A/N: Just something silly that I've had for a while and only just now decided to post. Enjoy. : )
Disclaimer: Not mine, despite my fondest wishes.
Words To Watch Out For:
Anata: "Dearest"
Konbanwa: "Good evening;" used only in greeting, not as another way of saying "Good-night," which is something else altogether.
Maa, maa: "Now, now;" Kenshin says this quite a bit—ever the peace-keeper, our Rurouni…. : )
Aa: "Yes," casual & masculine form.
Tadaima: "I'm home;" said when entering one's home
Okaeri nasai: "Welcome home;" said in response to "Tadaima."
Genkan: entry
Guess Who's Coming to Dinner
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This was not how he'd envisioned his night off.
Sawagejou Chou stood outside a modest house in Bunkyo Ward and wondered how exactly he'd ended up here. He'd been planning on getting very very drunk and possibly also very very rowdy in celebration of the fact that he didn't have to see Saitou Hajime's face until tomorrow afternoon.
As it turned out, he'd be seeing his boss' face a lot sooner than he'd planned, if he was standing outside of the right house.
"The gods hate me," Chou muttered darkly. "They gotta. No just an' merciful god who loved me would do this shit t' me."
Then he sighed and walked up to the gate and decided that he should get this over with so he could drown his sorrows in many many jugs of saké. Besides, if he didn't get this information to Saitou more or less promptly, the ex-Shinsengumi captain would make sure he paid for it later.
"They so hate me," Chou mumbled, banging on the gate.
He heard the door slide open and someone stride to the gate. Actually, he knew exactly who it was striding toward the gate, because Chou had had to follow Saitou around often enough that the man's way of walking had been burned into his brain, whether he wanted it there or not (and he didn't, thank you very much). So he wasn't surprised when he saw Saitou on the other side of the gate.
Interestingly enough, Saitou didn't look particularly surprised to see him either. He did look distinctly irritated, however, which in and of itself was nothing unusual.
"What do you want?" Saitou demanded.
"Chief wan'ed me t' give this t' ya," Chou said, producing a thick envelope from his kimono and holding it out to Saitou.
The Wolf frowned and took the letter from him, ripped it open and scanned the contents.
Chou waited exactly two seconds before asking,
"Can I go now?"
"Shut up," Saitou ordered, not bothering to look up at him. "Don't interrupt me."
Chou sighed but knew better than to invite Saitou's wrath by insisting on talking, so he stood quietly and tried to peek into his boss' yard, curiosity getting the better of him.
He couldn't see much, mostly because Saitou hadn't opened the gate all the way, and his body was blocking most of the view. He did, however, see the house, with the slightly ajar door…which slid open a little farther to reveal a short, feminine silhouette.
"Anata?" came a woman's voice, and Saitou looked around in the direction of the house; Chou, taking advantage of the Wolf's inattention, leaned over ever so slightly to get a better look.
"I'll be in in a minute," Saitou said.
Chou's jaw dropped as he realized this was the mysterious Saitou Tokio. Or rather, Fujita Tokio, in keeping with his boss' new name.
"Holy hells she's real," Chou said a little too loudly, and immediately regretted it when Saitou slowly turned his head to glare at him. "Oops."
"Big one," Saitou assured.
"I didn't mean it," Chou blurted. "I swear—I was just kiddin', I swear—don't kill me please—"
"Who's this?" Tokio asked, suddenly appearing at her husband's elbow.
"This is a prime example of the quintessential ahou," Saitou dryly informed her.
Saitou's wife was a small woman with huge eyes and a sweet disposition, if the moonlight on her face wasn't playing tricks on Chou's eyes.
This was so an arranged marriage, Chou thought a little frantically. There's no way she married Psycho Cop 'cause she wanted t'—he musta held her at katana point.
Tokio smiled at him.
"Konbanwa," she said with a polite bob of her head. "Are you an associate of my husband's?"
"More a hindrance than anything," Saitou muttered and Chou glared at him.
"Oi, I run all over T'kyo fer you!"
"And accomplish nothing," Saitou returned.
"Maa, maa," Tokio said with a small, polite smile. "Anata, why don't you invite your associate in?"
Saitou's face changed from bored annoyance to incredulous horror, an expression which Chou would relish for the rest of his days. Saitou looked down at his wife.
"You can't be serious," he said flatly.
Tokio looked up at him, wearing a faintly surprised expression on her face.
"Of course I am," she replied. "I wouldn't have said it if I wasn't."
"I'm not inviting this idiot into my house," Saitou growled.
"But you work with him," Tokio returned.
"No, he works for me," Saitou corrected.
"Well all the more reason to invite him in," Tokio said with a smile.
"He's an idiot."
"Oh Anata, really—if he works for you he can't be so useless. You'd have gotten rid of him by now."
That comment wiped the smug smile off Chou's face. He took another look at Saitou's wife, wondering if he'd heard correctly.
Did she mean "fired"…or did she mean the other one…?
"Anata, it's rude not to invite your associates in," Tokio said patiently.
"Not if my 'associate' was just leaving, which he was," Saitou returned, and shot Chou a look that very clearly told him that if he wished to remain whole and unharmed, he'd better run away right now.
"Uh…right!" Chou said, taking the hint—if something so blatant could actually be called a hint. "Aa, sorry Saitou's wife, but I was just leavin'! The chief just wanted me t' drop off that letter an' get a reply…get a reply. Aw shit."
Tokio smiled widely, and Saitou sent him his special "You-are-so-dying-a-slow-and-grisly-death" look.
"Well you can come right on in and have dinner with us, and then you and Hajime can finish your business." Tokio said cheerfully.
"Yes'm," Chou said mournfully.
The gods so hate me.
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And that was how Chou found himself seated at a table with his boss—who was trying to make him burst into flames by sending him really really nasty looks—his boss' wife—who was not only real and his boss' polar opposite but also heavily pregnant—and his boss' son and ward—who were watching his hair in wonderment that might-possibly-perhaps-maybe have been endearing if only they weren't staring.
He was starting to really wish he'd taken Saitou up on the death penalty.
He had a feeling Saitou was of the same opinion.
"Sawagejou-san," Tokio said politely, holding out a hand, "your bowl please."
"Yes'm," he murmured, picking up his bowl and handing it to her.
She scooped up a generous serving of rice into the bowl and handed it back to him with a smile and he bobbed his head and accepted it and tried to ignore Saitou's resentful gaze.
"Eiji-kun, Tsutomu, don't stare please, it's rude," Tokio instructed as she took her husband's bowl from him.
"Gomen Tokio-san," the older boy immediately said, looking down at his bowl.
"His hair's big, Mama," the younger boy piped up.
"It's still rude," Tokio replied, also filling her husband's bowl with a generous amount of rice. "Apologize to Sawagejou-san."
"He doesn't have to do that," Saitou and Chou said in unison, then looked at each other.
"Of course he does," Tokio said, holding Saitou's bowl out to him. "Now apologize, Tsutomu."
The little boy let out a dramatic sigh, then turned to Chou and bobbed his head.
"Gomen Sawa'jou-san." He raised his head. "But your hair still looks like a broom."
"Tsutomu!" Tokio said sharply, while Saitou smirked, looking pleased for the first time since Chou's arrival.
"Atta boy," Saitou murmured, with a slight nod of approval, then schooled his features when Tokio sent him a flat look.
"Hajime," she said. "Don't encourage him."
"I didn't say anything," Saitou glibly lied, sending his wife a perfectly blank look.
She wasn't buying it, but seemed to decide that this was no time to call him out on it, which Chou thought was a shame, because he really would have enjoyed watching Saitou get his ass flayed by his wife.
Tokio engaged him in conversation throughout the meal, with Tsutomu and Eiji occasionally offering their thoughts. And that was when Chou discovered that for all her seeming cheerful obliviousness, Saitou's wife was no dummy.
She didn't ask a single question about how he'd come to work for Saitou, or what he'd been doing before he'd come to work for Saitou. She didn't ask him what he did beyond a general inquiry which she didn't bother to follow-up. Mostly, she asked him about the Kansai region, since it was obvious from his accent that that was where he was from.
All of which meant that she knew exactly who he was and what he did for her husband.
He was surprised she was so well-informed. He'd expected Saitou's wife to be a dim woman content to carry out her husband's orders as he handed them out—the Wolf of Mibu, as far as Chou could tell, preferred to order people around rather than ask what they thought.
But Tokio was intelligent; he realized with a start that up until he'd referred to Saitou as "Saitou," she hadn't called him anything but "Anata." It was only after he'd said "Saitou" that she'd switched to "Hajime."
Then again, maybe it shouldn't have come as such a surprise. Saitou made no effort to hide his disdain for fools—looking at it like that, it made perfect sense that his wife was smart.
That still didn't explain how such a seemingly intelligent woman had ended up married to a psychopath, though….
…Definitely arranged marriage, Chou decided. Man, her folks musta been desperate. Or loony. Or both.
It wasn't actually as bad as he'd been expecting. Tokio did rap his knuckles with the rice spoon once when he went after seconds, and she really hit them good and hard too, but she immediately smiled and offered to serve him, and Chou decided it was safer (and a lot less painful for him) to let her do so.
And she was pretty good at conversation, too. Surprisingly so. A little formal for Chou's tastes, but good. Vaguely, she reminded him of Yumi. Yumi had been an oiran, the highest class of courtesan there was, and that class of courtesan was trained to make excellent conversation. She'd told him a few stories about her training. Now, he didn't think Saitou's wife had been an oiran like Yumi (Chou shuddered at the idea of Saitou being anywhere near a brothel; despite the fact that Tokio was obviously with child, as far as Chou was concerned, his boss was completely asexual and that was that), but maybe she was the daughter of one of those fancy-shmancy samurai families that had fallen on hard times with the Revolution. From what Chou understood, they taught their kids how to talk right and act right same as the courtesans were taught. And she sorta seemed a little too high-class to be a former courtesan (though really, you could never tell for sure with women, the damn tricky things). So if she came from samurai stock, folk who'd been screwed over by the change of guard, it made a little more sense why she'd be married Saitou.
Desperation's a bitch, he decided, and he felt deeply sorry for the woman, having Saitou for a husband.
At dinner's end, Tokio thanked him for joining them and asked him to please come again soon. Pity for the woman made him accept her thanks, and give some of his own as well as compliment the meal (which was no trouble, really, because she could cook); fear for his life made him assure her that the odds of him joining them again for dinner another time were lower than low.
She smiled cheerfully.
"Well, I do hope you'll try," she said.
"Uh…right, sure," Chou weakly replied with a faint smile, studiously ignoring the evil eye Saitou was shooting him.
Oh if looks could kill….
Saitou pretty much shoved him out of the house as soon as Tokio and the boys disappeared from the dining area, arms loaded down with the dishes.
"Tell them I'll be there at sunrise," Saitou said, glaring at him and pulling out a new cigarette.
"Aa, I'll tell 'em."
There was a long stretch of silence. If Saitou had been anyone else, Chou might have congratulated him on snaring such a wife. But since Chou had this powerful attachment to staying alive for a little while longer, he kept his mouth shut and didn't dare.
"Well?" Saitou irritably asked. "What're you waiting for?"
"Geez, all right already," Chou said, annoyed; how in the seven hells did that sweet little woman put up with this asshole…?
He walked to the gate and through it, and began walking back toward the MPD headquarters, feeling a little gloomy.
Good things 'bout tonight: found out Psycho Cop's wife's real an' she's a good cook. Bad things 'bout tonight: I hadda see Psycho Cop's face.
As far as Chou was concerned, the bad outweighed the good. But he cheered up slightly when he realized that that was as good an excuse as any to get hammered.
Tokio was waiting for Saitou when he got back to the engawa.
"Is Sawagejou-san gone?" she asked, smiling faintly.
"Aa—finally," Saitou muttered.
He settled down on the engawa, and then held her steady when she joined him.
"He seems nice," she said.
"He's an idiot," Saitou assured her, taking his cigarette out of his mouth, and she rolled her eyes.
"You think everyone's an idiot."
"Everyone is an idiot," he replied.
She sighed.
"Hajime…."
"You know he's never going to dare come back here, right?"
A pause, and then a low laugh that made him smile faintly and reach over to rub the back of her neck with his thumb.
"I know," she said, her laughter in her voice. "I thought he was going to die of fright when I asked him to come back again."
Saitou laughed and draped an arm over her to tuck her close.
"You're an evil woman, Songbird," he murmured, nuzzling her hair.
"Hm—hard not to be after all these years with you, Anata."
He raised an eyebrow and sent her an arch look that had her grinning up at him.
"Anata."
"Hm."
"Your cigarette…."
He looked down at his forgotten cigarette just as ash fell from the tip and onto his thigh. He swore and brushed it off his trousers, and Tokio grinned at him, obviously amused.
"You should be more careful," she chided playfully. "You ruin enough of your clothes as it is."
"Feh," was Saitou's reply, and Tokio only smiled and leaned her head against his shoulder. His arm came back around her, and they sat in silence for a while.
"Anata?"
"Hm?"
"Do you think Sawagejou-san would like eel next time he eats with us?"
"He's not eating with us," Saitou replied. "Ever again."
"He would if I asked him to," Tokio said slyly, and Saitou looked down at her, glaring.
She looked back up at him, expression completely innocent.
"Well he would," she replied. "He likes me."
"His fear of me outweighs his like of you."
Tokio smiled wryly.
"You underestimate the power of guilt, Anata," she replied. "He wouldn't dare turn me down."
"Whatever helps you sleep at night, Songbird," Saitou replied, and Tokio only smiled and let the topic die.
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Chou was deliriously happy when lunch time rolled around.
He'd hit the liquor way harder than he'd actually meant to last night, and was paying for that error in judgment in spades. Saitou, being Saitou, wasn't helping his hangover any.
But lunch time was all his, and he sat down at a stand with a sigh of relief, glad to be away from his boss, even if he thought half an hour was criminally short.
He was about to dig into his double shrimp tempura with relish when he heard,
"Why Sawagejou-san! I thought it was you."
He looked around, saw Saitou's wife and blanched.
"Tokio-san!" he blurted, scrambling to his feet and anxiously searching the surrounding area for Saitou—oh fuck, there was a soba stand down the way—
"Imagine running into you!" she said cheerfully.
"Aa," Chou said weakly. "Crazy. Wha'cha doin' 'round here, Tokio-san?"
"Oh, just running a few errands," she said, then cocked her head and eyed him.
I'm dead, Chou decided.
"Do you like eel, Sawagejou-san?" she asked, a twinkle in her eye.
Chou blinked.
"Uh…eel?"
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"Tadaima," Saitou said absently when he got home later that evening.
"Okaeri nasai Anata!" Tokio called. "Come to the table, dinner's ready."
He removed his shoes and set them in their accustomed place in the rack, then left the genkan and walked to the dining room, cracking his neck as he went.
And almost had a coronary when he reached the table.
"You!" he snarled when he saw Chou. "I just saw you! What the hell are you doing here?!"
Chou sent him a deeply pained and miserable look. Saitou glared at him for a moment, then sought out his wife, who was smiling brightly at him.
He'd known her too long, however, to miss the triumphant self-satisfaction tingeing her smile.
"Sawagejou-san will be joining us for dinner, Anata," she said cheerfully. "Isn't that wonderful?"
Saitou had to hand it to her—he hadn't thought she was serious or capable. Just more proof that his wife had a devious streak in her a mile wide.
"Fantastic," Saitou muttered sourly, expression dark as he made his way to his place at the table.
If either man had been aware of the other's thoughts, they might have been insulted that they were thinking the same thing:
The gods hate me.
This was going to be a long and painful dinner.