CHAPTER NINE

Harada began to search nearby businesses for signs of Thalia and little Daishiro-chan. He grew more frantic with every moment that passed, and was on the verge of calling for backup when he heard a familiar voice.

“Oi, since when is the Shinsengumi accepting applications from hot women?” Nakamura Kirito demanded from behind him. “I’ll join up myself, if that’s an example of the new face of the police force,” he said, smiling lasciviously.

Harada scowled. “Where is she?” he demanded.

“She’s taking her kid to the bathroom and getting him some food and juice,” Kirito replied. “I don’t get why you’d accept a single mom, of all things, though,” he continued. “Seems like a lot of work and headache for everyone.”

“She’s not his mom,” Harada snapped. He and Kirito had an intense rivalry complicated by a good friendship.

“Oh, well, even better without the kid.”

For some reason, this infuriated Harada. “Have a little compassion once in a while, unless you want me to beat it into you. It’s a damn shame for that kid she’s not his mom. He’s got no one now.”

“Seems he’s got her, whether she’s his mom or not,” Kirito said, looking toward the brightly lit entrance of the convenience store they had entered. She was just coming out, holding the little boy’s hand. He was stuffing his face with onigiri, and she carried a bag with what was probably more of them.

The child wasn’t starving, perhaps, as they had seen by the many wrappers on the floor from things he had been able to reach and open for himself, but he was probably suffering a touch of malnutrition from the past few days.

Kirito leaned in closer; his brown eyes flashed red. “Look, I haven’t been honest with you, Harada-kun. I know that girl. She’s a friend. Which is why, if you don’t come up with a damn good reason we shouldn’t, you and I are about to have a serious duel. Not like that half-assed thing I did with Kato over Kyoko that time, either, a real one.”

“Why, are you in love with her? Get in line. Neither of us is anything like good enough for her. Grow up,” Harada snapped.

“You talk like you respect her, yet she told me she just got a job working for the Shinsengumi, of all things. Since everyone knows the Shinsengumi is all male, and she’s out here dressed in that porno uniform like someone’s fantasy hostess, I figure you’re taking advantage of a foreigner who doesn’t know her way around yet. Not only are you using her, but you’re embarrassing the living hell out of her – probably for amusement. I admit I thought better of you guys; I'd expect this type of shit from the Mimawarigumi, not you.”

Comprehension dawned. Kirito was notorious for hiding a large, soft heart behind a show of profound apathy; Thalia’s delicate appearance and kind nature would appeal to him, especially since she was now wearing a uniform too small in the wrong places.

To make it even worse, Harada recalled that she had taken off the cravat and jacket as well as Okada’s vest in the car, complaining it was too hot, so her shirt buttons were bursting in plain sight. He couldn’t blame Kirito for misinterpreting.

“Trust me, you’ve got the wrong idea,” Harada said.

“Do I? Why are you loading her suitcase into your carriage, then? Why is she dressed that way? Seems pretty clear to me you’re taking advantage of a lady who’s new to the culture and has no family around to protect her.”

“I can see how it looks to you, but that’s not the way it is,” Harada said, trying to be patient.

“It’ll be interesting to see how you all work this out, with her staying there.”

“We hired her as a Lieutenant.”

“Ah, an honorary officer’s position! Whatever that means.”

“You think we plan to use her in some illicit way?” Harada snarled through clenched teeth, slowly but surely losing his temper.

“What else can I think?” Kirito snapped. “Seems strange to me, the police picking up a woman straight off a ship and cloistering her in the middle of a hundred constantly horny men.” His eyes glinted red again.

Having heard his perspective, Harada understood his outrage. It had not occurred to any of them how this would look to the rest of Edo.

“Of course, if one of you plans to marry her, that’s different,” Kirito added.

“I get the picture,” Harada said, giving the other man a resentful look.

“Then I’ll be looking for a wedding invitation soon,” Kirito said. “Either that, or she goes back into that hotel right now.”

“What the hell is going on out here?” Thalia demanded.

Since she sounded angry, she must have heard some of the preceding discussion, Harada figured, looking at her and feeling guilty because he now saw what Kirito saw.

“Kirito-san, I told you they’ve hired me as their first woman officer; a respectable part of the police force. A Lieutenant, even. Why are you threatening the Vice-Chief?”

Kirito looked expectantly at Harada. “He’s defending your honor, Thalia-san,” Harada explained, affecting nonchalance. “To him it appears that we have hired you for a very … different sort of job than fellow officer of the law.”

Thalia took a moment to understand the implications, but when she did, it was as if she ignited from within, she was so palpably furious.

“How – DARE – you,” she breathed at Kirito. She reached down and covered the little boy’s ears; seeing this, both men took a step back. “You assume no one would hire me to do anything but fuck? You think that’s all I’m good for? You think I’m too stupid to know who to trust, or how to recognize a legitimate job offer? Why would you think that, you shit-brained troglodyte, do you believe the ratio of tits and ass has to proportionally balance with an inverse ratio of brains?”

Both men’s ears were ringing with the minor-key notes that had crept into the harmonics of her voice as her anger increased, recalling to Harada the fact that this was no ordinary woman. She had a dual nature; she was like a living yin-yang, half light and half darkness. Kirito had just woken the dark side, and Harada could not help feeling a little smug.

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Daishiro was squirming, trying to get her hands off his ears, sensing that some delicious adult argument was happening, probably with curse words, and he was missing it. Thalia looked down at him, and the sun shone from behind the storm clouds like a benediction.

“Dai-chan, this is grown-up talk. You shouldn’t hear it yet,” she said.

“On the other hand, perhaps she can hold her own, even in that zoo you call a headquarters,” Kirito remarked, his eyes wider than usual.

“You have a zoo?” Daishiro squeaked. He had managed to keep an ear loose to catch that much at least.

“Thalia-san, this is a misunderstanding,” Harada explained, feeling that in all fairness, he should defend Kirito’s valid point. “He’s upset because the uniform fits you in such a way that it does resemble what someone in that … other … profession would wear in some ways, though we did try to fix that. As my friend, he expects better of me and of the Shinsengumi, while as your friend he was trying to protect you.”

“As my friend, he should never assume I’m stupid or worthless. As your friend, he should know you would never do anything like the filthy things he was thinking,” she retorted, her eyes blazing.

Kirito was holding his hands up in surrender. “All right, all right. She may have a point. It’s my own filthy mind causing my downfall again,” he said, making Thalia twinkle a little despite herself. “Still, if it looks that shady to me, consider how it looks to people who don’t know you all. In your own best interests, you should see to it there’s no cause for rumors. But what the hell do I care? Do as you please. I’m going home. See you around,” he said, waving over the back of his head at them.

Thalia shook her head when he was gone and she had calmed down. “I think he had good intentions in yelling at you,” she admitted to Harada.

“Pretty much, yes. And he cares about you, or he wouldn’t have tried to provoke a fight with me. He does have a point, too, much as I hate to admit it.”

“Well, the point should be able to keep for a little while,” Thalia said. “Let’s go home, please – I’m exhausted.”

Something sweet and sharp pierced him when she spoke so domestically; he could easily pretend for a moment that she was his, this child was theirs, and they were going home to sleep together in contented warmth; but that way was not his to travel. He pushed the fantasy away.

“You’re forgetting your lack of a bed,” he pointed out.

She looked dismayed. “Shit! I forgot all about it.” Daishiro giggled.

“You said a bad word,” he told her, grinning.

She laughed, embarrassed. “I did, yes. I say them a lot.”

“Then they aren’t bad words, because you’re good,” the child said, reaching up with his little hand to touch her face. She smiled at him, taking his hand and pressing it to her lips, then blowing to make raspberries. He shrieked in delighted laughter, which made Tetsuya smile too.

Despite their collective fatigue, he drove with stoic determination to the store. It was not yet nine, so it would still be open for an hour.

Thalia got her purple and green cloak out of the suitcase, draping it over herself and retying the cravat to hide the front of her shirt before they went in. She still stood out, but that would happen no matter what she wore, Harada thought.

She looked exhausted, and Daishiro was also tired, so he took his turn carrying the boy. This made his young fan almost delirious with joy; imagine being carried through a huge department store on your hero’s shoulders! Thalia kept smiling at the proud, straight posture Daishiro tried to imitate, though he wriggled every time he forgot – which was every few moments.

“Oi, stop squirming,” Harada said, having nearly dropped the child after a particularly vigorous squirm. Daishiro looked crestfallen at this rebuke from his hero, mild as it was. He tried hard to obey, staying very still for almost five whole minutes.

Thalia was trying to explain what type of mattress she wanted to a salesperson. “I want it to be poofy on top, but firm underneath,” she was saying. The sales clerk looked mystified by this.

“So, you want medium?”

“No, I want soft on top of firm,” Thalia repeated.

“And what does your husband prefer?” the clerk said, appealing to Harada in the hope that he would make a more sensible request.

“It isn’t that difficult,” he snapped at the unfortunate clerk. “You have layered futons, I’ve seen them before. Soft top layer, firm bottom layer.”

“Ah, yes, of course,” the sales clerk said, bowing and leading them toward another display.

Thalia was trying not to reveal the deep pit of yearning it had opened inside her to hear her twin flame called her husband in this lifetime where they had just met. Synchronicity, she knew; but she also sensed how scarred he was, and how much work it would take to heal him enough that he’d be willing to risk letting her love him, and letting himself love her.

Still, it pleased her that he had not repudiated the statement outright, but sidestepped it. It was a small thing, but small things counted.

Daishiro insisted on testing each futon Thalia looked at, so that in sheer fatigue she ended up pointing at one almost randomly. She searched her bag for her wallet, but by the time she brought it out, Harada was already paying for it.

“What are you doing?” she said in a low voice.

“The Shinsengumi will pay for it, of course,” he murmured back. “Don’t argue. It’s one of the few benefits of the job.”

She eyed him suspiciously, not at all convinced that he had not just paid for it himself. “Fine, I’ll thank Kato-san tomorrow morning,” she said.

“Sure, but how will you know I haven’t gotten to him first?” he demanded, smirking. He could read her thoughts on her face so clearly.

She scowled at him, then relented. “Thank you,” she said.

“Don’t thank me, it’s from the job,” he repeated.

“I’m thanking you as the personification of the job,” she retorted.

***

He helped her get the suitcase, the bed, and the sleeping child inside her little cottage before bidding her good night and walking toward his own quarters, feeling bereft.

Seizo was waiting for him, red-brown eyes glinting in the moonlight.

“Where were you?” he demanded.

“Oi, Seizo, what’s your problem?” Tetsuya replied, fatigued and even more tired at the prospect of yet again having to deal with unwarranted hostility.

“You have no right to play with her feelings,” Seizo snapped, though he kept his voice low. “You’ve already done that with one person I loved.”

“You’re in love with her? Already?”

“Like you’re not,” Seizo sneered. “As it happens, that’s not the kind of love I mean. She’s family to me; I don’t understand it, I just feel it. And I plan to act on it, starting now. I don’t want you sniffing at her heels all the time.”

“You don’t get to dictate that, familial feeling or not,” Harada snapped, getting irritated and defensive. “What if my intentions are honorable?”

Seizo stopped, startled. “Are they?” he asked.

“I don’t have any intentions right now. I’m just saying, stop judging me.”

“Too late for that.”

“Too late for arguing, too. Please let me go to bed without having to knock the shit out of you first.”

With that, Tetsuya went into his room and slammed the shoji screen closed. Seizo left, having made his point and given Tetsuya that much more to consider as he lay sleepless in his bed that night.

Something like an hour before dawn, terrified cries woke much of the Shinsengumi. The Vice-Commander sat straight up, not having been sleeping deeply anyway, and jumped out of bed at once. He knew what had probably happened.

Quick as he was, he wasn’t faster than Seizo, who arrived just after him.

“What the hell is going on here?” Seizo demanded.

“Thalia-san, we’re coming in,” Tetsuya warned, then opened the shoji screen and went inside.

She was kneeling in the bed, covers scattered around her, holding the little boy close to her again, soothing and shushing him.

“Hi guys,” she said in a soft voice. Yamamoto and Kato, along with several others, had also arrived by this time. “I’m really sorry about that – Dai-chan woke up while I was in the bathroom and got scared. Didn’t you, darling?”

The child looked up from her shoulder, his eyes huge and still frightened, then nodded. “I was afraid you left me by myself,” he said, hiccupping from the force of his fearful outcries.

“I know, love. I was just in the bathroom – I wouldn’t leave you by yourself,” she assured him.

Kato was staring befuddled at the domestic scene in progress. “What? Who? I don’t” –

“That’s the child from last night,” Tetsuya explained sotto voce. “There was no one to take him in, and he had been left alone with his grandmother’s corpse for at least half a day. Thalia and I couldn’t leave him there.”

The contrast between this Thalia and the one Kato had last seen in the interrogation room was too much for him first thing in the morning. “I see,” he said, looking dazed. “Of course you were right to take him in. But does she plan to keep him?” This last was directed with concern at Tetsuya, who shrugged.

“No idea.” Harada was feeling defensive, probably a culmination of his confrontations about Thalia with Kirito and Seizo.

Seizo did not seem to be paying him any attention now, at least. Instead, he seemed hypnotized by the sight of Thalia in her nightgown, her long red hair cascading to her waist, soothing the little orphaned boy. Harada was shocked to see Seizo’s big red-brown eyes fill with tears, followed by a hurried departure for the training yard.

“The hell?” Harada muttered to himself, perplexed. Nothing ever upset Seizo that much; not since his childhood sweetheart had died of lung disease several years ago.

Thalia had seen Seizo’s face, Harada realized when he glanced at her, and she seemed to understand it better than he did. She stared after Seizo, looking stricken. Something big was going on; something deep beneath the surface, between the three of them. Thalia, himself, and Seizo were involved with each other somehow, in ways he had only begun to sense.