Work Text:
Raindrops dot the sidewalk, the pavement turning a darker grey as you stare down. Droplets form over the rubber toe caps of your canvas sneakers, and you can feel your socks growing wet, your jeans along with them. The downpour is sudden — as though the heavens want to match you in your temperamental disposition. At least, this way, your gloom can be attributed to the darkened clouds and overcast sky.
You have only just begun to realise the impermanence of many things. In a world such as this one, it's unwise to place your faith in the longevity of anything; nothing is promised a forever. Not that cactus your grandmother had given you two years ago, not your family's bookstore. Not even your mother's life.
Her funeral is in the afternoon, meticulously tucked into the hour before your father's work meeting, and after the end of your shift at the convenience store. It's a recent choice of employment — it's only because your previous job was obliterated a month ago.
The rubble that was once the bookstore your family worked hard to keep. Where you had spent particularly hot summer days, wasting away the hours between the aisles, reading anything and everything you could get your hands on. The memories folded into every nook and cranny had become nothing overnight; you had watched it all on the news.
This world is cursed, you think. And you are doubly cursed to have been born into it. Water has soaked through your shirt, leaving it to stick to your back uncomfortably. You kick at the sidewalk and sigh, a shiver running down the length of your spine. The earthy smell of the rain, the bitterness in your heart: these things don't meld together all that well. You only grow despondent.
It shouldn't have been so easy to lose it all.
Your family had to wait a month for your mother's funeral. The Kaiju Cleaning Company couldn't get her out of the rubble without getting through the dead carcass laying atop it; cleaning was estimated to take 30 days, or even longer.
Fortunately, it had only taken a month. You wonder if your mother holds some kind of resentment that she had been set aside, that life had moved along without slowing to a stop just for her. Your father was given a week to grieve, and then he had to return to work. If you still wanted to fund your final year of university, you needed to find a job — which is what landed you behind the counter of a convenience store, with peeling tiles and not nearly enough books.
You can taste the rain as it drips down the sides of your face, settling into the corners of your mouth. Your lashes clump together, sticking to your cheeks when you blink. Had you watched the news this morning, you might have known to bring an umbrella; perhaps, then, the sight of you waiting for the bus wouldn't be nearly as pathetic as it is now.
But you haven't watched the news for the past thirty days. You rely on the emergency alerts that sound throughout the city to let you know when there's a kaiju present. Anything else you could learn from the news isn't nearly important enough for you to sit and listen, hear the same voices that announced the destruction of your bookstore and the death of your mother.
You exhale shakily, and you pull your phone out just to check the time. It's cold, though it's not all that wet when you feel it in your pocket. It's another thirty minutes until the bus arrives, and then you'll have to shower, fix your hair. You'll have to walk out of your house and face what's left of your mother, tucked away in a casket. And unlike the first week after her death, when your father had been swarmed by reporters eager for an interview, you will only find a few people in attendance.
The interviews have been gruelling, every question dripping with a perverted sense of sympathy, as though they aren't digging through your hurt for a story. Once the news had passed, and there was an even bigger attack to detail in long-winded articles, the news of your bookstore and your mother faded into obscurity.
A week and three days after the incident, you were visited by a few members of the Defense Force. It had surprised you that they cared enough — their job was done when they killed the kaiju and protected the majority. When you were met with a girl not much older than you, her hair sliced into a sleek bob, and a man with smiling eyes, you had assumed they were reporters. You tried to send them away with hostility, called them any and every insult you could think of, uncaring of what they might write about you. Would it have even mattered? No one else spares a thought over the events of the past.
They had taken your rage in silence. The girl — Captain Ashiro Mina, you had learned sometime later — softly expressed her condolences. Her counterpart, Vice Captain Hoshina Soshiro, had handed you flowers. The conversation was clunky, awkward. Guilt had freely swam in the pit of your stomach for lashing out, and the two of them had clearly chosen to visit on a whim, tripping over their words, hesitating in order to say the right things.
You were fumbling with the bouquet when Mina turned to leave, and as you shifted your gaze up, Hoshina's eyes were open. He bowed, gave you a meaningful look. "Stay safe," he told you.
You like to think you have tried to do just that (though catching a cold because of the rain is most definitely in your near future).
-
It's unnervingly quiet as you walk down the hall. Your hands are clasped behind your back, your shoulder brushes against your father's arm. Everything is silent: the car ride, the wait for everyone to arrive, the eulogies. It's been quite a few days since you've cried, and you were beginning to think you had grown desensitised to it. The pain, though it exists, is dull — you've numbed yourself to it as best you can. You don't think you can find it in yourself to cry anymore.
It upsets you all the way to your seat in the front row, mere inches away from your mother. You don't want to forget how much it hurt; how will you remember her otherwise?
And yet, you are proven wrong as everything wraps up. Your head is tucked into your palms, teeth ripping into the skin of your bottom lip as you choke back every pathetic noise that bubbles up your throat. Your shoulders shake and it must be obvious to everyone what you're doing; they must pity you for what you lost.
Every breath you take feels as though you're sucking in through a straw. It's not nearly enough. Your lungs burn and you press a hand to your chest, feeling every noisy thump of your racing heart. It slams against your ribcage like it wants to be freed from your body. When you can no longer stand to stay in your seat, in this room with your mother laid in a casket — just out of your desperate reach — you rush to leave.
The funeral home appears rather dreary as it stands behind you. All tall, dark stone walls and rusty windows. The flowers sparsely planted along the perimeter look worse for wear. You suppose it's to be expected from a place that opens up for death. It has been raining all morning, and now all afternoon. You feel it begin to wet your hair and your clothes once more. Your appearance hardly matters — why bother to dress up?
Your eyes flutter shut as you suck in a breath, letting it settle into the pit of your stomach. To the rest of your city, your mother is a thing of the past. Did you hear about the woman who was crushed in that old bookstore? Such a shame. They send you their condolences and don't think twice about checking up on you again. And you could scream and scream about how they're not understanding — you just lost your mother. What are you meant to do without the woman who so graciously gave you half of her body and soul?
The warmth of a body rips you from your thoughts. You wipe at your eyes, ears twitching at the noise of their shoes crunching over the gravel. They choose to remain quiet; you send them a side-long glance.
"Vice Captain Hoshina?" The soft lilt in your voice carries your confusion as your brows furrow. "Why are you—"
"Why are you here?"
You study his profile as he shrugs, a crisp suit replacing the uniform he had worn on his visit to your home. His eyes are shut as they often are in the photos you've seen of him, curved like half-moons, but his mouth is pressed into a thin line. "Felt like I should be here," he answers quietly. You watch as his shoulders grow darker from the rain, but before you can tell him to head back inside, he's speaking once again.
"Want me to go?"
You answer without thinking much about it, like your mouth had known before your brain could decide. "No," you mutter, sucking in a breath. "Thank you for coming. Not a lot of people who...cared about her then showed up today."
It grows quiet once more. You listen to the gentle sound of the wind whistling through the leaves of trees, and the wet crunch of cars driving down the road behind the funeral home. Hoshina doesn't leave your side, even as the rain picks up, throwing sharp droplets in both your faces. You think about that saying — you don't know what you have until it's gone — and the latter-half that says you knew all along, you just never expected to lose it. Right now, there is some version of you that is living blissfully with their mother by their side; it grates at you to think about.
Hoshina clears his throat and you smooth over your expression. "She won't be forgotten about," he says, and his voice is so steady that you almost want to believe him. "Well, I can say that I won't forget her."
Some part of you scoffs at his words. It's not enough — no one else will understand your anger at circumstances outside of your control. They won't agree with you when you curse and spit at fate, when you turn your back on your faith. Strangely, however, the other half of you is soothed. As you nod, you note that your bubbling rage has turned into a simmer instead.
And now, you're not sure what to do with it. Once today ends, you'll be forced to shelve away the mess of feelings brewing in the cavity of your stomach. You'll have to hope that time chooses to heal over your wound instead of leaving you to rot.
"When's the next intake?" you blurt out. Hoshina tilts his head to face you, one eyebrow raised. You bristle under his stare; it's impressive how you can feel the weight of his eyes even as they remain hidden. "For the Defense Force, I mean — the new recruits."
His face softens and he heaves a sigh, as though he had known this question would come. Perhaps, it's predictable for you to fall on this path after tragedy. Your story cannot be much different from everyone else. And though you don't appreciate feeling like you are playing into the hands of the very fate you've grown to dislike, you find some comfort in the thought that there are others like you.
"I won't tell you what to do," he begins slowly, crossing his arms over his chest. The suit creases at the bend of his elbow, his tie shifts from where it had been tucked into the jacket. "You should think it over some more."
You frown. "Why would it matter to you what I do?" you snap, and the way his brows pinch make you feel like the wounded animal he seems to think you are. Silently, you beg him to throw you a bone.
"Because it won't give you what you're looking for," Hoshina states simply. His mouth quirks up into a smile, "You won't feel satiated." He draws out his hand, waving his finger back and forth as he hums, "And it's not gonna ease the pain either."
His words only make you frown harder. Your shoulders hunch forward as you curl in on yourself, like a child who has just been chastised. He laughs so suddenly that it makes you jolt.
"If you're so sure, then you can take the test at the end of the month." He stuffs his hands into his pockets, teetering forward to lean into your space. Your breath gets caught in your throat at the sudden proximity. "Maybe, we'll end up in the same division," he smiles.
"I'd be nothing more than dead-weight next to Captain Ashiro," you huff, forcing out a laugh as you take a step back. Hoshina straightens up, though he's looking at you with thinly veiled interest — and it makes you stiffen. You shiver, uncertain if the rain is the only cause.
"I'll drag you along," he grins, like it's nothing. You notice, for the first time, that the Vice Captain has fangs. He leaves you sputtering, which he clearly finds amusing, laughing as he walks away.
You're soaked from the rain, and so is he. You can only wonder what his intentions are as you stare holes into his back, willing him to explain.
-
Captain Ashiro Mina thumbs her way through the stack of applications, half-heartedly skimming over their names and faces. Hoshina hovers nearby, trying his best to appear disinterested. He stares at her desk, at the walls of her office, out the window — but his eyes never stray from the applications for too long.
"Are you looking for someone specific?" Mina asks, looking up at him pointedly. Hoshina grimaces, momentarily feeling embarrassed though it's only over the fact that he'd been caught.
"Nope," he lies. "Just bored, you know. I was looking at the possible recruits to pass the time."
Mina doesn't believe him in the slightest, that much is obvious from the way she raises her brows. Her mouth curves into an almost imperceptible smile. Fortunately for Hoshina, she doesn't mention how he's standing in her office of his own free will, and not on her orders.
She flips to the next application. Hoshina moves before he can stop himself, grabbing the sheet of paper. There's a pregnant pause where neither of them speak, and Mina breaks it with a clipped laugh.
It's too late for him to feel embarrassed about it. You look serious in your photo; there's a darkness beneath your eyes that wasn't there when he had seen you at the funeral. Hoshina turns the application around, allowing Mina to take a better look. He watches as vague recognition flashes through her gaze.
"Can I put in a request?" Hoshina asks.
"They applied for Operations."
"Even better."
Hoshina is not usually so bold with his Captain. Mina had done more than enough when she opened up a space for him to fill, when she allowed him to do what he does best. There must be something about you, then, that has him behaving out of character.
Mina nods, "I'll try — no promises." Hoshina can only grin in response. She speaks again, "Is this the one you stood out in the rain with?"
He'd gotten a nasty cold after doing that, coming back to the base with his suit drenched and his fringe plastered to his forehead. He doesn't respond, which is all the answer Mina needs.