Author's Note: Though short, I feel like this chapter is going to be a favourite for the rabid S/T fans. :3 And quite honestly, of all my fics, this one has my favourite S/T story. I think you will all enjoy it greatly too.

And again, forgive my crappy attempts at journalism. I don't ever read the news and/or gossip rag, so I don't know how to write it.

Disclaimer: I do not own any of the official Rurouni Kenshin/Samurai X characters. I do reserve the rights to all OCs

The Arrangement - 17

Tokio had not overcooked Saitou's soba and when they were both seated at the table, she pulled out her homework, and began to hack away at it again. For a few minutes, Saitou watched her silently, but as time wore on and he was certain she was making permanent wrinkles in her forehead, he pulled the textbook out from her nose.

"What has you so worked up?" he demanded, turning the book towards himself that he might read from it.

"Western History," she grumbled, "I hate all history."

Casting her a disapproving glance, he returned her book. "History is important, Tokio."

"Now is important," she said, "the future is important. I don't care about what happened three hundred years ago. Not in my country, and not in this one."

"History dictates the future. We need to learn from the past in order to advance in the future."

She shrugged and he raised a brow to challenge her. "What subject do you favor?"

"Science," she replied quickly, jabbing the book with her pencil for emphasis, "science is much more important than history."

Standing, Saitou pulled her bowl from the table, not bothering to ask if she was through with it, and began to wash the dishes. He wasn't being polite; it was habit.

"And is there no history in science? For all of your experiments that failed, you learn from them, yes? Isn't that history?"

Tokio frowned and slammed the book shut. "That's not history, that's data."

"History is data, Tokio."

When he sat back down, she crossed her arms. "For a politician, maybe."

Saitou thought for a moment, and then moved from his seat at the head of the table, to the empty chair next to her. She didn't acknowledge him at first, but when he reached over and pulled her pencil from her hands, she looked up.

"What are you doing?"

"I'll be your tutor," he said simply, checking her agenda for the page and question numbers, then swiping through the pages deftly, "your incessant sighing is making it impossible for me to concentrate, so we will work together on your assignment."

"I don't need your help," she protested, reaching for her writing utensil, but failing as he moved effortlessly away from her.

"Yes," he said plainly, "that much is evident by your progress."

Knowing that she had no choice but to admit defeat, she frowned and made a submissive gesture towards the book, inviting him to help her. He looked to her notes, and shook his head.

"There's too much," he told her, ripping out the half a page she had managed to get down.

She watched as he crumpled the paper in one fist before he tossed it across the room and out of sight.

"Don't take notes in English," he scolded.

Tokio sat back, "but the class is in English."

Saitou gave her a look that told her he was well aware of this fact. "You're thinking too hard," he said, "trying to learn History and English at the same time is counterproductive. Think and write in your own tongue and translate later."

Sinking down in her seat, she pouted, "that's a lot of work."

"Writing it twice will help you memorize it."

Reluctantly, she agreed and he pointed her pencil at her, letting her take it back.

While he recited passages and asked her simple versions of the wordy questions at the end of the unit, she took time to appreciate his assistance. Words were not her strong point. Dates and names even less so. Despite Saitou's love for numbers and his seemingly complex persona, he had a remarkable talent in making the subject of History quite simple.

She jotted down notes in the form that he instructed, tucking away the techniques he was throwing out at her to pick out key points in the lesson, and after fifteen minutes, was nearly halfway through answering all of the homework questions.

"Thanks," she said, scrawling away in the tiny characters that made up her handwriting. She wold translate these notes into English tomorrow. He didn't reply, so she leaned over, raising her voice.

"Thank you."

When he looked to her, his expression bored and tired of her, she smiled at him, a strained sort of grin that said she wasn't fond of his aloof nature.

"You're welcome," he replied. When he spoke, she softened and her smile melted into something warmer. Satisfaction.

"Will you tutor me again?" she wondered, turning the page of her notebook and flipping it over to continue her work on the opposite page. "that'd be pretty awesome."

He considered this. It would be beneficial to the both of them if he were to help her with her studies. Okita would have no reason to dissuade him. He almost responded 'yes', but then his eyes caught the photo of Fumiko and the image of his father flashed before him. That was another problem he would have to deal with.

He also thought of the boy Katsura had sent to lure Tokio to God only knows where. It could happen again. It could happen with a boy not affiliated with the Choshu clan. At least if Katsura had her, they would have a chance of saving her.

As his musings came to an end, his gaze fell back to Tokio with her shining black curls and slender form. Her eyes were bright and concentrating on her work while her lips, glossed in a glittering pink, parted slightly, her tongue darting out to lick them every few minutes. It was a nasty thought, but for the briefest of seconds, he wondered how long it would take to scoop her up and carry her to his bed, and, if he could do it without protest from her.

The fantasy vanished in an instant as the sobering reminder that she was Okita's sister tugged at his brain. Very rarely did he ever desire a woman simply because he was in her presence, but now that he did, he couldn't touch her. It was unfortunate, really.

Still, before he could catch himself, he cleared his throat and announced, "From this moment on, I am your boyfriend."

The tip of Tokio's pencil snapped.

"What?"

She spun to face him and was slightly disappointed to find that he was neither laughing, nor pleased with himself. He was staring at her intently, awaiting her opinion, but ready to tell her why it didn't matter. She blinked a few times opened her mouth to speak twice, then finally sat back, crossing her arms again.

"Why."

Saitou reached into his school bag and withdrew another pencil, handing it to her. "Because I do not want to repeat today's incident. I have seen the boys at school trying to date you. Not all of them will handle rejection so well."

"I'm fine," she told him, "they're just boys."

"They will take advantage of you," he said, "I've lived here for nearly two years, Tokio. The men here do not wait for family approval and they do not play games of flirtation. They take what they want."

Tokio sent him a doubtful glance. "You would like Sou's permission to flirt with me?"

"I'm not interested in you," he bit off, "I am concerned for your safety. Imagine what your brother would do should something happen. Your mother, your sisters."

She sighed, biting her lip. She was fine. She didn't need a guardian.

"You needn't be concerned, Tokio," he told her, standing and packing his work back into his bag. He wouldn't get any work done tonight. "I only intend to walk you to class and eat with you. You will come back here with me several days a week and I will assist you with your history work. It is an illusion."

She considered this for a moment. She did need a history tutor, and truth be told, having a strong handsome man walking her around campus was an appealing thought.

"What if I want a real boyfriend?"

He smirked her way. "I will happily break up with you."

How reassuring.

"I won't come here on Tuesdays," she said firmly, "or Thursdays."

He nodded. That was fair.

"And I want to go on dates. If you plan on robbing me of my social life, you will give me your version in return. I want to see all the city, so you can be my guide. And... for the sake of all that is good Saitou-san, please do not tell my brother."

He leaned up against the counter and smiled an amused sort of smile. Dates he could do. He was looking forward to them. It wasn't that he wanted to date her per se, but when rumors spread that Saitou Hajime had a steady girl, his father might cut the puppet strings.

"Do you always keep so many secrets from your brother?"

"Somehow the suggestion that I date his best friend doesn't seem like an idea he would take to very well."

No, it wasn't, and Saitou was more than happy to keep mum on the illusion.

"I will alert him of my intentions to tutor you," he replied, "I doubt that he will see much of an issue with that."

"No," she agreed, "that'd be fine."

Saitou congratulated himself on the deal he had just made. Not only had he cut the stress of his mission in half, but he had got himself a girl, or at least the image of, and he felt a refreshing wave of freedom wash over him. He'd have to be careful, but if all went well, he would have bested his father at his own game.

When Okita came to retrieve his sister later that night, Saitou explained the events of the day, as well as his proposal to help Tokio with her studies. Okita was overjoyed that they had got on so well and wasted no time in agreeing that a tutor would help her greatly. When they parted, Saitou didn't even so much as bid her farewell.

Back in her dorm room, after having spent a few hours in the studio with Shousha, Tokio gave a warm greeting to her roommate, a pretty red haired and freckled girl named Stephanie, and pulled her laptop from her bag. If Saitou were to be her 'boyfriend', it was only fair she know a little bit about him. After all, he made it clear that he knew plenty about her.

She had discovered the name of his mother in casual conversation with Soushi, but had pretended to show little interest in the woman aside from her modeling career. Now, alone with no one questioning her motives, she typed Saitou Yaso into the search engine.

Across the top of the search results were photos of the woman and Tokio clicked through them for a few minutes, but didn't learn much. Heading back to the list of links, her eyes widened and she clicked on the first one, leaning forward to read the scanned news article with a gaping jaw.

Saitou Yaso: Murdered!

Saitou Yaso was found dead in her penthouse suite Wednesday, July 8, from two bullet wounds in the chest. Police, ruling this an obvious homicide, report that no weapon was found and as there was no sign of forced entry, suggest that the perpetrator was a person close to Saitou.

There has been talk, but no suspects have been officially detained.

Tokio closed out of that tab and moved to the next. This one was from the archives of a celebrity gossip website, that had been long forgotten about.

Tuesday, July 14, 1998

Did Saitou Yuusuke murder his wife? This seems to be popular belief, according to the talk on the streets and in the papers. Though no evidence ties her ex-husband to her death, Yaso's fans are deeply upset by these events and after such an ugly divorce (Tokio clicked that link with haste) who else would have done it? We can all agree that...

Switching over to the divorce, Tokio felt chills climbing up her spine. Saitou would have been eleven when his mother died. Had his father killed her?

Yuusuke and Yaso SPLIT! (November, 1997)

It's been a long time coming, dear readers, but one of our favourite faces of fashion is finally leaving her husband for bigger and better things. Yaso announced her separation from her husband on Halloween this year, and filed for divorce just this past Monday. Yuusuke has not yet spoken on the subject.

Saitou Yuusuke Seeing Red! (December, 1997)

As if the split of the century wasn't dramatic enough, Saitou Yaso moved into the home of one of her many lovers (revealed in a rather heated battle) Sunday, leaving Yuusuke at home to tend to their ten year old son, Hajime. Yuusuke was said to have been drunk and spewing hateful threats at his ex-wife as she dropped the boy at his doorstep and disappeared.

A Battle for Custody: I don't want him! (January, 1998)

Never in our lifetime have we seen a custody battle more intense than what is being displayed in the court room right now between Saitou Yuusuke and renowned fashion model, Saitou Yaso. This battle is not to claim custody of their son, Hajime (10), but to relinquish parental duties altogether.

"We don't want him to be held in government custody," said Yaso on her way into the courthouse early Friday morning, "We want him to be happy, so one of us has to end up with him."

When asked why then she didn't want to raise her own son, she replied with a laugh, "His father is a good cook and boys need good food to grow. I hate cooking."

Yuusuke was significantly less coy about his reasons for not wanting Hajime under his roof, the most notable being, "I didn't really want kids anyway."

Heart breaking, Tokio scrolled down and her eyes fell on a scanned photo of young Saitou, holding the hand of what appeared to be an equally young Fumiko. They weren't smiling in this photo; Saitou was looking down at his shoes, and Fumiko was holding up a fist at the photographers, trying to protect her friend in the way that a ten year old could.

Hajime has been staying with his school friend, and when asked who he would rather live with, he shrugged, telling reporters, "I don't care who picks me. I just want to go home. The food at Fumiko's house is terrible. Especially the soba."

Tokio closed out of all the tabs relating to the divorce and Yaso's murder. She felt for Saitou in a way that she wished she didn't know. How many times had Kojuro expressed his distaste for her, telling her over and over how he'd wish she'd never been born?

In the end, Saitou had ended up with his father. She didn't know how, but at this point, she didn't care. She understood a bit of him now, and it helped her to see why he was silent, brooding, and, she imagined, short tempered.

Closing her computer, she set her alarm for the morning. Her first class was at ten past nine, and she would be meeting him outside of her dorm building so he could walk her across campus and deposit her in advanced trigonometry applications.

Even if their relationship was fake, she was his girlfriend now, in title if nothing else, and the thought of it made her bite her lip as she tried to keep from beaming across the room. He was a funny sort of man, stern and business-like but perhaps through this facade she could melt him a little bit. Maybe she could be what Sou had been for her.

xxxx

Author's Note: This is another one of those 'packed with information' chapters so I kept it short.

BONUS! I found a nugget on my hard drive that I had actually forgotten about. I had been watching a lot of Baccano! (haven't seen it? Get on that!) and it inspired a scene (much darker than the actual series) that in turn inspired this fic.

Initially this was going to be an original fiction, but the more I thought on it, the more I saw Okita, so I opted for a fanfiction instead. All the other characters fell into place, things were changed, and people were made happy. Originally, this scene was going to be part of the ending of this story, but then I changed my mind, so don't get nervous. This won't actually happen, it was just how my brain conjures up stories.

xxxx

As a man who spilled blood for a living, there wasn't much that could shock him, but as he watched the bullet soar through the air, he felt his heart leave his chest. There was nothing he could do to stop it. There was no man fast enough, no aim true enough.

Though he had spent the better half of his life in the business of murder, he suddenly felt sick to his stomach. It wasn't because of his illness, or the mixture of sulfur and gasoline, but guilt. It was his fault that the trigger had been pulled.

They hadn't chosen each other, and though they had found themselves wanting, it was too late now. Maybe if he had been a better man, it would be different. Maybe he should have cut out of the game early, or better yet, disobeyed his parents' wishes in the matter of business.

He hadn't done either of those things, and he certainly knew that even repentance wouldn't do any good. He was paying for his sins now. He had been found out, they were taking their revenge, and he couldn't do anything but watch.

When the bullet embedded itself into its target's skull, his knees buckled, his own weapon slipped from his hands, and he hit the ground, palms splashing in the mixture of gasoline and blood. This warehouse was a graveyard tonight and as he raised his head to watch the victim fall, he found himself unable to breathe.

His wife was dead.

A little peek at my inspiration. See you around! :) Tell me what you thought & think so far! I thrive on feedback~! :3