Goro Takemura x Reader

Twenty-Eight

Takemura was uneasy. A truly unknown state of mind for him since he had been trained to remain calm and reasonable at all times.

He knew nothing but his duty and the way of a solider. It had always been this way and he would have preferred it to remain so.

But this time it was the man he was inside who caused him trouble.

Every now and again he caught himself throwing a glance over at you.

Although he had never been overcome by curiosity, Takemura had to admit that he found it difficult to perform his duties as a bodyguard without worry coming into play.

Was that it?

Yes, that was exactly what he felt: worry. For decades he had done his job flawlessly, had always kept his cool when assassination attempts had been made on Saburo and even when he had succeeded in thwarting Yorinobu's games, he had not harmed a hair on the Arasaka offspring's head, although he had more than deserved it.

But now it was different. Perhaps his task had become more difficult over the years. Or maybe he was just getting old. Whatever it was, it drew him closer.

Before he had finished his thoughts, he found himself once more at the side of your chair, looking down at you.

Although you were only the adopted child of the Arasaka clan, he couldn't help but notice that you were very similar to them. Not in an external sense, but in a figurative one.

He recognised the way your lips curled when you thought about something from the old childhood days of Hanako. The wrinkles that appeared on your forehead resembled Yorinobu when he disagreed with something. But what fascinated Takemura most about you was how close you were to his master.

You had always been polite to him, cool when there were witnesses. But in moments of silence and intimacy, Goro found in you exactly what he had admired in Saburo since his youth. Wisdom tinged with a profound love. Yes, after all his years of service, Takemura knew that Saburo's love, only received through hard work, was deep. Yours may even have been unconditional.

All at once he found himself thinking about what it would be like to be loved unconditionally. Sure, even though he had dedicated his life to Arasaka, it was not impossible to create a family.

He himself had been married once. But the marriage had not been out of love and rather the desire not to be alone when there were no duties to perform. He had had to learn the hard way that having a partner did not mean not being lonely. He had never been as lonely as he was in this marriage. It was no surprise that it had ended in divorce.

And yet he was foolish enough to think that there was something different about you. Something he longed for. Only he couldn't say what it was.

As if of their own accord, his fingers twitched as your head rolled slightly to the side and a long breath escaped you. Your lips shone, wetted by a thin layer of saliva.

He himself did not have a deep dive port, nor did he have any skills beyond hacking. It impressed him how you, with a body of only flesh and bone, managed to master this demanding art as if it were nothing but a sport.

You exhaled again. You must have been working on something that demanded a lot of you. When the brain was put under a lot of strain, the body reacted with exhaustion.

Carefully, as if he might snap you out of your trance, Takemura allowed himself to reach out two fingers and stroke your cheek. Your (S/C) skin was soft. It did not surprise him, after all, your body had not been subjected to any labour and there was enough wealth to remove all blemishes if you wished.

But what made his heart beat faster with excitement was the feel of pores. Real skin under his fingers. He could barely remember what something like that felt like. Most people he had come into contact with either had implants that only mimicked human skin or artificial replacements for beauty purposes.

But not you. You not only looked human, you felt human.

It almost made him tremble.

Once again Takemura could not control himself and gave in to his curiosity. This time he even dared to touch you with his whole hand. As if he were to touch porcelain, he reached out and stroked your (H/C) hair. To his amazement, he found that he even had a comparison with what was nestling in his palms. It was like the waves of the ocean at a calm hour, gently washing up on the beach and curling around one's feet.

He remembered this feeling from his youth, one associated with a carefree look. Back then he had had no worries and had been too young to understand what it meant to have to fulfil duties.

Your head suddenly jerked to the side at his touch.

Surprised, he pulled his hand away, but his gaze remained fixed on you. You had not the slightest resemblance to the child he had carried out of their parents' house. You had been splattered with blood and at that moment he had felt nothing but the duty to protect you from all the evil in the world.

And now he wanted to do it again. Only this time he didn't think he would be able to hand you over into Saburo's arms.

He had to swallow hard at the thought.

Your breathing quickened. Shorter breaths caused your chest to flatten. It seemed as if the air was stuck in your throat.

Takemura became uneasy.

He knew how dangerous it was to cut someone off from a network without warning. In the worst case, it would cause brain damage. Fortunately, the Arasaka tower had a built-in fuse for that. It would not be so easy to accidentally harm someone with a pulled out cable.

Still, everything in him resisted forcing you through this procedure.

His eyes darted over the screens. Two of them were still blue. Numbers and letters flowed incessantly from top to bottom, forming codes and then whole sentences of a programme. On the last one, a red light flickered.

"Attention. Mikoshi malfunction.", the AI voice of Mikoshi filled your ears. "Please restore source files."

A smug smirk appeared on your lips.

"I don't think I will.", you said and logged off.