Work Text:
1.
Miyoshi was five when he started receiving fencing lessons from his mother.
“Pick it up, please,” she said softly.
He remembered shaking his head and stomping his feet in a satisfying, but ultimately worthless, show of rebellion.
His eyes shifted guiltily to the foil he threw at his feet but he raised his chin, determined.
“I hate fencing, maman.”
His mother regarded him with a tilt of her head. A few moments pass in silence, then she was slipping off the rings on her fingers and tucking back her fringe with a crook of her pinky finger.
There’s a wry twist to her mouth when she said, “Sometimes we have to do things that we don’t like. And even then we must do them well.”
“So pick it up, mon petite.”
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2.
The histories of D-Agency’s candidates were all considered as top secret military information. But for the candidates themselves the lives of their fellow trainees was just another prize to be won.
It’s not a subtle game. Nothing could be more blatant than Hatano mockingly saluting to Odagiri’s face or Kaminaga adopting a grating British accent whenever he teased Tazaki.
When asked, Miyoshi would say he hated this particular game because it was artless.
No one believed him.
In a lull between their lessons, Jitsui took his left hand to trace the characters of his father’s surname in his open palm.
(Defeat was never an inevitable outcome for Miyoshi, but in this particular game it had to be expected since his father’s name appeared frequently in newspapers.)
Miyoshi refused to let anything show on his face.
He smiled slightly, softly and offered Jitsui his congratulations.
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3.
The truth was that his birth certificate may say otherwise but Miyoshi had always used his mother’s surname.
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4.
In another time or in another life, Miyoshi would’ve been content to study art (and history, and philosophy, and literature) and to live in idle luxury, trying his hardest to fritter away the wealth of his father’s family.
But adrenaline and intrigue were the most potent of drugs and he couldn’t imagine living a life of peaceful monotony.
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5.
The best kind of deception was grounded in truth and the most effective seduction was subtle.
All it took was a softer tone, lowered lashes and lingering touches.
And in the space of the scant half hour he’s allowed, he made the targets believe that they’re the only person in the room worth paying attention to.
The coup de grace is a reluctant goodbye, a pout, and a crooked finger tucking his fringe behind his ear.
Eight out of ten times, when Miyoshi stood up to leave, there’s a hand around his wrist and a plea for him to stay just a bit longer.
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6.
And since nothing can be left to chance, Miyoshi depended on a quick sleight of hand and the most potent of aphrodisiacs when his natural charms failed him.
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7.
Miyoshi sat closer than necessary to Sakuma, ensuring that their shoulders and knees bumped constantly.
All his efforts yielded nothing but a furrow between Sakuma’s brows and a suspicious glint in his eyes.
A pity Yuuki had just issued a strongly worded memorandum that mixing any form of substances in Sakuma’s food and drink was strictly prohibited unless under special circumstances.
Miyoshi was good, but even he couldn’t find an angle to defend a failed flirtation as a special circumstance.
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8.
Yuuki warned them constantly of the all-consuming loneliness that awaited them in their career as spies.
But Miyoshi had always thought that there much worse things than being alone.
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9.
Miyoshi was twenty-five and he still hated fencing. A knife was more convenient and a gun more efficient.
But as his mother’s lessons taught him, personal preference should never be an excuse for incompetence.
He smiled gently at Tazaki from across the piste.
Tazaki grimaced at him. His previous confidence in his chosen sport had already been broken by Kaminaga and Hatano.
Miyoshi held the foil limply in his hand, his stance languid and casual.
He was almost (but not quite) regretful about continuing the trend.