Feel My Heart Beat

Chapter 11: Parkour

Hastily exiting out from the boss's office alongside Kirishima, Suoh had the very distinct feeling that this was only the beginning of the drama they would face dealing with one Takaba Akihito. He had never heard Asami refer to a lover by a pet name in the nearly eight years he had been working for him and while he sounded both irritated and amused of all things, by him losing his guards, Asami had seemed unconvinced that they would be able to locate the kid. In the past, a lover showing such blatant insolence would have found themselves forcibly removed from Asami's life but this soulmate changed everything. He glanced over to Kirishima who had paused beside him.

"I'm not quite sure what to make of all this." The secretary looked over at him. "I mean, I've never heard the boss speak like that. He called the kid kitten." Kirishima gave a small, sad smile and pushed up his glasses.

"It has been a very long time." He just shook his head when Suoh looked at him in askance before getting straight back down to business. "I get the impression we aren't about to have an easy time with Takaba. It's clear that even in such a short time this brat means a lot to Asami-sama, I guess that's part of the soulmate thing. But that just means that it's even more imperative we keep him safe. It's only a matter of time before his relationship with Asami-sama is known and we aren't going to be able to play it down. Which guards did you have on him?"

"Ueda, Fujioka and Hayashi." They moved towards Kirishima's office and the man himself sighed and ran a hand through his hair.

"Those three all cycle through Asami-sama's personal guard don't they?" Suoh nodded.

"They are all good at what they do and have each proven so more than once. I think Takaba getting away has more to do with the fact that they didn't expect him to try and lose them than incompetence. Ueda in particular is hard to pull one over, but if the kid's climbing up buildings that's another story." They had reached the secretary's office and he beckoned Suoh inside. He stood off to the side while Kirishima did an internet search on 'parkour'. Each new video that they watched just drove home how much work was going to have to go into creating a team to protect Takaba. After watching half a dozen or so videos Suoh sighed.

"All right. Fujioka and Hayashi are going back to Asami-sama's rotation and Ueda will be the team leader for Takaba's team. We are going to have to see if anyone can match that and that's none of the current security staff that we had planned to use."

Kirishima nodded; "I'll get a message around to our current staff to see if anyone wants to interview for the team, maybe someone has some hidden talents but otherwise we might need some external hires."

"Alright, all new hire's isn't great but at least with Ueda leading we should minimize any issues caused by fresh recruits. Takaba's probably not going to be found until he wants to be found now. Our focus needs to be not losing him. Tokyo's a big place so once he's given us the slip it's like finding a needle in a haystack. Ideally we need to see what he can do but I'm not sure if he'll agree to give away his advantage."

"I'll talk to Asami-sama and see what we can do." Kirishima sighed. "I would like to think Asami-sama asking him would be enough but after hearing that last conversation I doubt that's going to be the case. Maybe he can be bribed?" They shared a look.

"I'm not going to hold my breath on that account." Suoh clapped Kirishima on the shoulder. "Let me know if anyone applies but I think we'll both be working late tonight."

***

Suoh's prediction that the main reason Takaba managed to lose his guards so easily was due to the fact that they didn't expect him to try and escape was proven somewhat true. He still managed to lose the team each day but it took a lot more time and effort to be able to do so. Ueda had called up at the beginning of the chase on day two to advise that it seem like he was trying to shake them and checked in periodically until he had to report two hours later that the brat had finally lost them. Suoh had been rotating the other two guards to see if he could work out a temporary team while they recruited his permanent team but was noticing an interesting trend amongst the guards sent to tail him. Those like Ueda whose failure to keep him under guard only spurred him on to try harder and think outside the box for idea's to improve his performance, those who would be discouraged and throw in the towel after being outwitted by a kid and ask to go back to their regular assignment and those who refused to admit defeat to their superiors and didn't report in to advise he was lost and just pretended all was fine. He wondered if he would have time to cycle all his security staff through Takaba's guard team before he settled on a permanent roster. While he didn't think Asami would be impressed with him using his little lover as a test dummy, it would be a great opportunity to weed out the people who were a liability and judge the overall level of fitness, teamwork and intelligence of his staff. Takaba had proven to be incredibly fast, agile and smart although he was a very reluctant participant to his own safety, happily shimmying up buildings and jumping off ledges, causing more than one bout of swearing and yelling over the radio channels. In the end, the Takaba security team had to have their own radio channel because of the sheer chaos of trying to keep up with him and melt downs that ensued as they inevitably lost them, for four days in a row now. The channel was now a great source of amusement for the other security staff and Suoh had walked in to find it going in the break room with a few personnel laughing over the mayhem while they had lunch. Suoh himself would probably find it more amusing if it wasn't his problem to try and fix.