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Two hours into Branch 14’s annual holiday formal and Makoto was already finishing his third glass of champagne. His head felt cottoned-up and his face was hot and cold all at once. He was sure that he looked flushed, but that was okay. Hopefully it gave him the impression of being someone jolly and laid-back, the kind of leader who worked hard and played hard.
Branch 14 was his ship, his home, his wife, husband, child, and everything in-between. Donations fluctuated. Governmental grants flowed like rich oil veins, but even those weren’t enough to keep the lights on. Servers needed to run and municipal projects needed guidance. Future Foundation built the future, after all, and building couldn’t happen without money.
Makoto beckoned over a member of the hotel bar staff to fill his wine glass with a crooked smile and a sleepy word of gratitude. He watched the champagne gurgle from the neck of the bottle and splash into his glass with chapped lips and a dry throat.
“Don’t get too crazy.” Byakuya was, infuriatingly, stone cold sober. Makoto had never seen him take a drink in his life. “You’re still on to talk after Hinata to close things out, remember?”
“Lighten up a little, Kuya.” Makoto sipped his glass and felt the tension melt from having that sweet fizzy taste roll over his tongue. It zapped a bit of life into him. “We’re supposed to be having fun, you know? It’s Christmas.”
They were both standing off to the side from the rest of the crowd to observe. The Towa Marriott had a sizable ballroom. Nothing too glitzy, just a large square space with lemon yellow walls and a sheet of carpet that had seen better days. Most of the floorspace was taken up by a dozen or so circular tables spaced far enough apart so that people could mingle and weave through them without too much hassle.
On the opposite wall was a buffet table of small snacky stuff, along with a well-manned bar that had a line of people. They had a glass tip jar that was overflowing with bills. There was a makeshift stage at the back wall, just a raised platform with a podium and mic set-up that Hiro had slapped together.
It wasn’t much, especially for a holiday event, but Makoto liked it that way. Aoi had really outdone herself this year in carrying a business casual vibe, especially with how barebones the venue was.
Byakuya tapped his foot. He kept his arms firmly crossed over his chest. “I just don’t want you to embarrass the Branch, and then myself by proxy. Remember, we have people from the congressional district and Towa Construction. We can’t have you burning the bridges of both the private and the public sectors in one night.”
“Relax, Kuya. Come on.” Makoto took another sip of champagne and eyed the stage. “Looks like Hinata’s about to start.”
Hinata, just like everyone else representing FF, wore an all-black suit and tie. Maybe it was a little macabre for a holiday bash, but the suits were the Brand, and everyone’s plus one’s made up the difference by acting as splashes of color in the audience.
He walked up the stage and took place behind the podium. Heads turned. Hinata watched as the crowd’s chatter slowly died down before he tapped the head of the mic.
“Everyone? Hello?” Hinata cleared his throat and readjusted the mic’s stem with a clunk of feedback. “Whoops… there we go. Much better, right?” He smiled, teeth and all. “Hey, how’s the evening going for you all? Anyone else keeping track of the game going on tonight?”
A good dozen or so people whooped. Some of them, Makoto noticed, were the donors. Excellent.
Hinata grinned even wider. There was a falsified look to it. Makoto knew he was only doing it to have his expression be readable from the audience. “Yeah? Any fellow Raiders fans out there? There has to be more than just me, right?”
Apart from a couple of individuals, the cheers quickly mutated into good-natured jeering. One particularly inebriated intern from Investigations yelled something that Makoto swore was “fuck those guys, man!” He’d have to talk to Kyoko later about that.
Hinata held up his hands in mock surrender with a self-deprecated chuckle. “Okay, okay. Geez, let’s save it for outside, okay?” He took out a scrap of paper from his breast pocket. “So, before I get started, can we just give a hand over to the guys working the bar back there?”
The crowd erupted into a sloshy round of applause with some scattered whistles and hoots.
“You guys are really earning those tips, huh?” Hinata’s laugh was low and short, a corporate dog’s bark. “At least, I hope you are!”
A rumble of tittering and white noise. Makoto kept an eye on the benefactors. They were smiling.
It was a shame that Hinata was so insistent on hiding that red eye of his under a contact lens. Makoto had tried for years to encourage him to display it, if only for events like this. The high-roller philanthropists would love it, just a little morsel of despair to encourage them to whip out and ruffle their checkbooks. No luck, though. So much for his Alumnus talent.
“It’s great to see everyone so pumped up this late! So, hey! Let’s get this going. For anyone who doesn’t know me, I’m Hajime Komaeda-Hinata, Branch 14’s CIO. I do this kind of casual, end of the year sort of talk at all of these get-togethers.” Hinata scanned over the crowd. “Is Asahina out there? Could you stand up for me?”
From the middle of the tables, sitting with Komaru and Toko, Aoi stood with a shy smile and waved.
“Most of us know Ms. Asahina, but for those who don’t, she pretty much single-handedly put all of this together. Maybe we can give her a hand too?” And this time, Hinata joined in the applause, keeping his hands well above the mic.
“Just wait till your birthday, Hinata!” Aoi shouted back with a grin.
“Oh, man.” Hinata laughed. “That’s what I get, huh? If anyone wants to know, I’m turning twenty-two this January.” He looked over the audience with a conspiratorial wink. “And if you ask my husband, he’s lying.”
Polite laughter and a few drunken guffaws.
That was the only time that the façade seemed to crack. Hinata’s smile unraveled against his teeth before it knotted back upwards. “Hey, speaking of luck, anyone feeling confident that they’ll win that raffle?” He waggled his eyebrows in a theatrically smarmy way that got the audience rumbling.
“Good lord.” Byakuya groaned. “What the hell is he doing? Stand up?”
Makoto elbowed him. “Shush. I told him to try and ham it up a little for the guests. Make it a bit less stiff and a little more fun. I wish he hadn’t made that side comment about luck, though… it’s not like they know that he’s married to an Ultimate Luck alumnus.”
“You can’t be serious.”
“Come on, Kuya.” Makoto clicked his tongue and looked back at the gaggle of philanthropists. “They look pretty happy so far.”
Byakuya sneered at them and crossed his arms. “More like liquored up, if that’s what you mean.”
From the stage, Hinata paused for a beat and let the crowd die down before moving on. “Alright, let’s kick off by starting with our metrics from this last month…”
The speech went exceptionally, as all of Hinata’s talks did. Raw Kamukura talent paired along with practiced skill from doing it for so many years had shaped him into a brilliant public speaker. He was engaging, witty, but with a sense of humility that made him more down-to-earth and earnest than most of the higher-ups of FF. There was a reason that Makoto used him as his go-to for the more casual internal events like this.
It all ended with a parting joke, just a milquetoast “don’t get too rowdy, now” sort of deal, before Hinata parted away from the stage with a modest grin and a relaxed gait down the foot of the stage and into the crowd.
And Makoto watched as that casual veneer slipped away as Hinata walked towards them. Gone was the confidence and swagger, and in was a hobble and a crumbly looking frown.
When Hinata reached them, Makoto could see the dark bags under his eyes and a mottled complexion that was filmed over with a sloppy application of foundation. It was a quick and dirty way to cover up acne, probably.
“I need to get going, if that’s alright with you,” Hinata said. He looked at Makoto right in the eye. His expression was tight-lipped. “They’re letting me stay overnight at the hospital.”
Makoto wasn’t really sure how to reply to a loaded statement like that when he had a bottle of champagne sphered up in his belly. Compared to Hinata’s steely glare, he felt small.
Byakuya swooped in, clipped as ever. “We need you to do rounds with the donors first. Do some hand-shakes, then you can leave. Five minutes.”
Hinata’s face hardened. “Togami, I missed chemo and a physical therapy session to do this. I’m sorry, but I can’t stay. I have stops I need to make before I can get there and it’s already late.”
“And you’re wasting more time by yapping – “
“Byakuya,” Makoto snapped, “go touch base with the philanthropy cadre. Now. That’s a direct order.”
Pulling the ‘I’m your superior’ card was something Makoto tried to do as sparingly as possible with Byakuya, if only because it made him feel like even more of an imposter than he already was. It didn’t matter if he had been doing this for as long as he had, it would never not be weird to hold commandment over a Togami.
Even weirder was seeing Byakuya stiffen and pull back without a word of protest. He inclined his head to Makoto in a curt bow before storming away.
Hinata watched him go and before he could get in a word edgewise, Makoto reached out and put a hand on his shoulder.
“Thank you, Hinata.” Makoto tried to ignore the way that Hinata stood rigid under his touch. “I really, sincerely appreciate you coming out to do this with everything going on in your life right now. I’ll make sure that your bonus is processed before the new year, along with something extra to compensate for tonight.” He really hoped that he wasn’t slurring his words, but he honestly couldn’t tell at this point.
Hinata looked at him with a twitch of a smile. “No problem, sir, but again, would it be alright if I left?”
“Of course.” Makoto didn’t like how Hinata was looking at him, like he was holding something in, but it wasn’t worth commenting on. “Give my regards to Komaeda for me.” He took a plunge. “Is he doing okay?”
“He’s fine.” Hinata sucked in his cheek. “See you Monday.”
“Alright… let me know if you need more PTO approved, okay?”
“Thank you, sir.” The last word came out as a hiss, but before Makoto could say anything of it, Hinata had walked away.
Something ate away at the edges of Makoto’s chest. Guilt.
He needed another drink to numb it down.