Title: The Black and the Blue

Summary: Mindless drudgery makes for grand epiphanies.

Word Count: 454

A/N: Surprise! Bet you guys weren't expecting an update here any time soon, huh? …neither was I. (sweatdrops) Heh heh. Anyway. I've been holding onto this one for a while, and finally decided to post it because I don't feel like waiting to do a bigger dump. So it's just the one this time.

Also, to those of you who have very patiently been waiting for me to reply to your reviews…I'm so sorry. I suck. Pretty much everything but school has been shoved aside for the time being. I don't mean to ignore you guys, but…well…school sort of beats this, as much as I would love for the opposite to be true. So to everyone who reviewed last time, whether for Captain Mis or Small Things, thank you so much, I appreciate the love for my babies. You guys are awesome and I'm lucky to have such devoted fans.

And now, on with the show.

It took him a while, but one day Saitou noticed something that amazed him: when he wore his black winter uniform, Tokio's suits were predominantly black, and when he wore his blue spring uniform, her suits were predominantly blue.

He made this discovery while he was doing paperwork, because paperwork paled in comparison to the Rubik's cube that was his Chiisai, and besides that, he could fill out forms without thinking about them, because they were easy enough that an idiot could fill them out, no problem (Exhibit A: Himura and Okita). It was just boring, not hard, tedious because everything had to be filed in triplicate, which Saitou for the life of him would never be able to understand.

Honestly—who really needed one report on jaywalking in triplicate?

But that was getting away from his amazing epiphany.

Saitou sat back in his chair, paperwork forgotten, and examined this discovery, wondering what it meant and if she was aware of it. He doubted it was intentional, but you could never really tell with women—even when they outright told you. Saitou was smart enough to know that most women spoke in subtleties, and just because they said something was a certain way didn't necessarily mean it was to be taken at face value.

That mistaken assumption had led to the downfall of many a good man.

Still, he wondered at the wisdom of saying anything to her about it, because there was always the (slim-miniscule-nonexistent) chance that she wasn't actually aware of this tendency, and that his pointing it out would prompt her to stop. Sure, he'd probably embarrass the hell out of her, but that was a fleeting pleasure, in the end—she'd still, when all was said and done, stop matching him color for season.

And it was sort of weird (okay, it was a lot weird), but Saitou wasn't exactly your average Joe Blow on the street, either. He had some "issues," for lack of a better word, that put other people's issues down for the count. He'd always been a little off-center, and weird shit had always had a certain appeal for him, had always piqued his curiosity.

This definitely fell into the "weird-shit-that-got-his-attention" category.

So he decided to just sit on it and observe and enjoy. He had no idea what, if anything, Tokio's suits matching his uniforms meant, but he didn't think it was a bad thing. It was even sort of cute, in a completely skewed kind of way.

Then again, only a guy who thought threatening his best friend with swift and brutal death, in complete and utter seriousness, could have found something that smacked even faintly of stalking, endearing.

Saitou was special like that.