unforgiven ➽ a Halilintar-centric fic

10 | seconds ticking down

It's been a few days since they shipped the four off to Earth, and their sleep schedule had never been better.

Without razing forests or bursting water pipes, they found themselves snoring away the nights with no care for the world. With their injuries, they were given the rest of the month off to recuperate, despite their pleas otherwise to return to action the second they recovered; which meant their days were filled with light reading, show binging, or video games.

All in all, they couldn't remember the last time they had this much free time on their hands.

And it was positively horrendous.

If Taufan didn't know any better, he'd pass it off as paranoia. After all, they'd spent most of their lives living in fear for their lives, never knowing when their roof will collapse over their heads. Nowadays however, they knew better and had gotten far stronger than their hazardous pasts.

Gempa didn't seem to fare any better. For the sixth time today, Taufan watched him reread the same report he'd submitted two weeks ago, giving up when he couldn't find anymore faults. If nothing else, it'd at least be immortalized as the textbook example for new recruits to follow when drafting a report.

They'd completely overestimated their recovery time. Three weeks? They were already up and running in a couple days.

"I'm bored," Taufan groaned, picking at his orange meat loaf. "Who knew time off could get so boring?"

The cafeteria was quiet at this hour, only because most of the other agents were off in their respective stations and missions. Only a handful of recruits on break and recovery time were left, which unfortunately included them.

Gempa shut off the hologram, leaning back into his chair. "I asked General Ciciko and Admiral Tarung if there was anything we could do," he said. "But instead they kicked me out and told me to go get pizza."

Taufan grimaced. If they'd told Gempa to get pizza of all things—especially when the Admiral was a complete health nut—then they had no shot of getting anything productive done. Zero. None. Nadda. They have better chance of walking into a volcano and coming out unscathed than convincing their superiors to even let them get remotely close to any of the missions.

"Well..." Taufan spoke up, looking hopeful but hesitant to raise a suggestion. "We—"

"We could go on a vacation," Gempa said, interrupting him.

Taufan's face fell as he deflated, idea shot down before it even came to consideration. "That's the last thing we should do," he rebutted. "Besides, we can't hop around random planets for a whole month. That's no different from our work."

"Why not visit home?"

They turned to their right, jumping in their seats when they noticed both Admiral Tarung and Ciciko sitting beside them, snacking on vegetables and cheese dip.

"It's about damn time, too," Ciciko huffed, tossing baby carrots into his mouth. "Pack your bags and get your butts back to Earth. I don't want to see your sorry faces until the month is up."

Taufan and Gempa turned to each other. Gempa's face was one of horrid realization, while Taufan struggled to hide his growing smile.

If there was one thing that they could conclude from the whole thing, it was that Adu Du was a messy eater.

After his stomach rumbled for the umpteenth time, interrupting his monologue midway, Api decided that it was finally time to get the guy some food and get the entire thing over with.