Work Text:
“Secretary.”
You look up from your work, not having noticed or expected anyone to be in your office. You have no appointments, not for several hours, and yet…
And yet there is a man in a floral print shirt and ripped jeans with a red leather jacket draped over his shoulders, circular sunglasses on his face and a stack of files in hand leaning against the wall across from you. A man that you can easily recognize as Doctor Kujo Kiriya, Coroner and Kamen Rider Lazer.
Well, and Emu’s potential boyfriend, but you’ll cross that bridge if and when they get there.
“Yo,” Kujo says, smirking.
“Why are you here?” You ask. Kujo laughs.
“Straight to the point, huh?” He asks. “That’s useful enough. And… I’m gonna be honest with you, Secretary, which doesn’t happen all that often: I don’t trust you.”
You blink. Honestly?
“You just entered my office without my permission,” you point out. Kujo smirks.
“I was let in,” he says. “And you didn’t notice.”
“I…”
Kujo goes through the files.
“As far as I can tell, you’re in charge of Game Disease things,” he says. “And you’re close with the Ace.” He looks up, stares at you right in the eyes from behind his glasses. “You’re also the only one who’s ever performed surgery on him, at least on record.”
You don’t back down from the challenge in his eyes.
“What are you implying?” You asks.
“Hojo Emu has never had the compatibility surgery to anyone’s knowledge,” Kujo replies, voice not quite even, as he takes a few steps forwards, smirking still, but edged in warning. “As far as I can tell, you’re the only one who could have done it.”
…How dare he?
“Genm did not inform me of the Bugster Virus until 2010, when I first encountered it in a patient of an old colleague and decided to investigate,” you reply, calmly as you can. “If you’re implying that I conducted an unauthorized procedure on a minor, when said procedure is for the sole purpose of wielding dangerous medical equipment, on Emu of all people, then get out of my office.”
Kujo… actually laughs.
“I only implied it, Secretary,” he says. “The other answer is even more out there, after all.”
You blink. Other answer?
It’s been three months, and you yourself still do not know how Emu could transform.
“I mean… ever notice how the Ace changes when he’s gaming?” Kujo asks, and that’s even more implications.
“He’s done it as long as I’ve known him,” you reply, because it has. But the implications…
For instance, the way that growing up, whenever he would panic, he would all but collapse, for just a second. And when he’d get up, his smile would be closer to the wide grin than the hesitant little smile. And as he got older, that’d be when he’d say “I’m okay, don’t worry” with the “ore”.
You hadn’t been able to figure out the cause, and sadly Emu had the piece of shit known as Hojo Kiyonaga as his legal father, so nothing had come of it. By the time he was a legal adult and you considered talking to him about it properly, it had stopped.
“You know, a Bugster doesn’t have to separate itself from the host,” Kujo replies. “And Miss Temporary Nurse says she’s seen his eyes go red, like a host before the Bugster consumes them. In other words…”
“Emu has Game Disease,” you finish.
“And Genius Gamer M’s the Bugster,” Kujo adds. “Possibly, since you met him in 2000 when this disease was supposedly invented, one of the first, even Patients Zero. Don’t have any proof of this yet, though.”
“So why are you telling me?” You asks, because you know of Kujo Kiriya. The coroner just shrugs.
“Emu trusts you,” he replies. “Still, until I have proof, it’s just conjecture… so best keep it a secret, especially from the Ace. If Game Disease is triggered by stress…”
He trails off, but you nod. It would kill Emu to know that his powers came from being sick. Perhaps literally. Kujo has a good point.
“For now, I agree,” you say. “Is that all?”
Kujo shuts his files.
“Yup!” He says. “See you.”
But before he can go to the door, you call back to him.
“Yes?” He asks.
“What, exactly, do you want out of Emu?”
Kujo blinks.
“Is this the shovel talk?” He asks.
“Maybe,” you reply. “I’m his doctor, after all.”
Kujo laughs.
“I take it he learned that dedication to his patients from you, then,” he says. “And… you know I’m a liar.”
“It doesn’t hurt to ask,” you reply. “But, if you hurt him again… I make no promises about my own retaliation.”
Kujo cocks his head.
“He’s more than a patient to you, isn’t he?” He asks. And Kujo Kiriya is a liar, but you… in this instance, you are not.
“Yes,” you say.
Kujo nods.
“In that case, well…” he laughs. “The Ace is the first person in a long time to make me want to be honest.”
He leaves without another word, leaving you with the thoughts he’d created.
Thoughts about the boy with the wide grin on a younger Emu’s face, and that maybe it wasn’t quite who you thought. Maybe it was a monster.
(Or maybe, a treacherous voice in the back of your mind whispers, maybe it was just a second boy, a little louder and more volatile. Maybe…)