Inception

Chapter 9: Flirting With Cherry

Then trotted up to her side when she started walking away. "So, how was monster research? Anything hanging on your mind?"

She hummed. "A few. I had one that I've had before, but it kinda bugged me today in particular."

He caught the door handle before she could reach it and opened the door for her. She gave him a little nod of thanks, which he returned with his own. He didn't seem as short with his arm out held before her, thick with muscle. He was taller than her, anyhow. Though she didn't know why she even cared.

"Kaiju come in all different types, from fungi to insects and reptiles and mammals."

Hoshina bobbed his head. "The whole ark has a cousin."

"Which I've always thought is weird." She pressed her lips against the cooling evening breeze. "If the energy to spawn kaiju comes from open faultlines, should most of them be underwater types?"

"There are some open fissures above water."

"But not enough to justify the sheer diversity. And even around such fissures there shouldn't be much life due to volcanic activity. I asked all my professors back in college and scoured science journals but no one seemed to want to talk about it. They would talk up and down about the process of genes being supercharged and the explosive, almost cancerous growth that followed, but rarely anything about the location."

"Maybe the energy can travel through rock?" said Hoshina.

"Maybe..." But that didn't fit right with her. When energy and matter met, things happened, whether it was organic or inorganic. There had to be a trace of something if it was traveling from conflicting plates that didn't open up to the surface. Then what would be the difference between that pressing energy and whatever naturally came up from the Earth's core?

"Have I mentioned you're looking especially pretty tonight?"

Lena had almost forgotten Hoshina was still beside her. He had probably sensed that, thus the random compliment.

She frowned. "I'm covered in cold sweat and probably have eyebags a mile long from squinting at screens all day."

"Could've fooled me." He reached out with a peculiar grace she'd come to expect from him and pushed a wayward strand of silver hair behind her ear.

She flinched back. "Would you stop it?"

"Stop touching you? Yeah, I should've asked—"

"Stop flirting with me. You know that's what you're doing, right?"

He blinked, eyebrows high, then smirked like a fox. "Ah, so you noticed."

"I'm not dumb."

"I wouldn't use the word dumb. Inexperienced is more like it."

The hairs on the back of her neck prickled. "I've never told you anything about my dating life."

"You didn't have to. You're twenty-four with two masters and three bachelors and graduated high school at fifteen with only a slightly above average IQ, and before that you had five younger siblings and various part-time jobs at whoever would hire a middle-schooler. If anyone had time to breathe, let alone date, I'd eat my own leg."

Well...that made her feel minutely better.

"And as a disclaimer," said Hoshina, who had folded his arms primly behind him as though he were giving a report rather than talking romance. "I didn't have to look for this information. It was all on your profile when you applied for the job. As Vice Captain, I'm obliged to be on the review committee for all incoming officers, combat oriented or not."