and tugged a little more insistently.
"Jeans," she reminded him.
"And women say we have one-track minds," he remarked, but he didn't seem particularly bothered by that, since he immediately did her bidding.
The second time went better than the first, now that they were more familiar with what the other liked. It also helped that some of the frantic edge had been taken care of the first time.
When he tucked her into his side, and lazily ran a hand up and down her back, Tokio decided she really liked sex with Saitou.
"I'm sleepy," she murmured.
"I know," he said, and she heard the smirk in his voice and rolled her eyes.
"Hajime?"
"Mm?"
"You're a jerk."
"That's not what you were saying five minutes ago," he smugly reminded her, and she blushed and tried to whack him.
Instead, he grabbed her wrist, kissed her palm and held the hand down on his chest. She sighed and conceded defeat, then let her head drop back so she could look up at him.
"Hajime?"
He grunted, opened one eye and looked down at her, looking so sleepy and content that she couldn't help but grin; he looked cute, which was really such an odd thing to think about him.
"So…what does this mean?" She gestured with her nose to the two of them being in bed.
"It means you aren't going home tonight, Chiisai."
"Hajime, I'm serious!"
"Who said I wasn't?"
Tokio sighed, exasperated.
"No dummy," she said. "I mean…what are…we…now?"
This question seemed to puzzle him, if the furrowing of his brow was any indication.
"Tired?" he tried, and Tokio sent him a flat look. "What?"
"I mean are you…are we…together, now?"
"We weren't before?"
"Are you being stupid on purpose or what?" she snapped, embarrassed that he was making her explain herself because she felt a little dumb to be asking.
"Oi, don't start gettin' all upset," he ordered, frowning. "I can't help it if you aren't making sense."
"Oh never mind," she grumbled, tucking her head under his chin.
It was very quiet for a long time, and though she wasn't looking at him she knew the exact moment when he realized what she was talking about:
"Oh," he said. Another pause. "Tokio. Oi, wake up."
"I'm awake," she muttered against his skin.
"Uh…that…what you were saying before?"
"What about it?" She moved her head so she could look up at him.
He was a little more awake now, but not by a whole lot. She sort of felt like she ought to just let him go to sleep, since that was obviously what he wanted, but she was also a little annoyed that it had taken him so long to figure out what she was talking about.
"You asked because…?"
"I wanted to know," she said.
He blinked.
"You didn't know?" he asked, sounding surprised.
"You did?" she returned, raising an incredulous eyebrow.
"I thought it was obvious," he admitted. He watched her curiously. "You really didn't know?"
She shook her head, and he frowned.
"We gotta work on communicating," he decided.
She poked his side.
"Hajime."
He met her gaze. "Hm?"
"Are we?"
"Well yes woman," he said, rolling his eyes.
She poked him again in retaliation, and he reached down and pinched her rear end and laughed when she let out a startled squeal.
"If I bruise you're in trouble," she warned him, pouting.
He grinned and leaned down and kissed her.
"I'll beat the hell out of myself if you bruise," he assured her, gently rubbing the spot he'd abused.
"Damn right," she grumbled, she snuggling against him and settling her head down on his chest.
She was just starting to drift off when he quietly cleared his throat and hesitantly asked,
"Tokio? You awake still?"
"Barely," she murmured, rubbing her cheek against him. "Why?"
"Could you…don't fall asleep yet," he said, and Tokio frowned at the serious note in his voice. "I want to…tell you something. Sort of important."
She stirred and went to lift her head up to look at him, but the hand that had been on her back was suddenly on her head, keeping her from lifting it.
"Hajime?" she asked, surprised.
That was when she noticed his heartbeat had stepped up the pace a little, and that was when she really began to worry.
Saitou swallowed quietly, mouth a little dry, and set his narrow gaze on the bureau against the opposite wall. He had actually planned to do this later, but her question had brought up an interesting point—if they were now an official item as he'd told her they were, it was time to air some of his dirty laundry. And while now was far from the ideal time, the notion that he should do it now wouldn't leave him.
"You know I used to work for the government," he began quietly, and she froze against him.
"Yes," she whispered when he didn't immediately continue.
"I was eighteen when I became a government operative," he said, his eyes narrowing a little more. "Souji and I were. Senpai and Harada were a year older than us. We all went to the same high school together, and Senpai and Harada left first, naturally, since they were older. It was the summer of '94, and all four of us were broke. We used to go paint balling at some little piece of shit outdoor range; Souji'd made friends with the guy who owned the place and he let us use the range half price. One day, after we'd finished and the guy was fixing up Souji's finger—I broke his knuckle, purely by accident, of course—we got to bitching about how broke we all were, and he mentioned the MPD was looking for people, and the pay wasn't bad.
"So we all four of us joined up, and so did Heisuke, Senpai and Harada's friend. For the first week, they put us through our paces, nothing weird, nothing out of place. Real normal stuff. Apparently, the five us impressed the right people, because at the end of that week they called the five of us into the chief's office and told us we were being sent to a different department. We were moved into a completely different building, isolated from the MPD, with fifteen other guys, including Himura. No one knew what was going on. Later that evening, once everyone was more or less settled in, we were all called down to the mess hall, and we met Taichou and the two fukuchou, and they told us what we were doing here: we'd been recruited to participate in a little experiment funded by the Prime Minister. We were going to be completely independent of the government, the MPD, the military, everything. Our primary objective was to ensure the smooth running of the government through any means possible.
"All of us had special…talents, I guess you could say. Senpai was an explosives genius. He could make a bomb out of pretty much anything, and I watched him do it at least a hundred times when we were in high school. When he'd blow crap up, he'd do it in a deserted parking lot or something like that, test out the new bomb, if you will. Harada was a weapons expert—he was always doing shit to his paint ball gun, tweaking it and adjusting it and improving its range and firing power. Heisuke was a combat specialist. You'd never think it from looking at him, but he was like Senpai—really nice, normal-looking guy who turned into a fucking monster when you pissed him off. Souji's thing was computers—he's a frickin' geek, really. When he was a kid he used to take TVs and radios apart and then put them back together again, for fun, and the things'd work great, sometimes better than they had before. Once computers started coming out, he managed to get his hands on one and spent years tinkering with it, learning how it worked and what it could do. Himura was a bodyguard. He could hide in the shadows and protect without being seen. Being as small and as quiet as he is, he was great at it. My thing was spying. I can blend into the background if I really want to, and no one's the wiser until it's too late—ideal talent for a spy. He can hide in plain sight and gather the info he needs and never make a ripple.
"There were other things, other guys. Some divisions had more guys than others. Senpai was his own division, so was Souji—they were so damn good it seemed dumb to try and get more guys. Whatever you needed, there was at least one guy who could do it, and a lot of the time there were several.
"A lot of…what the department did…I can't give you specifics. Technically, I'm not even supposed to be telling you as much as I have already, but…."
He heard and felt her swallow.
"Hajime," she murmured, prompting him.
"When they started training us," he began again, voice dropping even lower, "they gave us military training. They put us through boot camp for eight weeks. And the first thing they taught us how to do was how to kill quickly and efficiently should ever the need arise. The whole point of the department was to exist without technically existing. No one but the Prime Minister knew about us, about what we did, and we were expected to keep it that way."
Saitou paused again. That part had been easy, particularly since she hadn't asked any questions, which immediately told him she had some knowledge of the department, and far more than he'd expected. Then again, she'd read Senpai's books, and she knew what and who they were based on.
The next part, however, was not going to be as easy. The next part was going to be a hell of a lot harder. Because the next part was about Inoue.
"Because of this need for absolute secrecy, the department was very strict. There were certain rules you had to follow. And we all understood it was to ensure our own safety, because if anyone ever found out what we were doing, that was it. No one was going to save our asses, not Taichou, not Hijikata-fukuchou or Yamanami-fukuchou, not the Prime Minister—no one."
He felt her flinch when he said Hijikata's name, but she didn't say anything, and he decided not to interrupt himself to confirm what she was most likely thinking, because if he did he'd never get this out.
"The one rule Taichou and the fukuchou drilled into us was that we were never to say a word about the department to anyone. If we did, the punishment was death. There was no negotiation. You had the option of committing seppuku to die with some dignity, but either way, whether you killed yourself or someone did it for you, you died. And there was no way of hiding it once you'd talked. I don't know exactly how Taichou and the fukuchou found out, but they always knew.
"One day, about…about a year, I guess, after I'd joined the department, Hijikata-fukuchou called me into his office. He said he had a job for me to do, and would I take it. I said yes, because there really wasn't any other answer—his asking was just a pretense of formality. We left his office and went down to the dojo in the lower levels of the building where the department was housed, the dojo we all used to train in when we had free time. There was a man there, named Inoue Ryotaro. He was also an operative. Older man, friendly. He was related by marriage to another Inoue in our group, who Souji was friends with until the guy died during our last year in the department when his assignment went wrong at the last minute. This Inoue, Ryotaro…he was married, had been for I guess twenty years. And his wife was missing him, because one of the rules of the department was we didn't go home except for when we got furlough, a week every six months, and later when we got more guys, one week every three months. He'd just come back from his, and one way or another, Taichou and the fukuchou had found out that he'd told his wife about what he was doing, why he was gone so much.
"Hijikata-fukuchou…ordered Inoue to commit seppuku. I didn't realize what I was doing there until right then—I was going to be Inoue's second.
"Inoue refused. He…tried to explain it to Hijikata-fukuchou, said his wife was sickly and they had no children and she depended on him, said she had been frantic when he'd gotten home and he'd just tried to put her mind at rest by explaining he was working for the government now, but Hijikata-fukuchou said there was no excuse. He ordered Inoue to commit seppuku again, and warned that this was the last time he'd ask. Inoue kept trying to explain. So Hijikata-fukuchou turned to me and ordered me to execute Inoue."
Saitou forced himself to speak slower. This was one of his most unpleasant memories, and as he spoke about it it played out in his head as if it were happening right in front of him all over again. Up until that point, he'd never had to harm one of the men he worked with. It had happened, but practice or even a duel in the dojo wasn't on the same level with this—this hadn't been practice.
"If I didn't follow orders, I'd have to commit seppuku myself," he said quietly, remembering thinking that exact same thing all those years ago. "I'd already said I was willing to do whatever Hijikata-fukuchou asked of me. Saying no, backing out then, wasn't an option. So when Hijikata-fukuchou held out a katana…I took it. I took it, I drew it and I executed Inoue. I flicked the blood off the blade, slid it back into the sheath, and handed it back to Hijikata-fukuchou. And when I looked him in the eye, he said, 'Marriage is not an excuse for breaking one's silence.' Then he turned around and walked away, saying he'd send someone down for Inoue's body and to clean up the mess, and I should change clothes, because I'd gotten splattered.
"A week later, Taichou called me into his office and informed me that I was being made the department's executioner. Apparently, I'd made an impression on Hijikata-fukuchou, because Taichou said Hijikata-fukuchou had made the recommendation. So, from that day on, whenever one of our own broke their silence, as the saying went, I was the guy Taichou and the fukuchou sent them to. If they committed seppuku, I acted as second. And if they refused that option, I executed them. The only time I didn't was when Yamanami-fukuchou committed seppuku. He made a special request that Souji act as his second, and Taichou okayed it.
"When Senpai started writing his books, he called us all up and asked if it was okay with us if he used us as models. Himura was the only one who bowed out, so none of what he did appears in the books. He isn't mentioned or referenced. He doesn't exist. The rest of us said it was all right. I didn't know Senpai was going to use that incident with Inoue until he gave me the book. I didn't talk to him for three years after that, and the next time I saw him, I punched him in the face and broke his nose. Senpai caught worse from Souji when he used the Yamanami-fukuchou incident. In the end, though, we couldn't stay pissed off at him, because we'd said it was okay for him to use us and by extension what we'd done for fodder."
There was a long stretch of silence as Saitou waited for something, for anything—good or bad—from Tokio. His palms were damp and itchy and his mouth was completely dry and his heart was going so fast he thought he might be on the verge of a heart attack or something, and he had the worst feeling that he'd just ruined whatever chances he'd had with her, because what woman in her right mind was going to continue in a relationship with a man who'd once killed people for a living?
"Hajime?" she asked finally.
He couldn't quite speak, his throat had seized up upon hearing her voice, so he forced out a grunt, since it was much easier to do than force out a word.
"Why would…Hijikata-fukuchou…specifically ask for you?"
…Okay. Not quite what he'd been expecting. But that was okay. That had a very simple answer, one that wouldn't involve dangerous or classified information.
"Because I was one of the few married operatives at the time."
Tokio froze, then shot away from him and stared at him in a mix of horror and shock.
"You were WHAT?!?"
Saitou stared at her, thrown off by that response.
Perhaps, he decided belatedly, he had miscalculated.
"I was married," he repeated.
She stared at him in silence for a very long time. Like he'd grown horns. Or another head. And somewhere in the back of his mind where everything was still functioning quite well, he thought it was completely bizarre that she would have this reaction to finding out he'd been married. If he didn't know better, he'd think she was more horrified by that information than by the knowledge that he'd once killed for a living.
Oh womankind, how you confuse….
"Tokio?" he prompted.
She blinked.
"Married." she repeated after a moment.
"Yes." he affirmed with a nod.
"To a woman."
He raised an eyebrow.
"Well as far as I know, yeah."
She sent him a nasty look, and he decided humor might not be the appropriate response right just this moment.
"How long?" she demanded.
"What?"
"How long were you married for?"
"Seven years."
She went white and scooted farther away from him, sheets firmly wrapped around herself.
"You were married when I met you?!?" she asked, raising her voice.
"Well, yeah," he said, and immediately decided he might have said the wrong thing when she scooted farther away from him. He noticed she was getting rather dangerously close to the edge of the mattress, and said, "Tokio, be careful—"
"You flirted with me while you were married?"
"I'm divorced now," he said.
"You weren't when I met you!" she shouted, and he flinched, surprised by the sudden and drastic increase in volume. "I can't believe—you—you—DISGUSTING PIG! HOW DARE YOU!?!"
"Oi, what the fuck," he snapped, getting angry now—where the hell was this coming from?! "I got divorced six years ago!"
"And for the first two years I knew you you were married and acted like you weren't!"
"We were separated by then!"
"But not divorced!"
"I hadn't been living with her for over four years by then!"
"You were still married to her!"
He reached out and grabbed her and hauled her back, and she tried to punch him—really punch him—but he managed to evade her fist and grab her by the arms and hold them against her sides.
"If you keep backing away you're going to fall off the fucking bed nitwit!" he snapped. "Now shut the fuck up and let me explain something to you!"
She sent him a seething look, but he caught a hint of hurt and betrayal there too, and it made him relax a little.
"I married Yaso when I was eighteen. She was four years older than me, and we only lived together for a week after we got married, because right after that I joined the MPD and got sent to the department. I'd moved in with her before we got married because when I told my parents what I was planning, we got into this big argument about it and I left home. Once I joined the department I didn't see her very much, and since I wasn't a fucking idiot like Inoue, I never told her what I was doing. Which saved my ass at work, but not at home. So once they shut us down and I joined the Bunkyo Ward precinct, I attempted to salvage what was left. But she was rather firmly convinced that I was a cheating bastard and didn't want to have anything to do with me, so I finally just gave up and granted her the divorce."
"And you flirted with me to make yourself feel better?" she snapped.
"No, goddamn it I thought you were cute!" he bellowed. "By the time I met you I was starting to get the idea that I'd fucked up and it was too little too late!" He paused and drew in a deep breath and forced himself to calm down. And stop yelling at her, because once they started yelling things got bad fast. Much more composed now, he continued:
"The last year I went through the motions but I wasn't really interested anymore. By then it was more my ego than anything else that made me refuse to sign the papers. The proceedings took a year because her asshole brothers decided to interfere on her behalf, and it took her too fucking long to tell them to go to hell and let her handle things. Once she did, shit got taken care of, and I was now a divorced loser at twenty-fucking-five."
She watched him in silence for several moments, then muttered,
"You never said you were married."
"You never asked," he shot back. A pause. "Look, it was a long time ago, as far as I'm conce—"
"You didn't get divorced because of me?" she asked, expression wary.
He watched her, surprised by the question, then smiled faintly.
"No," he assured. "You provided an incentive for me to hurry the hell up and get it over with, but my marriage had flatlined way before I met you."
"You're not just saying that?" she pressed.
"Nope. You can ask Souji if you like—he had a front row seat to the car crash that was my marriage to Yaso." She still didn't look convinced. "Or, if you'd like, I can give you Yaso's phone number, and she can tell you all about what a cheating, lying, worthless piece of shit I am—she was particularly fond of telling me in minute detail whenever I tried to talk to her."
"Why do you still have her phone number?" Tokio asked suspiciously.
"She likes to get trashed on our old anniversary and call me and leave abusive messages for me. I'd block her number or change mine, but I sort of feel like I owe it to her to take it."
She watched him, then said,
"You're not well."
He pursed his lips. "No, probably not," he agreed. He rubbed his thumbs against her arms. "So?"
She gnawed on the inside of her cheek, then sighed.
"Sorry," she said. "But can you blame me for thinking I was being used as an excuse to ruin a marriage?"
"No," he said. "But you should know by now that I can fuck up gloriously without anyone's help."
Tokio laughed, and some of his uneasiness left him.
It came back when she turned serious again.
"About the other stuff," she said, and he braced himself for news he wasn't going to like. "I'd like to…think about it for a little while, okay?"
Well…it wasn't instant rejection, at least. Instant acceptance would have great, but he'd known the odds of that were slim. So in light of the other option, being in limbo for a while was preferable.
"Yeah," he said, and she leaned forward and kissed him and he decided that he might still be in the running after all.
"So," she said, poking his stomach. "Can I go to sleep now?"
He rolled his eyes.
"Sure Chiisai, you can go to sleep now."
"And you're staying too, right? No cliché smoking on the balcony?"
"No—I'm in the mood for cliché sleeping," he dryly replied, and she poked him a little harder this time.
"Watch it," she said, but she was smiling a little.
They settled back in the way they'd been before (after he managed to convince her to relinquish the sheets and then helped her untangle herself from them), and he lazily stroked her hair. She was soon drowsing again, and just before she nodded off for good, she murmured,
"Don't forget to wake me up tomorrow."
"Don't worry about it," he replied, sounding half asleep. "I'll make sure you get to work on time, Chiisai."
"Mm," was her reply as she snuggled closer and rubbed her cheek against his chest. "Okay. 'Night Hajime."
"'Night."
Tokio smiled and kissed his chest, deciding that as weird as parts of tonight had been, it was still a million times better than she'd been expecting.
XoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoX
Saitou was a little later than usual about awakening her, but in his defense, he was tired after last night. That didn't keep Tokio from whacking him with his pillow, of course, but she didn't say uncharitable things about him under her breath, so that was good.
She wasn't completely awake until she got into the shower. And while she showered, she decided to try to process some of last night's conversation.
She had been stunned that he was willing to say anything to her at all about it, after all the times he'd refused to on the grounds that that part of his life was "classified information." She'd gotten used to and had even started to accept the idea that he was never going to tell her about what she'd begun thinking of as his "lost years." So for him to suddenly decide to share that with her, for him to change his mind like that…well, it had been quite a shock, to say the least.
It had also been a surprise to hear of Hijikata's involvement (assuming she had the right Hijikata in mind, and she was pretty sure she did). She'd thought about asking him who "Taichou" had been, but she figured that if he hadn't used the man's name, he probably wasn't at liberty to say; it was telling that he'd used Hijikata's name, and the name of the other fukuchou, but had referred to "Taichou" by only his rank.
Hearing he'd been a spy had not been a surprise, because that was Fujita's job in Shinpachi's books, and she'd figured that that much had been true. She'd also been prepared for the revelation that he had indeed executed a fellow operative, because his reaction when she'd asked him a while back had said more than enough on that. But she had not been expecting to hear that he had also served as the department's executioner, and she wasn't quite sure what to do with that. It wasn't everyday, after all, that a man she'd thought rather ordinary, aside from his weird sense of humor, turned out to have at one point been something far more sinister.
But she'd taken it well, she thought. Hell, she was still taking it well. It was going to take a little while to get used to the idea, but Tokio was positive she could—particularly since he'd changed his mind and told her. That was profoundly telling of his expectations for this relationship, especially since he had never even told his wife why he'd neglected her for as long as he had.
The wife. Tokio frowned at the thought of her. That was something else that sort of bothered her. She had always been under the impression that he had been a bachelor. On the few occasions she'd seen him without his gloves during the first two years she'd known him, she'd never seen a ring on his finger, and she wondered about that. Had he just never gotten one? It was possible. He'd gotten married when he was eighteen and broke, after all, so it stood to reason he hadn't been able to afford that kind of expense. Or had he just stopped wearing it?
Pounding on the bath room door made her jump and nearly slip and fall.
"Oi, I have to pay that bill, you know," he called through the door.
"All right, I'll be out in a minute!" she called back, and though she couldn't make out exact words she heard him grumbling and assumed he was complaining about her.
As promised, she turned off the water a minute later, and when she left the bath room she was wearing one of the suits she'd begun leaving at his apartment and had towel dried and combed her hair. He had tea waiting for her at the table, and he was leaning against the counter, cup of tea in hand, and watching her with strangely alert eyes as she sat down and drank.
"What?" she asked warily, feeling nervous under that odd gaze.
"I know I said I'd let you process last night," he said quietly, setting his own cup down on the counter, "and I will, because I said I would, but I sort of want to know where we stand on that as of right now."
She watched him, lips pursed, then set her own cup down.
"How do you mean?"
"Are you going to disappear on me for weeks and then show up one day and tell me this isn't going to work?" he bluntly asked, and she raised an eyebrow.
"Has that happened before?" she asked.
"Senpai's wife moved back in with her parents for a month after he told her," he replied. "She wouldn't return his calls or see him. I'd rather not go through the same experience."
Tokio sent him a wry smile.
"Do I strike you as the sort of woman who'd run away from you if you did something I didn't like, Hajime?" she asked dryly.
"This is hardly in the same league as my ordering you around, Tokio," he said seriously, and she rolled her eyes.
"Would you lighten up, you dummy?" she ordered. "I'm still here, aren't I? I could have waited for you to fall asleep last night before I left, but I didn't. Hiding out isn't the way I do things, you know that. I just want to sit on it for a few days."
"No disappearing?" he pressed.
She rolled her eyes, stood up and walked over to him, then leaned up and kissed him.
"No," she said, poking his stomach. "Now are you going to lose the—"
"Jeans?" he dryly finished, raising one eyebrow, and she tried and failed to keep from smiling.
"I think I turned you into even more of a pervert," she said with a sigh.
"Yeah," he agreed, and she kissed him again.
"Just so you know," she said, rubbing her nose against his, "you won't be getting rid of me so easily. I intend to stick around for a lot longer."
He sent her a faint smile.
"Do you now?" he murmured.
"Yes, I thought you should know." she haughtily informed him, and his smile widened. "Besides, how often does a girl get to say she's sleeping with the real James Bond?"
He laughed at that.
"James Bond, huh?" he asked, dragging her closer and kissing her forehead.
"Well, he's a spy, you were a spy," she said cheekily. "Of course, you don't wear tuxedoes when you take out the bad guys."
"And I'm not a fan of martinis," he added.
"But other than that, you're totally like James Bond," she finished.
"So that makes you the new Bond girl, doesn't it?" he said, and Tokio sent him an arch look.
"I'm the best Bond girl there is," she said, and he chuckled.
"You, my pet, are also not well," he said, giving her butt an affectionate pat. "Lucky for you, I kinda like that."
"Well, you're sick like that," she said with a shrug, and he grinned thoughtfully.
"Yeah," he said nonchalantly.
They sat down at the table and drank their tea in companionable silence for a little while before Saitou asked,
"So when am I meeting your parents?"
Tokio promptly spat her tea in his face. He sat there for a moment, eyes scrunched shut, then calmly said,
"Goin' out on a limb here, but I'm assuming that's not a very good sign."
He wiped his face while she stared at him in horror.
"What?" she asked.
He raised an eyebrow at her.
"So you didn't spit tea in my face because you heard me the first time?" he asked sardonically.
"No, I spat tea in your face because I could have sworn I just heard you ask me when you were going to meet my parents," she said. "Sorry, by the way."
"Appreciate the afterthought," he coolly replied. "And you heard me just fine."
She gaped at him. Then, her gaze became suspicious.
"You're high, aren't you?"
He sent her a flat look.
"You are, aren't you? I don't smell anything, so it wasn't something you smoked. Let me see your arms," she ordered.
"If you're trying to be funny, you're failing spectacularly," he flatly informed her.
"Arms," she demanded.
"I haven't been smoking anything, shooting anything up or snorting anything, damn it, and I'll thank you not to insinuate that I was ever again," he snapped impatiently.
She eyed him, then shrugged and seemed willing to drop it, for which he was grateful. Apparently, though, he'd been a wee bit too hasty:
"Have you been drinking?" she demanded.
"No!" he snapped. "What the hell, woman!"
"Touch your nose."
"I'm not drunk damn it!"
She had the gall to ignore him and hold up three fingers and wiggle them in his face.
"How many fingers am I holding up?" she asked.
"If you don't stop you won't have any fingers left!" he shouted.
"Hm. Well you certainly don't sound drunk," she murmured, still ignoring him. She eyed him, thoughtfully rubbing her chin. "Are you feeling okay? Maybe you're getting sick—you were sitting out on the balcony smoking without a shirt on last night."
"What is so fucking weird about my asking that?!?" he demanded.
She finally looked at him, really looked at him, and her expression was a cross between incredulity and amusement.
"No man in his right mind ever wants to meet my father, Hajime," she informed him.
He bristled.
"I'm not afraid of your father goddamn it!"
"Shush—fine, fine, you aren't afraid of Papa," she said, frowning.
He sent her a resentful look, then barked,
"Tell your parents to expect me Wednesday night."
"Papa works Wednesday," Tokio immediately informed him.
"Saturday then."
Tokio frowned.
"You know, I'd almost swear you were serious," she remarked.
He looked like he was seconds away from strangling her.
"I am," he informed her through gritted teeth. "I'm deathly serious—emphasis on deathly."
It slowly began to dawn on her that he wasn't joking. Her jaw dropped.
"Hajime, I don't think this is a good idea," she began.
"Tell your parents to expect me Saturday night," he ordered. "All you need to do is tell me what time they want me there."
"No, Hajime, you don't understand—"
"I'm not afraid of your fucking father, Tokio!"
"Watch your mouth when you talk about my papa!" she shouted, eyes flashing. She took a moment to compose herself. "Hajime, Papa has this tendency of coming on a little strong—"
"If you haven't already told your parents about me I suggest you do," he said dryly, one eyebrow raised, and her mouth snapped shut, eyes wide with surprise. He nodded. "I figured as much," he muttered. "Let me guess: they're under the impression you stayed at your sister's tonight?"
The suddenly too-innocent look on her face was all the answer he needed.
"And may I ask when exactly you were planning on informing them that I existed?"
"…Well…'never' sounded really good until a couple seconds ago," she said in a small voice, looking a little nervous.
He glared at her; she sent him a winning smile.
"Tokio," he growled.
"Hajime," she whined. "This is so weird! Why do you want to meet my parents?"
"It's what comes next," he said with such authority she knew he firmly believed it.
She watched him with a dubious look on her face.
"And then the funeral comes after that," she said.
"You're being melodramatic," he said.
"You say that because you don't know," she muttered, and he sent her an exasperated look.
"Stop that," he ordered. "Look, it can't go worse than the time I met Yaso's brothers. They hated my guts on sight."
Tokio eyed him with her patented "Yeah-uh-huh-sure" look on her face.
"And so he seals his fate by uttering his famous last words," she dryly said. He opened his mouth to protest, but she sighed and continued:
"Fine, I'll let them know. But remember—you asked for it."
"You're being ridiculous," he informed her. "It'll be fine. It's dinner, not a war."
Famous last words indeed.
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Previews of Chapter 26: Meet the Parents: Shinsengumi Style:
Tokio pressed her lips together to keep from laughing. Saitou was "a nice boy", was he? Really, Tokio loved her mother to death—she could be so cute sometimes. And she couldn't wait to tell Kamatari about this, he'd laugh himself sick.
---
"Promise me you're going to behave Saturday," she immediately said, and he raised an eyebrow.
"'Behave'?" he repeated. "What the hell does that mean?"
"It means you aren't going to make any smart ass remarks, or generally act like a jerk. I know you can do it, too, because I've seen you do it before."
---
"Hajime, this is my father Takagi Kojuro," Tokio said, a little nervous now, and she looked over at Saitou to warn him again, this time with her eyes, to behave, but he wasn't watching her—his narrowed, unfriendly gaze was firmly latched onto her father's equally hostile one.
Oh merciful gods, why hast thou forsaken me?! Tokio silently cried.
---
"You promised you'd behave!" she all but shouted.
"He started it!"
"So be the bigger man!"
"I am being the bigger man—I haven't decked him yet! And after that fucking comment about the Hirumas he deserved it!"