Chapter Text
When Keiji walked into the room, it felt like everyone had been waiting for him. He could instantly feel nine pairs of eyes on him, boring right into his soul. It was like he was on trial for a crime he didn't recall committing, and he had no idea what to expect.
"Thank you for coming on such short notice, Akaashi-kun." The woman at the head of the table, the oldest of everyone there, smiled at him as she gestured to a chair near the door that was conveniently empty. "Take a seat, this shouldn't take too long."
Keiji nodded, sitting down in the empty chair and looking up at the TV screens mounted around the room. There were four of them, each showing a different face, but he recognized them all. And combined with the five people sitting around the table with him, all nine members of the Japan Hero Project's Executive Board were represented.
Yes, he, Akaashi Keiji, normal high school second-year, was a professional superhero agent-slash-manager-slash-mission-control-operator. And he would be lying through his teeth if he said he didn't like it at least a little bit.
"Excuse me for asking, but why am I here?" Keiji asked, trying to sound as polite as he possibly could despite his confusion. "I wasn't given anything to prepare, and -"
"You weren't supposed to be." The woman looked around at everyone else before looking to Keiji again. "We just need a third-party opinion, and we trust you to deliver good judgment."
"Thank you." Keiji quickly bowed his head, surprised at the sudden praise. Did they know he was only seventeen? He was proud that he could seem this mature, but at the same time... "What do you need my opinion on?"
"We have a proposition that would directly affect all of our current heroes, and since you're closer to them than most of us are, we thought you could accurately speak on their behalf. We hope you don’t mind.”
"Basically, we're thinking of implementing a backup system." One of the faces on the screen right behind Keiji's head started to talk as soon as there was a break in the conversation. She was the youngest member of the Board, and though Keiji didn’t remember her name, she’d been here for a few months now. "Every team would have two backup members in case of an emergency. We want to give everyone a break when they need one, especially since this line of work requires a lot of precision and effort." She sighed. “We’ve gotten a lot of feedback, especially around exams, which is completely justified. We’re just not sure if this is the right way to go about it.”
"People would definitely appreciate that," Keiji said. "But wouldn't that require more people to have access to classified information? It may present a threat to national security if this goes public."
"There are downsides to every option." The man across from Keiji frowned in his direction. "Who’s to say that we’re going to choose the right people at all? Do we let more people in on it, or do we not have a Plan B in case anything goes wrong?"
"We're just wondering if this is the best course of action to take," The woman on the screen said. "That is, if the pros outweigh the cons."
Keiji blinked once before putting on his best professional smile, one that he admittedly barely used but had practiced quite a bit for the interview a year and a half ago. "Definitely."
"Then it's settled." The woman at the head of the table clapped her hands together. "Akaashi-kun, as soon as one of us has a chance to tell you what information to include, e-mail an announcement to everyone so they can start choosing people as soon as possible. We’d want to have everything set up by the end of the year."
"Right." Keiji nodded. "Thank you."