Work Text:
Patient Name: Tachibana Takae
Birthday: 01/14/19XX
Age: 27
Attending Physician: Nakojima Yuki, MD
Discharge Summary:
27 year old female with no significant past medical history presents as a level one trauma call after a kaiju attack. The patient is a Defense Force officer involved in the attack. Per witness reports, she was engaged with the kaiju when another officer fired a high-powered rifle into the building, causing an explosion. The patient was found unconscious within the burning building and dragged out by paramedics. On initial examination she was found to have massive hemorrhage to bilateral arms and right leg; tourniquets were applied in the field and patient was administered 1L bolus of fluid and TXA en route to the hospital. On arrival she was found to be profoundly tachycardic and hypotensive, prompting initiation of massive transfusion protocol. In total, 24 units of packed red blood cells, 22 units of fresh frozen plasma, and 22 units of platelets were given along with calcium gluconate in the trauma bay. A right sided chest tube was placed for hemothorax. FAST exam positive for blood within the right and left upper quadrants. She was stabilized in the trauma bay before being taken back to the OR where she underwent exploratory laparotomy for abdominal bleeding with repair of grade III splenic laceration and grade IV liver laceration. Ortho was present and performed internal fixation of bilateral radial and ulnar fractures as well as right femur fracture. After her operations the patient was then transferred to the ICU for 6 days where she remained hemodynamically stable with 1 episode of low hemoglobin requiring 1 additional unit of packed red blood cells. On post op day 7 she was transferred to the med/surg unit. Pain improved and function gradually returned. On discharge the patient was able to engage with physical therapy to ambulate throughout the unit. Still having significant motor deficits to bilateral arms however much improved over initial presentation. She was discharged to home with physical and occupational therapy referrals in much improved condition.
***
Takae has blisters on her palms.
They chafe and burn with every swing of her sword, but she can’t stop. She shoves the pain into the back of her mind until the only thing she can think about is the motion of her katana, shakily going through all of the forms that she used to be able to perform in her sleep.
Halfway through an overhead swing the katana slips out of her sweat and blood-slicked hands entirely, shooting across the room to land with a series of loud clangs ten feet away. Takae’s breath heaves in her lungs as she stares at the sword, fear and anger and shock swirling within her heart until she feels like she’s about to burst.
“Good thing nobody else was here. You could’ve really hurt someone.”
Takae turns, surprised. Hoshina Soshiro stands in the doorway to the training room, leaning against the frame with his arms crossed over his chest. His narrowed purple eyes regard her with a rehearsed ease, but even she can read the tension in his shoulders.
Takae turns her gray eyes to the floor. “I’m leaving the Force.”
There’s a beat of silence. “I know.”
He isn’t surprised. Good. That makes this conversation easier.
“I didn’t want to leave this way,” she whispers. She holds up her hands, notes the blood running down her palm as they shake in the air before her. She hasn’t had blisters from wielding a sword since she was a child. That she has them now is a testament to how long she’d been forced away from her training, how long she could hardly manage to curl her fingers, much less hold her weapon.
Hoshina strides into the room, not stopping until he stands within arm’s reach in front of her. She isn’t sure what to make of the expression on his face; anger? Frustration, maybe?
She’ll take either and be grateful for it. At least Hoshina has never once looked at her with pity like everyone else.
“Is it really okay to leave now? After everything you’ve accomplished?”
His tone is genuinely questioning, not accusing. Takae fights back the indignation that wants to surge forth. As if she hasn’t been asking this exact same question herself for weeks.
“I have accomplished nothing. We, on the other hand, have done and created so much here. This platoon has always been so much more than just me. And it’ll go on the same as it always has without me.”
“I’m not asking for them.” Hoshina’s purple eyes glint in the bright training lights. “I’m asking for you. Are you really okay with this?”
Anger burns in her heart at the unfairness of it all. How can she be okay with this? Since childhood her katana has been an extension of her body, a piece of her heart and soul. And now it’s like her body doesn’t recognize what has been a part of her for so long. Her hands move stiffly, woodenly, her fingers slow and clumsy. Every time she holds her katana now and it shakes in her grip, she feels like a part of her is missing.
“Of course I’m not,” she hisses, brows drawn low over flashing gray eyes. “What kind of question is that?”
Hoshina’s eyes grow wide. Her outburst startled him. She quickly schools her features, contrite; no matter how upset she is at this situation, she doesn’t need to lash out at her subordinate over it.
Especially not Hoshina.
His mouth softens into a slight smile as he watches her hurriedly control her expression. “You know, I think this is the first time I’ve seen you show your emotions so freely.” The smile drops from his face. “It’s a pity it took something like this for me to see it. It’s...”
He trails off, his eyes dropping to the floor. Takae waits, wondering what he was about to say, but it quickly becomes apparent that he has no intention of finishing that sentence.
“I didn’t like you. At first,” is what he says next instead.
Takae blinks, momentarily blindsided by the abrupt change in conversation. But then she scoffs. “I know.”
“You knew?” Hoshina stares at her in surprise.
“You weren’t exactly subtle, Hoshina.”
***
Hoshina is glaring at her again.
He thinks he’s being subtle, hiding his gaze from behind the broad frame of Komuka’s shoulders, but Takae can feel it burning a hole in her skin, plain as day. He doesn’t like her; never has, really.
She can’t even say she’s surprised.
One of their first true interactions had been when he’d pranked the platoon by hiding glitter atop the barrack fans, thus dousing everyone in sparkles. She’d forced the entire platoon to run an extra ten miles every morning for two weeks as punishment. It was the right response as far as keeping discipline went, but it did nothing to endear her to her most talented subordinate.
It also hasn’t helped that she has been refusing to meet his demands for a sparring match. She can sense his frustration building every time she pretends to be busy training the others, slipping away before he can corner her into a match during their practices. It’s not that she doesn’t want to train him; she genuinely does. She helps him in every other way she can, pushing him hard with every practice, correcting and complimenting his form in turns, using the others as much as she can to taunt and goad him into putting forth that extra bit of effort. But she won’t spar with him. Not now. Not in front of the others.
It’s clear to Takae that Hoshina places an immense amount of pride in his swordsmanship, as he should; he’s an incredible martial artist. But she wants his skills to be meant for more than proving his superiority over his platoonmates. Strength is multiplied when it is wielded for the sake of others; Takae should know this better than anyone. As talented as he is, she can only imagine how he would grow and develop if he found something greater than himself to fight for.
For this reason alone, she doesn’t want to spar with him. It’s probably just a useless bit of sentimentality for an outcome she has no control over, but it makes her feel better to know, at the very least, that his efforts aren’t focused solely on defeating her.
And so Takae pretends not to notice Hoshina’s steely glare, focusing instead on her match with Fumiki. Fumiki feints left before swinging overhead; Takae barely recognizes the feint in time to bring her practice bamboo sword up to stop it.
Takae shakes her head to clear it. It isn’t like her to allow something so trivial as a subordinate’s clear dislike of her distract her in the middle of a match.
If she wants to create a platoon of some of the finest warriors the Third Division has ever seen, then she needs to pour every ounce of herself into every single person here. Doing things half-heartedly won’t cut it. Hoshina, Fumiki, Komuka, and everyone else here deserve nothing less than her best.
Takae throws herself back into the match with renewed vigor, singularly focused on the person before her.
***
Takae’s gaze drifts, not focused on anything in particular. Her room in the barracks has never been well-decorated or lived-in, but she is surprised by how little time it took to pack up her things. She has been living here for the past seven years, after all; shouldn’t it take longer than a measly hour or two to disentangle these past several years of her life from the walls within which she’d lived them?
Her mind wanders, shifting from memory to memory of her time in the Force without purpose or direction. She remembers her first kaiju battle, when she’d thrown up afterwards. The ceremony where she had been promoted to Platoon Leader, when she was twenty-two and still had so much to prove. The first time she sparred with Hoshina in the practice room in the dead of night, how it made her feel alive again after a hard mission. The moment Mina’s blast hit and she thought for sure she’d never open her eyes again.
Maybe it’s precisely because her focus is drifting so aimlessly that she senses his presence in the doorway before he makes himself known.
“Careful, Hoshina,” she says without turning. “If you keep seeking me out like this, you’ll start to make me think you’ll actually miss me once I leave.”
It’s a load of bullshit, naturally. As easily as she’d picked up on his initial dislike of her when they’d first started working together, Takae had felt the changes and shifts in their relationship as the years wore on. At some point in time, she’d earned his respect, and eventually even his admiration. And his feelings aren’t the only ones that have shifted.
Recently she has been surprised to find that looking at her subordinate doesn’t seem to inspire that familiar mix of amusement and exasperation, but rather something... foreign. Strange. Warm and fluttery and burning.
Takae is no fool. She knows exactly what these feelings mean. It’s precisely because she knows what they are and what they’d do if let out that she shoves them back every single time she feels them rising like some surging tide within her chest.
She does so now, forcing her heart to steady and her expression to remain neutral as she turns to face him.
He’s leaning against the doorway, arms crossed over his toned chest. That feeling tries to surge again, seeing him watch her so casually as he has done hundreds of times throughout the years. “Ashiro-san is asking for you,” he tells her.
Ah, so he’s just a messenger. He’s not actually here to see her. Takae is surprised by the wave of disappointment that washes through her at this realization.
“Thanks. I’ll be there in a moment.” Takae turns back to her bed, zipping up the suitcase on it with trembling fingers. Her hands are never steady these days. The damage she’d suffered in the kaiju attack six months ago still haunts her today. Dozens of hours in physical therapy have brought her far, but not far enough.
It’ll never be far enough.
Hoshina seems to hesitate for a second in the doorway. She’s about to turn back to ask him if there’s something else when she finally hears his distinctly light footsteps move away down the hall.
“Mina.” Ashiro Mina’s office is as neat and tidy as always, if a bit bare. Though Takae doesn’t fault Mina for the lack of decoration; she’ll be leaving this office in the near future, anyways.
“Takae.” Mina’s warm gaze turns away from the window to where Takae stands in the doorway. “Come on in.”
Takae enters the office fully, turning around to close the door behind her. When she turns back towards Mina, she finds the other woman staring at her trembling hands, a complex mix of regret and sadness swirling within her deep brown eyes.
Takae quickly hides her hands behind her back, out of Mina’s view. Mina still hasn’t quite forgiven herself for firing the blast that had nearly claimed Takae’s life, though they both know how necessary her actions had been in the moment. Takae has assured Mina probably a dozen times by now that she would have made the same decision, had their positions been reversed.
“Did you call me for something specific?” Takae asks quickly, trying to direct the conversation before Mina can apologize again for the sorry state of her body.
“Oh. Yes. Please sit,” Mina says, gesturing towards the chair in front of her desk. Takae does, and Mina takes the seat opposite her. “When do you... leave?”
Takae doesn’t miss the hesitation in her friend's voice, but she pushes past it anyways. “This weekend.”
“You don’t have to go.”
Takae’s smile is sad. “I do, Mina. You know that.”
Mina does, Takae can see it in the resigned droop of her mouth. But Mina is nothing if not obstinate. “You can be reassigned within the Force. You’re still an invaluable asset to this organization.”
Takae’s gray eyes drop to the floor, unable to stand the pure optimism and hope in Mina’s face. Mina isn’t that much younger than she is; probably around Hoshina’s age. But in this moment Takae can’t help but feel decades older than the young woman across the desk.
“Everyone who becomes an officer in the Force does so with purpose,” Takae says quietly. “With some goal or lofty ideal. I was no different. But now...” Takae lifts her hands, watches them quake pathetically in the air. “As I am now, I can’t fulfill the purpose I came here with. I can’t even hold my sword correctly. If I can’t do what I came here to do, then it’s best for everyone involved if I just leave.”
“I understand,” Mina says gently. “But I want to make sure you know that nobody thinks of you like that. We all want you here, though we do understand why you need to go.”
Takae nods, resting her hands in her lap once more to quell their trembling. “Did you call me here to try to convince me one last time to stay?”
“That’s only part of it.” Mina squares her shoulders, sits up straighter. “I’m to be captain.”
Takae gives a small smile. “I know.”
The rumors have been flying since Mina’s arrival to the Third almost two years ago now. That she’s the current Captain’s chosen successor is probably the division’s worst kept secret.
“Not now,” Mina continues. “Probably not even within the next year or two. But someday... I’ll be leading the Third Division.” Her eyes fall once more to Takae’s ruined hands. “I wanted you to be a part of it.”
“I’ll always support you, no matter what I’m doing,” Takae promises. She has some ideas for her next steps, some vague notions of what her future might entail... but these plans are nebulous at best. But she knows that wherever life takes her next, she will never forget the people who became her family here.
“Thank you.” Mina takes a deep breath. “The current captain and vice captain plan to step down together. I’ll have a vacant position to fill.”
“I see.” Takae tilts her head, confused. She’s not sure what Mina is getting at. “What are you trying to ask me?”
“I wanted it to be you.”
The stab of pain in her heart at the words feels as real to Takae as any physical injury she has sustained.
She immediately shakes her head. “You know that I can’t--”
“I know.” Mina waves away Takae’s protests. “Even if you did plan to stay, I know it couldn’t... couldn’t be you.” Her eyes drop to Takae’s hands again, and Takae can clearly see the pain and self-loathing swirling within their depths.
Takae hates that it had to be Mina, of all people. Mina is too much like her; rigid and duty-driven enough to take the shot, yet soft and human enough to then take the blame for all the pain and suffering that comes after such an impossible choice.
A choice that, for people like them, was never actually a choice at all. In the moment, Mina hadn't hesitated in the slightest; she probably didn't realize until afterwards that not firing the shot had even been an option in the first place. Takae suspects that this realization is the main driver behind her friend's guilt.
“So who will it be?” Takae asks, trying to break away from her desolate thoughts.
“That’s why I asked you here,” Mina says. “I want your advice.”
“My advice?” Takae’s voice rises an octave in her confusion. “Oh. Well. Um, Ebina-san is very powerful, and an incredible leader--”
“No.” Mina narrows her eyes. “I think a captain and a vice captain should be a team where each has what the other lacks. If I can only take down enemies at a distance, then I need someone who can deal with them up close.”
Understanding begins to dawn on Takae. “You want someone who wields a blade as your vice captain.”
Mina nods. “That’s why I want to ask you. You’re... you were the best we had.”
Takae forces her face to remain impassive, even as she can’t help thinking this conversation feels as harrowing as a kaiju battle. Mina doesn’t mean to be insensitive with her use of the past tense, though that somehow makes the sting even sharper.
“You trained a platoon full of some of the most proficient close combatants the Third has ever seen. I would be a fool not to seek out your opinion.”
“So you’re thinking of making someone from my platoon your vice captain?” Takae asks. It’s not a bad idea, just... unconventional. Takae doesn’t think she’s ever heard of a ranged captain and close combatant vice captain.
“Yes,” Mina says simply.
Takae falls silent, thinking. There are many in her platoon who would make fantastic leaders beside Mina, but for some reason there is only one person who keeps coming to mind.
“Hoshina Soshiro,” Takae decides.
Mina raises a brow. “Don’t you frequently complain about him being a frivolous prankster?”
Takae is surprised by the fond smile that curves her lips at that. “He is. But he's also charming and good with people, so if we’re talking about things you lack...”
Mina rolls her eyes. “Yes, yes, you’re very funny. I so enjoy being the target of your oh-so-rare bouts of teasing.”
Takae lets out a light laugh. “I agree that he’s rough around the edges. He plays around too much and has a hard time being serious. But if you want pure talent with a blade, he’s the best I’ve ever seen. And there’s something about him that is... magnetizing. He draws people in, boosts them up. He has instilled more confidence in our platoon on missions than I could ever hope to.”
Mina watches her silently. “You’re very fond of him.”
“I am.” Takae takes a deep breath. It quivers slightly in her lungs. “Of... of all of them, really. I’m finding more and more that I don’t... don’t want to leave.”
Her voice begins to catch and hitch on all the emotions that she doesn’t know how to put into words. Instead they just stick in her throat, blocking her voice, making it difficult to swallow.
“Oh, Takae.” Mina stands before making her way around the desk to kneel at Takae’s side. “We’ll all miss you more than you know.”
The tears that she has been trying to hold back finally come. It has been so long since she last cried. She thinks the last time was...
***
The phone trembles in her hands. A singular message blinks back at her in the darkness, taunting her, reminding her, tormenting her.
Hello family. We’re sorry to say that Ryohei has passed as of 11:43pm today. Please send us all your thoughts and prayers.
Tachibana Ryohei. Her older brother and the reason she wields a sword like it’s a part of her body. He’s the one who should’ve been the Defense Force officer, the one who was going to change the Force and how it views blades.
Until disease weakened his body, sapping at his strength and vitality until it was all he could do to raise his sword, much less swing it.
Takae collapses into a graceless heap on the floor of her room, her body wracked with sobs. She thought she’d have more time.
How naive. She has been a combatant in the Force long enough to realize that there is always plenty of time... until, of course, there isn’t. And that switch is often made instantaneously, without room for response or redirection.
Her brother’s slow decline should have been far more warning than she needed. And yet still she finds herself blindsided by the news.
The walls of her room are suddenly too small. Takae shoves herself to her feet, haphazardly throwing on shoes before opening the door and wandering out into the hall. There’s only one place she can go when her thoughts are in a snarl like this.
The training room is dark when she arrives. She turns on the lights, fishes a training bamboo sword from one of the racks, then begins going through all of her forms on a training dummy in the center of the room. When she reaches the end, she starts over again.
And then a third time.
Sweat is dripping down her temples and soaking her thin sleeping shirt when she suddenly feels an overwhelming presence at her back. She whirls, bringing her sword up just in time to block Hoshina’s downward swing.
His purple eyes are wide as he dances backwards. “I almost got you!” he cries out in amazement, a wide grin splitting his face, canines on full display.
Irritation snaps through Takae, but she shoves it down. Instead she bends her knees, crouching into her usual stance. Wordlessly she cocks an eyebrow at him, daring him to try her again.
Sparring in the dead of night has become something of a habit for them. Ever since that first night he found her distracted and restless in the training room at three in the morning, they have somehow met here at least once every few months by pure coincidence or fate or whatever else it is that can orchestrate such chance meetings.
Despite her initial hesitation to spar with him at all, Takae has to admit that these impromptu nighttime sparring sessions are... fun. And they are certainly an excellent way to relieve excessive emotions such as the ones she’s experiencing tonight.
By the end of match three, Hoshina is holding up his hands and backing away. “Alright, alright! I get it! I’m not good enough to beat you yet.”
Takae huffs and wipes at the sweat on her brow, disappointed that he’s finished already. She still has energy to burn, so she turns wordlessly back to the dummy to resume her forms.
Hoshina watches her for an indeterminate amount of time. “Maybe it’ll help to talk about it.”
Takae briefly considers not responding, but eventually decides against it. She has already unleashed her unprocessed emotions at him through three brutal matches of sparring without saying a word; she won’t petulantly ignore him now, like she’s a child. “What makes you think there’s something to talk about?”
He raises an eyebrow at that. “We’ve been working together for... how long, now? Four years?”
“Give or take. Your point?”
“You’re being awfully petty right now,” he points out. “And I don’t think you’ve ever been petty even once in your entire life prior to this moment. So there must be something going on.”
Takae doesn’t respond, instead moving through the next form. She gets it wrong; she steps in too close, upsetting her balance and making her swing go wild.
“And now you’re messing up your forms. I thought you’d be able to do those in your sleep.” Hoshina tilts his head, and beyond the mischief and levity in those bright purple eyes, Takae senses an edge of very real concern. “So what gives?”
Takae lowers her sword, chest shuddering with her labored breaths. She stares at the ground, silent.
Hoshina sighs, resigned. “Alright, well. Good night, Platoon L--”
“My older brother died tonight.” She isn’t sure why she says the words. She hadn’t meant to tell him, tell anyone. She had meant to train herself past the point of exhaustion, fall asleep, and then rise tomorrow to face the day like it was any other and not the first full day of living in a world without her brother in it.
Hoshina is quiet for a moment. Takae waits for his sympathies, but instead all he says is, “Is he the reason you fight?”
Takae blinks, staring at Hoshina like this is the first time she has ever really seen him. “Yes.”
Hoshina gives her a small, sad smile. “Then he must have been quite something.”
“He...” She trails off. ‘Quite something’ doesn’t even begin to describe Ryohei, she thinks. When they were kids she had once watched him eat two whole fried chickens and then run five miles on a dare; of course, he’d thrown up violently afterwards. But he said it was worth it, and when she’d asked why, he’d simply shrugged and said because now I can say that I’ve done it! Takae didn't, still doesn't, really, understand why that’s such a brag, but he’d seemed so proud at the time that she hadn’t given voice to that sentiment. “He was.”
“Hmm.” Hoshina tilts his head to the side, regarding her with a glint in his purple eyes.
She frowns at him, wary. “What are you thinking?”
“I’m just trying to picture you as a younger sister,” he tells her playfully. “Somehow, I can’t quite imagine it.”
Takae scoffs. “Is it that entertaining to you?”
“Certainly. You were probably a bossy younger sibling, weren’t you? Everyone was so scared of you that they let you run the house.”
It’s such an incredibly accurate insight that Takae is startled into laughing. “That obvious, huh?”
Hoshina’s eyes soften as he watches the way her mouth stays curved in a lingering smile. “Definitely. There’s simply no other way to imagine it.”
Takae lets out a breath, loosening her shoulders. A sudden wave of exhaustion overcomes her, surprising in its intensity; she must have been more tired after their sparring matches than she realized. “Thank you, Hoshina. For tonight.”
Hoshina shrugs. “Always happy to spar with you. Never happy to lose, though. Do me a favor and be worse than me one of these days, will you?”
Takae smiles at him, even as she fights down the tears that want to come to the surface. “Not just for the sparring.”
He watches her face for a moment before startling her by bending into a low bow at the waist. “Anytime, Tachibana-san. Good night.” Without waiting for her response, he turns and sweeps out of the room.
Now alone, the tears fill her eyes and spill down her cheeks. But the smile Hoshina had given her remains firmly on her face.
***
Takae leans against the doorway of the training room, arms crossed over her chest, soaking in the irony of the moment. It’s her turn now to stand in the entrance of the room to watch Hoshina work, rather than the other way around.
He has always been beautiful with a sword. Clean, quick, precise. But there is something... sharper about him these days. Like a blade you hadn’t realized was scuffed has been polished and honed to a point. Something has lit a fire within him, driven him to be stronger, faster, better. It’s like he finally found the purpose behind his sword that she had wished for him all those years ago.
She wonders if she’d be delusional for even hoping that this change in him has anything to do with her.
While she’s lost in her thoughts, Hoshina stops moving, lowering his blade. His shoulders rapidly rise and fall with his labored breathing. Takae is wondering if she’s been caught staring when he suddenly drops his sword, burying his fist in the training dummy with a grunt of frustration.
Takae blinks, surprised. “I’ve never seen you resort to a fistfight before,” she comments, stepping further into the room.
Hoshina turns to face her, and she’s stunned into silence by the amount of emotion in those sharp amethyst eyes. Regret, frustration, longing. But what for? What could possibly possess her subordinate to make such a face in this moment?
Hoshina lowers his gaze to the ground as if to hide that magnificent storm in his eyes. “You leave tomorrow.”
A stab of grief goes through her heart at that. I don’t want to go, I don’t want to go, I don’t want to go.
“I do,” is all she says instead.
His eyes snap up, his gaze searing into her own, hot and bright. “Stop that.”
“Stop what?”
“Stop acting like you don’t care!” he explodes, taking a step towards her. “Stop hiding behind that mask and pretending that the thought of leaving us isn’t tearing you up inside! Like we mean so little to you!”
Oh. Is that what she looks like when she forces down her frustrations and regrets? Like she doesn’t care?
“And what should I do instead?” she challenges him, voice rising and silver eyes flashing. “Mope around like a child? Hit training dummies with my bare fist when I’m frustrated? I’d like to at least leave here with my dignity intact, if nothing else!”
“Dignity,” Hoshina scoffs, continuing forward, so close now that she feels compelled to take a step back. “I thought you weren’t one to do things for pride.”
Takae falls silent, glaring at him with fire in her eyes. It isn’t until she notices his lips curled into a smirk that she realizes... he’s goading her on purpose.
But why?
She takes another step away from him, her back coming into contact with the wall. She breaks her gaze away from his, suddenly tired. “Of course I care,” she says softly. “You already know that. So why are you taunting me like this?”
A hand grazes her cheek suddenly, a there-and-gone fleeting moment of contact that startles her into looking at him again. “Because this side of you is so human and fascinating. You’ve acted calm and collected for so long that I sometimes forget you experience emotions at all. But you do.” He steps even closer to her, and she flattens herself against the wall, trapped with nowhere else to run. “You do.”
She closes her eyes to hide herself from that amethyst gaze that sees far too much. “What do you want from me?”
“I just want you to stop putting on that mask in front of me. It’s so frustrating watching you try to hide how difficult all of this is for you. When you bottle it all up and put on that expressionless face... it feels like you're giving up.”
Giving up...?
Takae lets out a breath, a self-deprecating smirk on her lips. “Isn’t that exactly what I’m doing, though?” she retorts. “Leaving like this? When there is still so much I wanted to do here?”
“You? Give up?” Hoshina stares at her like she has grown a second head, even though he’s the one who had brought up the topic in the first place. “No. Never.”
She must have played her part well, all these years, if he has built her up to be someone so incapable of quitting. “I don’t think I’m as unbreakable as you think I am.”
“You are.” Hoshina’s purple gaze has gentled but still burns as it clashes with hers. “You’re the strongest person I know. With or without a sword in your hands.”
With or without a sword in your hands.
The words play on repeat in her mind. She thinks they may have saved her, just a little bit, in this moment when it feels like nothing is right.
Takae gives him a watery smile. “Thank you, Hoshina.”
He reaches out, wraps his arms around her, draws her into the warmth of his chest. She stands rigidly, that foreign sensation awaking with a roar within her heart. This isn’t good. Standing in Hoshina’s arms makes her want to simultaneously melt into his chest and run in the opposite direction. How can someone’s embrace feel so comfortable and so terrifying at the same time?
“I don’t want you to go,” he tells her quietly.
She reaches up and taps his side gently. “I have to.”
He loosens his arms to pull back a little, looking down into her face. She can read the longing, the want there, as his gaze drops to her lips for the slightest millisecond.
The sudden knowledge that she’s not alone in these new and frightening feelings stuns her. There’s a part of her that is overjoyed at the realization, but the overwhelming majority of her is simply terrified by what this means for them.
Because she has to leave. She can’t stay, with her ruined hands and battered mind. And she knows that there is no other place in the world Hoshina is meant to be more than by Mina’s side, leading the Third Division.
Besides, she has things to do. A new goal for this new, unexpected period of her life. She won’t let her experiences go to waste.
And so she turns her face away, looks at the ground, away from Hoshina’s heated and hopeful gaze. “I should go,” she says simply, stepping out of his arms. The sudden loss of his warmth leaves her feeling cold all the way to the pit of her stomach. “I have some things to finish.”
“Wait--” Hoshina reaches out, grabs her wrist. “Maybe I could--”
She turns back to give him a knowing look. “Your place is here, isn’t it? You’ll be so much better than me someday. I can already see how much you’ve improved.”
I wish I could stay and watch you grow into the leader I’ve always wanted to see you become, she carefully doesn’t say.
“You’re coming back, aren’t you?” Hoshina’s grip on her wrist is soft, loose. He’s not so much holding her in place as he is simply holding her. “Someday. You’re coming back.”
He knows her too well.
It probably won’t be anytime soon. Takae knows that it may be years before she sets foot on this base again. She won’t ever be able to wield a sword or decimate a kaiju like she used to. But there are plenty of other ways to put her skills and experiences to use. She has already decided upon the path her future will take; all that’s left to do now is to walk it.
And so she smiles widely, flashing her teeth and crinkling her eyes.
“Yes.”