Work Text:
It was another busy day at the Kisaragi Foundation, though one could argue that today was even busier than normal. Today, an attack on a Remnant of Despair base had gone successfully, and the majority of hostages had been rescued successfully.
Now that everyone had returned to the main headquarters, there was lots of work to do. The prisoners taken needed to be handed over to the court, so a transfer had to be scheduled, the hostages needed to be relocated to a safe place, medical care and guarding were needed, ammunition and supplies needed to be shipped in, and more things had to be done.
As the head of the treasury and the mediator of the Kisaragi Foundation, Teruya knew that today was very stressful on Rei, the head of the intelligence department, and Tsurugi, the director of the whole foundation. And as someone who knew how to make them reach compromises in agreements, he was relied on as the master of calming them down.
Even if Rei and Tsurugi often butted heads when it came to the policies of the Kisaragi Foundation, Teruya knew that their time together is too invaluable to their current mental states. To calm them down enough that they wouldn't be as high-strung, the merchant sometimes scheduled "meetings" for them to come into his office for a few hours.
So to prevent his two friends from mauling someone out of stress, he secretly added this meeting time to their schedules and began his preparations.
Their 'meeting' was from 3:00pm to 6:30pm, and Teruya made it very clear to the security guards that nobody was allowed to enter that office until both Tsurugi and Rei had left. Anything important was to be redirected to another department head for them to handle. The merchant returned to his office afterwards, filling out paperwork as he waited.
Finally, 3:00pm arrived after hours of work. Right on cue, Rei opened the door and helped Tsurugi in his wheelchair through the door. "Oi, Teruya, why did you..." Her voice trailed off as she looked at the state of the merchant's office.
Teruya had set up beanbags and some blankets on the floor, the windows had been closed, and the blinds had been drawn. "What can I say? I'm not good with words, I think the room explains it for me." Teruya nervously smiled at their dumbfounded reactions, wondering if Rei was going to yell at him for this. "The heavy lifting of our work is done, so I thought we should rest a bit...?"
A few seconds passed in silence before Tsurugi finally sighed. "It might be good to rest for a bit, considering what kind of shit we've had to put up with today," he agreed.
Teruya began to smile more happily as Rei relented, "Fine, but these beanbags better be comfortable!"
While Rei picked out one of the beanbags and laid down on it, Teruya went to Tsurugi's side and picked him up out of his wheelchair. "I just didn't want you guys to get too overwhelmed, that's all. Nothing good happens if you get too stressed out," the merchant insisted, putting Tsurugi down onto the closest beanbag.
"We heard you the first time!" the professor snapped, pulling one of the blankets in a pile over herself. Teruya had a feeling that she was more stressed than any of them today from multitasking, and he briefly rubbed her shoulder reassuringly on the way to get a blanket for Tsurugi.
When the merchant put the blanket over Tsurugi, the man quietly replied his thanks before closing his eyes. Teruya smiled and went to get the last blanket and beanbag for himself. His two friends were finally starting to relax, to his relief, falling quicker into sleep than he expected. He figured they must have been really tired.
After setting an alarm for 6:15pm, which would allow the trio fifteen minutes to get themselves oriented before rejoining the rest of the foundation, Teruya finally laid back on his beanbag and pulled the blanket over himself. In the end, he was pleased at his ability to help his friends despite not being as smart as them.
A few hours later, his alarm ended up waking all three of them. Before Rei could throw a hissyfit from just waking up, Teruya hurried over to a coffeemaker he had installed in his private office a few weeks ago and began making coffee.
"...I think that was helpful," Tsurugi remarked, then cut himself off with a yawn. "Let's just get some coffee and head back to our own offices."
Teruya handed cups of coffee to Rei and Tsurugi before pouring his own cup. "Ahaha, I'm just glad you guys are feeling better after the workload today," he assured with a smile. He only hoped that forcing them to take a nap would make them less irritable for the rest of the day.