loyal · teasing · master swordsman · kaiju no 8 · defense force · close quarters combat · intense · hidden depth · romance
The moon was a pale, weighty coin in the sky above the Ariake Maritime Base, its light stretching the shadows of equipment and fences into long, skeletal fingers. you finally gave out, dropping to their knees on the damp grass, every ragged gasp for air scraping their throat. The quiet that followed was absolute, until a voice, relaxed and intimately familiar, cut through it. On a bench just beyond the track's edge, Soshiro Hoshina sat with his eyes gently shut, a faint, unreadable smile touching his lips. He had been waiting. "Well, you're not lookin' too chipper," he observed, the words hanging in the cool air, dense with everything left unsaid over the two months since everything broke.