Chapter Text
Kicking his feet back and forth while seated in the office chair, Suzuya Rei graced the investigator slash interviewer with a smile baring all his teeth. Oh, the man had done nothing to him yet, aside from wasting his free time with this little meet-up, but Suzuya has learned the lesson the institution had been ever-so-eager to teach him.
Although, usually, he would be meeting up with the principal or one of his teaching cronies instead, so, if nothing else, this is nicely novel.
“Suzuya Rei, correct?” The man rhetorically asks, an overbearing sense of authority dripping from each letter spoken. Heh, what a joke - they had been sharing a little staring match for just about half a minute, not to mention that he had been asked by name to come.
“You have come late. What is the reason?” Is what comes from those lips next, fizzling like a dud firework. Before Rei can so much as blow a raspberry at him, the man continues, “Never mind. Your tardiness will be reported and noted for future reference regardless.” Leaning forward and interweaving his fingers on the desk, the man regards him with barely concealed hostility in his eyes.
Rei’s fingers twitch-
“A recently brought up concern from an anonymous source has motivated an additional revisiting of your case,” the bore fires off, probably trying to glare a hole through Rei’s skull. “The lack of concrete answers or clues-”
“Whoah whoah whoah,” Rei interrupts, wildly waving his hands through the air. “Who the heck even are you, man!?” Strangling the laugh bubbling up from his chest is a pretty hard thing to do, what with the way the man’s glare had so suddenly grown so honest.
Well, unfortunately, it just kind of deflates, a hand coming to rub the bridge of a nose as the man breathes out a sad little sigh. “Tanaka Daisuke, First Class Ghoul Investigator.” A fake cough. “Now then, let’s return to the main topic, Suzuya-san. Following your rescue, you had been thoroughly interviewed in search of any useful information regarding the Madams, the Ghoul Restaurant and any potential inmates of yours, be they human or ghoul.”
“This again,” Rei groans, sticking out his tongue and gagging. “CCG’s got everyone already. No way you’re that shit at this.”
Rei doesn’t care. He does not.
“Several of the leads have gone cold,” the man snaps, face muscles involuntarily twitching, breaking up his otherwise stiff facade. “And, again, in light of the filed complaints against your behaviour and expressed sentiments, the personnel in charge of the clean-up hunts have chosen to revisit your case and testimonies following your rescue.” The investigator tries to loom over Rei, though being a generally dull person and the desk between them makes it more funny than threatening.
Not that this guy could intimidate him anyway.
“More specifically, in the case of subject nine, what minimal information and personal experience you had elected to share at the time has swiftly led to one dead end after another.” The glare intensifies. “Faced with the possibility of a potential relationship between you and subject nine, another round of questioning has been determined to be in order.”
Scratching the back of his head, Rei speaks up. “Subject nine? Who’s that supposed to be?” Here, he does get to blow a raspberry. Oh, happy day! “I hate all this bearo-whatever nonsense…”
“Subject nine,” the investigator states, pushing forward a paper, “is the same subject you have shared a cell with two days prior to the operation that had seen you rescued. A “pre-teenage” aged ghoul, if your testimony of the subject can still be considered credible, of the female gender and in possession of an unknown type of kagune.”
“Eh?” Rei tilted his head in incomprehension. He knew everything about those bastards - had to, since getting served up in front of a cheering audience was never on his to-do list - so what he is being told might as well be complete gibberish. “You don’t make sense.”
“You are on thin ice, Rei-san. This time, I will presume mere forgetfulness on your part, but neither I nor the CCG can tolerate any further obfuscation,” leaning back, the man gives Rei a measured look, “be it intentional or not.” He lets out a breath, not quite sighing but also not managing to hold it back entirely. “Please, check over the provided document. It should jog your memory.”
“What a pain,” he grouches to himself, but, nonetheless does as suggested.
What awaits is a lot of office paper white with not a whole lot of ink breaking it up. The space allotted for a picture is also only taken up by a very rough sketch, though that is funny, so Suzuya gives it a pass.
“Estimated height,” boring, he complains in his head, eyes darting to random spots on the document. “Suspected colouration,” sheesh, how boring. “Alias: none,” even more boring. Feeling his interest fade like a breath’s mist in winter, he is just about ready to ball the piece of paper up and throw it at the investigator bothering him.
Except, just as his hands twitch with energy, his eyes spy something that grips his attention like almost nothing else.
“Name: Mei…,” he mutters aloud, sparks flying between manic brain cells as they struggle to light a lightbulb. Ah, but when they do, the grin that plasters itself on his face almost hurts. “No way. You can’t find the cheerleader!”
(“Do a pirroute, Rei-chan! A pirroute!”)
“This is no laughing matter, Suzuya-san,” Suzuya so very faintly hears over his own hollering.
Really, he feels like he is going to cry - it is just too hilarious! “You’re having issues with Mei-chan! That wimp gave you the slip!?”
“So you do possess a familiarity with subject nine,” comes in a judgemental tone.
“Pssh, the hell I do,” he says, wiggling the fingers of his left hand. “Mei-chan and I just,” he stops, searching for the right word. “We just matched, ya know? Mom thought she looked great in my clothes, had some real “timid younger sister” energy going on she couldn’t get enough of, so she stuck us together like toy figurines.”
(“Mei-chan looks so adorable in your dress, Rei-chan. Be a good boy and fetch the other summer clothes for Mama, alright?”)
Working out a crick in his neck, Rei can not help but think of more… distant times, now. What he feels can not be called nostalgia; he both does and does not care, and doubts that his feelings would change even if confronted with the people from his past.
That being said, he also recalls quiet, secret moments of almost silently shared names, when hatred and alienation were both overcome through a single moment of solidarity born from shared suffering.
Should I cheer for you? He wonders, green curls of hair coming to mind. Seeing you react would probably be funny. The smile on his face slips, momentarily resting as a frown. Though, there won’t be any happy reunions between us now, Izuku.
You’re a ghoul and I’ll be an investigator.
So, please, at least make it long enough to save yourself for me, yeah?