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When Ibara tripped and almost fell flat on his face during practice, it took him a few minutes to fully realize the mistake he had made. He quickly righted himself, hoping no one had noticed, before moving on to continue the choreography. Unfortunately, Nagisa stopped and paused the music before turning to him.
“… Are you alright, Ibara?”
“Perfectly fine I assure you. ~♪” Ibara replied, plastering a smile on his face. His cheeks flushed pink regardless of his best efforts to stifle his embarrassment.
Hiyori and Jun faltered in their own movements and gave Ibara curious glances, but quickly averted their eyes when Ibara shot them a glare.
“Let us continue with practice!” Ibara said, smile still plastered on, and his voice just a tad more shrill than his normal tone. “There’s still much we can do to improve ourselves and our performance.”
“We have been practicing this song for a few weeks now though, yeah…?” Hiyori tapped his chin. “We should have it all memorized by now, choreography included.”
“That is very true, Your Highness!” Ibara nodded vigorously. “However, as a member of Eden and as its producer, I’m afraid I must insist we push ourselves further. We are not one of the top units for nothing, and we must maintain our position at all costs! And that I, such a lowly snake, have made such an error when we’re this far along just means that we must practice more. Wars cannot be fought if the soldiers fighting have not perfected everything.”
“This isn’t war though?” Jun grabbed his water bottle before taking a sip. “It’s just practice Ibara, and it seems we’re doing pretty alright to me.”
Ibara’s smile tightened. “Of course Jun,” he said, voice dripping with venom with no attempt to hide it this time. “That’s how dogs like you think. Everything is fine as they are. No need to put in effort past the bare minimum. Unfortunately that’s not how things work!”
“Y’know, at least a dog is higher off the ground than a snake,” Jun snapped back.
Ibara felt a stab of guilt, but it passed by so quickly he nearly missed it. He couldn’t take those words back even if he tried, not that he was particularly inclined to apologize, it wouldn’t fix things.
“Apologize to Jun-kun right now!” Hiyori crossed his arms and scowled. “You do not talk to him, or any of us, like that.”
“It isn’t that big of a deal, Ohii-san,” Jun said with a shrug, though the frown on his face and weary look in his eyes spoke differently. “We’re all worn out by near non-stop practice these past few weeks and that kinda stress isn’t good for anyone. Some of us are bound to get irritable.”
“… Jun’s right, Hiyori-kun,” Nagisa spoke up finally. He had a thoughtful look on his face as he assessed the rest of the unit in front of him.
“Well I suppose,” Hiyori began, “but—”
“As your leader, and Eden’s leader, I say we take the rest of our scheduled training time off,” Nagisa said firmly, crossing his arms. “… We’ve already been here for hours,” he added, “and we will only get more sloppy and frustrated if we keep working like this when tired.”
“Nagi-Senpai has a point,” Jun said, scratching his ear. “I’m feeling like I could probably mess up too at some point ‘cause I’m so worn out.”
He chuckled nervously before casting a glance at Hiyori who still was frowning.
“Come on, Ohii-san, let it be for now,” Jun said, putting a hand on Hiyori’s arm. “That doesn’t mean that I’m gonna forgive you for what you said,” he glanced over at Ibara who’d gone still ever since Nagisa had assumed his God-Mode persona, even if it was only for a moment.
“I do expect some sorta confirmation that you won’t say something like that again to me ‘cause I know you don’t particularly enjoy apologizing.”
“Even more of a reason for him to apologize to you,” Hiyori said. “It’s practice.”
Jun sighed and tugged on Hiyori’s arm. “Come on, I know you were thinking about that restaurant that just opened up. We can go now since we have the time, yeah?”
“Yes!” Hiyori’s face brightened, “That sounds like a wonderful idea.”
“Do you and Ibara want to join us, Nagi-senpai?” Jun asked, “Might allow for all of us to relax.”
“… That does sound nice,” Nagisa replied. “… Ibara, would you be interested in going?”
“Hmm…?” Ibara blinked and slid his gaze over, not focusing on anything in particular. “Ah,” he shook his head after a moment. “I’ll unfortunately have to decline your invitation. There’s still much I have to do back at the office! I must utilize the extra time I have now that it’s available to me.”
Before the rest of his unit could respond, Ibara bowed deeply and saluted before stiffly walking out of the practice room. It was difficult for him to not run out of the room when he wanted to. His heart rate felt like it’d sped up but also slowed down at the same time, hands clammy and shaking. Scowling, he shoved them in his pockets before heading into the locker room.
Time passed in a haze as Ibara forced himself to change out of his practice clothes and into his normal workday outfit. The rest of Eden hadn’t come in yet, or maybe they had, Ibara wasn’t sure. Too wrapped up in his own thoughts, or lack thereof considering he couldn’t focus on a single thing for more than a few seconds.
Before he knew it, Ibara was back in his office tapping away at his computer. He stared at the sentence he’d just written as part of the report he had to send in an frowned. He could’ve worded it better.
Delete. Rewrite. Stare at it for a minute. Delete and rewrite. Rinse and repeat.
This went on for several minutes, and Ibara’s eye twitched as he gritted his teeth. Why could he not reach a point where he was happy with what he had written? At this point he might as well just restart the whole thing. However, if he did that then he would lose the hours of work he put into the report, not to mention he wasn’t entirely sure if he could remember the specific details he’d written prior. Best to leave it for now, at least for a few minutes.
Picking up his phone, Ibara sent a message to the higher who was least likely to bite his head off with an update. As long as the president of the agency and all those who were higher up than him were in a good mood, then so was Ibara.
‘And despite all the crawling and clawing my way up to the top, I still find myself at the bottom,’ he thought to himself bitterly.
Aimlessly scrolling through his list of contacts, Ibara paused when he came across a familiar name.
‘Fushimi…’ he mused to himself. ‘I still find it a cruel twist of fate we ended up in the same place after everything.’
Ibara’s finger hovered over Yuzuru's contact information before he shook his head and turned off his phone, setting it to the side. What was he thinking? The last person he would want to see right now would be his old instructor, even though Yuzuru had been the only person who showed him any sort of kindness in that hellhole. Despite that kindness, Ibara had constantly lashed out at him because he had no one else to direct his anger towards.
As he grew older, Ibara suspected that Yuzuru had let him do all those horrible things to him, but he never dared to ask. If Yuzuru was anything like him (Ibara hoped not), then the past was a subject not to be even thought of, much less talked about. Contacting Yuzuru right now about what he was going through, or ever for that matter, was out of the question. Ibara cursed himself silently for even having the thought cross his mind. To reach out to his old instructor would be to confront the very demons he had been trying to outrun for years.
He was perfectly capable of handling things on his own. Moreover, if he showed any sort of weakness to anyone, they would only use it against him at a later date. That's why he always kept his guard up and why he was now locked in his office, trying to keep himself busy with work. Allowing his personal problems to get in the way of his professional life would only lead to mistakes, and Ibara could not afford to make any mistakes.
As far as he was concerned, he only had a professional life. Between being an idol, producer, and vice president of CosPro, he also had to manage and keep tabs on all the smaller side businesses he had. His schedule hardly allowed him room to relax. Dealing with personal problems and issues was out of the question.
A knock on his office door drew Ibara out of his thoughts and he frowned. He wasn’t expecting anyone, was he? He checked the calendar by his computer and saw that he had nothing scheduled until later that evening. Furrowing his brow in confusion, Ibara got up to unlock the door. Regardless of who it was, it would be rude to not at least answer the door, politely tell whoever it was that he was busy, and tell them to get in touch when he had an open availability to talk. Unfortunately, he was greeted by Nagisa’s concerned gaze instead of a subordinate like he was expecting.
"Your Excellency!" Ibara said, immediately snapping to attention and saluting. "I salute! What brings you here, may I ask?”
“… I messaged you through HoldHands twice with no answer,” Nagisa said, sweeping his eyes over Ibara’s shorter frame before making eye contact. “… I’m worried about you.”
"There's no need to worry!" Ibara said with a smile. "I'm perfectly alright. I just have a lot of work to catch up on, that's all. Please do not worry yourself over someone like me. I'm sure you have much more important things to attend to.”
“… I’m worried about you,” Nagisa repeated slowly, as if he were talking to someone who didn’t understand what he was saying (and perhaps Ibara didn’t). “… May I come in?”
“Ahaha, Your Excellency, I thought I had told you that I was busy.” Ibara tried to keep the irritation out of his voice as he angled his body to keep Nagisa from coming into his private space. However, if the narrowing eyes of his unit leader told him anything, it was that Nagisa knew he was getting frustrated. New approach then.
“Please,” Ibara tried again. “I know you are concerned about me, but there's really no need to be! If you're talking about earlier, with me slipping up at practice, please do not worry. It won't happen again! Everyone makes mistakes every now and then. It's really nothing out of the ordinary.”
"..." Nagisa continued to stare at him in silence, and Ibara shifted from foot to foot.
“… I suppose you can come in for a few minutes,” Ibara conceded. “After all, you did make the trip up here to check on me!”
‘Not that I needed anyone to do so,’ he thought to himself. Moving to the side, he saluted again before shutting the door after Nagisa made his way in.
He hadn't even taken one step back towards his desk before Nagisa grabbed his wrist.
“ Your Excellency…?” Ibara froze and turned to Nagisa with a raised eyebrow.
“… No more work for right now,” Nagisa said, tightening his grip and tugging Ibara towards one of the couches that sat in the middle of his office meant for guests.