Work Text:
Working in the Operations Center for the Third Division wasn’t a physically difficult task by any means, but it certainly put a strain on your nerves.
Like with most of the other operators, Okonogi had put you to work on monitoring officers and their vitals to relay to her when they were out in the field. Being new, you intended to tackle the responsibility with the utmost effort. It was what you were trained for. The only thing you lacked in experience was not getting stressed out when officers got injured. However, none of that could compare to the stress you received from him.
You’d only seen your vice-captain a few times in passing. You were still learning your way around the base, so there was sure to be a time you would at least upgrade to acquaintances. When that moment finally happened, you were in the Operations Center preparing for an upcoming kaiju attack.
Hoshina had popped into the room to speak with Okonogi, but he would be brief. Then, as he turned to leave, he caught sight of you. Something about you must have piqued his interest, because he tilted his head and smiled.
“Is this the new hire? Ya sure know how to pick the cute ones, Okonogi.”
You must have misheard him. Would the esteemed vice-captain of the Third Division shamelessly flirt with a coworker?!
Despite the crossed signals, you continued to stare at him aptly. He was quite handsome—even the attractive posters you’d seen of him didn’t do his features justice. One that they failed to capture was the charming way his canines poked out of his lips.
Basking in your attention, Hoshina seemed to examine you with a strangely cheerful demeanor before finally moving to leave. Pausing his hand on the door, he looked at you and said, “Keep an eye on me in the fight,” and winked.
And then he left without another word.
What just happened?
Your boss sighed with a palm to her forehead. “Just ignore him. We’ve got work to do.”
You did your best to follow her advice, but you quickly realized that would be impossible. As soon as the deployed platoons started engaging with kaiju, you communicated with officers who were sustaining mild injuries, and one peppy voice surfaced above the others to talk to you.
“Hey, is this the cute operator I met earlier?”
You turned to Okonogi with wide eyes. There was no way this was happening. No. way.
She limply waved her hand to tell you to ignore him, speaking into her mic, “Vice-Captain, please don’t clog up the comms if it’s not important to the mission.”
The sounds of gunfire traveled through your headphones. On the big monitors in front of you, one of your camera drones caught sight of Hoshina showing up to assist some officers with a yoju. His blades impressively cut through its scales to let their ammo pierce its flesh.
“Of course not,” he mused, already moving on to another yoju. “I was just checkin’ in to make sure everything’s okay on your side.”
“Everything’s fine,” Okonogi said, already working on permanently transferring Hoshina’s comms to you so that they wouldn’t get in the way of her work. No amount of you silently pleading across the room could change her mind. “He’s your problem now,” was what the look on her face said before she switched calls to another officer.
“Aww, where’d Okonogi go?” Hoshina pouted in a childlike manner, cutting some yoju on a different monitor. The disappointment didn’t stick. “Oh well—guess I get you all to myself now.”
There was no way this man was your vice-captain.
“Listen,” you said, scanning his vitals, trying to be useful. You couldn’t let yourself get flustered this easily in the start of your career. “I know we’re only dealing with a minor kaiju attack—“
What was that?
Your eyes flew up to the movement on the monitors to spot Hoshina. A yoju had gotten dangerously close to biting him in half—but he was faster. A loud peal of laughter followed the maneuver.
“Did ya see that?” Hoshina giggled, slowing down to sidestep on the road as the yoju lunged at him.
“Vice-Captain!” you exclaimed in horror when he nearly got eaten again.
Instead of killing it, he continued to quickly dance around, only dodging by mere centimeters. “These guys are so slow.” He’s completely unbothered, having the audacity to sheath his blades and rely on nothing but the power of his suit.
Your panic rose higher as another yoju showed up. This was getting too dangerous. And to make it worse? His percentage levels were dropping! They had started somewhere over forty and were now all the way down to fifteen! His speed decreased, along with the natural defenses of the suit. If he kept this up, he was surely going to—
“Agh!”
Some teeth grabbed the side of Hoshina’s leg. Your personal screen displayed the weakened points of the calf of his suit; blaring red with urgency.
Oh no.
Oh no oh no oh no.
Typing away at your keyboard, you relayed information to him and tried to repair the damage. Before you could even finish, a flash of purple cut through the yoju and maimed it. Hoshina finished dispatching it, did the same to the other one, and then immediately went on to throw himself into a new fight.
You rushed to finish the repair job as your blood pressure spiked. You wouldn’t have thought that the bite injured him, but he was limping while he moved. “Vice-Captain, please wait for a moment!” Is this why Okonagi didn’t want to deal with him?!
You were responded with a giggle. “And where’s the fun in that?”
“Okonogiiiii.” You begged for her help, trying to prevent this man from becoming kaiju food. Your boss’s fingers typed away, paused with a sigh, then clicked a button to connect to your comms.
“Vice-Captain Hoshina.” She addressed his full title. From the distance of a drone camera and his position on a building, you saw him perk up. Okonogi looked serious. Even if Hoshina couldn’t see her face, he could hear the authority she carried in her tone. You waited to hear some sort of wisdom, some sort of command, maybe even a statement that she was switching you away from his comms—but you didn’t get any of that. Instead, all she said was, “Stop messing around with my new operator by pretending to be bad at your job.”
Huh?
Bad at his job?
Hoshina released a breath. “Okay,” he said, not sounding at all like his usual self.
You couldn’t believe what you were hearing. In fact, you couldn’t believe what you were seeing either.
The data on your screen changed. The damage points on the calf repaired themselves faster than you knew to be possible. What was previously five percent in power shot up to seventy. Far away on the monitor, a dangerous and powerful aura leaked out of Hoshina’s dual blades. The color streaked with a simple wave he sent your way before dipping off the side of the building.
Your chair hit the wall. You stood; clutching the panel in front of you. As Hoshina descended, he spun around and sliced a yoju to pieces. It was nothing like his attacks earlier. In comparison, those had been weak, slow, and shallow. More yoju drew closer, and he killed them faster than your eyes could keep up with. They fell one after another like dominos. Giant corpses littered the streets in pieces. Not a single one could escape the intensity of his strength or the precision of his dexterity. He was absolutely indomitable.
This, you realized, this was the power of the Third Division’s vice-captain.
So why had he been pretending earlier?
It took you a second to realize the noise in your ear was someone speaking to you. You quickly adjusted the volume. “Yes?”
Hoshina’s panting voice greeted you. “Are you watchin’?” It was enthralling to hear the subtle hope in his heart.
Remembering you had a job to do, you looked over his vitals. Nothing was amiss, of course. “Yeah,” you admitted, falling back into your chair. “Yeah, I’m watching.” You were still stunned by the recent events. There was a small honju that needed to be dealt with, but the mission was almost complete. You survived the first real day of your job—
“Good,” Hoshina said, audibly smiling beneath his mask.
—and you survived your first day of him.
“I thought you were the second strongest member of this division,” you said, propping your chin up as you watched him kill some remaining kaiju, hoping the comment would garner an answer to his behavior.
Hoshina, as usual, didn’t keep his mouth shut. “Yeah, I’m the second strongest.” His blade decapitated a yoju with ease, punctuating the statement.
“Then why were you—“ You didn’t even dignify yourself with finishing your response. A bubbly laugh rang through your headphones, and your cheeks grew hot for the best and worst reasons.
“Aww, were ya worried about me?” Hoshina teased lightheartedly. The entire area was clear of enemies, so he now stood facing a camera and waved like before. You crumpled down into your chair at how the other operators turned to stare at you over the interaction. They couldn’t hear him, but they saw him wave at you. No amount of covering your face could undo the visible fluster of your expression.
Peaking through your fingers to steal a glance at Okonogi, you found your boss already watching you, grinning like she’d just successfully set two friends up on a date—or something like that. You hid your eyes and spent another minute huddled away. Hoshina didn’t bother you while you did, and you were grateful for it.
“Hey,” a soft voice spoke to you, slowly encompassing you like a blanket. Hoshina was no longer in sight of the camera. It was just you and him in each other’s company, which you rather liked. “Thanks for your support.”
Your heart skipped a beat at his gentle words. Praise from your vice captain wasn’t something you expected on your first mission, and it certainly wasn’t something you expected in this context, but you could tell he meant it. He truly, truly meant it. The sentiment was worth the world to you, and you knew it was going to plant a seed of feelings somewhere deep within you.
Okonogi broke the tender moment by announcing, “Vitals from the honju have disappeared.” If you had been paying attention, you would know that you’d have your capable captain to thank for that.
A different kind of captain had your attention right now.
“See you when I get back to base,” Hoshina said before tapping out of comms. You wanted to bite your knuckle over the different ways your mind interpreted that. Just who exactly was the vice-captain of the Third Division, and what exactly were his intentions? It hadn’t even been an hour and he was already driving you crazy. If the way Okonogi gave you double thumbs-up indicated anything, it was that your work life was going to be a lot more involved with this man than you could have ever previously imagined.
If you were being honest with yourself: you didn’t mind. Not one bit.
You would enjoy working at Hoshina’s side, supporting him as he made Japan a safer place, and if you were lucky, maybe something beautiful would blossom out of it.