Stitched Together

:Re Chapter 2: Quirky Qs

My eyes flutter open at the sunlight seeping through the window. I feel Juuzou stir slightly and burry his face in my back. I smile and try to turn and look at him, but he squeezes his arms around my waist tighter.

"Don't move," he whines.

"We have to get up some time," I giggle and rest my head back on my pillow. I pop back up a bit when I feel his fingers run across the stitches on my shoulder.

"You'll let me stitch up more of that pretty skin of yours right?" he mumbles, drawing circles on my upper arm.

"You've already stitched up so much of me, let's not go overboard. Perhaps I'll let you change the pattern though," I sigh with a small smile. He lets out a happy giggle and softly kisses the nape of my neck. I finally flip over and am nose to nose with him. "Good morning Juuzou," I look into his eyes happily and peck his lips quickly. "Now, what time is it?" I sit up and he does the same, leaning on me and resting his chin on my shoulder. My gaze calmly wanders to the clock. I blink for a moment, then jolt up to my feet, making Juuzou fall face first back into the covers. "Juuzou get up, it's nearly eight o'clock, we've got a meeting to be at!" I gasp and pull him out of bed.   "Here's my pants, your suspenders, toss me my undershirt will ya," I direct, scrambling about the room the get properly dressed. We really do have to go but we can't just show up in pajamas. I comb through my long hair hastily and pin it back like usual. Great, how bad is it gonna look when the squad leader isn't there? Juuzou still doesn't look fully awake, his shirt is buttoned completely wrong and he's sluggishly putting in his suspenders. "Geez wake up already," I mumble and redo his buttons. I snap the suspenders onto his shoulders and grab his hand. "We have to go squad leader! Oh my gosh now the Qs won't take us seriously at all," I groan and drag him to the door. I grab my jacket off of our coat rack and slip it on.

"Eh, who cares if we're late, it's not like we're always on time," he yawns as we go down to my bike.

"Yes but our squad knows you can be a slacker. This isn't our squad that we're meeting with. How can you expect them to respect us and the squad if the two highest ranked members were late to the first meeting?" I rant on before driving off. 

"Oh calm down, you worry too much," he rolls his eyes. "Our squad can handle filling in the Qs while we're gone. You do know you don't have to do everything yourself right? That was kind of the purpose of us sharing a squad. You shoulder all the work and end up getting high strung like this because you're overworked. You've got nothing to prove alright. Ask for help sometimes, I am capable of really working as well," he mutters a bit seriously. "We're here now though, so let's get to it," he gives me a warm smile and skips into the building. He's right. I guess subconsciously I work so hard to make up for other things. I can't let my mental state or my relationship deteriorate because of work though. I go after him and take my place at his side.  We step into the elevator and Juuzou hits the button. Due to his fondness of heights, our squad's part of the office is on the highest floor. Just as the door begins to close, someone calls out for us to hold the elevator. It's a young man, probably in his late teens, with pale orange hair. He appears to be carrying a girl with blue hair put up into pigtails. Just as I register his request and move to hit the button to stall the doors, we're already moving upwards.

"Juuzou, you should've held the elevator for them," I sigh and look down at him.

"Heh heh, wow what an odd looking pair. I haven't seen anyone get a piggyback ride in an office since you gave me one," he laughs. Of course he'd be too amused by them to actually do anything. We arrive at our floor and he dashes out of the elevator. "Race ya, we gotta get there quick right," he giggles over his shoulder.

"Hey, what, wait up!" I squeak before giving in and running after him. He throws the door to our meeting room open and I skid right up next to him.