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"Captain."
Fushimi Saruhiko didn't bother to resist his signature tongue click after uttering his form of address to his superior officer. There may have been no point to that tongue click, since it was mainly for his own benefit and out of an ingrained habit, but he did it anyway for those very reasons. And yet he did it for another reason, which was one of his normal reasons: It didn't take much to annoy Scepter 4's third-in-command, after all.
From his vantage point, close to the grand double doors behind him and some distance away from that desk, Fushimi could see his captain was preoccupied. It wasn't because of all of those papers on his desk--of which Fushimi thought if only someone had actually gotten some work done then there would be less of those papers there--nor was it because of any of the various screens from the PDA or tablets or monitors scrolling up information.
What had been the culprit behind Fushimi's annoyance and behind his captain's preoccupation was the background sound emanating throughout the office.
It was some kind of Western classical music, orchestral in nature, symphonic in tone, Fushimi could easily surmise. That was what was distracting the man behind the desk and what made Fushimi repeat himself.
"Captain."
Munakata smiled over at his teenage subordinate and set down one of those papers in hand on the desk, as if that document had captured his attention before Fushimi had when really, it had been the music. Or the document and the music in tandem. Fushimi figured it was the latter because he had the belated thought that of course Munakata had paid attention to everything around him. He just didn't seem like he did.
"Hou, Fushimi-kun, I believe you had reason to see me."
"You were the one who ordered me to come here, so I would think that's more than reason enough," Fushimi replied and made little effort to resist rolling his eyes to make a display of his irritation.
For that little show, Munakata responded in kind with a soft chuckle. "Then you're more than welcome to proceed."
Fushimi sighed, then breaking temporarily out of his usual slouch and straightening up, he delivered his latest report regarding the latest Strain situation.
"At sixteen hundred hours, the Strain was taken into custody although first taken to the Infirmary for treatment of all injuries. Subsequently he was escorted to the holding cells and will undergo interrogation tomorrow morning, and Lieutenant Awashima is heading that part of the investigation. Records has all of the information prepared for her and the rest of the Special Forces Squad for it. All of the information has been forwarded to your PDA and computer. Please review it when you have the opportunity."
Fushimi had waited for the typical sentence or two of gratitude from Munakata, but nothing of the sort was given to him. Instead all he was met with was his superior officer listening again to that orchestra, this time going into the second movement.
"You weren't even listening to me, were you?"
A soft, amused, yet knowing laugh escaped the Blue King. "Oya, did you expect me to apologize?"
Fushimi clicked his tongue. "I know you won't because you were listening, which means you don't have any reason to apologize."
"And as always, I expected," Munakata quipped, "nothing less from you."
Fushimi huffed, feeling a bit defeated and also again, very much annoyed. It was simply uncanny how well Munakata could multitask without looking like he was multitasking. The man never put any effort into anything, but in actuality he had put every ounce of effort into everything. It was just that he made things look so easy. It almost wasn't fair.
And they both hadn't stopped listening (or in Fushimi's case, couldn't help but listen) to that background music either with it going on and on while they spoke. It wasn't loud, just barely there, but it was still there, and it wasn't even supposed to be there since the captain never had music playing in his office.
"Thank you for your efforts as always, Fushimi-kun." Munakata spoke again easily over the music. His smile never wavered and he rested his chin on his laced fingers. "But I figured there was more to your report."
Fushimi clicked his tongue at that. He thought he deftly avoided the issue, but he knew better than to put anything past the captain. But that didn't mean he didn't try.
"Do you think that I haven't provided you with everything you needed from me, Captain?"
"First, it isn't a matter of 'I think', it's 'I know.'" Munakata tilted his head a bit. "In addition, your definition of what is necessary to me differs from what I actually believe is necessary."
Foiled. Fushimi figured staying where he normally did by the door, giving himself ample distance between himself and Munakata, would assist in his minor deception and tiny white lie of a report. Fushimi had to relent.
"Procurement has been informed and has already placed an order for more knives. The supply on hand is sufficient to cover the next mission, but that is all."
Munakata was pleased to hear that he had obtained more information from his third-in-command, but his pursuit hadn't ended yet.
"Is that all?"
It wasn't ending. There was no end in sight. Fushimi sighed this time through his nose. Nothing. Nothing ever got past Munakata Reisi.
"... I will get myself to the Infirmary when I have a moment to spare from my incredibly busy schedule, Captain. No promises that it'll be any time soon." Since of course, there was a thing called work that needed to be done.
"Perhaps you should have paid it a visit first before arriving here?"
"And delay following your orders? You should make up your mind on what you expect out of me," Fushimi retorted as he turned his head away to click his tongue once more.
Fushimi had turned his head back toward the desk mere seconds later to say more, but saw that Munakata had already risen and halved the distance between them. He blinked behind his glasses and in that blink of an eye, his captain was standing right before him.
He didn't need the help of Munakata's finger under his chin to look up into those purple eyes, his head already tilted up in surprise, but he didn't move all the same.
"Fushimi-kun." Munakata's voice was serious as ever but at a pitch much lower and softer than usual, much more intimate and with an inkling of affection reserved only for his third-in-command. His favorite, after all. "… While I expect you to fulfill all of your duties and tasks to the utmost of your abilities, I also expect you to look after yourself and avoid injury if at all possible. I may bestow upon you a set of orders, and although I may not have explicitly stated that I wish for you to return to me unharmed, I would hope that that order is implicit."
Awe was what kept Fushimi frozen, all of the Blue King's words filling him up like warm tea in a porcelain teacup. He felt his cheeks flush pink against his will and he was only saved from more embarrassment when Munakata lowered his hand away from his chin. He could only click his tongue again and mutter under his breath that he was fine.
"I can certainly tell that you are." That flat, stern tone was just Munakata's way of being sarcastic, antithetical to Fushimi's sarcasm which usually dripped with acid. He began to unbutton Fushimi's waistcoat for him, and Fushimi's hand snapped to grab Munakata's wrist.
"What do you think you're doing?"
"As your superior officer and head of Scepter 4, I am responsible for your wellbeing and would like to inspect your wounds. I will also have our medical team examine you, and this way, I am able to check if they make the same assessment about your injuries as I have."
"Tch." Fushimi would have make some remark about how his captain just made up any and all excuses to pull rank to just get him naked, playing doctor and all that, but he cut himself off. If Munakata was going to examine him, then fine, he could let him examine him. No use in delaying the inevitable which was being found out that he was indeed injured and then getting the accompanying lecture.
Munakata's eyes moved to catch Fushimi's deadpan gaze. He focused on those blue eyes before he unbuttoned Fushimi's white dress shirt, seeing already that it had been stained with a light streak of blood on the left side due to what looked like a shallow laceration. A rather large bruise was blossoming too below Fushimi's ribcage. There was more, he knew, than what he had uncovered just now.
"I have always commended you for your efforts," Munakata began, "but perhaps you've taken them to the extreme. You've pushed your limits so far out that you are unable to see them."
"I'm supposed to follow your orders, Captain," Fushimi cut in before Munakata could finish that last sentence about boundaries and limits and other useless things, things he thought didn't apply to him. "I'm going to do whatever it takes to get them done. And they were done, weren't they?" No matter what it took, Fushimi was going to finish everything Munakata told him to finish.
"I find it fitting that this music is currently playing for us then." Munakata gently pushed Fushimi's coat off his shoulders and deftly draped it across his arm. He did the same to the waistcoat, but left Fushimi's white dress shirt for now.
"Oh, look, here comes another one of your metaphors that's meant to teach me something."
"I've always been fascinated by all musical instruments, especially those of the string variety." Munakata folded Fushimi's coat and waistcoat for him, set them down on a nearby chair, and continued despite Fushimi's caustic jab. "Music is simply fascinating, especially in its creation or its composition, and equally important is its performance. One must possess the best tools, or in this case the best instrument, to bring out a piece's brilliance."
As Munakata spoke, he had retrieved the office's first aid kit and used a cotton ball damp with antiseptic to clean Fushimi's thin open wound. He was rewarded with a sharp, almost too sharp and almost too loud, hiss from his third-in-command. Fushimi hadn't even flinched, but decided on feigning pain in lieu of speaking, his stubborn way of protesting this lecture even if he was hearing everything his captain was relaying to him.
"Take the violin, for example," Munakata continued as he wrapped the bandages around Fushimi and under his white dress shirt. "If you leave a violin string as is, abandon it and never tend to it, allow it to loosen from its tuning peg, then will it still resound as brilliantly as a well-crafted violin should?"
Fushimi scowled ever so slightly, his arms raised to give his captain an easier time tending to him. He knew where this was going.
The bandages were in place. "And what of the opposite? If you tighten the violin string beyond its limit, twist the tuning peg until its very end, then will there not be a day while the instrument is being played that the string is sure to break?"
Fushimi's eyes dropped to Munakata's hands again that were now buttoning up his shirt. Did his captain really lecture him on being an instrument just now? Really? Perhaps that's all that he was then, just an instrument, a hidden one at that, to be dispatched, dispensed, deployed whenever necessary, just some tool or a piece of the puzzle in the grand scheme of the world that Munakata Reisi had envisioned, a blueprint of it reflected in what was Scepter 4 itself.
He took back his waistcoat and coat once Munakata handed them back to him, putting his own clothes on himself now, thank you very much. But despite being on this side of disdainful, Fushimi found himself once more relenting. If he really were some instrument, then he could just be patched up and repaired and sent out again on the next mission. But Munakata hadn't said anything of the sort, and the delicate touch he employed while bandaging Fushimi up reminded the third-in-command that maybe the stupid captain did care about him and actually meant something good out of the lecture. Annoyingly so, when the captain didn't have anything to worry about at all.
But Fushimi couldn't help the fact that maybe, just maybe, he did like to be worried about. Just a little. Begrudgingly so. Stupid captain. But in the end, Munakata was his stupid captain, and that counted for a lot.
Still, he couldn't outright admit that out loud. He couldn't be caught dead caring, let alone being cared about. And thus Fushimi channeled those last fragments of his feelings into his own argument since he always did have an ace up his sleeve. Hidden weapons, so to speak. A hidden weapon user had to be prepared to engage in any attack, especially verbal. Two could play this game.
"If you expect me to act in moderation, which is clearly the topic of your lecture today, Professor Munakata, then let me expect the same of you: Practice what you preach for once. If you overwork yourself, then guess who has to pick up the slack when you can't do your job? Do your own damn work too since some certain people here are overworked as it is."
Fushimi wasn't the only one who pulled his own strings beyond their normal limit. Those never-ending hours of overtime that weren't even recorded on the books, those countless trips to that wretched tower, those endless printouts of reports of Weismann levels fluctuating like crazy…
Munakata wasn't the only one who could worry.
"Such forthrightness, Fushimi-kun." Munakata hummed in amusement as he pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose.
"And turn off that damn music before we leave here. Accounting is already scrambling about turning in the draft of next year's budget to you, and we don't need the electric bill to be any higher than it has to be. I won't hear the end of the complaints."
Munakata chuckled, turning off the music via the remote and placing that remote next to the first aid kit. "Oya, Fushimi-kun, we were leaving?" As in plural?
Fushimi rolled his eyes. "Yes, sir, because someone is going to the Infirmary, and I know another someone who wants to make sure that that the long, arduous journey consisting all of one hallway and a set of stairs is trekked safely on top of overseeing the medical team's capabilities. Not that there was any mention of that someone taking care of me while I was there or anything."
Since that was all on the medical team's shoulders now. Fushimi still had that bruise and the unseen others to treat. He thought he could also partake in the Infirmary's ample supply of ice packs and prescription pain medications then in any case. One way or another, he was going to end up in the Infirmary, so he might as well unleash this preemptive strike and take matters into his own hands before Munakata could take control of the situation.
But once again, the best laid plans… Fushimi knew he had won the fight over the timing of his Infirmary trip, but he knew he shouldn't have underestimated Munakata's ability to manipulate the overall situation. He was victorious in this battle, but almost forgot he was dealing with the general overseeing the war.
Fushimi's hand was on the office door handle, but Munakata's hand was right there over it, carefully pulling it away in order to link his fingers in between Fushimi's. Munakata's free hand was already up against Fushimi's stomach, and instinctively the teenager leaned back against his captain's chest, feeling a dull ache from his bruises. He ducked his head slightly when he felt and heard Munakata whisper in his ear, his captain's breath warm and close.
"You have this clever way of setting yourself up to be taken care of, Fushimi-kun." Munakata smiled. "I was led to believe that you'd want to be taken care of in a location that was not as public as the Infirmary."
Fushimi clicked his tongue. "Believe what you like. Not my fault if you don't know me by now."
"I have my own clever ways too…" Munakata nibbled on Fushimi's ear before running his tongue along the shell of it, eliciting a light shiver from his beloved third-in-command. "… of getting to know you better."
"I'm surprised you haven't used a music metaphor or pun as a pick-up line yet, Captain," Fushimi responded after recovering. "I'm a little disappointed."
"Oya?"
Fushimi could tell that he pressed Munakata's challenge button. Just as planned.
"I suppose being a virtuoso in our little duet is my forte, which you can attest to as I vibrato your fingerboard and make your body sing while you reach crescendo."
Fushimi coughed. "If I'm not sick now, then I will be after hearing more of that. And you don't reach crescendo, Captain, since 'crescendo' is technically a process. Nice try."
"Hou, how astute. Then you prefer immediate gratification, which is actually premature climax?"
Fushimi coughed again. "'Forte' means 'loud,' by the way."
"In music, Fushimi-kun, but if we are going with French or Italian origin, then it means 'strong,' and I have used it with that definition correctly. It can also be defined as the strongest part of a sword's blade."
"We are not going to go on about you and that sword of yours."
"Are you disappointed any longer though, Fushimi-kun?" Munakata's smile was ever so playful and did let that last remark of Fushimi's go.
"Hn, no, I guess not." Fushimi did get what he wanted. He asked for it.
"Fushimi-kun."
Fushimi heard that shift in tone in Munakata's voice. His head turned a bit, a sign that he was listening, becoming in tune with what was going to be told to him.
"I respect your decisions on and off duty, just as I respect your right to your privacy. Your secrets are yours to keep. That is your prerogative. But if I may just as respectfully ask that should any burden be too heavy for you to bear that you inform me. I simply wish to remind you that while you are a member of Scepter 4 that you have an entire team supporting you no matter what may come. You are no longer alone and never will be."
"Captain?"
"I'm glad that you returned to me safely. I always am. Let it be my prerogative then, Fushimi-kun, that I will do everything within my power to ensure that you never are alone again."
Fushimi quieted, like muting a lightly resonating string with his hand. He almost filled the silence with a single tongue click, yet he hadn't been able to manage it, the gravity of those words settling around and in him, this time like a warm blanket over him. It was so sentimental, too sentimental, that whenever he was with his captain that he felt so warm. All that affection, care and concern was such a foreign concept and Fushimi still hadn't become accustomed to all of it despite all of the personal space issues and their intimacy. But perhaps he could believe that the warmth that bloomed in his chest was just that Blue Aura that connected his captain to him. It really was like a guarantee then that his captain would never leave his side, never leave him to face anything alone.
Finally after gathering himself again, he spoke.
"It hurts, Captain. I should be getting over to the Infirmary, don't you think?"
Munakata's smile was soft, almost melancholy for a fleeting moment. Luckily no one, present company included, could see it. Of anyone, Munakata knew the myriad meaning behind Fushimi's words.
"I made you a promise, Fushimi-kun."
"You owe me since I'm putting up with this," Fushimi muttered under his breath, doing his best to look as irate as possible. "You said you'd take care of me, so you better make good on that promise."
"Promises are binding. They have the potential to be broken and easily so, but it takes effort to protect their integrity, just like I wish to protect you."
Again Fushimi did his best to retreat away from that sentiment, but he couldn't help get himself entangled in it. It was beyond irritating that he could be this open and vulnerable.
But maybe it was okay if he were only like this in front of the one person who…
Then Fushimi squeaked in surprise once he was swept off his feet and was now in Munakata's arms bridal-style. He flinched since those bruises weren't letting up, but he turned that flinch into an indignant scowl against his bright red blush.
"It is my sworn duty to protect you and accompany you wherever you may go, Fushimi-kun. I am assisting you while I can."
"I'm sure that your cause is pure, Captain."
Munakata hummed in amusement once more, but then his expression softened.
"I promise that it will stop hurting one day, Fushimi-kun."
Fushimi was going to snap at his captain for making promises he couldn't keep, but that promise was coming from Munakata, the one person who never had any desire to deceive him and had no intention at all of lying to him.
He let out a long yet relaxed breath as he leaned his head on Munakata's shoulder. He could believe him. It wasn't as though he didn't have a choice. He had all the freedom to choose to believe in whatever he wanted to believe.
He could believe in his captain's words, his actions, his motivations. He could also believe in this moment and that it was actually happening. He could believe in this man who had promised him all the things he had ever wanted, no strings attached.
He closed his eyes and let himself relax in Munakata's arms as he was carried to the Infirmary. It was going to be embarrassing enough as it was to have to be the target of everyone staring at him but right now, he didn't care.
He was where he wanted to be, and that place was with his captain.
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