The door closed behind her with a simple click.

He let out a deep sigh, and recalled his calming exercises. ¨Control your breathing and do something to keep yourself busy.¨ The breathing didn't work too well with the newfound thoughts and feelings flooding his head.

Great liar he was, not even going to deny it. His squadmates, his sister, and his newfound "friends".

But no, Foxtrot trained Owl too well for that, they never even questioned the possibility of him lying to his superiors, rightfully so. Service ended only in death after all.

A job well done Owl had to say, his sister seems to trust him along with her close advisor, and along with deflecting anymore particular questions about his past upbringing. Masterful manipulation.

He was such a good liar he could even pretend that he felt things in their interactions, Isn't that a novelty?

Like a good soldier, he'd be back to base straight after this mission. Monika would tease and yell at him for doing such an unnecessary heroic action, he'd get yelled at by Skunk or Charon or anyone for the sheer inconvenience of allowing himself to get captured, and it'd all be over.

Just stay stable, a lynchpin is the essence of you existence, you keep the world from falling into chaos, the more he ponders the more he falls to that chaos.

He wasn't a good person. Worse operator. Terrible one. Terrible in the way he didn't need to be reminded of his overbearing sister. He was comfortable living the rest of his short victorious life until he didn't and wasn't anymore.

But what if he stayed after he won? He wasn't an idiot. More intelligence work, more socializing, more lying to everyone, he´d break eventually.

He needed order, he needed to trust the people in charge of his life, the idea of a premade plan of perfect manipulation that he was a happily willing and dutiful cog in.

He checked the door to make sure Chifuyu was gone. Looked around the room for the gun's he was working on, damn it why did Laura have to throw them under the bed? It'll throw off the delicate machi-

Wait- oh this perfect.

She somehow managed to keep it organ- she was a soldier of quality like him. Of course, she did.

She would've fit in perfectly with the rest of his squad.

He should get chifuyu to do something good for-

That just issued another wave of uncertainty, but that's why he brought out his pistol.

God bless America, he loved this cycle of maintenance, disassembly, and reassembly.

It was one of his favorite pastimes, all he had to do was maintain the work of disastrous art in front of him, nothing more nothing less. Monika snuck in a maintenance kit in her supply pile, he guessed she knew it was for him.

She even slipped in one of his favorite gun models, the PWAC01.

it was so intentionally faulty and high maintenance that he just kept it around for the sake of fun. It calmed him.

Guess she slipped it in because he had it worked on it all the time, even if she did bully him for using such a reliably broken gun.

Did you know it had the nickname of WAC0 during its brief run? Because of how easily breakable it was to anyone with a brash touch who even laid a finger on it? it was a piece of WAC.

Quiet assuredness.

He just sat there at his desk reassembling, maintaining, and disassembling.

Cold steel was very comfortable. He didn't need music, the vents spewing in cold air against the warm summer night was enough.

He was slightly grateful for the fact it was in there for however long, it would need an added level of precession in restoration that tested him in a way that distracted him.

So much so that he didn't notice the quiet clicking in the door behind him and the person who was almost breathing behind his back.

"So…" The sudden noise shocked him, and he turned around to see the furious face of Laura. He was about to punch her in self defense and he nearly jerked his hand at her too, yet she was calmly standing behind him through it all.

"Hey didn't notice-" he was swiftly interrupted by a quick interjection

"Yes, for the past 3 hours" a quick interjection.

Oh, he forgot to tell her. oh no...

"Almost everything is closed at night. Not even a call to tell me to come back¨

¨I don´t have a phone, i couldn´t have-¨

¨Look for me.¨ the incorrect English just made him feel worse.

Ichika realized the consequences of his inactions right quick.

"" And you are maintaining gun fetish, Explain. "

"I was just nervous, I want-"

She gave him a classic "Are you fucking kidding me" look. Could´ve rivaled York´s easily.

Oh. right. Now he´s supposed to feel bad.

"She doesn't seem to know anything, I tried to make her treat you better. She left without seeming too suspicious-"

She put her face closer to him, even though he was sitting down she was still short enough for them both to be at eye level.

" I am going to rip every single detail out of head, and then I'm going to sleep."

Owl didn't want to deal with this. He needed time to make proper excuses, to find way´s to make this work to his advantage.

"Just go to sleep first, then we'll talk later, i´ll try writing it down for you." A bit of firmness and bounceback in his voice. Ichika wanted to just take his mind away from the day's events and focus on his maintenance, he could write it in the morning.

She gave him what seemed to be a calm and understanding look, then proceeded to jab out her fist and punch him in the gut. Lightly.

Out of reflex from his training he tightened his stomach muscles and shifted slightly to lessen the impact… the pain was still there in surprisingly high quantities.

"Change mind?"

Owl won't stand for this.

He gave a swift left swipe to her face, it wasn't meant to hurt her, just get equal. She might punch him again, and he wouldn't let her.

It hit, and he almost instantly regretted the amount of force his rage unknowingly gave it and accidentally swiped at her eyepatch. It wasn't thrown off her face, but that dazed her for a slight second giving her a fearful look for the smallest of seconds, which quickly turned into a face of fury.

Laura gave him a quick kick in response.

Owl dodged by jumping off the chair and tried to maintain a distance moving back to his end of the room.

Owl knew he shouldn't escalate this further. Ichika genuinely didn´t want to hurt her, they just wanted to make it stop before it got worse.

They both stood there for a moment in silence, but Laura spoke in the moment just before him.

"Loo- "

"How about we both-"

They were both silenced by their interruptions, and-

Itchika just gave a brief sigh and started retelling the story from the best of his memory, it wouldn´t be a good idea. But it was the necessary one.

Laura gave an interested look, but it wasn't weighing on her mind as heavily anymore.

Ichika finished reciting it and gave Laura a slightly spiteful look.

"Thank you." Nothing else?

He spat out a bitter "you're welcome" and got ready to go to bed, moving to the shower.

He hated showering, not for the cleanliness or the process, just the sheer amount of time he had to think for himself with nothing else to do, but after a few days of it, his squad took noticed and forced him into the habit of a daily one, lest there be consequences.

Ichika tried his best to distract himself by just punching the air, a cold shower is the best way to mimick being stabbed, a person usually had 30 seconds before they went down due to bleeding so this is a good way to practice. Or at least that´s what monika told him.

After drying off and getting into his sleepwear he'd recognize that she'd probably forgive him, and he as well. But if that wasn't a tense few minutes after the shower.

Laura already decided to get under the unnecessarily luxurious covers of their issued beds.

Ichika decided to be spiteful in a way that would make her the most furious, just as he was in bed looking up at the ceiling he knew that Laura wasn't asleep.

"I'm sorry. I didn't realize how much you worried about this."

Silence.

Then he gave a forcibly, barely, and faintly audible laugh and whispered something that he knew she would hear.

¨ Moral high ground...¨

Not even a hint of movement under the covers. Maybe for the best.

He should just let sleeping dogs lie.

He just closed his eyes and hoped that he'd fall asleep quickly, lest he be given time for himself.