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Though he had an excellent track record, Arima Kishou was something of a wild card in the CCG. He would sometimes ignore parts of orders, miss implied orders entirely (Yoshitoki warned everyone to be blunt with Arima, but somebody always slipped up), or completely mistake the meaning of implied orders (”Kill this ghoul” should not always translate to “at any cost”).
Once, Yoshitoki told him not to get civilians caught in the crossfire of his battles. This was when Arima was still fairly young and impressionable (though Yoshitoki had the terrible feeling that Arima still was). The lesson had stuck a little too well and had caused some…rather strange trouble for the CCG.
Arima was sent out to eliminate a group of ghouls that had been targeting an old man. The mission resulted in saving the man’s life and a sort of conflict of interests. If Arima left the man alone, he would be attacked again. Arima had been told to kill the ghouls attacking him and therefore couldn’t leave him alone. However, if Arima brought him around with him, he’d be ‘caught in the crossfire’.
The Reaper had personally, politely, given the man a CCG escort back to their main office. He’d followed their transportation from behind and had wiped out every ghoul that gave chase. It had been a ridiculous waste of resources spent on some random citizen.
The old man had thought Arima was being kind to him (that still kept Yoshitoki up late some nights). He’d been so touched that he sent Arima a letter offering him a side job.
At his ramen stand.
He’d given mediocre reasons for working there. He offered full meals, a much lower chance of dying, and his collection of Japanese drama series (though he had to watch them with the old guy). All in all, the CCG had gotten a good laugh in at it.
Until Arima requested a letter of release, that is.
No one had expected him to actually take the job, let alone quit his current one. It had taken months for Yoshitoki to puzzle out his reasoning.
A job was just a job to Arima. Refusing probably didn’t even cross his mind.
(Though sometimes, Yoshitoki wondered if the promise of drama series and someone to watch them with was worth more than promotions and a funeral expenses plan)
Convincing Arima not to quit had been easy and Yoshitoki had personally responded to the old man’s letter. However, Yoshitoki was pretty sure Arima had frowned just a little. It freaked him out.
From that point onwards, he made sure to screen all of Arima’s mail for employment offers.
He would never understand why host club’s were so bent on having him (or why they all wanted to call him “Kiss-you”. He felt wrong just reading it).