![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
saitoh_hajime) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
gumi_reloaded2012-04-16 03:12 pm
Explanations and Explorations
Time: Late Afternoon - Early Evening
Location: New Meiji Department of Justice (Police Wing, Armory, Shooting Range)
Characters, NPC, Saitoh, Tokio
“YOU HAVE ACCESSED THE NEW MEIJI POLICE DEPARTMENT ANSWERING SYSTEM. PLEASE LISTEN TO THE FOLLOWING OPTIONS BEFORE MAKING YOUR SELECTION.”
Saitoh took an impatient drag on his cigarette and listened.
“TO CHANGE YOUR PERSONAL GREETING, PLEASE PRESS 1. TO LISTEN TO YOUR PERSONAL GREETING, PLEASE PRESS 2. TO FORWARD CALLS, PLEASE PRESS 3. TO ACCEPT FORWARDED CALLS, PLEASE PRESS 4. TO FORWARD A CALL TO A FORWARDED NUMBER, PLEASE PRESS 5.”
Saitoh swore, and tried to resist the urge to throw his office phone out the window, wishing that they would stop changing the options every few weeks.
“TO CHANGE YOUR RINGTONE, PLEASE PRESS 6, TO LISTEN TO AVAILABLE RING TONES, PLEASE PRESS 7. TO REQUEST A CUSTOM RING TONE FOR ALL FORWARDED CALLS PLEASE PRESS 8”
Exhaling smoke out of his nostrils in a murderous sounding snort, Saitoh slammed the phone down onto the charger with enough force that his terminal and desk shook.
“Yorimoto!”
Saitoh’s new secretary jumped in his seat, knocked over a picture of his mother and her passel of pugs, and then tried to give his commanding officer a smart, manly sort of salute. “Yes, Saitoh-sama!” Newly promoted from the office accounting pool, Yorimoto Katsume was a twitchy little ferret of a man, one whom Saitoh suspected had an unholy fixation with fountain pens. “How may I provide you with assistance, Sir!”
(Holy freaking hell…) Saitoh gave his newest secretary a long measured look. “What is the prompt on the automated phone system so I can listen to my messages?”
“That’s easy, Sir! It’s option 18. Would you like me to assist you in button pressing, Saitoh-sama?” Yorimoto said hopefully, eager to prove his worth.
“No.” Saitoh pinched the bridge of his narrow nose and prayed for patience, since his preferred course of action, that being strangling his secretary and shoving the body where the sun didn’t shine was generally speaking, frowned upon.
“Oh,” Yorimoto’s face fell. “Well, if you have any trouble, please know that you can safely rely on me to provide you with timely assistance.”
Saitoh pinched harder, reminding himself that slaying evil instantly was not applicable to the mentally deficient, no matter how annoying they might be, “I will keep that in mind.”
“Oh, and if you are wondering about that voicemail you received fifteen minutes ago, the transcript is on your desk.”
Saitoh glanced down at his desk and saw that there was in fact, a memo near his cigarette ash covered keyboard. (Unlike most people, he preferred typing rather than relying on voice recognition software) He frowned (due mostly to the smiley face stamp that was by Yorimoto’s name) and began reading.
MEMO:
To: Captain H. Saitoh
From: Office Secretary K. Yorimoto (recently promoted)
Subject: Voicemail from O. Murakami, DOJ (13:35:05)
Dear Captain Saitoh-sama,
Here is the transcript of a voicemail you received from one O. Murakami. Please review and let me know if you need any further assistance in this, or any other matter.
With the most profound respect that you could ever imagine,
K. Yorimoto ^__^
Start Message
“Hello, this is a message for Captain Saitoh-san. This is Oharu Murakami. I’m not sure if you remember me, but I was the secretary to the late Fujita Hiroshi? Yes, well… I am now working for Takagi Tokio, Assistant Prosecuting Attorney. She asked me to call and let you know that she will be stopping by your office to return an item that you lent her the other day and that you should anticipate her arrival no later than 15:30….
Saitoh-san, I heard about your injuries sustained in the line of duty. I hope that you will make a speedy recovery and that your boys, bless their hearts, are safe and well. If you have any questions, or can’t speak with Takagi-san during this time, please call me directly or send an email so that I can reschedule.
Warmest Regards,
O. Murakami”
End Message.
.
no subject
“Cross examine yourself…the way you would a witness on the stand. Question this connection we share, examine what evidence is available to you…I shared a theory. Test it. Test me…expose any weakness of thinking, any flaw that you can find…Once you have come to an awareness of the truth, pursue it relentlessly…”
Tokio, being Tokio, her mind always took the paths named logic and reason. To accept his theory as truth she needed to question, to review, and to make sense of something that seemed totally unbelievable by human standards. But his arms tightening around her gave her the strength she needed to examine, to understand and to conclude. She felt like he had faith in her. She felt that he was confident that she would find him at the end of her journey. In her heart she wanted nothing but that.
Her eyes widened at his unguarded expression, knowing that he was showing a part of himself that he rarely, if ever, showed another living soul. His countenance seemed to be laced with desire, hope and relief, all at the same time. His words were ringing in her ears, especially the part about how she should ‘quit apologizing for being too forward’ with him. The little voice in her head was telling her that there was no way –from his point of view- that she could be too forward with him, because he would accept all that she was willing to give and more. This thought was both comforting and unsettling. He may have been married in this life, but she hadn’t been. Dealing with a serious, and most likely intimate relationship, was going to take some getting used to on her part, if that is where this path of discovery led them. His words telling her that he would give her the time she needed to come to an understanding reassured her that he would never push her into something she was not ready to pursue.
Her face flushed when he quipped that he ‘didn’t bite…much’. She almost raised a hand to rub at a spot at the base of her neck that all of a sudden felt sensitive. She needed to push these particular thoughts about him out of her mind right now, because putting his theory to the test was the most important task at the moment. He was right, there was too much at stake for both of them not to be thorough.
He wanted her to be relentless, did he? She would be. She would actually be ruthless and demand that he give her answers. If he wanted her to test him, he had better be ready, because that was exactly what she planned to do.
His invitation could not be clearer. The man practically challenged her to put both of them on the witness stand and examine any information that was available. At least she wouldn’t have to have him sworn in, she mused to herself. The attorney had no doubt that Captain Saitoh would tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.
So what did she want to hear? Did she want some corroborating evidence? Yes, she did. There was only one other person on this earth who could verify that these ‘things’, ‘visions’, ‘happenings’ or whatever label she chose to use, were actually memories from a past life they shared. He was standing there holding her, telling her to pursue the truth, to cross examine until she was satisfied. She would. Cocooned in his warm embrace she felt safe, she felt like she belonged, and she felt that she could do anything she set her mind on doing.
Although he pulled back a little so they could speak, he didn’t let go of her. “So you won’t mind if I ask you about some of these things that have been destroying my rational though for last 24 hours?” If what he said about them being married in the past were true, he should be able to shed light on what she was beginning to suspect were incomplete memories of events in that life.
“I will assume for sake of argument, that the woman, who has appeared in these mental apparitions of mine, is me.”
Looking directly at him, she began her inquiry, “In these visions I’ve seen someone’s hands; I suspect that they are yours, if your theory about us is correct. I have felt them on my shoulders giving me a little squeeze to let me know that what I did was appreciated. Is that something you used to do to me?”
She continued, “There was also a time when I think I was worried about a feverish child. One of your hands covered one of mine, squeezing it in assurance that all would be well.”
Tokio decided she wasn’t going to reveal to him that she knew those hands had taken a husband’s prerogative, as far as where they roamed. That was too much to reveal at this stage of the investigation, and it would only distract her from her current line of questioning. But earlier she was struck by the thought that they’d been where only a husband dared to tread. On top of that, when he readjusted her underwear, it felt like he’d done it to her many times before. It felt so normal, so natural, and it really didn’t embarrass her when it certainly should have.
Then there was that ‘hands playing with her hair business,’ she figured she would ask about this one. “You liked to play with my hair didn’t you? And it always, or usually, led to something else, didn’t it?” But did she want to know where it led? The feelings associated with his fingers lacing through her long, black hair were very warm and pleasant, but there was no other clear memory associated with it.
The prosecutor was gradually coming to terms that these were bits and pieces, shreds really, of something long hidden deep in her mind. Yesterday in the diner, Tokio foolishly wondered what it would be like to be Saitoh’s wife. Having such a thought about a total stranger completely unnerved her at the time, especially when a little voice echoed fleetingly in her mind, ‘You already are…” This was another thing that she wasn’t quite ready to reveal to him.
She then proceeded to relate another image, “I think I was in Tonami at the time, and I must have spent too much time out in the snow because my toes were freezing; they felt almost cold enough to be frost bitten. A pair of hands rubbed my feet to warm them. What do you know about that?” she questioned in a very matter of fact way.
She wasn’t finished yet. There were things from yesterday that she needed to express. That was when all of this very strange business started. She even remembered calling him, Hajime, when she had absolutely no idea what his name was, having only laid eyes on him no more than a half an hour before. If that didn’t indicate some sort of familiarity with him, nothing would.
“Yesterday in the diner I saw you dressed in blue and white with a top knot, carrying a katana. You were Shinsengumi, during the Bakumatsu, weren’t you?” she blurted out. It wasn’t until today that she had connected the dots to realize that little fact.
“I also knew that it was hopeless to try to talk you out of doing anything dangerous at the diner, because you were so bound by duty that you had no choice but to act accordingly.”
“Another odd thing was, that yesterday, I obeyed you without question, something that I never do, not even with my father or brother.” No, she was always giving people the 5th degree wanting to know the ‘whys’ and ‘hows’ of every request. But that was not the case with Captain Saitoh in the cafe. She did exactly what he said, as though she was a member of his squad, ‘or an obedient Meiji era wife’, that little voice chimed in.
She had pelted him with a lot, but he was the only corroborating witness to all that had passed between them. If his theory was correct, she knew that he would have an answer or further explanation for all that she had peppered him with, because he seemed remember more than she did about their shared life.
“One more thing from yesterday,” her voice trembled slightly, “I was afraid of losing you again, because the last time I did, I had to spend six years without you.” She had no clue what that was about; she truly hoped that he did.
With a smirk on her lips and playful look in her grey eyes, she couldn’t resist adding something else before she finished, “Under what circumstances did I refer to you as an ‘ornery old wolf’? Did I do it very often? “ Perhaps the man would dance around the answer to this one. What man wants to admit that his wife gets so exasperated with him that she would say something like *that*? Gads…Was she already thinking in terms of being *his* wife? It was much too soon for that, and she knew it.
Not breaking eye contact, she gave him an expectant look, wondering what he would say about everything she had just dumped on him. With her arms still around his waist, she couldn’t help but think of him as her anchor and a bridge between the past and the present.