PART FOUR OF A FOUR PART POST! READ CHAPTERS 25, 26 & 27 BEFORE READING THIS ONE!

And Merry Christmas!


Disclaimer: Like I really need to be reminded of that lamentable fact….
Words To Watch Out For:

Christmas cake: usually made of sponge cake, whipped cream and strawberries (www(dot)japan-guide(dot)com has a picture of one on its Christmas page for those interested in seeing what these cakes look like...and trust me, as a professional Tubby McFatty, they look very good); According to "Christmas in Japan," the Japanese celebrate Christmas by eating this cake, which the father of the family buys (or the mother if Papa-san's working Christmas Eve), and stores all over carry versions of the cake. They drop the price drastically on December 25th in order to sell out by the 26th, which gave rise to calling young women who were still unmarried by age 25 "Christmas cakes", the implication being that they're good until 25, and only with the help of "heavy discounts" will they be able to find someone willing to marry them after 25. …How charming. Anyway. I have no idea when Christmas cakes became a Christmas staple (none of the websites I visited could tell me), so we're going to pretend they've been around for a long while.

bento: single-portion takeout meal; traditional meal (according to Wikipedia) consists of rice, fish or meat, and one or more pickled or cooked vegetables as a side dish. Available at convenience stores, bento shops and homes all over Japan. It's considered an essential skill of a housewife to be able to put together an appealing boxed lunch.

More Of A Note Than Anything:

Christmas Eve in Japan: I can't do it justice, so I'll let Billy Hammond do the explainin' for me: "Christmas Eve has been hyped by the T.V. media as being a time for romantic miracles. It is seen as a time to be spent with one's boyfriend or girlfriend in a romantic setting, so fancy restaurants and hotels are often booked solid at this time. It is often also a time when girls get to reveal their affections for boys and vice versa. Because of this, extending a girl an invitation to be together on Christmas Eve has very deep, romantic implications." Wild, huh? Hammond mentions that the Japanese Christmas most closely resembles the Western concept of St. Valentine's Day, while the New Year's holiday is more in keeping with the Western concept of Christmas.

Christmas Eve dinner: Again, Billy Hammond says it best: "In recent years, thanks to the marketing prowess of the folks at Kentucky Fried Chicken, the Christmas Chicken Dinner has become quite popular. Many Japanese even make reservations for their "Christmas Chicken" ahead of time. People line up at their outlets to pick up their orders. As a result of KFC's brilliant advertising campaign, most Japanese now believe Westerners celebrate Christmas with a chicken dinner instead of the more common ham or turkey." I did a little digging around, curious, and the appeal of a chicken dinner makes sense when you consider that most Japanese ovens are way too small to fit a ham or a turkey. So even if you can't order your KFC Christmas Chicken dinner, you can still make one at home. I salute the advertising folks at KFC—they is some crafty crafty people.

Christmas presents: Hammond says Christmas presents are "exchanged between people with romantic commitments as well as close friends, and that the presents tend to be 'cute'" (i.e., teddy bears, flowers, jewelry, etc), and maybe also "slightly expensive because of the relationship to the person to which they are given to." According to www(dot)japaneselifestyle(dot)com(dot)au, within families, presents are only given to children, and children don't give their parents anything, because the idea is that Santa Claus brings the presents, and once children no longer believe in Santa, presents are no longer given.


Captain Miserable Finds the Greener Grass

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Chapter Twenty-Eight: A Very Saitou Christmas

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Christmas Eve Day found Tokio conspiring with her mother.

Katsuko and Tokio had planned the evening in minute detail, and had drawn up backup plans should something go wrong. Nearly all of these plans and backup plans involved not letting Kojuro figure out that Tokio was going to be spending Christmas Eve with Saitou.

Consequently, they were very meticulous, elaborate plans.

They also involved enough saké to kill Hiko Seijuurou.

Once Tokio was sure Kojuro would be well-taken care of, she was able to turn her attention to her other set of plans, the ones involving herself and Saitou. She had refused to let him in on it, only saying that she expected him to be home Christmas Eve, and if he wasn't there would be hell to pay, and quite possibly for the duration of his life, because Tokio didn't take Christmas Eve lightly—not when it was the first one she wouldn't be spending with a single Enishi in a restaurant watching other couples enjoying a romantic night out, or worse, having dinner with Kamatari and his partner and having to watch them be all lovey-dovey with each other while she sat with them and felt like a loudly squeaking third wheel.

So yes, she'd put a lot of effort into this, despite the fact that most of it had been woefully last minute. Like dinner. Dinner was an important part of the evening, and every restaurant in Tokyo was booked solid, so going out wasn't even an option. She didn't feel particularly up to cooking some big extravagant meal, either (she didn't like to cook the way her mother did, so the majority of what Tokio cooked, while better than what Saitou could do, was for the most part fast and no-fuss). But thank the gods she had Kentucky Fried Chicken.

And so it was that at eighty thirty, Tokio found herself walking through a light snowfall to Saitou's apartment with a chicken dinner under one arm and a box under the other, her purse on one shoulder and her overnight bag hanging off the other. She had a feeling she was going to be frozen by the time she got there, or at least half-frozen. Then again, she figured Saitou would be more than willing to fix that, and she smiled and shook her head.

"Pervert," she murmured affectionately.

It took her a while to get there because as cold as she was, she loved walking through snow, and she purposely slowed down so she could enjoy it. So she didn't get to his apartment until well after nine, and by then her nose and cheeks were red and her hands were cold, even through the gloves and she barely felt her feet anymore through the boots. But she was in high spirits when she awkwardly knocked on his door, hoping the gods would be kind and neither the dinner nor the contents of the box would meet untimely ends via a tumble to the floor. Happily, they seemed to be in as festive a mood as she was, because nothing fell, though she had a couple of scary seconds before the door opened and Saitou stared at her in surprise.

"What the hell?" he asked finally.

"I have dinner," Tokio cheerfully announced. Said dinner jiggled ominously from its perch atop the box as she shivered a little. "Unless you give me a hand, that is."

He obligingly took the bag containing their food from atop the box, and Tokio grinned at him, leaned up and kissed him.

"Hi," she said.

He grunted, eyeing her. "You're cold as hell, Tokio."

"It's snowing outside," she informed him, eyes twinkling.

He rolled his eyes, but didn't look particularly annoyed.

"Would you get in here?" he asked dryly.

He moved back to let her in and shut the door, then took the box from her and set it and dinner on the table before going back to the entry to help her out of her coat and boots. The overnight bag was placed in his room, and he was very pleased to see it:

"I guess that's a good sign," he remarked, watching her set the table as she hummed to herself.

"What is?" she asked, not looking up from what she was doing.

"That bag you hauled over here."

She smiled.

"You could say that, yes," she said. "Did you eat already?"

"No," he lied; he'd had some instant soba a few hours ago while he'd been waiting for her, wondering what she was planning, and also wondering if he should be concerned or afraid or both. Turned out none of these options was the appropriate response, for which he was exceedingly grateful—that overnight bag couldn't be a bad thing.

The contents of the box intrigued him, but she wouldn't tell him what it was or let him look, so he abandoned trying to investigate it after she whacked his hand away for the eighth time when he tried to look, under the mistaken impression that she wasn't watching again.

Dinner reminded him of Christmases past. His mother, being from the country and having been raised to do everything herself, had always insisted on making dinner rather than buying it, and he and his siblings had always looked forward to it because their mother's spread was always excellent. As a kid, he'd looked forward to Christmas Eve solely for dinner, not because of Santa Claus; ever suspicious, even as a little boy, Saitou had not liked the idea of some fat guy in a red suit sneaking into his house in the dead of night, even if he did leave some wicked good presents. He'd been relieved, not disappointed, to learn that Santa didn't actually exist and that it had been his parents the whole time, though he'd told them that he would have preferred knowing that rather than believing some weirdo was breaking into his house one night a year for the first ten years of his life.

It had been a while since he'd eaten dinner with his family on Christmas Eve, as he was usually working; it was one of the nights when the MPD suddenly found itself short men, and since Saitou didn't really care much for holidays it was no skin off his nose to be working. The last time he'd really cared about Christmas had been around fifteen. His parents had long stopped giving him presents, instead giving him a substantial amount of money (which was more than a lot of his classmates got), which he could be counted on to blow on several things he really didn't need, most of the time in Okita's company, because his friend had this frightening talent for being able to talk Saitou into almost anything, and at fifteen, a lot of things that had sounded like great ideas in the beginning hardly ever ended well.

Saitou had since developed some semblance of immunity to Okita's talent, in an effort to both keep himself out of the poorhouse and keep from getting thrown in prison.

The contents of the box turned out to be a Christmas cake, which Saitou decided he should have been expecting.

"This is my favorite part of Christmas Eve," Tokio informed him as she cut him a slice.

"The actual dinner itself was mine," Saitou informed her, and she shook her head, smiling.

"Of course," she murmured.

Despite Saitou not being much of a dessert person, he enjoyed the cake. When he mentioned it to Tokio, she smiled at him.

"Mama told me where Papa usually buys them on the nights he isn't working Christmas Eve. It's this little hole-in-the-wall bakery close by the precinct. I swear they make the best Christmas cakes in all of Tokyo. The cakes from everywhere else just never taste as good."

"My mom used to make ours," Saitou said thoughtfully. "This one sort of tastes like hers."

Tokio looked intrigued.

"She used to bake it herself?"

"Uh-huh. Used to make dinner herself too. We never had anything frozen in the house, Mom always made everything from scratch. I used to think everyone ate as good as we did, 'til I actually ate over at Souji's once. Then I understood why he was always at my house eating all my food, the little leech."

"Mama always made Christmas dinner herself too," Tokio said, resting her chin in her hand. "But the cake was Papa's responsibility."

"Your mother really goes all out," Saitou remarked. "I was real disappointed I didn't get to eat whatever it was she'd made last Saturday night—smelled great."

Tokio grinned.

"I think if Mama hadn't married Papa, she would have become a chef," she said. "You should have seen my bento when I was a kid—it was always the best-looking bento in the whole school. I always felt bad eating it because it looked so pretty."

"My bento were never works of art, but they tasted a hell of a lot better than everyone else's, so I didn't really care."

"You wouldn't," she teased. "Typical man, thinking with his stomach."

"It's an inherited trait in my family," he informed her with a smirk. "Dad ate a rice ball Mom made and decided he was going to marry her. He then spent the next three years trying to convince her that he wasn't insane."

Tokio smiled.

"And he did and they lived happily ever after?" she supplied.

"No, he was completely insane and Mom knew it but she married him anyway," he corrected.

"That's a terrible thing to say about your father," she chided.

"You'll see what I mean when you meet him," Saitou said. "He used to be able to control it or hide it or something, 'til he hit forty. Now he's a total whack job."

She sat up and sent him an odd look.

"I'm going to meet your father?" she asked.

He raised an eyebrow.

"Yeah, eventually," he said. "My mom too."

"They know who I am?"

"Yeah."

She looked surprised by this information.

"When did you tell them?"

He shrugged.

"Last year."

She blinked.

"I beg your pardon?"

"They heard about you last year," he repeated.

"We weren't going out last year Hajime."

"I'm aware of that," he said with a touch of annoyance. "But you asked if they knew who you were. I told my old man while we were drinking—that's how he hears about a lot of what's going on in my life, because I don't like telling him anything."

"Why not?"

"Because he's insane," Saitou replied. "So he told my mom and the next day she calls me and says she's so happy for me, and I can't remember what the hell happened the night before, and when I hear about it I have to explain it to her. Luckily she didn't tell my brother, or he'd have showed up to congratulate me in person, and then I'd have had to kill him, because he took after Dad."

"Is your mother the only normal one in the family?"

"Are you kidding? She married Dad willingly. There's no way she's normal."

Tokio laughed.

"You're such a jerk," she told him, still laughing.

Saitou was feeling far too sleepy to consider bedding Tokio the way he'd been planning to at dinner's conclusion, so they plopped down on his bed, Tokio snuggled against him.

"How many brothers and sisters do you have?" she asked drowsily.

"One of each."

"Older or younger?"

"Older—I'm the baby."

She laughed at that.

"I have a very hard time picturing you as a baby."

"I have proof," he informed her. "Or Mom does. And she'll gladly show you every single picture she ever took of me."

"You don't sound very upset by that possibility," she noted.

"It's not a possibility, and I'm not upset—I was an adorable baby." he smugly informed her, and she laughed. "I was. Everyone used to say so."

"A little heartbreaker, huh?" she teased.

He snorted.

"Fine, just you wait, you'll see."

"You must have been a terror as a child."

"Actually, I was the good one."

"Yeah right."

"I was—my brother was the demon spawn. He always got into trouble. I was way better behaved than he was. I only got kept after school a couple times in grade school. He was kept after pretty much every afternoon until he finally graduated high school."

"But you still got into trouble as a kid," she remarked.

"Technicality," he said. "Besides, my sister used to get into trouble too—she used to talk too much."

"So what did you get into trouble for?"

"Fighting with the other kids, mostly."

"I'm shocked," she said dryly, and he chuckled and rubbed a hand up and down her back.

"It wasn't everyday," he said. A pause. "And I had kind of a wise-ass attitude too."

"'Had'?"

"Oi, quiet you."

"What did your brother get into trouble for?"

"Everything," Saitou replied with a smirk. "He wasn't really a bad kid, he just had a lot of bad ideas and no impulse control."

"Who's oldest?"

"My sister. Katsu."

"Ha—older sisters rule."

"No way," he said immediately, and Tokio laughed and leaned up and kissed his cheek.

"Spoken like a true baby brother," she teased.

"She still treats me like a fucking baby," he muttered resentfully, and Tokio laughed again and hugged him.

"Poor Hajime."

"I'm thirty and she still treats me like I'm five, can you believe that?"

"Yes, actually—you have your moments."

"I wasn't looking for an actual answer, Chiisai," he growled.

"Are they married?"

"Yeah. Katsu married some doctor, and they have a kid like every other year or something."

"Ah, so you know the joys of uncle-hood."

"That's right—I fill 'em up with sugar and give them back to their parents," he said with a decidedly evil smirk on his face, and she shook her head.

"What about your brother?"

"Him too. Don't know why his wife puts up with him though."

"No kids yet?"

"They have one daughter. His wife then decided to get her tubes tied—labor had quite an impact on her, as I understand it."

"It's not easy pushing something the size of a watermelon out something the size of a lemon," Tokio informed him, and he raised an eyebrow and looked down at her.

"And just how do you know what it feels like?"

"I don't," she said. "But that's the analogy Mama used when I asked. She had all three of us naturally."

"Even your brother?"

"Morinusuke wasn't always so big, Hajime."

"I know that woman—but I figured he was a little larger than you or your sister."

"Well, Sada was born a month early, so she was the smallest of all of us—she's been doin' her own thing since day one," she wryly added. "And I was a week early. And Morinusuke was too, come to think of it."

"All three of you impatient to get out into the world?" he dryly asked.

"Something like that. How about you?"

"According to my mother, I was in no particular rush whatsoever. Due date came and went and about a week and a half later, I decided to grace the world with my presence."

"Ah—so you were born arrogant. Always figured I was right about that."

"Quiet you. I'll have you know I ushered in the new year the night I was born."

Tokio laughed at him.

"You're such an ass."

"You like it."

"For some reason, yes," she agreed, leaning up and kissing him.

They ended up falling asleep, though it didn't last long; Tokio was awakened by the ringing of her cell phone, and she crawled out of bed and out of a grumbling Saitou's embrace to answer it.

It was Kamatari, cheerfully wishing her a Merry Christmas, and she shook off enough of her sleepiness to wish him a Merry Christmas back. She then talked to his partner, and hung up.

"Why didn't you put that thing on silent?" Saitou groused, yawning.

"Oh stop it," she ordered, walking back into the bedroom and going to her overnight bag.

"Come back over here," he said.

"In a minute," she replied, then rose and turned around, grinning, hands behind her back. Saitou was immediately suspicious.

"What?" he asked warily.

She bounded over to the bed, plopped down next to him and produced two boxes from behind her back.

"Merry Christmas," she said, leaning forward to kiss him.

He wasn't necessarily surprised, since Kamatari had warned him that Tokio had gotten him something, and then dragged him to the mall to buy her something. It had been the longest three hours of his life, especially since Kamatari had been in his usual charming form, but he'd gotten her something the effeminate man had said, more than a little impressed, that Tokio would love, so it hadn't been completely terrible.

He'd only bought her one thing, though—he hadn't been prepared to receive two.

"Open it," Tokio urged.

"Does it matter which one?" he asked, sitting up.

"No," she said, but she then proved herself a liar when she picked out the larger of the two and held it out to him.

He accepted it with a faint smile and tore the paper and opened a very nice and expensive looking wooden box to find an old-fashioned looking steel pocket watch happily ticking away the time. He paused, surprised, then looked up at her. She was watching him with wide eyes, waiting for a reaction.

"Wow," he said finally.

She immediately grinned.

"You like it?" she asked.

"Yeah," he said, and he did—his grandfather had had a pocket watch that he'd coveted as a kid, because the old man had informed Saitou that any man worth a damn always wore three items: a hat, a handkerchief and a pocket watch. Part of the reason Saitou liked his job was because he wore a hat, as weird as that was, and the handkerchiefs were easy to get too, even though he occasionally caught grief about it from Okita, who accused him of being about seventy years behind the rest of the world. But the last one had proved more difficult to practice; his grandfather's pocket watch hadn't survived, and Saitou had always been disappointed by that—the old man had promised to give it to him when he came of age. When he'd turned twenty, his grandfather had offered to buy him one (only Saitou had ever showed any interest in actively wanting the ancient time piece), but Saitou hadn't wanted one—stubborn as he was, he had decided if he couldn't have his grandfather's pocket watch, he just wouldn't have one.

Not a day didn't go by that he decided he was an utter moron for not taking the old man up on his offer.

Oh he could have bought himself one, but it wouldn't have been the same, so despite wanting one, he'd never gotten it.

"I thought of you when I saw it," Tokio explained, looking pleased with herself. "The chain's original, too."

He blinked.

"'Original'?" he parroted.

"Yeah," she said, and her smile widened.

"This is an antique?" he asked incredulous as realization dawned—he'd thought it was a new one made to look like an old one.

"Uh-huh—with love from Udou-san."

Even the news that she'd gotten it from Jin'e couldn't penetrate his astonishment.

"Holy shit," he said, and she laughed and clapped her hands.

"Try it on, lemme see!" she urged.

So he obligingly got up and clipped it on one of the belt loops of his jeans and slid it into his pocket.

"That's gonna look great with your uniform, Inspector," she said approvingly.

"I can't believe you got me a pocket watch," he said, and she blushed.

"Yeah, well, I thought it suited you," she said with a shy shrug.

He wasn't used to feeling grateful, but she made it a surprisingly painless experience. He grinned and leaned down and kissed her soundly.

"Thank you Tokio," he said sincerely, and her blushed deepened.

She grabbed his other present and held it out to him.

"Don't thank me yet, you still have another one."

So he sat down again and tugged her into his lap and opened the next one, to discover she had gotten him a Zippo lighter, chrome case with a wolf walking over the silhouette of another one howling at the moon—it'd be damn hard for anyone to mistake this lighter for their own, and he sort of expected that was why she'd picked it in particular.

"Welcome to the twentieth century," she dryly remarked, and he grinned.

"Aren't we in the twenty-first?" he remarked.

"I'm easing you into it," she replied, and he laughed and kissed her.

"Okay, I get it, I get it. But in my defense, my mother's father had a huge influence on my childhood."

"And it shows Grandpa," she teased.

"Oi, a little more respect, huh? Or I might decide not to give you yours."

Her eyes lit up.

"You got me something?" she asked, and he pressed his lips together to keep from laughing—she looked like a little kid.

"Yeah—it's in the bedside table," he said, gesturing with his thumb to the one on his side; he'd been planning to give it to her after, but best laid plans and all that. Still, this wasn't a bad Option B.

As he'd known she would, Tokio immediately went into the drawer and retrieved her present, ensconcing herself once more in his lap. She held the box up to her ear and shook it, pursing her lips and listening very carefully to see if she could figure out what it was.

"Would you open it already?" he demanded in amused exasperation, rolling his eyes.

She stuck her tongue out at him, then held her present out to him.

"You open it."

He sent her an incredulous look.

"It's your present," he said.

"And I want you to open it," she insisted, waving the box in his face.

He sighed, and took it from her, muttering about women and their weird eccentricities as he tore the paper off and opened the box. He then presented it to her, to find her eyes shut.

"What're you doin' crazy?" he asked, laughing.

"Is it opened?" she asked.

"Yeah."

She opened her eyes and looked down, and her jaw dropped. The silence lasted for all of two seconds: she let out a shriek that made his ears ring, and threw herself at him, arms around his neck, and nearly caused them to fall backwards off the bed—by some amazing feat he hadn't thought himself capable of, he managed to keep them from hitting the floor, which despite being carpeted would still hurt a lot on impact.

"I'm going to guess that you like your present," he said wryly.

"Are you insane?" Tokio demanded. "This must have cost you a fortune!"

He shrugged. "Not really." She pulled back from him and sent him a flat look, and he reconsidered his answer. "Okay, maybe a small one."

"Hajime," she said, looking stunned.

"Stop," he ordered, grabbing the arm of the hand that held the box, and tugging it from around his neck. He took the box from her and got the necklace out, then motioned for her to turn around. She eyed him like she was thinking about refusing, and he raised an eyebrow. She heaved a sigh and hesitantly turned around, and he looped the necklace around her neck, shut the clasp, then told her to turn around. When she did, he grinned, pleased.

"Looks good on you Chiisai," he informed her, and she fingered the circle pendant.

"It does?"

"Go check," he said, jerking his head in the direction of the bath room, and she hopped off the bed to see for herself.

She padded back in a few minutes later, blushing and smiling shyly.

"It is very pretty," she said, and he smirked, head pillowed by his arms.

"You're welcome Tokio," he said dryly, and she crawled onto the bed and snuggled into his side, then leaned up and kissed him.

"Crazy man, buying me a diamond freaking necklace," she muttered, smiling, then noticed his pocket watch was sitting on the bedside table next to his cell phone. "You took it off," she said, frowning faintly.

"Yup."

"How come? Don't you like it?"

"Oh I do. And I aim to show you just how happy I am with you Chiisai," he said, grinning wolfishly, as he popped the first button on her blouse out of its buttonhole.

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Saitou decided that Tokio should wear nothing but a diamond circle pendant necklace more often.

Well. Around him, anyway.

She was still asleep when he was jerked awake by the sound of his alarm going off, and he reached back and whacked the hell out of the general direction of the off button before the alarm woke her up.

He'd had to trade days with someone else in the department to get Christmas Eve off, and he wasn't particularly looking forward to working Christmas Day, for the sole fact that he usually had it off and it was one of the few days of the year he slept in and didn't feel like a bum for doing it. But, he decided upon seeing Tokio still asleep beside him, last night had been more than enough compensation for changing the usual schedule.

He yawned and rolled over to glance at the clock, and made a sound of disgust—getting up at six thirty on Christmas Day. Just wasn't natural, damn it.

"You're loud," Tokio murmured, and he looked over at her, surprised.

"You're awake?"

"Hard to sleep through you killing the alarm clock," she pointed out, opening one eye lazily. She smiled sleepily. "Merry Christmas Hajime."

"You said that already," he said.

"Mean," she muttered, snuggling closer and rubbing her cheek against his chest.

"Don't get comfortable," he warned. "I have to get up."

"Lies," she replied, and he snorted in amusement despite himself.

"I'm working today, Tokio," he said, and she groaned.

"Why?" she whined.

"Well how do you think I got last night off?" he said, and she groaned louder.

"That's not fair," she muttered.

"Life ain't fair babe," he dryly replied, reaching down and patting her rear end through the sheets. "Now let go."

"Call in sick," she said suddenly, and he paused, thrown off.

"Huh?"

"Call in sick," she repeated, looking up at him.

He stared down at her.

"I'm not sick," he said finally, and she sent him a flat look.

"I know that," she said irritably. "But if you call in sick, you won't have to work today, and then I can be with you."

That explanation did weird things to his chest that he decided not to explore too closely right this minute.

Because he was pretty sure it wasn't the heartburn he was trying to convince himself it was.

"I'm working today," he repeated, and Tokio rolled her eyes and leaned up on her elbows.

"Hajime, ruining your perfect attendance record will not cause the world to implode, I promise."

"Oi, I'm proud of that record."

"And he says Okita-san's a geek," she said dryly, and he glared at her. She pouted down at him. "Please?" The pout quickly became a grin. "I'll do that thing you like…."

"You do lots of things I like, and bribery won't work on me," Saitou replied.

She raised an eyebrow, still smiling, but it was more in challenge now.

"Really?" she inquired. "Bribery doesn't work on you?"

"No—now get off me please, or I'm going to very rudely remo—" The rest of the threat faded into a low groan when Tokio leaned over and caught his ear lobe between her teeth.

He hadn't realized how much he enjoyed that until she'd done it to him at Sada's, and he'd mentioned it to her during one of his more lucid drunk moments. So naturally, she did it every chance she got, because it made him squirm, and she told him it was fascinating to know he was capable of something so endearing. He knew that was complete bullshit and she only did it because it made him squirm, and if he didn't enjoy it so much he might have been offended by that knowledge.

It took him several moments to realize she had his cell phone (she'd have made an excellent pickpocket, he'd learned), and it took several more moments for him to realize that this was probably not a good thing. He decided it definitely wasn't a good thing when he heard her cheerfully ask for Hijikata.

"What are you doing?" he asked, grimacing when she gently tugged on the ear lobe she was attacking—aw crap, she was pulling out the big guns.

"Nothin'," she said in that too-innocent voice that would have scared the crap out of him if he weren't so occupied with what she was doing to him.

"Who are you calling?"

"No one."

"Tokio—" He let out a strangled sound when she tugged a smidge harder than before.

Damn it, this isn't fair, he thought.

The only spot on her that produced the same response was this little patch on the side of her neck, and he couldn't get at it right now because she rolling his ear lobe between her teeth and he was pretty sure he wasn't going to make it through this one.

"Good morning Hijikata-san, this is Takagi Tokio," she cheerfully said, abruptly abandoning her attack. "I'm just calling you to let you know that Saitou Hajime won't be coming in today, as he woke up feeling unwell. Why yes—he's so sick I had to call for him. Of course sir—that's very understanding of you."

His brain was starting to work again, and though it took him a few seconds to realize what she was doing, what she was saying translated way faster, and he froze when he realized what exactly was going on.

"Tokio—!" he began furiously.

"Thanksgottago'bye!" Tokio blurted, abruptly ending the call and tossing the phone away before he could grab it from her and call his boss back. She watched him with wide eyes, smiling in obvious pleasure.

"I'd concentrate on not being so easily distracted if I were you," she said lightly, and he glared at her in reply. Her smile widened and she leaned down and rubbed her nose against his.

"You say nothing because you know I have a point," she said smugly.

"If you broke my phone," he began tightly, pissed because she was right and it was embarrassing that she'd been able to get what she wanted so easily.

She leaned up a little and looked around, then turned back to him with a grin.

"It's in my bra," she informed him, and he closed his eyes and laughed because that was really such a weird thing to say.

"All right Chiisai, you win this round," he conceded, and she sent him a smug look. "But," he said, abruptly rolling her onto her back, "now it's my turn to play."

He had no idea what it was about the woman that inspired goofiness in him, but he suspected it had a lot to do with her doing things like throwing his cell phone into her bra.

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They left his bed at ten, when he gave her rear end a friendly slap and said they'd been lazy long enough. She'd tried to wheedle five more minutes out of him without success, and only because he got out of bed before she could nibble on his ear lobe again.

She'd brought her robe from home and left it at his apartment a while back to use when she showered, and that was what she put on, because he was rather insistent in his demand that she not get dressed quite yet, and he let her wear the robe only because it was something really thin and slinky and he liked to see her in it. She informed him that this was still more proof that she was justified in calling him a letch, but the cons didn't even begin to outweigh the pros, so he couldn't complain.

She tied back her hair—he was very proud of the way he was able to restrain himself from laughing at the way her hair was sticking up—ordered him to sit down and began making breakfast, and he sat down at the table and watched because he knew a good thing when he saw it.

It was while she was watching the eggs that her cell phone went off, and she asked him (she ordered, actually, but Saitou preferred to pretend that that was because the eggs had most of her attention) to answer it. So he did and was relieved that it wasn't Kojuro:

"Merry Christmas kitten!" Kamatari shouted, and Saitou winced.

"Jesus," he muttered, and there was a pause on the other end.

"Oh, it's Saitou-san," Kamatari said cheerfully. "Merry Christmas Saitou-san!"

"Right," Saitou replied, still wincing vaguely; he had a feeling that after Tokio's shriek last night and this one just now, he was going to have to visit his ENT specialist really soon to make sure he wasn't going deaf.

Kamatari sighed.

"You have no concept of the idea of 'Christmas cheer', do you?" he asked in vague annoyance.

"None," Saitou affirmed, eyeing Tokio.

"Humbug," Kamatari muttered. Then he sighed and asked, "Well, was she surprised?"

"Yeah."

"And?"

"She's wearing it now."

Another pause.

"I'm not interrupting anything, am I?"

Saitou rolled his eyes.

"You think I would have answered her damn phone if we were doing anything ahou?" he snapped, and Kamatari tsked.

"Well if you keep growling at me I'm going to start to wonder," he said with an offended little sniff. "Put my kitten on—you're no fun."

Saitou snorted, then said to Tokio,

"Oi, Honjou wants to talk to you."

Tokio looked over at him, looked back at the eggs, then left them long enough to swipe the phone from him:

"Hi Kamatari-chan," she greeted cheerfully, turning back to the stove. She laughed. "Ah, Merry Christmas to you too. Making breakfast, why? …uh-huh. Uh-huh. I dunno, where—uh-huh. No, I know it. But like when?" Tokio glanced up at the clock on the stove. "Ten twenty-three. …I guess. Yeah. Okay. Okay. All right, I will, 'bye."

"What was all that about?" Saitou asked when she set the phone on the counter.

"Kamatari invited us to brunch," Tokio said. "Some place in Shinjuku that Sada told me about."

"And you said no, right?" he asked, even though he knew what the answer was already.

Her smile dropped.

"I didn't think you'd mind," she began.

Saitou sighed wearily.

"Tokio," he said, and if he had been anyone else Tokio would have called it whining, "what the hell? I thought you called me in sick to spend the day with me."

"I do want to spend the day with you," she said.

He sent her a look that very clearly asked, "And exactly how does going to brunch with your friend accomplish that?"

"It's just for a little while," she said, tone placating.

"That's not the point, Tokio," he said exasperated. "Honjou annoys me."

"You let him," she pointed out, then smiled winningly when he glared at her.

"Oh come on," she cajoled.

"Well it's not like I have a choice now is it?" he muttered, and she sighed.

"Fine, I'll call him and tell him we aren't going."

"No you won't, because then it's my fault we didn't go," he said immediately. "And the hell I'm going to take blame for that."

"I'm not going to make you go if you don't want to," she returned, and he sent her a flat look.

"Yeah whatever," he said under his breath.

"We don't have to go," Tokio said. "Really."

"We're going."

"You don't want to, though."

"I also don't want to get into a fight about it later."

"Is that why we're fighting about it now?" she asked dryly.

"This is a discussion," he corrected.

"Fight."

"Discussion."

"Fight."

"Discussion."

"Fight to infinity, I win," Tokio said, and Saitou raised an eyebrow.

"What was that?" he asked finally.

"Me winning that fight."

He decided to just give up because if one of them didn't they be arguing over it all day, and it was a stupid argument to waste your time with, besides.

"We're going, damn it," he growled.

"But you don't want to go."

"Of course I want to go, I'm telling you I do, aren't I?"

She frowned at him.

"I'm not going to get mad at you or anything," she said. "If you don't want to go we don't have to—I just thought it'd be nice. And Kamatari's paying, so you wouldn't have to worry about it."

…Hm. Perhaps this brunch wouldn't be as painful as he'd first imagined.

He smiled at her.

"I'd love to go to brunch, Tokio," he said cheerfully, and she raised her eyebrows and seemed to decide to take his word on it.

So they ate eggs and toast, since that was all Tokio had gotten around to putting together before Kamatari had called, and put away the rest of the things she'd pulled out. They then got dressed and left the apartment, and once outside he used his new lighter to light up a cigarette.

"This is a great lighter," he said admiringly around the cigarette as he slid it back into his coat pocket.

Tokio smiled and leaned her head against his chest.

"I thought you'd like it."

"And how," he said, patting her rear end before sliding his hand into the back pocket. "What about you? Happy with yours?"

"Very," she assured. "Although I still can't believe you bought me such an expensive gift. Makes mine look a little cheap, you know."

"Well, you got me two," he reasoned. "It evens out." He then produced his pocket watch and flipped it open, then looked down at her with a wide grin. "And this pocket watch, I'm sure, is worth a shitload more than the diamonds."

She smiled in obvious delight of his appreciation.

They took the train to Shinjuku and Tokio led him to a Hong Kong-style dim sum place called Tokyo Daihanten that he'd heard Okita mention every once in a while as being pretty good. When he asked Tokio, she replied that Kamatari regularly had brunch there, and Kamatari was a real princess when it came to his food, so the place was definitely good. When they walked in, Tokio immediately began walking toward a table, which Saitou concluded to mean that she often joined the Queen when he took his brunches here.

They found Kamatari and another man seated at a table, deep in conversation. When Kamatari noticed their approach, though, he smiled and leapt up and yelled,

"Tokio-chan!"

Tokio grinned and detached herself from a reluctant Saitou's side:

"Kamatari-chan!" she called, hugging the man, and Saitou rolled his eyes and slid his hands into his pockets to wait for the greetings to wind down.

The man with Kamatari was his partner, as it turned out, a man named Yamada Daisuke of around Enishi's height and build (And that's where the molestation comes in, Saitou wryly decided), but considerably older than Enishi, and at least six years Kamatari's senior. He was soft-spoken and exceedingly polite, and Saitou decided the man was a saint to put up with Kamatari's crap.

That, or completely bat-shit insane.

Kamatari began grinning like the Cheshire cat when he saw Tokio's necklace.

"My my my," he crowed. "And where did that come from?"

Tokio smiled and leaned her head on Saitou's shoulder, and Kamatari's grin widened.

"Well well kitten—looks like you made out like a bandit this year."

"It's so nice to see Saitou-san's spoiling you," Daisuke said with a faint smile.

"I'm thinking that should cover her until next Christmas," Saitou said, draping an arm around Tokio. "I like to end the year with a bang."

"And in debt," Kamatari said dryly, and Saitou glared at him.

Daisuke nudged Kamatari and sent him a look, and then Kamatari raised his eyebrows.

"I almost forgot—this is for you, kitten," Kamatari said, producing a very tastefully wrapped box.

"Oh, but I didn't bring yours with me," she protested.

"Open it," Kamatari demanded, and Tokio sighed and accepted the box, then held it out to Saitou, who sent her an exasperated look.

"Tokio…."

"Open it."

"It's your present, you crazy wench."

"Are we going to do this again?" she asked, and he rolled his eyes and took the box and opened her gift for her while she shut her eyes and waited for him to tell her to open her eyes and Kamatari and Daisuke laughed into their laps.

"Open," Saitou said, and Tokio opened her eyes and looked at the box and then let out a squeal and attacked Kamatari and Daisuke with hugs and kisses and proclamations that she loved them and they were the best.

Saitou failed to see why a flat iron should produce this response, but he knew far better than to try to figure it out.

It turned out that he only had to wait; Kamatari immediately began regaling them with the tale of how difficult it was to find this particular flat iron which Saitou gathered was special for some reason aside from the fact that it made one's hair a lot straighter than it had been previously. He also gathered that Tokio had had her eye on it for some time now, but had been unable to find it at a reasonable price.

He was then informed that the pair had gotten him a present:

"What?" he asked warily, caught off guard and not liking that news in that least.

"A present," Kamatari repeated. "For you. From us. For Christmas."

"Kamatari-chan," Tokio said, tone vaguely censuring, and Kamatari let out a self-important little sniff.

"Feh," was his reply. He produced a bag and set it down in front of Saitou. "Before you decide to hate it on principle, Mr. Humbug, you should open it. I can guarantee you're going to enjoy it."

Terrifying didn't even begin to describe that advice.

With more than a little misgiving, Saitou removed the tissue paper and took out a tissue paper-wrapped square thing that hardly weighed anything and felt like clothing (oh gods), then ripped that open…and stared down at the red lace and satin babydoll now in his lap. It took him three seconds to realize the intent behind the gift:

"You're so putting this on the second we get back," he informed Tokio, who blushed to the roots of her hair and sent a laughing Kamatari a mortified look.

Daisuke tried and failed to suppress a smile.

"I tried to talk him out of it Tokio-chan," he said in apology, and Tokio sighed.

"Don't worry, I don't blame you," she muttered resignedly. "I know that he was born depraved."

"Oh stop, like you don't enjoy—"

"Ah ah ah," Daisuke said lightly, patting Kamatari's hand. "That's enough. You said you were going to be good."

Kamatari pouted at him, but sighed.

"Fine," he said resignedly.

Brunch wasn't as bad as Saitou had been envisioning. Daisuke kept Kamatari in line, with help from Tokio, and he was content to sit back and let the three of them take command of the conversation, speaking only when he was asked for his opinion. The food was also good, the best Hong Kong-style brunch he'd ever eaten, and he had to admit that Okita had, for a change, called this one dead-on.

Kamatari did indeed foot the bill, though Saitou did make the obligatory attempt at picking up the tab, and they said their good-byes outside the restaurant before he and Tokio strolled back toward Shinjuku Station, with their respective gifts in hand and Tokio tucked under his arm.

"So," Tokio said as they were getting to the station. "Your turn to pick what we're going to do next."

Saitou sent her a devious grin.

"Why Chiisai I already did," he said, and then continued in the pervert voice: "Or have you forgotten that I want to try out my Christmas present when we get back?"

The blush came back in full force, and Saitou decided he was very glad she had decided to call him in sick today, because Christmas was suddenly very fun again.

In a pervy, depraved kind of way, of course.

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When Tokio arrived home that night, Katsuko took one look at her daughter's face and knew her Christmas had been quite spectacular.

And if her face hadn't been enough of a sign, the very impressive piece of jewelry hanging around her neck would have been.

"Oh my," she said admiringly, inwardly surprised by the gift. "Where did you get that sweetheart?"

"Hajime," Tokio replied with a goofy sort of look on her face that had her mother smiling.

"Well," was all Katsuko could think to say. "So I suppose your Christmas went well?"

Tokio's smile widened.

"Best Christmas I've had since I was eleven," Tokio said with a sigh, and Katsuko put an arm around her daughter and squeezed.

"Good," she said, kissing Tokio's forehead. "I'm glad."

"How was Papa?"

"He behaved, thank the gods. Then again, the saké helped—I was thinking last night that maybe we should have gotten a few cups into him before Hajime-san came for dinner." Katsuko sighed. "Ah well, next time."

"Where is he now?"

"Nursing a hangover," Katsuko said with a smile. "He indulged rather a bit too much last night. The older your father gets the worse his hangovers get."

Tokio smiled sympathetically.

"Poor Papa," she said. She frowned and looked over at her mother. "But did you enjoy your Christmas, Mama?"

Katsuko's smile widened.

"If you got to enjoy your night with Hajime-san, I'm happy," she said, and Tokio blushed. "You did, didn't you?"

The blush deepened, but Tokio nodded, and Katsuko inclined her head.

"Then that's all that matters," she said. "Now, put your bag in your room and we'll eat dinner together, and you can tell me all about that beautiful present Hajime-san got you."

"Thank you Mama," Tokio murmured, hugging her mother tightly. "I don't know what I'd do if you weren't on my side."

"Oh sweetheart—someone has to be the voice of reason in this family."

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Previews of Chapter 29: Auld Lang Syne:

"Oh holy shit."

At Okita's horrified statement, Saitou looked up and found his subordinates staring at him in amazement, and in Okita's specific case, dismay.

"What?" Saitou asked, a little defensively.

"I knew you were going to trigger the Apocalypse," Okita said, and Saitou sent him a flat look that told everyone that he thought his oldest friend was a complete moron.

---

Saitou smirked and produced his pocket watch, and the old man stared at it, obviously impressed and not shy about showing it.

"Well," he said finally. "If she got you that, she's a genius, boy."

---

"Surprise!"

Saitou took in the sight of Tokio carrying a box nearly as tall as her and decided that as far as understatements went, "Surprise" took first place.

---

"You bought me a key?" she asked puzzled, and he sighed wearily.

"Tokio, I'm trying to be really deep and profound here," he said, exasperated.