Inception

Chapter 23: Love is Stupid

He left before the others had finished. As Vice Captain, he got his own bathroom attached to his room, and he used that to wash down. He spent longer than usual in the shower watching the water go down the drain, even with the water on cold.

Eventually, he got out, blue and wrinkled, with the same decision he'd come to before: he just better not die.

The next day, Soshiro showed up bright and early to move the newbies through a hands-on combat lesson which included practicing coordination through the training ground. It was an elaborate game of paintball hide and seek that would be a practice in using the short, clipped language of the field. They're homework the week before had been to memorize the map as well as a list of terms.

Soshiro was playing with the idea of randomly ambushing his men as a pretend, unknown kaiju (for giggles), when Ichikawa signaled him from pile of wreckage five stories down. Soshiro hopped down, catching ledges with his suit-empowered hands to slow his fall.

"What's up?" he asked.

"My earpiece stopped working, sir."

"I'm assuming you've gone through troubleshoot?"

"Yes sir."

Soshiro had prepared for this with extra ear pieces. Technically, all soldiers were required to pack extras because shit happened on the field, but he'd allowed the newbies to go half-packed today since two of their party had just gotten out of the hospital. Sometimes his magnanimousness awed even himself.

Maybe it was because he was distracted with wiggling through his pocket for the extra earpiece, because a piece of his brain, the bored part, managed to wiggle out through his mouth.

"So, is this punch of the light-outing something I have to schedule for or do I just need to be at the ready for you?"

Soshiro's fingers froze around the little black earpiece.

Ichikawa had gone very, very quiet.

Soshiro heart picked up a little. Something in the back of his head, the more conservative part of him, screamed in terror. Too bad the bored part of him was stronger, and it was hopping up and down in place and crowing excitement, even as he finally looked back at the younger to hand over the new earpiece.

He almost flinched.

The boy was looking at him as though he were a kaiju. A particularly nasty one.

Ichikawa shot him in the face.

It was only by virtue of the kid being so close and the shot being so out of the blue that he hit Soshiro at all.

Soshiro saw stars. He'd been hit with paintballs before, but getting it full on to the face from three feet away was a new experience entirely. It only felt similar to a time he biffed a jump and went face first into a building.

The next thing he knew, he was opening his eyes to a ring of his soldiers looking down at him. The speaker in his ear was buzzing with a high pitched voice ordering a medic.

"You okay, Vice Cap'?" asked Hibino, looking the most concerned of them all, because of course he was.

"You're face looks like a kindergarten class exploded," said Furuhashi with a grin.

"Sir, did you...did you shoot yourself in the face?" asked Kaguragi in his low, calm voice.

"We're not supposed to look down the barrel, sir."

"Shut up! Just because he doesn't use guns doesn't mean he's that bad!"

"Or maybe it does."

"Shut. Up!"

"No, let him, it's his funeral."

Soshiro lay there for a precious thirty seconds, blinking owlishly up at them and wondering why it hurt so much to do just that. Then, with a groan, he pushed himself up, feeling blood from a broken nose begin to flow down his face.

"Well hot damn," Soshiro muttered.

Maybe love was making him stupid.

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...Sorry, brain fart. Why am I here?