Disclaimer: If it sounds familiar, I don't own it.
A/N: Companion-ish to my fic Empress, Espresso.
Minder
He takes her out sometimes. Just grabs her coat, appears behind her with a fighter's grace, and with an air of practiced nonchalance, says, "Go somewhere with me?"
People really must give him more credit. He can be quite smooth. When it's for her.
"You don't think they'll want to go to Tartarus tonight?" she asks, a little coy. No one's home yet, except Yamagishi up in her room, and they're alone in the lounge. He's already leaning on the arm of her chair, putting the coat around her shoulders.
"Of course they'll want to go. They're not used to this stuff - can't tell when they're tired."
Wryly, "Unlike yourself?"
He smirks.
She places her textbook on the coffee table. They've gotten quite adept at keeping each other's health in check. After all, he's the only one who can truly tell when she's drained. It isn't physical exhaustion, but mental. Spiritual. It's nothing she would reveal to the team, for morale's sake, but there are certainly times when the thought of spending another night in Tartarus makes her head throb.
They stand, him helping her into her coat. She'll go up to her room for her purse in a moment, and she'll tell Yamagishi that they will both be gone for the evening. Arisato won't mind, Takeba will likely be silently pleased . . . Iori will be disappointed, but there will be other nights.
"Where do you suggest?" she asks.
So he takes her hands as if it's nothing at all to be walking, just a boy and a girl, down a lit and bustling street in the early evening, and he shows her into little shops and attractions she's never seen nor heard of. There are food stands and neighborhood gardens, sushi bars hidden high up on commercial balconies, and carnival games open on street corners for only a couple-hundred yen a game. Everywhere they go they are surrounded by people immersed in their every-day lives, and it is so soothing to be part of. To be anonymous. To be ordinary.
"You need to get out more," he tells her, "and not just to those stuffy restaurants the company sends you to – not that there's anything wrong with those . . ."
"It's just not the real world?" she prompts, smiling, and if for a moment he looked suddenly uncomfortable, he doesn't now. They go back to pretending there is no such thing as the Kirijo Group.
He knows when she wants to be taken away.
It's that fact that makes her smile while she's reviewing the student council budget, or when she's being chauffeured to yet another board meeting. She knows that relief will come – that, while she is taking care of everything else, someone will take care of her.
Thanks for reading!