A/N: Happy Valentine's Day, Faithful Readership! I interrupt your usual Authoress' Witless Blatherings to bring you Something Different.

An Open Letter to My Faithful Readership:

One of my much adored and long-time CM readers called me out on the seeming discontinuation of Captain Miserable. I assure you, CM is not discontinued, nor do I plan to discontinue it. I'm finishing that baby if it's the last thing I do. RL is just...not cooperating. I'm gainfully employed, which is awesome, but there's no guarantee that I will be next year when school starts again, so that's got my attention right now. I'm working toward a couple backup plans (one of which may possibly involve finding a rich husband, but we're holding that one in reserve for now), so I'm sort of…preoccupied with the business of living. These are the realities of being an Adult, apparently. Also, the fact that I am an Adult during one of the worst economic downturns in modern history is not helping any. (Thank you Universe—you always know how to kick me when I'm down.)

The short of it is basically this: I have the ideas, guys, I really do, just not the focus. Not, at least, right this moment.

One shots require very little investment from me, time and effort-wise, so they're kinda ideal when I do get the chance to write, and find that I am able to actually produce something. I tend to favor them. As to chapters I've posted for other stories: they've already been written out, and all I need to do is go back and edit them—again, something that really requires very little investment from me, as I can edit on auto-pilot.

And this isn't supposed to offend anyone, or make anyone feel bad or like a jerk; I'm just explaining what the hold up's been. I also want to say that I appreciate how nice you all have been about my lack of update, and how much I appreciate not getting a bunch of messages saying something to the effect that the writer of said message will hunt me down if I don't update NOW. Trust me when I say that I feel really bad about not updating CM for more than a year.

I really love doing this, and I love you guys letting me entertain you. I take it very seriously, and I make an effort to make it worth your while and mine. And though I feel a little guilty, I ask that you be a little more patient with me for just a little bit longer. I'm trying to get back into the swing of CM after a decidedly lengthy absence. I'm shooting for next month. Cross your fingers.

That said, please enjoy the end of the unintentional saga that became Stupid Cupid, lol.

Warmest Regards,

The Hack

Disclaimer: Not mine, not now, not ever.

Words To Watch Out For:

Koseki tohon: Family Registry. It generally traces your family history, if I understand it correctly, back several generations, providing government officials with information on exactly who your "people" are/were. This can either be an awesome thing ("Oh, you're related to those Tanakas!") or a significantly less awesome thing ("Oh. You're related to those Tanakas.") Context and punctuation are important.

Stupid Cupid

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"You do realize that I let you order me around?"

Saitou sent Tokio a rather superior look, if he did say so himself.

Oh is that what she thought?

He knew better than to say anything disparaging or obnoxious—then she might actually tell him to leave, and this would all be over, and Saitou refused to let months of hard work go to waste.

He detested waste.

Contrary to what Tokio or that traitor Shinomori might have thought, this was not a game to Saitou Hajime, oh no. This was deathly serious.

He was just trying to make it interesting.

And so far, it had been working.

He told her very little about himself, and she tried to follow suit, but she was at a distinct disadvantage, because he always met her at her apartment, on her turf. Ordinarily that should have given her an edge, but Saitou was a master at using other people's supposed advantages to his favor. He knew more about her from a cursory perusal of her apartment than she would have believed, and he had no doubt it would have mortified her.

Which he considered a bonus, really, but one he wasn't quite ready to make use of just yet.

Patience was the word on this one.

Currently, he was delving into a reserve of patience previously unknown to him: he was trying to get her to agree to go to dinner with him, which was not unusual in the slightest, except that this dinner would include a couple of the higher ups and their wives, which was unusual in the extreme.

Saitou was long past the point where he felt like he had to impress his bosses; at this point, he played the game just so that he might continue where he was at, quite content with his rank and not interested in climbing any higher.

He was thirty-two, and if he had his way, he'd be Inspector until he had to retire in about twenty-odd years.

Part of playing the game meant going through certain motions. Saitou was also a master of going through these certain motions, having done so for many years already. Up to this point, he had been able to get away with keeping his boss out of his love life, but Saitou knew that the noose was closing; the older man had been making far too many ambiguous inquiries into matters which did not concern him for it to be innocent interest or mere coincidence.

Saitou, for his part, had never tried to butt into his junior officers' love lives, mostly because he didn't care but also because it didn't seem like it was any of his business; private affairs were a separate entity from one's job, and he made this absolutely clear to his subordinates, starting from their first second with him.

That had ended with Shinomori, not that any of his officers were aware of that.

After meeting Tokio at the Policeman's Ball, he had been—dare he say—smitten. He hadn't paid too much attention to the guest list prior to the event (just enough to make sure all of his junior officers were going to be in attendance, only because it looked bad on him if they didn't rather than out of any desire for them or himself to be there), and the name "Takagi Tokio-san" hadn't interested him until he finally met her.

A little (perfectly innocuous, in his opinion) eavesdropping on his officers the day after the event had given him more information, namely that she was no longer with Shinomori, and had attended the event as a friend, only because the reservation had been made several weeks prior and he hadn't had the time to find a date on short notice.

Oh how convenient…

From there, it had been simple to find out where she lived—Saitou had long ago, by virtue of his rank, earned the right to nearly unlimited perusal of the MPD's vast database, though it had taken some doing to get into the civilian files.

Still, nothing that calling in a couple favors hadn't taken care of.

The food bit was harder, but Saitou loved a challenge, and he'd had to actually talk to Shinomori for this one. He'd gone about it in the manner least likely to arouse his junior officer's interest: he'd asked the younger man for recommendations on good take-away.

It was no secret that Saitou was a bachelor, so there was nothing especially unusual in his asking the question; no one even suspected that Saitou, who was actually a pretty damn good cook if he did say so himself (and entirely self-taught, what's more), very rarely ate out. Cooking for himself wasn't exactly fun, but he liked leftovers enough that he didn't mind.

It was through this question that Saitou had learned that Tokio had something of a discriminating taste when it came to take-away food, and thus the door had opened for Saitou to inquire as to what Shinomori meant by saying that. He'd managed to affect a suitably disinterested enough air that Shinomori was entirely ignorant of his superior's ulterior motives.

You'll be needing more time around me to hone that suspicious nature of yours, boy, Saitou had thought with a smirk while Shinomori had shared a few of Tokio's more memorable dislikes food-wise.

Granted, that had changed once Tokio had complained to Shinomori—as Saitou had known she would. The younger man had been eyeballing him for a while, but hadn't said anything, so Saitou decided to ignore him. Shinomori was smart enough to keep his nose out of it, and Saitou knew it.

"I hate it when you look at me like that," Tokio said, snapping him out of his musings.

"Like what?" he asked innocently, but he wasn't fooling anybody, least of all her—she saw right through him, and he was absolutely delighted by that.

"Like you know something I don't," she muttered, glaring at him.

He smirked.

"That's probably because it's true," he said, managing to just barely keep from looking smug. "I probably do know something you don't know."

She rolled her eyes and he hid a smile behind his water glass, pretending to drink.

"Returning to the issue at hand," he said after what he deemed a suitable pause.

"I'm not going to dinner with you and your bosses, so you can just get that idea out of your little pea-brain now."

Saitou ignored the uncomplimentary words; he wasn't idiot enough to rise to the bait, and he was wondering when she was going to stop hoping that he would and just abandon such a juvenile tactic.

Soon, he hoped—there were such better, more cunning and mentally challenging methods to go about this game of theirs…

"You'd be doing me a favor," he said calmly, deciding it was time for a calculated risk.

At that, Tokio's eyes narrowed and she sat back in her seat to consider him over the Korean take-away he'd arrived on her doorstep with.

This was very dangerous for him, but after carefully considering all the options, Saitou had deemed this route to be the one that stood to gain him the most ground in the long run.

Nothing ventured, nothing gained, after all.

And though there was a chance she'd take great pleasure in denying him and get plenty of satisfaction out of that—Saitou knew she was just enough of a bitch to consider it, and gods love her for it—there was a much better chance that she would do it if only because it meant he'd owe her one, and she was devious enough to want to have something like that on him.

"Would I?" she asked, tone and gaze carefully neutral, and inside, Saitou smiled.

On the outside, however, he was as aplomb as ever.

"Hn," was all he gave her, pretending far more interest in his dinner than it warranted.

"And exactly how would I be doing you a favor?" she asked suspiciously at his rather lacking response.

"My superior has been making noises lately," Saitou said, gaze flickering over to her face to judge her interest.

He almost smiled at the hungry curiosity on her face.

"Noises?" she echoed.

"Hn. About my disinterest in procuring myself a nice girl," he said.

She raised an eyebrow. "Guess he doesn't know you're stalking me, huh, Saitou-san?"

He ignored that, knowing better than to react to such obvious enticement.

"So if I bring you along, I'm off the hook," he said nonchalantly.

There was long silence as she considered him and what he'd told her. Then:

"You're lying."

"I am absolutely not," he said immediately, voice as toneless as ever, so it must have been the quickness with which he'd replied that brought that startled look to her face.

More silence, and then she said, "So you want me to go to dinner with you and your bosses so they'll get off your back, as a favor to you."

"Yes."

"What do I get out of this?"

"Aside from dinner?"

She sent him a bland look:

"Which I get anyway every time I see you," she pointed out.

"True," he conceded, as if the thought hadn't already occurred to him. "All right then, Tokio, what would you like?"

This was where the danger came in. It could go one of two ways: she could either use the opportunity to get him to agree to leave her alone, or she could use it as an opportunity to do his ego some serious damage. He didn't know which way she would go—she was impulsive, and that made it hard for him to get a good sense of which way she'd jump—but part of him hoped she wouldn't go with the first choice.

He didn't know what he was going to do if she did; that would be difficult to come back from.

"I'll let you know next Wednesday," she said suddenly, and he raised an eyebrow.

He hadn't thought she'd want time to think on it.

"About what you want in return?" he asked.

She sent him a sharp smile, and Saitou knew he would have fallen in love with her right then and there, if he hadn't already:

"About whether I will go to dinner with you and your bosses or not," she corrected.

Ah, my devious little kitten, he thought in amusement.

He inclined his head, acquiescing gracefully because he knew that was as good as he was going to get, and pressing further would only cause her to make a decision less beneficial to him in the end.

The Art of War didn't just apply to combat—knowing when to strategically withdraw was useful off the battlefield, too.

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By the time Wednesday rolled around again, Saitou had had just about enough of his boss, and had visited a couple of temples to pray for some divine windfall—insurance, no matter how small, never hurt.

He had a bag of groceries under his arm, hoping that cooking for her might better his odds since she seemed to enjoy it more on nights when he cooked.

That might just be because he humored her and wore her apron, though.

Still, he was secure enough in his own masculinity that wearing a girly apron edged with lace didn't bother him in the slightest.

That, and she had promised not to take any pictures.

He made sure to get to her apartment ahead of her as usual, mostly because he knew she hated it. Only this time, the frustrating woman threw a wrench in his carefully laid plans: she was already home. And entertaining company on top of that—he heard voices through the door:

"…you'll like her, she's nice," Tokio was saying when he arrived, and Saitou frowned; had she taken a day off work?

"Uh-huh," came a decidedly unenthusiastic and male voice, and Saitou's eyes narrowed because that sounded an awful lot like his junior officer.

"Aoshi, don't be such a drag," Tokio snapped irritably.

"Fine, Tokio," Shinomori said, sounding weary, which led Saitou to believe that either they had been discussing this topic for some time, or Shinomori was very much uninterested and only humoring her.

"So you'll agree to meet her?" Tokio asked, sounding much more cheerful.

"Sure, you can set it up," Shinomori said with a sigh.

There was a pause, and Saitou wondered if he should knock or not. Tokio made his decision for him:

"Aoshi…can I ask you something?"

"About?"

"Saitou-san."

Saitou raised an eyebrow and decided that a little "surveillance" would prove most fruitful, so he quietly set his burden down against the wall before he made himself comfortable against the door jamb.

"What about Saitou-san?"

"Have you heard anything about his bosses getting on his case?"

"Care to narrow it down for me?" Shinomori drawled.

"You're an ass," Tokio muttered, and Saitou smirked, able to imagine her rolling her eyes. "About him dating anyone?"

There was another long pause. Then:

"No," Shinomori said. "I haven't heard anything, from him or anyone. Not that I'd expect to hear anything from him, anyway."

"Because he's your boss?"

"No, actually. Saitou doesn't care about our personal business. First day I started working for him, he told me to keep my business to myself, he was a police officer, not a psychiatrist or life coach."

"He was ruder than that."

"Oh absolutely," Shinomori assured, and Saitou's gaze narrowed, taking offense to the whelp's tone and deciding to hunt up some menial tasks to saddle the little shit with just because he could. "The point, though, is that Saitou doesn't encourage us to talk about our personal lives, and he leads by example. We do when we're sure he's not around, or when we go out to eat or get drinks, but around him, we don't breathe a word. As far as he's concerned, we don't have any lives outside of the MPD."

"Yeah, I'm pretty sure he doesn't himself," Tokio said, rather uncharitably in Saitou's opinion, and he frowned.

"Oh, I dunno Tokio—don't you think stalking you qualifies as having a life outside of work?" Shinomori asked, voice dry, and Saitou decided he was going to load the little snot-nosed bastard down with the most boring of all the infinitely boring paperwork they had to get through.

"You've worn out your welcome," Tokio snapped, and Saitou privately agreed.

He turned, picked up his groceries and began ambling down the hall, hunching into his coat and modifying his gait; no way he wanted them to know he was there, and the easiest way of doing that was pretending he was someone else at a far enough distance from both that he'd be able to pull it off.

After all, if everything looked like business as usual, that was what people were going to see.

Tokio threw Shinomori out without ceremony, and the punk went along on his way; Saitou didn't look around to see if either of them had noticed his presence in the hall, and he waited a good fifteen minutes before presenting himself once more at Tokio's door. He was thankful that he heard the radio playing in her apartment; he now had a legitimate excuse to knock on her door, since she wasn't supposed to be home yet and he wasn't supposed to have prior knowledge of her deviation from the norm.

When she answered the door, she was barefoot, wearing a T-shirt and a pair of well-worn jeans, with her hair up in a ponytail. She looked very young and cute, and Saitou allowed himself a moment of indulgence before he slipped back into character:

"My my—this gives 'office casual' an entirely different meaning," he said, giving her a slow once-over before meeting her gaze, one eyebrow raised.

Tokio flushed a most becoming shade of pink before glaring at him.

"Obviously I wouldn't wear this to work, Saitou-san," she snapped.

"Hn. Then I must conclude that you've changed out of your work attire in preparation for my arrival, or you didn't go to work today," he replied placidly.

She rolled her eyes. "As if I've ever changed my attire for you," she muttered, crossing her arms over her chest.

"So you played hooky," he said with a grin. "Imagine that! That's quite naughty of you, Tokio."

"Aren't you early?" she asked abruptly.

He wasn't about to tell her he regularly haunted her building for up to twenty minutes before her arrival—keeping her in the dark was much more fun than giving her answers, even if, occasionally, he thought it would probably make things easier on him.

My mind is a strange and terrible place, Saitou decided idly.

"It's very difficult to cook out here," he said instead, voice bland. "To start with, there's nothing in the way of a stove, and though the floor makes for an ample work area, I doubt it would be hygienic."

Tokio eyed him sourly, then stepped back so he could come in; Saitou very politely refrained from smirking at her in something like smug satisfaction or unseemly triumph.

Best not to infuriate her, or things might not go the way he'd been planning them to…

Her mood improved once he began making his preparations for the evening's meal; actually, her mood improved when he dutifully tied the apron on, and he ignored the inappropriate delight with which she watched him do so with very little effort, as he was by now used to it.

He was lucky his ego was as solid as it was.

He worked in silence, efficient, and soon they were sitting across from each other over dinner. Saitou allowed her until midway through the meal before he broached his goal:

"Given any thought to my request?"

She sent him an amused look.

"You know, for it to qualify as a request, you have to actually phrase it like one," she said dryly.

His face was carefully neutral:

"Perhaps we can argue semantics later, Tokio."

He didn't let on how much her subsequent laugh pleased him, but only just barely; her laughs were so rare that they caught him off guard when he heard them, and he was always in danger of doing something very much outside of the persona she equated with him—something like smiling.

Not smirking, but smiling.

And that was no good, not at this stage in the game.

"Have you?" he asked, once he was sure he had sufficient control over his reactions.

"Thought about your 'request'?" she asked, almost teasingly.

He nodded, once, expression serious. She too grew serious, and cocked her head as she regarded him.

"I have," she said finally.

He kept from verbally prompting her, barely. As hard as it was, he simply watched her, waiting for her answer.

She surprised him again:

"What will you give me if I agree, Inspector?" she asked, lifting her chin in something like a challenge.

He raised an eyebrow.

"Isn't it a bit early to be discussing what you get, considering you've yet to agree to go?"

She only stared at him impassively. Saitou decided it was time to switch gears:

"I take it there's something in particular you have in mind," he prompted.

"Something," she agreed.

He raised an eyebrow and waited; she smiled faintly and surprised him:

"A guarantee that I may ask a favor of you—any favor—redeemable at a future date of my choosing, no questions asked."

He had severely underestimated the danger.

She was essentially asking for a blank check, and aside from the fact that that was dangerous in the wrong hands (and right now, Tokio was very much an unknown entity in that particular respect)…it was reprehensibly stupid to agree to something with so much potential for calamity.

For him, of course.

Still…she wasn't the type to use something like that on a whim; she would save it for something big, which had its merits, and its pitfalls.

Do I want to win the battle, he wondered, watching her impassively, or do I want to win the war?

And really, when he thought about it like that, the answer was amazingly simple:

"Very well," he said with a nod, and was treated to the very pleasant sight of her shock.

"What?" she asked, staring at him with wide eyes.

"Your terms are agreeable," he said, more than a little amused, but knowing better than to let her know that. "So I take it you'll come to dinner?"

"Y…yes," she croaked, and Saitou almost did smile when it occurred to him just what had surprised her: she hadn't thought he'd agree.

She had purposely picked something she thought there wasn't a chance in hell he'd agree to.

And therein lay the difference between them, he thought, not a little smugly—he took calculated risks once he'd analyzed the situation, and didn't allow himself the fool's luxury of assuming he knew everything there was to know about his opponent.

He might yet win the war, at this rate.

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It felt odd to see her twice in one week.

Saitou wasn't a slave to routine, but he did find a certain amount of comfort in it, and any significant deviation from the routine tended to throw him a little off kilter.

Seeing the woman he'd been surreptitiously trying to court for the past four months twice in the same week was very much a significant deviation from the norm.

Saitou shook his head as he knocked on Tokio's door.

I am not entirely well, he thought.

Tokio opened her door with a faintly mutinous look on her face that dissolved into shock when she caught sight of him.

"You're in a suit," she said finally. "A nice suit."

He shrugged.

"It's a nice dinner."

"A very nice suit," she said, still looking a little shell-shocked by his apparent transformation.

"It's a very nice dinner," he replied, mentally approving of the blouse and skirt she wore. "Ready?"

"Yes." She still sounded shocked, though she was a little subdued now as well.

Saitou nodded, then stepped aside, a silent prompt for her to get her purse, step into her shoes and get going.

They left her building and walked to the train station in silence, boarded it and then arrived at their destination in silence. Saitou was carefully going over all his plans and backup plans; he couldn't say what had Tokio—usually so eager to flay him with her sharp tongue—so quiet.

That ended when he reached over and took her hand and tugged her a little closer to him before tucking her hand securely into the crook of his elbow.

"Saitou—" she began, sending him a flat look.

"Keeping up appearances," he said, patting her hand. "It starts now."

"We aren't at the restaurant," she pointed out, though he was pleased that she made no move to tug her hand away from his arm.

"Think of it as practice, then," he said. "I'd like for this to be believable so that the harassment can stop."

She sent him an amused look.

"Is the Big Bad Wolf afraid of his supervisor?" she teased.

"Very," he deadpanned, and Tokio laughed.

She ended up playing along beautifully, as he'd known she would; she was a fantastic actress.

But then, Saitou knew that already.

His bosses liked her, and he was amused by the subtle look of bafflement they shared midway through the meal—clearly, they wondered how in the hell such a nice, sweet girl had found anything about the likes of his crabby, easily-irritable ass attractive. Saitou didn't mind; he found it immensely entertaining more than anything, since he was aware of his difficult reputation at the precinct.

A very much well-deserved one.

Dinner also provided him with more details about Tokio's background: her father was affiliated with the Matsudaira family, working as an executive on the board of directors of the family's electronics corporation, and her brother was set to follow in the old man's footsteps; her mother was from Aizuwakamatsu, where she had spent many summer vacations as a child, and was a distant cousin to the Matsudaira clan; and her sister worked as nanny for Matsudaira's children. Tokio seemed to be the only one unaffiliated with the family, and he was curious about that.

Perhaps a little more snooping was in order…?

When Tokio and his bosses' wives went off to the ladies room, his bosses complimented his good choice in women, and praised Tokio. His direct superior even apologized for trying to set Saitou up with another young lady. Saitou had a moment when he thought about playing dumb, but then decided that might be insulting (he was known at the precinct for his keen observational skills, after all), and only nodded.

"They seem very nice," Tokio said as they walked back to the station.

He had once more tucked her hand into the crook of his elbow, partly to keep up appearances on the off-chance his bosses were still watching, and partly because he wanted to keep her close for a little while longer.

She made no comment, to his great pleasure.

"You don't work for them," he replied, and she snorted, rolling her eyes.

"Well? Have we passed?" she asked instead of pursuing the subject.

"Apparently with flying colors," he said dryly. "Though they wonder what in the seven hells made such a nice girl like you want to have anything to do with me."

She flinched.

"They said that?" she asked, sounding appalled, and Saitou was amused and warmed by her outrage on his behalf.

"No," he said. "They thought it, though. I could tell by the looks on their faces."

She didn't have anything to say to that, at least not on the train ride to her apartment, or the walk to it. It wasn't until they were almost upon her door that she stopped suddenly and looked up at him and said, "You're not so bad."

He tilted his head and watched her; she tilted her own in a vaguely challenging sort of way, her gaze steady on his.

"You think so?" he asked, amused.

Her eyes searched his face before she smirked.

"Fishing for compliments?" she teased, and he shrugged and took her hand in his and walked them back to her door.

"Well, it's been an odd night," Tokio said, digging through her purse for her keys.

Saitou slid his hands into his pockets.

"You're welcome," he said nonchalantly, and surprised a laugh out of her—he could tell she hadn't been expecting his reply because her laugh came out too loud before she modified the volume.

"You're so weird, Saitou-san," she said, shaking her head but still obviously amused.

"Possibly," he conceded.

Tokio, having already unlocked her door, turned back to him and cocked her head, eyeing him in a decidedly assessing manner. He raised an eyebrow, wondering what she was on about, but content to let her take the reins on this one, just this once, if only to see where he ended up.

She stepped closer, leaned up on tiptoe and brushed her lips against his cheek.

"Thanks for my odd night, Saitou-san," she murmured.

Saitou's hands left his pockets and gently cupped her face between them, bringing her lips back up, this time to meet his. She was in quite the obliging mood; she slipped her arms under his jacket and around him, warm palms splayed over his back. He leaned her back against her door, hands still holding her head, and tried to devour her—the way she was trying to devour him.

This was one of my better ideas, he thought hazily in a moment of clarity before clever little teeth tugging at his bottom lip were deemed more worthy of his attention.

A thought occurred—how far was she willing to take this?

Some perverse part of him made him lean far enough back to say, "Invite me in."

She responded by kissing him again, until he'd almost forgotten that he'd said anything, before she finally leaned back and smiled brilliantly up at him.

"No," she said, voice husky but cheerful, and she slipped out from his hold and opened her door and walked in.

"Goodnight Inspector," she said before the door clicked shut, and Saitou stared at it for a moment before he threw back his head and laughed.

This one goes to you, my dear, he thought as he turned and began walking to the elevator.

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Saitou was arrogant but not presumptuous, so he didn't assume that Tokio was going to be getting any friendlier with him. As far as he was concerned, her allowing him to kiss her was a one-off, and until she instigated anything along the lines that he had, well, the ball was in her court.

Anyone else would have considered it taking a step—and a huge one—back, but Saitou thought of it more as a litmus test; one way or another, he was going to find out where he stood with Tokio, and how much work it was going to take to get her where he wanted her.

He knew he had more than a good chance of getting the woman to admit to some kind of affection for him—she wouldn't have hesitated to send him on his way otherwise.

He didn't exactly know her mind, but she gave him clues.

So the next time he saw Tokio, he acted no differently than he had before the dinner.

As he did the next time he saw her after that.

And the next time after that.

And that.

Until the day she opened her door, saw him and asked him pointblank, "Were you drunk?"

"Last night? Not that I recall," he said immediately, slightly thrown by the odd reception but not so thrown he couldn't be a wiseass.

She frowned at him. "Why would I care if you were drunk last night? I didn't see you."

"I'm inclined to agree with you."

"When we went out to dinner with your bosses," she said impatiently.

"Oh," he said. Pause. "You know that was a month ago, right?"

"Yes!" she snapped.

He frowned.

"You've been thinking about this for a month?" he asked.

She let out a sound of frustration and screwed her eyes shut.

"Were you drunk that night or what?" she demanded tightly.

"You know I wasn't," he said mildly. "I didn't drink anything but water."

She opened her eyes and glared at him for several beats in silence.

"I liked you better when I thought you were drunk!" she said, then slammed the door shut in his face.

"Huh," he said at long last, after staring at the door for a good minute. "Well, that's a first—nobody ever likes me when they think I'm drunk."

The door opened again, and Saitou regarded Tokio with vague wariness; apparently, his favorite office lady was on the unhinged side today, and from the looks of it she considered that all his fault.

And though he thought himself quite innocent of anything that would have resulted in his current predicament, he wasn't stupid enough to say so.

Out loud, anyway—his own head was a different story.

"I have dinner?" he offered cautiously.

Her glare deepened, and he groped for something else that might appease her, until:

"And…explanations?"

The glare didn't let up for roughly fifteen seconds. Then:

"Better be good," she muttered, stepping aside to let him in.

"The dinner? Or the explanations?"

"Both."

XoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoX

Women were…

They…

She was…

I have no words, Saitou decided after several moments of trying to mentally articulate what women in general and Tokio in particular were.

Because insane didn't entirely encapsulate exactly what he'd been treated to, and psychosis was far too mild.

It boiled down to Tokio having spent the last month all but busting her head open searching for meaning in the (Now, Forever and Always Infamous) Hallway Kiss. She had apparently been unable to decide if he had meant it or not.

"You're kidding, right?" Saitou asked, staring at her.

"Don't look at me like that!" she snapped, flushing. "You have no right to look at me like I'm crazy!"

"You—I asked you to invite me in!"

"You did not." He glared at her, and she had the grace to blush a little darker. "You ordered me to."

"And that is obviously indicative of my having absolutely no interest in you at all," he said flatly.

"You have a stupid sense of humor!"

"And you think too goddamn much!" he bellowed, silencing her.

She pouted faintly, gaze going from him to the take-away—still untouched—on the table then back to him; he glared at her, infuriated to have been blamed because she was so fucking crazy that she had to overanalyze everything.

"Nothing changed," she said finally.

"What?" he snapped, unable to keep all of his irritation out of his voice.

"Nothing changed, you asshole!" she snapped back, and Saitou sighed and rubbed a hand over his face.

"That's not my fault," he said wearily, "it's yours."

Her back stiffened in Righteous Indignation, but he took the starch out of her before she started yelling at him again:

"If you wanted something to change, that was your call," he said. "What happened that night was my statement of intent. You haven't given me yours, yet, Tokio."

She stared at him in surprise for a moment before her expression turned pensive. He sighed, then unpacked dinner and set it out, and unlike every other time he'd dined with her for the past almost six months, dinner was a quiet affair. He dutifully helped her pick up the dishes, then decided it was time for a strategic retreat. Clearly, she had things to think about, and he needed to figure out how to come back from this setback.

They had never fought before, and though he was cheered that she was more than capable of holding her own against him, it wasn't like him to lash out the way he had. He had to come up with a proper peace offering and gesture of apology.

She threw him off when she grabbed him by the shirt front and kissed him, a short, brutal meeting that was nevertheless enjoyable.

"You're stupid," she said, looking him in the eye.

He raised an eyebrow.

"Well you're batshit, so I guess it balances out in the end," he said dryly, and she rolled her eyes.

"Asshole," she muttered, glaring at him sourly. "Look, this is my statement of intent."

"Mine was better," he said, tone bored.

Her eyes gleamed when she smirked at him:

"Wanna bet?"

It went against every rule he'd followed since the beginning of this (most unusual) courtship, but the last time he'd thrown caution to the wind had worked out in his favor (aside from today's belated aftershocks, of course), so he employed it again:

"Whatcha got?" he murmured.

In answer, her smirk widened and she let go of his shirt front to stroll past him and toward the room he knew to be her bedroom. She paused in the doorway and looked over her shoulder at him.

"Well?" she drawled.

Stunned didn't quite cover his reaction, but Saitou was less interested in categorizing his immediate response than providing her with an appropriate answer:

"I stand corrected," he said, tossing the damp dish towel over his shoulder, and not giving a flying damn where it landed, "yours is way better."

She sent him a sexy little smile over her shoulder as he made his way to her.

"Knew you'd see it my way."

XoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoX

There was no way she could complain that nothing had changed now.

Aside from obvious things, like seeing him more often than once a week (which was surprisingly easy to get used to, at least on his end), she—apparently—had to definitively label him now, and nothing brought that into sharper focus for her than the day Shinomori dropped by to visit her at the exact same moment that Saitou waltzed out of her bathroom, toweling his hair dry.

Shinomori took one look at his superior officer wearing little more than a damp towel, then turned to Tokio and said,

"'Stalker,' huh? Well that sure changed in a hurry, didn't it?"

Needless to say Tokio had not been amused in the slightest.

Which isn't to say that Saitou liked Shinomori's smartass remark any better; he just hadn't been the one to unceremoniously boot the little prat out of her apartment.

"What are we, exactly?" she asked him a day later while they were lounging in her futon.

"Whatever you want," he said, eyes closed.

She sighed irritably.

"Don't you have an opinion?" she demanded, poking his side.

"Sure."

"And?" she prompted after several beats of silence.

"It's whatever opinion gets me laid."

"You're disgusting," she muttered, and he grinned and grabbed her and hauled her back into him to tuck into his side.

He'd been surprised by how demonstrative he was with her; he liked touching her, even if it was just to smooth a thumb over her knuckles. He'd always been much more reserved with displays of affection when it came to entanglements of a romantic kind.

Then again, maybe it was just because he knew just how much she liked being touched: she was like a puppy, ready to lean into a caress for more at any moment, and there was something very endearing about such a straightforward, uncomplicated bid for affection.

"Y'know, sometimes I think you work to find shit to bitch about," he said, rubbing his cheek against the top of her head. "Call us whatever you want, Tokio. I don't care as long as you still want me around."

Saitou wasn't an idiot, and he knew why she was asking all these questions all of a sudden; up until rather recently, she had apparently been referring to him as her stalker (and whether it had been in jest or in seriousness, he didn't care for it). Now, however, that he was most definitely not her stalker, she was at a loss as to what to call him. He hadn't made any big gestures or formal declarations because it wasn't his way: so long as he and she understood the new parameters of their relationship, he didn't care about…well, details, like titles.

He also understood that this was in direct opposition of how she worked:

"What do you say when people ask you?" she asked, pushing herself up on her elbows to look down at him; he felt her eyes on his face, and cracked an eyelid to see her watching him with the quiet expectation of an immediate—and legitimate—answer.

"No one asks me," he said, rubbing a hand up and down the inside of the forearm closest to him.

"What if they did, then?" she prodded, glaring at him for being purposely obtuse.

She had his number almost as good as he had hers, at this point in the game.

"I'd say I'm with you, and you're with me," he said.

"That's quite possibly the most unromantic thing you've ever said to me," she said, putting her chin in her hand, watching him with one eyebrow raised.

"So far," he couldn't resist adding, and she rolled her eyes and put a hand over his face to push him away.

He laughed and slid an arm around her and pulled her on top of him.

"Be nice," he chided, "we can't have two assholes in this relationship."

She stopped trying to smush his face, smoothing her hands down over his cheeks to watch him in surprise, her head cocked to the left.

"Relationship?" she asked.

"Relationship," he said with as much of a nod as he could manage as he was, and she watched him in silence a few more seconds before she smiled and leaned down and kissed him.

"Look at you, redeeming your unromantic tendencies," she murmured, smiling against his mouth.

"I always do," he said smugly, hands in her hair.

She snorted and kissed him again, and Saitou was treated to a very satisfying demonstration of her appreciation for his blunt, plain-speaking proclivities.

XoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoX

They were getting used to each other, slowly.

Mostly because there hadn't been any honeymoon period when Saitou had moved in with her—he was never on his "best behavior," seeing no reason to maintain that kind of illusion when he was in such close quarters with Tokio, and after a week she had followed suit.

One of his quirks that she detested was the way he sometimes came home, completely bypassed her and dug into the fridge for an Asahi, of which he'd consume half in three large gulps, before he said hello to her.

He'd tried explaining to her that it came with the territory, that he worked vice and he needed to take the edge off his day before he presented himself to her, because especially if the day had been bad, he needed a little time to remember how to be human again, mostly for her sake.

The day he met the esteemed Matsudaira Teruhime—nicknamed the Aizu Princess in the society pages—was the day she finally realized just how important this ritual was for him.

He came in through the door, slammed it shut, got out of his shoes and strode to the kitchen, shrugging out of his coat on the way, whipping his hat onto the table to deal with later. He yanked the fridge open, grabbed a bottle, popped the cap off and downed half of it, then leaned his forehead against the cabinet. He had vaguely been aware of voices in the living room/dining room, but he'd just assumed Tokio had the TV on, and anyway, he wasn't in the proper frame of mind to filter everything out right now; they were doing some investigating that nobody had the stomach for—a yakuza-run prostitution ring had apparently set up shop in Bunkyo—and his day had been both frustrating and disheartening.

When he decided he'd ignored Tokio for long enough, he straightened and turned…and found Tokio and a very unfamiliar woman staring at him from the kotatsu, tea and snacks laid out before them.

"Shit," he said before he could stop himself.

Tokio had frowned at his uncharacteristic lapse—he hardly ever cursed in front of other people—but Saitou was cringing because a member of the public had just watched him behave in a most indecorous manner while still technically in uniform.

It was Sunday, and she didn't work Sunday, and fuck he really should have been expecting her to do this, because it wasn't uncommon for her to have friends over on her day off if he was working, but…he hadn't thought about it.

"Saitou Hajime-san, I presume?" the Aizu Princess asked, raising an eyebrow.

He had a moment where he couldn't speak, because he'd been caught unawares, in the middle of his transition from Inspector to Normal Guy, and it was paralyzing to have to switch back.

"Yes," he said finally, nodding stiffly.

"Hn." The lady's tone was not reassuring.

Saitou had decided that his best course of action was a strategic retreat, so he took his beer with him to the toilet room, locked himself in there and finished his beer and smoked over the toilet bowl, morosely staring at the tiles.

A little while later, there was a soft knock at the door, and it opened a crack and Tokio peeked in.

"Your friend gone?" he asked, staring resolutely at the tiles.

"Yeah," she said, opening the door a little more and leaning against the jamb to watch him; he avoided her gaze, and after several moments, she padded into the room and settled down next to him, knees drawn up, one arm slung over them. She eyed him for several moments, then reached over and plucked the cigarette from between his lips and took a drag.

He finally slanted a look her way.

"That was rude," he said mildly.

"Hn," was all she had for him, watching him thoughtfully while she exhaled the smoke. "Teruhime thinks you're an asshole."

"Am I to assume she's the woman who was out there?" he asked, gaze returning to the tiles once more; she'd give him back his cigarette when she'd taken one, maybe two more drags off it.

"Uh-huh." Pause; Tokio absently ashed the cigarette in the toilet bowl. "Her exact words were that you were an uncouth man, but the way she said it translated to 'asshole.'"

"That might be the nicest insult I've ever gotten," he said after a moment, and Tokio snorted and took another drag, then held his cigarette out to him.

"Only you would say something like that," she murmured, shaking her head.

He took back his cigarette and put it between his lips; he could taste her on the paper, the tea and the andango she'd had earlier, along with that distinctly Tokio flavor he'd memorized the night he'd kissed her.

It was quiet between them for a while, and then Tokio said, "I'm sorry, Hajime."

"For?" he asked gruffly, frowning at the tiles.

"For having her over at this time."

"It's not a big deal."

She shuffled over and snuggled into his side; he accommodated himself accordingly, and she ended up in his lap, head tucked under his chin.

"Liar," she said with affection, kissing his jaw.

"Am not," he muttered, rubbing a hand up and down her back.

"Are so." She shifted to look up at him, and he obliged her by finally looking right at her. "You need your alone time to get right when you come home. I didn't mean to take that away from you. It won't be happening again."

He watched her for a few moments, then took his cigarette out of his mouth and kissed her.

"Hi," he said, and she brightened, reading his forgiveness in the return to the routine for days like these.

"Hi," she replied, and leaned up to kiss him again.

"I'm very lucky to have you," he decided.

"Yes you are," she said nonchalantly, and he leaned his head against the wall and laughed.

He didn't know whether she knew that he seriously meant his remark—because he did—but he couldn't bring himself to darken the mood again when it had just started to brighten.

So he let her tease and coax him into a lighter frame of mind and kept that particular truth for another day.

And the next time he came home from another day on a beat that wore him down to the bone, she was good as gold, and gave him his time to leave vice behind, and didn't give him any shit at all.

XoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoX

She was plotting.

He could tell by the way she was watching him: calculating, as if she were weighing the odds that he'd agree to give her his liver against the odds that he wouldn't.

She couldn't know that the odds of the former were actually a lot higher than she probably thought.

"Yes?" he asked, affecting his customary bored tone while he looked at her from the comfort of the futon, his arms cradling his head.

She was laying on him, chin anchored on arms supported by his stomach. She was wearing her robe; he was wearing her.

Just the way he preferred it.

She watched him a little longer, then finally said, "Teruhime's getting married."

When she didn't say anything, he raised an eyebrow. When that still didn't prompt a response, he asked, "I'm very happy for her?"

She sighed.

"The wedding's at Aizuwakamatsu, and I'm part of the bridal party."

"Yay?" he offered when she stared at him, obviously waiting for his reaction.

"Hajime," she said flatly.

"What, woman? Just fucking ask me already," he said irritably.

"Will you come with me?" she snapped, but he saw the uncertainty she tried to hide.

"You mean you're allowed to bring me to Her Ladyship's wedding?" he asked, tone dry, raising an eyebrow. "I'm shocked."

Tokio sent him a very nasty look that would have been quelling had it been used on anyone else, but which—unfortunately for her—categorically failed to impress him.

"Her Ladyship" (as Saitou had taken to referring to Teruhime a month prior) remained cool with him, and Saitou would have laid money that she had tried to talk Tokio into leaving him—it seemed like something she'd do, based on his initial assessment of her character. Saitou preferred to ignore the woman, for two reasons: in the first place, she was the kind of person who detested being ignored, and in the second, he just really didn't give a shit what she thought. Tokio had yet to give him any indication that she was unhappy with him and wanted a change, and as far as he was concerned she was the only person whose opinion really mattered.

"I've told you to stop calling her that," she said flatly.

"How disrespectful," he replied, tone arch, and she sent him a speaking look:

"Right, because you're so very concerned with disrespecting people."

"Only Her Ladyship."

"Hajime, stop being an asshole and answer the question." she snapped. "I know that's hard for you and all, but try."

"Trying implies I can choose not to cooperate, you know," he pointed out.

"I am not arguing semantics with you, Saitou Hajime," she said tightly.

He raised an eyebrow and sent her a bland look, but in his head he was already figuring out how he was going to get the time off.

"Sure," he said finally.

"Sure what?" she asked.

"Sure I'll go with you."

"And you'll behave?"

"That was part of the agreement?"

"Hajime."

"Yes, Tokio, I'll behave," he said wearily. "You're tiresome."

"Really? I was just thinking the same of you," she muttered, levering up off of him.

He grabbed her wrist and gently tugged her back down.

"I have to get up and get dressed," she said, frowning at him.

"We don't have to get up and get dressed for another thirty minutes," he said, keeping firm hold of her.

"And I suppose you have ideas about how to occupy yourself for the next thirty minutes," she said, raising an eyebrow.

"Just one, as it happens," he said.

"You've been acting like a jerk," she said without preamble.

"Didn't you know this's the best way to make a man tractable?" he asked, and Tokio suddenly burst out laughing.

"You? Tractable?" she asked.

Saitou smiled crookedly. "Well, maybe I wouldn't improve that much," he allowed. "But I would be significantly less jerk-like."

"Now there's a concept," she said dryly.

"That's unfair," he chided. "Twenty-eight minutes," he added.

"Hmm." She affected a look of deep consideration as she watched him, but her eyes were laughing.

"Twenty-seven."

"You aren't going to boast about being able to deliver in twenty minutes?" she asked, and he sent her a flat look.

"I do shit right, Tokio," he said, and she laughed and leaned down and kissed him, hard.

"Show me, then, Inspector," she murmured.

"With pleasure," he replied, already untying the belt on her robe.

XoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoX

He met her family at the wedding, and found them very pleasant people. Surprisingly, they had no qualms about Tokio being with him, or living with him, or otherwise having him in her life in a serious capacity. Upon realizing this, he immediately maneuvered a seat next to Tokio's father at the rehearsal dinner.

"Kojuro-san," he said, setting a glass of saké down before the older man.

"Ah, Hajime-san," Kojuro said, smiling. "Thank you. You're too kind."

Saitou smiled faintly. "Glad you think so," he murmured. "I wanted to talk to you about your daughter," he said before the older man could either ask him what he'd said, or—assuming he'd actually heard it, which was doubtful—ask him what he meant.

Kojuro looked surprised.

"About Tokio?" he asked, sitting up straighter.

"Uh-huh." Saitou took a sip of his own glass of saké. "Nothing terrible, you understand, Kojuro-san. Nothing to get upset over."

Kojuro stared at him for a moment, then looked down at the saké, then back up at Saitou. Understanding spread over his face, and he smiled in a dazed sort of way.

"Really?" he murmured, sitting back in his seat.

"Really," Saitou said, eyeing the older man in amusement.

Kojuro's smile widened, and then he laughed and put a hand to his forehead. Saitou smirked and took another sip.

Kojuro looked at Saitou.

"Really?" he asked, gaze piercing

Saitou nodded. "Really."

Kojuro smiled, then picked up his glass of saké. "She's independent," he said.

"I'd noticed that tendency."

"Bad tempered, too."

"I've been known to scorch a few people with mine here and there."

"And mouthy."

Saitou grinned. "I don't necessarily consider that a con, Kojuro-san," he said, and Kojuro laughed.

"I can see that. You're a rare man, Hajime-san." Kojuro lifted the glass and tilted it toward Saitou; Saitou reached over and tapped his glass against Kojuro's.

The clink! of glass on glass was cheerful and encouraging.

"Kampai, and have fun," Kojuro said drolly, grinning, as he finally took a sip of his saké.

Saitou's gaze found Tokio, and he smirked, then smirked wider and raised his glass when she looked over at him and smiled, apparently pleased to see him getting along with her father.

"I expect to."

XoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoX

"You have your koseki tohon?" he asked her over dinner a week later.

"No, Mom does," she said absently.

"Can you get a hold of it before next Tuesday?"

"Sure." She glanced up at him. "Why?"

"You'll need it."

She paused in eating to stare at him. "Why?" she asked when he didn't offer any explanation.

"When we go register at the ward office," he said.

"What are we registering for?" she asked, staring blankly at him.

He sent her a flat look. "Really Tokio?"

He expected her to get angry, or send back a snotty, bratty remark, or possibly smile in that sickly sweet way that usually spelled trouble in the form of her formidable temper.

She laughed instead.

Saitou raised an eyebrow, and watched as she laughed so hard she almost fell out of her seat.

"Are you seriously asking me to marry you like this?" she asked, tears running down her cheeks as she laughed.

Saitou sighed and sent her a sour glare as the people in the restaurant around them stared at the rather undignified sight Tokio made, clutching her stomach while she tried to stop laughing herself sick and failed miserably.

"You're an embarrassment," he muttered.

"And you're an idiot," she said, finally finding the discipline to stop laughing. She wiped her eyes with her napkin, and giggled uncontrollably, but at least she wasn't doubled over with laughter anymore. "I can't believe how hopeless you are," she said.

"I'm not hopeless!" he snarled.

"Oh clearly," she drawled. "Because your proposal was so smooth."

"Shut up," he grumbled, feeling his face heat and hating it.

This was different from getting her to accept his advances, or getting her to agree to date him; he'd asked for permission from her father, dammit. This was serious, and no small undertaking. He'd been secure in his ability to get her to agree to be with him, but he wasn't as secure about getting her to agree to stay with him permanently; he couldn't get a read on her thoughts as to his acceptability as a husband.

This was an entirely different kettle of fish.

"Can you or can you not get the koseki tohon or not by Tuesday?" he asked flatly once she had stopped giggling at him.

"Yes, Hajime," she said, smiling as she dug into her dessert.

"Fine. Meet me at the Bunkyo Ward Office Tuesday during my lunch hour with it." he said.

She raised an eyebrow. "I beg your pardon?" she asked, amusement coloring her tone.

"I made the appointment for my lunch hour," he said. "Tuesday was the most convenient day."

He couldn't exactly decipher the look she was giving him: the closest approximation he could come up with was amused indulgence.

"Tuesday was convenient, was it?" she asked conversationally.

"Yes."

"I see." She daintily took a bite of her dessert—crème brûlée—and savored it with such obvious relish that he smiled faintly.

"Enjoying dessert?" he asked.

"It's delicious," she said, smiling back at him.

This was good, he decided. No, this was great. It hadn't gone as smoothly as he'd been hoping for—damn woman just had to laugh at him—but it had gone better than it could have gone, and for that he was grateful.

"Want to walk around the Ginza after dinner?" he asked.

She blinked then stared at him in surprise, before a slow smile bloomed on her face.

"Okay," she said, sounding pleased, and he nodded and went back to his coffee.

It hadn't been perfect, but it was enough.

XoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoX

He might have miscalculated this one.

Saitou looked at his wrist watch for the fifty-third time in the 40 minutes he'd been waiting in the Bunkyo Ward Office. There was no possibility that she didn't know it was today, because he'd reminded her when he'd left the apartment that they had an appointment at the ward office.

And she had heard him, because she had responded in the affirmative when he had told her that their appointment was at noon.

Saitou wasn't the type to jump to conclusions, but he did have a tendency of assuming the worst. When Tokio hadn't showed up fifteen minutes after she was supposed to, he had assumed there was a nasty foul-up on the train. When twenty minutes and a check with the transportation report had come and gone, and Tokio was still nowhere to be found, he had assumed something truly awful had befallen her. When thirty minutes and a call to her office had passed, and he had been assured that Tokio had left work early because she had had some business to attend to at the Bunkyo Ward Office, he had assumed she had stopped for lunch and gotten stuck waiting on line for food.

Now, however, at forty minutes and no Tokio in sight, he was getting the distinct and stomach-turning suspicion that she had changed her mind.

It was starting to look a lot like he was being stood up, especially since he was starting to get some pitying looks from a few of the more tender-hearted (apparently) office workers.

He checked his wristwatch for the fifty-fourth time, just in time to watch the forty-first minute start, and he decided action of a sort had to be taken.

Forty-one minutes late was ridiculous, dammit.

He called her cell phone and was relieved and righteously infuriated when she picked up on the second ring:

"Where the hell are you?" he demanded without preamble. "I've been standing here in the ward office like an asshole for over forty minutes, and they're starting to send me that look."

"Afternoon to you too," she said dryly. "No need to ask how you are or how you're feeling, I see."

"Goddammit Tokio, where in the seven hells are you?"

"Home," she said, and it took a moment for that to process.

"What?" he asked.

"I'm home," she said.

"Why?"

"Because I walked here," she said in what she probably thought was a very sensible tone, but one Saitou decided justified unprecedented, indiscriminate mass homicide.

"Are you fucking kidding me?" he exploded, all pretense of civility blown away like ash on the wind. "Did you forget where the fuck you had to be at noon today?"

"I didn't forget," she said. "I was supposed to meet you at the ward office at noon with my koseki tohon."

"Then why the hell aren't you here?"

"Because I decided not to get married today."

"And when the fuck were you going to tell me that, goddammit! Do you realize the effort it took to get this appointment? And now you're telling me you blew me off on purpose?"

There was a pause, and for one wild moment, he actually thought she might either a) have realized the severity of the situation and the extent of his upset, or b) was actually feeling guilty. Then she reminded him that she just didn't work the way other women did:

"I suppose I am."

Red washed over his vision for a frightening moment, and there was a split second when he wasn't in complete control of his anger. There was a bitter, aching pain just under the anger—he could feel it seeping through him, insidious and paralyzing and instantaneous, like fugu poison—and worst of all, under the pain, a gut-wrenching feeling of hurt that she could do something so humiliating and cruel to him, but the anger was easier to bear because it was less complicated and more familiar. Saitou did not often suffer from soul-searing pain or the kind of hurt that made your heart squeeze, but he was expert at losing his legendary temper.

"I'll be home in twenty minutes, and gods help you if you aren't there when I get there," he said coldly.

He ended the call without bothering to give her a chance to reply or acknowledge what was purely and simply a threat, then pocketed his cell phone. And then he literally stormed out of the ward office, complete with door-kicking and –slamming.

It was too bad they didn't live close enough for him to walk home, because the walk probably would have done him some good, cleared his head.

He knew from prior experience that suffering the train in his current mood wasn't going to do Tokio any favors at all.

XoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoX

He was spoiling for a fight when he got to the apartment exactly twenty minutes later, throwing the door open hard enough to send it flying into the wall, and then lodging it there, knob entrenched firmly in the plaster.

Tokio made no move to greet him at the door looking worried or frightened or anxious, which made things worse; if she had showed an ounce of remorse the moment he'd arrived, it would have done a lot toward settling his temper and wounded pride. Instead, he found her at the kotatsu, a cup of tea before her, hands clasped as she watched him with more calm curiosity than he personally thought she ought to.

Apparently, even all this time later, she had no idea who she was dealing with.

Well that was about to change, and in a hurry, too.

The sight of her after her betrayal—which was exactly what she'd done, to his way of thinking—momentarily caused him to falter. He'd been good and angry while he wasn't in front of her, but seeing her made the hurt and pain well up so suddenly, so sharply, that he wavered ever so slightly. How the hell could she have done that, he wondered, his heart contracting so excruciatingly that he almost put a hand over it to try to rub the sting away. How could she have been that coldblooded, when not even he at his most bloodless would have dreamed of doing such an abominable thing to her? How could you treat someone who loved you like that?

And that reminder was enough to shore up the anger that was in danger of being snuffed out, for which he was grateful; he refused to show her weakness after she'd so absolutely savaged him.

"You'd better be prepared," he said in a quiet voice that had been known to cause heart palpitations in his coworkers, "to explain yourself."

Tokio watched him looking magnificently unconcerned by the murderous aura he projected and the chilling tone. She blinked very slowly, then gestured to the seat next to her.

"If you'd like to hear my explanation, then you'll take a seat," she said. "I won't countenance rudeness."

He held on to his temper, barely:

"You really want to lecture me on rudeness, Tokio?" he asked flatly, glaring at her.

"Sit down or I'm not talking, and I'll be throwing you out until you're ready to be civilized," she said, lifting her chin. "You don't scare me, Wolf, I know you."

"Apparently not as well as you fucking think!" he exploded. "How dare you, woman! You've got balls, you know that? You know what else, you can take your fucking explanations and shove them up your ass, I don't want them!"

Her eyelids flickered, and he knew profound regret that he'd lost his temper with her that way, spoken to her that way. She wasn't, after all, one of his underlings or some Kabuki-cho scum. She was the woman he had been planning to marry and settle into forever with.

"Fine," she said huskily, after an awful moment of silence had passed between them. "You know where the door is."

He couldn't make himself do it, not when he knew what the odd sound of her voice meant. So instead he walked to the kotatsu and sat down at the place she had indicated, staring resolutely ahead.

She didn't say anything for a long time, and then he saw her hand move toward him, felt her fingers press against his elbow.

"Do you want explanations or apologies?" she asked. "Because while I'm prepared to do the former, I'm not sure I'm prepared to do the latter."

"Because you weren't expecting to, or because you weren't planning on it?" he muttered.

"The second," she said, and he made a face.

"I figured as much."

"Explanations or apologies, Hajime?"

Both would have been ideal, but he knew he wouldn't be getting both; Tokio was too much like him, reluctant to bend very far.

"Explanations," he said, inwardly steeling himself. "I'd like to know what happened between this morning and this afternoon to make me so unsuitable."

"Unsuitable?"

She sounded so genuinely puzzled that he couldn't resist looking over at her, and found her brow puckered, the corners of her mouth turned down in a frown.

"Who said you were unsuitable?" she asked. "I didn't say that."

"You didn't have to," he said sourly, "the fact that you didn't show up at the ward office made that abundantly clear."

Her expression morphed from confusion to soft-eyed realization, and she reached out and laid a hand on his forearm.

"You're not unsuitable, Hajime," she murmured.

"Then?" he snapped, hating how much hope that one touch gave him, and how much it made his chest ache.

Better, for now, to cling to anger and indignation, or he'd humiliate himself.

"You didn't ask me," she said simply, and he stared at her.

"I didn't ask you," he repeated.

"Uh-huh."

"I didn't ask you what?" he asked, baffled.

"To marry you," she said, looking and sounding very amused.

He stared at her, incredulous; there was no possible way that she had stood him up over something so…stupid! It just wasn't possible that a fully-functioning adult would do something like not go to her own civil union over something as idiotic as whether or not he'd asked her to marry him!

Then again, this was the same woman who had gotten mad at him because she had decided that even though he'd as good as demanded that she let him into her apartment so that he could sleep with her, he clearly hadn't been the least bit interested in her at all.

…why was he so keen on marrying such an obviously deluded woman again?

"I wasted my entire lunch hour waiting for you to show up, Tokio," he said, "and you're telling me you blew me off because I didn't ask you?"

"Uh-huh."

"Do you realize how fucking asinine that sounds?" he yelled, throwing his hands up in the air.

"And do you realize how arrogant it sounds for you to tell me I'm marrying you?" she replied calmly, hands folded before her on the table as she serenely watched him.

He drew in a deep breath that he let out through his nose as he glared at her, and she raised an eyebrow. "I guess not," she said dryly.

"You didn't say you didn't want to marry me," he said tightly.

"How can I answer a question I wasn't asked, Hajime?" she asked, not unkindly. "I kept waiting for you to ask me. You didn't. You might as well have told me my opinion on my future didn't matter."

"That's not true," he snapped.

"You made all these plans around your convenience, not mine, ordered me to meet you at the ward office, and didn't bother asking me if I was in agreement or otherwise all right with any of this. What am I supposed to think, Hajime?"

"I always ask you."

She sent him an amused look. "Really?"

"I sometimes ask you," he amended.

"You never ask me," she corrected. "But that never bothered me until you started dictating my life."

"So you stood me up?" he asked, frustrated.

She shrugged. "It got your attention, didn't it?" she replied. "You bulldoze me unless I dig my heels in. This was the best way I could think of to do that, under the circumstances."

"You could have said something this morning!"

"And you would have listened?"

He glared at her. "Tokio, I always listen to you," he said flatly.

"How often do you hear me, Hajime?" she countered. "You listen to me so that you can figure out a way of getting me to do what you want me to do, and I let you get away with it when I realize what you're doing because there isn't any harm, for the most part. And frankly, you're very creative. It's sort of flattering that you put that much time and effort into me," she added with smile. "But you don't really hear what I'm saying a lot of the time. You're good at nuance, unless it's with me. Then, for whatever reason, it's like you don't notice it."

"I read you better than anyone else you know," he pointed out.

"Yes," she said. "But you still didn't see my standing you up coming at all, did you?"

It rankled to admit that she was right, so he didn't. She knew the answer anyway, so it wasn't like she needed to hear it.

"So what are you telling me?" he asked finally.

"I want to be asked," she said.

"I can't believe you fucking stood me up for an appointment that took me three weeks to get because I didn't ask you," he muttered with a baleful glare at her.

She met his glare with an aplomb that he respected, after a fashion. He even approved of her unwillingness to kowtow to him, as frustrating as it was: he wouldn't have respected her as much as he did if she folded every time he wanted something his way. Admittedly, he thought she could have gone about this time's act of defiance in a less ego-shattering way for him, but in the end he was just happy he hadn't made her so mad she refused to talk to him—it wouldn't have been the first time.

"Women," she said simply, "like to be asked."

Saitou watched her for a moment longer, still glaring ferociously, and then he smirked, a little against his will.

"I got played," he murmured, and Tokio smiled, eyes twinkling.

"It's your own fault for talking shop with me," she said, and he laughed.

"All right, I'm man enough to admit my own shortcomings," he said, watching her with admiration and affection.

"It's one of your best qualities," she said with equal affection, and he reached over and took hold of her hand and smoothed his thumb over her knuckles.

"Takagi Tokio, despite the fact that I don't hear you when you talk to me, will you overlook that defect—which I promise to work on—and marry me anyway?" he asked.

Tokio beamed at him.

"That was almost romantic, for you," she said, squeezing his hand. "Also, it's a much better story to tell the kids later on down the line."

Saitou smirked. "You make me very happy," he told her, and thought the uncharacteristic admittance of sentiment was worth it when he saw how her face lit up.

"Most of the time, you do too," she said, wriggling out of her seat to crawl into his lap. "Sorry about our appointment," she added between kisses.

"No you aren't," he said, giving her fanny a squeeze.

"No, I'm not," she admitted. "I figured you'd appreciate an apology, though. You were really mad."

"I'd appreciate you picking a new date for our appointment at the ward office more," he said.

"Okay," she said, winding her arms around his neck more tightly and pressing her forehead against his. "I am sorry if I hurt your feelings when I didn't show up," she said, gaze locked on his.

"I know," he said, adjusting his hold on her so he could rise with her still wrapped around him. "You can start making it up to me now," he informed her with a smile, heading for the futon, and she burst out laughing.

XoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoX

Two months later, Saitou and Tokio arrived at the Bunkyo Ward Office together to register their marriage.

The entire process took nearly three hours, but when they walked out onto the sidewalk, and Saitou looked over at her and realized that she was now legally his, it almost made up for it.

He slid his hand into hers and squeezed; she looked up at him and smiled. He smiled faintly back:

"Hello wife," he said, and her smiled widened.

"Hello husband," she said, tucking herself under his arm. He obligingly put an arm around her shoulders and anchored her to him, then settled his chin on top of her head.

He was enjoying his general sense of tranquility with the world at large when she leaned back and looked up at him.

"Hajime?"

"Hn."

"Remember that time you wanted me to go out to dinner with you and your bosses, and I wouldn't until you agreed to my terms? Where I could have a favor in reserve and call in at any time of my choosing?"

Experience and suspicion made him suddenly wary—never mind that she was his wife now, the woman was still devious and a force to be reckoned with and feared.

"Yes," he said warily. "Why?"

"I'm calling it in," she said.

"Right now?"

She nodded. "Right now."

He eyed her, tried to get a read on what she was going to ask for, and gave up after a few moments; her subterfuge was excellent, and it would require more than a mere gauging look to prepare himself. So Saitou sighed and decided, once again, to put his fate in her hands.

Hopefully there wouldn't be an argument this time.

"All right," he said. "What's your favor?"

She watched him for several moments, then smiled.

"I'm not taking care of your mother when she gets old," she said.

He blinked, slowly.

Tokio and his mother had met each other not very long after he'd moved in with her, and that first meeting had been enough to engender a violent and instantaneous mutual dislike that had escalated into full-blown loathing with further contact. They still dutifully presented themselves at his parents' every Sunday for dinner, and Tokio was scrupulously polite and solicitous with his mother, but that was where it started and ended, and her behavior was more a testament to her determination to not bring shame on her family by acting out than out of any perceived familial duty to the parents of the man she was marrying. As Saitou had his own contentious relationship with his mother, he wasn't really bothered by the bad blood between her and Tokio. Sunday dinners were always a little trying, and holidays were going to suck, but that was only until they got to Tokio's parents, and Saitou didn't mind the trade off enough to really think about complaining.

Besides, Tokio already put up with him and all of his bad moods and quirks and eccentricities. It would probably drive her to homicide if he added his mother later on down the line, when he was going to be older, crankier and more intolerant.

Well, looks like Hiroaki's getting that burden, he thought, pitying his sister-in-law a little.

Kagami was a sweet woman with no backbone—his mother was going to eat her alive.

"Okay," he said.

"You promise I won't have to deal with her in our house?" she asked.

"I promise," he said with a nod. "She likes Hiroaki better any way."

"Good," Tokio said, smiling up at him. "Want lunch?"

"Sure," he said amiably, already leading her toward a nearby noodle shop.

"It's a good day for soba," she teased.

"It's a better one to be married," he said, and her smile went soft around the edges.

"See?" she said, squeezing his hand. "This day had much better karma for us to get married on."

Her father had been right, Saitou thought as he squeezed back. His life with Tokio was not going to be easy, and there were going to be days when he was sure he'd made a mistake in shackling himself to a woman who, by virtue of her mood swings and thought processes, was clearly out of her mind.

But then, too, just as he had said to the old man, that was part of the appeal.

Nope, not well at all, Saitou decided.

He did not consider his own questionable sanity on the issue to be a detriment, however.

Which, in the interests of their lives together, was probably a very good thing.

XoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoX

And of course, they lived happily—relatively speaking, of course—ever after.

XoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoX

The End