Ch 45
V 1.0
A/N 1 – Happy Holidays Everyone! The writing bug bit me hard, resulting in two chapters and a lemon. The lemon will be posted at MediaMiner, and to read it do a Google/Yahoo search for Contract Labor – Lemons! & MediaMiner. The second chapter will be posted shortly after this one and my full Author Notes will be at the end of that chapter.
A/N 2 – The first part of this chapter is from Sue's POV, which is why Keitaro is referred to as Ronin throughout it. The second part of the chapter is from Keitaro's POV and uses that name.
A/N 3 – I know I have a lot a Russian readers of this story, so I would like to hear from you about the characterization of Nikolai, Jerry, and Sue, since most of my exposure to Russian characters come from video games like Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 & 3 and FPSRussia YouTube videos. I'm pretty sure I at least got the cussing right. :)
Even More Omakes! (Is it an Omake if it's a 10k word chapter? Hmm…)
Ronin's Physical
Voron Technical Group (Nikolai's Company)
Chumphon Airport,
Chumphon Province, Thailand
early evening
(fourth day after pirate raid)
"I thought I told you to strip."
"No offense, Ms. Sue, but I don't plan to 'hang out' like that until I have to. My shorts are staying on until that part of the exam."
Sue huffed as she stood inside the doorway with her hands on her hips. The young man before her was sitting on his bunk, wearing only boxer shorts and his dark glasses. His new clothes were folded neatly and placed on top of the dresser against the wall. Most men in his position would either be leering at her, having some lurid nurse fantasy running through their minds, or be visibly nervous at the thought of a close exam by someone of such… overwhelming stature… as herself. Instead Ronin was sitting with his hands on his knees and his ankles crossed, a look of slight curiosity on his face. And taking a quick look at his shorts, it appeared that the young man had better physical control than most men in this situation.
"See anything you like, Ms. Sue?" Apparently the look was not quick enough. Snapping her eyes up, the blonde Russian medic saw just the merest tilt of the lips in an otherwise serious face. Truth to tell, there was a lot to like. Ronin had a slender, toned body, not highly defined like those insane bodybuilders in the magazines, but more like a swimmer. To further contrast the image, the man had tanned lower arms and legs along with his face and neck, but the upper limbs and torso were markedly paler. Not as much as that summer where Sue had spent most of a summer in her early teen years splashing around in a creek, which resulted in a tan that left her as dark as a walnut but the skin under her clothing had remained as white as milk. Sue had taken quite a bit of teasing after that, being called 'pie-bald', among other things, but that had changed once she had started developing physically. Her chest and hips had grown so much that at age thirteen she looked like she was almost twenty. But that was not the only thing that had developed; both men and boys had come around sniffing, but after breaking the arm of one older pervert and throwing a boy who was head and shoulders taller than her through a second story school window, interest in her had waned.
"Alright, on your feet." Digging a penlight from her bag, Sue stood right in front of the now standing younger man. Given than Ronin was on the tall side of medium height for a Japanese, that still left him a few centimeters shorter than her. "Off with the glasses." Watching as the dark glasses were slowly pulled off, it was still all that Sue could do not to flinch. It was not that she was not used to eye injury; being a combat medic made her very familiar to trauma ranging from chemical burns to laceration to complete rupture or penetration of the eye. But that still did not keep her from being unnerved by the sight to dark brown irises in the middle of dark red sclera. Flicking her light into the iris and away, watching the colored ring expand and contract, Sue asked, "Tell me again, how the hell did you do this to yourself?"
Ronin blinked at her. "Because I have chi restrictor seals on me, I had to overcharge the chi I have access to in order to pull off a jump. Think of it as super-compressing a steam engine; it can massively increase power and speed, but if you do it too hard or too long it can tear the engine apart. Plus I haven't accessed that level of power for a long time, so my body was not used to it. My chi system pretty much goes along the same path as my nervous and circulatory system, so by supercharging it I overstressed them too. I suppose that it resulted in some of my capillaries in my eyes bursting, among others."
"No kidding." Sue swept her eyes down Ronin's body. Now that she was close to him she could see the purpling lines of ruptured veins under his skin on his arms and legs, as well as ovoid bruises on his torso consistent with blows received in a hand-to-hand fight. Looking closer, the Russian realized a couple of different things. First, there were two different shades of bruising, which implied that the injuries had taken place at different times. The other thing was that the lines and the bruising looked like they had occurred more than a week ago. "When did you make that jump?"
Ronin thought for a moment. "Almost three days ago."
"So why the hell do these bruises look more than a week old?" Sue asked nonplussed.
"Chi is life energy; if you have access to it, it increases your rate of healing. Not enough to heal you in the middle of battle, but it helps you recover faster otherwise if the injuries are not too serious. Only downside is that your appetite massively increases. If you burn through your chi reserves and don't eat enough, either your body starts consuming itself, or you pass out." Ronin could see a question form in Sue's eyes and he immediately shook his head. "You don't want to lose weight that way, Ms. Sue. You don't lose just body fat, you lose muscle tissue and fluids. Think of what someone looks like after spending a week in the desert with no food and little water; it can permanently harm your body."
Shaking her head, Sue looked back at Ronin's torso. "I'm guessing you didn't get these other bruises from your chi thing?"
"No, those I got fighting that teen pirate in the shipping yard. We were throwing each other around pretty good before I was able to hold onto him." Ronin's eyes lost focus as he replied, staring off into the distance.
"You never did say what you did with that pirate, did you?" Sue asked, regretting it almost immediately when the young man's bloodied eyes focused on her.
"I questioned him, he gave me the intel I was looking for." Ronin's eyes were looking steadily at her own. "And then I let him go."
"Was that wise? Letting him go, I mean? He had connections with dirty cops, right?" Sue did not know why she asked that question, she knew better than to do so, yet it spilled out anyway.
"He's not going to cause problems." The tone of Ronin's voice was as final as a morgue drawer slamming shut, producing a slight shiver through Sue's body. Mentally shaking it off, she swapped her penlight for a brighter tactical light and starting running it over Ronin's exposed skin.
"You have any swelling, any sharp pains during movement, that sort of thing?" Most of the bruising was concentrated around the major joints such as the elbows and knees. Gesturing with her light, Sue watched as Ronin raised his arms above his head, revealing some more ruptured surface veins in his armpits, but nothing serious.
"Not really. It feels more like you do after a major workout. There's muscle soreness, and my joints are a little stiff, but nothing I haven't felt before." At Sue's signal Ronin lowered his arms. "Now I have a question." Sue's eyebrows rose. "How long have you had beyond normal human strength?"
The blonde Russian sighed. "Beyond normal? Once I hit puberty. I was always pretty strong, but once I really started growing it became obvious. By the time I was fifteen I could lift triple my weight, more than that if I was angry. Nowadays? I can dead-lift four times my weight from a cold start."
Ronin nodded. "That sounds about right. What it sounds like is that you don't have the normal limiters that people have to regulate their strength, the ones they bypass when they get scared or angry and start producing adrenaline. You have to be careful though, those limiters are there for a reason. It's not unheard of for people to rip muscles and tendons off their bones when they bypass their limits."
Sue shuddered. "I came close to that once. I tore a tendon and some muscles trying to deadlift a barbell loaded to 250 kilos on a bet. It took me almost a month to heal."
"You weren't overly scared or angry during that lift, were you?" Sue shook her head and Ronin continued. "More times than not you have to be emotional when you are exceeding your limits, it forms a type of safeguard from injury. It isn't one you can depend on, however. Another question though. Do you punch or throw things using your full strength?"
Sue opened her mouth and then paused for a moment, before finally speaking. "Not normally. I have to be really angry or in combat for me to throw a full strength punch. And I don't throw things full strength, if I did that mudak Jerry would have had his head split open long ago."
"But you have used it in combat, yes?" Seeing Sue nod, Ronin continued. "With what results?"
Sue gave a slight shudder. "If I hit them in the arm or shoulder, it usually breaks. If I hit them solid in the gut or chest, they fly back three or four meters, and they look like they've been hit by a car." Pausing for a moment, Sue looked at Ronin's face. "What about you, have you used chi in battle?"
His eyes slowly closing, Ronin nodded. "Yes. Once a man was coming at me with a sword cane with the intent to kill. I was not armed and I was trapped in position. I used the Swordbreaker technique; I supercharged my chi and punched the blade as it came at me, and it shattered."
"So, happy ending then." Sue watched as Ronin shook his head.
"No. No happy endings that day." Ronin's eyes opened, and even behind the blood Sue could see sadness there. Deciding to end this conversation before it got even more awkward, she spun her finger in a circle while pointing down and the young man took the hint, turning around so his back was to her. Playing the tactical light over his skin, she saw some more fading bruises but nothing more serious than that.
"Turn around." Once Ronin was facing her again, Sue spoke. "I have a question of my own. You said that chi can be used for healing, but not in battle. Are there situations where it can be used for accelerated healing?"
"Yes, but not like you think. There have been legends of people using chi to do rapid healing of wounds and illness, but that is all it is now. The closest we have to that is acupressure and acupuncture, which at most can cut healing time by half. But there is one thing that can be done, but it has unpredictable effects." Ronin stopped speaking, visibly hesitant.
"Which is?" Sue was rather curious now.
"It's possible to take your own chi and transfuse it into another person's body. It's only done when someone is on the edge of dying and their own chi is almost spent. It's like the shock paddles used when someone is having a heart attack; it can jump start someone, but it won't keep them alive for long if the main problem isn't fixed," explained Ronin.
"What happens if you use it on a healthy person?" Sue's curiosity was rising; most of her medical experience was in combat trauma, but she had treated and lost a few patients due to heart attacks along the line. Contrary to what films and TV showed, most people who had heart failure or heart attacks that needed CPR and electroshock to keep them alive usually died if they were not in a hospital setting.
"That is where the unpredictable effects come into play. It could act like a shot of adrenaline; it could knock them out; it could have them act goofy for a while. There is no way to really tell beforehand." Ronin watched as Sue visibly fell into deep thought before she looked up at him… or down, as she was taller than him, if not by much.
"Can you demonstrate it?" Sue's question caused Ronin to blink in shock.
"On you?" The young man watched the older woman nod. "Even with the possible unpredictable effects?"
"I'm pretty healthy, I'm sure I can take it, unless it's inherently dangerous?" Sue watched as Ronin though for a moment before he replied.
"No, it's not really dangerous. Are you sure?" Ronin watched as the blonde Russian gave a determined nod. "Very well, change places with me and sit on the bed."
"Why?" Sue asked even as she sat down on the edge of the bed.
"Because you could pass out, and I don't want you to fall to the floor. One more thing, Ms. Sue. I have to apply the chi to bare skin, preferably over your heart." Ronin watched as Sue hesitated for only a moment before raising her hands to her low V cut top and pulled it partially open, exposing the sides of her large breasts but otherwise preserving her modesty.
Dropping down to one knee in front of the busty Russian and trying to keep his eyes fixed on her face, Ronin raised his flattened left hand between the two of them before asking, "Are you sure?" Seeing her determined nod, a glowing blue sphere of energy formed in his hand and started to spin, the quiet of the room allowing a faint scree to be heard. After it reached the size of a baseball Ronin's eyes flicked up to Sue's face and seeing her nod again, in one motion flipped his hand over and vertical before pushing the energy sphere right into her chest, his palm resting on her skin.
For a long moment the two remained still, Ronin's hand on her chest, before the silence was broken by a giggle. His eyes snapping to her face, the young man was not surprised to see a silly grin on Sue's face.
"Oh wow… I haven't felt like this since we used up the nitrous at medic school." Sue was starting to sway even as she was sitting on the bed; Ronin quickly moved his left hand from her chest to her shoulder to keep her steady. With his other hand he pressed his index and middle fingers against her throat to feel her pulse, finding it was on the low end of normal.
"Hey, Ronin, why do you keep calling me Ms. Sue? It makes me feel old." Looking at her eyes, he could see that her pupils were dilated, almost to the point where he would not be able to see the color of the iris.
"Because if I used the –san suffix with your name it would sound like I was using your full name alone, and I was raised to be polite to both my seniors and to ladies." Ronin almost used the word 'elders' instead of 'seniors', but he realized that using a word that commonly meant 'old' in referring to a woman was not a good idea, especially one that could chi punch.
"Well, don't. It makes me feel old. The only people we called Ms. were our school teachers. I don't look like a dowdy old lady, do I?" Sue straightened out and stuck her chest out, almost causing her breasts to pop out of her partially opened top.
"Well, I have to use some kind of honorific. The only time you don't use a honorific when speaking a name it when you are extremely intimate with someone. Otherwise it is considered extremely rude." Ronin considered trying to close Sue's top, but then decided he did not want to look like he was trying to grope the inebriated woman.
"What other suffixes do you use in Japanese?" Sue had stopped swaying, so Ronin let go of her shoulder, but stayed on one knee in front of her.
"There is –chan and –kun, that is used with young children or close friends. There is –sama or –dono, that is used with people of higher rank or level, it used to mean 'lord' in feudal times. Sempai is used with those of higher rank in school or in work and it's used both as a title and a suffix. Kohai means lower rank and is used the same way. Sensei means 'one who has come before' and is used with teachers and doctors."
"So the reason you call Seta sensei is because he's a teacher? And why don't you call Gaz –san or –sempai?" Sue was blinking slowly and her pupils were returning to normal.
"Well, Seta is my instructor and tutor in studying for the Todai exam, plus he is my boss back in Japan, so it is more polite for me to refer to him that way. In Gaz's case he and Yuri asked me not to use suffixes and since they are both foreign born and senior to me I did as they asked." Sadness started to become visible in Ronin's eyes. "I did call Nyamo and Sarah –chan, but Sarah would get upset, she said it made her sound like a nine year old." Looking back at Sue, he saw that she looked close to normal again. "You feeling better now?"
"Pretty much." Sue took a deep breath and released it, causing her breasts to shift again under her open shirt. "There is one more thing I have to check before I can say that you are OK for combat. So get on your feet and drop your shorts."
Ronin's eyes nearly popped out, they widened so much. "Surely you can't be serious?"
"I'm serious. And don't call me Shirley." Seeing the incomprehension in Ronin's eyes, she smiled thinly and explained. "It's a line from an American comedy movie called 'Airplane'. The name 'Shirley' sounds like the word 'surely' so the joke is that the speaker thinks they are being called by the wrong name."
"I see." By this time Ronin had stood up and was starting to back away.
"Ronin." The young male halted in place at the tone of command. "I have to see if you damaged your circulatory system down there with your chi overload. Now drop your damn shorts, you don't have anything I seen before." With a sigh, Ronin did as he was told, sliding his boxer shorts over his hips and down to the ground around his ankles.
"Step closer, I'm not going to bite." Reluctantly, Ronin took a step closer, winding up a little less than a meter in front of the still sitting blonde.
"Hn." Sue studied the member at was actually about eye level with her given her position. There were the expected faint bruising around his upper thighs and lower stomach, but otherwise there was nothing visibly wrong, except for one detail.
"You know, this is unusual," Sue stated in a conversational tone. "Usually when young men are awake and naked in front of me, they can't help but to be at least a little excited." Indeed, the male member in front of her was in what could politely be called 'at rest', even though it was still about the average male size when 'at attention'.
"Remember, I can control chi. If I concentrate, I can control some of my involuntary physical reactions. Breathing, heart rate, temperature…" Ronin motioned at his waist. "…and that."
Sue eyed what was in front of her for a long moment before looking up at his face. "So it's under your control right now?" She watched as the young man nodded. "I need you to release it."
"What." Ronin's tone of voice was flat.
"I need to check that there is no injury or damage. The longer it takes to diagnose that, the less of a chance we can fix it if something is wrong." Sue gestured in front of her. "So I need to see you at attention."
Sue had been stared at by many people, with about as many emotions on their faces as would be possible. Seeing this young man stare at her with bloodstained eyes was even more freaky than she would have previously believed. After a long moment Ronin closed his eyes and nodded. "Fine." And without moving his hands from his sides, the member in front of her began to grow and expand, until about thirty seconds later it was about twice as long and about a time and a half as thick as it had been previously, pointed right at her face.
"Yob tvuoy mat," breathed Sue, her eyes wide. There was nothing average about what was before her; if her memory was serving her correctly it was probably the biggest she had ever seen in person. Just the sight of it was causing the heat of arousal to form in her lower belly.
Tearing her eyes away and up to Ronin's face, Sue had trouble for a moment before she was able to speak. "Have you used this thing since you stressed your chi system?"
Ronin's face was now a pale shade of pink as he answered. "I presume you mean besides going to the bathroom?" Seeing her nod he continued. "No, I haven't. I've been too tired or too stressed lately for that."
"Do you even use this thing?" Sue's eyes had dropped down to the horizontal as she spoke.
"I… have urges sometimes, and I've had to relieve them. And when I said I had two girlfriends at the same time, I did mean at the same time." The blush on Ronin's face got a little darker even as he spoke matter-of-factly.
"Hn." Sue eyed his member for a long moment. "No exposure to STDs, no fucking since you left Japan?" Ronin shook his head. "We need to make sure everything is working properly before I can sign off on you." Even as Ronin's eyes widened at that statement, she moved forward.
To read the lemon section of this chapter, go to Contract Labor – Lemons! at MediaMiner and select chapter two.
Bouncing up from the bed (and producing another loud metallic squeak) Sue bent down and grabbed her panties from the floor, unashamedly showing off her large rounded ass again to the young man behind her, before stepping into them and pulling them up and on. Pulling on her green wraparound top, she tied it into place before she stepped into her combat pants and pulled and zipped them up. Inserting her feet into her boots, she stomped them into place before zipping them up as well.
Walking over to her medical bag on the dresser, she tossed the two flashlights she had used in the exam into it before zipping it closed. "It looks like you are completely physically functional and didn't sustain any serious or permanent damage with your chi system, so be careful next-time you do your tricks, you could burn something out that you can't fix or heal." Picking up the bag, she turned toward the door.
"So that's it? As the Americans say, 'Wham bam thank you ma'am'?" Turning back, Sue saw that Ronin was on his feet, his boxer shorts on but nothing else.
"Look kid, we're mercs, we don't do lovey dovey, kissy kissy, or happily ever afters." Sue said with a slight frown on her face. "I needed stress relief, you did too, and I had to make sure your junk was working. Let's just leave it at that." Watching the emotion slowly slide off Ronin's face, the Russian medic started to think she had made a mistake by being so blunt.
"I am sorry to hear that, Ms. Sue. I won't ask any more of you." Flinching inwardly at his cool words, let alone his addressing her by the formal form of her name again, Sue turned back to the door and opened it. Just before she stepped through the doorway, Ronin spoke one more time. "Have a good evening, Ms. Sue." Turning her head just enough to look back at him, she gave a silent nod before she walked out and shut the door behind her, leaving the young man standing there alone.
Keitaro unconsciously brushed his hands down the front of his tropical shirt. Since the converted hanger that Voron Technical Group used as their base had only one bathroom with a shower and presumably Sue was using it, he had cleaned up as much as he could with some wet wipe towels that were a part of his gear. Smoothing his hair down with his hands he combed it into place, as much as he could as it as short as it was. He would have preferred to have brushed his teeth as well, but there was no sink in his room to spit out in, plus he and Sue had finished the only bottle of water in his room. Still floating through his mind was the description of the diseases he would suffer if he drank or even rinsed his mouth with the local tap water. Keitaro had been told by Seta he would be better off drinking nothing but straight whiskey instead of water like Humphrey Bogart did on the movie set of The African Queen to prevent getting illnesses such as nausea, cholera or worst yet dysentery like the rest of the cast and crew did, including his costar Katherine Hepburn.
Looking down at his Timex watch Keitaro saw that it was almost 8:00 PM. It had been a little more than an hour since Sue and he had come back to his room for the physical, and his stomach was starting to rumble from hunger. Jerry had bought some take-out food for everyone on the trip back to the hanger, so hopefully there was some left.
Making sure his clothes were in order, Keitaro tucked the nickel Glock into his waistband by his right hip and clipped his confiscated butterfly knife inside his left front pocket. His passport wallet containing his real ID and about a thousand American dollars went in his right hip pocket, and his purloined Thai National Police badge and ID case in his left pocket; he did not want to leave either item in his room, even if he was not planning to leave the hanger tonight. All other valuables were properly secured with Nikolai in a large floor safe as a display of trust. Gaz said he trusted the man with his life, and the truth was that the Russian mercs could just kill them in their sleep if they were going to rip them off, so making a show of not trusting them would not have done them any good. That being said, Gaz did reset the combination to the safe to one that only he, Seta-sensei, and himself knew. As Reagan had supposedly told Gorbachev at Reykjavik during the Cold War, doveryai no proveryai – trust but verify.
Taking the slim photo wallet from the top of the dresser, he opened it and looked at it with a feeling of regret. Even though Natsumi and Miyuki had told him that he was not obliged to them, that they did not expect an exclusive relationship between the three of them while he was to be out of the country for a year, he still felt that he had done wrong with his tryst with Sue, and this was before she had so blithely dismissed what they did as just physical. Keitaro had not expected exclamations of undying love, but surely some politeness and maybe some affection or tenderness would not be too much to expect. Closing the wallet, he placed it in his left chest pocket and buttoned it shut.
Finally he picked up his red-tinted Wayfarer sunglasses and looked at them for a long moment before putting them back on the nightstand. A present from Kanako, he really did not need to wear them anymore since everyone at the hanger had seen his bloodstained eyes by this point and did not seem too put off by them. He decided not to put on his regular glasses either, as he only needed them to read and it wasn't likely he was going to do much of that tonight either.
Stepping out of his room, Keitaro walked down the darkened hallway toward Nikolai's office. Walking up to the door with the lit window, he was just about to put his hand on the knob to open it when a strong hand grabbed his shoulder and yanked him backwards, slamming him back-first into the wall opposite the door.
"You fucked her, didn't you!" Out of the gloom of the hallway Jerry's face appeared close to his own, a fearsome scowl manifest and his breath blowing alcohol fumes strong enough to strip paint, his voice a harsh whisper. "I should break your fucking neck, you thieving little…"
Feeling Jerry's hands move from his shoulders up to his neck, a figurative selector switch in Keitaro's head clicked over from 'semi' to 'full auto'. Twisting slightly to get the room, his right arm pulled back before punching forward at high velocity. Striking the drunken Russian in the solar plexus, it blew him across the hallway and through the office door, the bolt ripping out of the frame. The merc fell to the ground almost three meters inside the office, the door slamming against the wall with a loud crash, the glass almost breaking.
Reaching under his shirt and drawing his Glock Keitaro stepped through the doorway with his pistol in a two hand hold and not quite pointed at the stunned man on the floor before him. The other occupants were rising from their seats, cries of shock coming from them but then froze in place when they saw that the young Japanese man had his pistol out and aimed at their teammate.
"Blyad!" The Russian curse was drawn out as Nikolai slowly straightened up. "What the fuck is going on here!?" Gaz stood straight as well, but Seta fell back onto the couch, his injured leg too painful to stand on.
"Jerry assaulted me in the hallway outside. His hands were reaching for my neck, so I punched him." There was a drawl in Keitaro's voice even as his tone was flat.
"Bloody hell, man! What was that all about?" Gaz was the next one to speak, his hands up and flat to show that he was not going to make a move on his younger cohort.
"He fucked her!" Everyone's eyes turned to the man laying on the floor, "He fucked Sue!" To everyone's shock, Jerry started bawling. "Why? My sweet Sue, why did you fuck him? Don't you know I love you? Why won't you be with me?" the drunken Russian wailed, tears pouring from his eyes.
"Maybe you do love me, zhopa, but I won't be with a man that can't keep his xuy in his pants!" Sue stepped through the door, tying her wet hair back in a high ponytail.
"But I would do almost anything for you, dear Susanna," Jerry sobbed.
"Except not fuck every whore you can get your hands on!" Sue stopped next to the blubbering white-haired merc, her hands on her hips. "Or are you forgetting me finding you in bed with two bar girls in Phuket?"
"But we invited you to join us!?" said Jerry as he stared up at her, his eyes wide and beseeching.
With a swift kick Sue booted Jerry in the ribs, flipping him over so he was face-down. Reaching down, she grabbed the gasping and moaning man by the back of his belt and with about as much effort as picking up a slightly heavy piece of luggage, lifted him off the floor and started carrying him out of the office.
"Not only that, you have the nerve to come to me to treat the STDs you catch from all the fucking around you do!" Accidentally, or maybe not so much, Sue bashed Jerry's head against the doorframe as she hauled him along.
"But I wear condoms all the time now!" Jerry's voice came from outside the door.
"Only because the last time you came to me with antibiotic-resistant gonorrhea, I put a gun to your fucking head and swore on your life that if you ever came to me with herpes or HIV I would blow your fucking brains out and put you out of both our miseries!" Sue's voice got fainter as they went down the hall until everything was quiet again.
The men remaining in the office stayed in an awkward silence for a long moment, with Keitaro tucking his pistol under his shirt again. Finally Seta spoke up. "The man must be a masochist." The two older mercs nodded in agreement, Turning to the younger man he continued. "Didn't anyone ever tell you it's not a good idea to sleep with a co-worker?"
"Sure. It's just that until lately I've been working with you, Gaz and Yuri, and you all aren't my type," Keitaro drawled again, slightly sarcastic. "Besides, she made the first move."
"And you couldn't say no?" Now it was Gaz's turn to speak.
"Have you seen the woman?" Keitaro's voice was now incredulous. "Would you say no?" Silently, the three other men shook their heads in the negative; Sue was practically the poster girl for the phrase 'built like a brick shithouse'. "That being said, this probably isn't worth the trouble."
"Why would you say that?" Nikolai asked with a frown on his face.
"That was a little too 'wham bam' for me, plus I now have to keep an eye on Jerry to keep him from blindsiding me again." Before the Russian could respond, Keitaro asked, "Is there any food left over? I didn't eat."
Nikolai gestured at the low table in front of the couch; strewn across it were cardboard food containers. Poking around, Keitaro found a container three quarters full of fried rice with pork and egg. Picking it up along with some packets of soy sauce and a spoon, he also took a liter bottle of water.
"Anything else?" Keitaro was about to turn and walk out of the office when a voice stopped him.
"Hey Ronin, we all heard Sue shout 'On your feet, soldier!' from your room. What was that about?" Pausing upon hearing Seta's question, Keitaro merely turned his head and looked at them as the three men burst out laughing at the expression on his face.
"Good night, Nikolai, Gaz, Seta-sensei." Turning away Keitaro left the office, hearing the men still laughing as he closed the door behind him.