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The clock is ticking.
It’s also slowly driving Mori insane.
He lost count of the hours he spent staring mindlessly into the papers on his desk that he obviously wasn’t even going to touch, unless it was done just to feel that he was actually a real, existing person. He had to do it every half an hour, and each time was because he started to wonder if he was still conscious. Not even Elise was there to make him aware of it, which was probably good, because his strange mood affected her too and seeing the little girl in a state similar to his would probably be very disturbing.
It was difficult to even get up, and if he did, what would it be for? Pacing nervously around his office? Mori had done that already, but his feet hurt and he had to sit, and when he did, he couldn’t stand again. The outbursts of energy were not gone either, they returned in the form of him having to bury his face in his hands, weird shivers running down his spine or the urge to spin himself on his chair a few times. Would he throw up if he did it? The stress had probably evaporated right now, so the nausea should as well… but did it really?
It was all very, very difficult.
The useless pondering is interrupted by a sharp knock on the door. Instinctively, the man voices out an approval for the person to come inside, which is a stupid move to make given his current state, but he feels too weird to even regret it.
Needless to say, Chuuya isn’t very impressed by the sight of his boss.
The younger man walks into the office as if it was a normal day, not the middle of the night, and simply clears his throat, ready to report from the mission that he just finished. Mori doesn’t even move, and that must be what finally causes his companion to raise his eyes up and notice the whole mess.
“Boss, are you alright?” he asks carefully with a surprised expression. “You look… strange.”
Mori wonders what exactly he has in mind when he says that; is it the outfit? Maybe not exactly, because he tends to wear suits to work, even if they aren’t usually that fashionable, and he doesn’t put on embroidered red vests just to sit in his office either. The hair might also be one of the hints, messy and disheveled, courtesy to the urges that prompted him to run his fingers through it quite furiously.
Or, which might be the most probable of all, given the way Chuuya keeps staring at his face, it’s because of the quite prominent red lipstick mark on his right cheek.
“Oh, really?” Mori asks, trying to disguise his numb state with a falsified chuckle that makes the executive cringe visibly. “Why so?”
“Well…” The younger man hesitates for a second and slowly raises a gloved hand to his own face, pointing to his cheek. “You have something… here.”
This conversation must be very uncomfortable for him. Mori just sighs and bumps his forehead on the surface of his desk, hearing a horrified gasp from his executive.
It’s an unnecessary panic, because he has done that a couple of times throughout the night already, but Chuuya jumps to him, ready to check if everything is fine.
“I went on a date tonight,” Mori mumbles, not raising his head up, and he can sense that the younger man clenches both his teeth and fists, probably incredibly stressed and even more uncomfortable.
“Huh?” Chuuya gasps, dumbfounded, and clearly unsure what to say next.
Indeed, the news is pretty surprising and perhaps it’s not wise to reveal it like that, but he doesn’t care about it at the moment. The only person to which the executive would repeat it already knew, so there were no actual risks about it.
His reactions also added some fun to this lethargic evening.
“Uh,” he struggles, clearing his throat to sound more certain, but it’s still a huge failure. “...Did it go bad?”
“No,” Mori groans longly, his voice slightly muffled by his current position. “It went great.”
He turns his head a bit to take a look at his subordinate and is greeted by the sight of his blue eyes unnaturally widened. Not discouraged by this expression, he decides to continue and simply let out all of his thoughts.
“I just miss her,” he adds in such a pathetic tone that he has to cringe internally, but still goes on. If Chuuya is here, at least he will be somehow useful, because getting stuck with his thoughts one on one was too hard. “I want to see her.”
“Ugh!” Another voice echoes in the office; the executive jumps at the sound while Mori lets out a deep sigh yet again. It’s going to be a long night.
Elise shows up, in her pink pajamas, dragging a giant teddy bear behind her back. A sigh of relief escapes Chuuya’s lips, but it quickly turns to a different type of fear.
“Is he being lovey-dovey again?!” The little girl crosses her arms on her chest with a pout that signals nothing other than a series of insults that is about to come. “So pathetic!”
“She kissed me!” Mori exclaims dramatically, hitting his forehead on the desk once again. “On the cheek, but still!”
There’s a look of disgust on Elise’s face, so the man’s gaze travels to Chuuya, who looks somewhere between shocked, embarrassed and fascinated.
Both of their expressions hit strong enough for him to quickly become aware of how he must look right now, and the realization is so painful that he tugs on his own hair with his fingers to somehow make him focus on it less.
“He’s so annoying…” Elise yawns, while Chuuya’s body, seemingly instinctively, attempts to move and get Mori to leave his hair alone, but it’s also quite clear that the younger man has no idea what to do. “He kept talking about this date for the whole week, and now he’s even more insufferable! Gross!” She expresses her dissatisfaction rather loudly, and the executive simply pats the man’s back awkwardly.
“Boss, I’m sure she misses you too…?” Chuuya assures, although his tone is not convincing at all. To be fair, he isn’t to blame; he found himself in such a situation by accident, and it’s not that Mori can be encountered in such a state normally.
Actually, he can’t be encountered in such a state, ever.
It was thoroughly and indescribably pathetic, to the point the man wanted nothing but for the ground to open up and swallow him whole, so that he would be freed from his misery.
What made it worse was that he actually wasn’t feeling bad, distressed or anything. It was more the overwhelming waves of euphoria that turned him into a mess, and that caused him to overthink everything in detail more and more.
Exactly that made him go insane.
“I’m going to sleep,” he announces mechanically and gets up from his chair, bumping into Chuuya in the process. “Goodnight to both of you.”
And so, Mori leaves his office, hitting the doorframe to his apartment with his shoulder. Elise yells back something that resembles the word “simp!”, but he tries not to think about it too much as Chuuya’s loud sigh echoes in the back as he closes the door.
He doesn’t have enough sanity for a quick shower, so he falls flat on the mattress of his bed, letting out a sound that lies somewhere between a groan and a pathetic whimper that gets him embarrassed shortly after.
He is a mafia boss. The leader of the Port Mafia. An ability user, a man responsible for maintaining the balance in Yokohama. He should definitely not be acting like this after a date.
Mori never went on a proper date before, to be fair — perhaps that was one of the reasons for his behavior — and it killed him how obvious it must have been. As he thoroughly studied each one of the words he said during the evening, a conclusion formed in his mind.
He made a fool out of himself!
The thought makes him want to rip his hair out again, but he’s stopped only by the fact that Kouyou would absolutely not want to go out with him again if he did it. Or see him ever again, for that matter.
On the other hand — was it even possible not to act like a fool when she was around? After all, she must have been the most beautiful person he had ever seen, and it was absolutely not an exaggeration, nor was it his own bias. Objectively, she was simply gorgeous, and just standing next to her, he felt ashamed, in a way.
Kouyou shouldn’t be weirded out by the fact that Mori was acting weird when he was with her. It was obvious that he would; she should be aware of it by now. It was simply impossible to keep up his usual facade next to her, no matter how hard he tried.
It was all too difficult, he concludes.
With the little strength he has, the man climbs up his mattress just to lay flat on his back with his head propped up on the pillows and stare into the endless depths of the canopy over his bed, sort of wishing Kouyou was with him right now. She was worthier of his focus than any of the useless thoughts inside his head.
The soft creak of the door is strange to hear, but the silhouette that appears in front of the bed is an even more ridiculous phenomenon.
Elise is not her usual self, and although for the most part, it’s impossible to notice, Mori knows. It scares him just a bit, because she has never changed like that, under the influence of feelings that he can’t describe at all. It’s another piece of proof that his ability is tied to him in an inexplicable, inhuman way that normally would make a shiver rush along his spine. Now, it only awakens his curiosity.
The girl crosses her arms over her chest in a huff (that resembles someone else very closely, but that doesn’t matter that much right now), still holding the teddy bear in her hand.
“Just admit it,” she scolds him, but not in the same tone that she would use daily, but in a much softer and somehow less aggressive way. As if she wasn’t actually meaning to call him an idiot this time. “It won’t bother you anymore if you do.”
She sounds like an embodiment of one of the many voices in his head, and Mori can’t say he enjoys it at all, especially that in her case, it’s very much possible, and he wants to believe that she represents the most rational one.
It can’t be that easy, though.
“Admit what?” he mutters, closing his eyes. Choosing to ignore his ability’s expression seems more bearable right now. Pretending that the discussion is still happening in his mind makes him feel at least a bit better.
(Which doesn’t seem right, actually, but it’s what he’s used to.)
“You know what,” comes the irritatingly enigmatic answer. Mori scrunches his face in displeasure; that is not what he wants.
He absolutely hates being ordered around, indeed. But it’s about feelings this time, and he wishes for nothing more than a person, a being, a sign, anything that would explain to him what is happening and what to do with it.
Elise leaves, her steps loud enough to ring in his mind for a long while after that.
As he thinks that sleep will finally end his current misery, the quiet buzz of his phone interrupts the upcoming respite. Mori picks it up instantly, given the name that appears on the screen and waits for the longed-for voice on the other side.
“It seems like I correctly guessed that you’re not asleep yet,” Kouyou chuckles lightly, engulfing him in a wonderful type of peace, getting rid of all the tiring thoughts circling around his mind for the past few hours. “Which I definitely do not approve of, by the way.”
“You’re one to talk,” he snorts, trying to hide the smile that seeps through his voice.
“I just called to tell you that you forgot your gloves,” Mori can probably imagine that she shrugs with how her tone changes.
It doesn’t seem like a valid reason to call at this hour, objectively. They will see each other tomorrow at work; she could pretty much bring them along with her. No need to call at all.
Nevertheless, Mori is not displeased at that at all.
“Want me to go and pick them up?” he asks, half-jokingly. It’s not like she would say yes, probably, but if she did, he would be on his way to his car already.
“No,” Kouyou lets out an exasperated sigh and a small laugh at the end. “I’ll bring them tomorrow. I just thought you’d like to know. In case you were furiously searching for them right now.”
He wasn’t, obviously, and she’s probably smart enough to know that he has many other identical pairs in his closet.
“Well, is that all?” Mori questions quietly after a moment of comfortable silence, with a hint of a tease in his voice.
“Yes, it is,” comes the answer. “And you should go to sleep now; it’s late.”
“I’ll try.”
“I’m serious right now, Ougai. Goodnight.” Kouyou cuts their bickering short; he can imagine her rolling her eyes at him as well.
“Yes, ma’am,” he chuckles. “Goodnight to you too. Sleep well.”
“You too,” the woman adds with a huff.
Mori waits for a while longer, not really wanting to hang up, but also knowing that if someone will do it, it has to be him.
At least sleep will come easier this time.