Work Text:
The door clicks shut as Himari meekly shuffles her way out. Not even escorted by Ogasawara-san's guard, her hands resting firmly over her lap as she hunches in on herself, putting forth some front of being small, unimposing, like some pitiful animal.
He keeps his eyes fixed on Ogasawara-san. She keeps them fixed on his.
…This isn’t the time for petty grievances, not when their lives could potentially be on the line. Ogasawara-san may be a cruel, evil, sadistic, machevellian, corrupt, villainous woman… but he knows she has at least some consideration for logic. And that puts her above three fourths of the people he’s encountered here thus far.
(Maybe more.)
He shoves the instinctual motionless of his body, the stiffening of his limbs to move forward with well-whetted determination. He’s faced Ogasawara-san before. Here, she’s hardly more powerful than an ego and a glare. He can handle both. So, against what his instincts tell him, he lets her fade out the room as he starts to look through the piled up boxes.
“Sanada.” Ogasawara-san's voice rings out, as clear and firm as crystal. He doesn't let his body tense up.
“...What is it?” He replies. “This had better be something relevant to the investigation, Ogasawara-san.”
“It is something you would consider notable.” She simply replies. So he begrudgingly picks himself out of the corner of the room, holding the gaze as soon as he meets her eye(s). Her guard remains by the door, his stern gaze tracking him, blade ready in his hand. Moichiro curls his hands into fists, feeling the bandages around his hands shift and tighten.
Ogasawara-san remains quiet as he approaches, until he’s standing by the boxes in front of her.
“What is it?”
“Keep your cool, Sanada. Don’t let your servile blood get to you.”
“Perhaps his humors are out of balance…” He hears the guard mutter from the corner.
…What?
“May I remind you that our situation is potentially life-threatening? We don’t have time to waste, here.”
“Yes, Sanada, I heard your rousing speech to the other lowly rabble.” Ogasawara-san exhales out of her nose. She’s reached into her jacket, and is pulling out…
…No…
“And how is… that.. relevant to our situation, Ogasawara-san?” His mouth curls into a frown, his eyes glancing down upon that thing in her hands.
“Jiryu, if you will?”
“Yes, my lady.” He hurriedly comes over. He draws his sword quickly, the light gleaming off the blade in a fast, threatening flash. She tips out the powder, and he uses the tip of the blade to carefully organise it into two, clean lines. Of white powder.
“Pure, uncut material. Not exactly cheap to come by.” She holds her stance upright and proud.
“Have you lost your mind?” He yells out. “We’re in a situation where we’ve been kidnapped, and our lives potentially at stake, and you want to do a line of... of cocaine?” There’s residue of spit flung from his mouth as he speaks. Ogasawara-san looks at a speckle of it, from where it’s hit the box near her, scrunching up the bridge of her nose.
“This disposition of yours is exactly why I offered it. You’re too strung up by the situation, so busy worrying and yelling that you eat up that same precious time you blame others for wasting.”
“That’s preposterous, Ogasawara-san.”
“Oh, but it has very tangible impacts. I do not waste my time engaging in such frivolous things for their own sake, Sanada.” Ogasawara-san brings her other hand to rest on the handle of her umbrella. “It’s a family recipe of ours, after all. It aids in… clearing the mind.”
“Are you really stooping to the level of Kutsuki?!” He says in indignation, his chest pressing out as the words rush out of his mouth.
“Kutsuki is an aimless stoner, and a maker of thoroughly mediocre pop music at that. Do you really think the man who clawed his way out of the mediocrity of a servile heritage to make something worthy of the upper echelons of himself, is really on par with a man like that? Are you stooping to his level by even entertaining the idea that you two are comparable?” Ogasawara-san shakes her head. “Really, Sanada. I am no jury of plebians. Your rhetorical play will not function on me.”
Of course he recognises they’re at an impasse. Of course he recognises that a metre away from her stands her guard, his blade as shiny and well-kept as the day he sliced that stalker’s hand off. Of course he recognises how plain ridiculous this is.
Ogasawara-san may be a cruel, evil, sadistic, machevellian, corrupt, villainous woman, but her work ethic is undeniable. Not just undeniable, almost terrifying. He’s never seen her take a break, not even for a second.
“Sanada.” She prods again.
He sighs. A deep, full sigh that deflates his whole chest.
“Give me the damn tube.”
An obnoxiously self-congratulatory smirk flicks across Ogasawara-san’s face, and he already starts to regret it. He’s surprised it isn’t a rolled up 50000 yen bill or something, instead a neat, functional little white tube. Just like when she first put a glass of whisky in front of him. Just like when she slipped out that little cocaine container for the first time, as nonchalantly as if she were pulling out a pen. This… is just what adults at the top of the business world do. He does not doubt she knows that.
He feels the powder coat his nostril slightly is he exhales it up, most of the powder otherwise being shot up his nose in one concentrated bullet. It takes one second, two, three, as Ogasawara-san takes her own tube from her jacket with a pleased expression.
And then it hits, the sensation like a ton of warm water filling up his body, the sensation so strong within him swears any second now he’ll feel it pressing into the inside of his skin. A sensation so strong that he starts almost feeling light-headed, his heart pumping louder as the feeling of elation zips into him.
By the next time he’s blinked, Ogasawara-san has finished up her line as well, daintily dabbling at her nose with a hankerchief. Just like old times.
“Now, Sanada, I believe you have a search to conduct?”
“What… What have you even seen? Any…thing of note?” He blinks to get his head straight, body overflowing with the sensations within him. It’s like with every second, he’s simultaneously processing and not processing everything he sees. This same room shifting between unfamiliar and familiar to his brain in matters of milliseconds. Heartbeat louder, thrumming in his ears as every part of his body rushes with energy.
“That’s your job to investigate. Did you think I gave you that as some form of charity?” Usually she’d raise her umbrella in a threatening gesture, but instead, she leans back on it casually, like some of the solidity has been taken from her limbs.
He doesn’t even complain, somewhere in the back of his nostril stinging slightly, but none of his body can even be brought to care. He turns around, arms swinging slightly as he does, his brain constantly registering anew the handcuff and briefcase juttering around on his left arm, as he starts to examine the boxes again.
-
“Moichi!” Himari perks up as soon as he steps out. How… long was he in there? Time to him no longer feels like a continuous flow, but rather the coalescence inwards upon one singular, burning point; the present moment. “Are… you okay? They didn’t… hurt you, did they?”
“Himari.” His tongue feels fat and clumsy as the words slips out of his mouth.
“...Moichi? Did something happen in there?”
“Himari.” He says again, every part of his body buzzing, staring almost through her.
“Moichi?”
“Yeah.”
“H-Huh?” Himari cries out in confusion, as he starts to walk away. “M-Moichi, wait!”