A/N: (basically to nekonomiko) So you disliked the giggling? I can see why you would think that; I mean, to actually imagine Aoshi giggling (*shudder*) … but he's not. He just wants to, and it is ridiculous, and it is insane, and it is inappropriate, all of which is pretty much what he thinks about the dinner as well, and hence the need to giggle. He's not amused, not really … and it's not cynicism, precisely … it's that hysterical laugh you get before an exam, you know? (Can't really explain it better than that. Does it sound like I've given too many exams? 'Cause I have!)

I don't usually do the individual replies to reviews because I can't think up enough witty, appreciative things to say … and continuous 'Thank you's and 'I love you's have their own place, but … Well, you asked, and I deliver. And somehow it gives me a strange kind of thrill, justification does, because if you still don't agree I'll have to go back and see what can be done to make it more believable (I mean, I wouldn't have posted it if I didn't think it was, but … customer satisfaction!) and that's work and improvement and if they go hand in hand I don't mind.

Work without improvement I do not agree with, which leads to my distinct lack of work as a rule, but … that's beside the point.

~*~

… been to the bottom of every bottle.

~*~

"Sanosuke will be waiting."

"Let him wait."

"He's been waiting for the past two hours."

"He can wait another five minutes."

"You said that half an hour ago!"

"Spread your arms, Misao, we want to measure your waist – "

"You took that last time."

"That was almost five months ago, wasn't it, Mrs. Pritchard?"

"Yes, it was, Miss, and you could have changed sizes easily in that long …"

"Well, I haven't! And Sano will leave – he promised to show me around town, and I'm sure he doesn't have that long – "

"Oh, Sanosuke always has time," said Omasu with a grin, nostalgic and flirty.

Misao groaned. "He's not even that good-looking! Why do you like him so much?"

Omasu looked as if Misao had told her that oxygen wasn't needed to breathe. "Now what if I told you that Aoshi-sama had horrible hair?"

She blazed up immediately. "He does not have horrible hair! Sanosuke, on the other hand – "

"And that he was the most frigid, emotionally stunted man in the world?"

Her hands reached for kunai she knew she didn't have, and then she caught Omasu's eye and was forced to laugh. "I might actually have to agree with you there," she grinned. "But Sano isn't anywhere near as – " She gestured wildly, trying to find a good word, and was saved the trouble by Omasu patting her on the head condescendingly.

"It's okay, Misao-chan," she said. She – and Okon – only said '-chan' when they really wanted to make her angry. It worked. "We can't choose who we like. Sad as that is."

"You don't even really like Sanosuke," Misao snapped, rubbing her left elbow as Mrs. Pritchard measured the other with a long-suffering sigh.

"Oh, no," said Omasu, in a tone that made the suggestion so ridiculous that Misao almost blushed. "You think I'd do that to Megumi?"

She blinked. "Megumi? K-Kaoru's sister Megumi, right? Though how many Megumis you could have in one English town – "

Omasu looked at her closely. "Sanosuke has – feelings – for Megumi. You didn't know?"

She racked her brains, and remembered hearing something about it from Sano and Yahiko – all their respective 'things', and her own painfully obvious one too. "Oh yeahh …" she said, clasping a hand to her chest as Mrs. Pritchard began measuring around it. "Hey!"

"Don't be childish, Misao-chan," admonished Omasu. She peered out the murky window of the shop, where Sanosuke was creating a clear patch where he leaned against the glass. "Look, he's still there. Stand straight, Misao!"

"Jeez, you sound like Aoshi-sama! Sit straight, Misao, eat properly, Misao, don't try to decapitate me, Misao – "

"Did you really try?" Omasu asked, with unparalleled interest.

"Er … I didn't mean to … the knives kinda just flew …" She wriggled uncomfortably, and Mrs. Pritchard sucked in an annoyed breath.

"Knives?" said Omasu. "As in, plural?"

"Well … Aoshi-sama was sick of getting up and retrieving the knife every time it went flying, so he got Okon to bring up more than one … and it was a disaster …"

Mrs. Pritchard, finished with her tsk-ing, had caught the last part of this conversation, and was now goggling at them. "You threw knives at Mr. Shinomori? Miss?"

"Are the measurements done?" she asked quickly, and as the woman nodded, picked up her skirts and ran out of the shop, leaving Omasu to explain the murderous ward and her willing-to-be-murdered guardian.

"Took you long enough, weasel girl," said Sanosuke, ever-present fishbone in his mouth. It wasn't that warm yet, but his sleeves were rolled up and his coat unbuttoned.

"Sorry," she said. "And don't call me that!"

"It's been – " He glanced at the village clock, hanging above the tiny church, " – close to two hours. Never had much experience with buying women's clothing, myself, but what took that long?"

"They had to measure everything!" she said, beginning to walk alongside him.

"Everything?" he leered.

She conked him over the head. "Yes, everything! I thought you'd leave, actually, but I guess I'd underestimated your – "

"I did leave," he interrupted immediately. "Hangin' around with the Fox Lady at the clinic. Thought I'd check on you one last time, then I was just gonna give up an' go home."

"The Fox Lady?" she asked, blank.

He waved a bandaged hand. "You know her, right? Kaoru's sister, Megumi?"

"Ah," she said knowledgeably. "The one you have a thing for."

She was quite convinced that Sagara Sanosuke never blushed, but was that red in his cheeks? "Say it louder, why don't'cha," he muttered, words almost unintelligible around the fishbone. "I don't think the unconscious patient in Misselthwaite Clinic heard ya!"

She grinned. "Didn't ask you all this earlier, but … you like her, so, does she like you back? How far along are you, anyway?"

"God, weasel girl, you're makin' it sound like I'm pregnant or somethin'! Yes, I like her – a little! – and no, she hates my guts, and so we're nowhere along. God!" He raked his hand through his hair as he repeated the word 'God', causing it to stand up even higher. She hadn't been sure that was possible.

"Huh," she said. "I have it better than that, at least."

"What? The Icicle doesn't hate all the itsy-bitsy parts of you? You never know, girl, he probably wants to puke in revulsion every time you come near, but you'd never know it to look at his face. Stupid bastard."

She had fistfuls of his hair even before he finished his sentence. "Take it back! Don't call him that! You don't know anything about him, you – "

"Ah, Misao-dono," said a soft voice behind them. Sanosuke scrambled to his feet, knees lathered with mud, and Misao smiled sheepishly and climbed off her awkward position on his shoulders, fixing her skirts so that no more leg showed. Thank God the street was deserted. Mostly.

"It is a surprise to see you in town," said Himura, smiling the way he almost always did. Unlike Sano, his English was proper and precise, even though it had to have been picked up from the streets in the same way. He also tended to lapse into Japanese a lot more, but he tried not to, and tried hard.

"Told you I'd be taking her around one of these days," said Sano, fixing his headband and brushing out uprooted handfuls of hair. "Ow."

She stuck out her tongue at him. "What are you here for, Himura-san?" she said, turning to the shorter man. It felt strange not to be polite to him when he was so overly polite to her, so she always tacked on the '-san' … she did forget, at times, and he didn't mind, but she did her best.

"Kaoru-dono asked me to drop something off with Megumi-dono, and I was doing that."

"Why don't you hang around with us, then?" she offered, with a murderous look at Sanosuke.

"Yeah, Kenshin," he said, putting an arm around the small man's shoulders, almost lifting him off his feet. "Let's go gambling!" In an undertone to Misao, he added, "He always calls right."

"Oro …" Himura kicked his legs, eyes panicked. "Kaoru-dono will – not like this – "

"Oh, don't be such a wuss," said Sano, dragging him along. "I know this great place, 's beneath the Fifth Boar, and everyone's there … completely hush-hush, of course, because gambling's all a thing for the nobility, nowadays, but they've set it up real well, and …"

As they walked down the street, it occurred to Misao, briefly, that perhaps a gambling hall wasn't the best place for a girl to be, and a well-dressed one at that, who looked as if she might have money and – what with the number of people who lived in this village in the first place – instantly recognizable for who she was. Shinomori's ward. It was only a passing thought, though, and she held the hem of her dress up confidently as she followed Himura and Sano into the tavern they had reached.

As her first experience of an English tavern, it wasn't all that shocking. There were tables, but she'd expected that, and barrels of drink lined up that were filled with alcohol but not sake – that made her sad, made her suddenly, poignantly homesick – but because it was the middle of the day, there were only a couple of patrons, rough-bearded men with huge mugs before them. The three of them – all Japanese, one a red-haired man with what suspiciously looked like a sword, one a girl with a fairly expensive dress but tilted eyes nonetheless, and one a boy with a red headband and linen-wrappings on his hands, a sure sign of fistfights – should have attracted unprecedented amounts of attention, but Sano simply waved at the man behind the curving counter and walked to a trapdoor in the floor at the end of the room, hefting it up easily.

Himura might have stood back and applied the ladies first rule, but Sano shoved him through, and Misao hopped down before he could do the same to her as well. The trapdoor banged behind them, and as she breathed in the smell of sweat and smoke and alcohol, she knew it was indeed a gambling hall. Just like the ones back home.

Well, human beings were human beings everywhere.

Sanosuke had been absolutely correct when he said that Himura always called right. Misao had never seen this kind of – luck, intuition, cheating, whatever it was. She settled herself down on the floor between Himura and Sano – she could take care of herself well enough, but it was always better to be sandwiched between two men you knew than between two men you didn't – and watched as Himura said, "Five-six split," and the dice landed exactly as he called them, gaped as he said, "Snake Eyes," and the dice fell the same way. She gaped, too, as the pile of money next to Sanosuke grew bigger and bigger, and she could see the coins reflected in his eyes as he leaned forward for every roll of the dice.

At some point, Himura asked wearily, "Isn't gambling illegal, Sano?"

"What'cha talkin' about?' said Sano, slurring around his fishbone. "Your sakabatou's illegal too, innit?"

Himura sighed. "That's true, but …"

Some of the men began muttering that they wanted to move on to cards, or to more tricky forms of dicing, where you needed strategy as well as luck, but Sanosuke's sore losers comment made them stick to the regular way. Himura had ordered food at some point, and she ate with relish, that plate of slightly stringy chicken being her first 'public' meal in all her stay here.

"Did you sleep with Lady Luck or somethin', Sano?" said a dark-haired man sitting opposite, eyes slightly bloodshot.

Sanosuke and Himura looked at each other, then turned around and made gagging noises. "N-No," managed Sanosuke, patting Himura's head gingerly. "My Lady Luck's right here. Just – not slept with!"

"Hey," said Himura, fending off his hand. He looked about as insulted as Misao had ever seen him – that is to say, not all that much. "Don't call me a girl."

"Yeah, I'm the girl here," she cut in, shoveling food into her mouth.

They ignored her.

When they finally made it out of there, she was feeling a little woozy from all the smoke in the enclosed space, and Sanosuke and Himura were shoving money into a small sack Himura had somehow produced from the numerous folds of his shirt, Sanosuke grinning madly, showing so much teeth that it was scaring her, and Himura with his eyes turned up, smile stretched across his face. Apparently, even nice, polite rurounis were susceptible to the lure of money.

It was nearing sunset, outside, and she realised that Omasu might be getting worried. She'd been supposed to meet her at half past four, and the clock told her it was past that already.

"Thanks, you guys," she said, suppressing a burp. "I had a great time!"

Himura nodded, but Sano ignored her, digging through the sack, tongue hanging.

"I said, I had a great time!" She thwapped him on the head for good measure, turning around to bow to Himura. He would understand – she thought he missed the bowing, too. "Hey, we'll be killing chickens up at the manor all of this week … wanna come see the slaughter?"

She didn't know what she'd said wrong, but Himura's face closed up immediately. He was still smiling, and his eyes were still turned up, but it was as if he wasn't really behind the face he put on, as if it was just a mask. And somehow the crossed scar on his cheek stood out more than she'd ever seen it. She opened her mouth to ask – something, she wasn't sure what, but Sanosuke pulled himself out of the bag of money and said, "Sure, weasel girl. Better go now, otherwise you're gonna be in trouble."

She looked at Himura, who smiled at her, still in that detached oh-so-happy way, and was ready to ask what she's said wrong when she caught Sanosuke's eye, and instead of the money-love or the warmth or anything else, there was a warning. She could see it as clearly as if he'd written 'Back off!' in red on the front of his shirt.

For once in her life, she listened. She backed off. She said good-bye and ran off the other way. And she wondered about the man with the red hair and the cross-shaped scar and the sword that he concealed beneath his coat.

~*~

"If you would bend your fingers instead of keeping them rigid – "

"Rigid? Who's keeping them rigid?"

"They're practically bent backwards."

"At least they're bent!"

"Misao."

"All right, all right – just – stay away, this time! I mean, I know you desperately need one, but I don't want to be the one to give you a haircut – "

"…"

"Whoops. Didn't mean that, Aoshi-sama!"

~*~

The kitchen was a mess. It generally wasn't the most spotless place in the house; if the whole manor was deserted, there was always some kind of activity in the kitchen, always some soup spilled on the stone counters and dirty dishes piled in a basin in the corner, but today … today it was a mess the likes of which Misao had never seen.

"Move up, Okon! I don't have enough elbow room!"

There were chickens. Everywhere. She'd never seen that many chickens in the same place before. Oh, sure, she'd been to the market back home in Kyoto often enough, but even there the poultry was kept in wooden cages, and Jiya always used to have the birds killed before he had them brought to his restaurant. That was how it was done here … usually.

"Damn it, Sano, you're gonna cut my arm off!"

But the local butcher was sick, and his son was manning the shop for the moment, inexperienced enough to have no idea how to deal with butchering of this scale, and Omasu and Okon had gathered up the entire team – along with about twenty chickens – to help out in the plucking and skinning and all-around killing.

"Bleagh! Stupid rooster – "

And so here they were, packed together in the kitchen, chicken feathers in the air, squawks of panic coming from both human and chicken throats as Sanosuke wielded his butcher's cleaver with heart-stopping bad aim, blood spattering everywhere, chicken heads going into the huge blue bucket in one corner, and Kaoru chopped up the white meat, Yahiko flailing around with a headless, skinless chicken before falling flat on his face.

"Talking to yourself, Roosterhead?"

She shook her head as she hacked up her own chicken, already decapitated by Sano. Whatever dish Omasu and Okon were planning, it definitely didn't require very symmetrically sized pieces … and if it did, there was going to be bad food along with knife-throwing at the dinner. She looked at her hands, not as bloody as Sanosuke and Yahiko's, but there were still rivulets running down her arm. It should have squicked her out, but it didn't. She'd had ninja training, after all, and what was a little blood to all that?

"Oh, shut up, Yahiko-chan."

A couple of feathers floated around and eventually settled in her hair, and another worked its way beneath her nose, causing her to sneeze all over the half-chopped chicken. Brushing the feather away angrily, she managed to smear blood and chicken-filth all over her nose, and was forced to sneeze again.

"Don't call me '-chan', you idiot – "

Oh, hell. She'd just have to go wash her face or something. She stood up, and promptly banged her head against the base of a huge wooden tub Himura was helping Omasu carry.

"Misao-dono! You should be more careful – "

She wasn't sure which of the two Himuras she could see was talking, but she smiled vaguely at both – and at the two Omasus, too – as she swayed towards the kitchen door. Her vision cleared as she stumbled out, rubbing her eyes – which just resulted in more feathers and horrible blood over her nose and forehead, and now here eyes were stinging, and –

"If that knife comes within two feet of my hai – aaaahh! Sanosuke!"

– she hoped she was heading towards the stairs, because she really couldn't see anything –

"Bloody hell!"

"Yeah, literally bloody!"

– and her foot hit something, and shit, she was already at the stairs and she hadn't seen, her eyes squeezed shut ... she was falling, her hands spread outwards to stop her fall, knees impacting with the hard wood of the staircase, nose crushed against the well-trod carpet …

"Damn it," she muttered, rubbing the back of her hand across her eyes and nose, which didn't really help the stinging. She felt her nose gingerly – it didn't feel broken, but it throbbed like hell, and there was blood beneath it, but she wasn't sure if that was from her nose or from the chickens … "Well, it could have been worse," she told herself out loud. Maybe it was her nose bleeding. "It could have been Aoshi-sama instead of the staircase."

Like one of those bad stories Omasu was always telling, a voice floated down from above her. "What – are you doing, Misao?"

A break? In his tone? Now that was something you didn't hear everyday. But she supposed even he couldn't remain completely unsurprised to see his ward lying flat on her face at the foot of the hall staircase, face covered with blood and hair sprinkled with chicken feathers.

"Climbing the stairs," she said, truthfully. That had been her intention, after all.

She supposed he might have raised an eyebrow, but since she couldn't see anything but vague bits of red carpet – red? Wasn't the carpet here beige? – she had to wait for him to reply, still rubbing her nose.

"I didn't know climbing the stairs resulted in nosebleeds."

She would have stuck out her tongue, but she didn't want any of the stuff covering her face to make it into her mouth. Instead she said, with all the dignity she could manage, "I fell."

"Ah," he said. Or maybe he didn't, quite – he made some kind of acknowledging sound, and she assumed it was an 'ah'.

"This is the part where you help me up and say that I should let you help me get washed up …"

In response, she heard the rustle of clothing as he came closer, and then the slight displacement of air as he bent down. Her mind barely managed to form the thought: What is he do – before his hand grasped her forearm and pulled her to her feet. He let go at once, and she opened her eyes enough to see him standing three steps above her, a little bit of chicken blood on the inside of the cut-off black – armguards? – he was wearing.

She knew she was completely going off on a tangent when she said, "You never wear those."

He looked down at his hands, where her gaze was directed, and said, "Not much, no."

"So why're you wearing them, then? Looks like you're going off to battle or something!" She'd meant it laughingly, but his face tightened, the grim line of his mouth thinning even more than usual. Now that she could see – somewhat – his usual clothes were different, too, all black and high-collared, although the trenchcoat was there, ever-present.

He didn't say anything, and she blinked and said, "You're not actually going off to fight someone, are you? 'Cause I thought your work was more – desklike – "

"No. But this is part of the work I do."

"Huh," she said, stepping a little to the side so that he could continue down the stairs. "I haven't seen you really working for ages."

She couldn't believe he'd sighed, but he had. Almost. Imperceptibly. "Work was slacking, yes."

"So what do you really do? I've never figured it out." She crossed her arms, wiped off some traces of blood, and looked up at him.

He didn't deign to reply. He cut his eyes from her face to the stairs to the hallway around them, and then returned to her face silently. 'Must we have this conversation here?' was the question she could see in the way his eyes moved, and she grinned in response.

"Y'know, I'll ask you that later," she said, with the suggestion of a promise in her tone. "But – seriously – are you going to go beat people up? When will you be back?"

"Tomorrow. And, no."

"So why are you wearing those black things?"

"To make them think I'm going to."

"Beat them up?"

"Yes."

She grinned. "'Kay. See you later, then."

"Yes."

He walked down the hall, and paused just for a second in front of the kitchen door, his back to her, hair ruffling slightly in the breeze coming from the open front doors. "Misao?"

"Yeah?" she said, still on the first step.

"Why are there chicken feathers in your hair?"

"We're killing chickens," she said, with bloodthirsty enthusiasm.

"Ah," he said, and this time it was a definite 'ah'.

She grinned as she hurried upstairs to wash up, and was still grinning when she tumbled back into the kitchen to find Sanosuke and Yahiko brawling in the middle of the floor, and Omasu, Okon, and Kaoru cheering them on while Himura wearily chopped up the last couple of chickens, the floor littered with blood and feathers and chicken shit.

~*~

"Aoshi-sama?"

"Yes?"

"You look like you just sat down on a cactus."

"…"

"Oh. Oh. I'm so sorry! I have no idea how that got there – I mean, I thought I'd picked up all the forks when I left – I can't imagine how I could have left one on your seat – "

"Please, Misao. Just eat."

"H-Hai … I mean, yes. Okay. Just – can I use my hands?"

"… no hands."

~*~

He'd been back home for a couple of days, and the dinner was tomorrow night. She'd sat through uncountable meals with him, now, and her stomach was growling as if she hadn't eaten for days, but he said that she would eat with a knife and fork and spoon, or she would not eat, and Omasu and Okon would only smirk when she asked them for food. Her governess didn't come on Saturdays, and she would generally spend her morning running around outside – Shiro was planting seeds in some of the enclosed gardens, ready for the arrival of spring, and he would be grateful for her help – but she'd decided instead to wander into his rooms and annoy him a little. Because, God, she needed to see him outside of the context of a meal.

She knocked on the door of his office and got no reply. She knocked again, louder, slamming the flat of her hand against the wood, and then decided that if he was inside he would definitely have answered. Going inside and waiting for him to come back from wherever he was seemed a fairly good bet – he was never away from his beloved desk long.

The room was deserted. The curtains were pulled back, sunlight streaming in from the windows, making refracted patterns on the floor near the desk. The desk itself was clear of all paperwork – it had been for some time now, he said that he'd much rather risk his own limbs than his documents – with nothing but a couple of paper shapes lying on it. She'd asked him about them, those small paper cranes with broken necks, and he'd said, very quietly, that origami interested him.

"Like books?" she had asked.

"Yes. Like books."

She settled herself in the chair on the other side of his desk, ready for him to turn up any minute, either from outside or from the adjoining door on one side of the room. She admired the fountain pen that lay on his desk – she expected someone like him to have a proper holder for it, but there was an inkpot and a pen and nothing to place either of the two things in – and unscrewed the top to look at the inside of it. Putting it back, she shifted around in her seat and waited. And waited. And waited.

Eventually it seemed to her that she just might fall asleep, the room comfortably warm and the chair indented with the pattern of her behind, and she forced herself to get up and wander around the room, exploring. She'd been here often enough to know what was here, but she'd never had a go at it all by herself. It wasn't the basics that interested her – she knew that there was a filing cabinet in the left-hand corner and a small coffee table in the other, and one wall made up of windows and the other holding the narrow door that led into an adjoining room she'd never been in. It was probably where he slept.

What interested her were the tiny knick-knacks scattered around the room – the discarded handguards lying on top of the file cupboard, the paper cranes on the table, a copy of 'The Art of War' on a shelf along the wall that contained the door she had entered from. What interested her was the air of the room, the orderliness that was never found in her space, in her domain, and the slight deviation from that same order that the carelessly thrown armguards provided. That was who he was, she thought; cold and straight-faced and stony … and just that much different, with so much more to him than the order and the cold and the barriers let on.

She'd find out who he was, inside. One day, she'd find out.

She turned around to sit back in the chair she'd already almost fallen asleep in, but her movement was arrested by a sound from the half-closed door that connected his office with the inner room. Eyes narrowed, she crept towards it, wondering if she actually had the guts to push it open completely. It didn't make sense that he would be in there – he would have acknowledged her presence in this room, and she hadn't been quiet enough to make it impossible for him to have heard. But there was the unmistakable sound of footsteps, and the rustling of clothing, and she supposed it had to be him, because who else would be in his room …

She pushed the door open.

"Shit," she said. Out loud.

Surprised eyes met hers – and she was sure hers were wide enough to take up half her face, she was so shocked – blue-grey and glinting beneath gorgeously damp hair. Her mouth moved soundlessly, trying to manage something approximating an apology, but all that came out again was, "Shit."

He had his pants on. At least. She supposed she should be grateful for that, but somehow her mind had shut down and her mouth was connected to something that spoke nothing but the truth and nothing that she didn't think. That was not her mind. Right now, her mouth was wide open – you'll swallow a fly, Misao, came Jiya's annoying voice from the not-mind part of her – as she tried not to focus on the shirt he only half-wore, one of his arms through one white sleeve, the other halfway to the other. And she could see everything else … muscles and chest and … scars …

"What are you doing here?"

Well, she had to give the man credit for keeping his cool. He sounded as if gaping girls wandered into his room while he was dressing almost every day. She brought her eyes up to his face – that should have been considerably safer, because she saw his face all the time – but his skin was all scrubbed clean right now, and his eyes were shining because his hair hung all dripping over them, and his hair really was much too long, but she thought vaguely that he should always keep it wet, because she'd never seen it look this good before …

He shrugged himself into his shirt – and the muscles rippled and moved and she was forced to blink, twice – and started buttoning it up. The white material fell over his fingers, and got in the way of the buttons. He repeated his question, "What are you doing here, Misao?"

"I was looking for you." Oh, thank God. Words. And an entire sentence that even made sense.

"You should have knocked." The admonition was mild, his voice not quite as cold as it had been that night on the stairs when she hadn't been properly dressed. Hmph. Sexist man.

"I did," she said heatedly. "Loudly. Banged on the door is more what I did."

"Hm," he said, working on the last buttonhole. She loved it when his voice sounded all deep like that. "I must not have heard."

"Obviously," she said. "You were taking a bath?" Oh God, did she have to ask?

He didn't raise an eyebrow, didn't rub it in. "Yes," he said, cool as ever. Her own brain was still swimming. "I'll be with you in a minute."

"Hm," she said. "I mean … oh. Ah. Hai. I'll wait outside."

He nodded, and she stepped out, bringing the narrow door shut behind her with a loud bang, and jumping at the noise. She put her hands to her cheeks and wasn't surprised to find them flaming. Shit. What had she been thinking, wandering in without a thought? Of course he was taking a bath – sure, so she'd never seen him wet-haired in seven months of living here, but that didn't mean – damn it, she was getting incoherent, and this was not good. What was she supposed to say to him now? She glanced at the threshold of the door, checking for visible drool. That wouldn't be fun to explain.

Shit. How could she have just walked in?

The door opened again, and he had a coat over his shirt, and he looked much like usual, except for the fact that the coat was unbuttoned and his hair was wet … and the trenchcoat was missing, but that made sense, because he didn't always wear it inside the house … "I'm sorry," she said hastily, before the hair distracted her again.

He nodded and headed for the coffee table, where a couple of letters lay. Picking them up, perusing the addresses, he said, "It's not dinnertime yet. Did you want something?"

"I was bored," she said honestly. "And I thought I'd come and talk to you outside of a meal, you know?"

"Mm," he said, opening one of the letters. "I have some work to do, actually …"

"Argh," she said. "It's always food, work, food, work, 'No hands, Misao – ,' and then food, work, food …"

The air lightened a little, and she thought that meant that he was amused. "We can talk later, perhaps," he said.

"Or I could help you," she said. She couldn't leave now – she'd never get to see wet hair again …

His lips twitched a little, and she knew that meant a smirk and not a smile. His smile-look was different. "I doubt that."

"No, I could, really!" she said, warming to her theory. "Like, you're always writing stuff, and I could write it for you, and … I don't know, something like that!"

He shook his head, folding the letter back into its envelope and opening the second one.

And his hair moved when he did that, and his eyes caught the light and seemed to glow, blue and grey and beautiful, and she had to say, "But can I stay anyway? I won't annoy you … I'll find something to do, there's some arithmetic I have to practice …"

For a minute she didn't think he was going to answer, because he went on reading the letter with a slight frown on his face, hair obscuring his eyes. But then he looked up and said distantly, "If you want," and she decided that that was the best assent she was ever going to get as she ran to get her mathematics work. She always had mathematics work. Girls weren't really taught numbers the same way – or at least numbers weren't given the same importance for them – but apparently Aoshi had insisted that the governess be impartial to the differences in girl-boy education, and she had been.

She spread her work out on her side of his desk, sitting down, and he placed his papers in a neat pile in front of him, and for a very long time there was no sound but the scratching of his pen and hers, and the shuffling of paper as he pulled out a new document, or as she turned a page. The sunlight streamed in through the windows, shifting and dancing as the clouds moved across the sky.

"Can I ask you a question, Aoshi-sama?" she said after a while.

"What is it?" he asked, without looking up. There was still the slightest of frowns on his face.

"Why are you actually having this dinner?"

He did look up now. He seemed unsurprised, but just the fact that he'd bothered to raise his head told her that he hadn't expected the question. His mouth opened, just a fraction, and she had the feeling that he was about to say something else before he settled for, "It is because of my work."

"Which involves …?"

"That is all confidential, Misao."

"I'm – "

"No."

She sighed. "All right. But – you can answer me with a simple yes or a no, can't you?"

"No."

"Are you using the dinner to spy on the people you're inviting?"

He paused, grey eyes boring into hers. "Yes."

She grinned. Victory. "Are they psychotic and dangerous?"

"Yes."

"Ooh. Will they come with weapons?"

He didn't reply to that, so she repeated her question. She watched his shoulders rise and fall, almost imperceptibly, as he sighed. "I expect better of them."

"So they won't?"

"I did not say that."

She made a face. "Can you be any vaguer? I mean, obviously you think they aren't life-threatening, because otherwise you wouldn't be inviting them so casually, and Omasu and Okon said they'd have their wives and … stuff … with them, so I'm guessing they won't be armed, but the way you're talking …"

"They should not be," he said, and turned back to his work, conversation over.

"But you think they will."

"No."

"You don't think that they will?"

"Misao."

She snapped her book shut and said, "Hey, I just want a proper answer!"

The frown on his face deepened, but he didn't seem to be as angry as the expression indicated. "I don't think that they will carry weapons with them. But I cannot be sure. Is that detailed enough for you?"

"Hai," she grinned, and didn't bother to check her lapse. "So you just plan to interrogate them?"

"Yes. Only not blatantly enough to have it classified as interrogation."

"Do they know who you are, and why you're calling them for this dinner?"

"They might."

"Do you think they know?"

"No."

"And do you think – "

"Misao, please."

"What?" she said, chewing on the end of her pen.

"Let me work."

"Oh. Hai." She grinned, continuing to nibble her pen. "Ne, Aoshi-sama? What are you going to be wearing tomorrow?"

Now he was scowling openly, eyebrows drawn together, drying hair falling over his eyes. "I really don't think that matters, Misao."

"None of my business, you mean?"

"Yes."

"Hmph," she said, dipping the tip of the pen in the inkpot they were sharing and proceeding to drip dark blue liquid over the polished top of the desk.

~*~

"Oh my God! I have meat on my fork! Oh my God!"

"Yes. That is an achievement."

"Okay, no need to get sarcastic. You're s'posed to be happy, Aoshi-sama!"

"I am."

"You don't look it."

"I'm more thankful that my hair has survived this."

"Yeah, you should be. And – oops. Shit, you think that'll leave a stain on the carpet?"

" … I suppose so."

"And here I was thinking we were ready."

"I think we're as ready as we'll ever be."

"That's not very encouraging."

"I know."

~*~